Swinging across the last intersection, Roge huffed out a breath and dropped down to the work door at the side of the smoke shop. It had taken him almost a week, but he now could swing and run nonstop to his work and shaved the trip down to a quarter of what it used to take. Marching inside, the dragon headed straight to the greenhouse to check on the plants, finding them all healthy and fully grown. After the successful sale of the first carton of nontoxic cigarettes, Madam Madrid had him replant the tobacco with the magic version, all of their cigarette stock going to be replaced in the upcoming days.
They wanted to slowly bring in other effects, so Madam Madrid had set up the cannabis areas to be one part regular cannabis, one part cannabis to be altered, and another for magic tobacco to be given an additional effect. If the added effects started taking off, including flavored cigarettes, then she said she would expand the greenhouse, allowing for more varieties to be planted without effecting their normal stock.
For now though, Roge gave the magic tobacco and regular cannabis a bit of Accelerate, transforming them all to Adult status, ready to be harvested. That done with, he noticed a notification off to the side of his vision and pulled it up.
Draconic Accelerated Growth Skill increased in Rank! → Rank 2 (7 → 4 Days)
Now having cut off nearly half of the time it would normally take to grow plants, Roge was in even more of a good mood, heading out to the front of the store before stopping at a few people standing and chatting with Madam Madrid. A group of 3 people stood there, the first a rather buff and tall tiger, body mostly covered with shining silver armor so the muscular bit was honestly a guess from the rather large paws on the fellow. The second person was an equally as tall elf, the guy skinny as a twig with almost no fat and barely any muscle. He did have a book hooked to his belt, however, Roge recognizing a spellbook, meaning the guy had to be pretty smart to be able to cast most spells. High Intelligence was a need rather than want for book spellcasting. The third person was a deer, draped in tan robes, with no antler nubs so obviously a woman. Sometimes Roge had a hard time telling gender with the more exotic species. He wasn’t exactly sure what class they were, knowing using Inspect on a person was rude without their permission, and their robe gave no clue either. Their casual conversation also did not answer one important question for him.
Aren’t we closed..? The last thought was cut off, though, as soon as the larger of the group spotted him.
“Roge! Buddy!” the tiger practically roared, his deep, resonant voice startling the dragon before he was subsumed in a rather crushing hug. The touch, even muted by the armor the tiger wore, sent unpleasant tingles through Roge’s body, the contact instantly overstimulating his scales.
“Uh.. hey..” he muttered, tapping and pushing for the tiger to let him go, which he thankfully did, though he kept close. “How’ve... you been?” he asked awkwardly, his nerves sparking at the obvious familiarity.
“Doing great now that we’re home! Even got that Class rank up we were looking for,” the tiger said with a grin, Roge strangely finding the grin looking endearing. “Anything interesting with you?”
“Well…” Roge drawls out, looking to Madam Madrid for some assistance.
“Oh come on! You finally did something exciting right? You were always saying you were going to learn Magic. You find any good Skills that could help you?”
“Sean,” Madam Madrid’s voice rang out, the tiger, Shawn apparently, flinching at the tone and looking hurt to the orc. “We need to have a bit of a discussion. Maybe you should let Roge get to some work while I explain.”
Roge takes the opportunity to flee, rushing back into the greenhouse where he could have a panic attack in peace. More people I was close to? But I don’t remember a Shawn from my life… Someone new? And why did he look so charming…?
~---~
“What’s wrong with Roge today?” Marge the deer asked, her high pitched voice having mostly confusion in it.
“Yeah he never acts that obviously nervous around Sean.” The elven Hops tilted his head to the side as he studied Madam Madrid, the orc having a strange look of pity in her eyes as she stares at Sean.
The tiger just looked at the door that led to the greenhouse as they conversed, a somewhat lost expression on his face. His best friend never acted like that, looking almost scared of the Knight. Sure, Sean was away for brief periods of time on missions for the Guild, but he’d always made time for his friend. To be looked at like a stranger, now that he recognized the look on the dragon, felt like a stab of claws through the chest.
“Who was that?” he asked softly, interrupting whatever conversation his teammates were having as he turned to the orc matron.
“Roge the dragon,” she replied, looking sure but also defensive of the tiger’s tone.
“Then why did he not know who I am?” She sighed at that, giving Sean a regretful look.
“Around 2 weeks ago, right after you all left mind, Roge came into my store like he hadn’t been coming in for work for the last decade. Fred followed along, the two explaining that Roge no longer remembered any of his life.” The three adventurers recoiled back at this, horror dawning on the wizard and healer.
“Sure, he remembered some people’s names or personalities,” Madam Madrid explained, flicking her hand like that detail wasn’t important, “like recognizing Fred’s name enough to know they were friends, but otherwise it’s like he woke up with a clear slate. I had to spend the first week teaching him how to do his job again, acting exactly like he had when I first hired him at 18. He even didn’t know how to use his Draconic Breath properly, though he picked it up fast enough with the help of muscle memory.” Sean covered his mouth at this, thinking of every time Roge had been excited at the Draconic Breath ability. “It’s a good thing that he didn’t know very many people, almost no one noticing that he’s had any change. Even his parents are unaware, and they live under the same roof.”
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“His parents never really did care about him after he rejected the church,” Sean muttered, Madam Madrid nodding at him.
“Still seems to reject it, which shows how much he’s not really changed. The only thing I noticed is his drive. It took him all of a day to get Draconic Mage as his class.” That snapped Sean out of his melancholic thoughts, having never heard of the class but knowing how much Roge had wanted a magical class from the beginning. “A Skill based class as far as I’ve seen, most of the Skills even looking remarkably like Spells. Enough that if he doesn’t register with the Guild soon, I suspect his probation officer might lock him up after his appointment tomorrow.”
“We’ll take him today,” Sean firmly stated, his two teammates nodding at his decision. “Even if it’s a support class, he still can join our team to keep the heat off of him.”
“Even I know he’d be eaten alive in the training of the church, and I usually support Magic classes going there for training.” Hops nods his head once, his long ears twitching at the idea of Roge being pummeled with the church’s rules for not fitting in with them.
“You let me on the team with no church training,” Marge teased, nudging the elf with her hoof. “We all know you don’t care for some of the rules.”
Madam Madrid looks on with a gentle smile on her face, Sean guessing she’d expected these exact responses. “You’ll need to give him time, though. He doesn’t remember you all, so any familiarity will feel strange to him. Keep that in mind.”
~---~
Roge spent the time in the greenhouse mostly staring off into space, his emotions roiling as he picked them apart one by one.
Anger. The usual fare. Why was he the only person that remembered? He wished he’d been brainwashed like everyone else, just so his life could contain a bit of normal.
Sadness. He missed his previous job, working on projects of his own design instead of a smoke shop while being hounded by the church for not following their directive.
Fear. Less recognizable until after he’d acknowledged the other two emotions. It felt like the amnesia Madam Madrid believed, not knowing the people in his life was scary to him. He’d always been afraid of the various mind control stories he found online, enough that the one time he went to a hypnosis show, he couldn’t go under a trance for the life of him. Trust issues didn’t even cover the amount of fear he had over losing control.
No matter how he looked at the situation, though, he had to let those emotions go for the sake of himself and his ‘new’ friends. He had Magic now after all, something he had desired since he was a kid reading about wizards flying on broomsticks. His experiments felt close to the thrill of having a program work right and his job now revolved around the problem solving again.
He’d mostly calmed himself down when the three people strolled into the back, Roge squashing the spike of fear in favor of giving them a small smile. “Madam Madrid tell you…?”
“Yeah. She did,” the tiger stated softly, mirroring Roge’s smile. “We understand though. Right guys?” The deer nodded her head, the small smirk on her face not giving Roge much confidence.
“Still wondering how it even happened,” said the elf, the dragon recognizing the researcher’s focused look. “Anything change in your Status…? that Madam Madrid noticed of course.”
“Nothing new except the Skill Static Mind, which seems to prevent any more memory loss in the future.”
“Oof. Yeah. I can see a strong telepathic attack giving you that. Name’s Hops by the way. Wizard of the party and mainly hit stuff from afar.”
“Marge,” the deer states, obviously distracted by something that Roge wasn’t sure he could trust. “Healer.”
“And my name’s Sean of course. Knight of the party and generally keep them out of trouble.” Sean gave Roge a kind smile, extending paw to shake. Roge got up from his stool to return the handshake, the tiger frowning as his paw touches the vines snaking around his wrist. “Interesting choice of… bracelets?”
“Nope,” Marge remarks, her look now making sense as she looked at Roge’s wrists. “Parasitic plant. Need me to handle those for you?”
Roge sighs as he shakes his head, giving her a grimace in response. “They’re useful enough that I’m keeping them.” He then demonstrated that by flicking the vine out to snatch the notebook off the desk a few feet away, it going right into his inventory once it hits his hand. “It’s strong enough to move me around and I’m planning on trying to see if I can use it as a whip.” This just seems to make the Healer even more interested as she moves closer to stare at the vine bracelets.
“Handy that. Maybe you wouldn’t have to be in a support role,” Sean remarked as a thoughtful look crosses his face. “Any other things of note? Madanm Madrid told us you had a new Class and I’m interested to see what kind of options you have for Skills.”
Roge gives the tiger a confused glance, inching away from the Healer as he does so. “Support role?”
Sean nods, giving Roge a regretful look. “You’re going to need to sign up with the Guild. Definitely today as your probation officer is not going to like a random Magic Class out there without some oversight. The Guild and us can shield you from that.” The anger came back at this, Roge huffing out some Nature Magic out of his snout at the mention of the church.
“Support might be useful at first. Don’t have any combat skills besides Mobility, Defense, and Utility from the class. Mostly crowd control or tank combat options from what I’ve seen from the descriptions.”
“As long as I can get something like your grappling vine for myself, I’m totally on board with that,” Marge muttered, looking up to the ceiling with a thoughtful expression. “Maybe something that’ll walk me around? Ground mobility has been a weakness of mine.”
Roge ignored her as he looked to the Wizard, his opinion on the matter mattering more to the dragon. “No problems here mate. Even before your memory wipe I was all on board with you skipping the church. I fit right in. You don’t.” Roge nodded at that, giving a grateful smile before turning to Sean.
“We heading out now then? I’ve pretty much done all the work I need today and the Magic plants have given me a lot of goodwill with Madam Madrid.”
Sean chuckled at that, waving towards the door that lead to the front of the store. “We’ll use the back door and wait for you outside.” He mumbled something else that Roge didn’t catch as he turned away, the three heading out of the greenhouse’s outside door as Roge went to speak with Madam Madrid.