“He’s a terrible writer.” Dom set down the book. We sprawled on the bed in the cottage.
“You’re just spoiled.” I stretched, startling Terra off of Dom’s lap.
I’d changed a few things this loop of summoning Dom. I’d not only gotten Dom’s spell book as part of the deal, but I’d gotten the cottage I’d had with Kat, the potion supplies, and a pony. I’d meant it as a joke, but it was housed in the stable. When I say pony, what I mean is that it was absolutely a little white pony from a children’s cartoon complete with rainbow mane and tail, and glittering hooves. It was also completely useless except as maybe a mount for Terra.
“I’m spoiled on your writing,” Dom whispered into my ear with a kiss.
“I’m still learning,” I admitted.
I didn’t say that I was learning from Fizzbarren what not do in world creation. First, he hadn’t balanced anything. Without the proper balance of economy, power, and magic, nothing was going to work in this world that he’d flung together with toothpicks and marshmallows. I’d made mistakes when I’d built worlds for my own books, but nothing this bad. I’d had over ten thousand health when I’d done two days of grinding in two dungeons. That was broken. The mobs I was fighting could barely do more than sixty points of damage, and while the math of only ten minutes to live or die worked, it didn’t hold up in a fight where I could take the mobs down in one twelfth of the time. I wasn’t complaining in my situation where I needed the broken game to fix the broken master, but it wasn’t good for world balance.
Secondly, Fizzbarren had made another huge mistake. I’d made the mistake too. I’d tried to get into professional writing by writing a romance. I thought it was the least challenging genre and would therefore be the easiest platform for my very first book. It was like writing a romance when you hated love. I was taking care of a two-year-old at the time and barely had time to wash my hair, much less write about romance, which I also did not have the time or energy to perform. As an author, if you have a disdain for your reader, it will inevitably bleed through onto the page. The moment the reader felt that, they would crucify you in ratings and plummeting sales. My first romance novel was a disaster.
Not only was Fizzbarren’s world balance off, but he was also full of disdain for his audience. Anything he wrote was doomed. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Fizzbarren’s lack of balance was rooted in his disdain of the genre that I actually loved. It was that laziness in thinking that a machine could cobble together a world, and then a language, and then a plot? That’s absurd. All that was based on the idea that LitRPG should be easy. This world was lazy. I hadn’t read his writing, but if he held this much disdain for what he created, his wordcraft would never overcome that.
“My charm is going up like gangbusters,” Dom gave a wry chuckle, setting the book aside.
“Finally, an excuse for you to be nice to me,” I teased him, getting out of bed to get dressed.
“I’m always nice to you." Dom’s eyebrows creased his forehead.
I smiled as we got dressed together. Dom thought he was nice to everyone but Dom’s nice didn’t translate well to anyone but me. I had a knack for being able to love people who didn’t express themselves in a normal way. I could translate autism.
“Here.” I reached into my inventory and pulled out a set of black leather armor I’d made for Kat. The pants and sleeves were a little short and the chest split a little when he stretched. I cast my repair spell on it, and it had the pleasant side effect of sizing the item to his form. My stomach gave a little jitter at the sight of him dressed in black leather, but I hid my secret smile by looking down and resizing the boots he was trying to put on.
“Nice,” Dom drawled out.
“Glad you like it,” I flirted.
Charm +1
“It’s not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be,” he remarked, preening under my flirtation.
“You’re right, charm does go up easier with you around,” I told him, deflating the ego that seemed to be blooming.
He tilted his head down and lifted an eyebrow in a way that made me giggle stupidly.
“It looks good on you,” I said by way of apology.
His eyes smiled and I knew I was forgiven.
“What did you have planned for today?” Of course, he knew that I had plans. Of course, I had plans. They were whirling in my mind like crazy.
“Skills and profession grinding mostly.” I sat on the bed to put on my own boots, casting Repair on them to see if I could make them fit better. My newer repair spell was doing great.
“Not levels?” he asked without challenge.
“Profession levels count toward your health and mana pools, so we’ll get those first,” I explained, casting clean on both of us and the bed.
Without being asked, Dom made the bed as if we were still at home. The sight stirred something in me and then settled. Clean might clean the sheets, but it didn’t make the bed. Repair might have done it, but because it settled me to see him do it, I let it happen and cast my repair at the ladder as I slid down it.
Health -4 (2171/2175)
I enjoyed the freedom of not caring about a tiny blip to my health, but it was also the first time I’d really noticed my health since I’d restarted with Dom. It was a bit of a reality check to see my health pool shrink back down to a mere two thousand after being up at over ten thousand. Still, I’d made that ridiculous jump in a few days and I could do it again.
I watched Dom’s health drop dramatically more than mine as he tried the same trick coming down the ladder. I wanted to tell him to be careful and that he couldn’t do everything I could do, thinking what would I do if he killed himself falling down a ladder, but then I realized we’d just restart again. It would be faster and easier to get his health points up than to argue over reckless behavior.
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“Help me cook breakfast,” I suggested, cleaning the counters as I headed to the pantry.
“You want me to cook?” he gave me a dubious look. Dom didn’t cook. Dom could cook, but he’d always professed to be ignorant so others would cook for him. Kat, Cliff Destiny, and I didn’t mind as Dom was happy to do dishes and we all hated that.
“I’ll pay you a copper to help me,” I flipped a copper out of my inventory.
“Okay,” he fumbled after the coin, his dexterity not yet high enough to catch it. We’d change that. Terra chased the copper out from under the table and Dom took it from her with a scritch for her ears.
“It’s only a profession if you get paid for it and Cook is a profession,” I explained, juggling a dozen components for the baking soda potion. “Only I need a potion before I cook what I want for breakfast, so use that mortar and pestle to grind up this herb for me.” I showed him by dropping bits into the mortar and giving the pestle a swishing turn. I then handed him the mortar and pestle and resisted laughing as he made more mess than helpful material I could use.
Skill Learned: Teaching
Exp +20 (13,574/30,755)
“I’ll teach you these skills for a copper,” I suggested, holding out a hand for my copper back.
He flipped the copper back to me. My dexterity was high enough to catch it easily and I winked at him.
Charm +1
Bartering +1
Exp +10 (13,584/30,755)
Profession Earned: Teacher
“Did you get a profession?” I asked him, deftly tossing the ingredients for the baking soda potion into a cauldron and using Flare and Soft Breeze to get the heat exactly how I wanted it.
“Alchemist?” he answered.
So, that worked. I’d get him the cooking one next. “Great, now I’ll pay you to set out the flour, sugar, and find something that looks like a hairy banana in the panty. If not the hairy banana, find a thing that looks like a football with spines.”
He missed the copper I threw again, but I knew that practice would help. He didn’t even blink at my weird descriptions. He just buried himself in the pantry while I finished the baking soda.
“Does the banana have grey fuzz?” he called out.
“No, that’s broccoli,” I answered, going to help him. “Taste everything you can. It’ll get your constitution up.”
“At least I got the Cook profession,” he grumbled. I did a few numbers in my head. That should give him twice the health he’d had when he’d fallen down the ladder, so I felt a little safer about his health. Thirty skill bumps would get him to level two for another boost. He had to be about halfway there by now.
Dom gave a sigh as I reached over his head for the football shaped thing that actually tasted like banana. He had the flour in one hand and a sack of sugar cradled in that arm. He had a grey fuzzy thing I’d never seen before in his other hand. He glared at me as he tried to take a bite of the grey fuzzy cucumber-shaped thing. His face changed to reflection on what he was chewing on.
“It’s like chewing on almond that is squishy,” his face made me chuckle, “and fuzzy.” I grabbed the rest of the hairy almond thing, tasting it. It would be good flavoring anyway. The fur was like if you could have shredded an almond the size of my fist.
Constitution +1
“Fresh eggs!” Chester called out, causing Dom and I to poke out heads out of the pantry like a couple of kids caught hiding in the cookie jar. That is, if one of the kids was a murderhobo. Dom’s eyes narrowed with suspicion at the intrusion.
“Awesome!” I called out, subtly putting Dom slightly behind me as I strode out of the pantry to greet Chester with easy camaraderie. I wasn’t protecting Dom from Chester or trying to chastise him. I was giving Dom the cues he needed to know that Chester was a friend.
“Is that a potion?” Chester asked, pointing toward my brew on the hearth.
“Yep,” I smiled back. Dom came out of the pantry and laid the ingredients on the counter. “What do I owe you for the eggs?”
“A copper a dozen,” Chester replied, pulling out a pad of paper that I knew held the lists he liked so much, “but I’d trade them all for the ability to sell your potions in my shop.”
“I pay you, you pay me, it all works out just fine that way,” I pulled out three coppers and put them in his hand as I grabbed his pad of paper and pencil. “We’ll make you some healing and mana potions for six silver each, and some preservation potions for two silver each. But only if you’ll teach us some blacksmithing in your forge. I have some pans I want to make.”
“Sure, deal!” Chester replied, clasping at my hand for an eager handshake. I cast my clean spell then shook his hand. I still remembered the outhouses that I hadn’t cleaned in a while.
“Chester,” Dom entered the conversation, flipping the copper I’d given him back and forth between his hands.
“Hey Dom!” Chester greeting Dom as if they’d always known each other.
“How’s your wife, Chester?” I asked, more to catch Dom up on who Chester was than anything else.
“She’s doing better since you cast that spell on her,” Chester lit up with talk of Lily and I saw Dom visibly relax. It wasn’t that Dom was jealous. He wasn’t. It was just that Dom didn’t know anyone here and anyone who had walked through our front door without so much as a knock was an enemy until proven otherwise. My delightfully murderous husband was protective, not jealous. “I’m happy to teach you blacksmithing, but do you think you could teach Lily that spell?”
“I’d love to!” I told Chester. “I’m already going to teach a bunch of spells to Dom. How about I teach Lily at the same time?”
“That would be great!” Chester was just as enthusiastic.
“One copper a spell?” I bartered, knowing every sale would give me experience.
“Done!” And Chester reached out for my hand again.
Bartering +1
Exp +10 (13,594/30,755)
“Would you mind a downpayment of a copper for the potions?” I asked Chester, wanting the profession I’d given to Dom. Another imbalance issue in how I could have taught the profession without having it.
“No problem,” Chester flipped me a copper.
Profession Earned: Alchemist
“Thanks,” I gave Chester a practiced smile. “I’ll brew up ten each and head over to your place for spell lessons. Would you mind bringing me a few supplies?” I started scribbling some supplies onto the pad of paper.
“I would love to,” Chester took my proffered list and scanned it with a smile. “I think I have everything on here.” I knew he did.
“He just comes in and out without warning?” Dom asked when Chester was clear of the door. He had a point, but I hadn’t had a cottage for so many reboots that it was like it was new again. I’d forgotten how folks didn’t know doors meant boundaries.
“We could bar the door if we didn’t want visitors.” I whipped together a pancake batter with just a bit of the potion I had brewing and the supplies Dom had laid on the counter. I tried mashing the almond thing and got a thick syrup like you’d find in cans of peaches only tasting more like almond butter.
Dom gave a little humph, but I knew it didn’t mean he was angry. He was just thinking. He handed me flour when I asked for it and pulped the rest of the almond thing, which I combined with a little cinnamon for an interesting syrup. We ate and discussed mathematical equations as we tossed a coin back and forth while hopping on one foot and casting cleans all over the place. No, we didn’t. You wouldn’t either. We ate breakfast in peace until Chester returned. Dom was working with the copper on trying to walk it over his knuckles while he ate, but we weren’t machines. Okay, maybe I did a few math problems in my head to try to see how long it would take for us to get his skills and stats up, but that was it.
“Delivery!” Chester announced again as I was casting Cleaner on our dishes. Chester’s arms were full to teetering, so Dom rushed to help him carry things. See? I told you Dom wasn’t jealous. He just needed to know that Chester was safe. It was like playing Among Us. You only flinched until you’d seen someone do a visual task. Then they were your best friend until the round was over.