Myles’ POV
“Atakarr? Myles? Is that you?” Dadaan stepped out of the tunnel to meet them before they even got close enough to knock, and his actions made Myles wonder how high the man’s [8th Sense] had gotten.
“Hey, Dadaan,” Myles said in greeting and the tall man nodded back.
“How come you’re back already? It’s barely been five hours since you left,” Dadaan said as the couple walked into the tunnel with him.
“We only went halfway,” Atakarr explained.
“Yeah, we came back after almost getting murdered by a tree,” Myles felt the need to add.
“A tree?” Dadaan asked in confusion.
“I’m still having trouble believing it myself,” Atakarr said.
“Oh, by the way. Here.” Myles handed one of the fruits they’d gotten to Dadaan. “It’s a banana, sort of. That’s what we’re calling them anyway.” After Myles had told Atakarr that the fruits looked a lot like the bananas on his world, she’d decided to call them bananas too, and Myles had just gone along with it since it was easier than coming up with a new name for them anyway. Or worse, calling them the fruit.
Dadaan sniffed the banana, then took a bite, and a tenseness that Myles only just noticed in the way the taller man held his shoulders seemed to evaporate as he let out a long, blissful exhale.
Myles chuckled as he watched Dadaan take another bite, before he offered him two more. “Here, these probably won’t last, and this way you won’t get left out,” he said in explanation.
Dadaan thanked Myles, and he and Atakarr walked off, leaving the man behind at his post.
Myles repeated his actions with the next two guards they met, though both were people he wasn’t too familiar with, and who, to make matters worse, were firmly in the hero worship camp.
As soon as they were past the last guard, Myles gave Atakarr all of the bananas he had in his inventory bar three; she would be reporting first to Elder Raad, to alert the woman of their return and to discuss the trip, then take the food they brought back to the cooks. Myles, on the other hand, was heading to Manna, to give her some of the fruits, as well as the wood that he’d picked up, since he figured she might appreciate having some new material to work with. And while he wasn’t too sure if green, flexible wood like the one that he’d gotten was the best for carving, he was fairly confident that the System would have a solution for that problem.
Atakarr had picked up some wood too, even going so far as to cut off some thick, leafy vines she’d been able to get her hands on, though her reasoning had been more along the lines of, “it’s something to take so why not?”
“Guess I’ll see you at mealtime then,” Myles said to Atakarr as she walked away.
Atakarr nodded. “Bring Manna with you when you come; she needs to do more than shape stone all the time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a salute and Atakarr laughed, coming back to kiss him on the lips before she left.
Myles took in all of Atakarr as he watched her go, lips quirked in a smile, even as they buzzed from the slight contact they’d had with hers.
‘That’s my girlfriend,’ the young man thought to himself with pride, joy, and a hint of disbelief.
Huh. Maybe being randomly swallowed by an interdimensional portal wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
He still missed hot showers though.
*****
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Atakarr’s POV
Atakarr ended up having to track Elder Raad down to Jilly’s room, where she found the two women, one slightly younger than Atakarr and heavily pregnant, talking and laughing. Of the three pregnant women in the tribe, Jilly was the farthest along, and the aged elder paid all of them visits from time to time to see how they were faring.
Elder Raad noticed Atakarr’s presence first, and the look of relief that crossed her face when she saw Atakarr let her know just how worried her and Myles’ trip had made the older woman.
Jilly, who had been giggling at something or other, finally noticed Atakarr’s presence too. “Atakarr, you’re back,” she said, giving Atakarr a radiant smile. Then again, everything Jilly did these days was radiant. Which was a vast difference from before.
Due to the nature of their life here, pregnancies were never easy. Jilly’s, however had been especially hard on her, with her health fluctuating wildly enough sometimes that Atakarr had often wondered if she or the baby would even survive childbirth.
That was, of course, before Myles had shared the [Gift of System] (honestly, Atakarr could completely understand why so many people treated him the way they did).
The System had given Jilly—and the two other pregnant women of the tribe—the skill [Radiance of the Expecting], which, according to its own description, made a pregnant woman healthier and more robust.
So these days, instead of battling exhaustion and endless fevers, Jilly glowed with health and life and walked with a pep in her step that made her seem to bounce.
“Everyone has been talking about your trip to the upper island,” Jilly continued as Atakarr walked in to sit with them. “How did it go? Did you find anything? And where is Prime? I heard that you went with him.”
Since it was the easiest way to quench Jilly’s curiosity, Atakarr manifested two bananas from her inventory. “We found these,” she said as she handed one to either woman.
Immediately after they took the fruits from her hands, Atakarr received a System alert:
Ding!
You have completed the Quest from being [Raad].
Quest_
* Go to the Bridge; see what it’s like; bring back anything you come across that the tribe might need if you can.
Completion Reward_
* Five skill level-ups (distributable however you choose).
Oh, she had actually forgotten about that.
Both women had the expected reactions to the fruits, and naturally, the barrage of questions followed after, and while Atakarr would really rather have done this with Elder Raad alone, she had to admit that this way might actually be better. Jilly was quite possibly the biggest gossip the tribe had, so at least if nothing else, Atakarr could rest assured that answering Jilly’s questions was the easiest way to ensure that word spread around as quickly as possible, thereby sparing her from having to repeat these question and answer sessions.
Well, maybe not quite the easiest; Jilly had a lot of questions after all.
*****
Myles’ POV
Dinner that night ended up being something of an impromptu celebration, and it was mostly because of the food. The cooks had somehow managed to juice the bananas, and then used that juice to cook the meat, and the resulting meal was so good that even Myles said it was delicious. This was high praise, since the most he’d ever said of Kaffika, Somma, and Bala’s cooking was ‘not bad’, though it had caused some awkwardness when the three had heard and gone weird over his simple compliment.
As everyone ate, some people who had the [Symphony] skill had started playing music; clashing bones, rocks, or just their hands together in melodious harmony. Then someone had started singing one of the few songs the Seena had.
Everyone else just followed from there.
The tribe had always had music, of course, Myles had even heard some before. But what they could create now, with the System backing them up far surpassed whatever they’d had. It was even as good as, and in some cases better, than some Earth music he had heard over his years.
It was fun. Myles danced with Atakarr, Manna, and even Elder Raad. He danced with Seeng too, and she may or may not have rubbed her breasts against his bare chest unnecessarily.
At the end of it, Myles was the happiest he’d been since coming to this world, and became even happier when Atakarr had jumped him the moment they made it back to their room.
Yep, this crazy dimension was not so bad.
*****
The Realm of Ahunna
Unnamed Island, Ass-end of Nowhere, Deran Province
Bobo Toreebo led her crew out of the ship, each one armed and ready for opposition; just because these people were savages didn’t mean they might not be dangerous.
Mazd walked beside her. The other woman still didn’t fully agree with her plan, but, as Bobo had known she eventually would, had acquiesced all the same. Honestly sometimes Bobo wondered why she bothered at all.
They’d brought their ship down from the higher island, landing it some distance from the large boulders that disguised the entrance to what must be some sort of subterranean network.
Bobo almost laughed. These people thought they were smart, hiding the entrance to their home, and she had to admit that it wasn’t precisely a bad plan. It was just useless in the face of technology.
‘This would be a cakewalk,’ she thought.