Author's Note: Somehow, I actually got this chapter out a lot faster than I was expecting. Surprise! I might have actually been having fun. Huh. Anyways it's now tomorrow where I am so I fulfilled my promise. Who knows if I'll type another one later. I might. That depends on how early I wake up. Anyway, it's very early here and I like sleep so night night. See you laters, maybe. Enjoy the chapter. I hope.
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Chapter 2 - Joining a group.
After a moment, silence continued as the faucet ran, pelting the newly made dishes with water. She let it continue running because she realized it’d be more suspicious for it to suddenly turn off than for it to keep going.
“Come on, Elena. I can hear the faucet running and I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t leave it on if you left your apartment.”
Once she heard the voice of the person on the other side she couldn’t help but let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. It didn’t take her long before she turned off the faucet and open the door to let in her unexpected guest.
The man stood a good head above her and radiated confidence. His looks were full of a kind of boy’s next door charm. Deep chocolatey brown eyes that melted into a wonder of possibilities. Golden hair tousled just enough to make you want to run your fingers through it. Muscles that seemed almost ready to burst from the sleeves of his t-shirt. Even the glasses on his face accented his looks instead of deterred any thoughts of his smoking hotness.
“Andrew! How’d I know that it’d be you! Come on in. Make yourself at home, don’t mind the more than usual mess. By the way do you think I should bring along some of my boardgames? Yeah, I thought so too. That’s got to be one of the only things I regret not being able to pack.”
Elena had known Andrew right from the very beginning of her moving into the apartment building. When she first started up work, a colleague mentioned that they were relatives to a nice couple that ran a decently priced apartment building. It didn’t take her long to decide to move in, especially with the fact that she was still living with her father even after her 20th birthday. The place she got was simple and cheap, especially taking into account that it was on the topfloor to this elevator-less apartment.
As she was lugging up her stuff to her apartment, Andrew came running down the stairs on his way to the gym or whatever pretty boys do in their spare time. He, of course, in his rush didn’t see the girl just around the bend sprawled across the stairs, exhausted from the trek. Andrew soon found out she was there though, when he crashed right to one of the boxes hanging precariously on the steps. Its contents spilling everywhere.
Lucky for him, none of the boxes she brought that trip up were books, or he might have met a wraith he never would have expected from such a frail looking girl.
In the end, he helped her pick up her clothing only embarrassed by the whole incident when he found a pair of her underwear at the bottom of the steps when he finally left her to finish her packing.
The whole thing was made even funnier when she came to great her next door neighbors only to find out that he lived next door. They did a funny exchange of a pair of panties and a box of cookies she made as a greeting. Ever since then the two have hung out on occasion, this relationship having gotten stronger when they both found out that they liked to watch and read several of the same genres.
Her reminiscing broke when Andrew started to address her.
“After learning about the partying system, we decided to make a group of the people of the apartment building. Considering most of us have lived here more than 2 years and have gotten to know each other, it’d be a smart idea for us to party together.”
In truth Elena, hadn’t really put much thought to joining a group. Her priorities had been figuring out what she’d take with her and she didn’t really consider much else. She figured she’d just go it alone and take whatever she came to find there as it was. Of course, now that she thought about it. Being in a group might make her chances of survival go up. Plus living together with Andrew might not be such a bad idea.
“I guess that doesn’t sound like such a bad decision. So do we have anything planned or something. Like a meeting between us all?”
When he heard her response, a smile came to his face highlighting the small dimple he had. “Yeah! We’re having a meeting later this evening around 8. Considering the whole three days thing, a party is being held. So bring whatever food you want. It’ll all go to waste if we don’t eat it anyway, so we might as well enjoy it while we do.”
He soon put on a more serious look. “Have you checked out the items that God gave us?”
“Nope.” Elena hadn’t done much other than pack. The items she decided she’d bring hadn’t even made their way into what she decided to call her bag of holding.
“You might want to then. The stuff in it is kind of…………….interesting.”
“Well that didn’t sound ominence at all. But you might have a point, dickweed god gave it to us, so it might have some use. Just give me a second to try and find where I put that little bag thing.”
In all the hustle and bustle she made while packing, Elena put the bag somewhere. Just like her keys or just about anything she could get her hands on, any object she let go of for more than a few seconds got lost. Including her newest item, the bag of holding. Books, clothing, papers, and about anything she thought might hide it got tossed out of the way. By the ending of a good 5 minute struggle of searching, Elena finally noticed Andrew laughing at her misfortune.
Ever a quick spark, “What the fuck are you laughing at!”
“Pftttttt! God you are such a laugh! How can you lose things so easily? I bet you’d lose your own hands if that was possible! The bag is-” Clearly, he got a better idea in mind just as he was about to tell Elena where the bag was. “How about I give you a hint? It’s somewhere I can see from here.”
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Not amused, Elena started her search once more. Yielding no more progress even after searching for twice the amount of her original search. Her patience ran even thinner when she looked up to see Andrew wiping tears from his eyes as he cried from laughing to hard.
Their eyes locked together and both of their self controls snapped. Andrew started laughing so hard he fell to the ground and started pounding the floor. Elena instead went a more violent reaction. Stomping her way in front of her friend, she reached down and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.
The tearing of a few strands of flimsy fabric did nothing to appease her emotions.
“Put a sock in it asswipe! That is unless you want me to stop it myself and I can almost guarantee that my way will be a lot more violent. And possibly a lot better of a creative outlet. Now are you gonna tell me where the fuck I put the bag you sadistic little fuck!”
Andrew couldn’t help but laugh out loud again when she finished her speech. In between gasps of breath he managed to tell her where to find the bag.
“I-i-its be-been on the t-table this en-entire ti-time. Phftahahahaha!”
Even with her glaring daggers in his direction as she went to grab the bag, Andrew didn’t stop laughing his heart out. He only stopped after all the blood rushed to his face and he could no longer breathe without gasping for air.
Elena plopped herself right in front of his collapsed form. Soon she found herself extending out one of her legs to make sure that he was still breathing. He might be an asshole but at this moment he was an asshole with more information than her. Information that could save her in this new world.
“Andrew. Andrew. Hello earth to Andrew. I’ve got the bag. Now what do I do. Just reach on in and grab whatever is in their?”
“That’s the idea.”
With a shrug, she put her arm in and eventually pulled it out after finally finding two items within the bag. Both looked quite simple. A leather bound book thin enough that it clearly only had a few pages in it and a small card made out of some weird material that she didn’t recognize.
Surprisingly, the card was blank even after she checked the backside just to be sure that she didn’t miss anything. “How the hell is this supposed to even be useful if there’s nothing on it?”
Even with her muttering it softly, Andrew didn’t miss the curse and began another bout of laughter. This one lasting a lot less time having been interrupted with a swift jab into the gut.
“Oh come on! If you were in my place you’d be laughing your head off too!”
A glare shut up anymore protests as he shrugged in response. And decided to tell her how to solve her problem, “Just prick your finger. It needs a drop of blood to activate.”
Grunting only slightly in opposition, Elena grabbed a knife to cut a small hole in her thumb. After a tingling feeling, the screen of the card lit up and information showed up.
StatusName:Elena StrikerRace:Human->CruorHealth:??%Mana??%Party:Cherryhill ApartmentsAttributes???:??????:??????:??????:??????:??????:??????:??????:???
“Oh well wow. That’s really helpful.”
“I know right? Now look in the book it’s even better.”
She had to admit that hearing that actually did make her at least the tiniest bit curious. So she immediately grabbed the book and, just as promised, the book could be considered about as helpful as a bucket of ice in a snowstorm. Meaning, not really that helpful.
From the surface it was already clear the book didn’t have much in the way of contents with it really only having a total of 5 pages. The first of them being some kind of title page. Inside looked to be information about the status plate/card thing, and the bag. After that, taking up most of the next page was a drawing of a creature that looked to be humanoid in nature. Except mixed with a porcupine of some sort. And the last page was of a map? All of it didn’t really matter though because the text on the pages looked like pig latin. That got translated to chinese then to some other random ass language. Some parts even looked like someone just slammed their hands on a keyboard.
HJkjsdfg fdgdk fglv uglar fgjm dskooekc transs fkvmc dlsk,v skjgsdo fdgis?o ^&T LKJG:)(# zgkf goblai ^&43jdncasdljv cksdjvhft igjd vsdj gaper9y8t cvx (ijdf vj &** ^%^&VSdf
Elena’s jaw dropped at the absurd language? Whatever it should be called. How the hell were they supposed to get information from something that didn’t even translate into comprehensible english. She really only got one thing that had even the semblance of help from the items.
“So what the fucks a cruor anyway?”