Mason woke with the dawn and remembered a few things. First, he’d broken his God damn bow. Second, he had weird magic crystals and an equally magic acorn without really knowing what they were or what to do with them.
But it did occur to him Haley and a variety of others in town had identify powers. That was likely the right place to start.
He sat up and stretched, discovering both girls were already out of bed. He heard faint singing and smelled something cooking, and leapt up to walk to the kitchen.
“Do I drain it like this?” Becky asked, holding up some kind of cup Mason couldn’t identify.
“Mmmhmm.” Haley nodded and grinned, tossing her head and blowing some hair from her face. They were both in some version of Haley’s special silky pajamas, side by side and displaying their amazing asses. It occurred to Mason he was stark naked, and there were no monsters trying to light the settlement on fire…
But he shut down the thought. He still had plenty to do, and if he started something who knew what time he’d be out the door. He went back in silence and threw on the clothes Haley had obviously set out, then walked back to the kitchen with louder footsteps.
“There he is.” Rebecca turned and beamed. “We’re makin’, um, I can’t pronounce it…” She blushed a little. “I’m better at the cookin’ than the names.”
“You can say it just fine,” Haley laughed, then glanced back at Mason holding up his acorn and crystals.
“Can you identify these?” he said.
She squinted, then shook her head. “Out of my wheelhouse I’m afraid. You should ask Rosa, I think.”
Right. Rosa. Mason took a deep breath and tried not to notice Rebecca’s stink eye. Then he came forward and gave his girls both a good grope and a kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll be back to eat. See you later.”
“Oh, Patron,” Haley called. “There’s some admin waiting. I can deal with most of it, but Seul-ki wants to talk. It might be about Blake.”
Mason nodded, anxiety spiking through him at the mention of Blake. The last time they’d spoken in Mason’s dream had been…not good. He hadn’t seen Blake so down, so tired looking, so negative in years.
He sped out the door, feeling slightly strange when he didn’t hear Streak leap after him from the porch. But still, the natural theme letting him move and full speed and strength was wonderful, and he bolted across the settlement so fast a few civilians screamed in panic as he passed.
He knocked on Rosa’s door, only to pull up Wayfinder and discover she wasn’t actually home. For a moment a spike of jealousy shot up his spine until he realized she was just outside the chief hall, right next to Seul-ki in her garden. Then he was racing across the settlement again, yelling ‘sorry’ in advance as he flew past the same civilians.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Seul-ki and Rosa were both inspecting some plants in the Korean’s growing garden. Mason dutifully avoided noticing anything but Rosa’s ridiculous bent over profile, clearing his throat from the edge.
“You know, we have a giant temple full of plants now,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure we can make giant buildings full of plants, too.”
Both girls spun at his voice before they relaxed, Seul-ki bowing slightly as Rosa inspected him and looked self-conscious. He realized it was one of the few times he’d seen her looking not at all dressed up, but it made her not even a little less beautiful.
“Welcome back,” she smiled, clearly uncomfortable.
“It’s further to the temple,” Seul-ki explained. “And I like to be alone. Did Haley tell you I wanted to speak with you?”
“Yeah. I’m hoping it’s Blake related. I checked the fortress maybe twelve hours ago and still couldn’t get in. Do you have news?”
Seul-ki was so damn hard to read Mason had basically stopped trying. But if he had to take a guess her expression seemed ‘vaguely concerned’.
“No, I’m sorry. I haven’t spoken to him in…quite some time. I was hoping you had.”
Mason felt his shoulders drop, and he shook his head.
“But if the fortress is still locked, that means he’s alive. It would open if he…well, it would be open.” He sat for a little while, feelingly slightly dejected and numb before he remembered his tree gifts. “Can either of you tell me what these are?”
Both squinted with the increasingly tell-tale look of magical inspection, coming forward to examine the objects.
“A Great Tree Acorn,” Rosa said. “And Nature-Infused Malachites. The Acorn, I…” she shrugged. “All I can tell you is it’s above my pay-grade. But the Malachites are for civilian craftsman. We can use them to make items, potions, all kinds of things, usually as part of recipes that frankly…we don’t really have.”
Mason nodded. “But you can get them?”
“I assume so. We can all buy things with our system points, which we mostly earn making things. Speaking of which you should probably head down and talk with some of the craftsman, they’ve been making progress.”
“Soon enough.” Mason took the gems and went to hand them to Rosa before he stopped and met her eyes. “It’s looking like I might need another trip to the nymphs.” He waved the acorn. “If we find Calypsa, er, the other one. I expect there’s plenty of recipes to find.”
Rosa gave him a very complicated look. They stared at each other in silence long enough Seul-ki turned away and went back to gardening, probably in embarrassment.
“I’m probably not the only one who’d benefit from that,” she said finally.
No doubt some wiser, message-decoding charmer would have understood exactly what that meant. Mason had no idea.
“One day we can take whole groups of civilians to get Gaia blessed, but for now I want to keep it light. I need to track down a giant afterwards.”
Rosa blinked and rolled her eyes. “We have ridiculous conversations.”
Mason grinned, because that was true.
“I’ll take a player or two to escort you back after,” he said, turning to head back to the hall.
“Rebecca?” Rosa said, her tone too neutral to read. Mason turned his face slightly back.
“Is that a suggestion or a question?”
After a rather long pause, Rosa said: “Yes.”
Mason sighed, then glanced at the still rising sun through a break in the canopy.
“A few hours, then we’ll go. I’ll swing by your house and pick you up.” With that he walked back into ‘his’ hall, looking forward to whatever Haley and Rebecca were cooking, and just sitting peacefully with his women. It was thus far entirely too rare.