“I think we should start with what roles each of us can cover, so that we can better coordinate our efforts”, Sheeno decided to start the discussion with something innocuous and neutral, probably to put everyone on even footing. Just what you’d expect from a [Royal].
“That makes the fact that she left me with ‘carte blanche’ until now, without intervening, all the more suspicious.”
There probably was some reason behind it, but I wasn’t going to call her out in public like that, so I decided that I would let the matter rest for now, and bring it up when the first occasion to talk in private arose.
“Why don’t you start, then?” Cherry was quick to reply with all the self-assurance that someone like her might possess.
My girlfriend had tried adopting a simple and reassuring smile, but the first words spoken by the other [Party] made that smile start to twitch.
“Ok…My name is Sheeno; I’m a mix of [Damager] and [Guardian] specialized in close-quarter combat, but with still some long-ranged options; my main [Affinity] is [Aberrant Ice]”, thankfully she was quick to recover and replied as smoothly as it could be expected with someone with her background; still, she very clearly avoided saying her last name in order to not attract unwanted attention, even though I distinctly remember Cherry hinting at knowing her identity.
“My name is Undine Turquoise; I’m mostly a [Healer] but I can cover the role of [Damager] sufficiently if there is a need; I’m better at attacking from a distance but I’m still quite proficient when pushed to go in melee; my main [Affinity] is [Water]”, Undine was the one go right after, telling them what we had already been shown. Contrarily to Sheeno she also seemed perfectly willing to fully share her identity.
And now, to see if the Elf is still unreasonably confrontational towards me.
“And last, but not least, I’m Darwin Dulcet; I’m pretty much a decent mix of [Healer], [Scout], and [Damager], but I work mostly through [familiars], [turrets] and [totems], while I personally specialize in long-ranged tactics, with mid-range potential and a penchant for disrupting adversaries; I’m adept at using to [Runes] to augment what I do or cover other weaknesses-“, I tried to be reasonable, I really did, but Cherry still had it out for me.
“[Runes]? Really? I’m supposed to believe that?” Cherry said with a little too snide for my liking.
“Please, remember that we’re supposed to work together, so there is no reason to be so antagonistic with me. Also yes, I am quite proficient with [Runes], and I’d gladly show you later”, I responded, surprising even myself by how calmly I was able to act.
A couple of brief but incredibly shocked looks made it clear that even my companions were maybe thinking that I had been replaced by a [Doppleganger], or something.
“Wait, that’s a thing? That’s terrifying!”
“Then prove it”, Cherry said while slightly narrowing her eyes, probably finding my tone condescending.
And… yeah, it kind of was, but to be fair she starting to grate on my newfound benevolence.
“Sure: Cast something”, I was more than willing to comply, simply because I believed it would expedite things.
She promptly raised an upturned hand to shoulder-level, and used a [Spell] that I would have called [Light Lance].
“Interesting… those lances she shot at us back then didn’t come from her oversized weapon, but she just channeled them through it.”
“Now what?” The Elf immediately asked, sounding ever more indisposed, probably thinking this was all a waste of time.
“[Dispel] it and then cast it anew”, I responded, losing a bit of my amiability at the repeated use of her brisk tone.
Cherry suppressed a scoff but still decided to humor me, only this time she wasn’t able to make anything happen.
“What is the meaning of this?” Cherry asked, but her attention was mostly still on her hand, which she looked at as if it had betrayed and subsequently murdered her entire [Race].
Honestly, it was impressive the amount of bafflement one could express even when they suffered from a major case of ‘resting bitch face’.
“That is what you could compare to a very localized [Suppression Field] that I can create thanks to my [Runes]. Now, it doesn’t have a lot of range, so I prefer to lay it as a trap, but you have to agree that it has its uses.”
Having said my piece I waited for her to finally realize that I’d been-
“This doesn’t prove anything”, she instead cut off the last string of positive thoughts I probably would have for a while.
I threw my hands in the air, accidentally smacking the tip of my fingers on the table between us, ready to huff up a storm: I tried, I really did, but my patience had been tested one too many times already, and at this point, I was mostly proud of myself for not ragdolling her around with [Manakinesis] already.
But thankfully, in the room, there were two people firmly on my side who knew how to deal with her type of blockhead more than I ever could.
“That is not for you to decide. We have shared our proficiencies for the sake of cooperation: Providing false information would simply be counterproductive for all of us”, the [High Priestess] put a stop to our bickering with logic.
“And even if he had tried lying he wouldn’t have been able to, in this specific case, thanks to the contract we all signed, since it would have directly harmed the [Team], and you know it”, the [Banished Princess] brought us all back to reality with the cold hard truth.
“Hehe, ‘cold and hard’, just like her-“
CEASE!!!
“Ok, ok, fine! No reason to go all-caps on me. Spoilsport.”
At the same time as I was bantering a bit with [Buddy], I was thinking that maybe I should have paid better attention to the contract that I signed if its clauses could be interpreted in such specific ways.
Cherry, for her part, stayed silent when she was getting schooled by the two women that were used to having a vastly superior position of authority than she could possibly have had. Still, she seemed to be chewing on something sour, probably still unwilling to bend the knee to us strangers; thankfully for us though, the [Sky Gnomes] had been somehow communicating with each other the entire time, and before she could say something that she could have come to regret she was pulled into a huddle-group, where a [Privacy Screen] was quickly pulled up.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I threw an awkward glance at my companions, but they both looked completely calm, as if they had expected this, and only gestured to me to wait.
I decided that complying couldn’t have hurt, and thankfully I was proved right when after a couple of minutes the other [Party]’s discussion was over and Cherry looked much calmer and ready to have a proper talk.
“I’m sorry about my attitude until now: I promise that I’ll be better and won’t be a liability to our [Team] moving forward.
Darwin, I hope that you’ll forgive how I acted until now, and I hope you know that I’m sorry for what I said.”
Wow, didn’t that sound like a veritable mountain of bullshit? At least that was my first thought, but my [Aura] shocked me by confirming that she was telling the truth, and that she was actually feeling sorry for how she had acted until now.
Seeing how things had turned out, I decided to continue with my goodwill and show some forgiveness.
“Water under the bridge, really. We’re here to get to know each other, so it’s better that we work out any grievances here where we’re safe from external threats”, I reassured the [Tree Elf], who was now looking at me with a complicated expression.
It seemed like that wasn’t the reaction they were expecting of me, but the Gnomes were quick on the uptake and smoothly introduced themselves, and by that, I mean that one of them introduced all three of them.
“My name is Twad Gust, and these are my brothers, Twud and Twid; We mostly work as [Scouts] and [Guardians] and our primary [Affinities] are [Wind] and [Construct]; we’re specialized in building fortified contraptions with sturdy [Shields] and powerful [Turrets]”, the one that was apparently named Twad said, and his two brothers nodded in assent to what he said.
I didn’t know if I should laugh that his name was incredibly close to ‘Twat’, or be exasperated by the fact that their names were practically ‘one’, ‘two’, and ‘three’ with a ‘T’ in front and a ‘D’ after.
“Their parents must not have loved them all that much, or were just lazy in their naming sense…”
With some pointed looks from the three twins Cherry finally introduced herself.
“I’m Cherry Greentree; my primary [Affinities] are [Nature] and [Light], which I use as a [Damager] to wreak havoc among enemy lines from a distance, but I’m still quite good even a middle distance.”
Probably the shortest introduction so far, but it was clear that she wasn’t in the mood to talk any further, so we all let her be since she had already provided the essential details.
“Great! Presentations are done, so we can move over to testing our compositions-“, Undine happily clapped her hands, seeing the awkwardness in the air dispelled a little.
“Nah, let’s just go”, Sheeno interrupted her almost groaning in annoyance.
“Yeah, let’s a go!” I added with an Italian accent, which attracted a few confused glances to my immeasurable delight.
“Am I becoming a sadist? Feeling pleasure in confusing others can’t be normal…”
Are you really questioning that only now!?
And no, you are definitely a masochist.
Before I could inquire what [Buddy] meant the [Sky Gnomes] readily made their intentions to leave as soon as possible clear, although I felt it was more that they wanted to leave the stuffiness of this room than actual desire for adventuring.
If the [Race] known as [Sky Gnome] was biologically claustrophobic, it wouldn’t surprise me: After all, inclosed spaces had relatively a lot less [Wind Mana] compared to simply standing outside, and that seemed a particularly deeply ingrained aspect of their [Racial Evolution], given their homogeneous [Wind Affinity].
“I’m not really opposed to getting this show on the road, since even the best laid coordinated tactics often fail after the first enemy contact. What I’m worried about though is just how will we travel?” Cherry commented with some renewed vigor, saying what vaguely sounded like a saying from Earth.
Before responding I turn to the three Gnomes that were overly eager to leave.
“Hey Twad, does anything stop you from laying that [Cloud construct] on top of other ones?”
“Well… no. In fact, that is one of our most used tactics”, he responded.
“Laying different [constructs] on top of each other's we mean”, Twud continued.
And Twid just nodded along, agreeing with his brothers without having anything constructive to add.
“Then what do you say about fusing our means of transport, in the hope of creating something better?”
A flying car was dope. A car flying on top of a fluffy cloud was both funny and dope.
Also, I was interested to see if the [Adaptability] that I put into my [Spells] and [Skills] would help in the integration of an external force, which normally was the hard part when working in tandem with someone else. But the fact that their cloud vessel was originally created by all three of them working together gave me hope that the collaboration could work.
“We could certainly try”, Twad took the lead, as I noticed was his usual.
“But we can’t promise that it will work”, Twud continued, forever in the middle of his twins.
“It would at least be an instructive experience”, Twin actually added something, but his little shrug showed that he couldn’t care less about how this experiment turned out.
“Oh [God], I just noticed their names have the ‘tw-‘ of ‘twin’ in them: Whoever named them was definitely lazy.”
But they are triplets?
* * *
Those that wanted to test our coordination were clearly in the minority, so we soon found ourselves out in the open, having traveled there mostly silently, like some awkward procession.
I started explaining to the Gnomes what I wanted to do, which boiled down to ‘I do my thing, you do yours, we smash them together, and then we see what happens’. Of course, that was a very simplistic way of putting it, but I didn’t want to think too much about it when doing, trying to see if my instincts, intentions, and the [System] itself would come through and smooth things over.
“I’ll go first, then you try to interpose your [Matrix] until we ‘feel’ it interact correctly with mine”, I responded while wearing the protective goggles to hide that I didn’t need them anymore.
“That could cause a cascade effect”, Twad remarked while holding his chin with a pensive look.
“Which might increase the risk of backlash”, Twud continued with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face.
“This is untested territory for us”, and Twid commented, seemingly not as concerned about our endeavor as much as his brothers.
“Don’t worry, it will be fine! I’ll even be using [Runes] to help tie things together”, I reassured them, but, while true, I didn’t mention that I intended to do was just flesh out a [Change Rune], similar to the one on my cloak, right in between our [Matrixes].
Still, my mention of the addition of [Runes] to the mix did mollify them somewhat, and they huddled together to start their casting.
“Ready!” They said in unison, showing a complete change of heart from their previous insecurity.
With a nod in their direction, I started using [All-purpose Mount], causing the [Matrix] to form but holding it from going off. Without my prompt they cast their [Spell], showing off that they too could sense magical fluctuations. The two [Spells] started immediately clashing and I hurried into shoving the [Rune] between them: As soon as it touched the edges of the two [Spells] the changes were evident.
The best way I could describe it is as if I had just thrown a vat of mutagenic glue into our [Spell-Weaving], fundamentally changing everything, while sticking them together, and yet resembling its original parts when seen as a whole.
Soon, a [Matrix] crackling with barely restrained energy stabilized, and a frantic look at the Gnomes later we all put it our all to complete the cast.
A bright white flash blinded everyone in the vicinity, resulting in multiple outsiders that had come to investigate what we were doing exclaiming in pain and surprise, and I couldn’t be more glad that I had been wearing the goggles.
Once the light receded a bunch of angry rumbling came from the affected [Adventurers], but I only had eyes for the creation in front of me.
An opaque limousine, so deeply purple that it looked black, floated in place seemingly thanks to the golden clouds that replaced its bottom half. The sides were one seamless sheet of metal, but with a ‘hiss’ and a ‘kchunk’ three doors per side vertically pulled up, revealing the interiors made with the same cloudy material as its bottom, but some metallic insert here and there made me think the bottom must be closed off.
I turned around with a victorious grin, noticing that only Sheeno and Undine weren’t furiously rubbing their eyes to clear their vision after the sudden light show.
“Let’s board the Limo-Nimbus then!”