Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Neil woke up quickly, and almost as soon as he processed the feeling of the rocks and sticks under his back, he bolted upright, whipping his head around to try and locate the wolves that had just been approaching them- but... they weren’t in camp at all anymore. They were in a forest... Was it the forest around camp, though? What happened?

He noticed the rest of the party was scattered around with him, the six of them in a small clearing surrounded by miles of trees. The closer he looked at them, he could see that they all seemed dressed in odd clothes, and most of their bodies seemed heavily changed. His thoughts were racing while he took in the scene, really confused and a bit panicked.

“G-guys?” Were they even alive? No, they had to be, they were breathing... What happened to Nikki and Preston and Max?

As he twisted around to see them all, he became acutely aware of his own outfit- a lab coat over what seemed like his normal clothes, with a backpack and vials strapped to him, quietly clanking together. He swallowed anxiously, trying to push down a building panic attack, and started to slowly crawl over to his closest companion. "M-Max?"

Max groaned quietly in response, not wanting to be woken up... then quickly remembering that he had been In Danger Moments Ago. He froze stiff, wide awake and trying to perceive anything before giving away the fact he was awake.

"Max!" Neil repeated, relieved he was at least moving and making noise. "A-are you ok?"

Max stopped breathing for a second before who it was caught up with him and he groaned, "Fuck off." Finally, he opened his eyes, just to wince at the sunlight.

Neil sat back a little, anxiously flapping his hands. "S-something- I do-on't know what happened, but we're not in camp, and everyone looks weird-"

"What?" Max sat up, and there was a groan, much more dramatic, that came from the pink-skinned person not far away, who was much faster in sitting up and stretching as if he just woke up from a beauty nap.

Neil jumped and whipped his head around towards the sound, then relaxed just a bit. "Oh, Preston. ...Preston? Are you ok?"

"What the hell?" Max remarked, looking at the performer. 

"Hm?" Preston opened his eyes and yelped. "Oh my God! How did I get so sunburned!" He then blinked, realizing it didn't look or feel right for it to be a sunburn. "Wait, what the hell?"

"I don't think it's a sunburn... Your hair is red, too." Neil shifted anxiously. "Everyone looks a bit... weird. Nikki has fur, and Max is... really small... And then you're... like that.”

Max looked down at himself, finally taking in that that is quite accurate- he could hardly be much taller than a foot and a half. And his feet were bare and looked Wrong, too. "What the fuck is going on here?" 

Preston managed to pull some of his hair into view. "Oh, that's actually a lovely color. And these clothes-" He quickly stood up to get a better look at himself and feel how the clothes draped down on himself; the long green sleeves under the tunic grew quite oversized at the wrists, hanging below his forearms.

"I don't know what's going on,” Neil said, ignoring Preston. “I just know I woke up and everyone was knocked out and dressed weird." 

None of them noticed Nerris starting to stir a little bit now, more like someone waking up from a long rest.

"God damn it, did the Quartermaster drug lunch or something and this is just some fucked-up drug dream?" Max asked. 

"Hm..." Preston glanced around, noting the differences in everyone else, and that the scene was different than what he was used to. The mountains were different around them. "I don't think so... Last thing I remember was a pack of wolves coming out of the forest behind Harrison, and when he looked around... Oh!"

Nerris whined a little. "You guys are so loud…”

"Nerris!" Preston called out, very happy with how everything was clicking together. "You have got to wake up and join us!" 

Nerris groaned, rolling over and rubbing at their eyes under their glasses. 

"Fine, ok, I'm..." They paused, processing their senses a bit more. "...am I laying on the ground?" They opened their eyes, confused, and sat up- then gasped upon seeing Preston. "Woah! You're- what- wait- how'd you-?" They quickly started flapping. "Are you a genasi? "

The way Nerris reacted just made Preston more sure he was right. "I don't know!" 

Max rubbed his head, scowling at the high energy the two of them were displaying. "Can someone just explain what's going on already?"

"Max? You're a halfling?" Nerris reached up to pull at the top of their ear, then tried to find the end of the fabric, and squealed when they realized it was real. "I'm an elf! Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh I'm an elf!" 

Nikki was sitting up now, observing her new body excitedly. "Ooooh, body hair!" 

"Nikki!" Nerris turned to look. "Oh! You your wolf tabaxi homebrew! We’re in Dungeons and Dragons!"

"Fffuuuuuuuck," Max groaned. This was what agreeing to play the stupid game with Neil got him. "I already told you I didn't want to play your lame-ass fucking game!"

"Well I didn't do this!" Nerris argued. "And it is not lame!"

"I think Harrison did it," Preston said, clapping as he did so.

Neil groaned. "This is his fucking magic, isn't it?" 

Nerris squealed again. "Ohmigosh that's amazing! His magic can do this?!" 

Nerris looked around to try and find him. Max stood up, mentally telling himself about everything he hated here. His feet, his clothes, his height, Nerris being too excited, damn Harrison still fucking sleeping.

"Well, I don't see anything else around here that could explain it," Preston shot back, still smug for figuring it out.

Once Nerris finally spotted Harrison, still passed out on the ground, and they crawled over to him. "...tiefling? How is he a tiefling? He ain’t supposed to be anything cool. " They pouted a little. "...I think he half dwarf too, at least... He got a beard. Harry, wake up." They tried to shake him awake by his arm, but he just groaned a little, his tail flicking against the being trying to wake him. Nerris frowned, pushing the tail away and trying to wake him up again. "Harrison?"

He scrunched his eyes a little before cracking them open tiredly. Nikki jumped over suddenly, leaning over and grabbing his face. 

"Wake up, buttercup!" 

"Nikki!" Nerris tried to shove her off, but Nikki was way too heavy now that she was a wolf. 

Harrison was suddenly wide awake at having a mint green wolf staring him down. He yelped and tried to scramble away. Nikki rolled off once he was moving and grinned, bouncing in place. "Yay, it worked!"

Harrison scrambled up, looking around a little freaked out... and noticed everyone staring at him, in weird outfits and, for most, weirder bodies. Confusion flashed across his face (although only barely- he wasn’t very good at displaying emotions), but then something brushed his leg and ???, causing him to jump in surprise and fear.

Nerris stood up too, now that Harrison wasn't lying on the ground anymore. "You ok?”

"I don-" Harrison noticed what brushed him and stared in horror at the demon tail, a panic bubbling up in him.

"Yeah, you’re a tiefling for some reason?” Nerris said, misunderstanding the stare. “Which is totally stupid, you ain’t supposed to be nothing cool, but at least you still half dwarf."

"A-a tiefling? I'm... I'm not a demon?"

"Not technically. They human in ancestry, but they get their powers from the Nine Hells."

"Th-the nine hells?" Harrison whispered, paling in horror.

"So... yeah, I guess they're technically the D&D version of demons? Which is way too cool for you, I don't know why you'd be a tiefling."

It's just fiction, he thought to himself, but he felt sick, really sick. This couldn't be happening. Didn’t this mean he really was evil?

“...um- are you... ok?" Neil asked, a little awkwardly. 

"Yeah Harrison, you don't look too good,” Nikki agreed.

Max was upset and really wanted to give Harrison what for, but held back, realizing that something Actually More Serious might have been going on. 

Preston, meanwhile, held up a hand to comfort Harrison, hesitated, and then carefully said, "It's just D&D, Harrison. Your magic put us in the book, I think." 

Harrison put his hand to his mouth. He knew that, but the logic wasn't working.

Nerris fidgeted with their cape around their neck, starting to realize Harrison was upset about something, but not quite sure what exactly yet. "Yeah, and like... tieflings ain’t necessarily evil, either. Their alignments are all over the chart, actually, depending on their origin and individual basis."

That helped a little, and Harrison’s nausea eased a little... But he was still connected to the “Nine Hells”... Why was this happening? His eyes were starting to water.

"And you made me into a wolf! That's the coolest thing ever!" Nikki grinned and bounced.

"You certainly could have given my skin a break. I know I have a lot of pink undertones, but this is a bit ridiculous," Preston stated, back to looking at his arm.

"You got me as an elf, though!" Nerris grinned again. "The ears are perfect! And I'm taller than you!"

Harrison slowly hugged himself, not liking this. He hadn't seen wild magic like this before and didn't trust it, no matter how much the others seemed to like it. 

"Just send me back already," Max grumbled, taking a similar, but more pissed, posture.

"Nooo, we should explore first!" Nerris proposed excitedly. "Harrison always takes a while to figure out wild magic tricks anyway, we should have fun with it while we here!"

"Most definitely!" Preston trilled, his hair glowing with his excitement. "A place like this is just brimming with inspiration!"

"And adventure!" Nikki added eagerly. 

"Guys! We're not just playing a game anymore, this could be dangerous!" Neil argued.

"Oh shush, it's not like we're on our third death save or whatever." Preston folded his arms.

"What if we just do like, some small errand quests?" Nerris suggested. "Pleaaaaase please please please? We ain't gotta do any dangerous ones! And- besides, Harrison is probably gonna take a few days to figure out the trick again... We'll need somewhere to stay, and money." Nerris grinned a little. 

"...damn it, they've got a point," Neil mumbled.

Max rolled his eyes. "We'll just steal some food and squat somewhere until Harrison fixes this."

"Spoken like a true rogue." 

"C'mon Max, it'll be so much fun!" Nikki tried to convince him, too. "Adventure!" 

"We don't know what kind of trouble that would get us into..." Neil worried. "It might be difficult to steal enough for and hide six of us without getting caught..."

"It's just a stupid book game thing." Max scowled, folding his arms.

" But I'm a wolf, Max! " Nikki cried.

"You talkin’ a lot’a shit for someone in melee range." Nerris folded their arms too, hand tapping against the sword on their side, and they gasped. "Ooooh, my sword is real now!" 

"A real sword?" Preston asked in interest, before his eyes widened. "I wonder what we all have right now..." He went to dig through his pockets. 

"Yeah! Look look look, it's just like my foam one!"

Upon finding not much besides his pocket mirror and emergency makeup, Preston went to look at Nerris’s sword. "Oh, that's nice."

Nerris squealed yet again and started flapping more. "This is so cooool! Harrison, how come you never done this before?!"

"I didn't know I could," he stated flatly, a bit stressed out but not wanting to show it.

"You don't even know what your own magic is capable of?" Neil sounded irritated.

"Of course I don't," Harrison stated. "I have to learn my magic just like you have to learn your science."

" My science isn't an ability I was born with. "

"Well... we all had to learn how to walk, didn't we?" Harrison pointed out.

"Infant humans don't have the leg muscles required to walk because we’re born prematurely; that's why we can't walk as babies."

"So? It's kind of like a muscle... It gets stronger the more I use it."

"...I hate this so much." 

"The point is!” Nerris interrupted quickly. “We gotta find some way to get gold to buy food and shelter, sooo we might as well do some mini-quests while Harrison figures out the trick!”

"Fucking damn it, this is going to be worse than camp," Max grumbled. "And why the hell don't I have shoes?"

"Halflings don't wear shoes," Nerris told him. "They pretty much just hobbits. Which is why I got confused that you a halfling, since they’re supposed to be super nice."

"They don't wear shoes? What the hell?"

"Their feet are already so naturally tough and silent that it don't really make sense for them to."

"That's fucking bullshit."

"We'll find you some shoes as soon as we find a town," Neil said, and then sheepishly offered, "I could... carry you until then, if you'd like. If walking on sticks and rocks isn't comfortable."

"Fuck off." Max angrily stuffed his hands in whatever pockets he could find.

Neil winced. "Sorry..."

"Come on, let's get started," Preston said, almost beggingly, starting to get bored out of his mind.

"Yes!" Nikki agreed eagerly. "Ooh, I wonder if I can smell a town!" She stuck her nose to the ground and started sniffing around, then after a minute sniffed the air, but couldn't figure out anything of interest beside, "I can smell smoke, barely?" 

"From which direction?" Neil asked. Nikki just shrugged.

"Well, then walk around and see if that smell gets stronger!" Preston announced. Nikki picked a direction and started walking, sniffing the air as she went. 

"I'm losing it now!" 

"So then we go that way." Neil pointed in the opposite direction.

Preston turned around dramatically. "Onward!"

As the party traveled through the forest, things were pretty quiet outside of their own group, the only noises being their own footsteps cracking the sticks on the ground. As they continued on, the forest grew quieter, almost as though the creatures and animals were trying to stay away from the area they were approaching. It set Nikki on edge to not hear any signs of life, and Nerris almost felt themself starting to go nuts from how torturous the silence was. Max, noticing the difference in Nerris and Nikki, was put at a higher rate of alert, keeping his eyes moving around their surroundings

The smell of rotting vegetation started becoming stronger as they walked, something more than just the typical forest floor. Rather quickly, a mound of plants, vines, and fungi came into view, a lush lump of life that, to everyone besides Harrison and Neil, stood out from the rest of the forest. Nikki stuck her nose in the air a bit, connecting the putrid smell to the pile of plants. Nerris quickly covered their nose with their cape.

"Erg... that ain't great..."

Harrison stopped at Nerris’s comment, ending up beside the mound. "What isn't?" 

"The- did it just move?" Nerris tensed.

Two vine-like limbs shot from the mound and slammed into Harrison, knocking him unconscious and wrapping around him to start pulling him in. There was shouting (and one girly scream call for help from Preston) as the campers jumped back from the plant mound- creature? Monster?- and Max backed away an extra ten feet or so.

"Woah!" Nerris jumped back too, eyes going wide. "Harrison!" 

They quickly, and almost instinctively, grabbed their sword from their waist and slammed it into the vines, but the vines barely reacted to the cut. Nikki jumped into action too, leaping to attack and bite at the mound. Unfortunately, not used to moving with her new body size and extra limb, she completely miscalculated the jump and landed a couple feet to its side. She slammed face-first into the ground, yelping like a hurt puppy.

"Oh my god, Neil, do something!" Preston cried out. 

"I-I don't know what to do!" Neil panicked, trying to think of something- but he didn't know what spells he had, or what any of the potions strapped to him did, and he didn't have any weapons- what was he supposed to do?!

But, feeling oddly driven by Preston’s shout, he ran forward to try and pull the vines off of Harrison. The second his hands made contact, he felt a shock, almost like a large burst of static electricity. It didn’t seem to do anything, unfortunately- if anything, the cut Nerris had made with their sword a moment ago disappeared under Neil’s hands.

His eyes widened, pulling his hands back and staring at them in shock. Was that magic?

While Harrison was getting pulled towards the body of the plant mound and began to be engulfed, another vine shot from it to attack Nikki, but it missed narrowly, too focused on eating Harrison. Max swallowed and looked around for something, anything, to deal damage with. He grabbed a rock from the ground at his feet and threw it at the monster, hitting it. The rock bounced off of it, barely seeming to have done anything.

Nerris's eyes lit up, realizing while watching the fight just what this was. "Oh! It's a shambling mound!”

"What's that?" Nikki asked.

"It's a predator plant! Lightning heals it and it's resistant to cold and fire, so we can't use any of that to fight it."

"...I... think I might have shocked it?" Neil said shakily, still processing the fact that he just did magic.

“Cool. Don’t do that again,” Nerris told him, before trying again to cut at the plant body with their sword. The blade glanced off the plant, barely scraping some dirt off of it. "Son of a witch!" They stepped back again. "I keep like, rolling low!"

Nikki tried to jump to attack the mound again, and yet again, missed and landed beside it. She whined a bit, rubbing at her head. "Owww!"

Preston watched the fight anxiously, his hair quickly going from glowing to flaming. They needed to stop this thing or one of his closest friends was going to be eaten! But what could he do? 

He felt heat rise up in him. He was capable of something, he just had to let himself do it. Giving into the character, he acted without thinking, summoning fire into his hand and running into a position where he had a clear shot. He fired it, the flame shooting out at the creature and hitting it directly. 

Nerris whooped a little, grinning. They were actually seeing real Dungeons and Dragons magic!

Preston stood up a little straighter. "Come on, people! Don't just stand there, we're heroes for Christ's sake! Nerris, use some damn magic!" 

"Ahh, right! Uhh, what's my class, what spells I got?" Nerris started looking themself over, trying to think and figure out what their class could be or what spells they would have.

"I-I don't know what I have!" Neil cried. 

"Artificer; you're covered in potions bottles and you always play alchemists!" Nerris responded. That one had been easy to figure out- why did they have to like so many different classes! 

"Ok, ok, um- fuck, what do I usually have? Uh-" He started digging around in his pockets and bags, eventually finding a stack of papers with alchemy symbols written all over them. These had to be his spells, but they weren’t even labeled or anything! Fuck it, he didn’t have time to try and decipher them; he just grabbed a paper and hoped it was a damaging spell.

Except… then it didn’t do anything.

The mound threw out another vine, but it wasn’t very clear who it was aiming for, since it missed so badly. Harrison got pulled in further, now submerged up to his waist. Max tried throwing another rock, and while he did hit it again, it didn’t seem to phase the mound much at all.

Nerris suddenly whooped excitedly, finally being able to recognize something- they could feel from within themself a strong connection to the forest that had to be one thing and one thing only- a druid whose circle is that of the Land. As well as being able to easily sense a couple spells and their cantrips, they started trying to remember what basic spells their class had.

They looked up at the fight, also remembering that they had seen Max throwing rocks- he didn’t seem to have any weapons or anything to fight with. They quickly grabbed a handful of pebbles, attempting to infuse them with magic and giggling a bit when it worked.

They quickly ran over to Max, holding two of the pebbles out to him. "Here!"

He took them, albeit awkwardly, and they both watched as Nikki finally managed to jump onto the mound, biting it and tugging at the plant matter like an annoying puppy.

Preston glared at the mound, thinking of one of his favorite bard spells. "You let him go, you poor excuse for a compost bin!" 

Neil grabbed another spell paper, hoping that maybe this one would do something-

"Damn it!" He yelled at, what looked like, another dud spell. "These aren't doing anything!"

The mound shot out another vine, slamming into Nikki’s side and throwing her off of itself. She yelped, scampering away a bit when she landed.

"Nikki!" Nerris and Max yelled in almost sync, very much not prepared to see Nikki get slammed with a tentacle like that. Preston flinched; that certainly looked and sounded like it hurt. Nerris ran over to the wolf girl, worried. 

"Are you ok?”

"I-I'm ok..." Nikki was a little shaky, but managed to stay sitting upright. She rubbed at her side where the vine made contact. "That- whew, that hurt..." 

"Um- I think I have some healing spells, I-I can try them," Nerris offered. They attempted the spell, but frowned, confused when it wouldn’t cast. After a minute, it hit them. "It's turn-based! Max, do something!"

"Turn-based?"

"We're taking turns! You gotta take your turn before I can do anything!"

"What if I don't do anything?"

"Then you just waste the turn." Nerris tried the spell again, sighing in relief at the rush of magic and seeing some of the injury heal itself.

Nikki grinned, "Thanks, Nerris!" and licked their face like a dog before bounding back up, ready to jump back into action. Nerris made a gagging noise, grabbing their cape to rub at the wet and slimy sensation.

Harrison was so close to being fully engulfed; Preston panicked a little and managed to pull out another spell as he called out, "Shambling mound! You don't want to eat him, he's... he's infested! Spit him out right now so you don't get sick!"

Nerris couldn’t help giggling at the Hobbit reference, and then cheered when they realized the mound suddenly released Harrison and began expelling him. They and Nikki ran over and grabbed him under the arms, working together to pull him back and away from the mound.

Neil sat down with him when they returned to the fight, shifting through his spells to try and find a healing spell. And now that he wasn’t in the middle of combat and was able to focus, he found himself suddenly able to easily read the papers. They felt so familiar, like it came to him naturally. He wasn’t sure when he learned the language of alchemical symbols, but he certainly knew it, and was able to pick out the Cure Wounds spell. He held the paper to Harrison, casting it, and Harrison groaned, finally moving to grab at his aching head.

"He-e's awake!" Neil called over to the others. "Harrison? Are you alright?"

The mound, now without food, turned towards the closest person and attacked, shooting two vines out at Nikki. She bounded out of the way when she saw the vines going for her. 

"Haha! Missed me!" She stuck her tongue out at it. Max threw one of the magic rocks at the mound, hitting it squarely on the head. 

"Let's get out of here now!"

"Yeah, that might be the best plan!" Nerris agreed. "Harrison, can you run?"

"I think so?" Harrison answered, a little confused on why they would be asking.

"Then start running!" 

The party started running from the area, only for Harrison to get about five feet before falling flat on his face. 

Nerris groaned. "You said you could run!" 

“I didn’t say I could run we-!”

"I got him!" Nikki picked Harrison up and tossed him over her shoulder- a very easy feat now that she was a good half-foot taller than him.

“Ahh! Oh." Harrison blinked. He hung off of Nikki’s shoulder, grabbing onto the back of her shirt as she sprinted to the front of the group.

They ran until they couldn’t smell the rotting vegetation anymore, at which point Nikki finally set Harrison down and the party settled on wherever they could find to rest. As soon as Harrison was set down, Nerris and Preston hurried over.

“Harrison! Are you ok?”

“Are you hurt?” Preston asked anxiously.

“I-I’m ok,” Harrison answered, face turning a little pink while Nerris checked him for injuries.

“He just a lil’ bruised, but that looks like it.” Nerris sighed in relief, and then started flapping a bit. "Oh my gosh, we just had our first encounter!"

"That was thrilling! " Preston joined in.

"That was terrifying! " Neil countered, looking up from the pile of papers in his hands that he had started to try and label. "Harrison almost died!" 

"Yeah, but he didn't! Because we all awesome!"

"I almost died?" Harrison asked, a little alarmed.

"You were unconscious and being eaten by a giant rotting plant," Neil deadpanned.

"What?" Harrison’s eyes widened in shock.

"Yeah, we had to fight it and it was so cool!" Nikki jumped around a bit, shaking off excess energy. 

"I did magic!" Nerris grinned, bouncing back over to where Harrison was sitting. "Like real magic!"

"It wasn't cool," Max snapped. "We had no business fighting something that big and shouldn't even be here in the first place!"

Nikki groaned. "You're no fun, Max." 

"Maybe it wasn't cool to you, all you did was throw rocks." Nerris was starting to get irritated with him. He wasn’t even trying to enjoy the game!

"What the fuck else was I supposed to do?"

"I dunno, you the rogue!"

"What the fuck is a rogue?"

"That's your class, at least I'm pretty sure it is. You actin' like a rogue."

"You didn't explain shit with that."

"They real stealthy, tend to be really good at sneaking around and hiding, and prefer attacking from behind or from a hiding spot rather than head-on. They stereotypically thieves and selfish, but that is mostly a stereotype, like bards being really flirty.”

Max blinked, and then frowned, not liking how accurate that sounded to him in real life. 

"Well, stereotypes can be pretty accurate." Preston laughed, calling out both himself and Max on that one.

"You are just a giant stereotype," Nerris agreed with him.

"Thank you, darling," he answered, making sure to put on a thick, drag queen-esque accent.

"Well, now that we, uh... we safe, maybe we should take a bit to try and figure out all our classes and spells? In case we need them again?" 

"Actually, I was able to read all my alchemist spells," Neil spoke up, holding up the papers that he had began to label.

"You can read that shit?" Max asked.

"Yes, I can, although I can't remember when I learned them..." 

"Maybe it's part of the magic?" Nerris suggested.

"Maybe it's so we can actually play our parts well," Preston offered.

"Oh, maybe! And I guess the magic had to figure out some way for us to know our spells, since we don't have them written down in front of us."

"Oh, this is just splendid," Preston stated with a grin. "We get to have all of this wonderful in-person experience of using magic and dealing with fantastical problems!" He flapped his hands in his excitement; he'd definitely get inspired to write an award-winning script from this! 

Nerris grinned and matched Preston’s flapping, only more intensely. "I've literally had several hundred dreams about this exact situation. But I was thinking we should probably rest a bit and try to figure out all our classes and spells, just in case we run into another monster." 

"That would be smart," Neil agreed.

Harrison frowned. "Are you sure about that? Wouldn't it be safer to find a town first?"

"We might run into another monster before we find a town," Nerris said. "We should at least figure out how to do some stuff."

"I guess so... But let's not stay too long. I'd rather us not be still out here at night..." Harrison stated quietly.

"Just a few minutes," Nerris insisted. "I'm pretty sure I know almost everyone's classes. Nikki is probably a barbarian. The only one I'm not sure of is yours, since there's so many magic classes..."

Max sat down on a small log, setting his head in his hands. "This is so fucking ridiculous," he mumbled.

Neil hesitated before sitting down next to him. "Are, um... are you alright?" He asked quietly.

"I never wanted to play this shit and now I'm being forced to live it. What do you think?" 

Neil nodded a bit. "I'm sorry..."

"I don't want your damn apology."

Neil flinched. "Sor- mm." He rocked a little, not liking this. He didn't want this to happen, he really just wanted to share an interest with his new boyfriend... "Fucking Harrison and his fucking magic..."

"Yeah, fuck Harrison. He couldn't have just been a normal-ass fucking clown or some shit."

"Or a normal magician just using fake sleight of hand." Neil groaned a little. "I swear, I might just make him roll a death save for sending us here."

"Don't you fucking dare. How else are we supposed to get back to camp?"

"Hey, that doesn't necessarily mean he'd die. He'd just... get very close." 

Max rolled his eyes. "If you fuck up, I'll have you 'rolling death saves,'" he said, his voice a little mocking at the end. Neil just barely smiled. 

"Fine, alright, I'll leave him alone.” He huffed, folding his arms and resting them on his knees. “But may he give it all away to doctors."

Some air forced itself through Max’s nose at that one. "That works.”

Chapter Text

The party continued their trek through the forest, crossing streams, climbing small hills, and getting ever closer, over the next two and a half hours, to the smell of smoke Nikki could detect. Max kept quiet, but he was having to push himself to keep from dragging everyone back due to his small stature, and it was starting to exhaust him.

"So... how would we even test if I am a sorcerer?" Harrison finally spoke up as they followed a small dirt road they found two hours into walking.

"Mmm... try to pinpoint some’a your spells, maybe see if you got any bloodline we could figure out…” Nerris hummed a little thoughtfully. “Rule out any other magic classes... I only suggested sorcerer 'cause you were born with your magic, and it would make the most sense. But maybe your backstory is different. Clerics gain magic from working for a god, which might fit a potential backstory... I doubt you a druid, you ain't very naturey; probably not a warlock, you get scared'a demon stuff. Maaaybe wizard? They study magic, and you kinda study yours. And I also doubt bard."

"That... all makes sense," Harrison agreed. "... I can't believe my magic did all of this... Do you think this place existed before...?"

"So either your magic teleported us across alternate dimensions, or it created an entire dimension and world," Neil summarized. 

"I dunno how we'd be able to find out which, though."

"Yeah... I just assumed with... my brother, Timmy, it was something that already existed," Harrison stated, rubbing at his arm.

"Your brother?" Neil eyed him. "What happened with your brother?"

"Oh, uh... A few years ago I accidentally made him disappear... Last October I finally got him back," Harrison explained. "He says he was in a land with... well, he called them good demons at first but we're calling them fae creatures now."

"So we already knew his magic could jump dimensions," Nerris added. 

"...I never hear about anything..." 

"Maybe if you were online more, you'd know this stuff.”

"I only mentioned it on Discord once, so it makes sense you didn't catch it." Harrison tried to look comforting. Neil gave him an odd look at the odder facial expression and just shook his head. 

"I have m-" 

"More important things to do than spend all day on social media," Nerris finished the quote for him. 

"We know," Nikki agreed.

"God, Neil. For someone who loves technology so much, you really fucking avoid using it to keep up with your friends. You're an asshole," Max said pretty deadpan, mostly to give him a hard time, but it had also been really annoying the last year, so there was a small level of bitterness behind it, too. Sometimes you just really didn't want to be the one reaching out and then waiting for the other to notice, especially when you were in survival mode.

Neil felt a weight of guilt drop into his stomach at the words. He had never really meant to; he just always got so busy with experiments or inventions, and he was always too tired after school to socialize in the discord server. Was he really that much of an asshole for it?

Preston rolled his eyes. "Everyone forgets about a group chat for a few weeks when they're busy."

Neil rubbed the back of his neck, still feeling uneasy. "Right... I just- I get tired..."

"We all do. You're not special," Max shot back.

Neil fell silent, and the awkward silence stretched out for several minutes. Until finally, Nikki suddenly burst into a howl and ran forward from the party. 

"I found it! Guys, there's a house! C'mon!" 

"Hey! Nikki, wait up!" Nerris ran after her.

"Thank god, I feel like I need a shower after hiking so long," Preston sighed wistfully.

"Don't get too excited," Neil mumbled. "We don't know if the homeowner is friendly."

Through the trees, a small farm came into view with a few animals and a number of crops. Smoke gently drifted from the chimney of the farmhouse. Nikki ran for the animals first, eagerly sniffing all the new smells her dog nose could smell. Nerris stopped in front of the house to wait for the rest of the party, scanning the area curiously. Max hung back, not ready to trust whoever lived in the house, but also really hoping this meant they could stop walking soon.

Nerris shifted a little, looking around at the other party members. "I... guess we should knock, right?" 

"You're the one with the special interest; should we?" Neil asked.

"Well- I dunno! Usually you get a DM reaction to go off of, y'know?” Nerris looked around at the farm, really wishing they could roll a perception check and get some explicitly-stated information. The home looked to be pretty typical for an old house, made of some sort of clay and wood. The walls were curvy, and the windows covered by shutters, the roof made of a thick thatchwork of hay. And not too far off there was a barn of similar design. Nothing really stood out to them as good or bad. “Um... I mean- it looks ok?"

After a bit of an awkward pause between the party, Nerris finally decided to go up to the house and knock on the front door.

There was a minute before the door opened up, a young adult holding a club glancing out. Nerris jumped back a little towards the party. The young man quickly spotted the group of kids and opened his mouth, stopped, and stared in confusion. "What the hell is a group of kids doing out here?"

Nerris hesitated and looked around at the others. "Uh... it's kinda a long story?" 

"We're sorry to bother you," Neil spoke up, stepping forward, "but this was the first sign of any civilization we've seen all day..."

The man glanced around at them for a moment. Besides the elf's sword, they didn't look like they were a threat to anyone... He set the club down by the door. "Mom, it's a bunch’a kids!" 

"Out here?"

Nikki, meanwhile, was still sniffing around at the animals and just completely not paying attention. Neil rolled his eyes a bit and walked over to pull her back to where he and Max were keeping their distance, met with a whine of protest.

A robust older woman who looked to possibly have some dwarf in her ancestry came into view in the doorway. "Well well well, I'll be damned. Come on in, children. What ages are you lot?"

"My 11th birthday is next week, and- who the oldest?" Nerris asked. "Neil or Harrison?" 

"My birthday is first," Neil said shortly, still feeling on edge. 

"So almost 11 to almost 13."

Neil felt entirely out of his field. He couldn't tell if these people were truly kind, or if this was some sort of trap. There were a lot of things that could be other things in Dungeons and Dragons. While thinking about all the possibilities- good, bad, and very bad- he found himself getting in his own head, his breathing shortening. Fuck. Now wasn’t a good time for a panic attack.

When the others followed the homeowners into the house, he hung back and stayed outside with Max.

The wall of the building was noticeably thick as the rest of the party walked inside, and the smell of something savory wafted through the room. Nikki was quick to follow her nose and try to find the source of the nice smell, and Nerris was curiously scanning the entire room. They were picking up every detail they could think of- after all, they’d never experienced a situation like this in-person before!

"Whatever you're cooking smells delectable," Preston lamented, his mouth watering. 

"How did you kids get out here?" The older woman asked, leading them through the house to the kitchen. A growling sound emitted from somewhere nearby. 

"Quiet, Gabin," the man said, going over to an old dog. "They're guests."

"So, well... it was kinda wild magic." It wasn’t wrong, Nerris thought, and safe enough to say… They weren’t sure yet if “We’re from another dimension” should be information they readily shared.

"Wild magic?" The woman asked, pausing in surprise. That was far from what she was expecting, and she hadn’t been sure what to expect in the first place. 

"Yeah, sorry," Harrison mumbled.

"Yeah. Harrison tends to have wild magic a lot, and this time it sent us here.”

"Woah, careful," the man spoke up as the dog in the corner gave a warning growl to Nikki, who was sniffing curiously at him and trying to say hi. The man tried to pull her back. "He's not too friendly to strangers." 

"Awww." Nikki pouted a little.

"Hm," the woman said, considering Nerris’s words. She shrugged after a moment and continued on. "So, you got teleported out here or somethin'?"

"Yeah, something like that..."

"We don't get many visitors," the man explained. 

"We've been walking for hours," Preston complained, hoping to elicit some sympathy from the woman.

"Are you guys the only ones around here?" Nerris asked.

"Mm, the Shersks are a few miles down the road, and the Javreks a little pass them."

"So there is more-... Is there like, a town anywhere that you know of?" Nerris asked.

"There is. Further down the road."

Nerris grinned a little and flapped to accompany it. "Cool. Ok, so that could be our next goal?" They looked around at the others, only to realize- "Wait, where'd Neil and Max go?"

Preston glanced around. "Did they come in?"

"They were just with us, weren't they?" Nerris looked a bit worried.

"Should I go look for them?" Harrison asked. Nerris fidgeted with their cape. 

"We shouldn't split the party too much... But if they still on the farm... I guess it should be ok."

Nikki, back on her original mission, finally found the source of the yummy smell. There was a fireplace in the kitchen, with a cauldron-like pot of meat, potatoes, carrots, and other things simmering in a thick creamy broth. Nikki’s eyes sparkled when they landed on the food.

"Now, I'm not one to let children go starvin', but in this house, we expect some work in return for a meal we didn't plan on providin'."

"Oh- yeah, that makes sense... Thank you though, that's really nice." 

Luckily, Preston and Harrison noticed as Nikki was reaching into the pot, and Preston was quick to yank her back. 

"Nikki, stop," Harrison whispered. 

"I do not want your paws reaching into dinner before we get a chance to have some," Preston stage whispered, catching the old woman's attention.

Nikki whined. "But I'm hungryyy!"

"There's a table, and many mouths to feed,” the old woman scolded. “You eat when we all eat."

"Uh- besides, Ikk, we gotta find Max and Neil," Nerris spoke up. 

"Huh? Where'd they go?"

"That's the thing! We don't know," Preston chimed in.

"Oooh, a mystery! Let's go find them!"

Max stared at Neil for a second, confused as to why he didn't follow the rest of the party inside. Neil flapped a little anxiously, trying to take a couple deep breaths- but they weren’t helping too much, and he was just feeling more sick. That tipped Max off that something was wrong.  He started approaching him.

"Uh, Neil?"

"S-sorry, I'm sorry- fuck. I-I just got in my head. Sorry."

"Ok, then.... um... Do you... like, need to talk about it, or...?" Max asked awkwardly. He’d helped Neil through panic attacks before, it just always felt weird. 

"...I-I- I don't know... I just- there's so many things that can go wrong in a campaign, a-and- and now those things are real possibilities.” Neil’s words sped up as he started rambling. “I can't tell if these people are dangerous or not. What if the rest of the party gets hurt in there? Shit."

"Woah, uh... Take some deep breaths or some shit. We've been around dangerous people before, like Quartermaster."

Neil tried to take some deep breaths, but without a guide to follow, it was difficult. "R-r-right... A-And Daniel..."

"God fucking damn it, right, Daniel. No one tops that bastard."

"So... so we could handle... them, if they're bad..."

"We might be shit at fighting carnivorous plants, but we can handle some stupid hicks."

Neil laughed a little, albeit shakily. "Yeah... Yeah, we can..."

"So fuck these guys, we can handle this shit until Harrison can send us back."

Neil nodded along in agreement. "Right... We can handle this shit..."

"Yeah." Max was quiet for a moment, before noticing he could smell something that was a little off from familiarity. "...Do you smell that?"

Neil looked confused, but sniffed the air a bit. "...nnno...?"

"...I think I smell... It kinda smells like weed."

"Weed? Wait- like marijuana? You... know what that smells like?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Of course I do. But it smells odd... Sweeter than normal?"

That... worried Neil a little, that Max knew what it smelled like. He hoped it was just because of him living in a large city. "Sweeter...?"

"Yeah..." 

Max slowly started to walk off, really wanting to find it. If he could get some of it here to try then maybe this shitty situation wouldn't be so shitty. Neil's hands folded up into his usual dino arms as he anxiously went to follow him.

Walking around the back of the house revealed a few more small buildings- a chicken coup, a few dog kennels with only two dogs inside, alongside a few other farm-related things.

"It... looks like a normal farm..." Neil commented. His nose scrunched a bit at what smelled like a skunk? Except- "Is- is that the smell?"

"What do you think?" Max said, rolling his eyes. It was clearly back there somewhere....

"It smells like a sweeter skunk smell..."

"It's normally not that sweet."

"So it's not... marijuana?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's a special strain or something.”

"...why do you know so much about it?"

Max shrugged, not wanting to answer that.

Finally they found what was clearly the source of the smell. It was growing in a practically secluded cage, four plants.

"It... doesn't look like the pictures I've seen..." Neil commented quietly once they found it.

"Yeah," Max agreed, debating if he should try and steal some of the buds on it or not.

"Maybe... it's some fantasy version of it?"

"Of course they can't just give us real dope."

Neil shifted a little nervously. "M-Maybe we shouldn't be around here..."

"Ok, give me a second." Max kneeled down next to the closest one and tried to pluck one of the buds.

"Max!" Neil whispered harshly, eyes darting around anxiously. "We don't know if these people are dangerous or not!"

"I'm only grabbing a little. Lighten up."

While Max was kneeled down and picking at the plant, Nikki suddenly came around the corner, sniffing the ground intensely. Max froze upon hearing someone approaching, but once he saw it was Nikki, he returned to his task at hand, quickly moving it into a pocket. Nikki looked up and grinned. 

"Found them!" She ran over and nearly tackled both of them. Nerris came around the corner next, holding their cape over their nose. "Where'd you guys go!"

"We were waiting to see if you guys got murdered," Max said, standing up.

"We're fine," Nerris said. "They offered us dinner, and said there's a town not too far off."

"Oh.” Max stuffed his hands in his pockets. “What's for dinner?"

"It's like a soup! It smells sooooo good but they wouldn't let me eat any yet." Nikki pouted a bit. 

"She was about to stick her face in the pot."

"Of course she was," Max sighed. "Come on, Neil, let's go get murdered."

"Don't say that." There was a hint of a whine in Neil’s voice.

Max rolled his eyes. "There's more of us than there are of them."

"And they ain't mean! We'll be fine. I think they just surprised we showed up."

"So stop being such a wuss. Come on."

Neil sighed, begrudgingly following the party inside. When they went in, they found that Harrison had been set to help set the table for everyone, and Preston was nowhere to be seen.

"We found 'em," Nerris announced.

"Good. Um, we're almost ready to eat," Harrison stated.

"Oh, good! I'm starving!" Nikki bounced excitedly.

"...What happened to Preston?" Max asked. 

"He left to use the bathroom," the woman responded.

Neil eyed Max nervously, shifting a little. "Um... I-Is there anything we should do to help...?"

"After dinner," the woman said. "Now it's time to eat."

They were made to wait to eat until Preston returned, mumbling about the outhouse situation. Once they were all sitting, Nikki immediately tore into her soup. The others were somewhat more reserved.

“Um… may I ask what’s in the soup?” Neil asked, hoping it wouldn’t be anything fantasy he’d have to try and figure out kosher rules for.

"We got deer, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, and corn," the woman explained.

Neil nodded, a little relieved he was able to eat it. "Thank you."

Nerris, on the other hand, upon hearing the ingredients, sank a little. That was... a lot of foods they didn't like... And they could rarely eat foods so combined like this…

Harrison shifted uncomfortably. That was so many veggies that he could not stand, either. Would he have to magic it away? The woman seemed happy to have so many people eating together again, and he didn't want to disappoint her…

Nerris, after a minute, steeled themself to at least try it- it was a bit easier, still being so excited from being In Their Special Interest, but just at the first spoonful they gagged from the texture. They dejectedly pushed the bowl away from them a bit.

"Something wrong there, elf child?" The man asked.

"...s-sorry... Um... I- I'm really sorry, it looks really nice, I- I have... a brain development thing? I can't eat a lot of foods... I'm sorry..."

"Well, why didn't you say that?" The woman huffed, getting up.

"Sorry..." Nerris leaned back in their chair. "Y-You don't have to make anything else..."

"You're already wasting one bowl of food. I don't see how you'll make up for it if you're weak from hunger." She grabbed the bowl to set it aside and went to a cupboard. 

"Um... I also can't eat this," Harrison quietly stated. The woman huffed again and pulled down a loaf of bread. 

"You two can split this, then."

Nerris perked up a little. Bread was always safe. "Thank you”

"I'll take their bowls!" Nikki raised her hand, already done with her own. 

The woman handed Nikki the bowls, "Thank you, dear," then went back to the cupboards. "And, here. For strength." She set down some jerky alongside the bread. Nerris tried it and decided to just stick to the bread. 

After a moment, Neil realized that they hadn't done introductions yet. He still didn't know if they were safe, but... he wasn’t sure what harm they could do with their names, if any. It wasn’t like they existed in this world previously, anyway. 

"I'm sorry, um- we never asked for your names."

"Oh, yes, that's right," the woman gasped. "My name is Bertille, Bertille Hawkhorn." 

"And I'm her son, Arlen," the man chimed in.

Neil nodded. "It's nice to meet you. And thank you for taking us in. My name is Neil." 

"I'm Nerris." 

Nikki barely looked up from her soup and got out through a mouthful of food, "An' 'm 'ikki!"

"I'm Harrison," Harrison added, taking a small break from chewing on the tough jerky. 

Preston gave a small flourish. "And I'm Preston Goodplay!" 

"Max," Max finished, quite simply.

"Ah, interesting names." Bertille nodded. "I'll try to keep track of them." 

"Growing up she'd call me by my brothers' names all the time," Arlen stated. "And a few of my sisters', too."

"My pop would probably do that too if I had any siblings,” Nerris said, then blinked. “...I wonder if that's why I'm an only child..."

The Hawkhorns laughed at that.

"My mom says I was too much of a handful to have siblings!" Nikki grinned.

"Isn't that rare for your kind?" Arlen asked. 

" Arlen! " Bertille whispered harshly.

Nikki just shrugged. "Maybe?"

"Maybe? What do you mean, maybe?" Arlen asked.

"I dunno. It might be true." 

"She's not... very knowledgeable about... stuff," Neil said slowly.

"Oh.”

Nikki just happily returned to eating her multitudes of soup. Max, meanwhile, was finishing his. 

"Well, at least it's better than what we have been eating." 

"Not by much," Preston muttered.
"At least it's not Quartermaster's "speciality mashed potatoes”," Neil put in finger quotes.

"... I think they're pretty good," Harrison said quietly.

"Of course you do, white boy," Nerris mumbled playfully, biting off another mouthful of bread. Max snickered a little at that. 

"White boy?" Bertille said, a little confused- too quietly to be heard by anyone at the table. Nerris just grinned a little at Max laughing, happy that they were able to be funny.

"So, kids," Bertille said, as everyone was already done with or finishing their food, "should we see how you can help out around the farm until you leave?"

"Yes yes yes!" Nikki jumped up excitedly. 

"I never been on a farm before but I can see what I can do!" Nerris clapped a little.

"Well, what experiences do you kids have with animals, plants, hunting, and maintenance?" Arlen asked.

"I can hunt! I'm a wolf, I'm really good at hunting!" 

"I got some plant growth spells, and I really like animals. My family's had lots'a pets." 

"I'm not very good at manual labor, but I'm good at maintaining any sort of machinery."

"Then you can come on my hunt tomorrow," Arlen told Nikki. Her tail started wagging intensely at the idea of going on a real hunt as a wolf.  

"Plant growth? That could be useful," Bertille mused. "And, I guess we could have you clean the plow and the like," she added, nodding towards Neil.

"I could do that," Neil assured. "I'm good at keeping neat and clean, too. I'm... very particular."

"Um... I've taken care of rabbits and birds," Harrison said after a moment. 

"Ah, then tomorrow you can care for the chickens." 

He nodded quickly. 

Max leaned back in his chair. "I don't think any of my skills work well here." 

Preston sighed, "Same. I'm a thespian, not a farm hand." 

"Then you two can work with me taking care of the larger livestock. For now, let’s get you all settled into bed.”

Once everything from dinner was cleaned up, Arlen showed the kids out to the barn. 

"Y'all can sleep in here for a couple nights. I need to head into town the day after tomorrow if you want someone to accompany you kids," he explained as he opened the door. Nikki immediately jumped into the closest pile of hay, spinning in circles like a dog laying down for a nap. Preston winced at the actions before glancing around. All he could see were primitive farming machines and tools and animal feed.

"Thank you; that's very kind of you," Neil said.

"Is there any furniture out here?" Preston asked.

"Furniture? There's the stool we got for milking the cow, I guess. Why?"

"Your majesty wants a queen bed?" Neil asked sarcastically.

Preston rolled his eyes. "Like you don't? Who actively wants to sleep in hay?!"

"I do!" Nikki raised her paw. 

"Nikki, you don't count," Preston sighed. "You'd sleep on a pile of rocks if we let you."

"Ooh, is that an option?" Nikki's tail started to wag.

"I don't, ” Neil interrupted, “but I'm not going to complain when we're already getting more shelter than I thought we would get."

"You're like... 5 months too late for beds. We got rid of the last of the extra beds for more cash since..." Arlen looked down at the ground. "Well, I should let you kids get to sleep. Lots of work to be done tomorrow."

Neil and Nerris shifted a little awkwardly, noticing the slow trail-off and sudden shift in mood. 

"Did someone die?" Nikki asked bluntly. 

" Nikki! " Neil hissed. "You can't just ask someone that!"

Preston clapped his hands together, eager to hear more of the story. "Something definitely happened. What was it?" 

Arlen rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah... my dad and oldest brother. They were attacked by something. Gabin managed to make it back, but they didn't make it..."

"Oooh! What was-" Nikki got cut short by Neil holding a hand around her muzzle. 

"I am so sorry for your losses, and you absolutely do not need to share if you're not comfortable." Neil glared at Preston and Nikki. He didn't want to be kicked out because they were being too nosy.

"Yeah, that's... That had to be hard," Harrison adds quietly. Arlen nodded at that. 

"Um... Yeah, it's late, so I'm just going to go. Feel free to move the hay around as much as you want for comfort and all."

"...should we be... concerned at all about whatever... attacked them?" Nerris asked quietly.

"There hasn't been more trouble since, and Dad wasn't in the best shape... I don't think anything more dangerous than usual attacked, and there hasn't been any more than typical attacks on people's livestock around here."

"Oh, that's good. Ok, thank you!"

"Yep. If anyone needs the outhouse, Preston already knows where it is." 

Preston shuddered a little. "Sadly."

The party took a few minutes to set up their beds, when suddenly Nerris gasped- "Oh! Wait! I don't need to sleep! I'm an elf!"

"Oh, yeah. Don't you still have to meditate, though?" Harrison asked.

"Yes, but it's only for four hours, not ten. And I stay aware of my surroundings."

"Why do you sound happy about that?" Max asked. 

Harrison finished getting his spot of hay set up and took off his topcoat. It would be nice to have some real pajamas to change into, but with how things are designed right now, he didn't want to make clothes or items that didn't fit the scene.

"Because it means I have to sleep less!" Nerris grinned. "Which is more time for crafts and activities! And I can keep an eye out and make sure we all stay safe, too."

"And on a night like tonight when you have nothing to do?" Max pointed out.

"...I can figure out how to do stuff with hay, I guess. People make dolls with it, I think."

"That's lame." 

Harrison went to fold his topcoat into a pillow... and noticed that it had something in one pocket hindering his work. He pulled it out, surprised to find that it was his wallet, except now made of leather and designed oddly. As he opened it up, he noticed that the folded pockets were made up of 3 button pouches. Then he noticed his family picture that was still there, but changed- his family looked the same, except for the clothes and background. Even he was still human instead of whatever mix of dwarf and tiefling he was now. And, around his parents' necks were their Catholic rosaries.

"Excuse me for having hobbies," Nerris responded sarcastically to Max.

"Um... Nerris?" Harrison spoke up

Nerris turned to him. "Hm?"

"I thought Christianity didn't exist in D&D," Harrison mumbled.

"It don't. It shouldn't. " Nerris looked very confused. "No real-world religions are in Dungeons and Dragons."

"Um... can you come look at this?"

Nerris went over to look. "...ain't that your picture from the real world?"

"No, they're dressed different, and they don't wear their rosaries that often. It's usually in their pocket, and they didn't have them on for this picture…"

"... how are your parents still Catholic in Dungeons and Dragons? " 

"Oh for fuck's sake." Neil groaned at that.

"Jesus Christ, who in the hell brought a fucking Bible in here?" Preston lamented.

"I don't know, but look... I'm also not... I'm a human in this." 

"...huh." Nerris looked between him and the photo a bit, and reached up to poke at one of his horns. "Weird..."

"Do you think this is a real picture, or just some.... weird recreation of it from the real world?"

"...mmmaybe it's a weird recreation? But if it was changed to fit the D&D world, I dunno why they'd suddenly get the t necklaces... Those aren't D&D. I mean, HeroForge has crosses, but they ain't strictly D&D. They have lots'a stuff that's non-canonical to the game itself just so you can do whatever you want." 

"Yeah, it's really weird..." Harrison shifted uncomfortably. "But... why wouldn't I be a human, then?"

"I don't know... Magic?"

"...Yeah... I guess so...."

Nerris yawned a bit. "...maybe we should try to figure it out more in the morning... We should rest."

"Yeah... yeah, ok..." Harrison sat down in his hay, still staring at the picture. He couldn’t help but miss his little brother. Finally, he put the photo back in his wallet. As he went to close it up he noticed the sound of coins and felt around. Inside, he found a small handful of silver and copper pieces. It was a small relief that the party was starting with at least some money.

Finally, the six of them settled down for bed and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Nerris woke up much earlier than the rest of the party, as they expected, and after a bit of time to wander and find the bathroom (Preston had been right; it was really gross, but not much worse than the camp outhouses), got to work on figuring out how to make things with the abundance of hay. 

They were working on their newest hay doll and sitting surrounded by 5-7 other low-quality dolls and baskets when Nikki started to wake up and stretch. It wasn't long after the sun was up, and the barn was starting to get lighter. They looked up at Nikki's movement, their hands stilling.

"Hey. Morning."

Nikki stretched and yawned, shaking her head a little. "Good morning!"

"Thou art a very ragged bitch," mumbled a half-asleep Preston, curled up in a mix of splayed-out clothes and carefully-placed hay.

Nerris snorted, holding a hand over their mouth to try and keep from bursting into giggles. "He just does that. It's so funny."

Nikki tilted her head and sniffed at Preston curiously. "Is he still asleep?"

"Yeah, he sleeptalks. It's great. My favorite one from the night was like, "She moves me not. Too gay for that shit.""

Preston laughed a little, and Nikki started to lick his face to wake him up. "Wake up, sleepyhead!" 

Preston yelped and threw his arms in front of his face. " NO! I DO NOT TASTE GOOD! DON'T EAT MEEEEEE! "

Nikki rolled back, bursting into laughter. Neil jumped awake at the scream, then rolled over and groaned, rubbing at his eyes. "G-d, Preston, do you ever shut the fuck up?"

"Shut up!" Max yelled out, reaching around for something solid before just tossing some hay in Preston's vague direction.

Harrison bleary opened his eyes. "Hm?"

"I- She- I-It wasn't my fault!"

"Oh yay, everyone's awake!" Nikki hopped around a bit, her tail wagging even more.

"'Bout time."

"Fucking hell, all of you shut up," Max grumbled, trying to get somewhat comfortable enough to sleep again.

"This is worse than David's wakeup call," Neil complained.

Harrison yawned and sat up. "What's going on?"

"Nikki was licking my face!"

"I'm a wolf ! Whaddya want from me!"

"What I want is to not have a wolf drooling all over my face!"

Nikki stuck her tongue out at Preston, and he returned the gesture.

"I don't fucking care, just shut up or leave!" Max snapped.

"Let's just go see if they awake yet," Nerris suggested. Harrison nodded, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

Nerris, Harrison, and Nikki waited just outside the barn while Preston got dressed (after a groan from Neil to "Put some fucking clothes on"), and after a few minutes, he emerged fully dressed and makeup done.

"Ready?" Nerris asked.

"As ready as I can be," he sighed, still disgusted that he had to put on dirty clothes.

"Good! Let's go!" Nikki urged.

They trekked over to the house and knocked, and this time the door opened in less than a minute, with Arlen there to greet them.

"Ah, morning kids! It's good to see you up before ma's done with breakfast!"

"Most of us, anyway," Nerris said.

"Max and Neil are still sleeping," Nikki complained.

"Well, they were woken up," Harrison clarified. 

"I wish that I was still sleeping," Preston said, sighing.

"You guys are so laaaame."

"I'm used to getting beauty sleep, Nikki. You don't get beauty sleep on hay," Preston complained.

"I thought that's what you had your face paint for!"

"I don't have enough supplies to take care of all of it! And, besides, beauty sleep is for your attitude as well!"

"Well, there's no need for beauty today, as long as you're a good farm hand," Arlen pointed out.

Nerris snickered a bit; telling Preston he didn't have to look beautiful was like telling them to not compare everything to LotR or D&D.

"I strive for perfection, dear yokel, and beauty is part of that."

Arlen shook his head, laughing a little. "Suit yourself, just don't know the last time I seen someone look "perfect" after stepping in a cow patty."

Nerris burst into laughter at Preston's look of horror, which quickly got Nikki laughing, even if she didn't completely know why. Preston puffed out his chest and folded his arms. 

"I'll just have to be careful!"

"Good luck with that," Nerris teased.

Arlen rolled his eyes. "Hey, um, one of you, go grab the other two and come back for breakfast."

"Not it."

"I will!" Nikki volunteered.

Harrison rubbed his neck. "Better you than any of us."

"Yeah, Max probably won't kill you," Nerris agreed.

"That's the halfling, right?" Arlen asked.

"Yeah, that's him," Nerris confirmed. Nikki had already run off to wake them up. "And Neil's the human."

"He's not how I expected halflings to be," Arlen admitted.

"Yeah, he's... not very nice. But that's just him, I think. He never been very nice."

Arlen nodded, and the group went quiet until Nikki returned with Max and Neil, both looking grumpy and tired at the second rude awakening. Max scowled at the rest of them, hands stuffed in his pockets and head buried in his hood. Neil didn’t look much better- he had matching bags under his eyes and he kept running his fingers through his hair, trying to tame some of the bedhead and pick the hay out.

Arlen led the six of them inside and set them to help with setting up breakfast- eggs and potatoes- and setting the table. Max made a beeline for the kitchen, with Neil close behind him, and he paused, looking around. His brow furrowed, looking around a few times just in case he missed it, but-

“Where’s the coffee?”

“Don’t have any,” Bertille responded from her spot at the stove. “We don’t drink coffee.”

Max’s eyes widened and a look of horror appeared on Neil’s face.

“What, like- at all? ” Neil asked.

“Nope.”

“Fuck,” Neil mumbled, at the same time that Max groaned.

“This is bullshit. We get woken up twice, my hair is full of hay, and we don’t even get any fucking coffee? ”

Bertille just shrugged, handing them each a plate full of eggs and potatoes before they left the kitchen. “Take these out on your way.”

Max glared at her, flipping her a middle finger on his way out. He was slightly surprised the plate itself didn’t shatter with how roughly he set it down on the table. Once everyone was finally gathered around at the table, they all loaded their plates and started eating.

Nerris quietly echoed, "Po-tay-toes. Boil em', mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew," with the accent of the line, attracting odd looks from almost everyone at the table- save for Preston, who absentmindedly replied with, "Lovely big golden chips." Nerris glanced up from their plate, noticing the looks and blushing a little. "Sorry..."

Max just rolled his eyes. 

"What's that from?" Arlen asked.

"...uhhh- it's not- from anything?" Nerris internally cringed a little- why couldn’t they be a better liar? "My... family likes to say it when we have anything with potatoes..." Ok, that wasn’t completely wrong.

Arlen and Bertille gave them an odder look, easily able to tell that Nerris just blatantly lied. Bertille shook her head a little and returned to eating. Arlen shrugged a little and did the same. They weren’t going to push it. Clearly the kid was hiding something, but it couldn't be that serious if it was just some stupid little potato chant, and there was no need to get buried in whatever these kids were into that they wanted to hide.

“As soon as we get to a town, we’re buying some goddamn coffee,” Max said roughly, breaking the silence and shoving a piece of egg into his mouth.

“We should probably make a shopping list at this point,” Nerris suggested quietly, still feeling awkward. “I been thinkin’ of a couple things I need, too.”

Neil ruffled through his pockets and pulled out a spare sheet of blank paper and a pen, sliding them both over to Nerris. They grabbed them, grateful for the distraction, and grabbed another bite of potato before starting to think and write.

“Ok, um… coffee, for Max and Neil. Hair care stuff-” They wrote out “Hair care” and added bullet points underneath. “Shampoos and conditioners, moisturizer- am I forgetting anything there?”

“Brushes and combs,” Preston added.

“Oh yeah.” Nerris quickly wrote it down.

“Oh, and styling products!”

“I’ll put it down, but we should focus on necessities first once we get money.”

“Don’t forget body wash,” Neil spoke up.

“Ok, I thiiiink that’s all the soaps…” Nerris bit at the end of the pen for a few seconds. “Oh-!” Under the hair care list, they squeezed in “Silk pillowcase or bonnet”. “Ok, anything else?”

“Coffee.”

“And makeup. This is only the bare minimum for touch-ups.” Preston held up his case of makeup.

“They just said necessities, Preston.” Neil rolled his eyes.

“Max got to add coffee!”

“Coffee is a necessity.” Max glared at him. “You’re lucky I haven’t already killed you.”

Preston shut up, although he didn’t look happy about it.

“Ok, I got coffee and makeup. Anything else?”

“Spices. If I have to keep eating this fucking white food much longer, I’m gonna go nuts.”

“Fair enough.” Nerris wrote it down, then passed the paper to Max to add specific bullet points while they ate a bit more. “No one’s on any medication, right?”

“My dad doesn’t “believe” in medication,” Nikki said. “But my mom makes me take something whenever I stay with her. I dunno what it is but it makes me feel so boring. ”

“We can’t really afford anything like ADHD meds.” Preston rubbed the back of his neck.

“You ain’t really missing out,” Nerris said. “I take Adderall for the school year and it suuuucks. But not for summer, so I’m good.”

"Maybe something like an inhaler," Neil said. "I really rarely use mine, but it's best to have just in case. And then I think that’s everything for a shopping list. At least for now.”

Soon, they all finished breakfast and helped to clean up before splitting up to start chores. Arlen loaded up his hunting supplies and two of the younger dogs, heading out to the surrounding forest with Nikki, who was already jumping around and wagging her tail violently, excited to finally be hunting as a Real Wolf. As soon as they reached the trees, Nikki started sniffing around.

"So, we're going to go check my traps and if we see anything worth getting, we'll go after it," Arlen explained, following after her and moving to take the lead.

"Ok!"

On the walk to the first trap, Nikki kept running ahead a few feet, trying to find something to kill. Arlen didn’t mind, although did remind her a few times to stay quiet so it was easier to hunt. They reached the first empty trap without coming across anything. Arlen reset it before they moved on.

On the trek to the next trap, after a few minutes, Nikki burst into a run, rushing in the wrong direction, clearly chasing after something. Arlen carefully followed, not sure what was going on or how this wolf child hunted. He decided against giving the dogs the command to go get whatever it was or herd it nearer to him, to prevent interfering with what Nikki was doing.

After a minute, Nikki returned, proudly displaying a now-dead bird in her mouth. "I go' i'!"

"Woah, damn. How did you manage to do that?"

Nikki dropped the bird, licking the blood off her snout. "I'm really good at hunting already but now I'm even better 'cause I'm a real wolf!"

"A real wolf?" Arlen asked in confusion.

"Yea- uh-" Nikki blinked, remembering that Oh, She Wasn't Supposed To Tell Him That. "Uhhh nevermind! I'm just really good at hunting!"

"...Is this your first time hunting like this?"

"...no?"

"It is, huh? That's alright."

"Nooo I've totally hunted like this before 'cause I've always been a wolf, duh."

That worried him. "Not everyone hunts, and I doubt your kind is always hunting."

"I've hunted before! That's how I'm so good!"

Arlen rubbed his neck. Maybe the kid was just really sensitive about it?

Nikki decided to just turn around and keep walking, because she felt like she was just making it worse, and now it was boring. She wanted to kill things!

Meanwhile, back at the farm, after making sure Nerris knew which farms needed some upkeep and bringing the boys to a shed to show Neil where the plow and other basic farm equipment was, Bertille led Harrison, Max (still seething silently and starting to get a headache from caffeine withdrawals), and Preston towards the main barn. 

"As you should be able to tell, the chickens are over there. I'll need you to fetch the eggs, feed and water them, and clean up a bit. The feed's in here." She opened up the door to the barn.

"Oh, lucky, you get to work with the cocks," Preston lamented jokingly. Harrison lightly blushed at that. 

"And I've got you two for the horses and cattle!" Bertille grinned. Preston made a face at that, and Max groaned. 

"Fuck me, I have to do this without any coffee."

Bertille laughed. "Sorry, kid. I get what you mean."

"Fuck off."  Max didn't really feel "in the mood" for sympathy. Bertille just shrugged it off, less sympathizing and more relating to how she'd be without her smokes. 

"And here you'll find our feed for the chicken," she resumed explaining to Harrison. "We do a full bucket for them every day and toss any bugs we find and don't want around to them as well."

"Ok, um, thank you. Is there anywhere I need to put the corn, or-?"

"Just spread it on the ground. The dirt and rocks are good for them."

Bertille got the bucket filled up for Harrison and sent him off. Harrison, armed with the bucket of corn and a cup of scrambled eggs Bertille gave him when they left the house, went out to the chicken coup.

Almost immediately, the rooster of the coop started eying him and puffing up his feathers. He added in a crow for good measure. Harrison didn't notice, though; his closest experience to live chickens was what he had seen on a few family-approved kid-safe movies and shows, and one time at a petting zoo when he was about 6. He thought the crowing must just be because it was morning as he stepped into the area.

"Hello, little birdies. I've got breakfast for you," he said with a smile. The rooster began to lower his head a bit, keeping an eye on Harrison while he hopped around a bit. Harrison didn't take much heed to him; instead, he flung out the eggs, which the hens were quick to go for, and then started grabbing handfuls of corn to toss around.

While he was distracted, the rooster suddenly crowed loudly and flew up to attack the back of Harrison’s head, beating his wings and aiming his feet for his hair. Harrison yelped in surprise, dropping the bucket at the sudden beating of wings on his head, the spurs only catching on his clothes. Corn spilt out around his feet and the hens were quick to run for it, ignoring the commotion. The rooster flew up again, going for Harrison’s head once more. Harrison dodged the rooster before trying to get away from him.

Max and Preston, watching from the sidelines, burst into laughter- Preston with some more reserved giggles, and Max nearly rolling on the ground from how hard he was laughing. Bertille looked in the direction of the boys’ laughter and started laughing herself.

The rooster ran after Harrison, trying to chase him out of his territory, accompanied by loud cheers from Max. Bertille shook her head a little before saying, "He'll figure it out himself or we'll go and help him after our work is done."

"Fuck that, I'm not going anywhere near that thing," Max managed through his laughter, holding onto his sides.

"Scared of a little bird?" She asked, amused.

Max quickly flipped and scowled, folding his arms. "I'm not scared of anything. I'm just not stupid. "

Bertille rubbed her chin. "Eh, fair.” The bird was about half his size, after all. “Now come on, let's get that hay out there."

Both boys groaned, begrudgingly following the woman over to the larger animals, with Preston huffing and complaining as he pulled the wagon of hay along. Once out to the area she wanted to feed the livestock at, Bertille had them stop and put Max in charge of keeping watch on the animals while her and Preston spread the hay out. He was small, and couldn't easily move as much hay; plus, it was mostly a mild safety precaution, since they were inexperienced kids and she wanted to make sure Max was aware of where the big animals were for his safety.

Max complained a bit, but it was better than manual labor, at least. It was a shame he was in too much of a coffee-withdrawal funk to gloat to Preston. He ended up just leaning against the barn and half-heartedly keeping an eye on the animals, moreso watching Bertille for an escape window.

Food and shelter be damned, he wasn’t sticking around here all day with no coffee or anything. His fingers brushed the weird buds in his pocket from last night. It smelled like weed, so with any luck, it acted like weed, too. No, he’d never actually gotten high before, but he was willing to try anything to get rid of this splitting headache. Besides, it was probably fun; the teenagers at the park seemed to think so, anyway.

It was a very agonizing ten or so minutes (or it could have been five; Max was shit at telling time passing) before he finally got fed up enough to attempt what was probably a lackluster escape. While the old woman’s back was turned, he snuck off around the barn and towards the house. He was just about to reach the door-

"Max? Are you doing ok?"

He jumped a little, spinning around to face her. "Jesus! I'm fine!"

"Then why are you all the way back here?" Bertille asked.

"Nonya." Max folded his arms defensively, heart hammering.

She just laughed at that. "Shit, kid, what am I supposed to do with that?"

"Nothing. It's non'a ya business. "

"What? Is it personal?"

"It means it's none of your business. " Max was backtalking too much. He had a bad habit of that.

"If it means I'm down a pair of working hands, it certainly is my business, kid."

Max glared at her. "I wasn't doing anything anyway."

"Part of it is the principal, kid. And I have some stuff for you to do besides keep an eye out around the big animals."

"Fuck. Fine, forget it." He moved to start walking back to the barn.

"No, seriously, kid. What's up? Maybe I can help? I know not having coffee has you really out of sorts, but if there's anything else I can do for you, let me know."

Max just ignored her. He wasn’t dumb enough to tell any adult about having drugs- especially an adult he didn’t know.

"...Do you smoke? I know hitting the pipe is a pretty big thing for your kind."

Max skidded to a stop, spinning back around to look at her. His entire body immediately tensed. " My kind? " Well... she was right, that he was trying, but what the fuck, lady?

"Yeah, you halflings. Hell, we got our own halfling weed plant from a traveler who introduced it to my husband."

"...oh." Right, the stupid halfling thing. His shoulders barely untensed, but fake racism felt less alarming than real racism. "Yeah, uh... I guess it's a big deal.”

"It's good stuff," she agreed.

Max stuffed his hands in his pockets. He’d never actually tried it before, but that would probably give him away if he said that. "Uh-huh. So... you're not like, pissed or anything?"

"Pissed, of course not! I'd be ornerier than a cat in a rainstorm without my morning smoke."

"...so... do you have something I can smoke with...?" He asked tentatively.

"Yeah, come on." She headed inside. Max followed very cautiously; this could still very well be a trap. Bertille quickly pulled out a pipe from her room. "Leaves or buds?"

Max shifted a little and slowly pulled out the buds he grabbed from their plant the previous night.

She raised an eyebrow. "Those fresh?"

"...maybe."

She sighed. "Don't worry, I have some buds ready..." She went to the other side of the bedroom and shifted through some things that hadn't been touched for a while. "I like the leaves myself..."

Max hadn’t been aware there was a difference. This whole thing was so confusing to him, that she wasn’t even mad or anything, she was just... helping him get high. It almost took the fun out of the idea.

It wasn’t long before she had him set up outside with a candle, a small stick to catch on fire if he needed to relight the pipe (which she explained how to use, since they didn’t have any “fancy magic starters”), and a seat in her own personal smoking spot. "There you go. Come back to us once you got your mind right." 

"Yeah, uh... thanks." Max kind of just sat for a few minutes after she left, still in disbelief. It wasn’t like his parents would care if he did drugs, they would just be pissed if he stole them or money to buy them from either of them. But the whole situation of actively allowing him and even helping him get high felt weird, and it was almost taking the allure out of trying... But he had still wanted to try weed, so eventually he did it. 

He started coughing after the puff, not really having any experience or technique. "Shi-it."  He waited a minute, catching his breath, and then sat back a little, blinking. He wasn’t expecting it to happen so fast. He rubbed at his eyes, which suddenly felt a bit puffy. "...holy shit."

Meanwhile, Bertille returned to Preston, who had finished spreading out the hay and had been complaining while he sat in the wagon, getting bumped by the animals around him. He huffed dramatically when he saw her return, sitting back against the side of the wagon. 

"I'm done with the hay, finally... Where has dear Maximilian disappeared to?"

"He's just working on getting his mind right. Now, we've gotta go clean up the stalls."

"No way, nuh-uh. That's where I draw the line. Preston Goodplay does not handle shit. Isn't there literally anything else I could do?"

Bertille rolled her eyes. "How pampered are you, kid?"

"Very. And shit is my limit."

"So you're saying you can't work a broom?"

"I can clean, I just don't clean poop. That's my limit. I'll gladly sweep up the house if you want."

"It's just like sweeping up hay, kid. The house is already swept."

Preston pouted for a minute, trying to think. "...I don't... have to touch it at all? Do you have gloves?"

"I've got some work gloves and all you gotta do is touch a broom handle."

"...fine." Preston didn't look happy about it, though. These boots were so nice, he didn't want to step in anything and ruin them!

In fact, he was so caught up in his own pity party that he fell as he was climbing out of the wagon… right into a fresh pile of cow shit.

He let out the most blood-curdling scream Bertille had ever heard; she was sure it probably reached the entire other side of the farm. She winced- even if he wasn't so pampered, that was never fun. Preston started hyperventilating, flapping his hands and his makeup quickly becoming smudged and running with the tears rolling down his face. It was like a switch had flipped in him that he couldn't flip back.

"Ok, alright kid. Relax, you're fine," Bertille told him. She felt a little bad for him. Clearly he wasn't used to something like this happening at all. "There's a wash basin in the house and the stream's not far that way. Go ahead and wash up."

He nodded shakily, barely getting out a "Th-ha-ank you-u," through his sobbing.

Max, meanwhile, after trying a couple more puffs, set the pipe down next to the candle on the small table in Bertille's smoking area. He was pretty tempted to just ditch Bertille's chores... but she was proving to be kinda ok. 

After five minutes (or ten? Fifteen? It almost felt like an hour, but that seemed impossible), he finally stood up and started to wander towards the barn... and spotted the shed where Neil was working. He paused, thinking… and thinking… and thinking… and finally stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed over to see how Neil was doing and brag a bit.

When he reached the shed, he leaned against the door frame for… a while, at first waiting for Neil to notice him, then zoning out a bit. He shook his head and stepped closer to him. "Hey... Neil."

Neil jumped a little, finally looking up from the plow he was meticulously cleaning. "Oh! Hello, Max. I didn't hear you come in. What's up?"

Max leaned against the plow. "Eh, just getting out of work."

Neil sighed, shaking his head. "I should have known. Well, you're welcome to hang out. I don't mind your company. Just... keep it quiet. I have a headache."

"...Wanna try some of that plant I stole?"

Neil made a face. "I don't know anything about it, its side effects, or its dangers, so no. Besides- asthma, remember? I can't smoke anything."

"Oh, yeah," Max said, eyes widening a little. "...Forgot."

Neil watched him for a moment, eyebrows furrowing in concern. "...did you already try it?"

"Yeah, definitely. It's dope."

Neil's leg started bouncing from where he was sitting. "Shit. Ok. Um- how- how do you feel? Are you ok?"

Max shrugged, then tried to think. "I guess less like shit."

Neil shook his hands a bit. "Th-that's it? You don't- I don't know, you don't feel sick or anything?"

"...Nah. I could totally take a nap, though "

"I-is that a bad thing? Are you supposed to sleep if you're high? Or is it like a concussion?"

"Damn it, Neil, no. I could sleep, but I'm not missing out on this shit."

"Sorry! I- I'm jittery, I think..." Neil's leg was still bouncing, trying to let out some of his nervous energy.

Max rolled his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to stop being jittery when you work on machines?"

"I was, and then you showed up telling me you did drugs, and I'm having caffeine withdrawals on top of that."

"It's fine, I can't even get in trouble for it." Max shrugged off his concern.

"I'm not worried about you getting in trouble, Max! We get in trouble all the time! It could still hurt you, we don't know the side effects!"

"Fucking hell, I should have just gone back to work," Max mumbled, starting to head for the door.

"Max!" There was a slight hint of exasperation, but Neil still mostly sounded worried. He stood up, sighing and fidgeting with his shirt. "I'm sorry, I- I'm just worried... I know, you don't care, but we're still only kids... Are you sure you're ok...?"

Max stopped, thinking a little. "Well, like... are these bodies actually ours? If we lose an arm here, will it actually be permanent?"

"Well... I don't know... But I'm assuming our minds would stay the same, considering they didn't change from home to here... I'm pretty sure marijuana can permanently damage undeveloped brains."

"So does having a fucked-up childhood but that's already too late "

Neil fell quiet, chewing on his lip; that didn't really make him feel any better about the situation. "Just... please, be careful? Ok?"

"I always am," Max responded sarcastically.

"Max, I'm serious." Neil looked a bit desperate. "Dungeons and Dragons is dangerous enough as it is, we don't need to be adding more stuff."

"It's fucking fine. Hell, Bertille helped me use it."

"...she did?" Neil asked, biting his lip again. "Well... she is an adult, I guess... She would know... Maybe pipeweed isn't as harmful as marijuana, then...?"

"Just call it weed like a normal person."

"Fine, alright..." Neil tried to take some deep breaths, his leg bouncing a little less.

"Besides, dope isn't even dangerous."

"It can be if you're still young... No, I know it's not very dangerous, but there's still damage done to your brain if it's not done developing..."

"Just stop being lame already," Max complained, and Neil went quiet, shifting anxiously and watching the floor. He didn't mean to be lame, he just worried… Max finally decided to leave, just wanting to be out of this situation. "Later.”

Max slowly wandered back to the barn, forgetting about the altercation and his annoyance over it on his way. He reached the barn and watched Bertille sweeping for a moment before finally realizing something- or someone- was missing. "Where's Preston?"

"Fell in a big pile of fresh cow pie. He's off to get cleaned up," she stated, lightly chuckling at the memory as she swept.

Max let out a loud laugh. "Holy shit! Wish I'd been here to see that. Oh my god."

He kept laughing… and realized, after a few seconds, that he couldn’t stop. It quickly turned Bertille’s chuckles into laughter alongside him. Max was almost a little mad about it, not being able to stop laughing, but it was hard to stay mad at anything very long at the moment, and the laughter just kept building. 

" Fuck! "

"D-damn it, kid," Bertille laughed. "I- I've been holdin' this back t-too looong!"

" Sh-hu-ut u-up! " Max was trying so hard to stop laughing. He fell to the ground a little, folding into sitting criss-cross.

"I-I can't breathe! "

After another minute of uncontrolled laughter, Max stuffed his hoodie in his mouth, biting down hard to try and force himself to shut up. Bertille, only still standing because the broom was strong enough to hold her weight, was then also able to get her laughter under some control for the sake of oxygen. Max sat, breathing a little heavily after the laughing fit. Normally he would have felt embarrassed about laughing like that in front of someone, but not at the moment.

Once she felt confident enough to speak without laughing, Bertille managed to say, "You have no idea... how hard it was to not laugh like that when it happened. We had just gotten done talking about how he doesn't do shit."

"Oh god no, Preston's a sissy. He's like, every single gay stereotype ever all at once. I fucking hate it."

"Gay stereotype?" Bertille asked, not really sure if that was what she would consider a gay stereotype. "Just figured the kid's training to be a bard."

"Whatever the fuck that is." Max waved it off, very much forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to be telling them this. "He's just..." He stopped, trying to put it into words. "He's so gay. Like I'm gay too, fine whatever, but he's so gay it's nauseating. Or maybe that's just him. I can't stand him. Or Harrison or Nerris. They're all so annoying. Nikki is annoying too but she's fun about it. And Neil is a nerd but he's cute about it so he gets a pass." He was talking too much again, but he couldn't stop himself.

Bertille returned to sweeping, giving him an odd look. "I don't get what about being gay is nauseating. It's the pomper attitude and dramatic flair that's a bit much with Preston."

" Yeah, that's the gay part that's nauseating."

"...That's just bards."

"Whatever. He's annoying."

"He is, but at least he was willing to agree to some work."

"Really? You got him to?"

"Yes, but that was before he ate shit."

Max laughed again. "God I wish I could'a seen that."

Suddenly there was a loud shout over from the garden where Nerris was- something was wrong. Bertille jumped and was immediately running out of the barn to see what was going on, holding the broom like a makeshift weapon. Max groaned a little but followed her, realizing Nerris didn’t usually scream for no real reason like Preston did.

They reached the garden, greeted with the sight of the massively-overgrown plants and a panicked Nerris standing a good couple yards away, staring back at the plants with wide eyes.

"What the hell?" Bertille was shocked. Yeah, the elf might have stated they were a druid, but she hadn’t been prepared to see magic that strong going on here due to a little kid. Bertille quickly headed over to the fields to go see what got the kid screaming like that. Nerris spotted her and looked even more panicked.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Even with their parents being cool, teachers and other adults always would always get so mad when they messed up. "I was trying to cast it over eight hours but I messed it up and it did the instantaneous one instead!"

"Ok, calm down. We can... The crops look good... but you need to explain what you did..." 

Harrison arrived next, a little scratched up and disheveled, but seeming mostly unharmed from the rooster, almost alongside Neil. 

“What happened?”

"Are you ok?" Harrison asked Nerris. They nodded a little shakily. 

"I'm ok... Um..." They started flapping to calm back down. "I tried to cast Plant Growth, 'cause one way to use it is over an 8-hour period, and it'll enrich the plants for a year so they yield more food, but I got distracted, and it cast the instantaneous use instead, which just overgrows everything..."

"That's- You can do that?" Bertille asked incredulously.

"It's a third level druid spell..." Nerris shrugged a little.

"Ok... There's a lot more than just the crops in there right now, so we'll need to do some weeding..."

"Ok... Sorry..."

"At least the crops look good. Once we finish with the animals, we'll start weeding."

"Ok... Um... Should I- whaddya want me to do now?"

"You can either start weeding or come help us."

"I'll... I'll come help with animals."

"Ok. It's time to milk the cows."

"Booooo," Max complained. Nerris wrinkled their nose a little when they walked over to him and Bertille. 

"You smell weird."

Max shrugged. "It's natural."

Nerris eyed him, not sure what that meant.

"Um, I think I'm done with the chickens," Harrison spoke up. 

"You can join us too, then,” Bertille told him. 

Nerris looked Harrison over, tilting their head a little. "What happened to you?"

"The um... the rooster doesn't like me."

Max laughed again, and Nerris giggled a little. 

"Rooster's got good taste. You good?"

"I'm ok... Just a little scratched up." 

"I probably should've warned you about him. He's a good rooster and will defend his hens no matter what."

"It was fucking hilarious, you should have seen it,” Max told Nerris, still laughing.

"I guess it was," Harrison said quietly, rubbing his arm. With them being here being his fault, he didn't feel like saying anything against anyone. Nerris realized as they were all walking that he seemed upset, and they had an idea why. 

"Hey... it's just Max," they told him quietly. "Don't pay attention to stuff he says. I'm glad you ok, birds can be scary."

"It's fine," he said, not wanting it to be a problem.

"...if you're sure..." Nerris shrugged a little, going quiet. But Harrison said that a lot…

"... I've never touched a cow before. How do you milk them?" Harrison asked soon after, partly to change the topic, and partly to try and get ready for what they were doing. 

"I figured I'll be teaching all of you,” Bertille stated.

"I think you just squeeze the titties." Max kind of mimicked the motion. "I saw it on TV."

"There's more to it than that. You need to know how to stay safe during it, and you have to clean the teets first, then give Chauntea's share, and you need to know how to squeeze them."

"And it's not a boob, it's an udder," Nerris argued. Harrison flushed a little, looking at them oddly before quickly looking away. 

"Yeah, it's the cow's tit. Where do you think milk comes from?" 

"But it's called an udder. "

"Well, an udder is the whole thing. Teets are the individual nipples." Bertille explained. Harrison's blush got worse.

"Oh. I thought it was just called an udder." 

"But it's still the cow boob. That's why it makes milk or whatever." 

"...that does make sense," Nerris mumbled a little thoughtfully. "I just never thought'a it like that."

"Yeah, it is just a giant four-piece boob all merged together," Bertille agreed.

"...huh. Weird." Nerris shrugged a little.

"So I was right." 

"Alright, you right. It just never connected in my head that an udder is a boob."

Chapter Text

Bertille led the kids back over to the barn to finish up taking care of the big animals. Nerris looked around, noticing the absence of one of their friends.

“Hey, what happened to Preston?”

"He's washing up. Kid fell into some fresh shit."

Nerris snorted, holding back giggles. "O-oh... Pfft- is he ok?" Max started laughing again, which made Nerris giggle more. "Tha-at's not funny."

"Oh, he did it right after telling me he doesn't do literal shit," Bertille explained, amused. Nerris giggled even more. 

"Oh nooo... O-ok, he ain't here, I'm allowed to laugh..."

"Is he ok?" Harrison asked.

"It's just some cow dung, ain't gonna hurt nobody."

Taking care of the bigger animals and milking the cows went without incident, and before long the group was heading back to the garden after grabbing tools and gloves from the shed Neil was working in. Nerris got quieter as they approached, still feeling some RSD over messing up the plants.

"Ok, we're going to start with the corn over here," Bertille explained, showing the kids which plants they needed to protect via some that hadn’t been in the area of effect of Nerris's magic.

"Ok. What are we starting with?" Nerris asked. "Like, what are we doing?"

Something snapped with the overgrown mess and suddenly needles struck Nerris in the left shoulder and arm, each managing to get about an inch deep into their flesh. Nerris screamed as soon as they hit, very high-pitched, instantly crying from the pain and grabbing at their shoulder. 

"Holy fuck!" Max's eyes went wide as he jumped back. More needles flew in their direction, but were hindered by the overgrowth. Some managed to escape, only to hit the ground a few feet shy of the group. Bertille's eyes widened. 

"Shh, quiet, kids; go to the house," she suddenly said, serious and low.  

Nerris was sobbing pretty hard, but on the "quiet", bit onto their cape in an attempt to quiet down. Max stared around at the situation, in shock and not being able to fully process what happened. Harrison, after staring in terror for a moment at the needles that hit near him, swallowed and tried to direct Nerris to the house with him. He didn’t say anything, just motioned for them to follow. Nerris was quick to follow his guide, and after a moment, Max slowly joined them. On their way to the house, they met up with Neil, who had been on his way over to the garden. 

"What happened? Someone screamed- o-oh my g-d-" He went pale upon seeing the spikes in Nerris's arm, and his jaw dropped. "What- fuck- what happened? Are you ok?"

"I don't know... Bertille told us to go to the house," Harrison explained.

"Y-yeah- um- fuck. Ok. Let's- maybe we can, uh- let's try to get... that fixed up." Neil motioned to the needles, and Nerris quickly nodded in agreement, still sobbing. Harrison flapped his hands anxiously for a second before quickly stopping. 

"Um... maybe I can make them disappear?"

"Or I can just pull them out. Let's not fuck around with magic right now."

"...Where the hell did those come from?" Max asked, to no response, as he followed the group back to the house.

Neil told Nerris to sit down at the dining table while he looked around the house, trying to find a pair of pliers or tweezers, something to pull the needles out with. He knew there was a technique to removing porcupine quills, and he was just hoping it would work here, too.

Nerris sat down, rocking in their chair as the shock and sudden pain from the attack slowly weaned. It became a dull ache around the needles, which they were so acutely aware of in their arm. By the time Neil found a pair of tweezers and sat down beside them, their crying had slowed, although hadn’t completely stopped.

"Ok... this is probably going to hurt." 

Nerris nodded in response, biting onto their cape and screwing their eyes shut, still clinging to Harrison’s arm. They managed to hold still when Neil pulled out the first needle, although they did squeak a little. 

"Sorry!" Neil took a close look at it, confirming his suspicion. "Fuck... They're barbed. I was scared of that."

"What does that mean?" Harrison asked anxiously.

"They'll be harder to remove, and cause more damage on the way out than smooth needles." Neil held the needle up to show it to Harrison. "See the barbs? They're going to catch on what we try to pull them against- so, Nerris's skin. And them going through their sleeve won't help."

"...Are you sure I shouldn't try to make them disappear?"

"...Ergh-" Neil made a bit of a face. "Well- it's up to Nerris, I guess." 

"Y-yeah, you- you can disappear them... Let's do that."

"Ok, um..." Harrison took his hat off and carefully put it over the needles. "Ok..." He tried to feel for his magic inside him... and it felt a little off.... but he still tried to use it. He felt for the needles... and couldn't seem to get a magical grip on them or anything. "Um... Hold on..."

Nerris squirmed a little, able to notice that something was off. "Is everything good...?"

"I... don't know? My magic's not acting like normal..."

"What do you mean, "like normal"?" Neil asked slowly.

"It's not letting me feel around," Harrison explained, his brow furrowed as he continued to try.

"What does that mean?" 

"You can't feel your magic?" Nerris asked, worried. "Like, at all?"

"No, I feel the magic, but... it's not reaching out..."

" What the hell does that mean? "

"Well, to move things or pull things out to my... pocket, I have to grab things with my magic, but it's not... reaching the hand out to grab the needles or to let me open a hole right where they are..."

"So, like... you can feel it there, but can't... control it?" Nerris tried.

"It doesn't want to move."

"The magic... doesn't want to move?" Neil deadpanned.

"That's what it feels like," Harrison explained, slowly pulling the hat away so as not to accidentally bump the needles while he figured his magic out. "It's... like a rock right now?"

Neil rolled his eyes, moving to go back to pulling the needles out. 

"...we should... w-we should figure that out later..." Nerris said quietly, feeling uneasy about that.

"Yeah, um... After the needles..."

"Yeah. Alright, I'm going for the second one. Ready?"

Nerris tensed, biting down on their cape again and squeezing their eyes shut. "Mm-hm." 

Neil carefully grabbed the second needle close to Nerris's skin and quickly yanked it straight out. Nerris flinched. "Sorry. I need you to hold still; moving might make it worse."

Harrison hesitantly set a hand on top of the one gripping his arm, trying to be comforting.

"O-ok- sorry." 

"It's fine. Are you ready for the next one?" 

"Y-yeah, go for it." 

Neil pulled the next one, and Nerris flinched again, whimpering a bit and squeezing Harrison’s hand just a little. 

"We're almost done," Harrison stated quietly, rubbing at their hand.

"Mm-hm." Nerris nodded, wiping at their eyes. "Just- do it, get the last one out." 

Neil grabbed the last needle and pulled. Nerris flinched a little less and finally untensed, sighing in relief and letting out a sob as they did.

Max shifted awkwardly. "...Who's dealing with the bleeding?" He asked after a tense pause. He had plenty of experience taking care of injuries, but he didn’t think he could while he was this high.

"Hold on, I have healing spells..." Neil mumbled a little, digging through his pocket. "It doesn't look too bad, so... first level Healing Word?" 

"1d4 plus spell modifier," Nerris recited quietly. 

"Except I don't know my exact spell modifier, so... let's just hope it's enough."

"If not, we can just use another one, right?" Harrison asked.

"That too, yeah." Neil nodded. He held the spell paper to the wounds, feeling a bit awkward, and tried to cast it, but... "It's... not working?"

"Maybe you have to say something...?" Nerris guessed. "It is called Healing Word… "

"Yeah, Neil. It's called healing word," Max repeated, rolling his eyes a little. Making fun of him definitely helped Max's anxiety over the situation.

"Alright, ok! I... What am I supposed to say?" Neil sat in thought for a moment before coming to, what felt like, a very obvious conclusion. "Alright, um... תרפא את הפצע הזה."

Nerris' shoulder glowed in a gentle green light, the skin sealing the wounds and all pain from them easing to the point that anything remaining was purely neurological.

"Hey! That did it." Nerris smiled, very relieved that all the pain was gone. They moved their arm around a bit, sighing. "What'd you say?"

"I... kind of got the feeling that I just had to say "Heal the wound" in any language, so... I chose Hebrew." Neil shrugged a little.

"So... what the fuck happened?" Max asked again.

"Somethin'... shot at me, from the garden..." Nerris frowned, reaching over to grab one of the discarded needles and look it over. "It pro'ly grew when I messed up the Plant Growth spell... But I dunno what it would be."

"You don't recognize the spikes or something? You have a special interest, don't you?"

"I also got immense ADHD," Nerris deadpanned a little. "You know how much content D&D got?"

"Of course I don't, I'm not a nerd," Max said.

"That's why I ain't talking to you," Nerris responded. Neil sighed a little.

"Fair enough. There is a lot of content. ...I hope Bertille is ok, then…"

"She seemed to know what was going on," Harrison pointed out.

"Knowing what's going on and being able to adequately handle it are two different things."

"...should we... check on her...?" Nerris asked uneasily. They really didn't want to go near the garden again.

"She told us to come here…" Harrison said.

"Right... I guess we should wait for her, then..."

"Yeah... Stuff hurts a lot more when it's real and not a game..." Nerris rubbed at where the needles had been in their arm moments ago.

"...I'm sorry," Harrison said quietly.

"...for what?" Nerris asked.

"...for us being here…"

"You should be," Neil mumbled, and Nerris swatted at his arm.

"It was an accident, Harrison. You ain't mean to."

"It was still my fault…"

"Not on purpose."

"You still apologize for accidents," Neil said. "He should be sorry."

That comforted Harrison a little. It wasn't making him feel bad for his feelings of guilt, but also recognized it was an accident.

"...I guess..." Nerris fidgeted a little, leaning on the table.

The front door opened then and Bertille stepped in looking entirely unscathed. "I got the thorn slingers taken care of and it don't look like anything else is all that dangerous in there."

"Really? That feels fast. ...does it? ADHD time..."

"It was a little quick," Neil confirmed. "So, everything is alright?"

"Ah, just gotta know how to cut 'em. They are just plants, after all. Even with the taste for blood. "

"Taking the needles out felt like it took a while," Harrison pointed out, the anticipation and fact Nerris was hurting making it feel like it took longer. Nerris rubbed at their shoulder again, looking uneasy. 

"Yeah..."

"But I pulled them all out and applied a healing spell, so they should be back to full health," Neil said. "Er- so to speak."

Bertille considered him for a moment, and then the whole group of them. These kids were much stronger than they appeared. "Ok, yeah. Here, let me check just to be sure." Nerris tugged their sleeve down over their shoulder again, showing off that there were indeed no wounds."I'll be damned. Alright, then. Do you want to come out and try this again?"

Nerris rubbed at their shoulder anxiously. "Um... I guess…"

"Then come along," Bertille said, turning for the door.

"... Is it safe?" Harrison asked.

"As safe as it can be, as long as you don't go eating anything you don't recognize."

"That's like, the first rule of foraging," Nerris said quietly, going to follow her.

They spent the next few hours carefully pulling and digging up weeds from the field. Eventually Nikki and Arlen returned with a small variety of meat, and Bertille left the kids to continue weeding as she went to help Arlen skin the animals and work on getting them set up to be preserved. After, Arlen and Nikki were sent out to help with weeding as Bertille started cooking dinner. In the next hour until dinner was ready, the party relayed the story of the garden to Nikki, who whined about missing out on "the action."

By the time Bertille called them in for dinner, the weeds were mostly pulled, though the ground itself looked worse for wear. Everyone went in for dinner, washed their hands, and helped serve.

As he was grabbing silverwear, Neil spoke up, "Oh, um- can I ask again, what are the ingredients?"

"I figure you all deserved a bit of a treat. I fried up some rabbit with eggs, buttermilk, flour and some seasoning for the breading, with a side of vegetable and mushroom stir fry, and mashed potatoes."

Neil winced a little. "Shit. Um- I wish I had remembered to ask earlier... I- my religion is very specific on what foods we can and can't eat... And I can't eat rabbit, or meat mixed with milk…"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sure we can find something in the preserver cupboards you can have instead."

"Thank you, I really appreciate that. I could probably have some of the stir fry though, that sounds nice."

"Of course. I'd hate to have you accidentally upset your patron," Bertille said.

"Well, technically he's more of just a deity to me, since I'm not contracted to him..." Or really believe in him . "But, yes, thank you."

"Oh, sorry. You kids are pretty strong, I just assumed."

"Well, I'm an alchemist, not a warlock or a cleric."

"Oh, I didn't know. A lot of you adventurers look the same."

"How are you being racist without being racist?" Max asked, a little sarcastically. Nerris snorted, muffling their laughter into their hand.

"I wasn't talking about race," Bertille stated, confused.

"Exactly."

Nerris was quiet for a minute, trying to figure out if that statement would work for any D&D races. "It's like- that's somethin' different people tend to say to different races. Like me and my pop had a dwarf say that to us 'cause we elves." That wasn't completely wrong; the guy had been in a dwarf cosplay, but he hadn't said it because they were elves. "But you ain't said it about race. So "racist without being racist"."

"Nerris, don't explain the joke, that makes it not funny," Max complained.

"...that makes it funnier, though?"

"Oh, I guess that makes some sense," Bertille said thoughtfully. "But I really don't understand how some of the adventurer jobs are different. What makes a wizard different from a sorcerer?"

"Wizards study to learn their magic, sorcerers are born with their magic. Harrison's a sorcerer 'cause he was born with his magic."

"They both got magic, though?"

"Well yeah, but it's like- one's gotta learn the magic first, one could just always do magic. Like, wizards ain't inherently have magic, they gotta learn it."

"It's just odd. If someone can paint without training and if someone got taught, we call both of them painters."

"One is a self-taught painter, but they weren't born being able to paint. They just practiced a lot on their own."

"It's just semantics, really," Neil offered. "The magic classes can be thought of as classification on where or how you acquired your magic."

Bertille rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. But if you call a cleric a warlock, they get all bent out of shape."

"I can see that." Nerris nodded. "Clerics usually work with "good" patrons and warlocks with "evil" patrons."

"Eh, we never got into any religion stuff. Labeling gods as good or evil isn't really our thing."

"Yeah, same," Nerris agreed. "I just, um... I really like learning 'bout races and classes."

"Well, that's not a bad thing," Bertille agreed as everyone else finished getting to the kitchen from washing hands or the like from working in the dirt all day.

As Bertille was getting everyone dished up, she explained what she was treating them with, wanting to also make sure she wouldn't be getting them in trouble with whatever lifestyles they had. Harrison paled when he heard the main dish, looking a little horrified. 

"I-It's... rabbit?"

"What are you, deaf? She just said that," Max said.

"That's- I-I... I don't think I can eat that," Harrison stated shakily.

"Why not?" Neil asked, a little confused.

"It was a rabbit," Harrison whispered.

"What, do you want a sticker or something?" Max asked sarcastically. "Holy shit, an animal used to be an animal."

"Yeah, I didn't think C- your religion had any restrictions on food."

"...you ain't wanna eat rabbit 'cause you have one as a pet, huh?" Nerris asked.

Harrison rubbed the back of his head. "It just... feels wrong, thinking of Dio and all…"

"Who?"

"His pet bunny," Nerris answered Max.

"I... I've sent pictures of him in our Discord…"

"I don't pay attention to people's pets."

"...I do think I remember seeing him..." Neil said.

"Oh..."

"What's your "discord"?" Arlen asked.

"...uh-" Nerris wasn't sure how to explain that one.

"Oh, uh, it's a sort of... magic mailing list thing!" Preston exclaimed.

"Oh- yeah! And we all send mail to each other. We just call it our discord 'cause it's very discord...ic..."

"The word you're looking for is "discordant"," Neil offered.

"Oh, that's nice. I wish more of my kids sent mail more regularly," Bertille stated.

"Aww, I'm sorry…"

"It's alright, they're out living their own lives now."

"I'm sure they're just busy, probably," Neil agreed.

"Of course they are. And mail isn't always going to make it to where you send it."

"That's true too."

"Wait, where else would it go?" Nikki asked.

"It's not unheard of a mail carrier going missing, especially when delivering mail from one city to the next."

"Oooh! Mysterious!" Nikki's eyes shone.

"Or just a monster attack," Nerris countered.

"We're pretty sure many are just falling victim to monsters," Arlen agreed.

"Yeah, D- this world can be really dangerous," Nerris told Nikki. "Like what happened earlier…"

"This world?" Arlen whispered, confused.

"And that plant thing yesterday!" Nikki added.

"Yeah, and that."

"Yeah, dying to a monster attack isn't... very unheard of." Neil scratched the back of his head nervously.

Harrison shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah... Who knows what you'll face next..."

A tense, nervous silence fell over the group.

It was still tense and quiet that night as the party settled into bed, just until Nerris spoke up with a nervous, "Um… Harrison?"

"Yes?" He responded, turning to look at them.

"...so, your... your magic wasn't... moving?"

"Oh... Yeah, it wasn't."

"...why? Because that don't sound good."

"I don't know." He tried to feel around with it again. "It's still not working…"

"That's... not good..."

"Ok, so- what does that mean, exactly?" Neil tried to ask again.

"It means... my magic isn't working right."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. It hasn't done this before…"

"...can you- you can use... D&D magic, right?" Nerris asked.

"I don't know? I just... I thought it'd be like... normal magic."

"You ain't tried casting any sorcerer spells yet?"

"How do you do that?"

"You just... do it, I think?"

"That's how my magic works, but there's... You can feel it... Like moving your hand, but my hand's not moving…"

"I just kinda... When I did the Plant Growth spell, I just kinda focused on it- well, not very well, I think that's why it went wrong- but I just did it."

"...What did it feel like?"

"It kinda... felt like a burst?"

"That's what he said,” Preston joked. Max snorted, not prepared for that at all, and Nerris looked at Preston, very confused. 

"...I'm they. You know that."

"A different he, dear," Preston said, a little too pleased with himself for getting Max to laugh.

"...who else would say it?" 

"Just ignore them, Nerris." Neil sighed at the immaturity.

"It's a boy joke." 

"What does it mean?" Harrison asked.

"Can't we focus on the magic issue instead?" Neil insisted. 

"Why do jokes have gender now?"

"Well, you see, when a boy-" 

"Shut up, Preston,” Max groaned. “No one wants to hear that talk, especially from you.”

" Yes, please shut up," Neil agreed. "Nerris, it's really not that funny of a joke, I promise. You're not missing out."

"Aw, you two are no fun." Preston pouted.

"Can we focus on the magic issue, please?"

"Um... sure?" Harrison said, very much unsure.

"Uh- yeah, maybe you should see if you can do D&D magic," Nerris suggested. "And see if it feels like your magic or not."

"But... how do I do it if I can't move my magic?"

"If Nerris, Preston, and I can all use Dungeons and Dragons magic without ever having access to whatever the fuck you can do, then it makes sense that you can use the same form of magic without your "real magic"."

"I-I guess so," Harrison nervously mumbled. He didn't know how to do it though, and it was giving him anxiety.

"Maybe try somethin' that you could already do with your real magic?" Nerris suggested. "Fire Bolt, Prestidigitation, Invisibility... Those're all sorcerer spells and magic you could already do."

"Um... I guess I can try that..."

"It's worth a shot."

Harrison got up from his sleeping spot. "Um... what should I try? ...I shouldn't be doing Fire Bolt in here, I think."

"Invisibility shouldn't be too damaging," Neil said.

"Ok. Um..." He looked around for something he could disappear that he wouldn't be worried about if things went wrong.

"Here, try it on one of these." Nerris grabbed and offered one of their hay dolls from the previous night.

"Thanks... Um... should I try hiding it?"

Nerris shrugged. "Couldn't hurt, I guess?”

"Ok." With that, Harrison placed the doll in his hat and tried to calm his nerves. He focused on his hat, trying to get his magic to reach out and cover the doll. But it wasn’t working, and he just really needed it to turn invisible right now, but it wasn’t- he felt the magic inside him slip, unlike but still recognizable as magic getting out... and it tingled throughout his body, the tingling sensation pausing on his skin for a moment before settling into a comfortable warmth. 

"Oh!" Nerris' eyes went wide. "Ooh!" 

"Hey, you're glowing!" Nikki called out.

"Huh?" Harrison looked up. 

"Oh my god, you're dazzling!" Preston cheered. Harrison looked at his hand holding his hat and took a small step back. 

"...Oopsie."

"I think that's the opposite of invisibility, actually," Neil deadpanned. 

"Maybe, but it means you can still do magic!" Nerris grinned and flapped a bit.

"But... Maybe I don't have an invisibility spell." Harrison seemed especially nervous.

"Mm... maybe not? You don't get every single spell at every level, you pick and choose them. Maybe you got other spells."

"What one makes you glow?"

Nerris thought for a minute. "...Prestidigitation, maybe? A harmless sensory effect... But that ain't quite right, either... The lights spell, maybe, but it don't work on living things... Maybe you still got wild magic?"

"...Yeah, that makes sense..." Harrison’s anxiety was getting worse. Not only could he not do magic the way he knew, if he was constrained to typical wild magic rules, he couldn't control, predict, nor do his magic in a way that was safe or get them back home.

"I know we wrote out rules for your magic once, I wonder if you rollin' those?" Nerris tapped their hands together thoughtfully. "What were they? Weren't you rollin' percentiles to see if the magic went right?"

"Um... there was a 5% failure thing with 5% added on for every person watching."

"Yeah! So then you probably just rolled the failure rate just now."

"That makes sense..." "Do you wanna try another spell? You'll probably roll better this time. Rollin' below 5 on a D100 twice in a row is like... a really low chance. Probably."

"Well, now it's a 5% chance since you already rolled below 5 the first time," Neil stated.

"But it happening twice in a row ain't very likely."

"While it is a .25% chance to do that twice in a row, since it already happened the first time, it's up to a 5% chance now."

"...that don't make sense."

"Well, you see, we've already taken away a lot of other probabilities, like getting both rolls above 5%."

"...ok..." Nerris said slowly. “I think… Ok yeah, I get that…”

"Can we stop with the math class?" Max asked impatiently.

"Ok, well, it still ain't likely in the first place. So you probably won't fail another magic roll."

"Ok... I'll try invisibility again..." Harrison took a breath. At least he had this magic, even though he couldn't actually use it in a way to get them home... yet…

He reached in and pulled the doll out, to find that it was now certainly invisible. Nerris grinned and clapped a little. 

"So you can do some magic! That's better than nothin'."

"Yeah," Harrison said, still stressed.

"But he can't do the magic that can get us home?" Neil clarified.

Harrison shrank a little. Someone said it. Now everyone would know that he probably trapped them there for good.

"Uh- mm- well, maybe you just gotta practice somehow?" Nerris tried. "You said you can still feel your magic, so it ain't like it gone."

"No, but... it's... It's the D&D magic, I think..."

"...there is some D&D magic that could... get us home..." Nerris said slowly. "But it's a really really difficult spell, and it could really hurt whoever casts it..."

"What is it?"

"The Wish spell. It can do pretty much anything, right down to altering the very foundations of reality, to the DM’s discretion. But you can't learn it until level 17, at least..." 

"Ah, shit." Neil sat back a little in shock.

“Is that bad?” Nikki asked.

"...That's not really easy to get to..." Harrison mumbled.

"Exactly," Nerris worried. "It's a possible way to get home, but ain't no way we can get you to that level anytime soon."

"Is there some other way to get a wish?" Preston asked.

"There are some items that can give you a Wish, but they all really rare and ain't all guaranteed to give you a Wish…"

"Well, it's D&D and we're clearly adventurers, so finding rare things is natural for us, right?" Preston pointed out.

"Yeah, but in real time? Campaigns can take place over several years in-game..." Neil worried.

"Really?" Preston asked, pretty sure they usually spanded over a few months.

"My pop's party had a campaign that lasted at least a year IRL, and it was several years in-game…"

Harrison shifted uncomfortably. Several years was... a lot... 

"I swear, if we're trapped here for fucking years-" Max grumbled.

Neil groaned a bit. "I can't fucking believe this. Great going, Harrison."

"He ain't mean to!" Nerris said defensively. They could bully Harrison, but anyone else being mean to him got them defensive. Harrison shrunk in on himself a bit; it was nice that someone was willing to defend him. 

"That doesn't change the fact that we're stuck here, potentially for years, because of his fucking magic! " Neil was getting angry. It had been a stressful day, and he was already stressed over being so heavily involved with the "magic" that he hated so much. It didn't make sense how they got there, and now they couldn't even get home.

Harrison swallowed and managed to force out, "I-I'm sorry..." 

"Guys, it's time to try and get some semblance of beauty sleep in this barn, so please start shutting up," Preston complained. Nerris glared at Neil once last time before pouting and moving to set up their bed. 

" Fine. "

Nerris woke up from their meditation to find Harrison missing from the barn. They quickly got up and grabbed their sword, heading out of the barn to try and find him, a little worried- considering what Arlen had said about something attacking his family members- but also hoping that Harrison had just decided to leave on his own accord because of what happened.

After a bit of searching, Nerris finally managed to find Harrison by the chicken coup. He was sitting against the fence, his legs tucked into himself as he hugged said legs, resting his head on his knees. Nerris sighed in relief, slowly approaching him where he was sitting. 

"Harrison?" Harrison shrunk up a little, not at all ready to deal with anyone. Unfortunately, Nerris didn't notice, and sat down almost next to him. "Hey, are you ok?"

"...No..."

Nerris frowned. "What's wrong?"

"...I can't fix this..."

"...oh..." Nerris shifted anxiously, not really sure what to say. They weren’t very great at comforting, as much as they wanted to be. "Well... we'll figure it out, I'm sure! We're good at that."

"How? I can't... I can't use my magic...."

"Well... now more of us have magic, too! And maybe we'll get really lucky and we'll be able to get a Wish soon."

"What if that doesn't work? What if my magic was the only way out?"

Nerris was quiet, not really sure how to answer that. It was really exciting, being inside their special interest, but... they would start to miss their parents and the rest of the campers, they knew that.

"...I just want to fix this..."

"...I'm sorry..." Nerris mumbled, drawing in the dirt a little. "I... I don't know how you would..."

Harrison looked up at the moon. One thing about this place, the stars were especially easier to see, even more so than camp. It was beautiful, but just felt like a bigger reminder that this wasn't where they should have been.

"...d'you wanna hug me?" Nerris asked quietly. "Or... do you just wanna sit here for a bit?"

Harrison sniffled a little. "...Hug you..."

Nerris scooted closer to let him hug them. "Y'want me to hug back or no?"

"No." Harrison let go of his legs to hug them, closing his eyes as he did so. Nerris nodded and leaned into the hug, fidgeting with their cape to keep their hands busy. After a few minutes, he whispered, "Ok... maybe a little hug back..."

Nerris smiled and hugged him back, making sure to not touch his back and not hug too tightly. After a few more minutes, Harrison mumbled, "Thanks... I... I really appreciate this..."

"Yeah, of course... I ain't like when you feel sad..."

The last part did make him feel responsible for his mood bringing down Nerris's. "...Sorry…"

"You ain't gotta be sorry..." Nerris shifted a little, but stayed in the hug. "Just- whatever I can do to help you feel better."

"...But it's all my fault…"

"...it already happened... I guess I don't see the point in beatin' yourself up about it now... That ain't gonna change nothing."

Harrison shifted a little uncomfortably. Beating himself up after his magic went really wrong was just how things were done... right?

"...we'll figure it out, Harry... We usually do."

"...It took so long to bring my brother back..." Harrison sniffled, his eyes watering. "I don't want that again…"

"...I know..." Nerris mumbled. After another minute, Harrison let Nerris go and they sat back, rocking a little. "How are you feeling...?"

"Mm... Better, I think?"

"That's good." Nerris smiled a bit. "Have you... gotten any sleep yet? D'ya wanna head back to the barn?"

"...I haven't..."

"If we headin' into town in the morning, you might wanna try... Probably gonna be a busy day."

"...Yeah... Ok..."

Nerris stood back up and offered a hand to help Harrison up, too. He smiled up at them and took their hand.

Chapter Text

The cart rattled down the road, brimming with kids, preserved animal products, and crops. Early in the morning before any kids awoke, Arlen and Bertille had gone and picked some of the crops Nerris grew the day before. Each of the kids found themselves sitting on the crates trying not to fall off, except for Nikki, who was sitting next to Arlen at the front of the cart and learning about how to drive horses.

Nerris was practically bouncing with excitement over heading into the village, and had quickly gotten into a bit of an infodump to anyone who would listen- so, really only Preston and Harrison. Max was half asleep beside them, and only tolerating overhearing it because he had smoked again so he wouldn’t have a bad caffeine headache. His hand fidgeted with the stolen pipe in his pocket.

Neil, while he did still have a headache from caffeine withdrawals, wasn't so annoyed over the infodumping, "As long as you keep it down, please." He fully understood the urge to infodump, and Nerris had sat through plenty of his own infodumping sessions.

As they rolled on, a few minutes into the journey, everyone in the back of the cart began to hear some singing in the distance, steadily getting louder. The voices seemed quite gruff, even with it being more distant. Nerris wiggled their ears a bit and started turning, trying to find what direction the singing was coming from. 

"Oh thank g-d," Neil said, noticing them looking around, "you hear it, too."

"What is that?" Harrison asked. 

"It sounds like singing," Max mumbled, not interested.

"Yeah... Maybe someone else is out riding into town or something?" Nerris guessed. 

"Bertille did say there were others who lived around here..." Neil added.

"If it were anything dangerous, Arlen would probably turn around..." Harrison said, a little doubtful, since this was D&D and encounters were usually encouraged for players' interest.

"Right..." Neil agreed, then yawned a little. "I hope it's nothing... It's too early and I'm too uncaffeinated for an encounter..."

"I'd say singing is a sign of good jolly folk, but something does sound off about it," Preston stated.

Nerris shifted a little, bouncing in their seat. "...it sounds like an adventure."

"Not if we avoid it." Max rolled his eyes.

"Well where's the fun in that?" Nerris pouted.

"Survival," Neil deadpanned. "We barely got through our last two fights. We should at least get more weaponry and practice before we go looking for trouble."

"Oh, you're just a bunch of spoil sports," Preston scoffed. 

"Um, maybe we should wait a bit longer," Harrison hesitantly offered.

"We need to be better prepared before we start random adventures," Neil insisted.

"I don’t wanna starve because you can't wait until we get to civilization to go fucking with whatever the hell is out there," Max deadpanned.

Nerris pouted, folding their arms and sitting back in their seat. "Fine, whatever..." 

"Trust me, we'll have plenty of opportunity for adventures and encounters."

"We should probably get a few healing potions before looking into anything," Harrison pointed out.

"That's an excellent idea," Neil agreed.

"Well, I'm already bored back here," Preston announced.

"How much longer 'til we get to town?" Nerris called to Arlen.

"Uh... 'bout half an hour?" Arlen called back, sounding a bit unsure.

"That ain't too long," Nerris said to Preston. "You'll be fine. Maybe we can play a car ride game!”

"Ooh! What game?" Preston asked excitedly. 

Max groaned. This is gonna be a long 30 minutes.  

Just about half an hour later, the campers were still playing a lackluster game of I Spy.

"I spy with my little eye," Preston drawled, before pausing for dramatization, "...something tall."

"Is it another tree?" Neil deadpanned, holding his head in his hands.

"Yes, but which one? This tree," he said, motioning to one of many nearby trees, "or not this tree, that is the question."

"You've made that joke three times already, and it's still not funny," Neil said. 

"Jesus christ, can't you all just shut the fuck up and, I don't know, take a nap or something?" Max snapped.

Nerris perked up a little, ignoring Max. "Hey! I spy something that looks like a town!" They pointed out the buildings approaching in the distance.

"Hey, it's not your turn yet." Preston pouted. 

"No, they're right, we're almost there," Harrison agreed, pointing.

"Fucking finally! " Neil sighed in relief.

"Can that really be called a town?" Max asked, the town in question looking even smaller than the "town" Sleepy Peak, which Max barely recognized as a form of civilization. 

"Depends on the population," Neil said. "It could be a village, with anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand residents. Anything less than a village can be considered a hamlet."

"Oh, a Hamlet!? Now, why are they called that?" Preston asked, his hands in fists as they were held up by his shoulders in eager anticipation.

"Well, the word in this context comes from the Anglo-Norman or Old French hamelet , which is a diminutive of hamel, meaning a little village-"

"Neil, he's not actually interested in your little tirade about word meanings and shit," Max interrupted. "He just wanted something stupid and Shakespeare."

Neil sighed. "I figured, but he asked, so I answered. It's not my fault if he doesn't get what he wanted from that."

"Actually, I love learning about old words and how to use them," Preston stated, putting his hands on his hips dramatically and his elbows getting too far into Harrison's space, who scrunched up a little but didn't say anything.

Neil blinked a little, not used to someone so actively interested in his infodumps. "Oh- uh, well- the exact definition can change depending on location, as well. For example, in British geography, a hamlet is smaller than a village and distinctly without any place of worship."

"Smaller than a village, and without a church, got it. I'll need to find somewhere to use that!"

"Church or any other place of worship. So, say, a location with a synagogue but no church wouldn't be a hamlet." 

"Isn't that just another kind of church?" Preston asked.

"It's a Jewish house of worship; churches are Christian."

"Oh... I thought they were all churches," Preston stated, thinking that over.

"Yeah, Christians tend to center themselves in the world."

"And they have erased, whitewashed, or entirely rewritten everything that wasn't made by them," Preston agreed.

"...yeah, exactly." Neil blinked again, nodding in agreement.

Max glanced between the two. "...You gotta be fucking kidding me."

"What? He's right; and most people really don't know or acknowledge all that."

"Yeah, and he's Preston. " 

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Preston asked, eyes narrowing.

"Yes, and I can admit when people I don't like are right." Neil folded his arms.

Max rolled his eyes. "You're just gonna feed his big ego." 

"Well, it is pretty big," Preston agreed, sounding a bit proud of himself. 

"See?"

"Yeah yeah, white Christians suck and y’all hate each other, we get it," Nerris interrupted. " But we here! In town! Let's go do adventures!" 

"And shopping," Neil added. 

"And shopping!”

"Are you sure?" Harrison asked. "I don't really have much to spend... I think." He pulled out his wallet again to open the coin slot.

"We need food, at the very least," Neil said. 

"And soap and hair care stuff." 

"Right; the essentials."

"And please, for the love of God, we need some changes of clothes, " Preston complained. "I can smell all of us and it is not pleasant!"

"I would really appreciate some fresh clothes and a shower," Neil sighed. "I'm starting to feel my skin, and I hate when that happens.”

"At least I've taken one bath... Fuck, am I actually glad I fell in manure?" Preston looked down at himself in horror.

Nerris giggled again. "Aw, I'm still sad I ain't got to see that…”

The wagon came to a stop in town. A moment later, Arlen called to them, "Alright, time to hop out so we can grab the goods." 

Nikki jumped down from her seat in the front, shaking her head excitedly. Nerris was quick to climb out of the back of the wagon, and Neil and Max slowly followed. Preston was quickly out of the wagon too, ready to stretch his legs, and Harrison brought up the rear. Arlen directed each of them to a task to help unload; however, it had only been a minute or so before-

“Hey, where’d Max and Neil go?” Nikki spoke up, looking around curiously.

“Hey!” Harrison patted his pockets anxiously, noticing the difference in weight. “My wallet’s gone!”

Max proudly showed off his prize to Neil as they escaped from the party, and Neil sighed a little.

"How did I end up dating a criminal?"

"We literally stole and crashed a bus together when we met," Max pointed out.

"...Touché." Neil nodded. "I'd say you're a bad influence, but I have always tended to lean into the mad scientist vibe... I played too much Portal when I was six." 

"Portal?" 

"...don't tell me I haven't talked to you about Portal yet." Neil's eyes went wide.

"You haven't."

"Oh my g-d. How haven't I-? It's been over a year! " Neil really couldn’t believe he hadn’t brought the game up in so long. "Ok well, it's a video game that came out in 2007 that takes place in this abandoned unethical laboratory, and now it's run by this robot AI who's running experiments on the last human test subject left-"

"Can I at least get some fucking coffee first before you do your whole thing on it?" Max interrupted.

Neil’s face fell and his dino arms got tighter. "S-sorry- um- yes, that's- I can infodump later..."

"Come on, let's see if this place sells any," Max said, motioning to the front of the place Arlen and the rest of the party were delivering stuff to. Neil nodded, deciding to follow his lead for now. They entered the building, just to find that it was more like a medieval grocery store than anything they could get a drink from. “Ugh. They’re not gonna have any coffee here.”

"They might sell some we can keep to brew over the next few days..." Neil suggested quietly.

Max internally groaned, having really been hoping to have a drink within the next two minutes. "Yeah, ok, let's find some."

"Or we can... look around after we get some to drink somewhere else…”

"Yeah, that way we don't have to carry it. Come on." Max quickly turned around. Neil followed him again, nodding in agreement. That did sound like a much better plan.

They walked down the street together, keeping an eye on the buildings they were passing, until Neil pointed out the third building down as they passed it. “This place looks like they might have coffee."

"Thank fuck, let's go."

Neil led the way inside and found a spot for them to sit at that didn't seem too loud. He scanned the place while they waited to be served, trying to keep track of and be aware of everything. It seemed to be an inn and diner/tavern place; there were some stairs in the back that led to a second floor, and various bottles of alcoholic beverages behind the main counter, alongside a board with four different keys. Over by the entrance, there was a corkboard with various flyers. One seemed to be for a missing pet- but the “photo” had clearly been drawn by a young child, making it hard to tell what species “Splinter” was.

The decor around the diner inn was sparse, too. There were a couple taxidermied things; a rabbit on the edge of the counter, a deer head hung on the wall, and a deep crow hung from the ceiling, as if it were about to reach out and strike at whoever entered. Dark and hidden in the shadows on the high ceiling, it was easy enough to miss, but once noticed it wasn't ignored easily; the large monster had an impressive, imposing presence.

Neil nodded a little, satisfied, and sat back against his seat. It seemed like a normal diner- normal for Dungeons and Dragons, anyway- and nothing stood out to him as too anxiety-inducing.

An older, human-looking woman approached them. "What are you kids doing in these parts?" By her apron, it was pretty clear she was working there.

"Um... Just- looking to get some coffee..." Neil answered, a little uneasily. That hadn’t been the question he had been expecting.

"You're in this town... to just get coffee?" 

Max rolled his eyes. "Yeah, coffee. That's all we want."

"We're just... We're tired from the trip. If you wouldn't mind, we're not much in the mood for conversation. I'm sorry."

"So, just two coffees?"

"Yes please." Neil nodded. "And, um- do you have anything you can add? Like, sugar or creamer?"

"We got sugar. That will cost an extra copper."

"Ok- one with sugar then, please."

"Mm hm. And for you?" 

"Black as my soul," Max responded, evoking a deep sigh from Neil. The waitress raised an eyebrow, then shook her head a little and headed back to make those up.

"And you call me cringy," Neil mumbled playfully.

"What?"

""Black as my soul." Really?"

"Yeah. That's not cringe if it's true."

"That's definitely cringe."

"No it's not."

Neil shook his head a little. "So, what's the plan? Coffee, then buy some at that store, and find the party again?"

"That works," Max agreed. "If anyone gets pissy, we just tell them how ready we were to kill them if we didn't get coffee soon."

Neil laughed a little. "That's not inaccurate. Preston was really getting on my nerves there." 

Max smiled a little at Neil's laugh. "I was ready to kill anyone. I can't believe they started playing fucking I Spy."

"There was nothing to even spy! "

"It's a forest going by at, like... what, 15 miles an hour? Of course there's nothing to spy."

Neil sighed in agreement. "They better figure out another game to play if we have to travel again. I can't sit through another round of tree-only I Spy."

"I will push someone out of the wagon next time."

Neil chuckled again. "Good."

A younger waitress came back to their table, one that had just come into the restaurant from the back. She approached holding some sort of block. "Excuse me, little one." 

Max sighed irritably. "What?" 

"Would you like a booster seat?"

Neil stifled his laughter against the back of his hand as Max looked up at her, more than a little affronted. Yeah, the table was fucking huge and hard to comfortably reach, but- 

"No, fuck off."

"We're- we're good, thanks," Neil managed to get out through his laughter.

"Oh, ok then. Did Madrid get your orders already?"

"Someone did take our orders, yes." Neil nodded a little, still grinning. "Thank you, though."

"Alright! If you need anything else, feel free to hollar." And with that, she headed off to help someone else that had just walked in.

"Well, that was... something."

"A fucking booster seat. What am I, three?"

Neil laughed again. "Well, no, but you are... well, like, a foot tall."

"This is such fucking bullshit," Max grumbled, folding his arms. The older woman that took their order approached with a tray. 

"Here's that coffee, and some sugar," she said as she set the items down, along with a spoon. 

"Thank you." Neil nodded, taking his cup and stirring in the sugar. "Well, you are a halfling..."

"Will that be all for today?" Madrid asked.

"Yes, I think so." Neil nodded.

"Alright, that will be 7 copper."

"Yeah yeah. Here." Max pulled out Harrison’s wallet and opened up the button. It was pretty easy to tell which pieces were copper, and he pulled out enough to pay. 

"Thank you. Enjoy your coffee."

Neil sipped at his cup, sighing in relief. "Oh, sweet caffeine..."

Max took a huge swig. It wasn’t nearly as strong as he had been hoping for, and it tasted like the beans themselves were lower quality than what he was used to, but that didn't matter- finally, a cup of fucking coffee. "Finally. I already feel better."

"Mm-hm," Neil hummed in agreement, in the middle of another sip. "No more withdrawal."

Max took another sip, savoring it more slowly the second time. Once he was done, he contemplated hoping for Neil to forget that he was allowed to talk about his game thing now, but eventually he sighed. "Alright, tell me about your... portal thing."

Neil perked up, quickly finishing his sip and setting the cup down. "Oh! Alright! Let's see, where to start...? Well, it's a game that came out in 2007, where you play as a human lab rat with a portal gun. You work on puzzles that require you to bend space to solve. 

“Now, the scientist watching you is a huge AI named GLaDOS, which stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. She ends up trying to kill you when she's done testing and you have to escape and destroy her. It turns out that the whole facility is a giant self-sustaining science corporation that is still running after the apocalypse in a different game franchise, Half Life, and there's absolutely nothing ethical about the tests going on at Aperture. 

“I used to want so badly to be GLaDOS someday, because she's actually an AI that was a human, in that she got her brain scanned and coded into AI, and if I was an AI with no bounds by human laws or urges to follow human morals, I could test anything and everything I wanted to, but with GLaDOS she got a few wires crossed and kinda stopped enjoying the actual science part of it and was more into the thrill of watching people solve life-and-death puzzles, which really doesn't help with inventing new things or discovering new things, especially if you're only doing case studies with one person. It proves that the puzzle is possible to solve, but that was clearly already known."

Max was half-listening as he drank the rest of his coffee, somewhat trying to understand what Neil was saying, but he kept getting lost and didn't really care enough to clarify anything.

"There ended up being three video games- but The Lab is more of a VR example than a full game- and a board game where you play as the scientist trying to get more testing done than your competitors. There's also comics following the experiences of Doug Rattman, a schizophrenic scientist that's working to help and save Chell behind the scenes. And recently this huge mod got released called Portal Stories: Mel, and even though it's fan made, a lot of fans take it as canon since it's pretty well made, adds to what's already there, and the creator makes a lot of Portal fan content that's actually really high quality."

"Mm-hm, wow," Max remarked.

"I really like it since the puzzles are harder and it won the Best Fan Creation award for The Game Awards 2015. It's really just one of the best game franchises and really inspired me to get so good at coding AI. I'm still trying to figure out the secret to bend space to make a portal gun actually work."

"...so- what... what's a portal gun?"

"That's how you control the portals in the game; you shoot it at surfaces that the portals can be stable on."

"...ok..."

Neil took a moment to sip at his coffee, analyzing that "ok." "Hmm... Was that an “I don't actually care” ok, an “I'm not sure what was being said” ok, or was it something else?"

"...uh-" Max still wasn't used to Neil just blatantly asking stuff like that. People didn't usually do that. "I dunno. I mean- I don't care, but you do, so... you can talk about it. Or whatever."

"Well... How much do you want to understand? Or do you just want to listen at the most basic level?"

"I don't know. Jesus. You say whatever you wanna say about it, I'm not gonna stop ya." Max wasn’t sure why Neil was trying to look too much into it. Even just letting him talk so much about something Max didn’t care about was a big deal; you didn’t just deal with that if it wasn’t someone you really liked.

"So basic listening. So, yeah, the series really got me into AI coding. Even more into robotics, but in a less android type of way. GLaDOS is the greatest evil scientist villainess of all time, and for anyone that thinks otherwise, may they find themselves turned into a potato and tossed down a pit like her."

"... a potato? ”

"In the second game, she gets downloaded into a potato battery and tossed down a pit with you and you have to work alongside her. I was so upset because I thought they were going to ruin her character with a redemption arc thing, but she set things right in the end."

"...and this is- like- a smart science thing? 'Cause that sounds fucking stupid."

"This other idiot AI downloaded her into a potato battery as revenge.”

"...huh."

"But we got our revenge on him in return," Neil added smugly. "We shot him into space."

"Damn."

"Yeah. Also, there's this one AI in it that is literally just Space Kid but on too much coffee. He got shot into space with the intelligence-dampening sphere."

"I hate that one already."

"Same."

Max finished off his coffee, sighing. "Damn, I missed coffee."

"Me too... I've been treating this as minor practice for when I start Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av. At least with the other fasts I can just wake up early and have some coffee before sunrise." 

"Mm, what are those ones again?"

"Our major fast holidays. For both of them, you can't eat or drink anything from sundown to sundown, unless it would harm your health in some way."

"Unless it harms your health? Aren't you the one always telling me starving myself is " always harmful"?"

"Starving yourself is different from fasting."

Max scoffed. "Tell that to my parents."

"I'd say call them, but..."

Max rolled his eyes a bit. "Yeah yeah, other dimension or whatever. And the less I have to talk to them anyway, the better."

"...And I don't want them taking it out on you for something I said." 

They just look for excuses. They'd do it anyway even if you didn't say anything. "...yeah."

Neil felt there was a little something hiding behind that yeah, but he would rather not uncover it right now. Instead, he took a moment to finish his coffee in awkward silence. Max stared a bit at his empty coffee cup as he waited. One good thing about being so small- he only needed one cup to feel the effects of two.

"So, um... should we start heading back?" Neil proposed.

"Yeah, fuck it. Let's get outta here." Max jumped down from his seat.

As they walked out, Max was very aware of the looks that they were getting- something that made it clear that it was not a normal small town "What are these outsiders doing here?" kind of look; something much more than that. He kept a nonchalant gait as they headed out of the diner, but he was a little tense and ready to react, just in case something happened. 

Neil in general didn't like "I feel like I'm being watched", since he was usually far too aware of other people perceiving him, and it always put him on edge; and he could feel that feeling now. Why were people watching him? Did he look too autistic or too Jewish or too gay? Were any of those a bad thing to these people?

As the door closed, Max thought about what might have happened there, and things seemed to click into place. If he barely understood what Neil was talking about, and he was from where that Portal game existed, what the hell would these idiots think about some sci-fi video game from a different world? And Neil hadn’t exactly been quiet about it. He glanced at Neil, wondering if he should say anything.

Neil was still glancing around at everyone around them, trying to stay on alert until they could get back to the rest of the party. "Maybe we should skip grabbing coffee from the grocery and just meet back up with the party..." He suggested quietly. "I feel... out of place... And I usually feel out of place, but I still don't like it..."

"You did just tell an entire backwoods diner about a science-fiction video game when they don't even know what a video even is."

"...was I that loud?" Neil mumbled, turning red.

"I didn't think you were, but I don't care enough to think about it," Max said. Neil rubbed at his arm a little, glancing around more anxiously. "It's just some stupid fantasy world, why does it matter?"

"Because lots of things and people here can hurt us…"

"That hasn't changed since we've been here."

"That doesn't mean I want to draw attention to ourselves…"

"It's too late for that. It's a small ass town, we aren't from here. They were already staring at us."

Neil went quiet, still not liking it. It felt different, somehow.

"Hey! Found 'em!" 

They heard Nerris shout nearby, followed by a loud, excited bark from Nikki before both of them got knocked to the ground, Neil wheezing when his back slammed into the ground.

"Guys! Where'd you go we missed you!" Nikki exclaimed.

"Fu-uck! Nikki!"

"Jesus christ, Nikki! We weren't gone that long!"

"We have our thieves!" Preston crowed.

"Where'd you guys go?" Nerris asked. "We ain't supposed to split the party!"

"Give me my wallet back," Harrison demanded, lacking any authority behind it.

"Fuck off," Max grumbled as he got up, before offering a hand to Neil. Neil took it after a moment, trying to steady his breathing. 

"W-we need- eee- to find something a-akin to- eeee- an inhaler, soon…"

"...Can someone take damage from asthma?" Preston asked.

"Well, since asthma don't actually exist in D&D, it would depend more on what homebrew the DM has set up," Nerris said. "We ain't played with it as a mechanic before, so... I dunno…"

"Who would homebrew asthma?" Harrison asked.

"Someone who... wants to play a... character with asthma," Neil said slowly, taking long breaths between his words.

"It seems like a weird thing to want to play as."

"Well, while I... don't get it myself, personally... Yes, I already have asthma... I'm trying to escape from reality in campaigns... But some people like... representing themselves."

"I guess.... Just feels like a weird thing to... want represented."

"Different people want different things, I guess…"

"I guess so."

"Here's your stupid wallet," Max said, finally handing it back to Harrison.

"Oh. So Preston was right," Nerris said.

"Aw! I totally thought he dropped it!" Nikki pouted.

Max looked at her. "Really, Nikki? What the fuck?"

"Yeah, you should know Max better than that by now," Neil agreed.

"Come on, kids, can you help me with these last couple of boxes?" Arlen called out.

"On it!" Nikki bounded over to help, tail wagging.

"Come on, you two," Preston said. "Unless you have gotten something that will help out the whole party, it's your turn to help Arlen unload his goods!"

Neil huffed a little. "Alright, I'll try my best."

Max rolled his eyes. "It's not like I can actually do much."

"Neither can I," Neil mumbled.

Preston rolled his eyes. "Yet again, I have to be the star of the show." He huffed and went to help; though, of course, Nikki was already halfway done.

"Thank you for all of your help," Arlen said after the work was done. "Here's three silver for your troubles. This here is the cheapest place you'll be able to get lodging. For help, I'd say look into the local church, which is the tallest building here. You might be able to get some help from the local watch here, too."

"Oh! Thank you!" Nerris bounced a little. "That's good stuff to know, ok... Someone remember that." 

"Yeah, got it," Neil said. 

Arlen and the carriage soon rolled on their way, leaving the kids behind. 

"So... should we go find help first?" Harrison asked.

"I think finding somewhere to stay first would be a good idea," Nerris said.

"Or," Preston began, an excited glint in his eye, "we could go around and find some magical equipment!"

"Oooh yeah, I wanna do that!" Nikki agreed excitedly, bouncing a little. "I wanna find a big stick!" She mimed hitting something or someone with a bat.

Neil shifted uncomfortably. "Well... I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Harrison. We should go find help first."

Max gave him such a disgusted look, but he knew Harrison was right, too. He would just never say it. 

"And then we should find somewhere to stay before shopping," Nerris said. "'Cause then if we gotta spend money on like, a hotel, we know how much money we got to spend on shopping."

"Exactly. We only have three silver, and who knows if help will be sending us immediately to the next town, or if we’ll need specific gear to progress," Neil said.

"And whatever Harrison has left in his wallet," Max added.

"Yes, that too." 

"Arlen said we can probably get help at the church," Harrison reminded everyone. 

" Or, we could find this local watch Arlen mentioned instead," Preston said.

"Uugh, these all sound like fun paths," Nerris whined a little. "But we ain't supposed to split the party..." 

"Fuck that. We could get shit done faster if we split," Max argued, mainly just to argue.

"It can't be too dangerous to split up in town, right?" Harrison asked.

"Yeah, we'll be fine!" Nikki agreed. 

"Mm..." Nerris flapped a little, not sure about it. You were never supposed to split the party... But there were a lot of things to do... "I guess not..." 

"So we're going to the church and the watch?" Neil asked.

"Well... you and Harrison wanna look for help, so... you guys do those... And who wants to take shopping vs finding a place to stay?"

"I will always choose shopping," Preston stated. "But... I think the help group should go to the watch thing first."

"So- wait, are you going shopping or finding help?"

"I'm shopping," Preston said with a huff. "Was that not clear?"

"Sorry..." Too much RSD to try and clarify why Preston had said the second thing. "Ok so- Preston's on the shopping team... Um- I guess I'll find somewhere to stay..." 

"I'll help you!" Nikki offered. She didn't want her friend to be wandering around alone.

"Ugh. I don't wanna go fucking shopping with Preston, " Max complained. "But I can probably get us shit for free, so."

"Ok... So, I think we should keep the money in Harrison's wallet, and if you find something we need, we can get it together," Neil suggested.

"Sure, fine, whatever." 

"Don't that defeat the purpose of splitting up, though?" Nerris asked.

"No. It's information collection, so we can decide after what we need to buy instead of in the heat of the moment."

"I guess so..."

"Or I can just grab shit," Max said.

"You are a rogue... That might work."

"Are you sure?" Neil asked. "We don't want to get in trouble with the authorities, at least until we know what the punishment for theft is here..."

"Oh no, I might die, I'm so worried," Max responded sarcastically. "Relax, I know what the fuck I'm doing. I've never got caught."

"And we don't know what might be set up to catch thieves here."

"So I'll figure it out."

"I'd rather you not," Neil said worryingly, "but I can't stop you. Be careful."

"Yeah, uh-huh, got it." Max waved off his concern a little too easily. "C'mon, let's just go." 

Nerris passed the shopping list that they made the other day over to Preston, and the party split into three.

Chapter Text

"So... Preston said he prefers we go to the watch, but I think the church would be a bigger help," Harrison said.

"Of course you would," Neil responded, a bit sarcastically.

"Well, yeah, because I've seen my church help people before.

"Mm-hm. Personally, I don't care either way which one we go to first. If anything goes... bad, though- I don't know about antisemitic, because I don't... know if Jewish people exist here... But if things go bad, I'm leaving."

"That makes sense. I would leave with you if that happened."

"...Thank you." Neil nodded a little.

The church was rather easy to find in the small town. It was the tallest building, with church-like features- stained glass windows and the like- but simple and small for a church. Neil was on high alert, dino arms folded pretty tightly against his chest, and he followed behind Harrison as they went inside.

They stepped inside to see that the church was indeed small. The first part had a small bulletin board and a couple tables and chairs. Beyond that, along the sides of the church, were altars to specific gods under the stained glass windows depicting what the god ruled over. There were pews that couldn't fit more than 50 people sitting close together. Someone cloaked in a tan robe was adjusting and dusting the alters; a couple people were praying to the altars. There were doors on either side of the lectern at the back.

Neil appreciated all the art, and relaxed a bit when he realized Oh, right... it was Dungeons and Dragons religions. That should be fine, hopefully…

Harrison approached the person cloaked in the robe. "Um... excuse me?" 

The man turned to look at him. He seemed to be a totally typical human, and once he saw Harrison, he took a step back.

Neil fidgeted a little. "Hello... Um- we were told our party might be able to get some help here...?"

The man looked over at Neil. "Your party?" 

"We're a group of children that were magically lost in the forest," Harrison explained.

"The others are trying to find supplies and lodging, so there's six of us in total," Neil added.

"Wait, you were magically lost? What do- do you mean by that?" The man was collecting himself and tense, trying to hide his nerves.

Neil's fidgeting increased a little with his nerves- this man didn't seem... overly friendly... "H- someone... attacked us with magic, and we all appeared in the woods nearby..." As much as he hated Harrison and loved putting the blame on him, Neil didn't want to put him at risk. Who knew if this man was dangerous, or had connections to someone dangerous?

Harrison glanced at Neil in confusion, but he didn't say anything. Neil typically knew what he was doing. "Yeah, and right now we're trying to figure out either how to get shelter and food, or how to work towards getting back to where we're from." 

"Well... This church isn't capable of housing orphans long term... But we might be able to get you to a church that can..."

"We'd really only need a couple days," Neil said. "Just to recover and collect ourselves enough to make a plan. But thank you, that's greatly appreciated." 

"Er, yes... There would be some conditions..."

"Oh- of course, yes. What conditions?"

"...How many of you are infernal?"

"Oh, um- I think... it's just Harrison..."

Harrison glanced over nervously, not liking how this sounded nor knowing what it meant. 

"And you're Harrison," the man said. "We don't usually allow infernals in this church." 

Harrison swallowed. This was feeling familiar, and he didn't like it.

Neil frowned a little. "While I appreciate not liking Harrison- I hate him, too- he's not dangerous."

"If he is to stay here, he wouldn't be allowed to touch anything besides the ground without permission, and he would not be allowed to do any of his dark magic or worship in or around the premises," the man explained, facing Neil. "He'd have to be on his best behavior and if anyone is uncomfortable with him here, he would have to leave."

Neil made a face. That felt... bigoted. He eyed Harrison. "It's up to you, but if it was me, I wouldn't tolerate that."

Harrison's eyes stung a little, and he could feel his tail tucking itself around one of his legs. He hated how aware of his tail and horns he was. It was too familiar to home. "...I... understand," Harrison managed. "...Thank you. I... can do that while I'm here..."

Neil watched him carefully; it was too easy to tell that he was not happy with the situation. "...thank you for the offer. We'll think about it. Come on, Harrison." Neil grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the church. Harrison wasn't too happy with the sudden touch but didn't show any signs of it. He followed Neil out, holding his head low and making sure not to touch anything. Once they were outside, Neil let go. "We're not staying there. Fuck that noise, that's full-blown bigotry."

It's a good offer, though," Harrison stated quietly.

"Not for you. And personally, I don't feel comfortable staying somewhere that's so openly willing to do that shit."

"You don't know why they don't like infernals..."

"It doesn't matter. There's no good reason to hate an entire group of people. You haven't done anything wrong that they know of; they're only treating you like that because of your race and ancestry. That's fucking bullshit." 

"...It's... What does infernal mean?"

"It means you're the offspring of either "demonic outsiders," or basically a child of someone who committed transgressions and got cursed. I believe. I don't know quite as much about Dungeons and Dragons as Nerris does, though. But either way, you have not done anything wrong, and I'm not comfortable staying with people who are so willing to shun an entire group of people even if a few of them have "done bad things.""

That sounded right. He was something demonic and evil and a good place like a church didn't want that tainting what was good in it. "I've done things wrong, though... I'm why we're here."

“But he didn't know that. He had no reason to treat you that way. Which means he was only doing it because of bigotry. I've accidentally built murderous robots and AI, but if someone doesn't know that and only distrusts me because I'm Jewish? That's fucking bigotry."

"But... I'm a demon... Churches shouldn't allow demons in them..." Harrison wiped at his eyes.

"You're a tiefling. Tieflings aren't only evil alignments. You're not an evil alignment. You've done nothing to warrant that treatment."

Harrison shifted uncomfortably. It felt like Neil wasn't understanding the premise. Just because he wasn’t evil, maybe, didn't change the fact that he must carry a lot of evil within him. But he was tired and just wanted to get moving for now. "...Yeah, ok..." It didn't sound convinced.

Neil sighed a little, shaking his head. "Come on, let's go try the watch that Arlen mentioned." Harrison nodded, keeping his eyes down. His tail was still tucked around his leg.

"Let's see... We might have to ask around to find them, though... We could meet up with Max and Preston to do some shopping and ask around there if anyone knows where to find the watch."

"If that's what you think is best..."

"I think it might just be what's easiest. And I'd rather not just start approaching random people and asking questions..."

"Yeah, alright..."

Preston and Max split from the group and started heading toward whatever shopping center the town had. Max was not happy about being stuck with Preston. 

"We just need to find a magic shop," Preston stated, heading for one of the buildings near to them. It was a small town, and they were next to an inn and diner/bar, so this must have been the shopping center of the small place.

"And some fucking coffee," Max added. "I'm not going more days without coffee."

"I'm also in the mood for some soda. I wonder if there is any soda in D&D,” Preston said. Max rolled his eyes. This whole thing was stupid as fuck. "But the magic shop is especially important. Sometimes, you can find something that the DM thinks is innocent, but it's actually game breaking.”

"Shut the fuck up," Max responded. "You sound like an idiot."

"Oh please. Besides coffee, what are you looking to get?"

"The fuck out of here."

"And that's why we need something game breaking."

"Whatever."

"Once you break the game it's easier to finish the game or the game itself ends because the DM quits. If we can make whatever DM is in charge quit, we escape the game!"

Max groaned loudly. "My legs aren't long enough to get out of this fucking conversation!"

"You chose to go shopping. You're stuck with me now, rebellious rogue."

"Fuck you."

"And fuck you too, current companion of mine."

Max groaned again and just kept walking faster to get away from Preston. Preston easily kept up, radiating a little heat in his excitement. 

"Ok, let's look in here." He went to duck into a shop. Max huffed, turning around to follow him in. 

They walked in to see that the store was filled with clothing, fabric, and accessories. Most seemed to be of basic quality, nothing too fancy, but adjustable with ties to help it fit the wearer better, or the item was a one-size-fits-most due to adjustable straps. Most things were tan, beige, or off-white. Well, they did need changes of clothes... Max shoved his hands in his pockets, starting to wander around the store.

"Ah, welcome, young ones," a spry old woman called to them. "I haven't seen you around. Are you travelers?"

Max rolled his eyes a little. "Is everyone in this fucking town in everyone else's business all the time?"

"It's a small village. All we got is each other, for companionship and entertainment," the woman responded. Max rolled his eyes again and ignored her.

Preston happily went up to her. "Hi! Yes, we're not from around here. We are lost and far from home with some other members of our party and have little more than the clothes on our backs right now." 

"Oh, that's too bad. Where are you from?" 

"Well, um... We're all from different places, really," Preston stated, not sure how to explain their situation.

Max listened into their conversation just to stay aware, but he was mostly looking around at everything. He ended up looking through whatever bags they had- it would have probably been nice to have something to hide stuff in. 

Placed above the rest, with price tags of 550 gp, were some other pretty normal-looking bags. He was noticing that the expensive bags... didn't exactly have security tags. He was itching a little to grab a big-ticket item like that.

"We're looking for some things that we need,” Preston told the woman. “Spare clothes would be nice."

"Do you kids have any money?" 

"Not a lot, honestly, but we're trying to find whatever good deals we can. Some of us have magic that we'd be willing to use for trade as well," Preston said.

Max's eyes landed on the label/tag for one of the bags- Bag of Holding? What a stupid fucking name. No shit it held things, it was a fucking bag. He almost wanted to steal that one just to teach the owner a lesson about stupid fucking names. He glanced toward where Preston was talking to the old lady, then back at the bag, only a couple inches from his hands. 

"Magic, you say? What kind of magic are you talking about?" 

"Well, we have a druid that can make plants grow, and an artificer... and a sorcerer... I'd need to double check with them what they can do..." 

"You look a bit young to be doing too much magic."

Max reached out to grab the bag, like he was looking it over. Shit, it was a heavy bag. Max hadn’t been expecting it to be so heavy, but he quickly caught himself and managed to hide it up his (already baggy) hoodie. Once it was in his hoodie and he moved another, similar bag into its place, he stuffed his hands back in his pocket to subtly hold the bag up and against his body. He moved on to keep wandering around the store.

"We might be young, but our magic is fierce," Preston said. "My druid friend not too long ago grew a field into a massive bramble of weeds and fully grown crops."

"I do have some clothes that need some mending that my needle won't be able to do enough good with. Do you know if any of you can mend clothes?" 

"I'd be surprised if we didn't. I'll just have to talk with everyone and see." 

"For every three garments you mend, I'll give you a garment in return. I was keeping them around for scrap, but I've got at least... 30 saved up."

Fuck. They were gonna be hanging around here? Damn it, that was gonna make it harder to hide the stolen bag.

"Thank you so much. Once we all meet back up we'll come back and take you up on that offer." 

"Ok, I'll see you kids soon then. Take care."

"C'mon, let's get the hell out of here," Max urged, starting to leave the shop. The two of them left the shop, and once they were a good distance away, Max pulled the bag out of his hoodie. "Check out what I got."

"Ooh, that's nice," Preston said. "A bit boring, but we could use a bag."

"Yeah, old bitch had some outrageous price for it and a stupid fucking name. So I just grabbed it."

"A stupid name?"

"Yeah, like it holds things. Of fucking course it holds shit, it's a fucking bag."

"It holds things?" Preston hummed. That sounded familiar but he couldn't put his tongue on it.

" No shit, it's a fucking bag. Bags hold shit. It was so stupid." Max pulled the bag on over his head, adjusting it so the bag itself sat against his hip.

"No, names matter here. Do you remember exactly what it was?"

Max groaned a little. "Fucking- bag of holding or some shit? I told you it was fucking stupid."

Preston stopped in his tracks. "You stole a bag of holding? "

"That's what the stupid tag said."

"This is our first magic item."

"Magic? It's just a bag.”

"That's the best goddamn bag you've ever had."

I've only ever owned one shitty backpack that's falling apart, that's not hard to do. "How?" 

Preston glanced around before grabbing Max's hand to pull him somewhere discreet. "I'll show you, come on!"

"Don't fucking touch me." Max immediately yanked his hand back, but he followed Preston. Once they were hidden, Preston went to grab the bag. Max stepped back, glaring at him and grabbing the bag to hold it close.

"Fine... Here." Preston grabbed a stick that was definitely longer than the bag. "Put this in it."

Max eyed him oddly but took the stick and slowly did so... blinking in shock when the whole thing disappeared inside the bag. "...how the fuck-?"

Preston smirked. "You have Mary Poppins' carpet bag."

"Fuck off." His eyes were already sparkling a little though, thinking about all the shit he could sneak in there now.

"I think there's technically supposed to be a limit to how much it holds, but some people homebrew that it doesn't, so it will be fun to see if there's a limit to it. We'll have to ask Nerris what it's capable of when we see them later."

Max pulled the stick back out and tossed it back onto the ground. "Whatever. C'mon, let's go figure it out. I wanna see what I can shove in this thing."

"Oooh, I can't wait!"

The two of them came back out onto the street to hit the next store. As they were about to enter the next one- what looked like a grocery store- they heard someone calling them. 

"Max! Preston!"

Preston looked back and waved. "Harrison, Neil!" 

"Oh thank fucking god, I hated having to talk to Preston by myself." Max was very grateful to see Neil again. 

"Same deal with Harrison," Neil mumbled a little. 

"So, what did you two find?" Preston asked. 

"The church offered us a place to sleep," Harrison quietly stated, still looking down with his tail tucked around his leg.

"But it's a no-go. It was only under conditions that Harrison "not touch anything" and was basically treated like a fucking pest or something."

"Bitch! What the hell is that about?"

"Him being an infernal." Neil rolled his eyes. "But it felt too bigoted for my taste, and even if he was willing to stay there, I'm not comfortable with it."

"That's bullshit,” Max scoffed. “Fuck them."

"Everyone else deserves the right to choose to stay there," Harrison said. 

"I'm not." 

"Like hell I'm choosing to stay in a church."

"Hmm... We could threaten them to treat Harrison right," Preston offered, the idea of free lodging sounding enticing if Nerris and Nikki failed to find affordable housing.

" I don't feel comfortable lodging with people with that mindset, " Neil clarified. "Doesn't matter if they're threatened into niceties or not."

"So you'd rather sleep in the dirt if we can't find a place to stay?" Preston asked.

Neil hesitated, sighing a little. "I'll... think about that if Nerris and Nikki can't find anything..."

"You can't always avoid bigots and monsters," Preston explained. "Sometimes you have to suck it up or fight it. If they treat Harrison like a dog without cause, we shall be his fangs they should be wary of, but we still need a place to sleep.”

"I'd just rather not have to. If it comes to that we need to, we'll figure it out then."

"Naturally. I wouldn't feel safe sleeping at a church even if they weren't openly bigoted," Preston agreed. 

"...We still haven't talked to the watch," Harrison pointed out quietly, not sure how he felt about the animosity toward the church and not wanting to stew on the feelings he was unsure about.

"Oh- yes. Our plan was to go shopping with you guys and ask everyone if they know anything about it." Neil noticed the bag Max had and frowned a little. He pointed it out. "Where'd you get that?" 

"Stole it," Max answered.

"It's our first magic item!" Preston announced, almost vibrating with excitement.

"Yeah, it holds a bunch of shit or whatever." 

"You stole a bag of holding? " Neil's eyes went wide.

"He stole a bag of holding, " Preston confirmed in a stage whisper. 

Harrison blinked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah yeah, whatever, I'm kinda awesome," Max bragged a little.

"...Can I try it?" Harrison asked.

"Fuck off, get your own."

"I had my own."

" Had. Not my problem that you don't anymore."

"Fine," Harrison said, not wanting to make it a big deal.

Nerris and Nikki, after splitting from the rest of the party, ended up in the tavern that Neil and Max had snuck off to that morning for coffee. Arlen had pointed it out to them as somewhere they might find some lodging. Nerris was bouncing a little as they looked around, starting to grin. The place looked so cool!

"Oooh!" Nikki exclaimed. "They have taxidermy animals!"

"This place is so cool!" Nerris giggled. Nikki ran up to go pet the stuffed rabbit on the counter. 

"More strange kids?" An old human woman behind the counter mumbled. "Careful with that rabbit."

"Hail and well met!" Nerris greeted, coming up behind Nikki. "My party and I are looking for somewhere to stay for a couple of nights! Do you have any rooms available?"

"We always do. How many are ya?"

"There's six of us."

"Mm. It's one silver a night per room."

"Ok, so... How many beds in a room? Y'think three of us could fit in a room?"

"They're single beds. But if any of you want to sleep on the floor, I might be able to spare some pillows and blankets for a few copper."

"Hm, ok... We gonna talk about it with our party and be back later! Thank you!"

"Aww, but I don't wanna go yet." Nikki pouted, still petting the taxidermy rabbit. "It's so soft! "

"Well... I guess we could hang out for a bit. I'm sure everyone else is still busy." Nerris smiled and petted the rabbit, too.

"Do you kids want anything?" The old woman asked as Nikki climbed up into a bar chair.

"Our friend has the money right now, so we can't buy anything." Nerris climbed into the bar chair next to her.

"Mm. If by some miracle we get busy, you'll be kicked out for loitering."

"That's fine!" Nerris nodded.

"Wouldn't it be awesome to have a stuffed animal this soft?" Nikki asked.

"Harrison's got an alive rabbit this soft and I love him."

"He does?!"

"Yeah! His name's Dio."

"You should make him bring Dio to camp next year."

"I ain't think he wants to 'cause he don't want him to get hurt or something."

"I guess you're right. The platypus might eat him."

"The platypus would definitely eat him."

"Too bad. You'll have to get me some pictures."

"Yeah!"

"And... you just have a cat, right?"

"Yeah, just a cat. Her name is Belladonna. It's a plant from this witch movie me and my mom like."

"That's cool. My dad has some chickens."

"Oooh chickens! Are they fun?"

"Yeah. The rooster is really protective so if you're doing something he doesn't like he chases ya! But he's pretty used to my dad and me, so I gotta try hard to get him upset at me."

They decided to leave soon, and Nikki climbed off her bar stool and turned around. As she took a moment, enjoying the rustic atmosphere, she noticed that the ceiling felt off. She glanced up and her mouth dropped. "Holy. Amazeballs!"

Nerris followed her gaze to see where she was looking. "Oh, cool! A deep crow!"

"A deep crow? It's so cool! I hope we get to find one alive!”

"It would be really cool, but they're super smart and aggressive. We'd have to have pretty high levels to survive it."

"I'm sure we could take it!" Nikki growled while doing a little pouncing motion, her tail wagging.

"We probably only like, level 5 right now. That's usually what I start campaigns at."

"So?"

"We'd probably need at least level 8 or 9 to take on one of those. They pretty difficult.”

"I could take on a bear with no levels," Nikki reminded them.

"Bears are real animals, and they would only need 1 level. Not like a deep crow."

"Well, I'd still give it a shot."

Nerris giggled a bit.

Harrison looked to the person running the grocery store as they walked in. He was nervous to go talk to them with how the last conversation with an NPC went. 

"Oh, it's just a grocery store," Preston said, a little disappointed.

"Good, we need food," Neil said. 

"And coffee," Max added.

"Yes yes," Preston sighed. "I was just hoping it was a magic shop."

"We'll get to those eventually,” Neil assured him.

"Um, is it ok if I help them shop until you're done talking with the guy?" Harrison asked.

"Yeah, I can talk to him. I'll find you guys when I'm done." 

"K, later, asshole." Max waved as he walked off towards the coffee. Neil shook his head a little and approached the employee. 

"Hello. Do you have a moment? I had a couple questions."

The man looked up from what he was reading. "Uh, yeah, go ahead. You're one of the kids Arlen brought in, right?"

"Yes, that's us; my name is Neil. He told us that we might get some help from the local watch. Do you know where we might be able to find them?"

"Yes, our local watch is Lysanth. They run everything out of their home."

"Oh, excellent! Where would that be?"

"Head straight north. It will be the last house before the tree line. It has a tree with a chair under it out front."

"Thank you." Neil nodded.

"You're welcome! Happy to help."

Neil went to find the others and relay the information.

"All I'm seeing are ingredients," Preston was complaining.

"Yeah, where's the fucking snacks?"

"We just need to keep looking," Harrison assured them.

"Hey, I found out about the watch," Neil said as he walked over.

"Oh... Ok, um... once you guys find the snacks, figure out what's cheapest to get."

"Fuck you, I'll get whatever the hell I want." Max turned to wander off from the group, and Neil sighed, moving to follow him. If he was going to get himself in trouble, they both might as well get in trouble.

"Are we not going to the watch?" Harrison asked.

"Someone has to talk him out of getting arrested, and it won't be either of you," Neil responded.

Preston sighed, "It's a difficult job, but at least someone's willing to do it."

Max rolled his eyes, but waited for Neil to catch up. Harrison and Preston followed behind, both keeping an eye out for stuff that would be easy to make and eat, and preferably non-perishable. Max, as they were walking, started slipping things into his bag.

The door to the shop opened.

Nerris quickly scanned the store, and almost moved to leave before spotting them. "Oh! There they are!"

"Nerris?" Harrison asked, noticing their voice.

"Hi hi hi!" Nikki bounded over, quickly hugging Max and Neil. "We found you!" 

"Yeah, it ain't take nearly as long as I thought it would." 

"You found lodging?" Neil asked. 

"Yeah, it was... um... either one silver per room or one copper..."

"...It can't be a copper," Neil stated.

"...yeah, that makes sense... So it's probably a silver per room. And they single beds, but she said we could get extra blankets and pillows if people are ok with sleeping on the floor." 

"I'll sleep on the floor!" Nikki happily volunteered.

"Wait, are we all squeezing into one room?" Preston asked.

"I ain't think so. I figured like, two to a room probably?" Nerris said.

"...Harrison, how much do we have?" Neil asked.

Harrison pulled out his wallet. "We have 8 silver and 9 copper."

"So... three silver a night..." 

"It's not like we haven't slept in worse places," Max complained. "Those fucking cots at camp suck ass. The floor is probably an upgrade."

"It's still a lot... And we don't know how much food will cost in total."

"We really gotta find some quests," Nerris said. "'Cause besides food, we still need clothes and soaps and stuff..."

"Oh! Do any of you have mending?" Preston asked.

"Um... I might?” Nerris said. “I usually like to have mending when I'm making my characters."

"How can we check?" Harrison asked.

"I guess we can try casting mending on something?"

"I got us a deal at the clothing shop Max got his bag of holding from," Preston started to explain.

"Yeah, I'm not going back there," Max said. "She'd probably recognize me. And the bag."

" You got a bag of holding?! "

"Shh, yes, a bag of holding. Keep up," Preston said, absolutely bragging but playing it off as no big deal.

Nerris squealed a little, starting to flap. " That's our first magic item! " they whisper-yelled. "Ohmigosh. You got a bag of holding. Wait- how? They supposed to be really expensive." 

"That's why I'm not going back."

"He is a rogue," Neil pointed out quietly.

"...oh, right. Well- yeah, um... I guess you probably should avoid her, then... But you probably don't got mending anyway."

"Going on; for every three things we mend with magic, she'll give us some clothing."

"And mending is a cantrip, so there ain't a limit on how many times you can cast it."

"Exactly. We can get free clothes nice and easy."

"Well, that's less money to spend, but we still need a way to make money. We need to find a quest board or somethin'..."

"I remember seeing... I think a flier for something at the tavern…” Neil said slowly. “And there was a board for something at the church." The last part was stated tensely.

"Oh, yeah! How'd that go? Did y'find any help?" Nerris asked. 

"It's... a last resort," Neil carefully stated.

"They were being racist to Harrison," Max said. 

Nerris frowned. "What? What happened?"

"I'm an infernal," Harrison quietly pointed out.

"...Aw... oh yeah... I'm sorry, Harrison.”

"It's ok..."

"It's not. It sucks. We'll definitely go to the church as a last resort."

"Harrison, it's fine, we'll be happy to fight for you," Preston said, putting a supportive hand on his shoulder.

"I won't," Max deadpanned.

"Then I wasn't talking about you."

"Whatever." 

"Come on, let's finish getting food and we'll go see about getting some rooms at the tavern."

"We haven't gone to the watch yet either," Neil added. "It's someone named Lysanth."

"Oh! Then yeah, we should check that out first."

They finished up shopping soon, and the clerk watched as they came up and laid what they grabbed on the counter. "Alright, that's one pound of dried fruit variety, a pound of salt and two loaves of bread. That's 19 total."

"19?" Harrison asked. 

"Yep. 19 copper, or one silver and nine copper." 

"Oh, ok. Um... Can you break a silver?" 

"Yes we can." 

"Ok, here." Harrison handed the man two silver, and got a copper coin in return. "Thank you."

Once they left and were a few steps away from the store, Max held up his bag. "Alright, I got more shit too. I fucking scored in there."

Harrison shifted uncomfortably. "How much did you steal?"

"I got one of all of their spices, some jerky, nuts, apples, some of those ration meals, coffee- and whatever the fuck candied fruit is. I'm hoping it's sweet."  Max opened the bag and looked inside. "What the fuck! Where is everything!"

"Inside the pocket dimension," Harrison answered.

"Oh yeah, you can't see what's in a bag of holding. You just gotta remember what's in there and think about it. Or it pulls something random," Nerris explained. 

Max groaned. "That's fucking stupid."

"It's not that difficult," Harrison said.

"It's still fucking stupid."

Neil sighed. "You'll get over it. Now, put these in there." He went to hand over their groceries. Max rolled his eyes and held the bag out for Neil to put the stuff in. He dropped each item in and closed the bag. "Now, are we all going to go talk to the watch?"

"Yeah, let's go!" Nikki agreed. 

"Where you say it was?" Nerris asked.

"Follow me. The cashier said it was a house with a chair under a tree by the edge of the forest."

Chapter Text

It didn't take long to find the small house with a tree and chair out front. There was no one outside, so Nerris approached the front door to knock.

"Coming!" Someone's voice carried out of the house. After a minute, the door opened to reveal a middle-aged half elf. "Oh, hello. I haven't seen you kids around before..."

Nerris bounced on their heels a bit. "Hail and well met! We were told we could get some help here?"

Lysanth smiled. "Hail and well met, young ones. What help are you looking for?"

"Well, we got magic'ed and appeared in the forest, so we kinda need somewhere to stay or some quests to make money!"

"You got magic'ed? Oh dear. Where are you kids from?"

"Uhh... kinda all over?"

"Ok... Maybe you kids should come in and tell me about it?"

"Oh, yeah, we could... definitely do that."

"Come on in." 

They stood aside to let the kids in, and everyone followed in. Max was already thinking up a story to tell them. The house was small but not too crowded. There was a living room with two couches; some people would have to stand or sit on the floor. On the walls there hung a few bows and trophies from slain monsters.

"Oooh I like all your stuff!" Nerris said.

"Thanks. These are from back in my adventuring days," the half elf said.

"Cooool..." Nerris was in awe of everything.

"But enough about me. Tell me about yourselves." 

"Gladly," Preston said with a grin. "I'm Preston, I'm a thespian and a lover of most art, especially performance art-"

Max groaned. "Shut the fuck up, Preston. She doesn't actually care." 

"I'm Nikki! I like hunting and animals and adventures and nature and hunting-"

"I guess I didn't state my intentions too clearly. Um, but first of all, I'm not a she. It might seem a bit childish to some, but I use they/them pronouns."

Nerris squealed a little and bounced. "That ain't weird! Me too!" 

Max's face heated up a bit. It felt weird being corrected on pronouns like that, and he felt... a bit guilty about misgendering someone. Even if he didn't fully believe in the "nonbinary" thing, he knew how upset Nerris got when someone called them a girl, and it was... familiar. "Yeah, well- whatever. They don't care."

Lysanth looked at Nerris. "Well, of course you too. You're an elven child." 

"...oh, yeah- but like- I mean- maybe I wanna keep using them forever."

"Oh, I understand... I also felt like that as a kid."

"Yeah ok, whatever," Max interrupted. "You wanted to know what the fuck we're doing here, right?"

"Yes, sorry. So what happened?"

Max decided to keep the lie as close to truth as he could. He would be more likely to remember it that way, and it was easier to keep up lies if they were close to truth. "We all live different places, but we were visiting each other, and that motherfucker," he jabbed a thumb in Harrison's direction, "did magic and teleported all of us to the middle of fucking nowhere."

"It... went wild," Harrison stated. It wasn’t a lie. 

"Ah, a young wild magic mage. That must be difficult." 

Harrison stared for a moment, not used to people acknowledging his struggles right off the bat. "Um... yeah, it is."

"So we kinda need somewhere to stay for now, so we can figure out a plan," Nerris explained. "And maybe some food…”

"Have... wait, no, that might not be the best... Hmmm."

"What might not be the best?" Neil asked. 

"The church here. They're more than willing to help children, but... they aren't going to be as kind to an infernal."

Nerris looked a little disappointed. "Yeah, they tried talking to the church already. They were mean to Harrison."

"It's sad. This town is more supportive than most, but for the races we don't see very often... And we don't see tieflings, especially part tieflings, well.... ever. I can count on one hand how many have been seen round town in the last 30 years."

"Yeah, probably because people are racist as fuck," Max complained. 

"Is there anywhere else we could stay?" Nerris asked hopefully.

"There's the inn, but that will cost you... if you kids aren't too picky I can throw some blankets down in the basement. Or you kids can use the church as Harrison stays with me."

"I'm not picky!" Nikki's tail wagged. 

"She'll sleep in a hole in the ground if we let her," Max deadpanned.

"So you're ok with sleeping in a cell?" Lysanth asked.

"Oooh what kind of cell? Like a jail cell? That sounds cool!"

Lysanth laughed. "Yes. I don't use it often, but we've had a case or two where I needed a way to keep someone from escaping or harming someone else."

"Yeah, I'm not doing that shit." Nope nope nope. Max wasn't giving anyone the opportunity to lock him in a room. Fuck that.

"It's probably our best option," Nerris countered.

"There's room outside of the cell too to sleep in."

Max shifted, eying them a little. "...fine."

"You can also go to the church. They'll have better accommodations."

"Just watch your back," Preston mumbled.

"We really shouldn't split the party overnight..."

"It's up to you kids."

"We could split three to three," Neil suggested. "Three of us stay here, three of us go to the church. Obviously Harrison would stay here, and I'd prefer to avoid the church as well."

Preston sighed. "I'd feel more comfortable here, but at least I'm used to watching myself at church, so I can go."

"I'm staying here," Max said. 

"Aww, but I wanted to sleep in a cell!" Nikki whined.

"Trust me, Nikki, a church is more dangerous," Preston assured.

"Oooh really? Are there like, monsters and stuff? Wild animals? Lava? " Her eyes shone at the idea. "Oh oh, is the zombie guy gonna be there?!"

"No, worse. There are monsters that prey on children, and they hide themselves in human skin," Preston explained. 

"We haven't had any problems like that in our church," Lysanth said. "The monsters we worry about come out from the forest, but this region isn't too dangerous as long as you aren't venturing alone or unarmed."

"...wait, yeah, I ain't never do- er- heard 'bout anything like that. Where you getting that?" Nerris asked. 

"It's a real life thing," Preston stated, waving away Nerris's comment.

"...what? How?"

"You can't trust Christians, especially Catholics, with children," Preston said. 

"Yes you can," Harrison responded. 

"Uh... I'm not sure what those are," Lysanth interrupted.

Oh shoot. Nerris wasn't sure how to tell them that Christians didn't exist in D&D... At least, not when they were right in front of another person.

"It's something from where we're from," Neil quickly interjected. "There's a few types of them, but... You usually find them in churches, but they can be hiding anywhere." 

"Really? Interesting."

"Oh- yeah yeah." Nerris quickly nodded.

"Well, we don't have anything like that here. Our church is bigoted, but safe; I keep a watch on it. I had a run in with a corrupt religion before, but this church... they're just doing what they feel helps their community. If they try anything against Harrison, though, I will put them in their place."

"Thank you!" Nerris grinned. "But it's probably better for him to just stay here instead."

"Yes, and that is the plan. I just wanted to make sure you know if anything bad happens, you come straight to me."

"Don't worry! If anything happens, I can take 'em!" Nikki growled excitedly.

"It'd be better if you let me handle it, unless if you are in immediate danger."

"Don't worry, we will. Nikki just likes fighting." Nerris pulled her back a bit.

"Well, the last thing I want is to actually have to use my cell for its purpose on a kid," Lysanth laughed. 

"Yeah, that wouldn't be good," Harrison agreed.

"You could probably just chain her to a doghouse," Max joked. 

"Yeah yeah yeah I wanna do that!" Nikki's tail wagged harder.

"Chill, kid. I'm sure if you want something like that you'll get it at some point,” Lysanth assured her. Max snickered a bit. "So, we have a plan for where you kids can stay for now, but now we need to figure out how to get you kids back home."

"Yeah, that's um- that's tougher..." Nerris agreed.

"We could get you travel to another town so you can make your way closer to home," Lysanth offered.

"That... uh... maybe?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Even if it doesn't get us closer, we'll at least have more resources to work with," Neil pointed out. 

"Yyyeah, that's true... Yeah, thank you, that could work."

"Maybe there will be a library where we could study some of the magic we could use here to reverse things," Harrison added.

"Oh! Yeah, that's a good idea!" Nerris nodded.

"Maybe we can get Lloyd to take you down when he goes in for goods and supplies."

"Thank you! And we was gonna do some quests around town too for some money."

"Hmm... I could ask around. Here we mostly go to certain people when we need help. What kind of things were you kids looking to do?"

"We were just gonna look at some of the bulletin boards 'round town."

"...I know Ricky has been looking for his cat, but I don't remember the reward for it."

Nerris gasped. "That's perfect! Awww lil' baby! We could do that!" 

"That's just hunting without the blood and death part!" Nikki grinned.

"If you can find Mauly alive and well, I know Ricky would be thankful. I may also be able to hand you some of my safe tasks, but no promises."

"I can't believe we have to do fucking chores," Max complained. 

"We need money, and quests are the easiest way to do it,” Nerris said.

"Chores will help you kids a lot, not only to earn money, but favor in your travels."

"Whatever. It's still bullshit." 

"Don't mind him, he a grouch," Nerris said.

"I've seen a good amount of grouches in my days."

"Fuck you."

Lysanth raised an eyebrow. "I guess I should be keeping an eye on you."

Max glared at them. "No one's in charge of me."

"I didn't say I was."

"Then you're not "keeping an eye on me"."

"Maybe keeping an eye out for you is the better wording?"

"Fuck off."

"Sorry about him," Neil said. "He's really feisty."

"But that's why we love him!" Nikki teased, noogie-ing Max's head. 

"Nikki! Fuck off!" Max tried to shove her off, but... yeah, he was too small. Lysanth laughed. 

"Ok. Let's do that thing for the clothing person first," Harrison suggested. "Then we can go find the cat.”

"Yeah! We have all day, let's go questing!" 

"Yeah yeah, let's just get out of here.”

"You should inform the church how many will be staying with them so they can be prepared to take you in, and try to be where you're staying for the night before sunset."

"Oh true... Um- so me and Nikki and Preston should go do that real quick,” Nerris said.

"Yes. Let's get going!" Preston announced, getting up to head for the door. Once they were out of Lysanth's house and on their way, Preston spoke up. "Since we have two quests, should we split up to do them?"

"I guess so…” Nerris hesitantly agreed. “Let's set somewhere to meet back up when we all done though."

"The inn?" Neil offered. "It's closer to the church but still in between the church and Lysanth's." 

"Yeah, that's perfect! And inns usually got bulletin boards for quests so we can look for any more while we there."

"Now, since Max isn't coming to the clothing store, and Nikki is better at sniffing things out, I think Max, Nikki and Neil should look for the cat,” Preston suggested.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." 

Nikki barked, bouncing a little on her feet. "This is gonna be so much fun!"

"And since Nerris, Harrison, and I are the ones with magic, we should try the mending quest."

"Makes sense. But who gonna ask the church if some of us can stay with them?"

"We can split up after the church," Harrison said.

"Got it." Nerris nodded. "Alright! We ready to go?"

"We can keep talking as we walk," Neil explained, "and the sooner we get there the sooner we can get to work."

"Should we try and figure out if we can actually do mending before we head to the clothing store?" Harrison asked as they started walking toward the church.

"Probably... Anyone got anything that's broken or torn up?"

"Hmm... would it work on a stick?" Neil asked, looking to Nerris.

“It should!”

Neil picked up a stick off the ground and tried to break it. Even with the stick digging into his palms and leaving them sore, he managed to snap it almost in two, the pieces hanging on by a couple bark fibers. "Ow. Here, try mending this."

"God you're such a fucking pussy," Max commented. Nerris took the stick and attempted the mending spell, and the stick magically reconnected to itself. They grinned, bouncing a little. 

"It worked!"

"Hey, let me try!" Preston called, yanking the stick from Nerris. He easily snapped the stick again and tried to focus on it. "...It's not working... How did you do it?"

Nerris shrugged. "I just tried to do mending. Maybe you ain't have it."

"Or maybe I need to perform to do my magic. Hm..." Preston closed his eyes and called out in a sing-song voice, "Mend mend-mend meeend. " With that, he peeked and saw that the stick was still broken. "Bitch.”

"Maybe it didn't work because you fucking suck," Max complained.

"No, I must have different, better magic," Preston defended.

"Or worse magic," Max mocked him.

"My magic can't be worse, darling," Preston responded in the same mocking tone.

"I always think your stupid plays can't get worse too, and then you fucking surprise me again."

"That's because you don't have any taste, ” Preston told Max.

"Or maybe you don't have any talent," Max snapped. Nerris groaned, shoving their hands over their ears.

"Max, this isn't the time to critique Preston's lame plays," Neil interrupted before Preston could respond. 

Preston huffed, putting his hands on his hips. "You both are uncultured swines!"

"Fuck off."

"Let's just finish trying this," Harrison mumbled, grabbing the broken stick from Preston. "So... you just thought about doing it?" He asked Nerris.

Nerris moved their hands. "Yeah, pretty much."

Harrison swallowed. "Ok..." He put his hands around the broken part to hide it from view and focused. As he revealed it, the stick was clearly whole again. 

Nerris smiled and clapped a little. "Ok! So me and Harrison have mending!"

"Brilliant!" Preston exclaimed, also clapping. "We're the perfect group for the mending quest!"

Finally, they reached the church, and Nerris, Nikki, and Preston headed in, leaving the other three to wait outside. Preston looked around warily. It clearly wasn’t a Christian church, but with the camp's experiences with Daniel, that didn't make him feel safer. Nikki was on guard, but she was still excitedly sniffing everything, and it wasn’t easy to hide how fast her tail was wagging.

Nerris noticed that the board in the front of the church had a couple fliers talking about events, a meeting for people who wanted to go and kill any local threats they felt the watch wasn't taking seriously enough, a knitting and sewing class held by two women from what sounded to be the local clothing store, and a potluck get-together for prayer and thanks to the gods. From the stained glass, it was clear to Nerris that the gods being worshipped were all good-aligned, or maybe mostly aligned with good with a couple neutral deities. They all were gods of very typical things, like agriculture, healing, light, peace, and luck. They also didn’t see anyone inside.

"...hello?" Nerris called out, a little hesitantly.

"We should check through the doors," Preston said, pointing at the doors on either side of the lectern.

"Are we allowed back there-?" Nerris asked, but Nikki was already going through one of the doors, nose to the floor and completely oblivious to everything around her.

"Of course we are," Preston stated, close behind Nikki.

Nerris wasn't sure how that was obvious, but they followed them anyway. "Hello?" Through the door was a hallway, of which there were some more religious images and some artifacts, and about five more doors besides the two that led to the main church. "...is there even anyone here...?"

Nikki could smell that there was a person in the building, and that food was being made. "Oooh something's cooking!" She announced excitedly, following her nose towards the kitchen.

"Really? ...I can kind of smell something," Preston stated.

"Yeah, me too..." Nerris followed behind Nikki.

They reached the door Nikki led them to and opened it. Inside, a person in a tan robe was over a large pot, making what now clearly smelled to be some sort of stew.

"Um... hello?" Nerris said again.

The man jumped and looked to them. "Oh, hello. Uh... sorry, I didn't hear you kids come in." 

"Oh- it's ok. Sorry for scaring you."

"It's ok. Um... I don't recognize you kids..." He seemed to have a question but didn't want to ask it. 

"Our friends stopped in earlier, to ask about staying here for a couple days...?"

"Yes... Did they tell you the conditions?" 

"Yeah, which is why Harrison isn't staying here... We were hoping it could just be the three of us?" Nerris motioned to themself, Nikki, and Preston.

"Of course. We would love to help you kids until we can find passage to an orphanage or other location with more resources for you."

"We don't need an orphanage. We got homes. We just... need somewhere to stay until we can figure out how to get to them."

"An orphanage can do that," the man explained. "You are children that need to be reconnected with your families, but currently have no one to care for you."

"...yeah, I guess so..."

"What about the other kids you're with?"

"They gonna stay with the watch."

"Oh, Lysanth. That makes sense."

"Yeah, but it's just not big enough over there for all of us, so we splitting half and half."

"Um... Let me finish up with getting this stew finished up and I can show you around the church "

"Is it ok if we come back for that later? We was gonna go do a couple chores 'round town for money and stuff."

"Oh, that's fine."

"Thank you! We should be back, um... I guess before dinner?" Nerris looked at Preston and Nikki.

"I do have some runs to make before dinner..." The man stated.

"...so- yes?"

"If I'm not here, feel free to help yourselves to the stew."

"...I'm gonna... assume that means yes... Ok, thank you! We'll be back later."

"Take care, and may the gods favor you."

"Ok bye!" Nerris waved as they all left. They met back outside with the other three. "Ok, he said we could stay."

"Good," Harrison said with a sigh. 

"He didn't say anything bigoted toward any of you?" Neil asked.

"Not us. Just seemed happy Harrison ain't staying."

Neil rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"It's not like people care about being black here... Just, uh- if you a tiefling or... stuff like that..." 

"It's a fantasy world. It's typical for fantasy genres to handle bigotry themes with fake races," Neil explained.

"Right. But elves and genasi and... well, Nikki's race is homebrew... None of ours typically have stuff like that, so we should be ok..."

"Well, there are some situations where elves are judged, but that's more special circumstances," Neil pointed out. 

"Yeah, like with dwarves.”

"I guess Harrison will also be dealing with the reverse of that, too," Preston added.

"Ooh yeah, 'cause he's half dwarf! But he already used to elves hating him," Nerris teased.

"Well, that one's actually just racism," Harrison stated.

"So's the tiefling stuff."

"Tieflings are demonic... it's different..."

"No one fucking cares, let's just get shit done," Max interrupted. He pointed to Neil and Nikki. "You two, c'mon, let's go find that stupid cat." 

"On it, boss!" Nikki gave a playful fake salute and started sniffing.

"And we have some clothes to repair!" Preston said with a little flourish. "After me, theydies and gentlemen."

After a few seconds of sniffing, Nikki sat back up. "Wait, what does a cat smell like?"

"Fucking hell," Neil mumbleed. "Let's just go grab the flier and then go talk to whoever posted it. Maybe we can get you something to smell first."

"Good idea! Where was the flier?" 

"It was at that inn or whatever,” Max answered.

"Over here," Neil sighed, leading the way. Max struggled a little to keep up, especially with Nikki running everywhere. “Nikki, slow down!"

"Seriously!" Max agreed. 

Nikki whined. "Aww, but there's so many smells!"

"We don't need to have to put up missing fliers for a lost wolf, too."

"I wouldn't even bother putting them up."

Nikki pouted. "You guys are so slowww." 

"I'm only a fucking foot tall, no shit," Max snapped angrily.

"And I'm not running if I don't have to," Neil added.

Nikki grinned with a fun idea, coming around behind the two of them (still on all fours) and picking Max up by his hood like a dog carrying a puppy. "Now 'ou 'an 'eep up!"

" Nikki! Put him down! " Neil scolded.

Max panicked and kicked backwards. " Fucking put me down! " Nikki jumped a little and quickly dropped him. He grunted when he hit the ground, but quickly scrambled up and away from Nikki. He scowled, trying to cover up his panic. "Don't fucking pick me up! I don't need you to fucking carry me!" 

"Sorry..." Nikki cowered a bit. She hadn't really seen Max this mad…

"Max, are you ok?" Neil asked, rushing to go check on him.

"I'm fine!" Max stepped back when he moved so quickly. "Don't fucking touch me!"

Neil stopped and held his hands up in surrender. "I just wanted to make sure you're not hurt..."

"I'm fine. Let's just find the fucking cat." 

"It looked like you fell hard..."

" I'm. Fine. " It did hurt, but Max wasn’t saying that. He wasn’t stupid.

"Ok... Then let's go get that flier," Neil said nervously, still watching Max closely. He just started walking, not showing any sign of being hurt or anything. Actually, he seemed to be walking better and faster than he had been before. Though worried, seeing how well Max seemed to be walking it off, Neil decided to call it ok for now. He did try to keep close to him though, just in case. "Nikki, you need to get permission before you go picking someone up like that."

"Or just don't fucking do it."

"Sorry..." Nikki’s tail was tucked between her legs.

"You could have seriously hurt him or started to strangle him with how you grabbed him."

"That's how wolves carry puppies!"

"I get that, but Max is not a puppy, and his hoodie is not part of his body."

"Ok..."

"...At least he's ok."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Max mumbled. He wasn’t used to people caring about him…

Neil opened the door to the inn. "Let's grab the flier and figure out where to go to talk to these people." They grabbed the flier from the bulletin board on the wall and Neil looked it over. "It just says to go see Ricky..."

"And who the hell is that?"

"I'm guessing someone who lives around here."

"No fucking wonder no one's found the dumb cat. Asshole doesn't even leave an address or anything?"

"Well, it is a small town. I think most people here know who and where this Ricky is."

"That's stupid." (He was from a city. That didn't make sense to him.) "No one can seriously know everyone."

"I think it's weird too, but that's clearly how things are set up here."

"So how do we find him?" Nikki asked.

"I guess we ask around,” Neil said. Max groaned. "Let's just ask the waitress here."

The old woman who had served them coffee before was pouring some for an older man at the bar. Once Neil pointed her out, Nikki was happy to go up to her. 

"Hi! Do you know who Ricky from the cat poster is?"

"Yeah. Did you manage to find Ricky's cat?"

"We were gonna ask him for something I could smell to find him!" Nikki smiled.

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea, but what are you talking to me for?"

"There's no address or whatever the fuck on the flier, so how do we talk to him?" Max asked.

"Oh. The kid lives two houses behind the church."

Max groaned. "We just fucking came from there! Ok, whatever, let's go."

"Thank you," Neil said before turning to follow the others out of the inn.

They made their way back to the church and found the two houses behind. Nikki got to the house first and excitedly knocked. After a moment, the door opened, revealing a human man. 

"Hello? Uh, who are you kids?”

"Hi! We saw the flier and we're here to get something from the cat so I can smell it and track him down and we can find him!" Nikki explained quickly.

"Oh, yes. Um... Hold on. Ricky! Grab Mauly's bed!" 

After a few seconds, there was the sound of someone running through the house. "I got it!" Some kid with a lisp called out. "What ith it for?" A young half orc walked into view holding a cheap, flimsy stuffed pillow shaped like a fish. With no one holding her back, Nikki just stepped into the house to sniff at the bed. The kid stepped back at the wolf girl just coming into the house, pulling the big stuffed fish-shaped bed close to his chest. "Dad?" 

"They're looking for Mauly and want something to smell." 

"Oh! Ok!" With that, the kid readily held the bed out to Nikki.

"Nikki, for fuck's sake, you can't just walk into people's houses." 

Nikki sniffed the bed. "Ok, got it!"

"Thank you," Neil said, sounding exasperated. "We'll do everything we can to find your cat." 

"You promith?" The kid asked, hugging the bed to himself again.

"Yeah yeah, we promise, whatever. C'mon, let's go."

"Oh, and can we have some cat food?" Neil asked. "If the cat's hungry, it might be easier to catch him if we have food he likes." 

"Yeah, of course. Ricky, go fill a pouch with food." 

Ricky nodded and ran off to do that. That... did sound like a smart idea, so Max didn't complain about it. The kid soon returned with a leather drawstring pouch filled with dried pieces of fish. 

"Thith is Mauly's favorite thnack," Ricky explained.

"Great, got it." Max grabbed the bag and shoved it in his pocket. " Now let's go and actually find the thing."

"Thank you!" The kid called as they left.

As they were wandering through town, Nikki kept sniffing around and sniffing the ground, but she was struggling to pick up anything. She managed to find some cats, but they were the wrong ones.

"This isn't working," Neil sighed after the fifth cat. "We should start trying to come up with an alternative plan."

"There's like, a million fucking cats in this town."

"We might want to ask Nerris if they have any ideas for D&D magic that could help?" Neil wondered aloud.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Stupid fucking magic solves the stupid fucking magic problems." 

"I don't like it either," Neil agreed, "but when in Rome and all that kind of stuff." 

"No I think we're in Nerris's game," Nikki responded.

"It's a phrase meaning when you're in a situation you're not native to, do as the natives do," Neil explained.

Nikki didn't... fully understand, but she didn't care enough anyway. "Let's go find Nerris!"

Chapter Text

The party split, and Nerris and Harrison followed Preston back to the accessory shop.

"I'm back!" Preston called as he walked into the store. The woman from before and another woman looked up from a corner set up for two spinsters and clothes-makers.  

"Oh, welcome back," the woman from before greeted, standing up. "Are you here to shop or work?"

"Work!" Nerris announced. "Me and Harrison can do mending!"

"Finally. Jill doesn't toss anything she thinks she can use for scraps," the other woman stated. "Ok, come over here. These chests here are where we keep our scraps and irreparable pieces." They followed her to the chests and sort of huddled around. She opened one up and there was a heap of fabrics. "Ok... Here.” She pulled out a pair of pants. "The inner thigh has worn out on these, and sewing inner thigh wear just doesn't do pants justice."

Nerris took them, looking over the damage. "Ok, um..." They casted mending again. The wear and tear was too bad to sew, but not too bad for mending; they looked as good as new after. 

“Ah, splendid! I'll get those washed up and on up for sale." 

She pulled out another pair of pants and a shirt with multiple tears, handing one to Harrison and the other to Nerris. Nerris smiled; this was easy! And a quick way to get them some clothes. They casted the cantrip again, but the shirt looked like it would take a few casts. Harrison easily fixed the pants and took the next item. Meanwhile, Preston was looking around the shop.

It took almost an hour to finish all the clothes. "That's the last of them," Harrison said, grabbing one last pair of pants to fix up from the chest. The door to the shop opened as he was finishing, and they looked over to see Neil and Nikki.

"Hey! Good timing!” Nerris smiled. “You guys find the cat?"

"No, Nikki keeps finding other cats,” Neil sighed.

"Oh." 

"There's so many!" Nikki exclaimed.

"She's found five so far.”

"Really? It's only been an hour!" 

"Neil said we should see if you have any magic that could find him!"

"Uh... there's a locate creatures spell, but it's a level 4 spell, so we probably don't have it..."

"Is that our only magic option?" Neil asked.

"Finder's Goggles can find the last creature that touched something, but then we'd have to find the goggles... And I dunno if I got animal speak as a spell…”

"Why do you need a spell for that?" Nikki asked. 

"Well I guess if we could ask the other cats you finding if they seen the one we looking for, it might help..."

"But why a spell? I can just do that already." 

"...you speak animal languages?" 

"I speak a bunch!" Nikki smiled proudly. 

"...why ain't you been doing that, then?" 

"I think she's been too excited trying out her enhanced smell to stay and talk with any of them," Neil said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"No one said to talk to them! I thought we were just sniffing the cat out!"

"We're just trying to find the cat in any way we can,” Neil told her.

"Ok, then let's go talk to some cats!" 

"We can come with you guys," Nerris said. "We all done here."

"I still need to give you kids your clothes," the woman said.

"Oh, yeah! Duh. What we get?"

"So, there's only five of you, right?"

"Six! Max is outside!"

"Oh, right, the little one that was here before. Hm... So, you fixed 44 pieces of clothes that I can now resell, so, how about I give each of you a spare shirt, pants, and underwear?"

"At least we'll have a change of clothes." Nerris shrugged a little and smiled. "Thank you!"

"I owe you about fifteen pieces, but I'm counting the six underwear as three pieces since they're so small."

"So that's... um... Neil?" Nerris looked to him to solve it. "Usually when I'm doing math I'm doing it on paper."

"If we are going by the calculations of two underwear equals one, it equals fifteen," Neil explained. "If not, then we are getting eighteen pieces of clothing."

"What's eighteen divided by six?" 

"Three." 

"...ok, yeah, I just had to get that all worked out in my head. Thank you."

"Ok, so I have a few things you can each choose from... Can the little one come in to find something to wear?"

"Oh, uh- Max- Max isn't very picky, I-I can- I can probably just pick stuff out for him..." Neil said nervously.

"Ok, choose some clothes from the two racks at the front, and I'll grab some underwear. Feel free to try them on in the back, and if you need help getting them adjusted right, my wife can help you out. Once you choose a top and bottoms that you like, I have a little something to get them to a color you want," the woman explained.

They all spent some time picking out the new clothes before leaving the store. Max stood up from where he had been sitting to wait. 

"Fucking finally."

"We got clothes!" Preston announced. 

"We fucked up," Neil sighed. "We should have had Nikki talk to the cats we found."

"She can do that? Why the fuck hasn't she been?" 

"You didn't ask me to!"

"We're going to do it now. First, though, I took the liberty to choose your new clothes. They're blue and baggy, but I couldn't find anything with a hood remotely your size."

Max blinked a little, looking over the new clothes as he took them from Neil. If it hadn’t been for the fact they were so... whatever this stupid place was, he probably would have liked them. He had never actually had someone pick out stuff for him that he liked and didn't already have. "...uh... thanks..."

"Should we put all of them in your bag of holding for now?"

"...yeah, whatever, that's fine." Everyone handed their outfits over to Max and he shoved them all into the bag.

"So, now we need to find that cat?" Harrison asked.

"Yeah, now that Nikki can actually fucking talk to them." Max rolled his eyes.

"We forgot about it, too,” Neil said. “We've seen her talk to animals before."

"She barked at a wolf, that doesn't mean she could understand it. "

"She said she can and the way the wolves listen to her, I wouldn't doubt she can."

Nikki smiled proudly, tail wagging. "I can understand a lot of animals! Wolves and cats and I'm a little rusty on squirrels and I'm learning platypus-"

"That's fantastic, but don't you all think it's well past time for lunch?" Preston interrupted.

"Oh yeah, I'm hungry!" 

"I could eat," Nerris agreed.

"...Yeah, we should eat before continuing the search.” Neil said. “Let's go find somewhere to sit."

They ended up wandering around for almost ten minutes before they finally found somewhere out of the way to sit down and eat; it wasn’t much more than a couple boulders off to the side of the town, but it was enough. Max started pulling the food out of his bag and passing it out before sitting down near Neil. He was still a little stuck on the clothes thing. It felt... thoughtful. And weird. How did he just know what he'd like?

Preston, perched on one of the boulders, managed to swallow down some fruit jerky after chewing on it for a minute. "You know what we really need? Some way to get a drink."

"Yeah, like a river!" 

"A clean drink, Nikki." Max rolled his eyes.

"I want my water filtered after the fish piss in it," Preston agreed.

Nikki scoffed, waving them off. "It's just a little fish pee, no big deal. I've never gotten sick from drinking river water."

"I'd be impressed if you got sick from ingesting anything, " Neil stated.

"AC fucking kills you, but parasites? Nah, that shit's fine, whatever."

"I'd admire it if it were a little less disgusting," Preston chimed in. Nikki stuck her tongue out at him. "What? I thought you'd take it as a compliment."

"You should admire it anyway." Nikki folded her arms, grinning a little.

"There's a point it grosses me out too much to admire. It's admirable outside of the fact it's sickening."

Nikki shrugged. "More river water for me!"

"...I think I actually have something for that," Neil spoke up. 

"Oooh, the purify food and drink spell?" Nerris asked.

"Yeah. Hold on." He pulled out his spell papers and looked through them. "Here."

"Nice! We could all get some water with that then." 

"Booo, that probably takes out all the flavor. " 

"The flavor of fish piss?” Max rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that's the point.”

"How are we going to hold the water?" Harrison asked.

"Hm... we need some bottles..."

"Where do we get bottles here?"

"Maybe someone sells them? Like a... dish shop?"

"Yeah, maybe..."

"Or at least we could get some bowls, probably."

"They should have... oh, what are they... waterskins?" Preston asked.

"Yeah, they probably would," Nerris agreed.

"So we need to get some waterskins!" Preston announced, going to stand up.

"Can we finish fucking eating first?" Max asked.

"How are you not dying of thirst right now?" Preston asked.

"I'm hungry. "

"I am hungry and thirsty. "

Max rolled his eyes. "You're not gonna die before we finish eating."

"But I will be uncomfortable."

"Tough shit."

"How anyone can get through this stuff without being willing to kill someone for something to drink is beyond me," Preston huffed as he sat back down.

"Get the fuck over it. At least we actually have fucking food."

"You can barely call this shit food," Preston grumbled.

"God, you're so fucking spoiled."

"It's the best thing to be."

"It's fucking annoying. You've probably never even been hungry." 

Preston folded his arms. "Of course I have."

"I seriously doubt it."

"I've gone a couple days without eating before."

Max raised an eyebrow, not believing him. "Seriously?"

"Of course. You get too focused on writing a script or making a costume, all you've had is Monsters and Red Bulls to keep you from falling asleep, your grandma forgot to make dinner, and you end up ignoring your hunger pains long enough for them to stop hurting... And then it's time to go back to school and once it's lunch time you realize shit, you didn't eat all weekend."

Max rolled his eyes. "If you've really been hungry, you wouldn't be bitching about just not having water. "

"Darling, I could go a month without food and still find time to bitch if my life saving pasta is overcooked."

"I'm pretty sure you wouldn't survive a month without food," Neil stated, looking Preston up and down.

Preston took a moment to think before responding, "Precisely. I'll be bitching to my grave and beyond it as well."

"That's why you're fucking insufferable.”

"Everyone is to some extent."

"Yeah but you're the worst."

"That only means you won't be forgetting me anytime soon."

"I will if I kill myself."

"My memory will haunt you in your afterlife."

"There is no fucking afterlife. You die and you're faced with eternal nothingness."

"You can only hope."

"If it's anything else I'm fucking killing myself again. I'm not living through this shit a second time."

"Shut up and eat, both of you. We've got shit to do today besides sitting around listening to both of you argue," Neil snapped.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," Max snapped back.

"I get wanting to argue with Preston until you're blue in the face, but Preston brought up a good point. We do need water, and it's already getting late. We need to finish eating and look for some waterskins and the cat."

Max scowled. "Whatever." 

"Yeah, let's just clean up and go... We pretty much done eating," Nerris agreed. 

Neil hesitated; Max and Preston hadn't really eaten enough yet... "Uh, yeah. Max, Preston, grab any more of the food you want right now. You can eat as we walk.”

Max grumbled angrily, grabbing the rest of his food and starting to finish it off. Once Preston grabbed the last of his food, Neil started putting things away, keeping an eye on Max. He couldn't help but worry if he handled things poorly. Max was walking a little distanced from the group once they got moving, but other than that and his usual angry appearance, nothing seemed too off. Neil tried to walk close to him, and he didn't move away or anything, which was definitely… something. He kept eating, watching Neil a little warily. Once Neil was sure Max wasn't moving away, his nerves calmed down a little.

They soon found a shop with some dining sets in the window, along with tools, some planter pots, and a random assortment of typical home goods. Outside, there were some plows and even a wagon in a fenced-in locked-up area. It looked like a bit of an “everything store”, like a fantasy Walmart.

"How much money do we have left right now?" Nerris asked, looking to Harrison.

"Uh..." He pulled out the wallet and checked. "Six silver and ten copper."

"Ok, that ain't a lot... So hopefully they ain't too expensive... I don't think they should be more than a few silver..."

"That would cut in a lot on what we have," Neil pointed out.

"I can't remember exactly what they cost..." Nerris shrugged a little.

"Then we better find out!" Preston said, quickly walking into the store. They all followed him in and started browsing.

The shelves had all kinds of things: rope, more tools, stakes, tents, bedrolls, baskets, candles, writing utensils, fishing equipment, dishes and cooking equipment, and waterskins. In the back there was a small weapon area. Max quickly went to check out the weapons area, a little curious what kind of cool shit he could find here. Neil and Nikki followed him, while Nerris, Preston, and Harrison wandered around to find the waterskins.

"They don't have many options here," Preston said. "They don't even have different fabrics of bedrolls."

"We don't need nothing fancy, just whatever's cheapest."

"It's literally a step down from the cots at camp," Preston complained.

"All we need is waterskins for now. The watch and the church should have bedding stuff... Hopefully when we get some more money, we can get something nice if we need to."

"Hopefully by then we're in an actual city or something... How much are we getting for finding the cat?"

"I don't think the flier said.”

"Did no one ask?" Preston asked.

"Maybe not..."

"God, that's stupid."

Eventually they found the waterskins. They were listed at 25, or two silver and five copper.

"Oh, that's a lot, ok…” Nerris worried. “Um... we could get two...? That'll carry a gallon..."

"We'll only have 2 silver after that," Neil pointed out.

"Did you guys ask how much the reward for finding the cat is?"

"...Fuck, why didn't I think of that?" Neil cursed.

"It's ok, we got a lot going on..."

"Most of what's going on right now is figuring out how to get money,” Neil said.

"I figured getting teleported into another dimension is mentally exhausting for everyone else, too."

Neil thought on that for a second. "...Yeah, I guess you're right..."

Nerris nodded a little. "So... Let's get one for now, and you can cast Purify a few times on it, and that'll at least be enough water for us all to have a little drink."

"I don't think I can cast it enough..."

"Or we could get two and hope we get enough money from the cat quest."

"I have an idea," Preston spoke up.

"Yeah?"

"We go up and give the person a sob story."

"You the bard, you'd have the best performance roll."

"Of course I would," Preston said a little smugly before sashaying up to the counter. Max saw him from the other side of the store and rolled his eyes. This ought'a be good. "Excuse me, dear sir," Preston began, sounding as innocent and kind as he could muster. "My friends and I ended up getting teleported into the middle of the wilderness with nothing but a few coins of copper and silver. We're awfully thirsty, and will need some supplies on our journey to get back home. Are there any deals you could provide us on waterskins or anything else? We know some magic and could help out with any jobs too, if you have any..." 

"Oh, you poor kids. How many are ya?" 

"There's six of us, sir."

The others gathered around to watch. Max was a bit in shock that it was even working.

"How much money do you have?" 

"Six silver and some copper." 

The man glanced around a bit, taking stock of all the kids. "...How about we BOGO the waterskins for you, and... how long are you staying in town?" 

"We not sure yet, but probably only a couple days," Nerris spoke up.

"Ok, you kids stop by before you leave and I'll see if I got anything else for ya."

"Thank you!" Nerris grinned. "We really appreciate it!"

"Thank you so much, sir," Preston said, his voice sounding almost sickeningly sweet and innocent to those that knew him. They paid for two of the waterskins, took the other two, and left to find a water source.

"This town is actually pretty nice..." Harrison said as they were leaving.

"Yeah! It's kinda cool,” Nerris said.

"Besides the church, people have been pretty willing to help us out," Neil agreed.

"It's fucking weird," Max said.

"Well, Nerris's campaigns usually have people that are willing to help if you're not acting mean," Harrison pointed out. "Maybe that's it..."

"What's it? You think it's my campaign?"

"Well, it's what we're used to with your D&D campaigns."

Nerris shrugged a little. "Yeah, I guess. But other DMs do it, too."

"Well, I haven't encountered another person to DM a campaign for me," Preston stated. "I doubt anyone else here has played much D&D without you."

"But that don't mean it's my campaign."

"I didn't say it was?" Harrison said with uncertainty.

"...oh. I thought the "maybe that's it" meant you thought it was my campaign..."

"No, just, that's what your campaigns are usually like, and your campaigns are what I have to go off of. We still don't really know how this place exists, if my magic made it or something..."

"Yeah, true..."

They reached a small river that ran by the outskirts of town, not far from Lysanth's house. They filled up all four of the waterskins before passing them over for Neil to cast on. He pulled out his spell papers and found one for Purify Food and Drink. Once the waterskins were placed together in front of him, he held the paper close and used it. The magic warmed his hand a little as he cast it, the paper disintegrating into a purifying light. Nikki was the first to grab one and drink, downing almost half of the contents. 

"It's clean!"

"Ok, good.” Neil sounded a little relieved. “Everyone, drink up so we can refill them."

They took turns passing around the four waterskins and drinking from them, and once they were empty, refilled them. 

"Thank god," Preston sighed once he was done. Once the waterskins were full, purified, and put away, he announced, "Now, let's go find that cat!"

Nikki jumped up, eager to get back to searching. "Yeah, let's go!" She started sniffing around, then sat back up. "Um... I lost the scent."

"You lost the scent?" Harrison asked.

"Well I smelled that bed forever ago! I don't remember what it smells like.”

"We should have grabbed the bed," Neil groaned.

"Just find any cat and ask them about the one we're looking for," Max told Nikki.

"Yeah... It's not like you knowing the exact smell was working before anyway..."

"Ok!" Nikki started sniffing around for just any cat smell. The party wandered around town for about ten minutes before she finally found a smell and tracked it down. “I found something!”

"Ooh, finally!” Preston exclaimed. “Now the action really starts!"

Out back of the inn, there were a couple boxes and some trash barrels, which the smell led to, and Nikki started digging through the trash a little. One trash barrel smelled of old food, and inside there was a hiss.

"Oh! Hello!" Nikki just started meowing.

"Back off!" The cat growled back.

"Wait, I have questions! We're trying to find a cat 'cause his person lost him and the kid really wants him back.”

The rest of the party hovered around and watched as Nikki and the cat meowed back and forth. The cat jumped out of the barrel, tabby-gray fur raised and tail puffed up, glaring at them.

"Nikki, chill the fuck out, you're scaring it,” Max said.

"We want it to work with us," Neil reminded her.

"Oops!" Nikki backed up and sat down. "Sorry I scared you!"

"You didn't scare me," the cat practically huffed.

"Oh, ok then! Does that mean you can help us?"

"Why would I?"

"Well the kid reaaaally misses his cat and the cat is probably scared too and maybe he wants to go home!"

"So?"

"...pretty please?"

The cat sat and tried to casually lick his paw, though he kept his hackles raised and an eye on the party. "No."

"Nikki, what's taking so long?" Max asked, getting impatient. 

"He won't help us!" 

Max groaned.

"What is he saying?" Preston asked.

"No."

"No?"

"No he won't help us."

"Did he say why?"

"Nuh-uh."

Max thought for a moment and pulled out the bag of food. "What if we gave him some of this?"

“Nikki, ask him if he'll help for food,” Neil instructed.

"Ok!" She turned back to the cat. "Would you help us if we give you some of our food?"

"...What's the food?"

"What's the food?" Nikki asked. Max held out the bag. The cat didn't leave its spot, but leaned a little closer, trying to smell. 

"I think it's some sort of fish jerky?" Neil said.

"We think it's some kind of fish jerky," Nikki translated.

"Jerky? You couldn't offer me something juicy at the least?"

"That's the only cat food we have. They gave it to us for the cat we're looking for."

"...How much?"

"Umm... a handful?" The cat flicked its tail, not really happy. Digging through the trash could easily get him a handful of food... But fish would be really nice... Though this was going to be really dry… "I do have pretty big hands." Nikki held up her front paws.

"Fine. What do you want from me?"

"Have you seen, um... What's the cat's name?" Nikki asked the others.

"They said the cat's name is Mauly,” Neil answered.

"Ok! Have you seen a cat named Mauly?" Nikki asked the cat. "He's white and he has orange spots!"

"How am I supposed to know who that is?"

"Well that's why I said what he looks like. We're just wondering if you've seen him!"

The cat rolled his eyes. "...Actually... I did see someone like that a while ago...."

Nikki perked up, her tail starting to wag. "You did?!"

"What did it say?" Preston asked.

"He saw a cat that looks like Mauly!"

"Where?" Harrison asked.

"When?" Neil asked.

"Where and when?" Nikki asked the cat. 

"A couple days ago. He was hunting in the forest not far from here." The cat flicked its tail, watching the movement.

"A couple days ago in the forest!" Nikki translated.

"Can he show us?" Preston asked.

"Can you show us?"

"All you're offering me is jerky," the cat reminded her.

"So... is that a no?"

"Unless you have something more to offer."

"He said no unless we have more we can give him," Nikki said.

Max groaned. "If we give him any more food, we won't have any left for the actual cat."

"...Is there a way we could give him a fresh kill?" Preston asked.

"I could kill something if we find it!" Nikki said.

"See if he'll take us up on that," Neil instructed.

"If we find anything in the forest, I can kill it for you," Nikki told the cat.

"...As long as you ensure you get me at least one decent kill, a plump mouse or bigger, you have a deal."

"I killed a rabbit the other day! Maybe we'll find another one!" Nikki nodded excitedly. The cat purred in satisfaction and jumped onto the ground. He started off at a decent pace toward the forest. Nikki followed him, and the rest of the party trailed behind her.

"I assume that's a yes," Preston stated in satisfaction as he moved to follow.

They didn't encounter much besides a couple of birds out of reach, and it wasn't long before the cat sat down. "I saw him here, taking a drink from this stream." Nikki started sniffing, trying to find the scent.

"Did he see which way Mauly went?" Harrison asked.

Nikki was only sniffing for a few seconds before she perked up, tail wagging. "I can smell him!! It smells like the bed!"

"Then lead the way!" Neil exclaimed. 

Nikki started following the scent closely as it got stronger and stronger and the stray followed along, not wanting to miss out on payment. After a few minutes, the smell of a week-old corpse reached Nikki's nose. She stopped, panicking for a second and worrying that the corpse smell might have been the cat they were looking for- but it smelled different, not like the cat smell.

"What's wrong?" Neil asked, not liking that Nikki was stopping.

"There's a dead body somewhere. I thought it was the cat, but it's not the cat."

Preston gasped prematurely, then sighed. "Oh. Good. I don't think my heart was ready for that."

Max's chest had tightened for a second too, and he silently let out a breath of relief. "So what is it?"

"I dunno..." She started following the new scent. The stray pinned his ears against his head as they got closer. Next to a tree, near a 30-foot cliff face, they found the sparse remains of a giant spider.

"Holy fucking shit." Max's eyes went wide.

"Woaahhh!" Nikki looked at the corpse in awe. "Cooool!"

"What the fuck is that?! " Preston screamed. Harrison froze up, staring at the huge corpse that lay before them.

Neil swallowed. "I-It's good that it's dead... Right? Unless... something worse killed it…"

"Maybe... uh... died of old age...?" Nerris tried to guess, hovering behind Harrison and Preston a bit. Nikki bit down on one of the spider legs, pulling at it playfully.

"No, look! There's a broken arrow," Preston stated, pointing at the ground nearby. "This beast was surely slain! We'll need to keep an eye out for bandits!"

"Ah fuck," Max groaned. "Can't we just keep looking for the cat? It's just a fucking spider, who cares?"

"Yeah... We should just keep moving," Nerris agreed. 

Nikki whined a little but dropped the spider leg and resumed on the path of the cat smell, following it along the face of the cliff. After a minute, a large cave came into view, the smell getting stronger the closer Nikki approached. "I think he's in here!" She called to the rest of the party.

Preston swallowed. "I think we should... get some weapons ready before we go straight in there…"

"We don't got no money for weapons, though..." Nerris pointed out. "I mean- we have my sword, and magic…"

"Can't we make weapons?"

"Oh yeah, weapons out of rocks and sticks," Max said sarcastically. "That's caveman shit."

"If there's something in there, I'd rather us have some rocks and sticks instead of just our hands," Neil retorted.

"Don't you have fucking magic? What's the point if it can't kill things?"

"I do, but this is turn-based combat. You and Nikki don't have magic, and even if you can only cause a couple points of damage per round, we could really use it."

"I have claws and teeth!" Nikki pointed out.

"Er, right. So, what about you?"

Max scowled. "What the hell am I supposed to do with sticks and rocks?"

"You can throw them," Neil pointed out.

"We could make a slingshot if we can find something stretchy!" Nerris suggested.

"That would be nice… But what would be stretchy out here?"

"Guts can be pretty stretchy." Nikki smiled, and Max perked up a little. "We should see if that spider has any left!"

Preston gagged. "That sounds horrible."

"Nah, that's sick as hell. A weapon made out of dead things." Max was much more into the idea of making a weapon out of a dead body.

They trekked back to the spider body, checking the corpse out for anything of use. The guts were too old and infested to do anything with, but one of the giant fangs was still intact.

"Oh hell yeah!" Max tried to pull it out, crawled on top of the spider's head.

"Careful!" Neil called out.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Max yelled back, pulling harder at the fang when it didn't budge.

"I don't want you to poison yourself!"

The spider fang suddenly slipped free of the corpse, Max managing to safely extract it. "Fuck you I have a spider knife!" Max held it up triumphantly, looking a little giddy.

"Ok, that's pretty epic," Preston stated.

"It's more like a spider blade than a spider knife right now," Neil corrected. "You don't have a handle."

"Hm, you're right. I need a handle." Max climbed back down, looking over the fang in his hands; it was almost the length of his arm. "God this is fucking sick ."

"It's so cool," Nerris agreed. "I wonder if the poison damage effect still works when it detached. If I was DMing I'd let it work, it'd be so cool."

"We should be very careful with it just in case," Neil said. "We don't want anyone here to get poisoned."

"Speak for yourself, I'm the one with the fang and there's at least two people here I'd willingly poison." Nerris was annoying, but mostly innocent and easy enough to ignore, like an annoying puppy. Preston and Harrison he would absolutely stab, though.

"We're more likely to survive if no one's poisoned," Neil clarified.

"It's only a giant spider; their poison damage don't kill, it only paralyzes," Nerris said.

"Aw damn it."

"One of us being paralyzed is still a big problem," Neil stated.

"Only for like, an hour."

"That's still not good."

"Whatever! Let's just go find that cat!" Max interrupted.

"Should we try to make a cover for the fang first?" Neil asked.

"It'll be fine. I'll be careful or whatever."

"He's small enough to carry if we need to," Preston pointed out.

"Fuck off."

On their way back to the cave, Nikki was picking up sticks and hitting the trees with them, trying to find a decent one that wouldn't break. Eventually, she spotted a hefty tree branch, stripped of diverging branches and sawed off at some point in the past, partially split from the tree from a previous lightning strike. She jumped for it, tearing it from the trunk. It was the length of her arm, and a bit thicker toward the end. She grinned, thwacking it against the tree trunk and nodding in satisfaction when it didn’t break. Oh yeah, this one was perfect.

Chapter Text

The party approached the cave again, and those who possessed dark vision (Nerris, Preston, and Harrison) could make out large webs with thick webbing around the edges of the cave. Nerris spotted a dead bat trapped in one of the higher webs, while Max noticed what seemed like some old shoe prints made in mud that dried up, leading in and out of the cave. He took note, but didn’t say anything.

The webbing put Nerris on edge, especially since they had just seen a dead giant spider. "There's a lot of webbing... We should be careful." 

"Dying to a giant arachnid sounds like a very unepic way to go in a D&D campaign," Preston stated, not liking the look of it. 

"How am I supposed to hit stuff if I can't see anything?" Nikki whined, sounding very puppy-like.

"Smell it out?" Harrison hesitantly offered. 

"Hmm... We could use a torch if we had one," Preston said thoughtfully. 

"You a fire genasi- you should have some fire magic," Nerris said.

"Oh! That's right! I'm a human torch!" Preston exclaimed. "Let's see. Think burning thoughts..."

"Dumbass," Max mumbled, mostly to hide his intrigue about seeing how the fire worked.

As Preston thought "burning thoughts", his hair began to dance as it became less like hair and more like fire, his skin radiating heat and his hands catching fire, along with his decorative cloth belt.

"Holy shit!" Max's eyes went wide. Nerris grinned, bouncing on their feet a little.

" Preston! Your belt! " Neil practically shrieked, not at all ready to see what would happen if all of Preston's clothes caught fire.

"Yeah, cool it, fireball!" Max snapped, backing up.

Harrison quickly tried to cast prestidigitation, but it went wild. He felt the odd magic gather and then spread throughout him instead of leaving to snuff the fire... " HUH!? "

Nerris ducked, screaming in response to the loud hurt and plugging their ears. Nikki whimpered, scampering backwards, and Max slammed his hands over his ears. " Fuck! What the fuck was that?!"

Preston jumped back, slipping and falling down, luckily landing in a way to put out the fire on his belt. The produced fire fizzled out as he scampered away from the sudden huge noise. The stray cat scampered away and climbed a tree. Harrison himself slapped his hands over his ears, the typically dull slapping sound magnified greatly, making loud booms from his's head. Max and Nikki started moving for the exit to the cave, but Nerris seemed stuck where they were, crying louder.

Harrison froze up, holding his breath and not moving, overwhelmed and, honestly, his ears hurt from that. Neil was frozen as well, trying to make sense of what was coming to kill them and from where. Preston finally overcame the surprise of the loud noises. It felt like the sound was coming from everywhere in the cave. He glanced around; no wonder, the cave was acting like a theater, bouncing the sound everywhere. So it must have been in the cave. 

"Everyone, get outside! It's in the cave!"

Preston's yelling wasn't helping Nerris; in fact, it was making their meltdown worse. Preston scrambled up off the ground. Neil, having some form of an answer to his questions, rushed out of the cave. Harrison was still not moving or breathing, too freaked out by the loud noises that emulated around him. After a moment of no loud noises- beside the big gasps from whatever had made the noises and a smaller sound of something struggling deeper in the cave- Nerris finally managed to move enough to sneak out of the cave.

"What was that?" Neil asked in a harsh whisper, his hand holding one of his paper spells.

"I don't fucking know!" Max said. 

" Ssshhhh! " Nerris whined, covering their ears.

"Harrison's still in there," Preston stated. 

Nikki went back in to try and pull Harrison out. By the time she dragged Harrison out by his shirt, the noise was quieting down back to normal levels. The sounds of Harrison's footfall as he stumbled after Nikki were loud, but they grew quieter as he got closer to the group.

"What the fuck was that?" Max asked, clearly agitated.

"I don't know, but I certainly would prepare for whatever may come out of this cave now that it knows we're here!" Preston announced.

"I can take it! Lemme at 'em!" Nikki barked, crouching at the entrance of the cave. 

Everyone watched the cave entrance anxiously, waiting for something to happen. Most of the group were too freaked out, constantly looking around for something that had to be there, but seeing nothing and second guessing themselves. Preston hummed after a moment. Besides the webs, everything seemed empty. 

Nikki, on the other hand, thought she could sense something in the dark, despite not having dark vision, and was pretty sure it was a big threat. She barked, trying to warn whatever it was, and she jumped into the cave a little bit. Neil started to pull out some of his spell papers, trying to find one that may help in a battle. 

"What are you jumping at?" Preston asked, still not seeing anything. Harrison was just backing up, still too overwhelmed to handle any of this.

"There's something in there and it's big! " Nikki was so sure of it.

"I... don't think so... That spider from before could have done all of this."

"But what was all that noise then?"

Nerris hesitated, still flapping to regulate themself, before asking, "Hey... Harrison? Did you try to do any magic?" Harrison shrank into himself a little, recognizing his name but still too overwhelmed to recognize much else. Nerris tugged at their cape a little. "Um... maybe it was wild magic...?"

Neil looked between them and the cave. "...That might make some sense..."

Nikki frowned; she still thought there was something in there... She walked further into the cave, sniffing cautiously. There were a lot of smells, plenty bad as if many somethings were dead, but she couldn't really discern any of them.

"...does anyone have a light spell?" Nerris asked.

Preston immediately brightened up, both figuratively and a little literally. "OH! Of course, I'd never make a bard without Prestidigitation!" Automatically he went to grab something... but it wasn't there, and Preston wasn’t really sure what it was he was trying to grab for.

"Oh, yeah, try that."

Preston opened and closed his hand for a second before shaking the odd feeling off. He held up his hands and focused on a spot between them and began humming. After a couple seconds, he managed to make a small cluster of sparks. Nerris grinned, bouncing a little as they watched the magic. 

"Ooooh!" Nikki's eyes went wide as she watched too. "Shiny!" Preston smiled, glad to be entertaining someone, and the sparks quickly fizzled out. "Aww! Where'd they go?" Nikki frowned.

"The sparks are only for a moment. We need a torch or something." Nerris started looking around for a good stick.

"That makes sense... Oh! I could try to set the webs on fire!"

"Cobwebs don't burn very long, dumbass." Max rolled his eyes. "They're not even a good firestarter."

"Well, it's not like you're giving any ideas," Preston shot back.

"Hold on, I'm finding a good stick for a torch!" Nerris told them. After another minute or so, they picked up a decent-sized stick and held it out for Preston to light. He tried again, and this time lit the end of the stick easily enough. Nerris led the party into the cave, holding the torch out to light ahead of them. Harrison stayed behind, still shaken from the overwhelming noise that emanated from him not that long ago.

As they walked in, the fire flickered, making shadows dance around them. The webs were as thick as twine, and within them were cocoons of varying sizes, some as small as what could have been rabbits, and others as large as deer.

As Preston walked, eyes jumping to and fro as the flames caused the illusion of movement all around them, he didn't notice a small stone underfoot until he had fully stepped on it, and it sent him off balance. He stumbled and screamed as he landed right into a mass of webbing. Max jumped away from Preston's scream, backing right into another web behind him. He panicked- he didn't like feeling trapped- and tried to struggle free, which only resulted in him getting tangled up more. As they both struggled, more web was able to stick to them, slowly trapping them further. 

"Guys, stop moving!" Neil called out, noticing that they were just getting themselves more stuck. Max froze, almost instinctively holding his breath to keep silent, but Preston kept struggling, his hair starting to flicker as he got more panicked.

"Preston!" Nerris called over, stepping over beside him. "Stop it, you making it worse."

"I'm covered in webs! How could this be any worse?! " He cried, still struggling. 

"You getting tangled up!" 

"Just GET ME OUT! " Fire sparked around him, igniting the webs which immediately caught ablaze, burning off around him... and igniting some of his garments.

"Hey! There, you're out!" Nerris pointed out, hoping it would calm him down. 

"Your clothes are on fire!" Nikki told him. 

"Of course they are, he's literally a human faggot." Max rolled his eyes, tugging his arm against the web a little. Preston yelped and managed to slap the fires out, but his clothes were left a bit scorched.

Nerris winced at Max's choice of words, but tried to focus more on making sure Preston was alright. "Are you ok?"

"No, I'm not! Look at my clothes!" Preston wailed.

"Get the fuck over it. You're not dead, you're fine," Max said. 

Neil picked up a stone that looked kind of sharp and carefully tried to cut at the web around Max, but the web stuck to it and didn't really get sliced. Nerris, taking note of how well the fire freed Preston, tried to carefully burn the webbing around Max. Far enough away to not catch him on fire, but enough to at least detach him from the wall. It took longer for the web to catch and burn away than with Preston, but in the span of three rounds of combat, the web was no more than ash. 

Max irritably picked the last of the webbing off his clothes, mumbling a short, "Thanks or whatever." The webbing stuck to his hand and held his fingers together. He scowled, struggling to try and pull it off. "Fuck."

"Um, here." Neil tried to use the rock to help scrape it off. With a twisting motion, it managed to tug off of Max's hand.

"Finally. God, this sucks."

"I can't believe my clothes are ruined, ” Preston lamented.

"Um, well... you are a fire genasi. Maybe you just have an opportunity now to design new fireproof clothes!" Nerris tried to cheer Preston up.

"With what ? I don't have any-" Preston suddenly stopped talking, looking deeper into the cave. 

Max's attention snapped back into the cave as well- there was a faint yowl, like a cat that was hurt or tired. He grabbed the torch from Nerris, following the sound. "C'mon, aren't we on a damn mission or something?"

"Careful," Preston hissed loudly. "Something's in here."

" Yeah, it's that cat we were looking for. Hurry up, I wanna get the hell out of here and get paid."

Neil hurried to follow him. "Are you sure? It could be anything." The firelight finally began to illuminate a messy ball of web and fur, much different than the neatly wrapped cocoons of the spider's other victims. Max froze, his chest suddenly feeling tight. Neil noticed after a moment. "Everyone, over here!"

Nerris and Nikki followed them back and Nerris gasped upon seeing the cat tangled up in the webbing. 

"Aww you poor baby!" Nikki cooed. " Don't worry, we're gonna get you outta here! " The cat looked at Nikki for a moment before closing its eyes.

Max's mind kind of kickstarted again and he got moving to try and get the cat out. "Fuck, who knows how long it's been stuck here? Neil, give it some water, huh?" He passed his bag of holding over for Neil to get the waterskins out of.

"Yeah, yeah, um..." Neil reached into the bag and managed to get a waterskin after a few seconds. Careful to not touch the webbing, he started splashing and pouring the water next to the cat's mouth. Immediately it began lapping at the stream, opening its eyes.

"There ya go," Max mumbled, carefully working to burn some of the webbing to separate the cat from the mess. "You're gonna be ok..."

"There you go, Mauly," Neil said stiffly. "Dehydration is the biggest concern for you right now."

"Careful. Don't burn it so close," Preston said anxiously over his shoulder. 

"Back the hell off, I got it," Max snapped a little at Preston. It took some finessing, but eventually Mauly was free from the webs keeping him trapped in the cave, but it was too dangerous to burn the webs sticking his limbs together. Max shoved the torch into Preston's hands, carefully picking Mauly up and holding him against his chest. He didn't really care about the webs now- this cat was hurt, he needed help. 

"Let's get him back home," Nerris said. "They can give him a bath there, that should help."

"Great, now the cat's going to be stuck to you," Preston pointed out to Max.

"Who cares? We'll deal with it later."

"Well, let's get out of here. The spider might be dead, but these webs are still creepy," Preston said, rolling his eyes.

They walked back out to the cave entrance where Harrison was still waiting. He had sat down by a tree and was being swatted at by the stray.

"We found him!" Nikki announced gleefully.

"That's good," Harrison said quietly, watching as the cat batted at his shoe again.

"Are you good?" Nerris asked him, noticing how quiet he was. Harrison shrugged. The stray looked over and finally noticed the webbed-up cat in Max's arms and he sat at attention, looking expectantly at the humanoids. 

Max noticed and raised an eyebrow, glancing at Nikki. "What does it want?"

" Are you waiting for something? " Nikki asked the cat. " Or just some food? ”

" I was promised a fresh kill. "

" We'll find something on the way back! " Nikki assured him happily, then told Max, "He's still just waiting for food."

"We need to get Mauly taken care of first. He can wait for food," Neil stated.

"We'll probably find something on the way back." Nikki shrugged.

"You can."

"C'mon, let's just get moving," Max said, starting to walk back the way they came from. Harrison stood up to follow them, still more reserved than usual.

The party didn't get very far before Max was starting to struggle with carrying the cat that was about half his size, but he was trying not to show it. The stray followed behind, seeming a bit agitated.

"Well, at least if we don't find anything out here, maybe we can buy him some fresh food," Nerris suggested. 

"We're supposed to be making money, not spending it,” Neil argued.

"Just a little bit! We already promised we'd get him some food."

"We can figure it out after we get Mauly cleaned up." 

"And after I get changed," Preston huffed.

"We should try to find you some fireproof clothes," Nerris told Preston. "But for now, this might help a bit-" As they were walking, Nerris grabbed one of the scorched spots and cast mending on it. Color returned to the spot, the brittle scorched edges returning to their soft, clothlike texture. However, the edge was still rough from the little bit that was burned away. "It's better than nothing, huh?"

"I forgot all about that! Yes, that's perfect; a little fraying is pretty common in costumes anyway." Nerris smiled, casting mending a few more times as they walked. 

Max was finally getting to a point where he couldn't carry Mauly much further, and he was starting to fall behind. "Max?" Neil spoke, noticing him slowing down.

"I'm fine," Max huffed, but it was kind of clear that he was tired.

"Do you want help? It would be easier for me to carry the cat."

"...yeah, why the hell am I doing it? You're taller, you should be carrying all this shit." He was trying to recover himself as "in charge," even though Neil had already offered first.

"Exactly," Neil agreed, not noticing the "trying to look in charge" situation. Max tried to hold the cat out to Neil, only to realize it was stuck to his sweatshirt. 

"Shit."

Preston looked back. "What's going on?"

"I told Neil to carry the cat but it's stuck to me."

"It just looks stuck to your jacket."

"Well, yeah? I'm wearing it."

"So take it off," Neil offered.

Max tensed. "No."

"Why not?" Preston asked.

"Mind your own business," Max snapped.

Neil groaned. "How else am I supposed to carry the cat?"

"We can't really burn the webbing off without hurting you or the cat," Nerris said.

"And it looks like some of its fur has already been pulled out from tugging on the webs,” Neil added.

"Ugh! Whatever, then! I'll just keep carrying the thing." He wasn’t taking off his hoodie.

"It will be faster if someone else carries him," Preston pointed out. 

"I can!" Nikki volunteered eagerly. "I can carry you both!" 

Max's face heated up a bit; he wasn’t a baby, but... He scratched a little at his wrist. He couldn't take off his hoodie. "Fuck, fine, whatever."

Preston rolled his eyes. "What a drama queen."

"You almost killed yourself because your clothes got a little burned, shut the hell up." Max jumped a bit when Nikki scooped him up, tensing. Shit, he hated this.

"I did not!"

"You were a little dramatic," Nerris agreed.

"Because a person's appearance matters. But I wasn't that melodramatic."

"No it doesn't. You were being a baby," Max said.

"Says the one who won't take off their jacket," Preston huffed.

"I just don't want to!" Max snapped. "I'm just- I'm cold."

"How are you cold? " Preston asked. 

"I don't think a fire elemental has an accurate gauge of temperature," Neil spoke up.

"Some people are just always cold! So what?"

"Don't you have another hoodie in your bag?" Nerris pointed out.

"Nikki's already carrying them, which means that the hoodie won't get tugged on while he's taking it off," Neil explained.

"I'll just change when we get there or whatever."

"How are we going to get him free?" Harrison asked.

"Hot water?" Nerris suggested. "That should at least be enough to clean him off safely."

"Oil might help if we can get any," Neil suggested.

"Or soap?" Nerris asked.

"That too. I'm not sure with webs, honestly."

"Well normal webs aren't really this thick..."

"Yes, but what makes webs sticky is a substance produced by spiders. Some sticky substances come off easier with oil, rubbing alcohol, or acetone than they do with soap."

"Ohh. Well, I'm sure they got something we can use."

The party made their way through town and back to the house safely. When they finally reached the place, Neil knocked on the door, since he was the one leading them back, and then he stepped back with Max and Nikki. The door opened quickly, revealing the half orc child. 

"Did you find Mauly?" Ricky asked hopefully. 

The human from before ran into view. "Ricky, I told you to wait.”

"Yeah yeah, we got the cat." Max tried to kind of show him off a little. The human's eyes widened at seeing the condition the cat was in, immediately thinking the worst. 

" Mraur, " Mauly called out. The adult immediately sighed in relief.

"He's just stuck to me now," Max mumbled. 

"We found him in some spider webbing, but we just need to get him cleaned off and he'll be ok!" Nerris assured them. "Neil said we need oil or alcohol?"

"Yeah, um... let's try some alcohol, at least it will help to cleanse any cuts he may have," the man said, stepping aside to let the kids in. Nikki carried Max and the cat inside, finally setting them down on the bench the man sent them to. He fetched some cheap alcohol, and Ricky stuck close to them. 

"Ith he gonna be ok?"

"He just tired and hungry but he don't look hurt!" Nerris reassured him. "The spider was dead when we found him and it kinda looked like Mauly just got tangled up. So nothing hunted him!"

"Oh, good." Ricky reached out to pet him.

"He's still sticky, though," Max warned him. "He's fucking stuck to my hoodie."

Ricky’s hand stalled. "Oh.... tho I might get thuck?"

"Duh." Max rolled his eyes.

"Yes," Harrison said, shooting Max a frustrated look. "But once the webs are gone you can pet him again." Max returned the look with a "what the fuck" look of his own, but didn't say anything. 

The man came back soon with a rag and a glass bottle of some alcoholic beverage and an old fashioned razor. "Ok, Mauly, just stay calm." He poured some of the liquid onto the cloth and went about rubbing an easy-to-get spot of web and fur to see if it works. After a few moments, the silk came away from the fur. "Huh, that actually works."

"Thank god. I didn't wanna be stuck like this."

He handed the alcohol and rag to Neil. "Keep working on the spots you can reach. I'm going to shave off the worst spots."

"Maybe now would be a good time to take the hoodie off," Neil suggested.

Max tensed a little. "Uh- yeah, just- gimme my other hoodie, I'll change in the bathroom or something." Neil pulled the hoodie out of Max’s bag that he was still carrying and handed it to him. Max went to stand up. "Uh- where's a bathroom?"

"Careful," Harrison gasped. 

"We can help you take him off here," Neil stated.

"I'm fine, " Max snapped defensively. "I can do it myself. I just want some fucking privacy, god. Is that a fucking problem?"

"How the fuck are you going to take off the hoodie while not hurting Mauly?" Neil asked.

"I'll figure it out!"

Mauly squirmed, not liking that he was attached to someone so upset. 

"Easy. We can have others leave to give you some more privacy, but let a couple people help you," the man calmly recommended.

"I don't need help." Max didn't want anyone to see. Especially not Neil or Nikki. 

"At least let me hold the cat while you get out of the hood."

"It's fine. I can do it. It's not that fucking hard."

"It's not like we're stripping you down to your underwear," Preston complained. 

"Pleathe don't hurt Mauly," Ricky whimpered.

"Just let me change and it'll be fine. "

"Ok, just be careful. Do you want help getting to the bathroom?" The man asked.

"Just show me where it is."

"It's out back."

Max made his way to the outhouse out back and sighed in relief, dropping to sit on the floor once he closed the door. Strangely enough, the smell wasn’t that bad- nothing like a normal porta-potty or the bathrooms at camp, thankfully. Making sure the cat was securely on the floor, Max pulled his arms out of his sleeves and wiggled out of the hoodie. Once he successfully wiggled out, he left it on the floor with Mauly. He picked a little at the scabbing scars on his wrist- he couldn't let any of the others see them. He pulled on his second hoodie before scooping Mauly back up- this time wrapped a little in the first hoodie so he didn't get stuck again- and carried him carefully back inside. Ricky was anxiously waiting at the back door.

"See? I told you it'd be fucking fine."

"It just seemed risky," Neil stated as he hurried to take the cat from Max. He readily handed the cat over, tugging a little at his sleeves. 

Neil brought the cat back to the bench where they could carefully remove him from the cloth. It took a while, and the cat was quickly getting fed up with being manhandled, struggling weakly and growling a bit. Nikki was speaking gently to Mauly, trying to keep him calm. " He's just trying to get all the spider web off, " she reassured him.

" Too much, " he complained.

" Well otherwise you're gonna get stuck to everything again! "

" Too much. Stop. No. "

"Um- Neil, maybe stop for a minute?" Nikki said. "He says it's too much."

"What?" 

"'He says'?" The adult asked.

"Nikki can talk to animals," Nerris explained. "She knows a lot of animal languages." 

"Maybe you're being too rough," Nikki told Neil.

"We're trying to be careful, but he got himself really stuck," Neil explained.

"I know, but he says it's too much. Maybe just give it a break?"

"Ok. We can give him a few minutes," the man agreed.

"I get that." Nerris nodded in agreement. "Getting overwhelmed easily."

"Some animals can be pretty sensitive," Harrison added. "Like with rabbits, they really don't like being touched on their belly and chest."

"Cats are sensitive too. Mine don't like being pet on her belly." 

"Well... tell him to let us know when we can continue," Neil said. It felt a little weird having to consider an animal's consent this much, especially when it was for their own health.

"Ok! Tell us when you're feeling ok to keep going, ok? "

" ...Hungry... "

" Oh! We had food for you! Where's the food we had for him? He's hungry," Nikki told the others. Max quickly went to grab the dried fish from his bag, holding it out for the cat. The cat struggled, trying to get to the food even before Max had finished holding it out to him. He immediately gobbled it up and meowed for more.

"Yeah yeah, don't worry, I gotcha," Max mumbled a little, pulling out the rest of the food. He continued eating, purring a little, which made a funny noise as he ate. "I get it, it's no fun going hungry," Max muttered, quiet enough for no one else to really hear.

(Nikki heard it, but she didn't pay it any mind. Who hadn't gotten too distracted with rolling around in muck to eat, after all?)

Once Mauly was done eating, he began licking at the bench where the food was. "You guys got any more of his food?" Max asked the dad.

"Yes. Ricky, go get his bowl ready." 

Ricky ran off.

" Don't worry, they're getting you more food! " Nikki told Mauly. He just meowed hungrily. 

Ricky soon returned with a bowl of a mix of food scraps that he set beside Mauly, who managed to stand up to eat even though one of his forelegs was still quite stuck to his chest. Max watched him for a moment before grabbing one of the waterskins. "You guys got another bowl for water or something?"

"Oh, yeah," Ricky said, running off again. When he returned with the bowl already filled with water, Max just sat back to watch the cat eat and drink, putting the waterskin back in his bag. Once Mauly finished, he flopped back down, still purring a little.

" Can they keep cleaning you up now? " Nikki asked.

"... Fine. "

"He says you can keep going," she told Neil and the dad. It took a few more minutes, but finally Mauly was freed from the webs, looking worse for wear and with a few bald spots, but mostly fine. " Ok, they're all done! " Nikki told him happily.

Mauly immediately bolted across the room and started grooming himself. Once Max was sure the cat was okay, he turned to the dad. "So do we get paid now, or...?"

"Oh, yes, yes, of course. Thank you. I'll go grab that." 

Ricky ran over to Mauly, who began rubbing up against the kid.

"Max, you don't gotta be rude about it." Nerris frowned. 

"We're not here making friends. We did all this shit to get paid."

"...We don't even know how much we're getting paid," Neil said quietly. "It's better to not be rude in case that affects anything."

"We brought their fucking cat back, what does that have to do with manners?"

"Yes, but we can't say that he stiffed us $10 if there hasn't been an agreed upon amount," Neil explained. 

"He's saying we are at this man's mercy for how much we get paid for this," Preston added, "so it wouldn't hurt to kiss up." 

"Well, not kiss up exactly, but at least be a little polite."

Max groaned a little and rolled his eyes. That made sense, but he hated sucking up. "Fuck, fine."

"...What's taking him so long?" Harrison asked after a moment.

"Maybe he lost his wallet?" Nerris suggested. Their dad lost his wallet all the time.

"It doesn't look like there's many places to lose things here," Preston said in a stage whisper.

"Maybe I can help sniff it out!" Nikki offered. 

"And exactly what are you going to sniff out?" Neil asked. "Everything is going to smell like him here."

"...oh, yeah."

"Well, now this stretch is just becoming awkward," Preston huffed.

"Just give him a minute!" Nerris urged.

"It feels kind of weird just... waiting in someone else's…" Harrison trailed off as he noticed Ricky's staring at them. Max raised an eyebrow at the kid before Ricky moved to hug Nikki. She was a little surprised, but eagerly hugged back. 

"Awww! Thanks!"

"Thank you tho much," he said, his voice a little muffled by how he was burying his whole face into her fur.

"Yeah, no problem! It was fun!" Nikki grinned.

"That's just what adventurers do!" Nerris agreed.

"No no no, we are not adventurers," Neil clarified. "We are only doing this to get money so that we can survive until we can figure out how to go home."

"Well, that's still a quest. That kinda makes us adventurers."

"Even if it's an adventure to find home it's still an adventure!" Preston joined in.

"Exactly!"

"I feel that to be an adventurer, you have to actively seek out adventures; otherwise, you're either a hostage, a castaway, a refugee, or just plain lost." 

"Well we not being held against our will, we ain't stranded, we ain't exactly been forced to leave anywhere, and... I guess we kinda lost? But it still feels different. This is an adventure."

Chapter Text

"How is this not being stranded?" Neil asked.

"We're not on an island, duh," Nikki said.

"Stranded doesn't only relate to islands. If you were left on a different planet without the means to return home, you would be stranded. I would say that this is-" 

"Sorry, sorry, you kids did so much work for us, I wasn't sure how to best repay you..." The man said, finally returning. "Are you heading into town later?" 

Max eyed him a little. "Why?" 

"Well we're staying with the church and the watch tonight, but we're not sure about after that yet," Nerris explained. Max groaned, rubbing at his forehead in frustration. Most of them didn't have a sense of self-preservation, and it was stressing him out.

"Well, I can give you kids five silver apiece, but that doesn't seem like enough for how you were able to intervene before Mauly got seriously injured or suffered too greatly from starvation. If you kids are traveling together, I have some tools you could pawn for at least fifteen gold pieces, which you could split after. They aren't in the best of shape, but with some fresh sap and a shine they'd be as good as new," he explained, revealing a roll of cloth that he laid on the table and rolled out, revealing many basic tools for mechanical parts placed in neat pockets to organize them all. A few were broken where the metal top piece fell out of the handle.

"Oh, they're tinker's tools!" Nerris lit up. "Neil, those would be good for you!"

"Well, clearly,” Neil agreed. “They're for mechanics. Well, small mechanics, like clockmakers."

"Could be good to hold onto, then. It's worth a lot to sell, but getting a set for free means we'd be saving a lot of money."

"That's true... but... Would we get just the tools or do we get the money and the tools?"

"I'm offering both."

"Then I say we take the money and keep the tools," Nerris said.

"At the very least, we could sell them if we really need to later," Harrison pointed out.

"As long as we're still getting paid," Max mumbled.

"We have a deal, then," Neil said, turning to the man. 

"Wait!" Ricky suddenly called out and bolted down the hallway.

"Oh- what else?" Nerris asked, watching after him. He returned a minute later and held out a small wooden flute to the party.

"Is that, like- real?" Max asked, unimpressed. "Or just a toy?"

"It'th real," Ricky confirmed. "I made it."

"And you want us to have it?" Nerris asked, surprised.

He nodded. "You thaved Mauly."

"This is amazing!" Preston exclaimed, running up to take it. "Do you know what this is, guys?"

"A stick?" Max rolled his eyes. 

"A flute, ain't it?" Nerris asked.

"Well, yes, it is a flute. But, more importantly... It's our first gift from a fan! "

"A fan? Seriously? We're not fucking rockstars."

Preston rolled his eyes. "In this universe, adventurers basically are."

"It's a very nice gift, thank you so much," Nerris interrupted the argument to thank Ricky before it got worse. "We're just happy your kitty is home safe!" Mauly meowed. 

"If there's any other way we can help you, please stop by to ask," the man said.

"We appreciate it, thank you," Neil agreed. "We'll keep the offer in mind."

"We should go see if there's anything else we can do before it gets dark," Harrison said.

"Or maybe we should find something for dinner?" Nerris suggested. 

"Yeah, I'm hungry!" Nikki agreed.

"Ooh, you're right, I'm famished!" Preston announced. 

"You kids could go to the church," the man offered. "They typically make dinner for everyone who may stop by." 

"Oh!" Preston exclaimed. "The priest guy mentioned a stew!"

"Oh yeah, he did, didn't he?” Nerris remembered. “But would they let Harrison have any?"

The man frowned. "...I think they would... But I don't really know..."

"We have extra food. Maybe he can have some of that!" Nikki suggested.

Neil hummed in thought. "We could try to sneak some food out to him."

"I wonder if Lysanth would have any food for the three of you guys staying with them..." Nerris pondered.

"That does sound like something Lysanth would do," the man pointed out.

"So let's split for dinner and meet back up after?" Nerris suggested. "Then we can see about doing anything else."

"Who gets to hold the money we just made?" Preston asked.

"Maybe we should split that too, in case anyone needs anything," Nerris said. "But no big purchases without us all talking about it."

Preston huffed. "What if it's something we really need?"

"What the hell could you need that's so expensive?" Max asked.

"There's thousands of things we could need! You have no idea what we may come across here.”

"There's nothing we could need that bad before we're able to meet up and talk about it," Nerris said.

"What if it's a limited time deal? Or we won't have time to go grab it later, or there's only one to buy and someone else will definitely get it first?"

"Where the fuck do you plan on going in the few hours that we're eating dinner?" Max asked irritably.

"You don't know what will happen whenever we split the party, and if we're making a rule now that we'll have to follow later, then I want to make sure it won't fuck us later."

"Uh, well-" Nerris fidgeted with their cape nervously. "Maybe just- make sure everyone you with thinks it's a good idea?"

"Wonderful, thank you," Preston said, satisfied.

So the party split for dinner. Max and Neil quickly stared to walk separate from Harrison, since neither of them really liked him. Harrison hurried to keep up, which wasn't all too difficult with him being a young Tiefling Dwarf and Max being a young Halfling.

Max rolled his eyes a little. "Can't believe we're fucking stuck with Harrison," he mumbled to Neil. 

"It's unfortunate, but the alternative was going into a church."

"Great, now we're stuck with the magic Christian instead," Max responded sarcastically. "That's way better."

"At least we know what we're getting into with Harrison."

"Do we? He got us into this whole mess. Who the hell knows what he can do?"

Neil went quiet, still not comfortable with that fact. How did fucking Harrison actually manage to do all of this? What did it mean about Harrison's other claims of magic? What did it mean about other magicians and claims of magic in the real world? 

"This whole thing is his fault and we're stuck with him." 

That one caught Harrison's attention and he sank back a bit. 

"It shouldn't have even been possible in the first place," Neil grumbled.

"I'd say maybe we died when those wolves showed up, but the idea of this being the afterlife is even worse."

"That's even more disturbing than Harrison being a real magician," Neil agreed.

"Mm-hm."

"Though… that does give me a theory... One of us could be in a deep coma, making up this story to entertain themself while their brain can't maintain consciousness..." 

Max rolled his eyes. "If it's any of us, it's Nerris. I'm not making this shit up."

"I would doubt that it's you, but it could possibly be any of us since most of us were preparing to go on a campaign before the wolves attacked," Neil pointed out. "And there's no telling if a person who feels like they're the real person and not a figment of someone else's imagination is the real one, as we could all be expected to act like we feel like the real person."

Max rubbed at his forehead; that whole idea gave him a bit of a headache. "Well then if I kill myself, it shouldn't matter if I'm not real."

"It's only a theory. This feels far beyond death or coma hallucinations to me."

"What do you know about being in a coma or dead?" Max asked sarcastically.

"I know that people who come back from the brink of death can have very vivid memories of afterlives and that the brain is full of activity when someone is actively dying. Since the afterlives typically align with a person's religious beliefs, it's likely a fabrication of the brain to make death less traumatic."

"...mm. That kinda makes sense, I guess."

"So... You're saying it could just be one of us that's actually here?" Harrison asked.

"Well... sort of? I'm saying none of us are "actually here," but someone is kind of... dreaming this up? But there's no way to tell which of us would be the hypothetical dreamer. I certainly feel real, but I'm sure we'd all say that."

"But that would mean everyone else is fine."

"Or everyone else died from the wolves and someone's in a coma,” Max argued.

"That's at least better than vanished without a trace."

"...is it?" Neil asked skeptically.

"At least your loved ones know what happened and no one's going to be wasting years trying to find you, wondering if you even can be found. No one's going to get stuck on your disappearance, not knowing if you're alive or dead."

"Bet my parents wouldn't care either way," Max responded nonchalantly. 

"Well... maybe, but- on our end... unfortunately, this being real would be a much better scenario. We have a chance to get home, then."

"We don't really know that... My magic's not right here... I could get us back if it was right..."

"At least there's other magic here."

"...There's Wish, but that's supposed to be really hard to get and tricky to use..."

"I suppose, but... if we're the players in a campaign, we at least might have some sort of "boost," so to speak. Main character luck. After all, DMs do usually want to see their parties succeed."

"Even if we get it, it's supposed to be like making a wish with a genie... Any loophole can be used to mess things up."

"Oh, please." Neil scoffs. "Loopholes are easy to tie up if you think about it for a minute."

"Nerris's dad said some people would write whole essays on the wish they'd be making, spending hours or days on it."

"I'm sure we have days between now and if we find a Wish. I'll figure it out."

"That's still only if we get one... There's things called TPKs, where something happens that gets everyone killed..."

"Yeah, Total Party Kills, I know." Neil rolled his eyes. "I've fucking played Dungeons and Dragons before, I know how this works. I'm just saying, it's a better chance of us getting home than if we're already dead. Even if it's a slim chance."

"Wouldn't it be better if only one of us is dead?"

"It would be better if none of us were dead." 

"Speak for yourself, he's getting on my fucking nerves." Max jabbed his thumb in Harrison's direction.

"It would be better if most of us weren't here, though."

Neil groaned. "Yes, obviously, it would be better than everything if this hadn't fucking happened. But that wasn't the point of the conversation!"

"If this is only happening to one of us, most of us wouldn't actually be here."

"None of us would "actually be here." Someone is just hallucinating all of this."

"That person would still be going through this."

"Technically, yes. But I still don't think this is a hallucination or coma dream. It's too vivid."

"...It'd be better than all of this being real though..."

Neil sighed irritably; he wasn’t getting into this argument again. Besides, they were almost at Lysanth's by now. Max was already at the door, impatiently knocking while he tried to ignore their dumbass argument.

The door quickly opened, revealing Lysanth. "Oh? Is something going on?"

"We're back for dinner.”

"Just you three?"

"The rest of them are having dinner at the church."

"Why didn't you go there? I'm sure they would have had plenty for everyone."

"They probably wouldn't have fed Harrison." Max rolled his eyes.

"I doubt they'd go that far... but I understand not wanting to deal with what they would have done."

"Uh-huh."

"Come on in, I'll see what I have available."

The three of them followed them inside. 

"Thank you," Neil added. 

"I have some venison I can quickly cook up," they stated.

"That would be great," Neil agreed.

"If I get some help in the kitchen, it would help you kids eat sooner."

"I know a little bit of cooking," Neil offered.

"I can help too, I think," Harrison also offered. 

"It's a small kitchen, so one person should be enough."

Max and Harrison found somewhere to wait in the living room while Neil followed Lysanth into the kitchen. They set him to chop some vegetables while they went to fetch some pots from the basement. 

Lysanth soon came up from the stairs they descended, holding what looked to be an old pot. "Now, I hope you kids don't mind, I've been having a hankering for some more Dwarvish style food as of late."

"Oh, um- that's alright," Neil agrees, though he wasn’t exactly sure what Dwarvish food was. 

Lysanth set the pot down on the counter before pulling out a couple jars from their pockets, one filled with a red juice and some chunks of something and another that seemed to be filled with strands of something white in some liquid. They grabbed a bowl and a cup and set it near where they had a tap. From there, they picked up a chunk of meat from the pot, covered in a decent layer of thick flakey salt.

Neil watched curiously, though he was more focused on chopping the veggies. That was more salt than his mom would use whenever she had to make kosher meat herself. 

Lysanth began humming as they used the cup to carefully help them rinse the salt off the meat.

"...what are you doing?" Neil asked curiously, wondering if maybe it had the same purpose…

"Rinsing off all of the salt I've covered the meat in a couple days ago."

"Well, yes." Obviously. "But why did you salt it so much?'

"Are you familiar with Dwarvish food practices?"

Neil hesitated in answering. "Well- maybe. It might be similar to what my mom does..."

"Well, for most of their foods, Dwarves preserve them in a pickling process of a salt water brine or with a layer of salt. Except for fish, all of their meat gets preserved or cleaned with salt first. I traveled with a Dwarvish companion for many years, and not once would he accept eating fresh meat, always insisting to treat it if he were to eat it. I swear half of his pack was filled with Dwarven mined salt." 

"Huh... That's sort of like what we do... It's to drain out the blood. Um- our religion says we're not allowed to consume blood."

"Interesting. He wasn't a very religious sort, but I think for many it is a religious thing, too. For Trumli, he just considered it gross, like mold on bread."

"Fair enough. It just, uh- it seemed familiar..."

"It might be similar." They lifted the meat out and dumped the bowl of water again. "How are those carrots and sweet potatoes coming along?"

"Almost done."

"Good." Lysanth grabbed another knife and began chopping the meat into four portions, one a little smaller than the others. "Now, most Dwarf meals are slow cooked by the women and children of the village, and are wonderfully flavorful creations that take hours or days. If you ever have the opportunity to join a proper Dwarven feast, I suggest taking it."

"It does sound amazing. I'll keep that in mind."

"For the dishes I'm making, it's going to be a little different. On the road there wasn't as much time to waste on cooking dinner, so Trumli would sometimes have some pickled veggies on hand and his salted meat, which he would quickly cook over a campfire."

"That sounds like good camping food. It would probably be a good idea to have some things like that on our... trip..." Neil hesitated to say “adventure”, because that would have made them adventurers.

"Yes, that would be smart "

"I only know some basic cooking, though.”

"I could give you some basics."

"I'd appreciate that, thank you."

"Of course."

"Oh, and I'm done with the vegetables,” Neil reported.

"Good. Grab the big pot above the stove for me."

Neil nodded and grabbed the pot, bringing it down to the counter.

"And can you grab the medium one too?"

"Sure." Neil grabbed that one as well. 

Lysanth finished with the meat and placed the three bigger venison steaks in the medium skillet with some oil and placed it on the stove before working on getting the fire started. Once the fire was started, they busied themselves with grabbing some extra ingredients. "Oh, do you know how to mince things?"

"Yeah, I can do that." Neil nodded.

"Here," they said, handing him a clove of garlic. He got to work on mincing it, thinking about how nice this was. It reminded him of cooking with his mom.

Meanwhile, Max had been looking around and trying to find something to do. He was getting bored and restless. Harrison was kind of watching Max, but had taken out his wallet to look at the picture of his family. Just like in real life, it looked to be from four years ago when everything was still normal…

From Max’s snooping around, there seemed to be knickknacks and souvenirs from all sorts of different cultures stashed here and there. Most were animal figurines. He was quickly getting bored. "God, this fucking sucks. There's not even a TV or something."

After no response from Harrison (not that he was really looking for one), he moved to check out the bookshelf that was only about as tall as him with only two shelves. There weren't many books, and the shelf mostly contained boxes and more animal figurines made from a wide variety of materials with a wide variety of art styles. There were many leather-bound journals and a few titled books. As much as he disliked fantasy, reading anything was better than just sitting there, so Max grabbed one of the labeled books, Denizens of the Underdark, and opened it to the prologue,

Welcome, reader. Whether you are interested in the underdark as there seems to be an entrance nearby, you've met a traveler from there, mere curiosity, or you soon plan to travel there (why?); you have picked up this book to learn about the peoples and beasts that reside deep below you.

He sat down and scanned it for a while- at least it was something. If they were really "adventuring" in this stupid place... he supposed it was probably a good idea to learn some things about the whole situation. Unfortunately, his brain didn’t seem to want to focus on any of the words, and after several struggled attempts to glean any meaning from the pages, he finally decided to just put the book up and go see what his boyfriend Neil was up to.

Neil was focused on mincing the garlic, thinking about how nice it would have been to have a bigger kitchen than this; both of his parents had bigger kitchens than this small home could provide. Which had him thinking of his parents. Did either of them know he was missing yet? Did anyone know they were missing? Was time even passing in the real world?

Neil glanced over, barely noticing some sound as Max came over. "Oh, hi."

"Hey,” Max greeted quietly, stopping beside Neil. “This fucking sucks, they don't even have a TV.”

"What's a TV?"

Max scowled, glancing towards Lysanth. "Mind your business."

Neil swallowed. "It's a, um.... it stands for Transportive Visuals. It's a type of device for watching... stuff happening elsewhere."

"It's not her problem anyway," Max mumbled. It was rude to butt in on other people's conversations anyways. He just wanted to talk with his boyfriend.

Neil sighed. "Then you shouldn't have said it where they can hear," he whispered.

"That's why I was trying to be quiet. " Max looked thoughtful for a minute. "You should learn Hindi. Then we can scheme without anyone else hearing it. Y'know, for the most part."

"...That would be nice."

"I could probably teach you a little."

"Maybe later, though. There's a lot of things we need to deal with right now and I don't want to overwhelm myself with new information when the situation we're in is this extreme." 

"Ugh, yeah. This whole thing blows."

"Agreed."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather be at camp."

"I can."

Max rolled his eyes and watched Neil for a minute. "What are you making, anyway?"

"Um, I'm mincing garlic."

"Yeah, duh. For what?"

"I don't know."

"She hasn't told you?"

"I didn't ask them ."

“Whatever. It's gotta be better than the food at camp. Probably."

"It already smells better, and the way it's being prepped- well, this might be the closest thing to kosher, meat-wise, I'll have here."

"I thought kosher was just, like, what animal it was or whatever." It certainly didn't sound it, but Neil could tell when Max was genuinely asking something.

"Kosher also includes the process of how the animal is slaughtered and how meat is prepared to ensure there is no blood remaining in the meat."

"...oh." Max didn’t really care that much, but it was nice hanging out and not being told to go away.

"For example, this meat wouldn't be kosher because I doubt it was properly looked over for any blemishes or defects."

"So... you're not allowed to eat it?"

"If I had an option to eat properly kosher meat at this time, I would have to choose it. However, Pikuach Nefesh outranks every other Jewish law, in that to save or preserve a human life overrides any other law. I'd consider adding unnecessary risk included in that. Since we are likely to need to fight, I need to be getting proper nutrition so as to be fit for what we face. Because of this, I believe denying myself meat would be breaking a more important Jewish law."

Max was surprised to find himself actually paying attention, and a lot better than he usually would. "Oh. That's cool, I guess."

"I think it is, too. I, personally, care more about keeping kosher through what species I eat and avoiding the consumption of blood, but I do like knowing my meals were made humanely.

"Yeah, like that happens in this country," Max scoffed. "Profits over ethics."

"We technically don't know that here.”

"You know what I mean. In the real world."

"At home, Rabbis are typically in charge of slaughtering kosher meat to ensure things are to standard."

"That sounds like a hassle." He still didn’t personally understand why Neil would care, or why anyone would.

"It may be, but we can be more sure the animal's death is as humane as Jewish law knows to do." 

Max shook his head a little. "Whatever, it's your life." 

"It is," Neil said, sounding more like he was accepting a fact than anything emotional. "Lysanth, I'm done with the garlic." 

"Thanks." They grabbed the cutting board and put all of the garlic into the pan with the meat. By the sound of it, they had added liquids into the pan. 

Max, after a minute, finally asked, "So what's for dinner?"

"Venison with a whisky, garlic, onion, and mushroom sauce with a side of beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes."

Huh, that didn't sound half bad. Max nodded a little. "Cool."

"Thanks. I figure it might help boost your friend's spirits too."

"Uh- sure, whatever." Max didn't really care about that. He wasn’t friends with Harrison.

Chapter Text

Preston eyed the church warily as the half party approached the building. He was the only one really on guard; Nikki hadn't ever heard or paid attention to anything good or bad about religion, and while Nerris had heard a little bit of their parents' criticisms, they didn't really understand it. But, liking to take the lead as usual, Nerris stepped up the front stairs and opened the front door, peeking in.

"What are you peeking for?" Nikki asked.

"Just to see if anyone's inside." Nerris opened the door more.

"It was kinda dead before," Nikki said.

"Yeah, ain't no one here... Hello?" Nerris called out, stepping inside.

There wasn't a response. "Maybe this is a good time to investigate this place," Preston said excitedly.

"Oh yeah, we should," Nerris agreed.

"Quick, let's find what disgusting and vile secrets are hidden here," he said, flourishing his hands in a creepy way, his hair flickering in the thrill of possibly unearthing something juicy. 

"Oooh maybe there's dead things!" Nikki said excitedly.

"Or things we'll wish were dead... I think that sounded better in my head." 

"...yeah, it did," Nerris agreed.

"Damn. I'll need to rewrite that line into something cooler when I go to write all of this down.” Preston shrugged a little. "I say we start by looking at the sanctuary.”

"What's the sanctuary?" Nerris asked. 

"Oh do they have animals?" Nikki bounced.

"Only if you consider priests as such. It's a church's equivalent of a theatre's stage.

"So up there?" Nerris pointed.

Preston nodded, fully walking out of the foyer. "Yes. If there are secrets, they'd place it somewhere they think people would be less likely to find it."

"How do you know? Do you have secrets?" Nikki asked eagerly.

"I'm working on it," Preston hummed.

"Well if you told people, then they wouldn't be secrets," Nerris sayid. "And you pretty bad at keeping secrets."

"That's why I need to work on it. Secrets are intriguing, they make for good gossip!"

"But then they’re not secrets anymore."

"Actually, they can still be secrets. Having secrets leads to speculation and people paying more attention to find the truth, and those speculations could be lies. Or they can become leaked secrets that you trusted someone with but it got leaked and no one informed you, and with how gossip and rumors are, they could be lies and many will write them off as such. Hell, sometimes, if a secret sounds weird enough, you could spread it like a conspiracy theory, which many people just don't want to believe.” Nerris and Nikki exchanged confused glances. "But then, there are the worst kept secrets, and even though just about everyone knows them, it's still talked about in hushed tones because it's supposed to be a secret and so it still feels so scandalous! "

"...if everyone knows about it, then it wouldn't be secret though?" Nerris said.

"Yes it is, though. You see, a secret isn't only hidden information, but information that is meant to be hidden too. Like, we all know the government is hiding aliens in Area 51, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a big secret the government is hiding."

" There's aliens?! " Nikki exclaimed excitedly. That was new information to her.

"Well, maybe Nikki doesn't know, but everyone else knows."

"I didn't know that," Nerris agreed.

"Fine, then, it's like how we all know Harrison wears gloves to cover his-" 

The door to the side of the sanctuary opened, revealing the person from before. "Uh, hello? What are you kids doing in here?" 

"Oh! Hi!" Nerris waved a little. "Um- they said we could come back for dinner?" 

"Ah, the stew is over here," the man said, holding the door open for them. Nikki hurried over, suddenly reminded of how hungry she was. "The kitchen is the first door on the left."

Nikki threw open the door, and the smell of something savory wafted out of the kitchen. An elderly woman stood by a simmer cauldron, ladling a stew or soup into bowls and passing the bowls to people standing in line from a different door. 

"Oh, sorry- I didn't see there was a line already..." Nerris said.

"Oh, you must be one of the strange kids that will be staying with us," the woman stated. "It's no bother. There are tables to eat at that way.” She motioned to the line of people and the door they were coming through.

Nerris led the three of them to the back of the line. It wasn't a long line, and there were already some people sitting down and eating. There were a couple typical-looking families, but mainly there were more elderly people and those with little babies.

"They must be like a soup kitchen or something," Nerris said, looking around.

"Maybe. I'm surprised they haven't tried to make us promise to give money or devout ourselves to their gods yet," Preston mumbled a little loudly. 

"You don't need to have faith to be helped," the older kid in front of them explained. "This is our little community center as well as a church, and we all chip in to supply the hunter's pot so no one in the community goes hungry or even needs to cook. Sometimes Eliza will ask for contributions if it gets low and we know you're good for it."

"Like donations. Donations aren't necessary, but they appreciated," Nerris explained.

"For the most part."

"Well if it's a necessary payment, I don't think it's a donation..."

"Depends on who's trying to eat when there's little available."

"Huh?"

"I believe they're saying that for some people, "asking" isn't exactly asking," Preston explained.

"...why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, if you have plenty of food, you need to donate some before you take some," the kid explained. 

"Oh... yeah, I guess so."

"Yeah, but that doesn't happen much."

"It makes sense, though," Nerris agreed.

"Exactly. If you're too busy to cook but you have plenty of food, it's better to donate it here before something happens to it anyway."

They reached the front of the line. The kid ahead of them took the next bowl and thanked the older woman before heading back to the cafeteria. Nerris took the bowl handed to them, a little hesitantly. They weren’t sure they'd be able to eat it, but luckily there was bread, so they'll just grab a little extra- 

"Only one roll per serving," the woman said sternly as she handed the next bowl to Nikki. 

"Oh- sorry." Nerris frowned. Dang it... 

"You can have my bread if I can have some of your soup!" Nikki offered.

The woman nodded, not caring too much about trades like that. "Also, if you are still hungry after, you may come up and see what we can spare for the day."

"Thank you," Nerris said to the woman, and then to Nikki, "Thanks, Nikki. I'll try it first, maybe I can eat it..."

"Ah, do you have dietary restrictions?" The woman asked. 

"Um... not like allergies... I'm just really picky, I don't eat a lot of food... But I'll try it..."

"Mm. Then eat up."

They found somewhere to sit down and Nikki quickly started eating. Nerris poked at their bowl, trying to work themself up to try it. They ended up eating their bread first before trying the stew. Preston glowered at it, giving it a sniff, and really taking in whatever the slop seemed to be. He could see that there was some sort of meat in it, plenty of beans, different vegetables, and some traces of mushroom. "I don't think I've ever seen a stew like this before. The variety of ingredients seems so... haphazard."

"Well they said everyone helps to provide the food," Nerris said between bites of their bread. "Maybe they just used a bit of everything."

He huffed. "So complexity without any real consideration on how things go together."

"I think it's a thing some people do... Just throw together whatever you got in the kitchen."

"There's still a point where you choose what actually belongs in a dish. And since I seem to have a single carrot but neither of you do, clearly there's not enough carrots to go around."

"Wha'e'r i' is, i's goo'!" Nikki exclaimed through a mouthful of stew. It was hard to tell whether or not she had had any carrots at all- her bowl was already half empty.

"You think a raw insect is good, so frankly, my dear, I do not trust your palette."

"Mm... my pops has done lots of different fantasy foods in his campaigns... Maybe this is somethin' like 'em?" Nerris guessed.

"What is fantastical about a poorly made stew?"

"I dunno..." They finally finished their bread and hesitantly went to try the stew. The mixture of textures was... weird... But if they only picked up one thing at a time, they could stand it. "It's ok..."

"Mmm..." Preston gave the broth a hesitant sip. "...Oh... Oh, that's, hm..." He took some bites.

"I still like the bread more. Nikki, you can have a little bit if I can have your bread?" 

"Yeah!" 

Nerris poured a little bit of the stew into Nikki's bowl and took her bread, eating it between bites of the stew.

"It's actually decent. Could use some more salt and acid, though..." Preston explained.

"...acid?" Nerris asked, confused.

"Yes, acid. A little vinegar would liven this up, help the flavors balance out better."

"Oh." Nerris just shrugged a little.

It didn't take them too long to finish dinner. When they were done, they left to meet back up with the other half of the party back at the watch. The cat followed them back too, annoyed, even with Nikki assuring him that they would find him a fresh kill. In the meantime, he was welcome to have some "people food" with them, but he just grumbled a bit at that.

Nerris knocked on the door when they reached it and it opened after a few seconds, revealing Lysanth. "Oh, hello kids. Come on in, though it will be a bit crowded."

Nikki bounded through the front door, rushing over to Max and Neil. "Hi guys! Oooh that smells good, what is it?" 

"Nikki!" Max held his plate up and away from Nikki's snout, much like an untrained puppy begging for table food.

"Lysanth says it's a Dwarvish dish. It's venison with pickled onions, a mushroom sauce, and a side of pickled beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes," Neil explained. 

"I thought it might be a good meal to make, but-" Lysanth trailed off, looking at Harrison, who was poking at the food still left on his plate, no intention of eating more. 

"Oh yeah, Harrison doesn't eat vegetables," Nerris said.

"Sorry," Harrison mumbled.

Nerris frowned a little, even though they often responded the same way. "It's not your fault."

"It kind of is, though..."

"No because if it's your fault it's also my fault and it's not my fault, my parents say so. It's just how my brain works."

"Well... usually I can make it disappear...."

"So can everyone else, it's called fucking getting over it and eating it," Max complained. He rolled his eyes a little at Nikki's continued begging and tossed her a small piece, which she jumped to catch and scarf down.

"You probably still can," Nerris said. "There's spells for that. Or prestidigitation to change the flavor and texture."

"Wait, prestidigitation can do that?" 

"Well- it can change flavor. I like to add that it can change texture."

Harrison held his hand over his food to try it out but hesitated.

"What's wrong?" Nerris asked. 

"Maybe he finally realized how stupid magic is," Max said.

"No, it's my wild magic... Maybe I shouldn't be the one to cast it."

"I think Preston has it."

"Ah, yes! How can I lend my services?" Preston said, turning away from the books he was just inspecting.

"Make Harrison's vegetables taste different." Nerris pointed.

"What should I make them taste like?" 

"Um... Mashed potatoes?" Harrison requested.

"Are you fucking kidding me? That's a vegetable, you idiot." Max rolled his eyes. 

"No it's not!" Preston exclaimed. "Potatoes are a starch." 

"Actually, they are a vegetable, but culinary definitions of vegetables aren't universally agreed upon, so some people think they aren't," Neil explained. "However, their nutritional content often leads to people placing them in the same food category as bread."

"You people are fucking annoying," Max grumbled and shoved the last bit of his dinner in his mouth. It was good, but it could have used some more seasoning…

Preston focused on the food and waved his hand over it. "Voila!" 

Harrison poked at it, still a little unsure. Eventually, he held his breath and risked a bite. It didn't taste like any mashed potatoes he had tasted, the texture being more creamy and the seasoning being more, but it was still clearly mashed potatoes. He swallowed and sighed in relief.

"It worked?" Nerris grinned.

"Yeah, it did," Harrison affirmed.

"That's so cool! We should'a thought of that earlier."

"This makes eating so much easier," Harrison agreed. Max mocked them to himself before getting up with his used dishes to go put them in the sink. "Though, these do taste a bit off. I thought they'd be more like Quartermaster's mashed potatoes." 

Preston scoffed. "Of course not, I have class. They're made the way Gram Gram makes them. The key in making the texture so creamy is adding cream cheese." 

"Quartermaster's mashed potatoes taste weird," Nerris agreed. "They're too plain... And burnt but also undercooked at the same time?"

"They're not that great, but... I'm used to them."

Nerris shrugged a little. "I guess." 

"Neither of you would know good food if it bit you on the ass," Max complained. Harrison took another bite. 

"I think he leaves the pot on the burner as he mashes them," Preston stated.

"And those are his "specialty."" Max used air quotes.

"So, how was dinner at the church?" Lysanth asked as there was a lull in the conversation.

"It was ok." Nerris shrugged. 

"It was GREAT! The soup was so yummy!" Nikki grinned.

"It was better than I expected," Preston admitted. "It would have been rounded out well if it had a little acid to it."

"I liked the bread more. Bread is always good," Nerris said.

"That's fair," Lysanth stated. "What have you kids managed to accomplish today?"

"We found a cat earlier and we got money for that! And Neil got some tools or something? And Max found a spider tooth!" 

"It's a fang, Nikki," Max corrected her.

Lysanth's eyes widened a little. "A fang?"

"Fuck off, it's mine," he snapped, glaring at them.

"I'm just wondering where it came from... and a little worried about you getting hurt by it."

"I'm not stupid, I can handle it myself."

"We found a giant spider corpse," Neil explained. 

"Was it by a cliff?"

"Yeah, in the forest!" Nikki added.

"Oh, good. It's likely the one I took care of a few days ago."

"It was so cool and dead! Is everything you kill that cool?"

"That depends on what you consider cool, but most likely not."

"She thinks anything dead is cool." Nerris giggled a bit.

"Well, in that case, if I kill it then it would be cool, right?"

Nikki just shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Can I see the fang?" Lysanth asked.

"No, fuck you, it's mine," Max snapped defensively.

"I just want to see it."

"Well too bad." He folded his arms, glaring at them.

"They might know more about it," Neil pointed out.

"No way! I know all I need to know about it! It's cool as fuck and it's probably venomous!" 

"We can always fight to get it back if they steal it," Preston pointed out.

Max glared at him, seething silently. He didn't want to give up his cool new spider knife. He eyed Lysanth again. "...you don't get to touch it. Just look."

"Alright, that's fine."

He pulled it out and held it up for them to see, making sure to keep a hold of it. Lysanth looked it over before going over to the kitchen to grab something. They came back with a leaf and held it out like an offering with one hand and held up their other hand in concentration. The leaf began to smoke and crumble, and Max pulled the fang back protectively. 

"Hmm... The poison sac is fully intact, so be careful with it. You can still easily be poisoned by it."

Max eyed Nerris when Lysanth finished their weird magic shit. "What the fuck was that?" 

"Detect Poison, I'm pretty sure," Nerris said.

"Yes, it is. Now, if you wish for it to stay venomous, you'll want to dip it in water every week or so so that it doesn't dry up. It's not a lethal venom, typically, but it can cause one hour of paralysis."

"...ok." Max still didn't really trust them, but it sounded real enough. He would try to look into it on his own if they found a library or something.

"Also, if you're using it as a weapon, you'll want a way to grip it securely."

"Yes, we were saying it needs a handle to be considered a knife," Neil agreed. "Right now it's technically a blade."

"I have some leather scrap you can secure around the end."

"...yeah, gimme that," Max demanded. 

Lysanth went downstairs and returned after a minute with a box of various leather scraps. "Let's see which of these will work best." Max started digging through the box with one hand, still gripping the fang in his other hand. "Ah, here's a good option." Lysanth pulled out an uneven but long strip of leather.

Max eyed it a little. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Do you know how to sew leather?"

"Uh... no?"

"I can show you later. You're one of the kids staying here overnight, right?"

"...yeah. With Neil and Harrison." He nodded at them.

"That's what I thought," Lysanth said. Max took the strip of leather and wrapped it around the end of the fang, feeling out how holding it felt.

"Oh, we also fixed up some clothes and got ourselves some more outfits!" Preston exclaimed.

"Oh yeah! It's basic stuff, but it's nice." Nerris shrugged a little and smiled. "And we got like, thirty silver pieces for finding that cat."

"That's pretty generous of them," Lysanth said, thinking.

"They also gave me this tool set," Neil added on, pulling it out.

"Oh yeah, they're tinker's tools!" Nerris added excitedly.

"And I got this!" Preston cheered, brandishing the crudely made wooden flute.

"No one cares about that piece of shit, Preston." Max rolled his eyes.

"This was a fan gift and should be appreciated as such!"

"It's a stick. I bet it doesn't even work."

With that, Preston blew on it. It made a decent whistle sound, which slowly turned into a decent tune as Preston's fingers covered up the different holes along it. 

"I didn't know you could play any instruments," Nerris said when he was done.

"Anyone can play an instrument," Preston stated. "However, I can't read sheet music or tell you what notes I just played."

Max scoffed a little, rolling his eyes. "Not anyone can just play an instrument well. "

"Now, I didn't claim that, did I?"

"That's obviously what they meant." Max motioned to Nerris. 

"Yeah." Nerris nodded a little. "I didn't know you could play well."

"Well, I guess I'm naturally gifted."

"Oh bullshit." 

"Maybe it's 'cause you're a bard!" Nerris smiled.

"Even training on other instruments can help with playing new instruments," Lysanth pointed out. "I've seen many bards capable of playing new instruments when winging it."

"But you've only really focused on acting and stuff before, not music," Nerris mused.

Neil cleared his throat. "But bards typically have to have music training, right? Because that's how they use their spells?" 

"Oh... well, yeah, um- it doesn't have to be music, all the time, I think. It usually is, but it just has to be art and performance at least."

"Actually, I have seen a bard that would cast spells with ribbon dancing," Lysanth stated. "Instruments and singing are just the most typical performances used by bards for spell casting."

"Yeah! So- I thought Preston's bard magic came from his acting. I didn't know he knew any instruments."

"It could come from multiple sources," Harrison piped up.

"Probably." Nerris shrugged a little. "It's still cool anyway."

"I'm just surprised that thing even works," Max mumbled.

"I'm surprised it sounded like a real instrument," Neil agreed.

It wasn’t long before the sky began to dim, and Preston, Nerris, and Nikki set out for the church, while Max, Neil, and Harrison stayed back at Lysanth's place for the night. Max had taken to fidgeting a little with the spider fang, casually observing it and just appreciating his cool new weapon. Lysanth approached him while Harrison was reading through one of Lysanth's books and Neil was inspecting his tinker’s tools closer.

Max tensed and eyed them cautiously, subtly gripping the fang tighter. "What?"

"Let's get a handle on that thing," they said, holding up a tool that looked a lot like a hole punch.

"...yeah, fine. Tell me how to do that."

They handed Max a large dull needle that already had a thick leather thread in it. "So, you're going to want to decide on how to wrap the leather, whether you want to cut it into shorter pieces and sew them on individually or to wrap and sew it that way. Also, since the needle can't pierce the leather, you have to use a tool to make the holes you want before sewing."

Max looked over the needle and thread in his hands, along with the leather around the fang. "Hm... let's just wrap it, I guess."

"Ok. Now, I like to use the needle to dent the leather where the holes need to be made and then remove and make the holes. You'll just need to make sure you wrap it back in the same way."

Max followed their instructions and managed to sew the whole thing together pretty well. He had already known how to sew normally, so it wasn’t too difficult to figure out. He enjoyed weaving the thick thread through the premade holes and managed to tie it close. Lysanth came over around the time he was finishing up to check his work. 

"Well, that's not coming undone anytime soon," they stated.

"Duh. I know what I'm doing," Max responded irritably. "It's not hard."

"No, but you could have cut the stitches down by, like... half. It's not bad, though."

Max glared at them a little. "It's fine. " 

"Yes, it is. It's really thorough, which is good for a tool. Let's just make sure it's comfortable to hold before you finish it up."

Max froze a bit, confused as he tried to process that. They were... saying it was good. But they had just said it wasn’t good? He shook his head and gripped the new handle on the spider fang. "It feels fine."

"Good. Always check your work before finishing it up because it's easier to undo things at this stage. Do you know how to finish?" 

"I can tie off a damn string. I know how to sew."

"I'm just making sure."

Max mumbled angrily to himself as he tied off the end of the string. Lysanth gave him an odd look as he grumbled before going to check up on one of the other party members. Neil and Harrison were both checking out the bookshelf now, with Neil standing decidedly separately from Harrison.

Lysanth approached Neil. "Is there anything in particular you're interested in reading?"

"Well... anything that could help us know what we might run into or have to deal with, really." Neil picked up the monster's guide and flipped through the index.

"That all depends on what your next steps are."

"Hm... I think getting to another town was our goal. But after that, I'm not sure. We're not sure how to... get home. We're... too far to reasonably walk there..." He said carefully, avoiding eye contact by continuing to skim through the book.

"So you either need to get some sort of ride home or you have a long trek ahead of you."

"Basically..." Neil agreed hesitantly. They needed some sort of magic, really. But what could they possibly use to get back to their own dimension? 

"Can you show me where your homes are located on a map?"

Fuck. Neil wasn't great at improvised lying; if he had a general script to follow, he would be fine, but lying on the spot was more of Max's thing. "Um- well- m-maybe? Max-?" Neil looked over to him, clearly asking for help. "Would you, uh- would you be able to find where we're from if they... found us a map?" 

Max was on it quickly. "Fuck. It's a super small place, it's not usually on regular maps."

"I mean the general area,” Lysanth clarified.

Max shrugged. "Maybe. If you have any maps that far away." 

"Give me a minute," they said, going over to a box to look through. 

Neil stepped over to Max's side, whispering anxiously, "Are you sure about that?" 

"It's not like she'll be following us out of town anyway," Max whispered back. "It's just getting her off our backs a little."

After a minute, Lysanth returned with several papers.

When they laid them out, Max looked over the maps, first looking at the closest towns. Which one looked like the best for more supplies and information...? "Uh... where are we right now?"

"So, we are on the material plane's surface, right... here," they explained, pointing to a spot on one of the more normal-looking maps.

Max pointed at the town as well, then followed his finger toward and through the nearest big town. "We're in this direction..."

"Are you on this map?"

"No, but I think it's that way. Further."

Lysanth grabbed a different map and placed it on top of the current map. It was clearly a map depicting a larger area. "Are you on this one?"

Max's eyes followed the path on the map, but he shook his head. "Nope."

"Hmm..." They pulled out a smaller map, this time one that was more crudely drawn but seemed to be of a much larger area. A few landmasses and countries were listed on it, along with some key access points to the underdark and other realms. "Is it anywhere on these?"

Max kept following the direction he had been going on the maps- but there was a lot, and he wasn’t sure how this world worked. If he pointed out a spot, would it be someplace they knew well? Or somewhere dangerous, where it wouldn't make sense for them to be from? Finally, he pointed at a small island on the other end of the map. "Somewhere around there."

"...There? What is that island called?"

Fuck, they were onto him. Double down. "You people probably call it something different." Max waved them off a bit. "People visiting from away always do. I never bothered to remember it, though. We have our name, why the fuck do we need to know theirs?"

"Oh, I didn't realize. I only heard your king refer to it by its common name."

"Well, duh. He's probably dumbing it down for everyone else."

"Oh, really? I thought Queen Iris would never marry... especially a male of any species."

"...oh you bitch. " Oh, that was good. Neil dropped his face into his hands. 

A smile creeped across Lysanth’s lips. "And that's all I really needed to hear. So, what's really going on?"

Max folded his arms, giving Neil a look asking if he thought it was safe to say. Neil wasn’t really looking, but he was trying to think of some way to get out of this... "Um... Actually, we're, uh... from a different realm."

Max couldn’t tell where he was really taking this. "Yeah... And he," Max jerked his head at Harrison, "couldn't control his stupid magic and poofed us all here."

"So why not just say that?" Lysanth asked.

"Well... We're pretty sure this realm is... especially disconnected from our own and that it's likely a bad idea for this realm to know that ours even exists."

"Right... And we weren't sure if us being from another realm would be taken well. Y'know? We don't know this place. Maybe we would’ve been killed for it."

"Knowing your origins makes it easier to know what help you kids need, but I understand the hesitancy. Bigotry harms people from our own plane of existence, after all."

"Exactly. So... fuck." Max sighed irritably. "Yeah, we need to get to another... realm."

"That certainly makes things more difficult. Is it possible for Harrison to find a way to send you back?"

"If he could do that all this time and didn't, I'll kill him before he gets the chance." Max glared at him.

"He says coming here changed his magic, so we have no fucking idea," Neil explained irritably.

"So yeah. He got us here and now we're fucking stuck."

"That's certainly rough... Getting home won't be easy."

"You know about anything that could do something like that?" Max asked.

"To travel between realms, you need to use magic or find a portal or a way to open one."

"No shit we need to use magic. How do we figure out what magic to use?"

"I'm not sure which spells are used for planar travel... but I would say a wizard institute would have that knowledge contained somewhere."

"Great. Where can we find one of those?"

Lysanth went back to the first map. After a moment, they pointed out a larger city past the one Max had pointed out earlier. "I believe this is the closest one; however, the largest one in this country is here." Lysanth pointed out the largest city on the map.

Max waved Neil over to look. "Here, you take notes. You're better at remembering shit like this."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Though I could really use some paper..."

"I can spare a small notebook," Lysanth offered.

"There ya go." Max nodded and pointed at the first city Lysanth pointed out. "Ok, write that one down." Lysanth handed Neil a notebook and he began writing down the information. "And that's got the closest wizard college or whatever. And that one," he pointed at the second city, "had the biggest. So just- write everything down and we can fill the others in tomorrow."

"Now,, it's important to know that magic that powerful has high costs," Lysanth explained once Neil was done writing. "It's expensive."

Max eyed Harrison again and rolled his eyes, walking over to smack his arm and get his attention. "Hey dipshit, pay attention. This is your fault, you can at least try to fix it."

Harrison jumped. "I'm reading to try and better help us later." He showed Max what looked like an in-universe monster manual.

"Well they're telling us about where to find magic that can send us home." Max jerked his thumb at Lysanth.

Harrison's eyes widened and he quickly noted his page number before closing the book. "Ok, yeah." Max walked him back over to Lysanth and the table of maps. Harrison looked at the maps, a little anxious. "So, what are we talking about exactly?" 

"We're figuring out ways for you to get back to your home realm."

"Yeah, they figured out that we're not from here," Max explained.

"Um..." Harrison looked between the two, trying to figure out just what had been said. 

"They managed to trick Max into giving up that we aren't from this world," Neil explained. 

"Honestly, I don't know what that island he pointed at is, but I figured all of you weren't aware of it or my friend's Isle of View."

"Credit where credit's due, that was clever,” Max admitted.

"Thanks. In your travels, you may find little tests like that helpful."

Max nodded a little. "I'll keep that one in my back pocket."

"So, you said something about magic?" Harrison asked, trying to get them to update him on what had been said before. 

"Yes, to travel between realms you either need some sort of magic spell or a portal."

"And they said that these two institutes," Neil pointed them out on the map, "would be the most likely to have more information on those, or people who know how to cast or create them."

"Yes. They're locations for arcane education. It's your best opportunity for figuring out what your next steps are."

"Sounds perfect." Neil finished writing down his notes. "We'll let the others know the plan in the morning."

"Maybe I can... learn if there's a way to get my magic more under control over there," Harrison murmured.

"Yeah, there will probably be more sorcerers there for you to learn from," Neil agreed.

"It's more wizards than sorcerers," Lysanth pointed out.

"Oh- yes, of course it would be." Neil turned a bit red. "Still, I'm sure you could learn a thing or two from them."

"Ok, so, we're going to... a wizard school," Harrison said, having mixed feelings about that.

"Sounds like it." Neil nodded. "Thank you for your help," he told Lysanth.

"Do you... know what wizard schools are like?" Harrison asked. 

"I find them a bit pretentious, honestly. It costs a lot of money to go to one, so it often draws in higher classes. They do have programs for teaching lower classes, but those programs can take many years, most of some species' lives, to escape the debt of."

Max shrugged. "Sounds about right." 

"Yeah, that's not much different than the college programs in our realm," Neil agreed.

"Interesting. Are apprenticeships looked down on in your realm too?"

"Hm... it depends, I suppose. More people do internships instead now, though."

"Internships?"

"Basically you work unpaid for a year or something while they "teach you" the job." Max used finger quotes. "Except usually they just make you run errands and get everyone coffee and shit. You’re a glorified assistant."

"Well, there's that kind of thing too with apprenticeships. Shelter and food is enough payment for the education, but some will give their apprentices small allowances."

"Internships don't do any of that," Neil explained. "That's why they're basically only affordable to people from rich families who can afford to not get paid for a few years." 

"So your realm has ruined apprenticeships too?" 

"And you still need a degree from a college to even get an internship for many professions," Neil added on.

"Yeah, our realm is seriously fucked up." Max rolled his eyes.

"It sounds like that. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, whatever. Rich white people think they can do whatever the hell they want and it fucks the rest of us over."

"White people, huh?" Lysanth shook their head. "That just sounds so weird."

"Yes, um- we noticed the people here care more about, well... races than skin tones, I guess."

"Well, yes, but there's actual differences between the races. For something so small as skin color... It just sounds nitpicky."

"People make up differences and act like they're a big fucking deal." Max rolled his eyes. "Like religions. They're all the same fake dead people but we're gonna murder you because you don't believe in the right fake dead people."

Harrison shifted uncomfortably, that kind of talk only adding to his stress. 

"Except the gods are actually real in this realm," Neil reminded Max. Harrison hugged himself, taking a step back.

"That still sounds like bullshit," Max mumbled. He hated this stupid game.

"I can assure you, it's not," Lysanth stated.

"Whatever." Max waved them off. "So these people can get us home, right?" He pointed to the institutes.

"I am not sure, but they can certainly point you in the right direction if not send you home immediately."

"It's the best lead we've got so far," Max said.