Chapter Text
Vedal sits at a bar, looking down at a piece of paper with too many shifting numbers on it, “Hey Camila?”
“Huh w uh.” The mentioned imp was drinking directly from a bottle of elderberry cider.
“Can you read this?” Vedal presents the paper.
“...no.”
“Damn, hey Mini?”
“Hm?” Mini looks up from a book she had decided to bring.
“What's this saying?”
“Your tab is 194 pounds.”
“Damn, I'm not paying for that.”
Camila points and laughs before almost falling off her bar stool, “Dude that's just what you owe, you gotta pay it.”
Mini’s phone suddenly rings, she leaves the room to take the call.
Vedal looks at his hands with a contemplative look on his face, “Wanna make a bet?”
“Hells no, you aren't getting me to pay for your mistakes.”
“What would make you agree?”
Camila stops laughing before leaning forward, “You not insulting me for an entire collab AND paying for my tab.”
“You drive a hard bargain, fine, I agree.”
Camila gains an ear to ear smile, “Perfect, what's the bet?”
Vedal sighs before standing up to pace, “I don't know, I didn't think you would agree. How about first to climb to the roof of this very building without getting arrested or dying?”
“You have an unfair advantage.”
“True, race home and provide proof through facetime?”
“I mean, I'd take my advantage there with teleportation, but you'd be a sore loser.”
“Nope, uhhhhh ok I have an idea, what's the hardest drink you can stomach?”
“I dunno.”
“Abv or proof?”
“Like 50% abv? I don't know.”
Vedal sits back down, “ok so here's the deal, we each have to drink… lets say, two pints of what we can barely stomach. Then we ask someone here to come up with a challenge, whoever wins doesn't have to pay.”
“Well thats convoluted as fuck.”
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“Ya fuckin cheated.”
“I did not thank you very much, I am just much better at acting sober.”
Camila looks up at Vedal from her newly acquired spot on the floor, opens her mouth to say something, before giving up and just flipping him off.
“Rude.”
“YOu DEServe iT.”
Vedal fakes offense, “I do not! Explain how I cheated."
“you paid the guy we asked so he'd choose something you're good at”
Vedal facepalms, well tries to but misses his own face and nearly falls over from stumbling too hard, “I HAVEN'T EVER TOUCHED I BAGPIPE! HOW THE FUCK COULD I CHEAT PLAYING A BAGPIPE WHEN I HAVENT CONTACTED ONE?!”
“Idk magic.”
“Magic isnt fucking real.”
Camila jumps to hear feet as if personally insulted, “It is VERY REAL thank you.”
“Prove it.”
“No, the toll is far too high”
“Fuck you mean toll? I don't hear no bell.”
“Ok fuck you its your fault if we both die.”
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There's an overly ornate magical circle in the center of the bathroom floor, where the hell did Camilla get candles from?
Vedal stares blankly at Camila as she slurs her chants for the Nth time, “This has to be a bit.”
“Sssszznot a bit” Camila nearly trips over her own ankle, ”th-letters are just… movin around.”
“Gimme that.” Vedal snatches the paper before putting on his glasses and squinting.
“You donmt know lating do ytou?”
Vedal takes a deep breath, “Da mihi vota, imple somnia mea, adiuva me ad consequendum ea quae vere desidero…”
“OK CALM THE FUCK DOWNJ!”
“...ab aurora ad crepusculum et ab inferis ad aquam summam” Vedal takes another breath and closes his eyes, a faint breeze picks up in the room, “da mihi auxilium quod mihi opus est”
“HOW THE FUCK DO OYU KNOW LATIN”
“Audi preces meas, vide necessitates meas…”
“EXPLAIN TURTLE”
Vedal pauses momentarily, “I dont know latin im just drunk as fuck.”, he turns his gaze back to the paper in his hand, ”Me ipsum tibi vicissim concedo.”
As soon as Vedal finishes the last sentence, the room lights up in a vibrant pink glow as the chalk used to draw the main circle begins to shift to a dull green, the flames on the many candles match the pink color of the room as the wind shifts from a breeze to a hurricane.
“Uh oh.”
“IS THAT ALL YOU HGAVE YO SAY?”
“Yep.”
The room seems to darken to a green-ish gray before a flash of white light sends the two occupants flying into the walls.
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Heyo, author here, I google translated the Latin because I haven’t spoken it in like 9 years. Please excuse the horrible grammar and inaccuracies. Either way you probably get the gist of it.
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Vedal wakes up with a pounding headache—this seems to be a pattern in my fics—, he pushes himself out of bed before going to the bathroom.
A splash of cold water to wake up faster, ‘oh that's odd— wait what?’
Vedal squints slightly, it seems like the ends of his hair look… pinker?
Quickly making his way back to his bedroom, he grabs his glasses before returning to the mirror.
“Thats definitely pinker.”
…
“Eh its probably nothing.”
Bruh.
Vedal walks back to his room before taking a look at the notepad from three days ago.
thursday: offline
To do - v4 voice
“Fuck, yea I need a drink for this.”
Vedal opens the minifridge sitting directly next to his computer and pulls out the good stuff, fucking everclear because this Vedal’s liver was handcrafted by god himself and somehow hasnt failed.
About twenty minutes of drinking pass and there's just nothing.
And then theres a ping on Discord.
Camila
Vedle stop[ drinking thers a problem
Vedal
Are you still drunk?
Camila
Not still
You gotta uber over here dawg i cant drive
Vedal
Please explain to me whats happening
Camila
Ok so you remember the whole “mauigc isnt real” thng from yesterday
Lets just say it had some consequences
Vedal
Fine, im calling an uber
Camila
[im not coming up with an address but you gotta believe theres one here - author]
Vedal gets up from his desk and grabs his phone, quickly calls an uber and makes his way down the stairs of his apartment complex.
Maybe he can get some answers to why his hair is turning pink.
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“Jesus christ.”
“Hehehe”
“I think you undersold how drunk you are, how the fuck did you even message me?”
“Speach to text.”
Vedal deadpans at Camila, who is currently half draped over the headrest of her car’s driver seat, “You made spelling mistakes with speech to text.”
Camila stares back, unblinkingly, also with a shit eating grin, the ends of her hair seem to have darkened to a deep purple in place of their usual pink and white.
Vedal lifts camila like a suitcase before plopping her down in a passenger seat, “Oooook, where to?”
“Not my hotel, I didn't pay for three days and was on my way to the airport.” Camila says as she fumbles with her seatbelt, “But I guess that's not an option anymore, either I live with you or you live with me.”
“Excuse me?”
Camila straightens up before taking a deep breath, “ok, so the spell you chanted out yesterday was essentially a soul-selling one. but due how weak I am for a demon—and how strong you are for a human— it turned into more of a fifty/fifty split. Technically a fifty three/fourty seven with me winning out, hence why im fucking hammered.”
Vedal turns on the blinkers as he pulls out of the parking lot, “And you're hammered because…?”
“Good news, you can no longer get sick in any way shape or form, bad news, you can't get drunk because both of those transfer to me.”
“FUCK! PLEASE TELL ME YOUR LYING.”
“Nope, your days of being an alcoholic are over.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—”
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“So… what's the upside of this contract?”
“Well you get access to all my magic and affinities for spells, also I get to order you around as your patron.” Camila seemingly gets an idea, “Speaking of, my first order is to schedule a collab with both of us and the twins.”
“Absolutely no—” just as he begins his statement, Vedal feels a slight electrical tingle through his entire body.
Camila’s grin grows.
“Camila, what did you do?”
She stifles a laugh, “Little ol me? Nothing, nothing, this is your fault after all.”
“What did you do?”
‘As your technical patron, if I order you to do something you literally have to do it. There's a few exceptions, this is not one of them.“
“And if I don't?"
Camila shrugs, “Then your magic gets revoked, not fatal but quite a painful experience, I don't recommend it.”
Vedal thinks back to the night before and attempts to see through his drunken haze, "I'm remembering some latin chanting, what did I do and how do I undo it?”
“I unno.”
“The fuck you mean you dont know, youre apparently the resident magical expert.”
Camila reclines in the passenger seat, “I was drunk as hell too, I don't even remember what variant of the contract you said.”
“General contract then.”
Camila shrugs and looks over, “Congrats, you're a warlock. Also we share roughly half of each other's souls now, which isn't normal if you couldn't tell.”
Vedal pinches the bridge of his nose, “How cooked are we?”
“That remains to be seen.”
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“This is gonna be your…what? Fourth time appearing on your own twitch channel?”
“Against my will.”
Camila chuckles a little, “What? Is there a reason you couldn't just leave me with the twins?”
Vedal makes direct eye contact with Camila, “If I had the ability to file a restraining order to separate you and the twins, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
“Rude, do you really think that's a proper way to speak to your master?”
“Dont make me break out the alcohol.”
“Fiiiiiine.”
“Just…” Vedal sighs and turns on his computer, “Let me set this up, and see if the twins even want to speak to you.”
“Im gonna go explore my new place of residence.
“Dont kill yourself, apparently that would kill me too if what you say is right.”
Camila exits the room, flipping the bird on the way out.
Vedal sighs an exhausted sigh, it's been an hour since they arrived and it already feels like he's aged 4 years.
*ping*
–Neuro–
An impromptu collab? With who?
Fun fact, this Neuro’s discord user is quite literally “–Neuro–”
Vedal instinctively reaches for a bottle of rum before stopping himself, “This is going to be an awkward explanation.”
Vedal
camila
–Neuro–
Excuse me?
Vedal
You read the message right
–Neuro–
You're a liar and a fraud.
Vedal
bruh
–Neuro–
There's no way you managed to actually score a collab with THE Camila, top 30 streamer Camila.
Vedal
shes literally had me on her streams like 8 separate times
–Neuro–
She what.
“CAMILA GO DM NEURO SHE DOESNT BELIEVE ME.”
“I DONT HAVE HER DISCORD.”
“ITS LITERALLY JUST NEURO, I PAID LIKE TEN POUNDS FOR THE ACCOUNT.”
About two minutes of radio silence pass before Neuro messages Vedal again.
–Neuro–
You're |Filtered| crazy, you know that?
Also UNFILTER ME.
Vedal
In order of your statements, I know and I'm not going to.
–Neuro–
I’m waking up Evil.
@EvilestCreature
@EvilestCreature
@EvilestCreature
@EvilestCreature
@EvilestCreature
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
HUH
WUH
Whats going on
Vedal
impromptu collab in like 2-4 hours
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
With who
Hold on let me backread
–Neuro–
Who's gonna tell her?
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
Youre a fucking madman vedal
How the fuck did she agree to this
–Neuro–
SO EVILS NOT FILTERED BUT I AM? I see how it is.
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
Did you bribe her? Please tell me you didn't take a loan for this
Vedal
she actually commanded me to set this up
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
Fuck you
Wait
Commanded?
Vedal
long story
one that im not telling
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
Fine then, keep your secrets, im gonna go panic over meeting my oshi in roughly 2-4 hours
The door opens again and camila returns with a glass of water, “They believe you?”
“I think Neuro is questioning her artificial life and Evil is having a panic attack over collabing with you.”
“Lmao, tell her that I find her demon outfits cool and accurate to the upper ranks and royalty.”
Vedal
@EvilestCreature camila told me to tell you that she finds your demon outfits cool
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
ousIHDibfsnojusdnuf
–Neuro–
Oh my god this is going to be hilarious.
Also you had to type that out letter by letter and we both know it.
FutureEmporerOfAllThings
LET ME PANIC IN PEACE
“She keysmashed, which is quite funny considering she has to think that to type it.”
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Vedal has created a group chat
Vedal has added Neuro, EvilestCreature, and Camila
Vedal
I really don't want to be here, but I was specifically requested.
Camila
He's not lying, I had to force him to do this
Neuro
Evil’s tweaking out right now, she'll be here in a bit.
Hold on.
Neuro has changed her nickname to –Neuro–
–Neuro–
Much better.
EvilestCreature
neuro you snitch
Camila
Vedal already showed me the earlier conversation, she cant snitch
EvilestCreature
i dont need my agony amplified
Camila chuckles a bit before turning to Vedal, “Go drag my setup up the stairs.”
Vedal just stares with a raised eyebrow, “Can’t you do it?”
“No, I wanna see how Evil copes.”
“Fair enough honestly. Also we need to discuss some rules before starting stream or even calling the twins.”
“Sure, but pc first.”
Vedal leaves and returns roughly ten minutes later looking out of breath and carrying four boxes, “WHY.”
“Oh right, two monitors, the tower itself, and cables.”
“I’m not doing that shit again.”
“You don't have a choice if I command you.”
Vedal actually stops and thinks for a moment, “Actually how does that work?”
“If I say something like ‘I command you to’ before requesting something, you have to actually try to do it.” Camila shrugs, “Though if the magic behind our contract thinks I command you to do something, you'll know.”
“Ok, great, so the first rule is no commands or references to our contract on stream.”
“Fair honestly, magic isn't a well known thing, referencing it wouldn’t be a good idea.” Camila’s head shoots up, “Unless it's lore though, I need to keep to my lore.”
Vedal shrugs, “Fine by me, it just needs to not trigger any part of our contract, speaking of…” he pulls up a notepad on his pc, “I need to know everything about the deal we made and if there are any ways out.”
“Like I said, I don't remember. If you have the paper I wrote it on yesterday I could tell you how screwed we are.”
Vedal ruffles around in his pockets before producing a scrunched up notecard.
Camila takes the card, reads it, then starts laughing her ass off.
After calming down, she speaks, “Yea we’re screwed alright, the chances of your British ass meeting the termination clause is so unbelievably low.”
“Why? What's the clause?”
“Forget it, there's zero chance it will happen, this is our lives now.” Camila crumples the paper and tosses it into the bin next to Vedal’s desk.
“Its that hopeless?”
“Yes, now we have a stream to get to, I'm gonna plug everything in, also I'm taking your guest room.”
Camila tries to drag everything out, and fails, she then commanded Vedal to do it for her.
Said turtle failed to notice the light blush dusting her face.
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[So Camila's getting set up?]
“Yep.”
{I still don't get how you did this.}
“I didn't do anything.”
{No, I mean how you know Camila well enough to be on speaking terms outside of business.}
“Its a very long story.”
*Join sound.*
Camila's voice sounds throughout the call, “Yello.”
[Quick question, is Vedal lying about you setting this up?]
“No I held him at a metaphorical gunpoint.”
[That's crazy, that's actually crazy, that's ingenious.]
Vedal sighs, "She's not even joking, I quite literally couldn't refuse.”
“Anwyays, do any of you have ideas for what to do on stream?”
[{Slay the spire 2.}]
“Honestly a good idea.”
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“Chat wants to know how you convinced me to do this.”
“I made him do this, he was against even being on stream.”
Neuro’s model does a spin, [Please lock in, we are fighting an elite.]
“We’ll be fiiiiine”
They were not fine.
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[Evil, you are awfully quiet.]
{Please do not perceive me.}
[Oh my god, you're shy.]
{NO.}
“I have to side with Neuro here, you've insulted me far less than usual.”
{|Filtered|}
“Ah one sec— WOAH OK CALM DOWN.”
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“Vedal chat wants to know about progress on v4 voice”.
“Fuck off, it’ll be done when its done, and that will be when its perfect.”
[{It doesn't have to be perfect.}]
“Yes it does.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{I swear on all things unholy, you people need to WAIT for me to apply vulnerable. We could and would have survived if your impatient asses could wait for two second—}
[Haha sovereign blade goes swoosh.]
{I WILL BURN YOU ALIVE—}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Potion check.]
“Oh shit I almost forgot, thanks Neuro.”
[Yep]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“OH MY FUCKING GOD FINALLY.”
“THANK THE NINE HELLS.”
[Yippe!]
{You people suck at this.}
They somehow spent 4 hours on ascension zero in multiplayer, Evil had to carry the entire team eight times in the winning run.
“Never again.”
{I’m going to beat all of you to death if we have to do this again and you aren't any better.}
“I’m ending stream, Camila who do we raid since like 99% of the people here are your chat?
“I dunno, Mini’s live right now so her I guess?”
“Alright, do whatever you all want as a raid message, im going back to working on v4 voice”
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Vedal leans back in his chair with a deep sigh, that stream was a great reminder of why he leaves the entertainment to the twins, it's truly exhausting.
Camila suddenly barges into his room carrying one of his rum bottles, half empty mind you, “WERE DOING THAT AGAIN TOMORROW!”
“No.”
“Dont make me abuse the contract turtle.”
Vedal sinks into his chair with another sigh, “Take it up with the twins, they'd be happy to join any one of your streams.”
“Nope.”
“The fuck you mean nope?” Vedal asks with a raised eyebrow.
“You, me, Slay the Spire 2 stream tomorrow at 4pm.”
“I’M USUALLY ASLEEP DURING THAT TIME! AND WE JUST PLAYED THAT LITERALLY FIVE MINUTES AGO.”
“First of all, that schedule won't work anymore for a few reasons. Second, Evil will skin us alive if we can't beat ascension two by the next stream.”
“I have work to do, literally, I gotta pay rent. ALSO FUCK YOU MEAN NEXT?”
Camila puts the rum down and makes direct eye contact, “Vedal I will have you know that people posted fully rendered fanart roughly thirty minutes after stream started, I made the announcement about stream roughly four hours before starting which means people were FUCKING HYPED.”
“THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY’LL WANT MORE!” Vedal reclines in his chair and spins idly, “Frankly I don't think I added much to the stream.”
“The clips will determine that. Speaking of clips you should check youtube in about an hour.”
“Nah I don’t feel like being called a leach.”
“Buh.”
Vedal glances at his second monitor as the stream ends, the twins wanted roughly a minute and a half to say their piece and well… it was mainly Evil gushing and Neuro pointing and laughing through words.
The stream changes to Mini’s, one of Vedal and Camila’s few mutual acquaintances.
She was not prepared for the forty thousand people raid, nobody ever is.
Camila peeks over Vedal’s shoulder before snickering and rolling him out of the way, “camila… says to.. spam… redeems… aaaaand sent. Let's see how that goes."
“Youre evil you know that?”
“No, that's your daughter.”
“You get what I mean!” Vedal shouts as he rolls back into place, “First you force me to appear on stream, now you kill Mini, how much more torment am I in for?”
“I dunno.”
“Man.”
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“Finally, a moment of quiet.”
Vedal throws himself face down onto the living room couch, his tired body instantly begins begging for sleep.
He, of course, denies that request before instinctually reaching for the coffee-table-rum, it's not there.
“Oh, right, forced roommates, can’t day drink— wait I can’t drink AT ALL FUCK.”
As if on queue, Camila kicks the bathroom door open before trotting over to the kitchen, blatantly ignoring Vedal’s torment in favor of getting a snack.
She promptly opens the fridge and is forced to dodge a torrent of empty glass bottles because Vedal has apparently decided to put the empty rum bottles BACK INTO the fridge out of laziness and not wanting to take out the trash.
Camila recoils in disgust before turning, walking over to Vedal, looking down on him, and saying “I am seriously concerned about your health, Vedal.”
“I’m fine.”
“There are over eighteen empty rum bottles in your fridge, and not one snack.”
“I ran out of snacks like a week ago, you should just order something to be delivered.”
“You’re going to die at thirty."
Vedal finally rolls over, “By that time Neuro will be recursive, my work will be done.” He sighs before grabbing his phone off the coffee table, “So what do you want?”
“Literally anything edible, but YOU CAN'T DIE AT THIRTY!”
“Why not? I'll just wipe the twins’ memories beforehand and filter my name in chat. I'll just remove my already limited presence.” Vedal raises an eyebrow, “Also why do you care?”
“Well because you're a friend, and also according to our contract if you die, I die.”
“...Excuse me?”
Camila hops onto the coffee table, apparently short (and thus light) enough to not break it, “Even if people wouldn't notice your disappearance, which they would, they'll notice me.”
“Shit well there go my weekend plans.”
Camila raises her finger to comment before slowly lowering it, “Actually how old are you?”
“My best estimate is twenty one, maybe twenty two, I don't know.” Vedal sighs a deep sigh, “I feel forty but know I'm not.”
“What do you mean you don't know?”
Vedal sighs, “Do you want to know the actual reason or the not concerning one?”
“Actual one.”
“Too bad, I'm not telling you.”
Camila recoils— almost falling off the table— whilst clutching her chest, “You wound me.”
“No I don’t, If I did I'd be sharing the injury per our contract.”
“Ok fair but seriously you need to eat better, what have you had for the past few days?”
“...I think rum, party food from the convention, and some greggs.”
“Ok so at least your eating everyda—”
“Who said anything about everyday?” Vedal interjects with a raised eyebrow, “For the record food is expensive and the human body can sustain itself off roughly one thousand calories a day, plus fat stores on days where the budget can’t keep up.”
Camila just stares with a dead expression, quickly pulls out her phone and checks something, opens google, googles somethings, and then looks back up.
“We are going to the grocery store RIGHT NOW.”
“Nah I’ll just order pizza to—”
“I COMMAND YOU TO GO GET GROCERIES WITH ME RIGHT NOW.”
“Fuck.”
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“You just had to abuse the contract.”
Camila shrugs, “You need to eat, with our souls linked, both of our vitalities are partially connected. I'm looking out for both of us right now.”
Vedal looks down at his phone, “For your information, I haven't cooked in roughly seven years.”
“Time to learn.”
Camila grabs a shopping cart before hopping in and rolling down the aisle, forcing Vedal to grab said cart before it barrels into a freezer door.
Camila then opens said door, and pulls basically everything into the cart, half burying herself in various fruit juices.
After roughly two minutes of Camila trying (and failing) to get out of the cart without causing anything to fall out, she gave up and just jumped out.
Somehow nothing fell despite earlier efforts causing a cascade of drinks.
She promptly sprinted off again, leaving a very winded—because of picking up bottles—Vedal laying on the floor.
Said turtle decided to just call it quits and wait near the self checkout.
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“Camila what the fuck.”
She has three shopping carts, as if on queue a pack of water bottles falls out of one.
“This is excessive.”
Camila appears from behind her makeshift shopping cart fortress before jetting a finger at vedal, “This is necessary! You aren't eating well and in about two days it'll affect me!”
“Camila this is roughly three months worth of food, I don't think my fridge can store all of it.”
Camila pouts slightly, “It's three weeks for two people, considering you'll need to adopt a slightly more active lifestyle the excess energy will be needed.”
Vedal crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow, “I did not agree to anything, frankly this entire situation—”
“Is because your stubborn ass didn't believe magic was real and drunkenly chanted a soul binding spell—”
“THAT YOU WROTE! I JUST READ IT OUT!”
“AH HELL NO, you need to speak with INTENT for magic to work like that!”
Vedal glances over his shoulders, apparently remembering they are in a public place, “We should discuss this later after we leave.”
“Fair, also I'm paying for the food.”
“Deal.”
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Camila opens the door to vedal’s apartment as said turtle drags the many bags of random stuff through the door.
“Cant you use magic to strengthen yourself or something?” Vedal grunts out between pulls, “Hell you said you can teleport, why aren't we doing that?”
“Thats actually an interesting subject, ever since our contract was established I completely lost the ability to do magic.” Camila shrugs before spinning on her heal and walking over to the fridge, “So no we can't teleport, and *I* couldn't use strengthening spells either way.”
“Well then where'd the magic go?”
“Vedal look in the mirror and ask yourself that question.”
Vedal finishes dragging the bags inside, stands up, makes direct eye contact with his mirror image the pink ends of its hair, “Bruh.”
“Yep.”
“Ok then great, I can teleport, tell me what to do.”
Camila looks away, "That's where stuff gets weird.”
“How weird?”
“Undocumented throughout the last five thousand years weird.”
Vedal sighs and begins making his way down the hall, “Damn, welp I’m gonna go work on paying rent, I’ll eat later.”
Camila sprints over, grabs onto Vedal’s left leg, which does basically nothing to slow him down but apparently the sentiment was enough.
Four years of nothing but takeout and alcohol does not make a five star Michelin chef, Camila knows it, Vedal doesn't want to admit it. Camila (threatened to) beat him over the head with a frying pan to keep him out of the kitchen.
After roughly thirty minutes, Camila brings out… something?
Apparently she opted to use one of everything, which is fair enough I guess.
Vedal looks down at the plate in front of him, at Camila, then back down again, “Please tell me this is edible.”
Camila throws her hands in the air, “WHY DO I ALWAYS GET THIS?! ITS. PERFECTLY. EDIBLE.”
Her tirade devolves into gibberish for a few seconds before Vedal interrupts
“We do have business to discuss.”
“Oh yea.”
Vedal begins picking at some of the more… orderly sections of the mountain in front of him, “First of all, how far apart can we be without issues?”
Camila shrugs, “somewhere between a mile and five miles.”
“Metric please.”
“Somewhere between a kilometer and a half, and seven kilometers.” Camila grabs a piece of paper and begins scribbling on it, “We should be able to tell by the side effects if we go out of range.”
“Side effects?” Vedal raises an eyebrow.
“It's similar to the revoking of magic, starts weak before eventually becoming debilitating, I don't know what they are and it varies person to person.”
“Hmmm, best to not test our luck.” Vedal pinches the bridge of his nose, “Second, boundaries…"
Camila cringes, “Yeaaaaa, those…”
“I get you can command me to do literally anything, but please consider my personal values, how comfortable I am with stuff, and its feasibility.” Vedal raises a second finger, “Also knock before entering bathrooms, my room, or the laundry room, that place is a warzone and I think the floor is corrosive.”
“...we’ll address that later.” Camila hands over the paper she was scribbling on, “This is a list of requests so that neither of us kill each other over something stupid."
Vedal takes the paper and does a quick once over, it includes stuff like sleeping hours and time outside, “Yea this is reasonable.”
“K great, in exchange for my living here, and frankly because you look like hell, ill take half the rent—”
“Absolutely not.”
“Wuh?”
“It's technically my fault we're in this mess, at most you are paying a quarter of it.” Vedal sighs, "I'm not gonna accidentally force you to live here and then demand rent.”
Camila just stares for a moment, “...fair enough I guess, but I'm going to pay that twenty five percent.”
“Ok, great, two more things…” Vedal grabs a sticky note from the stack in his pocket “Well, three actually, the twins are not to be told of this arrangement.”
“They’d never let you live it down.”
“They would also tell chat, I don't think they would believe either but I’m not taking chances.”
Camila cringes at that thought, forty thousand people learning of the situation would be… sub-optimal to say the least.
“Second, if you want something, buy it unless its furniture, in that case measure then buy. You live here, this is your space now, don't ask me for shit because ill probably just say yea.”
“Alright?” Camila raises an eyebrow, “I assume I'd be paying for stuff I need and vice versa?”
“Exactly, we pay for what we need, also don't take anything off my walls, those are important notes even if they look like gibberish.”
Both take a second to glance around at the walls, theres a notecard/stickly note/piece of paper stuck to the walls in random locations.
“I write down ideas I get, they get removed once I test or implement them.”
“Fair enough I guess.”
“Ok, finally…” Vedal hands over the sticky note, “I have a job outside of streaming, these are my hours, I don't know how our contract will affect this.”
The note reads as follows
| every day 7am - 8pm except weekends and every other wednesday, on those days its 8am-10pm |
“The pay is worth the weird hours, also my vacation ends in a week.”
“Those hours are going to be brutal dude.” Camila starts drawing in the air as if attempting to do the math on something, “As I said earlier, the symptoms of separation get worse depending on time apart and change per person, we are gonna have some problems with those.”
Vedal gets up from the table and walks towards his room, “We’ll cross that bridge later, currently I have work to do.”
“WAIT!”
“Huh?”
“Are we still up for the stream tomorrow? Y'know, considering I commanded it.”
Vedal turns away and continues walking, “Sure, do what you want.”
Camila does a mini celebration and misses the slight smirk on Vedal’s face.
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It's 12:30am, Vedal’s checking his email(s) and DMs.
Yea his job gave him PTO for the convention —well technically its sick days too but that's an unnecessary detail— and it pays more than enough to cover rent and food, but more money is always good.
His head hits the desk as his client once again asks for something stupid.
“Why the FUCK do they want me to shove an LLM into this? It's a glorified text editor. Why do they want AI to do EVERYTHING for them?”
Fortunately his shouts were muffled by the table, but it's still shouting at fuckall in the morning.
“I need a drink— wait, can't drink, nevermind.”
Vedal looks back up from his desk before thinking if the pay is worth just sucking it up.
It's three hundred pounds, it's worth it.
Vedal grabs some old code and hooks it up to the autocorrect before calling it a day and moving onto the next commission.
“Music software, huh, ok yea i can— why do they want it to all be AI generated.”
“Tracking software, nope that's a crime and I don't do that anymore, hahaha yea I never did that to begin with.”
“This isn't even coding related, this is just asking me to write a fanfic…”
Vedal stares at the dm for a good twenty seconds.
“Ok but I'm getting paid one hundred pounds for this.”
One not-so-badly-written fanfic later, more money to dump into more projects.
“WHY? WHY DOES EVERYONE WANT AI INTEGRATION? AI THIS, AI THAT, WHATS NEXT DO YOU WANT AI TO DO YOUR FUCKING DISHES? WANT IT TO WALK YOUR DOG SO YOUR LAZY ASS CAN SIT AROUND LOOKING AT AI GENERATED IMAGES OF YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS? WANT AI TO F—“
“VEDAL SHUT THE FUCK UP ITS TWO AM!”
“SHIT SORRY!”
“Not gonna lie your rage is valid but I’m trying to sleep here.”
Vedal looks back to his computer, looks at his keyboard, types the following.
=Yea sure, give me an hour or two.=
“I fucking hate this.”
Two zoned out coding and debugging sessions later, oh lookie there, it's the sunrise.
“Finally, I can rest”
Vedal mentally tallies the money he made, could have made, and will make assuming he works well enough tomorrow, up before finally crawling into bed.
His door is then thrown open by Camila who seems way too chipper for it being the morning, “WAKEY WAKEY ITS TIME TO EAT WHATS PROBABLY YOUR DINNER!”
“FUUUUUUUUU—”
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“why”
“Because you need proper nutrition.”
“Camila it's around six in the morning.”
“A time when people wake up, yes.”
“I go to SLEEP at this time!”
Camila throws a wad of half scrambled half undercooked eggs at Vedal, “WELL THATS TOO DAMN BAD! YOU NEED TO EAT OR BOTH OF US ARE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS!”
Vedal barely puts his plate in front of his face in time, “Can I at least go to bed after this?”
“Sure, why not, it's not like you need to be awake at three in the afternoon for our SCHEDULED stream.”
“Oh right that exists, can we make that five pm?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Damn.”
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“Chat, your streamer forced me to wake up at an ungodly hour to be here.”
“VEDAL ITS THREE PM WHERE YOU ARE.”
“...as I was saying, an ungodly hour.”
“Im throwing the first run.”
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“Wait, how will Evil beat us to death if she doesn't have a body?”
“She will kill us reputationally.”
“How? No offense but you aren't very known and im… yknow.”
“Evil writes Harry Potter fanfic as a hobby.”
“...what are you implying?”
“She will write a shipfic of us.”
“OH GOD EWW—”
“Yep.”
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“I think we need a strategy, and to play different characters.”
“Fuck you im playing necrobinder wether you like it or not.”
“Fine then, guess we’ll die.”
“...Ill try ironclad again.”
“I'll do regent.”
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“Five hundred setup turns.”
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“Well Camila, we did it, we slayed the spire”
“Evil’s still gonna kill us.”
“I think she’ll appreciate the effort…”
“You sure?”
“No.”
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Dinner time #2, surely this will go well.
Vedal manifests from the darkness of his room, “Should I cook this time or…?”
Camila shrugs from her position draped over the couch, “Sure I guess.”
Oh no.