When Noah and I looted and inspected the goblin bandit camp, we were left with more questions than answers. My earlier hunch about the goblins using the obsidian shards in their weaponry had been correct, but none of it was there anymore. The obsidian had been removed from everything, whatever the goblins had used it for, blades, arrowheads, all that was left were shafts and handles.

Their old weapons were stacked in a storage tent like cordwood, completely forgotten. We looted everything, of course, coming out with more than enough for me to get a small storage warehouse.

We left the dungeon with smiles on our faces, despite the strange boss fight at the end. It was pretty obvious that the asshole boss had been some sort of event thing. Anything else didn’t make sense with how hard he had been to fight and how he’d just left at an arbitrary time.

“Can we do this again?” Noah asked, giving me a hopeful look. “It was really fun.”

This was my chance. My time to ask that favour. “Yes, but… can you help me with a really mundane quest? There’s a cool passive in it for you.”

I shared the quest with him, hoping the Diminutive Deadlifting perk would be part of the rewards for him if he helped me.

“You want… bricks?” he asked, blinking at the notification he just got. “Why?”

“I learned a rare metalworking profession and I want to build myself a little forge,” I explained. “It’s called Spirit Forging and it needs a different set of facilities and tools compared to normal.”

“Could you make me some armour?” he blurted excitedly. “I’ll help with the bricks, that passive would be useful, but… Awesome Keiko-made armour? That would be so sick.”

I laughed, and on a whim I threw an arm over his shoulder like I would have done back in the day with Ethan. "Sure thing. Shall we go sell the loot and find a place to stash the bricks?"

Something about Noah's reaction to the Unseelie fae likening him to a woman had me uneasy. I mean yeah, sure, the asshole's attitude towards women was objectively garbage, but if I had to guess, there was more to it with Noah. Whatever it was, treating him like a bro seemed like the right thing to do.

Hell, we might not be attracted to each other beyond aesthetic appreciation, but I could use my femininity to accentuate his masculinity. With that in mind, I swapped my hold on him to around his arm, like he was a lord escorting a lady to a ball.

As we were leaving the area, we passed Noah's previous group. To my disappointment, it looked like they'd cleared the dungeon too.

Almost like he'd sensed me watching, the misogytank looked up and met my stare. "Hey, it's the chosen ones," he grinned, making it clear his choice of words was an insult. "Found yourself a girlfriend, huh big guy? Wait, or is it the other way around with you fairies? Are you both traps, is that why you can do smithing? You're actually a dude?" That last was directed at me, along with a pointed look at my groin.

Beside me, Noah stiffened. I, on the other hand, couldn't believe my luck. This single brain-celled organism was the gift that kept on giving.

"Oh, I can assure you," I purred, moulding my body to Noah's side. "He's all man. You should see him with his lance. Why do you think we came out of the dungeon so late?"

Noah twitched again, but I squeezed him to keep him quiet.

As the misogytank sputtered while we walked past, I added in a singsong, "Much better than your clumsy hammer would have been! Goodness, it was like being in the presence of an artist."

He didn't have a chance to respond before I carefully steered Noah around a corner and towards the market.

The moment they were out of sight, I eased myself off my friend with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. It was irritating me how he was insulting your masculinity."

Noah just stared at me for several heartbeats, a look of adorable confusion and gratitude on his face. "That was… wow. I mean, I really hope you know I'm not really into girls. I tried to make that clear, in case—"

Giggling, I shushed him. "No, don't worry. You're very pretty, but I'm gay too. I think. It's complicated. I'm into girls, let's say that."

"I'm more like eighty to twenty," he shrugged, smiling sheepishly at me. "Girls are… sometimes there's one or two I glance twice at, but all guys make me drool."

"Even him?" I teased, nodding back towards misogytank with a cheeky grin.

He laughed. "Okay, not him. Actually… if he had a personality transplant…"

"Ew, ew, no," I grimaced, faking an overactive gag reflex.

"What?" Noah asked, feigning innocence. "I just like the idea of teaching toxic men about the male G spot."

“Jesus,” I groaned, rolling my eyes. This boy was thirsty as hell.

Noah’s grin was the smuggest thing I’d seen in my entire life. “Yeah, him too. Don’t you know Jesus was a bottom?”

“Let’s just go and move some rocks,” I muttered. Thirsty gay boys would be the death of me, I swear.

****

The dungeon gave me another level, placing me at twenty two. With my stat points, I continued to increase my Focus with one point, then placed the next into Stamina. I was a little disappointed to see no new ability unlocks, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. The game would want me to get comfortable with my playstyle and class before it threw me into the class evolution.

As for the stone, it took Noah and I the rest of the day to transfer all of it to a dimensional warehouse, and every single minute of that task sucked. It was back breaking work, made almost comical by the fact that we did it while in our tiny forms. The strength buff was just too good not to use.

Then, when we finished, we were given that Diminutive Deadlifting perk. It gave us two extra Strength, but it was the kind of Strength that the game considered you gained by working out. That meant that both of us were rolling around with a smidge more muscle definition than we used to have. Muscle definition that Elena appreciated once she got me naked that night.

“I like this,” she whispered, tracing a finger down my soft, flowing abdominals.

Blushing, I leaned my head on her shoulder and burrowed into her neck to hide my face. “I like it too.”

“My god,” she laughed, slipping her hand further down. “You are so precious.”

I gasped as her fingers slid easily through my wetness, already soaked from a few minutes before. She played with me for a few seconds, enjoying the way I shuddered as my overstimulated nerves sent shockwaves of sensation throughout my body.

“I’ve been trying, you know,” she continued, allowing her hand to grow still. “To fall for you. To feel anything besides warm friendship and lust.”

“Has it worked?” I asked, shifting so I could look into her eyes.

She gave a sad smile. “No. It hasn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, either. I had a girlfriend who loved me and I tried so hard to fall in love with her. It just didn’t happen.”

“You can’t force love, Ellie,” I murmured gently. “It either happens or it doesn’t.”

“Who the hell will I fall for then?” she grumbled, pulling me tight. “You’re so lovely, if it isn’t you, then who?”

Leaning forward, I pressed a kiss to her lips and said, “We’ll see. It doesn’t mean you need someone like that to be happy though. Assuming I don’t fuck up our friendship, I’ll do my best to give you all the cuddles and affection you need.”

“What happens when you find a girlfriend?” she asked, her expression falling.

“Then she’ll have to be okay with that arrangement,” I told her, and kissed her again.

My only experience with love had been rather disastrous anyway. Friends were where it was really at. That thought promptly caught on my mental tongue as I remembered what had happened recently with my friends, with Marlon. God damn it.

“If you say so,” she sighed, easing back into the embrace between us. “I wonder if that would be enough, in the long run.”

I didn’t have a reply for her, so I made a noncommittal noise and shifted into a more comfortable position. I was dead tired, and if I was going to get right into building my forge tomorrow, I’d need all the rest I could get. Like, I didn’t even know how to make a forge. Youtube would teach me, though.

“In other news, I’m glad you found us a tank,” Elena said, interrupting my feeble attempt to sleep. “He sounds like a handful, but in a cool way.”

“Yeah, he really really is,” I laughed. “His class is so fucking cool, too.”

Playing with my abs again, she grumbled, “I’m really jealous of you all for that, by the way. You, your friend Paisley, and Noah are all running around with rare, badass shit, and I’m over here as a default rogue.”

“We’ll find you something cool, trust,” I yawned, patting her shoulder. “This new expansion is bound to have something interesting you can spec into. I have a feeling it will be fairy themed, too. All these fairy classes and that asshole we fought, it’s kinda hard to miss.”

“You think so? How does that even work? The specialising, I mean,” she asked.

God, I was so tired. Why did her brain have to be anxiety central tonight of all nights? “You need to find an expert NPC and convince them to train you. It’s not too difficult, just do a few quests for them and increase your rep.”

“Will you help me?” Elena asked, working her fingers into my heavy braid where it sat curled next to us on the pillow.

“If you promise not to undo my braid,” I laughed tiredly, sinking a fang gently into the soft skin of her shoulder. “It takes me forever to get it right.”

She chuckled along with me. “Sorry. I’ll stop keeping you awake, too. Those yawns are getting to me.”

“Good.”

QuietValerie

Going to go back to a 4 day posting schedule, but no promises on it being 100% reliable. Not that I've ever been able to stick to a schedule for literally anything in my life, lmao. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Oh and thanks everyone for the comments by the way, I read every single one of them, on scribblehub and on patreon! It's really fun to see everyone's thoughts, or even just that you all enjoyed the chapter. Thanks :3