Taylor and Dawn, being the sensible ones of the four of us, set off to the market to get all the supplies we’d need, while Millie and I were off to find Rusti. I very much liked the sound of the tents that had been talked about, which was apparently what the other two were going to get a hold of first.

Walking around Vallas was definitely an odd experience. The climate around here was an interesting one. It was reasonably mediterranean, except replace the cool wet winters with even colder snowy ones, while the summers stayed almost unpleasantly dry and hot. It was summer now, and everyone was doing their best to fight the heat.

The architecture was really cool, reminding me of late medieval italian styles, with a little german thrown in when it came to the fortifications. The streets were wide and bustling, the vendors were loud and excited, and the lower level corruption was rampant. You could see it in the way the guards went after some of the gangs but not others, or the way punishments were handed out.

The nobility of Jingan were an interesting lot too, lots of cutthroat politics along the coast, but as you got further inland towards the mountains and up them, it changed. The highland nobility were a more down to earth folk by and large, more caring about the people they were supposed to protect. That wasn’t to say that the high ground they wielded translated to a moral high ground too, far from it, given the brutal raids they conducted over the border.

No, the highland nobility were a more loyal and honour bound lot, intent on following tradition and honour to the letter while their coastal peers followed money and favours. The petty nobility of both were known to raid each other over slights of honour, tradition and money, baronies changing hands every few years as political intrigue and outright war were encouraged by the Duke of Jingan. What better way to maintain power than to have all your subordinates fighting each other instead of you, right?

When Rusti finally messaged us back, it was with a rather startling piece of news. The Duke had snatched the princeling up as soon as he became aware of who the little kid was, paying Rusti a substantial sum and then promptly booting them out of the palace. Apparently sticky fingered thieves weren’t welcome inside the illustrious halls of the Duke. Couldn’t imagine why.

They agreed to meet us at the central market, where they said they were, “Just browsing.” Taylor and Dawn were off in the carpenter’s area of town to see about the tent, so we’d have to find Rusti and wait for the other two there. While I supposedly tried to keep the rogue and the alchemist out of trouble. Why on earth did the other two trust me to curb these two? I loved their antics!

Speaking of antics… Millie was giving me a funny look as we entered the main market again, staring up at me almost pleadingly with her big eyes.

“What’s up Millie?” I asked, feeling the ghost of a smile begin to form.

“There’s an alchemist stall over there selling ingredients! Can we go look? I’ll need to stock up for the trip after all,” she said hopefully.

“Why would you need my permission? Let’s go,” I smiled, nodding towards the stall in question.

“Taylor told me not to go buying random things without supervision,” she mumbled, and it was all I could do to stifle a snort of amusement.

“Why is that?” I asked curiously.

Looking down at her feet, her cheeks heating, she murmured, “Because I bought an aphrodisiac, since like, I have a girlfriend now and I made it into a tea so I could test it and… last night she drank it. I wasn’t in time to stop her! I just wanted to try it out!”

It took me a moment to process what she’d just told me, and following that all I could do was laugh and laugh. I wished I had been there to see that, my sister pumped up on an aphrodisiac and trying her hardest not to do anything with it. Unless they did…? Was Millie ready to go that far already?

“Alright,” I finally said, still trying to get my laughter under control as Millie burned red in front of me. “I’ll supervise your shopping spree.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling despite her embarrassment.

Turning, she rushed over to the stall with me trailing after, and instantly she was inspecting the ingredients laid out before us. It was kinda funny watching her in her element, all mumbling and hovering fingers. She was so intent on the alchemical ingredients before her that she missed the greeting from the NPC merchant behind the table.

“Sorry,” I said apologetically. “She’s got a bit of a one track mind when it comes to this stuff.”

“Not a problem, it’s always nice to see someone who’s truly enthusiastic about the craft,” the older woman replied, her kindly smile watching my little friend as she frowned and scanned the wares.

There was no one more enthusiastic about alchemy that Millie, that was for sure.

“Do you have any wormhallow root?” Millie blurted a moment later, looking up to blink owlishly at the merchant.

“No I’m afraid not my dear. Sold out an hour ago,” the woman said apologetically.

“Oh,” my friend said, the following pout looking almost heartbroken.

“Buy what you need here, then we can go see about finding a merchant who has the other stuff you need,” I said, placing a hand on her back for comfort. Her cute little face was crinkling up to get genuinely upset.

That seemed to placate her, and her smile returned with a new spark of hope as she looked up at me. “You’ll come with me to buy stuff? We should go on an ingredient shopping spree!”

“Sure, and if I don’t, then Taylor can go with you. I’ll make sure she does,” I chuckled. I’d thought she bought some of her ingredients, I swear she’d mentioned doing it before, so what was this all about? Maybe she just liked the company? Someone to go with her?

Millie bought a bunch of ingredients from the stall, even doing a pretty good job of haggling down the price too, or so I thought. Then it was off to another stall, and another. She was almost giddy with her purchases by the time we were done and a message came through from Rusti that they were here.

When we found them, Rusti was in the middle of leaning against a wall and looking incredibly suspicious. Although, with Rusti, the more they tried to look innocent, the more I knew something was up. They wore seemingly normal masculine clothing, with a simple white cloak over the top of it.

We watched them lock eyes with us and call out across the crowd. “Tami! Hello!”

They got up and raced towards us, although their path was just slightly curved, and it brought them stumbling into the path of a well dressed man in a very silly feathered hat. The contact was incredibly brief, and although I knew that Rusti had lifted something from him, I wasn’t able to spot the action for the life of me.

Rusti apologised profusely, then casually jogged over to meet us with a grin. “Hey friends!”

“Hey to you too,” I smiled, raising an appraising eyebrow.

“What?” they asked innocently.

“Nothing,” I said just as innocently, with a smile that said I knew exactly what had just happened. Rather than pursue the issue, I turned and gestured to Millie. “This is Millie, she’s our alchemist, and… wait is your stream running?”

“My stream?” Millie asked, then shook her head. “No, I forgot to turn it back on. Taylor was saying I should take time off streaming too anyway, since I’m playing with other people now.”

“Oh, you’re a streamer?” Rusti asked, intrigued.

“Yes! I like to talk about plants and alchemy and stuff, it’s really fun,” she said, getting excited over her craft.

Rusti seemed to light up at the mention of alchemy, practically bounding forward to ask, “Oh! Can you do poisons! I’d love to get some fun poisons to use with all my knives!”

“Only if you teach me how to be a rogue,” Millie shot back with an eager expectation.

Whoa, what was going on here? Both of the two were staring at each other like they had been reunited with a long lost friend or something.

“Deal!” Rusti exclaimed after a few seconds, throwing their hand forward.

“Wait, do we do the spitting thing?” Millie asked, staring at the hand that had been offered.

Rusti’s face crinkled in disgust, “No that’s gross. We’ll shake like civilized people.”

“Okay,” Millie said looking relieved. “Person spit is gross.”

I had to silently take exception to that one. It could be very useful when used in certain areas. Plus, kissing involved a lot of it and… anyway.

“But not like, not-people spit?” Rusti laughed as they shook.

“Well, not-people spit is sometimes useful,” she explained. “There’s some animals that have venom and stuff too.”

“Oh true!” Rusti grinned, a positively evil grin spreading across their face. “Does that mean you’ll make me poisons that are like, deadly and also I’m stabbing them with spit?”

“Ew!” Millie giggled delightedly. “That’s such a gross way of looking at it! I love it!”

“I know right!” Rusti laughed.

I watched the whole exchange with a sense of bemusement and mounting worry. What had I done by introducing these two to each other? They could not be allowed to hang out together unsupervised. The whole city would be burning in five minutes flat.

Interrupting their banter for a moment, I turned to Rusti and asked, “Hey have you seen the lizard girl healer called Xethu around? We’re trying to find a healer but she’s offline.”

“No, I can’t say I have. I heard a lot of people quit after that shit in Gienia though, there were a lot of angry forum posts,” Rusti told me, being uncharacteristically serious for a moment. “The devs are saying it was unplanned, that one of the SAI went nuts and orchestrated this whole Pagutum thing and they’re trying to figure out how to fix it.”

“Damn,” I sighed, running a frustrated hand through my hair. “Okay… shit we need a healer.”

“You could make a post asking for one maybe?” Millie asked hesitantly.

“Yeah I could,” I said absently, my gaze finding our girlfriends as they walked across the market towards us.

I didn’t see them carrying a tent, but they both wore excited and happy expressions, which had me wondering. Dawn’s smiling eyes were on me already, the edges crinkled in that way that lit my heart up in happiness. I loved that her expressions and facial movements translated over.

“Hey there, I’m Taylor,” Taylor said as she arrived, leaning down to kiss the top of Millie’s head as she addressed Rusti. “You’re Rusti then huh? I hear you’re down to go on a little adventure with us?”

“So long as there’s things to stab and loot to hoard,” they replied with a casual appraisal of my sister.

Dawn gave them a nod as she stepped up next to me, but they had already met each other so introductions weren’t needed, and Dawn was a little shy in situations like this with a lot of people. Pulling her into a hug for a second, and pressing a kiss to her jaw in the process, I whispered, “I love you.” I was relieved to be next to her again. It was the longest we’d spent out of each other’s company since she arrived on our doorstep in a suit, and I’d felt a little weird without her next to me.

“I don’t think the healer we were looking for is around,” I told Dawn and Taylor. “Rusti thinks they might have been one of those who quit the game after the Gienia shit went down.”

“Ah crap,” Taylor swore softly. “I could ask one of my guild’s healers to come along, I guess.”

“You’re a streamer right? Just make one of your viewers come along. Easy,” Rusti said, trying to be helpful.

Taylor winced and shook her head. “Nah, my viewers aren’t exactly the most trustworthy lot. We saw that with the stream snipers earlier.”

Rusti made a face. “Oh that doesn’t sound like a good time.”

“Not for them it wasn’t,” Taylor said with a sly smile. “But anyway, we have some news on the tent side of things.”

Oh, I was definitely interested to know if we had them. I had been dreading sleeping on the ground again like when Dawn and I went into the Bleaklands. Plus I was very keen to know if I’d get that sound proofing.

“Oh? What news?” I asked, hopefully.

“It seems our little sister has been meddling with things again,” Taylor said dryly. “We found a carpenter who might be down to build what we were after, only for him to go all cryptic and strange on us. I got the hint eventually, little May was telling me to look in my inventory. Guess what I found there?”

We all stared expectantly as she paused. Fucking showboating sister. Tell us already!

“My tent was upgraded into one of those personal pocket houses,” she pronounced with a grin. “The real thing, I guess, instead of that jank work around I had with the tent.”

“Wait really? Don’t those cost like, almost a hundred thousand dollars?” Rusti asked, looking almost like they were about to go into shock. “Who’s this May person and how can they just throw that kind of money around?”

“It’s a long story… and I haven’t actually checked it out yet, but the description says it’s a six bedroom suite with a fireplace and a bath, all that good stuff. We have to keep the water tank full ourselves, as well as the firewood stocked. Basically, it only comes with the house, so we have to buy furniture and all that crap,” she explained happily.

I’d never heard of one of these pocket houses before, and I was struggling to envision how it worked. Did it just like, pop out into thin air like a bouncy castle or something?

“I’m keen to see how it works,” Dawn said with interest, mirroring my thoughts.

“How about we find an empty space to test it? I’m sure they have areas for this kind of thing, or we could ask to set it up in the backyard of an inn,” Taylor said just as eagerly as the rest of us.

We all agreed, to go and find an inn who’s yard we could use. Surely somewhere was big enough to fit a pop up house right?

It was edging in on later afternoon now, so me might also have to hire rooms in whatever place we found afterwards, since we wouldn’t have any furniture in the pocket house. I sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep on the floor if I could help it.

We left the market square behind, the merchants packing up for the day while they still had light, and I found myself smiling. It was nice to have all these friends, family and my girlfriend. I felt good, I felt happy. Companionship was nice, and something I would never have allowed myself to truly emotionally invest in prior to my realisation about who I was.

When we found a suitable inn, we were starving, and opted to rush inside and grab a meal before we looked at the house. While they ordered, I excused myself to go and find the bathroom, which while it was one of those fancy magic toilets, was still outside like an outhouse would have been.

I’d just stepped through the door and laid eyes on the toilets, when I heard something. Soft hiccuping sniffles came from around the corner. Was someone crying? Before I could think twice I was heading towards the noise, the person sounded genuinely upset,

“I’m sorry mum! I’m sorry! I tried!” a girl’s voice blurted, rough with sobs held back.

I sidled up to the corner of the building, and took a peek around the edge. It was Civette, girl who’d been part of the team to try and kill Dawn and I. She was standing there, staring at a video call screen that was just a little too angled for me to see who she was talking to.

The voice coming back from the other end was an older woman’s voice, sounding sad and disappointed. “That’s fine my dear. I know you tried. You do always try don’t you? I’ll just have to figure out some other way to get it, and before that Durham man delivers what he promised.”

“I’m sorry,” Civette cried softly, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her healer’s robes. Her long blond hair getting in the way, and she pushed it out of her face with a sad, frustrated sound.

“We’ll talk later dear. I have to go. I  Do what you can okay? You know I love you, despite your failures,” the woman who was evidently Civette’s mother said, before she cut the call.

Civette crumpled to the ground in a heap as soon as the call ended. “Fuck!” she sobbed, letting the tears take over now that she thought she was alone. “Fuck! Fuck… I hate you!” she half yelled, half cried.

Whoa, what in the hell? Was it Dawn and my death’s that she’d failed at, and since she’d failed she didn’t have the money? What did her mother need the money for?

I watched as her head sagged down against her pulled up knees. She sat like that for several moments, then without a hint of warning she threw her head backwards, striking the wall with a vicious crack. Holy shit! Then she did it again, and again, and again, each strike sounding more painful than the last, all while sobs shook her small frame.

“Hey!” I said quickly, rushing forward, my heart full of worry. What was driving her to hurt herself like that? Even if this was a game, pain was real!

Oh damn, I surprised her. She gave a scream and flailed, falling over sideways into the dirt and looking up at me with raw fear in her eyes.

“Hey,” I said more gently this time. “There’s no need to hurt yourself like that, and it doesn’t work in the long run… trust me.”

“What are you doing here! What did you hear?” she asked, her blue eyes still wide with panic.

“Just a girl getting told off by her kinda shitty sounding mother, if you don’t mind me saying so,” I said, kneeling in front of her. “Did you really need the money that badly? Shit, I’m sure Dawn and I could arrange to get killed by you in some staged way so you can collect the money.”

“No… that wouldn’t… that wouldn’t work. Why would you even offer to do that? Dying is… it’s awful,” Civette said, pulling herself into a sitting position again and staring at me like I was some strange animal that had just come up and spoken to her. She gave me a quick once over too, like she was a little in awe of me. I guess I had accidentally made a name for myself recently.

“It’s not so bad,” I said with a grin. “You just have to do it right. Die fast or not at all, you know?”

“I haven’t… I haven’t died yet,” she said quietly, giving a little shiver. “I don’t want to die at all, I don’t even want to be playing this stupid fucking game. Why are you being nice to me anyway?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just get a good vibe from you. Like you’re someone I could be friends with or something,” I said with a sheepish smile. “I guess I just like being friendly too.”

“Why?” she asked, looking genuinely confused by my confession.

“Because it’s just easier in the long run to be nice you know? You make friends, you have fun. Life is shit if you spend it being a dick all the time, for everyone involved,” I said, feeling strangely philosophical in that moment.

It was true though. Sure, I was as angry as the next woman when confronted with someone I didn’t like, someone who’d hurt me. I could scowl and rage at them, but at the same time, if someone expressed a willingness to be kind, I’d do the same. I liked making friends, and I hoped that she did too.

She blinked at me for several moments before she looked away, avoiding my eyes. “I guess,” she murmured in reply. “I’m not used to kindness, at least not anymore.”

“Well in that case, why don’t you come inside and have some food with my friends and I?” I asked, hoping the others would be nice to her too. Civette might just be the answer to our little healer problem too, if we could convince her.

She considered me for several seconds as though thinking my offer through, before a small smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Okay, that could be… fine.”