** Rosa **

 

Amelia had her arm around me, causing all sorts of utterly strange mental and physical sensations within me. First off, my conscious mind was just assuming that I disliked it, until the rest of my body informed me otherwise. Turns out that I really liked her protective arm around me. The way her hand was resting on my shoulder, loose enough that I could walk unhindered, but tight enough that she never lost contact.

She was talking to her friend too as we hurried back towards the rest of her guild mates. The friend was named Amado or something, and I didn’t like how many knives he was carrying. I didn’t trust people who just casually carried knives, and because of this I liked to go out of my way to kill the rogues I found on the battlefield. Their sneaky bullshit wouldn’t work on me.

He seemed okay apart from the knife thing though, and Amelia seemed to like him, so I was trying to keep myself calm and very much not tearing his throat to shreds with my chains. He’d be powerless if I wrapped my bladed chains around his neck and then pulled them tight.

The rogue was some sort of darkling, with navy blue skin, long dark red horns and an even longer tail. Typical demon inspired race playing the often paired archetype of charming and cheeky rogue. I knew I was acting very judgemental right now, but I had years of experience with Gamers now to know that they were not at all trustworthy. With an exception made for Amelia now of course.

Off in the distance I could see her guild mates clearly now, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the large red lizard-like man at their forefront. He was incredibly tall compared to my currently five foot self, and almost three times as wide as me to boot. Across his body he wore heavy plate armour and carried a huge steel mace that looked like it would be a maul on someone smaller. The whole thing presented an intimidating aura to say the least, but something about the way he carried himself spoke of a gentle side. If anyone was going to be trustworthy, it would be him.

I had no idea what to make of the dryad woman with the bow, or the flashy looking mage woman with the bright purple robes. The dryad looked calm and assured, while the mage looked wary and suspicious. I felt like the mage might be a kindred spirit, as far as her suspicion of a new person went, so I was feeling generous towards her. The dryad would need to show her colours before I passed judgement.

“Hey everyone, this is Rosa. She’s um, I found her out there and we worked together to get back,” Amelia told her friends, looking down to give me a smile.

With her smile I felt my confidence grow a little, and I waved at them. “Hello.”

“Nice to meet you,” the big lizard man said gruffly, and I could feel him scrutinising me. I glared right back.

It only lasted a few seconds, this distrustful mutual stare, but then he gave a nod, and I sent a smile back. For some strange reason I found that I trusted this giant lizard just a little, maybe it was the way he didn’t look human, or maybe it was the way he’d distrusted me right back. I’d need to think on it some more.

He noticed the arm around me too, and gave Amelia a considering stare for it. They all noticed the arm, it was fairly hard not to notice, at least from my perspective. I was enjoying having her arm protectively around me, but it also felt like I was being claimed. I should have hated that, I would have if it were anyone else, but with Amelia? I didn’t mind at all.

Continuing the introductions, Amelia looked at me and explained who each of the people before us were. The big lizard was named Sang, and he was their guild leader, the shortish girl in the blindingly coloured robes was Bia. She was the one who’d given Amado the canister for Jazz. Then the dryad archer woman was Eive, and she gave me a warm smile when she was introduced. I didn’t trust smiles on strangers as much as I distrusted knives, so she got a suspicious glare too. The rest of the party were introduced too, but none of them stood out as much as the others.

None of their group tried to talk to me just yet, they were all too busy making sure our enemies kept far away. Some even taking potshots at the survivors of the carnage behind us. It made sense, they were sitting back there as easy experience, and they fought for an evil empire that was so stereotypically evil it could have been straight out of a multi-billion dollar sci-fi franchise.

The trip towards the Taeru was nerve wracking for me, each step I took towards the thing was a step towards a change in my life that I wasn’t sure I was prepared for. Amelia’s arm dropped from my shoulder at some point, due to difficulties navigating the frozen terrain, but she always stayed close.

“You doing okay with other people around?” she asked as we navigated our way around a crater, but I only nodded in reply.

The truth was that I didn’t know. I kept expecting one of them to speak up with some thinly veiled insult, something seemingly benign on the surface, so that they could make a fuss about denying it if I got upset. Then they would turn it around on me and make it seem like I was the one who had wronged them, even though everyone knew it wasn’t true. People did that kind of thing.

As we got closer, I stared up in awe at the Taeru, even after the many instances I had made trips inside, she sheer enormity of the place still got to me. The thing was gigantic! The base of it was easily larger than Hastings, the closest town to my farm out in reality, and it was almost as tall as it was wide. Huge guns were arrayed along the outside, guns that made Amelia’s Jazz look like a toy.

The snow around it was dirty and churned up, and that aspect was new, especially because it had only just arrived here. I could see vehicle tracks in the snow where something had done a series of turns and spins, before returning to the Taeru.

“What are those tracks from?” I asked, pointing them out.

“They’re new. The foxes are trying to make something to match the platforms that the Pags have, that’s them testing their contraptions out,” the woman named Bia replied, before she looked at me and registered my ears again with reddening cheeks. “Uh, the Artifisuki I mean.”

“I’m not actually one of those,” I replied with a small laugh before I could stop myself. “Is fox a derogatory term for an Artifisuki?”

“No. Not really, but it is best to be careful with our hosts… they are erratic,” Sang rumbled.

“Fucking crazy, but in a fun way,” Bia nodded with a wry smile.

“I think they’re cute,” Amelia said from next to me, her eyes on my twitching ears.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you do,” snorted Eive, raising a sarcastic eyebrow in our direction.

“I’m a Tod Sifv,” I said with a small frown. “Not an Artifisuki.”

“What’s a Tod Sifv?” the dryad asked with interest. “You look just like one of the fox people.”

“It’s like a fairy thing from irish folklore,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling incredibly overwhelmed by this seemingly normal conversation.

It was exhausting, just engaging in back and forth smalltalk like that. I hadn’t casually spoken to a human in a long time. Had I really become this socially broken without realising it?

“Oh that’s cool!” Eive smiled, giving me a better look. “What’s different about your race?”

“It’s got strong magical stats,” I replied anxiously, feeling that familiar terrible panic rising with every word.

I wanted to stop being the center of attention now. My heart was thundering in my chest, every beat sounding loud and clear in my ears as they shook my body. All of a sudden I was on the verge of falling apart, and I very much did not want to fall apart in front of Amelia’s friends.

Probably sensing how close I was to snapping, Amelia’s gentle hand laid itself across my shoulders again, and I vaguely heard her ask, “So those twins are here, the lightning one and the ice one?”

“Yeah, they arrived yesterday and helped stall the Pags,” Sang nodded. “About bloody time too, they’ve been fighting the Pag proxies over in the Parcosia region for a while now, but everyone knows that if Joret falls, the whole world is fucked. There’s a call for other big names to come and join the fight too, except now the Pag players have that new guild bankrolling them with microtransactions and shit.”

“Wait are those the stupid, over the top guys called like, Sacred Fire or something?” Amado asked.

“The same,” Sang nodded. “They have a guild leader who’s an absolute wild fanatic. She’s been riling up the Pag player base and recruiting people outside the game too. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Total bitch,” Bia spat. “Have you seen the shit she says on her stream? She’s the most disgusting bigot I’ve ever seen. Fuck what I would give to get her on the other end of one of my spells.”

As the conversation moved away from me and back to the war, Amelia gave my shoulder a little squeeze without looking, and I leaned into her for a moment gratefully. Maybe being amongst other people wouldn’t be so bad if I had her? It was a nice contrast to show that there was something more than simple friendship between us. I didn’t see her arm sitting protectively on anyone else’s shoulder after all.

When we finally reached the Taeru, we entered using one of the heavily guarded access ramps. Interestingly, the guards neglected to hassle us, instead waving us all through with a warm greeting and a nod. It seemed this guild had a good reputation with the Joret military, which wasn’t all that surprising considering how much they fought alongside one another.

The inside was just as I remembered it, tier upon tier of houses and cramped streets that made me feel right at home. There was something about the way the Artifisuki built their structures that oozed a cozy atmosphere. Their architecture a mess of traditional Japanese and celtic that nevertheless seemed to blend together in a chaotic but pleasing way.

We moved through the bustling streets until we came to a rather large house in the uppermost tier, right as the houses stopped being built like a layer cake, and started building straight up the inner wall of the place. When they told me it was their guildhouse, I stared up at it in awe, trying to trace where it ended on the wall, and where other houses began, but it was a lost cause. They were wealthier than I thought, at least collectively as a guild.

The rest of Amelia’s guild all split off to get food or find the toilet as soon as we were inside, leaving Amelia and I standing in their well furnished and theme appropriate atrium. I could see cases every so often with trophies, and a few large monster heads were mounted on the walls. The most impressive display in my opinion, was the set of three Pagutum regimental banners along the wall opposite the front door. Those must have been hard to claim.

“Let’s go up to my room,” Amelia said after a moment, nodding towards a cramped set of spiral stairs.

“Okay,” I said quietly. I still felt uneasy in this place, since it wasn’t my space.

On the flip side though, I pondered as I followed Amelia, it felt good to be safe. The thick iron walls of the Taeru and the cozy atmosphere of the guildhall were all calming, so long as Amelia was nearby, and I found myself relaxing just slightly.

Following her up the stairs and through a few tight turns brought us to an unassuming door set amongst a few others in a hallway, and she pressed her palm to the plate of a spell lock with a relieved sigh.

Shit it’s good to be home,” she groaned in relief, pushing the door open.

Her room was cluttered with random magitech paraphernalia, the only space that was remotely clean being the large double bed shoved against one wall. Opposite that bed was a terrifyingly messy workbench, with all manner of random junk laying around on it. I noticed another door on the other side of the room that was standing wide open to reveal a small bathroom, complete with... a shower!

“Can I use the shower?” I blurted, sounding almost embarrassingly excited about it.

“Sure,” she laughed, pulling me into another one armed hug. “You go first, I’m going to put all my crap away and find something to wear.”

I took a few steps, and then something registered and I turned back to look at her. “Will uh… will I be sleeping in here with you?”

She blinked at me for several seconds like she hadn’t even considered where I was going to sleep, and then her cheeks went an entirely too pretty shade of pink. “I um, kinda forgot to make arrangements… about where you could stay. Sorry.”

“So... I will be sleeping in here?” I asked, trying to squash the excitement rising within me.

“I can go ask to get you a room if—“ she began, but I cut her off.

“No! No, I’d like to stay in here, if that’s alright,” I blurted, feeling my own cheeks heating now. This was all so ridiculous, I should come out and say that I found her attractive. I was the Witch of Chains for crying out loud, I didn’t stammer and blush at girls!

Except, quite obviously, I did.