Trouble With Horns

It took us until midway through the next day to stock the house up with everything we needed. The lounge was filled with comfortable furniture, the bathroom was stocked with soap and its tank filled with fresh water. Food was stacked into the pantry, and we discovered a cellar that was cold enough to store perishables. The bedrooms were filled with all the necessary furniture too, complete with large double beds that felt almost luxuriously decadent in Cora. I couldn’t wait to break ours in.

Millie had decided she wanted to buy a bunch of alchemy books, and Taylor had obliged her, so we even had a bookshelf with a few books. When Civette had seen this, she followed suit and bought a few history books, although I was a little worried by the fact they were written by authors from Pagutum, but I guess she could read what she wanted to read. Dawn had decided otherwise, and had gone and bought some history books from the other side of that conflict, earning a stare from Civ.

As a whole, when we finally got ready to begin the two day walk to the entrance to the ruin, we were all anxious to get going. Preparations had taken long enough, so with the house safely stored in Taylor’s “essential items” inventory, we set off.

“What is an Essential Items inventory anyway?” I asked as we left the gates of the city, the sun high overhead.

Walking next to me, Taylor gave a wordless hum before she explained, “Oh, it’s not really an inventory, more like a page where things like pets or our house can be stored when you don’t have them out. None of the shit inside it drops when you die, and it persists between characters if you have more than one.”

“Oh, that’s handy,” I said, before going back to placing one foot in front of the other.

I’d managed to find a little time during the last few days to learn about the game, with Dawn’s help, but there was so much I didn’t know about or understand. It didn’t bother me too much though, I liked learning, the discovery of a new little idea. It was fun, even if I didn’t chase knowledge like some people did.

People like my girlfriend, who walked along calmly on the other side of me from Taylor. She caught me staring and gave a cute little smile that tugged my own lips into one in return. Her moods were infectious like that, they always had been.

I remembered one time when we were still in elementary school, and Kristina was upset over another lecture she’d gotten from her parents for getting grass stains on her dress.

“I’m okay,” she’d lied, schooling her expression like she always did, another product of her parent’s lectures. “The hymns say to be strong, so I have to be okay.”

“Hymns are silly then. You’re not okay Krissy! But if I smile at you like this,” Dawn had said, giving our friend a goofy smile. “Then you’ll be actually, properly okay.”

Kristina had stared at Dawn in confusion as the scruffy looking girl in front of her grinned a silly grin at her. She blinked a few times, her child’s mind trying to figure out how to best respond to Dawn’s antics. It worked on me though, I’d known that much, because I’d started smiling right alongside Dawn. I’d moved over to stand with her, pulling a funny face and finding myself pulled into a one armed hug.

“See! The infection spreads! Terry’s smiling too! Smiles are infectious you know,” she’d said happily. “It’ll get you soon, watch out!”

Kristina had put up a valiant effort, carefully trying to keep her blank expression, but she’d failed.

She broke down into giggles and told us, “You guys! Stop! Oh my goodness you’re both so dumb!”

“You’re dumb too then!” I’d grinned, reaching out to poke her nose. “We’re all dumb together!”

“Together!” Dawn had agreed, dragging me forward until we’d captured Kristina in a double hug. “Infected!”

“Gross! Stop calling it that!” Kristina had complained, but she was laughing as her friends cheered her up.

I missed those days, except for the whole masculine body thing. Innocence and friends, none of the drama, the slow decay of our friendship. Watching Dawn get slowly bullied into her shell, the bubbly girl I’d once known becoming withdrawn and reserved. Watching Kristina become slowly corrupted by her parental approved friends and the church’s dogma.

Much like the Kristina of my memories, I found my mood dropping when I thought about how everything had turned out. I needed a distraction, and when Taylor piped up out of the blue to talk to her stream chat, I figured I may as well tune in to look at what was being said.

Chat was asking about Civette, as it turned out, because they had missed most of our prep for the journey. Taylor began to give a run down of the healer, who was well within earshot and staring at Taylor as she spoke. My sister was kind though, neglecting to mention the part about how she’d tried to kill Dawn and me.

As much as my girlfriend hated all the eyes on us, I kinda liked the way everyone was watching and talking about us. Even cheering us on for the most part, although I’d seen someone pipe up with some random piece of bigotry before being blocked by Taylor.

“You know, this is the one thing I don’t enjoy about VR games,” Dawn said after a while. “The damn walking. I wish this game had fast travel or something. Maybe we need to turn that house into an airship or something.”

“The only airships in Cora are the small ones that Pagutum nobles use sometimes. No one else has the capability,” Civette replied, taking her water flask out of her inventory. “I would love one right about now though, I agree. Yet another reason why I don’t typically play VR games. I prefer VR resorts and the like, if I use it at all.”

“Right,” Dawn nodded thoughtfully. “I can appreciate that. I’ve never actually used one, but I can see the appeal.”

“Maybe we should try one some time?” I mused, then I realised that would mean weeks of making love to her and felt my heart pick up a little. I would absolutely love to go on a little VR vacation with her, somewhere private where we could walk around naked and… oh damn. Yes please.

“I swear it feels like the past few days living with you in our apartment together has already been a vacation,” Dawn said, meeting my eyes with a loving smile that stole the breath from my lungs. “A permanent one.”

Our intimate eye contact was broken when we heard sputtering from Civette, who was choking on her water and staring at me with wide, incredulous eyes. “You moved in together?” she asked, then coughed a few more times before quickly adding, “How long have you been together?”

“Uh, officially?” Dawn asked, watching our healer with a mixture of amusement and consternation. “A few hours longer than we’ve been living together actually. I got kicked out of my parents place for being a lesbian, so yeah, Tami decided she wanted me with her rather than in some basic apartment somewhere else.”

Civette didn’t meet Dawn’s eyes as she spoke to her, instead she continued to stare at me, her expression still open and shocked. Then with a shake of her head as if to clear her thoughts, she turned her eyes down to her boots and sighed. “Yeah that makes sense I guess. Must be nice.”

“It is,” I said softly, reaching for Dawn’s hand. “I absolutely love this woman. I’ve been floored by just how much I care this past month. It’s been intense, and I’m kinda hoping things will settle down so we can just enjoy being together.”

Civette didn’t reply verbally, or look up when I spoke. Instead her expression was set in stone and her eyes stayed glued to her shoes. The way she kept looking at me, it reminded me of the way Millie had been staring at me before Taylor burst into her life. Was Civ a lesbian too? Maybe closeted or something? Was that why she kept having these reactions to Dawn and I, or was there something else going on?

It was approaching mid afternoon when Rusti stopped mid stride, their ears perked up and twitching as they announced, “I hear something.”

“Hmm, what do you hear?” Millie asked, watching the cat person intently.

We’d all stopped shortly after Rusti had as we waited for a reply, and I saw Taylor pull Millie protectively close to herself. I smiled as their fingers intertwined, they were so cute together. Curiously, I turned to see what Civ thought of their closeness, but she was barely giving them any attention. Instead her gaze was turned outwards as she squinted out towards the rolling hills to our north.

“There’s… a lot of footsteps, I can’t tell if they’re human or not, all I can tell is that there’s a lot, and they’re coming right for us,” Rusti said a few moments later.

“Armour time then,” Taylor said, her tone all business as she began to equip her armour, and I followed suit, while next to me Dawn equipped her robes.

I could hear the rumble of the approaching horde now too, it shook the ground with its intensity. I could see the dry golden grass along the sides of the road beginning to shake slightly with the vibrations.

“Everyone get behind me,” Taylor ordered as she brought her huge tower shield to bear.

Our foes finally rolled up into view over my sister’s shoulder and there was a collective intake of breath as we took in the sight. It seemed like there were hundreds of the things, huge goat like creatures, although the entire front of their faces, as well as their enormous horns were made of volcanic rock. From within they glowed with still hot magma that trailed behind them, setting the grass alight as they passed it.

Directly in front of them was a player, who seemed to be egging the creatures on, drawing them right towards us. He looked to be some sort of roguish character and he wore a manic, adrenaline-wild grin across his face. 

“Ah shit,” Taylor groaned. “It’s that fucking guy again, one of the guys that attacked Millie and I on the road. Back for round two I guess.”

“He comes with a lot more backup this time,” Millie said with nervous excitement.

“So do we my little Millie,” Taylor ground out through gritted teeth as she began to cast a spell.

Cold magic swirled up around her for a moment, the area around her boots becoming dusted with frost before a huge wedge of cold light formed in front of her, centered on her shield. I felt a grin forming as I saw what my sister intended. This was either going to be incredible, or we were all going to die.

In the moments before the horde of angry beasts arrived, I took mental stock of my build as it was. I had my charged dash, I had my lightning empowered strikes, I had my momentum transfer abilities, and I had my bolt of lightning. I also had my powerful explosive impact ability. All the levels I had gained since the evacuation of Gienia had been towards increasing the raw power of those abilities, although I hoped to branch out when I gained a few more abilities. I was kind of a one trick pony right now.

“Bracing!” came Taylor’s call, and then they hit.

The enemy rogue was nowhere to be seen as the first molten goats smashed into my armoured sister’s shield in an angry wave. The crack and shatter of ice sounded at each impact, the force causing Taylor’s boots to slip slightly across the packed dirt of the road.

Shit, she needed help before the raw weight of these things overpowered her. I rushed up behind her and put my arms on her shoulders, bracing her with as much of my considerable strength as I could leverage. I felt the impacts almost immediately as they were translated through my twin’s body, like there was a giant using her shield for a drum solo on the other side.

Several of the goats had died on impact, and many more simply by being crushed between the wall of transparent ice blue energy and their friends, while others tumbled out to the side, horns shattered with their molten cores exposed and pouring out across the ground.

“Someone do something to slow them down before this shield breaks!” Taylor growled to the rest of the group, and they jumped into action.

Dawn leapt up into the air and burst into glorious flame, her body alight with energy even as her hair and eyes lit up with a molten glow. She hung in midair and aimed her sword at the oncoming mass of beasts like a goddess giving judgement. Then I was almost blinded by a beam of white hot energy that lanced out from her sword like a laser, cutting through rank upon rank of the beasts that were still charging madly into the shield.

The incredible spell seemed to slow them, but many were left merely dazed, and I saw my girlfriend blink in confusion for a moment as she descended back to the ground. She’d caused a pile up that was giving us some relief, but the animals themselves had taken barely any damage.

“Fuck. They’re made of fire,” Dawn swore. “God I hate this game’s element system.”

“Use a different spell! They don’t tell you in the stats, but if you think something should work, even if it’s the same element, chances are it still will. Just because something has an energy affinity, doesn’t mean it’s immune to explosives,” Millie said excitedly as she began to lob her grenades into the midst of our enemies.

There was a series of sharp detonations as her little packets exploded, and that got an effect. I had the steaming, smoking leg of a goat land next to me and I noticed that instead of blood, it had more magma oozing out of the stump.

“Point taken,” Dawn laughed, her voice crackling slightly like she was speaking through a roaring fire.

She began to lob balls of molten light out into the growing crowd with almost as much gleeful abandon as Millie was, each one detonating with similar effect. Meanwhile, Rusti had disappeared entirely, but I noticed a few goats nearby with magma pouring from clean holes punched through their skulls.

Civette on the other had, was staring about herself in terror, her hands white knuckled around her staff as her slight frame shook. Shit, we should have realised she’d be terrified by this. She’d frozen up during the fight outside the inn too.

Trusting that Taylor could handle the now reduced load, I patted her on the back and then moved to stand in front of Civ. Her eyes were wide with fear as they met mine, and I reached out carefully, to wrap my gauntlets as gently as I could around her small hands.

“Hey, deep breaths!” I shouted over the explosive racket behind me.

She blinked at me for several moments, like I’d just spoken in another language, then shook her head. “This isn’t… this isn’t…”

“It isn’t real Civ, none of this is real, there’s no need to be afraid,” I soothed, trying to get through to her.

“It looks fucking real!” she exclaimed shrilly. “Easy for you to just shrug it off. I’m not like you!”

“I know, it’s hard to get used to, but we need you, Taylor’s arm is probably broken by now and she could use the healing,” I said quickly. It was a lie, my sister’s arm was probably fine, but if Civ had something to do then she might be able to focus on that.

“Broken?” she squeaked, staring at my sister like she had three heads. “I knew you people were fucking weird, but how can she just stand there like that with a broken arm!”

I shrugged off her insult for now, instead grabbing her staff and pointing it at my sister.

It took her a moment, but then her grip went firm rather than the choking grip she’d had, and she closed her eyes. Her arms swirled with golden energy, and I let go hastily as it surged down the staff and out to strike my sister in the back. She twitched as the energy touched her, looking back to see Civ healing her. She gave the terrified healer a cocky smile and a nod, then turned back towards the horde.

“Nice,” I breathed in relief. “Just keep doing that and we’ll be good. You’re probably going to be drowning in experience after this too.”

How the hell did she get to even the level she was at with this fear? Had she just been power leveled or something? Grouped up in someone’s party while they did all the work? Whatever, I had shit to punch.