THE ASCENDANCY. The Far Side Of The River. Day 3

  "How many do you guys see?" I whispered.

  "Gav, there's at least two of them." Yumi said quietly. "God, looking at them's making my skin crawl."

  Yumi, Tanya, and I were lying prone across the top of a ridgeline about half a mile from the far side of the river.

  "Gavin," Tanya said. I could hear the quiver in her voice. "Have they spotted Bishop?"

  "I don't think so. I sent Bishop's ass literally up one of those giant tree things. He's got a great perspective and can see a good distance around him. They walked right by the tree he was up and kept moving."

  "Walked, Gavin? Walked?" Yumi whispered harshly. "No, those things aren't walking. They're chittering. I've never seen anything like it. Looking at them feels wrong."

  "Yeah, you're right. They don't belong on this world." Tanya said.

  "You guys, we're either looking at another team's constructs, or we're looking at members of another team. What do you want to do?"

  "I don't think we should try to take these things on right now," Yumi whispered. "Maybe if I had my drones, but I don't."

  "I know. ARi already told me she's trying to find you some tin."

  "Don't worry. She will," Tanya softly reassured her.

  "No, we're not gonna take these things on. But I think we should make sure we see what direction they're coming from or where they're going. Shit, you guys--stay quiet. Nobody move."

  Through Bishop's senses I could see what he was seeing from above. Five different points were pushing through the vegetation, all from different directions, but converging on whatever those things were.

  The raptors that'd been stalking jumped from the vegetation into the clearing, charging the aliens. The sound they made was like metal being dragged across metal as they screeched toward their prey.

  One of the strange creatures let loose a blur of heat and air that swept like a crescent in front of it, smashing into one of the attacking raptors and knocking it violently back--only to get jumped from the side by another raptor that pinned it down and gouged and tore with its flailing arms into what I could only imagine was a face.

  The creatures were hard to look at. They had some kind of hard carapace that was darker than black, almost like light didn't bounce off it at all. The sound the creature made while the raptor was tearing it to pieces was sure to give all three of us nightmares for the next week.

  A third alien seemed to appear from nowhere. It had obviously been using some kind of camouflage, and it stood taller than the other two. Three shining dart-like objects hovered around it.

  The creature reached out toward its falling comrade, and to our surprise, the three objects dashed forward in a blur. Two smashed into the head of the raptor, disintegrating the thing from the shoulders up. The third dart smashed into the body of the alien's companion.. It stopped struggling and went limp, lying where it'd fallen.

  I reached over and put my hand on Yumi's hand. "It's gonna be okay. We need to make sure they're actually leaving. I've got Bishop watching the two that went back into the canopy, and I can still see them moving."

  The three of us lay there for some time. Probably almost an hour, staring at the lifeless corpse in the clearing below. Bishop had tracked the two aliens as they'd made their way all the way out of the forest and down into a canyon heading toward the rocky hillscape.

  "I bet you that's where their territory is." Tanya said.

  "Well, Tanya, I gotta tell you, that doesn't make me feel any better. That's what, three, four miles from our boundary? "

  This time it was Yumi's turn to try to calm me down. "There's no guarantee that they planted their territory right there. They could've come from even farther away."

  "Why would they leave him behind? I don't understand." Tanya said softly.

  "I don't know, you guys, but we're gonna have to go down and try to loot that thing,"

  Tanya punched me in the arm, hard. "Are you fucking crazy?"

  "No, I'm not. We have to get as many answers out of this as we can. We need to know what we're up against. Plus that thing could have technology on it, or things that we need."

  "What we need," Yumi jumped in, "is to get the hell out of here."

  As we argued about what to do next, down below the missing raptor crept out from cover on the forest floor and cautiously moved over to the corpse, beginning to tear into it. Black ichor and some kind of weird purple gore spilled across the forest floor.

  "Shit! I'm gonna tell Bishop to come down and kill the raptor."

  "Gav! No!"

  "You guys, we have to get down to that thing. I can't let the raptor tear it apart."

  "I hate you so much right now!" Tanya said.

  "It's fine. You guys don't have to go down. I'll do it. And none of us have to go down there while Bishop takes care of the raptor."

  I reached out to Bishop and gave him instructions to come down and quietly take the raptor out. I watched from his perspective as he silently, moved down the tree and across the forest floor. By the time the raptor looked up and saw him coming, Bishop had one of its arms speared through its head and the other through the side of its body--killing the thing instantly.

  I crept down from the top of the hill and slowly made my way toward the clearing. I waited a couple minutes to make sure nothing else was coming, knowing Bishop was on the other side of the clearing, covering me. I made my way toward the strange creature's corpse and there wasn't a lot of its head left. To be honest, at least I think that was its head.

  Reaching down hesitantly, I touched the hard carapace on one of its arms. I threw myself back on my ass instantly, scared shitless, as a system window snapped into view.

  [SYSTEM WINDOW] LOOT PROMPT

  Do you want to loot Ascendancy rival Nox Reaper?

  [YES]?[NO]

  "Yes, God damn it! The window scared the hell out of me."

  I selected yes and didn't bother looking at what I managed to get off the body. I turned to run back up toward the girls but stopped after a few steps. I turned around, walked back over to the corpse. Reaching out to touch it again, I selected the body and pulled the whole thing into my inventory. I was surprised for a moment that it even let me do it.

  "Bishop, start backtracking the way that we came. Make sure nothing's trying to sneak up on us."

  Bishop sprang from where he'd been hiding, moved up the hill, and I followed behind. Once I got back up to Tanya and Yumi, they were both standing there and staring daggers right into my eyes.

  "It's fine. I'm okay. Everything's fine. Let's get back to the den."

  "Sure, everything's fine, Gavin. It's not like you have a bloody corpse in your inventory," Yumi said, punching my already sore arm.

  "God, would you guys quit hitting me? Look, yes, it's scary. It was an alien. Trust me, it was even more terrifying up close. However, there's nothing to fear because it clearly says that you're not allowed to pull living things into your inventory. It won't even let us pull plants and stuff in there until after we've ripped them out of the ground."

  I reflected on that for a moment, grateful that ARi's phase capabilities didn't work that way.

  "I know you guys are pissed off at me, but we've got a good bit to travel. Let's try to move fast and get back to the others, okay?"

  "You're an idiot, Gavin Daniels," Yumi snapped.

  "Oh, this is gonna be a long afternoon." I sighed.

  Many hours of getting berated later, we were walking back through the entrance of the den.

  "How'd it go, guys? Did you find anything we might be able to eat?" ARi asked.

  "No," Tanya said, annoyed, through gritted teeth, "but we did watch an alien get torn apart by raptors, and dumbass here, climb down to loot its body."

  The whole room went completely silent.

  "Yeah, it's true. We should be able to pull what Bishop was able to see from his memory." I walked over and sat on the bench next to the hearth. The warmth of the fire felt nice, and I felt myself finally relax. Their stare was still on me, waiting for me to say something, to explain myself, anything.

  "But what the hell, Gavin?" Kyle quipped. "What are you trying to build tension?"

  I took a breath and smiled over at Kyle as Tim sat on the other side of the fire on the adjacent bench. "No, Kyle. I'm trying to figure out how to retell the story without pissing my pants, Visualizing it again."

  ARi ran over to the girls, checking them over. "Oh my God--was it scary?" she asked. "What does it look like? Did they have antennas? Was it like little green men? What was it like?"

  Tanya looked at ARi, glanced over at Yumi, and turned to the side and threw up.

  "Yea, it was kinda like that," I said from across the room. I threw my hand out over the fire while ARi checked on Tanya and brought up the display window I'd received after looting the body, so everybody could see.

  [SYSTEM WINDOW] RECOVERED ITEMS

  Recovered materials and artifacts:

  1× Cloaking-Orb – Single-user cloaking device.

  1× Skill-Shard (fragment) – Partially encoded skill data.

  1× Reaper-Venom (ampule) – Organism-derived toxin.

  "I expected to see something like this. That's a skill shard. It almost looks like a broken piece of one of the tablets that Gavin had spawned into the world with before the rest of us were here. This is good. Things like this are gonna be rare, and the skill shard's probably gonna contain one of the fallen Reaper's skills or abilities. We can actually give this to somebody in the party and they can absorb it and should obtain that skill.

  "I'm not sure about this Reaper Venom. I think it's probably something that came from the creature itself and the looting mechanism put it in the ampule.

  "As for the Cloaking Orb," ARi said with a shrug, "I'm assuming--because this is clearly a higher-tech piece of gear--that this was one of the offerings that this race got in the lobby, like our rebreathers."

  We'd sat out there long enough to watch them move pretty far in the direction they were heading, and they weren't deviating at all, so they were heading to something. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to shake off the tension that was creeping back.

  "You guys, these things were absolutely terrifying. The way they were knocking the raptors around, and even how that one Reaper used those weird darts or drones or whatever, it was absolutely violent."

  "Gav, I wish you could've saved one of those darts or whatever they were so we could see it up close. If I could examine one, maybe it'd help us find a way to defend ourselves against them."

  "Well, ha--funny you should mention that..." Yumi said from across the room.

  "Yeah I kinda picked the whole corpse up and put it in my inventory. It was really gross." Instinctively, Tim took his hand off my shoulder and took a step back. Kyle had a huge grin on his face.

  "So you've got that thing in there? Like, it's in there?"

  "Yeah, Kyle, it's in there. I hope this inventory space isn't something that's actually inside me, because I'm pretty creeped out right now. I can't believe I even did it."

  "Neither can we," Tanya said begrudgingly, still staring hate in my direction.

  "I'm sorry, Tanya. It had to be done."

  "Yeah, well, that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it," she said. "I'm not pulling the thing out here. We'll do it outside or something."

  "Yeah, well, have fun," Yumi snapped. "I don't ever want to see that thing again. Dead or alive."

  "On that we can agree," I said as I took a breath. I saw the constructs outside. "Did the kobolds make it back okay?"

  "They did, and our little shieldbearers are in their new barracks right now, having a little sleep. Seems they're all tuckered out from today's activities."

  "Well, I don't blame them for that either. You guys remember how it felt after being spawned into this place? We sent them right out to start doing stuff."

  "Any luck on getting them leveled at all?" I asked.

  "Not really." Kyle said. "They didn't encounter much. However, the rogues actually managed to take out a couple of raptors and even brought them back. I'm excited to try them. It's a little weird. I've never had a purple hamburger before."

  "I didn't even think about that," I said, putting my head in my hands. "Most of the creatures here in this world have blue blood. That probably means that we're not gonna have any type of red meat, it's all gonna be weird colors.

  "I showed the rogues their quarters. They looked like they were grateful, but insisted they wanted to go back out. So ARi sent them to patrol the perimeter."

  "Wait, they actually took orders from you, then?" Tim and Kyle started laughing. "You might be their commander, Gav, but you're not the pretty magic lady who keeps giving them free stuff."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  We all had a little laugh and made our way to the pantry.

  I was worried how Red was gonna take the fact that you had two of his own kind stalking around and following him. But the little guy took it in stride and actually seemed pretty happy at the prospect of you spawning in two more Kobalds. ARi said.

  "Tomorrow ARi we make those showers. It's gonna get musty in here pretty soon." I made my way to my cot and flopped down letting today's anxieties fade away as I closed my eyes and slipped into sleep.

  The next morning, the kobolds came out of their room and made their way over to the table, which I noticed was a little bit longer than it'd been the night before. They climbed up onto the benches and sat waiting patiently for the rest of us to join them.

  Happy chirps seemed to fill the den as ARi phased in breakfast for the group. There seemed to be at least three or four different kinds of berries now. I hadn't tried any except for the black ones. I was excited at the prospect. Black licorice isn't my favorite flavor. But there were other things as well. The plates were full of scrambled eggs, some kind of roasted meat, and even some toasted bread slices in the middle of the table.

  Kyle busted out laughing, pointing in my direction. "You can't figure out why they keep bending the knee to ARi. "

  Tim shook his head in astonishment. "Hell, I'd bend the knee to ARi for a breakfast like that every morning too."

  Tanya elbowed Tim in the side.

  "Ow. What? It's true." ARi rolled her eyes, and soon we found similar plates in front of all of us.

  "All right, if you're all done messing around, I think we need to talk a little shop. Let's start with progress here at the keep."

  "Is that what we're calling it now, ARi?" Kyle asked.

  "Gavin coined the term yesterday, and it sounds better than saying 'the den.'" ARi shrugged.

  "So yesterday we were able to finish about fifty feet of wall section. It wasn't complicated, but even with the help of the large constructs and all the resources, it's still a pretty big drain on my energy to fill those things. Based on what Tanya, Yumi, and Gavin observed from that other team, though, I think we need to make some adjustments."

  "What'd you have in mind, ARi?" I asked through a mouth full of purple meat and toast.

  "Well, two things. I think that, although the wall slants outward as Gavin requested, we should copy the slant on the other side from the ground up. This'd help increase the total amount of material in the wall. And I also think I'm gonna reinforce the wall with bronze."

  "That sounds like it's gonna take a lot more resources, ARi. "

  "I think it'll be okay, Gav. I can retrofit my alterations after the initial wall's built. The initial design's still pretty good, ultimately it'll keep even apex predators away from the keep. Outside of the natural predators on this world though, I don't think there's any materials here that'd keep hostiles from being able to break in eventually."

  "I don't think anything's gonna even get to the wall. If they try, they're gonna end up in one of those spike pits that Kyle and I were working on yesterday," Tim cut in.

  "What are we gonna do with the items we looted off the Reaper?" Tanya asked.

  "Well, we have a couple of options for the skill shard, actually. I mean, we can give it to anybody. But right now we have two real logical options. One is we give it to Kyle because he's got the highest energy pool to be able to use it. It's a little on the intensive side."

  "I have another option I wanted to bring up though," ARi continued. "I think Tanya should get the skill."

  We all seemed a little surprised, even Tanya.

  "Why me, ARi? Why do you think I need it?"

  "That's simple. You don't have any combat capabilities at all as far as your skills go. And although you're heading down a strong path to be a powerful healer, yesterday your abilities wouldn't have helped you if those raptors had been attacking your group instead of the hostiles. I feel like it'd give you at least one offensive skill in your set that'd allow you to protect yourself. I've had a chance to analyze the skill shard as well, and although I can't tell you exactly what it'll produce when you absorb it, I can tell you the skill'll adapt to try and line up with your current skillset."

  "That makes the most sense to me. I said. Yumi, what do you think?"

  Yumi looked up sheepishly at Tanya, shaking her head. "Tanya, I love you, girl. But if we'd been jumped by raptors, I would've felt a lot better if both of us had some kind of ability to fight those things off instead of poking them with sticks."

  She quickly looked over to ARi. "Don't get me wrong--they're nice pointy sticks--but you didn't see what that thing's darts did to those raptors."

  "I'm all for it," Kyle jumped in. "I'm pretty set on the skill path and build that I'm looking for. The way you described the powers those guys wielded, I don't think it's gonna line up with my current skill plan."

  "Hey, don't look at me," Tim said. "I don't want it. I fail to see how any magic-y, phase ability's gonna help me."

  "Ultimately, at this point, I think it's pretty much up to us individually to decide the route we want to go. Not every decision as far as our personal builds has to be a team discussion, but I like the idea of us taking loot items like this and sitting down to figure out where it's best put to use."

  Tim smiled sheepishly. "Was that a shot at me for not talking about all my skill options before I jumped into my choices?"

  "Are you kidding, Tim? Not at all. Think about it: at least a couple of us have gotta take a martial skill path. And right now, that's you and me, buddy. And I feel a hell of a lot better holding a line with you wielding that khopesh of yours."

  The rest of us nodded in agreement, including the little kobolds.

  "Well, how about this? How about we look over things with the team when we encounter new things, or if you're not certain what direction you want to go with some of these skill or class choices, because you guys have those coming up too.

  "After all, I don't know if you guys have actually thought about this, but based on the description of the rules for the Ascendancy, these changes are permanent." ARi said.

  While we were talking about the shard, one of the kobold rogues hopped down from the table and ran back to the barracks, bringing his own khopesh back to ARi. The blade had been damaged in their fight with the raptors, the same raptors that I'm pretty sure we were having for breakfast. The little kobold's eyes drooped, and he held the damaged blade out with both hands, head down. ARi smiled and waved her hand as the broken blade disappeared and a new one appeared in its place.

  The little kobold jumped up and down, excited, tapped his chest twice before running back to the table to show the others.

  "Holy hell, ARi. I'm gonna have to look at doing something to impress these guys, before they make you Queen of the Kobolds."

  "So how about it, Tanya? Will you accept the shard?"

  I held my hand out and pulled the shard from my inventory.

  Yumi jumped in, excited. "I know we said you don't have to show us the skills and choices and stuff that we get or whatever, but can you please? I want to know what it's gonna be."

  "Yes, of course I will," Tanya said. She reached out and took the shard; her hand began to glow as the shard faded. She waved her hand at the wall at the end of the table, and a window snapped into view.

  [SYSTEM WINDOW] NEW SKILL ACQUIRED

  Congratulations, Tanya Ramirez!

  You have acquired a new skill.

  Skill: Reaper’s-Coil 1.

  Positive-Charge: Fires a single-target ranged bolt that instantly restores Health to the recipient while drawing down the recipient’s Stamina. Best used as a ranged emergency heal.

  Negative-Charge: Fires a necrotic bolt that deals corrosive life-drain damage and applies a lingering necrotic effect to the target.

  Scaling: Variable energy investment; the caster can increase energy to boost potency. All effects scale with Focus. Range: 30 meters. This skill will apply a strong bleed effect when used on a Nox Reaper.

  Overuse: If Energy Reserve is depleted during casting, the skill will automatically draw from Stamina. If Stamina falls below 0, the caster is knocked unconscious and excess drain begins consuming Health, applying standard exhaustion and recovery debuffs until activity ceases.

  "Well, I gotta tell you, Tanya, that would've been helpful yesterday." Yumi said.

  "Tanya, that skill looks absolutely awesome," I said. "I don't know about the stamina drain, but that bleed effect against Reapers? Think about it. You could've hit a Reaper from on top of that hill and we could've run for it. The damn thing would've bled out."

  "Yeah, well, unless we have to," Tanya said. "I'd rather not test it."

  "All right, guys, what's next on the agenda? What do we need to get real bathrooms and showers going?" I asked.

  "If I build it so our forges and furnaces heat the water, we don't have to do any additional research. We need to do it." ARi said.

  "Well, why don't we press forward with the mining research for now then, and you and I'll figure out bathrooms and showers in the meantime," I said.

  "Tim, how do you feel about doing a little bit of grinding today? See if we can help get your experience up."

  "I'm down for that, Gav," Tim said.

  "What about me?" Kyle chimed in.

  "I'm gonna help ARi down here, and I'm gonna come up and hang out with you today while Tim goes hunting. You're building experience while setting those spike traps, we've gotta make sure everybody's getting a chance to get that XP."

  "Well, if that's the case, Gav, why don't I go ahead and take the kobolds with me," Tim said.

  "That works for me. Red, are you okay taking your whole crew today? Well except for the rogues, though," I said. "I've got a specific mission for them."

  The little kobolds had already finished their food. Red hopped up on the bench, tapped his chest with a little chirp, and all six of the shield bearers ran back into the barracks to grab their equipment.

  "I hope you can keep up Tim, because those guys are pretty eager," Kyle said.

  "Good," Tanya replied, mouth full of the purple meat. "Because I don't even want to know what this is, but I want more of it."

  "As for you rogues, I've got a mission for you. You're gonna scout where we think the others are. I only want you to get close enough to see if you can get eyes on anything. Take Bishop with you. He can show you the way."

  Bishop got up from his place by the fire and walked over to me. "I want you to take good care of these guys. Get them as close as you can to where we think those assholes were heading, okay? But stay low and quiet. I don't want them to know that you're there. If you guys run into trouble, scrap the mission and come back. But don't come directly back here. We need to make sure you're not followed."

  "If you're gonna refer to 'those' guys, you need to use their names," Yumi cut in.

  "You named my kobolds too?"

  "Of course we did," ARi said. "This one's Sawyer, and this one's Jack."

  I stared blankly for a moment at Yumi and ARi, who stood there smiling back at me. "You're not gonna name all of my kobolds after characters from Lost."

  "Of course we're not, Gavin. Sawyer and Jack happen to be perfectly fine names. It's a coincidence." The girls giggled. "Besides, we discussed it with them and they like their new names. Isn't that right, Sawyer?"

  The little kobold jumped up and down, pushing his head into ARi's hand affectionately.

  Yumi looked at me admonishingly. "You didn't think we were seriously gonna let you name them all colors. What was your next squad leader's name gonna be.. Blue?"

  I winced, knowing damn well in the back of my mind that that was exactly what my plan had been.

  "No. I wasn’t gonna do that." I lied.

  Yumi and ARi stood there shaking their heads at me like I was a complete idiot. ARi reached down and grabbed Jack's hand. "Come on, little guy. I made you some poison knives. Doesn't that sound cool?"

  Sawyer ran up and grabbed Yumi's other hand, and the four of them went back toward the kobolds' barracks.

  I looked back to Kyle and Tim.

  Kyle shrugged. "Don't look at me, dude. Girls terrify me. This is probably the most I've ever talked to them in my entire life."

  Tim continued to shake his head and patted me on the shoulder as he walked toward his gear.

  "All right, Kyle. Get your shit, and let's go out and get you started up there."

  Bishop turned and started moving toward the door. This time Yumi, was coming out of the barracks, and rushed over to Bishop's side and nabbed her little water drake before she could follow Bishop and the rogues out the door.

  "Not this time, little love," she said, scratching the little drake under her chin. "I need you to come with me and Aunt Tanya. We're gonna see if we can find some tin so Mama can make some cute little murder machines."

  The little drake wrapped herself around Yumi's shoulder as Tanya and Yumi grabbed their gear and headed for the door.

  I followed Kyle outside and went and looked at his pit traps that he'd been creating across the wall sections. Of course some of the sections were still missing the wall itself, but the utility bots had excavated the pits, and Kyle simply walked up to a pit and would pull solid stone spikes up from the bottom. He was able to do, two or three at a time, after he would sit and rest, allowing his energy to recharge before rinsing and repeating.

  "Don’t you get bored while you're letting your energy recharge?"

  "I usually sit down, enjoy the scenery, and read through my system windows. I don't know if you noticed it, but we have a little section when you flip through the different options that lets you take notes. I've been piling observations in there, thoughts, theories and stuff, so I'm not bored." Kyle said, stretching out a long yawn.

  "Well, what the hell did Tim do while you were out here sitting and staring at screens?"

  "Mostly sword stuff. He had ARi conjure these little reed dummies and he was practicing techniques. It helped him build a little bit of experience with some of his skills, but he said it wasn't much."

  "Are you good out here if I go down and help ARi?"

  "Yep. I'll let you guys know if I need anything."

  I went back down into the den, which now seemed extremely quiet. It felt larger than it'd been a few minutes before, now that everybody was gone. I was, however, surprised to see a new door that hadn't been there before on the backside of the den where our supplies used to be stacked. I walked over, opened the door, and stepped into what can only be described as a bathroom out of one of those rich-and-famous shows you'd see on TV. This place was amazing!

  The walls were polished dark marble and the floors had tiles to match. The bathroom was huge and had a separator wall down the middle and five huge shower stalls. Seriously, each of these shower stalls was bigger than my entire dorm room back on Earth. They had elaborate bronze piping coming from the ceiling to form the shower heads. In fact, the only thing setting these bathrooms apart from something you'd find in some fancy house was the lamp light. A while ago ARi had swapped out our crude reed torches that we'd had hanging on the walls with some kind of oil lamp. She said it was much more efficient and she didn't have to constantly change and relight them.

  Walking to the back of the new shower room, I saw steam rising and could hear the trickling sound of water pouring from the fixtures in the stall. I didn't even think about it. I thought maybe ARi was testing whether or not the water was working. But when I walked around the corner, there she was. Water cascaded down across her shoulders and back, her skin glistening in the dim light.

  I stood there in shock. She turned, droplets tracing down her chest, and saw me standing there frozen. As I clumsily freaked out trying to apologize at a million miles an hour, she stepped out of the stall without a hint of embarrassment. Water pooled at her feet. She grabbed the collar of my shirt with both hands and kissed me.

  She walked backward slowly, pulling me with her, and I felt the warm spray hit my clothes as we crossed back into the stall. My shirt was soaked through in seconds. I helped her pull the wet fabric off my shoulders, and when her skin pressed against mine, warm from the water, every coherent thought I had left evaporated.

  After a long, hot shower, ARi stepped back out of the stall, smiled at me, grabbed a cloth towel from the wall, and wrapped it around herself as she walked to the other side of the bathroom. At that point I turned the water off, stepped out of the shower myself, and reached up and grabbed another towel. When I looked down to find my wet clothes, I realized ARi had absorbed them. I could hear her snickering as she left the bathroom.

  I followed her out into the main chamber of the den to find Kyle grinning ear to ear, standing and staring at the door and at both of us, wearing nothing but wrapped towels. Before I had a chance to say anything, ARi quickly stepped up to Kyle and put a finger on his nose.

  "If you tell anybody," she said, "every time you step into that shower I'll make sure that water's ice cold."

  Kyle grinned back and said, "Yes ma'am," and ran into the new shower himself, stripping his clothes off as he went, not even bothering to wait until he was all the way in the room, and we could hear him cheering through the closed door.

  ARi walked back up to me and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. "Gavin, you can take this however you want and I'll be okay with that."

  I reached down, grabbed her hand, and gave it a squeeze. "It's okay, ARi. " The way I was looking at her and the way she was looking back said everything that needed to be said.

  "I phased some new clothes in for you. They're on the end of your bed," she said.

  I let go of her hand after one more squeeze. "Thank you."

  We both got dressed and sat on the benches by the hearth next to each other and waited for Kyle to come out of the shower.

  "Oh, come on, ARi, this isn't funny anymore," he said as Kyle came tromping out of the bathroom, sopping wet. ARi had clearly removed the towels from the bathroom along with Kyle's clothes, once again hiding his shame with a projection of a censored box across his nether region and, again, right across his face.

  "All right, all right, ARi. We don't want to turn this into some kind of hazing thing."

  She giggled. "Sorry, Kyle. I'll play nice. There's a nice warm towel in there hanging on the wall, along with some brand-new clean clothes for you, too."

  "Thanks, ARi. I love you too," he said as he flipped us off and stormed back into the bathroom. ARi popped the censored projection off, and Kyle's bare ass was the last thing I saw before the door slammed closed.

  She reached up and gave me a quick peck on the lips again. before skipping toward the front door. "Well, work to do and I want to go play with my other toys," she joked as she opened the main door and skipped outside.

  A few minutes later Kyle came out dressed this time and sat across the fire from me on an adjacent bench.

  "So… this is gonna get complicated, isn't it?" I repeated.

  "Look, Gav, not really. Because I don't care. I think it's awesome. I don't know about Tim. But from the amount of time I've gotten to know him, I don't think he's gonna care either. As for the girls… if you think those two didn't coax her into doing exactly whatever it is that she did, you're nuts. They've been over there giggling like teenagers for three days."

  That realization hit me like a brick. He was absolutely right.

  "Well, I'm not sure what to say now at this point."

  "Don't say anything, you dumbass. It's the end of the world and you managed to find somebody. Hold on to her tight, like our lives depend on it. Because they do, buddy."

  "Now, with everything that's been going on, Gav, I have to ask you one thing."

  I relaxed, feeling the tension in my shoulders easing. "What is it, man?"

  "Have you ever made bread? Because I've made bread lots of times, but I've never tried to make hamburger buns. And brother, we need some hamburger buns, because I want to have some Bronto burgers--or Raptor burgers, whatever it is. I want a purple hamburger. And I think we can figure it out."

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