"Lay off her," Eimear said, finally having enough, and stepped between us. "I'm guessing you don't know many trans folks, but it takes time when you let go of the mask. She's not going to be the same, but she's still herself."
"Like you would know?" Sé screamed.
"Yeah... One of my moms is trans. I got to watch her go through it, and it was fucking awkward. I hated it, I had no idea what was happening. It was like my dad had died and this strange woman came out of nowhere."
"Eimear," I whispered, "I'm not trans though."
"I got some bad news for you." She looked over her shoulder at me, "but one way or another, you are now. Either you were a woman trapped in a man's body, or now you're a man trapped in a woman's."
Blánaid clapped a fist into her palm. "So that's why I don't have to worry about you." She beamed with pride.
"But I wish I wasn't."
Gormán put a hand on my shoulder, "As a wise man once said, 'so do all who see such things. You just have to decide what to do with the time you've got'.'"
I squirreled my face in annoyance. I didn't want platitudes, I wanted this to be a non-issue. Damien and I had rarely gotten into fights, but they were always a little explosive followed by apologies, and some kind of gaming.
Eimear looked back at Sé, "You know what though? This discomfort is an us problem, not a her problem. She has enough that she has to deal with. We're in a strange new world, but she's dealing with her egg cracking as though blown apart by a fireball. I would bet everything that the confusion she's dealing with makes living in this forest look like child's play."
"Is that right?" Sé looked at me.
I shook my head instinctively. It didn't feel that way to me. I mean, sure, it was all different, but it all felt right in the same thought. "I don't know. I mean... We're all in this together right?" I smiled weakly. "Eimear... It's okay. We've been friends for a long time. He's under a bunch of stress, what with almost being killed again as we're trapped in some crazy new world."
Eimear looked back at me like I'd just spoken in tongues, and threw her hands up in defeat. "Fine. Whatever..." A beat of awkward silence. "My native trait is Company Soldier. I get massive buffs when I'm fighting alongside members of my company or group, which is all of you assholes. It's how I've been able to keep y'all safe, and fight against the crazy monsters we've been dealing with."
"At least one of you has some good powers," Sé said.
"What about you?" I asked.
"Uhhhh... It gives me some additional fighting techniques when I'm ambushing opponents."
"That sounds useful. What's it called?"
"Dirty fighting." He looked to his left and bit his lip. It was the same tells he'd had in the past life. He was lying. I rolled my eyes, but didn't bother to push him on it.
We stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before I looked over to Eimear and Gormán. "So we've got three of us with skillsets focused on support and utility, one front line fighter, and a skirmisher. We need to get a workshop built for Gormán, and we should probably get Blánaid's seeds planted as soon as possible. Then I'm thinking we should get geared up so we can go reinforce the adventuring party before they get overrun at the world tree."
Eimear and Gormán nodded along with me.
"Who put you in charge?" Sé asked, still with a bit of venom in his voice.
"No one, and I'm not. I'm just trying to make sure we have a plan. I've been here with Eimear for a couple days, and I've got a pretty good understanding of what our base needs. If you've got a better proposal, then make it, so we can have the best possible plan." I sighed in resignation.
He didn't say anything else. Blánaid looked at him, and back to me. "Where can I plant my things? I'm worried about monsters trampling or eating them."
I looked up towards the ceiling, the rain was starting to ease up, with only a sprinkling coming in through the hole. We should probably get a roof on that eventually. "Eimear, Sé. Are you up to clear the topside? I can come with you to use my Locate spell for monsters."
"Can you locate more plants for me?" Blánaid leaned forward, uncomfortably close to me.
"I don't know. I don't think so. But maybe once I level up?"
She gleamed. "Excellent. Can we go look for--"
"Later. We need to get the base setup first," I cut her off.
"Boo. Fine."
"Let's get to work," Gormán said. "Aisling, once you've helped them explore topside, I could use some help with your Shape Earth and Shape Wood spells to help get the smelter running."
"A smelter?" Blánaid perked right back up. "Can you make me vials?"
"With glass?" Gormán looked around the room. "Maybe, but I'd like to use it to get some metal tools made first."
"But... I need vials to make my potions!" she whined.
"I could shape wood to make you some vials," I offered.
"But they're porous, they'll leak through and waste so much of the material. Plus I can't smash them on enemies heads!"
"Use animal fat," Gormán said. "It'll seal ‘em up, and glass ain't that much studier. You chuck a wood bottle hard enough and it'll still smash. But, having potions we can drink would be a godsend. Any chance you can make healing potions?"
She rolled her eyes. "Duh. But that's like tier 2 basic. Boring. I want to make poisons, acids, and some magical concoctions so I can throw out alchemical fireballs. That's why I took Caravanner, I want a whole pantry full of potions." Her tone and expression got more and more manic as she went on. "Do you know what you can do to flesh with the right compounds? A drop of the right acid can create excruciating agony and melt through a person and kill them."
I gulped. A little more nervous about what she was planning to do to all of us.
"Whatever. Fine," she said, "Let's go look at my future garden."
Gormán, Sé and Eimear hoisted the ladder into position, and Eimear led the way up topside, I went second with my Locate Monsters and Map spells running, and Sé took up the rear.
The mesa was respectably sized, our grotto was only a small corner of it. While we could see the canopies of the trees all around us, there were very few trees up on top of the mesa. Mostly it was high grasses, shrubs, and bushes.
We did a loop around the outside, Sé stared daggers at me the entire time. I tried to ignore it, and noticed that there was a goat trail that led to the top. I cast Retract Earth with an increased area meta magic to drop the trail away and made it inaccessible to any monster that couldn't climb. There were also a few trees that were high enough and close enough that someone could jump from the branches. I made a note of them in my mapping spell to cut them down.
Once we were halfway through our sweep, my Locate spell found a pack of chim-fang-zee's hanging out on the interior of the mesa. I refused to be useless, so I made a quick plan with Eimear and Sé. I'd been half expecting combat, so I had some Amplification spells ready, my Static Illusion, and Add Element (Fire).
I maintained my Locate Monsters spell to ensure we didn't get flanked or surprised. While there weren't as many trees up here, the foliage provided plenty of cover for the small monkey monsters to vanish into the underbrush.
I opened with two illusion spells, creating the image of Eimear approaching them on two other sides, boxing them in. A small group of chim-fang-zee's went after each of the images right before the real Eimear charged out and flanked another group from behind. Sé was a few steps behind her, and with only a third of the force in that group, they made short work of it.
I dropped the images, and cast Add Element on their blades, staying at the edge of my spell range.
"One's coming around your right," I shouted as I saw one of the monsters break off from the main group through my Locate Monsters.
"Where? I can't see it?" Sé shouted as he turned to look around.
"It's at your... 2 o'clock. 10 meters out.... 5..."
He shifted to follow my guidance, the monster readjusted its position to try to flank. "It's moving. Your 2 o'clock again. 3 meters."
"Got it!" He shouted as he lunged towards the bush.
I wanted to help create the opening Sé needed as he fought with the monster. He couldn't get past its guard, as it skirted around his daggers. He might be angry at me, but I wouldn't let him die. We'd get over this, but only once we made it safely through the fight.
I ran up behind the monster, and the chim-fang-zee turned to face me. My Non-Combatant trait screamed at me as I was flooded with fear and visions of knowing that I was about to die. I let the adrenaline fuel me as I took a wild swing of a kick.
It went wide, and the monster leapt up onto my chest, knocking me to the ground. It raised its claws to rake my face into ribbons.