"Oh, my god, Rachel, I am so fucking glad to have done this," I said, in between bites of potato. The woman being mentioned simply turned an eyebrow up at me and took a bite of jerky, an amused look on her face.
"I would almost suspect you are more glad to have that than anything else."
I looked at her with wide eyes. "You've never had the lapse. You grew up in the world just like me, you try to imagine weeks without a single piece of seasoning other than jerky."
She laughed in response. "I suppose so. I have never been a self-professed 'foodie' but I enjoy a good meal just like any other sane being." Rachel reached down and poked at the skin of her potato, and that made me shake my head.
"I can't believe you're not eating that. The skin's like half the taste."
"You are more than welcome to it, should you like."
I grinned and stabbed at it with my knife - twice, because the first time didn't spear it properly - and brought it over to me. "Your loss." The potato skin wrapped around a piece of jerky easily and I chewed on it. The tastes didn't meld together perfectly, but at the moment, any variance was good to me. Except, maybe, bad variance. Whatever. Semantics. "No matter what else happens, you having salt in your little pocket of this place is a win."
"You are far more relaxed like this," Rachel said, an amused tone on her tongue. She sat forward a little bit and drew her pillow to her chest to cradle, looking at me curiously. Her pillow! Why the hell did this woman get a pillow? I wanted to claim some sort of favoritism from the damn labyrinth.
"I mean, is there any reason to not be?"
"The other times we have spoken, you might have been a little more casual than one might expect, but you seemed very focused."
I tossed my head back and forth, slipping the last piece of my jerky back into my mouth and chewing both on it and the question in the form of a statement. After swallowing, I bit my upper lip for a moment, and responded, "well, yeah. We've been in dangerous situations for weeks, we needed to get stuff done, and the places we've met before weren't terribly conducive for being, you know, friendly and fun." I set my knife down and poked at the shaft of my spear, which sat on the ground nearby. "I can be all business when I need to be, I just don't like to be."
"Fair enough," Rachel responded. She hugged the pillow closer to her. "It is quite pleasant to not be alone. And also have easy access to the sky."
We were sitting against the outer edge of the Sanctuary, near my (now improved) cooking station. Thankfully, Rachel evidently had either training or experience with survivalism, and had improved a few of my meager makings, which included a cleaner, more efficient setup for making meals.
"That can't have been fun. Honestly, between us, I dunno if I'd rather have been stuck basically underground like you or without any damn salt like me."
She smirked at me. "I do believe I had it much worse, Allison. I had to go into the labyrinth to find the sky or water more than a slight trickle."
She'd been basically between cave-ins. Upon sharing our circumstances, I'd realized that hers was far worse, but I'd been trying to play things up for her benefit. A little broken fountain that barely gave water, hardtack and salt to eat, books to read but barely enough light to read them... honestly, that she was as put together as she was was a testament to her willpower. I'm not sure I'd have kept it together as long as she had. I wasn't claustrophobic by any means, but not having access to space like that... it was an unnerving idea.
While I pondered that, Rachel stood up and stretched. She'd caught my attention but I had to look away, respectfully, because damn, was she fit. Obviously, intellectually, I knew she was off limits, and had to fight against my interest, but thirst for company mixed with thirst for company was a bad combo for being polite. While I wrangled my burning cheeks against the chill of the night, she disappeared momentarily before returning with a big oblong object within one of my intact cloaks. The thing was basically a big ovoid, maybe the size of her torso. Rachel placed her hands on the object and began to run them in circles and aimless patterns all over it, pulling it close and replacing the pillow she'd previously had with it. Its surface was largely a sage green, with black and gray lines spiderwebbing all over its surface.
"So, that thing's an egg, right?" I asked. I mean, it was obviously an egg.
"Yes," she responded, a bit sleepily. In the moonlight, she struck a protective figure, hunched over the egg like she was. "It was my prize for defeating you."
"What kind of egg is it?"
"Caretaker indicated that it is a lurdrakka. A Land Drake. It will bond with me upon hatching."
I could feel both my eyebrows shoot up. "A land drake, huh? I can imagine how that could be helpful."
"I am unaware of how truly rare such a thing is, but I was assured that it was not a common occurrence for a person to obtain one, especially one that would make for a good companion. Honestly, I would not have selected it if we had not made plans to connect." Her hands continued to caress it, like it was already a source of comfort for her. Honestly, it made sense that it was, given her previous environment.
"What other stuff did you get?"
She looked over at me at that. "I already said one. I think it is your turn."
I let a laugh out. "Fair enough. Oooh, I think you'll like this." I had no doubt she would. Though I'd taken care not to ogle, my eyes had to go somewhere. She was covered in days old sweat, dirt, and dust. I'd have offered the thing far earlier had it not been her go-getter attitude about improving the Sanctuary's 'amenities' and moving in. I don't know why she was so insistent about getting it done right away, but I wasn't gonna stop her. A few quick steps (I might have thrown in a Dash once I was out of sight) later, I brought out the Scrubstone. "This thing is a portable bath."
Her eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yep! Just... ah, do you know how to use magical stuff?" She nodded. "Okay, just kinda pour a bit of magic into it while near a source with enough water, and bam, you're bathed and exfoliated." Rachel's interested expression took on a hungry one. "Just, ah, take your clothes off and be ready to dry off right afterward. It does the wet part, not the dry one." She narrowed her eyes at that. Girl, your expressions might not be big, but they are so easy to read. "I'm not gonna perv on you, dick. I can put the damn debris wall back up and leave you in the dark again."
She sighed. "I apologize. I have no excuse."
"Accepted. Your turn, dick."
She huffed but didn't rise to the bait. "My hearth and home," she said, pulling a glove off her hand. Her hand was home to a pair of simple rings, one brownish, and one bronze. She pointed to the bronze one. "Helps me sleep, apparently. As long as it's not too long or strenuous, I can wake up in the middle of the night without feeling the effects of broken sleep." I was definitely jealous of that. The ability to just up and hit the head, and come back to sleep? Luxurious. "Now you. You had two rewards, yes?"
I nodded. "The second was just a 'reward,' which I didn't get to know until I selected it, but was assured it was a rare choice. I figured if it was special, I should go for it. Apparently, my reward was to have the ability to come back and challenge the place again after I grew stronger. Not sure how useful that is, given we don't know how long this labyrinth will let us be here. We can 'conquer' it after all."
"I am not so certain the House of Valor was a construction of the Labyrinth," Rachel said. "It was so put-together, and so much of it depended on choice. Plus, some of the offerings for winning the challenge would not have made sense if it was limited to this place."
I scoffed. "What, like it's a real place, or like, jumps between labyrinths or something?" I shook my head, but she just stared at me, dark eyes unmoving. She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"I do not see why it could not happen. It is not as if either of us are experts of this world." She pointed at the egg in her lap, and then out at the sky. Tonight was very pretty, nearly half a dozen of the moons were out, including a new one, speckled white and orange that looked like a delicious treat. "What are those? All moons? Why are they different in the labyrinth?"
A chuckle escaped me. "Not even that. Different moons are out on different nights. Except for that little one," I said, pointing at the highest, smallest one. "That little'un has been out every night since I've been here. But I see your point. Maybe my reward isn't so bad, then." I fell back on my hands, breathing in and out evenly.
She had one more item to tell me about, but I didn't want to disturb the companionable silence that fell over us after that. The cool evening, the warm bellies full of food, and the pleasant company that we'd both lacked all combined to create a scene that made me feel calmer than I ever had before in Avare. I felt that fantastical sensation wash over me again. I was staring at a bunch of moons in a beautiful night sky, in an abandoned temple, as a champion of a great battle. I was full of foreign food, covered in otherworldly clothing, and sat next to another champion of said conflict who was cradling, of all things, the egg of a drake. Yeah, there'd been danger and hardship, and there was going to be danger and hardship, but... I could get used to this.
No bills, no cars, no cell phones, no internet. Just peace and quiet, surrounded by magic and nature.
It was beautiful.
It was cold.
I woke with a sharp intake of breath, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. Where was I? The black of the night met my eyes, though I could see the deep blues that showed the promise of sunrise out towards the east. And, damn, without even starting to move I felt stiffness in my back. I clearly had fallen asleep outside, back up against the wall. I felt a cloak over me and adjusted it, letting my arms out in the chill air and immediately regretting it. A glance off to the side revealed a cold and extinguished cookfire and a distinct lack of woman and egg. Shaking the sleep out of my head, I tried to make sense of things. Rachel must have stayed awake longer than me, and put this thing on me, and went inside. I slowly stood, stretching and feeling bits and bobs within me pop and crack.
The stiffness would be annoying, but go away quickly. "The advantage of youth," I muttered. Ridiculous what we could bounce back from. If I'd done this kind of thing in my old life I would have been miserable the entire day, but just starting to walk around right now was banishing the discomfort from me. I did my morning stretches, and peeked inside the sanctuary. It was dark, but I did spy a big bundle of stuff in a corner, clearly supporting the resting form of Rachel, who had held onto the egg throughout the night. I felt a smile take my face. Rachel had a cool exterior, but clearly cared a good deal. I could see us being friends as long as we could be, given we were technically on opposite sides of a conflict.
Or were we? I chewed on my lip as I started to jog around the exterior of the temple balcony. The win conditions for the Godsgame weren't known to us. Maybe there could be multiple winners? Or none? Like, sure, in a lot of games, there was one winner, but in some, they were cooperative. Did the gods have some sort of system, or did they have teams or something? Did they get along?
That'd definitely be something to investigate a lot more when we got to civilization. I let out a quick burst of laughter at that thought. We. I was already considering us a unit. "Could be worse, Allison." If we had to split up at some point, we would. But knowledge... knowledge was the important one. Hell, we didn't even know which divinity each of us represented, nor even the full scale of what each of them stood for. Yeah, why would the goddess of ages and shit have beef with, I dunno, the goddess of the sea? There's overlap. I huffed. Knowledge was definitely going to be a big priority.
Would there be libraries? Temples? Big fuckoff ones like this one, or little churches like for Christianity? It was all speculation, but with the sun coming up and my new companion still adrift on the realm of dreams, it was all I could do. Make plans off of speculation. I would need to be prepared.
There was also Nathan. He was a Champion, but if victory called for him to win as well as us, could that be okay with me? He was a murderer. Well, no, I didn't know that for sure, but technically, he'd attempted murder. I'd technically been the one to kill me in that situation.
"UGH!" I let out at the edge of the temple grounds, staring out at the sea of trees and nature that spread out beneath me. I needed knowledge. I needed skills. I needed allies. I needed, more than anything else, power. There was nothing for it. We needed to plan, and Rachel and I needed to conquer this damn labyrinth and move on. Maybe I was getting benefits from being here, but it wasn't enough. We had the basics, it was time to use this platform to lift off into the next stage of this... conflict. This godsgame.
I finished my morning run and returned to the Sanctuary to drink from the fountain, just as the sun was peeking through the entrance. I heard a motion from the side of the room, and found Rachel blinking the sleep out of her eyes. She focused on me with a small smile. "Good morning Allison."
"Mornin', Rachel. I'm getting antsy. You ready to talk about finishing the job here?"
She took a moment to process my words, and shifted forward with a sharp nod. She stretched her arms and patted the egg, setting it next to her while she stood and made her way to the fountain to get her own bits of water. After getting her fill, she looked at me directly. "Gladly. I am not one to normally sit on my hands. I do have a question, though, one I meant to ask yesterday before you fell asleep."
"Shoot."
She cocked her head. "Why are your eyes pink?"
Huh?