When I woke up the next morning…
Is it actually morning? It’s hard to tell underground.
Anyway, when I woke up the next morning, I had rolled onto my side at some point and Lynn was spooning me from behind. She had one hand groping my right breast… which was weird. Hell, having breasts was weird, much less being groped by your girlfriend in her sleep.
I don’t care what the AI said, there is no way these are an illusion. They feel too real and I suspect if something were to happen where only they got hurt, it would still affect my HP. Fuck this place.
After a few moments, I slowly and carefully extracted Lynn’s hand from my boob and eased myself out of bed. On the other side of the room was a large dressing table with a mirror the same size as the table and in front of it was a bench to sit at.
I walked over to it and sat down, studying my reflection for several moments. With my newly acquired ‘hardware’ there was no way I could pass for androgynous, like before. I looked like a girl. The only difference was literally my junk.
Did I always look this feminine? I know I could pass as a girl while dressed up before but, seeing female anatomy on my body like this… There is no way anyone will think I’m a guy, even if I dressed like one.
As an experiment, I looked in the clothing section of my inventory and saw the clothes that Ashley had been wearing when I had looted his body. They were just normal clothes, with nothing special about them, but they were men’s clothes and would serve my purpose.
I equipped his clothes and the result shocked me even more when I looked back into the mirror… I looked like a girl who had taken her boyfriend’s clothes and dressed in them for fun. There was no trace of masculine energy looking back at me. Everything was oversized, and for a moment I wondered if I had shrunk, not that I had been a tall or stocky guy to begin with, but that would be ridiculous, right?
Behind me, I heard Lynn stirring on the bed.
She’ll be waking soon.
I looked back to the mirror and sighed at how ridiculous I looked in men’s clothing now. It also doesn’t help that they were kind of uncomfortable with how loosely they hung off of me.
At least they are all cleaned and mended. The inventory system does a great job with that.
I swapped the clothes out with my gear and immediately felt more comfortable. I pulled out the hairbrush I had used last night and found it once again in pristine condition. I was well into the lengthy task of brushing my hair when Lynn finally sat up and did her usual look around at everything all bleary-eyed. When her eyes landed on me, she brightened considerably.
“Morning, Callie,” she said with a smile. “Did you sleep okay? No more bad dreams last night?”
I shook my head and looked her in the eyes through the reflection in the mirror.
“Good,” she said cheerily. “Would you like some help with your hair?”
“Please,” I responded. “I’ll help you with yours after.”
After Lynn finished with my hair and had it back in its twin tails, we swapped places and, just as I’m about to get started, an IM sprang up in my vision.
SIMBUL: Hiya, Girlie! :D
Sorry I missed your messages, I was just dead tired after all of you left last night, then I forgot to respond after I woke up, oopsie!
Anyways, as to your first question, there are a few options for replacing or reattaching a limb that have been separated from the body. One is a skill that comes as an option with some races and classes. As for Aaron, that won’t help because you have to have the dismemberment occur AFTER you take the relevant race or class.
There are also potions that can do it, but those are so rare, good luck with that one.
Then, there is one last option but it is a bit… extreme, lol, but for that to to work, you would have had to have held on to his arm all this time and prevent it from beginning to decay. Keeping it in your inventory would do the trick, but what kind of sicko goes around storing severed limbs in their inventory?
CLAY: That last option, let’s say hypothetically someone did store the arm in their inventory, what then?
An explosion of extreme pleasure and smug satisfaction suddenly filled my head in the corner that Marv occupied.
What the fuck was that?
To my displeasure, I received no answer, but the sensation remained.
SIMBUL: WEEEELLLLL… Assuming the inventory management system doesn’t break the arm down into it’s base components like meat, bones, and skin, and instead leaves it all intact… Umm, well… you would just have to put the two pieces together and have him use the Heal spell that I gave all of you. The two bloody ends should reattach but you need to make sure they are lined up properly or else his arm will be a bit off from what he is used to… though you can also reverse it and then he will easily be able to scratch his own back!
CLAY: Wait… You gave all of us that Heal spell? I didn’t discover it till well after we had left you! That was one of the things I was going to ask you about when you answered regarding how spells level.
SIMBUL: But I showed you all how to use it! I even made a cue card so that I wouldn’t forget. I should have made you all each cast it once. Let me check my cards…
CLAY: You never said anything about it.
SIMBUL: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! I lost that card!
CLAY: Calm down, I’ll just inform everyone about it when we reattach his arm.
SIMBUL: I AM SO SO SO SORRY! I AM SUCH A FAILURE AND YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE BECAUSE I DIDN’T DO MY JOB RIGHT!
CLAY: SIMBUL, CALM THE FUCK DOWN!
SIMBUL: You didn’t have to shout at me. :(
CLAY: I’m sorry, but you looked like you were panicking. Now, on to Aaron’s arm… So, we just need to hold his arm to the stump that he currently has and then he needs to cast heal, right?
SIMBUL: Yes?
CLAY: You’re asking me? Or confirming…
SIMBUL: Well, let me ask you this… Has his stump, as you put it, been healed, or is it still raw and bleeding?
CLAY: We healed it, why?
SIMBUL: In that case, there is one other step you have to take.
After a moment of her not continuing, I asked.
CLAY: And that step would be?
SIMBUL: Oh, nothing major, you just have to trim the tip of his stump so the two parts bond properly. Oh, and he needs to avoid using it for a couple of days after that, otherwise, the arm could pop off again, eww!
“What’s up?” Lynn asked when I finally turned my attention back to her. “You look like you got some bad news.”
She was holding the brush out to me because she had already taken care of her hair while I was busy talking with Simbul about Aaron’s arm. There was something about all that she had said that sat wrong with me, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
When I told her about what we would have to do to Aaron to reattach his arm, Lynn turned green and looked like she was going to hurl.
“Yeah, I’m not sure Aaron will think it is worth doing that,” she replied. “Come on, let’s go break the news to him.”
The entire time we had been talking the feeling through my bond with Marv persisted and I got the distinct feeling he was purring.
Can unicorns even purr?
I shook my head as we stepped out of the room and back into Sal’s and then I froze at the sight that greeted us. Marv, in all his glory, stood beside a table, his coat gleaming and pristine, and Sal was standing on that table, braiding his mane. Marv’s grooming kit was spread out on the table that the Bopca stood on, and had clearly been used recently.
“Oh, fuck. I am so sorry, Marv,” I said. “I forgot to brush you last night and you had to sleep filthy.”
“Worry not, My Lady, I could tell how tired you were and your rest was more important,” he replied. “Besides, Master Sal here offered to do the grooming for me when I came out after resting up.”
As Marv spoke, Sal finished up the last braid then hopped off the table.
“There yeh go, Master Marv,” he said, shooting an awkward glance my way, then he held a mirror up for Marv. “Yer all cleaned up and yer mane is made all purdy.”
“Excellent work, Master Sal,” Marv said, admiring his reflection. “Truly an expert job, second only to that of My Lady.”
With that, Marv bent his front legs and dipped his head into a surprisingly graceful bow.
“Er… Aye. I aim to please,” Sal stated then looked to me and Lynn, as well as Matt and Mary who had joined up at some point. “Well… ‘ave seat and I’ll take yer orders in a minute.”
With that, he scampered off behind the counter.
“Marv, I haven’t groomed you since you became a Unicorn,” I said. “How do you know I do a better job?”
“You groomed me almost every day of my life, My Lady,” he stated. “I know, you are the best.”
We moved to the table that Marv had been standing by and sat, though I stood long enough to admire the Bopca’s handiwork. Seeing the intricate braids running down Marv’s mane I was impressed and told Marv as much, to braid with such skill was beyond my capabilities. I gave him a hug before I sat and found out in the process that yes, unicorns CAN purr.
A few minutes later, Aaron came staggering out of his room and joined us. He looked haggard so I decided to hold of on talking about his arm until after we had eaten breakfast and he had a chance to wake up a bit more.
Soon Sal came back out and took our orders, this time he even let Matt place an order, so… progress?
With our orders taken, Sal again disappeared behind the counter and I looked up at the screens to see how long we had left till the premier.
Countdown until the premier of Dungeon Crawler World: Earth:
3 hours, 2 minutes.
I didn’t look at the information below that, just knowing the actual numbers that were there made my nightmare flash into my mind. I closed my eyes before the temptation to even glace at how many of us was left overcame my common sense. Before I opened them again, I felt a warm breath on my arm follow by a soft bump of a soft warm nose. I looked up and saw Marv watching me.
“I’m fine. I just had a bad dream last night and just thought about it,” I explain, then reached out to rub the bridge of his nose at the base of his horn to assure him I was okay. He bumped me again and shifted away, his way of acknowledging he was there is I wanted to talk.
While we waited on Sal to bring out our meal, we talked about a variety of things, as we normally would do when we got together, including a discussion between me and Matt about whether or not The Phantom Rider qualified as one of the Ghost Riders because he held that title originally. I firmly fell into the ‘If that was his name before Marvel changed it after the fact, he is a proper Ghost Rider’ camp, while Mat argued that he couldn’t be because he wasn’t host to any form of a Spirit of Vengeance. I informed Matt, as I had since we started this discussion back at the age of 7, that I was right and he could never prove to me that I wasn’t. I also knew that he felt the same way about his position.
Was it a dumb argument to have? Yes. Was it also comforting because it was familiar and an age-old argument we had been having for years… Also, yes. After all, what were friends for if not to argue stupid comic book logic that held absolutely zero percent basis in reality when you were stuck in a giant deathtrap that was just waiting to fuck you over?