Finally, the path branched off and led to a large, squat building. There was an` assortment of farming equipment parked nearby or leaning against it. Plows? Shears? The thing you pay one white mana for. Fuck, I don't know anything about farming. I buy my cooking supplies at the store like a normal person.
"Is that a plow or a shear or what?" Paz and Xena both looked at me like I was an idiot, which, you know, fair enough.
We spread out a bit, playing Scooby-Doo and looking at different things around the building. Dead leaves crunched under foot as I poked around the outside of the granary. There was a strong smell of grain in the air and it was making me hungry.
"Find anything?" Paz called out from around the corner.
"I found the door. I'm gonna take a look inside."
"Be careful!"
I slowly slid open the large door and cautiously stepped inside. Thank the gods Below for my dark vision. I mentally filled in Paz's obligatory derisive snort. Grain and dirt crunched under my boot and I looked around, feeling a chill go up my spine. Slowly putting one foot in front of the other, I inched my way forward. Now that I was inside, the air felt stale and tasted even worse. My dark vision isn't perfect and shadows ran deep in the distant corners of the room. I briefly thought to cast Mote of Light, but I felt like I remembered bogarts responded poorly to light. I think it enraged them or something like that? I really wished I had a weapon. Note to self: buy a weapon as soon as I have money.
I caught movement in the corner of my eye and turned just in time to see a spectral face stepping through the wall as its bony hand reached for my face. Oh shit, that's not a bogart, THAT'S A MOTHERFUCKING WIGHT!
I picked up the multi-vitamin bottle off the shelf and turned it over in my hand, reading the nutrition label. "How is there an entire wall of multi-vitamins labeled as 'for women', but none of them have calcium?"
"Alexander, thatis not going to make you into a woman!" Mom snapped frostily and stuck up her nose at me.
"Mom.." I looked down at my D cups in the cute purple camisole I was wearing, closed my eyes, and counted to ten as I felt a tear slip out and slide down my cheek. "Mom, I'm over thirty now, and estrogen means I have to worry way more about osteoporosis, just like every other woman. I need this so my bones don't snap like spaghetti." She harrumphed haughtily as I finally found a bottle of calcium and threw both it and the multi-vitamin in my basket.
"Alexander, you're not a woman. Men don't have to worry about that stuff!"
I prayed for a god that didn't exist to either give me the strength to endure or kill me. I didn't care which at this point. "Mom, you know my name has been Alexis for five years, and also, I swear to god, that's not how anything works! Even if I was a man, the nonexistent levels of testosterone and the normal amount of estrogen in my body means I'd still have to worry about spaghetti bones!"
Mom grimaced and shook her head slowly. "Giving birth to you is the biggest regret of my life."
Now the tears were flowing freely and I bumped into a display in my haste to escape. I bent down chasing the rolling bottles when a man scooped up the last one. He held it out and gave me a concerned look. "Miss, are you okay?"
I nodded, my cheeks burning with embarrassment that a stranger was showing more concern for my well-being than my mother. "T-thanks. I, uh.." I sniffed and gave a weak smile. "Just having a hard day."
He opened his mouth to say something else, but then mom grabbed the strap of my purse and yanked me away from him. "My son is not gay, you pervert!" She hissed at him and please god, just kill me now. I beg you.
He gave her a very, very confused look, glanced to me, and then back to her. He looked around the nearby isles, utterly perplexed about how a gay son factored into anything. Finally his eyes lit up with understanding and he lowered his voice as he leaned closer to me. "Early onset, right? Yeah my dad is the same way. He has his good days, but then sometimes, he can't even remember my name."
Brilliantly blinding light flared in my face as Xena held her spell-casting focus over my shoulder and vital energy poured out of it. The wight pulled its fingers out of my chest and screeched in pain as it backed away. Tears were pouring down my face and my jello legs collapsed, but Paz caught me.
"I leave you alone for two freaking minutes and you try to get your soul sucked out by a wight." My sweet, sweet ginger teasingly chided me while shaking her head in mock disappointment.
"S-sorry t-to inconvenience." I coughed and gasped for breath.
"Hey hey, take it easy, love. You almost died." She lifted my arm over her shoulder and supported my weight; her hand rubbing gentle circles on my back.
The wight backed into a wall as Xena pursued it, and unable to become incorporeal while being bombarded with vital energy, it burst into flames and screeched until it collapsed into a pile on the floor.
The tall elf straightened her already immaculate hair and walked back over to us. "Miss, are you hurt?"
I looked down at myself and groaned. "Nothing that I can't walk off, although I am missing some max hit points after being drained like that."
She nodded. "Then Miss, we shall rest a moment before pushing farther. And we will have our guards significantly raised for any of its brethren."