I slowly drifted awake. I'd been having a nice dream about going to the movies with a cute girl. Far more pleasant than this place was turning out to be. I took stock of my body. I felt very warm and almost safe, which was a pleasant change. As I shifted, I was fairly sure that my broken ribs had elevated to bruised, so that was nice. Hannah was spooned against my back with an arm wrapped around me and several blankets were piled on top of us.
I loathed to leave such a comfortable cocoon, but I desperately had to pee and it was time to figure that out. I carefully crawled out from under her arm and tucked the blankets in so she wouldn't get cold.
I lifted an arm and smelled myself and almost gagged. Okay, so add that to today's to-do list. I looked around the tent thinking hard. These people weren't novice adventurers like me, they had to have reliable methods. I dug around and found Hannah's hair brush, so I figured I was on the right track. I looked around more and found a well-washed piece of fabric wrapped in several fragrant leaves. Aha!
My prize in hand, I pushed out through the tent flap and regretted all my life choices as the frigid morning air instantly sucked all the heat out of my body. I would definitely need to buy warmer clothes; shit, I would need money. I wrapped my arms around myself as tightly as I could and surveyed our camp site.
We had obviously been on the move while I magically slumbered for three days. We seemed to be in some kind of mountain valley. I wracked my brain about where we could be and once again wished for my campaign notes as I started wandering around looking for a spot to pee. I stumbled into a thicket of trees that looked promising. They would give me some protection from the wind and also from any wandering eyes.
Okay, time to lock in. There's two holes down there and the pee comes out of the top one? I think. That's why you wipe front to back, right? Much shorter urethra and smaller bladder than I was used to, so I knew it would be like taking the cap off a fire hydrant. I briefly wondered, not for the first time, if other people's brains also compulsively broke down a problem into the constituent mechanics. Probably I was just really weird.
I bunched up my skirt and pulled down my panties and squatted. And now the bitter cold wind had direct access and fuck that was so fucking cold! I've been camping with other women before; just get it done already!
After I finished my business and cleaned up with the cloth and then the fragrant leaf, I did a damage assessment as I smoothed out my skirt. My boots had taken some friendly fire, but everything else seemed dry. I'd gladly call that a conditional success, especially for my first time. And it was a hell of an improvement over the two times in my life that I had attempted to use a urinal. I shuddered at the memories.
Now that my bladder was no longer screaming like a tornado siren, I could go back to fretting and obsessing about Paz. I had to help her and every moment that I stood here failing to do so felt like torture. Meanwhile she was actually being tortured. Gabriella is right, I am a useless idiot. I bit my lip and shook my head; pointless self-bullying wasn't going to help. Time to make a list!
Things not helping me save Paz
- I was starving.
- I had broken bruised ribs.
* Addendum. The ribs seemed to be healing really fast. So devil blood keeps winning.
- I was a commoner with no discernible skills for surviving in a world where commoners are red-shirts who die to prove the situation is serious.
- Divine magic being woven nearby had some kind of adverse effect on me. I would need to figure that out and how to control it.
- Bethul'Dyr wasn't strong enough for the kind of teleportation magic I needed to get back to Paz.
* Addendum. Even if she was strong enough, I know better than anyone that it's more complicated than that. She hadn't been there, she didn't know Paz, and I had no objects from the place, nor did I have the faintest clue if it was even on this Plane. In fact, I believe it was Maddie, Gabriella and Cassandra's daughter, who was trying to teleport the players one time and almost killed the entire party because I failed the roll like four times in a row. I really missed rolling dice.
- A party of mid-level adventurers who didn't trust me.
Things helping me save Paz
- Determination
- A can-do attitude
- The resourcefulness of being a trans woman who has had to fight for the right to exist. Wait, was I still a trans woman now that I had a cis body? I shook off the tangent. That was a mind-fuck for another day.
- I know this world better than anyone. I know the magic items and the important people and the hidden places.
- A party of mid-level adventurers who didn't trust me.
* Addendum. They seemed to enjoy my cooking, so that was something. I hoped.
As I walked around the valley, I heard a rhythmic thwack.. thwack.. thwack, so I followed it. I soon found Gregorius chopping firewood. I stopped beside him and gave him a friendly smile and a finger wave.
He stopped chopping and grinned at me. "Fancy a tumble in my bedroll?"
I blinked rapidly for a good ten seconds while my brain rebooted. "I'm gay."
He chuckled, "That's not a no."
I bristled indignantly, "Y-yes, I'm quite sure it is!" I crossed my arms and pouted.
He shook his head. "Your loss."
I found that hard to believe. And now I really wanted to show him up. "Let me do that!" I pointed to the axe.
"Are you sure, little girl? This is man's work."
I was 99% sure he was winding me up to get a reaction, but it was working and I could feel my blood starting to boil. I made an impatient gimme gesture. I stumbled as he dropped the axe into my hand. Damn, that thing was heavy! He kindly set another log on the stump he was using. I spit on my hands and rubbed them together, wrapped both hands around the handle, planted my feet, hauled back, and swung with all my strength.
Now, it would be disrespectful to me to say that in my noodle arms, the axe bounced harmlessly off the log and almost knocked me out on the rebound. But I will say that the log had demonic resilience and a burning desire to not be split.
Gregorius laughed. HARD. Like, you're at a dinner party with your boss, who is also the host, and he made a really funny joke and you just.. let loose with an amount of bending over, and knee slapping, and struggling to breathe that managed to be inappropriate, even in that circumstance.
I dropped the axe and stormed away. I wished he would laugh himself to death!