Close Calls and Sincere Apologies

((Author’s note: Special thanks to DocOfRedheads for being invaluable in getting the feel of this chapter to come out right. Generally, I’m grateful for the help of my review group and Dra’s typo slayering efforts on every chapter, but Doc really outdid himself on today’s chapter. Speaking of him, he has a branch of his own and is a fellow ‘Cute Blind Girl’-connoisseur, so if you haven’t already done so, I recommend checking it out once you’re done with this chapter.))

Even though the rat ogre wasn’t dead yet, the fight had still left John with some unchecked windows including a few Observe results and two notifications of some sort. Checking to see if Qhila needed healing took priority though. As did investigating the status of Molly’s fight against the other rodent.

While cautiously circling the danger zone around the slug, he didn’t know if it would expand the menu if given the opportunity after all, John felt an unfamiliar tingling sensation throughout his body. He figured it was probably a reaction to suffering what ‘should’ have been a fatal injury earlier, that arrived now that the adrenalin was starting to fade. He pushed the concern aside. Adrenalin or no, Molly might still be in danger so he had to get Qhila and go. Breaking down or whatever could wait.

A few more steps and the tingling sensation spread, creeping into his mind and fogging his concentration. What had he been doing? Qhila. Qhila still needed… something. He had to get to her. Why? …Something about another girl. ‘Hehe… 2 girls. Pretty girls.’ John’s thoughts began to drift. Exactly what Qhila needed seemed to elude him, but he knew he needed to get to her. That was important. Qhila was important.

As he broke into a jog, his imagination flooded his mind and vision with images of the nubile kobold. Her, naked as she’d been on Monday, in a variety of alluring poses. Oh! Or wearing the t-shirt he gave her and raising it invitingly. Of her face, as he imagined it would look flushed with arousal and pleasure. How she would look with her lips wrapped arou-

He was in a full sprint. When did that happen? Nevermind, he’d reached Qhila. He was still going too fast though. Despite the kobold taking a step back, the Gamer only managed to slow down enough not to hurt her when they collided. She’d been about to speak but, on collision, those words turned into an “eep” as they tumbled to the forest floor. John landed on all fours, his breathing abnormally heavy as he loomed above her. Everything about her drew his eyes: the soft muscles beneath her skin, tensed up; the rise and fall of her diminutive chest, rapid and fast; the flush that flooded across her skin; the-

“No…” The pleading word came from Qhila less as speech and more as a whimper. Despite that, or maybe because of it, the word cut through the haze of John’s lurid imagination and brought him to see what was actually happening. Slowly, the gears in his head began to turn, little by little. She shouldn’t be tense for lovemaking, should she? Why was she tense? And her breathing - it should be fast, but not that fast. And the flush was all wrong as well. Suddenly, he could see the fear and despair on her face, along with the myriad other forms of anguish he still could not think clearly enough to identify.

He tried to stand up and leave. Or at least fall to the side, away from her. But all he could manage was to stop himself from making things worse. His hands itched to reach for her waist, and it was a **** struggle to **** his eyes away from undressing her. For a long moment he was there, completely still, frozen in that position. With the groan of a pained animal, he bit down hard through the tip of his tongue, his teeth clacking as iron flooded his taste buds. The pain washed through the worst of the haze and he finally managed to tear himself away, heedless of the damage notification and uncaring of the taste of blood in his mouth.

He wanted to run. Felt he needed to run. Get as far away as possible - into the wilderness of the barrier, so she couldn’t find him again even if she tried. So he could never hurt her. His feet felt like lead, and he began to stumble away, managing two dozen steps before he doubled over, leaning on a tree and vomiting, filled with revulsion at what had been moments from happening. What he had been moments from doing.

“I’m so sorry!” John had no idea why Qhila was apologizing to Molly. But it probably meant that the prickly Lesnik had dealt with the other rat ogre. If only John wasn’t there, she would be out of danger now. She had been right to be on guard towards him. He needed to get away. Further away. He was still too close, and couldn’t trust himself.

“I didn’t know it would affect you like that, I thought it was only that strong on ferals! I couldn’t think of anything else to draw the rat ogre away and it looked like it was about to k-” Whatever she was saying next was cut off by a sob.

What she did say confused him. That… he couldn’t see how saying that to Molly made sense. Could she… could she actually be talking to him? Apologizing? To him? While the spiral of guilt and self-revulsion was whirling still, it did kick the analytical part of his mind awake enough to remember the debuff icon.

Concentrated Skytail Mating Pheromone (medium intensity)
+7 LIB (+15 towards the source), -3 INT and WIS (-7 for purposes of sexual impulse control).
Effect increases with proximity to source.
Source: Qhila

“I have put a bottle of antidote on a rock.” Qhila had suppressed the sobbing that interrupted her before, though her voice still sounded shaky as she continued, “I’m going to back up so you can get it safely…”

It took a few minutes before John managed to walk over there on legs that felt as shaky as Qhila’s voice had sounded. In the meantime, she had backed away several meters, bringing the pheromone down to ‘mild’ intensity, which halved all the numbers.

The bottle of antidote turned out to be a plastic pill bottle with no label. The pills inside were light gray but otherwise resembled aspirin. With no dosage instructions, John turned to Observe, which revealed that 1 pill granted immunity specifically to Skytail mating pheromones for 1 hour.

The effect was instant, clearing most of the haze from his mind and ending the tingling feeling that he had thought was a reaction to almost dying. The guilt and disgust at himself and what he had almost done remained, however. If anything, he felt them more acutely.

“I’ve taken one and… I’m sorry.” The hollow tone John started with gave way to the bile of self-targeted anger. “Sorry is too much of a cheap, shitty word. It doesn’t even begin to make up for something like… Fuck it. I’ll just go home, before I lose control of myself again. The least I can do is not put you in any more d-”

“No, John! Stop!” He had started to turn away as he spoke, but Qhila’s tone and insistent tug on his wrist gave him pause. He hadn’t even noticed her approach, he’d been that stuck in his head. “You didn’t do anything. Something was done *to* you, by *me*. Because I assumed that male *people* were more resistant than beasts. Which I assumed because my [father]-” For some reason, Qhila said that single word in English. “-never seemed affected. But he also taught me the antidote recipe and I was too much of an idiot to make the connection until just now.”

The forceful insistence in her tone deflated into one of despairing guilt as she continued, “While you were trying to figure out a power you knew nothing about, while flailing practically blind, you may have influenced my mind by accident and I reacted like this…” She gestured at the forest, obviously referring to the whole trip and why they were there. “Then I go and definitely do that to you when I should have known better. And you still manage to spare me the consequences of my mistake, yet you’re the one apologizing…”

“Even if you had known, you still needed to get the rat ogre off me. You did it to save me, that’s-”

Qhila’s gaze was still nailed to the forest floor as she shook her head and interrupted him, “No. That’s not good enough. If I hadn’t been a moron, I could have given you the pills to hold when we set out, to be safe. Or told you not to get too close. I-”

“[If you’re done arguing about who gets to be the one that wronged the other, we have a debt to settle.]” Molly butting in, in English, came as enough of a surprise that John needed a moment to get his thoughts straight before responding. Judging by her expression and silence, the same was true for Qhila.

“[How did you even?]” John didn’t manage to put the rest of the question to words before he spoke, but Molly seemed to catch his drift anyway.

“[No need to understand the words, your body language said plenty. And if you’re not done, I suggest instead of arguing about what needs to be apologized for, you just both go ‘apology accepted’ and move on. That’ll probably save you a lot of time.]”

That… actually didn’t sound like a bad idea. He still thought she’d done only what she had to in the situation, and thus didn’t need to apologize. But she clearly thought she did, so perhaps accepting her apology was the better thing to do. Switching back to Low Draconic, he said, “ Apology accepted. I forgive you.”

They were all silent for a long moment before Qhila found words. For all of Molly’s apparent irreverence butting in, she seemed to have decided to give the kobold the time she needed. “I… Whatever your power might have done, if it has, I forgive you… I think I already did on the way back from the boar. But… I still need to find out what happened.”

John nodded in understanding, then Molly joined in again. It was unclear whether she had guesstimated the meaning of their last exchange or if she was just getting impatient. In any case, she exchanged three sentences in maybe Greek with Qhila and handed the kobold a pair of leaves.

“[That settles one debt, but I owe you something too…]” Between looking at the Gamer and using English, it was clear that Molly was talking to him. It took John a moment to realize what she was talking about, though, given everything else that had happened.

“[I was rude to you before, when you had done nothing to warrant it, and for that I apologize. I have few male visitors outside the Wild Hunt, and it is easy to forget that not all men act as they do. Especially when it is only a few hours hence that a trio refused to deal with a shared problem unless I ‘put out’ to the one who slew the boar.]”

A lot of that felt more like venting than an apology, but she did lead with the apology part. “[It’s fine. I can understand why that would make for a bad day…]”

500 EXP

Simultaneously with the **** of the rat ogre, John’s phone beeped, sidetracking him a bit from the joy of getting close to another Level up.

[Brenda:] I’m getting started on dinner in a few minutes, so if you’re with that mystery girl of yours, you might want to say goodbye. And remember to ask about her real name ;-)

John had barely read that text before another came in.

[Brenda:] Oh, and I do hope you’re remembering to use protection <3

John could feel his cheeks burning as he typed up a response.

[John:] I might be a bit late. I’m helping her with a rat problem that suddenly turned up.

Better to not acknowledge the second one at all, as any sort of reaction was likely to encourage his mom to keep at it. Instead, he turned to Qhila, switching back to Low Draconic again. “My, uh… my mom is telling me to hurry home for dinner. Is there a chance we could make a quick stop at that herbalist you mentioned and then call it a day?”

“You don’t need to esco- err, follow me to the shop.” She blushed a bit as she reworded it, for reasons John couldn’t figure out.

“I already made a bit of an excuse to my mom and I think the Quest might need me to…”

Qhila nodded at that and said something more to Molly in maybe Greek. The plant girl had started to look a bit annoyed or impatient about the Low Draconic conversation that she couldn’t understand, but that faded quickly again.

After a short exchange, Molly turned to John and said, “[Safe travels,]” before turning to head back to her tree. John and Qhila started back towards the West Menhir Clearing, then his phone promptly pinged again.

[Brenda:] Rat problem?? If she needs somewhere else to stay for a while, she can borrow the guest room.

[John:] I’ll let her know, but I don’t think your ploy to get to meet her sooner will work :P

John put his phone away again with a chuckle. “My mom wants to meet you. I think I bought us enough time to think about a way around it, but I don’t think I can hold off on telling her your ‘real’ name much longer.”

“My ‘real name’?” The confusion in Qhila’s tone reminded John that he hadn’t told her about the cover story he had given his family Monday evening and he quickly started to fix that.

John followed the brief explanation with a question, “So, do you have any preferences, or should I just make up a name that’ll sound normal to mundane ears?”

Instead of answering right away, Qhila made a gesture then dug out her own phone. After about a minute, she held the phone out to him and said, “Kira Vrenk”

The phone displayed a pictureless phone contact with that name, a phone number, e-mail and postal address. A narrow banner at the top saying ‘me’ indicated that it was put in as the phone owner’s details. “Is that…?”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was asking if it was, but Qhila responded nonetheless. “A fake mundane identity? Yes. It’s a cheap one off the Abyss Auction, so it won’t hold up to much scrutiny.”

“But the contact details are genuine? I could text you on this number?”

Qhila nodded, but added a caveat, “I only check the e-mail and post box occasionally.”

“... Can I send these details to my own phone? Regular texting is a bit more convenient than sending messages on the Auction website.”

“And may be marginally less easy for them to snoop on. Sure, feel free.”

That last part was really not a factor to John but also not something he was going to complain about. As soon as he hit ‘send’, his notification stack ticked over from 2 to 3. He put that aside for the moment and handed the phone back, then finished the process on his own and shot a text back with his own details.

They walked a few minutes in silence before John returned to an unfinished topic from earlier. “So, the guilds from the Accord that we already covered were busts. Are there any that you can recommend looking into?”

It took a few moments for Qhila to answer. “The Hunter cults might be worth considering. Not the Wild Hunt judging by what Molly has to say about them, but with the Hunters of Artemis being exclusively female until relatively recently, I doubt they would tolerate that stuff in their own ranks. I think there might be a few smaller cults too, but the different ones mostly matter for subgroup culture and internal stuff so I didn’t really look into it. The Wild Hunt and the Artemis crowd are international too, but I don’t know how that works.”

“I’m not really the outdoorsy type.” John commented apologetically, “I think I’ve spent more time in a forest today than I had in the rest of my life combined. That’s a much smaller hurdle than the other stuff though.”

“There might be a good fit out of the Abyss Market too. The coalition listed on the Accord doesn’t really exist as an organization though, it was just a bunch of local Abyssal businesses with a shared interest in a neutral ground for trade. Thorne and CW Industries have been getting involved in it in the last few years though, meaning there might be buy-outs, franchising or other consolidation on the horizon. Or a trade war…”

“I’m guessing Thorne and CW are huge corps like Disney or Nestle or the Abyss Auction.”

“They’re a step down from the Big Three Neutrals, so not quite when it comes to the Auction. No idea about the other two…”

“Big Three Neutrals?” This sounded potentially interesting. And if ‘neutral’ meant what it usually did, that might be a way to avoid having to fight actual people.

“Old, powerful guilds that claim little territory, pick no sides except against those who attack them and stay out of inter-guild politics. They’re present across the globe and in all of the well connected Kingdoms and have been for over a thousand years.”

“The Abyss Auction, you know a little bit. They run the online marketplace and shipping service of the same name, and they provide telecommunication services. Supposedly, there would be no Abyss Web without the Auction.

“The Fateweavers are barrier experts and hoard secret techniques to barrier use, like overlapping, nesting, and time dilated barriers, and Fateweaving. That last one basically pulls someone out of a barrier moments before some trigger condition, usually fatal injury, would occur. They are also unparallelled in altering and shaping the content of barriers and in spatial distortion in barriers.

“The Apothecaries are medical experts. While far from the only healers in the Abyss, they are the most skilled ones especially when rare afflictions, unusual procedures or unusual patients are concerned. They operate countless hospitals across the Abyss, and use the profits to fund medical research.

“They’re all worth considering, but they all have their dark side as well. Supposedly, they have those sides completely openly as they’re too big to need to hide it. How true that is, I don’t know.

“The Auction website facilitates any kind of business transactions. I don’t know if you saw that yourself, but it includes slaves, assassinations, demihuman meat and more. And they accept Soul Shards as currency. They don’t produce the shards, catch the slaves or carry out the murders themselves, they ‘just’ get buyer and seller together, help them exchange stuff, and keep some of the money for themselves. Which I’d argue is bad enough.

“The Fateweavers make barriers for anyone who pays, to whatever specifications they pay for. This includes for horrific guilds like the Cabal, the Purest Front, and Krov Proletariata, and to specifications that can only be for vile uses, like involuntary mana factories, **** chambers and sacrificial altars. More simply but also more commonly, they sell calyxes to make trap barriers easily. A major use case for which is capturing slaves. Like with the Auction, they don’t do the deeds themselves, they just help others do them.

“The Apothecaries are the only ones that admit to getting their own hands dirty. Their prices vary a lot and they have no qualms about price gouging the ****. And getting people to agree to be test subjects in return for discounts. Or using incapacitated patients whose money ran out as test subjects. They also buy slaves for that, and some of their research projects are…” She shuddered. “On the upside, senior Apothecaries supposedly get a lot of leeway in price setting and research choices, so if you know a trustworthy one, you can get fair prices and honest treatment that way. There’s supposed to be a few of those at the Springfield Hospital, but I don’t know their names.”

That didn’t sound good. While avoiding battles between Abyssal guilds was nice, helping **** trade, human sacrifice and medical body horror was decidedly not. If the part about senior Apothecaries getting to run their own show was true, and he could figure out who the ‘good ones’ in Springfield were, and how to get one of those as his boss, that could have potential.