The Source of Trust

((Author's Note: just giving a bit of advance notice here. I'm taking a 1 week break from posting chapters on the Tuesday after Easter. In all likelyhood, this will be a yearly reoccuring 1-week break going forward.))

“Ar- are you okay?” Uncharacteristically, Christie had been the first person on their feet when French class ended. Clearly, she had been itching to ask him that since his belated arrival and sparse explanation for the delay. The concern for his well being that was written plainly on her face was undiminished by her ‘looking’ about a hand’s width to the left of his face.

“Yeah, I suffered nothing that I can’t walk off. Apparently, he doesn’t know how to deal with someone who fights back.” That seemed like the best avenue of explanation for now.

“Oh. Th-that’s good.” As with the preceding two days, she was stammering more and seemed more off-balance and uncertain talking in the crowded classroom than she did most of the time they had talked on the roof. So instead of continuing that, or any, line of conversation here, John just suggested they went to what was becoming their ‘usual’ lunch spot. And offered to help her pack up her stuff that she had left behind at her desk.

They went upstairs in silence, but John got the feeling that there was something Christie wanted to ask. So, he decided to give her time to work her way to it, instead of putting her on the spot or starting up a topic.

Meanwhile, they got to the roof and sat down. Practically the moment he opened his lunch, the cat from before showed up again. ’Here to steal more of my food, are you? I think I need to ask Mom to put in a little extra to distract you with.’

He thought that at the cat with an internal chuckle, though that faded a bit when he noticed two things. One was that the feline was limping, but the more pressing draw on his attention was the conspicuous white glimmering around its collar. This called for an Observe or two which he could thankfully now do without risking to miss anything Christie might say.

Level 6 House Cat
HP: 39/48
MP: 5/5
This black cat with white markings is lightly injured. It likes you more than it does most people.

’I guess Abyssals keep pets too.’

John briefly considered if he should try healing it while he ate, but it looked like Christie had gotten her words in order and so on. “Please don’t… take this the wrong way. But… how come you didn’t fight Frank off before? B-before this week I mean. Bec-”

John could recognize someone spinning into a ramble of pre-emptive explanations from having been there himself, so while it might be a bit rude, he cut her off. He was pretty sure a positive answer would ease her mind more than getting to feel like she was fumbling 3 explanations at the same time anyway. “I didn’t know I could until I did it. And I’ve been working on bettering myself lately, including self defense. Trying a month ago would’ve made for a very different result. Besides, it helps a lot to have someone to fight for who’s actually worth it.”

It was only when Christie turned beet red and tried to hide her face behind her hair that John realized that what he had meant as an encouraging remark could be easily interpreted as super flirty. He thought he caught a glimpse or two of a smile on her lips, though, mostly-hidden by hair as they were. So instead of launching into his own explanation ramble, he just set about his lunch.

They ate in silence, and for once John finished first. Though despite his head start while she recovered from the blushing, she was barely a mouthful behind him now. How did she eat that fast? Well, that wasn’t a question he was about to ask her, but he had thought of another one. “So, since we’re starting this evening, can you share anything about you and your dad’s campaign? Or is it all a big surprise?”

“Well, uh, I can’t really compare it to other games, but… in story terms, it’s like a kind of dark fantasy type of story, but one where helping people and being a hero still matters. Like… if the Witcher was based on Oriental history and mythology instead of Eastern European.”

They ended up spending most of lunch break discussing Witcher lore.

Before heading off to visit Qhila, a suspicion had occurred to John that he could thankfully check quickly and easily via a detour past his locker. Unfortunately, he was correct. Skills now being harder to get meant that his Maths and Electronics textbooks were no longer Skill Books. So much for eventually making space for Arcanotech Engineering...

The disappointment of that discovery had quickly been overtaken by anxiety, however, as he got closer to the nest of the kobold alchemist. He had confirmed by text that she had recovered enough from the migraine crash that came with an Elixir of Clarity for him to visit sooner than previously agreed. She had also confirmed that she did indeed have answers, but she hadn’t elaborated on what they were. Hence the anxiety.

Sure, Qhila had said that she thought she would forgive him even if his concerns about the possible meaning of RP rewards were accurate. But he still worried that it would change things between them for the worse, especially considering what she had escaped from. And in any case, he didn’t want to have done that to her, accidentally or not.

Mustering his courage after agonizing about it for a minute or two in the alleyway in the industrial district, John finally entered the barrier. Where he found Qhila stopping halfway through turning on her heel in a location that only made sense if she had been pacing.

For half a heartbeat, she just stood there while John thought he saw a reddish tint start to blossom on her copper-tanned cheeks. Then she turned towards the manhole, cleared her throat and gestured for him to follow. “Let’s head inside.”

They did so in silence, John’s insides spending a few seconds tying themselves into knots over how that reception, and moment’s worth of reactions, might be interpreted. Then he noticed that something was different about her nameplate. Or rather, something wasn’t different about it anymore. Her RP had stabilized. At 92. Positive 92.

That dissolved a lot of the tension. He was still worried that the answer might not be a good one, but at least it seemed that even in the worst possible case, he hadn’t done irreparable damage to their relationship.

With his attention less inward focused, John noticed that something was different about her gait. For some reason, she was walking on the balls of her feet. Besides making her seem a few centimeters taller, it also set her hips swaying, and her tail and her ass too. It was a hypnotic sight.

Despite wearing practical attire, Qhila’s bubble butt was simply too big an asset to feasibly obscure, both figuratively and literally. The allure of those artfully curved globes was only enhanced by the partial concealment of the kobold’s swaying tail, and magnified further by the slight jiggle that her every step sent through it.

A very large part of John lamented that his opportunity to ogle was short lived, and that he had skipped on Smartphone Integration and the ability to take a picture through his eyes. It was probably a good thing though. A raging boner would not benefit the impending conversation.

The pump room that she had made into her living space was as tidied up as John thought feasible, and the beanbag chair and folding stool readied for their use. So he took a seat on the former, as he was fairly certain his weight would destroy the latter, and looked at Qhila expectantly.

“First off, you didn’t do anything. Unknowingly or otherwise.” She gave him a small smile at that, as she took her seat and most of his remaining anxiety melted away. It would have been all of it, except he got the sense that she had more to say. “Your aura at the time was too faint to do something that would persist through the Elixir. Channeling that amount of power would have killed you. It still might now.”

Not the most pleasant way to rule it out, but if that was what it took, John was perfectly fine with having started out underleveled now. Qhila wasn’t done though. “That left the possibility that the goddess that’s taken an interest in you acted directly instead. But I think she did something else instead, that has… different implications.”

That didn’t sound good. John wasn’t sure it sounded bad either though. “What… does that mean?”

“Explaining is going to require a bit of context.” Rather than continuing, she opened her mouth and pulled her lips as far back as possible, revealing short fangs that John hadn’t noticed before. Before he had a chance to ponder this further, she grabbed the topmost left one and pulled it out.

It didn’t seem to require much ****, and as soon as it was free, the tooth changed from pearly white to a construction of glass and brass. It was, unsurprisingly, adorned with “magic item glittering” as well. “This is a reservoir tooth. On a mental command, it releases its contents.”

She returned the artificial fang to her mouth where it resumed looking like her other three, presumably natural, ones. “It’s empty right now, but I usually keep some Gravenap in it. It’s a powerful sedative used to fake ****, which can be a useful trick in the Abyss. Especially when you’re a lot weaker than most people. When the rat ogre tore my stuff away, I decided that not experiencing what came next and skipping straight to waking up sore and bloated an hour later was worth the cost of a replacement dose…”

“I’m, uh, not sure you would have woken up at all. That thing looked like it would have torn you in half…” It wasn’t exactly hard for John to recall that situation, and reexamining the memory now left him just as certain that the rat ogre couldn’t possibly have safely fit inside her as he had been in the moment.

Rather than the horror John had expected, Qhila just sighed heavily and rubbed her forehead in her palm for a moment. “That’s something I had hoped I wouldn’t have to explain for a while, but better to tear out the rotten tooth, I guess.” The knowledge of Draconic that John had absorbed told him that the idiom was equivalent to ripping off the band aid.

“Kobolds’ **** race nature goes further than the compulsion to serve. High Dragons, basically True Dragon nobility, can transmute kobolds in their thrall with exceptional ease and use this to tailor the tribes that serve them to suit their wishes. The dragon ruling my old tribe, the Skytails, is a High Dragon. And a bloody pervert. So we’re… stretchy. Very stretchy.”

“... The more I hear about that cunt, the more I want to feed him through a wood chipper. Tail first.” John had fantasized about, and made comics about, using transformation shenanigans for sexual purposes. But actually doing it to someone who was magically compelled into it instead of consenting, and making permanent changes under those circumstances at that, was extremely vile.

“I don’t think they make wood chippers that big, or that durable,” Qhila remarked dryly. “In any case, being selectively stretchy isn’t the worst of it, but I also really don’t want to get into that now. The point of the context is, Gravenap usually knocks you out near instantly. But while I lost motor control right away, I remained aware of what was going on for a few seconds. Enough to see you throwing bits of wood and yelling at the rat ogre.”

That… made sense, but John didn’t really see the significance of her knowing that a bit sooner than expected. Or the implications Qhila mentioned earlier. Which must have been visible on his face, because after a short pause but before he could put that into words, she added, “That whole scene was… Well, it was too bumbling and haphazard and **** to make sense as part of a plan or scheme. It wasn’t really a conscious thought at the time, but it still took root. Whatever you were doing, you risked your own safety at a spur of the moment. Then when I woke up, you refused the option of opportunistic benefits. Which meant the only possibility left was the one that seemed too good to be true…”

“So basically, Gaia made you stay awake for a few seconds so you’d see me make a complete fool out of myself. And because you’d seen that first, you were able to consider that I might not be trying to trick you?”

“A heroic fool,” she ‘corrected’ him with a brief, melancholic smile. Then she cleared her throat and the expression was gone as she continued, “But in essence, yes.”

“Well, in that case, I’ve never been happier to have looked like a moron.” John chuckled. Qhila giggled. A weight had finally lifted completely from his shoulders, and life felt good.

Then Qhila started to fidget. And look away. John had time to feel a split second of worry that something was wrong after all before she spoke, “Anyway, I, uh, didn’t treat you very well yesterday… And I owe you an apology. So I, uh, made you this.”

She held out a smooth, flat, gray stone about the size of her palm with the word ‘key’ scratched in Draconic. With the same magic item glitter as the collar on the cat.

“With it you can come and go whenever. As long as you take the right way in. The, uh, dummy path doesn’t work with it. And I would appreciate it if you keep it safely in your inventory when you aren’t in the process of entering or leaving.” She was still averting her gaze, but it didn’t poke John in the tendency to worry anymore.

“Thank you. This means a lot.” He took the stone and felt the weight in his hand for a moment. “I actually want to give you something as well. I figured either I had accidentally done something to you that I really shouldn’t have or I had caused a lot of trouble over something that turned out to be nothing. So here, and sorry about the packaging. There weren’t any options available on that.”

With that, he put the stone in his inventory and took out a Schrödinger’s Gift. Qhila reached out slowly, almost hesitantly, to take it. A moment passed where she just sat there holding the wrapped box. Then she tore ferociously into the wrapping like it was the first present she ever got. Considering what John had learned about her background, it might actually be the first one.

Out of the box came a green plushie of a typical D&D-style kobold that was way too big to fit inside the box, coming out to about the same size as its new owner. For a long moment, she sat motionless and looked at it. Then tears welled up in her eyes.

“Shit! Sorry. I didn’t know these things could turn into bad gifts. I’ll-” John was cut off by Qhila practically throwing herself at him, wrapping one arm as far around him as she could reach while holding the arm of the plushie with her other hand.