The Adorable Goth

With her new armour, Paige can hold her own a little more against the enemies. She finds that she can manipulate more earth, throwing larger rocks and trapping larger and stronger enemies. She still isn’t as strong as us, but the armour at least reduces her disadvantages a little.

We wrap up the dungeon, collect the loot, and head back inside for lunch. Paige is positively buzzing over her performance in the dungeon. “Did you see that? One of them was charging straight at me, and I knocked it aside! I’ve never been able to do that before, not to something that strong!” She exclaims, elated at her new capabilities.

“We’re proud of you.” I tell her, giggling. Her face reddens into a blush and she plays with her hair. “Y-you shouldn’t say things like that…” The gothic terramancer trails off. “Sorry, you’re just too adorable.” I tell her, a wide smile plastered on my face. She giggles happily as we get inside, with Ivy healing all our lost health, before going into the kitchen to make lunch for us.

Paige sits with Skylar, while Mia cuddles with me. Paige and Skylar are whispering in low voices, looking like they’re exchanging some much needed words between the two of them. Mia and I turn our attention elsewhere, to petting Luna, who as always, wants to be up on my lap snuggling with me.

She’s slowly warming up to the others, but I feel that because I’m the one that feeds her and has made the effort to bond with her, she’s much more comfortable around me than Mia or Skylar. We’ve tested it before, and she’ll happily let Ivy pet her. When Mia reaches her hand towards the little kitten though, she pulls away.

Mia contents herself with just watching me play with Luna. We bought them some cat toys recently, as they’re sleeping a little less and up and around a little more. They’ve been exploring throughout the palace, although Sol much more eagerly and confidently than Luna. Not wanting them to get bored, we found as many cat toys as we could.

Luna lays on her back, on my lap, a happy expression on her face as I lower the toy down, putting it within her reach. She paws at it, nipping at the thing and meowing playfully as I move it around, sometimes out of reach, sometimes letting her get it.

I tickle and pet her playfully, and the adorable little kitten loves every second of it. Mia giggles softly at the play, and I tighten my hold on her slightly. She nuzzles her head against me lovingly, and I start to stroke her hair. I let Luna have the toy, and she nibbles on it happily, mewing softly. I grab the brush and start to gently brush her fur, making sure there are no knots in it.

Movement catches my eye and I look up to see Sol padding her way across the room, to where Skylar and Paige are sitting, still talking in low voices. The conversation looks to be going well, if their relaxed body language and the smiles on their faces are anything to go by. Sol stops by their feet and meows loudly.

Both of them look down and Paige puts her hands to her mouth in shock as Sol jumps up on the couch, sitting down on her lap. Her tail waves around lazily, as she looks up at Paige expectantly. “She likes me!” The goth girl giggles happily. Skylar smiles at her. “She does like you. She’s asking for pats. You better pat her.”

Paige tentatively reaches her hand out and strokes Sol’s soft fur. “If the cat wants pets, the cat gets pets. Pets should never be denied to cats.” She says to herself, and it makes me swoon internally. I whisper into Mia’s ear. “She’s so freaking cute!” Mia giggles at my words. “Gaia I wanna cuddle her. And do lewd things. And stroke her hair. And just love her generally.” The aeromancer responds. “Hopefully soon we’ll get to.” I tell her.

After some time spent cuddling and playing with our pets, Ivy announces that lunch is ready. As part of our effort to bond with Paige, Mia and I manage to get her talking about her love of Greek mythology, while we’re eating. She tells us a few of her favourite Greek myths, including the stories of Prometheus, Pandora’s Box, and Theseus and the Minotaur.

“Honestly I think Theseus was a bit silly. He met a person who fell in love with him, she gave him the thread to find his way back in the labyrinth, he somehow managed to kill the freaking Minotaur, which couldn’t have been easy, and found his way back to Ariadne.”

“There are different versions of the story, but like, most of them say that he abandoned Ariadne for some reason. Like dude, you had the love of your life, and you were happy! Some versions say it was pure egoism, others say Athena convinced him to leave her behind in service of Athens.” Paige explains passionately.

“Dionysus ended up marrying her, and other versions of the myth say that Dionysus convinced him to go because he wanted her for himself. Whatever the case, I think it was the wrong decision. Yeah the stories say he united Attica under Athens but still. And to top it all off, the idiot forgot to put white sails on his ship when he came back to Athens! So his father thought he’d died and jumped off a cliff!” Paige recounts the story, shaking her head.

Mia giggles at the enthusiastic woman. “You’re adorable when you’re passionate about something, you know that?” She compliments. The gothic terramancer’s speaking confidence melts away in an instant and she blushes beet red, beginning to play with her hair. “D-don’t do that…” She mumbles. “Why? Do you like it?” Ivy teases, and Paige hides her face behind her hands.

Throughout lunch, Sol, Luna and Dave are sitting near the table. I was a little surprised when Sol and Luna followed us here, but I guess they’re getting a lot more confident in exploring their environment. Skylar hasn’t been able to resist and occasionally throws Dave a piece of food. The delighted wolf catches it eagerly, tail wagging happily.

Sol and Luna meow at Ivy and I, trying to get us to give them food. All this does is lead to playful admonishments that they already have food in the other room. Their insistent meowing seems to communicate that they don’t care about the food in the other room, they want the food we’re eating!

We let them up on our laps after we finish eating, and they’re both adorably disappointed by the lack of food on the table. Sol scream meows at Ivy to express her disappointment, while Luna just looks up at me with a sad look on her face. I don’t want her to be sad, so I give her cuddles and affection, and she cheers up almost immediately.

After we finish lunch and manage to get up from the table, much to the chagrin of the kittens, we decide that we’ll only do one more dungeon for the day. Paige says that she wants to spend time with each of us individually, and we’re more than happy to oblige. It’s probably the best idea for her to figure things out anyway.

We wanna have some fun with the last dungeon of the day, so we choose the elves dungeon. The regular enemies aren’t fun, going through a trail in the forest being on guard for random ambushes is a bit of work. The elven army boss though is amazing, and once we reach it, I sigh with relief that the annoying part is over.

I’m happy ripping through the horde of melee elf soldiers, though I find that I have to rely more on my magic due to the decreased effectiveness of my axe. Those enchantments were kinda useful, and if I want to be at my most effective, I need to figure out a way to bypass the limitation and use my weapon with its enchantments again. Maybe I can get a third hand slot?

Paige and Skylar both handle the dungeon well, all things considered. Their combat and dungeon experience combined with the help of Mia, Ivy and I, negates a lot of the difficulty they would suffer as a result of their relative level handicap. With the balancing in place for people of different levels, at some point, enemies would get too easy for Mia and I to justify the XP we get from them, which is what leads to this difficulty gap. I’m proud of their performance overall though.

Much to my delight, we discover that the elves boss drops air elemental armour, which I happily hand over to Mia. We’re definitely going to be grinding here more until we can get the full set. The increase in power and protection that these armours give is going to be extremely useful, especially on somebody as powerful and capable as Mia.

Ivy and I level up once more, and I’m really excited because I’m only one level away from getting access to another class level to spend. I’m just really hoping the decision to spend it on seductress pays off. As before, agility for me and wisdom for Ivy, for our stats.

I find myself very interested in what the next milestone will be for Ivy. Will it be 150, 200 or 250? I’m guessing 250, but honestly, you never know with some stat systems. My increasing agility is proving extremely useful on the battlefield. I’m already firmly in the realm of superhuman, but I wonder if I’ll ever be able to reach speeds comparable to The Flash, if I raise the stat enough.

As we get back inside the palace, Paige shyly clears her throat. I look to her and she blushes slightly. “I-I was wondering…” Mia, Ivy and Skylar all look at her too. “Can I spend time with y-you first, Mia?” She continues. The aeromancer nods. “Wanna go for a walk?” She asks, and Paige nods happily. Luna mews at me from the ground, and I pick her up. “I’ll be in the gaming room whenever you’re ready.” I let Paige know, giving my girlfriends each a peck on the lips.

“I’ll be there too.” Ivy announces, picking up Sol to follow me. “I’ll be in the library.” Skylar says, starting to walk with us up to the second level. I smile to myself as I hear Mia start to engage Paige in relaxed conversation. “What are you thinking of playing?” Ivy asks me. “Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga. I need to get through the rest of the game.” I tell her, and she giggles happily. “Wanna join too?” I ask. “Not right now, I just want to cuddle and watch.” She replies.