Chapter Sixty-Three

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“We could check out the bookstore?” Daphne says as she looks about. The boring people that Skinner brought along are all packing up the wagons you came in and getting ready for the trip back home, but there’s still plenty of packing to do and it is kind of boring to watch.

You would help, but Daphne told you to keep a ‘low profile’ and then Abigail explained what that meant. You shouldn’t tentacle things in front of just anybody unless Abigail (or one of your other friends) is in danger.

You think that maybe she should have told you this earlier. How were you supposed to know?

“The inn is nice,” Abigail says. “But I agree, we should check out the bookstore, at least for a little bit.”

“That sounds more fun,” you agree. The inn lady already told you that lunch won’t be served for another few hours. That means that you have to wait a bunch before more food is served, but it’s okay, you’re used to waiting eons between snacks, a few hours... well, okay, maybe you could convince time to hurry up a little, but then that would mean less time with Abigail.

Charlotte makes a humming noise. “I think I’ll leave it to you two, Daphne, Abigail. I’m going to go have a sit, isn’t that right Everette?”

“Are you sure we should let them walk around toowww--” Everette’s face goes pale and you look down to see that Charlotte’s boot is pressing down on his feet.

“You guys have fun~” she says before dragging Everette into the inn.

“Is she okay?” Abigail asks.

You shrug. She’s probably fine. Worse case, she has her whip still. Daphne, on the other hand, looks a little reddish herself.

And then it clicks. She’s going to be with Abigail all alone, except for you, and she wants to do mating things with Abigail. How very mortal of her. This must be the dating thing you have heard about.

You, of course, will help.

“Okay, let’s go to the bookstore,” you say as you reach up and grab both Daphne and Abigail by the hands and start dragging them along behind you.

Initially you weren’t too sure about the idea of Abigail doing nasty mortal stuff with another mortal, but if you had to choose, Daphne would be at the top of that list. Daphne has a lot of money to buy food for any small Abigails that are made in the mating process (which you’re still sure about, mechanically) and she would go very far to protect Abigail. She could be the royal consort once Abigail is god-Empress of mortal kind.

Which reminds you...

If you’re going to get all the mortals to treat Abigail the way they should (that is, with lots of bowing and giving her plenty of food) then you’ll need to teach them about how great Abigail is.

You spawn another you (with no tentacles because you’re keeping a low profile) just around the corner in an alley between two buildings. This you looks around for a bit, then starts wandering towards Abigail until you remind yourself that you’re there for something else.

You, that is, the you in the alley, pat-pats the ground a bit, and then you build a small altar out of rocks that you push out of the earth. Some of the rocks deep, deep down are very shiny, so you use those to make a small statue of Abigail smiling, her hair all spread out behind her like billowing tentacles and with a big pair of glasses perched on her little button nose. Then you write some simple instructions in a True Tongue onto the altar.

Very easy! Now, when the conditions are right and/or you’re a bit peckish, the altar will appear and anyone that sees it will be able to read and understand that they should put yummy food on the stone slab.

But you’ll need some sort of activation thing to tell you when they’re done...

You add to the statue of Abigail, giving it a bust and some arms that are raised as if to give a hug, then you add hinges that allow the arm to turn and be lowered. Two more statues appear on either end of the altar that look like you, but smaller.

Now, when they’re done putting food on the altar to Abigail they just need to lower the arms so that they’re patting the statues of you and you’ll know that it’s time for a snack.

You guess you can give the people that do that for you something. Maybe some knowledge or some gold or a pet from the void. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’ll know that Abigail is good and that they should give her, and you, yummies.

You really are the best familiar.

The three of you, that is, you and Daphne and Abigail, arrive at the bookstore and slip into it to find a few shelves with some nice-smelling books and an old man snoozing behind a counter. “I’ll leave you to your mating ritual,” you tell the girls. “I’ll be looking at the books on foods I want to try.

Abigail sputters a bit and Daphne does the thing where she makes her face go red. “Wh-what mating rituals?” Abigail asks.

You blink at her. “Aren’t you two doing that together?” you ask. “You know, the thing mortals do before mating. Dating and stuff?”

You’re never going to admit that you don’t actually know exactly how mortals mate. It’s beneath you.

Instead, you wander off while Daphne explains that it’s not a date (which is silly, there’s a calendar on the wall and there’s quite obviously a date for today on it) and go check out the food books.

You wonder if you can read anything while riding Wuffles back home. And what kind of convincing Wuffles will need to let you ride her back home.