Chapter 19: Upgrade

“Hey there kitten, welcome back to Haurchefaud.” I hear my sister say, my body curled up in her warm embrace.

“Hey sis.” I groggily say, my eyes barely being able to open.

“We should get dressed and get some food.”

“But we just came from dinner,” I whine.

“These bodies don’t know that,” as her stomach makes a loud growl. “Gonna get me some bacon and eggs before I get back in my armour.” She jumps out of bed, leaving me without her heat.

“Nooooo! Come back, my personal heater!”

Élise puts on her bra and looks back at me, sticking out her tongue.

That’s when my stomach starts to revolt. “Okay, some food might not be a bad idea.”

I get dressed and leave the room together with my sister.

“Don’t forget to check your skills while we are eating, you probably leveled quite a bit because of that goblin horde. And with our loot we can probably give you an upgrade in gear later on as well.” She smiles.

“Oh. That’d be neat!”

We enter the dining area of the guild HQ and find Nikki and Hilda already sitting at a table.

“Good morning, Amicia and Lise.” Hilda waves us hello.

“Hey Hilda!” I go to her and give her a quick hug.

“You are surprisingly happy today.”

“Am I?”

“Well, maybe it’s because of the date she’s going on tomorrow.”

My face goes red.

“Oh? A date? Tell me more!”

“I-it’s not a date! This girl just invited me to come watch her game.”

“And does this girl like you?” Hilda smirks.

“I-I guess.”

“And you like her?”

“M-maybe.” my face starts blushing even more.

“Amicia, that’s a date.”

I sit down next to Hilda and put my face on the table. “I know…”

Hilda starts rubbing my back. “Hey, I’m very glad to hear you’ve found someone you’re interested in.”

“I’m very happy too...but... “

“But what? If she finds out you... uhm... are trans?”

“Oh, I guess that as well, but more like...” I touch my ears on top of my head.

“Oh yeah…Well, if your relationship with her gets serious, I’m sure you’ll figure something out. We did, didn’t we?”

“That’s true, but you’re practically family.”

“Awh, I’m very happy you think of me like that.” Hilda hugs me. “But trust me - It’ll be fine.”

“I hope so. We connected immediately. She’s also pretty funny.”

“As funny as me?” Hilda points to herself.

“Hmmm... funnier I’d say.”

“Darn it.” Hilda slaps her knee dramatically.  

We both start laughing.

“Anyway, let’s eat something.”

“Good plan.” I say as I steal a small piece of sausage from her plate.

Hilda pats my head and continues eating, while my sister comes back with plates for us both.

“Looked at your stats yet, sis?”

“Nope, will do now.” I put a piece of bacon in my mouth as I open my character screen. “Wow, I leveled quite a bit.” I see I got to level 20 just from fighting that horde.

“Well, it was a pretty big horde. Normally a new player like you shouldn’t be able to fight a big fight like that,” Hilda says while taking a bite from her meal.  

“But you had fantastic support of course,” my sister winks. “My arm is still pretty sore from blocking all those attacks.” She loosely swings her left arm around.

“That’s true.” I laugh and look at the new skills I can pick. “Wow. There’s one that’ll allow me to cast without a focus.”

“Take it, take it, take it!” Élise enthusiastically stands up from her chair.

“Woah there, why so hyped?!” Hilda almost chokes on some bread because of Élise’s sudden movement.

“Well, when Amicia first became Amicia, we were discussing if she could use magic or not. But since we didn’t have any magical sticks laying around the house…”

“Oh, so you want to see if she has her skills from the game, in real life?”

“Exactly!”

“I mean, the choker I got from Granny is magical, so it seems like it’d definitely be possible.”

“Would be pretty useful too if Élise cuts her finger again while attempting to cook.” Nikki laughs.

“That only happened once! ...Okay, maybe a couple times more than that, but still.”

I select the skill while Élise is having her lovers’ quarrel. I also upgrade my healing spells and the big blue ball of death. “Hmm, I still have three skills left I can take before I run out of points.” My eye falls upon the skills Divine Armour and Divine Swordsmanship. The tooltip reads that they respectively cast armour around me and transform my staff into a sword for a short period of time. “I guess these are similar to Shield of Faith. Sounds like a pretty fun combo too.” I select both of them and start looking for my third and final skill.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m still looking.

“Can’t find one you like?” Hilda asks and puts her chair next to me so she can search along.

“Not really, most of these skills don’t really suit my playstyle.” That’s when I suddenly see a skill that’s marked with a question mark.

This wasn’t here when I first opened the list…

“What’s this Hilda?”

“I have absolutely no clue, first time I’ve seen a skill like that.”

“The tooltip also says absolutely nothing.”

“Question marks all over. Hmmm…”

“Should I take it?”

Hilda leans back in her chair. “Well. It’s up to you, but this is just weird - I get the feeling this game is giving you preferential treatment. I want special skills too!” She pouts.

I hesitate for a second but decide to go for it anyway. “Guess we’ll get to see what it does.” I shrug.

“I’m definitely curious.”

“Me too.”

“Ladies, I’m going to put on my armour, after that we can also go upgrade Amicia’s gear. The guild has set aside quite some money as a thank you for holding the line.” Élise flexes and heads towards the staircase.

I quickly spread out most of the stat points that I also received, this time I try to evenly distribute them,so I don’t become some kind of glass canon. Then I eat a bit of my food, which has already cooled down a lot.

“Ugh, it’s cold.”

“Give it to me.” Nikki holds out her hand above my plate for a second and then hands it back. “Try it again.” She smiles, steam rising from my food.

“Wow, that’s neat.”

“I know right. It’s also pretty fun in bed.” She winks, Hilda getting a shiver over her body.

“I-it’s probably not too unpleasant.” She says with a stutter.

“Well, you should know.” Nikki teases.

Hilda is sometimes so easy to read. I giggle and start eating again.

It takes quite a while for Élise to come back downstairs.

“You took your time.” I say, having finished my food a couple of minutes ago.

“Well, you don’t have to put on several layers of armour and padding.” She stands behind me and pokes my sides.

“Nonononono, it tickleeees!!!” I yell out, laughing frantically.

“Should’ve thought about that before you made fun of me, kitten.”

“Nooooooooooo!!”

“Let’s go before she needs to take her armour off again to pee.” Nikki drags Élise away.

“The pain of heavy armour.” My sister sighs.

Hilda lifts me from my chair. “You kinda deserved that.” She pats my head.

“I did.” I laugh my breath still unsteady from the tickling.

“The market is not far from here.” Hilda takes the lead as we leave the headquarters.

“What part of my gear are we going to upgrade?” I start ask to my sister who’s walking besides me.

She gives me a quick lookover. “I’d say everything, your current gear is meant for starters. You aren’t quite the starter anymore at level 20.” She smiles.

“This kind of reminds me of our shopping trip.” Nikki comments from behind us.

“It definitely does.”

I smile.

Happy memories. 

We enter the market and start looking for stalls stores selling healer equipment.

“Hey Hilda, are these NPC’s or actual players.” I ask, browsing some of the stores we pass.

“It’s hard to tell most of the time. But the general rule is, the more specialised the store, the more likely it is to be a player. That’ll probably change after the official launch next week though.”

“It’s going to get a lot more lively around here then.” I note.

“Yep, that’s why I kind of wanted to propose going further towards Reykland, to avoid most of the initial rush. And to fill out my map a bit more.”

“Didn’t you have most of it filled out already?”  

“Yes, the map of this continent. But the launch official will make the other continent available to travel to. And to get there…”

“You need to take a boat.” Élise finishes her sentence.

“Yep. And since Reykland is the most westward nation on this continent, it’ll be easiest to set sail there.”

“Oh I see. Can we join you?”

“Of course. That’s why I wanted to propose it.”

“Cool! I want to see Hilda not knowing where to go!”

“Tough luck sis. Hilda has this incredible sense of direction so I doubt we’ll see that happen.” Élise comments with a sigh.

“It’s not like I always know where I’m going, it’s just that I pretend to know.” She laughs. “And I have a compass which helps.” Hilda takes a compass from her pocket, and hands it over to me.

It’s a very nicely decorated piece of equipment. Engraved with gold and small jewels at the edge.

“Wow, you must’ve paid a lot for this.”

“It’s actually not that expensive if you collect the resources for it yourself. Especially if you can sell the rest for profit.”

“Neat! You should teach me how to do that one day.” I hand back the compass to Hilda.

She pats my head and smiles. “I will.”

It doesn’t take very long find a store specialized in healing equipment.

“Hey there little lady, a lunar mage I see.” the dwarven vendor smiles when he sees us stopping before his store.

“Yes.” I smile. “Do you have some equipment for my class?”

“Of course, of course.” He rubs his beard and turns around to look at his wares. “Let me see. What Goddess do you pray for?”  

“Veanya!” I say with enthusiasm. Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since I last prayed to her.

“Love and compassion, huh.” Élise laughs.

“I know right! It fits her so well.” Nikki joins in with a giggle.

“No laughing.” I pout.

“Allright allright. We’ll stop, it’s just that Veanya fits your personality perfectly.”

That’s when the dwarf puts equipment on the counter. “I think this’ll fit perfectly.”

I inspect the equipment laid before me. It’s a light blue and gray surcout with white sleeves and a dark gray woolen collar. The buttons and several other small details hold the sign of Veanya, a heart interwoven with two double helixes.  There’s a white shirt and white pants there, matching the colour combination. And to complete the outfit some thigh high brown leather boots, which has Veanya’s emblem embroidered on it.

“So what d’you think?” The dwarf smiles.

“I think this will definitely do. What about a staff?”

“Oh right!” the dwarf smacks his head and goes back on his search, yet he returns almost immediately. “I already had it laid out but forgot to take it with me.”

The staff is almost as tall as me and has points sticking up from the twirly top.

“Nice! What do you all think?” I turn towards the party.

“That will certainly fit you! It will give a pretty nice stat boost as well so you won’t have to rely on Hilda’s potions anymore!” Élise sticks up both of her thumbs and both Nikki and Hilda nod in agreement.

“Alright. That’ll be 500 gold.” The dwarf holds out his hand.

“Master dwarf, I suspect that’s a little overpriced but it’s your lucky day.” Hilda hands over a coin purse.

“Thank you very much.” The dwarf takes the coin purse and puts it in his safe. He gives the equipment to me, which I swiftly put in my inventory. Since I don’t really want to head back to the headquarters at this time, I decide to equip it through the in-game system and *Poof* All my gear is immediately equipped and ready to go.

“Lookin’ good sis.” Lise pats me on the back.

“Thanks.” I give her a quick hug in return.

We head off and wave the dwarf goodbye.

“Did we really use that much of our gold on my equipment?”

“Eh, not really, our reward was a lot higher than that.” Nikki shrugs.

“Really? How much higher exactly?”

“Just add a few zero’s. That’ll do.”

I gulp. “Wow, how is it so much?”

“Well, without us the city would’ve been sacked before the rest of the guild arrived, the merchants were pretty happy about that not happening.” Élise smiles.

“I guess that’s true…”

“Anyways, I’m going to upgrade my sword and shield if y’all don’t mind.”

“Go ahead, I think me and Hilda will do the same.” Nikki replies.

“See you all in fifteen minutes here?”

“Sounds good, after that we can start traveling to Reykland!” Everyone starts moving there separate ways.

“Uhm… What about provisions?” The moment I say this everyone stops dead in their tracks.

“Riiigggght...Maybe we should put Amicia in charge.” Hilda says, laughing out loud. “I completely forgot.”

“Luckily one of us got her mind together.” Élise scratches her head. “Come with me, Amicia, we can go buy some, the food stalls are next to the blacksmith anyway.”

Nikki and Hilda go on their way as I join my sister.

I wonder what adventures await us beyond Ribaquen...