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[SD:M/H] Tongue Too Twisted - Chapter 7
🕑 Added 2024-12-21 11:48:13 +0000 UTCThe woman raises an eyebrow, “How about we Introduce ourselves first?”
Gem nods, “Ah, gotcha, same thing? Anyway, you can call me Gem! I’m the They/Them causing May/Hem!”
The woman bridles, “I didn’t get here by accident! It was just that there were too many people and I ah, yeah, here I am.”
Gem, “And your name is?”
The woman fake coughs, “Ah, right, you can call me June and uh, She/Her? I’ve never really introduced myself that way, but it only seems fair.”
Gem shrugs, “Meh, I get it out of the way so I can sort out the pricks from the mistaken. Does a wonderful job! Anyway, I was running for a similar reason, though not quite. I went random and it gave me an alignment locked species. You’re looking at a ChaosKin!”
June sighs, “Yeah, I can tell. Not many beings with color changing fur. Most times it is chromatophores in scale or skin changing color.”
Gem makes a sideways peace sign in front of their eyes and flashes a jaunty smile, “Well it isn’t an illusion, I only know wind magic right now.”
June squints at them, “What are you doing?”
Gem shrugs, “Having fun?”
June, “Ooh-kay...
“So, uh, want to work together to get out of this?”
Gem tilts their head to the side, “I thought that was a given? I was more expecting you to offer to be my friend and then stammer out an excuse about meaning you wanted to add me to your friends list.”
June stammers and turns red.
Gem nods as June tries to get her tongue untwisted. “I’ll take that as a yes and Yes, I will be your friend!
“Hey system, invite June to be my friend!”
Ding, and a screen pops up in front of June.
{
Gem Paroxysm has invited you to be their friend. Do you accept? [Yes/No]
}
“I um. I was uh. I wasn’t expecting. The offer was to uh. For this situation? Though if you want? Yes, yes, I would like to, uh, be friends with you?” June barely manages to stammer that out. In fact, the system doesn’t recognize her as having accepted the friend request.
Gem smiles extra wide, “Wonderful! Now that we’re friends you should accept that request so we can keep in touch better! I’m so glad I can finally start a game with someone!”
June manages to press the correct option at this point.
Ding, and it is Gem’s turn to get a blue screen.
{
June has accepted your friend request.
}
Gem frowns, “Wait a second!”
June looks worried, but Gem bulls through, “You can have a single name? I thought you would need the classic first name, last name combo. I so would have just gone with Gem if I had known that!”
June can’t help but giggle, “I guess that hasn’t spread to the Internet yet. The SAI that designed this game, so I’ve heard, took one look at the mess that is names and made it a single entry. Want a first and last name? A middle name? Surname first or just a given name? You want it, you get it.”
Gem shakes their head, “Once that gets out we’re going to start seeing some stupidly long names.”
June shrugs, “And once they tire of it, they’ll just go by a nickname or get their name changed. Names aren’t unique or anything, after all. Oh, and don’t tell anyone I told you, but it seems the SAI team in charge of the SciFi game are going to implement this as well.”
Gem sighs, “I wish it was that easy to change a name irl. Nothing against my government name, but really, at this point we’re identified by our id number and not name.”
June, “So, are you going to change your name to just ‘Gem’, since it is an option?”
Gem laughs, “Not even five minutes ago I would have done so in a heartbeat! Except, well, now that it is an option? Well, I kind of like my name, so I’m going to stick with it!”
June smiles, “I’m glad I could help you settle into your name.” Then a frown crosses her face, “Though we should probably focus on the more imminent problem? I don’t know how long the trees will last.”
Gem’s eyes go wide and their tree shakes from an impact. As it has been doing since they first climbed it. “I had completely filtered that out!”
June nods, “I’d noticed. Now, do you have a plan? Because I’m not exactly swimming in them myself.”
Gem’s smile gets uncomfortably wide, “We just need to have a little fun! Though I guess it wouldn’t hurt if you shared what you can do.”
June doesn’t particularly like their answer, but shares that she wanted to focus on buffs, getting the free spell “Cat’s Paw”. A fun spell that boosts your dexterity and damage. “That’s actually how I got up here. I don’t have some absurd Body stat to do it on my own.”
Gem nodded, “My Body stat is pretty sweet! Now, how is that buff working?”
June shrugs, “It’s one of the free spells, don’t expect much. While the numbers are purposefully obfuscated, at low level Cat’s Paw gives a straight additive boost. So the less agile you are and the lower your level, the better it works. Though I’m assuming we’re still both first level or thereabouts, so even if you had max rank in body, the spell is going to provide a significant boost.”
Gem, “Cool, but I guess I should have been specific. Never been a buffer myself, so I didn’t look it up. How does the attack boost work with my spell?”
June, “It doesn’t. While the system applies ‘attack boost’ pretty liberally, the name guides the limitation. You have to be in physical contact with what you’re attacking with. No spells, no flails, and no thrown daggers.”
Gem snaps their fingers, “Snap, crackle, and pop! That’s unfortunate, I guess no fighting the boar. Time for plan B!”
June spreads her hands out and looks absolutely confused. “You didn’t even tell me plan A? And of course we aren’t fighting the boar! They’re one of the local hard stops against people just leaving. The designers didn’t want to put up invisible walls, so they have patrols on the roads, restrictions on the gate options, and stuff like these boars filling in the wilderness. We haven’t even leveled once and you want to fight the thing?!”
Gem, “Oh? Didn’t know you were level one as well!”
June nods, “Yes, so if you were depending on me being high enough level to make a difference, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
Gem shrugs, “I wasn’t, but I can see why you would think that. Now, how often can you cast that buff of yours?”
June sighs, “They don’t make it easy in buffers in this game. Right now, using the buff reserves half my control and I can only have one buff at a time. As in, even if I had other buffs, I can only have a single active buff.”
Gem, “Well, that’s one way of doing things. How about you toss it on me and I see what it feels like?”
“Eh, why not? It isn’t like I’m using it.” And June pulls a glowing ball of light out of her body and tosses it at Gem.
That ball of light smacks into Gem and absorbs into their body. And right from the get go, Gem can notice the difference. Sure, it isn’t the biggest buff, but Gem feels like they could do a backflip or some such.
Gem looks June in the eyes. Something that is supremely uncomfortable for them, but they felt the situation called for it. “Be ready to run.”
June panics, “What are you planning? Where would I run to?”
Gem cracks a devil may care smile and jumps out of their tree with a flip thrown in. Because why not? “Follow me if you like!” They hit the ground in a crouch.
The boar’s head whips around, eyes lock onto them and it charges. Gem’s eyes close as they listen closely. June up in the tree wants to shout out a warning, but freezes.
Gem can hear the thudding of the monster’s hooves get closer. Then Gem springs to the side, grabbing a young tree to swing themselves behind a much larger tree. The boar had committed to its charge and so could not slow down. It slams through one leg thick tree and into a waist thick tree.
Gem waves up at June, “Boars stunned! Let’s get some distance before it recovers.”
June hops down and stumbles a little as they hit the ground, “This won’t stop it from chasing us! Also, how did you do that jump?”
Gem laughs as June follows behind, though they have to watch their speed as June’s body stat seems to be lower. “You’re the one who just buffed my agility. What were you expecting? For me to not use it?”
June huffs, “As if the damn spell lets you become a professional acrobat! It only increases your agility. You don’t get the experience to use that agility. The spell is meant to make you smoother at what you’re already able to do.”
Behind them, the boar squeals in fury.
Gem glances over their shoulder, “Huh, recovered quicker than I thought it would?”
June, “Did you think only we get stats? That thing. Has Stamina for days!”
Gem, “Don’t you mean body?”
June, “Stun recovery. Is under Stamina. Stun resistance. That’s Body.”
Gem, “Why are you already getting out of breath? I’ve only got C tier stamina and I’m doing fine.”
June glares at the back of Gem’s head. “C, as well. Slow down, running too fast!”
Gem realizes what happened and cuts their speed, allowing June to set the pace best for their Body stat. Though with that, the boar is catching up much faster now. “Well, that puts a crimp in my plan.”
June dodges a bush, “You had a plan?”
Gem looks over their shoulder again, “Wellll, I had an idea, but the boar is going to catch up before it would have worked. There aren’t any other monsters to use as meat shields.”
June, “What does that even mean? You’d just end up with a monster train!”
They both duck under a branch as Gem responds that, “It should work. The SAI made the monsters pretty realistic compared to older games. Getting the boar to slam into another monster should aggro them. Or kill them. Either or.” And they shrug.
June sighs, “So this is how my first death happens.”
Gem, “Oh yeah, high chance of that now! Haven’t you noticed where we’ve been heading?”
June whips her head around, taking in the surroundings which had turned into an old growth forest. “How are we here?! Why haven’t we been stopped by some other monster?”
Gem, “Eh, we’re only a bit deeper and I think the boar behind us is scaring off the weaker monsters.”
June, “We really are going to die! Why would you run this way?”
Gem, “Well, my plan wasn’t going to work before, but now? We simply need to find another monster.”
June’s face goes blank for a moment, then responds in a calm voice. “Fair enough. The city’s map of the forest would indicate we need to head further to the left. This is boar territory and they are likely keeping out of the way out of respect.”
Gem glances over to the side as they begin angling left, “Attitude change much?”
June shakes her head, “If you want to try this plan, the least a friend can do is allow you to fail spectacularly to make up for the fact it won’t work.”
Gem smiles almost to their ears, “Oh, don’t worry! Heheheheeh, I think it will work! SoulDive isn’t just any other game. A look at how the SAI’s foray into SciFi worked out shows this.”
June nods, “I’ll support you, but you’re making it up to me when we die.”
Gem, “Hey, I understand, we just met so how could you trust me? How about this, if it does look like we’ll kick the bucket, I’ll ‘meat shields’ it up and try to let you escape.”
June, “We’ll have to see how things turn out.”
Gem, “In our favor, of course! Be a little optimistic, not like death is the end. This is still a game, after all! So turn that frown upside down, we’ve got a boar to bamboozle.”
June sighs, “Well, I guess the only way out is through.”
Gem nods and points forward, “Onward, to victory!”
