Fell Champions

 

Before coming in, Rua made Otter wash her feet in a bucket of warm water, for which her aching toes were grateful. She tried to make some kind of thanks, or joke about how badly she needed that, but Rua grunted a comment about not wanting her floors dirty.

 

The inside of the cabin was very homey. There was a kitchen complete with a counter, some cupboards, a pantry, and something that looked like a stove made from granite and fastened with metal. There were discs of some kind of polished, shiny material with runes carved into them, and one of them had a battered pot sitting on top of it, where something boiled inside. Adjacent was a small dining table, where a wooden chair that matched it was pulled up, and across from it was a padded reading chair that had been pulled from somewhere else to join it. A fire crackled in a hearth in a small living space that was bare save a rug on the floor, and a small shelf for books. 

 

Otter’s stomach grumbled at the smell of food, which didn’t have a scent she normally associated with a cooked meal. It smelled almost lemony, a definite scent of citrus combined with something savoury. She didn’t know she was taking a step towards the dining table until Rua put herself between Otter and it.

 

“No, clean up first, barbarian. Follow me.”

 

She tried to look imposing, and for the first time, Otter noticed that as long as Rua wasn’t actively flicking her, she wasn’t that good at it. In fact, she was very small, maybe five feet tall, tops. Perhaps even shorter. 

 

Otter couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and lightly poked Rua on the nose.

 

“Boop.”

 

Rua gave her a shocked look, which quickly turned to irritation when she realized that her nose now had a small bit of mud at the end of it. She did a quick swipe to get rid of it, but didn't manage to get it all.

 

“Sorry,” Otter quickly apologized. “You’re just so tiny, I couldn’t help myself for a second there. I didn’t notice before. You’re just so… cute.”

 

“I’m… I’m not tiny,” Rua sputtered. “You’re just freakishly tall.”

 

“Am not. I’m like… 5’8”ish.”

 

“I don’t know what that means, but you’re very tall.”

 

Otter couldn't help herself. “Boop.”

 

Rua’s face scrunched up, but she didn’t look as annoyed as she should be. Especially since she was being taunted by a freeloader. Given the earlier blushing, Otter’s finely-tuned gaydar was pinging strongly. Something to keep in mind.

 

“Quit that,” Rua said, and then pointed towards one of two doors on the other side of the room. “Go.”

 

Otter gave her very best smile and did a small bow before crossing the room. The washroom wasn’t what she expected. There was a wooden tub, as well as what looked like a toilet made of the same granite-like stone the stove was made of. Was there actually working plumbing in this fantasy game? Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. 

 

The wooden bath tub had two stone discs on the side, runes carved into both. Kind of like the stove.

 

“What do these do?” she asked.

 

Rua gave her one of those looks, and muttered some off-colour remark about ‘stupid Wayfarers,’ before showing her a basic framework of how runestones worked. For the tub, one added water in, and if you twisted your hand as you touched it, it would determine the temperature. Touching the other runestone would send the water away. Where it came from, or where it went was anyone’s guess apparently, better left for bookish scholars. The toilet worked similarly, adding water, or taking away anything inside the bowl.

 

Otter tried peppering her with questions, but Rua just pointed her at the tub.

 

“Clean, now.”

 

“Fine, if you wanted to get me naked that badly…”

 

She tried to make the comment innocent, and pulled off her smock in one smooth motion. She made sure to meet Rua’s eyes, as if challenging her to look anywhere else. Rua managed to maintain eye contact, and snatched the smock from Otter, but her cheeks turned a fine shade of pink as she marched out of the room. 

 

“I’ll, uh, get you a change of clothes,” Rua stammered. “We’ll want to, uh, wash this.”

 

“That’s not the only thing you can wash,” Otter called after her. 

 

She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Rua made a squeak noise on her way out. Otter wanted to chuckle, but suppressed it. There was a difference between gentle embarrassment, and outright mortification. It was a fine line to straddle, and she needed to be careful if she wanted to straddle Rua’s fine line.

 

She slipped into the bath, which was just the right temperature, and began to scrub away with a coarse cloth that hung on the edge of the tub. It wasn’t the best way to get the thick, caked-on mud away, but it was all she had. When Otter realized Rua had left the door open on her way out, she made sure to languidly and slowly work at herself. Maybe Rua would see, maybe she wouldn’t, but on the off chance that she did, Otter wanted to make sure she had a show.

 

While working away at the grime covering her, she pulled up her menu and began to go through its pages and learn how everything worked. There were a few pages to sort through, for Character Stats, Party Settings, Messaging, General Statistics, Shop, World Quests, and Streamer Settings. The Shop and World Quest pages were suspiciously empty, and there was no Inventory UI that she could find, no way of gearing up inside the menu itself or stashing away items for later use. 

 

That would be a problem. If meant any gear she wanted to carry, she’d have to actively have on her person. As a mage, she might even have to invest in Strength just to be able to carry stuff. 

 

“Fucking shit game design, Holt,” she muttered. “Negative one stars.”

 

There was no experience bar anywhere. No way to tell when and how she would level up. The Character Stats page just proclaimed the attributes she'd selected at character creation, and nothing else. 

 

Further exploration made her realize there were no maps. No way to use a UI to navigate to places she’d been, or give her a general lay of the land. Not that she needed help being a lay of the land.

 

More bad news kept piling up.

 

No new messages had come through. Nothing from Il-Su, or Silence, or whatever he was going to call himself in this game. Meaning he was probably going to go back on their deal. She didn’t want to be the one coming to him for help. She was already in a weak position in this relationship, and she didn’t want to make it weaker by being the first to break the silence. Even if she wanted to break the Silence and maybe strangle him a little. Kind of like back in the day.

 

Just thinking of Il-fucking-Su and his complete lack of ability to commit to anything ruined her mood. She stopped playing around in the tub and got to the serious business of washing. She had to replace the water in the tub twice via the handy glyph stones to get rid of all the mud, but in the end, she triumphed in the battle against poor hygiene, a skillset she was exceedingly good at, despite her career as a professional gamer. 

 

Otter was just getting out of the tub when Rua came into the room, holding a small bundle of clothes. She froze in the doorway, as if unsure of whether to come in given Otter's nudity, or leave. There was still a small smudge of mud on her nose, apparently forgotten.

 

“Uh, I have, uh…”

 

“Thanks,” Otter said with a smile. “You’re being a lot more generous than I expected.”

 

“It’s... no trouble.”

 

“Well, thank you. Seriously. Without you, I’d be covered in mud and lost in the swamp.”

 

“Without me, you’d be dead by Ashborne Cuttings.” She puffed out her chest as she said it, some of her confidence returned. 

 

“Point. Still, I appreciate it. And if you can think of anything…” Otter deliberately paused, and moved closer, inside of Rua’s personal space, “... absolutely anything I can do to repay the favour, just let me know.”

 

Rua went still, like prey cornered by a predator, which she very much was. Almost to prove her position over her, Otter deliberately licked her thumb, and then wiped the small spot of mud from Rua’s nose. 

 

“There, like that, see? Already paying some of that karma back.” She took the bundle of clothes from Rua. “I suppose I should get dressed. It’s probably terribly rude of me to be standing around with my tits out like this.”

 

“Yes,” Rua choked. “Rude. Get changed.”

 

And then she fled the room. Otter watched her go, and by ‘watched her go’, that was to stay she stared at Rua’s backside as she retreated. 

 

“Okay,” she said quietly to herself. “Maybe not negative one stars, Holt. Some parts of your game look fun to play.”