Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Taking Stock

This is still a noncanonical fanfiction to the Becoming Monsters series, by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. 

Lucy has a Moment here, you will know it when you see it. Scene is inspired by artwork done by @Xel_Artz over on that funny bird app, you should check them out.

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Chapter 8: Taking Stock

The energies of the Acquisition took hold. As they flowed into Sarah, her body changed. What had taken the others bit by bit hit her all at once, her body suddenly arching with pleasure and power both. She trimmed and toned, her breasts and butt losing none of their size and softness. Her blonde hair gained some shine, even the color of her scales and eyes brightened a bit. Each change was individually minor, but in sum the effect was dramatic.

“What… what was that?” She looked bewildered as I looked on.

“The other side of this, what was in it for you. You are now, as best I can tell, a part of a power network with Lucy and Whitney.” I pulled up my Status screen to check, and sure enough Combat Disenchant had replaced Purge in my power list. Luck and Int had increased, but oddly Dex had not. Perhaps the immediate bonus could only increase by one? I already had that from Lucy. “As soon as I Acquired you, the Racial bonus of all of your Attributes increased by one, except Perception and Health. If you enjoyed that orgasm, more like it are coming, since as Demons our Hunger pool is zero-sum. Whitney can get it by fighting, but Lucy and I can only feed through sex.”

She looked astonished. “Vancouver isn’t so amazing that I would have tried to go back at all if I had known about this part. I can literally feel myself doing better, it’s intense. My family will understand once I let them know, we’ve been trying to get south for a while.” 

As I was pulling my clothes back on, my phone rang at me. Lucy was on the other side. “We were passing the superstore and they had a display of basic tools for alchemists and enchanters, some initiative to get more people to level it, need us to pick up a set?”

I looked back at Sarah, who had heard it and nodded. Boosts to Luck we’re a heck of a thing. “Yeah, same if they have the basic materials. We have enough in the bank right now to get her started, should be self-sustaining once she does.”

Sarah spoke up. “Make sure to get a decent wood wand base! Don’t need anything fancy, but it’s cheaper than buying bullets.”

Which reminded me. “Oh, and a box of bullets.” Sarah facepalmed. “Hey, not everyone has the mana pool to sling power bolts around.”

“Got it, thanks love!” Lucy hung up.

Sarah, now dressed again, looked at me strangely. “You don’t have the mana pool for it? What the heck kind of class are you? I’ve known Knights and Brawlers who learned wand-work, and their pools are miniscule.”

“Yeah, mine is barely bigger and I have to use MP on my abilities.” I sighed. 

“I can make batteries. Just need ten dungeon Coins plus some reagents. Rechargeable potions… kinda. Not the greatest capacity, but you don’t need that.”

“Really? Which coins?”

“I practiced a bit on Bronze, but those are basically toys. Crystal would be ideal. Golds are decent for someone with a smaller pool. All ten have to be the same or it messes with the thaumium flow.”

My heart thudded in my chest. “I’m sorry, did you just casually suggest I drop a hundred grand on a battery? I want you to look at this apartment and tell me what suggests that I can afford that.”

She actually did it. She looked around herself at the apartment. “I mean, you’re American Delvers, right? I know you have more than this!”

I sighed. This might be harder than I thought. “Alright, here’s the deal. The home you are now at least temporarily a part of is barely making ends meet, and you being here will make that harder until you set up. I need you to contribute, we get coins and materials as byproducts of what we do, but you translating that to usable or sellable equipment will make this work better.”

She stared. Her head cocked to the side. “I… see.” She clearly didn’t, not quite, but I let it slide for now. “I’ll see what I can do for you all once I have a setup. You mentioned an inventory? If you give me a notebook, I can start looking through it.”

“That, I can do.” Pencil and paper in hand, I opened up the gear closet. Of course, first things first, the enormous sword and her ring. That ring… I was nervous even handling the bag, but she just pulled it out like an old friend, stared at it with furrowed brows for not nearly enough time before casually sticking it on her right forefinger.

I startled and scrambled backwards. Sarah, for her part, just gave me a quizzical look. “Jay, please accept that there is literally no pattern on Earth I know better than how this ring looks while blank. It’s blank.” She turned back to the sword and started taking notes, gesturing at me to leave her alone to do so.

This was going to take some getting used to. With nothing else to do, I got to cleaning up the rest of the apartment. It had been a bit, the last week had been rather busy. Reorganizing things, getting duffels set up for the guests, vacuuming, wiping down the table, all punctuated by seemingly-random exclamations from our collection closet. “How did they…?” “Really? Mixed together?” “WHAT?” I guess she was finding interesting stuff. 

A knock at the front door interrupted my thoughts. The ladies were not back yet, not if they needed to dig through Enchanter kits, and I was certainly not expecting anyone else. The knock came again, impatiently. My phone decided to chime at me this time, a number I didn’t recognize. Seriously, can the things requiring attention please come sequentially? I decided that the door was more important, and answered it. On the other side was a familiar, uniformed man.

“Officer! I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” The same walking stereotype I had been dealing with so often recently was standing at my doorstep. Alone this time, but I could see he was armed. I was finally close enough to read his name tag. Sergeant Mann, Paul. 

“And I wasn’t expecting to get five notifications of a demon attack on this street in particular, with you not being any of them. Didn’t feel like milking more money from the OPP? Don’t hold back on my part, it’s no difference to my paycheck.”

I got wary. We were not in range to hear Sarah’s words from the closet, but Sergeant Mann’s attitude was very different this time. Even without my ability to sense strong emotions directly, I could feel his suspicion practically radiating off of his body. I made a judgment call in that split second, and permitted myself to feel some fatigue and laziness where my Aura could pick it up. The officer felt it coming off of me, and likely got the feeling that I was dully incurious and unconcerned about his visit. That nothing here was worth him coming out. “Attack happened late last night, and we didn’t see any witnesses. Given that it was another major demonic incursion, we were trying to gather proof so that we wouldn’t look like we were faking it for the T3 bounty. I take it you got other videos or pictures?”

He gave me a long look. “You could say that. Alright, since I’m here, I’ll also knock out your random inspection for Delver compliance. Need to see your paperwork along with weapons and materials storage, especially for your known firearm.”

That meant the closet. Crap. Cover story time? Well, I could be 80% honest here. “All in the same place, but one moment.” I led him to the materials closet, where we could both hear my latest guest rummaging around. “Sarah, coming in. We got inspected.” I opened the door, thankfully Sarah didn’t have the entire thing in chaos. “Sergeant, this is Sarah Castellán, an Enchanter friend who is visiting. She’s conducting inventory and appraisal now for an equipment overhaul. Gun safe is here, weapon secure inside. Door and walls have standard lining, we have nothing that requires more. Here’s the binder. Any questions?”

I had very, very rarely talked faster in my life. Sarah, for her part, got the point that silence would be best and just kept on taking stock. I had legitimately forgotten about some of those materials, not going to lie.

“That’s a heck of a sword on the rack.”

Crap. Thankfully it wasn't glowing. “Trophy from a fight. Couldn’t bring myself to sell it, but it’s entirely too large for Lucy or I to use in combat.”

He nodded. Thankfully. Could have gotten ugly. “Tight ship you run. No citation, and getting a fresh inventory? I’m impressed.”

“Officer, no offense, but I’ve had both pistols and rifles from your coworkers pointed at me this past week, in front of you. I have no desire to be classified as a rogue agent.”

He laughed, a short bark of a sound. “Fair, fair. Swing by the station once you have your proof together, we can get that report filed. T3 is direct deposit, no need to duke it out with ice skeletons at a bank this time.” With remarkably little further conversation, he left. I could feel myself slowly unclench when he did, unsure of what was going on. Something was really fishy, here. More so than usual for the authorities.

That’s when I remembered. My phone. It had gone off, I should probably check that. To my surprise, it had gone off twice. Must have been distracted. For some reason. The first was a request from the Guild Hall, someone had shown interest in bringing a Sorceress on a delve and wanted to contract ours. Guild called Golden Age. Go us. Lucy would have a blast. Literally.

The other, though… 

“Hay, it’s Candi from PTA. John said a bunch of monsters were popping up near Fort Seilacoom, 5 hits in 3 days!”

That was well south of the city, further than the Guild Halls. The portals almost never went that far. Five attacks in three days was epidemic levels if they were any kind of actual threat. How would we be able to respond to things out there, though? I didn’t have a car, and even if I did I couldn’t afford to go drive an hour for the chance that nobody else got to it first. I sent back a thanks.

“Oh, almost forgot! Had a pig, he said they were looking for an Inc who worked the rental rooms.”

My blood ran cold. A police officer looking for an Incubus who did sex work. Not exactly a common demographic. There might be a second one in Seattle somewhere, but if there was I hadn’t met him. Translation: SPD was looking for me, specifically, for reasons unknown. Presumably no warrants, though, or Sergeant Mann and I would have had a very different conversation.

I knew that I had less than zero desire to drop by the station for any reason now, though.

My musings were again interrupted by the front door, this time more welcome by far. Lucy was carrying a couple of heavy-looking grocery bags. Whitney had four bags in her left and two from the superstore in her right… and by her stance, those two outweighed the four by a solid margin. I grabbed Sarah to help organize what we got for her, I knew just enough to know I didn’t want to touch any of it.

Sarah, for her part, had a rapturous expression, like a child who got exactly what they asked for their birthday. What had looked like a plain wooden dowel held her particular attention, she was holding it like she was afraid it would disappear if she let go. “How did you ever find ROWAN wood in decent quality? I’ve actually been looking for this for a bit!”

Lucy smirked. I understood immediately how she had found it, and that the acquisition of it had probably involved some light flirting and nothing further. “Pay full price” was also likely not part of things, even though she publicly wore our wedding ring.

I helped Lucy get the groceries put away, Whitney lugged what appeared to be a tiny, portable work desk to one side of the couch and did the heavy part of setting it up. Enchanting in the living room was probably not ideal, but it was the only space we had if we wanted to be able to actually eat. 

Raw milk, protein bars, eggs, butter. What we were now stocking was ridiculously calorie-dense and protein-packed. Chicken and fish went into the fridge, a couple more spices hit the shelf. “This trip was pricier than anything we’ve done in a long time, but I figured a bit of a treat was in store after this week.”

I heard Whitney from the living room then. “You mean I can have it?” followed by a scramble to the gear closet.

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I stuck my head out. Sarah saw my inquisitive look. “The sword is enchanted for impact, it weighs fifteen pounds and carries momentum like it’s sixty. I can’t exactly use it, but she can, and I don’t want to risk disenchanting it unshielded. As long as I’m here, she might as well, right?” Whitney was hugging it like a teddy bear, so I wasn’t about to say otherwise.

“Alright. Lucy, I got a contact for a guild that wants you to do a delve with them. Whitney, given you have a real weapon now, you might want to tag along again. I will go as well, Guild Leader and all. Sarah, you have the choice to tag along or stay and…”

“Stay.”

“… finish your setup. Okay. Everyone get equipped.”

It didn’t take long. Say this about Sarah, she was organized beyond anything Lucy or I had managed. She had even labeled containers with sticky paper that I was 99% certain was not in the closet when she went in. I chose not to question that too closely. We improvised a sling for the giant sword, a proper one could be acquired shortly. I did add one piece to my normal gear, though. My gun. I was feeling a bit more nervous than usual for some reason. 

The ride there was uneventful, but the camp was buzzing. It didn’t take long to figure out exactly what. George Godfrey was the name on everyone’s lips. Some kind of rising star, finally back in armor after getting severely ill. Some guild’s main tank, apparently, and as we walked into the main hall for a meeting I rapidly figured out which.

Golden Age. The people we were here to see. An actual, literal Knight in shining freaking armor was waving at us from a table that was laden with a very hearty lunch fit for a dozen. He had one other person at the table, a rather slight man with thick glasses, carrying parchment. When he boomed out his greetings, he sounded like he belonged on a beach, holding a surfboard. “Guild Leader Kithkin! Just the man I wanted to see! And you brought the whole guild!”

Dude. Do you ever speak a sentence that doesn’t need an exclamation point at the end? I had been inside of a quieter lightning bolt less than a week ago. Thing is? He looked kind of familiar. Tall, blonde, and broad. His nose had obviously been broken at some point, and pale scars dotted his fair skin. Wait. No. It could not possibly be…

“Hold up, you’re the guy I helped at the hospital?”

“The same! Soon as I got back on my feet and saw you guys were contracting, I KNEW we needed to get your people in!” 

The scribe had been jotting notes of some kind, but looked at us. “Uh, George, you think that’s a good idea? I mean…”

“Of course it is! No mistaking it! Gotta ask, guys, classes and levels? Specs? I’m up front, so I gotta know how much punishment I’m taking!”

The scribe still looked nervous. I decided I’d break the ice. “Well, I’ll start, though I’m not likely to be down with you all. You can call me Jay, Level 8 Mirror with Scan and Cursebreaker. You rather appreciated that last bit.” This got a chuckle.

“Really? Is that what finally dealt with things?”

“Yeah. Wiped out my mana pool to do it, and hospital mana potions taste worse than their cafeteria food.” That, at least, caught some chuckles.

We went around the table as we enjoyed the good food. The Hall had never forgotten its roots as a Faire, and the meal leaned heavily on portable proteins, shaved ice, pickles, and roast corn. The scribe turned out to be named Allen, and he was the unfortunate combination of having a Warrior class without the stats to support it. Still, he’d gotten in good with this bunch. 

I heard the footstep from behind us. “These? These are who you think are going to help us next week?” I looked behind myself to find three humans, in light gear. Rogues? Duelists? Something of the sort. Anything was possible, but I didn’t see any primary strikers. 

George frowned. “Hey, the JV team needed some artillery, this Sorceress is up your alley and I’ll be down there to frontline as I get back into things.”

I saw what was up immediately. It was always the same thing. Only one thing for it. “Let’s shortcut the discussion. You think all she’s good for is sex, and don’t believe she could possibly be good at delving despite the fact that she’s been Guilded since the guild system became a thing. George, is the dueling circle still open around here?”

Lucy looked at me with a slightly panicked expression. My mouth was signing a check she’d have to cash. Before she could say anything, though, George practically boomed “of course it is! Gonna place a wager on this one?” I dropped five Golds onto the table. The trio behind me got very quiet, very quickly.

Looking at them again, I reached for their emotions. None of them were feeling particularly confident. Just racist scum. “Tell you what. Two of you can take on the two of my strikers. I’ll make the same bet for each. Sound good?”

It was too tempting for them to pass up. The match drew an audience, too. I’ll give their Skirmisher credit, he knew how to fight casters. Dove right in and tried to get in my wife’s face. His main problem was that she knew better than to mono-focus Fire, and that the camp was standing on a Ley Line. Before the word “fight”, my wife had been pulling power in from the surroundings. The might, determination, and violence of it had flowed around her like a whirlwind, illuminating her in a golden light.

Lucy could have legitimately ended him if she had decided to go for a kill, instead she deflected his attack with a suddenly-manifested plane of energy, then threw him telekinetically upwards far enough to give her time to plant a Fireball under his path of descent. He landed in an undignified, smoldering heap. 

The other match was a bit shorter. Whitney swung the new sword hard enough to launch their Specter entirely outside of the ring. His Intangibility class ability was apparently a bit weak to magic weapons. While he didn’t smolder, he did make a heap much like his friend.

The crowd cheered. It had been a bit, apparently, since they got some fights that weren’t over major grievances or limited to foam weaponry. Helped that both of them were objectively hot, one supernaturally so. They did not need to know that both of the ladies had given the few moments of their fights their all, not willing to risk embarrassment or the contract. All they needed was to see a couple of overinflated egos taken down a notch or three. Me? I was grinning like a Cheshire Catfolk. Especially when the traditional 5% share of bets placed went to the Guild of those being bet on.

“Sorry to give your healers extra work, but I felt the point needed to be made. And I needed the ten extra Golds. Hope it didn’t come from the Guild coffers, but I’m not apologizing if they did.”

“Worth it, bro! The JV team got a new Cleric who needs to grind a bit, anyway. I’ll make sure those three aren’t on Monday’s Noon run, they need a break after that!”

Noon on a Monday? Yeah, that tracks for a tertiary team trying to get experience. “Excellent. I know the camp standard loot share system, that works for me. Specifically including reagent shares. Minimum of one Gold per hour of their time, per person you’re contracting, and standard contracts?”

His scribe was suddenly busy writing this down. It was generous, as such things go. We weren’t making specific demands, just wanted a fair cut. Left a bit up to chance, and locked myself in low for the month. Didn’t matter to me, really, I needed them to get levels and ability progress. Any income was just to keep the lights on and the Enchanter happy. “Oh, one more thing. I am, at present, the only person who knows how to detect and rid the curse that laid you out. If you suspect someone has it, that’s going to be pricy… but not as bad as what happens if the curse is allowed to run its full course, and a REAL discount from what a medical specialist is going to demand.”

He nodded. “More than fair! I’ll let the Guild Leader know. Soon as Lucy signs, you’re good to go!”

“Sounds good. Nice seeing you again, better circumstances this time. You know how to catch me, can I get your number?” We exchanged a bit more info and got on our way. 

Whitney seemed unperturbed by the course of events. For her part, she had gotten a small snack from her one attack, but wasn’t complaining. Especially since the leatherworker had a back scabbard of sorts for her to use. Wasn’t a traditional one, that wouldn’t work for the shape of the weapon, more like snap rings she’d pull straight backwards with a bit of extra material to cover the edge. Certainly easier than just hauling the thing around.  Lucy was flushed heavily and still panting fifteen minutes after signing the contract.

“Lucy, you okay? Still breathing super hard, there.”

She looked at me with absolute excitement in her eyes as the bus pulled up. We were fully settled before she responded. “Felt… really good. The power flowing through me, getting to blast that kind of look off their face and out of their head… I’ve wanted to do that to so many people and couldn’t.”

I laughed, so did Whitney. So did two other Delvers heading back to the city. People used to blasting monsters into smithereens tended to have problems adjusting to situations where violence was not the answer. My wife was not one of them, but being able to throw a literal fireball at years of frustrations did her mood some real good. I knew we should be planning out the weekend, how to make sure she would be best prepared for what was coming, but really? It could wait. We could just enjoy the glow for now.

We managed to do so right up until we got home. Opening the door, I found utter chaos. Deep in concentration, Sarah was at her new enchanting desk, her Aura significantly diminished from when we had left this morning. Bits, bobs, bottles, reagents, rods, and even some Coins were scattered on it… and all around her. The couch, the cot, the coffee table, the entertainment stand, and at least half of the floor had components and assemblies in various states of completion on them.

Freaking how? We had been gone for less than four hours, it didn’t seem possible that one person had managed to do this much work at all, much less managed to scatter so many things in so many ways. The three of us stood at the doorway as I tried to get Sarah’s attention. It didn’t work, so I chose a moment when she set down her tools to speak up. “Hey! We’re back! Can you… clear a path?”

She finally looked up. Then looked around. Then at the clock. Then she blushed. “Uh… oops. Yeah, one second, the stuff by the door wasn’t gonna be used any time soon. One sec?” She extracted herself from where she was sitting, gingerly tiptoed around all of the Stuff. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, we managed to get about a third of what was laid out into various bags, carefully labeled with cryptic notes, and got them safely sorted and stored. This, of course, meant a lot of things were still laid out, but she assured us all of it consisted of components of each other. 

The kitchen itself had escaped the mess, so that was where we sat down. “Sarah, do you do this often?”

“Get into the groove? Yeah, once or twice a week if I have projects… and I always have projects. Especially now.” Her stomach rumbled. Hard. Lucy didn’t even wait, she reached into a cupboard, shoved a protein bar at Sarah’s face, and the moment she took it got some raw milk warming on the stove for cocoa.

“Live and learn. Hope you won’t take offense, but I don’t intend to let you get this deep into it again except in dire need.” She nodded, chewing on the bar like she couldn’t even taste it. “How many different projects do you have going right now?”

“Uhhh…” she thought hard for longer than it probably should have taken. “Depends on how you count things. If you mean end items? Four tools for the table, my wand, two defensive charms, and testing two pieces of theory. So nine?”

I felt a headache growing that had nothing at all to do with status menus or caffeine withdrawal. I knew I was not going to like the answer to the next question. “And if I were to ask you to count by checkpoints? Bits that would have given you experience at level one?”

It took her a LOT longer to answer this time. “I think… forty or so? The charms are simple, so are three of the tools, the fourth was more complicated, my new wand is not QUITE a masterwork, and the theory tests are never simple…”

“Let me guess. Every time you had to pause one thing, for any reason, you started making more things. Every time a tool or component is done, it cascades through a dozen of the doohickeys you had scattered around the living room?” She nodded earnestly. My headache intensified a bit, but I put the ten gold coins I had won that day on the table. “If you focus on the seven concrete projects, leaving the two theoreticals for last, and adding one of those batteries you told me about, do you think you can get them done by midnight?”

She looked at the clock again, though this time it was the one on the microwave. “Midnight’s a toughie. Not the wand, the pathing has to set for twelve hours and I’d prefer eighteen before I can lock it in, but I can get it to that point before then. The charms for me and Lucy will be done by then, all of the simple tools…”

“Alright!” I interrupted. “Finish the simple tools, get the wand where it needs to be, and the charms. Please stop there, you need to sleep and so does Whitney.”

Sarah blinked. She looked at the Berserker sitting at the table, as if only then realizing that the cot she had been using as organizational space was in use by someone as a cot. “Uh, I can get that much done by ten!”

“Including a thirty minute break to eat dinner with us?”

“Make that ten-thirty.”

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