Chapter 25: Normal Damn Title For Once, Part One (Part Two on Monday)

I awoke to the feeling of someone repeatedly poking me in the side, and voices overlapping as well. Something about cuteness.

Blinking my eyes in an ineffectual effort to get the crud out of them — I was a robot, I didn't get crud in my eyes when I woke up — I rolled over and looked at the two... er, three people in our inn's room. "Wuh?"

Nora was leaning on the wall, next to the door, and it seemed like she was just leaving. Flurry and Wendy, however, were standing just beside the bed I was sleeping in and whispering madly about... hm, maybe I don't eavesdrop this time. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" Flurry said, quickly. "Me n' Wendy were just talking about plans for, uh, where we were going. Which you haven't told us yet, so we were waiting for you to get up so we could pinpoint a real location on the map." Wendy snickered and punched Flurry in the shoulder, whispering something I didn't want to make out. "—shut up!) Anyways, you're awake now, so... tell us?"

"Right. Yeah, one second." I stretched out a bit, then got up and grabbed some maps from my inventory. "Okay, so we're in Meixin right now. Specifically, we're in... Flurry, is it really named Farlin?"

Wendy gave me an incredulous look, even as Flurry waved her hand. "Yeah, yeah. Where are we headed?" 

I shrugged. "Farlin Citadel" was certainly not my choice of city names, but it was where we were. "We're going to head east, since that's the closest point where this map cuts off. If my knowledge of geography is correct, that means we'll be going past the mountains and likely stopping by in Lancity... City. After that, we just keep heading east and stopping by each town on the way. See?" I pointed out the likely route we were gonna take, to which both of my new party members nodded.

"A lot of the city names are kind of shitty because of the dev team, probably," Wendy said. I looked at her strangely — isn't that weird for Flurry to hear? She seemed to misread my expression as confusion, though, and continued after just a moment. "They were kinda blanking on stuff, as far as I heard. Then someone suggested a dumb name, and it just kept going. Some kinda funniness thing?"

Made sense, I guessed. But still, what about Flurry? I looked over at her, and she seemed to be nodding along. Normally. Like, no disconnect or anything. And she jumped in as well, saying "Yeah, that makes sense. I've been in the same spot before with a particularly funky idea, I usually just choose a funny idea and run with it. The Bow Thrower Version Four back home is a prime example — god, Wendy, you'd fuckin love that. It pissed Nora off so much when I made it."

The conversation between the two rapidly devolved into excited scheming. Dear lord, what have I unleashed upon the world?

Oh well. I yawned a little, inventorying my maps again before peeking my head out of the room to go look for Nora. She was simply leaning on the wall a few meters away, eyes and hands flickering back and forth in the air in front of her. God. For a second, it felt as if I was watching one of the scientists back home using their HUD. But no, I reminded myself, this was just her interface with this world.

As I made my way over, Nora noticed my approach and a tired, somewhat-irritated look grew on her face. "Morning?"

"Morning," she said, flatly. Hm. Did I do something wrong?

Well... not that I knew, at least. "Do you want me to go over the plan with you? Flurry told me I forgot to tell you all about it."

You are reading story FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark at novel35.com

"Nah. I'll just figure it out as we go."

"Okay. Uh..." Shit, what do I say now? "...I'm sorry about yesterday. For worrying you, I mean."

"Huh?" she asked, clearly confused. "Shouldn't I be the one apologizing to you? I fucked up a lot, I shouldn't have yelled. And I guess you do have your reasons, it's not like... wuh?"

"Oh, um. I don't know, then. You have no need to apologize, from my point of view."

"Shit, well. Guess we're at an impasse," she snarked. "I, er. Accept your apology also. Would you like a hug?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. "???", I said, before shaking my head. It was out of character for her, but I figured that just meant she was asking me for her own reasons. "Sure. Yeah, that would be nice."

Nora immediately swept me up in a hug, her cloak and layered clothes already warm, clean, and cozy. She was shorter than me — and a human too, I was pretty sure — and yet she still managed to lift me just a bit off the ground with just the force of her grasp. If I was anything but a robot, this'd probably be decently uncomfortable. As it was, it was actually perfectly tight enough for me? Weird. I hugged her back, though not as tightly for safety reasons.

"My god, you two are fucking saccharine," Wendy's voice called from behind me, leaving me yelping and accidentally falling over with Nora on top of me. "Heheheh. We're gonna head out. Glad you two made up? Anyways, it's like half past noon. Time's a wasting!"

Nora groaned, but she was thoroughly cushioned by the soft parts of my body. I didn't really get it. "Yeah, we'll be right out. Meet us by the eastern gate?"

Wendy nodded, giving me a grin and a mock-salute before skipping off with Flurry in tow. "Nora, should I pick you up?"

A sharp "Buh?" came from her face snuggled tightly into my collarbone, which was probably assent, so I picked her up and set her down before walking towards the stairs of the inn and subsequently exit.

We made it to the sun in good time, and the walk to the friends waiting for us on the east side of the wall was quick as well. Nora didn't talk much, though.

I really couldn't figure out why.