Chapter 93: Chapter 93 – Julia: Transference

When I woke up, it was early, the sun barely breaching the horizon, and Nat was still asleep. I gently extricated myself from her arms and quietly got up.

As I pulled on my clothes I’d worn yesterday – the tank top and shorts I’d stored in my Inventory, not the chainmail bikini. And not the underwear because dirty underwear. Gross. – I looked fondly at Nat. The two of us were in an interesting place. We were definitely lovers, but I was pretty sure that neither of us wanted more out of the relationship than being good friends and satisfying sexual urges when needed.

I cared about her. She cared about me. We made each other cum as often as we wanted. Simple. It worked.

I did want something different, though, just not from her. The problem was that I didn’t know who that person might be, and, honestly, I had a bunch on my plate right now, namely beating cancer and saving the world. Incredibly, that was my life now.

My relationship goals for the immediate future should be, one, to continue being there for Nat because I think she was one of the best things in my life at the moment. Two, be open to a boyfriend if one suddenly appears but not go out of my way searching at the moment. And, three, start being a little more choosy about who I do what with. Playing with Nat was great, but I think that the casual attitude I’d had toward sleeping with people might have prevented anyone who wanted a serious relationship with me from approaching.

Of a more immediate concern to me were group dynamics. I was used to being one of the decision makers, someone other people listened to and actively turned to for suggestions. If there was a party to be thrown or a trip to the beach to be arranged, I was at the top of the list of people to bring in early in the planning stages.

With Hugh and friends, I was, basically, an afterthought. Worse, a charity case. Sure, Nat had stuck up for me, but it was clear that he didn’t value me all that much. The new big girl – no, dropping the euphemism, she was fat – was apparently more valuable than  me. She’d actually contributed to the conversation about distributing classes while I’d been relegated to asking, apparently from their reactions, stupid questions.

I hated to judge people on their appearance, but that girl would never have been invited to one of my friends’ parties. Yet this group valued her more than me? It kind of rankled. More than kind of.

Worse, I’d reacted poorly, and they’d seen it. I’d actually screwed up twice yesterday. First, by trying to insert myself into Hugh’s and Nat’s sex life, and, second, by snippily and gleefully telling the fat girl that she’d have to take her clothes off for Hugh.

Nat had given me the “what the fuck are you doing stare” for that one, though I wasn’t sure that Hugh had even noticed my tone. The fat girl sure had.

It was important that I prove myself to the team. To begin with, I’d accomplish the supply run. Logistics were very important for party planning. Run out of beer and chips, and you would soon find your house empty. I’d just have to make sure that my praises didn’t go unsung.

After that, though, I really needed to power up. Level 10 seemed to be the line that separated the women from the girls. Thus far, I’d added six attribute points and six skill points, three of which mattered for combat. Getting to Level 10 would give me a whopping nine points added to my stats and three points I could use to increase my combat abilities.

Plan firmly in place, I went down to my car to retrieve my suitcase and came back up to shower. Nat was stirring by the time I’d gotten dressed, and she and I coordinated apartment access by her describing the exact rock in the flowerbed downstairs that she’d leave her only key under.

Perfect.

She also tried to feed me breakfast, but all she had to eat in the apartment was cereal. I told her I’d grab something from the coffee shop or something.

As I was about to walk out the door, she stopped me.

“What?” I asked.

“Hugh texted. Just a second.”

I watched, more than a little bewildered, as she sat up, dragging the blanket with her. She hesitated before standing but left the cover on the bed. Still naked as the day she was born and clearly more than a little discomfited at the fact, she took a plastic cup out of one of her cabinets and placed a single ice cube in it.

“Put this in your Inventory,” she said, handing the cup to me.

“Why?”

“Hugh said that we need to know if the Inventory preserves food. Wait a couple of hours and take it back out. If the ice is still completely frozen, we can feel fairly comfortable putting perishables in. If not, we’re going to need to mainly stick with shelf stable items.”

Smart. I did have to admire Hugh for stuff like that. It would have never even crossed my mind.

Nat just kind of stood there looking at me, her arms draped across her stomach as if she wanted to use them to cover her tits and pussy but couldn’t for some reason. After the amount of time she and I had spent naked together lately, I wouldn’t have thought this would still bother her so much.

But it did. She was so adorable. Honestly, it made me want to stay and forget quests and shopping and her classes, but neither of us could afford to do that. I said my goodbyes reluctantly with a quick peck on the lips and a little groping of her ass.

First stop, Walmart. I had to admit that one stop shopping was convenient. Camping supplies was the easiest portion of my list since we’d discussed that pretty thoroughly last night, so I went directly to that section upon entering the store. It was basically only a single aisle, and I quickly found everything I needed.

I did make a couple of fairly big additions that we hadn’t considered. Tarps seemed to always be a handy thing. I vividly recalled being super thankful for guys having them in their trucks during a freak summer rain shower at the beach one time. Otherwise, we would have had to pack everything back in the car. Totally saved the party.

The other things were eight duffle bags and four backpacks. I didn’t fully understand how “stacking” in the Inventory worked, but I’d rather pull out a bag than a pile of crap onto a dungeon floor.

I also still didn’t fully understand what a dungeon was, either. The two pictures in my mind were either an area filled with chains and bondage equipment and other sex toys or an underground medieval prison with cells. I was pretty sure the reality – because dungeons were apparently real now – was not going to match either of those.

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I also swung by the Halloween section and grabbed a hockey mask and a short red wig that looked as much like natural hair as I could find. Just what I needed.

Anyway, food had been left a lot more open ended than the other gear. Basically, I was instructed to buy enough to last the four of us a week without rationing. Recalling that I had the ice cube in my Inventory and wanting to give it more time to make the test definitive, I started with the non-perishable items that I’d get regardless. Bread was a staple, and I grabbed four loaves. I also went ahead and got a couple of jars of peanut butter and some honey to go with it – my mom always served that instead of jelly and it didn’t require refrigeration. I loaded up on plenty of chips and cookies and snack food, too, of course.

After a little bit of consideration, I also picked up meal replacement shakes and some of those really dense calorie protein bars favored my some guys I knew who were really into weight lifting. If we were trapped in a dungeon for a while, those might save our lives.

After that, I honestly just went up and down aisles and threw anything that seemed interesting or useful in the cart.

For water, we’d decided to overestimate our need and get one gallon per person per day for a week, so twenty eight total gallons. The biggest containers I saw were two and a half gallons each, so I needed twelve of them plus a few two liters of soda for variety.

The only problem was that all that liquid was not going to fit in shopping cart already filled to the brim with sleeping bags and a tent and all that other crap. Which meant I had to take my cart all the way to the front, let a cashier know I’d be back with more stuff and to not let anyone try to restock it all, and grab a fresh cart.

After all that, I figured I’d delayed enough regarding checking the ice cup in my Inventory. I didn’t want to magically call it into my hand with security cameras all over the place – though it occurred to me that, if I was inclined to turn to a life of crime, having an Inventory was the biggest cheat ever for a shoplifter. I ended up going to a restroom stall to retrieve the cup. The ice was still completely frozen. Cool. I could add perishables.

That didn’t actually impact me that much because we’d decided not to buy anything that required cooking. After all, we didn’t know if we’d be able to use a fire in the dungeon whether due to some weird physics or something or just from fear of attracting mobsters. Or whatever. I was honestly expecting to be fighting guys with Tommy guns at this point.

Fruit was good, of course – a couple of bags of those apple slices that came with caramel dipping sauce, I loved that shit; oranges, grapes, and some strawberries. Also, I figured lunch meat was a good call, so I added a couple of pounds each of chicken, turkey, ham, and roast beef.

Overall, that wasn’t much meat per day per person for a week, but, again, we’d decided against anything raw. I sure as fuck wasn’t buying Spam, so that didn’t leave me with a ton of options.

As I was about to leave, I had a thought and returned to the produce section, picking up a half dozen cucumbers. Given the way things had been going lately, who know when and how those might come in handy.

Basically, it might not be the most nutritious or tasty meals ever, but I think I ended up with enough food to fulfill what Hugh and Nat had requested.

Checkout was a nightmare. Basically two packed shopping carts. At Walmart. Slow. As. Fuck.

I didn’t even pay attention to the final total. This one was enough that Daddy was going to freak when he saw it. Then again, gold was going for around $1800 an ounce, and I happened to have a system generated one ounce gold coin in my Inventory. Assuming as we all expected that it turned out to be real gold. I could pay Daddy back. Of course, he’d be so surprised that he’d probably fall over dead of a heart attack if I did that, so…

Now, how the fuck was I going to get all that to my car?

I spotted a chubby guy that reminded me a little bit of Hugh. Bingo. All it took was meeting his eyes and smiling, and I acquired a porter.

As he escorted me to my car, he tried hard to flirt, using original lines as, “What’s your major?”

In my defense, I didn’t laugh at him.

After I opened the trunk, I said, “Some of this stuff is really heavy. Would you mind loading it in my car? Whatever doesn’t fit in the trunk can go in the backseat.”

He eagerly agreed.

Too easy.

I’d done stuff like this hundreds of times before. Need help with lifting something, carrying something, whatever? Find a guy, smile flirtatiously, and ask nicely. Ninety plus percent of the time, I’d get myself a helper. That success rate was, of course, highly dependent on my targeting ability, but I’d gotten pretty good at that over the years.

I had never once felt guilty about asking a guy to do stuff like this for me.

Until now.

This guy really did remind me of Hugh, and, while in the past I wouldn’t have looked at Nat’s boyfriend twice, things were different now. If I didn’t pay him and Nat back for saving my life, I’d feel absolutely awful about myself.

Somehow, in my mind, I started to equate blowing this guy off after he so generously spent the effort to load all this crap in my car as treating Hugh the same way. Ugh.

This super lucky random guy was about to be the beneficiary of that transference.

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