Chapter 15: 1.15 Tutorial, End

[Alabaster Gloves of Focus]: Uncommon. Aids the neophyte spellcaster in quicker, more coherent casting of spells.

“Finally,” Rosalie said. “Functional equipment. And something perfectly suited for you.”

Zoey frowned down at the tiny gloves in her hands. “They won’t fit.” Maybe Zoey’s old body could have crammed the small piece of clothing on, but Zoey’d grown by a non-insignificant amount; she was much taller than the average girl, now, and her hands were of course proportionally similar.

(The extra length on her fingers was quite appreciated. As Rosalie had found out.)

“Nonsense,” Rosalie said. “Unbound equipment resizes itself to the wearer. Go ahead. I doubt we’ll be selling them. Better to use what the shard gives—cheaper.”

Zoey wiggled her fingers into the soft fabric, believing Rosalie’s words but still slightly doubtful. Incredibly, as Zoey’s hand stuffed inside, the cloth expanded, wrapping around in a perfect fit. The other behaved similarly as she tugged it on.

[Alabaster Gloves of Focus]: Uncommon. Bound. Aids the neophyte spellcaster in quicker, more coherent casting of spells.

“What does ‘bound’ mean? Or, uh, entail?”

“That it belongs to you,” Rosalie said. “That it can’t be inspected without your permission, nor can others wear it and gain its benefit. Thus, that it’s virtually worthless to sell.”

“Is there a way to unbind?”

“Yes, but for a first advancement piece of equipment, doing so would be ludicrous.”

“It’s expensive?”

“Exceptionally.”

“Huh.” Zoey had a lot to learn about how the adventuring world worked. She turned her hands back and forth, admiring the bright white fabric and intricate designs. “Doesn’t really fit with my other clothes.”

Rosalie shrugged. “Congratulations. That marks you as a Wayfarer.”

“Hodgepodge aesthetics?”

“A coherent outfit usually means one sacrificed practicality for ‘looking good’.” Rosalie’s lip pulled back in disdain as she sneered the words. “With some exceptions, of course, but an unfortunate amount of Wayfarers are concerned with appearances over wearing the most effective pieces for a given situation.”

“Exceptions being?”

“Large enough shards—or repeated visits to them—can produce a full set of equipment that looks as if they were designed to be worn together. It’s more common at higher advancements than lower.”

“Huh.”

“Keep it moving, will you?”

Zoey had stopped her diligent extraction of loot to talk with Rosalie. The blonde girl clearly wanted to get things over with. Her desire to be out of this shard was genuine; she was visibly impatient. 

[Quartz-Encrusted Tiara]: An adornment lined with thick gemstones of quartz.

“It doesn’t say what it does,” Zoey said, brow furrowing. “Not even that it has ‘unidentified effect sigils’.” It was normal for the Inspect ability to not give a detailed accounting of what items did, but usually there was at least an allusion.

“Could mean it does nothing,” Rosalie said, “but more likely, we’ll need to take it to an artificer to have it identified. Some items are more explicit about what they do than others. Loot descriptions follow no particular pattern. Set it aside.”

Zoey did so, then moved on.

[Shaft Ring of Binding]: Rare. For when crescendos need to be delayed, or prevented. Can only be deactivated by the activator.

A cock ring.

Like usual, the perverted nature of the item brought a quirk to Zoey’s lips. The whole situation was a bit funny, however much Rosalie protested. Because magical sex items as a reward for fucking a slime-girl into gooey submission? Well, strangeness was often a catalyst for humor, and here, for Zoey, it definitely was.

“That one’s mine,” Rosalie said, making Zoey start blinking.

“What?”

She held a hand out impatiently. “You took the tongue stud. This one’s mine.”

“Why?”

“Because you make a mess, and should I want to not deal with that, this item means I get to choose when.”

“That, uh.” Zoey foresaw some tortuous moments in the future, if Rosalie had absolute control over when she got to come. “That’s, okay, just, don’t be mean?” She handed it over.

“Mmm,” Rosalie said, turning the item over in inspection, then vanishing it. “We’ll see.”

The ominous statement only mildly made up for the fact that Rosalie’s claiming of the item implied they’d be seeing more intimate encounters in the future. Zoey wondered if Rosalie realized she’d implied that—Zoey would have figured her more embarrassed about doing so.

Or, by the growing pink on her cheeks, maybe she just had.

Zoey laughed, Rosalie scowled at her, and Zoey continued on.

The next item:

[Blossom Blight]: Red flower petals which serve as the primary catalyst for brewing potions that inhibit or amplify the potency of life-giving seed.

Zoey blinked down at the pouch of alchemy reagents. “Wow,” she said. “Like, makes you knock someone up?”

“What?” Rosalie stuttered. “What does it say?”

Right—Rosalie couldn’t see the description of the item in the same way Zoey could, since Zoey had a rune of alchemy and a skill that helped in the identification of reagents. She relayed the description to Rosalie, who shook her head in disgust—something she’d done a lot, in the past ten minutes.

“Or inhibits,” Zoey said. “That’s actually kind of useful. Means it’ll stop me from getting a girl pregnant. If that’s, uh, something I can do in the first place.”

“You don’t know?”

They hadn’t talked about Zoey’s addition between her legs, not in any depth. The only time Rosalie had brought it up was that off-hand comment during the aphrodisiac debacle. “I don’t, yeah. Honestly, I could see it going either way.”

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Rosalie hesitated, as if she wanted to ask more, but apparently thought the topic too personal to pursue. Zoey wouldn’t have minded talking about it, but she didn’t know what answers to give. She was still keeping secrets from Rosalie—the nature of her transmigration, and how her memories weren’t quite as vanished as she implied. Just … foggied, removed from personal context. She remembered most of her life—it had trickled back bit by bit—but the names of her friends and family, their faces, and even her feelings of fondness for them had been scrubbed away. It was eerie to think about. One of the reasons she was avoiding doing so.

“Well,” Rosalie said. “Useful would be right, in that case. The last thing a Wayfarer needs is accidental motherhood. There’s few ways to meteor a promising career with such speed.”

Zoey bit her lip. That was true enough, not that there was anything wrong with wanting a kid early in life. Definitely threw a wrench in plans, though, if not specifically planned for.

She’d have to be more careful with herself. Again, not all fun and games.

Could slime-girls get knocked up?

Huh.

Probably best not to think about that. She’d choose to believe ‘no’.

Condoms, and potions made from this ‘blossom blight’, as soon as possible. Better safe than sorry, heading forward.

“How’s potion-making work, anyway?”

“And I would know, why?”

Zoey blinked. “I don’t know. You know everything.”

Rosalie huffed. “Hardly. The arcane crafts are complex, and take a lifetime to master. They’re not something I have more than a peripheral understanding of.”

Complex? “Was kinda hoping you just threw stuff in a cauldron and stirred.”

Rosalie gave her an unimpressed look. “To think you were bestowed a crafting rune. It’s almost offensive.”

“You weren’t?”

“Of course I wasn’t.”

“It’s rare?”

“To receive both three combat runes and a rune of arcane crafting? Rare is a comical understatement. Not to mention your primary—Bonding—being a mythic-tier rune. And Sensuality, a superior.” She shook her head in disbelief. “If you had recounted it to me instead of shown me, I’d have laughed at the absurdity of the lie. It wouldn’t even have been within the bounds of believability.”

Zoey took that in. She was a bit confused at the announcement. “But you didn’t seem that surprised when you first read my anima.”

“Didn’t I? What was I supposed to do? Clasp my hand to my mouth and faint? My jaw drop, and start stuttering over my words?”

No, that didn’t sound like Rosalie. Fair enough. The widened-eyes and intake of air had probably been all the indicator Zoey had needed to know her circumstances were incredible. Just, she hadn’t gotten a grasp on who Rosalie was, yet. “Huh.” She corralled her thoughts back to the original question. “So, alchemy’s difficult? It’ll take study?”

“You’ll need to apprentice under someone. If you choose to pursue advancing the rune, it’ll be a challenge balancing your obligations. You’ll need to decide where your priorities lie.”

“With you,” Zoey said. “So I guess wayfaring. My other runes.”

Rosalie stared, then glanced away, cheeks coloring. Zoey realized she’d been frank to the point of being revealing. “Give it some thought. You have options available. Few are so fortunate to be in your position, and it deserves consideration.”

Zoey didn’t have to give it thought, but for both their sakes’, she said, “Okay. I will.” A brief pause. “I’ll be able to do some stuff, though, right? With alchemy?”

“I’m sure that depends on your aptitude, the quality of your mentor, and the usefulness of the skills the rune affords you as you advance. No two paths—even for the same rune—are the same.”

“I see.” She pursed her lips. “Could I like, commission someone to make potions with this, then?” She held up the bag of blossom blight, because that had been what prompted this whole train of thought.

“I don’t see why not. But alchemists can be expensive.”

“But it’d be in the budget?”

“Likely,” Rosalie said. She narrowed her eyes. “Depends on the yield of this shard’s loot. But perhaps not high on the priority list, when you could simply control yourself. Or are condoms—or, the gods forbid, abstinence—an option wholly impossible for you?”

Zoey coughed. “Right. Uh … yeah. Not high on the list, got it.”

Rosalie shook her head in exasperation. She gestured at the chest for Zoey to move things along.

Her hand scrambled at the bottom of the wood, but found nothing.

“It’s empty, I think?”

Rosalie nodded. “Perfect. We can leave.”

They’d emptied out the other chest, already. It had been mostly practical equipment—a scattering of mundane items of the sort useful in day-to-day wayfaring, or if not that, unidentified equipment to be sold or inspected back at a city.

“I’m guessing that’s the exit?” Zoey asked, gesturing at the black void embedded on the wall opposite from the chests. When she’d first fallen into the hidden cavern, she’d noted that there were two things of interest. The first, the chests, and the second, the black portal. “Mel said the exit was past the clearing. Are there multiple?”

“Depends on the shard. But yes. And in this one, clearly so.” She was already striding toward the portal, not a person who preferred to waste time. She stopped just at the edge. Zoey arrived at her side.

“Guess the tutorial’s finally over,” Zoey said.

Rosalie gave her an odd look.

“Never mind,” Zoey laughed. “You ready?”

“Of course I am.”

Zoey slipped her hand into Rosalie’s. Rosalie glanced down at it and frowned. But she didn’t pull away.

“Here we go, then,” Zoey said.

They stepped forward.

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