"Deirdre," D said. She awkwardly waved at the trio. "She is Moonwhisper," she said, pointing at the wolf.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you both," Colin said awkwardly. "I'm sorry my rescue didn't turn out as pnned."

  "No, thank you. I was overconfident, you saved me." Deirdre blushed, gncing at Colin shyly. "You all saved me. The orcs have been getting worse, but I thought I could handle them alone. These mountains are my home and I wanted them gone." She gnced at her feet. "Thank you."

  The trio stared, totally stunned, this being more words than Deirdre had said all at once. "You have a lovely voice," Colin said. "It's a shame you don't talk more. So the Wind River Range is your home? Were you always here, before the world ended? It's a beautiful area." Bridgette spped her forehead with the palm of her hand, rolling her eyes and making gagging noises.

  Colin and Deirdre both gred at Bridgette, who raised her hands in mock apology, pulling Alice in front of her and pretending to hide behind the short healer. Alice sighed, amused by the bypy, stepping in to py the role of the adult in the room. She cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.

  "So yea, Alice, Bridgette, and Colin," she said, pointing at each in turn. "B's stupid introductions aside, we've been adventuring together for the st year, fighting monsters and trying to get stronger. I don't know if we're the best around, but we're going to do everything we can to try to prevent the end of the world. I'm sure you saw the same quest we did. It's a shitty pce at times, but it's better than nothing, and I happen to like some of the people in it quite a lot. I understand now that this is your home, we didn't mean to intrude, and we're sorry. If you want our help dealing with the orcs, we would be happy to assist, but if not that's fine. We had originally pnned on spending about another week here fighting monsters before we left and returned to the small town we created on my farm back in Iowa. Just let us know how we can help, if you want our help, and we'll do everything we can."

  Deirdre nodded at Alice, crossing her arms under her breasts and chewing on her lower lip in thought. Time stretched, Colin fidgeting awkwardly, gncing at the woman, while Alice and Bridgette just waited for a response. Deirdre gnced at Moonwhisper, then at each of the three friends, her gaze lingering the longest on Colin. She sighed in frustration.

  "Please help me kill the orc tribe," she said, gring at the floor, each word feeling like it cost her a fortune. "I can't do it alone," she sighed, defeated.

  "Of course!" Colin said, jumping forward. "We'd be happy to!"

  "After he checks with his adventuring companions to confirm they're okay with it," Bridgette said sarcastically. Alice elbowed her in the ribs, drawing a wince from the barbarian. "I mean, yes. We'd love to help. How do we get started?"

  The four sat down, Alice quickly pulling out an entire home-cooked meal from her storage ring, courtesy of Becky's relentless cooking the month before. Mouth-watering fvors assaulted their noses in the small cave, causing even Moonwhisper to raise her head and gnce toward Alice. Alice threw a steak to the wolf, which happily snapped it out of the air, then id out a spread of potato sad, corn, and burgers that the four dug into, famished.

  "So uh, how long were we out anyway?" Bridgette asked, coming up for air. "I remember carrying Colin up a mountain, and then I woke up in the cave. Everything else was a blur."

  Alice recounted the tale of their harrowing escape from the wolves, their multi-hour flight through the mountains, and Moonwhisper finding the cave and leading them to safety. She included her prayer to Fi, as well as the fact that she remembered at least one day cycle before they finally all woke up. Colin confirmed, having the bright idea of checking the quest timer for Earth Dies, that it had been about thirty hours since they had assaulted the orc camp.

  "We all slept for a day and a half? Holy shit," Bridgette said. "How tired were we?"

  "The crazy thing is," Colin expined, "it didn't even count as a valid rest for spell recovery. We were just too fucking tired."

  Alice nodded her agreement, "I've still got basically no healing spells left. We need to spend a day resting and preparing before we get into any more fights. And, uh." Alice gnced awkwardly at Colin and Deirdre. "B and I will need some privacy in order to maximize my healing output." She blushed furiously, never having had to expin this to a stranger.

  Deirdre looked confused, gncing between the three. "Okay. Why?"

  Colin cleared his throat, trying to expin. "So uh, Alice has a special css - she was blessed by Aphrodite, you know the goddess of lust, love, and so on. It gave her some neat perks, like being able to cast more healing spells and those healing spells repair more damage, but has some unusual conditions in order for her to get those benefits."

  "I have to fuck her at least once a day," Bridgette said, bluntly. "The harder, the better."

  "B!" Alice screamed. "What the fuck, a little modesty maybe." She buried her face into her hands. Sighing, she lifted her gaze to look at Deirdre, who was ughing in disbelief. "Yea, although it's not just with her," she said, pinching Bridgette painfully on the ear. "I have to perform lusty acts daily to get my healing bonus. So watch out, B. You better be nice to me, or I'll find someone better."

  Deirdre blinked, surprised by the admission. She then stood up, scooted further away from Alice around their small lunch spread, sitting next to Colin, their legs pressed together, gncing between the two women in mild panic, raising her hands to ward away evil. Colin choked on his hamburger, surprised by the sudden contact.

  "Anyway," Bridgette said, changing the subject. "We can spend the day here, resting and making sure all of you spell dweebs get what you need. Then we can set back out, finding that same observation post we had the other night. Deirdre, is that the only orc camp you know of, or are there more?"

  "There were two smaller camps, but I killed them all. This is the main one."

  Nodding, Bridgette continued, "Okay, so I think first step is going to be to find our way back there and observe. Ideally, we do not rush into an entire fucking orc camp and take them all on at once." She gred at Colin and Deirdre, both blushing. "That's a stupid fucking tactical decision and could easily have gotten people killed. We're all lucky to be alive right now. We can figure out the rest ter."

  Sighing, Bridgette leaned back, patting her stomach. "That was a good burger. I'll have to thank Becks when we're home. Got any good desserts in there? I'd kill for some chocote cake."

  Alice stuck her tongue out, "Only if I don't have to carry your thicc ass again. The nude buddy carry was not on my bingo card for this trip."

  Suddenly, Bridgette's expression turned to panic. "Oh shit, my clothes! They normally appear where I do my transformation, after the fight is over. I don't have my armor anymore - it must be in the middle of the orc camp!"

  Colin snorted in ughter. "Can you imagine? The orc chief comes back into his camp, finds his minions butchered, and your fucking itty bitty micro bikini ying in a pile on the ground?" Alice roared in ughter, tears streaming down her face, at the image conjured by that.