Blood Shaper

Chapter Forty-three

Alice’s party said goodbye to the two of them one last time close to the city gates. There was not much traffic right then, so they weren’t blocking anyone while they talked.

“Be safe, you guys,” Alice said as she hugged Eleniah. Eleniah awkwardly patted the younger woman on the back.

“We’ll do our best,” Kay replied as he shook Verndan’s hand.

Eleniah snorted. “Don’t worry, I’ll be training him, so he gets ambushed less.”

They all laughed as Kay looked away.

“It does seem to be a recurring problem,” Verndan noted.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Eduard grabbed Kay’s shoulder.

“What’s up?” Kay asked, “You’ve been quiet today.”

Eduard gestured at his throat. “Hurts to talk.” He wheezed quietly, “Lots of screaming.”

“There were a lot of spiders on the last job. It was supposed to be just a group of monster wolves harassing travelers, but their den was really close to a monster spider nest.” Alice glanced at Eduard. “He hates spiders.”

Eduard nodded emphatically while he shivered. “Hate spiders.” He mouthed. He gestured at Korz.

“What?”

“Talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Thing. Ambushes and…”

“Oh right.” Korz shuffled closer to Kay. “So, Kay…”

“Yes?”

“We’ve been talking, right? While you were gone for those two days, and then she,” He gestured at Eleniah, “Attacked the Nelamian place, and then you guys got stuck in the house, we talked about you.”

“Alright…”

Korz glanced around, then hurriedly rushed out the thought. “You need to get better at keeping secrets.”

Kay frowned at him. “What?”

Korz stepped back and rubbed at his head. “You’re not really that good at not letting things slip, and since you’re leaving the city and we won’t be around to help out with that, we thought that maybe we should tell you that. And tell you to pay attention to it.”

“Like when we first met?” Alice jumped in, “You really shouldn’t have told me about the dragon on your necklace. That’s not the kind of thing you tell literal strangers who walk up to you.”

“But you asked me who I was talking to.”

“Right,” Alice drew out the word, “But, you should have lied. Or played it off. Or ignored the question. Telling people important things just because they ask about them is… bad. It’s bad, and you shouldn’t do it.”

“Also, it was pretty easy to figure out…” Verndan leaned into Kay’s shoulder and whispered, “About your Class Creator title.” He stepped back, “There were some easy clues you left out, so it wasn’t hard to piece together.”

“So basically, be better at keeping secrets. Obviously, we’ve never told anyone, but you might accidentally tell someone who isn’t trustworthy, and then you’re fucked.” Korz concluded.

The four of them glanced over at Eleniah.

She shrugged. “I’ve never actually had to keep the details about a class I’m using secret like that. I didn’t have any good advice for him.” She gave him some stink-eye. “I didn’t know about him telling you about the other thing literally the moment he met you.” She reached over and smacked him in the head. “Idiot.”

“Ow!”

“You deserve it.” She turned back to Alice and co. “I’ll work with him on that too.”

“Good.” Verndan held his hand out again, and they all traded another round of handshakes, back pats, and hugs in Alice’s case. “Good luck with whatever you end up doing,” Verndan continued, “And if you make it back to Tumbling Rapids anytime soon, make sure to say hi.”

“We will.” Eleniah agreed.

“Crap,” Kay muttered as he frowned.

“What?”

“Do you guys know the Oaken Five?”

“I mean, we know of them. We’d recognize them if they walked by, but we’ve never really talked to them.” Korz answered.

“They were the ones to escort me to the city when I arrived, and I was supposed to look them up once I was set up, but they left on some long-term job a few days after I got here. If they come back this way, would you mind telling them what happened and tell them I’m still grateful?”

Alice shrugged. “Sure. They should come back; this is their home city, I think.”

“Thanks.”

They all said goodbye a few more times, then Eleniah grabbed Kay’s arm and pulled him towards the gates.

Kay turned back and waved one more time before following along.

“Don’t worry,” Eleniah said. “You’ve got hundreds of years left in your life right this instant, and I’m going to make sure you add more. You’ll see them again.”

“I know I will.” Kay hurried up for a few steps to pull even to her. “But I didn’t get to say goodbye to my friends from back home, so I wanted to make sure I got to this time.”

Eleniah nodded at the guards as they passed through the gate. “The friends who helped you after your family passed?”

“Right. Last thing I remember before I woke up here was spending time with them in my apartment.”

She suddenly stopped in place. “Wait. Could they have ended up here too? Because we can say ‘fuck it’ to going north if we need to go find them.”

Kay looked down the few inches between their faces and smiled widely. “No, they probably aren’t on Torotia. I talked to Douglas-”

“Douglas?”

“The gnome from the BOA?”

“Oh right.”

“So Douglas sent out some messages, and as far as anyone in the BOA can tell, I’m the only Outworlder that’s shown up in months and months, and apparently, if we all got sucked out of my apartment together, we most likely would have landed together, or at least close to each other in both location and time.” Kay smiled at Eleniah again. “But it’s really nice of you to be willing to drop all the plans we made on a dime like that.”

She glared at him for a second, “What kind of friend do you think I am?” She turned and walked off.

“Just because it’s not out of character doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it!” Kay called after her as he hurried to catch up.

She snorted. “So they’re probably back at home?”

“That’s what Douglas said. Apparently, there’s a tiny chance that we all got sent to different worlds at the same time, but he said that’s really unlikely.”

“Why is your last memory of being with them then?”

“Minor memory loss is common when being thrown into another world according to the BOA.”

“Oh. Not surprising, I guess.” She was quiet for a moment while they walked. Then, “What’s a dime?”

“A kind of coin from my country.”

“Why would you drop things on coins?”

“What?” Kay furrowed his brow as he looked over at her. “Oh! The phrase. It means to stop something quickly. Or when I said it just now, I meant letting go of our plans quickly.”

“What does that have to do with money?”

“It comes from vehicles, I think.”

“What?”

“Dimes are the smallest coin that my home country makes, so a vehicle that could stop fast enough that its wheels were on the dime was a vehicle that could stop very quickly. Then it became an expression for stopping quickly in general.”

“Alright…” She was quiet for another moment. “What does it mean when you said I was ‘hotter than an active volcano’ that one time?”

Kay almost tripped over his own feet. He fought a blush as he looked over at her. “You heard me say that? I was talking to myself.”

“Yeah, I’m a tier five. If you talk out loud close enough to me, I’m going to hear it. What did you mean? It was a little chilly, and I put on a sweater. Why would I be hot then? I mean, I was warmer than I was before I put on the sweater, but I wasn’t warm enough to be compared to a volcano.”

“Um, uh. Well…”

“You’re blushing.” She looked over at him with a glare. “Were you being rude?”

“No!” He made a slightly guilty expression. “Or well, I don’t think it was rude, but some people might think that.”

“What did you mean then?”

“It’s, um, well…” He could feel his face warming up more as he blushed harder.

“Okay, now I’m going to make you tell me.” She insisted as she stepped closer.

“Alright!” He held up his hands in surrender. “I don’t know where the temperature thing came into it but it means you’re attractive.”

“Oh, is that it? Thanks.”

Kay glanced over at her and saw that that was her honest reaction. “Uh, yeah. No problem.”

She laughed. “Kay, I’m older than I look. There’s nothing wrong with thinking someone looks good, and there’s nothing wrong with people thinking you look good. I’m guessing you had some interactions that didn’t go that way?”

“Yeah, a couple of times.” He breathed out a laugh. “I was friends with these girls and if I ever said anything to them about them looking good or finding them hot or anything similar they’d get all weird about it.”

“They were probably not that confident in their friendship with you, or something else similar. Don’t worry about what other people think in times like that.” She gave him a serious look. “But don’t go around making people uncomfortable either that’s rude.”

“I get you.”

They walked on.

“So you have a thing for sweaters, huh?” Eleniah randomly teased.

Kay spluttered and coughed. “I, wait, what?”

Eleniah laughed uproariously, “You thought I was going to forget!”

“I thought you weren’t going to make fun of me!”

“I’m not making fun of you, its just some lighthearted teasing. About your thing for sweaters.”

Kay glared at her, then sighed in defeat. “Alright, fine, I think women in sweaters are hot. Happy now?”

”I’m ecstatic. Tell me more.”

Kay growled at her in frustration as they kept walking.