The Friendship Circle of Very Nice Girls — Part V
The Friendship Circle of Very Nice Girls — Part V Eve nodded, face set and very serious. “Alright,” she said.They had all gathered in the Champion of Evil’s not-so-very-evil dining room, which was by dint of convenience, only a room or two away from the kitchens.“These are the rules,” Eve said. The two champions are charged with baking six things each! Ilea has volunteered to act as the oven, though that is the only assistance she will provide. Each of you is charged with cooking the following!”Across from Eve, on a pair of cheap fold-out chairs, were the two champions. Maximilian, who was making the chair look good, and Larry, who sat on his hands.Eve gestured to Ariane who sighed and pulled up a set of cue-cards, each one with a scribble or ornately written item upon it. “Chocolate cake,” she began. The girls nodded. A sensible option. Arianne set the card down. “Blood cake.”That, of course, sparked off the debate. “That’s not a kind of cake I’m familiar with,” Eve muttered.“I’m not too sure I like the idea of that one,” Broccoli added. “I’m more of a vegetarian.”“I’ll try it,” Ikea added.Ariane cleared her throat and glared at the others as she very pointedly set the card down. “Carrot Cake,” she said as she read the next card.“Bet that’s from the bunny girl,” Eve said.“It’s ‘bun’ actually,” Broccoli replied.“A... mango,” Arianne said. She looked up, eyes locking onto Elaine who blinked back. “A mango is not a cake.”“It could be, if you try hard enough,” Elaine said.“I’d try mango cake,” Broccoli said.“It doesn’t say mango cake though, does it. Just ‘a mango,’” Ilea said. She said it very smugly indeed.Elaine nodded. “That’s what I wrote.”Ariane slapped the card down. “Mango cake.”“Spoilsport,” Elaine muttered. In truth she didn’t seem all that upset.The vampire flipped up the next card and tilted her head to the side. “Poison cake?”“That sounds great,” Ilea said.“Are you trying to poison people, Miss Ilea?” Broccoli asked. “I was poisoned once. It was awful.”The ashen warrior shrugged. “I’ll have your slice then.”Arianne shook her head and tossed the card down. “I don’t even care anymore. Last but not least... bread.”“Any kind,” Eve added. “Even something bread-adjacent. A loaf. I’ll take anything, really.”With an elegant sweep, Arianne picked up the cards, tapped them edge-first on the table, then gestured to the two champions. “Well? What are you waiting for? Get to it.”The boys paused, stared at each other, then bolted for the kitchens.“I really do want to think the best of people,” Broccoli said. “But is there anything we can do to make sure they don’t cheat?”“I’m watching them,” Ilea said. “Don’t worry your pretty litt-big ears.”“So, what do we do while they’re making my bread? Ah, I mean, the cakes. The baking,” Eve said.“We could clean this place up,” Broccoli suggested. “It’s a bit messy, and it would be a nice gesture to do since they are cooking for us.”“No,” Ariane said.Broccoli clapped. “So, if not cleaning, then something else! What do you do when you have a few hours to waste, Miss Illea? Group activities, I mean.”“I’ve really enjoyed lava baths lately,” Ilea said.Broccoli blinked, her ears twitched and she turned to Ariane. “So, if not cleaning, then something else! What do you do when you have a few hours to waste, Miss Ariane? Group activities, I mean.”Ariane nodded. “I enjoy a spot of hunting, but I don’t suppose that’s entirely applicable here. I paint,” she said. “It’s an older hobby of mine. Very calming.”“Oh, painting is so nice,” Candle said. “It’s very soothing.”“I suppose I could create a group portrait,” Ariane said. “I would need canvas and paints, of course, as well as...”Ilea gestured, and a whole host of painting supplies landed on the table. Brushes and little squeeze-bottles of oil and a couple of pallets. “Oh, and this,” Ilea said as a canvas appeared and was immediately grabbed-on the edges-by some ashy tentacles.“That would work, yes,” Ariane said.Setting things up took a moment, but soon all the girls-Ariane obviously excluded-were bunched together on a few seats, some standing, others hunched at the back to fit within Ariane’s ‘frame.’“Move your ears please,” Ariane said. “Yes, now you, dragon girl, to the right. No, the other right. No, not that one, the other-other right. Good. Ilea, smile... no, that’s not a good smile. Yes, there is such a thing as a good smile, and yours isn’t one. Eve, stop looking towards the kitchen so much. Right, now don’t move for one to two hours please.”Time passes, as it usually tends to do. The girls fidgeted, and after a moment, discovered that they could talk without Arianne levelling a vampiric glare upon them. The conversation was hardly very intelligent. Mostly it centred around chocolate, the scarcity of bread, how best to make friends, how to meet cute boys, and whether the Bechdel Test was a valid measure of things.“I’m done,” Ariane said. She carefully lifted the canvas, grabbing it from the clamps holding it to her aisle and turning it around.“That’s very nice work,” Elaine said.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.“It’s pretty cool,” Ilea said. “What’ll we do with it?”“We can play shortest-stick for it,” Broccoli suggested.“I’ll abstain,” Candle said. “You keep it, Ariane, your Ancestors will love it."“Likewise,” Elaine said. “Though, not for the same reason.”“I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” Eve said with a shrug.The discussion was interrupted as the doors leading to the kitchen opened and the two champions walked in, each pushing a cart ahead of them. They were both a little sweaty, though Maximillian was more ‘supermodel on a set’ sweaty as opposed to Larry’s ‘middle-class guy who’s had a long day’ sort of sweaty.On their wheeled trolleys were six dishes each, all of them under little silver domes.“Well well, you took your time,” Ariane said as she started to wipe her hands with a rag. Broccoli snuck up and poked the paint stains away, earning her some confused blinking from the vampire.“Yeah, well, yeah,” Larry said with impeccable eloquence.“Larry didn’t try to cheat,” Ilea said. “Max here didn’t stop trying to cheat. Though he kept getting sneakier about it every time I caught him, so props for that.”The two champions looked to each other, and some sort of communication passed between them. An understanding, some bro-code agreement. They might have been fated to fight or something, but they weren’t fated to deal with all of the mad women gathered before them.“So, how are we doing this?” Eve asked.“We just need to taste things, right?” Candle asked.“It needs to be fair,” Broccoli added.Ilea sighed, The domes appeared on the dining room table, each with a letter scribbled onto their side in burning ash. “There. Now you don’t know who’s cake and or bread is from who.”“But you know,” Arianne said.“I’m impartial,” Ilea said with a serious nod.Elaine shook her head. “I don’t care enough to poke at that. Where do we start?”The girls walked over to the far end of the table, and they flipped over the domes to reveal a pair of rather sloppily made chocolate cakes. One looked like a bloated brown frog that had been stepped on, the other like a cow patty someone had assaulted with a trowel.“Wow,” Broccoli said. Her jaw worked as she searched for something to say. “Lots of effort, that’s commendable, right?”“I don’t mind the looks, I wanna taste them,” Candle said. She was practically shaking at the look of them.Plates were obtained, and the cakes were cut into slices.“Don’t eat too much,” Ilea said as she failed to follow her own advice. “There’s five more after this.”“They’re both disgusting,” Ariane said after a nibble.“They both taste like, um, lots of love were put into them. And stress. Mostly stress,” Broccoli said.Ilea shrugged and licked her plate clean.Elaine and Eve took a few nibbles, then passed their plates on to Candle who devoured the leftovers.Votes were tallied, and they came up even, with Candle voting for both, and Arianne voting for neither.“Next cake!” Ilea said.The boys off to the side were standing a little closer, muttering to each other as they watched the contest progress.The carrot cake was next, and it met with similar results. Both cakes were aggressively mediocre. They weren’t over or undercooked, but they weren’t perfectly cooked. The carrot bits weren’t too big so as to be bad, but they could have been smaller. The icing wasn’t too sweet, but it was also not sweet enough.It was the carrot-cake equivalent of a gas-station sandwich.The scores ended up even again, with another abstain and Elaine declaring them both too bland to be worth eating.“Finally!” Ariane said as she pulled the domes off the next cakes.Everyone stared, and even Ariane looked a bit squeamish.“We tried,” Larry said.“I had to gut a chicken,” Maximilian said.“No,” Ariane said as she lowered the dome.“Hey,” Ilea said.“No,” Ariane repeated.The next domes rose, and within were some perfectly ordinary looking cakes.“Oh, these are mine,” Ilea said.“They look alright,” Eve said.Ilea nodded. “Yeah. Want to work on your poison resistance? I’ll heal you.”The cakes, according to Ilea, were alright. A little bland, and she’d had better, but not the worse she’d eaten. The poison in both was a disappointment though, she informed the white-faced young men. Arsenic and rat poison and scrapped-off bits of mold did not good poison make.The next domes were lifted, and Elaine cheered. “Mangoes!”“That’s just two fruit,” Candle said.“I know!” Elaine cheered.The girl swiped both of them, grinned, then paused and had the good decency to look a bit embarrassed. “Do you want one?”“You can have it,” Candle said and Broccoli nodded.“I thought we asked for mango cake,” Ariane asked.“There wasn’t a recipe for that,” Larry replied.Maximilian gave a very manly, very handsome and somewhat evil shrug. “You wanted us to bake six things in an hour and a half. Neither of us are bakers. I think we did quite well, all things considered.”Ariane huffed, but there was nothing to it.“We should move on,” Eve insisted. She shook as she reached out and plucked the domes off the final baked goods.
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Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Nine — Learning About the Feet of the Master
Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Nine — Learning About the Feet of the Master I decided that the reason that I felt so wobbly was because the ship was in the air and was swaying a bit as it cut through the winds. It was most certainly not because I was still weak and felt a bit dizzy.I shot an arm out and slapped it against the wall I was falling towards. It stopped me on the spot, which was handy because otherwise I’d be stopping by banging my face against the wall and that wouldn’t be any fun.Less fun would be spending another day in my cabin. Sure, I could keep it from smelling like a sick room with no problem, but it wasn’t fun to be stuck in a bed all day. It was boring, and I’d already spent half a day rifling through all the books I had.The magical instruction book that I’d bought so long ago actually made a lot more sense now that I’d learned other magic-related stuff, and the botanical book was still as pretty as it ever was, even if I was aboard a rather plant-less ship.Maybe I could get some planters? A little garden on the deck would be cute.I shook my head and tried to push the cobwebs away. It was already well past breakfast time. Soon the others would be coming down for lunch, and I didn’t want to be caught in my room for another full day. If I could prove that I was able to stay up on my feet now, then they’d have no choice but to let me wander about and have some fun.Plus, I was certain that being out and about would help me feel better. Fresh air and sunlight were important.I paused before the door to Amaryllis’ room. There was a mirror standing in her little bathroom, and it was angled just right that I could see my face. My cheeks were rosey, and my ears flopped down as if they’d run out of energy to stay upright.I frowned and strained until they moved back up straight. The second I started to relax, even slightly, one of them flopped back down.One out of two was good enough.I made it up a level by pulling myself up the rails next to the steps, and then pushed my way through the door leading onto the main deck.The wind blasted my back for a moment before I caught my footing again and hugged myself to keep my warmth. A few blinks later and I could make out the deck properly.Steve and Gordon were working on some ropes on the other deck. Clive was sitting on one of the steps leading up to the helm, a pipe in his talons, and Sally of all people was hanging onto the wheel and keeping it straight.Further on the deck, Bastion was swinging an iron rod up and down as if there wasn’t a weight tied to the end of it that looked to weigh half as much as he did. And Awen was next to the Manatee with Oda, the entirety of the boat’s engine taken apart on a tarp before them.“Captain,” Bastion said as I moved closer to him. I was trying to be quiet so as to not alarm anyone, and it seemed to be working. “I didn’t expect to see you up so soon.”I shrugged. “I can’t stay in my room all day,” I said.Clive’s mouth worked, and his ever-present pipe shifted from one side to the other. “It might not be a bad idea. You look... forgive me for saying so, but a little frail. Are you certain you’re ready to be up?”“I’m fine,” I said. “Well, fine-enough. I can stand on my own two feet, and that’s enough for now, I think.”“I do hope you’re not hoping to train in your current condition,” Bastion said.“Well, I was thinking about it, yeah,” I said.The sylph shook his head and lowered his iron bar down until it clunked onto the deck. “I don’t think that’s wise. As I said, I don’t mind training with you and sparring a little, but not if it means risking your health.”I sighed. I couldn’t argue with him. If it was one of my friends in my position I’d be snuggling them into submission by now. “Okay,” I said. “But you don’t mind seeing me up?”“I’d advise against standing near the rails,” he said. “It would be a shame for you to go overboard because of a dizzy spell. But some fresh air really can’t hurt. And moving around will limber up your muscles a little, get your heart pumping again.”I grinned. “That’s what I was thinking! We’ll have to try sparring tomorrow then.”Bastion smiled and shook his head. “Maybe we can start with some light exercise before that. I’ve been injured before, you don’t just bounce out of the sickbed that quickly, not even with far better care than what you got. Give yourself a few days.”I pouted, but he was being concerned about my health so I couldn’t really be angry or anything. “You were injured before?” I asked.Bastion nodded, then gestured to one of the seats built into the rails. “Want to sit for a moment? I’m due a few swallows of water.”I nodded and moved over to the bench and was soon joined by Bastion after he picked up a canteen tucked away next to some exercise stuff.“So, the first time I was injured...” Bastion took a sip from the canteen, then lowered it. “No, actually, it would be more accurate to say the first time I was injured on the line of duty. You might not know this, but Paladins are nearly bred for the job. There are some who are members of noble families, third-sons and so on, but a lot of us join very young.”“Why do they hire you so young?” I asked.“Oh, you’re not hired into the Paladins, you’re chosen. In Sylphfree you can join the armed forces at about ten years old. It would be unusual to join at such a young age, but if you can walk and listen to orders, you can join.”“You have child soldiers?” I asked.“What? No, of course not,” he said. “Accepting children is the state’s way of ensuring that there are few homeless and that everyone can get an education. It’s all very light work. Three meals a day. Some very basic training. A lot of those children, myself included, unlock their first classes in something useful. Messengers, Aide-de-Camps, Soldiers, Chefs... all classes that ensure that they’ll have a useful place in society. I was lucky, I started as a Combatant.”Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.“You were ten?” I asked.“Twelve?” he said. “Somewhere around there. By the time I was fifteen I was asked if I wanted to join the order of Paladins. Of course I jumped on it. It’s a great honour, and a lot of us are chosen from amongst the more talented individuals in the military who don’t have ties to anyone else.”“Okay,” I said. I didn’t know how I felt about all of that, but it didn’t seem to bother Bastion.“What followed was three years of training, and a switch in classes.”“They can change your class?” I asked. “I thought only dungeons can do that.”“You’d be correct, and that would also be the most I could say on the subject,” Bastion said. “So, four years of training until I became somewhat competent, and quite certain of my own abilities. Most Paladins around my age were a full five to ten levels ahead of the average soldier. The training is a lot harder, and so we grow faster.”I nodded. “Okay.”“I got injured during training plenty of times, of course. Bruises were common, sometimes a broken bone or dislocated joint. Painful, but Sylphfree is known across Dirt for having the best medical knowledge, and the Royal Paladins are well cared for. I don’t think I can count those as real injuries.”“I would,” I said. “I don’t think I could do that kind of thing. It just... I don’t know. Training is fun sometimes, but only in that it makes it more fun to do more things later.”Bastion nodded. “I think a younger me might not have understood that, but I can sympathize a little better now. It’s a very...” He paused, took another swallow of water, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s not a civilian point of view so much as an adventurer’s, someone who wants to go out and see the world.”“That’s exactly it,” I said.“That kind of person, the sort who would rather stay safe and live a quiet life, doesn’t always fit into the mold in Sylphfree, which is unfortunate; they tend to be brave in a way that we need, sometimes. Regardless, we were talking about injuries?”“Your first one you got while working?”“That’s right. Paladins are linked to the Royal Inquisition, but technically our line of command starts and ends with the Royal family. It’s a way to ensure that no general can become too powerful and threaten the King or Queen.”“I think I get it,” I said.“So, my first mission. I was nervous, but I’d been training for long enough that I could hide it well enough. I’d done some guard duty things, but I don’t know if those really count. Standing in one place looking smart for hours isn’t exciting.”“I couldn’t do it,” I said.“I don’t doubt that,” he replied.I narrowed my eyes and inspected him, but he kept a perfectly straight face. I couldn’t tell if he was poking fun at me or not.“So, my first real, meaningful mission. One of the princesses was travelling from Goldenalden, the capitol, to Granite Springs. It’s a day-long trip. More time is spent preparing the ship than actually flying over. No real danger, though the path most ships take can be treacherous.”“Why’s that?” I asked.“Crosswinds from the ocean and a flight path that dives between a few mountains. Nearly all of Sylphfree is mountainous; it’s somewhat similar to the Harpy’s own lands, that way.”“Neat,” I said.“So, I arrive at the castle, and a senior Paladin goes to greet the princess. I decide to make myself useful and help some of the serving staff with these boxes. Next thing I know, someone’s poking at my shoulder.”“Okay,” I said.“So I turn around, and there’s the princess, looking rather unimpressed. She asks me what I’m doing, and I explain myself. She took it well enough. Then she pointed to this box I placed right atop this pile. Had to fly to bring it up there. She tells me she needs that chest with her in her carriage and in her room, and that her staff know what they're doing.”“Oh no!” I pressed a hand over my mouth. “That must have been embarrassing.”Bastion laughed. “A little. The princess... all of the princesses, can be a bit much.”“They are like that,” I said. I could have sworn I heard a birdy sneeze from somewhere below deck.“So, I reach up, grab this rather heavy chest, and proceed to trip. Chest comes down hard and lands right on my foot. The princess is screaming about her things, I’m trying not to scream at whatever broke in my foot, and the serving staff all lose their wits for a moment. Guards come rushing over, guards who are all Paladins that I know. They think the princess is under attack or something.”I bit my lip to hold in the giggles.“I try to explain that everything’s fine, but the princess-mind you, she was only a child-decides to stomp on my foot because I broke her box.”“Oh no!”“Oh yes. She got the correct foot too.” Bastion chuckled. “I swore. Soldiers tend to learn some very creative language, and the princess screeches at me. I’m not too sure what happened right after. One of the senior Paladins took pity on me and brought a pitcher of strong beer to my room that night to help me forget.”“Did you go on your mission?”“No, I got sent back to my rooms as if I was a child that was acting out of line. I stopped by the infirmary, of course. Ah, I was mocked for a good long time about that. Even the princess made a few digs at me later. She grew out of her hissy-fit stage, even apologised about stomping my foot some years later.”“So... the goal of that story was that I should learn to take a break?” I asked.Bastion snorted. “No, it was to distract you until lunch. Come, I’ll help you down to the kitchen.”
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