Guess what?
Remembering that peeved me off.
So now I’m crossing my cute arms and hopefully not damaging the tarts in my grasp. “Thinking about Austin has made me want to hit something, so I will be going to the mines after breakfast, thank you very much. Do you want to share breakfast with me or not?”
“It’s lunch time,” he says, twisting the bag out of my hand, “but I suppose I shouldn’t grouch at Slate’s idiocy on an empty stomach.” Huffing, he meets my eyes. “Tell me what supplies you have packed for this fool’s errand while we eat.”
My wee heart flutters before I realize I will need to tell him Ionlyhave my sword and pickaxe.
In the game, the first layers of the mines aren’t that bad, so the worst part is inventory management. You can’t upgrade your inventory slots until Mimet the traveling merchant comes to town so…
Over tarts, I bumble through making myself look like a moron while Samson silently judges me, growing more lethally concerned with every word that leaves my mouth.
Chapter 7
♥
Baby’s first slime!
“You are an idiot,” Samson grits at Slate the moment after a well-placed bomb sends chunks of debris flying away from the cave entrance in the side of the mountain far back behind Slate’s emaciated lab. It struck me when I was here the first time this morning—all the bent metal and splintered wood ripping open half the large manor home—but now that I’ve had even more time to look at it, it’s heartbreaking.
Water really is so powerful. And the distance afforded me through pixels does none of the flood damage justice.
In spite of so much loss, it’s incredible how these people have picked themselves right back up and forged on.
Proving my point, with a touch of insanity agleam in his green eyes, Slate pushes the goggles he always wears up into his dark brown hair and says, “I prefer the termmad genius.”
I giggle.
Samson’s patience snaps, and he tosses an arm out toward me. “Mad genius?Is that what you call agreeing to send this…thisthingin there alone?”
My self-esteem plummets. I am breathtakingly cute now, and I even went through the trouble of drawing well water this morning to clean myself up. It was cold, but I kept an image of Samson’s hotness in my mind to warm me.
“Sammy,” Slate murmurs, subtly appalled.
“Don’tSammyme. Look at her.”
My heart jerks, and the tiny rodent in my skull screes, shuddering at the notion of perception.
Cruel, Samson plows on, grabbing my hand and presenting it. “Soft. Small.” He shakes me. “Pretty young women with no experience shouldn’t be sent into mines, Slate.”
Pretty?
My self-esteem comes back online.
Slate lifts a brow. “Normally, I wouldn’t dream of it, but she begged.”
It’s true. I did. I begged very well a handful of hours ago, hands clasped and lip jutting. I am skipping half a dozen main story quests that could be considered theexperiencethat makes sending a stranger into the dangerous belly of the mines logical.
But.
See.
Those quests will go so much faster with better tools.
Early game is brutal.
And I’m but a soft, small,prettyyoung woman.
