He brandishes his sword as a slime wibbles into the light sphere. “Cucumber and cream cheese.”
Mm. Cucumber andfreshcream cheese, I bet. Because, you know, thecows.
“With homemade bread,” he adds.
I laugh, beaming as he slices through the slime in a single motion. “You know something, Samson?”
He grunts, slinging gel off his blade.
“You could have started with that if you were worried I’d leave the Ridge behind. Even I know better than to abandon a neighbor who bakes fresh bread.” I plop a huge chunk of coal into my bag then sling the straps onto my shoulders. “Yep. You’re stuck with me now.”
Our eyes meet, half a second passing before his attention drags away again. Huffing, he starts us back toward the ladder out and grumbles, “I better be.”
Chapter 8
♥
City girl vs. country rodent.
My hubris is directly related to the amount of joy I possess.
Yesterday wasbliss.
So, today, I am rightfully insufferable.
By the time Samson and I got back from the mines last night, it was late. I could not gloat in front of Austin in the darkness, so I waited until this morning to haul my quarry to the smithy. The way his eye’s twitching does not disappoint as over three hundred chunks of coal spill from my backpack into his reserve pile.
Behind him, hands pressed to her lips and tears in her eyes, Aurelia says, “This is so much. First, you helped Neptun and Laumon with their house. Now, you and Slate have reopened the mines?” Shimmering with gratitude, she sniffles. “Andyou’re giving us enough fuel to last weeks?”
Austin grimaces at his twin sister. “Lia…”
“I really am blessed,” Aurelia whispers.
The last chunk of coal skitters onto the top of the pile, so I beam at stupid Austin’s stupid face. “Givingis an exaggeration. I need better tools since I’m sticking around, for more than a week.” And accomplishing more than you have in your lifetime during it.
Austin narrows his eyes at me.
I flick my tongue out at him like a lizard.
The butt nugget lifts his chin and says, “I heard from Cobalt that Samson helped you. You don’t earn any points for having fancy gear, city girl.”
Aurelia’s hazel eyes bug. “Samsonhelped you? How did you convince him to leave his farm?”
I chuckle, setting my hand at my chin smugly. “Probably the same way I convinced him to make me a sandwich.” With my overpowering cuteness, duh.
“By standing around and looking helpless?” Austin drawls, plunging his fingers into his short auburn hair.
I scowl.
“Austin,” Aurelia snaps, “be nice. You were worried you wouldn’t be able to keep the forge fed before we had access to our mines again just this morning. Now you’re being rude to the person helping you?”
“Helping? This isn’thelp,Lia. It’s a trade using Samson’s work as payment.” He braces his hands at his scrawny—compared to Samson’s—hips. “And it’s still going to cost you more than this for tools. Thismaybecovers one, if you can also get Samson to find the materials I’ll need to forge it.”
I really need to learn how to craft my own tools so I can bypass this loser entirely. In the game, you can set up an entire metalworking station on your farm, which makes Austin obsolete, as he should be.
I flick my tongue at him again, dump the iron I also gathered onto his floor—possibly aiming for his toes—and swing my bag back onto my shoulders. “Well, I would really love to stick around and suffer insult at the hand of an emotionally-immature chipmunk, but I have very important things to do today.” Like dropping off the crops that I harvested earlier with Kaolin and completing that quest.
Also, since my mailbox doesn’t have a notification sound, I keep forgetting to check it. I’ve done a lot of things that should have prompted letters and other starter quests, but I haven’t even established all of the early-game tutorials.
