—Group Chat: Cain, Dresil, Bob, and Rex— (12ms)
Rex: How are you so good at lying… it just doesn't make sense…
Rex: Even your lie about needing the fire element to perform the technique reinforced the lie about how the spell works…
Dresil: Oh? Is Rex getting smarter?
Bob: Indeed… I'm surprised he was able to detect that last part.
Rex: :proud:
Rex: Wait… that was an insult, wasn't it?
Dresil: Ah… Got our hopes up for nothing…
Bob: He's got a long way ahead of him…
Rex: :dead:
Cain: :eating popcorn:
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"What took you guys so long? It's been roughly an hour since the sun set, right?" Cain inquires about the long wait time while noticing that only a few plates have been cleared off. At most, the party has been here for about 15 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to debate whether or not to contact Cain by using the magic circle on the back of their hands.
Victoria notices Cain's gaze and calls a waiter over to the table. While the waiter was finishing up her prior business then walking over, she responded to Cain's question. "We had to get a new set of armor for Jacob. We visited right after the duel, but it took about an hour since they have to constantly measure his body to make sure nothing changes. Unfortunately this couldn't be done when we handed the scraps over yesterday since they were busy. Although there are standard sizes, none of them fit Jacob so we have to get it custom ordered every time."
Jacob looks down with a slight, somber look. It's obvious from his reaction that this method was more expensive than they could normally afford. 'If I remember right, they said they had to use all of their savings too… Dang. Wait, they already have standardized sizes for armor? Standardization doesn't seem like something that'd come about during medieval times though.' Cain thinks to himself briefly while Victoria takes a sip of her drink.
"Other than that, Victoria was training since the duel ended and Jared was probably flirting with girls again." Victoria's voice trailed off with a trace of disgust and bitterness; she avoided crossing eyes with Jared the entire time she spoke. Jared spoke up immediately after Victoria was done, seeing Veronica's hand itching to throw something.
"Nope, not this time. My master called me over to teach me a few things and then I came straight from there." Jared states proudly, hoping to avoid being hit. That is, until he realized he said "this time." 'Fu-' Jared's thoughts were interrupted the moment a stale piece of bread made contact with his face. Cain attempts to suppress a snicker while the waitress, who just arrived, looks at the group with an odd smile on her face.
"It's always nice to be adventuring with family, isn't it? What can I get ya folks?" The waitress directs her last part to Victoria, who called her over. Veronica tries to hold back a retort, wary of what Cain would think of her if she continued to behave like a child. Contrary to the look of aversion she was expecting, Cain was having a hard time not to bust out laughing while nodding to Victoria. The corners of Veronica's lips curved into a smirk, although Jared only saw an evil smile.
By the time the two's little squabble had finally settled down, the waitress had left with an order for everyone at the table, including Cain. Previously the party didn't know for sure if Cain was coming, thus they only ordered what they could afford. Now that he was here, any expenses were put on his tab which were then redirected to Meal Ticket and his party. Victoria confirmed this while ordering in which Cain simply nodded.
Jared clears his throat some while pointing to his drink. Cain looks at him oddly then realizes what he meant. "Anyone else want their drink to be converted to the soda from yesterday?" Cain asked the party to be sure. Everyone nodded except for Victoria, whose drink was already a type of local juice. The others had mugs full of beer as if they were expecting it to turn into soda, despite not being sure whether or not Cain was coming to dinner. 'Looks like they got hooked onto the soda…'
Cain converted their drinks into soda, then leaned back some in his chair while thinking about the benefits and downsides to the party's new infatuation. A sudden thought came to his mind which prompted his next question. "Are we going to have a meeting to discuss the upcoming quest? And if so, when?" Jacob took a big gulp from his soda, then proceeded to answer. "We'll probably meet in two days so you and Veronica can train all day tomorrow. We're trying to leave the day of the meeting to prevent being caught up in the invasion." Cain mulls over Jacob's response, running some things through his head. Veronica's eyes gleam with joy, realizing she gets to spend most of the day with Cain.
"Wouldn't that be dangerous though? We could meet the waves of the invasion while we're leaving. Why not just stay and get some money?" Cain voices the conclusion to his thoughts, slightly worried that he may have to do a lot of work in two days again. "Nah, we know some side routes to take. The beasts stay within a mana barrier setup by the pylons on the side so if we avoid that we'd be safe." Jared replies while suppressing a burp, however this only makes it stack with the other one in the queue. After he was done talking, he let out a loud belch that queuried many cheers from the surrounding tables.
Victoria sighs and adds on to Jared's statement. "We're also not prepared to fight in this year's invasion after what happened yesterday morning. Especially in the chaos of the large battlefield." Cain nods his head after understanding their situation.
'Although I have that deal with the Dean, I could always just leave a drone here and teleport when the invasion starts. Oh… maybe I could even try healing from a distance or… Nah. These are people's lives I'm talking about here.' Cain sighs while staring at a few waiters leaving the kitchen with food. 'Looks like the influence of mana is skewing my perspective on other's lives… I'll have to come up with a plan to reset this view later.'
The group of waiters come up to the party's table to drop off a few dozen plates and a mug of beer for Cain. Victoria glances at him, her face questioning non-verbally if this is enough. Cain replied with a nod then started his feast. Although there weren't as many plates as yesterday, unlike then, he actually had a decent amount of snacks to eat throughout the day.
The party ate in awkward silence, the occasional conversation from other tables spilling over into theirs. After finishing roughly half of his food, Cain chugged the freshly converted soda. "So… Any interesting gossip from your teacher, Jared?" He attempts to break the awkward silence surrounding the table with this question.
Jared finishes up his current mouthful of food then replies, "Nah. Just something about the priests under one of the bishops scurrying around a lot recently and the nobles being extremely antsy." Cain finishes the rest of his food while contemplating the news. 'Do they know something the common people don't? If the nobles are antsy then the invasion might be sooner than we thought. There's also the fact that the mana donation was earlier than usual, and before the invasion at that…'
He continues to simulate possible scenarios using the information he has access to. After a few minutes, Cain sighs while wiping his mouth with a nearby handkerchief the guild provided for meals; all of his plates were emptied while he was thinking. 'I swear… If I have to work hard again, some food stalls might go out of stock.'The party exchanged some side conversations, but Cain was too preoccupied to notice.
"Ain… Cain?" Veronica's hand waves over his eyes, startling him slightly. "Oh my bad. I was thinking about something." He responds, quickly moving his head back. She quickly retreats back to her chair, her cheeks and the tips of her ears turning a slight pink. "We're done here, so we're ready whenever you are." Victoria says in Veronica's place since it seems like she's preoccupied with something.
"Ah… Let's head out now then." Cain replies and scoots his chair back some. The party follows his suit after cleaning up some of their area.
—Spatial Requesting Interface (SRI)— (373ms)
Cain: Create a portal on the right side of the entrance to the guild (from my POV). Connect it to an open wall across the receptionist desk of the inn.
SRI: Processing request…
SRI: Request processed (325ms)
SRI: Performing request…
SRI: Request performed (42ms)
Cain: Bookmark action, name: "Guild to Inn"
SRI: Action bookmarked as "Guild to Inn"
SRI: Confirm, y or n
Cain: Y
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SRI created a portal on the right side of the door to the guild when Cain was a few meters away from it. He walked through it arriving at the inn with the party in tow. They continued to walk to their rooms then bid farewell in the hallway. Cain walked in his room and plopped himself down on the bed.
—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (3ms)
Dresil: Master… Don't forget to shower-er, do that alien bath thing.
Cain: pfft, I won't.
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—Spatial Requesting interface (SRI)— (175ms)
Cain: Open a portal to Dimension: Mana Storage a meter above my chest and lock its coordinates there.
SRI: Searching for Dimension: Mana Storage..
SRI: Dimension found (23ms)
SRI: Processing request…
SRI: Request processed (151ms)
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Cain inserted a small stream of mana into the portal that SRI created in the air above his bed. The stream connected to the massive magic circle maintaining the mana within the dimension, sending back the amount of mana stored. Cain lets out a brief sigh while performing some calculations. 'Ha… Looks like I'll need to convert 33 buckets of water into mana this time.'
Cain sends out a few waves of disguised mana across the inn complex. The mana waves tag random buckets until a total of 33 were tagged, then returned to Cain, upon which he converted the contents of each bucket into mana.
—Spatial Requesting Interface (SRI)— (1615ms)
Cain: Open a portal to Dimension: "Mana Storage" above every Tag: "Bucket of Water to Mana" and direct my mana into it then close it.
SRI: Processing request…
SRI: Request processed (1035ms)
SRI: Performing request…
SRI: Request performed (576ms)
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Cain double checked the contents of the mana storage then proceeded to create the mana net for the water pod. He spent the next five minutes creating the necessary water and soap, then used SRI to freeze the coordinates of the mana net. Rex took this chance to boil the water then bring it down to the required bathing temperature while Dresil created a few towels and some mats for when Cain gets out. He spent the next 30 mins bathing within his water capsule, then another 10 drying off and getting ready for bed.
By the end of it all, Cain had barely any strength left to keep his eyes open, nearly falling asleep as soon as his body hit the bed. So much so, Bob and Dresil had to clean up everything after coaxing him to turn the water capsule into mana. Bob shoved the mana into the Mana Storage Dimension while Dresil cleaned up the room. Once everything was taken care of, Cain dozed off with his body somehow taking up the whole mattress yet still being in a weird position.