"I can't believe they just listened to you and returned to being dead," Bella said and sipped from her cup.
"Well, I can't believe how slowly you drink ale," Teresa said and downed her drink in a single gulp.
Teresa had suggested that we go to the tavern after the incident in the woods. I was just happy to do something other than train.
"It surprised me too," I said to Bella.
"I'm sure you were," she said and rolled her eyes at me.
I wasn't sure until the eye roll, but she was definitely upset with me. I had no idea why, but knowing her as well as I did, I knew I needed to confront the issue before she decided to.
"Are you mad at me?" I asked her and folded my hands in front of me.
"Mad at you, why would I be mad at you? You think you're the first person that found a sneaky way to break one of my spells?" she asked and scoffed.
"Oh, heads up, Bella hates having her spells broken. She takes it as a challenge to her strength as a mage," Teresa said, as if she was warning me ahead of time.
"I do not hate having my spells broken. I hate it when people come up with sneaky, underhanded ways to break my spells," Bella said and folded her arms over her chest.
"But it wasn't sneaky or underhanded, I didn't even know it was a spell. I just talked like I always do, I had no idea they would obey me," I said, pleading my case.
"So, If I decided to start a fire right here on this table, would you just tell it to put itself out?" she asked me, the intensity in her eyes made me think she might actually do it.
I started to answer her, but I suddenly found myself wondering if that would actually work.
"What does that have to do with anything? Also do you think that would work?" I asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"You think I'm joking, don't you?" Bella said as her fingertips ignited.
There was a sudden breeze that blew the flames out. I would've wondered what happened if Teresa hadn't made a show of sheathing her sword. The "clink" caught both mine, and Bella's attention.
"Next time you threaten this place, your fingers go with the flames. Also, instead of being mad about your precious spell, should you be trying to figure out how he broke it? You are a magic nerd, right?" Teresa said without looking at either of us.
As Melanie refilled Teresa's cup, a tense silence settled over us.
"Are you guys doing okay?" Melanie asked and stared from me to Teresa and then to Bella.
"Yeah, we're fine. Just hashing out some differences" Teresa said.
"Oh well in that case, good luck working things out," Melanie said and walked to a different table.
"Ok, so how did you do it?" Bella asked. Her voice was so flat I could tell she didn't really care.
"I seriously don't know. I said something like you guys should go back to being dead, and then they vanished," I said.
"You really expect me to believe that ridiculous story?" Bella said, the anger returned to her voice.
"Seriously Bella, what have you seen him do that makes you believe he's lying? I mean, he's not exactly a world beater," Teresa said.
I wanted to thank her for her support but at the same time I felt slightly insulted. I just nodded in her direction and hoped that wouldn't somehow prove I was an idiot or something.
"Okay, if you didn't do it purposely, then you must have a skill you don't know about. Let's look at your skills list and see," Bella said, her tone told me she still didn't believe me.
I made it a point to avoid my skill list because it had always been empty. I knew I didn't lead the type of life that led a person to become skilled in anything so what was the point of checking it. I opened the list and to my surprise it wasn't empty.
"Charismatic Coercion, where did that come from?" I said, thinking out loud.
"Expand it so we see what it does," Bella said excitedly.
I touched the name of the skill and a description appeared beneath it.
"It says here that it grants the user a 20 percent chance to control the actions of any non-intelligent opponent, what are non-intelligent opponents? They mean stupid people?" I said as I read the text out loud.
"No, non-intelligent is a classification given to creatures, animals, and monsters. Really anything without a working human brain, is considered it," Bella said and rubbed her chin.
I couldn't help but notice that all the hostility in her voice and eyes was gone. I guess she had gotten the proof she needed.
"That is a seriously powerful skill, getting hostile creatures will do whatever you tell them to. We could complete quests in record time with that skill. No need to recover, no need for equipment. Love this could be your path to power," Teresa said with lust in her eyes.
"That's only if it works, remember it's only a 1 in 5 chance," Bella said.
"True, but anytime it doesn't work we'll simply kill the creatures the normal way. That will just keep things from getting too boring," Teresa said and rubbed her hands together.
"That seems like a skill only a really high leveled person would have. How the hell did you get it?" Bella asked me and wrinkled her nose at me.
Instead of answering her, I pulled up my level screen. The number 85 sitting next to the word charisma shocked all three of us.
"Wow love, all that time you were running your mouth during our training, actually improved your charisma skill," Teresa said and took a long drink from her cup.
"That may be the highest charisma level I have ever seen. I bet the sword is speeding up your growth," Bella said while nodding her head.
"That's good. I'm glad I actually have something to be proud of now," I said more to myself than her.
"Well, on that note I'm gonna go snag us a quest so we can get this adventure started," Teresa said and left the table.
She wobbled toward the quest board and disappeared into the large group of patrons standing in front of it.
"Do you really think we can become famous adventurers?" I asked Bella.
I rubbed my hands together as we waited for Teresa to return.
"I know we can, what I'm questioning is how often that skill of yours will actually work when it matters," she said.
Teresa walked back over to us with a defeated look on her face.
"This was the only quest still on the board. It says there is some kind of creature killing the livestock in a village southeast of here. It also says they can't pay much," Teresa said
"That explains why no one else would accept it, the creature could be anything, and they can't pay much, this one is a lost cause," Bella said.
Teresa handed me the note and sat back down.
"It's too bad we got here so late, I bet we could've found some really good ones," Teresa said and sighed heavily.
"We're accepting this quest, let's go get prepared to leave," I said and stood up.
"Wait, you can't make that decision alone, we both just turned that down," Bella said while shaking her head.
"I don't care what you decided! I grew up in that village, my parents still live there," I said a little too loudly.