"I think she's okay now," Amelia said, as she turned her head to look at her friends. "I think it might be good if we stayed here for the rest of the day so she-"
Charlie cut Amelia off as she pulled Amelia into a kiss, her mind relishing the sensation, while she suddenly started to feel like her clothing was just too restrictive. So, when Amelia pulled away from Charlie in shock and outrage, Charlie started to life her shirt up. Part of her was aware of Amelia saying or yelling something, but she paid it no mind. Amelia had already gone out of her mind as she needed to feel free of her clothing. She'd gotten her shirt up to her belly when she felt Beth pin her arms down.
"What is wrong with you?" Beth snapped, her expression one of confusion and alarm.
Charlie just giggled. She couldn't help it. Everything just seemed so funny to her. However, she stopped when she noticed Beth's lips were in range and leaned forward to kiss her.
"Hold her there, Beth!" Hannah cried. "We're getting your tent set up."
As she kissed Beth, she continued to try and lift her shirt up more, but Beth held her shirt tightly, so she surrendered that for the moment and let her hand move down to her shorts. Yet, to her annoyance, she felt Beth trap her arms to her sides just after she unfastened her shorts.
What was wrong with Beth? she couldn' t help but wonder as she continued to kiss her best friend, walking towards her a few steps until they were stopped by a tree and Charlie could feel her body pressing up against Beth's. The sensations that went through her were exhilarating. She couldn't say when she had felt more alive than right then.
Then as they broke their kiss so they could breathe, Beth called out to her friends, "Could you hurry it up? I'm not sure how much more I can take of this!"
Charlie tried taking a step backward, but suddenly her feet tangled up with themselves and she fell, taking Beth with her. When they landed, she felt the breath knocked out of her, but at the same time she couldn't help but enjoy the sensation. It was like the pain of being unable to breathe was a symphony of pain that she'd never known before. Everything else was pulled out of her mind as she relished the sensation.
Even as she felt herself getting picked up by her arms and legs, and was slowly able to start breathing again, she could only watch in wonder, everything feeling like it was new again to her. Like she hadn't seen anything before this moment.
Then suddenly she was in her tent and she remembered how restrictive her clothing was and started to remove it again. She couldn't even remember why she'd stopped. Though, as soon as she'd finished stripping everything off, she suddenly felt something wrapping around her arms.
Confused, she looked down to see the rope they'd gotten from the arachnoids being coiled around her. It continued to be wrapped, faster than she could even keep up with, until it reached from her elbows to her knees. Then she was put in her sleeping back and Charlie saw that it was only Beth with her in their tent. Charlie tried to sit up and capture her lips in her own again, but not only did Beth pull away, but the rope with her sleeping back made it difficult to follow her. She heard Beth say something, but that was lost in the frustration that she couldn't get out.
_
Beth sighed as she zipped up the tent. Her body was still calming down from Charlie's kiss. Where the hell did that come from? Beth could only wonder.
"What the hell is going on with her?" Amelia roared, from where they were preparing a small lunch.
"Calm down, Amelia," Hannah urged. "It's clear she was affected by something here. She looked like she might have been drugged."
"I'll say," Ralph said. "I've never seen Charlie act like that. Especially trying to take her clothes off in front of everyone. Almost like what made her so shy about that was gone."
"Besides, did you see the way she kissed Beth?" Wes asked, his mirth clear in his voice and eyes. "That was so hot. If they were legal, I'd want to watch the whole video."
"Glad I could help entertain you," Beth said, sweetly, already planning on how to get back at him. "Maybe once we figure out what happened to her, we could have it happen to you. Maybe you'd end up kissing Ralph or something."
The look of horror on Wes' face was enough to curb her wrath. For the moment at least. It didn't hurt that Amelia and Hannah found the idea hilarious.
"You know, if we had our phones, we'd be able to take a pic of that. Think others at school would be interested in that?" Hannah laughed.
"That aside," Tim interrupted, "what should we do about Charlie?"
"I was thinking that we get lunch together and Amelia and me will go in after to feed her and see what we can learn about what's going on with her," Beth suggested, part of her worrying that Charlie would somehow untie herself and they'd be left with subduing her as well as how much she'd remember after she came to her senses.
"Why don't I help?" Ralph asked. "You know, in case she starts to get out of hand?"
"I guess you could, if you want that sort of rumor going around school," Beth commented casually.
"Why can't you make it easy for me?" Ralph lamented.
"I am," Beth retorted. "You're the one trying to make things difficult for yourself. I mean, you did see how she was before I got her in the tent. The more people that see her now, the worse I'm sure it'll be when she's back to her old self."
"Y'know, it looked like she was high on something," Tim remarked. "Any idea what it might have been?"
Beth felt her gaze immediately turn to Velithy, who merely stood off to the side, watching them, her eyes full of curiosity. "Ralph, can you ask Velithy about what she can tell us about her spores?"
"Wait, you think it was from Velithy's spores?" Hannah asked.
"Well, she was riding on Charlie's shoulders," Beth explained. "And if it was something in the area, then why was she the only one affected?"
"You make a good point," Ralph said, turning to Velithy. "Velithy, what can you tell us about your spores?"
The mushroom girl said something that made Ralph sigh before turning back to them. "She said that she only knows that her spores are used to reproduce. She'd never thought about them having other effects," he informed them.
"Amelia, do you think you'd be able to see if using your magic to scan her would tell us anything?" Tim asked.
"I could try, but I can't say what I might be able to learn or not learn from it," Amelia replied, her voice full of uncertainty.
"Don't worry about what you can't learn," Beth said. "Just worry about what you can. You never know what might be useful to know, even if it's something that only comes in use down the road."
"You mean that maybe we should try to bottle some of these spores and see if anyone at school would buy them?" Amelia asked, a smirk on her face.
"That's not a bad idea," Ralph remarked. "After all, these spores can't be illegal yet, since no one has seen fungaloids on earth yet, right?"
"Legality aside, who's to say that they couldn't be dangerous?" Wes said. "I don't care how much you have in mind to make with them, think about how this could affect others."
"Come on, Wes," Hannah scolded. "You're just worried that we'd get you with them and you'd do something that you'd hate to have been seen doing."
Wes' mouth opened and closed for a minute before Beth cut their fun off. "Look, I don't care what reasons any of you have for any of what you suggested or said. All I care about is finding out what we can do to help Charlie. Will these spores wear off? I have no idea. Will they hurt Charlie?" I have no idea. If you want to collect these spores or maybe even brings some of these fungaloids home and raise them for whatever, I don't care. I just want to see if there's anything that we can learn that might help Charlie out," Beth snapped.
Then, as she turned to Amelia who was using her magic to learn what she could about Velithy, she sighed, more out of frustration than anything else. Amelia was taking her time, longer than she usually did, but Beth didn't want to rush her. Part of her outburst wasn't because of how Charlie had acted and kissed her, but more because she could feel her own body react and how she'd started to kiss her back. Though, she didn't plan on telling anyone about that. Except maybe Charlie. Maybe.
Amelia sighed as she pulled her hand away from Velithy. "I'm not sure if I learned anything useful, but I'll have to first see Charlie before I can be sure what might have caused her to act like that," Amelia said, her eyes looking a little depressed.
Hannah threw an arm around Amelia's shoulders. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll find out what the problem is," Hannah said. "Though, you never now. It might be a mosquito that bit her and caused her to act that way."
"Pretty sure it wouldn't be because of a mosquito," Tim remarked.
"Regardless of what caused it, we need to make sure none of us do anything that can have that happen to the rest of us. I mean, Charlie being like that is bad enough. How bad would it be to have, say Ralph acting like that?" Beth said.
Ralph smiled. "Hey, If that happened to me you probably wouldn't be able to tie me down like that," he boasted.
"You're right that tying you up would be too much of a hassle," Beth remarked. "I mean, I'd probably just knock you out. Much simpler then."
Okay, I got lunch done," Wes said, handing out what he'd pulled out of their packs to use for lunch. He handed twice as much to Amelia, since they all knew that she'd be in charge of feeding Charlie.
Though, Amelia didn't look very happy with that. "Want me to feed Charlie while you see what's wrong with her?" Beth offered.
Amelia looked at Beth like she wasn't aware she had been there. "Uh, sure, I guess," Amelia muttered, sounding like she was depressed, starting to mirror the look in her eyes.
Beth nodded, and acted like Amelia was acting like her usual self. Though, she was wondering if what affected Charlie might be already affecting Amelia. After all, she did have to touch Velithy to scan her, so there was the chance that she'd encountered the spores from the fungaloid.
When they got into the tent, Beth was a little bemused at how Charlie was struggling in her sleeping bag, yet it was clear she hadn't been able to get herself untied, though, the bag had come down to around her waist, as she had somehow managed to sit up.
"She's really going to hate it if she remembers all of this later," Amelia remarked, her smirk dispelling the depressed look she had up to that point.
"I can only hope she won't remember all of it, if anything," Beth remarked as Amelia kneeled on the ground before quickly pulled Charlie to the ground and held her there while she carefully fed Charlie.
Charlie seemed to focus entirely on eating as the food was present. To Beth it looked like she could only focus on one thing at a time, That if something distracted her, she'd stop whatever she was doing the moment before.
Then as Charlie swallowed the last bite, Amelia then helped her sit up where Beth held a bottle of water for her to drink from. Beth was careful to not pour more water than Charlie could swallow, but it looked like she wanted all of it at once. Beth could only wonder if her friend would ever be like she had been.
Once she'd drained the entire twenty fluid ounces of water, she started looking around, as if she thought there might be more water around. Though, she didn't seem to mind when Amelia pulled her back down to a laying position and began using her magic. Although, she did start moving her legs, as if she thought she might be able to do something she hadn't if she did that.
For a minute, Beth wished she could see inside her friend's head so she could see what Charlie was thinking. If nothing else, it would help her understand what exactly was different from how she normally was. If nothing else, it might help give her peace of mind to know that Charlie was still in there, since it seemed like she was someone else entirely.
After a minute, Amelia leaned back and looked at Beth. "Okay, I think she's going to be fine, but I'll have to use my magic to help shorten how long it'll be, because I think this might otherwise last a few days at least," Amelia reported. "I think she was exposed to the spores through contact with her skin and there are about three kinds effect of the spores that she's experiencing."
"You mean three ways that the spores affect her?" Beth asked.
"Uh, sorry. I misspoke. There were three kinds of spores that each have a different effect," Amelia clarified.
"Well, you can explain that later to everyone. How long will it take to get Charlie back to normal?" Beth asked.
"I think I could try to see if I could get her body to process those spores faster?" Amelia speculated. "I'm really not sure, but I think if we give her more water, that she'll need to go to the bathroom faster. Maybe that could also help if I try to get her body to direct the spores in her body to her kidneys. Otherwise, I think we'll be stuck here for a while."
"At least it doesn't look like it's going to kill her, right?" Beth said, moving towards the entrance of the tent to get more water.
"I just hope making her go will help rather than run us out of water," Amelia commented as Beth left the tent.
Beth hoped this would work, though she wasn't sure how much water it might take. Especially since they'd started getting low on their water supply. While they had restocked what little they'd drunk in the previous world they were in, they hadn't come across another source of water in this forest. Maybe they could get some from the trees if they had whatever tool was used to do that, but she could never remember what it was called.
They were close to the gate that they'd been traveling towards and Beth hoped that they'd be able to get some water there and she was sure she wasn't alone. They were learning so much on this expedition, but it was frustrating that so much of it was what they could have done better after it was too late to do anything about it. However, they had stocked up with as much water as they could carry, so the only way they'd have been able to do anything about that was to take gross measures.
Beth remembered the movie Water World where at the start, it could be seen the main character taking a leak into something that then removed the sediment and left it as just water. Not the method Beth would care for, but it definitely was a possibility. Though, she had a feeling that most of her friends, including Charlie, would have been disgusted by that suggestion.
However, at the moment, it was more important to deal with what was currently in front of them and deal with what other problems came up as they occurred. Besides, she hadn't tried it yet, but she had a feeling that she could just use her magic and create ice, then let it melt and they'd have water.
Yet, she hoped she wouldn't have to do that, since she hadn't tested it out yet. After all, as far as she knew, there might be complications with it that might make it a bad idea.
When Beth returned to the tent, she had two more bottles of water. This time both held thirty-two fluid ounces. She hoped she wouldn't need to get more. Especially if this didn't work the way Amelia was hoping.
"I think Charlie's already feeling a little better," Amelia remarked, as she helped Charlie into a sitting position again. "Though, the spores are resisting my magic to force them into Charlie's kidneys." Amelia sighed before adding, "Either that or Charlie's body is just having a harder time than I expected dealing with these spores."
"Anything different about them?" Beth asked as she opened the first bottle of water and began heling Charlie drink it down.
"Only that they're not like any fungus spores from our world, so that might play a part in it," Amelia answered, her expressing showing her mind was clearly elsewhere.
"Let's just hope it works enough that we don't have to stay here that long," Beth commented.
"However long it takes, I just hope that I'm wrong about Charlie's memory not being affected by these spores," Amelia replied as Charlie finished drinking the first bottle.
"What do you mean?" Beth asked as she opened the second bottle. "You never said anything about that."
Amelia sighed. "Maybe it's about the effect the spores have had on me, or just that I didn't think to mention it when I scanned Charlie," Amelia answered. "I just noticed that the spores were affecting her in three ways. None of which looked like it was likely to affect her memory."
Beth nodded as she started helping Charlie drink the second bottle or water. "At least forcing Charlie to drink so much water is easy with how eager Charlie is about drinking it," Beth commented, as Charlie guzzled the water down.
"At least we don't have to worry about her having any bad effects from drinking so much water," Amelia remarked.
"What do you mean?"
"Just that normally when you drink so much water at once without any solid, your body tends to push it back out. Though, if you drink too much water without it getting released in some way, like sweating or peeing, it can start to become toxic to your body."
"I see," Beth said as she nodded. "You're using your magic to keep any of that from happening, huh?"
"Yep. If my idea doesn't work to get her out of the effects of the spores, then I can at least keep from making it more complicated for her."
When Beth pulled the bottle away from Charlie, Charlie looked at Beth expectantly. "More water?" she asked, as if Beth had more hidden on her somewhere.
"Maybe later," Beth said, not sure how else to respond to the question as Amelia helped Charlie lay back down.
"Give me a few more minutes and I think I'll have gotten the vast majority of the spores to go to her kidneys," Amelia said, looking like she was getting a headache.
"How much longer do you think it'll be before Charlie needs to go?" Beth asked.
"Uhhh," Amelia hesitated, clearly having just realized something.
"What is it?" Beth groaned. She didn't want to hear about complications that were just being thought of.
"Do we have something that can be used as a bucket or a pail?" came the response.
"Not that I'm aware of," Beth said carefully, not liking where this was going. "Why?"
"Well, should we use magic to turn the tent around?" Amelia asked, "I mean, how else are we going to get Charlie to relieve herself unless we either make a mess in here or take her outside?"