Elin was the first to stir of the group. She at first felt a little groggy and wanted to turn over and go back to sleep, but something was wrong with her bed. It wasn't as soft as it should be. Elin was about to sit up when she realized how different her pillow suddenly was. She moved her head to look towards where the head of her bed should have been and saw Kim.
The sight of the other woman brought Elin's mind back to the present. She remembered where she was, what had happened during the night previously, and what had been going on throughout the previous day. Though, the light seemed to be returning, even if it was still a little dim.
Elin enjoyed the feeling of Kim's body against hers and wished it could last just a little bit longer. She couldn't say when she'd ever felt like this before.
However, the spell she had been under as she was pressed against Kim, partly from Kim's own arm, was dispelled when the announcer spoke again.
"I'm happy to say that no one died during the night. We'll see what will come today, but first, no one completed the secret challenge through the night, but that's not surprising as completing it's a rare occurrence anyway. Right now we have 19 of the contestants still alive and right now no one has completed a single challenge. Though, the contestants have divided themselves up into seven teams. We look forward to seeing what happens today!"
Elin felt Kim begin to stir against her. Elin quickly made it look like she was still asleep a little longer, hoping maybe Kim would try to wake her with a kiss. She always loved the idea of that happening. She hoped that's what Kim would do, but she couldn't say for certain at the moment. She though Kim might be interested in her in that way, but she couldn't say for sure. She could only hope.
Kim groaned as she woke up. "Shit!" Kim snapped. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."
Elin felt Kim move against her, but didn't try to move Elin too much. At least until Elin felt Kim start to gently shake her.
"Time to get up, Elin," She gently said. "It's morning."
Elin groaned, not happy that this was how she was waking her up. However, she couldn't help but accede to Kim's request. Though, as Elin looked around, she felt a warm feeling inside as she saw Kim smiling at her.
"Good morning, my gem," Kim greeted, making Elin's warm feeling inside her grow.
"Morning, Kim," Elin replied, still hoping Kim would give her a kiss.
However, Kim merely held Elin against her as she sat up, forcing Elin to sit up as well. "So, are you ready to see if Jonas is okay?" Kim asked.
"Can't we stay like this just a little longer?" Elin complained, enjoying the feeling of Kim against her, but also starting to fall asleep again.
"We could, but then we wouldn't be able to get anything else done," Kim replied.
"True, you would also be sitting ducks for any monster that decided to wander by," a masculine voice said, causing Kim and Elin to look around frantically until they found a young man and young woman sitting near the stairs.
The young man was wearing the leather shirt and pants that had been available for them with all the other supplies when they started. He had pure white hair and grey eyes. His skin was so light that it looked like he didn't get much sunlight. The young woman was wearing something that was unfamiliar to Elin. It was made of a blue cloth, was held up by straps that went over her shoulders and fastened to the front that covered most of her breasts, but because she didn't have a shirt on underneath, the sides of her breasts could be seen. Elin could also see that it had been cut off about a quarter of the way down her legs. She also had hair that almost looked like a flame on top of her head and ice blue eyes.
"Who are you?" Kim demanded.
"We're just a couple other contestants," the young woman replied. "I'm Patricia and this is Patrick."
"Are you like brother and sister?" Kim asked dryly.
"Of course not!" the young man replied indignantly. "The first we met was when we came out of the rooms we started in."
"It's nice to meet you," Elin said, trying to stand, but having trouble getting her legs to work for some reason. To the point where she fell against Kim when she lost her balance trying to stand up, so she merely sat up, not wanting to embarrass herself further with another failed attempt.
Patricia laughed. "It's nice to meet you too. Though, what happened to you guys?" she asked. "It looks like you guys almost were either killed by something or had that something seriously hurt you guys, but I can't tell what it was."
Elin glances over to where the skeletons had been, and was shocked to see that there weren't even bones left where the skeletons had fallen. Either the newcomers had cleaned them up or something else had happened.
"What about the skeletons?" Kim asked.
"What skeletons?" Patricia asked.
"The skeletons that we fought…" Kim trailed off as she looked towards where the piles of bones should been.
"Yeah, we gathered that you fought something there, but whatever it was that you really fought was gone when we go here," Patrick remarked.
"So, what are both of you doing then?" Kim retorted. "All I can see is that both of you are just sitting there."
Both of the newcomers just started laughing. "We stayed here because we noticed your entire group was sleeping," Patricia explained. "I mean, we could have gone on, but you never know what could have happened. Even if you turn out to be hostile towards us, you could out to be useful to us through clearing something that we might have trouble with. So, keeping more contestants alive is in our best interest right now."
"You okay with traveling with him?" Kim asked, indicating she was talking about Patrick.
Patricia laughed. "Why wouldn't I be?" she said, Elin suddenly noticing how melodious her voice was. "I mean, he's all I could ask for in someone to watch my back in this place."
"Well, he is a guy, and all men are generally-" Kim started but was quickly cut off by Patricia.
"I can see you're one of 'those' people, so I'll just stop you there," Patricia interrupted, her eyes issuing a kind of challenge at Kim as she looked directly into Kim's eyes. "I don't judge anyone by stupid things like their gender. I look at each of them as individuals and not like something as superficial as that determines what kind of person they are. I mean, yeah, some things are going to be the same among all of them, but generally those aren't going to be all that important in regards to what kind of people they are."
"What system do you have again?" Elin asked when she saw a break in the conversation, hoping that they could stop talking about something that she didn't really understand and was making her more than just a little uncomfortable.
"Oh, I have an Ice system and Patrick has a Fire system," Patricia replied, not taking her eyes off of Kim.
Kim laughed. "Well, if you really think that way, why not ditch Patrick and travel with me for a time. I'm sure I'll be able to convince you of just how much better off you'd be without men," Kim remarked. When Elin glanced at Kim she saw her eyes traveling over Patricia's body.
"My, my, how forward you are," Patricia said. "Sadly, unless you're a transwoman, I wouldn't be interested in you like that."
"But you just said that you look at people as individuals and not on superficial things like gender," Kim retorted, sounding oddly triumphant.
Patricia merely sighed as she shook her head slowly, looking a little sad. "And here I thought you were smarter that that," she remarked, and Elin could feel Kim bristle at the remark. "Not holding someone's gender, or anything as superficial as that for that matter, is not the same as what I find attractive. I mean, if I meet a transwoman, I'd be willing let her have her way with me the same as if it was a guy, so long as she hasn't had gender reassignment surgery. I mean, all I care about is their meat. If they don't have their meat, then I'm not going to be as satisfied."
Elin couldn't help but feeling like she shouldn't be listening to this conversation, but couldn't bring herself to say anything to get it to stop at this point. However, that didn't stop her from feeling her face heat up more than she could ever remember it having done before.
Kim was silent for a minute and Elin glanced at her again and was shocked to see Kim's mortified expression. It was almost as if what Patricia had said had overloaded Kim's mind. Which wasn't something Elin had ever expected to happen with Kim.
"Do what you will then," Kim said, gently extracting herself from Elin, before walking over to wake Elmo and Jonas up.
Elin carefully stood up, and was able to maintain her balance this time, though her legs still felt a little shaky. She carefully walked over to where Kim was squatting next to the others in their team.
"What's wrong?" Elin asked.
"They won't wake up and they're both ice cold," Kim replied, sounding angry, though Elin couldn't say why.
"Why are they ice cold?" Patricia asked, looking over Elin's shoulder.
"He was hit with a blue orb of some kind and fell unconscious," Kim said, indicating Jonas, "so I told Elmo here, to find a way to warm him up and I guess he tried using his own body heat to do that."
Patricia moved over to them and touched them. "Hmmm, not sure what happened, but it looks like it's probably a status condition. All I know is that it's cold related and I can't do anything about it for them at this point," Patricia comments.
"I can try something, but I first need to check my status first," Elin said, wondering if she has enough MP to see if she could actually do anything. "Status."
HP 30/30
MP 10/33
Level 2
XP 79/300
Stamina 15/15
Str 5
Int 20
Dex 14
Con 12
Wis 20
Mag 24
Agi 10
Cha 19
Physical Resistance 5%
Magical Resistance 30%
Skills:
Wound Identification 0/100
Wound Treatment, non-magical 0/100
Combat Medic 0/100
Holy Boost
White Magic Spells:
Life Attribute – Minor Heal 4mp 0/100
Life Attribute – Treat 3mp 0/100
Holy Attribute – Sacred Shot 4mp 84/100
Life Attribute – Assess 2mp
Green Magic Spells:
Life Attribute – Stat enhancement 2mp 0/100
Force Attribute – Physical Resistance enhancement 2mp 20/100
Force Attribute – Minor Protection 2mp 20/100
As she looked at her stats, she did some quick figures and determined she had barely enough MP to check to see if she could do anything about their condition.
"Assess," Elin said, focusing first on Elmo. Then in front of her, a window replaces her stats and gives her a an explanation of what was wrong with him.
{Icy Touch – Simple Status conditions. Target is unable to produce heat on their own. If in close contact with another individual who does not have this condition, the individual can spread this condition to them. Although, being near someone without this condition can slow down the effects of this condition significantly. Target also loses 2 HP every hour they have this condition unless they are near a heat source that would nullify this effect. Target also may not be awake once they have this condition. Basic cure is immersion in hot water for an hour.}
Even though, she doubted she'd get a different result, she still used her Assess spell on Jonas. With the results she'd expected.
Sighing, she looked at Kim. "I can heal this, but I think we'll need to remain here for a little bit before we can leave once I heal this," Elin informed Kim.
Kim merely nodded. "Do what you need to do."
"Treat," Elin said, first focusing on Elmo, then immediately on Jonas. As she cast it on Elmo, she felt energy flow out of her and to Elmo, who started to glow with a white light for a moment before it disappeared and left Elmo with more color in his skin. Then the same occurred with Jonas.
As soon as she finished she suddenly felt light headed and would have collapsed from a sudden case of vertigo if Kim hadn't caught her.
"You okay, my gem?" Kim asked.
Elin nodded. "Just a little dizzy. I think its because I used up all of my MP for that," Elin replied, fighting to stay awake.
"You two are so cute together," Patricia purred.
Elin wanted to tell Kim to stop glaring at Patricia, but couldn't help but close her eyes as she drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
+++
A/N:Just a couple things that I've realized about the systems that I've shown the stats for that I feel I should say something about.
One: The numbers for the stats are to be considered an addition to what the individual's stats are otherwise, so there's really no 'average' number for them. Although, for purposes of HP, MP, and Stamina, the stats listed in the system are what generates that number and not what the numbers are added on.
Two: I'm still working on a few things with them, so there could be some changes. Such as how Elin's Assess spell used to have '0/100' after it, but that disappeared. As I realized that it should be able to be able to level up and it won't lead to another skill/ability/spell if there's no real benefit or point to it.
Also, on a side note, the outfit I was trying to describe for Patricia were overalls with the leg parts cut off about a quarter of the way down her thigh. If anyone got that, I'm happy, but otherwise it's as I was afraid of. That my describing it wasn't as good as I'd have liked it to be. Unless you're someone who doesn't know what overalls are anyway, so it wouldn't matter. However, there are so many different names for outfits that it's hard for me to keep up with all of them. So, if there's an outfit that it fits closer to, I'd appreciate learning about it.
Anyway, thanks for all those who have continued reading this. I really appreciate it.