Chapter 21

  One of the loneliest parts of being single was knowing that you'd wake up to an empty bed every morning. Even during the worst parts of my relationship with Stacy, I'd been able to wake up next to her at least a couple of times per week. For a person with severe social anxiety, there was very little that could ease my anxieties like having someone to wake up next to.

  My mind gradually regained consciousness. I was resting on something soft and could feel a warm blanket covering me. Aside from a dull ache, the pain my body experienced in the settlement had completely disappeared. But the most notable sensation I felt was something licking nearly every inch of my face, leaving long trails of saliva in its wake. The weight of four little paws stood directly on my chest, giving my attacker the best possible angle to use its adorable charm to warm his owner's heart.

  "Dalos, buddy. Good morning to you too." My hand reached up to pet the puppy before I even opened my eyes.

  "He hasn't left your side since we brought you here. Anytime anyone got close to you, he'd growl at us. It was pretty adorable. I just wish he'd let me pet him." I turned my head to meet the source of the voice. Tara sat on the edge of another bed nearby.

  We were in one of the rooms of the local inn. I wasn't sure if this was the same room I'd woken up in after my initial run-in with Deep Juan, or if all of the rooms just looked the same. If I had to guess, that god probably just copy and pasted the same room template over and over when they made this inn.

  "Go ahead and pet him and see what happens." Joan laughed condescendingly. I realized she had been sitting at the foot of my bed.

  "What do you mean by that?" Tara pushed back.

  "Even though he looks like a puppy, that thing is still a Tindalos Hound. Do you know what they eat?" She watched Dalos closely as she talked.

  "Actually, it's embarrassing to admit since he's my pet, but I don't really know what he eats either." I recalled my experiences with Tindalos Hounds, and one of the observations I'd made was that they didn't seem to eat the things they hunted. Instead, the Hounds just killed their target and left the remains. But that left the question, what did they eat?

  "I'm surprised you haven't already figured it out. And I'm even more surprised that it doesn't seem to be affecting you." She gestured to the puppy standing on my chest. When I turned my head to look more closely at the adorable little eldritch pup, I could see little tendrils of miasma wrapping tightly around my hand as I playfully scratched his pointy little ears. "He's made out of concentrated miasma."

  "I figured that much, but it doesn't hurt. I think it's just his way of clinging to me." I commented on the fact even though the tendrils appeared to be dangerous, I felt no ill effects.

  "Wait, Joan are you saying that Dalos uses the miasma to drain anything nearby?" Tara's voice was wavering as she realized the implications about the party's new mascot. "Why isn't it feeding off of Clay? Is it because Clay's his master?"

  "Why would you think he's not feeding off Clay?" The coldness in Joan's voice was a constant reminder that Tara was only there because it was what Clay wanted. If there were any warm feelings between Joan and Tara they would have been woefully one-sided.

  "It's obvious, isn't it? If it was feeding off of him, Clay would be on death's door. It would be eating away at his willpower and sanity nonstop." Tara was so deep in conversation that she never even noticed how much she'd opened up since Raif left her for dead. Sure, Joan was being incredibly cold, but Tara wasn't withdrawn like she had been.

  I couldn't have known at the time, but she'd been silent while I slept, not speaking to Joan at all. Joan had been more than willing to not have to communicate with the woman who had been, at the very least, an accessory to her attempted murder. The two women were forced to work together to help carry me from the settlement to the inn, but that had been the extent of their pleasantries. It wasn't until I opened my eyes, that Tara had spoken up as if talking to a childhood friend.

  Because the conversation had developed so naturally, Tara didn't even realize how much she was acting as part of the party. Instead, all three of us were confused about the possible implications of Dalos' feeding requirements and the potential strain on me as his owner.

  "Like Tara said... I'm fine. I doubt I'd have much sanity to give anyway. Dalos would starve if he depended on that." I did my best attempt at warming up the atmosphere with a little self deprecation.

  "What do you mean? Why are you acting like you don't know how much sanity you have left? It's not like you can't just look it up in your journal." She was genuinely perplexed by my statement.

  "Well, actually..." Before I could explain the situation, Joan cut me off.

  "No offense, but for the time being, we're not going to share anything about our abilities with you. I'm sure you can understand. If not, I really don't care." Her words seemed to lower the temperature in the room significantly. She wasn't wrong for thinking that way. It was only reasonable to be a little bit guarded.

  Aside from Joan, nobody knew about my unique situation. To Tara, I was just another player like her, Joan, and Raif. She had no reason to think otherwise. Joan and I still didn't fully understand the implications of my +h3 /\/u11 occupation. Nor did we understand the stats and abilities that came with it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Joan's frigid response seemed to deflate Tara's sense of camaraderie.

  "No, I get it. I'm sorry Clay, that was really rude of me." Her eyes immediately moved from me to staring at the floor in front of her.

  "You didn't mean anything by it. You were just worried about me." I tried to lighten the mood, but it had already been shattered.

  During the uncomfortable silence that followed, I thought back to the conversation regarding Dalos. If Joan was correct and Dalos had been feeding off of me this whole time, then what did that mean? Tara was right. If I was constantly drained, my willpower and sanity should have been running on empty. But I didn't even have a willpower stat, at least not one I could see. I know that Joan had the PWR stat in her journal, but that didn't exist for me. And on top of that, I still haven't been able to see my sanity points. Could it be that they are really high? The idea seemed laughable to me since I considered sanity to be one of my biggest weaknesses.

  This hadn't been the first time my reaction to miasma had been brought into question. When facing Tep, I had somehow managed to act normally and even hold a conversation. Both Tep and Joan had made comments that my interaction with the eldritch deity should have been impossible. At the very least, my sanity should have been severely reduced. But the most realistic reaction should have been dying from the exposure.

  My possible resistance to the effects of miasma was just one more thing to add to my growing list of mysteries regarding my existence in that god's little game.

  "I'm going to get some fresh air. I'm sure you two have plenty to talk about." Tara rose to her feet and prepared to leave the room.

  "Wait, you don't have to..." My voice trailed off as she walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.

  "Clay, you really need to be more cautious around her." I felt as if Joan was scolding me like a child. The worst part was that she was right. Logically, I should keep as much distance as possible between myself and Tara. Any desires to keep her close were entirely based on emotion. Even though Joan might have been right, I wasn't willing to ignore my empathy just yet.

  Besides, there was way too much of myself reflected in Tara's eyes. As much as I owed Joan for being my rock and repeatedly acting as my savior, I couldn't ignore the fact that I had much more in common with Tara than I did with Joan. And I absolutely refused to believe that Tara was a bad person. Every fiber of my being told me to show Tara compassion, because I knew what would likely happen if she started doubting her self-worth.

  "I promise to be more cautious around her. But in return, I'd like for you to not be so cold to her. At least help her feel like she's allowed to be here." It was difficult for me to push back whenever Joan put her foot down. Thinking back, I'd managed to be quite bold about digging in my heels with Joan recently.

  "We're just going to talk in circles about this, Clay. You're too naive, but I don't hate that about you." Joan let her tsundere nature peek out slightly as she tried to curb the current discussion. "Since we have a moment of privacy, I'm not going to waste it. How were you able to tame that Tindalos Hound? Did you know that would happen when you stopped me from killing it?"

  "No. I didn't have a clue. I mean, I think unconsciously I felt something, but I had no idea Dalos would become my familiar. I just didn't want to see a creature die that was begging for its life." I did my best to put my feelings to words, but it still felt there was a lot that had been lost in translation. If I tried to explain to Joan that sometimes my body acted on instinct, I was worried she might start seeing me as a major liability. Instead of critiquing my vague response, she reacted with complete confusion.

  "Clay, what do you mean? You knew you had the ability to tame creatures, didn't you?" Her questions made me every bit as confused as she appeared to be.

  "I had no idea. I didn't gain the ability to have a familiar until the moment before I made the contract with Dalos." I didn't understand what was so difficult for Joan to understand. "I think when I met the conditions, I unlocked the ability. I mean, I think that's how it works. When you learn new abilities is it the same?"

  "I don't learn new abilities. At least, I haven't learned any new ones since we started. Are you saying you've just been picking up abilities left and right?" Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. I had assumed that the ability to learn new abilities on the fly wasn't unique.

  "I wouldn't say I've been learning them left and right, but I've gotten a handful of them since we first started." I summoned my journal and opened to my stats page. "Pathfinder, Parkour, Read the Room, Eldritch Whisperer, and the one I just gained Eldritch Tamer."

  "So that's just one more thing we need to keep secret from other players. Unless you hear anyone talking about learning new abilities, we should assume that it's something that's unique to your situation." Joan sternly added to my growing list of secrets. "You obviously shouldn't share your ability information with others unless its necessary. That's why I never asked you. But understand that people will obviously assume you started out with some sort of pet tamer ability, so even just your reactions to other people might give too much away."

  I didn't like having so many secrets.

  The best response I could give was a simple nod. I flipped to a new page of my journal, trying to distract myself from the uncomfortable situation. I really didn't like being the center of attention. And I did not like constant reminders of how different I was from everyone else. In my experience, being different never amounted to anything good. Being different led to my issues with bullying when I was in school. Being different was the source of most of my mental issues. I had medications specifically designed to curb some of my differences. Now those medications were sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, so I also had the recurring fear that I would become so different that nobody would want to have anything to do with me.

  As I flipped the page of my journal, I was met with a new status page that I hadn't seen before. It was for Dalos. I guess it would make sense that since he was my familiar, I would be able to see his stats and skills.

  Dalos (Hound of Tindalos)

  (14Y's Familiar

  Level 2 (Eldritch Puppy)

  29% to Level 3

  STR: 16

  DEX: 16

  CON: 13

  INT: 4

  WIS: 6

  CHA: 10

  I petted Dalos affectionately as I reviewed the information in front of me.

  "Damn Dalos, you're a strong boy, aren't you? You're stronger than me, by a lot." I was met with an awkward mixture of pride and embarrassment.

  "What are you talking about?" Joan responded, making me remember that she couldn't see anything in my journal.

  "I have a status page for Dalos in my journal now. His stats are really high." As I looked over his numbers again, my eyes were drawn to a part that I had initially glossed over. "He's level two now? And almost a third of the way to level three? He was level one when we first signed the contract."

  "What does that mean?" I had forgotten that Joan had incredibly limited knowledge of gaming mechanics.

  "Between when I contracted him and now, he's gained a bunch of experience. Enough to make him level up and get stronger." As soon as I said it, I realized something odd. "Joan, have you leveled up at all since we first started? Does your status page say you are something other than level one?"

  Joan was clearly confused, but she summoned her journal and checked. "It still says I'm level one. Why? What does that mean?"

  "I'm not sure. But I want to try something. Let's find Tara and go meet up with Riff." If I was correct in my hypothesis, Dalos might be much more powerful than I ever imagined. I playfully scratched the eldritch puppy's head and looked into his trusting yellow eyes. "Who's a good boy?"

  The puppy gleefully barked in response.