‘This is wonderful!’
The voice coming from her bathroom sounded as if on the verge of climax. Nadec grunted in recognition. A good hot shower can do that to a person, she knew the feeling well enough. Especially after spending a lot of time in the other realm, where the only option of washing yourself is usually a cold stream or nothing at all. Extremely inconvenient when she was on her period.
She went back to staring at her computer screen. 20 words. Great, only 480 more to go. She vaguely wondered if this was going to be the beginning of the end for her blog. Will her 24 followers now revolt because she missed her deadline? That thought did not help her writer’s block at all. And that last one made her stiffen, realising what she’d called it. Well fu— Her couch exploded.
She managed to jump from her chair quickly enough to cower on the ground. Debris landed on top of her, mostly pieces of fabric and wood. Not wasting any time, she grabbed the halberd from its place behind her, changing in her realm-gear in record time.
‘Kitty!’ Panicked, she looked around, followed by immediate relief at seeing the grey cat run towards her, meowing. ‘I know buddy, this sucks.’ She slipped on his harness and put him on her shoulders, ran to the bathroom to get Pagewyn. Before she got there, he came through the door, his eyes wide, water dripping from his wet hair and his body. Naked again.
Nadec shook her head, trying but failing at keeping the nngggh sound in. That man had no right to be so good-looking and wet.
‘Hold on to me,’ she snapped, bending through her knees, moving them against each other while shifting her hands over them. She felt Kitty balance himself, meowing softly. Feeling guilty for doing this to him while his training hadn’t been completed yet, she hoped he’d be fine during the shifting.
The next moment they were in the woods, trees all around them. Nadec looked next to her and was relieved to see that Pagewyn had complied to her command. When he let go of her shoulder, he turned around and threw up.
‘Sorry buddy, shifting twice in a short period of time can do that to you. Eventually one gets used to it though. Now, where are we?’
Because she’d had to hurry up to get away, she hadn’t been able to pinpoint a precise location. She didn’t recognise anything around her, but that was okay. The woods looked the same almost everywhere anyway. Ah, there we go, she thought, looking at the two creature running towards them. It appears that we’re in the Blurgh-woods.
The blurghs running, or stumbling—whatever you want to call it—towards her were about half again as tall as she was, which made them as tall as an average ceiling. Their skin colour imitated a bark, with browns, grays, and even some greens. Nadec felt immense relief at seeing the leaves they used to cover up some body parts; they didn’t always had those and it was too distracting. Their faces were twisted knots and dents, vaguely looking like a human face but you’d need to have a lot of imagination to see it.
‘Hey Wyny, I don’t know if you’ve ever fought these guys, but it would be nice if you could give me a hand. I mean, of course I can do it myself but I’ve got to keep an eye on Kitty as well, she’s not trained well enough for it. Here, use this stick.’ She frowned at him.
‘Hold it out.’ She took a few good swings towards the stick. Her ever-sharp halberd cut through it almost without any resistance.
‘There, just use it now like you would a sword. The trick with these guys is to numb them and they’ll just turn around and stumble elsewhere. Do you see that red-brown coloured area on the side of their body? The one that looks like… you know… a lady’s part?’
She could see him colouring a bit at that and felt oddly satisfied for it. He’s been making me blush often enough already, she thought with a pang of pleasure.
‘Just try to hit that with as much force as you can, and that should do the trick. Oh, but do try to stay away from their—woaah here they are!’
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is part of a continuing story, if you’d like to read all the previous chapters, on this page they’re all attached to each other.