ALL NOVEL Preparing for the Event
The sun shining in my room woke me up from my slumber. Yuki did not play the game last night and spent the night with me. We tried to keep our nightly activities quiet to avoid bothering the others. I left my bedroom and walked into the living room. I saw Alex and Naomi sprawled about haphazardly on the couch with an empty liquor bottle on the table. It was pretty comical as Alex had her big toe stuck in Naomi’s nose.
I ignored the two sleeping beauties and walked into the kitchen for breakfast. I looked through the fridge and pantry for some things and found I would have to run to the grocery store sometime soon. I decided on pancakes and bacon. I chose to cook all the remaining bacon.
Soon the house was filled with the sounds and smell of sizzling bacon. I also had a growing stack of pancakes. I soon heard movement from the living room. Looking back at the sound, I saw the two women try and untangle themselves from each other. I chuckled as I saw a confused Naomi try to remove a foot from her nose.
“Looks like you two slept well,” I said to the two girls, who were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.
“Did we really drink this whole bottle last night?” Alex asked as she lifted the bottle to eye level and inspected it for any remaining booze.
“What were you celebrating last night?” I teasingly asked them as I flipped over a pancake.
“More of a science experiment,” Alex said, rubbing her head due to an apparent hangover.
“Yeah! It was for science.” Naomi had yelled out from between the couch cushions.
I shook my head at their antics and poured more pancake batter into the skillet. “What was the experiment? To see who would wake up in a compromising position first?”
Glancing over at the two girls, I saw a bit of embarrassment in Alex. Naomi was hard to see as she was still embedded in the couch.
“No, I just wanted to see if I could still get drunk because of these new abilities. Next thing I knew, we were playing drinking games.” Alex said as she stood up and wobbled her way into the kitchen.
“Well, the both of yous are a bunch of lightweights. It would take me around two to get drunk.” I said with pride in my drinking. If I hadn’t been cut off from alcohol for as long as I have, I could probably be down three or four of those before I was shit-faced.
Alex just waved me off and started to make a pot of coffee. Soon after, Yuki came shambling out of the bedroom, shuffled to the table, and sat down. “Morning, Yuki.” I greeted her with a smile.
Yuki grunted an unintelligible response and laid her head down on the table. “Got to hurry and get breakfast ready. I don’t want to miss the first event for today.” I said as I was finishing up the last batch of pancakes.
“Oh yeah, that is today. What were the events you are doing again?” Alex asked. She was a bit more awake now that she had her coffee.
“I want to do potion making and enchanting. Though I will have to see what other things they have going on. I might do another one, depending on that.” I put a plateful of pancakes and a plate of bacon on the table. I grabbed an empty plate and served myself some breakfast. Naomi slowly made her way to the table and joined everyone else.
Breakfast was fun, and I enjoyed messing with Naomi calling her the Lady of the Couch, seeing how deep she was in it. Shortly after our breakfast, Alex went home to get into the game. The rest of us then logged into the game.
I woke up in the usual inn bedroom, one of the designated safe areas for logging off. Even though I had been awake already, it was strange to wake up again. I went to the inn’s first floor and left the building. The city was chock full of people. Everyone was excited for the first event of the tournament to kick off.
I got a message from Yuki saying she would be in town soon and wanted to meet up. Shortly after, I met up with Emiko, who was Naomi.
“We have a little bit of time before the event starts, but you should get to the registration area and register yourself,” Naomi said.
It took us a little while to get to the registration area. It was located near a large coliseum-like structure. If I were to guess, that would be where the tournament would be hosted. Just outside the coliseum was a large tent with several long lines of other players. In the surrounding area, other players were trying to sell their goods to anyone who would pay them attention. The guards would run off players that set up shops too close to the registration tent.
Naomi and I joined a line to stand in. She wanted to try her hand at leather crafting to see how she compared to other players. “I picked up the leatherworking skill a while back because I thought it would be cool to make my own armor.”
It was fun to watch all the other players standing in line. Players had found all sorts of exciting races to play. There was one player who looked like a centaur. They were lightly armored and had a large bow. I saw another player that, at first, I thought was an elf, but I noticed they had four arms and four spider-like legs sprouting from their back. I always liked to see the unique species players chose to rebirth into.
After thirty minutes of waiting, Naomi and I finally reached the registration desk. The registration was easy. They asked for my player name, username, and what events I wanted to compete in. I signed up for the Apothecary, Enchanting, and Alchemy events. It was a bit strange to see alchemy was listed, as I was under the impression it was illegal.
“Thank you for signing up. The Apothecary event starts today at 4pm. Tomorrow will be the Enchanting and Alchemy events. We will have times posted for those tomorrow.” The clerk said to me.
“Thank you. May I ask why there is an Alchemy event?”
“The king decided to rescind the ban on alchemy, especially with the number of Ascended Ones appearing. He also increased the regulation on precious metals, so the market doesn’t crash again.” The clerk responded. Having my answer, I quickly moved out of the line for the next person.
Naomi and I went to a café and ordered a slice of cake and a sweet milk drink. It was about this time when I got a message from Alex.
[I finished my rebirth, and I registered a guild for us. It is called the “Garden of Sappho.” I will send everyone an invite when I meet up with you.]
“Looks like Alex has rebirthed, and she got us a guild setup. Probably in anticipation for this event.” I said to Naomi, who was enjoying her cake.
We were sitting at the cafés outside area and talking when someone walked up and greeted us.
“Hey, mom. Hey Emiko.” I looked up at the woman and saw a tall fairy woman. She had black and red fairy wings. She also had a set of horns on her head, red-ruby eyes, and pale skin with a blue-silver sheen to it.
“Hello, Yuki. You look quite amazing! That look suits you.” I said as my eyes drank in Yuki’s new appearance.
“Thanks. At first, I was a little upset and tempted to do another rebirth and change my appearance. But the current look grew on me, so I kept it. Besides, I am also a vampire without actually being a vampire.” Yuki said as she sat down next to us.
We got a small group of other players pointing at us and whispering amongst themselves. If I had to guess, it was because of our similarities and Yuki’s wings.
“How about we get to the coliseum and watch the different events. Mine isn’t until four, so we have some time.” I suggested to the girls.
“Sounds good to me.” Naomi stood up, and we followed suit. We then made our way to the spectating stands in the giant structure.