1.67 – Dream Cream

None

In the middle of the night, they convened, summoned in their sleep. Maple, Emma, and Thera stood on a floating island. Below it, ran rivers of lava over a scorched landscape. Sasha cackled above them. She was floating, but even in this dream only had one good wing.

"Welcome to my domain."

They squinted up at her and Thera laughed.

"Whoa, what's with the—all this?"

"Too much? Dramatic entrances are fun, sometimes."

"You can dramatically enter me any time. I dig it. We gonna have some fun, or what?"

Thera looked to each of them, practically salivating. Emma nodded rapidly. Maple rolled her eyes. These were the people she was trusting to help her.

"We're not here for that."

We could be, though!

Emma made the text appear in the air in front of her. Maple glared at her. Thera chuckled and took in the scenery while Sasha descended to them.

"She's right. We have a lot to discuss."

Aw.

"...Maybe if we have time afterward."

Maple couldn't stop herself from saying it. It should be fine as long as she didn't use any of her Skills.

YESSSSSSssssssssss

"Silly. You can talk here, can't you?"

NOOooooo

I don't know what I want to sound like. It's embarrassing.

Aw, she did seem shy about it. How adorable. Maple wrapped an arm around her. She could guess it'd be hard to come up with a voice when you'd never had one before, to just decide what such a major aspect of yourself would be going forward.

"You can try some out if you want, cutie. We wouldn't judge you for it or anything."

"Yeah, try some out. Let us hear you moan~"

Emma looked tempted by Thera's offer, but shook her head.

Not yet.

And that was that. Sasha summoned a table, chairs, and a smorgasbord of snacks and drinks. Emma helped herself immediately, and Thera not long after.

"Let me know if you want anything in particular. If I've eaten it before, so can you. Or you can summon your own things. You all know how dreams work. Should I change the scenery, actually? Let's see..."

The world blinked and then they were floating above an ocean on a bright sunny day. Much more comfortable. Maple grabbed some food, and had a craving.

"Sasha, does uh—have you ever had coffee?"

Maple gave her a meaningful look. She hadn't seen coffee here yet, and it'd been too long. Far too long. Sasha's eyes narrowed a fraction, be less obvious, dummy, but she didn't miss a beat.

"Can't say I have. I've always wanted to though, so if you have, then summon me some too."

"What's that? I want some."

Me too!

Right, okay, so it didn't exist here, and Sasha was implying that. Probably. Tread carefully, but ooh, what was the best coffee she could remember having....

A light roast from Peru she sometimes got from a local roaster, but it was expensive, so she couldn't remember it very clearly. One she'd got often, and could definitely remember, had pinon nuts in it. Medium roast.

She summoned four mugs of the stuff.

"Here. You can add cream or sugar if you want, but..."

Maple shrugged. She didn't add any to hers. She sipped it, and felt the same rush of endorphins she'd feel if it weren't a dream. Sasha tried hers.

"Ooh, it's bitter. I likey."

"Hm. Interesting."

Thera set it down after a couple of sips. Emma tried hers black, then with sugar, then with cream, and seemed to enjoy it any which way. It was risky, but...

"Do you want to try another kind, cutie?"

You know me so well.

For this one she had to replace a plastic cup with a glass one, and hope it worked out. She imagined it...and voila. A mocha frappe in a glass cup, topped with whip cream and chocolate, and—she forgot the straw was plastic. Maple blinked, glanced at Thera—

"Ooh, let me get one of those."

Too late. Maybe she wouldn't notice. Thera and Sasha both got one, and Emma finished hers in no time at all.

Give me everything you got!

"Oh jeez, you. Fine, let's see..."

Chocolate, pizza, donuts, candy, soda, chips, salsa, guac, nachos, chicken nuggets, jalapeno poppers, ramen, pho, sushi—

They wasted about an hour just sampling every food Maple could think of. For them to try new cuisine, and for Maple to...remember. She ended up a bit wistful.

"You sure have a lot of these."

"Yeah, uh..."

Maple shrugged. She'd gone well past the point of suspicion, but Thera didn't press. She'd meant to do this sort of thing with Sasha, Em, and Rachel a while ago, but even just food was making her kind of sad. Emma fed her a french fry, and she smiled. Sasha cleared her throat.

"Good stuff, but the night is passing us by. What's first?"

Maple looked up. There were several things to get to.

"Right, uh. So yeah, last night, when I was about to level..."

Maple told it all. Emma continued eating, having heard the story already. Sasha's fingers were steepled throughout. At the end, Thera ran a hand through her hair.

"An artifact of that caliber, huh? Supposedly. At an unknown location, from an unknown stranger. Sounds a little above our pay grade, honestly, but I wouldn't turn it down entirely just yet. The rest of my team would need to agree, of course. We generally don't take on large unknowns, and we wouldn't go in blindly. At the worst, a day to get there if you don't know how far it is, a day to scope it out safely, and a day to go in. We'd typically charge around a gold a day for something like this, more if we assess the risk to be higher. If it ended up being too risky, we'd pack up and go home and charge you for however long it took."

Maple bit her lip. That'd eat through all the gold she had, maybe more than she had. Would it be worth it?

"You're kind of broke, yeah?"

"Er...yeah, but how did you know?"

Thera shrugged and sipped on another frappe.

"Got an eye for it. Well, I am kind of fascinated. I assume you want whatever artifact was promised for yourself, but, if you were willing to give up any other loot that happened to be there...We might be able to come to an agreement."

"All of it? Hmm. What are you thinking about, Sasha?"

"Well first of all, before you agree to anything predatory, keep in mind that there are other [Adventurer] groups out there."

Sasha smiled wickedly. Leave it to a succubus to spot a predatory contract.

"Hey, I didn't mean all of it. Unless she would have agreed to that, of course. But no, we'd make a proper agreement. Minimum values, percentages, and a smaller base fee if nothing is found. It's a high risk for us, but we wouldn't do anything unfair."

"Just making sure. Second of all, Maple, I felt that presence while she was here. And I think...a certain g-o-d has taken a liking to you."

Thera choked on her frappe mid-sip.