1.07 – Chemistry

Maple lay in bed, too sore to wanna get up. She was already resolving to just sleep in all day. If that made her a bad guest—well, it was her host's fault, wasn't it?

Unfortunately, her bladder had other plans, and she groaned as she sat up. The sight of Emma's blissful sleeping-face returned a smile to her own. Even when half of her body was literally melting into the bed—she was just so cute. She could feel herself getting attached, and worried a day would come where they say goodbye.

An unwanted thought occurred to Maple then: that lewd cleansing Slime who loved cleaning anything and everything—especially if it was something like Maple's sweat—would probably welcome solving her bladder woes for her.

But—no. Just no.

Her legs still worked, even if everything hurt when she moved. She half-limped to the door and listened for a moment. She had been kind of, loud, the night prior. And all of that exhilaration and pleasure was turned to embarrassment and shame today.

It sounded clear.

Maple opened the door and stepped into the hall. Right as she did, the door across from hers opened. Her eyes widened, and internally she was screaming.

Why was it always right when you finally open your door? Rachel already made eye contact with her, and then avoided looking at her. It was too late to flee back inside.

"Oh. Good morning."

She sounded even more reserved than usual, and Maple refused to imagine why that might be. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with last night.

"—Good morning."

Maple tried to stand up straight and not let her soreness show. Rachel nodded curtly, and shuffled her eight legs before speaking again.

"I'm going foraging within the next hour, while the sun's still out. Be ready by then if you want to go with me; it'd be too dangerous for you to go for a walk alone, so."

"Oh, uh, yeah that sounds good. I'll come."

Maple internally cringed at her word choice, but tried not to show or acknowledge it. She grimaced as pain shot up her body, and was already regretting saying she'd go at all—even if getting some sunlight would be nice.

"Great. I'll be outside, whenever you're ready."

The Arachnid woman moved down the hall and then stopped, her shoulder-length hair swaying with the motion. She turned toward Maple and winced a little at her appearance.

"Here, have a sip. Healing potion."

Maple eyed the glass bottle she pulled out of the bag on her side, and blushed a little. She knew.

"T-thanks."

"Mh, no problem...You have rope marks all over you."

Maple looked down for the first time and saw it was true. It couldn't have been any more obvious, in fact. Even if Rachel hadn't heard anything—damn, why hadn't she noticed sooner?

She wanted to just hide in her room forever at that point, but the potion was already in her hand. She took a tiny sip, and grimaced as it touched her tongue. It was bitter and almost had a rotten taste.

"Yeah, they never taste good. That's alchemy for ya."

The tiny sip did make her feel a lot better though. The marks on her skin even began to fade. It was amazing how fast it worked.

The half-tomato girl handed it back while avoiding eye contact.

"Thanks..."

"Right. Well, like I said. See you outside within an hour."

She skittered off down the hall after that, and Maple waited until she was gone before finally heading to the bathroom.

There wasn't much she needed to do before leaving. A shower or bath would be redundant, thanks to Emma's daily routine. She decided to bring her bag with her just in case, and then just needed to let Emma know. The Slime girl nodded lazily and motioned for Maple to go ahead while she continued to sleep.

She gave the Slime girl a final goodbye kiss, and then she was ready. It probably hadn't even been 15 minutes. Just enough light filtered in from the cave entrance for her to find the way out.

Rachel heard her coming and quickly moved something into her bag. It looked like a book.

"Whatcha readin'?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it. That was fast though. You're ready?"

"Oh. Yeah, I'm ready."

The Arachnid woman bit her lip and looked flustered before she finally elaborated.

"It was a [Chemistry] book."

"Oh? I guess you do like chemicals. Oh! I have one too, actually. It was in my bag with me."

Maple dug the chemistry textbook out of her bag, thankful for the distraction from other topics. On the cover was a beaker, some aesthetic colored smoke, and a visual of Earth from afar.

"Ah. There it is; my home. Earth."

"Huh. Your planet was just named Earth though?"

"Um, yeah. I guess it's not very creative, actually. It's not like I named it."

The Arachnid shrugged and took the heavy book out of Maple's hands. She looked ready to be disappointed, if anything. But then as she flipped through, she became entranced.

"This is so detailed—"

Maple watched her read for 20 minutes before finally speaking up.

"Um, we were going to scavenge or something right?"

Rachel looked confused about where she even was for a moment and then she looked up at the sky.

"Oh, right. Yeah, let's go before it's dark."

Her eyes were so fixed upon it as she was handing it back that Maple couldn't bear to take it. She didn't even like chemistry herself.

"You could borrow it if you want—whoa, haha."

The Arachnid's hand snapped back.

"I'll take good care of it, don't worry. I could copy it and give it back sooner if you want. That might still take a while though..."

"What, like by hand? Nah, don't worry about it. I don't need it anymore anyway. Just uh, don't share it around carelessly I guess..."

Had that been a mistake? What would the ramifications of sharing chemistry with a relatively primitive world be? Nothing major, she told herself. The world had to advance at some point, right?

Rachel stuffed the book into a small bag on her waist. Somehow. It was far too small for it to fit.

"Huh? How'd you do that?"

"It's a bag of holding. The inside is larger than the outside. Your world doesn't have them?"

The Arachnid seemed to intentionally avoid showing its contents. Maple gave her the benefit of the doubt, deciding she was just a very private person, and focused on the bag itself.

"Nope. How's that work? Is it heavy? How much stuff can it fit?"

"Mh, I don't know exactly. That's mage stuff. I'm just a [Chemist]—in general terms—which isn't even slightly magical. Unlike say, alchemy. It does negate the weight. This one's roughly 5ft by 5ft inside, but there are bigger ones. If you've got a mountain of gold, that is."

She motioned for Maple to follow, and they began walking through the woods. Noisy birds could be heard all over, and everything was so green. It was like visiting a beautiful hiking spot free of roads, cars, and technology. And free of any kind of emergency services to call on for help.

"We're looking for mushrooms, by the way. Don't touch them, but tell me if you spot any."

"Mushrooms, got it. So how much did that bag cost? Um, you use gold here? Like coins?"

"Does yours not? There's copper, silver, and gold coins. And some higher denominations that aren't really used."

Maple skipped trying to explain how credit cards work, and instead focused on physical currency. It was kind of funny how the $60 and change in her wallet was completely worthless now. She let the curious Arachnid woman examine it.

"It's quite interesting from a cultural perspective. In god we trust, eh?"

"Yeah...I think it was, over half the people in my country, who were religious."

"Huh, interesting. How many people was that?"

If Rachel balked at the 300 million estimate Maple remembered, she thought 8 billion had to be a lie. Or exaggerated, at the least.

She didn't know how many were in this world, and the conversation moved back to currency, Rachel explaining the conversions and cost of basic things. They were keeping an eye out for shrooms, but for the most part it was just a nature hike.

"So why do you two live all alone out here anyway?"

Rachel considered that question, weighing something in her mind.

"Mhh, she's banned from a lot of cities. Most of them, actually. Don't tell her I told you that, though."

"What, why? They can just ban you from entire cities here?"

A long sigh came out of Rachel's nose as she pushed her glasses up.

"It's a long story, and I probably shouldn't go into it. I don't want you to think less of her, and she really likes you. I, uh, think..."

"I mean, I wouldn't think any less of her. You two really saved my butt—I mean, my life. I won't pry though, I guess. Are you banned too?"

Maple's poor initial phrasing made her remember the 'punishment' she'd received last night, causing her to turn red and pretend to be looking really hard for mushrooms.

"I'm not. No, I just can't let her be all alone out here, you know? Even with the antics she pulls. Sometimes I think she's doing it to get me to leave—I mean, that's probably why she suggested you go into town with me. I know she'd get lonely with me gone long-term, though."

"Ah. Family's tough."

Maple thought of her own family then. She guessed she'd never see them again. More than just never seeing anyone in particular again, she felt her complete lack of roots in this world. The only people who knew of her existence here, the only three people she knew of in this world, she'd known for a week.

How many people had she been aware of back home? Between celebrities, billionaire assholes, family, friends, acquaintances, school staff—it was surely in the hundreds.

The conversation came to a lull, and they walked in silence for a while until Maple called out.

"Ooh, look, here's a bunch of mushrooms! They're in a little circle—"

"Vineboar! Look out!"

Rachel yanked Maple out the way, sending her tumbling to the ground, just in time for the large boar with tentacle-like vines protruding from its back to miss its charge.

Maple let out a oomph and then a quickly-muffled scream.

Rachel pulled a wickedly curved dagger from a sheath on her waist. The entire blade had a slight shimmer to it. She gripped it tight, and then used all eight of her legs to leap onto the charging Vineboar.

Her nearly metallic looking legs wrapped around the beast, digging into its sides. It tried to get its vines around her, but she was already stabbing. Her blade pierced its neck repeatedly as its charge faltered.

When it finally lost enough blood, it collapsed, and Rachel hopped off.

"Phew. Are you alrig—oh, damn."

A second Vineboar had its vines wrapped around Maple's body. They spiraled up each limb, with a thick one across her mouth muffling her screams as she thrashed against them.

One of the tentacle-vines had finally found its way inside her shirt, when Rachel landed on the second Vineboar and dragged her dagger cleanly through its throat. It collapsed quickly as blood gushed out of the perverse creature.

The vines went limp and Maple tore them off, cursing. The only saving grace being her clothes preventing anything major from happening.

"What the fuck is wrong with this place?! Eugh."

"...I don't really think it's this world that's the issue, to be honest, Maple. Here."

Maple grabbed the Arachnid's outstretched hand and was pulled up. Rachel was so strong. Was it from Skills? She wanted those ones.

"Thanks. But what are you saying? It's not my fault. Before coming here I was a—I never did those kinds of things. The system is broken. I'm going to demand a refund!"

"Hm, I just mean I've never met anyone with classes like yours. You get them based on your accomplishments. I mean, maybe a brothel worker would have similar, but..."

"Well I want different ones."

"That'd be hard, unfortunately. Maybe you could consolidate them with something else, but that'd end up being like...[Slutty Warrior]? Probably not much of an improvement. A vow of celibacy might do it, but there'd be consequences if you ever reneged on that."

Maple went quiet as she considered it. Celibacy, hm? And then she decided absolutely not.

Rachel was loading up the Vineboars on her spider half, using their own vines to tie it in place while cutting off the excess.

"Whatever. Thanks, though. You were so cool back there. Should I grab those mushrooms? It feels like you're doing all the work..."

"Don't mention it, and nah you're fine. I enjoyed the company, and I honesty wasn't expecting to run into Vineboars of all things. Their meat is as good as any, though. Leave those shrooms alone. That's a Fae Envy ring. If we're lucky, and nothing disturbs it, a really big one will grow in the center of it. They have a really nice, uh, medicinal effect.

Something was off about the way she said medicinal, but Maple shrugged and pulled her water bottle out of her bag. She eyed Rachel while she drank. The two huge boars were loaded up on her back and she moved like they weren't even there.

"You're so strong. And you were so fast when you killed those things. I wanna be like that. Even if I had a knife on me, I wouldn't have been able to do anything."

Rachel pushed up her glasses, looking slightly flustered at the compliments.

"I have a combat class. But that's from a different life now. I'm just a [Chemist]. I could show you some moves if you did want to fight, but, not everyone is cut out for that kind of thing. Sometimes it's better to just let others handle it."

"Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I'll need some other class eventually, but maybe not fighting I guess. I don't know how to make money in this world. Life was so much simpler back home."

"There'll be plenty of options when we get to Syber. You'll figure something out. And you can always ask one of us for help when you need it. Anyway, let's head back."

The rest of that evening passed uneventfully. Charlotte and Rachel both had skilled work that Maple would only get in the way of, and Emma was way more efficient at cleaning things than she could ever be. So Maple idled her time away thinking about things until she and Emma retired to their room for the night.

Their door suddenly burst open.

"Maple, this is amazing! Do you have any more books—"

"KNOCK, please!"

Maple covered herself with a blanket as Emma changed into a non-sexy humanoid form in bed beside her.

"Oh—ah—sorry. I'll uh, ask tomorrow."

Rachel stumbled backwards out the room. She got all the way into the hall—and then had to skitter back to the doorway and reach in again to shut it.

Emma shook an angry fist at the Arachnid woman before turning back to Maple and silently laughing at her bed buddy's beet red face. Then she wrapped her body around her once more.