Sell you a Bridge chapter 71

The Cathedral August 3rd 2010 8:00 PM EDT

I  expected to be able to crush the third floor with our new ringers, but  unfortunately I had momentarily ignored something fairly important. Fucking  skeletons had a magic immunity. As did zombies. I briefly checked my  points, I was at a hundred and twenty after some minimal use over the  last week or so, leaving me another hundred and eighty left to my next  power. Even with level ups in between it would probably take at least a  few days for me to get, and that was without power use.

Reggie  and Kitrina didn't actually know about the ritual, Zee made another of  those glamour necklaces for Artemis, but there was a marked difference  in how efficiently we cleared the floor even with Zee's magic not  working on half the enemies. Artemis had truly insane dexterity and her  arrows were dropping everything she could see. We'd had one of her old  bows still and with her new archery skill mixed with her old archery  skill and buffed with that dexterity she was a terror.

Unfortunately  arrows also worked less well that expected on skellies, even perfectly  aimed ones. Basically our new heavy hitters were nerfed for this stupid  level, and for one of the strongest bosses early game. I stood beside  Zee, tanking any magic immune enemies necessary, though with her new  dexterity being higher than mine along with her strength the only reason  I could do that was my skills. My ability to tear through flesh with my  fingers was particularly effective against zombies. I ducked under a  lurch and ripped out a spine. "So babe, how does it feel? The new  abilities?"

Zee  drifted in then shifted her footing, seeming to vanish from in front of  the fallen one trying to gut her and appearing behind it with my demon  bane dagger, which I'd given her while switched to my tanto. "It feels  amazing! The extra thirty percent damage from my fatal attraction help  me even things out, and I have this...natural grasp on combat now.  Nothing crazy, I'm not a martial arts master like you, I just kind of  feel which way the wind is blowing when I fight if that makes sense?"

It  did, since she was kind of a war elf, but still it was very cool.  I  dipped in and de limbed a zombie going for Zee's back, finishing it off  by stomping on it's head. I spotted Artemis off to the side working with  Reggie and Kit to take down a pack of scavengers. I turned to my  girlfriend as we finished off the last of our group. "So how have things  been at home. Your dad notice anything?" She'd been a bit worried about  her father noticing her nature. Her glamour was powerful enough now  that he shouldn't detect it but the man was a pro, his instincts were  good.

She  giggled at than. "Yes. My glamour held but he picked up some sort of  subtle difference in the way I moved and asked about it. I told him my  boobs had gotten bigger again and asked him if he could take me bra  shopping. He got so horrified I think he ran out of the room away from  me. Hasn't mentioned anything about it since." She snickered. "He's so  easy, any oblique mention of my sexuality and he bolts like a spooked  horse." She ducked under a blow as another skeleton came darting out of  nowhere. "So, I was thinking about dinner, when is your mom getting  back? I know a good Italian place."

So  did I actually, which she realized with a blush. She sometimes forgot  that I was almost as Italian as she was. Despite that I had a better  idea though. I earmarked twenty of my hundred and twenty points for  cooking lessons. I'd found some great ones. I figured that would be a  skill with long term use. "I'm going to cook actually. But she gets back  on the ninth. Or, well late on the eighth but I'm guessing she'll want  to rest her first day home." I'd actually always loved cooking, but had  never been great at it, so I was really excited to get a new skill.

We  finished off the late arrivals and started picking up the loot. Zee was  oddly quiet and when I looked over at her she had a worried frown on  her face. "I', just...do you really think she'll like me? I know how  close you two are. I want to get along with her so bad. But we got  together so soon after you broke up with Annabel. What if she thinks I'm  just a rebound. Oh god what if she thinks I stile you?" She looked  horrified and I stopped looting to walk over and pull her into my arms.  My poor girlfriend was nearly hyperventilating at the idea of my mother  thinking she was a home wrecker.

At  least, hypothetically. But I was pretty sure I knew what this was about.  "You're scared because you think my mom is going to react to you like  your dad would react to me." She looked a bit ashamed at that and opened  her mouth to try to explain but I just smiled and waved it off. "What  you don't get is that it doesn't matter. I love my mom, but I...love you  too." Her eyes went wide and I swallowed hard and pressed on. "Even if  she doesn't like you that won't change how I feel about you. Just like  knowing your dad will hate me doesn't change how you feel about me,  right?"

A lot  of bad had come out of my relationship with Annabel, but the biggest  positive I could think of was that being with her showed me what love  wasn't. I'd briefly thought I might have been in love with Annabel, but  compared to what I felt for Zee it had been nothing. I felt so safe with  her, so happy and cared for. With Annabel I always felt kind of looked  down on, even before I'd known she thought of me as a pet her constant  social berating and need to change me had grated slightly, I'd just been  too infatuated to notice.

Zee  wasn't like that. Zee didn't want to change me, she wanted to be by my  side. She wanted to go on adventures together as equals and keep each  other safe. It was a hard thing to put into words but my aura vision  made it plain as day. I just knew. I was in love with her. It had been a  month sure, and I'd been dating another girl during part of that time,  but Zee was just perfect. I was constantly in awe of her. Of her  strength and beauty and of her ability to make everyone around her happy  just by being there.

She  was staring at me, her eyes a bit damp, and her lips were parted.  Before I could worry she hadn't taken it well she hurled herself on me,  long legs wrapping around my waist as she kissed me soundly through  tears and laughter. "Oh baby I love you too!" She kissed me again harder  and I joined in her laughter as I kissed her back. It wasn't even a  sexual thing, it was just joy. We were both so happy and we just wanted  to share it with each other. I held her against me as we kissed slowly,  smiling at how amazing it felt to hold someone like her.

We'd  both been alone for so much of our lives. With no one to rely on or  believe in, and even though I had Artemis now it wasn't the same. I  felt...whole. Like I'd found a missing limb. I knew that as long as Zee  was with me I would never feel alone again. I also knew that most people  would dismiss me. I was eighteen so this was just a phase or a crush.  People thought being young meant you couldn't feel things, but I did. I  was in love. I would die for this girl if she needed me to, and I wanted  to spend the rest of my life with her.

A  throat clearing tore our attention away from each other to where our  three teammates were standing. Kit was trying to look anywhere but at  me, Reggie looked kind of fascinated and Artemis was glaring. "Stop it  or I'll get the hose. Can you two go five minutes without being  sickeningly sweet and obsessed with each other? Some of us don't have  our boyfriends readily available and you make our relationships look bad  just by existing. I have the indescribable urge to call and yell at  Wally for not being more romantic."

Zee  blushed prettily and climbed down with a cough. "Sorry Arty." Despite  that she took my hand with her free one, twining her fingers with mine.  "I can only commit to stopping with the kissing for now though." He aura  blazed with adoration that went straight to my head. "I can't commit to  a full five minutes without being obsessed with Morgan." That time I  actually heard the sickening sweetness, but I was grinning so dopily I  couldn't really be bothered to care about. I heard Artemis gag and was  able to perfectly envision her eyes roll but we just ignored her.

It  reminded me of my determination to take a break and spend more time  with Zee. With all the leveling and the nonsense with the ritual I'd  been too fixated on the dungeon. Of course, Zee wanted to level up too,  and I couldn't deny my girl anything so I supposed we would get that  alone time later. Still holding Zee's hand I turned to look at the  others. "So. The next boss is going to be rough. The Skeleton King, Leoric. Scary guy, huge sword and basically magic proof." I had been  dreading this fight.

Skeletons  were annoying enemies at higher levels. The baby ones on level one  crumpled under a stiff breeze, but the actual monster type was kind of  built to counter us. Hard to hit at range, no flesh to shred for me, and  magic immune. I laid all this out for my friends before I got to the  worst part. "Leoric is about nine feet tall and wears a unique crown  that steals life when he hits you. But the big pain in the ass is that  he can indefinitely summon more skellies if given the chance. We have to  take him out first before his army because if not the fight will go on  forever."

I'd  actually briefly considered using him to farm skeletons so we could  level, but letting an enemy build a never ending army seemed like the  kind of thing that could easily snowball. Stuff like that worked fine in  video games but it wasn't so workable in real life. I shook that off.  We had to prepare for this fight like we'd prepared for the last one and  that took planning. I turned to Zee. "So we can keep grinding down here  until we clear everything else out but we should wait on the battle  with the Skeleton King. Just until we have a solid plan. That work for  you? I know you wanted to see what you can do."

She  looked pensive but finally nodded. "We can do that. In the meantime I  think I'd like to see these cooking skills in action. How about you make  me dinner tonight? Daddy is out running the Labyrinth with the League  and I haven't eaten yet anyway." She gave me a sweet smile and leaned up  to kiss me softly before whispering in my ear. "Besides, I have a  present for you. Just a thank you for being so patient with me about sex and to show you how happy I am that we could say we loved each other."  My earlier dopey smile came back. I was pretty sure this was going to be  very nice.