Unusual Enemies - A LitRPG Adventure (The Whispering Crystals, #2)

by Mills, H. C.

  That’s right! They were definitely croaking!

  Alec scratches his head in confusion. “But to me, it still sounds like Japanese!”

  I frown at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah!” he exclaims, nodding excessively as if he were worried I wouldn’t believe him otherwise. “Try it for yourself! Can you say something in a foreign language?”

  “Ehm, ‘Nein?’ ”

  A beat of silence follows my rather terrible pronunciation, and I feel the blood rise to my cheeks.

  “Really? Not a word?” Alec asks, his lips quirking upwards condescendingly.

  “What?” I ask, frowning. “No—DAMNIT—that was German. German for no!”

  A chorus of stretched ‘Ohs’ rings out, punctuated by Jacob going, “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

  Dave’s eye is glinting excitedly now. “This is making me wonder what happens if we use foreign words which have been incorporated into the English language, like Schadenfreude or déjà vu.”

  Kaitlynn perks up. “Hey, those still sound foreign!”

  Alec looks at him dumbfoundedly, “Schaden-what-now? Happiness at the... misfortune of others?”

  Dave jerks forward a little, staring at him intensely. “Hold on, did you just hear the word as I said it, without knowing what it means, and still understand? Despite never having heard the word before?”

  Alec blinks a couple of times, scratching his head. “Yeah, there was like, a small delay, before the meaning just kind of came to me.”

  “Woah,” Jacob mutters quietly, “but then why wasn’t it translated to English like the rest of the foreign words?”

  “Maybe because it’s a part of the English language now?” Kaitlynn offers.

  “I’m not sure,” Dave says thoughtfully. “Could be that it’s just because the meaning it conveys doesn’t have an accurate, single word translation in English. Perhaps the translating part is done by our brains, taking the conveyed meaning and automatically putting it in English words.”

  “Wait!” I shoot upright. “What if it’s—Suri, does the eye-crystal have some kind of auto-translate function?”

  [That’s classified,] Suri chimes succinctly.

  Of course it is.

  I frown. Wait, that sound... “Suri,” I ask more slowly, deliberately, “do you speak English?”

  A pregnant pause follows my question.

  [What does it sound like to you, dear?]

  “Well, like English, but that doesn’t mean much.”

  “Not getting an answer?” Dave asks.

  After a beat of silence, I shake my head. “Nope.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe during the next five minutes of questions. Let’s see what else we can figure out ourselves. Mmm, how about we try a harder one: apartheid.”

  I frown at him. “What language—” My brows raise to my hairline.

  Kaitlynn gasps, bringing her hand to her mouth. “That’s terrible. I never knew!”

  “This is incredible,” Jacob muses.

  Kaitlynn bounces back from her sadness and claps her hands excitedly. “Ooh, let me try next! I’ve always wanted to know: what does ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ actually mean?”

  We all ponder for a moment, sharing looks with each other. Somehow, from the looks the boys are sending me, I understand that I am to be the bearer of bad news.

  “Ehm,” I say, wincing internally as I find myself stared down excitedly by the blue-haired, pale-skinned pixie next to me. “It doesn’t seem to mean anything?”

  She pouts. “D’awww...”

  I shoot her a lopsided smile and apologetically lay my hand on her wrist. “Sorry, Kaitmonster.”

  She shrugs, happily sliding her hand down to interlace our fingers.

  “Still an interesting result,” Dave assures her. “Maybe it didn’t work because you didn’t know what it meant.”

  “Or because it didn’t mean anything to her,” Jacob suggests.

  Alec perks up at that. “Ooh, then what would happen if one of us makes up a word to mean something?”

  We look at him expectantly. He looks back.

  “Well, go on,” I prompt. “It’s your idea.”

  “Oh!” he exclaims, “Right, ehm, Glorb?”

  He winces almost as soon as he says it.

  Kaitlynn is the first to react, summarizing what we’re all thinking. “Ewwww!”

  Well, not all of us, Jacob is actually laughing quite heartily. This may be the first time I’ve heard him laugh so unrestrainedly, in fact.

  “Why would you make up a word to mean that, you numbskull!” I say, trying to shake the mental image out of my head. “Who would even need a word for that?!”

  Alec’s bluish skin turns an interesting shade of purple. “You—you put me on the spot! It’s just the first thing that popped into my head, okay?!”

  I shoot him a disgusted look. “That’s disturbing by itself, for several reasons, that I won’t be getting into. I’m gonna need to scrub my brain with bleach now, to get that image out.”

  Kaitlynn clasps a hand over her mouth. “Ugh, that word reminded me of the Hoig’s life-cycle...”

  “How?” I ask her, bewildered. “Actually, don’t answer that, I want to know even less now.”

  Dave’s the next one to crack, his full-bellied laugh mixing with Jacob’s raspy, almost desperate one. The sound is infectious, and soon enough we’re all laughing and it’s not even about Alec’s faux pas anymore, but about the fact that we’re all laughing. And then that we’re happy that we’re all still alive.

  Okay, that last bit may just be in my head, but if there’s any place where laughter could convey such meaning, it’s this one.

  After we’ve calmed down, our merriment concluded, we circle back to our initial endeavour: to try and learn Telepathy.

  Dave demonstrates the forming and casting of a tether of Lavi, while we—except for Alec—close our regular eyes and focus on the energy view the eye-crystals permit us.

  Dave demonstrates the task slowly and repeatedly. The tether is pretty hard to make out, as it is very thin. Even with the eye-crystal, I have to squint for better contrast. At least that explains why I’ve never noticed it before.

  We start to practise, while Dave pulls out and studies his Radiation Energy Crystal.

  After about twenty minutes of trial and error, I’m the first to succeed in forming a stable tether. Alec repeats my feat around the thirty-minute mark, while I’m stuck at the second step.

  This bloody tether just isn’t doing what I want! I’m supposed to sweep it, but all it’s doing is flop around and shake.

  After about forty-five minutes in total, shortly after Kaitlynn has succeeded in growing the beginnings of a tether, Alec actually manages to hook his onto Dave, send him a message, and gain the Skill.

  His squeal of joy breaks my attention, causing my tether to snap in the middle.

  “How’d you do it?” I ask, pushing down a twinge of annoyance.

  He shrugs happily. “I kept visualizing it as casting a line, and eventually it just kind of clicked.”

  I purse my lips. “Hmm. I guess fishing was another one of your hobbies?”

  He shakes his head. “Not really, but my father would take me and my big brother fly fishing in the summer sometimes...” He trails off, his smile slipping.

  Damnit. Why do I keep sticking my foot in my mouth?

  I sigh. “That sounds nice, bud,” I say softly, reaching over to brush my knuckles against his shoulder. “Hope you get to do that again someday.”

  He nods. “Yeah. Me too.”

  Jacob’s tether collapses on itself once more, and he lets out an exasperated groan.

  “I can’t take this anymore,” he grouches, “and I don’t have time for this! I need to work on Respiration. Isn’t there an easier way to communicate under-Hydrum? I mean, even made-up words work apparently, so can’t we just, I don’t know, make tapping noises or something, and just, assign it some kind of meaning on the spot?
”

  Dave blinks. “Jacob, you’re a genius.”

  Jacob blinks. “I am?”

  “He is?” Alec asks.

  “Well,” Dave amends, “tapping noises might be hard to produce under-Hydrum, but I believe divers use hand signals. If we can give hand signals objective meaning, and a single, improvised gesture can convey as much information as Alec unfortunately demonstrated—”

  “Hey!”

  “—then perhaps you don’t all need to learn Telepathy right now.”

  “Oh thank god,” Kaitlynn says with a sigh. “I’m totally losing focus here anyway. Isn’t it about time to go to sleep?” she asks, glancing at me hopefully.

  I purse my lips. I’m pretty tired too. It’s been a long, eventful day, but part of me stubbornly wants to keep going till I’ve caught up with Alec—I mean, succeeded in gaining the Skill.

  Kaitlynn pouts at me, however, and I crumble like a castle of marbles.

  “Sure,” I agree with a smile. “Let’s go to bed. Or well, couch, I guess.”

  However, later, as we lie on the couch in the darkened living room, I can’t sleep, driven to continue practising. The low-light conditions actually prove a boon to my vision, and at long last, I succeed in hooking my tether into a sleeping Kaitlynn.

  After some fumbling, I manage to give meaning to a shake of the tether and send my first ever telepathic message.

  In the dark, I can just barely make out how her lips curl into a smile, as she unconsciously squeezes my hand, and murmurs an inaudible reply.

  Only after the following pop-up comes into view, do I finally allow myself to slip into blissful slumber.

  CHAPTER 17

  Talk through the hand

  AT BREAKFAST, WE PRACTISE conveying information through hand signals. At first, it’s pretty hard. You need to really focus on what you intend a gesture to mean for it to shine through.

  To make sure the ones watching aren’t just guessing the meaning based on natural non-verbal communication, we send some pretty obscure things.

  “Okay, hold on,” Jacob says, squinting hard at Kaitlynn’s hand, which is drooping down and rhythmically undulating its fingers. “You’re saying... Emma’s skin tone reminds you of... a succubus?”

  “Hey!” I cry out as Kaitlynn bursts into laughter. “Uncalled for!”

  I narrow my eyes at her and whip a hastily formed tether at her forehead. Is it just me, or did this get way easier when I gained the Skill?

  I send.

  Her eyes go wide, and she squeals as I lunge towards her, snapping my jaws.

  “Dave,” she cries out as I tickle her and attempt to bite her shoulder, “Emma’s harassing me with her Telepathy!”

  “And her mouth,” Alec quips while fiddling with the blue leather eyepatch he showed up wearing today. I have to admit, it looks badass on him.

  Dave raises a brow. “So?”

  “You taught her, so take responsibilityyy!” Kaitlynn squeals.

  He shrugs. “You brought this on yourself. I wash my hands of this weirdness.”

  “You gonna cry uncle?” I ask Kaitlynn, having found the sensitive spot in her side.

  She tries to squirm away ineffectually, laughing as she says, “Get glorbed!”

  My hands freeze and Kaitlynn uses this chance to escape. I close my gaping mouth. “I can’t believe you said that. You are so getting it now!”

  And I’m off chasing Kaitlynn, who’s squealing and laughing.

  I catch her pretty quickly and pin her against the wall to resume her tickle punishment.

  “Noooo!” Kaitlynn cries. “All right, uncle. I said uncle!”

  I release her, grinning in satisfaction, and take a few seconds to stretch languorously. It’s good to be out of my armour for once. The buttons on my uniform are straining dangerously though, so I better not overdo it.

  Note to self: find more excuses to tease Kaitlynn. Watching her squirm is too much fun. I also need to find some time when she isn’t around, though. There’s something I want to try which I don’t think she could bear to watch. But that’s for later concern.

  ‘Time?’ I ask Suri mentally.

  [You have 33 hours, 41 minutes and 13 seconds left.]

  “All right,” I say, clapping my hands once, as I turn from a suddenly rather subdued Kaitlynn to move back towards the couch. “Now that we’ve got our communication problem solved, it’s time to talk Skilldreams. Anyone got their heart set on anything yet?”

  Alec raises his hand, smiling wryly. “Yeah... I think I’d like to spend 30 Trial Points on a Skilldream for Meditation level 2 because, to be honest, I doubt I’m ever going to get there on my own, and I’m itching to make a start towards Regeneration. It may not be the most helpful in combat, though, so I’d understand if you guys would prefer me to take something else...”

  I shake my head as I sit back down. “I would indeed advise against using it in combat, but outside of it, Meditation has saved my life several times over by now, so it’s definitely a worthwhile Skill to practice. And Regeneration sounds like a very nice Skill to have, regardless of whether you’re missing part of your body or not. Dave might not always be around or be able to spare the time to Restore you, so the ability to close your own wounds could be incredibly useful.”

  “Besides,” Jacob adds, “you already have like the best Qi Skill for under-Hydrum combat, so...” He trails off with a shrug. “Anyway, my plan is to first finish learning Respiration level 1, buy a Skilldream for the next level of Increase Momentum, and then,” he pauses to shoot me a dirty look, “buy a bloody Stardrop.”

  I shoot him a wink. Jacob’s kind of fun to tease as well.

  Kaitlynn clears her throat, drawing my attention away. “Well, unfortunately, my Qi-based Skills don’t seem to be working under-Hydrum at all. Astreum Manipulation is especially difficult to use when you’re breathing Hydrum—with Astreum being super-heated Aether and all—but even Heat Vision doesn’t seem to pick anything up through a veil of Hydrum. So I was thinking I should probably branch out to another form of energy.”

  Dave hums. “Hydrum appears to be spectacularly bad at transporting Heat, so that makes sense.”

  “I got the same impression, yeah,” Kaitlynn says with a nod. “Vibration Energy seemed like the obvious choice, so I asked Kai—ehm, Kai, could you show them all my Skilldream Shopping Window please?”

  A few seconds later, a window pops into view.

  “As you can see, there are three Vibration Energy Type Skills currently available to me,” Kaitlynn continues. “So I asked Kai if there were any good offensive Skills amongst them, and he said the first level of Wave Manipulation is this awesome stunning shockwave attack.”

  I nod in approval. Vibration Energy seems like it should work under-Hydrum, and it definitely fits her style as a ranged attacker. Radiation would work too, I guess, but Dave’s already working on that, and it makes sense to have a variety of Skills in the party.

  Looking at the gleam of excitement in Kaitlynn’s eye, Alec shivers. “Man, I’m glad you’re on our team.”

  She snorts and punches him lightly on the upper arm. “Anyway, I’ve got 54 Trial Points right now, so that would leave me 4 Trial Points to buy extra knives if I wanted to, but I think I’ll save them. It’s not like I can throw them under-Hydrum anyway...”

  Dave shakes his head at their antics. “Well, I’m going to start by focusing on bringing Radiate to level 3, by adding ‘regular’ radiation to my arsenal. I believe I made good progress towards that yesterday. I had 56 Trial points after the Trial, 53 now that I’ve bought new arrows, and I’m leaning towards taking Tremorsense—another medium-grade Vibration-based Skill. As the name suggests, it’s a sensory type Skill, which I think we’ll need now that Kaitlynn’s Heat Vision has been neutralised.”

  It’s quiet for a moment. Jacob wiggles his pinkie in a gesture that seems to mean �
��Tite!’

  Yeah, that about sums it up.

  “But I’m going to wait with making my decision until Kaitlynn’s tested her Skill under-Hydrum,” Dave adds. “Just to be sure. Which leaves Emma.”

  “Riiight,” I drawl. “I know I brought up this topic, but I seem to be the least prepared. There’s just too many options... anyway, between what I had left and what I gained during the last Trial, I currently have 98 Trial Points to spend.”

  Jacob flicks his own nose, meaning ‘Damn, girl!’

  Kaitlynn snorts, turns her palm upwards, and wiggles her fingers, signing back, ‘She’s hot.’

  That raises some brows, I’m assuming because it was rather a non-sequitur. I mean, I’ve had access to mirrors, you know?

  Kaitlynn blinks and frowns, seeing our expressions. “I meant to sign ‘she’s on fire,’ did it not come over right?”

  “Must’ve been a Freudian slip of the finger,” Dave mutters.

  I stifle a smile at Kaitlynn’s confused look. “So anyway, maybe you guys can help me come to a decision. Suri, could you show us all my Skilldream Shopping Window please?”

  [Coming right up,] Suri chimes. A few seconds later, a window pops into view.

  “Huh,” Dave says, “Distort Space is still listed in red, even though you can no longer afford it. Is that normal?”

  I shrug. “Dunno.”

  “Oh yeah,” Alec confirms, “I have Decrease Inertia listed in red as well. Not Distort Space though, since, unlike miss moneybags here, I never went over 100 Trial Points.”

  “Decrease Inertia is actually the Skill I want the most,” I say. “The applications just seem limitless: instant acceleration, jumping super high and landing lightly on your feet... However, I doubt it’ll be very useful under-Hydrum.”

  Dave nods. “The density and viscosity of the Hydrum would prevent you from maintaining any kind of speed if you have no inertia.”

  “Exactly. Now there are several routes I could go,” I say, before sticking up a finger. “I could swallow my pride and take a Skilldream for the next level of Breath Control, as it’s arguably my most useful Skill under-Hydrum currently, but I’d rather try and figure that one out for myself during the time we have left here.”