Downsized Hero 2 Ch 10

Cate rooted through my kitchen for suitable ingredients and ultimately chose the Aetherial Alleviation recipe as her first concoction. She followed the concise recipe, mostly adding and mixing ingredients in order, while she steadily infused the mixture with focus. I watched her status curiously to see the effect on her stats. When she finished, she opened a small 4oz plastic bottle from her homemade beauty products she'd emptied and washed. She then filled it with a cerulean liquid from her bowl.

After a dubious pause, Cate knocked it back in one gulp. There was no outward indication of anything happening, but Cate's eyes instantaneously went from lazily drooping to a sharp alertness. I saw her focus, already down by half from the potion creation, drop again by 5 as the consumption cost hit, then her condition changed from Intoxicated to Normal. The corners of her mouth turned down in a mixed expression of awe and disappointment. "Wow, that's fast." She frowned down at her empty hand where the potion had been. "I should call that one 'designated driver'," she joked.

"What's it taste like?" A wide-eyed Zoya hung on my arm, slightly inebriated from the bottles of wine we'd consumed. Taking advantage of our deeper bond, I transferred focus to Cate and felt the kick of Inner Alchemy start to restore the loss.

"Slightly bitter, but in a pleasant, earthy way?" Cate looked to the ceiling, focus turned inward. "Also sweet. Want to try?" She filled the bottle with another dose. "I made enough for 4, figuring I'd test how long it lasted."

"Sure," Zoya said, accepting the potion and draining it without hesitation. "Oh!" I felt her straighten on my arm. "Yeah, that's... that's not too bad. I was expecting something stronger. That's like watery beet juice."

Afterwards, we finished off the last of the pizza and made our way back to the bedroom once more. It had been a very long day, and I thought we'd all be too tired for anything but sleep. Cate of all people proved me wrong. Perhaps fueled by the effects of her potion, she initiated a second round soon after we climbed in bed.

Cate was a more active participant this time, touching or kissing me as she directed Zoya and me through another scene. At one point I saw her hesitantly embrace Zoya to guide her, but the younger woman reacted positively, leaning into the moment. Though when I reached to caress Cate, she deftly steered my hands back to Zoya with a demure smile. I was concerned, but in the end she brought herself to two back-to-back climaxes while watching Zoya and me. All three of us ultimately collapsed in tired smiles on the bed, Zoya to my right and Cate to my left. I drifted off in a euphoric daze, enveloped in a warm mingling of the women's scents of lavender and lemon peel, underlaid with the musk of our exertions.

I awoke to Cate's phone alarm going off like a blaring siren.

"Mmf, sorry," Cate turned over and quickly disabled the alarm, then rolled back to plant a kiss on my cheek. "Have to get home before work," she explained by way of apology, then sat up blearily and stretched her arms above her head. I admired the lissome length of her back as it curved down to the slope of her slender bottom. Levering herself up through the morning lethargy, she began searching the ground for her clothing.

"Urgh," Zoya groaned from the other side and swung an arm over her eyes, her magnificent brown breasts swaying gently in the motion. "I should get going, too. I texted my mom last night, but I'm sure she'll be waiting to hear from me." She turned and pressed a kiss to my jaw, before rolling out of the bed on the other side with far more energy than I felt.

I was the last to cycle through the bathroom as the girls made ready to depart.

◆◆◆

"Are you both coming back here before dinner at Anya's?" I asked, walking the women to the front door in my soft clothes. Zoya's family was her business, but a part of me was hoping she'd stay over again. Keep close where I could protect her. Which was stupid, since if anything she was the one always helping me.

"Yes, but a little later. Draco's put together a list of parts to pick up, and all my tools and things are at home." She finished shrugging into her puffy winter coat and leaned in and gave me a hard kiss on the mouth. She pulled me in with one hand gripping my shoulder, her other holding the strap of her bag. Then she pushed me back. "I'll be fine."

"I'll walk you to your car," Cate offered, shrugging on her coat and reaching for her messenger bag. She'd packed one of the bottles of Aetherial Alleviation inside, leaving the other with me to test later while she wasn't around. She stepped up to plant a soft kiss on my lips, then stood back blushing. I pulled her against me, and pressed my mouth against hers with more passion. I felt her stiffen, then relax, her arms twining around my neck.

Zoya laughed kindly at our antics. "Come on," she nudged Cate when we came up for air. "We'll be back tonight, lover boy." She winked and pulled a furiously red Cate stumbling out the door.

I watched the women down the stairs and down the sidewalk, shivering in the morning chill. Zoya waved back broadly with her whole arm, while Cate's was more reserved, but her smile was just as bright. When I could no longer see them, I shut the door and went back inside.

Exhaling into the empty hall, I wandered into the kitchen to make a fresh cup of coffee. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I looked around the room. Aside from the dishes resting in the sink from Cate's alchemy experiment, everything was in order and in place. Normal. The sun was only starting to make itself known, the buildings outside my window black shapes against the brightening sky. Outlines of orange tipped a few clouds that remained, a preview of the sunrise to come. The coffee machine beeped and I dropped in the pod and hit the button.

A sudden noise from the front room disrupted my daze. I started toward the room in a hurry, and stopped still at the threshold.

A furry black and orange blur darted out the other doorway to the hall. At the scene of the crime lay an upended pizza box, a few pepperoni and crumbs of crust strewn across the floor. Little claws skittered on the wooden floor as she made her escape.

"Taiga!" I yelled in exasperation accompanied by a strange feeling of disappointment. I went and knelt down to collect the remnants of pizza back into the box. Then I picked up all three boxes and carried them over to the compost bin in the kitchen, dumping the larger bits inside before setting the large boxes on their side next to it. Then I recovered the empty wine bottles and set them next to the recycling. Finally, I took a roll of paper towels and a spray cleaner to wipe up the rest of the greasy crumbs from the floor and table. By this time, Taiga had slunk back nonchalantly to the hallway entrance and was washing her face with her paws. Did something happen? her body language proclaimed. She wouldn't know. She was somewhere else. Doing something perfectly fine.

I sat on the floor and looked around at the empty room. It was the same as always. It was the same. So why was I on edge? I shook my head at the tangle of feelings in my chest, and stood to collect my coffee.

There was one thing truly different, I thought as I doctored my coffee before taking a cautious sip. I didn't have anywhere to be, or anyone expecting me. I'd had relaxing, do-nothing days before, by plan or by accident. But this was different. This floating, untethered feeling was new. I hadn't had time in the last week to really let it sink in. Now it seemed all I had was time in front of me, and it was daunting.

I opened my Location map to check on both women. I was able to find each tiny gold dot moving in two different directions, west and south.

I wondered what Iter was doing. If she was coming back.

Unwilling to sit still and be swallowed up by the silence, I went about my normal morning routine. I paused after taking a shower and considered my wardrobe. Eventually I shrugged and pulled on a pair of comfortable jeans and a white crew neck t-shirt. I saw the half-zip sweatshirt with a funnel neck that Zoya had borrowed. I put it on, inhaling her residual scent. Then I went out to the front room and sat on the couch beside the cushion Taiga had claimed. I noticed out of the corner of my eye Draco was curled up in a corner on the floor, the tablet propped up against the lounge chair in front of her, the screen silently shifting through forum posts of consumer electronics stores. Looking at the metallic mini-dragon, I was suddenly reminded that I hadn't had that conversation with Zoya and Cate yet about demon lord corruption and party bonds. I resolved to do that tonight before going to Anya's.

"What are you working on, Draco?" I asked, as much to break up the silence as anything else.

**I am cross-referencing different alternative part numbers for my mistress, and marking locations in the South Halo where they are on hand and can be obtained.** She didn't look up. In addition, I am trying to impart my mistress' will to these frustratingly dense agent spirits. She wishes to duplicate their presence and capabilities in the new construct.** I could feel a note of tension in her response. **Their follow-up questions are increasingly bizarre.** At this point, she did look up at me from the floor. **What is a 'rate limit', and why would they be reaching for it?**

I snorted, then suppressed it. "That means you sent them too many instructions in a short period of time." Given Draco's direct connection, that was all too likely. "There's a cap on the service so too many users don't overload it. You're probably communicating with them too fast and the service reads it as either abuse or runaway scripts."

**Nonsense. I will work with them to remove this 'cap'. My mistress' priority is paramount.** I nearly laughed again at the affront in her mental tone. Dragons weren't used to being denied, it seemed.

"I have a question for you, Draco." I paused. "Two questions, actually. If you have the time." I didn't want to interrupt her task.

**Certainly, what does the hero wish to know?** I could hear the distracted note in her tone, though.

"I have two new skills and I don't know what they do. Synchronous Sympathy and Anima Amalgam." They'd been kinda worrying me in the back of my mind since yesterday. I saw in my journal that Synchronous Sympathy had activated during the fight with the smoke snake thing. I'd felt the drain on my focus at the time but wasn't sure why. And Anima Amalgam was brand new.

**Simple enough.** She sounded like a preoccupied professor. **Synchronous Sympathy allows party members to act in concert during combat and social challenges. For example, when a party member lands a hit the skill can add an attack or skill effect from the hero to the result.**

A damage stack, then. That's pretty useful. But she mentioned social challenges, too?

**Anima Amalgam is a rare skill, limited to heroes. I know of it as my prior hero had it.** She paused for a moment, in what recollection I couldn't tell. **Using this skill, he could temporarily substitute the base value of one core attribute for that of a party member. Any other bonuses he had would apply on top of that. It allowed him to become the most capable person in the party, for a limited time.**

I goggled at that. Borrowing Zoya's strength? And my Hero's Journey bonus would stack? That would be incredible.

**Now, if you'll excuse me, Hero, I must return to goading these agents back to their assigned tasks. My mistress requires this information for her work.**

"Yeah," I said, still working through the implications of both skills. "Yes, of course, go ahead. Thanks." I could test it all later. I had more pressing issues preparing a pitch for Anya tonight.

Taking Draco's work ethic as an example, I pulled my computer to my lap. There was a mountain of things to get done, and this was a workday. Time passed slowly to the clicking of my keyboard and the occasional mentally muttered curse from the metal wyrm. I grinned, and felt the tension in my chest soothed by the dragon's grumblings. I checked in on the women's connections from time to time, sending out feelings of affection and feeling them returned.

I was about a quarter of the way into the strategy draft I wanted to show Anya, writing a summary I'd eventually flesh out into a business plan, when the doorbell rang.