Interlude 1
We were finally back at the office. Amanda had gotten herself together and was now able to maintain a
vaguely humanoid form, she still couldn’t talk though. Kelly had managed to find a map and laid it out circling
where the three daycares we needed to go to were. They were of course all over the place. Candices two children
were at Happy Tots Day-Care located quite a ways away to the southeast. Melissa two children were at Angels
Touch After School Care which was east northeast of our current location, and Heathers daughter was at Riverside
Community Center which was located far north of our present location, but an almost straight shot up the
highway from Angels Touch After School Care. Heather, Candice, and Melissa were all making cases for why we
should go after their children first. I didn’t really care which order we did it in, and I was perfectly content to let
Jackie make this decision on her own.
“Everybody quiet,” Jackie said silencing the room. “John what do you think, they all make a good case?”
I was more than a little surprised that she wanted my opinion on the matter, but I was willing to give it. I
stared at the map for a minute pretending to think about it, but I had already come up with a plan. “I think we
should prioritize getting to each daycare as quickly as possible overall. So we should either do Riverside, Angels
then Happy, or Happy, Angels then Riverside. As another thing to consider Riverside is in a better location for
finding a place to set up shop, so I think we should go there last.”
“What do you mean ‘set up shop?’” Heather asked.
“Well what are we going to do after we round up all the kids?” I asked. “We can either wander around or
hunker down, I think hunkering down is by far the better choice.”
Heather was about to say something, but Jackie spoke up before she could. “We’ll debate about what to do after
we round up the children after we’ve rounded up the children. I agree that being at Riverside Community Center
will put us in a better spot, so we’ll do this in the order Happy Tots, Angels Touch, and then Riverside. What were
you able to recover for supplies?”
“Not much,” Kelly said indicating a small cardboard box filled with junk food. “Steve cleaned out the vending
machines and took all the water cooler bottles. All that was left was some miscellaneous snacks that people had
squirreled away in their desks and two half drank bottles of water.”
“OK,” Jackie said. “We’ll leave them here, this is survival we need food with high nutritional value.”
“I would like to offer an alternative,” I said and waited for Jackie to ask me what it was.
“What’s your alternative?”
“When we get to the kids, they’ll likely be scared and stressed out,” I said. “Nothing cheers a kid up faster than
junk food.”
“OK,” Jackie said. “We’ll bring it with us. For the kids.” She added looking at me. “So mister genius consultant.”
“I don’t recall ever calling myself a genius,” I interrupted.
“Don’t interrupt me,” Jackie said. “You know I hate being interrupted it’s rude.”
“I know no such thing,” I said.
“Rusty, spoon,” Jackie said sternly. I laughed at Jackies response. Our relationship was evolving, either we had
an inside joke or she was really going to castrate me with a rusty spoon. “Anyway, how do you propose we get
Heather and Beth out of here?” I stopped laughing immediately, I had actually completely forgotten about that.
We had converged at the stairwell everybody had already offered at least one overly complicated solution
involving, rope we didn’t have, pulleys we didn’t have, or fixing the elevator that nobody knew how to do. I had two
plans in my head, one of which was elegant in it’s simplicity, but involved knocking out a wall so I didn’t thinkIf you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
anybody would go for it. So I would have to resort to my own overly complex plan involving Samantha, weird
poses, and the best pun I’ll make this week.
“OK, I got a plan,” I said. “Short version is Samantha carries her down.”
“We already established I can’t do that,” Samantha said. “I’m too clumsy on the stairs, I need one hand to hold
onto the rail.”
“Is your strength score 53 or 3?” I asked.
“53,” Samantha growled with a flex.
“Good,” I said. “Do you remember ‘I’m a Little Teapot?’”
“Yeah.”
“Good, make a handle.”
Samantha awkwardly placed her left hand on her hip, “Like this?”
“Yeah like that,” I said. “Now Jackie, Candice and Kelly help Heather get into Samantha''s arm and fish her tail
through to the back. Heather grab onto Samantha like you’re hugging her. That should provide enough support so
that Samantha can carry her down one handed.” Everybody was looking at me.
“Did you formulate this entire plan so you could make a pun?” Beth asked.
“No,” I lied. “But plan A involves having Samantha knock out an exterior wall, and I don’t know enough about
architecture to know how to do that safely.” They were all looking at me not buying my excuse. “So we gonna do
this or should Samantha start knocking out a wall?”
It was a slow moving trip, but eventually we got Heather down to the wagon and put her in the front of it.
Samantha, Jackie and I went back into the building to help Beth downstairs, Kelly had remained in the building
with her, it was probably safe but neither me or Jackie were too keen on anybody being alone right now.
“So what’s your genius plan here?” Jackie asked. “Preferably without a joke about horsing around.”
“I believe the politically correct phrase here would be centauring around,” I said with a grin.
“Let’s just please get this over with,” Beth said with a stamp.
“Stay on focus,” Jackie said. “We don’t have all day here.”
“OK so my plan is, Jackie goes down first with her Light Blessing we’re gonna need all the light we can get.
Samantha and Kelly will go next to keep an eye on Beth and be ready to catch her should she fall, and I will take up
the rear to oversee things and spot any potential problems.”
“So we do all the work you do nothing except stare at my ass?” Beth asked.
“Admittedly my role in this is small, but it’s only that way because you four are so capable,” I said. “I promise
not to look too hard at your ass, and I promise not to derive any sexual titillation from it when I have to.”
Samantha gave several deep sniffs. “You guys smell that? It smells like bullshit to me.”
“Oh come on,” I protested. “I have barely done anything wrong all day.”
“Cause you’ve barely done anything all day,” Jackie said.
“If I’ve barely done anything all day than why do I only have 11 stamina left?”
“Because you’re stats are so low that you have less to start.”
“Exactly,” I said. “A lot of effort for me is different than it is for you. You can’t hold me to the same standard.”
“I find it hilarious that the man is all of a sudden the weak one.” Samantha said putting her arm around me.
“It’s OK darling I’ll protect you.”
“Could we get on with this?” Beth said stamping again.
“Yes enough rambling,” Jackie said. “Let’s go with Johns plan for now, if it’s not working out we’ll figure
something else out.
It was extremely slow going Beth was extremely unsteady on the stairs and stumbled several times, but
Samantha was able to catch her and Kelly was able to stabilize Samantha. We were now down at the wagon a little
out of breath but none the worse for wear.
“I know this isn’t the time to ask,” I said. “But does anybody know why we’re on the seventh floor when all the
other ones are empty?”
“Company bought the building with the intent of renting out all the other spaces after they got sick of paying
rent at the old building. We’re on floor seven because the owner wanted to be on lucky number seven. Nobody
else is in the building because they decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.” Jackie explained.
I looked at my SP 9/20 remaining. “Well it’s time to conduct an experiment,” I said pulling out a Puny Stamina
Potion. “Time to find out what these things taste like.” I uncorked the vial and downed it. “Bleh.”
“What’s it taste like?” Heather asked.
“It tastes like coffee and orange juice had a love child, were so disgusted with it they threw it in the sewers, then
twenty years later said child came out of the sewers and they made 3 horror movies out of it.” I said. “But it works,
my SP is back up to 19/20.”
“I need to stretch my legs a moment,” Beth said. “I’m going to take a jog around the parking lot.” Beth darted
off without waiting for a response from anybody, she looked quite majestic, her long hair flowing in back of her,
her tail whipping in the wind. At least until she rounded the second turn and fell sideways onto the tar. Samantha,
Candice, Melissa, and Jackie ran over to help her leaving me at the wagon with Heather, Kelly and Amanda now
having collapsed down into a copper bucket, she had been in a plastic bucket before.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Humanoid Slimes First Bucket</td>
<td>Misc Object</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>A basic bucket designed for Humanoid Slimes, lacks any form of special features but is comfortable.</td>
<td>Grants +10% HP, MP and SPrecovery while resting or sleeping in it for Humanoid Slimes. Only one Humanoid Slime may benefit from this bucket at a time</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
“You OK Amanda?” I asked. A vaguely hand shaped figure emerged from the slime in the shape of a thumbs
up. “OK. I’m going to invite you three to the party now, please accept the invitations.” They quickly accepted and
now out party was up to eight, we only needed Beth to get everybody in it. I was starting to wonder how many
people we could have in a party. Beth was back on her feet and they were heading back towards us. I invited Beth
to the party and when they got back to us I told her about it and she joined. We headed off back to the Outdoor
Center, we were actually starting to look like a real adventuring group now.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Name/Class</td>
<td style="text-align: center">HP</td>
<td style="text-align: center">MP</td>
<td style="text-align: center">SP</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>John/Titleist 2</td>
<td style="text-align: center">15/15</td>
<td style="text-align: center">16/16</td>
<td style="text-align: center">19/20</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jackie/Paladin 3</td>
<td style="text-align: center">56/56</td>
<td style="text-align: center">7/57</td>
<td style="text-align: center">51/101</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Candice/Rogue 3</td>
<td style="text-align: center">41/41</td>
<td style="text-align: center">43/43</td>
<td style="text-align: center">81/92</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Melissa/Rogue 3</td>
<td style="text-align: center">41/41</td>
<td style="text-align: center">38/38</td>
<td style="text-align: center">41/73</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Samantha/Warrior 4</td>
<td style="text-align: center">111/111</td>
<td style="text-align: center">34/34</td>
<td style="text-align: center">112/236</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Amanda/Apprentice 1</td>
<td style="text-align: center">36/36</td>
<td style="text-align: center">64/64</td>
<td style="text-align: center">12/62</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Kelly/Apprentice 1</td>
<td style="text-align: center">51/51</td>
<td style="text-align: center">30/30</td>
<td style="text-align: center">89/96</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Heather/Bard 1</td>
<td style="text-align: center">32/32</td>
<td style="text-align: center">36/36</td>
<td style="text-align: center">51/59</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Beth/Acolyte 1</td>
<td style="text-align: center">51/58</td>
<td style="text-align: center">3/36</td>
<td style="text-align: center">162/185</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>