“We’ve been waiting here forever,” Raven said in her usual dismal voice. Her pale, lifeless face masked any emotion she might have been trying to show. “I knew she wouldn’t come.”
“I can’t believe she would do this to us,” Joan frowned, kicking over a rock in hopes of finding a newbie snack. But there were only fire beetles, squirming, wriggling around in the soggy dirt.
“I can. People can’t be trusted. She probably killed Terragolem and kept all the loot for herself, the bitch.”
“Gena’s not here either. Do you think she’s with Siarra?”
“Are you kidding? They hate each other. Siarra would sooner cut out Gena’s eyeballs with a dull razorblade, stick a spoon into her empty eye sockets, and eat her brain before she would share any loot with her.
“…Did anybody ever tell you that you’re a really sick person?”
Raven glanced over at Joan, who was popping fire beetles in her mouth and biting down hard, causing white ooze to dribble from her lips. “Nobody who wasn’t a hypocrite.”
“Hm?”
“Forget it.”
“Okay!” Joan bent down and scooped up another handful of beetles.
“Those things aren’t good for your digestion,” Raven said, though she didn’t look at Joan or the bugs in her hand (or especially the ones in her mouth).
“But level 1 food tastes sooo good! You should try it sometime.”
“No, because, unlike you, I don’t want to turn my stomach into a graveyard for nature’s most precious creatures.”
“They’re just bugs, Raven…”
“To you. Your perception is too limited to see past their outer shell, but I respect all life. I’m a vegetarian.”
“Yet all you talk about is death and how you want to kill everybody,” Joan muttered as she stuffed another beetle into her mouth. It squirmed for as long as she let it sit there, trapped between her teeth with her tongue pressed against its yellow head, giving the poor creature just long enough to realize that the world of light was about to become very dark. Then she bit down.
“Another soul saved from the horrors of life,” Joan said, mocking Raven. A trail of ooze ran out the corner of her mouth.
“Saved from? More like ‘killed by.’ Someday you might be in that beetle’s position.”
“In my stomach? I don’t think I’d fit.” But she lifted her shirt just to make sure. In truth, she was quite thin, which made all of her friends angry because she ate far more than the average person and never seemed to gain any weight.
“I’m going to kill Siarra for ditching us,” Raven said. “Come on, we’re leaving this damn forest.”
“Not yet!” Joan waved one arm as she picked up a couple twigs in the other. “I want to start a fire.”
“So do I, but we don’t have time to burn this whole forest to the ground.”
“I don’t want to burn the whole forest! I just want to try this new recipe I got last night for Fire Beetle Kabob.”
“Which I’m sure tastes much different than your recipes for Fire Beetle Casserole, Fire Beetle Crunchies, Fire Beetle Surprise, Fire Beetle Toast, and Fire Beetle on a Stick.”
“Not my fault that we’re given a recipe for insects every time we do a quest for somebody.”
“Yeah, we need to talk about that. I think it’s time we start charging people money for quests. What the hell are we supposed to do with this stuff?” She held out an old blanket covered in horsehair (and stained with other droppings from the horse), a torn page ‘43’ from some book with the other three hundred, twenty-two, and a half pages missing, and a hatchet that never of them were trained to use.
Joan built a miniature tepee with the sticks she had found, which would’ve made a great home for newbies if she weren’t planning on using it for a campfire. Then she grabbed the hatchet from Raven and a rock from the ground and struck them together over the firepit until they sparked a flame. Finally, she grabbed the old blanket and book page and threw them into the fire as kindling. The flame spread.
“That was the best investment of quest rewards so far,” Raven said.
Joan stepped back and admired her fire. “Yeah… But it’s not as good as the fires Siarra makes. I miss her…”
“We just saw her at lunch.”
“That reminds me. I’m hungry!” Joan picked up another stick off the ground and began prodding beetles with it, making insect shish kabob.
Raven let out a cold sigh, folding her arms over her chest for warmth. The red skies above the Enchanted Forest were beginning to fade, giving way to darkness. “It’s getting late, Joan…”
“I thought you loved the night.”
“I do. It’s just my parents will be in my room any minute now, bitching for me to go to bed.”
“Just sneak over to my house like you always do. The window is open.”
“I want to, but I can’t seem to shut off my helmet.”
“Well, don’t worry about it then! It’s probably just a bug in the system. Speaking of bugs…” She grinned down at her stick full of squirming insects and held it over the fire. “La la laaa!”
Raven looked over at her. “Did you really need a recipe to do that?”
“Yes! You can’t cook without recipes.”
“But all you did was… Ugh, nevermind.”
“Are you sure you don’t want any?”
“No… I’ll take real food.”
Joan flipped the stick so that the insects were belly-up over the flames. “Don’t think you’ll find any merchants around here.”
“Then I’ll just get some water. I see a river over them.”
“Okay…watch out for zombies!” Joan laughed.
“You forget what I am,” Raven sighed, pushing past the fire and out into the darkness.
Joan watched her go and then held up the stick, which was full of charred beetles, their bodies crumbled up like flimsy sheets of ash after a fire. She smiled at them and held them closer to her lips, blowing out the red embers that flickered from their insides. Then she held her lips over them and sank her teeth into the middle.
“Hm,” she said aloud, chewing slowly. “…It does taste like Fire Beetle Crunchies.” She took another bite. “I like Fire Beetle Crunchies.”
Then, from the distance, Raven cried out. “Hey, check out this thing I found in the river! It’s some kind of scepter with people inside!”
Giantess World
