That was pretty bad news, especially considering Baugh's interest in Penguin, but… I still fell asleep.
I guess that whole thing had drained me more than I thought.
When I finally woke up, it was dark outside, I had a blanket draped over me, and I could hear clatter coming from the kitchen, where Llewellyn and Penguin seemed to be making dinner.
I rubbed my face and got up to check what they were doing.
"Hey," Llewellyn said as soon as I came in. "Need another Potion?"
His phone was vibrating on the kitchen table and Penguin was staring down at it, pecking at the screen occasionally. Neither of them was answering it, though.
"I'm fine," I said, yawning. "All good now. What's going on?"
"Gilded," Llewellyn said.
"What about him?"
Llewellyn leaned over his side of the table, unlocked his phone, and slid it toward me.
"Ignore the call," he said. "Check the texts."
It was indeed Gilded—who was still trying to call.
I read the texts and snorted. Looked like he was demanding that we free him—or at least bring him proper food.
"I suppose we can't let him starve," I said, snickering.
"Gléonwon got fish for him," Llewellyn said. "I checked with the System. He just doesn't want to cook it."
Okay, that was even funnier.
"What are you guys making?" I asked. It smelled delicious in here.
"Just a stir-fry," Llewellyn said. He scowled. "I wasn't planning on bringing it to him, but Penguin here disagrees."
Penguin chirped again, spiritedly. Well, he wasn't wrong. Gilded had indeed saved my life.
"Let's all just go," I said. "And bring Lumos too," I added, leaning down to pet him. He'd been half-climbing my leg, hoping to be petted, since I'd taken the phone from Llewellyn.
Llewellyn muttered under his breath.
"I know," I said. "But it might take him quite a while to get out of there."
"I don't care if TAPESTRY adopted him," Llewellyn said. "I don't intend to do the same."
"What, do you want to send Tiernan and co. there to take care of him?"
I mean, the TAPESTRY guys would definitely go, but then we'd have to explain about Gléonwon, too.
Llewellyn sighed.
"We haven't even had the time to go through those books yet."
He was right; with everything that had happened, we hadn't gotten around to them.
And of course I hadn't checked the situation online, except for the small clip I saw before I fell asleep.
I took out some bowls to pack the food in, plus some plates and cutlery to bring with us.
"Do you think Caerwyn eats too?"
Llewellyn glared down at his stir-fry.
"This isn't nearly enough," he said. "Let me make a second batch. Penguin, is there anything you can do to keep it at the perfect temperature?"
Penguin chirped enthusiastically, apparently enjoying the challenge.
"How bad is it online right now?" I asked once I'd found everything we needed and Llewellyn had started cooking more stir-fry and noodles.
"Don't look," Llewellyn said—as if that would stop me.
When he realized I'd sat down with my phone and was going through it, I felt something through the bond, but I couldn't really tell what he was—
Wait. Was that anger? But it wasn't directed at me, so what—
…Oh. It didn't take me long to find out why.
-
[manaleak]: real talk. wth is Ryo doing?
[skybreaker88]: Llewellyn is out there carrying the entire realm and this guy's doing yoga in the background??
[teaandtempests]: why is Ryo crouching like he's about to cry
[manatax]: maybe he was injured?
[coconutsilk]: or panicking?
[fourleafclover]: so he crouched there while Llewellyn did literally everything???
[bluepotionenjoyer]: if you're going to have a panic attack maybe don't enter a Distorted Realm?
[voidwalker]: what's his actual job because fighting clearly isn't it
-
Shit. Looked like the drone had not recorded from the beginning, but only from when I was using my Authority. Which obviously didn't look like anything specific from the outside, especially in this context.
-
[arcanetoast]: imagine getting chosen by Llewellyn and still contributing nothing
[teapoweredgoblin]: every replay makes him look worse
[coffeehunter]: if this is the standard for getting assigned to Llewellyn maybe I should apply too
[doubleLsupremacy]: ugh NO, Llewellyn deserves someone who can actually fight beside him!!!!
[hardtruth]: "there's probably context" yeah okay and I'm the Queen
[criticaldamage]: if you freeze up that badly then stop going into Distorted Realms
[watchtower]: poor Llewellyn can't even catch a break with teammates like that
[damageparse]: weakass performance tbh
[kapplecore]: Llewellyn deserves partners who can actually keep up. this is embarrassing
[ashfall]: I'd never take him into another Distorted Realm after this
[controlgeek]: I knew this was going to happen, this guy looked useless from the start
[publicenemy]: get him away from Llewellyn before he gets him killed
-
"…"
I mean, I knew they had no idea what they were talking about, but… this still sucked.
I kept scrolling.
-
[runicengineer]: anyway, did anyone else see that tiny penguin freeze all those water things
[frostbytecat]: THE PENGUIN IS SO ROUND I LOVE HIM
[perfectbong]: Llewellyn should just get the penguin honestly
[abysswatch]: getting outperformed by a penguin is crazy
[adorablemenace]: I'M ADOPTING THE PENGUIN
[breadcutter]: that's a Distorted Realm monster. what are you talking about, you can't adopt him
[adorablemenace]: it's not AND WATCH ME
[pixelmage]: who cares, the little guy is clearly helping and was actually fighting harder than the human
[cinnamonrune]: didn't the penguin suddenly have four legs at one point??
[mythicmoth]: are u drunk
[cinnamonrune]: I'm telling u, it transformed or something
[breadcutter]: YES BECAUSE IT'S A MONSTER
[miserymerchant]: the penguin unironically did more
[northwatchnews]: right?? even the penguin is doing more than this guy, why is he there exactly
-
I'd hoped they hadn't noticed Penguin, but… no luck there either, it seemed.
Fuck. What now? Were we going to get Baugh after us again? What the hell was he even up to right now?
-
[desertcrow]: isn't there a train cemetery there? leave him behind. one more abandoned wreck won't hurt
-
A train what? I hadn't seen any. Was there really one?
-
[deadsignal]: we've finally found a permanent resident for the train cemetery lmaooo
[rustcollector]: he'll fit right in with the other things that stopped moving years ago
[platformzero]: even the trains there contributed more
[brokencoupler]: somebody photoshop him into the train cemetery please I'm beggin 😂
[sandstormed]: if you listen closely you can hear the trains asking not to be associated with him
[forgottenline]: somebody update google maps. new landmark just dropped
-
"Enough," Llewellyn said, materializing out of nowhere and sliding the phone out of my hand.
"Hey!" I said.
"You forget I can sense your distress levels through the bond, and that's even without the barrage of System notifications I just got."
Ah, shit. I'd forgotten about that.
"You wanted to get food to Gilded. Come and help us out."