Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 94 - Getting To Know Each Other

"First thing first, I need to know this party's capabilities. If possible, I would like to come with you to a simple request so that I can see you fight." Rachel explained to the group, as they were all sitting around a table in a bar close to the general adventurer's guild. It was still quite early in the day, so it wasn't all too full yet.

Lynol quickly nodded in agreement, "That sounds like a good idea. Now that Foster is fully signed up, we were planning on heading into the Basement soon."

"Did any of you ever go?"

Kyla slightly raised her hand, "I entered a bit into the first floor. I really like dungeons." She replied to the woman sitting next to her, as she quickly wrote something down into a small notebook that she was holding. It seemed like she wanted to ask something else, but before she could, Foster let out a loud groan, "Come on, before all that, shouldn't we just get to know each other? Like, on a personal level. If we're gonna be working together, that's a good idea, right?"

"You got a point, bud." Rae replied, slowly closing her notebook as she leaned back, crossing her legs and arms, "Then out with it, what'd I need to know?"

"Well, what do you want to know?" Foster asked in return, and Rae simply shrugged, "How about... how did you guys meet?"

Octer quickly replied to her, since he knew that Foster would try to be witty and cool with her, while Lynol would just keep it to the bare minimum. Having him explain it was the simplest, "Basically, us three met on a caravan travelling to Arcadum. Foster was hired by a merchant to help carry stuff around since he wasn't an adventurer yet, and Lynol and I were hired as guards. We got closer throughout that, and after we fought of a Giant Wolf together, we figured we'd better form a party once we got here." Octer explained quickly, and both Rae and Kyla looked at the three of them surprised.

"You guys took out a Giant Wolf? Just the three of you? How'd you manage that?" Rae asked curiously, even more interested in this party now, and Foster quickly explained. His molotovs were the main reason they were able to take it out that easily, after all.

"Basically, we did a bunch of damage to it with a makeshift weapon I made. We took some of the Dwarven Spirit that the caravan was transporting, put some booze-drenched cloth in the opening, lit the cloth, and threw it at the wolf. The bottle broke, and it exploded all over it." Foster explained smugly, nearly as if he was the one that came up with the idea of the molotov cocktail in the first place. However, the two women sitting in front of him were unsure how to react.

"Why would you- So you were fighting a burning Giant Wolf after that?" Kyla asked confused, before Lynol let out a sigh, "The alcohol burned off pretty quickly, so the fire never lasted too long. But it did a lot of damage, trust me. Without those things, we would never have been able to beat the Giant Wolf, at least not as easily as we did."

"But..." Rae muttered, opening her notebook. In the back, she soon found what she was looking for, "Right... a couple days ago, a merchant company introduced some prototype items to some smaller guilds to have them test it in combat. They called it the... Locke-Style Explosive? It sounds quite similar to what you mentioned."

"The what-style explosive now?" Foster let out, and Rae slowly raised her head, "Locke-Style. I heard about it from someone in the Handler-Union. He works with one of the guilds that are testing it."

Foster slowly closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, "Do I really want my name connected to that?" He muttered quietly, and Rae started laughing loudly, "Right, so it was a person after all, huh. I thought it was a weird coincidence."

"Urgh... I'll have to go and talk to George about that..." Foster sighed, although Lynol pointed something else out, "If it was him that made it, at least. There were a lot of different merchants that saw you use it."

"..." Foster looked at the table in contemplation. Did he really want his name to be connected to something like that? Sure, he used it, but... what if his name would then be used for a whole bunch of other explosives like that? "Erm... is 'Locke' an uncommon name?"

"You're the only person called 'Locke' that I know. And I know a lot of people." Rae replied without hesitation.

"Fuck." Foster let out, moments before a loud slam could be heard upon someone's forehead hitting the wooden table in front of him.

Rae laughed again, and looked at Foster with a grin, "Fine, I guess it's your turn now."

"Right... how old are you?" Foster asked, not raising his head from the table. It seemed like a sort of weird question compared to what Rae had asked them. Since the table was silent, Foster finally raised his head with a groan, "I mean, you look around our age and all, but you have those weird wrinkles next to your eyes, and kinda white hair and stuff. And I'll be honest, I grew up only around humans, so I don't know much about how other races age and shit." Foster explained quickly. He thought that maybe Rachel was offended, like Kyla was when Foster asked her about it. But rather than that, she seemed... confused.

"I don't have wrinkles?" She said with a slight frown, not sure what Foster was talking about. At that point, the rest of the group was confused. There were definitely some wrinkles right next to her eyes.

"Hm... are those just a thing that your race has, then?" Kyla asked curiously, pointing right next to her eye so that Rae knew what they were talking about. As if she just had an epiphany, Rae opened her eyes wide and laughed.

"You're talking about these?" She asked with a grin, pointing right at the wrinkles. With a slight smile on her face, she leaned forward so that the others could see better. And then, the wrinkles seemed to twitch. They were... opening up. Six more small purple bead-like without pupils appeared, three on the side of each larger eye. Foster looked at her surprised, and even slightly flinched when he saw them. He really didn't expect it, after all.

"I'm an Arachnia. These are the rest of my eyes." She pointed out, "People look at you weird when you have extra eyes like this. Rather, four eyes is the max for them, any more than that and you're just a freak." Rae scoffed with a smile. She had a fair point. Foster was slightly freaked out the moment he saw those extra eyes pop out, but only because he didn't expect them. He'd like to think that he really didn't care about stuff like this. And just a few more eyes aren't really something weird to get used to either, at least not compared to Lynol's deep red skin.

"Ah, and before you're surprised, I've got these too." Rae added, as four extra spider legs sprouted from her back, two reaching over her shoulders and the other two peaking out beside her waist.

That.... might get a bit more getting used to.