Special Items

Madame Ginger surveyed the chaos from the door. She smiled and proceeded undaunted past the threshold and walked through the living room, grabbing Mr. Allspice by the ankle as she passed through. She proceeded with her pigman in tow, up the stairs without missing a beat. Mr. Allspice groaned as the back of his head collided rhythmically with each and every step.

Several minutes passed before Mr. Allspice and Madame Ginger were back in the living standing side-by-side, smiles plastered from ear to ear. In that time Bellamy and Everest had put everything back to the way it was before, and were seated on the couch. Opal was still nursing her coffee and cookies.

“This is my husband, Beaumont Allspice. Isn’t he the cutest thang.” She gives him a peck on the cheek. The two were an odd pairing, they were both pig-ish, but The Madame was hairier, with a thin lair of hair across her upperbody, thickening up around her thighs, like furry stockings. She also had a giant pair of horns on her head, and stood about three feet taller than her hubby.

Mr. Allspice, now that the lights had been turned up, had redder skin and tusks coming out of his mouth, he was also a fair bit shorter than Madame Ginger, though still taller than anyone else in the room. He was kind of plump but in a dad-bod sort of way. Actually, he kind of reminded Katya of Hellboy (Ron Pearlman, not David Harbour). It made her wonder if there were any cats around.

All of that was beside the point, she actually had a question that had been bothering her for a while, “What’s your name?” She asked Madame Ginger.

“Whatchya mean?”

“Everyone calls you Madame Ginger, but what’s your full name?”

“Madame Ginger. Madame is my first name.”

“Hmm? Your married right?”

“Oh. Right. You’re human, I keep forgettin’. Fae and Beastfolk don’t have a tradition of taking each other’s last names, unless you’re royalty. Royals take the last name of the dominant bloodline.”

That answered that question, but another popped in her head.

“What about kids?”

“That’s complicated, little pup. Hmm… I guess if you really wanna know…” Katya nodded.

“You mighta been noticin’ the strange names we Fae possess. At age five, we’re given our names through divine revelation. Until that time we have placeholder names; boys go by “Dan” and girls by “Musu” and the dominant spouse passes down their last name. A lot of times elders will continue calling children by their family name well, especially longer lived species, that is unless you do something to distinguish yourself. Well, that’s probably more info than you were asking for, whatchya think?”

“Sounds confusing.” She grasped it in theory but it was extremely odd compared to her old world, “Where do the divine revelations come from?”

“Well, I think most people get them in a dream the night of their fifth year. Outside of that, I’m not sure I can be more specific.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“No problem, lil’ pup. I’ll answer any question you got fer me.”

“Are you going to have any kids, Madame Ginger?” Opal finished her mug of coffee and spoke up.

“Well, I dunno, Miss Opal. My schedule is hectic, and with this whole game goin’ on… it’s just not in the cards.”

Mr. Allspice clenched The Madame’s hand, “I love my wife more than anything, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty once the timing is right, but I’m fine waiting as long as it takes, until the perfect moment.”

“Oh, Darlin’!” They embraced.

Everest rose from the couch, “You still got that game?”

Madame detatched herself from Mr. Allspice and thought a second, “We should. It’s in the closet under the stairs. I think it’s under the coats.”

“I’ll check.” Everest went over to the closet and stepped inside. There was the sound of coats being tossed around and a bunch of stuff falling, before Everest finally emerged a minute later with a box.

“What’s that?” Katya was a bit lost. It was in a shiny silver case with a glowing circle where the lock should’ve been.

“A game. It’s one of the Special Items that fell from the sky.”

“Special Items?” A bunch of question marks floated over Katya’s head.

“Special Items are super cool, they can do all sorts of super cool stuff, like make this delicious coffee drink, or they can make you fly across the room like Bellamy, or-“

“They are super cool, like Opal said, but they also can be dangerous. In addition to the Displacement a bunch of objects rained from the sky that day. Luna suspects they came from other worlds and other times, she even thought that other things might have come through as well, but we haven’t seen anything to support that. On that day most of us were given 50 Special Item slots. The more powerful the weapon the more slots it takes up.”

“50 sounds like a lot.”

“This ship, believe it or not, is a Special Item.”

“Holy shit! Sorry.” She covered her mouth.”

“No worries. It’s unbelievable, right. And it takes up 200 slots.” Katya immediately latched on to what Everest was building up to.

“Then who-”

“Lady Luna has it equipped. We don’t know what the condition is for expanding the number of slots or what determined the baseline number, as far as I know Luna was the only one with that number of slots. She claims that’s all she has, but it’s possible she has more. We also don’t know what her level is.”

“She’s gotta be…” No, there were loopholes in the rules that could have allowed her to stay in the beginner zone. If she managed to party up with someone before being displaced, or… or there’s some other loophole that she figured out but hasn’t disclosed.

“Sorry to cut in, little ladies” Madame Ginger had gotten up close to them without them realizing; this wasn’t the place or time for this.

“So, anyway, this is a Special Item, it takes up one slot. Mr. Allspice has several equipped games and appliances. My axe, by the way is from here so it’s not a Special Item, and Bellamy’s whatever-that-is is.

“Gameboy.” Bellamy whispered, though it might as well have been a shout since it was the first time Katya had heard him say anything other than “Hey,” and his first words were, “Gameboy.” Gameboy, the word echoed through her head, it was so nostalgic yet foreign, she couldn’t place it but she knew it was important to her.

“What is-” before she could ask, Opal jumped down from her high chair and jumped onto Everest.

“I wanna play! I wanna play!”

“Okay, okay, settle down!” They started into the game. Bellamy, Katya, and Mr. Allspice on one team, and Madame Ginger, Opal, and Everest on the other.

“We’re gonna crush you!”

“How come I’m on the boys’ team?” Katya yelled.

“You’re not a boy?” Everest remarked.

Katya stared at Everest and took her shot, “B-cups.” She fired with pinpoint accuracy straight at Everest’s chest.

Things were getting heated in what essentially boiled down to a game of 4-D chess. The six of them played until well into the night, ending in a draw; 3 wins to 3 losses.

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Outside in the blue, desert night, a lone feminine figure wrapped in beige from head to toe hung from a long rope off the side of the Mythos. She pulled herself slowly up toward the balcony of one of the ships cabins, from there she continued jumping until she reached an empty room. She tapped on it and the glass window disappeared. She stepped through and replaced the window as if it was never gone in the first place. Now that she was inside, her mission could finally begin. 

ABOUT THE CHAPTER

mattmallow here! I wanted to thank you for reading my story thus far. This chapter marks the end of my pre-written material. It took me about three weeks to write and four months to post it all, or however long it's been. I didn't think I'd actually be able to get through it all. I have almost 90 pages in Word, that's more than I've ever written! I'm going to continue on and see how long I can keep this story going. It's been a great experience for me. Thank you dear reader(s) for sticking with me through all the highs and lows; here's to many more!