Contingency Plan

"...what do you mean only three!?" I exclaimed.

Cal hung his head.

"I mean there's only three mushrooms in the bag."

"How can that be? We completely filled it."

He inspected the outside of the bag.

"Oh...that's not good. Looks like a hole was torn in the bag."

I sat down for a moment to contemplate. Part of me wanted to blame Cal, but I knew it wasn't his fault.

"I'm guessing three mushrooms isn't going to be enough for the mafia, right?" I said.

Cal was pacing around frantically.

"No, not at all. I'm kind of freaking out, Arno. If we return with only these, I don't even want to know what Gino will do to us!"

"Alright, What are our options?" I asked.

“We don’t nearly have enough time to go back to get more and it's not like we can just make extra magic mushrooms out of thin air."

He looked completely stumped.

"I think I might have an idea, Mr. Arno."

Erika had a confident look on her face.

"What do you have in mind?"

"One minute, I'll be right back."

She started rummaging through the cart. A few moments later she came back to me with something in her hand.

"How about this, Mr. Ar-?"

"Woah! Where did you get that? Put that down! Are you insane!?"

She was holding an extra magic mushroom in her bare hand.

"Hahaha. Looks pretty real, doesn't it?"

Suddenly the color of the mushroom changed from silver to white. I had to admit I was quite impressed.

"So you managed to get that color change spell down. I have to admit, as your mentor, I'm proud of you."

I patted her on the head.

"Aw thanks, Mr. Arno. So, would you say I'm a real sorceress now?"

"Uh... at the very least you're getting there."

"I don't get it, what did she do?" Cal asked.

Erika's little demonstration just gave me an idea of how I can get us out of this mess. I just needed to get Cal on our side.

"Let me ask you this, Cal. If you had the opportunity to be freed from the mafia would you take it?"

"Of course I would, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"I believe I've found a solution to all of our problems, but I'll need your full cooperation."

He contemplated for a moment.

"Hm... Well to be honest with you, I really don't like being tied down...but Gino does kind of scare me and they did help me in the past...ah who am I kidding, I hate those guys. I don't know what you're planning, but I'm in."

That was easier than I thought.

"Alright then, let's go over this. Make sure both of you listen carefully."

I spent about an hour laying out the whole operation.

"...any questions?" I asked.

"So, this whole operation is going to come down to that prince guy. I have to say, I think this is going to work." Cal said.

"So, you two WERE talking about a prince earlier!" Eika said.

"That's not important right now. Do you have any actual questions, girl?"

"Not particularly about the operation, but since you're on our side now, do you think you could unpoison me, Cal?"

"Oh yeah I almost forgot about that. So… funny story... You were never actually poisoned to begin with. That was just chili powder. I was bluffing and planned on just giving you some pickle juice with blue food dye and calling it an 'antidote'."

Erika gave him a death stare. Personally I was a bit impressed by his deception skills. He even fooled me with that bluff. Erika didn't seem to find it amusing whatsoever though.

"You're not mad at me... right, Erika?...right?"

Erika proceeded to kick him as hard as she could in the crouch.

*Wham*

"Oof!"

Cal fell over and curled up in a ball. His eyes were tearing up a bit.

"I'm sorry!” He said, in a high pitched voice.

"Alright, now that that's out of the way. We should probably get going." Erika said with a smirk.