We were sitting on the couch in my camper, I was eating from a bowl full of rat soup and Reid was eating with a ladle out of the pot. I decided not to put any potatoes in it, I felt that it wasn’t fair to use it now. Noel and Caroline had no way to eat right now. We had been in the labyrinth for at least a full day, and I had all of the meat and ways to cook it. That was a major oversight on my part. Even though I was the one butchering and cooking the rats, everyone should have kept some of the meat just in case.


    “They…” I looked down into my soup with a frown, grease shimmered across its surface rippling as chunks of meat bobbed throughout it. “They’re gonna be alright, they can find some food right?”


    Reid never answered, he just gave me a weak smile as he played with his food. We had already decided to rush through this area to find a way back to them, but that was much easier said than done. I had joked about it when I first arrived here, but this place was huge. A commendable labyrinth. I could imagine people getting lost in there for months. We didn’t have months.


    “Well. If you’re ready let''s get going. You guys leveled up once yesterday, if we can just keep that going it won’t matter if they can’t eat. Plus we need to get through here as fast as we can, so picking at our food isn’t a great pastime.”


    “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.” We both stood up and went to the door, Reid opened it first and just stopped. He pushed his arm out to block me. “Who are you? What do you want?” His voice was cold, serious.


    “Do-do you… that smell… do you guys have food?” A familiar male voice echoed into the camper. I couldn’t place him. It was so familiar. His name… What was it? How did I know him?


    “You don’t have to be so tense. Would y’all be up for trading?” A feminine voice followed, it was light but confident. A comfortable sound, someone you might want to read an audiobook. Reid’s shoulders relaxed slightly.


    “Reid, can’t we just talk to them outside?” I nearly asked how he was going to defend me, but decided against it. There wasn’t much point in hurting his feelings and revealing our cards to these people. Jarred? Was it Jarred? No…


    Master, do you trust these people? Aureus asked as he stood on his hind legs and pawed for my attention.


    No, I don’t trust them, but there’s no reason to be hostile if they just want to trade. It might be hard for them to eat right now so we could probably get something good for trading with them.


    “Reid.” I said again when he didn’t move.


    “Are you sure? What if they’re…” He trailed off, but I knew what he was thinking. Or at least I assumed he was talking about those morphing creatures. I was more worried about people like the painted man I’d met on my first day back in the city.


    “Yeah, we shouldn’t have to worry much. Trust me, I think things will be fine.”


    With a sigh he stepped out of the camper and to the side to make room for me. I followed after him, the woman came into view first. She was short, decently shorter than average with a huge hammer. I recognized her from posts on Celes, but her hair was noticeably more red in person. I tried to push the trust that came with recognition down, just because I knew – sort of – who she was, didn’t mean I should trust her.


    When I made eye contact with the man I realized why Reid hadn’t wanted me to come out. It was Theo, that rotten bastard. His eyes widened when he saw me. He was nearly cowering behind the small woman before we saw each other, he quickly straightened to his full height.


    Stepping forward he started, “Mia…” In response Aureus pushed his way in front of me and hissed at the man. He shrieked, stumbling back behind the woman – who seemed amused by the events.


    “Sorry, he’s a bit protective is all.” I said pointedly at the woman, I wasn’t going to apologize to cheating trash.


    “I can see that, he’s quite pretty… What breed is he?” she asked.


    “You know, I’m not sure. I never really asked, I was taken with him immediately. Didn’t ask many questions and just took him home.”


    “Is he friendly? Could I pet him?” she giggled as we played pretend, a small bit of fun and pretending that everything was normal again. Just two women chatting about one of our pets when we came across each other in the street.


    “He’s a bit shy, he won’t bite.” I said eyeing him, you won’t hurt them, but you’re welcome to refuse if you don’t want them to touch you. I won’t force you to do things like that. “But he might refuse you. He doesn’t trust others easily. Some trauma from the day after I got him. People are the worst.” I said with an undertone of warning. I was analyzing her reactions. It was fun to banter and all, but I didn’t trust these people. Especially not Theo. He stabbed me in the back once already.


    “I see. That’s unfortunate.” She motioned over her shoulder with her thumb, “This one’s the same way. He’s a rescue. Picked him up when a group of assholes was kicking him while he was down. Didn’t much want him, but I couldn’t leave him there either.” She said as she squatted down and put out her hand palm up like she was feeding a horse a treat. Aureus eyed her warily, he sniffed at her hand and then looked up at me and then sniffed her again. His tail curled around my leg as he bumped his nose into her palm and promptly ran away hiding behind me.


    I laughed, “Well that wasn’t so bad huh? Anywho, you said you wanted to trade? Whatcha need and whatcha got?” The two men of the group had been awkwardly waiting around. Reid was in a defensive stance and spent most of his time glaring at Theo, while Theo had been fidgeting and attempting to hide behind the woman.


    She reached her hand out for a handshake, I looked down at it weighing my options. I glanced over at the GGC, most of them were talking about me and Theo’s past. Filling in other gods who weren’t aware. It seemed like it would be fine to accept it. We shook hands.


    “Nice to meet you, I’m Rosalynn.”


    “Likewise, I’m Mia.”


    “It seems like you already know Theo?” She asked as she glanced back at the man behind her.


    My nose scrunched up with disgust as I answered, “Yeah, I know that unfaithful bastard.”


    She glanced between the two of us, cocked her head to the side as she scanned my face. With a shrug she pulled out some clothes from her inventory, “Now, these aren’t very good, they won’t add much in way of defense. But! They’re better than running around in regular clothes and well…” She glanced over at Reid’s bare chest, his shirt and portions of his pants were absolutely wrecked. “It’d be nice to cover up right?”


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    “Yeah, I would like a new set of clothes,” He looked at me for confirmation before continuing, “We’ve got some rat stew…” He paused like he was going to say more. When he looked back at me again I shook my head. We weren’t selling our potatoes. No way in hell. Not to someone who might give them to Theo. Over my dead cold body.


    “We’ve also got some amateurly treated rat pelts. Well we also have some pelts from those… Oh what did the system call them? Woobis? Woddles?”


    “Wommi”


    “Yeah, we have some of those, but they’ve not been treated. I guess, more importantly, is whether or not the clothes you have would fit him.”


    Rosalynn pulled a couple more sets of the clothes she grabbed before from her inventory. They were all similar, but it was obvious that a novice had made them. They were stitched together slightly awkwardly and there wasn’t that feeling of sameness one gets from store bought or professionally made clothing. The fact that the outfit was almost completely made of leather made it look even more awkward. It was hard for me to imagine Reid wearing such a haphazardly put together outfit.


    “Well while he tries that on I’ll prepare you some food. I’m assuming rat stew is enough of a deal for the clothes. Unless you’re wanting to haggle? But honestly you need food more than we need clothes.” I raised an eyebrow at Rosalynn, she was charismatic and confident so I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to get more out of the deal if I wasn’t careful.


    “Well, that puts us in a tough spot though,” she responded, tapping her chin while pretending to be in thought, “Ah!” she raised a finger up before continuing, “How about soup now and some meat for the road, and I’ll throw in a second outfit. Though I do feel I’m getting the short end of the stick, I feel like meeting the both of you is enough to make up for that.”


    She beamed, I turned to go back into my camper and get the kitchenette. I wasn’t planning on sitting in there and cooking their food. Reid would get restless if I left him here alone. I was just about to come back out and take down the camper when I heard a yelp from outside.


    “God, ow! You said I could go in, why did you attack me?” Theo’s voice was muffled and became more clear as I opened the door. The camper disappeared behind me as I stepped out.


    “I never said you could go in.” Reid responded defiantly.


    “He’s right, you asked if you could talk to Mia alone and he said that was up to her. You’re the one that tried to open the door without asking.” Rosalynn chastised.


    “Ah, I see what happened. Reid didn’t attack him, this item has a feature to prevent trespassing. Unless I allow it, no one can enter but me.” I said flatly as I sat on the ground and deployed the cooking set.


    I pulled out the pot we had already been using, and wondered if I should just share the food we had already started with them or if I should make them a new batch. There wasn’t quite enough for two people left though. Well, I didn’t want to just throw it out.


    “Hey, I have some leftovers from when we were eating earlier. I can reheat them real fast for you if you’d like? I’m not sure how you’d feel about eating a stranger’s leftovers though.”


    “You’re not a stranger…” Theo mumbled. I ignored him.


    “Well, seems like Theodore here would be fine with it so let him have the leftovers. I’ll wait for the second batch of food.”


    We sat in silence for what felt like twenty minutes as we waited for the soup to reheat in the pot. I let my mind roam as I stared into the oily soup. Theo would be quite upset when he discovered that these were Reid’s leftovers and not mine. Parts of me wanted to ask him what he was thinking that day, why he did what he did. Most of me just wanted to never have to deal with him again. He didn’t seem comfortable down here, though I suppose that was probably a more normal response.


    Reid had been glaring at him a lot, I never remembered the two of them meeting, but I suppose they must have. Theo and I dated for at least 4 or 5 months, so they had to have run into each other at some point despite Reid’s busy schedule. It was weird that he seemed more pissed than I was though. I mean I guess it makes sense since he learned that it happened just a few days ago, so it’s more fresh but still. I wasn’t the type to just gloss over things like that either.


    Looking at the whimpering and pathetic man now I wondered what I had seen in him. Sure he was decently attractive, but clearly his personality was lacking in several aspects. Maybe I didn’t notice it back then, I overlooked it for some reason. I was young. It felt strange thinking that even though it wasn’t too long ago, so much had changed in my life since then. I started living on my own. I lost my mom, went through both friend and romantic break ups. I started working and painting a lot. I guess I ended up growing more as a person than I realized.


    Theo ate in silence as I started preparing the next batch of soup for Rosalynn. I also prepared several meat skewers to cook for their additional request earlier. I felt like it was almost not worth the clothes. They were crude and didn’t provide much help as items, and Caroline could most definitely create better ones. But part of me agreed with Rosalynn, it was nice to meet other people down here. Especially ones who didn’t seem shifty. Rosalynn had a weird comfortableness about her. I wanted to have faith in her, I felt like she was a good person. I mean a bad person wouldn’t put up with Theo, that annoying coward.


    “So how long have the two of you been in this labyrinth?” I asked, breaking the silence.


    “Ugh, it’s been forever. I swear this place is the worst.” Theo was the first to respond, but I just continued to wait for Rosalynn’s answer. His wasn’t very helpful anyways.


    “I’m not sure, the time has been a bit strange, but I’d say about a week maybe? Probably less, five days? It’s hard to know for sure.”


    “Five days! A week!” Reid raised his voice in a panic, “That’s way too long!”


    I shot him a warning look. Despite the fact that I knew one of these people and the other seemed to be trustworthy, we couldn’t trust them completely. I didn’t want them to know that Noel and Caroline were out there on their own. “It’ll be fine. There’s nothing we can do about it if it’s a week anyway. We just have to get to the end or whatever the solution is for leaving.”


    “Yeah… I… You’re right.” Reid leaned back with a big sigh.


    “How about the two of you? How long have you two been down here? Or well, not down here, but in here?” Rosalynn asked


    “Uhh I think we’ve been in this maze forrr about a day or two? Probably.” I replied.


    “Oh that’s not too bad, you two are the first people we’ve seen this whole time. I was starting to think we’d already explored the whole area until we ended up over here. I really didn’t think this path was here before though.”


    “Huh, well we did have a path that closed behind us once, it could be something like that.”


    “I’m pretty sure that was because of the fight we were in though. I mean it opened up again after.” Reid interjected.


    “Hmm… Either way it is interesting. I was feeling a bit worried, we were separated from our group because the door just disappeared after we went in, so it’s nice to see other people again after being stuck with this dolt for so long.”


    “Hey!” Theo protested.


    Rosalynn continued without addressing his complaint at all, “I understand if you don’t trust us, but I’m part of a party that has been setting up a camp down here. We have a decent amount of civilian types that we are trying to keep safe here if you need help, or if you just need a party to join we have a decent amount of people who would be happy to do that as well.”


    “Ah… well I mean that does sound nice. I’m not like, opposed completely to the idea of joining up, but it’s a bit difficult. We’ve had some pretty bad experiences with people after everything you know.”


    “I hope you can understand, we are doing fine on our own at the moment, so it’s nothing personal.” Reid added after me, but his glare towards Theo contradicted what he was saying heavily.


    “Well, that’s fine, I completely understand. I just want you to know if you need a place to rest, or if you’d like to trade again, you can come find our camp. We don’t have a name or anything yet, but if you’re fine with it I’d like to add you both as friends?”


    “Sure that’d be fine.”


    We finished cooking, Rosalynn scarfed the food down, and the trade was completed. After exchanging our screen names and becoming friends we went our separate ways. It was a nice and comfortable first meeting of strangers in the Underhollow. I hoped that in the future we could interact again, and be helpful to each other if we needed to. I never wanted to go through what I had with Caro that first day ever again.