Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening, all rights to the owners.

Getting back on track to the actual plot now. Nah must be found! Also, board games, because Nathan and Morgan know their priorities. I also considered making this a Morgan chapter but decided against it. I realized there wasn't enough reason to justify using her here… and I haven't hit my five chapter minimum.

Morgan is just so good though!

"I didn't even know this was open…" I admit.

"What? Did you think taverns were only open at night?"

"Yeah. I didn't figure it was profitable for them to be open before dinner." I say.

"Well sure, but some people have rooms in taverns." Morgan reminds me while scoping out the room. "We slept in a tavern in that first town. It's not like they would just turn away people who actually rented rooms there."

"Right. That didn't cross my mind…" I say sheepishly. "Erm… what makes you think anyone here is even going to be able to direct us towards a mage? Shouldn't we be looking for, uh, richer people?"

"We will if this fails." Morgan says. "But if there's going to be any cheap mages we can talk to, then these people will know about them. If we talk to someone rich and we're likely going to get more costly recommendations because that's who they're likely to go to."

I hadn't considered that. This is why Morgan leads. She's smart. Though I'm not sure why we don't just talk to people outside rather than talking to people who are in the middle of something. I also had no idea how we were going to approach any of these people, they're all occupied in their drinks or conversations after all, but Morgan solves that rather quickly.

And when I say she "solves" that, I mean she walks right up to the closest person, a huge man a head taller than me with bulging muscles, and taps the table next to him to grab his attention. I'm not sure who's more surprised: the man, or me watching Morgan do this.

"Hi there!" Morgan chirps. "I've got a quick question if ya don't mind!"

"I do mind kid." The man says gruffly. "Kinda drinkin' here."

Morgan calmly tosses a silver onto the table and continues speaking like he didn't just tell her to leave. "So anyways, my and my companion are looking for a mage that can scry for us, but we can't afford anything too pricey, so if you're capable of telling us who we should find, or at least pointing us in the right direction, we'd appreciate it."

The man eyes Morgan tiredly, then sighs and nudges the silver back to her. "No idea kid. Ask someone else. Ain't never needed no mage."

"Thank you for your cooperation." Morgan says, maybe a bit too smugly. She then goes on to repeat the same process several times with other people in the room while I watch in mild horror as she butts into conversations and flagrantly bribes people into listening to her with silver.

Like, I know Morgan is confident, but I didn't expect a complete lack of care for social boundaries and calmly throwing money around. I'm fairly sure she's irritating all these people and the only reason they're talking to her is because she's shoving money in their faces.

Also, the bartender is glaring at Morgan, so I take the hint to grab Morgan by the arm and pull her out of the tavern.

"Aww, but I was getting somewhere." She pouts.

"You were also ten seconds away from getting thrown out by the bartender." I scold. "You can't just bother people like that."

"Can't I?"

"I- well not where some authority can see you." I cough. "I suppose if the bartender wasn't there you could have got away with it."

"Ahh, right." Morgan grins. "Noted."

I should have just said "don't bother people" instead of encouraging her to avoid authorities. I'm a bad influence. "How about we find some other taverns for you to get kicked out of?"

"Hell yeah!"

Morgan does end up getting a few leads after pestering enough tavern-goers. I also manage to get a lead by poking around some of the market stalls and asking if people know where to find the mage called "Jarvin" or "Darius" or "Lance" or whatever random name comes to mind, and by pure chance one of the stall owners knows that there is a mage called Lewis (they assumed I was getting the name wrong when asking for Lance) and points me towards the Siren's Call.

So maybe that's not a usable lead, because the Siren's Call is a super costly place to go, but I'm surprised I got any leads out of doing that.

Morgan's leads, once we look into them, are less costly but always useless. We actually track down a few of the mages, only to find out that Morgan is probably more skilled than they are and none of them know how to scry.

The last one we track down is a con-artist who pretends to do magic to swindle people who have never actually seen magic used before. Morgan threatens to fry him if he doesn't tell us where to find an actually competent mage, but he has no idea unfortunately.

So Morgan gives him advice on how to more accurately imitate magic to swindle people with more wealth, pats him on the back, and then leaves.

"He looks poor!" Morgan explains when I raise an eyebrow at her. "I couldn't not help him."

"After you threatened to burn him?"

"Well I had to see if he had information first." Morgan says unabashedly. "What else was I supposed to do?"

All of our viable leads so far are duds. Maybe we deserve that for shooting so low.

"What are we going to tell Kjelle and Noire?" I mumble.

"That we didn't find anything." Morgan shrugs. "No big deal."

"Kjelle is probably going to berate us for it."

"She'll just be jealous that we actually enjoyed ourselves." Morgan smirks. "I bet she spent the whole time searching and didn't enjoy herself at all. She probably did all the real work for us."

"You manipulative little… witch." I say, trying not to smile. "With a capital B. You're awful."

"Awfully smart!" Morgan preens. "Not to mention hot, and skilled, and-"

"Loud."

"I was going to say humble, but fine, be that way." She huffs. "What happened to you being a supportive boyfriend?"

"I am supportive, I told you to avoid authority figures. I'm just not nice. Two different things."

"I'm not sure encouraging my dubious actions counts as being supportive."

"I never said I was supporting good habits."

"Ah, so you are a corruptor of young women." Morgan grins. "Teaching me horrible, nasty, disgusting things."

"I'm teaching you to be a criminal, not a prostitute." I scoff.

"You say that like it's better to be encouraging illegal activity than lewdness." Morgan snorts. "I see how it is."

"'Tis much better to be a young woman of dubious morals than a degenerate." I say, holding my head up high. "There are men who will take a deviant girl, but no one wants a used toy."

Morgan immediately bursts out laughing. "Wow, way to make it sound awful! Planning to marry me off, are we?"

"Of course. What other use is there for a girl?" I sneer. "You may as well make me money in the meantime if you can learn to steal and sneak, but I'll be glad to trade you for a fat load of gold at the earliest possible convenience. Women are such insufferable wet blankets."

"You- ha-" Morgan tries to say, but devolves into a giggle fit. "I- I- hehe-!"

I have no idea what was so funny about that, but Morgan is laughing so much that she has to stop walking and lean against me. Something about our act this time made her break down, and I really don't get it, but it's great to see her so happy. "Why does me pretending to be a terrible person make you laugh so much?" I ask, and wrap an arm around her shoulders just to make sure she doesn't fall over, but I can't help but continue the act a bit in hopes to make her laugh more. "Honestly, women, so emotional…"

That only makes her laugh harder, and she clings to me to stop from collapsing. We're getting a few looks as you might expect from someone having a laughing fit in the middle of a street.

"Morgan, seriously, what's so funny about it?" I ask. I'm grinning now, and we don't need both of us collapsing in the streets because we're laughing too hard.

"I d-don't knooooow!" Morgan whines in between her laughter. "I- heh- something about y-you saying all that is just- hehe- hilarious!"

I think that's a compliment. "Well pull yourself together, wench."

"Stooooop!" She whines again, clutching her sides as I am now basically carrying her. Her expression is a wide-stretched smile that's probably going to hurt her face if she keeps smiling so much.

"I didn't put in all this effort training you just to end up with another hysterical woman."

She groans as her laughter genuinely starts to hurt her sides, and just so we can keep walking I pick her up off the ground and cradle her as she continues to weeze and giggle into the furs around my neck.

"I've never seen you laugh so hard." I say, and pat her back with one hand in a vague attempt to be helpful. Morgan has her face fully hidden in my furs and is no longer laughing uproariously, but her body is still shaking with laughter and she's hiccuping intermittently. "Uh, you are going to be alright… right?"

Morgan doesn't respond with words and instead slaps me on the chest with one hand, only to dig her fingers into the fur when she starts to snicker again a second later.

Noire and Kjelle stare when I walk into the inn carrying Morgan, who still hasn't recovered enough to talk above a whisper due to her laughing fit completely wrecking her voice. Noire thinks we got attacked, and Kjelle thinks it's another one of our acts.

Kjelle is not happy to hear all our leads were duds. She, at the very least, managed to find some useful leads.

###

"Remember, we're mercenaries." Morgan instructs. "Nathan, and I mean this as politely as possible, but please don't talk unless I tell you to. Just… cross your arms and try to look scary, or something."

"Fine." I mumble. I understand why. I'm the most likely to say something weird and get us unwanted attention. The best lead Kjelle got us has led us to a decently well-off part of the town. It's not one of the manions in the countryside, but it's still a nice house. "I'm not sure I can do scary though."

"Don't worry too much." Morgan says. "We need you here to make sure anything we see or are told is on-level and makes sense. Looking scary is a nice secondary, but unnecessary."

"Right."

With that out of the way, we approach the house. Morgan is in front with Kjelle next to her, and me and Noire behind. From what Kjelle heard, this mage (with the innocuous name of Matthew) is usually hired by merchants or ship captains with enough coin. He gives services like sending messages via magic (much faster than any conventional way), predicting weather (useful for planning future ventures), basic item enchantments (sometimes weapons but usually trinkets or clothes, and enchantments are often basic like making the item immune to wear and tear, or for a merchant it might be making the item grant the wearer some extra confidence or charm), and so on. Matthew is not cheap by most people's standards, he usually charges a gold or two per spell, but that's well within our price range.

Morgan knocks on the front of the door. I quietly suck in a breath and hold it. There's a tense twenty seconds as we wait for a response or any sign of life from inside the house. It eventually comes in the form of the door opening.

Matthew is… a dwarf. I don't mean that in the fantasy sense of dwarf, I mean dwarfism. He's small and thin and only comes up to Morgan's collarbone, but still looks distinctly adult with a pointed chin, boney fingers, slick yellow hair, and sunken, calculating grey eyes.

"Hellooo there." He says calmly. Even though he's shorter than everyone here, he has his head tilted far enough back to look down his nose at us. That can't be good for his neck. "Aaare you cuuustomers?"

"Yes." Morgan says, also holding her head high and looking down her nose. She and Matthew are engaging in a silent staring match. "If you're capable of scrying, anyways."

"Scryyying?" Matthew repeats. He holds out a hand. "I am moore than capable of doing that. Threeee gold for a scry."

"One now, two upon completion." Morgan says.

"Aaacceptable."

She hands over a gold, and Matthew beckons us inside. The house seems comically large compared to Matthew's size, and I can't help but notice all the doorknobs are lower than normal to accommodate him. They're so low I'd have to bend over just to reach them.

"For whaaat reason do you need a scryyy?" Matthew asks as we walk through the house, glancing back at Morgan in the process.

"We're looking for a friend. She came here to investigate rumors of a portal and didn't come back when she said she would, so we're here to find her." Morgan says.

Matthew hums and nods. He notably stopped looking at Morgan as soon as she said the word "friend". How odd. Was he expecting something else?

I don't think Matthew's spell room (is that what it would be called? What would you call it?) is meant to fit four people, but we carefully file into the room anyways. Matthew magics a large bowl (and I mean large, it's the size of a table) off a shelf and sets it down in the middle of the room and gestures for us to sit around it. With a snap of his fingers the bowl is filled with clear water, and he then takes a few seconds to pour some sort of sparkly powder inside.

"I will neeeed one of yooou to help me." Matthew says. "I caaannot scy on someone I dooo not know. Yooou will have to direeect the spell."

Morgan glances toward Kjelle and Noire, as they actually know what Nah looks like in person. Kjelle takes initiative and, as Matthew instructs her, puts her hands on the bowl and focuses on Nah.

"Nooow." Matthew says. "Fooocus on your target."

It takes a minute for the spell to properly take effect, but we notice instantly when it does. The water in the bowl ripples and distorts, and then settles into an image. At the center of that image is Nah. Just like everyone else from the game, her game portrait is startlingly accurate to her actual appearance. Just like all the other kids she has the hair color you see in official artwork, that being light green, and she's wearing her doll-like dress.

She's also sitting in a room, sitting cross-legged on a very basic bed while staring with furrowed eyebrows at a door. The room doesn't have much in it. There's the bed, a window with no opening latch, a table and a chair with an empty plate of food and a half-full glass of water, and a lamp up in the top corner of the room, well out of Nah's reach. The table and bed are also bolted to the floor, which is way suspicious. The room is well-painted and looks clean, but I have very little doubt it's a prison cell.

I glance at Morgan to see if she's noticed, and judging by the scowl on her face she's also figured it out. She speaks up. "Can we see anything else? The surrounding area?"

"Indeeed we caaan." Matthew says. He lightly drags a finger over the surface of the water, creating ripples, and when the water settles once more we have a different view. There's a mansion now taking up most of the picture. It's got… three visible levels, the walls are painted a mix of light and dark greys, and the roof is a stark purple and looks to be made of stone shingles. We can also see some well-trimmed hedges around the building.

"Can you tell us where this is, exactly?" Morgan asks. "Or let us see even more?"

"I can looocate it, yeees." Matthew says. "It will cooost another goold."

"Deal." Morgan says quickly. "Do it."

"Graaab my map." Matthew points to the side at a shelf, and Noire hastily grabs the item and hands it to him. Matthew unrolls the map, placing it on the ground next to him, and closes his eyes while keeping a hand on the bowl. It takes him a few seconds, but he eventually plants a finger on the map. "I haaave located your friiiend."

Morgan pulls out her notebook, ink, and quill, ready to draw a crude map because we don't have one, only for Matthew to say:

"I caaan give you the maaap, but-"

"Fine, here." Morgan cuts him off, giving him yet another gold and snagging and marking the map. Matthew smiles serenely, probably quite pleased with himself for getting such a large sum of money out of us. Five gold total just for a scrying spell and a map. Even I can tell that's a rip-off.

Still, we know where Nah is now. Maybe it's costly, but it will be worthwhile.

"Dooo come back agaaain if you have need of my seeervices!" Matthew calls after us as we leave the house. None of us answer him.

"Nah is in trouble." Is the first thing I say when we're a reasonable distance away.

"Yeah." Morgan agrees quietly. "She doesn't look injured, at least."

"She must not have her dragonstone." Kjelle adds. "Or else she could bust out no problem."

"I wonder." I say. "If that's the same mansion as her paralogue."

"It would make sense for it to be, wouldn't it?" Morgan says.

"Well yes, but that also has some worrying implications, because there were Risen in the mansion during her paralogue."

Those words bring a chill over the group, and we all come to the same conclusion.

"Grimleal." Kjelle says quietly. "It has to be."

"I hope Nah will be okay…" Noire mumbles.

"Grimleal are the religious nuts, right?" Morgan asks me.

"Yeah." I nod. "I also guess the game was misleading about Nah's situation. Based on her dialogue, I expected her to be walking around the countryside before ending up in the mansion because she seemed unfamiliar with the place and not particularly worse for wear."

"We've already established your creepy game isn't accurate all the time." Kjelle huffs. "That's not relevant now anyways."

Well yeah, but it's relevant for future reference. I have to figure out to what extent I can trust my game knowledge. It's my only asset!

"So, uh… I guess we have to break in and get her out?" I mutter. "How are we going to do that?"

"With magic and stealth." Morgan says. "Or some deception. You said before that my cloak looks sorta grimleal right?"

"Yes." It has the eye pattern and all the right colors. "I have no idea if it's an official look or anything though."

"Well, maybe just as a backup plan I could try and weasel my way into the trust of the mansion owner." Morgan says. "Maybe I've been sent from… uh…"

"Validar." I provide.

"Who's that?" Morgan blinks.

Oh, right, I never actually explained Validar to her, mostly because of the fact that it's her grandfather but Robin might not know that, so I wasn't sure if I should be mentioning it. I beckon her close and whisper in her ear. "Your grandfather."

Her eyes widen. "What?"

"Well, uh…" I make some awkward hand motions as I try to explain in a way that doesn't make me sound stupid. "He's the leader of the grimleal, and your father's father, but your father doesn't know that, so I wasn't sure if I should mention it before, and then I kinda forgot I didn't mention it."

She frowns. "That's sort of important Nathan."

"I know, it's just… remember how I don't like to reveal personal information about people?" I say. "It's like that, except your father doesn't know yet, so I wasn't sure if I should share. Also, he's an ass and will totally die at some point."

"I still would have liked to know." Morgan says. "Anything else you've avoided telling me?"

"Several things." I admit. "I… I don't want to change important events because I don't want to knock the world off a path I know can lead to victory."

"Hmm…" Morgan clearly does not approve. "Is it justified though?"

"What?"

"Do weird things have to happen to guarantee a win, or are you just worried that change might end up badly without a reason to assume so?" Morgan asks. "I'm trusting you to be truthful here Nathan."

Well fuck, okay, think. I haven't told her about things like the fact that Robin sort of gets mind-controlled because I have no idea if throwing that information out there will change the plan to something I can't predict. I suppose that isn't necessary to guarantee a win as far as I'm aware, but I'm worried that it might remove our chance to take out Validar if we somehow avoid the mind-control. I suppose that is just me being paranoid though. "I guess there's no guaranteed reason…"

"Then tell me next time we're alone." Morgan whispers. "Alright?"

"I- fine." I mumble. I don't want to, but fine. I know I'm being paranoid, and I do trust Morgan, but it still doesn't feel right.

"You wanted me to be truthful, this is just returning the favor." Morgan murmurs. "Right?"

"Right." That's a good point. I did tell her to share her plans, so this is only fair.

"Are you two done whispering?" Kjelle asks. "We need to get a move on!"

"It's nearly dinner time Kjelle." Morgan points out. "There's no point in travelling today."

"We could make a few hours of progress before sundown." Kjelle argues.

"Nope." Morgan says. "We're not leaving today. Deal with it. Me and Nathan still have another store to visit anyways."

"You're going to let Nah stay locked up in that cell so you can go shopping?" Kjelle snaps.

"Kjelle, three hours won't make a difference." Morgan says flatly. "It's not like she's going to be in any actual danger for another, what, year or two according to the game? Nah wasn't hurt, and it didn't look like she was being starved or anything, so shut up."

Kjelle grinds her teeth and glowers. "Your priorities are disgusting."

"And you're being irrational." Morgan says dismissively. "Besides, you didn't put up much of a fight before. You accepted my money even. Speaking of that, what did you two do with it?"

"None of your-"

"She got her armor repaired and paid extra to have it done today." Noire says. She digs into her pocket and hands about sixty silver back to Morgan. "I-I spent mine on some candy, and a new dagger, and I had lunch at a nice place."

Kjelle silently hands over one gold and forty silver. "Look-"

"I don't have my priorities straight, yadda yadda yadda." Morgan says, not even looking at Kjelle. "I get it, you don't know how to relax. I'm not going to be dragged down to your level. It's not like I'm putting off any significant travel to shop. There's no way we were going to leave today regardless of whether I had something else to do or not."

Kjelle's glare is full of hate. "Lucina would never have allowed this."

Morgan turns up her nose. "Well I'm not Lucina, and if she's so desperate that she's willing to ignore basic practicality of a good night's sleep in a good bed for the sake of a mere three hours of travel to fix a situation that is not even close to being life-or-death, which is a terrible decision, maybe she shouldn't be a leader either."

I'm fairly sure Lucina is a bit more logical than Morgan is pretending, because I don't think Lucina would necessarily agree with Kjelle's decisions. I bet Lucina would wait for tomorrow too, and Kjelle would accept it, but she doesn't want to accept it now because it's Morgan giving the order. Maybe it's something about the way Lucina conveys her orders, or maybe Kjelle is just loyal to Lucina, but something about Morgan pisses her off. Maybe it's Morgan's obvious ego.

"Don't you dare insult her Highness!" Kjelle snarls.

"I wan't. I was insulting your intelligence, and it's your fault that you were putting your own ideas in Lucina's mouth." Morgan says haughtily. "I'm sure she's a perfectly fine leader, but you aren't, so kindly shut the fuck up and let me do what I'm good at. I may make jokes of it, pretending like going shopping actually had any influence over whether we were going to leave being one of them, but I assure you I know exactly what I'm doing. You might be an uncaring golem who will wade through neck-high mud without a care and sleep on a bed of stinging insects to gain ten more seconds of travel time, but the rest of us are human, so until you gain even a modicum of strategic or tactical or logistical sense, or just common sense, don't even pretend you know better than I do."

Our group is absolutely silent. I'm not sure if Kjelle is going to punch Morgan, storm off, or start shouting. All three of them sound very possible. What happens instead though, is that she speaks in a quiet, if furious, voice. "You think I'm an idiot too."

"Yes." Morgan says bluntly, not caring how it might aggravate the situation. "Yes I do."

"Is it because of him?" Kjelle asks, pointing towards me. I suppose she's referring to our confrontation, and how I basically said I thought Kjelle was a moron who couldn't see the bigger picture. "Did he tell you I was a fool?"

"No, I figured it out on my own." Morgan says. "You've got quite a sense of self-importance if you assume we've discussed you at all outside of the context of the group."

I put a hand on Morgan's shoulder and squeeze, and when she glances at me I stare her in the eyes intently and whisper. "Don't make things worse."

Her nose wrinkles and her lips curl in disagreement, but she nods slightly and turns back to Kjelle. That's… honestly unexpected. It's pretty well established that she knows better than me when it comes to most things, so I'm genuinely surprised she's taking my advice. I expected her to take the stance of "Kjelle needs to be put in her place" or something like that.

"I know you don't like me." Morgan says. "Or my decisions, but for all the jokes I make I am using logic when I give orders. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but I'll thank you not to challenge me on literally everything just because you don't like it. We're not all grizzled warriors who will happily sleep on dirt just to prove how hardcore we are. Morale is not insignificant, relaxation is not insignificant, comfort is not insignificant, not even in the face of a battle or a mission, and the sooner you understand that the better. We just spent a week on a boat after multiple months in the bush or crappy tavern rooms, with our only outlet being crossing our fingers and praying there was something of interest in the towns we came across. I am not asking much of you, and Nah will be fine. Yes, we are giving up a few hours of progress, but we will be more well rested and in higher spirits for it, and that is not a non-factor."

Kjelle continues to glare, but doesn't look like she's planning to immediately strangle Morgan anymore. There's no more talking until we get back to the inn. We then decide (and by "we" I mean me and Noire) that me and Morgan will go to the store now and when we come back we'll figure out dinner.

Me and Morgan also walk in silence for about half the distance, at which point Morgan finally mumbles. "Kjelle's a bitch."

"Yeah." I say quietly. "You really weren't helping though."

"I know." Morgan says.

"Did you?"

"...no. I just assumed I was after you told me to tone it down." Morgan admits. "I thought I was putting her in her place before that."

Ah, so I was right about her thoughts. "Well you certainly did that… and then some." I cough. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have berated her, it's just that you went too far. I think, maybe, probably." For all I know Kjelle was more in the right. I can absolutely see where Kjelle was coming from. We are putting off time we could be spending getting to Nah for a bit of comfort, but giving up any sort of comfort to always push ahead on whatever mission we have at the moment is also unreasonable.

I don't really know who was right in this situation. Yes, our travel has been annoying, but it wasn't so unbearable that we need to be desperate for comfort. At the same time… some relaxation really is appreciated. It's been half a year (Earth time at least… it's so weird that they have a different number of days) since I've been able to sleep in a nice bed, or go to a restaurant. At the same time, if we moved at a constant scramble to get all the future kids that would be hellish because we'd never have time to relax and enjoy life.

"It felt good to yell at her, to be honest." Morgan admits. "It was refreshing."

"I'd imagine so." I say. Yelling at someone can really take the weight off your shoulders, even if you get in trouble for it. Not that I'd recommend that exactly, but I understand the feeling. "Might I suggest finding some other way to vent next time though?"

"What? Would you prefer I complain to you?" She asks.

"Sure." I say.

"Really?"

"Yep. You've done it once before, remember? Or did you forget?" That was on the ship, after I spent ten minutes whining about having to do work.

"I thought that was a one-time thing." She admits.

"Morgan, I complain to you literally all the time." I remind her. "You can do the same to me. I'm not going to mind."

"Okay…"

"So maybe save the yelling at Kjelle for when she really deserves it."

"I can't yell at her every time she opens her mouth Nathan."

"Fine, when she really really deserves it."

"Aah…" Morgan hums. "I see."

I pat her on the shoulder. "Feeling savage today though, aren't we?"

"Feeling tired." Morgan sighs. "Honestly, I think that laughing fit I had really took it out of me."

"Serves you right, bitch."

She snorts, then groans. "Nathaaan. Dooon't."

"What's so funny about it today? It wasn't before."

"I dunno honestly." Morgan admits. "It just struck me as really weird because it was you trying to be all sexist and mean, and you're probably the least scary and least domineering person I've ever met, and that was funny."

I think that's a compliment. A slightly roundabout compliment, but a compliment. "Well I can't have you dying on me every time we do an act, so as much as I like seeing you laugh I hope you don't break down every time we do an act like that."

"I shouldn't. Morgan says. "It just struck me as acutely funny this one time."

"Good." I say. "Though it's a shame I won't be able to make you laugh all the time now."

Morgan smiles at hearing that. Good, she's gotten over her anger at Kjelle, or at least she's distracted from it. "Is my laugh just that incredible?"

"Basically." Not particularly, I just like that it means she's happy. "Though the fact that you like being insulted… hmm…"

"Lewd girl?" She chirps, spouting one of my standard responses with a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Lewd girl." I affirm, and poke her nose. "Or maybe kinky girl is more accurate."

"Hey, I'll take either, or both. They're accurate." Morgan shrugs.

###

As it turns out the board game shop… has board games. Some of them look pretty interesting, but most of them are pretty basic. I guess I take for granted how easy it is to make pieces and detailed boards on Earth and how much that opens up the possibilities for board games, but seeing the selection before me makes it clear just how underwhelming the variety actually is.

Wait, why is the wargaming scene so developed here, but board games are mediocre? I wonder if it has something to do with the personalization of the miniatures in wargaming. Like, if you're rich, it's cool to have your own custom-painted selection of miniatures, but having a detailed board game just isn't as impressive or rewarding? Or maybe the fact that you have to put in more effort for wargaming is actually a good thing in the eyes of the rich, as it's that much more impressive when you show off your army?

Hmm… the mysteries of wealth… also, I smell a major business opportunity, one that I actually might be able to pull off. I don't know anything about science, but I remember plenty of good board games.

Something something copyright, but whatever, this is a different world. If the companies can track me down to enforce it, then… that's kinda scary because apparently copyright extends across dimensions and some companies know how to dimension hop.

Also, a lot of the board games seem to involve colored marbles or pebbles of some sort. I wonder why that is. But I think this world could really benefit from the invention of Settlers of Catan or Scythe or something.

I have to make Scythe. My favourite board game hands down. There's no way I'm going to remember all the event cards or the position of every tile though, so I'm going to have to improvise.

Also, there's no rule books for any of these games. The store owner has to tell us how they work individually, which is hella annoying. The owner isn't cool like Keene was either, and he looks kind of annoyed with us to be honest.

"Hmm…" Morgan frowns. She speaks in a quiet voice so the owner can't hear us. "A lot of these games are sort of… simple? Underwhelming?"

"Yeah, same thought here." I agree. "Not all of them are bad though. Sometimes simple games are good."

"Some of them are so simple that there's nothing to them though." Morgan says in frustration. "And the other half are all luck, no strategy. I don't mind some luck, but I'd prefer a bit more substance in my games."

"Same." I nod. "I know a few games we can make that should scratch a strategy itch, but making the boards and pieces might be a pain."

"Good thing we only need to make it once then."

"Unless I want to make a business out of it." I say, throwing my idea out there. "I mean, if I know a lot of games this world has never seen, might as well take advantage, right?"

"That's not a half bad idea." Morgan agrees eagerly. "You could probably make some serious money from that."

"We could." I agree.

"We?"

"Well, if you want in." I offer. "And besides, if I ever end up going back to Earth I'd obviously leave what I have to you."

"Ahh." Morgan hums. "That does sound fun. Games could literally be our job."

"Exactly." I say with a wide grin. "And we'd never have to worry about a lack of games if we're the ones making them."

"We'd have to figure out how to make them efficiently." Morgan muses. "Especially if some of them are complex."

"We don't have to recreate them in full visual detail, just enough that you can play them." I remind her. I don't have to do the art for all the cards in Scythe, I just need readable cards, and the mechs don't have to be that detailed, and the board doesn't need art either it just needs the trackers and resource identifiers. Sure, if I could recreate games in full detail I'd love to, but purely on a practical level that won't work, however we should be able to manage a simplified version of the games in terms of visuals. Artwork is secondary to gameplay in games after all.

Yes… I think I like this idea. This is something I could actually see myself enjoying in this world. Video games may not exist in this world, but board games are an acceptable substitute. This is putting aside the fact that I have no idea how to run a business of course, but that's a hurdle that can be crossed later.

"I think I like this plan." Morgan says. "We shall be the game masters, bestowing our otherworldly games upon this drab world like the divine gifts that they are!"

"Does that make us gods then?" I ask. "If we are bestowing divine gifts? The gods of games?"

"Exactly." Morgan says. "We will have to dress appropriately as we gift our inspired masterpieces to the dimwitted humans."

The shop owner is giving us a flat stare as we do our bit in the middle of his shop. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't kicked us out yet.

"By the way." I mumble. "Maaaybe we should buy something since we've been fucking around in the store for so long, and there are some decent games."

"Ah, right, being polite." Morgan huffs. "Okay, fine, which one do we think?"

We end up buying Barrels because they have a copy here and Morgan remembered she wanted to buy it.

Kjelle has a point though. They are more or less trading Nah being saved three hours earlier for a shopping trip. Yes, that is questionable in terms of priorities. Morgan isn't necessarily in the right in her final decision, she's just in charge. There's a very legitimate argument to be made for leaving immediately to get Nah.