Chapter Text
4C was pretty sure they were lost. Despite Noms claims of knowing where they were going, it seems they were nowhere near the intended destination.
“Nom..?”
“Yeah 4C?”
“Are we lost?”
Nom paused. He looked at the map, at the road, and at the map again. He made a sound that sounded somewhere near a whine and a sigh.
“noOO..?” He seemingly forced out. 4C facepalmed.
“Do you have ANY IDEA WHERE WE ARE?!” He exclaimed, not exactly looking where he was going. As they carried on bickering, they came across a strange stone building. Neither of them actually paid much attention, just walking around the hole until…
“Anyways, that's why I think the Declaration of Independence was fake- ACK-?!”
4C lost his footing, and tripped, promptly falling down the hole. He screamed, until he splashed into cool water. Standing up on his tippy toes, he called up to Nom.
“I'M ALIVE!! DONT WORRY!!” He yelled up.
“HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD?!”
“IM A SLIME YOU IDIOT ALSO THERE'S WATER SO COME DOWN!!”
4Cs ears were greeted by the sound of Nom screeching at the top of his lungs as he jumped down. A very loud splash! followed suit. The knight's head burst out the water, and he gasped for breath.
“How are you not standing tall??” He exclaimed.
“Because I'm short, now c’mon lets check out the cool corridor thing!”
They both got out of the water and climbed up some stairs. There, they saw a very ominous looking corridor, with a single chest at the end.
“I CALL DIBS!” 4C yelled, rushing towards the chest while pushing Nom back into the water with a smirk. He darted through the hallway, and opened the chest. Snatching the book out of it, he put it in his satchel immediately, only glancing at the title.
Nom finally caught up to him, and peered in his satchel. He grabbed it out again and they both properly looked at the title.
Lantern Thrash. While holding a lantern, you may activate this ability to light fire in whatever direction you're looking. You will be immune to these flames.
They both stared at it for a bit, processing what the words just said. 4C absentmindedly flicked through the pages, seeing if anything else was said, until the book suddenly started glowing, and disappeared into a cloud of magical dust that evaporated on impact.
What. The. Hell.
“You- you just saw that right, Nom? I'm not going insane?” He asked hesitantly.
“No yeah, yeah I did. Do you feel any different?? Are you ok?!”
He thought for a moment. His whole body felt like it was buzzing, and had this underlying warmth about it. Not a cozy, nice warmth, but a throb that was nearly boiling. It was so goddamn hot, and it was horrible. He couldn't think straight, for all he could focus on was this sudden heat.
“-ou hear me 4C???” He was snapped out of his spiral by a hand hitting his arm. He jumped, and blinked at Nom. “4C are you ok??? You just left me there for a sec?! Also- holy heck you are freezing, I can feel it through your cloak!”
He tried to stutter something, but couldn't get anything coherent out of his mouth. He shook his head, and wordlessly started heading back to the entrance.
“Lets just… lets just go back and find a place to stay..” he mumbled. He didn't get why Nom had said he was cold - he felt like he was right next to the sun. It was practically impossible for him to be cold right now. Though to be fair, a book had just disappeared in a burst of magic, him being simply cold wouldn't be that weird.
Only when faced with the entrance did 4C and Nom realise that the knight couldn't get back up. The slime could obviously just climb back up, but Nom seemingly had no way out. “What about through there?” he asked, gesturing to a column of water that seemed to have hot air in it, making plenty of bubbles.
Nom didn't answer, and instead jumped headfirst into it. He let out a yelp as he was pushed upwards. It worked at least? 4C shakily climbed up the wall to meet him at the top. It took him longer than he would normally do it - his arms and legs were shaking. With what, he didn't know, and didn’t particularly want to find out.
Meeting at the top, they both agreed to never speak of what just happened again. They travelled down the path, hoping to find somewhere to stay until they head off tomorrow. They had also agreed to let 4C do all the navigation, after he realised Nom was reading the map upside down the entire time.
They were apparently near a place called Oakhurst. It rang in his mind, but he didn't know why. Nom clearly did know, though. He immediately stiffened and went quiet. The rest of the walk was done in silence, courtesy of Noms realisation and 4Cs spiraling.
Around half an hour later, the terrain flattened out, and the trees became scarcer. 4C noticed a wall in the distance, and sighed with relief. There were way too many stones, sticks and leaves in him to carry on walking any longer. “Nom,” he said, gesturing to the wall, “We're here!… it looks…uhm..”
“In ruin? Disheveled? Absolutely horrible?”
“I was gonna say worse for wear, but um, yeah..”
They carried on walking towards the town, or what was left of it. Someone suddenly ran up to them and greeted them. They had ginger hair, green eyes, and was also wearing a cloak.
“Hello!! Hi!! I'm Mae who are you two!! I also really like your cloak, it's very cool!!” The stranger, or Mae, said excitedly. He blinked at her when he realised the compliment was directed at him.
“Hello Mae! I'm Nom, and this is my friend 4C. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you don't live here..?”
“Oh your right, I don't. In fact, only 2 people actually live here! But there are some other new people, c'mon I'm introducing you!” He was basically dragged by the woman, with Nom walking behind him. The knight had an apprehensive look on his face.
When they (or rather only Nom) walked into the town square, they saw a group of people in a ruin, surrounding a weird looking thing. It was glass, and had something adjacent to a lamp inside, yet no light. It was cool, in 4Cs opinion.
“GUYS!!! STRANGERS THAT I FORGOT THE NAMES OF!!! I FOUND OTHER PEOPLE!” Mae yelled. The people surrounding the lantern thing turned to them. He didn't like all the people staring at him honestly. He decided to study them instead.
There were around 6 people there - a woman in blue armour, with red hair and eyes standing protectively near another woman with a red dress and brown hair covering one of her eyes. There was a man in a suit of armour that looked like a lion, of whom 4C could not see the face of. There was a youngish looking man with blonde hair, green eyes and a light blue cloak, with lilies in his hair and pointed ears. Finally, there was a woman (presumably) with short brown hair, a long yellow scarf, big cat eyes and a big feathered hat, and another ginger haired woman who looked suspiciously like Nom.
4Cs brain decided then would be a great time to remember Nom had a sister. That was probably why Nom had looked so apprehensive. He had mentioned his sister - he's pretty sure her name is Katie? - lived in a town called Oakhurst. How lovely, now he had to third wheel on their sibling arguments.
Katie looked at Nom, and her jaw dropped.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? Oh also hi 4C!”
“Hi Katie!!”
The other people in the group looked back and forth between the trio. Nom shrugged sheepishly.
“Well I- we saw that O- Oakhurst was on our way to our destination s- so-“
“Nom dont even lie, you got us lost.”
“U- uhm no-“
Katie facepalmed. She muttered something incomprehensible, and sighed.
“Well, welcome to Oakhurst! Everyone, this is my brother, Nominal, and 4C, our adopted middle sibling!”
He waved. Only the blonde man waved back, the others ignored him. Perhaps it was due to the fact it felt like he had swallowed a star, but it annoyed him. Everyone introduced themselves. The blue armour woman was Apo, and the lady in the red dress was Cherri. They had come here in search of shelter as their home had been destroyed.
The man in the lion armour was called Owain. His home country had been attacked, so he had been travelling around, in search of duty and a new oath to take. Apparently, he never took his helmet off, which kind of weirded 4C out, but who was he to judge? He wore a magical cloak 24/7.
The blonde man, who he had dubbed ‘The nice one’ was called Scott. He didn't say too much about why he was here, just that something had happened within his family and now he was off in search of a new home and more friends. He had a pretty staff with flowers and vines on it.
Finally, the woman with short hair wasn't actually a woman at all. According to her, she was a cat and got transformed into a human. He also had no concept of gender. That was cool in 4C's opinion. Their name was Kitty.
4C and Nom introduced themselves as well. Nom straight up said he was an oathbreaker, which got some varying reactions. Owain and Apo glared at him, while the others clearly had no clue what that meant. 4C just said he was a slime and liked climbing, which was true.
Mae didn't say much about where she came from, which was fair. 4C didn't either. While the conversation was going on, they kept stealing from each other's pockets, and ended up exchanging notes without the others knowing. They had both decided to stay together for the time being, so Nom and Katie would be forced to interact.
“HELLO PEOPLE!” Someone screamed. 4C jumped, and the heat in him curled up and was seemingly displeased. A woman with short blonde hair and green armour was most likely the cause of the voice, as another lady with long ginger hair, a white dress and feathers on the side of her head was shushing her.
“Hello you two! Welcome to Oakhurst, a town that has definitely seen better days! Come over and say hi,” Katie called to them, waving them over. The knight ran over, while the other lady sighed and came over slower.
“Hello! My name is Eloise, and this is my guard, Ser Bek.” The ginger lady, or Eloise, introduced themselves. “I just wanted to travel the lands, and this place happened to be in a stop poin- what the heck?” Everyone paused or gasped as another (for 4C anyways) warm feeling washed over them.
The group turned to the lantern thing, which seemed to be the source of the warmth. It was now glowing yellow - it was actually a lantern now! Next to it, a rather sheepish looking Nom and Kitty were standing.
“Nom, what did you do…” Katie asked, trailing off with a sigh.
“Idontknowijusttoucheditok?” He replied very quickly. They all gathered around it, trying to see if anything changed besides it. From the looks of things, no, but Apo and Cherri were staring at it with a disdainful expression that no-one else seemed to notice. “It gave us a nice feeling, so no harm no foul haha, right?”
Everyone agreed with that at least. Or well, most of them actually did, and some of them seemed like they were lying. 4C could easily tell that Apo and Cherri thought otherwise. They had been standing away from it the entire time. Nobody noticed them besides him, though. Speaking of himself, he kinda hated the feeling. It was like the heat had flared up, and it hurt.
“Well, I think we should all rest up for the night. You can probably fix up one of the houses, though they all kinda got broken in the storm…”
“I call dibs with Mae!” 4C called, dragging them outside. He heard some stuttering from Nom, and giggled with Mae as the knight realised he would probably have to stay with Katie. They both started looking around the ruins, checking to see which one was the sturdiest.
“So,” Mae said, starting to build up their humble abode, “Are you planning on staying?” 4C thought for a moment. In all honesty, he really did want to. He was sick of travelling all the time, and everyone here seemed niceish.
“Well, don't tell Nom, but yeah. I'm getting tired of moving around so often.” Mae hummed at that, agreeing.
“Why were you travelling? And whats the deal with you being the adopted middle sibling?”
He laughed at that. “Well, Nom and I were trying to get back to our home - place called Paradise City - when he uhm, yknow, broke his Oath. why did he say that.. Anyways, yeah, we were trying to get back, and Noms navigation skills are absolutely horrible, so we got lost and ended up here!
The deal with me, Nom and Katie is that, well those two are biological siblings, and after I came to their home after something happened, I was basically treated like their sibling!”
Mae seemed satisfied with that answer. “Yknow, your very cool clothing wise. I like you! You- you will stay, right?”
“I wont leave you if its my choice, dont worry!”
While that conversation had been going on, they had been stealing from each others pockets and exchanging notes. This friendship came surprisingly quickly - maybe it was a rogue thing. 4C had a habit of making friends wherever they went though as well.
“Anyways, i think im going to go get more materials, and maybe see if anyone else is here!” He waved to Mae, put his building blocks in a chest for them to use, and went off.
4C headed out of the town gates, and back into the forest. He grabbed a simple stone axe that Nom had made, and started getting wood. It was a nice repetitive motion that let him get lost in thought. He was jolted from his thoughts as he heard a scream and the sound of splashing water. Apparently there was a stone thing next to him, and someone had fallen in.
“HELLO? ARE YOU GOOD DOWN THERE?” He called down. A woman popped her head up. She had a dark brown afro and a lovely blue dress, she was quite nice looking.
“I'm fine! Do you know how to get up?”
“Oh yeah, leme come down!” 4C jumped down and splashed in the water. That earned a shriek from the lady. He bobbed his head up.
“Would you like to come down this shady corridor with me?” She asked. She gestured to the hallway that looked like the one he had gotten his book.
“Yeah, sure! Lead the way, mysterious stranger! Im 4C, by the way-“
“Oh, I'm Shandrea, Shan for short! Come on, I think there's a chest at the end!”
They both got out of the water, and started to go down the hallway. They ended up racing down, seeing who could get to the chest first. If anyone asked, he would say Shan won. He was 100% not blackmailed into saying this. They reached the chest and saw a book inside.
“You get dibs on the book, I already have one,” he told her, Her eyes lit up and she grabbed the book. The title read this:
Way of the Prospector. You will get more ore whenever you mine it.
“Huh, thats neat!” Shan exclaimed. Not saying anything, 4C watched her flick through the pages to see if anything else was written down. As his had, it turned into a cloud of dust that evaporated on impact. When she turned to him and saw his smirk, she groaned. “You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?!”
“Permaybe! Now cmon lets go back up, I can bring you to town if ya want?”
She nodded, and they went back to the entrance. 4C showed her the water bubble thingy, and she squealed with excitement as she was pushed up. He still climbed his way up, though.
They started chatting about random things as they headed back to town. Where they were both from, what brought them here ect ect. Shan was quite nice company. She had come in search of training her water magic, which she demonstrated by putting him in a bubble. That was not a fun time with sc- not a fun time.
Spotting the town walls, he dragged Shan over to the entrance. He waved to Katie, who was just walking out of the Beacon ruin. Her eyes lit up, then travelled to Shan with a look of confusion. She walked over and introduced herself.
“Hello! I'm Katie, welcome to Oakhurst! I see you've become acquainted with 4C.”
She nodded. “Is it ok if I stay here for a bit? I have no where else to go right now so..”
Katie nodded her head vigorously, and brought them over to the smaller group by the Beacon. There were 2 new people - a woman with long brown hair, floral armour and ears pointer than Scott's, and a man in a dark red cloak with a scythe.
They introduced themselves as Graecie and Sausage. They didn't actually know each other, just happened to stumble across Oakhurst at the same time. Graecie had
been travelling for a bit now, offering services and help to whoever needed it.
Sausage was apparently a necromancer, and kept talking about Lady death or whatnot. The only god 4C believed in was the Rogue God, and that's because he's met him personally, though everyone had their own personal beliefs. He couldn't judge to be fair, he believed in vampires.
Shan also introduced herself, as a travelling mage who needed a mentor. She didn't have any set goals, more just having fun and making friends.
Shan and Graecie agreed to stay together, and they both seemed to have a little bit of blush. 4C was shipping them in his head. They headed of to go rebuild a house together. Katie turned to 4C after Sausage had apparently gone to sacrifice an animal or something, and whispered to him.
“I hope you know me and Nom are getting payback for you putting us together. ..”
Laughing, he pushed her away. Katie feigned offence, and mock gasped. “Well, anyways, I better go back with Kitty and Nom. I'm pretty sure the 2 are going to kill each other by the time the day ends. Oh, also, if you see a guy called Cam talking about vampires, just ignore him please! And uh- there's a humanoid frog- just dont ask ok?”
He nodded, albeit a bit confused at the mention of the frog, and headed back to the house. Mae had done an excellent job, already starting to build the roof, and had placed two beds down next to each other. 4C waved to her and called her name.
“MAE!!! I'M BACK!! I GOT WOOD!!”
“AWESOME!! CAN YOU PASS IT PLEASE!!”
Climbing up onto the half finished roof, he passed her the wood and watched her build. Now that he wasn't actually doing anything, the heat had sparked up again and become nearly unbearable. He was barely paying attention, more so just staring into space. Mae noticed this, and basically nagged him till he spoke to her.
“4C? Hello? Earth to 4C? You alive? Can you hear me? Hellooooo?”
“Wh- what? Oh- oh no yeah I- I’m fine yeah what are we talking about?” He replied, far too quickly for someone who said they were fine. Instead of responding, Mae guided him downstairs to the bed, where he all but collapsed onto it.
“Wh… where are you gonna sleep..” he mumbled.
“Uhm, the floor, probably.”
Despite being incredibly tired and only half awake of his surroundings, he glared at them. He grabbed their wrist and yanked them into the bed. “W- what?! 4C I can sleep on the floor its fine-”
“Nuh uh! Nom tells me that's not good for your health.”
“OH SO YOU ALSO DO IT?!”
“On occasion..”
They ended up bickering for a while until they both fell asleep. 4C didn't actually know if Mae went to sleep, cause he fell asleep before she did. Though, the roof was finished when he woke up. Mae was asleep when he woke up as well, so who knows.