38. Chapter Thirty-Eight #2
“Enough.” Doug grabbed Gracie and hoisted her into his arms but she immediately started wiggling, trying to break free.
“But the Droppies!” Gracie shouted.
“You are freezing!” Doug told her sternly. “We are going home and getting warmed up and you are grounded until you’re eighteen.”
“No! Daddy! I need them!”
Cody looked to where Gracie had been crouched, and saw a few tiny, blue gems in the shape of raindrops. “How many do you need, Gracie?”
“Do not play along,” Doug snapped.
“I need two hundred!” Tears began to stream down Gracie’s face, mixing with the rainwater, her bottom lip quivering. “G-grandpa Sam said—he said—I need to do the blueprints—”
“Grandpa Sam is gone, Gracie,” Doug said, his voice taking on a much gentler tone. He started walking away, but Gracie started crying even harder and pounded her little fists on her father’s sturdy shoulder.
“He’s not! He’s not gone! It’s not the same as mommy!” she shouted.
“I’ll get them for you,” Cody said to Gracie. “All two hundred. Okay?”
“I said don’t.” Doug spun around to face Cody. “Thank you for your help finding her, but she does not need to be encouraged with these…these childish delusions. Grandpa Sam died. He is not coming back. She needs to accept that. And she needs to stop running away.”
Doug turned and set off again, marching back to Cody’s cottage, where he had parked his truck.
Gracie was looking over his shoulder, still crying.
She looked Cody right in the eyes and mouthed the word ‘please’.
That was a full-throttle yank on the heartstrings.
Cody gave her a nod, a silent promise that he would collect as many of these little raindrop things as he could.
He immediately knelt and scooped a couple out of the mud. They were small, only about the size of his thumbnail. He put them in his Inventory and brought them up on his game screen. He learned that they were indeed called Droppies, just like Gracie had said.
Cody picked up another one and showed it to Yana.
“We need to find more of these. Gracie said they only respawn when it rains and she needs two hundred. I have no idea how many she already has, but I’m assuming not many since Doug doesn’t seem to let her go foraging all that much, especially in the rain. ”
“Why does she need them?” Yana asked.
“I have no idea. I’m going to need to talk to Morgan about it.” He remembered his phone and pulled it out. “Give me a sec to text Morgan real quick.”
He didn’t want to get stuck on the phone, especially when he had a couple hundred tiny gems to search for. He sent a text and told her Gracie was okay and that he’d explain more later.
Yana and Cody began their search as the rain continued to fall and the sky rumbled.
It was slow, tedious work. The gems stood out, bright blue amongst all the brown and green, but they were tiny.
Every time Yana had collected at least five, she handed them over to Cody so he could add them to his Inventory.
They searched and searched. The rain slowly came to an end, but cold drops of water fell from the tree branches as they traipsed around the forest, looking for the tiny Droppies.
The air was thick and humid, and the sky was still clouded over, which was not helping the soaked clothing situation.
Yana handed Cody her latest batch, and it brought their total up to one-hundred-and-eighty-nine out of two hundred.
His phone had pinged with several more messages from Morgan, but he didn’t look at any of them.
Gracie was fine. Doug had probably called Morgan by now and explained the whole thing.
But it was remembering the way Gracie had been crying that kept tugging on Cody’s heartstrings.
The way she’d wanted her father, or anyone, to believe her.
“We need eleven more.” Cody looked over at Yana to give her an encouraging smile and noticed steam coming off of her body. “Yana, you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve just started warming myself up with my elven [Life-Force]. But you are a human. You can’t dry off like this. We should head back.”
“I’m fine and we’re still short a few Droppies.”
“The sun is setting and you’re going to get cold. Besides, I think we’ve collected enough.”
“We need eleven more.”
Cody knelt to fish one out of the mud. As he stood, Yana lightly grasped his shoulder, as if trying to guide him back to the cottage. “Gracie already had some. Combined with hers, there will probably be two hundred.”
“We don’t know how many she has.” Cody slipped free from Yana’s grasp, his eyes on the ground, searching for more glimmers of blue.
“Cody…it’s no longer raining and it will be evening soon. We should go home.”
Cody kept searching for another ten minutes before finally realizing Yana was right.
There was no more rain and the forest was growing dark.
He took out his phone to use as a flashlight, but it was no help.
He couldn't find any more Droppies. They’d only managed to gather one-hundred-and-ninety.
It wasn’t enough. He had failed. It was an empty, cold feeling, settling in his chest.
Cody looked over at Yana. “What if she’s right?”
“Right about what?”
“Grandpa Sam. What if he’s not dead?”
Yana took a few steps closer, giving him a small smile. “She’s just a child.”
“But she’s clearly connected to…something. Something fucking weird is going on here.”
“She could be connected, but—”
“I never got to say goodbye,” Cody said. “I hadn’t come up here to see Grandpa Sam in years. He was my only family and I…didn’t bother.”
It felt like the weight of everything came crashing down on his shoulders all at once.
Losing Grandpa Sam and the guilt he felt for never visiting, being isekai’d to Velasarin, coming back only to deal with even more game bullshit.
The recurring nightmares. The rift between Morgan and Nyrah.
Temica and her stupid parrot. Losing Knife.
And now…this. Whatever this was, with Gracie.