--- Sylvie --- (The Weekend after the Theme Park Trip)


    After the sess of the theme park trip, the girls were quite keen to meet up again. Their guardians shared the sentiment, though Penny''s family at least thought about it for a few moments before agreeing. Vivian had squarely dumped the responsibility on Callisto with the excuse that she needed to catch up on work after sleeping all day after returning. It even had the benefit of being true!


    Vivian was just doing work in her home office this Saturday, so she had greeted the two girls when they arrived before sequestering herself away. She would also no doubt be enticed by the smell of lunch at some point so she''d be around.


    The three girls were currently sitting at the dining room table with the box for sh of Gods in a Mortal World, the board game Sylvie got for her birthday, sitting on the table. Sylvie was all smiles but Penny and Alice looked like they''d just gone three rounds in a boxing ring. Both had their heads down on the table and were groaning in pain. "It''s too much!" whined Penny.


    "What sort of crazy person designed this game!"


    "It''s not that bad," said Sylvie trying to hold back herughter. Perhaps starting them off by mming the rule book onto the table was a bit too intimidating. Callisto had printed it off… essentially for this gag. It was a massive manual with the core rules, and a bunch of edge cases… as well as a few expansions she didn''t actually own.


    The entire thing was a solid 20kg of book and could easily kill a man if used as a bludgeoning weapon. It sat in front of Sylvie and took up a massive chunk of the table. Open it was wide enough to cover the whole width and it was about as tall as Sylvie''s torso. Callisto had to help carry it to the table just for their dramatic reveal.


    "It''s too much!" agreed Alice. "So many interactions! Why can''t it be simple like math!"


    Penny gave Alice a wry nce before turning her re back to Sylvie. "You can''t tell me you actually PLAY this game right? This whole thing is a gag… right?"


    "No, Callisto and I finished our very first game recently, that''s why everything was avable to try out with us," said Sylvie.


    "Wait… you JUST finished your first game?" asked Penny, her voiceced with suspicion. "How long does a typical match take?"


    "Eh… the first one took us like a month and a half?" admitted Sylvie casually.


    "You… you… YOU BUTTHEAD!" yelled Penny. "You didn''t mean for us to y this at all!"


    Sylvie finally broke, letting out a long string ofughter, letting the res of her friends wash off her form. Eventually she did answer with, "No I didn''t. I was waiting for you both to pick out the fact that the game is only designed for two people. I mean, you can y with more if you have certain expansions but I don''t have those, just the base game,"


    "I assumed that Penny and I were to team up," added Alice.


    "Hah?" questioned Penny. "When did you even pick up on that?"


    Alice pointed to the side of the box where it showed in clear text ''Designed for 2. Expansions required for additional participants''. Penny mmed her head back into the table. "Urgh… why! Why did you let us suffer like this for so long!"


    Sylvie let out a small giggle before answering, "Well I really did want to y it with my friends. I didn''t expect you to be interested, maybe Alice… but even then I know it''s a veryplicated game. If I was wrong, yeah we''d y, but the original n was to mess around for a bit and then switch over to Down with the Demon King…"


    "… And why didn''t we do that?" asked Penny.


    "Oh, that''s because we currentlyck Callisto for the roll of the demon king," answered Sylvie, much to the confusion of her friends.


    "Yes, and I apologise for that but I need to finish cleaning the oven and work out why the pie I had cooking exploded, then put something else together for lunch… I am just slightly frazzled at the moment. Plus, you could always y the demon king against your friends," answered Callisto.


    Sylvie pouted, "I don''t wanna… I thought it''d be really cool to y with everyone to fight against you!"


    "Yes, I am sure it will be fun, but as I mentioned, I am dealing with the oven situation," answered Callisto.


    "Sorry," said Sylvie not a moment after. "I get that it''s important, and I did offer to help… I also didn''t get around to reading the rules for ying the Demon King and it would be really awkward to force Alice and Penny to wait while I do that,"


    "Indeed, but this really is a one person job," said Callisto from her spot kneeling by the oven. She was most of the way through cleaning it out, going the full extra mile and degreasing it while she was there. Which of course meant it was taking more time then strictly necessary but Sylvie didn''t need to know that if she hadn''t already figured it out.


    "Where did you find these anyway?" asked Penny. "My parents used to be really into board games when they were younger and we''ve got a bunch of fancy ones put away. Sometimes they bring them out… and sometimes we get new ones but nothing as fancy as this,"


    "Kat gave them to me for my birthday," said Sylvie. "I don''t know what the shop she got them from was called so you would have to ask her,"


    *And I''d love to see how she answered considering she can''t lie. Maybe she''d answer what the name of the shop is but not the city or something? Then again… maybe I shouldn''t be prompting my friends to realise something weird is going on with Kat. She''d have to y up the fake wings angle and pretend to be a bit of a weirdo to avoid them getting suspicious.*


    "A shame but I guess that makes sense… though where is she anyway?" asked Penny.


    "She''s off at work," said Sylvie without hesitation. *Though please don''t ask me where that is. I do not have a good answer and I realise we should''ve thought of one much earlier then this.*


    "Really? What does she do?" asked Penny.


    "Troubleshooting," answered Sylvie. It was really the only thing she could think of that made enough sense. "So basically whatever needs doing. Kat is quite handy and her girlfriend Lilyes along as well. Kat handles the more hands on side of things usually, while Lily keeps her on task and remembers all the little things, like documentation and obscure legal fact,"


    "Does that mean they''re having sex?" asked Alice as several things happened at once. Penny started to choke, Callisto banged her head against the top of the oven and Sylvie, who was leaning on her arm, slipped and let her face fall into the rulebook.


    "Why would you think that?" asked Callisto.


    "The adults all seem to say ''we''re off to do some troubleshooting'' and then run off to have sex. They clearly don''t care that they can be heard through the walls," said Alice.


    "No, very much no," said Sylvie not even want to consider the matter. She was also looking at Callisto who had removed herself from the oven to rub the side of her head. Sylvie was begging with her eyes for Callisto to confirm her thoughts.


    Luckily, she did. "Sylvie is right. Kat and Lily are quite new to the rtionship and that sort of thing is for muchter in one. In addition, Kat has no interest and Lily is too shy. I expect them to be dating for quite some time before it gets to that point,"


    "Why do you two even know what sex is?" asked Penny.


    "I asked what all the noise was," answered Alice. "When they made excuses I recorded the noises and yed them backter. It gave me my answer,"


    "I study biology as a hobby with an eye on maybe bing a doctor or a medical researching," said Sylvie. "So knowing where babiese from is part of that… but why do YOU know?"


    Penny looked away while coughing. "It''s really not that important,"


    "I feel as if you should share," said Sylvie. "I mean, Alice and I did…"


    "Nope. I did not want to talk about it," insisted Penny.


    "Come on… it can''t be that bad," said Sylvie.


    Penny nced over at everyone. "Look… my dad made a joke about sex being an explosion… and you know how I can be with that sort of thing… so I may have looked videos of it up on the inte," Penny answered with her face in her hands. "It was icky and I don''t want to think about it anymore,"N?v(el)B\\jnn


    Sylvie and Alice nodded along. As fun as it was to embarrass family, they had to agree. Sex was icky.