He was mining for once, which would have been nice if I were allowed to help, but my job was to fight off monsters with the large sword he'd thrown at me earlier that day. Even that wouldn't have been too bad (the monsters, not the throwing) were it not for the fact that he'd taken me deep into a cave well beyond my abilities. I wasn't trying to get knocked out, but Micah seemed to have decided that, and was content to clean up the remaining monsters each time I passed out and leave me to wake up feeling weak and tired on my own. I'd seen him pull out nine bottles of medicine and only drink one, and he'd offered me one bowl of Curry Udon out of five he had on him when I'd agreed to come with him, so I knew he had something that could restore my health points. He just wasn't bothering.

"I'm ready to move to the next room now," Micah told me. I was just ready to collapse under the weight of the ridiculous sword he'd given me, though I had to admit that it was working better than the blade I was used to. I would have liked to credit that to myself, since he'd bought the damn thing from me and then handed it right back, but Micah insisted I could only hold my own-sometimes-because of his training me.

"I'm ready to go home," I told him.

Micah gave me an exasperated look. "I want to go through the Sharance maze first thing tomorrow morning, and you're not going to be up at six. Just wait at my house again."

I groaned. Going through the Sharance maze could take over a day, and nothing felt more awkward than lying on the floor while Micah and my crush's pregnant younger sister slept only a few feet away. That was assuming there would be any sleeping. Micah hadn't needed to worry about fatigue since making himself a diamond broach. "What about work? I haven't been home for almost a whole season. I didn't finish all my orders before I left with you and Raven says that plenty more are coming in."

"I want an Earth Dragon Scale," Micah told me stubbornly.

If only my programming let me ditch him.

"Can I at least have something to restore my HP?"

Micah shook his head. "If I give you any of my potions you'll just lose all those points immediately anyway."

"What about the Udon?" I asked, hopeful. Micah had almost entirely given up on gifts since he'd reached maximum Friendship Points with me, but he still gave me food or gold at random, on occasion.

"It's too much of a hassle to get the ingredients. I'm saving them for the next time I throw sashimi at you without thinking." Meaning there would be a next time. Wonderful.

I had to get him to let me go somehow. "Ah… I shouldn't have been up all night. Feeling dizzy…"

"Your character is supposed to be used to that." He reminded me.

"This is torture." I told him.

"We're in a warm desert environment. Don't you like the heat?"

I did, actually. A horror story Zaid had told me drifted into my mind, of a time the previous summer when Micah had caught him in his bathing suit. He'd innocently agreed to go along with him only to discover he couldn't change clothes, and Micah took him to the Vale River, then just started fishing. He'd been stuck there until his time expired and he got to go home.

Micah was 'friends' enough with me that I no longer operated on a timer. I had to wait for him to excuse me.

"Can't you take Marian? You've leveled her up plenty, and you'll be doing everyone a favor to take her away from her work."

Micah shrugged and picked up a bottle of wine that a monster had dropped. Why wine was one of its random drops would always be a mystery to me. "I could, but the player is female, so she finds you preferable. Hold still while I throw this at you. I want to watch you fall asleep."

I couldn't move except to follow him anyway, so I had no choice. The ten minutes of rest felt like pure bliss.

STA: I kind of find it amusing that wine puts people to sleep, so I always chuck it at whoever I've brought with me, and that's usually Gaius.

It's weird. I never work my Pokemon to the point of fainting if I can avoid it cuzz I don't want to be a bad master, but in Rune Factory 3 I just let my partners die over and over. They just come back when I move into the next room anyway. To be fair, I supply all my regular partners with Proof of Heroism (or whichever one periodically regains health) and make sure all their equipment ups their defense. It's not like I just leave them for dead.

That said, this was all based of "true" stories-except for the part with Sofia. I'm always guilted into marrying Raven. In my new account (I'm trying to get to that post plot request when Gaius proposes to Evelyn) I was bad about training Gaius and Raven right off the bat, so I've ended up dragging them into fights against monsters ten times their levels. Combined. On the file I beat way back when and am just slowly trying to get everyone to level 10000 on, I don't sleep. I also did drag Zaid all over the winter dungeon in a swim suit. It was hilarious. I would do it again.

Thank God they're A.I.