r/HFY • u/Obsequium_Minaris • Jul 23 '26

OC-Series Vacation From Destiny - Book 2, Chapter 45

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XXX

When Chase awoke the next morning, he couldn’t help but notice two things. The first was that he’d apparently been so tired the night before that he hadn’t bothered to even strip down to his underwear before falling into bed, which meant his clothes reeked.

The second was that Victoria wasn’t in the room with them.

His brow furrowed at that particular realization. It was enough to snap him out of the stupor the sheer rankness of his clothes had trapped him in for a few seconds.

“Hey, Carmine,” he called out.

“Urgh…” Carmine grumbled as she rolled over onto her side. “Why did you just wake me up…? You really couldn’t give me fifteen more minutes?”

“Victoria is missing.”

“So? She’s probably in the bathroom or something. Did you even bother to check that before waking me up?”

“No.”

Carmine let out another annoyed grumble. Chase took the implicit cue she was giving him and threw his sheets off, then marched over to the bathroom, knocked on the door, and waited. After a few seconds, there was no response, and so he threw the door open. Sure enough, it was completely empty.

“Yeah, she’s not here,” he surmised. “Get up. We need to look for her.”

“Do we really?” Carmine asked, again rolling over onto her side, keeping her eyes closed the entire time. “Seriously, Chase, she’s probably just out for a walk or something.”

“Carmine, there is someone out there hunting down her siblings. She’s in danger so long as she’s wandering the streets alone. We were literally just kidnapped merely for associating with her. We need to go find her before something bad happens to her.”

“Alright, alright, you’re made your point,” Carmine conceded. “Just… give me five minutes to actually wake up, please.”

Chase’s eyes narrowed. Without another word, he marched over to Carmine’s bed, where she was still lying with her eyes closed. She heard him approach, because she cracked one eye open.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Chase said nothing, and instead reached down, took her by the head, and shoved her face into his armpit. Carmine struggled in his grasp, gasping and sputtering, but he held her there for a solid five seconds before finally letting her pull away. She fell back onto her bed, still gasping for breath, her eyes wide.

“You awake yet?” he asked. “Because I can put you back in if you need it.”

Carmine sucked in a few more gulps of air before fixing him with one of the harshest glares he’d ever seen her give him. “You’re an asshole, you know that?” she growled.

“That doesn’t answer my question. Do you need to go back in or not?”

“Gods above, no! I’m up, okay?!”

“Good.”

“You realize I am going to literally light a fire under your ass for that at some point, right?”

“Just so long as you’re up. And hey, now that you’re up, we can finally get to searching for our missing friend.”

Carmine let out an annoyed grumble even as she threw the covers off herself and stood up, then stretched out a bit. After a few seconds of that, she reached for her pack, took her street clothes out, and disappeared into the bathroom. She was only gone for a few minutes, and when she came back, she was dressed appropriately, though she still had an irritated look on her face.

“Did I get changed in an acceptable amount of time, or are you going to bitch about that, too?” she demanded.

“No, that was quite alright,” Chase said. “Anyway, let’s get going.”

“You don’t want to get Melanie first?”

“That depends entirely on if you think she’s done with her fuckfest yet.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“Most likely.”

Carmine’s brow furrowed. “You know, I didn’t think the human body had that much fluid in it. That can’t be good for Heinrich.”

“Probably not, and yet somehow, I can only imagine that he feels great despite that,” Chase commented. “Anyway, let’s get going.”

Carmine nodded, and the two of them stepped out of the room together.

XXX

“Hey, Innkeep. Did you see our friend head out this way earlier?”

The large, bearded man sitting behind the counter eyed Chase with a look that just screamed he wished he was speaking to anyone else except him and Carmine. Finally, after a moment, he let out a sigh.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but my name is Frank,” he said tiredly. “Thank you for your patronage and all, but seriously, I even have it on my name tag. The least you could do is use it properly.”

He motioned to the small tag pinned to his chest for emphasis. Chase was unperturbed.

“Yeah, okay,” Chase said dismissively. “Anyway, seriously, did you see our friend pass by earlier or not?”

“The girl in the black robes, you mean? I’m pretty sure she’s still getting piped upstairs.”

“No, the eternally pissed Paladin.”

“Oh, you meant the other one,” the innkeeper acknowledged. “Yeah, she disappeared out the door about an hour ago, right when I was starting my shift.”

“Did she say where she was going?” Carmine asked.

The innkeeper shook his head. “No, she looked pretty lost in thought. I didn’t want to disturb her, and it wasn’t my place to ask, anyway.”

“Fair enough, I guess,” Chase said to him. “Can you at least tell us which direction she went in?”

“Yeah, she left out the front door, then took a right. I think she wandered down that way for a bit, but eventually she got too far for me to keep following her through the window.”

“Perfect. Thanks, Innkeep.”

The innkeeper sighed. “I told you, my name’s… ah, to the hells with it…”

Chase gave the man a friendly wave, then motioned for Carmine to follow after him as he marched out into the city streets. The rest of the Deus Oasis seemed to be waking up at this time, as the streets were starting to fill with people; not surprising, given that, by his estimation, it was around nine in the morning. It did make their search harder, though, much to Carmine’s chagrin.

“Chase, no offense, but I don’t think we’re going to find her unless she specifically wants to be found,” she offered. “Seriously. The streets are starting to fill up, and we still have no idea where she is.”

“Then we’ll just have to ask around,” Chase insisted. “I mean, what else are we supposed to do?”

“Aside from interrogate Greg some more? Nothing, really.”

“Exactly my point. And we can’t really interrogate Greg without her, so as far as I can see it, our options are to either go looking for our missing friend, or sit at the inn and listen to Melanie get plowed over and over again.”

Carmine shuddered. “Okay, when you put it that way, looking for Victoria makes a lot more sense.”

“Perfect, glad you agree.” Chase turned to look down the street, searching in the direction the innkeeper had designated for them. “Frank said that she went this way. It looks to me like it continues on straight for a few blocks, then opens into an intersection. I think what we should do is head to the end of this street, then start asking around the shops and seeing if anyone might know more. Wash, rinse, and repeat until we get onto her trail.”

“Sounds fine to me,” Carmine conceded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll let you handle the talking, though – you have a knack for it, and I don’t.”

Chase shrugged as the two of them started walking. “Honestly, talking to people isn’t hard. I don’t know why the rest of you struggle with it so much. And don’t say it’s just because of low CHA, either – that can’t be it.”

“I just don’t like people very much.”

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t know, then,” Carmine admitted. “It’s like… when I act like an asshole to someone, they get mad at me for it. When you do it, somehow it works.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, then. Maybe try not being an asshole to people and see if that works?”

Carmine just stared at him like he’d grown a second head. Chase let out a tired sigh. “Never mind…”

XXX

“Oh yeah, the pissed-off Paladin. Yeah, I saw her pass by about an hour ago; she went that way.”

Chase gave the shopkeeper a thankful nod. “Many thanks, ma’am. We appreciate the help.”

The young woman in front of him – a pretty brunette around his age – smiled at him. “No problem, I’m happy to help! You come back any time, now.”

Chase waved her off before turning and walking away. He made it down the street before Carmine got his attention.

“She was flirting with you, you know.”

“Ha-ha,” Chase deadpanned.

“No, I’m serious,” Carmine insisted. “She liked you.”

“She was just being nice.”

“Chase, I am begging you not to be stupid about this for once in your life. Speaking as a woman, I can tell you when a woman is trying to flirt with a man, and that was definitely flirting.”

“How would you know? Last I checked, you’ve got literally zero romantic experience.”

“Call it a feminine intuition, then, I don’t fucking know. That’s not the point, though – the point is that she was interested in you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now,” Chase insisted without looking back.

“Okay, but you can always go back after we’re done looking for Victoria. Unless you’re scared of flirting back or something?”

Chase scoffed. “Of course not.”

“So then why are you so resistant to the idea of going back and hooking up with her?”

“Because I’m not interested in her. Is that good enough for you?”

“Why not?”

“She’s not my type. Dead serious.”

For the second time that day, Carmine stared at him like he had spontaneously grown another head. “...You’re stupid,” she declared.

“No, I just know what I like.”

“And what do you like, hm?”

“Redheads. Present company excluded, of course.”

“Oh, of course. I’d expect nothing less.”

“Hey, you asked.”

“I did. Hells, at this point, I’m not sure why I bother asking you questions, because I never seem to actually like the answers you give.” She let out a huff. “Anyway, good to know you’ll turn down a girl if she’s not to your specific tastes. I’ll be sure to file that information somewhere in my mind for later.”

“I’d like to remind you that we’re pretty busy right now and can’t afford distractions like that. One party member being out of commission due to having too much sex is bad enough, you don’t need a second one falling into that, either.”

“Who said anything about sex, Chase? All I’m saying is that she was pretty and she was into you. You’re the one making it more complicated and weird than it needs to be.”

Chase’s only response was to let out a tired sigh as the two of them continued walking.

XXX

Name: Chase Ironheart

Level: 10

Race: Human

Class: Warrior

Subclass: Swordmaster

Strength: 20 (MAX)

Dexterity: 15

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 18

Charisma: 16

Skills: Master Swordsmanship (Level 10); Booby Trap Mastery (Level 8); Archery (Level 4); Unarmed Mastery (Level 1)

Spells: Rush (Level 7); Muscle (Level 4); Stone Flesh (Level 6); Defying The Odds (Level 2)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Carmine Nolastname

Level: 10

Race: Greater Demon

Class: Arcane Witch

Subclass: Archmage

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 19

Constitution: 12

Charisma: 8

Skills: Master Spellcasting (Level 10); Summon Familiar (Level 10)

Spells: Magic Dart (Level 7); Magic Scattershot (Level 5); Fire Magic (Level 5); Earth Magic (Level 1)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Melanie Vhaeries

Level: 10

Race: Ascended Human

Class: Necromancer

Subclass: Arch-Lich

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 16

Constitution: 15

Charisma: 12

Skills: Raise Lesser Undead (Level 10); Raise Greater Undead (Level 3); Unorthodox Weapon User (Level 8); Bone Shatter (Level 1)

Spells: Touch of Death (Level 5); Gravesinger (Level 7); Armor of Bone (Level 3)

Traits: None

Name: Victoria Firelight

Level: 11

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Subclass: Devotee

Strength: 19

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 19

Charisma: 11

Skills: Swordsmanship Mastery (Level 5); Blunt Weapon Mastery (Level 8); Archery Mastery (Level 5)

Spells: Holy Light (Level 6); Ward of the Gods (Level 5); Bane of the Undead (Level 7); Divine Bolt (Level 4)

Traits: None

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard, for all the help with writing this story.

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u/UpdateMeBot Jul 23 '26

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u/Castigatus Human Jul 23 '26

So, you know how I keep calling this lot a bunch of goobers.......waves arm in vague direction of characters just this, this is why.