Chương 25: Hoarding

Ch 25. Hoarding John sat in the atrium of the wizard's tower with Nanoc, the barbarian, Tolecnal, the warrior, and Selina, the rogue. There was barely any space for them to sit, but Tolecnal had risked pushing a number of delicate items against the wall so that they'd have some space. In doing so he'd found a couch and a number of chairs, only one of which complained about being sat on until Nanoc stuffed its mouth full of pillows.

John was still recovering a bit from a night shift, but the intervention hadn't been scheduled until noon so he wasn't nearly so tired as he would've been otherwise. He watched Selina pace around the room.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"No! Of course not! We're about to confront a woman who can turn me into a frog! How am I supposed to be alright with that?" John shrugged.

"Fair enough. I appreciate you being brave enough to be here for your friend even though you're scared. I'm sure she will too." Selina stopped and smiled a bit.

"Well, I guess I am pretty great. Good that someone notices."

"All notice. Then notice flaws," replied Nanoc.

"Fuuuck you."

"Calm down. We're here for Eumin. I know everyone's anxious, but we need to keep it together," said Tol, though he'd been tapping his fingers against a table loudly enough for John to hear even over Selina's talking.

"Tol is right, you all arranged this intervention because you want to help Eumin. Her hoarding has gotten out of control and you're all worried about her because of it." The barbarian nodded.

"Nanoc wants to help. Eumin is a good friend." John nodded.

"That's the right attitude."

"Have you done a lot of these?" asked Selina.

"Yes, Usually for dragons, but wizards are a close second."

"Dragons? You convince them to give up their gold hoard?" asked Tol.

"No. Gold hoarding isn't usually a problem that their friends and family worry about. Hoarding princesses, frogs, or lycanthropes though… that's a different story."

"Eumin will have us join a dragon's frog hoard soon I'd bet," said Selina. The door to the wizard tower creaked open and a cat walked into the room talking to a short woman with long white hair wearing a blue robe covered in silver stars and moons.

"I brought her; you're welcome," said the black cat as it trotted past all of them and burrowed its way into one of the piles of stuff behind them.

"As if it was so much work for you to bring someone back to their own home," muttered Selina as she watched the feline disappear.

"What's going on?" asked Eumin as she looked around and took stock of the situation, a staff appearing in her hands though she didn't point it at anyone. John slowly stood.

"Everything's okay. Your friends here have come together because they have something important they want to talk to you about."

"Oookay," said Eumin, dismissing her staff back to whatever aether she'd summoned it from.

"Why don't we all have a seat?" John sat as he said it, as did Nanoc, Selina, and Tol. Eumin hesitated for a moment, then she sat as well. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"The specific reason that they wanted to gather and talk to you, is because they're concerned that you have a hoarding problem." Eumin scoffed.

"I don't have a hoarding problem." John looked around at the piles of books, reagents, wands, staffs, potions, and cat toys that surrounded them. Eumin shook her head.

"I'm a wizard. We all collect a bunch of stuff. Sure I don't organize it a whole lot, but it's normal."

"Listen, I just met you, so I'm not going to try and convince you one way or another, but maybe your friends here can convince you." He looked over to Nanoc and gave him a nod. Nanoc stood, pulled a pair of glasses with no lenses from somewhere, and unfurled a blank sheet of paper that he began to pretend to read off of.

"Eumin. Your hoarding hurt not only you, but rest of us too. When fighting the great bone man in the rift of eternal loss, Nanoc stabbed by twenty skeletons. Even when near death you refuse to use an extra healing potion on me claiming you 'may need later'. This make me not trust you as much."

"He was a lich! What if he had more up his sleeves and you got hurt even worse? The potion would've saved your life then."

"It's okay," said John, holding a hand out.

"You'll get a chance to respond at the end. They just want to tell you how your behaviour has affected them." Eumin frowned and sat back down. John gestured to Selina. The rogue stood and looked at Eumin and the expression on her face.

"She's never done anything wrong. I was dragged into this by the others."" Selina," said Tol. Selina sighed.

"Eumin, you keep holding onto items that can solve our problems, and then not even selling them when we manage to keep from using them. You get a wand of dragonslaying, and we beat a dragon without it, then you just keep it in a pile. We earned those wands together! If you hoard them like that none of us benefit. I want to buy stupid shit, and you're making it more difficult than it should be!" She looked at Eumin again.

"That's all, I'm sorry. Please don't zap me into something." With that she sat and made herself small in her chair. Eumin was glowering a bit, but hadn't said anything. Tol stood next.

"Not only are you hoarding items that could help or enrich us, you're also hoarding items that are an active detriment to us. When you came upon that clearly cursed doll holding a knife in that haunted manor, your first instinct was to shove it into a bag of holding. Now every time we reach in we risk getting stabbed, and you still refused to let us throw her away. That's not to mention the cursed amulets that haunted us with dreams of dead lovers we never had, or the bracelet of eternal hangnails."

John nodded, and was about to let Eumin speak when he was interrupted. The black cat, Eumin's familiar, pushed itself out from a nearby pile of books.

"Aside from all the damage you've done to them there's also what you've done to yourself. You get anxious when you're away from your things, and I can feel through our bond how upset even the conversation about your hoarding is making you. I expect my master to be strong and fearless. Not afraid of throwing a few things away. I, Sir Crowfur, insist that you get this under control. Also it's getting harder and harder to reach my food bowl and that's unacceptable."

John let that sit for a moment, then turned his attention to Eumin. She seemed to have calmed down and had a reflective look on her face.

"Eumin, it's your turn. Before you speak I just want to remind everyone to be as patient with what she has to say as she was with what the rest of you have already said." That prompted some nods from the rest of them before he turned and gave Eumin a nod. Eumin sat for a few moments as if gathering herself, then stood.

"First of all, I wanted to say thank you to all of you. I know this was hard, and it came from a place of worry about yourselves, and to a clearly much lesser extent, me." Not off to a great start, thought John.

"I think you're right. I need to declutter, stop holding onto so many of these things, and take care of those things I really care about, including all of you." She looked around at the piles of things around herself, wincing a bit as if she was really just seeing them for the first time.

"That said, I'm currently very furious, so I think I'll turn you all into mice and let Crowfur hunt you until I feel better before I get started." She raised her hand and her staff reappeared in it, already glowing purple as she began to mutter a spell.

"Gods dammit! I told you all this would happen!" yelled Selina as she dove behind an overturned shelf. John would've mentioned that he didn't think this was the healthiest way to deal with conflict, but decided against it as he didn't want to draw her ire and truthfully, if adventurers at their level wanted to, they could easily avoid her. He guessed that this was a common way for them to work things out between one another.

"Wait!" said Eumin pointing at him as he was just about to slip out.

"Yes?" he asked politely.

"If I need more, uh, help, talking about this. Could you help me?" John smiled.

"Of course, I'd be glad to."