[TADC] 📜🎪 M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C ! - Act 18

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M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !

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CHAPTERS 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

⊹˚₊·‧Chapter 18: Baby Shower

Later that night, Ragatha would snuggle Pomni so much that she could barely breathe. Much to her delight, of course.

“I’m so very grateful for you, too,” she whispered, full of warmth. “And for how you treat me. And him. And just for the record… you’re way more than just a clown golem for me.”

Pomni wanted to respond with something smart or fun, but due to the proximity of Ragatha’s plush, curvy, warm body, all Pomni could manage to get out was drunk, incoherent mumbling.

Surprisingly, Jax' behavior didn’t change after this evening; He neither acted more friendly nor did he display active or passive-aggressive behavior. He just stayed the same, as if nothing ever happened. But even so, Pomni felt as if things were a bit more relaxed between them.

She respected his unspoken wish not to talk about it (again) and let him have the choice of whether he would bring it up or not.

It was a couple of days later that Pomni thought that Ragatha was now well due; Maybe even beyond.

After a particularly morning situation, when she had struggled to even sit up in bed.

“Uh… Uhm, Pomni…?” She squeaked silently as Pomni just got up and took her pillow to bring it back into her room again.

When Pomni looked at her, she saw how the impressively rounded ragdoll was struggling like a turtle on its back.

It looked a little adorable, but at this point more so alarming. Or… a lot. How much longer would this poor woman have to endure this? She barely looked like herself anymore, and she was clearly very restricted by now.

“Oh… w-wait,” Pomni responded and quickly walked over to help Ragatha up.

“T-thanks… oof…” Ragatha responded, sounding downright exhausted after this exercise, even though it was the first thing she did in the morning. “I’m… honestly not sure how much longer I can make it… she’s getting so big and heavy…”

Pomni gently stroked Ragatha’s curve with a look of concern. “I’m not sure how qualified I am to say this, seeing how the rules here are different and all that, but… y-yeah, you… you look more than ready, Ragatha.”

Ragatha gave a slight, exhausted moan as she positioned her arms behind her and leaned back lightly to give her stomach a bit more room.

“Yes… I can also feel that she’s barely able to move anymore… And I have to admit that the pressure is almost getting painful… But… but we haven’t even had the baby shower yet…”

“YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!” Caine rejoiced after appearing in their room, hovering in one of the corners, “Now that’s what I had forgotten about!”

He snapped and vanished, leaving Ragatha and Pomni furiously trying to silently push away the reminder that Caine could, in fact, appear everywhere at any given moment.

---

A couple of minutes later, when Pomni supported Ragatha by offering her shoulder for her to brace herself on, Pomni felt a big lump of worry form in her chest again. It was clear that her girlfriend was beyond fatigued.

“You know… we don’t have to do this baby shower thing… Don’t you want to go back to bed and rest, maybe…?”

“And miss out on all the fun?” Ragatha responded, smiling weakly. “It’s… it’s part of the experience, isn’t it? And I have to admit… I was really looking forward to it.”

Pomni didn’t respond to that. She only nodded hesitantly.

When they reached the common area, everything was decorated with colorful balloons, garlands, and more. A bunch of presents were standing next to the couches, and a buffet was placed close to them, where the others had already helped themselves.

Kinger was the first to see them and excitedly came over to them, offered Ragatha a hand in casual sweetness, helping her over to the couch.

“Guys! Did you see? There’s a baby shower going on! I wonder who’s pregnant!”

Ragatha chuckled weakly, but she seemed too worn to clarify or even crack a little joke about her obvious state. 

In the meantime, the others approached her, holding plates with various foods or drinking cups, and to Pomni’s great pleasure, she saw that every human had showed up, even Jax.

“So happy we’re actually finally doing this party!” Gangle said, cheerfully, “I was afraid it wouldn’t happen!”

Ragatha put a hand on her more than imposing curve. “Hah… you and me both, Gangle.”

“Are you sure we should do that, though?” Zooble intervened while sitting diagonally on another couch and eating a tiny muffin, bringing it close to their face and making it disappear with a small pop. “No offense but… you look like you should’ve given birth, like… five minutes ago. To twins, or something.”

“Yeah, Zoobie’s right,” Jax tuned in, opening his mouth in a cartoony fashion and eating a big piece of rainbow cake whole, “You look like my uncle after 40 years of being a trucker, right before he had a heart attack. May God bless his truck. The wizard-riding unicorn airbrushed on it will forever stay in my memory.”

Everyone stared at him, disapprovingly but also pondering hard about the possible truth in his words. “Don’t you mean a unicorn-riding wizard?” Pomni then asked.

“Nope.” 

Ragatha cleared her throat. “Thank you… Jax. For this very flattering compliment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“...but I’m okay. The alternative would be to just lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling. And I would much rather be with all of you and have this party. This is all so nice.”

“What do you even do at a baby shower? Never had one.” Zooble admitted

“Oh, I had plenty.”

Now everyone stared at Ragatha, astonished.

“Uhm, n-not because of myself, of course.”

“Ah, the joys of having a big, neckbeard family, with a ladder as a family tree," Jax commented.

Everyone ignored him.

“So, there’s often presents, which… are, uhm, taken care of?” she said, while looking around, “And food, Caine’s got that right, too. Then there are games, and eventually the gender reveal. If that’s okay, with you, of course.” She added as she looked at Pomni.

“Of course.” Pomni gave back, smiling a bit nervously about the sudden inclusion. She had thought of this as Ragatha’s baby shower until now—but, Ragatha was right: in reality, it was both of theirs.

“I love games!” Kinger exclaimed.

“What kinds?” Gangle asked.

Ragatha thought about it. “Mmh… well… Most I know don’t really work that well here… Like… we all customize some baby clothing, but I’m pretty sure the baby won’t be able to change its clothes. And another one is about bringing baby pictures of the parents, so that’s out of the question.”

“Why would you do that?” Zooble asked.

“To estimate how the baby might look.”

Gangle clapped her hands excitedly. It didn’t make a sound. “Oh! Oh, but we can do that without pictures! I think your baby will look like a little ragdoll with white skin and a jester hat!”

“I think it would look like a baby!” Kinger joined in.

“Maybe like… a muppet, or something?” Zooble also added.

“Well, I think it’ll be a misshapen, round blob, begging everyone to be reprogrammed with codes from actual good-looking parents.” Jax presented his verbal diarrhea.

Zooble squinted their eyes, then slowly lifted their arm near his face, and slapped him so quickly with the back of their hand that nobody actually saw the movement. The slap sounded satisfying.

“Ragatha actually already has a rough idea of how it will look like,” Pomni explained, ignoring Jax completely. 

“Oh wow, is that true?” Zooble asked.

Ragatha nodded. “Not… clearly. But… how to explain it… it’s like you could understand some basic html and look inside the code of a homepage, maybe? And notice things like… ‘font color’ and ‘head’ and ‘slah body’ and things like that? That’s how it feels. I don’t get everything, but I get enough to know parts of the appearance. And the gender.”

“That’s so cool” Gangle said, excited. “When will you tell us?”

“Uhm… hm… how about at the end of the party?” Ragatha suggested, looking at Pomni.

Pomni nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

“Oh, I know another game!” Kinger shouted out. “Let me show you!”

And with that, and a little help from everyone, they all managed to scrape together a couple of baby shower-reminiscent games that worked within circus rules. For example, “Who would rather”, where somebody made a statement about the parents, and people had to vote between Ragatha and Pomni who they thought would be more suitable as an answer (in which it got clear that not just Pomni, but everyone thought that she was a miserable lovebug, and Ragatha, in fact, cooler than she anticipated), another game where everyone except Ragatha put a balloon under their clothing or in front of them, with a pushpin taped to it, trying to pop the others’ without using their hands, and one where Pomni was charged with hiding pacifiers for the others to find. Every time they found one, a satisfying EXP+ notification appeared with a nice sound effect. How they could use those EXP remained unknown, though. 

Eventually, Ragatha opened up Caine's presents. Both Pomni and Ragatha expected them to be nothing but props without actual content, but when Ragatha opened the first one, a small, wooden pole was inside; hovering and slowly turning like an item in a game.

“What’s… what’s that?” Pomni asked, touching it. 

It suddenly vanished.

“W-what happened?” Ragatha asked.

“I----- uh----” Pomni stuttered, "It's… i-it's in my inventory, I think?”

“It’s… what?” Zooble asked, narrowing their eyes in disbelief.

“I… I don’t know! I have an inventory now, and I can see it there! It’s… uh… it’s called… uh… rail #8?”

Ragatha looked at her, confused. Then she took another gift and quickly unwrapped it. It showed the exact same item. Pomni touched it.

“Rail #11” She announced after it had vanished.

Curious about what all of this was about, all of them started to unwrap all the many presents, all of which contained items. Most of them were wooden rods, but there was also a wooden slab, black round furniture feet and two nicely carved pieces with a black & white diamond pattern painted on it. When they finally unpacked a mattress, it became clear that all items combined created a baby cot.

“This is… actually a lovely and fun present!” Ragatha said when they looked at the mattress and eventually understood the idea. “Pomni, can you, like… drop the parts?”

“Uhm… y-yes, I think so,” Pomni replied, “but… let me try something…” 

She reached out and touched the last item, adding it to her inventory. 

“Just… one moment…” she said, turning away from the others. In front of her, on the ground, appeared a red, shining rectangle.

“What the f██k is that?” Zooble asked.

Pomni moved around a bit, and with that, the red rectangle moved with her. She turned, gliding the rectangle over the couch table and the sofas; when it finally appeared untouched by any other object, it turned green.

“Uh… uhm….. maybe… this…?” Pomni mumbled more to herself than the others, and out of nowhere, a fully built crib appeared on top of where the green contours had been.

It was lovely. Completely built in dark wood, with the only exception being the painted-on pieces on the head- and footboard, framed by the wooden carvings.

“Wow… it’s… really pretty” Ragatha said. “What a nice gift!”

The others agreed. Pomni liked it, too. It would fit nicely into both Ragatha’s and her room, depending on where they wanted to put it.

“Okay, everyone, now that’s done…” Ragatha began, but Gangle interrupted her. “But there are more presents!”

Pomni and Ragatha looked at her. Gangle giggled nervously, then handed Ragatha a small, wrapped present.

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