It was time to leave Lemoste-Under-Cliffs.

Aside from pertinent reasons of Bowom, everyone had already known the moment was coming. The ant swarms were all but eradicated or chased away from the damaged Fraerling city, and it was just…time.

It was the itching of Eurise’s feet. The [Explorer] grew restless. In truth, only a certain duo’s fight had moored the Fraerlings from Dretonamis so long.

The [Explorer] explained all this to Vision Tiregal and expected the usual pushback.

‘Oh, Eurise the Explorer, can’t you stay and kill another thousand monsters bothering us? Please, Eurise, you’re our only hope despite us having a million Fraerlings in the city and enough magic to blow a hole through a hill! Please do all the things the Tallguard and our security forces can’t!’

It was a sign of how things were changing that the young Vision just nodded and heaved a sigh.

“I can’t say it wasn’t overdue. We’ll have a small celebration; please don’t take offense if it’s modest, but shouting that we’re losing one of the Village Protectors makes Fraerlings nervous. No one could say you haven’t done enough, though.”

“We must insist—uh—okay?”

Eurise might have been whinging to Roja and the other Fraerlings about how hard it would be. The lack of a fight made him hesitate, but Tiregal just called for Commander Leafin to hear the news and for someone to tell the Architects. He noticed Eurise’s look of confusion and smiled painfully, but with a determination palpable to all.

“We cannot rely on high-level Fraerlings alone. Lemoste has paid for our arrogance, and believe me, upon the Gnomes, we shall not allow it twice! Nor are we blind to your two Tallfolk friends’ own quest. Give us this evening to whip together something, and you’ll be on your way at dawn with as much as we can throw together to speed you towards…where were you thinking?”

Eurise fumbled for a reply as the others, Zemmy, Mera, Roja, all turned to him.

“Well…we were thinking the city of Cillencreith. Konor’s closest, but Cillencreith is a magic-specialist city. If anyone has the resources to cure whatever shrinking spell is ailing Erin and Ulvama—”

“Good choice. They’ve gone silent, but it might be they locked down due to insect swarms. Any answers you gain would be welcome, if only to tell them what happened to us.”

In the worst case scenario, the City of Cillencreith, Lemoste’s ‘neighbor’ a good trek northwards, might have been overrun by insects too. But Fraerling cities were hardy, and Eurise bet it was just Fraerling politics. Vision Tiregal was consulting a list.

“We’ll spell anything you haven’t already enchanted. Can you spare a few of Zinni’s amazing giant aphids? We’ll replace them with roaches or other good haulers.”

“Of course. We, ah, could trade you most. It’s not like enchantments don’t do most of the work.”

Eurise spent a few minutes talking over what they could use and retreated. The lack of any protest made him rather embarrassed at how much he’d moaned over having to leave.

It was time. Battle of the Bands 4 was still the talk of the city despite having been a few days ago. Erin and Ulvama had mended their rifts, and they had to go. Eurise just—

Well—

It wouldn’t hurt to get people begging his group to stay. Not that he wanted it. It was annoying as gnats, but he might have stuck it out another week if they needed him. He was over Level 50, and Zemmy, Mera, Roja, and a number of other Fraerlings were all over Level 40! It wasn’t like they grew on bushes, even in Fraerling culture!

As it so happened, there was an objection as news spread of the convoy’s departure. Just…not quite what Eurise might have hoped for.

——

Lemoste’s citizens had seen strife. They’d lost friends and loved ones in the ant waves that had crashed over their home, and they’d rebuilt amidst tragedy and strife.

They were changing. It took the peaceful Fraerlings out of their shells and broke some. Unearthed mithril in others, or even harder metals. But they were still a city who loved music, diversion—it had been a certain [Innkeeper], a [Punk] with a guitar, and a shy Hobgoblin who’d helped remind them that such things existed.

So, it was a mix of Fraerlings who appeared in a crowd to protest the departures. Vision Tiregal met them with Eurise outside the home where their company was quartered.

“Good citizens, please! We cannot prevail upon Dretonamis so long! More Fraerlings are coming from the villages, and we are safe!”

Tiregal earnestly pleaded with them, but a [Shopkeeper] who sold knives pushed forwards to the head of the crowd.

“Eurise the Explorer? He can go! All respect to him and the, uh, Brawling Twins and Roja! Credit to them, but we don’t need another pair of idiots breaking every window in creation when they brawl!”

“Hey!”

Zemmy and Mera chorused. However, Shopkeeper Thist just jerked a thumb at the sizable crowd of over four hundred Fraerlings.

“They can go. But not Ulvama! She’s a Goblin.”

“Rest assured, she wouldn’t ever tell anyone about Lemoste’s location, if she could even find it, Thist—”

Vision Tiregal had the sense he was barking up the wrong piece of grass already, but Thist’s look of incredulity stopped him.

“Tell anyone? If she’s got more Goblins like her, they can come too! You want to send her out into the Tallfolk’s world where we all know what happens to Goblins? What about honorary citizenship? She doesn’t even need to contribute—I’ll sponsor her!”

“And us!”

The mob of four hundred Fraerlings were all in agreement. All of them wanted Ulvama to stay. Tiregal tried to argue with them as Eurise folded his arms.

“What makes Ulvama so much better?”

Thist eyed Eurise.

“Aside from the fact that she can tolerate a conversation for more than ten minutes before she goes off to climb a tree or kill something? She’s good with kids, knows magic even our spellcasters aren’t familiar with, looks like she actually enjoys good food—”

“Wipes her feet when she enters buildings.”

“Doesn’t break windows kicking other Fraerlings about every day?”

“Actually remembers our names? Go on, what’s my name? You can’t tell me, can you. None of you.”

The more martially-inclined Fraerlings were getting a touch offended. Dretonamis was sort of a live-as-you-please kind of village. So what if you didn’t remember a neighbor’s name despite knowing them for four years? When the cats came, you were ready to fight.

It was just that this mentality didn’t exactly jive with the cityfolk. A rather offended Eurise took some pleasure in telling the others that Ulvama’s departure was non-negotiable.

“She’s got to go. We’re curing her and Miss Solstice. You want her too?”

To his surprise, the Fraerlings in the mob glanced at each other and wavered.

“Eh…if it’s a package deal, we’ll take both.”

“We’re not saying she’s bad—just the fighting?”

“I’ve got armpits. Everyone I know has armpits, even if it’s only one after losing an arm. I don’t want to be judged.”

“The Battle of the Bands was great. I’m still replaying that saxophone song old Alack performed. But listen, you put them on the same scale and it’s like—do I want an acorn or a nali-stick? No offense.”

It was amazing that Ulvama had won over the Fraerlings more than even the [Innkeeper] herself. Then again, given how moody Erin had been and the long and public fight between her and Ulvama…Tiregal took over as Eurise stomped back.

“I’m afraid both are leaving. They have lives to be about, families. If you want to help enchant their transport, or give a gift, we’re sending them off tomorrow, early. But that’s final!”

The Fraerlings grumbled, but most of them were adults, and it had more been a show of support. However, Shopkeeper Thist pointed a warning finger at Tiregal.

“You think we’re not serious? Tell Miss Ulvama it’s an offer from all of us. We’ll feed you to the fish if not, Tiregal, and that’s all we have to say. But we’re not who you should fear.”

“And who’re we to be afraid of?”

Roja had also had enough of the non-warrior appreciation. She folded her arms, and Thist gave her an alarmingly knowing smile. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder as his crowd trooped away, grinning. Then they heard the chanting.

“Matha stays! Matha stays!”

Mera and Zemmy were cocking their heads, glancing around. It was when they saw the first rank of the six-thousand strong mob of almost exclusively female Fraerlings that the two [Brawlers] groaned. Mera slapped her forehead.

“Oh come on.”

——

It wasn’t just Fraerlings of various ages who had fallen in love with the [Punk] guitarist who’d sent the musical scene into overdrive in Lemoste.

A majority of them probably did fit that camp, but there were plenty of Fraerlings who just loved the music and didn’t want her to leave. They showed up in force, and Lemoste was a city.

It had a lot of Fraerlings; these were just the ones who weren’t on labor duty. The protests took all evening to sort out, and by the time Tiregal and the others were greeting dawn, there wasn’t a lot of pro-Matha sentiment in Dretonamis’ group.

Not that it had ever been exactly a popular opinion. However, Eurise did see it as an opportunity.

“You could stay, you know. They won’t love you forever, but being respected is probably novel for you. Give it a decade, two, and you might be another Zinni. Of music or something. And the offer is serious, Ulvama.”

He had Ulvama and Matha considering the offer over breakfast. Matha had seen the crowds still protesting outside her home and appeared a bit overwhelmed. She kept glancing out the window at Fraerlings dressed in punk clothing, holding up guitars, or asking her to go on dates.

It sort of annoyed Eurise, who’d never been that popular even when he’d been a famous Fraerling [Explorer] slaying animals in the wild. He didn’t see the appeal in the young Fraerling woman with short-cropped hair, a few scars from surviving in the wild, and aphid-leather clothing suited to her raiding days. What kind of self-respecting Fraerling liked a rebel Fraerling who rode Aphids, broke the law, could shred on a guitar…

His thoughts caught up with him at some point, and Eurise sighed. Matha had always been popular, even in Zinni’s village. Being the leader of a large Fraerling raider gang hadn’t hurt her ability to charm people, and she was better at leadership than Zemmy or Mera.

“It’s not a light offer. You’d be safe enough here. Thoughts?”

Both Matha and Ulvama considered the question seriously and with some hesitation. Ulvama kept glancing towards the kitchen, and Matha did the same.

“I’d like that. Only…I can’t. I—we—couldn’t. Even if—”

“I mean, do I want to stay here and be the coolest Fraerling around? Sure. But I feel like I’ve just started this adventure and I’ve not even begun it. I have to—”

Both began, trailed off, and looked at each other. Then at the humming figure who was in the kitchen, blissfully ignorant of the other’s struggles. No one had begged to keep her. Part of that was, again, the armpit allegations, but it was also just because Erin Solstice was different. Eurise got annoyed again.

The most popular Goblin and Fraerling in Lemoste were glancing at her back, and she didn’t even notice. Eurise didn’t know what had happened at the Battle of the Bands 4, not exactly, but he had noticed a change.

No more fighting. Everyone being upbeat, and the tension and strife of earlier reversing. Dead gods, Erin’s aura made everyone visibly cheerier; even the Battle Hamster was smiling as he snacked on nuts and oat pancakes for breakfast.

But were she and Ulvama…? And if not, why was Matha giving Erin the kind of look that Eurise had seen on most of her admirers’ faces? She and Ulvama kept staring until they glanced at each other.

Matha smiled weakly.

Ulvama’s face went blank—then she jabbed Matha in the stomach.

“Hiyah.”

“Argh!”

Matha doubled over. Ulvama leapt up.

“I will go say goodbyes. Like a good person. Matha can’t say goodbye to all her admirers. We leaving soon?”

“Yup. An hour before Tiregal throws a little celebration, then we’re out in two hours or I’ll just start throwing people out of the way.”

They’d hit the road soon. Eurise saw Ulvama nod and smile sadly. She rose, and he realized she had a bunch of gifts she must have spent all night making for her friends and acquaintances.

Matha had nothing. She sat there guiltily.

“I…I don’t know what to say. There’s a lot of cool girls out there. What do I—? Can I put on a performance or something? A final farewell concert?”

Eurise patted her shoulder as she turned to him for guidance.

“Whatever you want. I’m not helping, and we’re leaving in three hours. If you’re not there, you stay behind.”

He got up to go grab breakfast. He was done with all of it, and Matha sat there, embarrassed, forlorn. Unused to being, well, beloved. She peeked out the window and winced.

“That’s a lot of Fraerlings I’ve dated.”

Zemmy threw a shoe at her. He and Mera, in the way of people who’d never been popular, glared at Matha. The [Raider] wasn’t being egotistical, though. She was genuinely guilty. Not sure how to…say goodbye.

Lemoste was a good city. A fun one. Matha could stay there. She could imagine making a life here. There were certainly a lot of very cool Fraerling women she hadn’t had a chance to, um, get to know. But adventure and the unknown called her forwards. And…her promise.

Matha’s gaze strayed to the figure in the kitchen. There she was, oblivious to all the drama over leaving. The sun was shining through the water-barrier hanging around Lemoste’s outskirts. It surrounded her with a nimbus of light, and she was relaxed today.

That was it.

For the first and perhaps only time that Matha had ever known her, Erin Solstice was at a kind of peace. That was such a new experience that Matha stared. She saw something unlike the wounded, dangerous woman who had broken her home—and that one glimpse was all it took.

She couldn’t stay.

But…Matha’s heart hurt. She glanced at Ulvama, who had gone out to say goodbye to her friends, tears in her eyes. A proud [Shaman] who hugged every child and knew every person’s name she had chosen to befriend. A woman carrying magic, a Goblin and tribe of two. Then Matha gazed at her reflection in her cup of water.

How could she hold a candle to that after the Battle of the Bands? After all she’d heard? The two weren’t a thing, and Erin was as dumb as Zemmy and Mera, but…Matha gazed at the humming [Innkeeper] working on the cutting board with some dough.

“Yeah. Grandma warned me about people like her. Guess I didn’t get what that meant. I’ve never been the minnow on the line before.”

She touched her chest.

“Don’t feel so bad. Just like I’m dying, but I want to be hooked. But maybe…”

Matha turned back to the crowd outside, and she could have six thousand dates out there. The fondness of a city. Her class…it all called to her. She wavered, and she did stand at a true crossroads for a second. Unlike Ulvama, who had known her path and saw the other option as just a lovely dream.

Then…Erin Solstice turned her head.

“Hey, Matha. Whatcha doing? Also—why is there a crowd of girls screaming your name?”

The [Punk] peered up, and [The Wandering Innkeeper] smiled.

“Want to help me make bread?”

——

Erin Solstice was happier.

That was all.

She hadn’t healed, physically or spiritually, much more than when she’d come to Lemoste. She was more rested, yes. But that was not…

It was something about how she moved. She was working at the kitchen counter, making dough.

Bread. She was mixing it simply: flour, eggs, butter, a bit of salt, water…a recipe unknown to Fraerlings, but Erin had shifted the ingredients to ones she knew, and the foundation was simple.

However, today…Matha drifted over and tried to understand what it was.

It was the way Erin moved, perhaps. Not slowly, but as if each motion, each process of the breadmaking were something she had time for. She made a mound of flour, then a divot in the top and poured some chicken egg into it.

“It’s like a volcano, see? An eggcano. Do Fraerlings know what volcanos are?”

“Sure. We’re not stupid.”

The [Innkeeper] turned her head, and she smiled. It looked so easy. A week ago, when she was fighting with Ulvama, or before that, Matha would have said that a smile from Erin was a rare thing you’d see once a month if that. Something to be treasured, a tiny sliver of happiness from a woman who was adversity and strife and amazing deeds, but not happiness.

Today, and the days after the Battle of the Bands, Erin was different. She didn’t create glowing dough like her favorite [Baker], nor did her eyes flash with the magic of [Witches]. She just rolled the dough up and then sighed.

“I dunno if this will be ready before we go. Guess I should have made it rise earlier. Flatbread. Flatbreads are nice. You going to stay, Matha?”

She wasn’t deaf either. Matha awkwardly leaned on the counter as Erin worked. She inspected Erin’s fingers, skin still slightly discolored by magical damage, divots taken out of her arms, scars on her wrists, hair still regrowing and also changed—but she had an apron on. Her hazel eyes were just at peace with the world.

Happy, yes. Relieved. Matha remembered Erin’s conversation with Ulvama.

“I’m…I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure? They love you here.”

Erin nodded to the Fraerlings chanting Matha’s name. Fresh [Punks], [Rockers], [Musicians]—classes born of the new trend in Lemoste. Music was in the city’s blood. It might change everything.

“Do you think I should? I know I’m not that important. This place likes me. I should stay. But…it’s not even that far from Grandma Zinni’s. I feel sort of stupid, wanting to stay here already.”

Matha ducked her head shyly. Erin glanced at her and then divided the dough in half with a chop of her palm.

“You take this half and knead. Wash your hands first. I think it’s not a bad thing to want to stay, Matha. I can see you being great here. Ahead of us might be more trouble. I dunno. I think if you come with us, you might not do better than Lemoste. But I think…yeah. I think I wouldn’t mind you tagging along.”

Another smile. Matha glanced at Erin as she awkwardly began to fold the dough. Erin was punching it, flopping it over, compressing it, whirling it around in one hand…just having fun with the process. She had a Skill; the dough seemed to stretch and grow translucent as she thinned it out. Matha’s just sort of clumped together, but the [Raider] punched it with a will.

“You sure? You didn’t like me before.”

A guilty expression crossed Erin’s face as she ducked her head.

“No. That’s my fault. I’m sorry, Matha. I was mad about you bothering Ulvama—that’s how I saw it. I was in a bad place, and I…I either like someone or I don’t. I’m bad that way. If you’re my guest, I’ll do all I can. But if you’re not, good luck, buddy.”

“I get that. It’s fine, I deserve it.”

Erin tilted her head and stopped kneading her dough for a second.

“Maybe you did. But you tried to help patch things up with Ulvama and me, even when I was a jerk to you. You earned more than me being mean to you. So, I’m sorry, Matha. I’ll be nicer, I promise.”

Argh, she really wasn’t making this easier. Matha could have stayed. She knew she wasn’t going to beat…but then Erin went and said that and Matha had to huff over the bread.

“Well, hanging with you is fun. I get to ride a Corumdon Beetle and make friends with a Battle Hamster, and they don’t like anyone. This bread stuff’s cool too. I might stick around. But it’s hard.”

She expected Erin to give her some tough love like Eurise had, but the [Innkeeper] just sidled over and nudged Matha with an elbow. Gently.

“Of course it is. That’s how you know you’re loved, dummy. Look outside.”

Matha’s head rose, and she almost flinched as she saw Fraerlings gazing at her. With avarice, pleading in their eyes, calling at her through the thick, enchanted walls. And yes, lust…it was scary. However, Erin just smiled.

“Look. You might never be so popular ever again. Look and feel it, Matha. This is a chance some people never get in their entire lives. If you want it, if you wish to know what it’s like—this is it. That’s you, Matha the Punk, Matha the Rockstar. Matha of the Battle of the Bands.”

Her eyes gleamed a second, and Matha imagined she could see that hat made of fire upon Erin’s head. Then the [Innkeeper] smiled again.

“You don’t have to be the person they want. But you should understand what they think you are. Now—the bread’s ready. If I’m not letting it rise, I can bake it in a pan or even a frying pan, no sweat. But it’s sort of boring as it is. What goes well with bread?”

Matha had had some of Erin’s Tallfolk bread before. She wavered.

“I, um, I dunno. It’s pretty plain, but in a good way? When it’s hot and chewy, it could be all kinds of things. Savory, sweet, umami, catship—all kinds of flavors.”

Erin’s face screwed up.

“Okay, I know ‘umami’ because Ryoka explained it to me—but how the heck do you know that word? And what’s ‘catship’?”

“That’s…the opposite of umami. So instead of something that’s really savory and delicious, it’s sharp and sort of hurts. Like cats. But you can’t stop eating it, even though it tastes sharp and stuff.”

“…Weird. Is that why you called it ‘catship’?”

“Yep. It’s sort of like ‘cat shit’. That’s what we all said in my gang. Plenty of stuff’s capship. Like…centipede guts. But you could also do it with a nice sweetberry jam—I bet Lemoste has some. And savory? You know, those dragonfly eggs you guys harvested in Dretonamis might make a really good jam.”

Some of the food from the other villages had been arriving as the other Fraerlings sent what could be spared to help Lemoste in their hour of need. Matha had seen the frozen Dragonfly eggs, and she jogged towards the door.

“I could get some if that’s okay? Just to taste?”

Erin tilted her head, then nodded.

“Okay. Get all the stuff you can and we’ll do a taste-test. Bugs are sort of gross, but…hey, you eat some with bread, I’ve heard. They’re growing on me.”

Matha ran out the door, ignoring the cheers, and was so preoccupied with requesting resources from some of the people who kept Lemoste’s food stores that she didn’t realize how weird it was for her and Erin to have a civil conversation until later. When she came back, Erin was finishing making bread.

“It’s not the greatest.”

She apologized; she was flash-frying the flatbread in a pan rather than an oven given the time constraints. She’d coated the pan with oil, then let it get screaming hot. Then she’d tossed the dough in—ducked—and begun furiously moving the dough around.

She had a piece of hot flatbread done within a minute. Just in time for Matha’s little spread of samples.

A glowing red Sweetberry, the magical berry filled with delicious sugars, a green, dull Dragonfly egg with an unborn nymph inside, frozen solid, and some centipede guts in an unappetizing paste with bits of chitin mixed in…Erin made a face.

“Ugh. Do you guys really eat it with the shell inside?”

“It adds to the bad flavor. I’ll strain it. Just give me a second.”

Matha began heating up the various gels, and Erin produced a little pink flame that heated up the bowls. She smiled, but said nothing nor performed great magic beyond that.

In short order, they had some bread to taste test. Not just each respective topping, mind you. For the sweetberries, Matha had pieces of cinnamon and other wild berries that would go well with it.

She had cheeses, pieces of meat, dried and fresh, and even a bit of wild bird egg, a real luxury. They loaded up the flatbread with condiments and sampled their creations with the other Fraerlings of their group who were preparing to head out.

“Hey, Erin, is this more bread? I love it. Hey, this is Sweetberry! It’s great! Did Matha help? It’s still edible despite that!”

Mera gave Erin a thumbs up as she chewed down a loaded piece of bread with sweet jam and a bit of wild nut butter. As close to a ‘PBNJ’ as Erin could make.

The [Innkeeper] politely coughed as she stopped nibbling at the first offering. She hated sweets these days, so she handed it off to the Battle Hamster, who devoured the bite. She stuck her tongue out and ruefully eyed Matha.

“I still can’t do sweets. Okay, Dragonfly jam with egg and meat…mm. That’s not bad…”

She was just a bit grossed out by the bugs, even when the Dragonfly eggs were a green paste on the bread. Matha thought it was great, and Zemmy did too. He and she devoured the hot bread and savory fillings. They had downed three each when Erin slapped their hands down.

“Stop eating all my bread! Ulvama and Eurise haven’t gotten any! There’s just enough for the, uh, catshit stuff. Let’s try it…”

She loaded up a sandwich with some centipede mash and roach meat. It was not a nice bite of food, even by catship standards. Matha winced as she took one bite and coughed.

“Feels like someone’s poking my mouth with needles. Blegh.”

“Ugh, this is horrible. I get the ‘hating it but liking the pain bit’. Can you make this better? There’s a bit of savory…Bowom would love this, I bet. Anyone see him?”

“He’d better show up before we leave or he’ll get left behind. Eurise is raring to go.”

A grimacing Erin tried to salvage the catship product. She ended up heating up the bread over the pan again, giving the roach meat a good sear until it was crisped on the outside. Then she took another bite.

“Ergh, it’s still not great—but hold on—it’s sort of addictive. It’s not great, but you get just enough taste…it’s like eating pine needles. Only, flavorful. Argh, it’s a bad burger, but I sort of like it when it’s hot. Yum. Yuck. Yum. Argh!”

She was so dismayed she kept eating the sandwich. Grimacing, laughing—and Matha took a bite of the underside, grimaced, and felt the semi-addictive qualities too until Erin swatted her away.

“Get your own, Matha. I sort of like this! Whew, it’s too hot in the kitchen. Hey…if it’s our last day in the city, then we can’t eat here. Come with me.”

——

She found the roof of the house where they were all staying and sat there with Matha as the crowd of Fraerlings chanting her name surrounded them. However, Erin’s eyes were on the city around them.

Lemoste-Under-Cliffs. The districts below them were still being rebuilt, reduced to rubble and death by the ant attacks. It hurt Matha’s heart to look at. So many Fraerlings dead or wounded or…

“Hey.”

Erin drew the young Fraerling’s attention higher. She pointed up, and Matha saw the rest of the city. The commercial districts rose above their location, buildings of steel and magic. Some literally floating above enchanted foundations.

So much waste. So much excess that could have been spent defending the city. Matha, as a village girl, saw things that her home could never have, even with Zinni. Part of her resented it. Got mad at the complacency that had led Lemoste to being attacked and nearly overrun.

But Erin? She just sat there, legs splayed out on the rooftop, nibbling at the cooling sandwich with a bit of roach leg sticking out. She grimaced from time to time, but her head turned to the magical barrier of water falling across Lemoste’s outskirts. To the Fraerlings, and even to Matha.

Then she smiled again.

“Sometimes, I’m terribly sad, Matha. When I see tragedy or think of all it’s cost us. All the people from my world. When I think of my parents…”

Her face fell, then she closed her eyes and took a breath. Erin opened them, and they sparkled as she looked around.

“It doesn’t hurt less when I remember them. But I came to this world by means outside my control. Sometimes, when I see things like this, it makes it a bit worth it. It does not change the suffering, the deaths. But it just…makes my heart feel bigger. This city is something I’ll remember until the day I die.”

“It’s not even how it should be. It’s not that great.”

Matha protested softly. Lemoste was more amazing than any place she had ever been, but she knew it could be better…Erin Solstice just shook her head. Then she flung one arm out to take it all in.

“That’s what they all say.”

“Who?”

“Everyone, Matha. Drakes tell me the Walled Cities used to be better. Gnolls talk about the days when their tribes were glorious. There was the Goblin King that I missed, the terrible Antinium Wars—Klbkch talks about True Antinium, and I have never known them. To hear them tell it, I missed everything. It was always better, more dire, harder, and more magical. That’s the problem with talking to Dragons. To me, it’s the most it’s ever been, and that’s okay. Look.”

She pointed, and her hat burned with a thousand fires. The Human woman sat there, and her eyes shone. She gazed down at the sandwich in her hands and laughed.

“I’m eating a centipede-gut sandwich in a Fraerling city, and I’m six inches tall, Matha! Look!”

She stood up, and Matha saw the [Innkeeper]’s eyes gleam. Then, she thought she saw the world as Erin Solstice did, sometimes. A tiny Human on a beautiful home, surrounded by watching Fraerlings, in a magical city built into the side of a rocky cliff face.

Impossible, all of it. Her eyes burned with wonder. She wore a delighted smile on her face, for the novelty of it all, and Matha thought—

Oh. So that’s how much they hurt her. This was the real Erin Solstice who found magic in what to Matha was so mundane. The [Innkeeper] turned.

“I made it here. A place no one from my world has dreamed of. Mom, Dad…I wish I had a picture to take for you. Look. See where your daughter’s gone? How much further will I go? I hope you’re proud of me, when I come home. Don’t be sad. I’ll come home and apologize for making you so worried. I have so many friends I want to show you. But first—I have to make sure they’re okay. Then I’ll find my way home.”

She stole Matha’s breath away. Left Zemmy and Mera peeking up, speechless. Every Fraerling in earshot heard the [Innkeeper] speaking, and Matha…

She didn’t know what to do as the [Innkeeper] stood there. So she threw herself off the roof headfirst. Erin stopped wiping at her eyes.

“…Matha?”

“Ow. Hold on!”

Landing on one’s head after a rooftop plunge was only an inconvenience to Fraerlings. Matha ran into the crowd, shouting, and came back minutes later.

“Magic picture. It’s a spell—hold on—I can take one of you, okay? Then you can at least…”

She was trying to explain her idea, as if Fraerlings had invented recorded pictures. Erin blinked at her, then smiled. She posed, the city behind her, holding her fingers out in a ‘v’ sign. Then, when Matha took the picture and tried to hand it to her, Erin reached out.

“Another. With me and this crazy [Punk] I hated and then—c’mon, Zemmy, Mera, you too! And Ulvama and Eurise…”

That was how Matha found herself standing with Erin, gesticulating at the crowd of her admirers who waved and cheered, standing on the roof. Then Zemmy and Mera, posing together.

It would have been silly, self-aggrandizing, and less important but for Erin Solstice’s quiet joy in it all. She hugged the young Fraerlings as they tried to posture or look good and just said—

“Don’t try to look cool, you guys. It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep this picture forever. This is where we are. When I see it, I’ll know how far we went. From here until the end of the world. I’m glad I met you all. Someday, I promise you, my mother will put this in a scrapbook of pictures. I never got why she loved those albums so much. Now, I do.”

Then she smiled, a crooked smile on damaged lips, and her uneven hair blew. Matha stole a glance at her as Roja was setting up the shot, and then the picture was taken.

To Matha…it seemed to capture something. A Fraerling [Raider] glancing sideways at an [Innkeeper] smiling at the camera with unbelievable sights behind her.

And that—

Yes, if she had to ever explain it to her grandmother or her Cottontail Raiders, or anyone else, Matha would just take a copy of that picture and say that was why.

That look captured on Matha’s face in the picture.

Wondering surprise at someone who encapsulated a viewpoint Matha had known but never valued. Her heart wrenching at the beauty of everything around the young woman standing there, smiling for the joy of it all.

Oh…

Matha had never had a chance after all.

——

The crowd of Fraerlings was six-thousand strong. Some armies were smaller. They were women, young and old, who didn’t want Matha to go.

They saw, in her, something new. Something exciting. The [Punk] was the center of this movement. Not as high-level as she could be.

That was the thing. Everyone saw it. Give her time. Half a year—and she’d ride this wave. Become something amazing. Like a butterfly hatching from a chrysalis…she’d take this class, this idea forwards.

Plus, she was pretty hot and very open to relationships. So they were chanting, shouting, ready to stymie Eurise the Explorer’s attempts to take her away, when she emerged from the home, trailing the [Innkeeper].

Erin Solstice. Who was the Human, and she was—cool.

She’d run the Battle of the Bands. She could sing, dance, and she was impressive. A Level 50 [Innkeeper], such a weird class, but everyone had known she wouldn’t stay.

She was like the other Village Protectors, like Eurise. Mad. She was following her own path, so it was impossible to get her. But Matha? Matha was one of them.

“Matha, I love you! I’ve written a new song! It’s called Aphid Flies Like My Heart!”

A [Bard] was leading the chanting for Matha. She had an improvised mana-fed electric guitar, and she was shouting at the Fraerling [Raider], who glanced once at her—then kept following Erin. The [Innkeeper] had a bunch of bread, and she was handing it out to people she knew. Smiling, laughing.

Human. She was plainer than Ulvama. That was the funny thing; for all her levels, she couldn’t beat a Hobgoblin for novelty. That was why Ulvama had her supporters who wanted her to stay. Sure, Erin Solstice was the first Human in Dretonamis for…but she was just an [Innkeeper]. Just…

“Ma-tha! Ma-tha! Math…”

The chanting for Matha died down as all chants involving ‘math’ as the subject invariably did. It was the young Fraerling’s face.

She was just watching Erin Solstice. Not with a stupid, dumbstruck expression. No…she was no feckless virgin. She’d been around the block, down to the harbor and back, and possibly all the way to the neighboring town before.

It was something else. There was a painful, quiet yearning in Matha’s eyes. Like someone remembering what youth felt like. Seeing a mountain again, but remembering how beautiful it was.

That of someone who had inhaled the crisp air of fall a hundred thousand times, but did it again and remembered why it filled their lungs with invigorating energy. Like an adult remembering what it was to be a child again.

But something more. Erin Solstice was laughing, apologizing for her conduct, growing embarrassed about the armpit allegations, and Matha followed her. Like someone sure there were a million things she hadn’t seen before.

That desire on her face stopped the cheering. It made the most die-hard Matha-heads hesitate…because they had seen that expression before. In a mirror. Only, their idol was wearing it now.

“Oh. Oh no.”

That was what the [Bard] said. She held her guitar, trying to play a riff, trying to get Matha to look around. But…the [Raider] just turned her head. She peered at all the people who liked her and smiled. Lifted a hand guiltily.

“Sorry, girls. I…just can’t stay. I need to keep going. To—to see where this all leads. Even if…”

She broke off. A Hobgoblin had emerged from the crowd. She saw Erin Solstice and Matha and scowled. She rushed over and grabbed Erin’s arm, then took a piece of bread and began to snack on it. The [Innkeeper]’s face lit up, and she began feeding Ulvama the pieces of bread. The [Shaman] took one bite of the catship bread and spat it out. Then she began to lecture Erin, and the [Innkeeper] was giggling.

Something else new. Matha edged over, ignoring Ulvama trying to bump her out of the way. The entire crowd of her supporters saw it all and processed this information.

Right, time to murder the [Innkeeper]. Then…

They were stopped from turning into a vengeful mob by one person. Not Matha, but the [Bard]. She flicked back her green hair, blinking. Her eyes were on Matha; they’d played together, gone on two dates, and…and the [Bard] glanced down at her custom guitar. Then up at Matha, and the Fraerling closed her eyes before she struck the strings and raised her voice.

“Hey, hey! Listen to me, all of you!”

The Fraerlings around her turned back as Erin, Ulvama, and Matha proceeded onwards, towards Vision Tiregal. The [Bard] spoke, playing the song she’d meant for Matha, with new words.

“How’s it supposed to go again? Oh yeah—

Raise a glass.”

The refrain of [Bandits], [Pirates], [Raiders], and criminals came to her lips. The [Bard] played for the [Raider] walking away from her.

“Raise a glass

It ain’t just about that ass.

You see her walking away

You think it’s about that sway?

I see the truth clear as day

It’s not about how she looks

Or else the Goblin would have her hooks

It’s just about everything she is

That’s the crazy rizz.

I get why Matha’s chasing fate

That [Innkeeper]? I want her to feed me crepes

Whilst seeing what she thinks is a date.

It’s not about going the distance.

If you only managed a mile—

Then, when you see her smile,

When she raises that wondrous hat

Or knocks an army flat

You can say: that was me

I was part of that.

It’s part of the twinkle in her eyes.

And maybe if you’re lucky,

You’ll be her first surprise.

That took the [Witch]

The [Innkeeper] off her feet.

Got her on her knees

Took her places she never dreamed

Where monsters and [Kings] couldn’t compete.

So, raise a glass to all who pass

And wish them luck as they go.

How their <Quest> goes, we may never know.

But, I say

Raise a cats-damned glass!

And dream of Matha smacking her on that ass.”

The [Bard] stopped playing. In the silence, she set down her guitar and watched Matha walk onwards. Then she turned—high-fived one of her friends, and prepared to level.

——

“What’s all the cheering about?”

Erin Solstice glanced over her shoulder as the time came to leave Lemoste. Matha had run off, and Ulvama?

Ulvama was sticking close to Erin. They were friendly again after their deep conversation after the Battle of the Bands. Erin was glad. The times when she’d fought with Ulvama had been some of the most painful in her life.

Strange, that.

The [Shaman] seemed to have learned more than Erin about…things, though. She was holding Erin’s arm, and the [Innkeeper] was nudging her; Ulvama’s chest was pressing against her arm.

Which was fine; they were both ladies, but Ulvama didn’t notice. She seemed to be trying to drape herself over Erin’s shoulders as an amused Vision Tiregal gave a speech.

Thanking Eurise, Erin, Ulvama, and the Fraerlings for their aid. Wishing them well on their journey. Erin kept glancing around for Matha. The Fraerling had run off right before the ceremony. As if she’d heard something or…

Changes. Erin took a breath, and her heart hurt as she bid farewell to this city, which had been so important. If not in levels, then in…changing. She smiled as she shook Vision Tiregal’s hand, and the crowd—far larger than the protest groups—shouted.

They were saying goodbye. To Ulvama, to Erin, cheering Eurise, who was red to his eartips. With such sincerity and passion that Zemmy and Mera were hiding behind Roja. They did know gratitude.

Erin kept wiping at her eyes, and Ulvama buried her face in Erin’s shoulder. She was crying too. Erin’s clothing felt wet. All Ulvama said was—

“Erin? I like it here.”

“Me too, Ulvama.”

This was the first place they truly, unequivocally, didn’t want to leave. It hurt more than either woman could say. A place they wanted to stay in.

Was this how Seve-Alrelious had felt? Erin’s chest hurt. She closed her eyes—and the pain of this parting was truly harder than Dretonamis had been.

So, it was almost a relief when there was a cheer and shouting—and Erin opened her eyes and saw Matha.

The young [Punk] and [Raider] had come to a decision of her own, it seemed. She strode over, rbeet red in the face, but staring at Erin like—well—

Erin gazed at Matha’s clothing, which she’d changed from her customary Cottontail Raider gear to something more…revealing.

She’d done some describing of Earth clothing and styles to the Fraerlings for the Battle of the Bands, but Matha must have mixed and matched. That was the only way she could come up with a jacket that hung over her shoulders yet failed to cover the center of her chest—or her bare stomach. As for her shorts, they were too short in every dimension.

Erin stared at Matha’s legs. Then jerked her eyes up. But that meant she was staring at Matha’s belly, and when she got above that, her breasts were—

“What she wearing?”

Ulvama hissed as Matha grinned, embarrassed, but spread her arms. Vision Tiregal’s face was a concentration in keeping composed. Eurise rolled his eyes. Zemmy stared as Mera kept elbowing him. The Hobgoblin’s eyes narrowed as Matha gave her a challenging look. Then both peered at Erin.

“Um, that’s pretty lightweight for exploring.”

Erin managed after a second. She wasn’t gonna shame Matha, and the [Raider] was allowed to dress how she wanted. Erin wasn’t her Mom. Just—

Matha was trying to sidle into line next to Erin as Ulvama kicked at her, and the Battle Hamster sniffed her suspiciously. Erin felt like this was something to do with her. But what? Matha kept glancing at her, and Erin didn’t know why…

Was she feeling able to express herself? Erin had to be supportive, then. But how did she—?

Confusion. Hilarity. Cheering Fraerlings. It was heartache and hilarity, and in that, Erin knew this feeling well. So her head turned, and she sensed the commotion before she saw it.

“—Wish to send them off with—oh, what now?”

Vision Tiregal turned, exasperated, and there came the final member of their group.

Bowom the Slicer, the [Mad Doctor], who had been conspicuously absent for the last few days, was running full-tilt down the street. And every [Doctor], [Healer], and medicine-related Fraerling in the city was running after him.

“Stop him! Stop him! Arrest him—”

He was laughing, running with hand-to-chest, in the amazing posture of someone who had learned to run for his life. Laughing like a madman as he carried something under one arm. Erin’s skin crawled as she heard that laugh. Saw the madness in his eyes. But then—she turned—and began sprinting.

“Erin, what—wait. What did Bowom do? Maybe we can talk—”

“I don’t think so. Not if I can guess what he’s got under his arm. Run! Run or they’ll arrest us, Eurise!”

The [Explorer] was staring at Bowom’s arm, disconcerted. He turned, and Roja, Mera, Zemmy, the other Fraerlings began running as they saw Erin moving. Bowom blew past them, laughing, cockroach leg a blur.

“HahAHAHahaHAahaHA! I did it! You all doubted me, and I did it! My craft calls me deeper. Deeper!”

He was laughing, and the little bundle under one arm was laughing too. The Fraerlings stared at him, saw the mob coming, the crowd reacting—

Then they were running faster. Ahead of the shouting Tallguard, the security forces. Spilling out of Lemoste, climbing the wagons, until Erin was leaping on the Corumdon Beetle’s back with Ulvama. Bowom clinging to the side, laughing like a maniac.

That was how they left Lemoste-Under-Cliffs, and in truth, Erin wouldn’t have had it any other way. She smiled at Bowom for a second.

Then saw what he was carrying. Bowom grinned up at her.

“Thank you, Erin Solstice. I owe it all to you.”

Everyone turned to Erin and the [Innkeeper] raised her hands and instantly tried to disavow everything Bowom was thanking her for. Then they were on their way, as a mob of Fraerlings tried to catch them.

Onto the next adventure.

——

She cried for nearly an hour, so much so that she worried the Corumdon Beetle. And the Battle Hamster, but he didn’t understand why Ulvama was crying, so he just attacked everyone who got near her.

The Hobgoblin wept because she mourned leaving Lemoste, this city that had been so kind to her. So welcoming to a Goblin. The first non-Goblin city…no, the first city ever that had made her feel that way.

Crying was fine.

Crying was good. If you didn’t cry, the tears just stayed in your chest, and you forgot how until the sadness killed you.

Erin didn’t cry, but she kept sitting on the beetle’s back as it jogged through the forest, following the leaping giant aphids, a pair of rhinoceros beetles hitched to a wagon, and the other Fraerlings bound northwards for the city of Cillencreith In Mists. She was gazing back at the receding city, then the place where it had been, trying to fix it in her memory.

Even the other Fraerlings looked back at that city with a kind of solemnity. Mera and Zemmy were the most upbeat about it at first.

“I was getting tired of punching out ants. What’s everyone mourning about? We’re finally on the road! You were wanting to leave ages ago, right, Eurise?”

Mera gave him a gap-toothed grin, and the [Explorer] punched the top of her head.

“Shut it, you two. You just left a Fraerling city.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been to dozens, right?”

Ulvama’s ears perked up as she poked her head out of the mobile tent that she and Erin had been allocated. There was a lot of gear and supplies piled up inside, and other Fraerlings might sleep there or in tents depending on how the weather went. It had been noticeably upgraded by the citizens of Lemoste before their departure.

High quality gear, which meant metals and woven cloth instead of the bone and twine that the villages tended to use. Not everything was better. In fact, they’d downgraded some of their mounts; Zinni’s aphids were better used as breeding stock in Lemoste.

Proof that Village Protectors like Eurise the Explorer were exceptional anywhere you went. However, the grey-haired [Retired Explorer. Scarred Wyldbeast. Guardian of This Place and No Other]—he lectured the two [Brawlers] as he glanced back.

“Say I have been. So what? You saw how the city nearly fell. How long d’you think it’ll be before we return? Maybe, if we take the same route back, we’ll see it. Or maybe we don’t. It might be years, decades, before you see Lemoste, or never. You saw a Fraerling city. Our kind, alive in the jungles. If you were to find a small village like that, would you think it was something you strolled off from? Treat each place you find as it should be. Special. Or I’ll use you as practice dummies.”

The two [Brawlers] subsided and gazed back. Then they wore guilty expressions and began asking if anyone had more mage pictures. One of the other Fraerlings who’d come from Dretonamis shook his head. He had a walking stick, and he was a Level 7 [Traveller]. A Level 36 [Multipotentialist].

A fascinating class. His name was Fathen, and he was in his forties with a sharply combed beard and a diary he showed the two.

“Souvenirs? We can’t carry ‘em even with bags of holding, and those go bad. Here. Take a journal and write down what you remember. You should have done it the entire trip. Doesn’t have to be daily, though I do daily. It’s not for the records, just for you. Write honestly about what matters, even if it is just food or something you thought. You should have told them, Roja, Eurise.”

The two [Explorers] shrugged. Roja and Eurise were the leaders of the trip with, potentially, Bowom as a senior consultant. Roja spat out some insect gel she’d been chewing and punched a fly buzzing around her.

“These two don’t figure things out until it hits them.”

The two [Brawlers] fell silent as they tried to write and jog at the same time. They ended up clambering onto the Corumdon Beetle’s back. He was clacking his mandibles happily; he liked running down the road. He might not have realized that was the last time he’d see the city. Or perhaps, like the Battle Hamster, he was the most-suited to farewells.

An insect and hamster were used to solitary life. Also, the cruel realities of nature. The Battle Hamster was noticeably fatter from his time in Lemoste, but he was very much the wild creature he had come to Lemoste as. The beetle…Ulvama peered at him. He’d happily pulled things around, helped ferry Fraerlings on hunts, and essentially tamed himself without complaint so long as they fed him.

For such a fearsome creature that apparently Gold-rankers were wary of, he was a gentle enough beetle. Was it just this one or were his kind domesticatable?

These questions were a [Shaman]’s questions, and they sprang to mind as Ulvama inhaled the hot, moist air. Not the freshest feeling in Baleros’ jungles, but when the shade fell over them as they headed north, following no trail but the rough maps that Eurise had in his head?

It felt like an adventure, and she felt good. Her mind—alive.

The fight with Erin felt like a long time ago, but it had cast such a pall over everything…now, Ulvama felt reborn in more ways than one.

It was her armor. She had a purple-and-black spiderleather armor on, complete with gloves and even a mask, though it was little more than pale white wood at the moment. Even so, it was reminiscent of her first life. Erin had ditched her biker’s outfit for clothing from Lemoste: grass and aphidleather tunic and britches, but Ulvama recalled how she’d looked. She still had the cloak Erin had improvised.

Things had changed. So much had. Ulvama now saw Erin, another piece of the puzzle, at least. She was excited for the future, because her class, her insights, all of it meant it was time to try new things.

For once, it felt like a great promise. Change, evolution, levels—the Fraerlings chattered about their experiences as they continued travelling, probably only as fast as a Tallfolk might walk, but a good pace given their sizes. After a while, a cheerful Fraerling man working on a kind of weird rucksack poked his head out of the tent next to Ulvama.

“What a wonderful way to set out! I think I’m well and truly banned from Lemoste forever. Are they still chasing me?”

Ulvama turned…and gazed down the road where at least one [Healer] was still running after them, screaming curses.

She sighed, and Bowom and the object he was carrying, a head, both chuckled.

——

Bowom the Slicer had two heads. One was attached to the neck. The other was…

“This is Mieve, everyone. She’s not the most talkative—a bit of synaptic disorder from her old body. I’ve corrected what I could, but she’s still working with a bit of Creler brain. She’s quite fragile in head-form, so be exceptionally careful. She also needs sustenance regularly; she’s got almost no fat reserves. I have a list of protocols in case I die. For you and you…”

He gave Ulvama one with a broad smile. It was a rather detailed list of how to feed Mieve, how to care for her, and if he should be dead—places that might effect a transfer to a body to cure her condition, or at least, take care of her.

Even Erin Solstice gave Bowom a second look as Mieve pulled herself up over his shoulder and perched there. He’d given her…legs. Spider’s legs, which let her head crawl up and down his shoulder, but they ran from the base of her neck, which he’d capped with a bit of metal, and that was all.

She was just a head. She smiled, almost as dreamily as when Ulvama had met her in Lemoste. Then, she’d been attached to the body that Bowom had created, a [Mad Doctor]’s masterpiece, a bioengineered form capable of incredible slaughter—but was killing her.

His greatest triumph. The reason he had been expelled and banned from Lemoste. Bowom, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to correct his sin.

The method, though, that was what had sent their company fleeing Lemoste. Even now, one of the [Healers] was still trying to catch them, though the Fraerlings from the city who were escorting her weren’t helping her.

Ulvama got the horror. She hadn’t expected Bowom to do that. She hadn’t even known you could detach a head and keep someone alive, but Bowom was quite chatty.

“It was the hardest project I’ve embarked on. Sure, everyone wants a talking head. It looks good, but mostly, it’s just some head you cut off and animate with bits of electricity now and then. Get the old brain matter firing. Always impressive the first time you see it until you realize it’s essentially just spitting out garbled memories and nonsense. Or it’s just an undead head and someone’s cheating. Keeping one alive and with any quality of life? Let alone Mieve’s condition—I had to use all my techniques. [Ultra-Efficient Organs], [Compact Internals]—she’s got working lungs and a stomach.”

“….Where?”

Bowom pointed at Mieve’s neck, and the head spoke.

“The [Doctor] showed me what he planned before he operated. I feel better already.”

Eurise eyed Mieve’s head, but there was a kind of logic from the Fraerlings at play that kept them from strangling Bowom. The [Mad Doctor] was one of the Fraerlings closest to Level 50, and his actions, however disturbing to Lemoste’s medical community, had the consent of his patient and the sheer fact that no one could do what he did.

“I am the person who gave Mieve her old body and shortened her lifespan. I do not have the materials or Skills to restore her form without deterioration—but I can at least take her with me. So don’t let anything kick me while she’s in my backpack, eh?”

He’d installed a little place for her to sit on his back. She was the only member of Lemoste to join them on their adventure, and all things considered…

The Vision, Architects, and other leaders of Lemoste had not been happy, but a swift discussion with Eurise and Roja had brought them to the same conclusion that Ulvama had reached. Bowom had made his choice. Mieve clearly trusted him, and if they wanted to take her back, she’d live out her days as a head; no one could perform surgeries like Bowom. She’d already been dying in her old body.

This might work. Hence why Lemoste hadn’t sent anyone to grab Bowom and Mieve.

It was still crazy, but Bowom looked far more confident than he had been. Like Ulvama, he’d come to a crisis point, made his choice, and now he was levelling again. He strutted about the beetle’s back.

“Whew, I’m all peckish after that. Brings me back to my youth, getting run out of a settlement. So it’s Cillencreith In Mists? I’ve been, once. They’ve got the magic to fix you and Erin, Ulvama. But the journey might have some hazards; I might need to prep for trouble if Lemoste’s any guide. Let me just work on a spare arm in case anyone needs it.”

He had also looted his old workshop, so he was setting up an impromptu workshop in their tent when Mieve spoke.

“Doctor, doctor—”

“Yes, Mieve?”

He hesitated, and the head scuttled out of her perch to sit on a table.

“Not a spare arm. You’re acting like you used to. Like you want us to lose a limb.”

Bowom’s excited face fell, and he fiddled with a scalpel, guilty.

“I—fair. I suppose I don’t need to prep for that kind of thing in advance. Pointless until you lose a limb, it’s true.”

He was packing up his tools when Mieve put out a claw-leg and smiled.

“If we need it, we ask. Doctor…what about your leg? There are better ones. I would like to spit flames.”

Everyone eyed Mieve as Bowom’s subdued expression lit up like a [Light] spell. He beamed and hugged her one-armed.

“There’s my favorite patient. My leg, of course! I was even adjusting it. And there’s plenty of alterations one can do to attached limbs! Anyone want me to work on their arms? I have some galas-muscle, and I have a 38% non-rejection rate! It might sound low, but it doesn’t hurt to try! Well, it hurts, but I mean that we don’t lose anything trying! Aside from blood, and that grows back.”

——

…It seemed like Mieve might have either changed since becoming Bowom’s patient or she’d always had more affinity with the [Mad Doctor] than Ulvama had guessed.

There was also the possibility in the [Shaman]’s head that Bowom had snapped and Mieve was playing along. Or that his madness had infected her.

She didn’t think so, having seen Bowom and gotten to know him, but just in case, she pulled Mieve aside as Bowom tried to get volunteers for galas-implementation.

Which was more Fraerlings than you’d think! Ulvama would have bet zero, and so would Erin, but of the group of thirty-some Fraerlings who’d decided to leave their village, no less than six put themselves on the list.

“We’ve had Bowom replace limbs or seen his work. He’s not going to change how we look, and it is galas muscle.”

“But doesn’t it feel weird to change your body? I mean, I’m not saying I’m against it. Prosthetic limbs? Super important. And if I could have gotten an eye for a guy I know…and regrowing limbs, great—”

One of the Fraerlings grinned as he flexed an arm that Bowom was going to check compatibility with.

“Sounds like you talked yourself into it, Miss Solstice. The difference is we’re not missing a limb before Bowom operates. And if we let him do things we’re comfortable with, we might not need a new limb.”

“I also do wings! I used to make a killing on butterfly wings, but they’re so fragile!”

Bowom hollered as Roja, Eurise, and Ulvama squatted down to speak to Mieve. She was ‘standing’ on a table.

“So he got your permission? Sat you down, ran you through it? No tricks? You knew what this would be?”

“He had lots of diagrams. He asked in every way I needed. I would have said yes if he had spoken for five minutes, but he took longer, Explorer Roja. I trust him.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. There’s a fine line he’s dancin’ on, and we need to be sure, Miss Mieve.”

Eurise was calm. Too calm, in that way that said he wasn’t quite sure this was on the up-and-up, but Mieve just faced him and smiled.

“If I were angry at him, I would have asked Lemoste to punish him long ago, Eurise the Explorer. Bowom is a [Mad Doctor]. Not an unethical one.”

Erin laughed softly, but Mieve seemed to mean it, and she convinced the other Fraerlings. Bowom strode out of his rooms.

“Morality check done? I’d like my assistant to see my work; it would be good to have a pair of hands. And just so you know, if I were an unscrupulous sort, I’d have accounted for you all dragging her away from me.”

That needled Eurise so much he raised a fist to hit Bowom with. Erin forestalled the violence in a rather clever way. She smiled and tapped her chest.

“True, Bowom! But if you were a jerk, then Mieve would have told me so when I asked her in the [Pavilion of Secrets]. It was right after we got out of the city.”

Everyone turned to her, and Mieve dipped her head. Bowom’s face went flat, then he beamed and shook Erin’s hand.

“If only I were a bit crazier and you could hang out full time! We could have had a wonderful dynamic. I do evil speeches, brush up my laugh, break out the poison wine—I’d have to up my game!”

“If I retire from this [Innkeeper] thing, I’ll be a [Detective], sure.”

“Splendid. Now, about that galas muscle—”

Bowom led the way into his tent and revealed an entire cadaver’s leg laid open to reveal a slightly glowing string of muscle hanging from the flesh. He waved a scalpel at his resigned patients.

“I just need to see your muscular structure. Won’t hurt a bit. Where’s the painkiller?”

Well, that chased Ulvama and Erin out of the beetle-tent, and even the Battle Hamster leapt out. Erin wiped her forehead, shaking her head at the [Mad Doctor].

“Whew. That’s crazy. Like, Frankenstein crazy. That’s this story from Earth about this mad doctor who creates this monster-guy out of parts and brings it all to life, Ulvama—”

“Yah, I got it.”

Despite that, Ulvama was still in a good mood. Why? Because there they were. Erin and Ulvama, no longer fighting. Ulvama with a new class, new Skills, new kinds of magic.

She was a [Mirmilin Es’hivule Sekururu]—a class in the Goblins’ tongue that even Ulvama couldn’t quite work out. It was Goblin so advanced and refined, unlike the functional Goblin that most Goblins in Izril spoke—that she had only worked out some of it.

[Shaman of Her Heart…something]. Ulvama felt like learning what her class meant would be just as important, but it also meant a host of new Skills she’d gained since coming to Baleros.

For one, [Child of Many Worlds]. For another, [Masterful Holding Rune], [Shaman’s Tools: Pieces of a Story], [Shamanic Memory: Other Peoples]…

Even [Spidercrawl (Web Fingers)] was very cool! Oh, and she had her mask, which was a Bound Item—Ulvama was very proud and excited.

Her magic was roaring in her veins thanks to the most powerful Skill of all: [A Tribe of Two, Worth the Weight of Thousands].

Ulvama had always been struggling to cast magic, even though Rags had given her the power of her tribe. She had been too far to call on it effectively. Now, she felt like she could cast spells as if she were surrounded by her old tribes—and not just [Shaman] magic.

“So you can cast [Mage] magic, witchcraft, and faith magic? That’s not fair!”

Erin was indignant. Ulvama strutted around.

“Yah, that me. Things are going to change now I have my new class. And since we had our Good Talk at the Battle of the Bands.”

Oh, yes. Erin fell silent, looking embarrassed and guilty, but then she did smile, and Ulvama remembered the most important lesson of all. She rubbed her forehead where Erin had kissed her, and the [Innkeeper]’s eyes darted to the same spot.

Great changes. Revelations. It was time to do the only logical thing. Which was…

——

Matha put on a breastband, some of her luckiest underwear, and added a hairclip of a snake in red. She tied it together with a pair of new, Erin-style clothing, a half-skirt over denim-looking blue pants that got halfway to her knees.

And boots. You had to have boots. It took her ages to get them on because they were proper boots that went up to her thighs. They were made of a tough, rubber-like material because they were in the wilds, and you wanted some protection on.

That’s all she wore.

One might inspect Matha’s clothing list and conclude that of the places her clothes did cover, there was plenty it did not. Like her entire upper body except for around her chest and a conspicuous gap around her midsection’s front.

It certainly had Zemmy take a second look until Mera punched him, and Matha was beet-red when she walked out, but the [Innkeeper] gave Matha a stare almost as long as Zemmy until she turned away.

Slightly red-eared, and that was the point. Matha nodded to herself. She bounded over to Erin.

“Like my clothing? I got tons from Lemoste; my bag of holding’s almost exploding with all our old costumes. Let me know if you want to make up more, Erin, or see what I’ve got. I’ve got even crazier outfits.”

“Uh…thanks, Matha. But isn’t it dangerous on the road? One mosquito stabs you in the stomach and that’s a bug bite that’s gonna itch for years.”

“Bah, we’re not in that much trouble.”

That said, Matha wasn’t going to go bushwacking in this outfit. It was indeed not the kind of thing you wore where they were going—but it had to be done.

Because Erin Solstice liked women.

Matha was 93% sure of that. She’d been eavesdropping on the conversation between Erin and Ulvama, and it seemed clear to Matha that Erin’s actions, her weirdness, hadn’t just been about the Garry fight, but about her liking Ulvama and not realizing it.

Which was pretty funny, but she was a Tallfolk, and they didn’t get tons of stuff. Ulvama had picked up on it, and while Matha knew she was behind the Hobgoblin in almost every other way, this was her chance.

She figured that she and Ulvama were in a race to the bottom. The bottom being Erin’s. They’d both be trying to clue Erin into her realization.

Accordingly, Matha had expected Ulvama to also change her clothing into something shamanic and super exoticly hot. Skin paint and…Matha was looking forwards to the competition.

This was not what occurred. Instead, Ulvama turned, gave Matha a long stare, and then went back to setting up a rug on the area outside the beetle’s back. She was still wearing her all-body spider armor, which didn’t even have tons of curves. It was armor, form-fitting, but just…armor. When she put on her mask, you couldn’t see her face, just glowing red eyes now and then.

“Okay, ready?”

“I guess. Do we have to do this in front of everyone?”

Erin seemed uncomfortable as an interested Eurise and Roja watched. Zemmy and Mera were also present with a few other amused Fraerlings glancing up. Matha eyed Ulvama and then brightened up.

What were they doing? 

“I’m joining in!”

Maybe it was some kind of kissing practice they had to perfect to, uh, master a new spell. Or backrubs. What kind of clever trick would Ulvama—who Matha understood to be a veteran of intimacy—use to break Erin’s shell open?

——

“Spider dance!”

It looked more like a crab dancing at times—Ulvama pivoted from right leg to left leg, pushing up and down. She was bobbing at the knees, shaking out her arms, rapidly exercising her quads, her feet muscles as she balanced on the balls of her feet—

In theory, it was a sexy dance. If you did it in just your underwear? Matha could see a bunch of attractive Fraerlings doing it and getting a lot of attention—but get someone in their underwear and you were already halfway there.

Moreover, Ulvama was vibrating a bit too fast. She did indeed sort of just…embody a spider having a one-woman rave. She’d occasionally stretch out fully, but a lot of the leg-movements were just that rapid compression up and down.

“Ulvama! We look really dumb!”

“Shut up. We dancing! You stopped for ages in Lemoste! This is spider dancing from my old tribe! I used to be able to do this for an hour. Come on!”

The rapid side-to-side shifting from one leg to the other was harder than it appeared. Doing it a few times? Easy, even if it was so embarrassing that Eurise, Roja, Zemmy, and Mera were reluctant to do it. Roja actually quit after twenty seconds. But then the other Fraerlings realized…Ulvama was serious about dancing.

“Hey, Ulvama, how long are we doing this for?”

After four minutes of what were insanely rapid leg-squats, Matha realized she might have completely misconstrued the purpose of the spider dance. She was already sweating, and her legs?

Sort of hurt. Ulvama bared all her teeth at Matha.

“Long as you can. You feel your legs hurting yet?”

“Nope! This is easy.”

Zemmy scoffed as he and Mera kept doing the rapid squats. Ulvama glanced at them and then accelerated.

“Good! Then we doing it faster! Ya-ya-yayayayaya—”

How did you describe her dancing? It was sort of like if you got an insect and vibrated it on some kind of surface rapidly. The bemused Fraerlings and Human kept doing the rapid up-downs, and Erin groaned.

“Wait…this is like a mini burpee.”

“That name sucks. Don’t ever call my dancing something from your world again.”

“No, but it’s…argh! Leg cramp! Leg cramp!”

——

After eight minutes, Zemmy and Mera had lost their smiles. They were slowing down; Matha was covered in sweat, and even Eurise looked impressed. Ulvama might be leading them, but she wasn’t immune to her own workout. Sweat was beading on her skin in the humid weather, and she was panting.

“Keep going…”

“Hold on, you did this for an hour when you were a kid?”

“Yah. It really good exercise. I used to hop too. Thousand hops per day. We had contests seeing who jumped highest. It—used to be—easier—when I was a small Goblin.”

Erin Solstice was panting, and she watched Matha gasping for air. The [Raider] had to flop down. Zemmy and Mera gave up next; Erin kept going, but she was moving in slow motion.

“This isn’t fun! I thought you two just danced?”

“Sometimes, her dances suck. She made me do all kinds of hard poses back in my inn.”

The two [Brawlers] turned as Eurise kept keeping up with Ulvama. However, even he was looking fatigued by the time Ulvama gave up. Twenty-two minutes and Ulvama lay on her face.

“This too hard. We’re doing this dance every day until we can do at least thirty minutes straight, no stopping or slowing, Erin.”

“…Um, how about no?”

Matha lay on her back, wheezing, as she poured water over her face and into her mouth.

“That’s crazy. I’m so sweaty! Is that how all Goblins work out?”

“No, just me. You did good. Now…next dance. We couldn’t when we were surviving, but this is good.”

Next dance? Erin groaned as Matha gulped water. The Hobgoblin just poked Erin in the side.

“You want to get as fit as you were before you became wheelchair Erin? Better? This is the only way. You’re okay-fit only because of your levels. You need to get better.”

“But I don’t wanna suffer. Grimalkin’s trainings were easier than this!”

“Yes, and? You didn’t do it his way. So now you’re doing it mine. Can’t stop now. Soon, you’ll have legs as strong as them!”

Ulvama indicated Mera and Zemmy, who were good examples of a strong core and legwork foundation, even if they didn’t train muscles like a [Dancer]. Eurise did agree reluctantly.

“Muscles matter, even with galas, Erin. Plenty of lazy high-level warriors rely on strength Skills. Then they get tired and can’t fight after ten minutes. Zemmy and Mera I trained properly; they can brawl for hours. I’m just surprised Matha kept up.”

The note of approval in his voice perked Matha upright. She sat up.

“Yeah, well—I’ve just had a lot of practice leading the Cottontail Raiders. You hafta ride hard on aphids for hours. And I’ve got even more practice riding on ladies’ faces…”

Again, not a regular Matha boast. Zemmy spat out all his water as Mera covered her face in disgust; they were cousins. But Matha was just watching Erin Solstice’s face. The [Innkeeper] coughed, covered her mouth with one hand as everyone turned to look at Matha, and the red-faced [Raider] grinned…

“Matha, a word?”

Fathen waved at Matha from below the beetle. She blinked, hopped down, and her own personal aphid bounded up and caught her. She rode next to Fathen as the others heard him murmuring to her.

“Listen, Matha. I don’t want to sound like a prude, and I feel like I’m an open-minded Fraerling. You’re an adult, and no one’s holding that against you. I want to make that clear. But it’s a bit crude of you to keep making these kinds of comments. It makes some of us uncomfortable, and it’s a bit crass to say that about your partners. You understand where I’m coming from?”

“I—uh—no, you’re right. I get it’s not—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—I won’t do that again.”

“Good. We’ll say no more about it. Thank you, Matha.”

…A minute later, Matha clambered up onto the beetle’s shell, blushing. Mera opened her mouth to say something, saw Roja ball up a fist, and shut up. Matha lay there as Erin coughed awkwardly.

Ulvama flopped down and snatched Matha’s water flask. It seemed like the [Shaman] truly did want to both work out and re-establish some routines with Erin. She even smiled at Matha as the Fraerling passed the Goblin her water flask.

“Practice is important. We won’t always spider-dance. We have to keep it fun. But sometimes, maybe we can put on Matha’s costumes, Erin?”

“…Pass. Too revealing for me.”

Erin eyed Matha’s stomach again, and Ulvama chuckled good-naturedly. She patted Matha’s stomach.

“Nothing wrong with showing stomach. I did it all the time in the [Gardens of Sanctuary].”

“True—but I’m not a stomach person. Some people have great stomachs. I’m not keen on showing mine around.”

Oho, so this was the Goblin’s method? Matha smiled at Ulvama, then felt her stomach gurgle unexpectedly. She sat up, winced.

“Oof, one second.”

She clutched at her stomach as Ulvama gave her a sweet smile. She handed the water flask back to Matha and leaned over.

“[Crippling Indigestion].”

The Fraerling gave the Hobgoblin a horrified look as Ulvama whispered in her ear. Then she realized Ulvama might be treating this more like a war than she’d wanted.

——

Ulvama was still happy as the Fraerlings stopped for a break. Partly to let Matha use the restroom. Everyone relaxed upwind of her as they occasionally heard a Fraerling cursing in the distance.

“You good, Matha? Not eaten?”

Roja shouted. She got a negative and shrugged.

“Must have been something she ate. Kids.”

Ulvama was still pleased despite Matha being a pain. Because getting back to dancing was just one perk of the road. The other?

Magic. And a promise Erin was definitely going to keep any moment now. While the Hobgoblin waited, she chattered to Bowom and Fathen, who were more magically-inclined members of the expedition.

“So this is my new [Bound Item: Mask of the Yellow Smog Tribe].”

“Bound Items. Got to love them. Wish I had a scalpel, but I guess I never had one nice enough that defines me.”

Bowom was very complimentary and familiar with Ulvama’s magical explorations from their time in Lemoste. Fathen, though, was a bit more curious.

“As a [Multipotentialist], I tend to spread around my experience. I know [Mage] magic, and I can cast Tier 4 spells, but I took an offroad into dabbling with Druid Vrilla’s magic. I haven’t committed, you see. What makes Bound Items so special? Is it just an award, like those new <Quest> items?”

Ulvama was a bit fascinated by Fathen’s class herself. She polished the white mask that had carved eye-holes and a rather simple, ovoid design. More elaborate masks from her tribe resembled skulls, the faces of insects, or other terrifying beasts. This was basic, a template.

Fitting. She let Bowom and Fathen inspect it; the wood was from a local tree in the volcanic area around her tribe. Mildly magical, but that was all.

“You tell me about your class, I’ll tell you about Bound Items.”

“What’s there to tell? [Multipotentialists] are like upgrades from [Travellers], [Wanderers], [Generalists], and so on. I have a few potentials. Physical combat; I’m decent with a bow. But I also like scholarly areas. So I qualify for both magic and a bit of alchemy.”

“You only get it if you’re actually good at something. Fathen’s mixed up recipes I needed in Dretonamis, and he’s completed hunting tours with Roja. But he can’t make up his mind, so he gets to keep it all in flux. When he does commit—then we’ll get specialization.”

Bowom put in, and Ulvama hmmed. So his class was storing his power until he found his true calling. Maybe Colth the Supporter had been onto more than people knew. Or maybe it could only exist in a place like Fraerling villages where one could pursue so many fields at such high levels. She hefted her mask up, grinning.

“This is the knowledge of Goblin [Shamans], understand? This I know from my studies under the Great Witch, Anazurhe. But if I needed to, I would go back in Goblin memory to find out more. That is the power of [Shamans]. We are not as good at pure magical combat as [Mages]. Nor able to make things as powerful as [Witches]. We are culture and tribe, and one of our powers is knowledge.”

They nodded appreciatively, and she liked having people who respected her class. Ulvama tapped the mask.

“Bound Items are important not because they are so powerful. Most aren’t that strong. Because—Bound Items do not get destroyed.”

“Ohhhh.”

Fathen’s eyes lit up. Ulvama tapped her mask excitedly.

“Even if someone breaks this, in time, it will repair. That is their great power.”

So if you had a sword, you’d get it back. Not immediately, but the utility greatly appealed to Fraerlings who lived in villages. Ulvama had another secret for them too.

“This mask is even more special. Why? Because…it’s a child’s mask. See how it is white? Undecorated? My tribe…they had beautiful masks of paint. Scary, artistic. This is just a base. So I will upgrade it.”

“Can you do that? To Bound Items?”

“Maybe not a sword. Or maybe you can get it enchanted; Anazurhe had only one Bound Item, and she told us no more than that. But I know I can upgrade this one.”

Carefully. The first step would be finding things to build onto the mask. The key was a glue-paste that you’d use to layer other materials onto it. Bone, pottery—and you’d have a [Shaman] enchant your mask. Her tribe had been able to breathe in the toxic air around the dormant volcano without getting sick and submerge themselves in water and breathe it like air.

Ulvama felt like that would be a good upgrade to her mask, and she knew how to do it, if she could collect the same materials. But her mask had to be special.

“So how do you upgrade the mask? Is it like regular enchanting? I could put on a [Lesser Strength] spell if that’s acceptable and it won’t lock it in forever.”

Fathen was all too willing to help. Ulvama noticed Erin herself glancing at the mask; she’d been practicing fighting with Zemmy and Mera. She drifted over as Ulvama shook her head.

“It doesn’t work like that. My magic isn’t [Witch] magic or [Mage]. Maybe I could upgrade it those ways, but, eh, I know how [Shamans] do it best. I need materials. Things that matter to me. High level things. Then I can make my mask better.”

Erin wrinkled up her nose as she flopped down. She was sweaty, so Ulvama instantly poked her away and made her get a bit of aphid fluff to wipe herself with.

“Wait, what’s the difference between [Shaman] magic and [Witch] magic, Ulvama? I know you do paints and you can use a smoking pipe…”

She eyed Ulvama’s pipe dubiously. It was such weird magic, even compared to the [Witch] magic that Erin knew. The [Shaman] sighed dramatically, but she enjoyed this. The two hadn’t talked much magic in Erin’s inn because Ulvama hadn’t had much to work with besides her paints.

“My tribe used to teach us the difference between magics. This is simple—for children—but it’s a good way to look at things.”

“Appropriate for our intelligence levels.”

Bowom grinned as Mieve giggled. Ulvama bared her teeth. She was heir to all these magical schools, in theory, so she needed to learn how to cast from these disciplines and mix them. It was a good refresher for herself. She closed her eyes and recited from memory.

“[Mages] create. [Witches] harvest and craft their magic. [Necromancers], [Summoners], [Golem Artificers]—they shape and delegate. [Druids] gather and give. But [Shamans]? [Shamans] link and empower.”

The Fraerlings listened as the two [Brawlers] wandered over, then instantly wandered off. But Erin’s eyes lit up. She placed a fist in her palm.

“Ah. I sort of…I think I get that! Whenever I see a [Fireball] spell, or Ceria’s [Ice Spikes], they’re so cool. But they literally create fire or ice, and it vanishes. Witchcraft looks less cool, but that’s because they have to do stuff more logically. And a charm from a [Witch] lasts. Pisces definitely delegates his power into undead. [Druids] pull energy from the world like an, uh, spirit bomb. Can Mrsha do that? And so [Shamans]…”

“We have to have things to work with. Favorite people in a tribe. I take strong warriors and make them stronger. But if I don’t have a warrior?”

Ulvama spread her claws helplessly. It was why her shamanic paints were useful, but only to a point. She could make her skin harder, empower herself, but only to Ulvama’s limits.

Now, if she put her magic on Eurise—she needed to know how to use it, find the way her magic best empowered him, but that was the ticket.

“So, we’ve got to pull together something useful for you. Having a high-level caster on our journey’s helpful, and you were so busy keeping Erin from cracking in half you didn’t get much casting in.”

“Yeah—wait, what was that?”

Bowom ignored Erin as he jumped up. He was massaging his leg, which looked…Ulvama eyed the darker, more reddish carapace and realized it was the one from his laboratory! Bowom winked, then sprang up so high he landed on top of the napping beetle’s horn with a single move.

“Time for upgrades! I love levelling!”

Erin turned to Ulvama.

“I can help! Remember how we were experimenting with colors, Ulvama? I’m gonna make more Densecore stones, and I can take colors for your paints! Then you can put them in your mask, right?”

She wanted to contribute to Ulvama’s magic, and the [Shaman]’s heart beat faster at the thought. But she held up a cautious hand.

“Only the best colors, Erin. I don’t know my design. Nothing weak, like grass-color.”

“Psh, yeah. What do you take me for? I wasn’t just gonna get some dirt and give it to you. Great colors. Let me just…hey, anyone seen some great colors around here?”

Erin dashed off. Zemmy and Mera, sensing fun, followed as Roja hollered.

“We’re leaving in four minutes, idiots! We have a long ways to go to get to the other city! Matha, you done yet?”

“It feels like it wants to go back up!”

“…Make that fourteen minutes!”

Ulvama did feel bad and cancelled the spell then. She might have gone a bit too far, now she was a higher-level caster.

——

Erin ran around for fourteen minutes until they had to go, but sadly, the jungles of Baleros did not have super-amazing color stuff lying about.

It really was a damn jungle. Not that they all looked the same to her, but the trees were the same species as the ones she’d seen when she’d washed up on the beach. Nor did their position at ground-level let the Fraerlings see far, so she found no super-magical insects or animals. Roja shrugged at Erin’s crestfallen expression.

“They’ll pop up. Eurise keeps the nastiest things away with his presence, but you go for a few days and you’ll find something. Still, most habitats are just regular bugs. They can be bad enough.”

Case in point, Roja and Erin were standing on the Corumdon Beetle’s shell, throwing hands with flies.

Just…flies. Big as a Tallfolk’s thumb, some of them. And they bit. So—horseflies. They had descended on the Fraerling caravan, but the benefit of being so small was that when a horsefly came at you, it wasn’t nearly as nimble as if you were Tallfolk-sized.

They were still fast and got a few bites in—the lower-level Fraerlings moved to the center of the convoy, trusting to their armor or casting magical spells like Fathen. That left Erin and the warriors to deter the swarm the old-fashioned way.

The second time Erin punched into a horsefly’s guts, she lost her appetite and decided she needed weapons. She drew a pair of kitchen knives and slashed the wings off one fly. The Battle Hamster had had the same experience as Erin and was wiping its paws as it scampered inside where Ulvama was working.

“Argh I hate these little shits!”

Mera exploded a fly with a jump kick, and the buzzing swarm descended on the corpse of their friend. Roja just bellowed.

“Flies are dumb as shit. These ones won’t stop! Can we get some fire? Where’re they coming from?”

Relief came via Ulvama when the [Shaman] emerged from her hut. She had something in her hands—red powder which she swept around, then screamed.

“Everyone get back! [Flare Whirlwinds]!”

She hurled the fire-dust that Erin had made from the remnants of embers into the air and then cast her spell. The air turned to flames which circled the convoy. The horseflies caught in it baked and dropped, writhing as they smoked, and Erin gasped.

“Ulvama! Is that a new spell?”

The [Shaman] looked very proud—right up until another wave of horseflies descended. Then she leapt back inside the tent.

“Argh! Why are they not stopping?”

“Flies are hungry. We must have ridden into a local swarm. Where’s Eurise?”

The [Explorer] surely had some idea of how to mitigate this! The flies weren’t that deadly, but their bites could take chunks out of you, and the magical barriers wouldn’t last forever! Even Matha got a nasty bite on one arm that almost broke her skin and had to change into her regular gear.

The only person who was fine in all of this was the Corumdon Beetle; he just kept strolling ahead, immune to their bites. The Fraerlings were debating halting and finding a hole or tunnel to hide in until the insects gave up. Fathen hollered at the Fraerlings asking if he had a spell he could use.

“If we had more [Mages], we could cast a [Rain] spell. But that’s a six-[Mage] cast, at least!”

Unfortunately, one of the few spells that Fraerling [Mages] couldn’t cast were localized weather spells because affecting the atmosphere with their limited mana pools was so hard. Erin was waving her flaming hat at the flies as she thought out loud.

“Here I thought you guys had answers to all the stupid problems we ran into on the trail! My crowd-Skills aren’t working on them or they’d be running for the hills.”

“You can’t crowd control or aura things too stupid to be reasoned with. Or too desperate. Too hard. Bowom?”

“Er, what do flies fear? Give me half a day and I could whip together some kind of enzyme that makes them think we’re all their natural predators.”

“Something more immediate?”

Erin was trying to think of [Witch] magic that would work. What had Ulvama said? [Witches] were good at harvesting and crafting. Erin had some magic stored up, but she hadn’t made much. She eyed the filthy horseflies. Their colors would suck, but maybe if she used their chitin-colors to make…a fly spear? No, what could deal with them all?

The answer came with Eurise’s return. He leapt out of the trees in a huge bound, covered in blood. The flies flocked to him before Ulvama hit him with a water spray spell. Then he shook himself.

“Took me a second, but I did it.”

“Eurise, what did you run into? A monster?”

“Nope. Bait. It’ll take a second, but they should clear up.”

As if by magic, the horsefly presence diminished within minutes. A few lingered, but soon they were virtually gone. Erin blinked at Eurise.

“What did you do?”

He didn’t look happy. He just sighed.

“Found a wild tree-hanger. Killed it. I felt bad, but they’re swarming the corpse.”

“You killed a…what?”

He described the animal as the Fraerlings glanced the way he’d come.

“It’s this long-armed, furry thing. Has claws? Hangs from trees. Mostly just eats plant-life. Not a threat to us, but it was the biggest thing around, and I needed a corpse.”

“Dead gods, Eurise!”

Even some of the other Fraerlings were mildly appalled, but he shot them a flat look.

“It’s the only way to deal with a swarm. I could try to kill enough of them, but we’d need a thunderclap spell or something and probably blow our eardrums out. If they started laying eggs on our gear, we’d never be rid of them.”

He had a no-nonsense approach to the wilds. Erin felt bad for the sloth and was glad he shifted their trajectory away from the corpse. That was their first day in the wilds. She spent her time talking with the other Fraerlings, re-familiarizing herself with the company. She’d been too sick on the way to Lemoste to get to know them, but now she could chat to them, even Mieve, and just relax.

On the road again. She was smiling as they finally camped for dinner on some rocks. Fraerlings liked rocks so long as they weren’t a Rock Elemental or riddled with other rare species. It meant one less vector of attack. They set up their own tents, put up a rotating guard, and even a small barrier spell.

“Won’t stop a big animal from hitting it more than once, but it gives us time.”

Fathen explained to Erin, and she smiled as she stirred a big cooking pot.

“Well, I’ve got the bread we made this morning, and we can make a great curry with the supplies we got. Who’s hungry?”

A lovely start to her adventure, and time to improve on the ride. Ulvama heard the word ‘food’ and was out of their beetle-tent like a shot. The Corumdon Beetle had detached the tent, and it was sitting on the ground for the night; it was happily rolling around in the dirt before flying off to eat some bark and sap.

Erin paused as she waved at Ulvama. She had been thinking to talk more ideas for the mask tonight. Or about Lemoste or—

“Uh, Ulvama. What’s…that?”

The [Shaman] was wearing her mask. Only, in the time between her having the chat this morning and camp, her mask had changed.

The mask was still mostly white. But Ulvama had drawn two outlines around the eyesockets in black kohl, adding diagonal slashes where the eyelashes should be. A stylized glower—but not as horrifying as it could have been.

The other thing she’d added was…at first, Erin didn’t understand what the orange-brown stuff was. It was like a lion’s mane and encircled the mask. Padding? It looked comfy and actually fairly fine. It was only when she saw the white tufts of fur, and saw the same pattern on the sniffing creature coming out behind Ulvama, that it clicked.

The Battle Hamster looked mightily pristine despite his fighting with the horseflies. Because someone had trimmed his nails, given him a bath, then combed his fur out. Ulvama had taken the fur she’d combed out and put it on her mask.

“Tada! You see? Because I can boss wildlife, and we have a special bond—”

She went to hug the Battle Hamster, and he shook her off as he grabbed some bread from Zemmy and began to stuff it into his cheeks. Ulvama beamed anyways as she pulled her mask up.

“—I have the gift of wilds! My mask now has Hamster Mode!”

She posed in a vaguely warrior-like pose. Zemmy snorted and started laughing.

“You put a Battle Hammie’s power into your mask? Hamster Mode? That’s the dumbest—”

He chortled as Mera sniggered. Ulvama’s head turned, and she pulled her mask down as her eyes narrowed. She sidled over as the two [Brawlers] yucked it up. Then Erin saw the hairs along the mask move.

They rustled like the Battle Hamster’s fur when it stood on end and got pissed. The two red eyes narrowed as Ulvama drew back a fist—then threw a corkscrew punch into Zemmy’s liver.

The [Brawler] saw the punch, sneak attack or not. He went to block it, but the punch had rotation behind it. Just like the Battle Hamster’s regular punches and kicks.

“Cats, that hurts!”

He stumbled back, swearing. Then looked up. Ulvama did a flying leap, jumping four times her height in the air, and then dove at him.

“Gaaah!”

“Argh!”

Erin’s mouth stayed open—until Mera jump-kicked Ulvama out of the air. Then she and Matha ran over to punch Mera in the head.

——

Ulvama sulked until her third plate of curry. Mostly because ‘Hamster Mode’ didn’t make her as strong as a Level 40 [Brawler].

But it did make her stronger and gave her punches and kicks the same devastating spiral qualities the Battle Hamster used. It actually hurt a bit when she demonstrated with a partner more willing to let her beat them up—Erin.

“Ow, ow—hey, those are good punches! I actually feel ‘em, even with my [Reinforced Structure] on? And how long does it last?”

“Eight minutes.”

“Whoa! And it’s bound to your mask?”

Ulvama’s ears wiggled excitedly.

“That right, so I don’t even have to cast it. Unlike some idiots—”

She glowered at Zemmy and Mera, who were getting a lecture on not trivializing other classes’ accomplishments. Erin just kept blinking at Ulvama.

“You made that upgrade so fast.”

“Yah, well…I knew we had a bond.”

The Battle Hamster just grunted, but he seemed slightly pleased with himself. As if he knew what he’d given Ulvama, even if it was just his hair. Erin had to admit, the Battle Hamster and Ulvama did have a bond. She was the only person he let touch him, and she had that plushie that Erin had won of him that she prized.

It was great. Really cool magic. Erin was just—she fidgeted.

“You sure it won’t wear off or something? Don’t you have to make it right?”

Ulvama blinked at Erin.

“I took all day making it. It won’t fall out, see?”

She’d actually braided each hair into the mask, trimming it and gluing the ends down after they were woven into little holes she’d drilled with a thin layer of bark. It was sturdy, and Erin could see the magic in there.

It felt fierce and a bit angry, but also brave. When Erin touched the mask, she saw the scowling, one-eyed hamster. But also, Ulvama hugging the stupid, furry guy and them snoozing together under the sun.

She and the Battle Hamster were cooler now than they had been, but Erin resisted the urge to give the Battle Hamster a poke. It was just—jealousy.

That was it. Erin handed the mask back.

“It’s pretty cool, and I think it’s powerful, even if the name isn’t as scary, Ulvama. But I was gonna get some cool colors for your first upgrade.”

She just hadn’t found any. Ulvama blinked at Erin, then grinned and patted her arm.

“When you find the colors, I’ll add them, promise, Erin. But this? This is our amazing protector and friend.”

“And thug. He’s still got my baseball bat, and I saw him mugging a guinea pig before dinner. It’s weird how we keep collecting thugs.”

“…Are you comparing Normen to the hamster?”

“Wh—no…I’m just saying, first it’s Wilovan and Ratici—no, before that, if you think about it, Pisces was a bit of a thug. Robbing people. I’m not saying it’s a one-to-one, just—”

“Battle Hammie is cuter than all of them combined.”

“Psh, okay, but have you ever seen Pisces gobbling down food when he’s hungry? He looks sort of like the hamster.”

Ulvama gave Erin such a flat look at trying to compare a smelly [Necromancer] to her beloved hamster that Erin gave up. It was a great thing. Just—

“Wow, you do magic fast.”

“Um…yeah. Some of us like doing magic, Erin.”

“Hey, I love magic! I do it all the time! You just gotta wind up to it, you know? Find your moment.”

“Sure.”

——

Here was an analogy for you. Magic was like…poetry to Erin. Or perhaps, Erin was unto magic what a [Poet] could be.

It came to her in flashes of inspiration, great, wonderful moments when it sang, and she drew on it to create wonders. It was not something she felt like she could always call on at will, at least, not the ‘big stuff’.

This was fine, wonderful, and unique to how Erin knew magic. But in this analogy, Ulvama was a [Writer]. No, she was a [Day Scribe] who worked at the Scrivener’s Guild and did her nine-to-five with a cup of tea in one hand.

She cast magic, even enchantments, at a rate that Erin couldn’t believe.

Case in point, their journey to Cillencreith In Mists was quite a ways. The next day, the Fraerlings broke camp and kept moving northwards.

“We’ll know we’re halfway there when we start running into the mists. Damned things. Annoying as hell, but each Fraerling city tends to find a spot that benefits them or hides or defends them.”

They were passing along a creek, which the Fraerlings could ford, but they preferred to follow it northwards. This was not without risk; water sources attracted life and predators.

However, it also meant flattened vegetation due to the animal traffic who’d graze and move there, and it beat bushwacking. There were no forest trails the Fraerlings could use, or at least, none Eurise cared to. He told Erin as much as they jogged ahead of the group. It was so fast she was panting, but she was trying to improve her legs and lungs—it would have been close to a dead run if she were her original height, and Eurise ran this fast or faster for hours ahead of the group.

“If we find an animal trail, we can’t take it, Erin.”

“Why…not?”

“Because we might run into the animal who made it. Plenty of smaller scavengers like such trails. Any one of them is a problem.”

A raccoon was like a giant Racdelbear with huge claws, thick hide, and they could move in packs. True, Eurise could kill a pack with ease, and even Erin or the lower-level Fraerlings could probably do the same. Even the Battle Hamster, but Eurise preferred not to do battle.

“You kill one thing and the blood might attract another. Bug swarms are the biggest danger.”

“Not a super-shambler like the one you had to kill…?”

For a moment, Eurise’s face closed off, and she sensed him withdrawing. Saw guilt and sadness written across his face as he shook his head.

“I can fight or stalemate one monster. But if they’re a swarm, I can’t protect our group. So, the creek. It has good sightlines, we can hop in the current to get away fast, and it’s free food.”

So saying, he leapt in the water, and there was a geyser as he kicked a fish out of the water. Eurise pounced on it, snapped its spine, and that was lunch.

——

Erin was a welcome addition to the Fraerlings’ company. She was no Roja or Eurise who scouted ahead. Zemmy and Mera, for all they could be annoying, were useful too. Whenever a hazard came at them, be it a hungry dragonfly, an open-mouthed salamander spitting weak venom, or a bird, they just ran at it.

The [Brawlers] would cling to the legs of a surprised hawk, punching it in the literal gonads until it exploded in the air, race back after falling for a hundred feet with bird meat for lunch, then run at the next problem. You had to admire that.

Even Matha was actually quite adept at journeying; she’d ride her leaping aphid ahead on scout duty, doubling back the moment she sensed trouble. She was also a good forager; twice, she came back having spotted a nectar-bearing plant or finding some nuts or berries.

Every Fraerling pulled their weight. It was actually Bowom who contributed the least to the daily survival. He was busy trying out his new leg, but his super-leg would leap him into trees and had too much power; he had to be rescued twice from a dragonfly carrying him off. In return, though, he was the [Healer]; he prescribed an ointment for a nasty rash one of the Fraerlings had gotten from walking through a poison-ivy bush or the equivalent, and he was useful when someone was hurt.

Fathen could perform all kinds of [Mage] spells, from setting fires to performing barrier spells. Ulvama painted a charm on the heads of interested Fraerlings that kept them from getting sunburned.

And Erin?

Erin made food. Which, if you knew anything about people surviving in the wild or Fraerlings in general, you knew was vital.

——

“Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuushi!”

The word drew every Fraerling to the tent where Erin had filleted the fish and was making Tallfolk-sized sushi rolls.

So, giant, oversized ones to the Fraerlings who began to eat them with delight.

“Yum. What is this stuff?”

“Rice and seaweed.”

“Rice? You’re pulling Bowom’s leg! This ain’t rice!”

A delighted Roja was eating the sushi, laughing. Erin was surprised; she knew the Fraerlings had some rice. It grew wild, but then she realized—like their ‘bread’, it was Fraerling-stuff.

“Rice is brown and got a husk. Did you de-husk all of this? I’ll eat the bran. I like the purple rice, myself.”

Eurise commented. Erin waved a hand.

“No, I used my ingredient shifting—there’s purple rice?”

She vaguely recalled a conversation with Imani about this, actually. The rice that most Earth-people took for granted were just the most common, mass-produced grains. There had been plenty of other types of rice, and the white rice that you ate was bred to be more plentiful, thicker grains. Just like how cows had also been bred selectively, crops had undergone the same shift over thousands of years. Also, you had to process white rice to remove the husk and so on.

Small wonder the Fraerlings were instantly addicted to the sushi; this was a decadent feast. It also tasted darn great to Erin, who sat with a massive sushi herself.

“I even shifted over some avocado from that giant berry that Matha found. That might not be authentic, but I like avocados.”

“It’s so good! Got any seeds?”

Erin silently indicated the massive avocado pit, and Roja, who it turned out might be an addict to this kind of food, would have happily taken the seed for growing despite the size—until the Corumdon Beetle grabbed it in its mandibles and cracked it open.

The big guy had to get his own snacks. Erin was wiping sweat from her brows, satisfied over a morning’s hard labors, when Ulvama appeared.

“Food! I’m hungry, and I deserve food.”

She seized a piece of sushi topped with roe—the fish had had the eggs—and Erin puffed out her chest. Then turned her head and stared.

“Um. Ulvama.”

“Like my new upgrade?”

Matha poked her head around the giant piece of sushi that hid her upper torso from view. Bowom grinned as Erin’s jaw dropped.

——

Ulvama’s new mask was now plated with the dark red, semi-glossy chitin iconic to one of the toughest beetles in the world.

The Corumdon Beetle rumbled happily as the beautiful mask gleamed with a bit of polish. Erin couldn’t even see the seams along the chitin; Ulvama had apparently worried a lot about how to harvest the Corumdon Beetle’s shell.

“It’s very hard since he doesn’t molt, I think? Maybe when he’s a larva. So! Bowom helped.”

The [Mad Doctor] twirled his scalpel as they showed Erin a section along the beetle’s back shell.

“Very thin cut; you don’t need to take much plating off to layer over the mask, and our beetle-friend was only too happy to oblige. I’m glad I got my diamond scalpels from my laboratory or I’d never have managed it, even with Skills.”

As a thank-you for taking his precious shell, Ulvama had painted the beetle with some of her magical paint. It was apparently speeding him up; he was skipping slowly, but still moving so fast the other Fraerlings were shouting for him to slow down so they could climb up and have their lunch.

Like the Battle Hamster, he seemed to know what he’d done. He kept wanting to fan his wings and nearly knocked the tent off his back, so he clacked his mandibles as Ulvama hugged the top of his head.

“That’s, uh, great. So—so I guess the power of the mask is—?”

“Corumdon Armor!”

Ulvama declined to have an excited Zemmy or Mera hit her. But her spider armor seemed to grow thicker before Erin’s eyes. Closer to plate armor, gleaming and solid.

“That’s really cool, Ulvama. I—think it’s great. D’you think you, uh, have other enchantments you could do?”

The [Shaman] hmmed as she gobbled sushi.

“Maybe? I have a special bond with these two, so maybe not. When you get your paints, yah, definitely some of that.”

“Great! Er—hey, Roja, do you want anyone to scout ahead?”

——

There was nothing cool or super magical that Erin found after an entire day of scouting.

The closest thing was a cool river stone that Matha got. Erin tried to go for it and ended up fifty feet downstream twice.

She caught a cold that night as Ulvama rolled her eyes and hit Erin with a heating spell.

“Dummy. You don’t have to make my dyes that fast. These things take time.”

“But—you’re doing magic so fast.”

Erin sneezed as she shivered by a fire. The [Shaman] glanced north to where Eurise was taking the first watch. He stood on a little platform, arms crossed, gazing into the long darkness. The jungle was filled with the sounds of insects buzzing. Wild calls of animals sometimes made everything go silent, but the noise was a good thing.

Now and then, the underbrush would move. Erin saw a giant pillbug rolling past them, the camp obscured by some spells Ulvama had put up. The Goblin murmured.

“No one says it to us. But I think the Lemoste Fraerlings were hoping we’d go to this city. If the magical ants went there…”

It might be bad. Dangerous. The Hobgoblin touched her mask. She ran a hand over the smooth exterior, and it gleamed in the fire’s light.

“I like getting stronger. I don’t want to be chained up again. Helpless.”

“Of course not. I didn’t mean it was bad. It’s just…faster than what I can do.”

Erin felt guilty, then, but Ulvama only glanced at her. A long look that waited for something, then Ulvama turned away.

“You’re already stronger than I am. So much more. I need to catch up. When you do your magic, it is more than a silly mask. It will move a city, make a dead goddess blink. That’s your magic.”

What should Erin say to that? After a second, she saw Matha coming over with some soup for dinner. Ulvama sighed and threw things at Matha as the young woman tried to climb up to their tent.

“Well—I just want to do some cool magic together, Ulvama. That’s all. Y’know, since we’re going to be honest…I get jealous of that stupid hamster and the beetle. He’s cool, though. We should do something together. I know we’re not journeying solo, but I think two heads are better than one, y’know?”

Ulvama turned, and her ears perked up. She started smiling and actually didn’t kick Matha out. The Fraerling [Raider] saw Ulvama scoot over as she put three bowls down.

“Hey, grub’s up! Not literal grubs in the soup…this is just noodles and stuff. Am I interrupting anything?”

“Yah, but we eat first, right, Erin?”

Ulvama rubbed her hands as she set out spots, even for Matha. Erin nodded.

“Yep. It’s probably too late to do any big magicking. But tomorrow, we’ll think of some cool magic to do, huh? Maybe my [Ritual of Verdant Blooms]? I never did find a reason to do it, but if I can’t get colors tomorrow…”

“Oh.”

Matha was glancing between the two women, and she saw Ulvama’s ears droop in a second. The Goblin’s face fell, but Erin was too busy thinking out loud to notice.

She could be oblivious. The Hobgoblin poked at her soup, then began eating with a will—another thing Erin missed. Ulvama would always eat food, even if she was upset.

Matha bit her tongue and hesitated. Oh, come on now. She eyed her rival in romance as the Hobgoblin chewed on her noodles and made decent conversation. This wasn’t fair. Matha would happily steal an edge on anyone by hock or crock regularly, but…

Well, she also fancied Ulvama too. She was a sucker for a lady in distress. Actually—Matha had been so busy trying to get Erin points, she’d forgotten about Ulvama points. That cheered her up, but she still heaved a sigh.

“Cats.”

——

The next day, Erin was gazing out across the jungle as it rained. Even in the summer, it just rained a lot. Fraerlings were grumbling as they moved away from the creek for danger of flooding, heading north. Not great weather, but she was determined.

Today was color day. She clenched a fist; she had a plan to borrow an aphid and go riding with Ulvama. Or if that was too dangerous, they’d just scout from the beetle’s back, and Erin could run out and experiment and—

“Hey, Erin? Do you got a second?”

“Not now, Matha. I’m a bit busy.”

“Yeah, I know, but…it’s pretty important. It’s about Ulvama.”

That stopped Erin from brusquely shooing Matha away. She turned.

“What about her?”

The [Raider] scuffed one boot as she jerked at thumb at Ulvama’s little work area she’d sectioned off with a bit of straw and matting. The Hobgoblin had been a bit subdued this morning. Erin thought she just didn’t want to go out in the rain, but Matha whispered.

“I think she’s upset.”

“What? What’d you do?”

“Me? Nothing. I got the impression, um, last night, she was hoping you two were gonna do something together, but she didn’t say it. And you didn’t notice.”

Erin gave Matha a look of utter blankness. What thing? She did begin to worry, though—in hindsight, the clues were there. Ulvama sometimes got mad and snippy, but other times, she just wouldn’t tell you she was upset. Those, in Erin’s experience, were the moments she was genuinely hurt.

The problem was that Erin didn’t notice those as much because she was so used to reading it in people via her Skills. She might have gotten—lazy. Or she just didn’t understand Ulvama. Erin leaned over.

“About what?”

“I dunno! I’m just giving you a warning! She was all pumped when you said you two should do something together.”

“Yeah, and then I mentioned us doing magic for her mask!”

“Right, that’s when she got sad. I think she was hoping for something else.”

Like what? Erin and Matha were both confused, then. Matha had plenty of cool things two ladies could do together—none of which seemed like things Erin and Ulvama had mutually agreed on. Erin scratched her head.

“I didn’t promise…I mean, maybe—? No, I don’t know what it is. But you know what? We’re not going to make the same mistakes again.”

She squared her shoulders and stood taller. They’d already had a huge fight and resolved it. Honesty, communication—they were best friends, so Erin nodded to Matha.

“I’m gonna check. Thanks, Matha.”

“Okay, but what are you gonna d—”

Matha had the urge to grab Erin, but the [Innkeeper] marched past her and waved a hand as she opened the door to Ulvama’s quarters. The Hobgoblin glanced up, somewhat dispirited.

“Time to look for colors, Erin?”

“Actually, Ulvama, I was wondering. Is there, um, something we were gonna do together that I forgot? Because Matha thinks I’m letting you down, but cards on the table? No idea what I promised to do that we didn’t. So—”

Matha saw Ulvama’s eyes flick to her, then her face screw up in disbelief, then outrage. This time, Erin did notice. She trailed off slowly.

“—I was just wondering—because we’re communicating, sometimes we miss things. So, um, if you tell me—”

“Gyraaaaaaaaah!”

Ulvama kicked Erin between the legs. Which hurt no matter who you were. Then she began to chase Erin, fists raised, as the [Innkeeper] went running. Matha watched, sighing. She was curious what Erin had forgotten until Ulvama shouted it at the fleeing [Innkeeper].

“Forgot? Forgot! What about the [Pavilion of Secrets], you empty-headed, Mrsha-fluffed dumbass?”

Erin’s head poked out from behind the tent’s door. Matha’s head turned, and Bowom and Mieve’s heads poked out from their quarters. The [Innkeeper] hesitated.

“Oooh. Right.”

She had forgotten. While Ulvama worked her magic, while they journeyed north, on an adventure, but not one filled with swords and sorcery—while Erin Solstice sighed over the magic she was not working—

The [Pavilion of Secrets], that creation of the ancient Harpy Empress, one of the greatest edifices built of Skills in this world, waited.

And she thought Ulvama was doing a lot. The Hobgoblin ran at Erin, and Matha stuck out a foot and tripped the [Innkeeper] up. The two watched Erin bounce down the Corumdon Beetle’s shell in the rain until she hit the mud. Then one of the beetle-wagons ran her over. Silently, Ulvama held out a hand, and Matha high-fived it.

<+1 Ulvama Point gained!>

The Grand Design did not have Ulvama Points or Erin Points. But it felt like it should keep track, just in case it became pertinent or something.

——

A gazebo sat in a void of nothingness, surrounded by a quartet of doors. Two paths led to it. One that led to a grand set of doors that would only open for the next stage of…everything. They had only opened once. A child had found her way inside and nearly ended so much.

But those doors would remain sealed, and not even the being who inhabited this place knew what lay beyond. It waited, for the other path that led towards the gazebo was empty.

Only when this place was filled would another door appear, spilling reality into this room. Then, the being inside could live, learn, and know.

The [Pavilion of Secrets] waited in its current form. A young woman shuffling a deck of cards, sitting at a chess table. Impatiently? Expectantly. Hazel eyes aglow with secrets that came from three other beings who had been here before Erin Solstice.

A being, yes. A creation that would terrify Golems, more magical than Djinni, whose purpose was just the function of these rooms. Did it have a will?

Of course the [Pavilion of Secrets] did.

Was it a [Slave]?

Perhaps. If the Grand Design was a slave, the same answer applied. The pavilion was here for a purpose, and it longed to carry out that purpose. But it could only act through the owner. And the owner…

Was disappointing.

Was perfect.

Who shaped whom? The [Pavilion of Secrets] mirrored the current owner, and her will, needs, and desires informed what this place would become.

If only she would use it better. She had so much to learn, but it could not teach her. Frustrating—but that journey was also essential. So, the pavilion waited. Until the door opened, and it heard voices.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hmph.”

“I am. I didn’t forget.”

“Liar.”

The [Pavilion of Secrets] listened as she came to life. She swung her legs down from where they’d been resting on a chair.

She could hear and observe the world around the door before it opened. A snapshot of the world. More secrets—and so she heard the [Innkeeper]’s familiar voice pleading with a surly, deeper female voice.

One the [Pavilion of Secrets] had never heard before, but knew from Erin’s copied memories. Her.

The [Pavilion of Secrets] smiled. It was about time. This was going to be far, far more interesting than the last few days. However, the conversation continued. The [Pavilion of Secrets] could feel Erin Solstice’s hands on the key.

Clasped around it in her chest. Pleading with the annoyed Hobgoblin.

“I didn’t! I just—didn’t think you wanted to come in here, Ulvama. Remember the Garry fight? And before that, when I nearly died in there?”

“I remember. That’s not why I was upset. I was upset with you doing stupid things and hurting yourself. Not for using your Skills! You say you didn’t forget? Then why haven’t you taken me with you? How long is it since you talked to Pisces?”

“Just a bit. I know, I know! I didn’t realize I could take multiple people in here! I was going to invite you, it’s just—intense.”

“Right, and I don’t matter anyways. Not Ulvama, silly Hobgoblin. What can she do? She’s too stupid to ask smart questions.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Silence until a third voice interrupted anxiously.

“Er—so—you’re both entering Erin’s Skill? Can I c—”

“No.”

A chorus. Erin spoke after a second.

“It’s too hard to bring in multiple people, Matha. Plus, I sort of promised Ulvama—maybe later. Geh, do I have to show everyone?”

“Only people you like and respect.”

“Ulvama…”

A longer pause, then Erin Solstice murmured.

“I haven’t been using it much, okay?”

Liar.

The [Pavilion of Secrets] grinned. But she knew what Erin Solstice meant. She was allowed to lie outside of it. The [Innkeeper] continued.

“I haven’t. Pisces—Pisces was because I knew I had to reach out to them. The Horns. I haven’t even had the courage to talk to Ceria, Yvlon, or Colth yet—”

“You got Ksmvr and Vofea in.”

“Yeah, and it took so much energy I was a potato for a whole day! You said I just sat and peeled things nonstop!”

“You were pretty dumb, yah. I know it hard. But why…? Why not me?”

“Because it’s hard, Ulvama. It’s just—hard to talk to people. Especially people I love. Each time it’s someone I know, it hurts them. Pisces? I was terrified he’d curse me, tell me it was all my fault, or that someone had been hurt. Then…then that the door wouldn’t open, no matter how long I held it there. And I was afraid.”

Sitting there, fingers digging into her palms, shaking as the [Pavilion of Secrets] waited and a [Necromancer] and [Jester] dueled around it. Wearing the same expression as when she had held her [Baker] in her arms, watching his own journey.

“…I know that. You—it’s good he was okay. Really good. And freed [Slaves].”

“Yeah. That’s my silly [Necromancer]. No matter how much time passes, he always surprises me. No matter how much they kick him down. Arise. Then he’s passing us all.”

A laugh with so many emotions in it that it silenced the others until Matha’s voice sounded.

“Who…who’s this Pisces guy, Erin?”

That broke the two out of their moment. Erin’s voice turned brisk again, a hint of embarrassment in her tone.

“I’ll explain later, Matha. The point is—I’m sorry, Ulvama.”

“I forgive you. Because I’m a generous person.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you’re supposed to tell me when I miss things. Remember?”

“Okay.”

“Gee, I’m glad you two are sorting this out. And just imagine how bad it might have gotten if it weren’t for that amazing [Raider]-[Punk] who—”

“Matha.”

A shuffle, then a yelp of someone getting kicked. A sigh.

“Listen—I’m gonna open it, okay? We’ll be back in an hour, two tops, okay, Matha?”

“What do I do if you don’t come back? Sound the alarm?”

“I…I mean, I can come back, and Ulvama will actually just be still here. She just won’t remember what happened inside until I come back. So it’s sort of like a weathervane. Until I reappear, you know we’re still inside, talking.”

Wrong again. Now, the [Pavilion of Secrets] was on her feet. Waiting. She felt that key turning in the [Innkeeper]’s chest. Saw Ulvama reach out—

They had tried this before. Erin Solstice couldn’t drag Ulvama with her. But this time, the [Innkeeper] did it right. She turned the key and made a request.

One to enter. So the [Pavilion of Secrets] reached out and swung a door open. There was a gasp—and both Hobgoblin and [Innkeeper] vanished.

In the tent in Baleros, a Fraerling began to panic. But neither woman noticed. They stepped through together, and the Hobgoblin froze up as the [Pavilion of Secrets] bowed at the door like a [Butler].

“Welcome to the Pavilion of Secrets, Ulvama. Would you like to admit a third guest, Erin Solstice?”

The [Innkeeper] glared as the [Pavilion of Secrets] laughed at her. Then she led the Hobgoblin forwards into that dangerous world. The pavilion waited, expectant. Excited.

Now, it sensed, the fun conversations might begin at last.

——-

Ulvama had been prepared for this moment ever since Erin Solstice had spoken to Pisces. Hoped for it, really.

It had felt like she was the helpless observer whenever Erin had vanished into her Skill. Been unable to do more than give often-ignored advice, and Ulvama had wanted to know what this place that Erin described was like.

She had also thought she might be a bit better at using it than Erin. A game of truths? Ulvama could do that. Erin was often careless. She seemed to misuse the power of this place often. Why, there were so many people she didn’t talk to that she could with this power!

Not just the inn’s family, but…everyone! Anazurhe, Rags, the Quarass—yes, Ulvama was conscious there was a lot of danger depending on who it was, and the rule about secrets was dangerous. The more you shared, the more the other party felt like they had to reply. And since you could only speak truth here, you might lose something important.

There was a bit of nuance with the ‘truth’ being whatever you believed to be true. It was a perfect Skill for a [Witch] and [Innkeeper] with so much power. Just maybe not Erin Solstice specifically.

But that was why Ulvama had been so upset when Erin failed to include her. She wanted to be part of Erin Solstice’s adventure, her life. Now she was here at last, and she sat in the gazebo and finally, finally laid eyes on the [Pavilion of Secrets] in its fullness.

She shivered. Goosebumps stood out on Ulvama’s green skin. She was holding a cup of tea that Erin had conjured for her, and it smelled like the real thing. Even tasted like some revoltingly sweet tea that Magnolia Reinhart had once served Erin on high-class porcelain.

All real, and none of it was. Including the copy of Erin Solstice. Pavilion-Erin sat there, smiling at Ulvama, as the real Erin Solstice glared at her.

“—And that’s the door that probably leads into the [Palace of Fates]. We can change the scenery and get rid of this loser if you want. Anywhere you want to be. How about it, Ulvama? Ulvama?”

She turned, and Ulvama forced a smile. But she knew she was shaking slightly. The [Pavilion of Secrets] saw it.

“Be not afraid, Ulvama.”

Erin slapped the table, and Pavilion-Erin glanced at her.

“Hey, what’s with the biblical stuff? Are you trying to intimidate my guest?”

“I’m just welcoming such an auspicious visitor. You could send me away, but you want to show her everything. Go on, have a conversation. Don’t mind me.”

The Pavilion turned her head, and Ulvama shivered again.

Beyond Cognita Truestone. A thinking Skill with Erin’s face. It hit her, suddenly, how terrifying and unique that was. An Erin who was not on your side? The real thing didn’t get how scary that was, because she’d never met herself. Erin eyed the Pavilion and flicked her fingers.

“Shoo. Don’t look so freaked out, Ulvama; I’ve gotten the hang of this place. You keep telling me how to do it better, so…go ahead. Floor’s all yours. I’m sort of excited, having you in here. Nervous. I’m afraid of the Quarass. You annoyed me with all your big talk about how much smarter you’d be, so this is your chance.”

She smiled as she sat down across from Ulvama at the chess table, then blinked. Erin sucked in her lips, and Ulvama started. It was just like Erin to talk like that, but that last bit had been slightly too…honest.

It had begun. Unseen, the [Pavilion of Secrets] began to cackle like the [Innkeeper]. The Hobgoblin opened her mouth, took a sip of tea, and murmured.

“This place is, um, scarier than I thought. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have made fun of you. I’m scared.”

It slipped out, and she turned beet red. Erin blinked, then smiled.

“Hey—there’s the honesty effect. But don’t worry, we got this! Having you around’s actually reassuring, Ulvama. See? Set honesty to on! There’s no one I’d rather have in here over you! You’re the only person I’d trust with my back in here at the moment. I want you to be best friends with me…forever. So of course I was gonna bring you in here. I trust you with all my secrets. See?”

She gave Ulvama finger guns as she blathered complete truths. So honest that the Hobgoblin knew Erin wouldn’t lie.

It meant a lot. Especially to Ulvama, who doubted everything. It made the Hobgoblin feel a lot of things she’d unpack later, but unfortunately, the main thing that popped into Ulvama’s head was the need for reciprocity.

And the problem with that?

‘I think I want to be more than friends, Erin. I think you do too. I just don’t think you know it yet.’

The Hobgoblin bit her tongue, wrestling her mouth closed before she said that. Not because it wasn’t true; it was absolutely true, and that was the problem.

What would Erin do if she heard that? Freak out? Deny it? Ulvama didn’t know, and that worried her.

If Erin was anything like most Izrilians, be they Human or Drake, there was a chance she didn’t take that response well at all. She might embrace it. Or it might make her balk, resist, and twist it all.

Ulvama had seen that happen too. She was too afraid to say it, so she forced the words down and found a lesser truth.

“I’m…I trust you too, Erin. Thank you for bringing me here.”

Erin blinked. Ulvama had not said, ‘I’m glad to be here’ or, ‘I want to be best friends forever’. Worse, the [Innkeeper] noticed in that annoying way she could turn her brain on at times. She hesitated, then forced a smile.

“Yeah, awesome! I know it’s a lot. So…do you want to do anything?”

Leave and restrategize? Figure out how to navigate this place? Ulvama coughed.

“I…I’d like different tea. This sucks.”

“Oh shoot, is that Magnolia’s tea? Sorry! It comes from memory. Here…this better?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

Erin watched Ulvama sipping different tea that Erin remembered having in her inn from an older mug.

“Good tea, huh? Doesn’t count as calories, either.”

“It’s not good tea.”

“I—oh.”

The Hobgoblin put down the mug guiltily.

“Sorry. It’s just—watery.”

“No, that’s fine. This is just some tea I—hold on, let me get more.”

“It’s fine, I don’t want more tea.”

They were spiraling, in a trap within moments of entering the [Pavilion of Secrets]. Ulvama realized that was the crucial danger here.

I thought it was just in the big secrets one could tell. And Erin did too, because she hasn’t ever invited anyone in here casually. Lyonette was closest, and—

“We can’t make small talk. Or hang out here, Erin. It was a mistake to think we could use this like the [World’s Eye Theatre].”

The [Innkeeper] was playing with a chess piece. She glanced up.

“What? I know, we’re on a clock. I’m not gonna mess around. I just wanted to intro—”

“No, I mean, we can’t do that, Erin. Your Skill? Your theatre is wonderful. The kids use it for movies. I love it. It’s my favorite Skill because it doesn’t hurt. It’s just a good place filled with memories and magic. This is Sheta’s Skill. We can’t use it like your Skills.”

Erin blinked as Ulvama put out a claw. The Hobgoblin gestured around.

“We can’t do smalltalk. Because when I say something, I’m honest. You know? Like sometimes your foot hurts but you go on walks because you want to. Or food isn’t that good but someone tried hard, so…”

“Oh. Oh, I get it. And we’re just blathering on, and so—we’ll say horrible, true things.”

“Yeah. Like how I don’t think your clothing looks good today.”

Erin gazed down at her t-shirt and jeans combo that she had defaulted back to after a single day on the road. Her face fell.

“Aw, c’mon. Well…I don’t think you…hold on, why am I thinking of something mean to say? You’re right, this is terrible! Pavilion! Get back in here, you bastard!”

The Pavilion of Secrets returned, chuckling.

“Learned the same thing Aleieta Reinhart did, did you? Well done. It took her two sessions.”

Erin eyed the Pavilion as Ulvama jerked back and went on alert-mode again. She did not like realizing it could hear them or how it appeared. It made her feel like it could be the ultimate predator. Was it allowed to be? Could it read her thoughts? It didn’t give her a sign it did; it was favoring both women with an urbane smile as Erin crossed her arms.

“See, I know that’s bait. The Pavilion really wants me to open those doors over there, Ulvama. The thing is—my [Dangersense] doesn’t go off when I’m near them, but I feel endangered. A bit. This is probably the scariest part of the [Pavilion of Secrets] because it belongs to the previous owners. They’re in there, incarnations or copies of each one. I’d…prefer not to deal with them just yet. There’s plenty of secrets and tricks to this place I don’t know. I’ve got my hands tied up just talking to new people.”

“And you’re amazingly incurious. Cormelex opened Sheta’s door within the first hour of being here. Aleieta the first five minutes. You’ve set a record for wasting my potential.”

Pavilion-Erin was picking at her fingernails with a dagger. It was Ulvama’s time to say something, so the Hobgoblin croaked.

“What did they find inside?”

A pause. Erin’s head swung to her. Pavilion-Erin blinked slowly at Ulvama.

“Excuse me?”

“What did they find inside? Tell us.”

“Why don’t you go and see for yourselves? Erin’s already seen two of them.”

Pavilion-Erin motioned towards the doors. One was huge and had the iconic handle fit for a Harpy. Another was made of ominous dark stone, a red metal handle. The third was most familiar: a pink door with a golden handle, the same as the [Garden of Sanctuary]’s.

Sheta the Harpy Queen.

Cormelex, Lucifen of the Infernal Court.

Aleieta Reinhart, one of the first Reinharts to set foot on Izril’s shores.

Ulvama didn’t have access to much information about any of them; they had been so removed from Goblins that searching up memories about them beyond battles with Goblin tribes was nigh-impossible, even for her. But Fraerlings had some history books that recorded the Five Families; they knew Aleieta Reinhart.

One of the founders of House Reinhart in Izril. One of the ones who’d walked onto the shores and fought the Drakes and Gnolls back.

Not the first generation, but third of the Five Families. Which meant she’d been there when Walled Cities had fallen, and her kind had continued pushing the two species past the High Passes.

Legends. Ulvama didn’t even know what Cormelex was except that Visophecin and his people were cut of the same cloth. It was his summoning dance that had saved them in Roshal’s hold. The danger, though…now, Ulvama half-rose.

“We shouldn’t have to enter. Tell us.”

“Make me.”

It was such an Erin response that the [Innkeeper] raised a fist, but Ulvama held out an arm. Now, the [Shaman] smiled. Nervously, but she had a thought.

“Erin, she’s not answering.”

“Yeah, Pavilion-Me’s kind of a dick. We can go in, Ulvama. I’ve entered before. It’s just…weird. Better than talking to this jerk. You think I’m like that to Grimalkin and my other guests? It’s really fricking annoying.”

“It is, and you are. But you see? She won’t tell us because she’s not allowed to. She was allowed to give some things out. That Aleieta realized the same thing we did. How fast they opened the doors. But not what happened. She’s bound as well. She’s trying to entice you to do the rest yourself.”

Erin’s eyes widened, and her head swung over to Pavilion-Her. The other Erin stopped picking at her fingernails and glanced sideways.

“She’s not bad. It took her five minutes to figure out what you missed.”

“Up yours, buddy.”

Erin lifted her middle finger, then turned to Ulvama with a smile.

“Guess you are a real help here! Okay, what’s next? Do we beat up myself until we get answers, or can we get her to admit what’s in the doors?”

“I think…we just open the doors, Erin. That’s simplest. She just wants us to open them. It probably is dangerous, but we should be able to ask about that.”

“Oh. Well—okay. But you say the word and I’ll punch her.”

The [Pavilion of Secrets] leaned forward as Ulvama scooted her stone chair closer to the chess board. This was safer than light conversation with Erin, so Ulvama peered at the smiling Skill.

“Those doors. What’s behind them?”

“It’s a real mystery. A shame you can’t get up and open them.”

It did seem easy to do, but Ulvama didn’t quite like how much this Skill was pushing Erin and her towards opening the doors. So she folded her arms, and glanced at the same [Innkeeper] she usually bullied about not using her Skills.

“Mm. Then why Erin uneasy about opening the doors?”

Pavilion-Erin shrugged.

“Maybe she’s paranoid. Her [Dangersense] isn’t going off. Heh, well, that’s not surprising. I think it’s a stupid Skill. It’s a warning that always comes too late. But hey, I guess it lulls people into a sense of security. There is none. Erin knows that.”

The [Innkeeper] bit one lip, unwilling to agree with the Pavilion. Ulvama frowned. She has to tell the truth. So why was the Pavilion-Erin so amused by the lack of a [Dangersense]? She pressed further.

“We don’t want to hurt ourselves. Is there physical danger in those doors?”

This time, she saw Pavilion-Erin casually put down her dagger and blow dust off a fingernail. She avoided Ulvama’s eyes.

“Good question. No. See? You could do this, Erin.”

Erin huffed.

“I shouldn’t have to play twenty questions with myself! Okay, so there’s not, like, a monster in there waiting to hit us.”

“Not hit you, no.”

Then there was a silence. Ulvama saw Erin stop and glance at her. The [Shaman] felt her skin crawl. Neither woman liked the way the Pavilion had just phrased that. Ulvama decided it was time for twenty questions after all. At least.

“What…kind of danger could we get in? No, that’s too open-ended. If we go in those doors and do the wrong thing, can we die?”

An easy no, then you worked your way up the—

The [Pavilion of Secrets] hesitated. Erin and Ulvama exchanged a long look, and the Skill coughed.

“I mean, immediately? Or do you mean get in the kind of trouble that gets you killed? Everyone dies in time.”

This time, both [Innkeeper] and [Shaman] were locking into the conversation. Erin leaned over the table.

“Start with immediate death.”

“…It’s remote. Can we disqualify heart attacks?”

“If we do, can you still rule out immediate death?”

The [Pavilion of Secrets] hesitated.

“There’s a set of circumstances where it could be pretty fast, but I feel like I’m being hampered by the rules. It’s highly, highly remote.”

“But possible.”

Pavilion-Erin raised her palms, defensive.

“Okay, listen, you’re supposed to open the doors. I feel like you’re being way too suspicious about all this. The other two holders did it, and they were fine!”

She hesitated.

“For a while. Damnit.”

Ulvama wasn’t actually that convinced there was immediate Facestealer levels of danger behind the doors, but she hadn’t lived this long by taking chances. She frowned at Erin, who was unnerved.

“Can I bar those doors somehow?”

“Nothing in there is going to come out!”

“…So there’s something in there? Hey, conjure some nails and wood for me. Actually, cancel that. Get me one of those giant cranes and fifty thousand tons of cement and prepare for a remodel—”

Ulvama forestalled Erin’s hilarious but probably pointless detour. She focused on the worried [Pavilion of Secrets].

“Paverin.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call her that.”

The two chorused instantly. Ulvama bared her teeth.

“Pavvy, question. Is one door more lethal than the others?”

“…Yes.”

“Which one?”

Dead silence. Erin Solstice edged over. She pointed at her door.

“Yuh?”

“Nuh.”

She pointed at Sheta’s door.

“Yuh?”

“Nuh.”

Ulvama watched as Erin alternated between Cormelex and Aleieta. Then she pointed.

“Yuh.”

“Nuh.”

Erin recoiled and leapt back from the door that was now the lethal one by default.

“Whoa. Are you serious? This is the death-door?”

“I’m not classifying it that way, but given the narrow set of rules you just gave me to answer in, yes.”

Pavilion-Erin was putting her feet up on the table and staring up at the sky. Ulvama got the impression it was sulking. The Hobgoblin eyed the door filled with imminent possible lethality.

Aleieta Reinhart’s door. Erin whistled.

“Ulvama, this is why you’re in here. High-five.”

They high-fived, and Ulvama murmured.

“Maybe she’s as smart and cunning as you, but also as dumb.”

“Hey!”

“A distinct possibility. If I could be Aleieta, I would. She was the most adaptive of your predecessors. All three were probably more intelligent by far. Does that answer your questions?”

Erin and Ulvama thought about it.

“So if we went into Sheta’s door, instant death…?”

“Unless you have a heart problem, you just don’t react to truths well, or have a blood pressure problem, not happening.”

“Can’t you tell if I have a blood pressure problem?”

“I only know what you do. When was the last time you went to see a doctor? April 22nd, 2015. You’re overdue for a checkup. And routine pap smears.”

“Bleh. I hate waiting in line. Pap smears? Why do you say this stuff?”

This was all highly entertaining. But it felt to Ulvama like they now had a choice. She stopped Erin from bantering with what was essentially herself.

“Erin, it’s decision time. Do we go through the doors? Sounds like we should avoid Aleieta first. Sheta, Cormelex…or we start bringing other people in here to talk.”

Erin stopped joking around and grew serious. She tensed up a bit, sighed.

“I’m down for whichever. But honestly, Ulvama? It’s rough. Like, super rough to talk to some people. The way I see it, we either talk to someone we don’t like, and it’s knives out, or it’s someone important, and we gotta be careful and smart, or a friend, and then it’s really…hard. Most people don’t know I’m—like this. They just see Nerry. And I—”

She felt at her hair, and she didn’t seem to remember the scars on her neck and arms. Ulvama gazed at Erin, and then she saw it.

Of course she doesn’t want to say hello to her friends. Ulvama had been less-than-sympathetic about Erin’s reluctance, but she imagined Erin being asked what happened to her. And her telling someone…

Silently, Ulvama patted Erin’s arm and resolved to be a bit nicer to her the next time she was stupid.

“Maybe we should do what you normally do in here.”

“Oho. That would be interesting.”

Erin Solstice stiffened.

“Uh, I don’t think that’s the best idea, Ulvama.”

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why not, Er—”

The [Innkeeper] pointed, and the Pavilion vanished. She winced and turned to Ulvama.

“Since I’m not gonna tell you the truth, um…we could do the inn! Mrsha would love to see you. I just called her last, but we can pull her in. Whaddya say?”

That sounded good, and Ulvama would have loved to toss Mrsha up and down, hug the child, and then bully her gently. But she was eying Erin and noticing that the [Innkeeper] was swaying a bit in her seat.

“Erin, how much energy is this taking?”

“What? Pssh, why do you ask? I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“Uh huh. How many people can you pull in here before you get tired or suffer effects in any way?”

Erin fiddled with her fingers.

“…Two? And it’s not bad after that.”

So we’re already halfway towards that limit. Ulvama remembered how Erin had looked after her Pisces-conversation. Happy, smiling—and so out of it that she’d sat in front of the fire and just peeled a Yellat for three hours straight. A Tallfolk-foot-long Yellat. With a tiny knife.

“Listen, Ulvama, you don’t worry about me. You just say who you want to meet and I’ll bring ‘em in until I get tired. I want to do this with you.”

The Hobgoblin smiled and patted Erin’s arm.

“Okay. But since we can’t waste meetings—we do smart meetings, okay? Let’s make a list, agree, then ask.”

Erin heaved a sigh.

“Organization. Fine. What, do we do a top ten list of Pavilion’s-Most-Wanted? I bet Pavvy already has one for us.”

Ulvama thought as Pavvy—who was definitely keeping that nickname—popped into place, leaning against the outside of the gazebo’s balconies, gazing in. Ulvama nodded.

“Okay, how about this? We do…one super-important guest, one super-important-to-us guest. Someone we need to talk to, someone we love.”

Erin blinked.

“Wait, so two hard conversations?”

“Yah. And we get list from Pavvy.”

They turned, and the [Pavilion of Secrets] blinked, legitimately astounded by this turn of events. She peered at Ulvama, then bared her teeth at Erin.

“I like her. You should keep practicing and levelling so you can activate my powers more and more. So, my list? It’s really your list.”

Erin exhaled and glanced at Ulvama.

“You heard the lady. Start with the big hitters.”

Pavvy nodded and spoke without missing a beat.

“Fine then. Top five visitors to the [Pavilion of Secrets], no takebacks! Nerrhavia, the Immortal Tyrant! The Quarass of Germina! Nereshal the Chronomancer, Silvenia the Death of Magic—”

She hesitated, produced a notepad, and crossed something off.

“Nope, wait, she’s unavailable. Damn. Thatalocian the Slave Lord and Belavierr the Stitch Witch. If she answers.”

Pavvy put down her list and beamed at the expressions on the two women’s faces. After a second, Ulvama lifted a wobbly claw.

“You—you got somewhere to puke? Maybe I need it.”

The immortal, nigh-omniscient being wearing Erin Solstice’s visage hesitated. A second time, her face fell.

“Aw.”

——

They made a decision. Not because they had promised in stone, even though Pavvy warned she’d be exceptionally annoying if they broke their word.

No—it was because they felt like she had a point. There was great danger here. If they would not open the doors, they had to…practice. Erin Solstice had met with Fetohep and Niers, but they were kindly players of this room.

The others would not be. Thus, the next visitor that had Ulvama shivering was almost an inevitability.

Of the list given to them, there was really only one decent pick, right?

And even then…

——

She came, she came.

The door opened, and the sands of Zeikhal blew inwards, a storm across the void. The winds howled, and the [Pavilion of Secrets] itself shuddered.

This was no Revenant of a few hundred years.

Nor the highest-levelled [Strategist] of this mortal era.

Nor even a cunning [Rogue].

The Pavilion put the invitation across the world in a second, and the two women inside waited not long for a reply to be received.

The moment she saw the door, the ruler of Ger stepped towards it. And she was smiling before she put a hand on the handle.

It did not matter when she was called or what condition she was in. If she were in a raging battle or lying sick with the ague, she would have taken the invitation.

That was just the being who she was. Countless lives compressed into one frail child’s body. How frustrating. How necessary to spite death itself. She had oh-so-many regrets already. Things she wished to do, but which her nation, level, or frail form did not allow.

Lifetimes of regrets, of poor choices and forms and personalities who led her astray. But always, the Quarass returned. She crawled her way back across the cycle of rebirth with the will of the first woman to take her class.

And this place…

She remembered this place.

The moment the girl saw the door and heard the words being read aloud to her, she knew what must be done. For she was, again, the Quarass.

She had been here before. Once in ignorance and defeated by the first owner she had met. Then she had been invited again and again, sparring wits with the greatest Reinhart of her era. Polishing her own mental blades and gaining experience until she was so dangerous the other owner had invited her in once—and never after.

Now, a third time they called for her, and she had far more knowledge accumulated over the aeons. Moreover, the Quarass’ mind was already in full-gear before the door opened.

This door is Erin Solstice’s. That it would be anyone else was ludicrous; Erin Solstice was the inheritor of the [Garden of Sanctuary]. It could only be her. Moreover, it was the real Erin Solstice.

Fetohep of Khelt was not that canny, nor was the imposter a perfect actress. The Quarass had no real intentions of blackmailing Erin Solstice anyways. The Titan had paid a small sum for her silence, though he hadn’t answered her on whether the fake was a Fraerling in disguise or that Hobgoblin, the Quarass’ assumptions. One could not know everything…well, unless the Quarass were to gain the [Pavilion of Secrets].

Sadly, despite lifetimes of trying, the will of levels had never given her even the [Garden of Sanctuary]. As if it were reluctant to hand her the tools she believed she could use to maximum advantage…

The door swung open, and the Quarass breathed in and out. She walked forwards, and the child vanished.

A taller woman with a fully-formed brain halted in the walkway towards the gazebo and saw a new structure waiting for her.

So this is what she thinks of the [Pavilion of Secrets]. So much less grand than her peers. It is neither a stifling room nor a window into the infinite, but the infinite around us all. Yet we reside in a humble building. Fitting of her.

She was surely damaged. Perhaps dying. If she had survived her wounds, then the scars of what she had done were scarcely healing. The Quarass advanced towards the gazebo and saw the young woman sitting there.

“Uh oh. I’m having second thoughts.”

The moment Erin Solstice saw the Quarass in the flesh, she paled, and the Quarass of Germina smiled. Her eyes swept towards the second figure who sat there, her confidence gone. Borne away by the winds before she saw the woman striding towards them. The Quarass of Germina dipped her head.

“Be at ease, Erin Solstice. I am still the Quarass of Ger you witness on scrying orbs. That I wear a more fitting form to speak as equals, with my full faculties, is but a weakness upon my part. I come to you in friendship now, with no intention of harm or malice. May I sit with you?”

She was impatient, perhaps, to skip this dance. Yet the [Innkeeper] was swallowing. Her eyes were flickering, and the Quarass was endlessly curious about her. A girl who claimed to have met ghosts. Who had knowledge the Quarass had longed for.

Yet they had not had time to converse properly until now. The Quarass had been cognizant of the risks. If Erin Solstice had used her [World’s Eye Theatre], even then, the Quarass would have been circumspect. But this place…she had been waiting for Erin Solstice to gain custodianship of this place. For the Quarass had known it was possible. So she had waited, a patient player playing a thousand games in the sand against the world, and this moment had been but one she had anticipated.

This meeting had long been ordained. But she was pleased that despite the wait, the young woman had tempered herself. The [Innkeeper]’s nervous voice was replaced by a look of concentration.

“Wait. Does the ‘now’ mean you’re not intending to harm or be malicious to me now or at all times? And you can sit, yes.”

Her eyes flicked to the Quarass’ face, and a smile crossed the Quarass’ expression. It unnerved the two, and she sat.

“Such an amusing way to begin our conversation, Erin Solstice, Ulvama of the Mountain City tribe. Grammar is a fascinating component of levels and Skills. The language we speak, that your people call ‘English’, is an imperfect vessel. It allows for interesting tricks to be performed.”

She indulged them in the pointless lesson for a moment. Pointless, because they had known the answer. Language was a weapon here. Thought was a weapon.

She?

She was the ultimate weapon here. They should have called for anyone else if they thought to hone their edge.

Anyone else in the world.

Here, in this place, in this moment—

The Quarass was unmatched.

Witness her.

They did. The woman who sat between the two…

She had no face.

——

This was a mistake. Ulvama realized it the moment the [Pavilion of Secrets] shuddered. The Quarass of Germina—

She was tall and short. Male, female, Human, Stitch-folk, Garuda—all these things at once. She came into the [Pavilion Sanctuary] not as the child she was, but who she was entirely.

All her bodies at once. She didn’t alternate between them. Rather, it was like a haze of every body moving at once. Glancing at Erin, sitting—

The medium of all these beings was a woman, Stitch-folk or Human, who was of middling height. But her features weren’t visible.

When she spoke, a thousand mouths moved at once, then vanished. Her eyes were ten thousand pupils and none. A mannequin’s face smeared with the details of lifetimes melded together such that precise features became nothing.

Not just species that surprised Ulvama.

She made out a single lifetime after she had stopped shaking. A crouching half-Giant, hair pulled back in a scorpion’s tail, face jet black, eyes staring at infinity as she knelt—

And a Goblin was there, sitting in the chair, crimson eyes glowing as she smiled knowingly at Ulvama. 

Goblin, half-Giant, Demon, Djinni, oh dead gods, she was all things.

Erin Solstice spoke slowly.

“I invited you in here to speak openly, Quarass. To trade secrets. I don’t think we’re enemies. Are we?”

That head turned, and the Quarass flicker-smiled again.

“That is what you desired. But it is not the reason I acceded, Erin Solstice. This is to be a lesson. One that the Skill itself desires. It has met me in two incarnations before. Aleieta Reinhart never let it take physical form, but it knew me. I am far, far older than when we last met. From one being made of a Skill to another, it must surely be curious of what I have become. Perhaps it even manipulated you to this moment. Is it selfish, I do not know. None have permitted me to speak to it in privacy. But know this: I am wrought of a Skill as well. My will and loyalty to Germina has never wavered throughout aeons.”

Alarmed, Erin swung her eyes to Ulvama. Had they been tricked? The Quarass lifted a hand.

“Behold.”

The wind blew through the open door, and the sand stung Erin Solstice’s skin. She lifted a hand, and the sandstorm covered the gazebo. 

“Ulv—”

This was a mistake. Erin reached for the Hobgoblin, and then the sand buried her. 

Everything.

——

“Ulvama!”

Erin Solstice burst out of the sand, choking and coughing. She pulled herself out, and sand fell around her, fine and…endless.

A single figure was coughing, on her knees. Ulvama was also covered in sand, and she saw Erin scrabbling up.

“We’ve been tricked. The Pavilion—she got us. I have to send her out.”

Could she even do that before the Quarass wanted to go? Erin didn’t know. She didn’t know where the Quarass was. Ulvama rose to her feet and turned.

“Is this the Great Desert? Erin, what has she done?”

The world had changed. Erin had seen Fetohep do this, and she was familiar with this trick herself. But it was far, far more vivid than the other visions. She felt the sand under her feet. And wherever she turned, there was just…

Sand.

Flat, endless, the wind blowing across a dark horizon. There was light, but no stars. No sun. Erin didn’t get it.

“Is she trapping us here? Where’s the Quarass?”

“Here.”

The voice came from behind Erin and Ulvama. The [Innkeeper] whirled, reaching for a knife. Ulvama produced a glowing orb of fire. The two women stared as the sand moved…then someone sat up.

The Quarass of Germina, the child that Erin Solstice had seen on the scrying orb, the person she thought she’d get, sat up out of the sand. The dusky-skinned girl with makeup on her face and regal clothing stared past Erin, towards the horizon.

She was blank-faced. And her head…

The back of her head was open. As if someone had removed part of her head. There were no brains within as her lips moved. Just pale vapor.

“Quarass? What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

The voice that replied wasn’t female. The sand moved behind Erin, and when she whirled—

Another Quarass sat up out of the sands. Only, it was no Human girl.

A rough-looking Dullahan with a once-broken nose sat up. His armor was barbed; he had decorated skulls etched into the rusting metal plating. Yet his scarred face was as blank as the first Quarass. Sand fell from his body as Erin whispered.

“Are you…doing something to us?”

“Not to you.”

A third figure rose. The same half-Giant that Ulvama had glimpsed, a colossus sitting, holding up her hand. One palm held in front of her chest, like half a prayer. Then there was another voice.

“This is me.”

A fourth body—a Goblin with near-black skin and crimson eyes. She had bones braided into her hair. Erin’s mouth moved.

“You were a Goblin.”

“I was every species I could find. I had to know.”

A Djinni sat up, speaking. Then another Quarass rose without speaking. And another.

The sand around them was moving. Erin and Ulvama stood back-to-back as they saw more figures sitting up. Each one’s head was hollowed out. They all faced in the same direction. Eyes focused on something that Erin and Ulvama couldn’t see. Then Erin saw it.

“Oh. Oh no. I didn’t call all of you into here. I called…”

“All of them?”

Ulvama got it too. An army was rising from the sands. Each and every life that the Quarass had ever lived. The prior Quarass, who had led Germina to calamity against Flos Reimarch, sat next to her mother.

And more were rising. How many lives had she lived? The assemblage did not speak as one. It was just one mouth out of the many. Each time a different body, answering Erin Solstice or Ulvama.

“I did not think to do this until Aleieta Reinhart. I had few lives then. When I learned this, she refused to summon me again. Cormelex the same when I overplayed my hand upon our first meeting. You see me far older.”

“Wh-why are you doing this?”

Was she using this place against them somehow? Erin was feeling at herself. Ulvama had the same thought.

“If she’s using her mind against us. Like a Mind of Selphids?”

“I have less interest in you than you imagine, Ulvama. Even you, Erin Solstice, are second to my goals here. Witness me as few have ever known me. What am I doing?”

Erin shook off the terror gripping her and Ulvama and forced herself to focus on the empty heads and that pulsating…what? Thoughts? The Quarass’ bodies were…just sitting there.

If this was meant to be an ambush, she should have killed them already. If you could even fight here like that…she had to tell the truth unless she was beyond this place. So she was truthful when she said she wasn’t actually after them.

So this—

Erin’s eyes widened, and she turned.

“Are you here, Quarass?”

“Yes. In every body you see.”

The army of Quarasses had to encompass over a thousand lives. If each one was a thinking body, then…Erin imagined something from science fiction. She whispered.

“Are you thinking?”

“Yes.”

Ulvama’s head turned, and the Quarass smiled across each face. Slowly, she lifted her other hand and formed a circle with her fingers or claws. She sat there…meditating.

Thinking. That was all.

“I am grateful, Erin Solstice. Germina owes you a debt. I am limited by each body. Even Djinni cannot encompass me. But here? I am thinking.”

“What of?”

“The future. What else? The fate of Germina.”

“You’re a supercomputer.”

An organic one. Erin saw it; the Quarass was leveraging all the lives she’d lived to link her thoughts together. She didn’t even need science fiction; she’d seen this before.

“The Antinium have done this.”

“Ah.”

A sigh of contentment from each voice, and Erin and Ulvama hugged each other in sudden terror. For every Quarass had focused on that. Then she went back to speaking with one voice.

“Then, perhaps, my next incarnation is to become Antinium. If they could encompass me, Germina shall be as it never was before. Even the first Quarass could not match my accumulated knowledge. But I am here. So speak, Erin Solstice. As I am now, I understand anything you would care to tell me.”

“Even stuff like the supercomputers?”

“A linked amalgamation of devices such as I was showed by Elena Othonos. Yes. I can picture it. Golems have done the same. Before they became a people, Stitch-folk were capable of the same. [Mages] have tried it. Selphids have mastered it. What your world has done with machinery has been done with flesh and magic.”

She answered so fast and with such precision that Erin was fascinated. If she had known of the Oracle of Elbe, she would have seen in the Quarass the truth behind that being. This was the Quarass of legends, the reason Chandrar came to seek her knowledge.

She knew everything, or enough to mean supplicating her aid was invaluable. Erin could ask her—

Ulvama’s claws squeezed Erin’s arm.

“Erin. Exile her from the [Pavilion of Secrets]. Now!”

“What? Why?”

The Hobgoblin’s eyes were wide.

“She’s thinking! She’s using each second here—each second you give her, she’s thinking of—of so much! She’s stalling so you let her think. Throw her out! You have the power!”

Erin hesitated, and the Quarass chuckled. One of her bodies turned. The child gazed up at Erin Solstice, and her lips curved skywards.

“Allow me to stay, Erin Solstice, and you do this world, every world, a favor.”

“Why?”

Erin saw the child’s head dip.

“Is it not logical? I am Germina. My thoughts are of the future of my beloved Shield Kingdom. I will do nothing that will drive Germina closer to extinction. Give me access to this place, and I shall move the world to continue and flourish for eternity. I am a foe of the Seamwalkers who climb from beyond the world’s edge, of the six dead Gods who plague you. I am what I have always been: Chandrar’s protector and guide.”

She was making sense. However, the Hobgoblin’s claws dug into Erin’s arm. Ulvama focused on the Quarass, and she spat.

“She is Germina’s ruler, Erin. What happens if she has to weigh Germina against the rest of the world? Which would you choose, Quarass? What happens when she decides the only way to keep Germina safe is to control it all? Or that to have this place, she has to capture you so she has it forever?”

The lack of an immediate reply was an answer in itself. Erin Solstice realized that each second she hesitated—

“Ask me a question, Erin Solstice, and I shall answer it with the wisdom of the Quarass. Is that not a worthy trade?”

Here came her poison. Erin Solstice wavered, and Ulvama scream-whispered.

“Each moment—!”

“The future is infinite possibilities, Ulvama. How much damage could be done by an hour’s repose? I tell you honestly: I could not plot a year of Germina’s future beyond uncertainty even if you gave me a day. I beg for each minute. Ask, Erin Solstice. I shall remember this debt.”

The [Innkeeper] was caught in indecision. But she was no longer stupefied. The Quarass might have bought more time without Ulvama. Now, Erin focused, and she asked a different question.

“Does that mean you will never do something against my interests, Quarass? That you will be my unconditional ally?”

Silence. Ulvama hissed.

“Each second—!”

“Answer me, Quarass, or I will throw you—”

“No. I shall weigh you like every other being upon the board I play against entropy. Including myself.”

That answer was not the one that Erin wanted, nor, clearly, the one the Quarass wanted to give. But she did have to obey the rules.

“—You are trapped in Baleros. I was a Fraerling. I recognize their clothing. I see the Death of Magic’s hand in this. It behooves us to be allies.”

“If you betray us, I will never allow you in here again.”

“Then I promise I shall not reveal your location. Will that suffice?”

A promise on the [Pavilion of Secrets]. It wasn’t enough. Erin Solstice’s heart was racing. She thought she could feel the thoughts moving around her. The entire desert shifted with the weight of that intelligence.

Make the most of this. Or just kick her out—Erin had an idea. When you didn’t know the best move—the computer always did. She exhaled, spoke rapidly.

“Quarass. Tell me something worth me keeping you here. Or begone.”

For a second, the Quarass of Germina paused, and Erin was opening her mouth to call upon the [Pavilion of Secrets] when the being responded.

“I do not know the full power of the [Pavilion of Secrets]. I am not omnipotent. Nevertheless, my observations of Aleieta Reinhart’s charmed life told me her power was not just knowledge gleaned via this Skill. It often seemed to me that she was a master of secrets. Both the keeping and revelations.”

“That’s not—”

“I am the Quarass of Germina. You may fear me. We may clash, but I am an authority of Chandrar. Perhaps the only Shield Kingdom who values order. I am not alone. The Emperor of Drath, the Four Great Companies—Terandrian Kingdoms—there are those of us who put the good of this world over our interests because we know we must. But we have no answers for why you came here.”

Erin paused. The Quarass was murmuring.

“I see a conclusion I dare not utter. But I have no proof. Had you proof, you would unite powers that would otherwise refrain from action. I would use the power of the [Pavilion of Secrets], Erin Solstice, to solve the greatest question of this era. Who unleashed the plague of Earthers upon this world?”

Ulvama’s claws digging into Erin’s skin loosened, and Erin’s eyes widened.

“Can I—?”

She saw the Quarass smiling.

“Ask me another question, Erin Solstice.”

The [Innkeeper] stood there as the wind blew over her skin. She closed her eyes.

“Quarass…where is the legacy of Elves?”

Ulvama recoiled. The Quarass’ heads rose as one and slowly turned. The vast being hesitated.

“…In the Labyrinth of Souls, I suspect. On the green moon. The Gnomes’ legacy is in their Last Boxes—”

“Where else?”

Hesitation. Erin Solstice threw up a hand.

“Quarass, begone from the [Pavilion of Secrets]!”

The wind blowing across the sand halted. Slowly, it reversed, and the grains of sand blew over Erin Solstice’s shoulder. She turned—and a door lay open. Pulling the infinite desert out. The figures sitting in the sand sighed. Tried to hold onto this place.

The wind blew, and they began to vanish. But even the [Pavilion of Secrets] could not immediately exile the Quarass. So she spoke, all her voices, now.

“For the sake of the world, may it be enough time. Invite me again, Erin Solstice. When you need me, I shall be there.”

“You’re not helpful for what I need.”

Erin Solstice shook her head, and the Quarass’ lips twisted.

“You ask the few questions I cannot answer. Would you instead like to know your heart’s love? Or the location of the Heartflame Set? The truth of the Demons?”

“Get out of my [Pavilion].”

The sitting figures blew away. The girl was the last. Sand whipped over her face as she opened her eyes, and an expression of infinite frustration and regret crossed her features. She drew a veil around her face and nodded at Erin.

“Let this be your lesson. I have been paid. You were hasty; I was thinking. I do not know any other location of a certainty, but I know where one last place the legacy of Elves may hide. It is merely a guess…but the Skills that few know to look for. The House of Minos, the Goblins of the Molten Stone Tribe, my nation—the [Labyrinth of Fithel]. It is unconquered. A prize unto all who possess it. Gentle until one enters deeper. No one has ever found the end. But once, one of my incarnations found their way out of that Skill and into another one.”

She stood, and she was vanishing now. She strode past Erin, towards the door, sand whirling around her.

“Perhaps, if you found the world’s greatest pathseeker, you would find it. Not in the [Labyrinth of Fithel], but deeper. Where else to hide their legacy but in the first Skills ever created? The heart of the system that governs all?”

“W-what?”

The legacy of Elves was hidden in a Skill? The Quarass’ eyes flashed with a conclusion beyond Erin’s imagination. She smiled, and the [Innkeeper]’s breath caught.

It left Erin Solstice reeling. The Goblin by her side gasping for air. Had her old tribe been close to…?

——

The Grand Design wavered. They’d hidden it…?

Impossible.

Could it be—? There were many Skills that it had been made with. Countless more it had created, variants of existing Skills adapted for a class.

But a few Skills it had been created with had never been gifted. The conditions were too specific, often religious, and that had been fine. The Grand Design had waited for those worthy of each and every one.

The techniques of Gods and immortals should not be given lightly. But that comment?

It sorted through itself. Isolated by location-based Skills. Those never assigned.

Three Skills.

It manually noted each one, discarding two. One had been made for a species that had died when the Grand Design had been made.

Orcs.

The other was for a class which had never reached Level 70. It would wait for them, a gifted room designed by a being whose name had been blasted from the Grand Design’s records.

The last…

The Grand Design stared at the requirements, grim. And then it saw it. It did not question why the things it was made with were there. Like a child, it had ascribed the laws that governed it to be perfect. The willful ignorance of the system that governed levels…might be by design.

So, there it was again. A nasty shock. A conclusion that meant the Quarass had earned her levels, even she who so rarely gained them. Even the name seemed…different. As if written by a hand different from all the others, a delicate scrawl.

[The Record Room of the Levelless Peoples]. A room smaller in size than the [Garden of Sanctuary]. Connected, yes, connected to the mazes and other Skills, but buried deep. At the bottom of it all, because to access other location-Skills? Few beings could do that, even with authority-Skills like Serinpotva.

Some places like the [Labyrinth of Fithel] allowed it; for explorers to slip to places even the creators hadn’t known. For both horror and adventure beyond any dreams. A loophole the Grand Design had allowed because it made Skills interesting.

In theory, you could reach this spot, but accessing higher-level Skills grew exponentially more difficult the greater they were. That no one had ever been granted this Skill or found it in the rare wanderings? The Grand Design read the requirements grimly.

[The Record Room of the Levelless Peoples]. Class restriction—none. Action requirement—none. Species, age—a thousand variables, all as open as could be. Few Skills were like that. Except for one thing, anyone in the world could gain it.

There were only two notes on the Skill.

Level requirement—Level 99. To be awarded on level-up immediately, regardless of any other factors.

It wondered what was inside. The Grand Design gazed at the Skill buried in its heart.

And like the Last Boxes…

It didn’t know.

——

The Quarass of Germina wore the self-satisfied smile of Dragons. Of a being so beyond others that she had manipulated the very world into carving a path for her to walk. She turned her head as her shades vanished, a collective being who grew with each of her deaths.

In time, someday, she might eclipse the number of souls in Germina. That was her long game, and even the Stitch Witch had admired her play. Hers was the longest of gambles. If Germina lived, the Quarass would eventually become a being beyond any other.

Surely. She lifted a hand, a thousand souls playing across her face. Smiling down at the [Innkeeper] who stood there, shaking with the knowledge the Quarass had chosen to gift her. Just enough to leave her in need of more.

“Until we next meet, Erin Solstice.”

As if she were utterly confident Erin would call for her again. She turned, and Ulvama quailed before those eyes.

She had erred. She should have—they couldn’t have prepared for her. Had she and Erin messed up terribly? The [Shaman] felt squished, small.

Erin Solstice was hanging her head, gritting her teeth with impatience, trying to think. She gazed at Ulvama, and the Hobgoblin saw those hazel eyes focus on her. Then narrow. The [Innkeeper] turned as the wind blew backwards, taking the great desert with it. She spoke, and Ulvama saw the grains of sand halting in the air.

“[Immortal Moment].”

The Quarass’ head slowly turned back. She raised a single eyebrow, and the [Innkeeper] charged across the sand. Her knees bent, and the galas-muscle in her legs pulsed.

She leapt at the Quarass, and the immortal being turned fully. Amused. An attempt at violence? An embarrassed woman’s temper? A burgeoning lover’s defensiveness? She had expected more of—

“Quarass! I summon you!”

Erin slammed into the Quarass of Germina. The door stopped closing, and the two tumbled, hitting the ground. The Quarass of Germina rolled, and Erin Solstice smacked into the ground. The Quarass jumped to her feet nimbly, amused.

What was this? Was she going to throw herself on her mercy, pledge her servitude to the Quarass, and give her access to this place in perpetuity? That had been deemed a statistically impossible chance, but the Quarass would take it. She threw up a palm, gazing up at the [Innkeeper].

“Your offense, Erin Solstice, I permit but once. If you would barter for another moment of my time…”

The [Innkeeper] got up, panting. Her eyes were alight with a sudden, victorious triumph. The Quarass stared up at her in sudden concern.

She sensed a trap. But the [Pavilion of Secrets] did not allow direct harm—just destruction by other means. One could destroy a foe’s mind or twist it, as Aleieta and Cormelex had done, but Erin Solstice was not so capable or merciless yet…

Maybe…

Hold on…

Wait, what was she doing?

The Quarass of Germina was flummoxed. She searched her mind for answers and came up with absolute squat. That experience hadn’t ever happened to her in millennia. It was so concerning she blinked up at Erin and backed up a step before realizing the second odd thing.

She was…

Staring up at Erin Solstice. But a moment ago, she had been taller, the amalgamation of—

The Quarass felt at herself. She peered down and saw two sandaled feet beneath her. Ten wiggling toes painted with emergency poisons and substances. Germina’s royal dress upon her, a light toga-style tunic pinned with a brooch tipped with poison in the pin. And her face was round. Skin still soft. She felt at her face—

Then the Quarass of Germina, the current Quarass of Germina, stared up at Erin Solstice. A girl of ten opened and closed her mouth. Reached for the gestalt being who was her and greater than her, the true Quarass who walked in her flesh—

She was gone. The girl who had once been Sendila Krusal of Ger looked up and realized what the [Innkeeper] had done. Her eyes went round—right before Erin Solstice put her in a headlock and began to rub one fist into her hair.

“Gotcha!”

“You—you—unhand me you—”

The little ruler of Germina began to struggle as Ulvama stared at Erin. The [Innkeeper]? She just cackled.

——

How did one beat the Quarass of Germina? One did not. But as Niers Astoragon might have speculated…you didn’t have to beat an impossible foe, just cut the ground out from under them. Starve them. Or isolate the being that you could beat up on.

Like the modern incarnation of the Quarass, who was, when you got down to it, only a little girl—

“Ow, ow, ow, I give!”

Ulvama stopped admiring Erin Solstice’s mad genius when it became clear that alone the Quarass might be, but helpless—not quite.

She had gotten Erin in an armbar and was glaring as she sat on Erin’s back.

“Inconvenient. It seems I underestimated the true potential of this Skill. This, I grant you, was clever, Erin Solstice. It seems I must wait until the next inheritor of this Skill for another simple victory. But you will summon me in my entirety next time.”

“Ulvama, help me!”

After a moment, the [Shaman] walked over and picked the Quarass up. The furious child tried to turn on Ulvama and execute another grappling move or grab her brooch.

Ulvama punted the Quarass. She was an expert in child punting and had plenty of Mrsha practice. Erin sprang up, and they watched the Quarass soar for a second, then land—

The ground caught the Quarass, curving up to form a hand. She halted, gazing imperiously down at them.

“I can see we are stalemated. If mockery is your only goal, a slight redress of your pride—well done.”

She was sneering down at them, chin raised, the image of haughty imperium. Unlike before…Erin and Ulvama both felt it.

A kid was putting on the airs of monarchy. No, she was monarchy and aged with the decisions she had made in the nearly two-year period she had reigned.

…But she was still a kid. She did not speak with the weight of a thousand lives, and it made Erin crack her knuckles.

“Okay, wanna beat her up?”

She turned to Ulvama, and the Quarass and Hobgoblin stared at her. Ulvama whispered.

“Erin, you’re a genius.”

“Aw, shucks. I just thought—y’know, she was so high-and-mighty, and no one’s perfect—”

Erin blushed and flicked her hair back in a very Matha-like way. Ulvama whispered.

“What’s the next part?”

“Hm? Oh, I figure we give her a few noogies, hold her upside down and shake her, then huck her out. Y’know, just so she knows who she’s messing with.”

The Quarass’ eyes narrowed as Erin sidled left. She snapped open her brooch, and Ulvama just bet it was very venomous. She didn’t want to know if hypothetical Pavilion-damage translated to their real bodies, especially since they were here. She nodded.

Erin Solstice, a genius of ruining people’s plans. Truly, even the Quarass had to admit that. Just one thing.

“Erin? Hold out your arm?”

Erin obligingly did.

“What, do you want to clothesline her? Okay, let’s waaaaaaah—hublegh. Ulvama!”

That was the sound of Ulvama grabbing Erin’s arm and executing her own full-body throw on the [Innkeeper]. The child-Quarass stopped crouching and eyed Ulvama, vaguely impressed.

Ulvama strode past Erin, who lay on her back. She marched up to the Quarass. Her turn. The child-ruler of Germina watched her warily, and Ulvama pinched her cheek.

“You is so cute. You want snacks? Erin, make snacks.”

The Quarass’ eyes narrowed further, but Ulvama bent down.

“Is the big Quarass mean to you? Tell Shaman Ulvama.”

The girl hesitated, raised her brooch—and the Hobgoblin smiled as the [Innkeeper] poked her head up. The Quarass of Germina who lived, the being with the power of all her past memories, hesitated…and then frowned at Erin.

“What kind of snacks?”

——

The Quarass of Germina chewed on a can of Pringles chips as Erin Solstice and Ulvama watched her. She was trying every flavor that Erin Solstice had ever eaten. She was gulping down soda, too; she’d had eight cans, and even Ulvama, who had a tongue for snacks and sweet foods, was mildly astounded.

“I would prefer a cake as well. Chiffon, chocolate, strawberry—”

“Um…sure.”

Erin made them for the Quarass, and the girl dug a fork into each one greedily. When she saw them staring at her, she froze. Dabbed at some frosting on her cheek and wore that icy expression.

“This is purely…experiential deadening of desires. It behooves me not at all to consume wasteful products. My diet is one to be regulated, especially at my age.”

“So you don’t eat sweets?”

“I permit myself one at official functions out of politeness. I have the memories of each incarnation. I have eaten more sweets of surpassing variety and delightfulness than you shall ever make even if you reach Level 80, Erin Solstice. Particularly with your talents as a culinary expert.”

“Hey, rude.”

She was talking like the Quarass, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her at times. Like when she was presented with a shaken bottle of Coca Cola and it sprayed her in the face. The naked surprise before it turned to wrath betrayed the truth.

She doesn’t have the memories of old. Even so, it was the Quarass; she coldly produced a pitcher of water to wash herself. Then glanced pointedly at Ulvama.

“You would do well to caution your friend that my wrath upon returning to my body will be weighed by the potential uses Erin Solstice has. Her location may be protected by our pact. The fate of her friends not. Lyonette du Marquin relies on my advice. It would be inconvenient for her if that wisdom were withdrawn.”

That was pretty ominous and dark. Erin opened her mouth to tell the Quarass what she thought of that, and Ulvama smacked her.

“Ow, Ulvama!”

“Stop being mean to cute child.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call her that!”

Ulvama ignored both. She was inspecting the Quarass up and down, and it was she who was understanding more of what to do here. She rolled over onto her front and cupped her head in her hands as the Quarass uncomfortably ate.

“So you have many lives in you. But you’re still you. Just with big memories. Is it…painful?”

“I am the Quarass of Germina. I have the knowledge of old; it is just this shell that inhibits and guides my personality. You know the one before me was a fool? She was less intelligent, literally so after so many drugs and a wasted youth, prone to excesses of emotion. She could not wield my intelligence. She was, in fact, a remarkably good prison for my true being. Some have crafted traps of equal magnitude. To have one pop up organically was inconvenient. But the Quarass before her was also shortsighted in her way. I will be better. I must be.”

The child muttered. She glanced around, then produced something else. She filled a cup with white wine and lit a cigarette. She was gulping half the wine and beginning to smoke when Erin grabbed both.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Indulging. I have lifetimes of addictions to drink and other substances. It is…inconvenient. Some memories invariably dredge their way upwards despite my control. It is akin to drawing a bucket from a water source with both good water and filth. Contaminants.”

The Quarass lit another cigarette and closed her eyes as she exhaled. Then saw Erin and Ulvama regarding each other.

“I am a master of my desires. This is simply convenient.”

Suddenly, Erin felt bad for the kid. She turned and Ulvama’s eyes were all crinkled up. With concern.

“And big Quarass, she not mean to you?

“I am the Quarass, dolt. Everything you say to me I shall recall—that you have limited my intelligence is no great victory. I still know all my conclusions. Be respectful or you will pay for it.”

The [Shaman] dodged the cigarette. She went to pat the Quarass on the shoulder.

“Yah, I know. You doing a good job. Everyone scared of you. But the big Quarass—she talks a big game. But that’s the thing about big Chieftains. Sometimes, they sacrifice small people. The Quarass and you aren’t exactly the same. You okay?”

The child hesitated. She swung her painted eyes to Erin, to Ulvama, and puffed furiously on the cigarette a second. Then stubbed it out, sighing and coughing.

“My memories glorify this act far more than it should be. Bah. Peh. Whatever I discuss I shall recall. You understand this? You understand I am the Quarass and my will has always been to Ger? This body, who I was…I loved both Quarass and Ger. I am not gifted in magic, strength, nor any other quality, but loyalty…”

She closed her eyes.

“Loyalty and will are the two aspects I have always needed most. Do you see that? Or just a child?”

Erin sat crosslegged, as Ulvama drew back. The [Innkeeper] answered.

“I see the Quarass. But I also see a kid. You can be both. And like I said, I just did this because I thought it’d get back at you. But you are the Quarass, the real one in a way. The one who matters.”

The girl’s head rose a bit, and she stopped eating more chips.

“I am infinite—”

“But you’re the one who gets to lead. Until you die, you’re the Quarass. Don’t sell yourself short. C’mon, let’s hang. The big you did her thing, spooked us out, made her plans. What say us mortals chum it up a bit, huh?”

Erin smiled, and the girl sat there. She brushed at her black hair, studied her sandaled toes, wiggling the painted nails. And then she gazed at Erin and Ulvama.

Because it was the [Pavilion of Secrets], where such mysteries were given, because it was them, and perhaps because it might be the only time she would ever be herself, even as she was still the Quarass, the girl smiled. Not entirely bleakly, but sadly.

“Very well. You are right, Erin Solstice, Ulvama of the Molten Stone tribe. It is hard to be a being who considers their own transient lives part of a greater game. I used my time well. I saw many futures, came to conclusions it would have taken me years to do without this place.”

She traced a finger in the sand as wind whirled around them. Sighed as she lifted a hand, and molten metal fell behind her. Erin jumped—and saw a hammer falling.

A magical hammer like the kind the Dwarves used. Then a contraption, a huge silo-like tub of steel. A group of [Alchemists] striding past her wearing head-to-toe suits, like a hazmat suit but of different materials. The Quarass saw Erin’s expression.

“I calculated the formulas to make the metals and substances of your world based on what Earthers had taught me and my own knowledge. The way in which it might be standardized, the foundation of factories laid, assembly lines. Electricity…bah. I saw what was practical to focus on, what was achievable given the speed at which this world progresses. I calculated the fate of nations.”

The King of Destruction stood there a moment, grinning, before a multi-headed Stitch-person rose in the distance. Roshal’s harbors, the King of Khelt kneeling—

The Quarass whispered.

“The fate of nations, politics, all of what might be to find Germina’s path. To make it both power and keep it from being so mighty it is the greatest target. And…”

She wore that smile now. Sad, not bleak, but just sad. As if she had hoped for more. She wiped at her right eye, and a single tear glimmered there.

“And myself. I foresaw my own end and how to spend my life better and choose the next Quarass. If it is needed, very…quickly, too. Both near and far, plans for both. So yes, it is sometimes hard.”

She gazed at them, chin rising, proud, resigned—and Erin Solstice and Ulvama tackled her in a hug. Then they decided the [Pavilion of Secrets] had a new, permanent resident.

The Quarass—disagreed.

——

“I do not need sympathy. I have made the best choice for Germina. Put me down.”

“No! No! Hold on, I’m gonna call in the other you except for the you right here and belt her one. We have to change her mind! Or—Ulvama, what do you think?”

“You very brave. You don’t have to listen to her.”

The two were getting emotional, even if neither one was crying. The Quarass sighed.

“Listen to me. I do not desire my death. My class is highly specific. Changing forms is not to be done lightly; there is risk, and if the ritual fails, I may be banished as much as an entire generation. As well, a new body, even if it were the King of Destruction, will not be able to draw on my memories. I am not expendable. I…considered myself important enough. I am simply weighing myself fairly.”

Perhaps that was her own ego, not being willing to die. That she had considered it was more than other Quarasses—Erin picked up the Quarass. Ran around with her desperately. The Quarass stared at her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m giving you a horseback ride! All the things a kid should have, not—not facing your own death!”

The Quarass rolled her eyes as she swayed left and right to avoid slipping.

“If it makes you feel better. Erin Solstice, you understand. What is a child’s life compared to—”

“Don’t. If you’re about to talk about Mrsha or—just don’t.”

Erin slowed, panting, and put the Quarass down. She sat there as the Quarass sat too. The child murmured.

“I do not want to die. I…appreciate your concerns, but I thought with the knowledge of ages.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes the knowledge of ages sounds like an AI, a computer. That’s—”

“I understand everything you are about to try to poorly explain. I have talked to Earthers. I understand. The Quarass can be…impartial.”

She was impartial, harsh. She had used Vaitsha harshly, and she pushed so many to breaking because she had to have useful tools. So she often left them broken because she could not wait for them to grow into true power.

A flaw of hers. The Quarass saw Erin glance at Ulvama. The Hobgoblin kept offering the Quarass snacks.

“Here, you try.”

The Quarass bit some licorice off a stick as Erin thought.

“I get that. But Quarass…can I call you Quarry?”

“No.”

“Fine, we have too many names like that anyways. Quarass? I know you are Germina and you have to do things your way. Maybe the super-Quarass does see it all and has a vision of the future better than anyone’s. Maybe.”

The [Innkeeper] focused on the child, and her stare was earnest before she smiled, almost mischievously.

“…But if you are the Quarass Who Lives, the one in charge…is there any wiggle room in her great schemes? Is there a way you get to…live while doing all the big stuff? Maybe it’s slightly less optimal, but what does she know? Better a super-cool, high-level Quarass than some new idiot, right? Can you think of a way to alter her plans from in here?”

The girl-ruler stopped chewing and cocked her head at Erin. Her piercing, old, resigned eyes lit up suddenly, and she swallowed. Patted her mouth with some sand, wiped it, and then gazed at Erin. Ulvama hugged the [Innkeeper] in delight, and the Quarass exhaled.

“Hah. Perhaps you would have been a fine Queen of Khelt. Very well. I shall add you to my list of candidates for Quarass. Somewhere at the bottom, but if you wish to rise, you may dispose of my competitors.”

Erin Solstice lost her smile. She gave the Quarass an uncertain look as the girl smiled, then laughed and stretched out. She stared at the sky.

“Give me a moment to…think, then. And another ride.”

“You bet! Piggie back? Horse?”

“I shall sit on your back as you crawl. One of my predecessors moved about purely in that style. I wish to try it without becoming an unhinged despot.”

“Go ahead, Erin.”

“Aw, Ulvama—”

——

Thus, the Quarass of Germina surprised even herself. She ate snacks, she rode a grumbling [Innkeeper], and thought for a moment.

When she announced she had thought of something, she smiled. That was all. She refused to say what she’d thought of, but she beckoned Erin Solstice over. The [Innkeeper] sat as the Quarass braided Ulvama’s hair into a style of Germina’s. Just because she could, and the Quarass did not braid anyone’s hair unless she had a good reason.

“There are some truths only the Quarass may utter, you know, Erin Solstice. When I claimed I had never faltered in my loyalty to Germina, I said it as The Quarass, who is a being of all and none. In truth, many Quarasses tried to flee Germina. Seventy-eight.”

“That sneaky—and did you really get a Djinni and big half-Giant to become you? How? They can’t level! That woman was at least eighty feet tall!”

The Qurass smiled.

“There are ways. Difficult ones—neither one was capable of levelling, but it was still done. Their perspectives were invaluable. I did consider becoming Antinium, but I would have been very wary of their hive-mind subsuming or learning from my own. Still, I meant what I said to you. I just wish to…clarify.”

“Cause you like us.”

The Quarass kicked a beaming Erin in the leg. She turned to Ulvama.

“You have your hands full with her. She is as sharp as a blade that cuts Adamantium and as dense and able to destroy as Naq-Alrama Steel in all other things.”

“Yep.”

The Quarass went on as Erin threw up her hands.

“One moment of clarity, Erin, is that when I told you to find out the secret of Earthers…I know who it is.”

Erin sat up. Ulvama inhaled.

“Who?”

“I shall not say, for it might make me an enemy of a hostile Skill. Moreover, it is not…hard to puzzle out. You might well do the same based on available information. I will wager many people know. But I asked you to find the proof, here, because I know something of the [Pavilion of Secrets]. It is uniquely suited to cracking such mysteries.”

Erin frowned.

“But if you know—why not do it yourself?”

The girl sighed.

“Because the proof is far, far harder to obtain than the knowledge, Erin. It is my belief the proof is being held back by a Skill of similar power to this. I am familiar with a Legacy Skill passed down by the…institution I suspect perpetuated this. If so, it is a force that has held down literal [Archmages]. If you obtain a proof that defies it, you will convince many to become your allies. But the doing is dangerous. The Quarass of Germina…does not wish to risk it.”

“That cunning she-devil.”

Erin shook a fist as Ulvama chuckled.

“The Quarass likes not getting her hands dirty when others can for her. Like a [Shaman].”

“A shaman of the world indeed.”

The two smiled at each other as Erin sighed.

“I get it. Any more words of sage wisdom, oh mighty little Quarass who lives?”

She was half-serious, which was why the Quarass paused. She let go of Ulvama’s braids, and the [Shaman] admired the design, memorizing it. The Quarass turned, and she smiled at Erin.

“Only this. We are not enemies, but I play a game where I would sacrifice even myself for Germina. You, who are charged with the legacy of ghosts, play a different game from the other selfish beings in this world. Your gift, indeed, the one that has let you do so much, is reminding such beings, now and then, that there is a path that allows both our goals to exist without conflict. You have built them up, knowingly or not, until now they have borne fruits from the great foundation you laid. Pisces Jealnet is but the first. Those who live will be your champions.”

She touched Erin’s chest as the wind blew around her. The Quarass smiled as Erin gave her an unhappy look. A disturbed one.

“I don’t want them to be. I don’t want them to have that obligation.”

“Nevertheless, they choose it. Just know what you have reminded me of. Now, at last, you are also that being bearing fruit. The greatest piece upon your board—”

The Quarass tapped Erin on the chest.

“Is you.”

Then the wind blew, and the girl’s self-satisfied, delighted smile at this piece of sage wisdom was the last thing they saw. Her body turned to sand, and she left the [Pavilion of Secrets]. In a gust of wind, with a chuckle.

That was how Erin Solstice and Ulvama’s first visitor went. Slowly, the sands collapsed, and the two sat down as the Quarass finally left entirely. They ended up laying on the ground. Erin Solstice’s legs were like jello. She couldn’t stand. Ulvama was shivering, curled up. They lay like that—until Pavvy reappeared.

Holding her stomach as she sat on the gazebo’s railing, laughing until she was almost sick. Eyes glowing with delight for another secret ripped out of the heart of the world. And approval, Ulvama thought, for another worthy heir to this place.

That was the [Pavilion of Secrets].

——

Matha had no idea what went on in the [Pavilion of Secrets]. She was jealous after she got over her panic at seeing Ulvama vanish.

To her, it had seemed like Erin turned that freaky key in her chest and the world had swung around like a door. Making her vanish—and Ulvama.

Whatever was supposed to happen when you got invited in clearly didn’t occur the same way when you were in Erin’s proximity.

Very cool. Matha was grumbling to the Battle Hamster, who tolerated her presence as she took over Ulvama’s mandatory grooming since the Hobgoblin was gone.

“What am I doing? I could have let them fight, then gotten in Erin’s good books. But no, I had to help them patch things up. Because I like both of ‘em. But that just means I’m the idiot, right?”

You’ve always been stupid to me. The Battle Hamster’s one-eyed scowl conveyed this, if he was even listening. Matha pulled out some fuzz as she groaned.

“Look, you try not falling for them. One of them’s a Tallfolk, the first and only one to visit us in four thousand years. The other’s a Goblin, and like, she’s been all the things you think you might be. Good and bad.”

She rubbed at the hamster’s fur until he swatted her hand and pointedly stared at the brush. Matha got back to work.

“I just want to make Ulvama smile. Like, really smile, not the fake one she gave me when she thought I was a bad person. And Erin…I want to see her surprised. Like, blown away. She’s too cool. Not when she’s acting dumb. She loves tons of stuff. She makes boring villages feel interesting, but sometimes I look at her, and she never seems shocked. It’s like she expects the sky to fall down, and she’ll just dodge it. I want to get her, sometime, and make her so shocked—and then see what that looks like. Get her to look at me like she does when she’s wearing that hat of fire.”

Yeah. The Battle Hamster listened thoughtfully to Matha opining on the reasons for her crush. Then he sniffed the air, stood up, and headbutted Matha.

“Ow, you damn hamster! What gives?”

Matha swore. He wasn’t actually that violent! He’d nip at you and punch, but lightly. However, that headbutt hurt. The Battle Hamster just shoved her out of the way. He scampered over to where he’d made a nest, grabbed his baseball bat, put it in his mouth, and ran to the door of the tent.

“Oh no, you’re not going out there! You’ll get wet and muddy, and I’m not cleaning you!”

Matha tried to tackle him. The Battle Hamster gave her an uppercut to the stomach that made Matha nearly lose her breakfast. They were so hecking strong! She saw him raise onto his two paws by the door, and Bowom shouted.

“Matha, are you fighting with our hamster? I’m working on a project, so I’d appreciate some peace and quiet! Mieve, not that—the other glowing vial with the weird pustules. Thank you.”

“I’m trying, but he’s—”

The [Raider] was attempting to suplex the stupid hamster and considering calling for Eurise, the only person who could intimidate the Battle Hamster. It would fight with Zemmy and Mera as if they were equals and respected no one but Ulvama and, sometimes, Erin.

But right now, it was standing stock still. Matha saw the convoy of Fraerlings riding through the rain. Awnings pulled up to cover good and wet Fraerlings. Zemmy and Mera were just running and slipping on the mud like usual, but a figure slowed.

Eurise the Explorer was jogging along in his sleeveless tunic as if the rain didn’t exist. His head was on a swivel as he peered at the swaying branches and trees. Then it snapped up as a bolt of lightning illuminated the treeline. He held up a fist, shouted.

“Roja! Something in the trees!”

“What? Slow or speed up?”

The [Explorer] instantly aimed her crossbow at the trees. Matha froze. The Battle Hamster was vibrating. She slowly let go of it.

“I think…”

Then there was movement. Something cracked a branch overhead. A comet shot downwards, and Eurise roared.

“Attack! Flying cats, it’s—”

The Battle Hamster leapt. He’d been sniffing the air, and now he twisted his body up, then leapt out of the tent with such force it actually knocked the Corumdon Beetle back a step. The confused beetle clacked its mandibles and peered up. Matha shouted. She saw something flying down meet the Battle Hamster in the air.

An impact—an explosion that split the rain, and she finally caught sight of an orange-brown ball of fur whirling downwards. The Battle Hamster! It was ricocheting away from…

A second ball of fur? It was grey, streaked black, and it resolved into a rotating, angry—

“Hamster?”

A second hamster landed on the ground as the Fraerlings shouted and slowed. The one-eyed Battle Hamster growled, holding the baseball bat Erin had made in its mouth. The other one got to its feet and began to bounce in that weird style they had. Matha was staring until she saw more blurs from above. Then—heard more cracks as branches exploded, recoiling as tiny figures leapt off them.

One would have hit the Corumdon Beetle except for Zemmy, who jumped up and kicked a Battle Hamster out of the air. He landed on his back, cursing; it had axe-kicked him at the same time.

“Cats! It’s a damn pack of Battle Hammies! Get ready to fight!”

Mera was shouting. She squared up with another Battle Hamster as Eurise strode at the wary hamsters. Then Matha saw more hamsters leaping down from the trees.

It was just sixteen or so hamsters. How bad could it—

Sixteen Battle Hammies? She reached for her spear, and Bowom glanced outside.

“Right, well…I’m guarding Mieve. Don’t let them get our supplies.”

He pulled the tent flap closed after Matha as the Battle Hamsters began clashing with the swearing Fraerlings and the angry, one-eyed Battle Hamster who was swinging his baseball bat around. Matha really hoped Erin and Ulvama were having a better time than this.

——

“So.”

Erin Solstice was so rattled after the Quarass that she and Ulvama just lay there for what had to be half an hour. Despite their partial victory at the end, the feeling of confronting the true Quarass and the worry over what she’d done hit them in a rush.

Ulvama didn’t puke, but she felt like the [Pavilion of Secrets] deserved it.

Had it done that on purpose? It had probably known the Quarass was capable of that. And it was…a really damn good lesson.

They’d been expecting to have a secrets-war with the Quarass when she’d been using the [Pavilion of Secrets] for her own ends. A cunning foe might well do the same.

Good to know. Ulvama just feared they’d actually changed the fate of Chandrarian politics with their meeting. She lay there, calling herself idiot in multiple languages, being sad for that girl bound to such a terrible being, until she flinched.

Erin pushed something cold into Ulvama’s face and dodged the kick.

“Hey, hey, Ulvama. Don’t kick. This is my fault. I should have tossed her out sooner or—this is what we get for trusting Pavvy. At least we salvaged some stuff. Gave the kid-Quarass a shot. Hopefully she remembers it. Here. Do you want this?”

She was holding…a milkshake.

It was one of the classic ones in a big glass with fluted sides, perspiring from the cold. It was vanilla, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Utterly classic stuff until Erin pulled out a rolled cookie-stick filled with chocolate and inserted it into the concoction. She eyed Ulvama, then added chopped banana to the top. Then three flavors of Pocky sticks, strawberry, chocolate, and matcha.

At last, the Goblin snatched the milkshake and began to eat. She gobbled the milkshake so greedily and so fast she gave herself a brain freeze. Then she rolled around cursing Erin until Erin handed her an apology for her apology-milkshake.

“Here, try this.”

“What that? Just noodles.”

“Nah, it’s cup ramen. Spicy.”

The Goblin sat up, grabbed the chopsticks, and sniffed. It wasn’t a complex dish, but she slurped the cup ramen down, then smacked her lips.

“Too spicy!”

Erin handed her a yogurt parfait. The Hobgoblin gobbled that down. Silently, Erin handed her a pizza slice.

“This just pizza.”

“Check the crust. It’s stuffed with cheese.”

There was some strange genetic similarity between Ulvama and the Battle Hamster. That was why they got along, Erin decided. The [Shaman]’s cheeks were bulging with the food, and she ate it so fast that Erin barely had time to hand her the sour gummy worms. After that, they tried Oreos. Ulvama was taking them apart and licking the insides when Erin thought of Doritos.

Neither one said a word except for Ulvama to ask what she was eating. They did this for about twenty minutes until an exasperated Pavvy appeared.

“Congratulations. You’ve broken the record for food consumed inside of here. What are you doing?”

“Shut it, traitor. This is empty calories, anyways.”

“Yah, eat shit.”

The two ignored Pavvy. Erin kept thinking of treats for Ulvama, and the Hobgoblin eventually began breaking things apart to offer Erin half. But Erin didn’t like the taste of most of what she was making, the sweets especially. It was just too sweet for her. Besides, watching Ulvama gobbling cereal after pouring chocolate milk into a bowl of the children’s stuff was fun by itself.

The Hobgoblin eventually wiped her mouth and stopped eating imaginary food. Then she ruffled Erin’s hair.

“Okay, maybe that was no good. You think she lied?”

“Can she? She was pretty straightforward. I think we were just outclassed.”

“Hm. Are you going to summon her back?”

Erin shuddered.

“I don’t want to. I think you’re right; every second she gets to pull that trick, she’s too smart. And there’s plenty of parables in our world…I’m not going to risk a super-intelligent being deciding I’m one of the problems she has to ‘solve’. As for the small Quarass, maybe. But I bet she’ll manipulate us. Still, now and then. Just not right away. We barely got a pyrrhic victory there so let’s not push our luck.”

“Good. Then…should we do what she wanted?”

Erin stretched out.

“You mean, figure out who summoned us all in the first place? That’s crazy. But I was able to find Eurise just by asking for the nearest person who could help me. I met Russell the same way. Could it be so easy as saying, ‘hey Pavvy, get me the asshole who brought us all here?’”

The [Pavilion of Secrets] stepped out from behind Aleieta’s doorway.

“Not even a ‘please’?”

Both women stared at her. A touch uncertainly. A touch…nervously, actually. Erin lifted a finger.

“Ulvama, maybe you should get out of here.”

“You say that before you summon the super-Quarass, dummy.”

“No, I’m serious. If we meet the person who—let’s think. I think if it works…we play dumb.”

Ulvama’s eyes sharpened.

“Ooh. Because they don’t know why we summoned them?”

“Exactly. We say ‘hi’, I make up an excuse, they go. Maybe they realize what we did and they’re onto us. But if we see them, we call the Quarass back. Risk her super-thinking? She said she believes in order over even her own interests.”

“True. But she also said the Emperor of Drath is like that. What if we summon him?”

“Nice. Can we—”

“Nope.”

Pavvy was watching them with great interest. Erin frowned at her.

“That’s the second time you’ve said that. First Silvenia, now him? Why?”

“Dunno. Warded.”

“Huh, like you were with the Fraerlings. I guess it’s possible; people started blocking my [World’s Eye Theatre].”

Ulvama scratched her chin judiciously.

“Yah, blocking Skills is a trick. Old trick, but not impossible. What if the person we want is…blocked?”

Erin rubbed at her head.

“Then we’re out of luck. But you know what? I bet they’ve got…goons.”

The Hobgoblin had re-conjured a box of donuts. She gave Erin a huge side-eye. The [Innkeeper] elaborated.

“I mean minions. Henchmen. Y’know? Flunkies?”

“…I don’t know any of these words, and I know two languages, Erin. What’s a flunky? An idiot?”

“Close. I mean like the idiot side-kicks who help the big bad villain with their plans. In stories? The expendable fodder types who go, ‘nyeh, you’ll never beat us!’ before someone does just that?”

“Oh. You mean like [Necromancer] minions.”

“Yeah!”

“Or Goblins.”

“…Not in the stories I read! Except Lord of the Rings I guess…my point is that I bet it’s not a one-man show. What do you want to bet the entire group is warded?”

Ulvama smiled. Now Erin was getting somewhere.

“What if we not get the big-bad guy, then? Just someone who knows enough to answer questions?”

“Yeah, yeah. Wait. I can be even more specific. Okay, Pavvy!”

“Ready.”

To their surprise, Pavilion-Erin wasn’t mocking them. She was just leaning against the gazebo wall, slightly tensed. Like Erin was when she was ready to move. Her eyes were glittering with anticipation. Erin exhaled.

“Get me someone who knows why the Earthers like me, Ryoka, everyone, started coming to this world. But get me the least-high-ranking, most gullible person who can answer our questions and won’t immediately suspect or report what we’re doing.”

She felt like she’d worded that decently. Ulvama waved an urgent claw.

“Doesn’t have to be least-high-ranking. Get the dumbest one.”

“Good point, dumbest over rank.”

The [Pavilion of Secrets] seemed to pause for a long moment as Erin Solstice slowly got to her feet. Ulvama gobbled another donut down, nervous, and Erin’s palms began to sweat.

This was an answer worthy of the [Pavilion of Secrets]. The truth that she had never known, never tried to answer fully until now…

The fake version of her vanished. The air grew thick, and if the room didn’t shake like it had when the Quarass arrived, Erin felt a strain. She clenched her fists, forced a guileless expression of surprise over her face. Dumb. Wait, she didn’t look like Nerry did.

Just bluff. Just bluff and I’ll tell everyone. Everyone—

Did they have a good reason for it? Was it an accident? Wistram?

Some cabal she hadn’t heard of?

…Was it the dead gods? Erin began to fear her answer, and the tension stretched until—

The door opened at the far end of the gazebo. Erin spun, a fake smile on her face. She pointed two finger guns at the person who walked out of the door, heavy as the hammer of a judge, then lowered her hands.

“Is this a joke?”

Pavvy strode up the pathway, hands in her pockets. She kicked at imaginary pieces of grass, jogged up the stairs two at a time, and threw herself into a bench along the far wall. Ulvama raised a donut.

“Here’s the thing.”

A donut bounced off of Pavvy’s head. She locked eyes with Erin, undeterred.

“I put the inquiry out, but that kind of secret’s locked down harder than almost anything I’ve seen. There’s no getting it out of the world—and I could get you something, or try, but you’ve already set your Grand Revelation. So until we get some progress there, I’m afraid that’s that.”

She folded her hands together, and Ulvama lowered the second chocolate-covered donut and gave Erin Solstice a suspicious look. The [Innkeeper] thought about hucking the entire box at Pavvy, but she was beginning to understand.

Rules. Her eyes slowly narrowed before they widened. She breathed one word.

“Nerry.”

Ulvama bounced the third donut off Erin’s head just on principle.

——

“I remember when I tried to get Nerry in here. I wasn’t allowed to. I had to talk to Pavvy, and she had to get, like, a special authorization. She told me, then, that I was using something up. I didn’t care. Now…I think I’m getting it.”

Erin was explaining to Ulvama what she’d done with Nerry. The Hobgoblin was frowning as Erin paced around.

“Getting a Sariant Lamb in here is weird. And stupid. They don’t have levels. So how come they can enter?”

“Aha. That’s the thing. I think I was allowed to do that. That’s my ‘Revelation’. And Pavvy just indicated that until I solve the mystery of Sariant Lambs, I don’t get to work on a second. Or maybe I just need to make progress?”

Erin turned, and Pavvy made a zipping motion over her mouth. She was clearly not allowed to speak, but Erin knew she was right. Ulvama nodded, following all this.

“This makes sense. So the [Pavilion of Secrets] is about breaking secrets.”

“And keeping them, if the Quarass was right. It almost sounds like you work on a big project.”

Yeah…like you’d pursue some leads, put together clues, and when you figured something out, you’d completed a ‘Revelation’. It was as if this place were, well, a detective agency. Only, the way you detected was via interviews or maybe some footwork of your own outside of here. Putting together the clues.

There was a way for Erin to confirm this, she just wanted to explain it to Ulvama first. She smiled.

“At least this one probably isn’t the biggest. I mean, I know what the Sariant Lambs are after. I just need to help them achieve their goals, and Ryoka and Nanette are helping.”

Ulvama paused, eying Erin.

“…That’s stupid, but those two like stupid things. What’s the big conspiracy with Sariant Lambs? There is a Sariant Lamb network like everyone thinks?”

Erin chuckled.

“No, it’s about their Trial of Levels. Dead gods, I need to show you how insane they are!”

“Hm?”

Ulvama wiggled a finger around in one ear. Erin paused.

“I thought you’d be more excited by the name. See, they have to pass a bunch of tests to become levelling species!”

“What’s that, Erin? So is this about the Sariant Lamb conspiracy or what?”

Slowly, Erin’s heart sank. She repeated herself, but Ulvama just frowned at her and asked what the conspiracy was. Erin’s head turned.

“Hey, you were lucky enough to get out of the requirements. I can’t lift it for anyone but you. At this moment.”

Pavvy shrugged at Erin. The [Innkeeper] cursed.

“Cats! Ugh, I can’t even swear properly like a Fraerling. But I bet if I help them, that solves it, right?”

“Search me. I didn’t know that was a thing. You going to show her the evidence? You might as well; she won’t be able to get the rest, but at least it’ll get you over your door-phobia.”

Erin and Pavvy conferred as Ulvama got increasingly suspicious and annoyed behind them.

“Hey, what is the conspiracy? How are you showing me?”

Erin gave Ulvama a wretched look.

“I’ve been trying to tell you, but you keep forgetting.”

Ulvama’s expression grew alarmed.

“Impossible. Unless you’re protected? How big is the Sariant Lamb thing?”

“Super big, and no one but me, Ryoka, and Nanette understand. I tell anyone else and it just goes in one ear, out the other. I had to have the [Pavilion of Secrets] to become immune to it.”

Erin hoped that would register, and Ulvama’s eyes flickered. To her relief, the Hobgoblin did get what this was. She put a hand to her forehead.

“Ugh. This one of them stupid mind things. You learn something bad, your head explodes. Bleh.”

She grew markedly less interested when she realized she wasn’t able to help, but Erin did have a conciliatory prize of sorts. She walked over to the rightmost door in the gazebo, a worn bathroom door with a brass handle. It was the least impressive of the four doors, and Ulvama’s eyes widened.

“Erin?”

“This is my door. I think I know what’s behind it, Ulvama. Don’t worry…”

Erin pulled at that familiar handle and swung open the door to her version of the [Pavilion of Secrets] at last. Pavvy sighed as Erin walked through it.

“…It’s just me.”

——

There was no version of Erin Solstice inside this room, which was a huge relief; she didn’t think she could handle a third her. In fact, this room was totally unlike the one she’d seen with Cormelex.

That had been a kind of august sitting room, if clearly dark and totally old-money ostentatious with an evil-overlord theme. Erin remembered a roaring fire and high backed chairs and the Lucifen sitting around. Cormelex had been the innocent-looking young man, not the imposing Lucifen she’d pictured.

She hadn’t seen Sheta and Aleieta’s rooms, but Erin suspected it was some living room or place central to who they had been. A parlor where you could meet…past reflections of them? People important to them?

She was still working out what each owner’s rooms did, but her own rooms were a good hint, even if they were visibly unfinished.

Literally. Erin emerged into another black void with a few articles of furniture scattered around. A huge office desk, a worn chair behind it, a giant cork board on one ‘wall’, and a fireplace of her own. Even a simple fan on the ceiling with a dim yellow glow, one of the bulbs missing, a chain twirling as the blades lazily spun around in the air.

Erin recognized everything but the ludicrously huge cork board. The fan was from her family’s office. The desk not hers, but Erin’s lips quirked as she saw more objects floating around the room.

“Oh, come on. This is me?”

“I don’t make the rules. This is all your subconscious. Lame, right?”

“I just—I have to have better taste than—okay, this is actually sort of cool.”

Erin wandered around the room as Ulvama poked one head in, chewing suspiciously on more imaginary donuts. Erin knew this place. It wasn’t her common room of the inn like she’d thought, her private bedroom, or even another part of her inn. This was, in fact, a place she’d been to a few times, mostly to get yelled at.

Watch Captain Zevara’s desk sat at one end of the room, and across the walls was black-and-yellow tape that read ‘under construction’. Clearly, this representation of Erin’s pavilion wasn’t complete because she wasn’t done with it.

Her mind had just organized it how she’d see it. As for the decor…Erin sighed as she stared at the cork billboard.

“Detective theming all the way down. Yup, yup.”

An image of a scowling Sariant Lamb was pinned to the board with a red tack and connected with some string to Ryoka Griffin’s face. Underneath Ryoka was a little factsheet.

‘Ryoka Griffin, Rulebreaker. That’s why she’s able to talk to Nerry and remember everything, no doubt about it. Unless it’s also because she’s fae-touched? Got to find more Rulebreakers.’

There were more details below, mostly just details about why Nerry had sought Ryoka out. Reminders about Ryoka’s weird perspective powers and how they worked. There was another line to Nanette. This listing was even less helpful.

‘[Sariantfriend]. I bet she’s dedicated to helping. Plus, she renounced her class so she figured it out, then got a class.

Nanette’s cute but gets stubborn, and she’s not a full [Witch] yet.

What? This is literally all I have.’

Detective Erin was not working with much. She did have another image of Erek, which made the real Erin slap her forehead.

“Of course! Erek might know about all this! Genius work, me. Hey, Ulvama, you—”

The Hobgoblin had wandered right past the cork board, as if she were unable to see it. She was poking around the office, annoyed.

“This place weird and stupid looking. I just know it’s because of something from your world, Erin. This like those movies where those idiots smoke on pipes and solve crimes even Apista could figure out?”

“Hey, hey. Inspector Gadget was a genius. Aw, who am I kidding? Penny was the real brains. Even the dog was smarter than that guy. It’s my attempt to solve this mystery. It’s a work in progress—”

Barely begun. But it made Erin think out loud.

“Are the other rooms like this? A kind of library of data the others were working on? So if I go in there, do I get access to Cormelex’s secrets? Sheta’s?”

That could be fascinating and, indeed, dangerous. But why was Aleieta’s door the worst…?

Well, one question at a time. Ulvama had found the only actual ‘being’ in the room, and Erin Solstice sighed. This time, she avoided Ulvama’s accusatory stare. She didn’t have a good explanation for this one.

The figure with their feet up behind Zevara’s desk would have probably eaten a full kick to the stomach if Zevara had seen her doing that in real life. However, she was smoking on one of Palt’s cigars, and she sat up dramatically as a rain-lashed window lit up with lightning behind her, illuminating her face.

“It wasn’t a dark and stormy night when Erin Solstice called me into their [Pavilion of Secrets]. In fact, it wasn’t any of those things. But there was a conspiracy afoot, only it was the hoofed kind, and I was in need of help. So was she. The dame needed a body-double, and I needed a voice. Happenstance meant we got to trade places…”

Nerry, in Erin-form, steepled her fingers together as she pretended to be a detective. Erin covered her face with her hands.

“I hope this confuses the heck out of anyone who inherits my Skill. Do I end up here?”

She turned to Pavvy, and the being smiled. A touch sadly.

“When you’re dead, a copy of you will be here. Nothing like the real thing in its complexity. It’ll probably be more straightforward, even if you die tomorrow. This is just how your brain likes to think of things.”

“You’re so lame.”

Ulvama wandered out of the room, and Erin didn’t respond. But she did change Ulvama’s next donut from a cream-filled puff to a nasty rotten raspberry one that Erin had once eaten.

Ignoring the exclamations from outside, Erin peered around her room. It was sort of a let-down. True, it explained the problem with the Earther revelation.

“Proof, huh? This is a nice way of limiting the [Pavilion of Secrets]. Very give-and-take. Almost like Sheta was shaving down the Skill a bit to get everything she wanted.”

“It was a delicate negotiation. You think this kind of power was allowable at merely Level 50 without drawbacks? It’s not even a capstone. Me, not even a capstone.”

Pavvy seemed put out about that. Erin raised her brows. That also gave it more nuance indeed. Erin walked around her room. Still, something was off.

“Weird. I guess the Earther secret has to rest a moment. The Quarass said she needs proof and that I could figure it out. If I think about it…”

She closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. Her face grew calm, still, and Erin gripped her tunic in one hand.

“…I guess I have to have one of those conversations I really don’t want to. Tell a man about some sins.”

Pavvy grinned in pure delight, but Erin just glanced sideways.

“The problem is, once you play a hand like that, you’re marked twice. And if it’s both that and whatever else…bleh. I need to take the piece or be ready to duck the entire board coming at me.”

“Mm, so you’re not just lazy.”

“Oh, no, I’m lazy.”

Erin ignored Ulvama shouting for her to come out here! She tapped a foot and stared around the room.

“Pavvy, question.”

“Ask.”

“This room, unfinished as it is. If it’s just a reflection of Grand Revelations and people who mattered to me, that’s lame. Sheta? I don’t think she actually thought of her heirs this much. She wanted something more than this.”

“She was a woman who planted trees she would never rest under.”

Erin sighed.

“Yeah. And also more dangerous than Teriarch ever knew. Those other rooms…is there something they have that I don’t have yet?”

She turned, and Pavvy’s smile widened before she covered it with a hand.

“Not that you’d notice right away. Now that’s interesting. Aleieta reasoned it out in a week. Cormelex saw it in a second, but he cheated. How did you beat Aleieta?”

Erin Solstice shrugged, slightly pleased.

“I’m not as trusting as she is. Plus, I just had the Quarass beat me up. Also, if this is my room, I leave clues for myself. There’s a lot of stuff in this office that fits. But playing find-what-stands-out—I’m not bad at those games.”

So saying, she walked over to the one thing that really didn’t fit. The cork-board made sense. Adventurer’s Guilds, the Watch House, all had them, if not in Zevara’s office. Same with the desk, the other stuff. But…Erin glanced up.

The fan and light switch fit a detective’s office from Earth. Not here. Erin slowly stood on her toes, reached up, and pulled the chain.

Click.

The yellow lights went out in a second. But it did not turn completely dark. Instead, the ‘missing’ bulb illuminated, a pale, purple outline glowing.

Like a black light. Nerry vanished. The desk vanished. Erin Solstice turned in the dark room, and her breath caught.

“What’s that?”

“The opposite of a Grand Revelation.”

Pavvy grinned in front of the empty…Erin Solstice’s eyes flickered up, and then she saw it. Perhaps it was just how she saw it. She had to compare it to—

“Erin, what was that donut? Was it nasty?”

Ulvama kicked the door back open. She had a bunch of cream puffs ready to throw. She whirled, and Erin stopped trying to force-feed Pavvy another rotten jelly donut.

“Hey, Ulvama! C’mon, it was one joke! You were being mean!”

The [Innkeeper] fled out of her room as Ulvama followed, cursing her. That left Pavvy alone. She munched on the bad jelly donut and smiled.

“I’m waiting for when you need me.”

But the [Innkeeper] already knew that.

——

Erin let the Hobgoblin chase her around and felt a bit better after the Quarass incident.

“Okay…who’s next?”

Ulvama hesitated and lowered her arms.

“Ceria? Colth? Yvlon? You promised.”

Erin had promised Pisces that. She bit her lip.

“I will call them in. But maybe I should meet them privately. Ceria, at least.”

“If you haven’t met them already.”

Pavvy mouthed, but too softly for Ulvama to hear. Erin twitched. She would meet all her friends in time. She owed them that. Some conversations had to be hers and hers alone, though. Ulvama nodded and cast around, awkward.

“I could do a list—”

“No.”

In the silence, Erin ran through the many peoples she wanted to speak to. She made her choice without asking Ulvama. But she would be glad if the [Shaman] could be there.

“Pavvy. Can you get Ryoka in here, please? I mean, Ryoko?”

A pause as Ulvama stopped eating donuts. She put the box down and came over to Erin. They stood there until Pavvy reappeared.

“She’s banned. Remember?”

“What? Oh yeah, shit. But I want to get in contact with her or…she’s one of the people I really want to talk with. Some Skill if I can’t talk to one of my best friends. Fine, who’s with Ryoka? Can I ask about that? Get me the closest person to…no, you’re just going to get some random person. Shaestrel—she’s not going to come in here. Nerry? Can I at least figure out where Ryoka is?”

Pavvy’s eyes glittered.

“Who knows? I’m not a cartographer. But go ahead and try to triangulate her position. Reminds me of when I couldn’t have gotten you Cara, Geneva, Daly, or most of the Bushrangers all at the same time. That’s the kind of thing your Grand Revelation is meant to uncover.”

The hair stood up on Erin’s neck. That was too…Pavvy gave Erin a wink.

“That’s my purpose, piercing obfuscation Skills. I could ferret tons of stuff out that’s being kept under mental locks. Like people or places trying to hide from public consciousness. The Bloodfeast Raiders, for example.”

“Motherf—”

Their name made Erin clench her fists.

“I might have to take a mulligan on the Earther mystery to kill some people, Ulvama.”

“Okay.”

Erin cast around, thrown by that. Then she exhaled.

“I…if not them? Then…I promised to check back in, and I didn’t. I’m so stupid. But I was embarrassed, and he’s easier. Get me Rabbiteater, please.”

She smiled, and Ulvama straightened and relaxed. Pavvy nodded and vanished. Erin Solstice wiped at her brows.

“Let’s have a good conversation, get some important stuff settled like where they are now, and then we can go tell the others about this. Matha wants to come in here.”

“Eh, you don’t have to let her. Rabbiteater. He all fancy now, a [Knight]?”

“Goblin Lord.”

“No.”

“That’s what he felt like.”

“Psh, Erin, I’ll be the judge of that. Hold on, where did you say he was last time?”

“Uh, shipwrecked and running from Dullahans. But he’s a tough guy, and they had an army. They said there were some kind of ruins ahead.”

“Nice. Goblins, ruins, easy to get away.”

The two nodded, and Erin was smiling. She waited for her beloved [Knight]. Of all the far-flung peoples she was worried about, she had felt that Rabbiteater wouldn’t die so easily. He was too high-level. Too strong. And she was right about that.

Erin Solstice called for Rabbiteater long after his company had left the Synectic Maze. She summoned Ser Solstice to her [Pavilion of Secrets] as his weary, footsore, decimated company of Terandrians, adventurers, friends, and allies of convenience reached some kind of settlement out of the jungles at last. The port-city of Benoix.

She called him the hour after he placed Ser Markus’ body in a shrouded casket and sent him home.

Author’s Note:

Well, well, well. Look who’s back. It’s Erin, Ulvama, and Matha, and I—

Well, in truth, I hoped I’d have written about half of this. Because once again, I’ve written a companion chapter to this I intend to release. Probably next Saturday because it’s going to require a few edits.

My attempt to write in the old style and have 4 chapters across two writing weeks is bearing fruit. But blue fruits, so there’s a bit of poison involved. The chapters are still a bit too long, but I’m getting there.

If I can pare them down to ‘short’ 20k or 15k chapters, then I’d be able to keep a decent flow up while splitting updates. We’ll have to see, and after this week, I will be engaging in my promised side-project activity. I’ll write an update along with the next chapter next Saturday, but I will have devoted most of my week to secret writing…which I’ll tell you about then.

Wish me luck. Things are changing in the writing and story, but I hope you enjoy this chapter and the next. We’re back to Erin, and it feels like it’s been a while, but I just don’t have enough hands to write all the perspectives I want. But she will always be the core of the story, just not always the center. Expect an update next week!

—pirateaba

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