Sometimes opportunity comes knocking at an unexpected hour. Other times, it’s family.

“Is that cookies I smell,” a familiar young [Tabbywile] said.

“I think what she means is, ‘Hi’ and ‘Mind if we bother you, those smell delicious’,” a similarly familiar [Metal Mechanoid] said.

“Rip! Matt!” Tessa said and pulled the two into a big hug.

“More like ‘cookie’ singular,” Lisa said, “My [Cooking] is skilling up very slowly.”

“You’ve got the aroma portion of it down,” Rip said. “I could smell them from a block away and it was wonderful!”

“Not that we came to raid your cookie jar,” Matt said. “We were just thinking of checking in and maybe getting a new party invite, if that’s okay?”

Rather than wasting time answering the question with words, Tessa tossed them both instant invites. She still didn’t have a game-like HUD to work with when she was in her quasi-human form, but she’d discovered that she didn’t need it for a variety of the common functions which mirrored the various game mechanisms she was used to. A little imagination and configuring her thoughts to simulate the echoey sound around the world’s key words was enough to handle most of them and some of the rest just required phrasing the request in C++.

“You’re more than welcome to help yourselves to the output of the my skill grinding attempts,” Lisa said. “I can’t promise quality but since I bought a literal ton of ingredients, I can definitely offer quantity.”

“Where ‘quantity’ is one cookie at a time,” Tessa said.

“Dibs!” Rip called.

They settled around the central island in the [Tea Shop’s] kitchen. There wasn’t really enough space for three people plus a cook, especially not with Matt’s larger-than-average metal body, but Lisa seemed to prefer the company to the space as she worked.

“How did things go with your families?” Tessa asked. She’d been sad to see the kids go, but had gone along with the responsible course of action because she’d known Rip and Matt would keep Rose and Jamal physically safe, and that the pair could leave any ugly situation they found themselves in or call for help that a wide variety of people would have been only too willing to provide.

“It was good,” Jamal said and added more softly, “Better than I thought it would be.”

“Are you going back there?” Tessa asked.

“Yeah. Someday. Not for now though,” Jamal said. “We need some time. Mom and me. Maybe for the holidays though?”

Reading microexpressions wasn’t a skill Tessa had ever developed, and detecting them on a [Metal Mechanoid] would have required truly astounding powers of observation. Even without that though, Tessa heard something different in Jamal’s words. Though they were filtered through a mechanical voice box, there was a peace in them, and hope for a future that maybe hadn’t seemed possible before?

“I’m glad that turned out well,” she said, turning to see if Rose had the same sort of news to report.

“Nothing good to report here,” Rip said. “But that’s not a surprise.”

Tessa’s heart clenched and she had to fight back the urge to smother Rose with hugs and supportive words.

“Still sucks, you deserve a hell of a lot better,” she said.

“Of course she does,” Lisa said and wrapped Rip in a hug from behind. “You are ridiculously brave and when your family figures that out they can fight me to the death for you.”

“Oh, uh,” Rose said, as Rip’s eyes grew glassy. “I don’t…you don’t have to…I mean…”

“I think we didn’t want to assume that you’d want to stick with us,” Matt said. “You don’t have to. I mean we’re basically adults in this world, and we’re all trained up now, so it’s okay if you don’t want to take care of us. We’ll be okay.”

“Hey,” Tessa said. “We take care of each other. As long as you still want to hang around with us that is? We have lead you into more than a few meat grinders so far after all.”

“Want to?” Rip said, “Of course we want to!”

“You know, it’s funny you gave them a choice there,” Lisa said, smiling playfully. “I wasn’t planning to. These two are mine now.”

“Ours,” Tessa corrected her. “Just like we’re theirs.”

A long moment of cozy warmth followed but was interrupted by a spark, and then a puff of flame and the acrid smell of burnt chocolate chip cookie.

“Ack! No!” Rip squeaked, breaking free from the layered hug in an attempt to rescue Lisa’s most recent attempt at crafting.

“Well, the good news is, it’s a full batch of twelve this time,” Tessa said, seeing the results Rip rescued from the mixing bowl.

“Twelve charcoal briquettes,” Lisa said, breaking one apart and checking to see if there was anything salvageable with in it.

“I’m sorry,” Rip said.

“Sorry? Why?” Lisa asked. “This is progress. Smelly progress, but still, I haven’t been able to make more than one of anything in any batch I’ve done so far. Sure these are junk, but they’re great junk! I’ve got a much better idea what to do next time now. Could you get me the flour and sugar buckets over there.”

“You’re doing another batch right now?” Matt asked.

“I’ve been making batches for the last three hours,” Lisa said.

“Where are all the cookies from those?” Matt asked.

“They went to a good home,” Tessa said and patted her belly, which was somehow capable of holding far more food than should have been geometrically possible.

Another knock sounded on the door.

“Monsters?” Jamal asked.

“Unlikely in town,” Lisa said, exchanging her mixing spoon for one of the nearby kitchen knives.

“Let me get it,” Tessa said and was inappropriately pleased to see that Matt and Rip were both taking up the best covering positions which were available from the limited options inside the [Tea House].

Calling a few of her higher level spells as a [Void Speaker] to mind, Tessa opened the door to find another pair of familiar faces waiting for her.

“Hi Tessa!” Lady Midnight said. “We heard that Rip and Matt had made it back and guessed we’d find you here.” 

Beside her stood her Earthling counterpart in a worn medical gown.

“We figured we’d let you all know that we were back too,” Claire said. “Though I suppose this is technically my first time to be standing here.”

“I thought you two were off helping cure all the diseases on Earth?” Lisa said.

“We did,” Lady Midnight said. 

“Or, rather, we did as much as we could,” Claire said. “They got an incredible number of therapies and outright cures developed and probably advanced Earth’s medical knowledge by a thousand years or more, but with the worlds drawing apart, the [Remove Disease] class of spells began to fade too, so there was less we could contribute.”

“It sounded like with the breakthroughs that were made though they have the tools to figure things out on their own from there,” Lady Midnight said.

“So the Earth is going to become a disease free zone?” Rip asked.

“Oh, I think it’s better than that,” Tessa said. “The level of advancement you’re talking about is near Singularity level tech.”

“That’s not necessarily better,” Lisa said.

“True. Medical tech that’s sufficiently advanced that we can’t foresee what society will look like after it’s developed is probably going to be put to all kinds of terrible uses.”

“Not all kinds,” Claire said. “Intrinsic in most of the high end body modifications that are going to be possible is the ‘out clause’ that anyone it’s applied to will definitely be able to [World Walk] to one of the worlds were the technique was derived from. If they don’t like what was done to them, there should generally be the tools to reverse the effect on the origination world.”

“Do you think that will happen a lot?” Rip asked.

“Probably not. The fact that you can’t inflict a lot of the unpleasant techniques on people long term, and that even some of the bioweapon options aren’t viable, should help dissuade people from bothering to try in the first place,” Claire said.

“Also, the Earth has several hundred million less people who were at the far end of the ‘abuse and misuse power’ spectrum,” Lady Midnight said. 

“You know, even with that, I can’t say I miss the place,” Rip said. “I like this place as home much better.”

“You haven’t even gotten to see a tiny fraction of it yet either,” Lisa said. “We powered through so much of it, you didn’t get to see any of the classic places that everyone’s been to.”

“Or the new places where no one’s been,” Tessa said. “We know there were unfinished dungeons and strange corners of the world when the [World Shift] happened. With the Fallen Kingdoms rising, there have to be countless more new areas to explore. Ones where no Beta Tester has ever tread before.”

“We may very well be too high level for most of them though,” Lisa said. “Uh, hopefully I guess. We never did figure out how to break the level cap after all.”

“Well, you five will be too high level,” Claire said. “Me though? I’m just a little level 1 newbie still.”

“Same here,” Lisa said. “Well, level 10 since Tessa power leveled me a bit so I could survive the crafting backlashes with less fuss, but I’m not going to be dungeon delving without Lost Alice any time soon.”

“We’re short of party members for that anyways aren’t we?” Jamal asked, pointing to the six of them in the room.

His question was answered by another knock on the door.

“Starchild and Pete?” Tessa guessed.

“Doubt it,” Claire said. “They’re off exploring other games, looking for other members of their ‘cluster’.”

Tessa opened the door warily to find that Claire was correct, but that her own wariness was unwarranted.

“Obby? I thought you were…” Tessa searched for words to wrap around the nebulous idea that floated in her mind but came up with nothing better than, “gone?”

Obby smile and brushed away Tessa’s confusion as though it was both eminently reasonable and entirely unimportant.

“We decided to stay,” Obby said. “Since my wife here is now a mighty level 1, I was thinking I would power level her up a bit and thought I’d check in with you folks if there’s anyone else who might need the xps too?”

“You’re timing is fantastic!” Tessa said. “We were just talking about that.”

She ushered them in to the central room where everyone had gathered, the kitchen being just a trifle too cozy to seat eight people at once.

“Were you thinking we’d do a grand tour of the world?” Rip said.

“Cause that sounds pretty awesome to us,” Matt said.

Tessa pictured them setting out like she had a dozen years ago, the whole world of [Broken Horizons] fresh and new before her.

Except it wouldn’t be quite the same. The perils they faced would be largely irrelevant in the face of their level capped might and the low level characters would be relegated to the position of children strapped into safety seats in the back of the car. Free to watch the safari but forbidden to interact with most of it.

There were methods of fixing that but they all seemed inherently artificial. A level sync could be broken at whim to deal with dangerous encounters where part of the joy of fighting together was knowing that you really had to depend on each other.

When everyone was invested and working together? That was where the real magic happened.

Tessa looked down at her hands.

The hands that had worked magic so many times.

The hands that had held the power of a god.

The hands that still held so much potential.

Did she want to use that potential to make a fleeting dream come true?

Of course. 

What else was her potential meant for?

—

[Sky’s Edge] had been rebuilt. It wasn’t the small village it had once been though. At its heart lay a shrine to those who’d been lost to the [Oblivion Remnants]. The [Shrine of the Lost] wasn’t a simple memorial though. It was a gateway, a rift into the edge of nothing and from which, occasionally, some of the Lost were able to reemerge. 

A few who came back were simple confused, their time spent in Oblivion having passed for them in less than a blink, while others spoke of wandering in their own dreamscapes, encountering nightmares and all sorts of strange visions. Some even spoke of falling through a starry abyss to other worlds, and so the search for the Lost was expanded to include all the realms the [World Walkers] could find. 

Little by little the damage that had been done was healing, though that took as many different forms as there were people in need of restoration.

The shrine was not why Tessa had brought her party to [Sky’s Edge] though. She’d chosen it as the start of their journey partially out of nostalgia and partly because, of all the places she could have attempted what she planned to try, [Sky’s Edge] felt the most appropriate.

“I didn’t think as much changed up here as down on the planet’s surface?” Claire said when she stepped out of the new [Teleportal] that had been constructed to facilitate travel between the [High Beyond] and the rest of the world.

“It hasn’t,” Tess said. “We missed a lot of it, but we’re not here because of what’s new in the [High Beyond]. We’re here for what will be new in us.”

“And that would be what?” Rip asked.

“Depends on whether this works or not,” Tessa said, holding her hands out towards the center of the square where she’d first encounter Lisa a lifetime ago.

She glanced over to see Lisa nod in agreement and support. They hadn’t told the others about Tessa’s idea yet, mostly because neither of them wanted to get anyone’s hopes up if it proved to be impractical.

Drawing in a deep breath, Tessa closed her eyes and grasped the power that lay dormant within herself.

She’d never formed her level 99 [Void Speaker] ability and it was there, quiet and waiting to be given meaning by the name she chose for it.

Beyond herself, impossible to contain or even fully perceive, the [Risen Kingdoms] loomed up and engulfed her. She was only a tiny mote against the endlessness of eternity, so many other lives as bright her own, so that her wishes vanished in the tide of their dreams and aspirations.

There was no shout she could have screamed that would have risen above the cacophony of so many lives, her voice alone was too small to even be noticed on the scale of the world. Even the gods themselves could barely speak loud enough for their wills to be made manifest across the whole of the realm. Tessa could have cast all the untapped power she carried into that maelstrom and been as lost as a raindrop falling into the ocean.

So she didn’t scream.

She whispered.

“[Infinite Creation Portal: Path to a New Beginning].”

>> Command unrecognized.

Tessa focused her mind’s eye down to a single image and a single desire.

She wanted to be with her friends and family.

She wanted to be a part of a world she’d always loved, even when it had broken her heart.

She wanted to play.

“[Infinite Creation Portal: Path to a New Beginning]”

>> System expansion detected.

>> Planetary level permission required.

The voice that spoke those words in Tessa’s mind could have leveled mountains with a syllable. The voice that answered them though was unexpectedly gentle and kind.

“Oh, I like this idea,” the [Risen Kingdoms] said. “Permission granted.”

>> New Ability [Infinite Creation Portal: Path to a New Beginning] obtained!

>> New Permanent World Feature Generated: [Portal of New Beginnings].

>> Documentation request send to [God of Knowledge] for new power description and portal user help.

>> New Global Status Update generated and transmitted to all users.

>> [High Beyond] map updated.

>> New Title Awarded: Published Game Developer 

>> New Permissions Granted: Junior Debugger

>> New Interface Installed: Level 1 Troubleshooter

>> Threat Assessment raised to Tier 7!

Tessa reeled at the barrage of system messages, which scrolled across the new and not-at-all totally-overwhelming HUD that had appeared overlaying her previously fully human vision.

“Are you okay?” Lisa asked, one hand on Tessa’s back to help her stay on her feet. “It worked!”

In front of them an oval of swirling rainbow light, bound in a band of glowing gold hung an inch off the ground and stretched up six feet high.

“It’s beautiful,” Rip said.

“What does it do?” Matt asked.

“It lets us start over again,” Tessa said. “This is like making a new alt in the game. We won’t lose anything that we are now. We can go back to our current selves, just like we can split apart or recombine with the alts that we already have. What this will let us do is play around with the other people we want to try being.”

“And it will let us experience the world like we should have the first time,” Lisa said. “Everyone growing together.”

“It’ll be a lot slower to climb back to the level cap like this,” Tessa said.

“But we’ll see a lot more of the world in the process,” Lisa said.

“And we can learn to do the things we didn’t get to try on our last mad dash to the level cap,” Tessa said.

“This time it won’t be the fate of the world riding on what we do,” Lisa said.

“It’ll just be us, going wherever the promise of loot and fun takes us,” Tessa said.

It was what Tessa’s heart had yearned for since she’d read her first fairy tale and in the eyes of her new family, she saw the same yearning burning bright enough to light all of their days to come.

Tessa and Lisa

All the rush and clamor was far distant at last and in a little [Tea House] on the edge of [Dragonshire] all was, for a little while at least, peaceful in the world.

And that was driving Tessa nuts.

“You’re sure you don’t want to work on leveling your [Cooking] skill?” Lisa asked. “Even the failures aren’t too bad.”

She had a bowl filled with something that might have been cookie batter in her arms. That she was wearing a near equal quantity of flour from ‘crafting failures’ put a chuckle in Tessa’s heart, but she shook her head nonetheless.

“I’m still hoping I can put the time in on [Arcane Tinkering] but the supplies for that require [Gem Crafting] and it’s silly to work on that before we run the [Rainbow Diamond Mine] again.” 

From what the other players had reported, the [Risen Kingdoms] still had the limitation that, while you could level up every craft, you could only truly master one of them.

“I’m not planning to master [Cooking],” Lisa said. “We’ve already got plenty of [Master Chefs] in the guild. But you’ve got to admit that instant chocolate chip cookies are a nice option to have.”

“I can’t disagree, though I do feel compelled to point out that more than half the time, you’re a [Vampire] these days. Do cookies really do anything for you then?” Tessa asked.

“Not really,” Lisa said. “Lost Alice’s strain of vampirism allows her to eat regular food, but her sense of taste is pretty dulled. Which is interesting now that I think about it since her sense of smell is off the charts.”

“Is that something that got better as you leveled up?” Tessa asked. She’d stopped her and joined Lisa in the [Teas House’s] kitchen, choosing a seat by the food prep island in the center of the room.

“Definitely. Also I think her blood efficiency got better too, she gets hungry a lot slower than when we were starting out,” Lisa said, drawing a [Fire Hex] over the cookie dough and wrapping a [Shaping Hex] around it.

In theory that would complete the crafting and leave them with a bowl full of finished chocolate chip cookies. In practice the crafting magic wasn’t quite stable in Lisa’s hands yet and the entire contents of the bowl vanished in a bright puff, leaving behind only a single cookie for all her efforts.

“I wonder if that got all of the calories from everything in the mix or if the rest just got burned away?” Lisa said.

“Can I try it?” Tessa asked, taking the cookie from the bowl when Lisa nodded.

It wasn’t a perfect chocolate chip cookie, but it was definitely well into the acceptable range. Tessa looked up, casting Lisa a hopeful expression that there might be another one being prepped soon.

“I think the other ingredients got disintegrated,” she said, remembering that she was supposed to be testing the cookie, not just enjoying it. “This doesn’t taste like it’s got multiple cups of sugar in it.”

“But it tastes okay?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ll need some more to be sure. Maybe another dozen or so?” Tessa said with an impish grin.

Lisa flicked some flour at her, but did start assembling the ingredients for another batch.

“So what would you normally be doing on an afternoon off?” Lisa asked.

“For the last few years? Working,” Tessa said. “Believe it or not, I think dungeon delving is a healthier activity than working as a programmer. Well, no, I should be fair. I know there are decent companies out there. I never had the good fortune to work for one, but there are places that treat their staff like people rather than Employee ID Numbers who can be made to puke up code by yelling at them.”

“You are making me very glad I didn’t try to get into programming,” Lisa said.

“You had an interest in it?” 

“Sure. I played this game for over a decade. I think everyone imagines what it would be like to make their own. From everything I’ve heard though, the game industry is miserable.”

“I thought I was being smart by working for a financial company,” Tessa said, snagging a few of the chocolate chips that were left in the bag after Lisa poured out what she needed. “Turns out it’s less about what you’re doing and more who you’re doing it for though.”

“And now?” Lisa asked.

“Now I am enjoying some lovely cookies which a talented [Cook] is making,” Tessa said, watching with anticipation as Lisa manually finished putting together the batter.

“I meant how does it feel to be working for yourself,” Lisa said. “I couldn’t help but notice the pacing you were doing.”

“Sorry. It just that slowing down feels weird,” Tessa said. “We literally entered this world running and it feels like we haven’t stopped since.”

“Things are pretty quiet now though, or are you hearing something from the guild?” Lisa stopped stirring, concern flashing over her face.

“No, nothing from the guild,” Tessa said. “Nothing from anyone. As far as I can see, things really are okay at the moment. I guess I’m just, I don’t know, waiting for the other show to drop?”

“It did,” Lisa said. “A few thousand times I think.”

“I know. It’s silly. We’ve been through the literal end of the world. We’ve died. A lot. What could be worse than that?” Tessa rested her elbows on the island and let her head fall into her hands.

“It’s not silly,” Lisa said. “It’s the aftermath of trauma, and a major life change, and some very reasonable concerns.”

“Reasonable?” Tessa asked.

“Everything we thought we knew got upended. We’re not who we thought we were. That is a lot to take in. Being worried that something else might come along is just sensible. It’s allowing yourself to be aware of how uncertain all this is.”

“That does sound reasonable. And terrible.”

“We did say when this was all done we were going to find a therapist who could help us sort through all the stuff that happened to us, right?”

“Yeah. That was a good idea then and a good one now. Well, not right now.”

“Enjoying the cookies are you?” Lisa asked, conjuring another [Fire Hex].

“I’m enjoying all of this,” Tessa said, sweeping the room with a glance.

“Are you?” Lisa asked, finishing the batch and producing another single cookie. “You don’t have to pretend for me.”

Tessa heard an undercurrent in those words that got her up and off her chair.

“I’m not pretending,” she said, wrapping her arms around Lisa lightly. “I think I just forgot how to relax. If I try to imagine being anywhere else, all I can picture is trying to get back here. I know that we can go almost anywhere we can imagine and none of those other worlds seems even half as appealing as being in this shop, as being with you, right here and now.”

“Thanks,” Lisa said, her shoulders releasing a tension that had crept up on her without either of them noticing. “I know we won’t be able to curl up in here forever, but I think I need this time to recharge my batteries.”

“Time away from people?” Tessa asked.

“Yeah. I’ve never been that much of a party animal. It’s a little easier when Lost Alice is around. She’s got more stamina for the whole socializing thing.”

“Think she and Pillowcase are having any luck finding our other alts?” Tessa asked.

“I’d guess not yet,” Lisa said. “I think if they do manage to find one, they’ll be so excited they’ll send us a chat message immediately. I know that’s what I would do.”

“It’s a shame they’re missing out on these cookies,” Tessa said taking one from a previous batch Lisa had attempted.

“In theory I should be better by the time they get back. They can share experiences with us then and get the first hand version of them from our senses,” Lisa said.

“It’s neat that we have that to offer to them,” Tessa said. “I remember thinking I was going to be nothing but a burden to Pillowcase, or Glimmerglass, but even just being regular old me, I can do things for them they can’t do on their own.”

“I thought it was interesting how many people were interested in learning how to split and recombine like you do, even the ones who were heading back to Earth full time.”

“Confession time; I am not at all unhappy that a good portion of our guild chose to head home.” Tessa said. “I think we lucked into a good group of people but what we have now feels a lot more manageable than the monster group we had before.”

“I’m guessing we’ll see those numbers going back up over time,” Lisa said, beginning the next batch of cookies.

“You think people will be jumping ship on their current guilds to join ours?” Tessa asked. She could imagine that fairly easily given the rather draconian rules some guilds had in place in terms of enforced performance metrics.

“That, and I think we’ll see a fair number of the people who went back to the Earth returning here over time. Some may just vacation for a while, but I’m betting a good number of them will find the Earth’s not the world they knew either and move back to the [Risen Kingdoms] permanently.”

“I heard some of them saying they couldn’t live without their XBoxes and Doritos,” Tessa said. “I’m reasonably sure we’ll never have those here.”

“The Doritos would be doable but probably not the XBoxes. The thing is I’m not sure the Earth will have those either. With people traveling to different worlds, I think the Earth society we knew is going to change into something very different, and I don’t think it will take long.”

Tessa thought about that and caught a glimpse of the changes Lisa was envisioning.

“It’s even bigger than the change in population isn’t it?” she said. “No one’s going to work jobs like the ones I had. No one needs to stay in situations that make them miserable. If the people there don’t build a world that people feel happy and proud to live in, no one will.”

“That’s why I want to go back and visit in a year or so,” Lisa said. “It probably won’t be unrecognizable by that point, but people can change pretty quickly and I think we’ll see some clear signs for where things are going.”

“Do you think your family will stay there?” Tessa asked.

“Nope. They were some of the first people Rachel taught the [World Walking] trick to. They’re off touring some of my Mom’s favorite movies. They said they’d stop back in too though, and that they’d leave word where they’ll settle down once they decide.”

“How will they manage thatu? Isn’t there a chance that anyone they leave word with will be off traveling too?” Tessa asked, imagining families losing track of each other forever unless one side or the other could pull off a miracle or two..

“Rachel’s got that part covered,” Lisa said. “She and some of the other World Walkers are establishing cross world network connections. She thinks they’ll need to route those through Earth but it should be possible to have something like an extended version of our telepathic chat channels in place as humans start branching out into farther and farther worlds.”

Tessa blinked and then smiled. She wasn’t alone. They weren’t alone. There were other people working as hard as she ever had to keep the worlds going. 

Looking out the window, she saw big fluffy snowflakes starting to fall and felt something release inside her.

The same sense of relief that used to sweep over her when she was a kid and snow was falling on a school night sang down to her fingers and toes.

She could relax, she could be at peace, she could enjoy her wonderful new house and the woman she was in love with.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Rose and Jamal

Rose found Jamal in the ruins of his house, the pieces of his old life reduced to dust and kindling. He was picking through the rubble, quiet and focused enough that he didn’t hear her walking close.

Or maybe Rip’s stealth skills were still with her. 

Earth was healing, and while the barrier between it and the other worlds in its constellation would never be impassable again, the ability to access abilities from those other worlds was fading quickly. That Rip was still as close to Rose as she was spoke to how thin the wall between the two facets of her self was, but even so Rip’s magic and exceptional talents stood on the bedrock of the Risen Kingdoms and weren’t going to last more than another hour on Earth, at best.

“It doesn’t look like they were here,” she said, stopping a short distance away from Jamal. 

Normally she wouldn’t have knelt beside him and offered him a hug if that was what he needed. This time though, she waited. Sometimes he needed support, and something he needed to work things out on his own before he could let people in again, even her. Neither Rose nor Rip had magical insight enough to tell the two states apart, and so she let him decide, content to simply be there when and if he needed her.  She couldn’t claim any special wisdom in that though given that she’d learned the strategy from him.

“They weren’t,” Jamal said. “I talked to Mrs. Leibowitz.”

Gazing over to the right, Rip saw Mrs. Leibowitz’s house had suffered just a bare fraction of damage Jamal’s had. It was like a tornado had reached down to specifically smite his home alone. That seemed fair somehow. Mrs. Leibowitz had helped them out a bunch of times, giving them a place to ‘help out with chores’ when they were little and needed an excuse to not be at either of their homes.

“That’s…is that good?” she asked. Neither of them had a great relationship with their parents. Having just come from what was probably the last shouting match with her mother that she would ever have, Rose felt lighter and freer than she thought she ever had.

But that didn’t mean Jamal would necessarily feel the same.

“It is,” Jamal said, turning to face her and showing her a smile that was far warmer and more genuine than she’d thought she’d find on him. At least in regards to his family.

“Have you talked to them?” she asked, trying to understand this new place where she found her best friend.

“Yeah. I talked to my Mom,” he said, pushing a section of fallen wall over to clear a space for them to sit down. “She’s…someone new?”

“What like she got replaced with someone like Rip or Matt?”

“No. She’s just different. It’s like, almost dying, and losing me, and just everything that happened? I think it all forced her to look at what she’d been doing. She seems, calmer I guess?”

“Did she ask you to stay with her?’ Rose asked, dreading the answer, but knowing she had to be brave enough to ask.

“Stay? No. She said…,” he paused at the leading edge of a lump in his throat, right before it could put a catch in his voice, “…she said that she knew she’d messed up, a lot, and that all she wanted now was for me to follow my dreams and do what I thought mattered. She said she trusted me, and that once she got out of the hospital, she was going to find a new home and that she hoped someday I’d feel safe enough to come back and visit her there.”

Not a single one of those words sounds like something Jamal’s Mom would ever have said, but listening to him, Rose knew that she had.

Jamal wasn’t magically healed by his mother’s change of heart and sudden maturity. He was touched by it, and maybe set free too, but he’d been hurt enough that his joy was tempered into quiet and plain words rather than any surging exaltations of happiness.

“What about…?” Rose stopped, unsure if she even wanted to say the name of his mother’s boyfriend.

“Still alive too, believe it or not,” Jamal said. “Jumped in front of a Demon Centipede Bus and got stabbed like fifty times, but he managed to both save my step-sister and survive thanks to someone killing the Centipede thing and exploding it into a cloud of healing potions.”

“Huh. That’s not how I would have expected that to go.”

“That’s what my mother said. Didn’t stop her from kicking him to the curb though and from the sounds of it, he agreed. Apparently he’s off to join a monastery or something. Had a near death experience and discovered he had a lot of thing to work on before he was going to be ready to be a fit for human company.”

“Wish I’d known all it would have taken was pushing him in front of a bus. Could have tried that a long time ago,” Rose said. Or Rip. Or both really. Neither one liked The BoyFriend.

Jamal chuffed out a little laugh.

“Glad you didn’t. I’d hate to have to commit grand theft or something so we could thrown in the same prison together.”

“Like they’d have ever caught me,” Rose said.

“Hey, you can’t run like lightning over here,” Jamal said, standing up and offering her his hand.

She took it and brushed herself off. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Nah, but it was a dumb idea,” Jamal said.

“Shut up, you’ve never had a dumb idea in your life. Spit it out, what were you looking for?”

Jamal put a hand on the back of his neck, and made a quick study of his own feet.

“Well, you know how Tessa figured out how we can split apart?” he said.

Rose did, and she was reasonably certain she never wanted to try it. Ever. Every moment she stood on the Earth, she felt the maddening itch to get back in Rip’s skin.

Being a human girl was fine. Great even. Being a Tabbywile though? Fast and strong and free as the wind? She liked being Rose, but she loved being Rip Shot. Asking if she wanted to split the two apart felt similar to asking if she wanted to remove the left half of her torso from the right.

No thank you.

“You’re thinking of taking her up on that?” Rose asked, not startled but puzzled.

“Not permanently,” Jamal said. “I’d just like to know how, and I had this stupid idea to go with it.”

“I will Lightning Bop you,” Rose warned him.

“Okay, not stupid, just, you know, stupid,” he said, though the last was more teasing than serious.

Rose responded properly by glowering and raising her hand in a claw-like fashion.

“I thought if I could find one of my Dad’s old books on engineering, Matt and I could split apart when he was damaged and I could repair him. Or maybe invent new gadgets and upgrade him.”

“You were going to put an Arc Reactor into him weren’t you?”

“Well, he is a ‘Man’, and he is made of ‘Iron’, sorta.”

“And you think that’s a stupid idea?” Rose accused him.

“Well…” Jamal began to say.

“Why on Earth would you NOT do that?” Rose asked. “That’s sounds freaking awesome!”

“I know, but it’s not like I can actually build an Arc Reactor.”

“Well sure, not here. But in the Risen Kingdoms? Come on you know there’s like ten thousand people working on that already!”

“Yeah, but they probably know what they’re doing,” Jamal said.

“Dude, when was the last time you saw an Adventurer that knew what they were doing?”

“Okay, that’s a fair point. But still, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Not really I mean.”

“Geez if only you knew someone with a direct like to one of the literal gods who created the Risen Kingdoms.”

Jamal stared at her as though waiting for a punchline that was never going to come.

“Me!” she said. “I’m still the High Priestess of the Lord of Storms you know.”

“Uh, no. No I did not know that,” Jamal said, raising his forefinger in protest.

“I told you! Or, hmm, I think I told you?” Rose said, trying to remember if there’d been a time after she’d called the Lord of Storms back to life and after they’d met her deity in Heaven and she’d had a chance to confirm that her, largely ceremonial, status was intact.

“That you have a god on speed dial? No, I think I’d remember that.”

“It’s not exactly speed dial and, to be fair, the reborn gods are kinda up to their eyeballs in requests so I’m not supposed to call more than once a week or so.”

“Oh yeah, weren’t they saying something about coding a healthy work/life balance into the fabric of the world?”

“I think that was a joke. From what Storms said, they’re being very careful with any changes they make. Nobody want to let in any new Oblivion Remnants, even if the Risen Kingdoms and Gaia mostly have that sorted out.”

“I can see that. We just got done saving the place. It’d be nice if it stayed saved for a while.”

“Yeah. That said though, I’m pretty sure I can get you hooked up with someone who knows what they’re doing and is capable of teaching what they know too,” Rose paused, a terrible thought turning in her belly. “Umm, if you’re still thinking you’ll come back. That’s what your Mom was suggesting so it’s okay right?”

Jamal shook his head and for a moment Rose’s heart sank into her socks.

“I’m not going back there because my Mom said it was okay.” He offered her a smile. “I went into her room to tell her I wasn’t coming back here. Ever. I don’t know if I would have stuck to that, but it was how I’d felt for so long.”

Rose breathed a sigh of relief, and nodded her understanding.

“Now though? Now I think I will be back. Not soon, probably. Maybe for the holidays? Or maybe just on a random weekend. I don’t know. I just…I just want to see her now. It’s…it’s the strangest thing.”

Rose did step forward then and, as she embraced Jamal, felt his tears fall onto her shoulder.

It was a good while before they parted, even though Rose felt more confident than ever that they wouldn’t have to really part.

“We should get going,” Jamal said. “Matt’s sounding kind of distant and the others will be expecting us.”

“You think they know we’re coming back?” Rose asked. “We didn’t promise anything. They wouldn’t let us.”

“Yeah, well they know we’re kids. I don’t think they wanted to be guilty of kidnapping, even under weird circumstances like this. Getting things squared away with our families was on us.”

Rose spend half a moment reflecting on how poorly her own reunion had gone. Not everyone passed through periods of crisis and upheaval to become better people. Seeing that, and hearing how much Jamal’s Mom had changed somehow made things easier for Rose. She’d never been interested in going back to her Earthly life, and knowing it didn’t want her back made that easier, even if it probably shouldn’t have.

She searched for the feelings of abandonment, or loss, or rejection and came up empty. In dead soil in her heart, new things had taken root. They weren’t the relationships other people had, but they were beautiful nonetheless, and most importantly they were hers.

She wasn’t Jamal or anyone else’s girlfriend, but she still had someone she trusted with all her heart.

She wasn’t anyone’s daughter, not anymore, but she had older people who she could turn to. People who cared about her not because they legally had to, not because society expected them to, but because they’d chosen her as one of their own.

Most of all though, she wasn’t alone. There was a whole world of people and monsters and weirder things out there, and they saw her not as a burden, or a nuisance, but as a person.

As who she really was.

As an Adventurer.

Azma

Azma wanted to conquer the world but the paperwork she had to do before hand was just interminable.

“I thought you’d be at Penswell’s reception?” Byron said as he set a fresh pot of [Gnomish Sweet Bean Coffee] onto the table to the side of where Azma’s documents were arrayed.

“I was there, briefly” Azma said without looking up from the [Royal Directive] she was forging.

“Was it as big as they expected it to be?” Byron asked. “One of the new adventuring teams was in here earlier and said it was going to fill up an entire city.”

“Oh, it was far bigger than that,” Azma said. “The only reason the entire kingdom isn’t going to be a ruined wasteland is that the [Adventurers] mostly brought their own food and drink. And they’ll be leaving via teleportation rather than destroying what infrastructure remains intact after several days of drunken revelry.”

“I suppose business with be slow for a while then given that it’s a quarter of the planet away,” Byron said. “And I suppose I should leave you to your planning, no?”

Azma looked up from her forgery, placing it into the “review later” pile. Without a staff to delegate such tasks to, she’d fallen back on the old systems she’d developed to support editing her own work.

“This isn’t planning,” she said. “It’s execution.”

Byron went very still and visibly refrained from scanning the room for an impending attack.

“If I may ask a foolish question,” he said, “whose?”

Azma’s smile came as something of a surprise. It wasn’t cruel and self satisfied. It almost didn’t look like hers at all.

“Not that sort of execution,” she said. “Take a seat if you’d care to hear an explanation, I could use a sounding board.”

Byron took a half step back, Azma’s smile doing nothing whatsoever to reassure him, before letting his shoulders slump by the barest fraction of an inch and sitting down in the chair Azma directed him towards.

“I am at your disposal then,” Byron said, fully aware of the unfortunate implications of his words.

“You seem to have turned over a new leaf,” Azma said, gesturing to the waiter’s apron Byron wore.

“I had thought that too,” Byron said. “But I wonder if this isn’t my first leaf so to speak.”

“You’re not quite who you were?” Azma asked, peering at some quality that might have been hiding behind Byron’s eyes.

“That’s exactly it. I recall who I was, but I’m not sure if I’m really him any longer. I feel as though I am something new inside my skin.” Byron said, squirming as he tried to find the words to express what had to seem like the ravings of someone quite thoroughly mad.

“As do I,” Azma said. “And as we should.”

“And why is that?” Byron asked.

“Because we are no longer bound as we once were,” Azma said. “Leaving aside the Consortium’s loyalty bindings, which I am sure we both circumvented long ago, we are no longer enmeshed in the broader bindings of the Consortium. The web of politics, and power hierarchies, and artificially scarce resources. This is truly a new world, rather than merely an untapped production center or market to exploit.”

“We are creatures of our circumstances then?” Byron asked.

“All creatures are shaped by their circumstances, and shape those circumstances in turn.” Azma’s gaze wasn’t harsh, but she was still looking for something. 

Despite how historically consistent it was for people to meet unfortunate ends when they attracted Azma’s attention, especially when they had maybe, possibly, tried to kill her, Byron didn’t feel a sense of mortal peril as he sat across from her.

“I suppose my circumstances now are rather changed from what they were,” Byron said.

“And yet, that doesn’t cover the whole of the difference, does it?” Azma asked, leaning slightly in.

“It would be a relief if it did, in a sense. I don’t think I would feel I had become so much of a mystery to myself if what had changed was merely a response to wearing an apron instead of a tailored suit.”

“Tell me, is the mystery one you are running from, or will you embrace it?” Azma asked.

Byron’s gaze turned inward.

After a long, slow breath, he looked up to meet her question directly.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’m here to stand still for a while. It feels like if I run from this, I’ll accomplish nothing more than stumbling into the strange depths that await me, and if I try to embrace them, they’ll vanish like shadows before a candle flame leaving me nothing more than the empty shell I probably am.”

“Curious,” Azma said, the ends of her lips concealing a smile that could have been kind or might have cut like a knife.

“That is not your experience I would imagine,” Byron said. “You had the sense to avoid being hollowed out by an all devouring nothingness.”

Azma chuckled at that.

“You know, I had planned several entertainingly dire fates for you. It seemed important that I make a rather spectacular example of you and each of your individual patsies, with a clear distinction in the gradations of how utterly unbearable each of your torments would be.”

“So simple murder was off the table then, I presume?”

“Murder is never simple,” Azma said. “Often however it is unproductive, uninspired, and unoriginal. But yours? Oh, I had many plans where your murder was the one where I at last let myself make a truly bold statement. One that even the Senior Executive Council would understand was something they needed to be truly worried about.”

“That sounds potentially counterproductive,” Byron said. “The Senior Executives don’t tend to shown much tolerance towards the things which can even theoretically threaten them. Presenting a clear and present danger would have united solidly them against you.”

“I know. I had other plans where your suffering would have been played before a more limited audience, but the moving against the Senior Council? It wasn’t a wise play but it was becoming terribly tempting.”

“Did any of those plans involve informing me of what was to come?” Byron asked.

“Oh yes. Most of them in fact. You needed to see your unmaking inexorably descending upon you. You needed to understand the agonies you were going to experience and the poetry behind each one. But then you went and out did me.” Azma shook her head, her eyes rolling skyward as though trying to peer through a thick cloud of disbelief.

“To be fair, being consumed wasn’t a torment that I inflicted on myself,” Byron said. “Not knowingly.”

“That’s the most perfect part,” Azma said. “Even across the endless barrier between worlds, your actions against me were turned back on you and you burned for them like no one else ever has. You were struck down for moving against me and I lifted not a finger to make it happen. I cannot improve on that. It’s a poem whose every syllable is exactly right.”

“So am I free of your malice then?”

“It is so tempting to deceive you and say ‘no’. So tempting to lie and tell you ‘yes’ as the first step in one of the longer and more glorious plans,” Azma said. “Or it should be.”

She breathed out a long, slow sigh, the excitement which had coiled in her like a spring unwinding into quiet serenity.

“As I said though, I am not who I was either.”

“If I may ask, why? You weren’t torn apart, or burned in nothingness. How did you wind up becoming diminished?”

“I’m not,” Azma said. “I didn’t lose who I was. I gained who I could be.”

“I’m not sure I follow that?” Byron asked.

“It was more than my circumstances who made me what I was,” Azma said. “I shaped my circumstances far more than they shaped me, but even as the master of my own destiny, I was still bound to a role, one I thought I had chosen for myself. My ambition, my cunning, my callousness? They were all weapons I’d forged and with them I intended to conquer all who stood before me. In the War of Life, I was going to be the victor.”

“And something changed that?”

“Yes. I won,” Azma said. “Victory, it turned out, was not in domination and mastery though. The War of Life can only be won by making peace. Peace is a fleeting and fragile thing of course, but it’s no less real for those traits. When the peace is broken, you simple make it anew. And make it better. Making peace isn’t an action that is achieved and then set aside, not anymore than waging war is. Each of them, war and peace, are active states, and failing in one can all too easily lead to the worst form of the other.”

“So you’ve given up on conquering the world then?”

“Oh, not at all,” Azma said. “That’s my gift to the newlywed couple.”

“You’re going to conquer the world for them? Does making peace involve playing kingmaker?”

Azma outright laughed at that.

“The very last thing in the world either of the brides would wish for is for me to seat them on a throne,” Azma said. “No, I am going to take over the world so that Penswell doesn’t have to, and so that Niminay can have a moment’s peace before any further catastrophes occur.”

“Forgive me saying this but won’t that required a tremendous amount of bloodshed?” Byron asked. 

Azma liked that his nerves had faded and he had relaxed a bit. It felt unkind to torment what might very well be a fledgling soul. Once that unkindness would have been of no consequence but she welcomed the turning of her heart which had changed her perspective on that.

“In this world, with everyone able to utilize the [Heart Fires], bloodshed holds a rather different status than in most others,” Azma said. “But, no, there will be no bloodshed in my conquest. The [Pax Deus] prevents any sort of armed conflict between nonconsenting sapients.”

“So you will conquer the world without armies?” Bryon seemed perplexed rather than incredulous, as though he was certain she could do as she said but unable to conceive of how.

“I had the largest army this world has ever seen,” Azma said. “My planning was unencumbered by concerns of the toll it would take on civilians or infrastructure. Well, partially unencumbered – I did want to claim as much of the value in the world as I could. Apart from personal greed though, my hands were untied. And yet, the [Risen Kingdoms] are not only unconquered, they are stronger by far then when I first attacked them. If I was evaluating this world for the Consortium, I would recommend interdicting all traffic to it and to the three closest systems as well. If the Consortium still existed that is.”

“You have a secret then. Some tool or strategy that will let you strike where you could not before?” Byron said.

“No. I have no unique tools, and no special resources. Those units who were loyal to me have all been freed and are busy building new lives for themselves here. I have no one and nothing to work with.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Grenslaw said, nodding at the seat to Azma’s right.

A warm, if tentative smile, broke out across Azma’s face as she replied with an agreeing nod.

“You have our support,” Ryschild said, sitting to Azma’s left.

“Till our dying breaths,” they both said in unison.

“That was impeccable timing,” Byron said. “Had you planned it?”

“We didn’t need to,” Grenslaw said.

“It comes naturally,” Ryschild said.

“Still impressive,” Byron said. “But it wouldn’t seem that three of you would be enough where your armies have already failed and peace is mandated.”

Azma glanced back and forth between Grenslaw and Ryschild, something like disbelief fading from her eyes.

“Oh, we will be far more than enough,” Azma said. “Our armies did not fail, you see. They achieved every goal I set before them. It was through their struggles and sacrifice that this world was remade, and this world offers what I have longed for from the deepest, truest reaches of my soul.”

“And that would be?”

“A challenge.”

Niminay and Penny

Penny had spent more time designing the quest that she was currently handing out than she’d spent on any ten battles of the war against the Consortium combined.

“I feel like we normally get some time off after saving the world?” Niminay said, tilting her head from one side to the other as she tried to parse out the meaning of the various figures and icons which were present on the mural in front of Penny.

“We do. We will I mean,” Penny said, without turning to face her. “I just want to be sure we’ve actually saved it.”

Niminay chuckled.

“I can understand the sentiment – it’d be nice if the world would stay saved for a change, but will all this really guarantee that?” she asked. She traced her fingers along the glowing lines which showed where different resources were meant to move and in which order they’d be deployed.

“Honestly? Not really,” Penny said, and sagged, placing a hand against the wall. “After everything we did though, we’ve got to try, don’t we?”

“No,” Niminay said, her voice as gentle as fingers she threaded through Penny’s hair. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“You’re going to tell me I’ve done enough already?” Penny said, relaxing back into the head massage.

“I’m going to tell you that ‘enough’ isn’t what you should measure yourself by,” Niminay said. “We’re never ‘enough’. There’s always some measure we can fall short of, especially if that’s what we’re looking for.”

“That sounds like quitter talk,” Penny joked, closing her eyes to enjoy the massage more.

“Yes, definitely, because you’re clearly all about quitting, Ms. ‘I have ten thousand copies running around fixing the world and that’s still not enough’,” Niminay said and paused for moment, “You did let that spell go right?”

“Mostly,” Penny murmured, hoping the massage would continue.

“Mostly? How many copies does ‘mostly’ leave you with?” Niminay asked, the implied threat of the head massage ending if she didn’t like the answer clear in her tone.

“Just a few,” Niminay said, knowing that indirect answers would probably not lead to anything good but rolling the dice on the low odds nonetheless.

“So three then?” Niminay asked. They both knew it wasn’t three. It was a test, one which Niminay gamely rose to meet.

“Less than three percent of what I had before,” she tried.

“But still three digits worth of copies,” Niminay said. It wasn’t a question. It didn’t have to be. “And you’re knocking yourself out here? What do you have them doing?”

She resumed the head massage but only after guiding Penny down into one of the nearby chairs.

That was good. Penny hadn’t noticed just how tired she was or how close she was to toppling over as the massage relaxed her more and more.

“Secret project,” she said, her words taking on the pleasant lassitude only the border of sleep could impart.

“Secret from who?” Niminay asked.

“Right now? Everyone.” 

“And when you’re done with it?”

“Won’t be a secret at all then,” Penny said.

“And can it wait?” Niminay asked. “Maybe till after you’ve gotten an actual night’s sleep for a change?”

“Nope,” Penny said. “Too risky. Just lucky it hasn’t been too long already.” 

“That sounds serious,” Niminay said, sounding not in the slightest bit convinced of that.

“Very,” Penny said, unconcerned about being convincing so long as the massage continued. “The most serious quest I’ve ever planned.”

“You did just save the world from a thousand apocalypses at once,” Niminay said.

“That wasn’t me. Lots of people worked on that one. Everyone really.”

“True, but a whole lot of the influential ones were listening to you, and you can’t say you didn’t do more than your share in making things turn out like they did.”

“You were the one out on the battlefields,” Penny said. “I had it easy by comparison.”

“No you didn’t,” Niminay said. “You stretched yourself past your breaking point. I worked hard, but I worked within my limits.”

“Because you’re smart,” Penny said. “A lot smarter than people seem to notice.”

“That’s because I’m standing next to you most of the time,” Niminay said. “If people have a question, they know you’re the right one to ask.”

“But I’m usually not,” Penny said. “I know tactics and strategy. I just know enough of other things to listen to the real experts when they’re talking.”

“In that case I have a new expert for you to listen to,” Niminay said.

“But I don’t have any questions I need to ask,” Penny said.

“I think you do,” Niminay said. “Probably several in fact.”

“Such as?” Penny asked.

“Well, I would start with ‘how did I get back to my bedroom’? And then maybe slide over to ‘why am I dressed in pajamas’? Maybe with a ‘whose pajamas even are these?’ thrown in too.”

Penny looked around. She was indeed in her bedroom. And dressed in pajamas. Surprisingly comfy pajamas. In her favorite colors. Made from [Perfect Cloud Down] if she wasn’t mistaken. 

“How?” was all that she asked.

“You are a lot more run down than you thought.”

“But…” Penny started to object.

“Is your Secret Project one that you really want to work on when you’re this out of it?” Niminay asked. “If it’s important, shouldn’t you be at your best for it?”

Penny grumbled.

“I’ll take that as firm agreement,” Niminay said and stood up from the bed where she’d placed Penny.

“You don’t have to go,” Penny said.

“I’m not planning to,” Niminay said. “I want you to fall asleep in my arms and wake up in them too.”

“Because you don’t trust me not to keep working in my sleep?”

“I trust you with all my heart,” Niminay said. “I’m not here to hold you back. I just want to hold you so that you’ll know I’m here and that, in this moment, you’re safe.”

She crawled into bed with Penny and resumed the glorious head massage, luring Penny into drifting down and down in the embrace of a gentle and rejuvenating night of dreamless slumber.

When she woke, dawn was long passed but Niminay’s arms were still around her.

A bright gleam of gold glittered between Niminay’s thumb and forefinger and caught her eye. Since Niminay tended to keep only the most unusual magical widgets the presence of one drew Penny back to full wakefulness, if along a slow and deliciously relaxed road.

“I still remember my first quest,” Niminay said when she noticed Penny’s eyes were open. “I’d scrounged up enough silver to make a single gold piece and that got me a stick that was masquerading as a bow and some other sticks that were pretending to be arrows.”

“I thought your first quests was in the [Dungeon of Draindell]?” Penny said.

“That was my first dungeon, and my first party,” Niminay said. “I’d started adventuring a few weeks before that.”

“With a really terrible bow?”

“Like I said, it’s questionable if I can even call it a bow, but it did shoot sticks                            out fast enough to do some damage.”

“What was the quest you took on with that?”

“Killing rats. [Belgenwatch] had a bounty out on them.”

“Those weren’t ordinary rats as I recall.”

“No. They were not. Little plague spreading monsters. It turned out even having a really awful bow put me ahead of the other fledgling [Adventurers] there. Everyone who ran into melee with them got so sickened they spent their reward money and more on the plague cures. I managed to make some gold at it because I mostly just ran.”

“Definitely a smart play. Especially if you could lead them into your traps.”

“I couldn’t set traps back then,” Niminay said. “In truth I could barely shoot either. But I could run, and I had the time and patience to make it work. I think I got five gold for that work. Took that right to the auction house and spent it all on better gear, all but one gold piece worth.”

“You wanted a memento?” Penny asked.

“I wanted to be sure I could buy another terrible bow if I lost the rest of my money on the next quest. I held onto that gold piece ever since with the idea that all I had to do was to run away at the right time and and I could start over again if I had to.”

“You’ve always wanted to be an [Adventurer] that much, haven’t you?” Penny asked, sitting up and turning to face Niminay.

“It what I wanted more than anything when I young, and it’s what’s made me feel needed and valuable in the years since. I just have one problem though.”

“What’s that?” It didn’t sound like it would be the sort of problem Penny would need to spin out a hundred duplicates to solve, but she was ready to rise to whatever the challenge might be.

“Being an [Adventurer] isn’t what I want the most, and I don’t want to run away from that anymore.”

Niminay turned the lump of gold in her fingers and Penny saw it was far too regular to be called a ‘lump’. It was thin though. Like a coin, except that wasn’t quite right either?

“So I’m not going to,” Niminay continued. “No more running away. And no more last gold piece either. I’m not interested in rebuilding the life I had before. If I have to rebuild from the ground up, I want to build a better life. One with you.”

She turned the bright gold in her hand so that Penny could see the ring she’d had cast from the coin.

“What? No!” Penny nearly jumping out of bed.

There was a brief moment of silence before Niminay chuckled.

“Okay. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting,” she said.

Penny shook her head and put up her hands in a beseeching gesture.

“I didn’t meant that. Obviously,” she said. “But I was going to surprise you!”

“I know,” Niminay said.

“You…how?” Penny asked.

“Your ‘secret project’? You did a great job on operational security, but I am a world class scout,” Niminay said. “I stumbled on one of your cloth shipments and thought it was for some new armor. I tracked it halfway around the world and found the wine requisition and the mystical lighting globes you ordered too.”

“No! That was all supposed to be a gift to you,” Penny said.

Niminay rose out of bed to stand in front of her.

“Do you think I was anything but a sobbing mess when I figured out what was going on?” she asked. “I literally leapt over a mountain when it sank in.”

“But, you stopped me? Why? I wanted to get everything ready last night,” Penny said.

“Because you were wrong,” Niminay said. “You thought you were running out of time. Like you had to catch me before someone else did. Like you didn’t catch me years ago.”

“But I kept putting you off,” Penny said.

“The time wasn’t right. That was okay then, and it’s still okay,” Niminay said.

“But it’s right now. I want us to be together too,” Penny said. “Forever.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Niminay said. “Would you like to take your ring perhaps?”

Penny grabbed it before the offer could expire.

“I love you,” Niminay said. “I have loved you for so long now, and I am so ready to let everyone know that.”

“But I didn’t get the preparations done,” Penny said.

“You didn’t have to,” Niminay said. “The site’s all setup. I had a few of our friends help out and pick up where things left off when you finally let your spell go.”

“A few? So three?” Penny asked.

“Why don’t we go see,” Niminay said, touching the [Magic Dresser] and letting it instantly cloth her in the stunning wedding gown Penny had designed.

Penny followed suit, donning her own gown and thrilling at the weight and comfort of wearing it at last..

“Put the ring on, I had it enchanted with a one-use spell,” Niminay said. “We can choose something permanent for it together later.”

“What’s the activation for the spell?” Penny asked.

“Just say ‘it’s time’ and hold my hand.”

The teleportation effect on the right turned out to be one that enveloped the travelers in a whirlwind of multi-colored petals. As the flower storm subsided, Penny saw they were standing on the small wedding stage she’d setup for them.

What she hadn’t setup for them was the guest list of those who were present.

The ‘few friends’ who’d helped out turned out not to be three people but closer to three percent of the entire population of the world.

Penny choked up. She’d wanted to make sure the world would know Niminay had chosen her and Niminay had delivered exactly that.