Cadence charged in their sword drawn a battle cry rang from their lungs, swinging widely, the sword cutting through the first of the shade projections. Davin directed them to attack Cadence with their full strength and they began their charge. The sound of tearing as they charged was unsettling as if they were being ripped out of space. They slashed at Cadence with their paper-thin claws, traces of light left in the air for a moment after each attack. The lead Projection ducked past Cadence as they swung, stabbing in with their disproportional hands raking across Cadence's unarmored back. The last followed, nearly throwing itself in, rushing Cadence, slashing at their side, the attack biting in deep. Cadence stepped back, a thundercrack filling the air as they unleashed a blast of thunder that shredded the shadowy figures into nothing. Cadence quickly looked around, making sure that the foes were all slain, their breath in ragged pants as they stood up.

"They are more of a threat than I had expected." Cadences breathing settled, as they looked bat towards Davin and Hugh.

"To be honest, once we figured out that these things popped when exposed to any kind of strong light, they were far less threatening." Davin Shrugged.

"I am glad that the Patrons blessed me with that…" Hugh summoned the dancing lights to circle around his hand before releasing them.

"That seems inefficient," Cadence said between pants. "Can you summon them anywhere that is well-lit?"

"And there lies a part of what we are doing today." Hugh walked over to the wall and flipped a few switches that caused shutters that were covering windows to slide up.

Davin held up the lens, looking it over, the film cell seeming in perfect condition. "Hopefully they're good for more than one use."

"And that is why we do this, especially since they are new items." Hugh held up the token that Cadence had cast light on up again, shining the light into the lens.

Several hours passed, and Davin was able to summon the shades several times off of a single cell before it cracked. Upon inspecting the cell Davin got an interesting message.

[ This item has become damaged through repeated use, any more use of this item will cause it to be destroyed. If this item is destroyed, it will no longer be usable.

This item will be safely usable again in 09:23:59:59]

If Davin was reading it as he thought, this cell would take a week to recover. He closed the status and started counting, when he got to ten he opened the status once again and the timer had gone down by several seconds, which did two things, showed him that time passed at roughly the same rate as it did back home…. Or at least his perceptions of how time passed stayed in what he knew for time and that the item wasn't as single-use as he'd feared.

They did learn quite a bit about the projections, they were made of pure shadow, and could only be destroyed by a light source that was brighter than the light used to cast them. Brighter light would make them more solid as if they were sturdier. While in a naturally lit environment, they would be thinner and would break more easily. The projections when they weren't being destroyed in combat lasted about a minute from the best they could judge, and would simply fade away rather than shatter. If they were summoned in near daylight they were insubstantial, ghosts of what they were and couldn’t move, pasting themselves to whatever surface they were projected on making it a trap, the images grasping and pulling the offending target into the ground as if it were quicksand.

"I don’t want to sound like I'm complaining, but these things seem broken as hell." Davin looked at the handful of cells that they hadn't used yet.

"Broken as hell?" Hugh looked at Davin in confusion. "Did we crack another cell?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I mean that these things are overpowered, I can't use them, but since you can cast enough different light spells, they will be an amazing asset for you."

"I agree, and I can agree with them being overpowered, but they also have a large number of specific rules to make the most use of them, so I think that it has its own checks and balances." Hugh looked at the few cells that were not broken.

"Hugh having them makes sense. I like to be right in the action so I doubt that I will make the best use of them." Cadence stated as they gripped their rapier tightly.

"Might want to mount it with a chain, make it easier to hold." Hugh held up the lens.

"Sounds good, if we could have its own light supply that would make things easier," Davin said as he thought of a camera shutter.

"I don’t think we could find anything bright enough to put with it that would be permanent." Hugh looked through the lens.

"Hmmm, that is a good point, could be a worthwhile backup plan if nothing else." Davin shrugged.

"I think they will be a valuable asset." Cadence nodded, rubbing the healed claw marks that they had taken to the side.

"A shared space, a magical cup that refills selected beverages, a massive mount, a donkey and a wagon, and now a potent summoning tool. We are getting some good pieces in our hands." Davin listed off the gear that they had.

"A good cook, a forager, and a solid pair of spell casters, and a good mix of combat skills at our disposal." Hugh jumped in as soon as Davin paused.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"And good company." Cadence almost sang as they threw their arms around the others.

They all broke into a shared laughter.

Davin felt as though the next leg of his trip was going to be much longer, so he was thinking about what he could do to make the travel easier. Creature comforts from his world would be amazing, a gas cooktop, a fully furnished recreational vehicle. Some of the things he could get things commissioned, but he would need to get some more funds at his disposal. Dungeons from his world were going to be some of the scariest things that he could think of, no matter how he thought about it.

When he made it back to the apartment, he had expected to find Jes lounging in her favorite chair working on a new puzzle box, but the apartment was empty. So, he took the opportunity and began working on the new treats that he had been working on in his mind. There were a lot of classic candy-making tricks that he was familiar with, luckily many of the dungeons made some of the raw materials far easier to get. Sugar was a common dungeon drop, but not as the white sugar that he was familiar with, but instead it was in its cane form but since sugar was a common enough ingredient in almost every world the processing wasn’t a secret. Getting the boiling sugar to the hard crack point was difficult, he just had to watch and test it from time to time, thick leather gloves protected his hands as he dumped the contents of the pot onto the marble countertop, and he made sure that he cleaned and heated before he started. Adding the few ingredients that he gathered on his way back were quickly used, and folded into the candy, making a simple hard candy was a bit more work than he was expecting since he hadn't done it before, but he did learn a lot.

"Oooo what is that smell?!" Jes's voice cut in, as she walked into the room.

"Just a simple hard candy, I have to make most of the ingredients from scratch, so these lemon drops were a test more than anything else." The crack as Davin started tapping at the hard candy rope.

"Lemon drop? So it will be lemon flavored?" Jes asked as she grabbed one of the pieces that was resting on the counter.

"I hope the flavor is okay." Davin finished tapping the rope, his pile was less than a pound, but for a first try, he wanted to make sure that he could do it more than anything else.

"It's delicious!" Jes grabbed a few more pieces ran over to her favorite chair and dropped in, throwing off her boots in the process.

"What are we thinking that we want for dinner?" Davin asked as he slid the candy into a bowl.

"Pasta? Something simple?" Popping another of the candies into her mouth.

"Simple? I can do simple." Davin finished cleaning up the mess that he made, one of the simplest pasta dishes that he knew of was iconic in his world.

Since macaroni didn’t exist yet, he did have a host of other noodles to choose from. Alfredo was an easy enough meal to make, and he could add almost anything to them and it was a full meal. Gathering the ingredients he needed from the supplies that they had there were a few extra eggs so he decided to work on a carbonara instead. Cooking the bacon, boiling the noodles, and prepping all the remaining odds and ends. Cracking the eggs in and stirring as he added the pasta water.

"Why is every time that you cook filled with food I've never seen before?" Jes took a deep breath as she sniffed the food, the smells making her smile.

"No idea, I like food, so I was never afraid to learn to make it. As I find a few more odds and ends, I will add more."

"I can't wait." Jes smiled wide as she dug into her food.

Davin followed suit, digging in and eating with gusto.

Cadence returned to the place that they were currently calling home, the bard's college was an interesting place, most just traded stories, some were dedicated to tracking the flow of belief, and the large map that was spread out on the table had multicolored flagged pins all over it. Several new pins were being added to it as Cadence approached, looking over the map seeing the constant state of flux that the world was in was always a humbling sight.

"Are there any unusual anomalies?" A voice rang out over the table.

"No, but with the winter set in the north, there are some concerns that there may be in an influx, purely as a result of the several events of the fall." Another voice piped in.

"There is a mass building in the spider-heavy dungeons, we may need to find a better way of culling them, still too early to jump to that though." The man leaned over the table, starting at the concentration of yellow that was forming to the east of the bastion.

"My friends and I were out that way, the spider dungeons do seem overrun, but they did have a massive number of subjugators." Cadence tapped on the map near the path that they took north.

"Hmmm, but my concern is for oversaturation, if people don’t need any of the supplies, that could lead to problems." Waving his hands over the map in a sign of exasperation.

"Were they some of the dungeons that we were having issues with last year?" Cadence looked at the map, looking at the south, which was next on their list.

"The exact ones. I think that there are stronger forces at work than our normal side of bad dreams." Crossing his arms and looking across the table.

"My friends and I are planning to head south, I think my friend will want to try his hand at a dungeon, so I think we will be able to help look into it some," Cadence said as they leaned over the table.

"South? Hmmm, we do have some working out that way, gathering some stories can be difficult." The man looked at Cadence and paused. "Where is your armor?"

"Being cleaned… Glen wouldn't let me leave in it." Cadence pouted.

"Glen… I owe that man a thank you…" The man chuckled and smiled.

"What? Why?" Cadence stood quickly.

"Just don't see you in comfortable clothing very often." The man stared.

"Comfortable? I have never been more uncomfortable in my known afterlife. I have been in his all day, and I hate it… people always stare…" Cadence dropped into the chair that was sitting nearby and a heavy sigh was let out.

"Then go back to your room." The man said with a scoff.

"I'm going…. I just got back in… I hadn't been to the table since I made it back to the bastion.

"Understood. I haven't seen you since you got in either, I do need to talk with you, there are several things that I want to go over with you."

Cadence walked out of the map room, making their way back to the room that they had been staying in. Still bare in any kind of decoration, it was still one of the more comfortable beds that they had slept in in quite some time. Throwing themselves on the bed in a dramatic fashion that would put any princess to shame, Cadence let out a groan. Looking at the cloth it was nice, soft, and comfortable to wear, the biggest problem was how much of their skin it showed, but Cadence did feel that it looked nice, the color made their eyes pop and made their small curves much more pronounced.