Cara Alessia was pacing in her office in the Technomancer Building on the Church of the Light campus in Helm's Peak. She was mumbling to herself as she walked. "She's fine, Cara; she knows how to take care of herself. She is over level fifty now, and the System quest only recommended forty-seven plus." Cara rubbed at her temples, an old habit from when she still got stress headaches. She didn't want to admit it, but she was worried about Parish, her only daughter. It wasn't like they talked every day, but Parish had told her she would try to join the event, so Cara assumed her daughter would have at least let her know she was okay when she returned.

Chewing her lower lip, Cara thought, "If she was harmed, though, I would personally kill every single member who was involved in the release of those beasts! What were they thinking? And how much do you have to damage an ecosystem to receive a twenty-five percent debuff for an entire cycle? Just for some insignificant Moonblight? Something isn't right with this. And with those old archived reports, I discovered last year…maybe I should…"

Cara activated Emotional Suppression and sat back at her desk to think of a course of action. Her worry over Parish's well-being was clouding her judgment; now, she needed to think clearly. "I should prepare for the worst possible scenario regarding Parish. My mission has not changed, but I need to change my approach to completing it. Despite all my time invested in this organization, I am no closer to achieving my goals. The church has benefitted greatly from my presence while I have been kept in the dark. I will not cut my ties fully but search for other avenues to escape this planet. Hallista must be close to upgrading if the recent raid could offer System Shop awards. I need to access that dungeon again. This time without a church escort."

Cara's mind was racing through hundreds of probable scenarios per second, calculating success and failure rates and potential consequences. She concluded the church had outlived its usefulness to her, and if they had indeed done something, even inadvertently, to her daughter, no amount of emotional suppression could stop her from retaliating. So, she decided to distance herself from the organization, at least temporarily.

“I only hope Alexander will still speak to me after all these years,” Cara thought. Picking up a device from her desk, she linked with it and sent several commands to the Whisper Seekers she had hidden around the city. When Cara received their activation confirmations, she crushed the device in her hand, storing the broken remains in her ring. Getting up from her chair, she walked over to a wall of her windowless office and placed her hand against the smooth white stone. Cara's eyes glowed green, and thousands of tiny mana wires grew from her hand into and over the stone, spreading in a meter-wide circle across the wall. The wires began vibrating in rhythm, and the stone softened until her hand and arm sank into the wall up to her elbow like she was pushing through molasses. Slowly, she pulled her hand free of the stone holding the small silver orb she had been protecting for so many centuries. As soon as her hand cleared the wall, the mana wires retracted, and the stone's smooth surface returned to its original form.

Cara turned the orb over in her hand, inspecting it for any blemishes or damage. She sighed in relief when she found none and quickly placed it in her storage ring. Cara had kept the orb in the wall of her office so she wouldn't lose it if she was killed in the field. The church was powerful, but they could only bring her body back, not her items.

Grabbing a few items from her desk, Cara took one last look around the room, ensuring she hadn't missed something. She shook her head and said, "I should have done this long ago." Opening the door, she walked out of the room without looking back.

***

Nara awoke with a snort; sitting up, she wiped drool from the corner of her mouth. Rubbing her eyes, she stood from the couch and immediately tripped over Brenda, who was still passed out on the floor. Thanks to her high agility stat, Nara righted herself quickly. She turned to look at the sleeping berserker, who hadn't even stopped snoring when Nara kicked her. “What the goink happened last night?” Nara tried to replay the night's events, but everything was fuzzy.

"Good afternoon, Nara," Sarah said cheerfully from nearby.

Looking over, Nara saw the ice mage smiling at her from the table, sipping from a bottle in her hand. Marin and Ella were at the table, too, but they looked like they were passed out with their heads and arms resting on the table.

"I need a bath," Nara mumbled and started toward the partition, hiding the tub. She ignored the two berserkers from Brenda's crew lying by the fireplace, a slight amount of smoke rising from their hair. Stripping off her clothes as she got to the partition, Nara stopped short of the tub when she saw it was already occupied.

"Oh, Miss Nara," Chad said from where he was standing half out of the tub, "I, um, hope you don't mind me taking the liberty of using your—”

"It is fine," Nara said, waving her hand. Then she looked Chad up and down appreciatively. “That body of his looks harder than his armor,” She thought, then sauntered toward him with a coy look and asked, "So, are you sure you want to get out of the tub?"

***

Sam and Lupie watched in fascination as the flat disk of void energy hovered horizontally a half-meter above the table. Noticing the room grow darker, Sam looked around and saw the privacy runes covering the walls, ceiling, and floor had been overlaid with Void runes. Prompting her to think, “Is that extra protection or something else?” She suspected it was extra protection from detection and wondered if it came standard with a summon of this sort. And if not, was the protection for her or the Nul being summoned?

Shaking her head, Sam refocused on the portal in front of her just in time to see a teardrop-shaped black blob of what looked to Sam like jelly made of tar fall from the portal to plop onto the table with a thump. “Well, at least it didn’t splatter,” Sam thought absently, staring at the melon-sized teardrop of goop. A black hand suddenly extended from the portal, pressed a cute white wizard hat bigger than the little blob by a factor of two down onto the tip of the teardrop on the blob and wiggled it back and forth to ensure it was tight. Apparently, content the hat was secure, the hand released it, and a black feather appeared between its thumb and forefinger with a snap; it placed the feather in the hat band with a flourish before disappearing back into the Void.

Sam thought that was the end of it and reached out to touch the little Nul when the same black hand shot back out of the portal and placed a book with a white cover in her hand before sucking back into the Void again. The portal closed with a muted whoosh. The hand had given her the book so fast that Sam didn't have time to react. Sam examined the cover; it read Nul in black lettering.

The little black blob with an adorable hat hadn't moved yet, so Sam said softly, "Hello…Nul…" It didn't respond. Now afraid to startle the little thing by touching it, she, instead, tried sending a party invite to the small wizard blob.

The instant Sam sent the invitation, two orange eyes popped open on the flat black of the Nul, and a big, overly wide smile spread across its features as its body split into a fang-filled mouth. The eyes fluctuated from orange to violet to white and then to orange. The white from the hat started leaking across its body, only to be replaced with black before returning to white again. Sam couldn't help thinking, “It’s like a scary lava lamp of doom.” On a whim, she checked its status in their party menu.

Nul

Race: Void Slime; Collective [Level 1]

Class: Void Mage [Level 1]

Health: 61

Stamina: 46

Mana: 107

Attributes:

STR – 2

VIT – 4

END – 3

AGL – 3

INT – 5

WIS – 7

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Free Attribute Points 14.

Abilities:

Slime [Level 1]

Void Manipulation

Void Sight [Level 1]

Class Skills:

Void Infusion [Level 1]

Void Step [Level 1]

Racial/General Skills:

Identify [Level 1]

Class Spells:

Void Bolt [Level 1]

Void Tunnel [Level 1]

Racial/General Spells:

Summon Lesser Beast [Level 1]

Resistance(s):

Cold [Max]

Pain [Max]

Poison [Max]

Mental [Level 1]

Void [Max]

Sam tried speaking again, "Hi, Nul. Nice to meet you. I'm your sister, Sam."

Nul’s smile faltered a little, and its eyes narrowed. Bouncing forward to the table's edge, it eyed her suspiciously and then asked in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, "Why did you wait so long? Summon Nul easy! Now hungry!” Nul’s eyes and mouth slid around its body to face Lupie and asked, “We kill and eat monster? Get experience! Grow stronger! Eat more!”

It took Sam a long second to process what she had just witnessed. The body of the Void Slime hadn't moved; the mouth and eyes just glided around its body until they were facing the Bloodmorph. Lupie, to her credit, only snorted around a mouthful of cookie. Looking down at her plate, Lupie reluctantly picked one up and said, "Here. Eat this," And tossed the cookie to Nul, who snatched it out of the air with a black tongue-like appendage that reminded Sam of the tongue of chameleons she had seen on nature shows.

Nul’s eyes opened wide, and the tongue quickly snapped out to snag another of Lupie's cookies from the plate. "Hey! That was mine!" Lupie snapped at the little cookie thief, and Sam couldn't help but laugh. Lupie looked at Sam in shocked horror, "It stole my food!"

That caused Sam to laugh even harder. Finally calming herself, Sam told Nul sternly, “Nul, it isn't polite to steal food from others." She held up a hand when the eyes switched back to her, hoping it was a universal gesture the Slime would understand. When Nul didn't speak, Sam assumed her gesture worked and continued, "Even if you are hungry, it is always polite to ask first."

Nul bounced once on the table, rattling the dishes, "I understand; first ask, then take."

“Oh dear, this isn’t going to be easy, is it?" Sam mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose. Remembering she was on a timer, she tried to set some basic ground rules for the childlike Void Slime. "Nul, we are in danger here. I summoned you so if something happens, you can at least have a chance to fight and flee instead of being trapped in the token defenseless."

“Fight, kill, eat, grow strong!” Nul bounced as it spoke.

"Uh, sure," Sam responded cautiously, "but not everyone is an enemy," she pointed to Lupie, saying, "Lupie is our friend. Can you check your party menu? Do you know how to do that?"

Nul’s eyes vanished momentarily, reappeared, and it bounced again, "The Defeated is friend! She give food!”

"Great!" Sam said, then tried to explain their situation as best she could. "Okay, Lupie will hide you for a little while so we can leave this room and go somewhere safe."

“Okay,” Nul said, “hide. Then kill. Grow stronger.”

“How about this Nul? Always ask me," Sam closed her eyes, "and I cannot believe I'm saying this, or Lupie, first before you kill, okay? Can you do that for your me?" Sam asked as she summoned the backpack the System had gifted her when she first arrived in this world, from her inventory. She handed it to Lupie, then when the Bloodmorph looked at it confused, Sam helped her get it on and asked her to carry Nul in it.

While Sam was distracted with Lupie, Nul bounced over to the still unconscious Parish and asked, “Can Nul kill? Eat?”

The little monster's voice was so innocent and full of hope Sam nearly burst out laughing again. She managed to contain herself and told Nul, "No, that's Parish. She's a…a…well, I don't exactly know what she is yet, but we aren't going to kill her." Holding the top flap of the backpack open, Sam gestured to it and said, "Now hop in here and hide until I tell you it's safe to come out." When Nul looked hesitant, Sam picked up her own plate of cookies and dumped them into the backpack. All misgivings gone, Nul cleared the meter and a half that separated them and swished into the pack in a single bounce. Sam stuffed the hat that hadn't made it, into the backpack, dropped Nul’s book in after it, then closed and cinched the top flap.

With a wave of her hand, Lupie made the remaining desserts on the table disappear. When Sam looked at her curiously, wondering where she had got a storage item, Lupie smiled, "Brenda gave me a storage ring last night. See!" She turned her head, showing Sam an earring in her left ear. "She said that I am a good girl!"

Sam smiled, “You are a good girl, Lupie. And a good companion. Did you tell her thank you?” Lupie beamed at the praise and nodded her head.

Then Sam asked the question she was sure she knew the answer to. "Do you want to keep traveling with me? Even though Nul and I will be hunted by—”

"Yes!" Lupie said, cutting her off.

"I thought so," Sam said, scratching Lupie's ears. Walking over, Sam shook Parish's shoulders gently to wake her.

Parish’s eyes shot open, and she sat up quickly, asking, "Did I faint?" Then, realizing she had indeed fainted, Parish put her face in her cupped hands and groaned, "Mother told me that wouldn't happen anymore once I passed level fifty!" Then she jerked her head up, "The Void Token! It must be destroyed! That creature is wild and feral! It is more powerful than you can possibly imagine!”

Sam grabbed Parish by her shoulders and, in a calming voice, said, "Hey, hey, it has been taken care of. There is no super-powerful Void Slime that's going to destroy the world. Just calm down and take a deep—”

"You don't understand!" Parish cut Sam off, grabbing Sam's forearms, "My uncle was the space mage there that day! He told me what the Lif said after it defeated the wild Lif! It held up the token to them and said the Nul would someday return before he ripped open a path in the Void and stepped through!”

“That Lif is my sibling,” Sam responded flatly, “and so is the Nul from that token.”

Parish looked franticly around the room and started hyperventilating. Sam helped her into a chair and handed her a wine glass, saying, "Here, this might help." Parish pushed the glass aside and grabbed the bottle, turning it up and chugging it. Feeling the need to clarify, Sam corrected, "They are actually my half-siblings." When the Elf only stared at her, confused, still chugging the wine. Sam asked, "What do you see when you identify me?"

Parish lowered the now half-empty bottle, and her eyes went distant momentarily before she responded, "Human, Pathfinder, Level 40. What of it? What does that have to do with how you got the Void Relic and became part of the Collective?" She looked at the bottle of wine and put it back up to her lips, gulping its contents again.

Sam shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine as to how I got this way. But I think you should know you hooked up with a Human Voidling hybrid last night.”

Parish spit a mouthful of wine across the table. “What?!?”

"How else did you think I could have a…relic? Sam asked, thinking, "Is that what the notebook is called?”

"I don't know!" Parish said, waving her hands, ignoring the wine splashing everywhere as she spilled the remaining contents of the bottle over the table and floor. "How am I supposed to know how the Collective chooses who they allow in? I thought that maybe you were a human that was given a place in the Collective for some great feat or a birthright or something!" Parish put the bottle to her lips again and turned it up. Then pulled it away and stared at it in confusion before turning it upside down. Realizing it was empty, she tossed it to the floor and reached for an unopened bottle on the table.

Sam could see where this was going and needed to get them back on track, so she grabbed Parish's shoulder to get her attention and said, "Focus, Parish; I'm afraid Nara and Naris are in danger. Lupie had that summon token on her person somewhere when we walked into the Guild. They can detect contraband on people when they enter, so I'm pretty sure they know about it." Parish adopted a thoughtful look; her breathing slowed. Sam thought that was a good sign and continued, "I still don't know why you need my help, and quite frankly, I don't care. My friends could be in danger right now, so either you can stick with me, or we can part ways."

Parish asked, "How did you know it was a slime?"

“What?” Sam asked, caught off guard.

"I never said it was a slime that nearly destroyed the planet, and I saw Lupie's token that night at the bar when you nearly killed Chad. It only had her real name, 'The Defeated', on it. So how do you know it was a Void Slime in my story?"

Sam looked at Lupie and said, “Show her.”

Quick as a flash, Lupie took off the backpack and opened the top flap. Reaching in, she pulled Nul out and plopped the little ball of darkness with a cute hat onto the table. Nul’s eyes popped open, and it sucked in the cookie half wedged in its body as it stared at Parish and Sam. Nul asked, “Hiding finished? Kill now?”

Sam was impressed. Parish only flinched a little when Nul was brought out. When she didn’t even react to Nul’s question, Sam looked at her curiously.

Parish was staring in fascination at Nul but not in fear as Sam had expected. Her suspicions were answered when Parish said, “It’s only level one…”

"And my sibling," Sam added, happy Parish wasn't freaking out. "The Lif your uncle battled and the Nul in front of you are the same but…not." Sam struggled for the right words to explain, finally settling on, "Nul’s soul was reset. The wild Lif from your story was indeed killed. Its soul was preserved without the memories of its former life and apparently reset to level one as well. Which turns it into a Nul, I guess…there is so much I don't know about this world!" Sam said the last statement in frustration.

Parish jerked her attention to Sam. “Wait, you are not from this world either? How did—”

"I am out of time, Parish." Sam cut her off. "Lupie, hide Nul, and let's go." Sam turned to Parish, "If you want my help, then come with me, and we may be able to work something out, but first, I have to get myself and my friends out of the city. Is there anywhere safe for us on this planet?"

Parish watched as Lupie helped Nul into the backpack. Then she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She stood up with a look of resolve and said, "Yes, I will come with you. And do not fear for Nara and Naris. They will not be harmed so long as they are members of the Guild. However, if what you say about your race is true, then you and," she looked to the backpack Lupie was donning, "the Nul are in a different situation and will only be protected so long as you remain on the Adventurers Guild's grounds. They cannot protect you outside of their walls." Sam's face must have reflected her tumultuous thoughts, so Parish quickly continued, "No one is beating down the door here, Sam, so you can relax a little. I'm not saying you are safe here in the city, but if you had been detected, trust me, we would already know."

The words didn’t really calm Sam, but she felt her mind relax slightly. She asked, "So, is there anywhere safe?"

Parish nodded, “The Farenth Tribe in the Beastlands will gladly shelter you and the Nul." She smiled weakly, "I should know; it is my home."