Victor felt bad for me and gave me a couple of master-rank rot potions on the house. The junk items I had didn’t amount to much, but it wasn’t much less than what I would typically find on a couple of new adventurers. “Thank you, Victor.”

“Sword’s not all bad. It’s giving you a lot of buffs. Just don’t take it out again,” he said.

That was the plan. “I won’t.”

“Bye, Vic!” Molly said.

I hesitated to leave. I’d gotten all the information I could from the Orc, but who would help if I pulled the sword out again?

Molly landed next to me and took my hand. “Let's sell that stuff.”

The whole experience shook me, but it had been a long time since I'd had a Hexed friend to rely on. Perhaps this little ghost would prove to be a worthy ally. Only time would tell.

We walked across the street to The Grizzled Beard and went inside.

Despite there being a ton of new people in town, not many were in the store. Most of them were probably out at the border slaughtering my fellow Hexed. They did need to make money before they could spend it.

“Inethiel, with a companion? I thought I would never see the day,” Aaron said.

My hand instinctively pulled away from Molly’s, leaving her glowing eyes staring up at me. Was I ashamed of having someone close to me? “Hey, Aaron.”

Aaron was my friend Julia’s boyfriend. I met him before her, but I wasn’t interested in him like she was. He had a thing for shops, and since most of the necessities in our town were delivered autonomously, we didn’t need many traditional stores, let alone people who tended one.

I gestured at Molly. “This is Molly.”

“Hey, Molly,” he said.

Aaron wasn’t in the store physically. He was in VR and technically worked for Infinite Diffusion. They were Dark Offerings developers. Aaron preferred to use a dwarf as his avatar, but it was a recent change.

His hair was cropped short, but he sported a beard that went to the bottom of his stomach. Usually, Dwarves' beards represented the length of time they were in the game. Meaning the older the character, the longer the hair, but since he worked for them, he got to choose.

Molly waved but didn’t do much more than that. She was much more outgoing earlier, and I didn’t expect the sudden shyness.

The Grizzled Beard was one of the bigger shops in town. Its decor was exquisite. Aaron took pride in the furnishings. There were even chairs to sit and relax if it was busy.

“What have you got?” he asked.

The one thing he didn’t bother with was an accent.

“Mostly junk.”

“Lemmie see.”

I brought out all of the junk items and laid them on the counter for him to take a look at.

“All appraised already?” he asked.

“Like always,” I said.

He shook his head. “Only you would say over a golds worth of items are junk.”

“I can’t use them, so they are junk. You’re going to give me a gold for all of it?” I asked.

The plate mail from the girl I’d killed was there. “Why is this one all bent up?”

“Do you really want to know?” I said as I put on my haggling face.

You ripped it from that poor girl's body, didn’t you? A voice spoke into my head.

My heart blasted into full race mode. I backed away from the counter and spun around. “What? Who’s there?”

Molly floated to my side and grabbed my hand. It seemed to calm me down, but I still didn't know what the heck was going on.

Then I gazed at Molly. “Is it you? Do you have some sort of mind-talking powers or something!”

“N-no,” she said while her eyes shifted back and forth.

I didn’t believe her. “I swear if you’re messing with my head. I don’t care if you’re intangible; I'll find a way to rip you to shreds!”

Her eyes widened, and she let go of me. I wasn’t sure if she felt the truth in my words, but I was being honest. No one messed with my head and got away with it.

“Az, chill out. Neither of us are messing with you,” Aaron said.

What did he call me? I spun around. “Don’t call me that in here!”

“Inethiel, we aren't doing anything,” Molly said.

Someone was messing with me, and she was the only one there with access to illusions.

You think I'm one of them? You have a lot to learn, little shambler.

Molly didn't appear to be casting any sort of spell, and Aaron seemed relatively normal, for him at least.

Maybe it's not them.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It isn't them.

Whoever it was had responded to my thoughts directly, which was creepy. Who are you, then?

You saw me.

A flash of the spider in my room came to me. It wasn't me that thought of it. You're the spider?

Kumori.

Then it suddenly dawned on me, the guard shaped like a web and the silver spider in my room. Kumo's Fang. You're the sword!

Hai.

Japanese? I thought. Its voice was androgynous. My brain kept trying to make it sound either male or female.

What is a Japanese? Kumori asked.

Its name sounded Japanese too. The language you spoke, we call it Japanese. They are also a people.

I am not this.

DO offered translation services, but I wasn't sure it worked on items talking directly to your brain. Luckily, I knew Mandarin and a small amount of Japanese. I lived with parents who loved to travel the world, and ended up picking up a lot of languages. It also helped that my mom was Chinese.

Why can you talk? I asked. Swords didn’t talk, and it seemed like the most obvious question.

No response.

What do you want? I thought.

The world faded for a moment, and I was suddenly in the grass fields outside the mists with a horde of shamblers. In their grasp was a soldier with plate armor that had been peeled open.

I reached for the man’s neck, but instead of ripping out his throat like I would usually do, my hand just stayed there. His eyes sank into his face, and his body went from a plump pink to a shriveled grey.

A flood of energy swept through my body, and I closed my eyes in bliss. When I opened them, I was back in the store.

We must drink, Kumori responded.

The energy I felt was similar to the sensation I experienced when I fed on the Enlightened but much more intense. At least I knew what would happen if I used that drain skill. Its offer was tempting, and I would have to think about it.

Now that I understood who was talking to me, I changed my demeanor and addressed Aaron and Molly. “Sorry about that. Passing out twice took a lot out of me.”

“Seventy-five silver for all of it,” Aaron said while gesturing at my items.

He did this every time. “A gold.”

“Eighty silver and not a copper more,” he said.

Normally, I would take the time to look over each piece of equipment and add them all up, but with all that had happened, I wasn't in the mood. “I'm going to stick firm with ninety, and you're going to stay at eighty. Let's just agree on eighty-five.”

“Now I'm actually worried,” he said.

We typically played a game of cat and mouse. He would usually give in because I would threaten to have a talk with Julia about how mean he was. “I'm okay, just not in the mood today.”

“Eighty-five,” he said. “But only because you're my friend.” He placed a piece of paper on the table.

I swiped my hand over it, and the money was added to my inventory.

Giving in so easily? I thought I chose someone with more fight in them, Kumori said.

Getting my mind wrapped around the fact that I was talking to a sword would take an adjustment period. You nearly killed me twice, you know.

I also projected into a place you feel safe and have yet to see a single tear from you.

It wasn't like I feared for my life or anything. Besides, I used to suffer from night terrors when I was younger. Being stuck to a bed while a spider stared at me was far from the worst thing I’d seen. The fact that the spider was double my size and could snap my head off or liquefy my insides with its venom was beside the point. Especially since it never happened.

“So, we're done with the Grizzly Bear. You have anywhere you want to go?” I asked Molly.

“Grizzled Beard!” Aaron protested.

Molly stood there staring at me while I ignored Aaron. She had been especially quiet since I flipped out about Kumori.

It wasn't her fault that the sword was messing with my head. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

When she didn’t respond, I focused my mental influence in her direction. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I’d never tried it with anything other than a shambler. My senses spread out like a gentle breeze with a small bite to it. I could feel Molly, but her presence was faint, almost undetectable.

Her eyes suddenly shot open.

“Is the door open?” Aaron asked.

He was rubbing his arms when I glanced in his direction. So he can feel it too.

I turned my attention to Molly and extended my hand.

Molly reached for me but stopped herself before we touched.

“We can talk about this in private if you want?” I said.

She nodded, and I gently took her little hand in mine. As our fingers touched, our connection strengthened, and I could see myself through her eyes. There was a dark translucent flame surrounding my body. A sense of what Molly wanted flooded over me. She yearned to grab my leg so that more of her body touched mine, but under that, she wanted me to tell her what to do. No, she needed me to command her.

The power was intoxicating. A part of me knew that something was wrong. That this technology didn’t exist yet. People weren’t supposed to be able to experience someone else's thoughts and emotions. I immediately shut down my power and pried her hand from mine.

As soon as I let go, she grabbed it again and rubbed her cheek against my leg. “No!” she insisted. Her voice screeched as if her favorite toy was taken away.

Aaron looked at the little girl and then at me.

I shrugged and went for the door. “See you later, Aaron,” I said.

Molly wouldn’t let go of me, so I pulled her outside. She didn’t weigh much which made sense since she was a ghost.

A feeling of curiosity came from seemingly nowhere. Interesting, Kumori said.

We needed somewhere private to talk, and the tavern was a few streets down, so I trudged in that direction. I was planning on grabbing a table so we didn’t have to worry about others overhearing us.

“Please!” Molly begged as the building came into view.

Her weight seemed to increase, slowing me down. I stopped and briefly let my power flow.

Molly’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her grip loosened. I separated her from my leg, took her hand, and shut it down again. “We'll talk about it when we get inside.”

I didn't expect my power to put her into a trance. There were safeguards for abilities that entranced people. Most adventurers used it to lure unsuspecting victims into a trap so they could get an easy kill. The system monitored effects like this closely, though, because people always found a way to abuse it.

She nodded and followed me as I led us to the building. The name of the tavern was ‘The Lazy Frog.’ It had stone walls and a ceramic roof that drooped in the middle.

When we entered the tavern, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The darkness enveloped us, and I suddenly felt like I was home. Open tables littered the area, but we needed a booth. Most patrons were at the bar nursing drinks.

I led us to an open booth. Molly got in on one side, and I sat across from her. She didn’t like it when I pried her hand from mine.

“Molly?” I asked.

Her eyes were still glossed over, so I made myself comfortable while I waited.

***