EPILOGUE FOUR

Uh… Honey?

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Theo

I was lying in a tree in the backyard. Ever since becoming a Druid, I’d begun to feel much more at home in the woods, to the point where I enjoyed spending time there almost as much as I did on the computer.

That took a bit of getting used to, but it was pretty easy to accommodate since I didn’t actually have to work anymore.

I’d found a job anyway, working as a Network Admin in the city. It was a bit of a drive, but I enjoyed it much more than my last one. That and it got me out of the house.

Rio didn’t need to work anymore, either, but that seemed to make her more motivated than ever. I thought she was actually considering running for mayor soon. After that, who knew? She seemed to love the work, and she had found a passion for it that she hadn’t had before the dungeon.

She was very pro-guns.

It had been months. The fear had died down as imps were slowly and methodically hunted down. The cave was still under lock and key, and there were still feds on the property, but they weren’t actively guarding our house anymore. If something was going on down there, we weren’t privy to it.

It was all over. The seal was broken. No more magic powers, though. Not for anyone else, anyway. Rio’s and mine seemed just fine.

I wanted to say things went back to normal, but they obviously hadn’t. I was lying on the branches of a frigging tree in my free time. This time three months ago, I couldn’t have hauled my ass up here at all, let alone enjoyed it.

“What a change one crazy week can make,” I thought, enjoying the breeze. A couple of bees were dancing around me lazily. I wasn’t afraid of hem. I had no need to fear any creature of the wild anymore, and that was pretty damn cool.

“Uhh… Honey!?” came a sudden shout from the back deck. Rio had popped out of the house, her beautiful dark hair shining in the sunlight.

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I jerked up, worried.

“Rio? Something wrong?” I shouted. Our backyard was on a slope, so I was about halfway up a tree, which gave me a perfect view from just above the deck.

“No! Not… not like you’re thinking. Get in here, though! It’s important!”

Huh. I wondered what could have her so flustered. A niggling fear crept up my spine. Could the demons have returned? After months?

No. She didn’t seem panicked like she would be if that were happening. She did look anxious, though.

Odd. After all we'd been through in the dungeon, it took something pretty major to rile her. A perk of facing life-or-death situations was that it put things into perspective. Rio was damn near fearless these days.

...When the two of us weren’t bawling our eyes out to our respective therapists, anyway.

I dropped down the branches of the tree like a damn monkey. Well. Maybe not that gracefully, but it was significantly more coordinated than just dropping to the ground. I made my way back up into the house, only to be greeted by a happy Genji, still jumping on me no matter how many times I scolded her for it.

Silly dog.

“What’s going on, Ri?” I asked curiously.

“Come back here!” she shouted from the bedroom.

I shrugged and went on in, dodging around the insistent dog.

“So… uhh…” she said, holding up a rather familiar device and turning it towards me. I must’ve seen a hundred of them before this all started. She’d tried all the brands, not that they’d ever made a difference back then.

Now though…?

My eyes widened as I saw the two pink lines on it.

My face lit up like the sun.

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The End of Book One