“Plunger? What’s a plunger? This isn’t a wand?” Raziel asked and lowered it across her body, holding it in two hands.

“Ah, no. No it isn’t. I told you, there’s no magic in this world.” Albaer retorted, then approached, snatched the plunger out of their hands and marched it back into the bathroom to shove it beneath the sink.

“So, you’re rich, right?” Lialah asked point blank.

“What? No!” Albaer replied reflexively and closed the bathroom door behind him.

“So how can you have a private bath and…” She said, clearly not believing him based on the way she rattled off the contents of his bathroom.

“Okay, so… most people have these things. The bath doesn’t require a well, the wash basin isn’t filled with a bucket, and we definitely aren’t using the ‘white water seat’ to drink from or fill anything. That is a toilet and it’s where we relieve ourselves.”

“You carry a whole seat outside?!” Raziel had been staring at the game screen while Albaer spoke, but that sounded so absurd that she turned her attention back to him.

Albaer made an exaggerated sigh, “No… we have indoor plumbing…” He shook his head, “No, never mind, just… look.” He said and went into the bathroom. He turned on the sink, and water flowed and began to heat up. “When you relieve yourself, you flush this by pressing the lever. Here, watch…”

“Wait you’re not going to… in front of us?! Are you a pervert or?” Lialah began to ask before he violently shook his head.

“No! I am not a pervert.” Albaer snapped.

“Pervert.” Raziel nodded.

“No! I’m going to show you using this!” He snapped again and tore a piece of toilet paper free. “You clean with this, then throw it down there and press this lever.” He said and pushed the chrome lever on the toilet, and the water began to spin around.

“Ooooh…” The angel and demon bent over and watched the paper disappear.

“Right.” He said, and then went to the bathtub and turned it on. Water spewed from the shower head in a steady, constant rain.

“Indoor rain… you’re sure this isn’t magic?” Lialah asked with a skeptically raised golden eyebrow.

“Indoor plumbing, it’s a big deal here.” Albaer replied, his face deadpan, his voice dry, he pointed to the pile he’d dropped on the floor. “We can talk more tomorrow, for now… ah, I guess stay in here.”

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They reached for the bags and clearly found them to be strange, but at least the concept must have been familiar because they laid them out side by side, and slipped into them, lying on their stomachs.

Albaer however, chose not to sleep. Instead he picked up the controller and laid down on the bed, then resumed his intended game with gusto. Strange as it was to have an angel and a demon, pretty ones no less, nearby, his habits won out.

He took on a few quests and even leveled up again. On this occasion, he rescued several children from a cult of vampires hiding in an undead riddled tomb, winning the right to buy property within the city.

The angel and demon chose to take their positions at the foot of his bed, and so he didn’t realize it at the time, but Raziel chose to stay awake and watch him play.

Or at least, he didn’t realize it until she complimented him when the reward music played and Kami took his victory stance.

“So that’s all a game… none of it real, huh?” Raziel said, and he glanced to his left to see her bright red eyes that caught the light of the TV screen. She was lying on her stomach and propping her head up on the palms of her hands and had her elbows on the pillow.

“None of it.” Albaer answered her.

She didn’t say anything for a bit.

“You don’t really think they’re going to be able to get you back, do you?” Albaer guessed.

She glanced up at him, then she inched out of her sleeping bag a little and rolled over to look up at where he sat. He tried very hard not to notice that her clothing was low cut at the breasts, and tried to focus on the screen again instead.

“No, no I don’t think so. I think if they knew how then they’d have done it when we vanished.” Raziel said, “If you want to know what I really think,” she paused and listened, catching her sister’s steady breathing, she answered, “I think they either tried more ‘potentials’ and succeeded so they’ve abandoned us as dead. Or… the Kingdoms are preparing for war again, and they can’t bother with us anymore even if they think we’re alive.”

“I’m sorry.” Albaer replied to her, and meant it, he wouldn’t quite look at her, but he did his best with his sweaty palms to divert his body to other things. ‘She just lost everything, don’t be selfish.’ Albaer cursed himself with the advice, and Raziel went on.

“We actually have those in our world.” She pointed to the screen where vampires and goblins were battling against lizardmen and orcs when Kami appeared on the screen and the prompt asked the player to choose whom to support.

“You do?” Albaer asked, letting out an enthralled “whoa” when she nodded.

“Yes… I… played around a little bit while you were gone, sorry, I was just curious. But I saw a lot of the stuff our world has, elves, dwarves, everything but things like you, I mean… people like you…” Raziel said, “Sorry, I don’t mean to say you’re a ‘thing’ just-”

“Don’t worry about it, I get it.” Albaer answered and asked in return, “So… why did you even need Kami, how does this mean your people will end up in a war? I just- sorry, I know this is a lot to ask from a stranger. Especially after you’ve-” He cleared his throat, stopping himself from saying ‘lost everyone and everything’ and after the throat clearing ended he said instead, “found yourself in such a strange situation.”

Raziel looked away from him, “I’d… I’d rather not say right now, if that’s alright, it’s a long talk.”

“Alright, would you like me to… I don’t know, teach you how to play? You’ll need your own character of course.” Albaer added with haste and started to save his game.

“Yes!” Raziel brightened up and scrambled out of the sleeping bag as fast as she could without making noise, her fingers twitching, her hands out, and a smile that bared all her fangs while he set the game console back to square one and created a profile for her.

“Okay… now this is the first thing you do…” He said and handed her the controller, “Sit down in front of me, I’ll help you out.”

She nodded along and sat down on the floor so that his legs dangled against her arms.

“First, press the black button on the right before the right side stick…” He said, and she tilted her head back to look up at him.

“Thanks again, Albaer.” She said, and he smiled down at her.

‘I really shouldn’t have had her sit there, I swear I was only thinking about how to help her with the controls but now I can see straight down her-’ He rubbed the back of his head and looked away, “No, no it’s okay. Stress needs a release… right, so I’m happy to help.”

Before she could respond he cut in again and said, “Now create your character…” Focusing on the game helped, if not as much as it always did, at least some, and that was good enough for the moment at least.