There was a bath, and Gemma, guessed, to accommodate the aquatic race of the Dewuar, one of the spigots used salt water. Nellie splashed in the shallow warm bathwater, very happy.

Gemma was glad she was settling down, after having had such a difficult few days. When Nellie was all clean, Gemma wrapped her in a fluffy towel and used one of her few remaining diapers. She was glad she had stuffed a bunch when she had taken Nellie for that initial walk.

She cuddled with Nellie on the bed, and tried working out the controls of the purple phone that Skyler had got for her.

It wasn’t intuitive, and she spent a while figuring out how the controls worked. She finally came upon her photo album, and pulled up her photos until she found one of Mia.

“Nellie, look,” Gemma said.

“Mamama,” Nellie said, and grabbed the phone. She brought the screen up close to her face and made a sound between a whimper and a sigh.

“I know, sweetie. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get you back to your mom. I promise you.”

After a moment, Gemma gently pulled the phone out of Nellie’s grip and put it aside.

Gemma stared out the window for a long time, before falling asleep, thinking about their circumstances.

The next morning Gemma woke to Nellie’s fingers poking into the soft flesh of her face.

“Ugh,” she moaned and tried to roll away, but Nellie didn’t give up. She crawled over Gemma’s torso and continued prodding her face.

“All right, all right. I’m up!”

Gemma got herself and Nellie ready, when there was a knock on the door.

It was Skyler.

“Good morning! Let’s get moving!”

“Give me a few more minutes.” Gemma buckled Nellie into her stroller, and went out the door.

“Hi,” she said, “Weren’t we going to split up?”

“I figured we could at least ride together. The library I found is in the vicinity of some nicer residential areas.”

“Which we can’t afford right now,” Gemma said.

Skyler beamed, “Nope. We’re an overnight sensation! Turns out even people in other dimensions love sappy, vampiric, forbidden romance novels.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Gemma tried not to blush about that particular book she owned, and she elbowed Skyler.

“How did you know?”

“Online banking is a thing here too. Everything is.”

“Show me.”

Skyler showed Gemma how to log into her account and she was impressed by the amount of money they had received in so short a time.

“This is crazy,” she said.

“It’s great.”

“We’re like, set. At least for now.”

“I got a Skill from this,” Skyler said.

“Really?”

“Yup. That’s why I want to go to the library as soon as possible.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called Fortune Maker.”

“That sounds really sweet,” Gemma said. Her Skills sounded so lame compared to that.

She was feeling an active interest in the System for the first time. Maybe it would grant her a dimension hopping Skill! That would solve everything.

They flagged down a car this time, instead of a horse drawn carriage. 

The ride was much less enjoyable than the horse drawn carriages had been, and, Gemma noticed, cheaper. Apparently, horse drawn carriages were a higher class mode of transportation than a car.

They dropped Skyler off at the library first, and then the driver took Gemma to an agency that assisted with finding living quarters.

Gemma told the nice agent, the first Dewaur she’d ever met, what she and Skyler were looking for and their price range.

The lady, whose name was Oliveen, gave Gemma a list of potential places and helped Gemma set up appointments to go see them.

The first few were interesting, if somewhat unusable. They had been modified for Dewaur or Veliorans, and to get them streamlined for plain old human convenience would take a few days. It would take some work to get them changed, and Gemma wanted to be able to move in as soon as possible.

The next two rentals she was shown were ideal. The separate apartments were right next door to each other, versus the across the street kind of thing that had been put forth before. 

Oliveen helped her fill out the forms, and they continued looking for a few more hours. Gemma really hoped that particular place would pan out though.

Gemma and Oliveen parted ways, and Gemma called up Skyler.

“I’m going to get lunch. Want to meet up with us?”

“Yeah. The librarian here actually reccomended a great palce to eat at .” Skyler gave Gemma the details.

They met up at the shop which was advertised as having ‘the best monster dishes around’. Gemma looked at Skyler, askance.

“If this is your idea of revenge, I’m not sure what you were thinking.” Gemma said, “I have no problem with eating weird things.”

“Revenge?” Skyler made a sad face, “You wound me, lady.”

Now Gemma did roll her eyes. 

Inside they settled down at a comfortable table, and Gemma locked the stroller and placed Nellie in a baby high chair.

“You’re not getting food all over me this time, missy,” Gemma said.

They placed thier orders, and then Skyler's face grew serious.

“Gemma,” Skyler said, “Pull out your phone. You need to check out the System interface there, and I need to tell you what I’ve learned.”

Trepidation filled Gemma as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. What exactly had Skyler discovered?