After we retrieved Arduwan from her village, the four of us made our way back to the house. Arduwan was recovered enough to ride and she’d be able to finish healing much easier from the comforts of my home.

When we arrived, everyone seemed to be surprised by the presence of Apollo.

Especially a certain someone…

“My lady, I cannot thank you enough for granting me your blessing!” said Apollo, as he groveled at the feet of Delilah.

“Teh heh, that’s quite alright,” she replied, trying to ease him up from the floor, “there’s no need to praise me here. I’m a mortal in this realm. No better than anyone else.”

“Oh, really?” he said, springing to his feet, “then how would you feel about maybe…umm, going on a date with me?”

Wow, he changed his tune fast!

“Eww! Dude, seriously, you’re like my dad’s age! I think I’d rather have you groveling!”

Apollo started to go back down on his knees but I reached out and stopped him before saying, “Actually, about that Delilah. Even though you are mortal now, we were wondering if there was anything you could do to help us with this?” I held up the golden arrow.

“Oh wow! A Divine Arrow. But it hasn’t been enchanted with divinity yet. I told you before Eric, there’s nothing I can do to help you besides offer my knowledge. I’m just a normal eighteen year old girl now.”

She handed the arrow back and I asked, “Yes, but maybe you could point me to someone who could help. Perhaps tell me where I can find another cleric or possibly another god that could enchant it for me?”

“Hmm, I dunno,” she contemplated, “that might qualify as too much help. I don’t want to get banished to an even lower realm. Besides, there’s no guarantee anyone else would agree to help you. I’m sorry.”

Apollo jumped in by saying, “I do have one suggestion.”

* * *

Apollo, Wraith, and myself waited outside the upstairs hall bathroom for nearly a half hour. There was a slim chance this would work but at this point, I’d try anything.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

I tapped on the bathroom door and shouted, “Are you about done yet? You know the wedding is a couple weeks away. At this rate you’ll be late for it!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said Delilah, as she came out of the bathroom with wet hair, wearing nothing but a towel, “hey, look! It worked!” She held up the arrow with one hand as she used her other to keep her towel from slipping down. The once dull yellow arrow now radiated a divine golden light!

“I can’t believe it! Apollo! You’re a genius! Who would’ve thought that the bathwater from an incarnate goddess would become holy water?!”

“Eh, well, they did make me a general in the Devil King’s army after all,” he bragged.

“Great! Now that we have this, our chances of killing Shagrath just increased considerably.”

“Hold on, Eric,” Wraith interrupted, “before we get to Shagrath, don’t we have to deal with those Black Knights first? I mean, I don’t remember them but from what you and Arduwan said, those things sound pretty tough on their own!”

“That’s right. And there’s no telling what those other two generals have in store for us.

But I think I have an idea that just might work in dealing with them.”

* * *

We made Apollo wait upstairs with the girls. Surely he could be left alone with them for a couple of hours while Wraith and I took a little trip down the well. Our destination…Synthetica.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, General Nova,” I said, as the elder leader of the starfleet that once helped my dad battle the synths entered the room.

He shook my hand and said, “Anything for Noble’s son. What can I do for you today?”

“Well, it’s like this. I’m building up to a large showdown in another world and unfortunately, I’ve run into a big problem. There’s an elite group of enemies that have virtually impenetrable armor and I was wondering if I might be able to try using some of your plasma rifles against them? I’m not asking for a thousand rifles or anything. Maybe a few dozen. To be honest, it makes me a little uneasy crossing technology between worlds anymore than I already have. But you see, I”m running out of ideas.”

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The General looked at the two of us and then said to me, “That’s it? You want a few dozen plasma rifles? Not even sure why you bothered to come ask me. With the Synths eviscerated, we’ve got stockpiles of them sitting around. I’ll have a few cases sent to the mines for you in an hour.”

I looked at Wraith with a smirk and the two of us nodded at each other.

* * *

Things were going swimmingly with our plans to take on the Devil King in Callist. We had the enchanted arrow, a message going out to all mercenaries. Tolly was out running reconnaissance, the plasma rifles from Synthetica would hopefully make a difference, and we had time to rest and ensure we were well prepared for the coming conflict.

When we came back up from the well, we found everybody gathered in the drawing room. Anabel, Arduwan, and Apollo were sitting on the couch Emily and Delilah sat on the floor in front of them. They were playing a video game system that I had never seen in the house before.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Stephanie came in behind me and Wraith and handed us glasses of water. She said, “I bought the system for the girls. Thought it’d be fun for them to let loose and play a little bit.”

I immediately walked over and switched the game system off and said, “Oh no. I spent way too much of my life wrapped up in those things. My life is a video game now. I’m not letting all of you get absorbed into them.”

“Hey!” Delilah shouted.

“Not cool, Eric,” Emily added.

I didn’t acknowledge either of them. I simply said, “Come on, Arduwan. Wraith and I need some help moving some equipment into Callist.”

She and Apollo hopped up from their seats and we left without further adieu. Once we hauled the weapons cases through the well, we found a place in the canyon to hide them. They were clearly out of sight but someone could still find them if need be. Wraith and Apollo volunteered to camp out over in Callist for the time being to keep an eye on them on the condition that me and Arduwan brought over some of Anabel’s cooking until the wedding.

When we crossed back over it was late enough that everyone had gone to bed.

Arduwan asked me, “Eric, are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I’ve just been going fast again. My head isn’t where it should be. I’ll get some rest and be okay. You need to as well.”

“Well…okay. Goodnight,” she said, as she went off to her room at the end of the second floor hall.

I turned the opposite direction and went towards my room. When I went in, I flipped on the light and was startled by someone standing right there in the darkness.

“Jesus!” I yelped, while grasping at my heart. It was Emily, “Isn’t it a bit early for you to be coming by? Aren’t you worried the others will notice you in here?” I closed the door behind me.

Emily had an unsettled look on her face. I knew that look. It was the face she made when she was in the middle of solving a problem. She replied, “I’m not worried about that anymore. Not gonna try to hide this. In fact, I told Stephanie what was going on between us.”

Wow. This was a big development. For one, the fact that she was on that level with Stephanie now was impressive, if not, relieving. But the big news here was that she didn’t want to hide our relationship…whatever it was…from the others anymore.

“Eric. Are we cool?”

“Umm, yeah. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just. Ever since I stormed off the other week and made a fuss, we’ve both been kinda distant from each other. I mean, I get that you’ve been off making your arrangements, but I don’t think you’ve said two words to me since that night. And just when I was starting to connect with Delilah a little bit, you stormed in and shut that game off. That was really mean and not like you.”

I let out a big sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. She sat next to me and put her hand on my knee. I replied, “Yeah, I’m sorry. It's just. This is the big one you know? More prep has gone into fighting this Devil than any of the others yet. He’s extremely dangerous too and I feel like I could really die this time.”

Our feet hung off the bed but she swung her knees in closer and got nearer to me before saying, “I understand that. But you gotta let loose a little bit. You’ve got some time before the showdown and Delilah said that since she erased the Devil King’s ability to use that curse that he isn’t even aware that you tried attacking him. So you still have the element of surprise.”

“Yeah, I know. But he still remembers that I’ve thwarted two of his generals and I’m definitely on his radar for that. He’s probably planning extra hard for his invasion of the continent to make sure they can take care of me once and for all. The whole realm is depending on this

battle.”

“Eric,” she said, in the softest of tones, “it’s alright. I’m here for you in any way I can. I know I’m not much help in a world like that. We’ve been through that already. But let me know what I can do.”

My hands were shaking a little bit. I’d been bottling up a lot lately. The Noble family burden was really taking its toll on me these days. I simply said to her, “It’s just…I’m scared, Emily. I’m really scared. I’m running low on miracles to keep all of you safe. I came closer than ever to losing you all because of Shagrath. He’s not some shadowy underworld boss or some spoiled rich kid with an empire at his behest. He’s a truly powerful, erratic, and dangerous villain.”

Emily lifted herself up and threw one leg across my lap, straddling me on the edge of the bed as she wrapped her arms around my neck. She leaned in close and kissed me before whispering, “I know you can do it. I believe in you.” Both of us had tears in our eyes. She was rarely this serious unless she was solving a mystery, but it was as if she was releasing all that pent up determination to encourage me. I reciprocated her embrace and tried to take my mind off of the fight that was up ahead until the appropriate time.