Deacon and Marla were pathologically resistant to being told what to do. As such, they only waited until their fourth day in Montar to take a gig. The job was too much of a novelty to turn down. It took them to a library that had fallen gravely ill, where they were currently blasting and hacking at monsters. The library, as they learned, possessed an ‘estate seed.’ Similar to a dungeon seed, the estate seed gave the library magical properties. It was alive, but wouldn’t be for long if the foolish duo and others like them didn’t help.

They were alone but weren’t the sole adventurers hired. Shifts had filtered through the library for the last week, coming and going as they pleased, collecting rewards based on their contributions. The payment wasn’t much, but the real reward occurred naturally. In times of distress such as this, the library spawned treasure to incentivize its aid.

“This is the life,” Marla mused as she sawed through a fleshy tumor that blocked off the western wing. As an opening was made, a titanic worm with teeth like a wood chipper wriggled out, above Marla’s head and out of her view. Just as it pounced, its head became perforated by a barrage of crystal shards that Deacon already had cued up. This got Marla’s attention, so she swung her saw at her would-be ambusher. She was careful to split the worm’s head down the middle, as she’d learned the hard way that cutting pieces off of these monstrosities only made more of them.

“Definitely the life,” Deacon mocked. “Gotta love libarisites.”

“Li… Deaky, buddy, don’t make me murder you.”

“You’re just mad that you didn’t come up with it,” Deacon pressed, as he blasted into a group of horse-sized crabs. Something about magically spawned life really liked to use crabs as a blueprint. Natural life did as well, Deacon supposed. It was just crabs all the way down.

“No, I’m mad that Sonnet’s probably gonna kill you before I get a chance,” she refuted, casually slicing and dicing crabs that were as large to her as a house was to Deacon.

“What does that mean? She’s been threatening me a lot less lately.”

“I mean that you keep leaving her room at night bloody as hell. Pretty obvious you guys are doing some freaky shit. Don’t blame you; if you didn’t step up and let her use you as a chew toy, I would’ve volunteered. Please tell me she has a leather bodysuit.”

Deacon was mortified. “What the fuck! That is not what that is! You’re disgusting!”

“Riiight. Sure, buddy. Just friends.”

“It’s not! Not that it’s any of your business, but that’s not what we get up to. The blood is unrelated.”

“What, then? She shouldn’t be getting periods at her tier.”

Deacon was flustered. He didn’t want to share Sonnet’s business, but he was physically incapable of keeping a secret. “It’s just… promise not to tell?”

“Come on, it’s me.”

He sighed. “So, she set a rule that after we do what’s none of your business we couldn’t sleep together. I was fine with it, whatever. Except she refuses to follow her own rule. Every time I want to leave or suggest she leave, she just insists that she’s not tired and that we should hang out a little longer. Then, she falls asleep.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s a fucking nightmare in her sleep. She levitates and lashes out with those spiky tendrils that she uses, and screams out this unnatural wail that bursts my eardrums. Thank god she uses a privacy candle, otherwise the whole block would be matching with pitchforks to slay the complete fucking demon she becomes every night.”

“Wow,” Marla remarked.

“Yep,” Deacon confirmed.

“I’d still let her absolutely destroy me though,” Marla clarified. “I mean, literally anything would be on the table with someone like that.”

“Gross,” Deacon reprimanded, rolling his eyes. “Knock yourself out.”

Marla gave a disgusted snarl, before chopping the limbs off of a crab. “I swear to the gods if you minimize women dating women as being for your entertainment, I’ll stop being your friend.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“What? No, I just don’t care. Most scriptyr relationships are basically polycules, or at least that’s the closest word in common. We’re a very communal culture. I have nine parents. We can smell when someone is related to us, so when someone gets pregnant, they form a little family with a couple of likely candidates for the baby’s other parent, along with some close friends. So I’ve got a bunch of moms and dads that might just be aunts and uncles, and some who are just close with my birth mom. I’ve been in a couple of polycules, and a few exclusive couplings. I’m not pressed about it as long as no boundaries or trust is broken. We haven’t set terms or labels yet so it’s all up in the air.”

“Huh. That’s all progressive and hot or whatever, and thanks for the offer but it came a little too late. I’ve got my eyes set elsewhere lately. Someone outside of the party because I’m not stupid.”

“Do tell.”

“No can do. I need to focus,” Marla deflected obviously. She rushed into a horrific mass of crabs and worms that were fighting aimlessly beyond the arch that opened to one of the many large galleries of bookshelves.

Deacon ran after her. “I call bullshit. You got me to spill all of my dirty laundry, now it’s your turn.”

“Later,” she huffed. “I see treasure.”

Deacon looked up and saw what she referred to. Forty feet high on the side of a bookshelf, an intrusive growth of cubic crystals held a treasure chest, just above the monster grouping was densest. He jumped to action, spraying lava to thin the herd. It was especially useful on the worms, which opened up Marla to hack away without multiplying them. A fire slowly rose at the base of the shelf, so Deacon blasted dirt from both hands to snuff it out. In no time, a pile of sandy corpses was all that remained.

They both pondered the area beneath the treasure. The ladders wouldn’t be able to the treasure with this terrain. Just before Marla could ask for suggestions, Deacon hatched a plan and got to work. He shot clay lumps up the wall to the treasure, solidifying them once they’d stuck. Now it was a simple rock wall that Marla scaled with ease. Once at the top, she held the treasure under one arm and leaped off the platform, landing firmly on her feet like it was nothing.

Inside of the chest was a windfall. At the bottom was a bed with silver coins with some gold ones sprinkled throughout. There were two knives, presumably enchanted. A few pouches of rare herbs were just a stocking stuffer to Deacon and Marla but would be a nice haul to bring to Bones. Marla reached excitedly for what Deacon thought was the least important contents: hard candies in ordinary wrappers.

“Jackpot!”

“Oh yeah, candy. Nice,” Deacon said half-heartedly.

Marla gave him a flat look, and explained, “not just any candy! These are Pitch Pops!”

“Pitch… pops?”

“Yeah! You swallow these, and permanently become a musical instrument.”

“That sounds inconvenient,” Deacon said. “You just get transmuted into a lute or something forever?”

“No, you idiot. It enchants your throat, and makes you able to hum with the perfect sound of a musical instrument.”

That changed Deacon’s tune. “Oh shit! Which one is which?”

She was already holding each one to her ears and then held one to Deacon’s to demonstrate. He heard the sounds of an imposing brass instrument from within the candy. This was amazing! He grabbed another and listened to its unique sound. This one made the perfectly tuned tones of a piano or maybe a xylophone but periodically stretched in time like a wind instrument since it was controlled by humming rather than pressing keys. He liked this one; thus, he chose it for himself. Marla landed on a harmonica for her pick. Once they’d both made their choices, they ceremoniously downed the candies together. The rest would be presents for their party— or possibly their new band.

Marla had no interest in the knives, so Deacon looked them over, as he idly hummed out music. Both had matching Damascus patterns, seemingly from an alloy of steel and wyrite. He hoped he was right, given wyrite’s rarity and utility, as a metal that could only be magically, rather than occurring naturally in the material plane. One of the knives seemed to be a practical cutting tool, with a curved edge that suggested a bushcraft design. The other was a narrow stiletto with a deadly point for stabbing.

“Mind if I keep the knife and give the stiletto to Sonnet?” Deacon asked, as a courtesy.

“Go for it, buddy. Didn’t realize you were already at the gift stage.”

“I’m a gift giver, sue me.”

Marla casually suggested, between hums of Blues harmonica, “if you wanna give her a really good gift you should talk to Gerrick about fixing her sleep issues.”

Deacon paused. “What do you mean? He’s a lawyer.”

“Well duh, but there’s no blessing for law. His blessing has to do with oneiromancy.”

“Common isn’t my first language,” Deacon said, prodding for an explanation. “I just assumed oneiromancy was some kind of paperwork magic.”

“Deaky, buddy, common isn’t anyone’s first language. You gotta keep up. It’s dream magic.”

Deacon gave a bewildered look. “Why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier? This is huge!”

“I thought you knew! Plus, Sonnet’s not as stupid as you. She definitely does know what oneiromancy is, and she hasn’t asked Gerrick for help yet.”

“Huh,” Deacon grunted, conceding the point.

“Yep. Makes you wonder what’s wrong with her, eh?”

“Don’t get me started.”

“Alright,” Marla said, cracking her joints. “Enough chitchat. We’re in the home stretch. Let’s kill some… librarisites.”