“Okay, but,” I replied from the clawfoot tub, where I was taking a much deserved hot bath. “Why wouldn’t we just clean out the dungeon and stay here?”
“We couldn’t store anything here,” Dom said, propping himself up on one elbow in the Vampire Lord’s bed.
“Our inventories store everything we’d need,” I mulled through it with him. “And I really love that kitchen.”
“The front lawn needs improvement,” he pointed out, a wry smile on his face letting me know that he knew this was a silly mental side trip. Terra hopped up onto the bed next to Dom and gave me a curious stare, the one that cats get when they watch people voluntarily get into water. The bed dipped a bit with her bigger size.
“That is a downside,” I admitted, reluctantly. “And any improvements would never stay.”
We were celebrating level twenty. It wasn’t like I needed the bath, with my clean spell and all, but the bath did teach me to simply warm the water rather than Fireballing the bottom of the tub. We hadn’t burned down the house on any subsequent rounds through this dungeon.
“I’m also not all that fond of the ghosts in the ballroom,” Dom laid back on the bed, folding his arms under his head and staring up into the canopy.
“I agree,” Terra said as if we could both hear her. “Even when I catch them, I only get cold paws.” Terra had spent most of the day practicing her size changes. She resized herself into a more familiar shape and started a bath of her own.
“I kinda like them,” I teased him, exciting the water molecules in my tub just enough to warm the bath. It wasn’t a spell, but it helped bring up my Mana Manipulation. That was just my excuse for taking a very long bath. “They add ambience, and they’re almost like watching a part of Downton Abbey.”
“There must be a way to kill them,” Dom grumped half-heartedly. We’d been playing house for the day, and I wondered if his satisfaction was getting low.
“Have you figured out how long between kills you need?” I asked him, our light-hearted banter shifting to more serious matters.
“It isn’t that,” he waved me off, though I could tell that he was paging through his character sheet for something.
I gave a sigh and heaved up out of my bath. It just wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be for me in our old world. It had been a place to be alone, read a book, and have some peace without the normal pain of everyday life. Now it was just wet. I cast a Breeze spell to dry off, adding a bit of warmth to it like I had with my bath. It was as unsatisfying as drying your hands with one of those hand blowers. It just wasn’t the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
“What is it then?” I made myself ask, shaking off the mood. We were supposed to be celebrating.
“Even I can only run the same dungeon so many times,” Dom said. “We had to run this one over ten times to get from nineteen to twenty.”
“I wasn’t counting,” I shuffled through some outfits in my inventory. We weren’t going to run the dungeon again. We’d definitely level up before we got back here again. That meant we wouldn’t ever be able to come back. There were too many things like that for my comfort.
“Are there other dungeons around here?” Dom asked. “Or are we going to Siff now?”
“I don’t know actually,” I shrugged into some travelling clothes, suddenly not in the mood to be in my leathers. “I’d only found these two before I had to deal with Beau.”
“Siff?” he pressed me, and I felt that lump in my stomach.
I stalled, lacing up the suede-like, maroon vest over the billowing, deep purple shirt.
“I don’t know,” I hedged. I could have worn a kirtle, but I just didn’t feel strong in a skirt. Instead, I pulled on a set of breeches, like Dom’s, that laced up the sides.
“Siff,” he prodded me again, lacing up his own clothing, and casting a quick clean on it. Dom didn’t have a problem with wearing the same thing every day.
“We have to sell,” I lifted the tub with my new strength and tucked it into an inventory slot. Then I thought better of it, pulled it out, dumped it, and put it back in. I knew I was stalling, but I didn’t know why.
“We’ll stop by the cottage,” Dom agreed, “but only to sell. No profession grinding. It’s time to go get this done.”
“I know you’re right, but I don’t know why I’m stalling so badly,” I admitted, sliding on the boots that I’d made for myself.
“Kat?” he asked, tucking the bed into his own inventory. He had two others. We were turning into packrats.
“I don’t think so,” I called back to him as I went up the stairs. “I mean, I know that we’ll get her back as soon as we do the next quest, so that doesn’t make sense.”
“Emotions rarely make sense,” Dom followed, automatically pulling art off the walls.
“They make sense to me,” I insisted, stomping on the stone steps more than was necessary. “And when they don’t, I burrow them out like gophers in Caddyshack.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“If not Kat, then what?” I could feel Dom rolling his eyes at me.
“I’ve never,” I started but couldn’t finish as I realized what was happening in my head. I couldn’t say it outright. I thought about my answer carefully, then said, “It’s new and I don’t know what will happen.”
Everything else had been part of one rewind or another. I’d gone to Siff before, but we weren’t stopping in Siff for long. Siff was one step closer to a place where I didn’t know what would happen with and to Dom. Siff is where Kat had died, and it could be where Dom could die. It was completely irrational. We were both powerhouses. Dom wasn’t Kat. We weren’t impetuously charging into danger. We’d taken the time to get stronger.
“Okay,” I nodded as I levered open the trap door that was at the top of the stairs. “I get it now. It’s silly and I’m ready to go.”
“Good,” Dom let me leave it there. We popped up into the empty dungeon, where not even a rat remained, thanks to Terra.
“I’m just fretting about new stuff,” I explained even though he didn’t ask me to.
Dom and I headed straight for the basement stairs, but Terra prowled the edges in case she’d missed anything. Her whiskers twitched proudly as she followed us up the stairs and into the kitchen. I already had everything I wanted from here, having looted it for food and supplies when we cleared it.
We stopped in the ballroom. We picked up several musical instruments because we knew how expensive they were. I had a cabinet of pinafores and another of violins. They were my favorite. I watched the dancers swing around the dance floor in a leisurely waltz, knowing that the waltz was incredibly anachronistic. I gave a sigh.
“See?” Dom answered my sigh with one of his own. “I should be able to kill them.”
“I’ll meet you at the zone,” Terra gave a sniff of disdain.
I watched her little tail twitch at a bit of frost on it from passing through one of the dancers, and pulled Dom back as he went to follow Terra.
“Ice,” I unfocused my eyes and cast a Dust Devil through the dancers, watching the mana swirl through them.
“You figured out how to kill them?” Dom perked up.
“Noooo,” I drawled out, casting a Firestorm spell next to the Dust Devil. “I figured out how to make ice!”
“Ice?” Dom sounded disappointed.
“I’m so stupid!” I excitedly watched the mana particles of my Firestorm go from super excited to sluggish as a ghost passed through it.
“Hardly,” Dom watched what I was doing but he couldn’t see what I saw.
“Of course,” I smacked my forehead dramatically, “if fire comes from speeding up the particles, the ice comes from slowing them down.”
“You know I love you, right?” Dom failed to push into my concentration.
“Uh, huh,” I answered automatically, calming the molecules in my Dust Devil.
“Babe,” Dom pushed my arm to pull my focus. “How many Fire Spirits were there?”
“I don’t know, over fifty?” I started to answer and then got his point as I watched a few dancers pass through where my Firestorm was just sputtering out.
“Does that look like fifty ghosts?” he prodded me, backing toward the door as one Fire Spirit bumped into a ghost which then changed to a Fire Spirit.
“Oh,” I sputtered out as yet another three Fire Spirits joined the group. “OH!”
“Zone?”
“I just washed my hair!” I answered, taking off for the zone with Dom at my heels.
We could have taken them. We both knew it even if the Fire Spirits chasing us didn’t. We were laughing as we ran out of the house like we’d lived in it all our lives. The kitchen door slammed behind us as we ran out the back and down the steps of the back porch. The door exploded outward in a shower of sparks, but it only made us laugh harder.
“Talk about going out with a bang,” Dom joked, neither of us winded from our dash past the now-burning house. The Fire Spirits had done what we’d told ourselves we wouldn’t do again.
“You did ask for a way to kill the ghosts,” I teased back, hopping the little fence between the graveyard and the house.
Comedy +1
Exp +10 (110/788,209)
“Not worth it,” he groused, passing me as I paused to take one more look at the burning house.
“You sure?” I called over my shoulder, focusing on the Fireballs the first of them were casting at me. I pushed the molecules to slow down. It took longer than I had before the Fireball hit me, but even as it touched me, it sputtered out. “I’ve got Ice now!”
Mana Manipulation +2
Spell Learned: Dispel Magic
Spell Learned: Ice
Exp +70 (180/788,209)
Dom turned and slowed, “No Fireballs?”
“I wouldn’t guarantee that,” I rushed to cast Dispel Magic with one hand, and Ice with the other, forgetting that I couldn’t cast different spells. But I hadn’t been casting different spells when I got both spells. I could almost feel the glitch trying to mend itself around me and justify the action. “But only three are here so far.”
Skill Learned: Duel Spell Wielding
Duel Spell Wield +20
Dispel Magic +10
Ice +12
Exp +440 (620/788,209)
“Maybe we should be near the zone, just in case,” Dom backstepped, even as I cast a wall of Ice at the approaching Fire Spirits. I held the wall like it was Firestorm, only I slowed down the particles. It was like my head ached with the effort to shift the very nature of the spell being thrown at me. This was exactly what I’d been looking for, and for more than the ability to make frozen daiquiris.
Spell Learned: Icestorm
Spell Learned: Wall of Frost
Exp +60 (680/788,209)
I pushed the Icestorm into a wall shape and then reinforced it with Fog, just as the first Fire Spirit hit it. They shuddered, both the wall and the Fire Spirit. It was a battle of Will and I had a hell of a lot of it, so I pushed against the Fire Spirit and willed it to slow and calm. I’d done it for people back home, I could do it for ghosts, I reasoned with myself.
Mana Manipulation +2
Fog + 2
Icestorm + 15
Wall of Frost + 15
Exp +340 (1,020/788,209)
Will +2
A Fire Spirit went into my wall, but a ghost came out the other side; a ghost that then dissipated as if I was starring in Ghost Town. I would have celebrated, but the next instant another one hit the wall. I got the spell up several levels, just standing there and denying the Fire Spirits passage. It got easier when the spell hit level twenty. We got experience for them all too. Just about every other Fire Spirit gave me a bump to the spell.
Spell Learned: Dispel Ghost
Dispel Ghost +25
Exp +280 (1,300/788,209)
“This changes everything!” I gushed at Dom as he leaned against the zone wall like he hadn’t a care in the world.
“Yep,” he nodded with a lazy smile, and I realized that it was the same thing I’d said to him on the night we’d realized we were soul mates.
“I love you,” I whispered and let myself be held for a few minutes. I felt him cast a clean and repair spell on me, Terra winding between both our feet, having stayed in her small form. Now I felt like I could do everything again. Not because of some sappy reason like with my soul mate at my side, I could do anything, fade out, roll credits. We weren’t that kind of couple. That helped soothe my soul, and I cherish it, but the real game changer was that I could cast two different spells at the same time. With that, I could combine them and make so many more spells. On top of that, I could charge spells now with more or less energy. It was like I was rewriting the rules…