“You ready to go?” Dom asked, his finger on the button to get us out of the zone.
“Yeah,” I smiled up into his eyes and let the zone fade out behind us.
We zoned out hand in hand, fully expecting nothing but a leisurely walk back to the cottage. The sun was shining like it was midday and we blinked like owls coming out of a cave. Time was something that was easy to lose track of in the zones, especially when you just powered through them like we did. I wasn’t even sure how many days we’d spent grinding, but it must have been longer than I thought.
“Are you Karma?” a small man with a grey beard asked me in a gruff tone.
“Why do you want to know?” Dom edged a shoulder in front of me, ready to be my tank. Terra’s hackles poofed up.
“Don’t make this difficult for yourselves,” the wizened old face looked calm, but I recognized him. He shouldn’t be here. Behind him stood Mabel and Chester, both of whom looked a little guilty, but more afraid of this man than guilty about leading him to us. I didn’t blame them. Gorzan Keen was a powerful man. He might not be as dangerous as the man who stood beside me, but he was powerful in his own arena.
Gorzan Keen – Level 30 (Health 1920/1920) (Mana 3480/3480) – Buffed Almost Invulnerable
Identify +1
Exp +10 (1,090/788,209)
Perception +1
He also shouldn’t have been that level. When I’d met him last, he’d been level twenty, not thirty. They had every reason to be afraid. This lean curmudgeon was the Assistant Dean of the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue (UNLV for short). He should have been back at the college. I glanced at my compass, and it was spinning wildly. Gorzan was not my only foe. The college itself was my official nemesis, but I could technically defeat the college by defeating every person in the college. I could also defeat the college by graduating.
Intelligence +1
The first time, they hadn’t told me any of that. Sammi hadn’t either. I’d had no idea how to defeat UNLV as my nemesis, nor that the college as a whole was my true nemesis. I’d thought that when the compass spun, it meant I had to defeat that person. I’d defeated each of the administration one by one until they’d been replaced, and I’d had to defeat them too. It had taken a grueling three years to figure out that I needed to defeat the college itself. How did one defeat an institution?
I’d spent the dorm time figuring out how to discredit the whole thing. To do that, I’d brought down their whole governmental process and replaced it. That had triggered my final nemesis quest which had been to defeat Fizzbarren himself, the creator of this world, and replace him. Only then had I been able to change the world enough to turn back time. I knew what I’d done, and I could do it again, but this time, I was going to be able to do it faster because of what I knew that I couldn’t know. Already, Fizzbarren was adjusting the rules of the world to adapt to my strength. If he knew what I knew, he could and would make it harder. I squashed the knowledge and tried to hit the zone.
Castle Eroomtsim: Undead Dungeon
Level 10-20
Recommended Group size 5-10
You qualify for this dungeon but do not have the reccomended group size. Do you wish to override group recommendation? (Y/N)
I quickly hit yes, and we were back in the dungeon. The dungeon was fully propagated now, but unlike the gnoblins dungeon, the zone-in was a safe enough place. I hadn’t really thought it would work. I wasn’t sure that it would continue to work for long. Gorzan was a powerful mage with some very potent spells. He held a bag of rocks on him that were charged with spells that were above even his level.
“Take this,” I pushed my spell book at him. I’d been planning for this without trying to look like I was planning. My spell book shouldn’t be transferable, but I’d found a loophole in making a spell book for Lily. I could give away a spell book I’d made. I’d discarded my spell book for one of the sloppy ones I’d made.
“Your spell book? Why?” Dom took it even as he had questions. I hadn’t explained anything of what was coming next because I hadn’t wanted Fizzbarren to know that I knew anything. I can say here that I only briefly thought any of this at the time.
Intelligence +1
“I have another one,” I held up a second one of the handmade ones. The one in my hand was practically blank. It would slowly fill with the spells I knew as I used them, but I would have to recreate my spells to use it. I’d gone through this the first time without any spell book and that had been how they’d denied me many of my spells. A spell book was used to bind a magic-user against using the spells in it. As long as they didn’t have specific spells to ward against, they would only be able to bind me with a generalized spell that I hoped I could break. “We need to zone back out.”
“Wait,” Dom put a hand on my shoulder. “What are we walking into?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I told him, but I stared at him in a way that would let my husband know that something more was at stake. He had to feel the tension in me. “But my nemesis compass just went nuts. Our stalling might have brought my quest to us.”
“Seriously?” Dom slipped several cabinets out of his inventory until he got to a small bookcase. He slipped my spell book into that bookcase and then repacked everything into his inventory. Nesting it so deeply was smart, so I pulled out my extra two spell books and nested them deeply into my inventory, leaving the blank one in a main slot.
Intelligence +1
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Ready?” I asked. A part of me wanted to stay here in this zone forever and block out the duties beyond. We could wait for it all to collapse without me. But I knew that Fizzbarren was forcing the story forward. As the author, he could do that. As the author, he could also shelve our story, like he’d done with Chester and Lily and I knew that too. As the author, I could pull them out. I had. I just needed to do it again.
Will +1
“Maybe?” he answered, but he put his hand in mine.
“For Kat,” I kissed him, and we held onto one another for just a moment longer.
“For Kat,” he finally agreed, and we zoned back out.
“Sorry,” I blinked the light out of my eyes. “Just needed a moment. I’m Karma.”
“Are we done trying to escape?” Gorzan waved a runed stone at me and I was suddenly frozen to the spot. It wasn’t a spell I knew, and it didn’t use mana correctly, at least it didn’t use mana in a way that I understood it. That was the point, though. It was why I’d been wanting to get to level twenty so that I could possibly resist the spells of the casters at the college, but it would seem the college had been upgraded to reflect my level. Just because that ploy hadn’t worked to shorten the upcoming fight, it didn’t mean that some of the rest wouldn’t work either. I had to play this incarnation as it unfolded. Knowing I had the tools helped ease my mind.
“Escape what?” Dom demanded, his hand frozen in mine. It wasn’t a cold kind of frozen but more of a suspended in place. The atoms didn’t vibrate at all. I took a stab at trying to get them to move, but I only made myself hotter. The atoms of the suspension didn’t budge.
Mana Manipulation +1
Exp +10 (1,100/788,209)
“Karma, you are charged with practicing magic without a license,” Gorzan proclaimed. “I have gathered two of your peers to witness your apprehension.”
“Sorry,” Chester managed to mumble out.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to Chester out of the side of a mouth that couldn’t move on the outside.
“It is not okay to practice magic without proper instruction,” Gorzan reprimanded me, his bushy grey eyebrows lowering. “It is dangerous.”
“To him,” Terra spoke into my mind.
“Is she your familiar?” Gorzan pointed to Terra, and I had a moment of panic. Last time they’d unsummoned her and seized my spell book. Then they’d done something to block my use of magic.
“She’s mine,” Dom said, casting summon on Terra to prove it.
“Are you crazy?” I whispered in our minds, knowing he’d done the summoning as much to speak with me. “He can hear the familiar speech.” I knew that Gorzan heard what I was saying but I was hoping that it could be misinterpreted.
“Dom is my master,” Terra lied in the link, pretending to only be talking to Dom.
“Does he hear us, my pet?” Dom played along.
“He is a very rude eavesdropper,” Terra hissed slightly, backing behind Dom. She might have slid out behind us both and into the forest except that a small part of her tail was also caught in the frozen space.
“Are you also practicing magic without a license?” Gorzan bored cop-eyes into Dom, but Dom’s eyes just narrowed in return.
“My class has specific magic abilities but is not tied to your establishment,” Dom waved his free hand around, a knife flickering in and out of his hand.
“I see,” Gorzan’s thick mouth scrunched up in distaste under a scraggly white mustache. “You are excused for now, but I recommend that you do not use any magic she has taught you.”
“I am excused?” Dom focused on what was important to him.
“I am taking Karma to the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue to assess her abilities and place her in instruction,” Gorzan explained to Dom as if I was insignificant. “It is either that or a binding of Karma’s magic.”
“Who chooses which?” Dom demanded, leaning back against the zone wall. We didn’t get the message to enter the dungeon, but I thought it was clever thinking.
“Karma’s actions will choose for all of us,” Gorzan gave a burdened huff. “If she can pass her classes, and behave according to our Code of Conduct, then she will be granted a license and be allowed to practice magic under the rules and regulations of the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue.”
“What a mouthful,” Dom chided, his wit lost on the gruff mage in front of him.
“I have been sent to transfer you to the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue,” Gorzan pulled out a scroll.
“You look a little old to be an errand boy to be sent to fetch a simple wayward magician in the woods?” Dom interrupted Gorzan’s channeling of magic into the scroll. I was trying to watch the magic as he used the scroll.
“I am the Assistant Dean of Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue. I was on my way back to the Capital and was asked to do this chore on the way,” Gorzan brushed Dom’s snideness off like it was expected of someone of such a low station. “It is just part of the burden of leadership that sometimes we must lead by example. One learns such responsible societal duty when one attends a college. I wouldn’t expect someone from a simple guild to understand.”
“Transfer?” Dom prodded, ignoring all the self-righteous bullshit.
“Yes, transfer,” Gorzan waved the scroll, showing some impatience with Dom’s questions.
“You will transfer all three of us, then,” Dom leaned forward, but any intimidation he could summon was thwarted by the fact that his hand was trapped in mine.
“I don’t see why,” Gorzan protested. “What is this girl to you?”
“She is my wife,” Dom grit out. “I have suffered your manhandling of her, but I will not tolerate you kidnapping her away from her lawful husband.”
There were no rules about such things that I knew about in this world, but Dom seemed so sure. We also weren’t married according to the rules of this world. Did our marriage from before even count? I guess it did to Dom, so I let him push the issue, wondering how it might change anything.
“Do you have a marriage runestone?” Gorzan asked, as if he was asking for travel papers on the train.
“They are new to this realm,” Chester broke in. If anyone knew the marriage rules, he would. “They were married in their realm before traveling here. The other realm doesn’t have runestones. It has papers, but they are rarely taken on travels.”
“This explains much of how this woman has achieved such a high level of magic use with no instruction,” Gorzan mused, considering Chester’s words. This was all new to me and I was willing to watch and let it play out. I’d done what I could and felt as prepared as I could be. Whatever Gorzan determined here would carry over to UNLV. “Still, you must be assessed and trained in this realm for your magic to be allowed. There is a responsibility and duty that is also taught at our institution. You must still be taken to Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue for your transfer credits to be determined, and then we can see where you place in our program.”
“And I will go with her,” Dom insisted.
“This is highly irregular,” Gorzan protested, unraveling in his resolve. “I’m sorry but it is simply not done. You will not be attending our institution and are therefore not authorized on our campus except at special events.”
“I will take responsibility for his actions,” I asserted, remembering the Code of Conduct that I’d been forced to memorize last time. It wasn’t a requirement for grades, but rather a means of survival to know what the rules were so they couldn’t be used against me.
“This is not allowed,” Gorzan persisted. “You may join her at the Capital and you have the option of living off campus together if you wish, but I cannot be liable for your transfer if you are not a student of our institution.”
“You would separate a man and his wife,” Dom warned, and my eyebrows rose at his use of a Biblical reference. “This is against all our laws in my realm.”
“Then return to your realm,” Gorzan waved his hands around and again started to push mana into the scroll. “Or spend three days in a coach to reach the Capital. It is hardly the grand burden you insist it is. You teenagers! Wait until you’ve been married for twenty years. You’ll consider a three-day break to be a blessing.”
“Not my wife, not ever,” Dom growled out, dagger out and ready.
The last thing I saw was Dom lunging toward Gorzan just as we disappeared.