“Welcome back to my laboratory, son,” Zora said, smiling brightly. She turned to Mina and added, “Good to see you, too, Mina!”

Mina offered her usual small smile in return. Zora thought she looked a bit nervous, though that wasn’t out of the ordinary in her experience.

I can have that effect at times. Worse now than it was before all this System stuff. Whoops…

James and Mina followed Zora into her workspace. She led them down the same dark path she had taken James along days previously, when she showed him what she was up to.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Zora asked cheerily as they walked.

“I figured Mina and I could use a private space to practice some new Skills,” James said. “And I wanted to take the opportunity to ask you some questions about our new guest. You seemed friendly with him. What can you tell me?”

Zora frowned. “Not much,” she replied honestly. “It’s better not to talk about him if we don’t have to. I know it doesn’t make much sense, and I’m being more cryptic than I would prefer. He’s someone we can trust. That’s all I can say. His goals are aligned with ours.”

James sighed, and Zora knew immediately that answer had not been good enough.

“Mom, I trust you, but my responsibilities are pretty big now,” he said. “I need to know if this guy is a threat. My goals are multifaceted and shifting. If they become unaligned with his—”

“They won’t,” Zora interrupted. “But don’t take my word for it. Let events play out a little. Time always reveals the truth about people.” She turned and made eye contact with James. “I know how you are, because you take after me. You make your judgments quickly, and it’s hard to get you to change your mind. But the one in the mask—um, ‘Bear’—isn’t like any person you’ve ever met. In time, you will come to agree with me on him. I know that.”

“Is he like someone you’ve met?” Mina interjected. “He’s not like anyone James or I have ever met. But is he like anyone else we might think about for comparison?”

Zora offered a half smile. “Your wife is clever, son,” she said. “The one in the mask is like someone I have encountered. Perhaps someone each of us has encountered. But I might be saying too much already. It’s better for all concerned if I don’t speak in more direct terms.”

James appeared to be a combination of amused and bemused at the roundabout answer. He shook his head and smiled thinly, looking back and forth between his mother and his wife.

“All right, Mom,” he said. “You win for now. I’ll let things play out for at least another day or two. Next question. Will you be at our council meeting tomorrow?”

“Of course, my favorite son,” Zora replied. She turned to Mina. “Which side of James will you be sitting on?”

“The right,” Mina said.

“Then I’ll take the left.”

Mina’s expression was hard for Zora to read, but she nodded in agreement. I feel like we’re on the same page. Mina understood my clues right away. Smart cookie. She looked at James.

We’ll just have to drag him toward the correct understanding of what’s going on. We can’t alienate the masked figure—unless I’m just wrong about who he is. I could be wrong about his identity, technically, but I really don’t know how. He gave me every clue, and I confirmed as best I possibly could…

Zora led them to the wide open space where she had worked on the bodies before. Now none of them were out in the open. In anticipation of possible visitors, and given that her work was done, she had asked the undead to put themselves away in the large earth-magic-constructed drawers that lined the wall.

“Now you have room to practice,” Zora said. “Is there anything else I can get you guys? Maybe a cup of tea?”

“We’re okay, Mom,” James said, smiling brightly. She noticed for the first time that his teeth were shinier than she had ever remembered seeing them before. The Evolution the System had afforded him seemed to be treating him very well.

Zora turned away, planning on leaving the kids to their training. Then an idea struck her.

She turned back. “James, you have the Skill Transfer ability, right?”

He nodded.

Zora turned to Mina. “And you had a Skill for copying powers that you see used more than once?”

“Yes,” Mina said. She sounded nervous. Zora guessed that Mina knew exactly what she was about to suggest.

“I was actually just about to show her some of my magic Skills, so that she could copy them,” James added.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Zora said. “I was just thinking, I want to add my Death Magic Skill to the pile.”

“I would really never use that Skill,” Mina began, a slightly nervous expression creeping over her face.

“Which is why you could transfer it to James!” Zora finished.

Mina let out a sigh and looked uncomfortable. “All right,” she said after a moment. “As long as I don’t have to see too much to get it, I guess that’s okay.”

“I’ll try to keep it to the minimum necessary,” Zora said.

Poor Mina. Sorry, your Skill is too useful not to be applied here.

“That’s assuming you actually want the Skill, James,” Mina added, clearly trying not to infuse any emotion into her voice. “Otherwise, this would just be a waste of time.”

“I do want the Skill, Mina,” James replied instantly. “I’d rather that you not have to watch my Mom use it for me to get it, but this is definitely one of the most useful Skills I can imagine acquiring.”

Zora nodded. “Given that you’ve mentioned you have Soul Magic already, you should be able to create some powerful undead. Or any of a thousand other uses.”

“Okay, let’s go,” Mina said softly. She sounded a bit like she was volunteering to be shot.

So Zora took pity on her.

“Why don’t you stand at one end of the room, and I’ll stand at the other and cast there, so you at least don’t have to see anything up close?” she said. “Or smell anything.”

“Yeah,” Mina said, her expression slightly less disgusted. “That sounds good. Thanks.”

So Mina moved to one corner, and Zora stood at the other. James stayed beside his wife for the next ten minutes, while Zora brought back dead rats, a skunk, and a cat someone had once buried nearby.

—

Well, that could have been worse, I guess, Mina thought once the magic lesson from Zora was over. I acquired the Skill, and I can tell James actually wants it. He’d better use it.

“I knew you were tough,” said Zora. A part of Mina wanted to hear it as patronizing, but she forced herself to admit it was probably a genuine effort at a compliment.

“Thanks,” Mina said. “I really appreciate you doing it as far away from me as you could. I know James will use the Skill.”

“I’ll just get out of your way, then, so you guys can practice,” Zora said. She came up to Mina and gently squeezed her arm.

Mina felt the affection in the gesture, but she immediately shook her head.

“Thank you, but you can stay here. I don’t think we’ll stick in this space. I can’t imagine being able to focus much longer in this setting. I hope you understand.”

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A musty smell of death and decay hung in the air, thick and nauseating. She did not quite get how Zora and James could both stand it. Well, Zora, maybe. Her Class was Necromancer. She might have some kind of resistance to unpleasant aromas.

But didn’t James have superhuman senses? The pervasive wasting odor in here should be wreaking havoc with his senses, yet somehow he looked his usual self.

“Of course,” said Zora, looking slightly sad.

Mina almost felt bad about leaving, except that she could barely breathe in this space.

“Next time, let’s all spend time together in the home you guys were kind enough to build for me,” Zora added, visibly brightening. “Bring the children, too! I’ll make sure to wash the smell of death away, and we can have a nice meal together, as a family.”

“That would be nice,” James said. He shot a quick glance at Mina, and she spoke up too.

“Yes,” she said. “We would love that. And James Junior needs to get to know his grandma.”

Zora looked delighted at that idea.

And on that cheery note, Mina and James departed.

Once they were outside, they walked toward the woods that James had just incorporated into the territory. With James’s skin creatures having exterminated all the remaining Wraiths, there were no longer inhabitants in that area. It was the perfect place for them to practice new Skills in secret.

More pressingly, Mina finally felt that she could breathe again.

She sucked in deep, delicious gulps of air that only became less subtle the further they drew away from Zora’s underground lair—for that was the only word that came to mind when Mina thought of that creepy place.

“Was it really that bad?” James asked after a couple of minutes of this, pausing in their walk.

“I don’t know how you could stand it,” Mina replied, still inhaling deep breaths. “I don’t want to ever go inside that place again. It feels like the sort of chamber where, in an old movie, the villagers would show up with their torches and pitchforks, because they discovered the mad scientist has been conducting experiments on human corpses and raising the dead.”

“Well, that’s not inaccurate,” James said, shrugging.

“It doesn’t bother you at all?” Mina asked.

James looked around carefully before he responded. There was no one nearby.

“If it did, I wouldn’t have let her raise the people who died in the Haunted Forest,” he said. “Remember, we’re just doing what we need to do. What’s best for the Fisher Kingdom. Mom understands that, too. She’s not digging up random people to experiment on. You saw what she had to demonstrate with in there. Just animals.”

“Like I said, just don’t ever let anyone do something like that to me. If I die, let me stay dead.”

People say “Rest in Peace” for a reason, skapi.

“What’s gotten into you?” James asked. “Of course I’m not going to let her turn you into one of the undead. But you know the plan is for neither of us to die—”

“Your plan,” Mina interrupted. “That’s your plan. I never agreed to do eternal life. That sounds like way too much life for one person.”

“So you told me,” James said, clearly stung by her words.

Silence reigned for almost thirty seconds.

“Is there something else on your mind?” James asked finally.

Some reason why you’re acting this way right now, she knew he meant.

“You seem younger when she’s around,” Mina said, not entirely sure why she was saying it. Aware that she might be picking a fight. “Eager to please. Sometimes, when she’s away, I forget about that side of you. Then it comes back when she’s here.”

James gave her an annoyed look with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, Not only do I not like what you’re saying, but I also don’t think you have a point.

Mina started walking again, then stopped when she realized James wasn’t following her. He was just standing, watching, staring at her, frowning. Waiting.

She sighed and walked back to him. “You’re not a mama’s boy, James. It’s just—when she’s here, I feel like you let her steer the way things go.”

It was hard for her to describe exactly what she meant, but she felt this experience had repeated itself more than once.

“I think you’d like to be the only woman who influences me,” James said quietly, smiling thinly.

“Maybe,” Mina admitted. “I’m happy to follow your lead. I don’t want to wind up following hers.”

“We’re not following her lead, though,” James said, his expression guarded. “The only reason I let her have her way on the masked man was because you and my Mom looked like you were doing some kind of telepathic thing, communicating with subtext that I couldn’t grasp.”

“That’s not really what I meant, specifically.” But examples of James letting his mother push him around seemed to be very thin on the ground right now. Mina wasn’t the type of person who was always putting away grievances to bring up later. “You did let her have her way on the Death Magic lesson, though.”

“It wasn’t letting her have her way,” James said. “It was me getting my way. She was offering to teach you a Skill that I could take from you. A Skill I think will be very useful in combination with my existing arsenal. You asked me what I wanted at the time. I wanted that Skill.”

“Fine, fine, you’re right,” Mina said, quickly tiring of the conversation.

“I am sorry I put you through having to observe Death Magic being used, though,” he said. “And I get what you’re saying. If there’s a power behind the throne, you want it to be you.”

Mina smirked. That was a good way of putting it, honestly.

“Well, I think she might think it’s her,” she said. “I don’t want my husband to listen to any woman ahead of his wife.”

“I won’t,” James said. “I intend to take care of Mom, but she’s just one of the voices I’m going to consider. You’re always going to be first for me. But…”

“But what?”

“But I’m not ready to put her on an ice floe and watch her float away, you know what I mean?”

Mina giggled at the mental image those words conjured.

“You’re lucky you're cute,” she said finally. She looped her arm with his. “Come on and take me into the woods and train me, before I decide to wander off by myself and get into trouble.”

James shook his head. “I know that training in the woods is literally what we’re about to do, but why does it sound so sexual when you say it?”

“Because you have a dirty mind, skapi,” Mina replied, shaking her head solemnly.

Though that interpretation did occur to me as soon as I said it.

“I have a dirty mind? You’re the one making suggestive comments.”

“I can’t help that you interpret my innocent comments that way. Anything I say, you tell me it’s sexual. I was just a sweet, virtuous girl when you found me. If I’ve been corrupted in any way, it’s your fault. You’ve introduced me to this world of sin.” She shook her head and made her best put-upon wife face, trying to convey the thought, Poor me, my husband thinks nothing but lustful thoughts.

He swatted her behind, producing a little yelp.

“Fine,” he said, “I’ll take you into the woods and train you.” He added, in a grumbly undertone, “In a completely non-sexual way, since you insist.”

The founding couple of the Fisher Kingdom walked together to an empty, wooded part of the Fisher Kingdom, and they did, in fact, train.

Some aspects of the training were more successful than others.

Mina’s Quick Study allowed her to pick up Basic Elemental Magic: Gravity, Basic Non-Elemental Magic, Illusion Magic, and Soul Magic by watching James demonstrate those abilities for an hour. She already had the other magical Skills in James’s arsenal.

And Mina transferred Death Magic to James with no problem. His Skill Transfer ability did not seem to have noticeable drawbacks. At least James did not appear weakened by using it.

Mina suggested he might want to try assisting others using the Skill, and James agreed, though he said he was still deciding whether to keep it secret to any degree.

When she tried to teach him her Quickened Spellcasting Skill, half an hour of effort appeared to yield very little progress. It became clear that he would need to meditate on the method alone for hours, or perhaps days, before he acquired the Skill. So they cut that practice short for the moment.

The big disappointment was when Mina tried to use James’s basic attacks. His Air Strike, Lightning Strike, and Meteor Strike were almost completely ineffective when she used them.

Her Air Strikes ended up leaving thin, shallow scars on trees. Her Lightning Strike and Meteor Strike each left a blackened mark on the trunk of the tree she tried them on, and she hurt her hand doing that small amount of damage.

She was able to use Way of the Predator and spar with James, but it was clearly much less effective than it had been when James demonstrated it the previous day. Though they had some fun grappling, it was ultimately a very unsuccessful experiment.

“It’s your physical stats,” James said finally. He looked slightly annoyed as he spoke, but not at her. His mind was on someone else. “I think that Bear fellow was right. We’re going to have to take you to train against other enemies, so you can level and get points to throw into the physical. Otherwise, none of these more physical attacks will be useful at all. Martial arts will help you in a fight with someone in your own weight and Strength class, but it can’t help a ninety-pound weakling beat a gorilla in a fight.”

Mina nodded, not taking offense at being compared to a ninety-pound weakling. She knew the differential between her Strength and James’s was massive, and she could tell how much he had restrained himself while they were practicing Way of the Predator, so he would not harm her in any way.

“I’ll look forward to fighting alongside you,” she said, smiling and looking him in the eyes affectionately. “Take good care of me!”

“Of course I will.” He smiled. “We’ll start after tomorrow’s council meeting, if that works for you.”

“It does, as long as we don’t take too long. Right about now, for instance, I’m pretty sure Junior wants to be fed.”

James nodded. “I’ll keep that time limitation in mind. Let’s get back, then. And tomorrow, we'll go and invade some hostile territory!”

He sounded so excited that Mina was carried along and became more interested too. She had done almost no monster-slaying in her short time initiated into the System.

Maybe it would be fun.