[Your relationship with Bethandria has progressed to Distant]

[New skill unlocked! Unpredictable Detonation]

[Unpredictable Detonation: Create a highly powerful explosion with a random radius between 1 and 100% of Dream Radius. You will be immune to the effects of your own explosion. Explosion category is randomly decided from “Light”, “Energy”, “Kinetic”, “Spiritual”, “Sonic”, “Shrapnel”, “Incendiary”, “Shock”, “Freeze” and “Temporal”, and magnitude is affected by Dream Potency. Dream Manipulation will increase your control over the Explosion Category and allow marginal control over Explosion Radius, however, both will always contain significant elements of chance.]

[Your relationship with Leon has progressed to Distant]

[New skill unlocked! Shared insight]

[Shared Insight: Within a dream, If you say something that is true and factual, all who hear it will believe you are speaking the truth as you understand it. This skill can be toggled at will. This skill can be passively and actively resisted, with difficulty scaling with Dream Potency, Dream Borders, and Dream Manipulation]

The skills I had acquired were interesting. I hadn’t expected to receive any skills from Bethandria and Leon, and so I wouldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. After all, there was no skill that would be worse than nothing. I hadn’t expected to get a bond with either of them, much less both.

[Unpredictable Detonation] would be useful if I was alone, but with minimal control over the area, I couldn’t use it with allies unless I was willing to blow them up as well. I wasn’t certain how powerful it was, but it would be something, at least. It didn’t sound weak, but I really had no business fighting alone if I could help it.

[Shared Insight] seemed incredibly niche. It almost certainly had value, but I had no idea what I could use it for. Ultimately, I just didn’t need to convince people of my honesty much, and there was no value in using it in a fight. But the ability to speak the truth and have it be believed might be very powerful at the right moment. Even just the ability to believe I spoke “truth as I understood it” was hardly worthless.

Reading the conversations, having our own, and checking the new skills had taken less than thirty minutes. Copper hadn’t arrived yet, so I looked through the in-game shop. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t need to go to the Goblin Market or make a deal with Copper for what I needed.

As expected, there wasn’t anything like what I needed at prices I could afford. The cheapest Magic Envelope that would suffice would cost ten million Quanta. Then I looked at the player marketplace. It didn’t have such an absurd price there. The player marketplace had no ‘Magic Envelopes' at all.

I sighed, as I realized that meant I would need to revisit the Goblin market, or ask Copper to make one for me. Asking Copper would be easier, but I was tempted to revisit the Goblin Market instead. I had said I had recruited Copper without ulterior motives, and I had meant it. This still made that statement feel like a lie. My thoughts were interrupted when Copper arrived.

“Ashlyn, you’re alright!” Copper said, “Fortune truly smiles upon you, my friend.”

I gave him a quick once-over. His bones were unbroken and his skin was unbruised. I still thought of him as tall, despite him being at least thirteen inches short of that, but it was harder to shake off, somehow. I wasn’t good at cataloging mental effects, but it had definitely grown more intense.

He had his wings out, and they now stretched at least a foot above his head, but only reached down to his knees. Previously, they were insubstantial, crafted from silver-light, but now they seemed physical, with a crimson and brown pattern that reminded me of a butterfly’s. If you counted them in his height, you could say that Copper was actually taller than me, now.

Of course, the wings weren’t a permanent part of Copper, but an effect of some spell. Claiming they counted would be nearly equivalent to saying that a seven-year old at the top of a ladder was taller than I was.

“I’m well.” I agreed, “Are you?”

“Indeed I am!” He grinned, “I haven’t done anything half as impressive since we slew the Sunderer, but I have been growing in strength and skill alike.”

“That’s good.” I said, “Can you walk with me? I want to stretch my legs, and Mimic is concerned I might pass out again.”

“By all means.” Copper said, “I have nothing else to do with my time. K will not permit me to take more than ten hours on patrol each day, and I have had no luck with finding an expedition group. Going on a walk with you is no hardship.”

“Thank you.” I said, “Do you still practice Goblin Craftsmanship?”

“Certainly.” Copper said, “How else would I craft my bullets?”

“I need an artifact that can send a letter to the Monarch of Endless Harvest from no closer than the Goblin Market.” I said, “The letter will weigh less than three ounces. If you can do it, I will pay whatever fee you deem appropriate. If you cannot, I will need to return to the Goblin Market to find one.”

“How much Quanta do you have?” Copper asked.

“34,692” I answered.

“That few?” Copper said, “In that case, I’ll need half your wages from the evacuation as well, if you want to pay me fairly for it. If you do, I’ll have what you need tomorrow.”

I transferred my Quanta to him.

“I haven’t picked up my wages yet.” I said.

“I assumed you hadn’t.” Copper said, “sixty-four tokens a day, with quadruple wages for high-risk hazard pay, and a bonus token for every ten people we rescued. It’s a tidy sum, even if it is in scrip. Are you sure you want to pay all that?”

“Well, I’m not in a mood to haggle on price.” I said, “If I say yes, you won’t be insulted, will you?”

“I won’t.” Copper said, “I’m not proud enough to take insult from that.”

“Do I owe you a favor for this?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t be so crass as to demand both payment and a favor, Ashlyn.” Copper said, “You’re my dearest friend. I would prefer there be no thoughts of debt between us, though I will gladly take your payment if you’re offering. Do I need to resume my routine of incessantly asserting our bond?”

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“Please don’t. Keep the payment” I said, “Did you mean it before?”

“Not fully.” Copper said, “I wanted to get in your face about my bindings. I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t sincere, either. I do mean it now.”

“You don’t need to flatter me.” I said.

“I shalln’t.” Copper said, “I trust you, Ashlyn. There are worse new siblings to find than you. Regardless of whether you reciprocate, I consider you kin, now.”

I fell silent at that. Trust from a fae was more rare and precious than love. I didn’t have words for how little I expected or deserved it. I certainly didn’t have words to convince him he was wrong to trust me. It was almost unthinkable. I hadn’t considered him family, and if I had, that wouldn’t have changed anything.

After walking in silence for a while, I said, “I trust you, too.”

“If you’re certain that’s wise.” He said.

“More certain than I am that trusting me is.” I replied.

After that, we diverted into small-talk.

Apparently, K had started charging rent for living inside Sanctuary. One token would buy a meal or a day’s rent, and most jobs paid at least two tokens an hour. Nobody was starving, but it had forced everyone to contribute to some degree.

There was, of course, a blooming gray market trading the tokens. Not everyone was working for K, and a lot of small businesses existed on the periphery of the stuff K had organized.

K had promised she’d pay twenty-five quanta per token, if someone wanted to turn them in. Copper thought she was good for it, but he had been following the market trends. The buying price had never dropped below fifty quanta each.

I suspected as the value of Quanta dropped, the price of tokens would increase. That was likely the point. It would get Quanta into civilian hands without charity, and it would ensure that civilians would work if they could. I suspected there was some secret safety net for those who couldn’t, because that was the kind of person K was.

I wasn’t certain the system would work in the long-term, but it seemed to be fully functional in the short-term. I suspected there were details Copper wasn’t catching, but it sounded promising.

I resolved to ask K about it later, if she had time. For now, Copper walked me back to bed. I slipped inside, and tried to dream of Eris.

---

When I arrived, Eris was watching a domed city through a monitor, and typing at a computer without turning away from the screen. At first, I thought it was Sanctuary, because it was definitely K’s dome. However, the rocks slamming into it were the size of houses, and accompanied by some form of sandstorm. Sanctuary was under siege, but we weren’t facing that kind of natural disaster.

After a minute of consideration, I realized it was the other city K ‘ruled’. It was the capital of this Abyss, Las Meoh. Dozens of identical four-story buildings were cramped together, with perhaps a single foot between them. Each one was crafted from slabs of black stone and steel. At the very center of the city was a building that was practically a palace when compared to the others. It was painted in bright blue and silver, and dotted with jewels on all sides.

That was K’s shrine, and it was crafted in her honor. As long as the story was told and remembered, K’s powers would have remained sufficient to keep the city safe from almost every cataclysm in the Abyss, save for hunger and thirst.

The rest of the buildings were shelters. The dome kept out everything highly lethal, but the glasstorms and sap floods meant that shelter was still necessary. That was what the buildings were for. Connected by a vast web of tunnels, each structure was large enough to fit hundreds of people in relative safety. On the edges of the city, I could see another, partially-completed building, with hundreds of tiny sleep tubes being attached on the second floor.

This was the nicest place in the Abyss, with true shelter from the endless natural disasters outside, safe behind shields and walls. Everywhere else, you would die in seconds, slowly and agonizingly climb back to life, and then die again. That might not sound quite that terrible, but I’d heard coming back was more agonizing than any method of dying was. Here, you could at least live for as long as it took for hunger or starvation to take you.

Eris was doing her best to help, rationing her blood and bone to help everyone. Even with that and everything else they’d figured out, it remained an agonizing existence. There weren’t enough resources to keep everyone alive. But everyone got to live. That wasn’t meaningless.

“You came to visit me, for once.” Eris said, frowning out the window, “What do you need?”

“I need full authority over the Armies of your Abyss, and the title of Royal General.”

Eris paused, blinking a few times. “We don’t have an army.”

“I know.” I said, “But I need the title regardless.”

Eris sighed, “Done. In return-”

“Yes?” I asked.

“I want you to try your blood trick.” She said, “It doesn’t work quite like my own powers do, and I might be able to salvage something nourishing from it. If it works, I want you to use it for me for eight hours when you next sleep, less the time spent experimenting. If it doesn’t, I want you to explain your other powers to me until the remaining time passes. If we find something, I want you to use that. If we don’t, you’ll owe me whatever time remains until we find something.”

“Deal.” I said, “But if this place is fixed, I don’t owe you.”

“Deal.” Eris said.

We spent the next three hours working on that. None of my skills would do any good. Before I left, Eris said something.

“Do you know why all the buildings are only four stories?” Eris asked.

“No.” I said.

“When K formed the dome, that was how high we could build the tallest buildings without hitting it. Construction outpaced the expansion, until you joined. Now the dome’s outpacing it, and we’re finding we can’t figure out how to build higher.” Eris said, “I thought I’d have a decade before I needed it, when I allowed myself to hope at all.”

“So things are better?” I said.

“Yes.” Eris said, “A drop in an ocean, but - better. I don’t know if that’s because of you or K, but I’m grateful.”

---

[Your relationship with Eris has progressed to Intimate!]

[Blood of the Sacrificed has been improved. New Subskill: Corruptive Peace!]

[Corruptive Sanctuary: In addition to all other effects, Blood of the Sacrificed will damage the offensive abilities of enemies for the duration of the Dream, scaling with Dream Potency and Dream Manipulation. If offensive abilities fall below zero, the effect may affect other abilities instead. This damage will produce linear reductions towards zero.]

[Beast in the Blood has been improved. New Subskill: Decaying Malice]

[Decaying Malice: All Subskills held by “Blood of the Sacrificed” will also enhance the Beast in the Blood. “Beast in the Blood”’s subskills will scale with “Beast in the Blood”’s power, and therefore will be more potent than “Blood of the Sacrificed”. Both effects will stack linearly with one another.]

---

The new skills from Eris were much more valuable. [Corruptive Sanctuary] wasn’t terribly effective, but it wasn’t nothing, and in a long fight it might be the thing to bring down an enemy. Unfortunately, it didn’t scale that well. I wouldn’t be winning fights by zeroing someone's ability to hurt me very often.

[Decaying Malice] was much more effective as a buff. [Beast in the Blood] could now be used to layer a more potent debuff on an enemy, or to seriously heal a single ally. However, the latter would have several drawbacks. The most significant of them was that it would submerge allies just the same as enemies. It wouldn’t kill them, but it would be deeply traumatic and a hindrance to healing them. I might be able to save someone in a true crisis, but if they wouldn’t die without it, I should save the skill for use on enemies instead.