Eyes that weren’t real until this moment, and really, still aren’t that real at all, open. My heart is beating like it wasn’t just created from nothing. My breath coming steadily, despite breathing being something of an affectation for the dead.

For once, this body feels worse. The constant projected Elben fields of that last life’s world, along with doses of perfected chemical stimulants in every drink and ration bar, made feeling good a reliable part of every day. And now I’m just me again. Not happy. Not vibrant. Just myself, with the physical changes gone.

I raise a hand over my head, and sigh. Bronze skin and slim fingers splayed between where I’m lying in the between and the pipe chandelier on my room’s ceiling. It feels good to move, a satisfaction as my fake muscles get a chance to stretch and breathe. It’s semi-natural pleasure, as opposed to the induced joy I got used to. But despite the fact that I’m at peak health, and nothing hurts, and all the woes of life are behind me now, it still feels harder than being happy just as a default state.

But bit by bit, my psyche reasserts itself. The blankets of the bed feel electric on my naked skin, the false air of the between fills fictional lungs with a pleasant ember, and seeing with organic eyes again, even if they’re not really real, is something that has a kind of visceral excitement to it.

Words come to my attention.

[Welcome back to the between, Intercessor. 11,881,020 heartbeats remain. Prepare yourself.]

Almost twelve million. A bounty that I very rarely manage to reach, even as long as I’ve been doing this. A rush of relief fills my chest; I have subjective months here. In the moment of seeing what I have been given, the clinging remnants of my mind that wish I could just subsume myself into endless shared happiness continue slowly fading away, and real personal joy takes their place.

I don’t get up right away. Instead, I let my hand drop, and squirm in the recessed ring of blankets and pillows that is my return point. The wholly unmovable bed is unfortunately stuck here, but if I have time to spend like pieces of small iron, then I can stay here for as long as I want.

The nagging reminder that I am supposed to be doing something doesn’t quite register to me. It’s been a little while since I had to be used to thinking about things actively, and my ritual of silently waiting at Bastion’s for someone who will probably never arrive is fuzzy in my thoughts. As if from a far distance, I experience a wriggling dread that I have been altered somehow; that my prioritization of euphoria is pulling me away from the person I want to return myself to.

But it is from a distance, and it is nagging, not overwhelming. And everything feels so nice right now, cloth recovered from two worlds mingling around me. I fumble to think that I should get a plush animal of some kind, somehow. Maybe I can become a toyworker in my next life and be rewarded for it.

I lose track of what I was thinking and just stare upward, a smile on my face despite the lingering feeling that I should be getting up for something important. But that worry is overridden when I shift slightly and the blankets brush against my body in a way that elicits a sexual rush that I haven’t felt for subjective decades. The feeling triggers embedded prompts in my conscious mind, the ingrained desire to seek joy over everything else. Before I am really aware of what I am doing, I’ve brought myself to at least two orgasms, and then promptly fallen asleep.

When I wake up, I feel refreshed, in that way that only sleeping in the between can brings. Like I might actually be able to keep going, and like the person that I know I am is the person I can be. Which is somewhat horrifying when I realize that the person I know I am is someone who still has a lot of very, very powerful conditioning in their brain.

I check my heartbeats, and see that I have been asleep for subjective hours. I won’t count it as time wasted, but there’s an anxiety there that never goes away, telling me that I should have been doing something else. Even if I don’t really know what.

Before I get up, I raise an arm overhead again, and open a translucent screen. It’s been a long time since I’ve made any real alterations to my body here. I like my tail because it’s cool, I like my eyes because they remind me that I was once just like everyone else, and I haven’t found a shape that I’m more fond of yet so that isn’t changed. I don’t really change myself that often. But right now, I feel like I need to.

It costs ten marks of faith and five marks of knowledge to create a temporary condition that inhibits my false brain from experiencing overwhelming pleasure. It won’t last forever, but it should last long enough for the safety net of the between to let me overcome the emotional bonds that were placed on me in the last world.

Well, that I placed on myself. I had help, but I don’t think it’s right not to take my share of the responsibility.

I sigh and drop my arm back from the list of parts and conditions and mimic organs that this body has. Things feel a little more muted now, but that’s not bad. With the way my thoughts are pointed, muted still means that everything feels a little too good. Enough that what I want to do is fall down the mountainside chasing after how good I know I should feel.

This, in no uncertain terms, sucks. I have recovered from addiction before, both in lives and through death. Normally death makes it simple. Your body is reset, and while your thoughts persist, the mind itself doesn’t have the damage. But this time, I’ve set myself up with thoughts that are self-reinforcing; a cognitohazard that plays off what I feel, instead of any particular trigger words.

What a terrible idea. At least with my quick brain surgery, I am capable of feeling like an idiot in full force. Which is appropriate, and deserved.

Crawling from the bed and standing up feels like an ordeal, despite the perfectly healthy form and the gently refreshed and recently napped mind. Not wanting to waste anymore time, I move to open the door to Bastion’s, but something give me pause. Looking down at my body, I cock my arms forward and twist to look at my tail, before sighing again. Maybe it’s the temporary change to my brain, but I feel an odd discomfort with my nudity at the moment.

Fortunately, as much of a mess as my inventory is, my dozens of lives worth of accumulated prizes mixed with the random things that I’ve picked up here in the between makes it easy enough to find something to wear. It’s an occultly armored pilot’s suit, so it’s not like it’s much better than being revealed in full to everyone I meet, but having something pressed against my skin is comforting at the moment.

The door is waiting for me like it’s the oldest friend I have, and if it were alive that might actually be true. I touch the glyph in the center and let it open for me, and then step through the threshold to Bastion’s.

Sometimes I think that the doors in the between have something in them. Of course, this whole place does very little to conform to coherent space, but there do seem to be some rules. You can never fully cut off a room from anywhere, even if it’s just a one way door out. Someone who knows the right questions to ask could always pay enough to open a door in too. And the between has a whole endless maze of hallways and rooms and strange sights outside of the stable rooms that we use.

But the doors are always just doors. You step through, and you’re where you’re going, even if there’s no possible way for things to line up. It’s honestly just not the weirdest thing I’ve ever lived through so it never bothers me, but sometimes… sometimes, like now, I get the impression that I’m not just stepping through a door. The feeling that there’s whole worlds or stars or orrerys floating in the slim threshold. Waiting, for something. Maybe for us. Maybe for something inscrutable, and thinking they’re here for us is the height of hubris.

The feeling doesn’t last long when it crops up. The doors are just doors, and stepping through only takes a moment.

“Luriiiiiii!” The first voice I’ve heard in this visit to the between greets me with unmatched enthusiasm as I step out from the bland white walls of my unfurnished room and into the rough wood and patchwork decor of Bastion’s. It’s a voice I haven’t heard in lifetimes, and when I say that, I don’t mean it figuratively.

Molly spots me before the door even closes behind me, and launches herself off the barstool she’s sitting on. The place my door drops me is on the other side of our three progressively less matching tables, but the furniture obstacles do absolutely nothing to stop her. Molly is the kind of person who revels in learning and controlling her bodies at maximum efficiency, and the three foot tall mixed bloodline kobold form that she wears here is almost perfectly adapted to her brand of acrobatics.

Her aerial arc off the barstool lands her on the largest table we have. She takes advantage of the indestructible nature of a lot of things in the between to turn what could be considered a body slam into a tumbling roll, popping out of the wheel of motion at the very end to grab the back of a chair and use the momentum to catapult herself forward faster. By the time she reaches me, she is essentially a very affectionate cruise missile.

I snatch her out of the air with a whirling open arm catch, pushing the limits of how much stress can be put on my joints in the between before something dislocates a shoulder and whirling around with a tearful beaming smile. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen this particular friend.

“You’re the first one back this time!” She exclaims, jamming her snout into my neck as I try to hold her up with the thin arms I wear here, the long whiskers trailing out of her scaled maw ticking at the line of my pilot’s suit. “Also, aww, you’re dressed! I wanted to hear Mark make the same joke about you stabbing someone in the eye with your dick for the tenth time.”

“Sixteenth time.” I sigh. “Also that’s not the joke he’s… okay, it’s sort of the… look, Mark has a lot of rewards and none of them start with [Comedian]. And Mark isn’t here?”

“Not yet. I’ve been here for about twenty thousand beats, and you’re the first person I’ve seen.” Molly falters. “I… I’ve been missing stuff, huh?” She says, trying to stare up at me as she resists being set down. It doesn’t work because her face is longer than my upper arm and she can’t actually do much more than butt into my chin. “Also you’re talking already! Is this new?!”

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“I slept in.” I comment as I decide to just drop my friend. It doesn’t work, and she just clambers up my arms and onto my back. “And I had to modify my thought processes. So I might be misprioritizing things until I’m fully back to myself.”

I feel her snout pressing into the top of my head and can, without any need for my various [Social] abilities, sense the glare that Molly is shooting into me. “You compromised yourself on purpose?” She demands.

“It was better than the alternative. I spent a lot of my last life essentially hypnotized.” I explain, taking heavy steps to try to make my way to the bar, Molly’s weight dragging me down but not stopping me. Just making me feel like I’m moving through mud. “It wasn’t bad, I just didn’t think it would persist here. So I’m a little regulated, until the between helps me strip it all out. Temporary, I know the rules.”

She huffs a hot breath into my hair. “You better.” Her grumble comes out as almost a squeak. “We don’t replace friends fast enough to lose you.”

“I’m replaceable?” I say, perking up slightly. It would be a lot of assumed social responsibility gone if I were easily replaceable. The clawed hand slapping the top of my head in response can’t actually hurt me, but it does get a surprised yelp as I almost trip. “Okay, okay, I’ll be good.” I promise her.

“You better.” Molly growls as she slides off my back and almost gets caught on the bone plates of my tail. “So, how’d you end up hypnotized? Evil wizard? Evil sorcerer? Evil fetishist? Evil…”

I take a barstool as Molly flips herself over the counter like doing aerial vaults is just the normal way to get around a room. “I don’t think I was evil.” I comment.

“Wait, you did it?!” The kobold’s incredulous stare is almost too adorable for me to take seriously, though her being perched on a chair behind the counter means she’s at eye level with me, so I don’t get the added amusement of seeing her peeking over the edge. “Why would you do that?!”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” I ask. “And the last time I was here, we were all talking about living… authentically, I suppose. So I was trying to live my best life.”

“Through hypnotizing yourself.”

“Well…”

“And bringing the condition back.”

I try to think of how to explain it, and decide that maybe it can wait for anyone else, and the kind of group sharing that we tend to do. “I’m not contagious, unless you want me to install an emotional conditioning in you, which I know how to do a lot better now. It might even work here, if you actually want it.” I take a deep breath. “And it really did seem like a good idea.” I defend myself weakly. Molly just growls softly in the back of her throat, before placing a cup of something in front of me. “What’s this?”

She gives me a long blink with the compassionate hound’s eyes her body has. “A drink?” Molly asks rhetorically. “Do you not… want a drink?” She reaches out to take it. “I was going to make one for myself, but…”

“I meant what drink is it.” I say.

“You don’t usually question whatever this cycle’s bartender puts in front of you. Are you sure you’re okay?” She folds her arms, claws drumming on her thick frame in worry.

I shrug. “Part of what I changed was to make things not feel so good, so I wouldn’t hyperfixate.” I say. “I’ll be back to being properly thirsty in a subjective hour or so.” My estimate is optimistic, but the between works fairly fast once something has been actually identified as an unwanted condition. And there’s no rule that says that hostile effects have to come from someone else to be protected against; you can’t hurt yourself in the between either.

And I do wonder if what I’ve done is a form of hurting myself. I didn’t think so at the time. But hindsight is a wonderous nightmare. And sitting here, letting the conditioning get slowly stripped off, I can’t help but compare what I did to the worst kind of optimizer philosophy. Maybe I tuned it to the opposite direction from killing everyone for a high score, but I still tried to maximize my impact so I could have a slightly longer amount of time with my friends.

As if sensing that I am about to spiral into a crisis of personal morality, Molly comes to my rescue. “So when did you all install the new side annex?” She asks.

I blink, momentarially cut off from my worries by the odd comment. “The what?” I ask like an idiot. She points a curved talon, and I follow to see that between the shelf that we use to stack empty cups on and the potted fake dead tree that I still don’t know the origin of, the supposedly solid wall underneath the library has a new hole in it. The hole is in the form of an archway, rough light white stone forming a jarring contrast with the wooden boards around it. Past the arch, I can see from my angle that there’s a cobblestone pathway with wrought iron lanterns on one wall, columns making up more stone arches on the other side. Open to the elements, though what elements I can’t see, and I have no idea what something like that would even look out on here in the between. The lighting is different there, flickering fire in the night casting a welcoming aura, just enough to show off the hints of green from the ivy that creeps down the stone. “Oh! That hallway!”

The process of remembering something from a literal lifetime ago is a funny one. In some ways, coming back to the between, I feel like I was gone for just a moment. Like I stepped out to get a breath of fresh air in the middle of a party that was still in full swing. But that isn’t always how it feels, and right now, I’m getting the opposite effect. The feeling that someone is asking me to answer a very specific question about an event that happened subjective decades ago, and I wasn’t really paying attention then either.

“Yeah, why’s it there?”

“Six made some kind of cider in a life and then an orc showed up who liked it and paid with a hallway, and I guess they decided to apply it after I’d left?”

Molly stares at me like she’s hunting for a hint as to how much of that I made up. But she finds nothing. “I love this place.” She eventually settles on quietly. “That’s just so weird. Also it smells nice out there.” I get a hint of the smell from a light breeze drifting in; the perfume of flowers and a summer night in a world that never invented the combustion engine. It is nice. “What else did I miss? Catch me up!”

I think she’s trying to distract me, or maybe running a mental test to make sure I’m still the Luri she knew. But that’s okay; I’d do the same, and I’ve got a lot to tell her. “Okay. Where to start…” I try to think of how long it’s been since she’s been back to Bastion’s. “We have a new tiny magic tree upstairs, Six has a bunch of equippable barrels that he’s using to try to learn to brew us a stock for the bar, Ellin was in a romantic phase last time I was here and was trying to kiss everyone who wasn’t Six, we’ve had a half dozen strays come through once or twice, apparently we’re remodeling… uh… what else?” I try to think. “Oh, I got an aura layer that lets me bring books back! And Mark found something that makes coins!”

“Coins?” Molly tilts her head at me, puppy eyes shining with curiosity. “Wait, no! Don’t distract me with shiny things! Was Ellin trying to seduce Jules?!”

“Yes.” I answer with an honest nod, my face a serious mask. “It wasn’t going well for her.”

Molly clacks her claws together in an imitation of a snap. “Darn!” She huffs. “That would have been hot! You know Jules has enough tentacles to-?”

I reach over and pat her on her headfur. “I know about the tentacles yes thank you Molly.” I try to sound put out, but I’m still smiling. Actually, despite everything, I’m feeling quite content, which means that my modifications are already starting to reset in small ways. “Oh, also, we played at least two Encounter scenarios. No one touched your character, Ellin is still cheating against us to make things harder, and we accidentally lost a planet.”

She stares at me, and I look back at her, trying to keep my face impassive. Then she slowly leans forward on her chair over the lip of the counter, and grabs the drink she made for me. Stealing the mug out from in front of me, she takes a drink in the only way that really works for her body type; both of her scaled hands on either side, holding it steady as she tips her whole head back to pour the liquid past her thin lips. Molly downs the entire drink in three gulps, perfect control over her body letting her miraculously not spill any of it out into the void.

The thump of the cup back on the counter and her appreciative gasp almost make it possible to miss the sound of a door closing. And then, a vibrant voice from upstairs calls down to us. “Utterly terrible table etiquette, darling.” Jules comments as his tentacles coil around the library’s railing, keeping him from simply tumbling down onto our tables and chairs as he lowers himself to the ground. “Perhaps for the next vendor that comes through, we can search their wares for a proper dining straw.”

Molly squeals, ignoring the friendly ribbing as her face lights up. Her eyes shine in a very literal way, red and orange flames dancing across under the cornea. I catch the tip of her tail on my forehead as she explodes into motion, once again launching forward over the counter and vectoring off the surface of a table to fling herself at Jules’ main body that is currently halfway down to the ground. She hits him with a noticeable thud and a wail that shouldn’t really be surprised from Jules, his grip slipping and the two of them tumbling back through the newly opened archway, rolling into the new and somehow-semi-outdoor hallway in a tangle of laughing limbs and tentacles.

The sounds of laughter and affection, echoing through Bastion’s in a way that turn it from just another place into something that feels like coming home, suddenly take a shift into a delighted squeal from Molly and sounds that are slightly lewder.

“Oh, hello Jules.” I say into the open air over the bar, leaning an elbow on the surface so I can sarcastically hold out an open palm. “Good to see you again too. How was your life? Me? Oh, I’ve been pretty good…“ I cut off as the sounds of their reunification escalate from lewd to outright erotic. “I’m no prude, but I think the privacy hallway was a great investment.”

“I agree.” Six says from my elbow, taking a seat next to me. “Hello Luri. It is good to see you again.”

By some miracle, I contain my panicked yell, and instead break into a smile. “Six! See, that’s a good greeting!”

“Do you like it? I borrowed it from what you were saying, as I did not think that greeting you like that would be appropriate for our relationship.” He angles a pointed finger towards where our two resident lovers are enjoying each other out of sight. “I thought it was clever.”

“No one could ever accuse you of not being clever.” I nod sagely, meaning every word. Then I stand, and stretch, and the way the sensation feels good to me makes me think that I’m coming back to myself more fully. “I need a drink, and Molly stole mine. What’re you feeling like today?”

“Rice wine please.” Six states. “Is anyone else here yet?”

“Still waiting on Mark and Ellin.” I say, setting two small clay cups out and pouring us two doses from an old bottle. “And maybe Tee-kun, if it’s ever coming back.”

“I do miss their verve.” Six’s studied emotionless voice makes it really hard to tell when he’s being sarcastic, but in this case, I think I’ve got the golem’s attitude pinned down. “They were quite excitable. It added to the mood.”

“Oh, be nice.” I chastise him through a laugh. Then my smile slips away, going from ear to ear down to something a little smaller. “It’s good to be back.” I say softly.

Six looks at me with eyes that see more than I think he ever really lets on. “It is, yes.” He says. “I would-“ he is cut off by a high pitched noise from Molly that would make a hardened fertility priestess blush. “…hm.” Six blinks deliberately, in the sense that everything the golem does is deliberate. “A refill please. And I will retire to the library, where I hope the acoustics will muffle that slightly.”

“Good idea. I’ll bring the bottle.” I smile at my friend, and the two of us cut a path across Bastion’s to what is hopefully relative safety from feeling mildly awkward.

It’s good to be back. It’ll be nice to see everyone again.