It took about a week for my body to be okay with moving around. Apparently, the constant destruction of the flames combined with my constant application of healing magic made it so that when my body did eventually recover, it would be even stronger and more durable than before. I had succeeded in finally making Sophia burst into genuine laughter when I wondered aloud if that applied to my dick as well, jokingly accusing her of intentionally causing the incident just so that I would be better in bed.
Once I was okay to move I went straight to the workshop. In order for my life to return to the way I wanted it, I would need two things. First, I would need a blindfold that would cover up all of the scars that Sophia felt so guilty about, that was also enchanted with a battery and an eye, so I could use it as my main field of vision. While it was interesting to live life from a floating third person perspective, I rather missed being able to see things normally. Because I had extensive experience with both enchantments, the blindfold had only taken an hour or so to make. I had made it into one continuous loop so that there wasn’t an uncomfortable knot in the back, allowing me to sleep in it. Due to the fact that it was made from an old shirt from that first group that attacked me, even when perfectly clean it still somehow managed to look old and unwashed. I didn’t really mind though, since what came next was where the interesting part was.
The second thing I had to make was a way to restrain Sophia’s power to my level. I had tried the image of chains, but all that had done was freeze me in place until my mana ran out. I then tried the image of a dam, which worked fine when I used it on myself, but the moment Sophia had tried running her mana through it, the cloth had exploded. No, I needed something that wouldn’t break, something that would allow her to seal herself down, and lock her into the same amount of power I had, that could then be unlocked and restore her back to her original state….
I slapped my forehead as the obvious answer entered my mind. I immediately got to work on a simple looking thin choker, and stitched a lock design in the front. I then made myself a matching wristband with a key design. This was the first prototype so it didn’t have to be anything too fancy. I then took the tests over to Sophia and put the choker around her neck. I then touched the lock enchantment, and….noticed nothing happening. “Did it work?” I asked her.
She started moving mana around, significantly less than normal, and nodded, with tears in her eyes. For the past week she had been terrified of so much as brushing against me. Now though…She flung herself into my arms and kissed me. Silent apologies flooded into me with every kiss. We can’t have that. I reached down, grabbed her legs, and lifted her up to my height. “We happened to get interrupted the other day, and someone once told me to finish what I started. You up for a round? Or six?” Her eyes grew wide and her pupils shook. Fear, guilt, desire. Finally she nodded her head yes.
I won’t get into all of the gory details as I am a respectable gentleman, but to give a rundown of the scoreboard: Sophia-6, Leo-13. But as wonderful as the night was, it came in second to a certain huge realization. Back when I asked Sophia about her flame baptism, it had been in reference to one fairly huge inconvenience in my life. An inconvenience that was no more. Indeed, I could finally sleep again without risking death by dehydration from cuddling a radiator. Ironically though, I think I’m gonna be sweating even more now for some reason.
We spent a few days relaxing around the house, enjoying our new status as an official couple, but eventually I had to go. I had an appointment to keep after all. I wondered how Ash would react to the new look.
Ironically enough, when I got back into town I was able to see a lot better than when I had left it. My eye enchantment just allows me to see whatever it’s pointed at after all, and apparently darkness doesn’t count. I wandered around for a bit, looking for the guild. Because the entire town was actually a vast labyrinth of caves, everything seemed kind of…misplaced. But also oddly streamlined. If you knew what tunnels to take, you could probably go from one side of the town to the opposite in a matter of minutes. The fact that they were caverns also meant that they could build the town in three dimensions, rather than two. After a good hour or so of wandering, I eventually broke down and asked for directions.
It took a while to find someone willing to speak to me. While humans were technically allowed in town, they weren’t exactly welcome, as evidenced by the complete and utter lack of illumination. Normally humans were required to carry around a torch in order to move, which would inform all of the beastkin as to where they were. For me on the other hand, they would allow me to approach, then when noticing I was human, would stare at me with incredulity and fear before backing away. I finally got an answer from an old catkin man, who informed me that:
Ash had played a prank on me. There were two places called “The guild” here, there’s the actual adventurer’s guild, and a bar/inn that also happened to be the only cave around that had light. I decided to start off at the bar, so if she wasn’t there I could at least grab a drink instead.
With the old man’s directions, getting to the cave took under a minute. I had actually passed by it several times, but they had a curtain of ivy separating their cave from the tunnel, so that the light wouldn’t bug the other townsfolk. I walked up to the reception counter and asked the pricing. It was more expensive than the first in, at one head a week, but this one offered not only meals but also booze. I decided to rent a room for the week, and made my way over to the bar. I scanned the crowd and to my relief saw a pair of familiar cat ears. As I made my way over she noticed me, and ran up to greet me.
“Dang Mr. Bear, where have you been? I figured this place would be your first stop, but no one’s seen you, come on! You gotta tell me everything!” She grabbed my sleeve again and dragged me over to the table she had been sitting at. She immediately started rapid firing her questions: “So what did she say? Have you been sleeping outside? What have you been doing all week? Where’s your torch? Wait, what’s with the thing over your eyes?”
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I raised my hand to slow down her questions, before answering them one by one, “Sophia and I are officially together, and no, I haven’t been sleeping outside, the same spell that lets us talk whenever can also teleport both of us to a kinda secret place. As for my eyes, well, she’s so beautiful that the moment I saw her naked my eyes couldn’t handle it and just burned away, check it out!” I lifted my blindfold a little, showing her the burns and empty sockets before putting it back. “So for the past week I’ve been half figuring out a way to see without eyes, sorry for the hold up.”
Ash’s eyes widened in response, “Holy shit did she do that? Are you okay? Oh shit did she blind you because she didn’t want you to see my cuteness and get tempted?!” I could only laugh in response to her apparently serious concern. “Nah, I told you, it was a complete accident, but she does feel horrible about it. I’ve also spent the past week trying to calm her down and let her see that I’m fine.”
She looked at me suspiciously, “And you’re not just saying that because she can hear everything we say?”
I paused for a moment before tilting my head. “I mean, even if I was, I would still deny it wouldn’t I?”
She shook her head. “A lot of beastkin have inherent magic they can use instinctively. For catkin it’s seeing things that can’t normally be seen or illusion magic, and for wolfkin it’s a kind of super-instinct or something to do with the moon. Because I’m both, they got blended into a kind of instinct about people. It’s not perfect, but I could definitely tell that you were lying when you said how your eyes burned out.”
“Oh dang, really? Well that explains why your friends let you approach a random stranger first and let their guard down so fast. Kinda regret threatening them now, I just look like an idiot. OH, speaking of your friends, how’d things go with Mike?”
Ash scratched the back of her head and made a complicated face. “I went to tell him, but when he answered the door he was over the moon that Liz had finally agreed to go out with him. I was too late.”
A brief silence fell over us, which she waved away, “I knew he liked her for forever, and that him choosing me was a long shot at best. More importantly, tell me about this Sophia! What’s she like? Can I meet her?”
That one wasn’t really my call to make, so I asked, “What do you think Sophia, cool if I tell her?”
“If you wish to then go ahead, though I would avoid the topics of other worlds and demons for now. As for meeting me, it’s unlikely, unless she were to find her way to Hell somehow or you were to bring her to the subspace.”
“Aight Ash, so basically one day I’m chillin right, I mess around with some candles and a really cool looking bowl I got, then BAM, I get basically kidnapped by a 10 foot tall pillar of fire calling itself Sophia. Next thing I know I’m in the middle of the woods, so I just kinda start walking along a river talking to the giant fire girl, and we become friends. Then I get attacked by a group of guys, I kill them, then start freaking out cuz they were the first people I ever killed. Sophia uses the spell to bring me to her and turns out instead of a 10 foot tall fire pillar she’s more like an 8 foot tall shadow that came to life that also has fire in her body somehow. She’s like ‘yo man, I got you a house’ so I moved in and we lived together for 6 months as friends, both kinda into each other, but I mean we haven’t known each other that long so waited to start anything. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah you meeting her is a maybe, depends on how cool you are.” I summarized.
“Wait so she’s like a fire shadow? What is she? Also did you just say she technically kidnapped you when you met?”
“Long ass story, if y’all end up getting close enough to meet in person I’ll run you through all the details, just know she’s no kind of person you’ve ever heard of. And yeah, but my life sucked anyway and now I do fun cool shit.”
This prompted another round of questions about why my life sucked and what ‘fun cool shit’ I do now. I promptly ignored the first part and started gushing about enchanting. I even whipped out my third diary that I used to record all the enchantments I’ve tried and their results, whether they were successes or failures. I told her about the batteries and how since I could store mana beforehand, soon I might be able to make completely automated equipment. I also told her about my plans to improve my blindfold, and a potential security measure for all my equipment once I figured out how to make conditional enchantments.
As I talked about my work, she ended up asking a lot of questions about the basics. Apparently, in this world, while enchanting is very common due to its simplicity, people will generally stick to one or two and put those sigils on everything. People like me who dive full force into the field and actively try to make complex magical equipment are seemingly a rare breed.
“Y’know,” Ash mentioned, “You got this big scary look to you, what with the bearskin, the big spear, the fact that you walk around alone, and now with the burned out eyes, but at the end of the day…..you’re just a giant nerd huh? Definitely one of those smart types.”
Sophia’s laughter filled my head.
“You should absolutely tell her about the time you thought you lit your face on fire and kept slapping yourself to put it out. Or the other day when I found you completely immobilized due to your own project, forced to wait for your mana to run out.”
“Shut up Soph!! That first one was my first spell, cut me some slack, and that enchantment did technically still seal power, just a little too well. It gave me some great ideas for future projects too!”
“Oooooh what’s Sophia saying?” Ash jumped in.
I waved my hand, “When you called me smart Sophia worried that I’d start getting a big head and decided it would be good to remind me of all the times she’s seen me be an absolute moron.” She grew vastly more curious and asked about those times, which I countered by asking her about the stupid and embarrassing things she’s done, effectively shutting her up.
Our conversation lasted a lot longer than I had expected, and eventually, my blindfold ran out of juice. I’d have to test if I could double up on enchantments, and get a spare battery on my blindfold. Potentially completely losing the ability to see in the middle of a bad situation sounded like a good way to get myself unalived. I asked Ash if she could meet me back here tomorrow, and show me around the town. I had a list of things I wanted to do here, including:
Get recipes
Buy more enchanting thread
Add more plants and maps to their respective diaries
Sell off useless equipment
Get job from guild and go to next townn
She agreed to meet me back here tomorrow, and I checked out my room, before returning to the subspace for the night.