Three days later

Victor woke up with a yawn. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hands, he tried to swing his legs out of bed. It didn’t go so well. He was still not used to his old bed again, and it was nearly twice as wide as the one he had in college. Victor didn’t mind it too much; the bed was soft and ridiculously comfy, but ever since he got back from college, he found himself wishing getting out of it was easier. So, he struggled with the duvet and his desire to turn around once more until he finally managed to dip his feet out from under the blankets.

He regretted it immediately.

When his mom had bought the house, she hadn't been too worried about things like insulation and heating, and had paid more attention to things like location prestige and visual impression. The result was Katzer Castle, perhaps a bit inaccurately named. It really was more like a Chateau.

A very cold Chateau.

So, Victor gritted his teeth, swung his feet out of bed, winced a little bit as his warm, bare, soles made contact with the hard, cold floor, and stumbled into his bathroom. He emerged half an hour later freshly showered and dressed in slacks and a nice shirt. He would have preferred to wear something more comfortable, but he never really knew what to wear when he was going to meet his mom.

He retrieved his hell phone from the nightstand and checked for new messages. His heart caught in his throat a little when he spotted one particular message from his mom titled Reschedule?

Allowing himself a grimace, he opened the message and read through it, but while it wasn’t what he wanted to read, it wasn’t as bad as he had thought.

“Hey sweetie, I’m super sorry, but something has come up. They didn’t calibrate instance 771-4D correctly, and it didn’t save, so I will have to do it again manually. At least they caught it before any players got far enough into the dungeon. So we can either reschedule in about two weeks, or, what I would like more, is to have a quick video call at about 10:30. I know it’s not the same as seeing you in person, but it’s the best I can offer, and I would love to talk to you again. I know I’ve been busy, but hopefully, stuff will clear out soon, love you a lot, Mom.”

With a sigh, Victor dropped the hell phone onto his bed and slumped down right next to it. He was about ready to go back to sleep. But he was already dressed, so why not roam about while he waited?

Half an hour later, he emerged from the kitchens, having pilfered some breakfast while Greg pretended not to notice him. It was a bit sad that his perception ability leveled up faster than his stealth, but then again he was level 50 something, and Victor had just hit 18. And it was good training.

Food in hand, he made his way to the solarium. He shouldered open the doors and found his dad exactly where he thought he would be. Cecil von Katzer lay on a heap of blankets in the middle of the room in full cat form. His gorgeous black fur, which had landed him on several covers of SQ magazine, glistened in the warm light of the artificial sun that hung from the ceiling.

When Victor entered the room, his dad cracked open one lazy eye, saw him, and then shifted back into his human form lazily. Like all shapeshifters who had mastered their ability, he emerged fully clothed, depending on your definition of “fully clothed”. He was wearing a ridiculously fuzzy and comfortable-looking bathrobe over demon larvae silk pajamas that glistened almost as lusciously as his fur had.

He didn't say anything, just raised one arm and waved Victor closer with a lazy, if overjoyed, smile.

Victor smiled back, patted the chair closer, put the food to the side, and let his dad hug him. He didn’t even fret when the whiskers nuzzled between his ears.

“Hey there, how’s my favorite kid today?” he purred. He had a voice even silkier than his pajamas, the kind that would make angels swoop and joyfully jump down from heaven just for a chance to scratch him between the ears, and he knew it.

“I’m your only kid, Dad,” Victor said, completely immune to his charms, if not his humor.

“At least as far as the paparazzi know…”

“Dad!” Victor laughed. His father was a wily cat, through and through. He knew it, his mom knew it, and the public highly suspected it. He had once told Victor that if it hadn't been for his mom needing to keep her status, he would have been far more open with all of his affairs. To a tomcat like him, it was a point of pride.

“Unfortunately, I do love your mom more than anything else,” he'd said with a sigh, “and so I must take upon myself the indignity of mangy fleabags calling me a cuck. The huge swaths of cash I get for being an international supermodel barely ease the agony.”

Returning to the here and now, Victor said, “I have a call with Mom today.”

“Oh right! She actually mentioned that. She was very excited about your meeting today. I thought it was face-to-face?”

“Yeah, but something with the Chronomancers got in the way.”

His dad frowned a little at that, almost imperceptibly, but then he grabbed the glass of milk from the tray that Victor had brought and took a sip.

“I’m sure it will work out next time, kiddo,” he said.

Victor shrugged.

“What was it about anyway?”

Victor’s smile widened a little bit, and his ears swiveled forward. “I want to ask her if I can get an internship in one of her dungeons.”

“Oh wow,” Victor’s dad said with raised eyebrows. “That sounds damn exciting, what brought that about? College?”

“Kind of,” Victor said. “I went down to the dregs with a friend I made in college. You know, Waverley, the girl I talked to you about?”

“Oh yeah, I remember her. The werewolf, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. Went to this place called The Crowbar and they had Fight Night.”

“Nice! Was it fun to watch?” Victor’s dad asked, taking another sip of his milk and licking his lips afterward.

Victor’s smile prowled into a smirk. “And to fight in.”

The ears on Cecil’s head twitched in surprise, his eyes growing wide. A flurry of emotion crossed his father’s face, but Victor couldn’t quite make out which was which. In the end, however, the werecat smiled broadly, grabbed him by the shoulders, and said, “Oh, the poor people of the dregs! While I wasn’t paying attention, someone set loose my son, and he messed their stuff up.”

While Victor laughed, his dad pulled him closer and ruffled his hair. “How did you even know I won?”

It wasn’t until his dad stopped hugging him that he answered. Almost imperceptibly, there was a bit of a sad tinge around the corners of his smile. “Because apparently, it takes two people to make a kid.”

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Victor opened his laptop at exactly 10:25. He’d asked his dad if he wanted to come with, but the werecat had politely declined, needing his beauty sleep. While he waited for his call to connect through the time and space tunnel, Victor went through his notes in his mind. He’d done a SWOT diagram, did a cost/use analysis, and even made a small presentation. He didn’t know if he would need it, but it was best to be prepared. His mom was a busy woman, and he would hate to waste her time.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

With a click, the line connected, and his mom’s face filled the screen. Victor knew that people would call her a stunning beauty, all long black hair, glowing red irises, and a smile so sharp that you could trim rose bushes with it. This was Countess Vanessa von und zu Katzer, ruler of Black Pine Mountain, sovereign of the Dread Fortress, abductor of princes and princesses, slayer of kings and queens, expansion end boss of both the Harvest of Red Wine, and Flood of Blood.

To him, she was just ‘Mom’.

“Hey, sweetie! It’s so good to see you again. I love the new hairstyle, when did that happen?”

Victor had just grown it out without caring about it, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

“Yo, Mom,” Victor said. He gave her a small wave while her smile, usually so sharp and dangerous, melted into something soft and caring. He wished he could see it more often.

“I’m just getting ready for the raid group,” she said, “but I definitely want to take the time to talk to you, especially now that you actually put in a meeting. Who gave you that idea by the way? You should know that you could always just call me.”

Victor didn’t tell her that that was usually not possible. You have to schedule time and space dilation calls, and even if not, his mom was just too busy. What if he called, and she was in the middle of a fight? She could hardly tell 40-something human players, who didn’t know anything about hell, that she had to take a call from her son and that they should wait.

So instead, he went on to his main topic, knowing that time was precious.

“I was wondering if I could start an internship in one of your dungeons.”

For a second, he worried that his mom, who was busy loading her inventory with items, wouldn’t pay full attention, but she looked like a person who was just deep in thought and not dismissive or absent-minded.

She tilted her head a little as if trying to make it easier to think up the right question. Finally, she said, “What brought this about?”

And so, Victor explained to her in as few words as he could about his encounter in the dregs and his newfound curiosity about her world. He got it down to less than 10 seconds.

His mom looked at him for a long time, as if trying to decide whether or not she would ask more questions, but then someone from off-screen said something, she raised her head, dismissed him, and went back to giving him her full attention.

“Sorry about that, they’ve just breached the gates and should be here in about 15 minutes. Plenty of time. So, you were saying that you wanted an internship in a dungeon. I didn’t know you wanted to be a fighter?”

“Oh no, I meant more as a dungeon master. I do like fighting now, but I am more interested in actually running the thing rather than being on the front line.”

“You can do both, you know?” But it sounded more like a rote response that almost came out of instinct. Perhaps it was a relic of the times when she had to defend her decision to be both a dungeon master and a dungeon boss at the same time, and explain the benefits of doing both.

She shook her head, proving him right. “Sorry, darling, but there really isn’t much I can do for you in that case. You know that you have to have a master's degree to be a dungeon master.” She smiled a little bit, but it was apologetic. “It’s in the name, right?”

Victor smiled, even though he didn’t feel like it. “I mean, I know for a fact that you started out as a dungeon master before you even finished college.”

“Yeah, but those were different times,” Vanessa said, with a sigh of someone who would much rather be talking about anything else. “I can get you into my raid as a hidden NPC no problem, that should be enough for your CV, shouldn’t it?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate your interest and—” Vanessa said, at the same time as Victor said, “but it’s not really about my CV, Mom, because—”

They both stopped, and Victor said, “No, you go first.”

Vanessa sighed again. “I like that you’re showing an interest in my work. But there are legal hurdles against this sort of thing. These days, at least. Things went wrong in the beginning.”

“Oh, okay,” Victor said.

It was all right, he tried his thing, and that was it. He would just have to wait until college was over, and then that would be it. Just a few more years of waiting, what’s so wrong about that?

But then he remembered that he had made a promise to Waverley.

“I’m serious about this, Mom,” he heard himself say. And because he’d begun saying it, he went on, “I know you want to expand, I have seen the company reports. I also know you are planning several new dungeons for the next expansion.”

“If they don’t manage to raise the raid until then,” his mom interjected, a bit of caution in her voice.

Victor snorted at that. That was as unlikely as Saint Peter coming down, asking for a pint, and telling them heaven now had an open door policy, and that he was retiring to Azmodeus.

His mom grinned appreciatively. “No, you are right, I am trying to expand. But all of these dungeons need experienced dungeon masters. It is a new high-level expansion, and while I love you to pieces, and you need to know that, you are just not ready for that amount of responsibility. Why don’t you think about it? Just come by as an NPC into the raid and see how things are run behind the scenes. Then, after you’ve done your master's, I’m sure I can get you a nice position being vacated by someone moving up the ladder. I’m sure you would appreciate having an experienced dungeon core to guide you through the process, too, right?”

While that was absolutely true, it was also not Victor’s goal. Yes, he wanted to fight, but he also needed to find out if he was wasting his life by going for a dungeon nomics degree. He needed to find out as soon as possible so that he could reorient while he still had time.

His disappointment must have shown in his face because his mom’s expression softened again.

“I remember you just sleeping on your father’s stomach. Where has all the time gone?” she checked her watch. It was one of those old ones made of brass that clicked ominously. Victor knew she used it to great effect; he had read all about it in the magazines.

“All right,” she said with a determined huff. “I also remember what I was like at your age. I wanted to know and I wanted everything now. I was so disappointed that all the old idiots didn’t see the huge amount of opportunity that Satan gave us when he— Doesn’t matter. Point is, I can imagine how you feel.”

Victor caught himself thinking that he doubted that, and the lance of guilt drove itself through his innards. His mom was trying, damn it. She was going to let him down as gently as she could, as always.

But then she surprised him.

Her face grew rigid, and there was a deep ember glow in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Her smile was thin now, barely showing a hint of her fangs.

“So tell me why I should hire you, Victor von Katzer. I have it on good accounts that all you do all day is laze around and sleep. Hardly a good fit for an ambitious position such as running one of my dungeons.”

Sometimes, Victor was really happy that at least one of his parents was alive because having a heartbeat was nice. It kept him warm, it made him feel calm, and it was always cool to know that you were alive.

Right now, his heart felt as though it was beating in his jaw, making his teeth click. He knew what his mom was doing; she was giving him a chance to prove himself. He didn’t know how, or why, but he felt seen and recognized by her in a way that he’d never been before.

So he leaned forward, smiled his own patented mysterious smile, showing both his fangs and sharp cat-like teeth, and said, “Oh, you won’t be hiring a catboy. You will be hiring a vampire. Not only am I outstanding in all my classes, as you will see if you read through the attached records, but I’ve also recently developed many of my vampiric skills, such as courtly intuition and vampiric hunger. I’m sure you will—”

Vanessa’s eyes grew wide, their intensity almost nailing him to his chair. “Vampiric hunger?”

Obviously, if this was a real interview, he wouldn’t tell anyone about his skills, but he thought that maybe his mom would have liked to know that he had developed a new vampire skill.

But maybe she didn’t? He was fully aware he sounded a bit hesitant as he said, "Yeah, I got it at level 5." His mom drew in a deep breath, and what he had mistaken for apprehension or judgment bloomed into a beaming smile that radiated pride like the molten core of Satan’s domain.

“Oh, Victor, that is… I don’t even know what to say. I am so, so happy for you. If I am right, that skill will… Never mind. I will get you your dungeon. It probably won’t be what you asked for, because I will have to jump through several hoops, but…”

She paused, frowning as she thought, “No, wait, I got it. I have a very old dungeon, somewhere in the starter zones. It’s where I first worked together with Danielle-Clementine. I tried to keep it running, but it fell into complete disrepair after she and I left. I think it might even have degraded into an outdoor zone, not even instanced. Hell, it might not even be elite anymore. Anyway, I tried to send a few people in, to get it back up and running, but apparently, the new dungeon core there is a real piece of work.”

“It’s the perfect place for you to prove yourself.” There was nothing apologetic about her grin when she finished her monologue. Actually, she looked excited. More so than Victor had seen her in years.

“Anyway, if there’s nothing else, I gotta go. I will finalize the paperwork later, and everything should be good to go by the end of next week. Love you—" She reached out to end the call while already looking at the door, obviously in a hurry.

“No, wait!” Victor interrupted her. "I got a friend who needs to be the dungeon boss there. Can we make that happen?" he rushed out. It was a far cry from the well-thought-out argument he had prepared, but if he only had a few seconds left, then he would make them count. Somehow, accepting the job and not getting Waverly in was worse than failing to get it entirely.

"Oh yeah, of course," Vanessa said, distractedly. She’d already grabbed her rapier and was busy fastening her dramatic cloak over her suit. With a grin that made her look as young as Victor still felt, she said, "You’re the dungeon master, you can hire anyone you like."