‘If I was still capable of having headaches, I would probably need half a bottle of painkillers,’ Anika said with a tormented expression on her face.

Arcarius looked even worse.

‘I’m sorry… gods, dungeons and riftlings… that’s a lot to take in,’ he said.

‘Try living through that,’ Lilyth retorted.

‘And we skipped a lot of bullshit,’ I added.

The list included among other things: our latest dealings with Ereshkigal, most of the stuff about in-person meetings with Nyx and Irmen in general, Lilyth hurting the Sun, most of what happened to her with Kojiro, the very existence of Deirdee, Varyag and a lot of other crazy stuff.

‘And what's your story, Anika?’ Lilyth asked to change the subject. ‘How did you get from captive to a Nazi fuck to almost killed by Inquisitor Motherfucker?’

The story was surprisingly straightforward. He kept her in captivity doing experiments on her, eventually turning her into what she was now.

‘This nifty interface thingie says I am a ghûl,’ Anika explained. ‘I understand now why you missed it so much, Sav. Anyway, apparently whatever Löwe wanted, he didn't get it from me, as he quickly lost interest after I turned. He even had his revenants deliver my meals rather than doing that himself. One of them fucked up and left the door open. I escaped and just wandered around for a while. Then I came across Lin-Vyme, and the rest you know.’

‘I understand,’ Lilyth said. ‘I assume you want revenge?’

‘Yup. I want to shove his balls down his throat.’

‘I think we can help you? If you don’t mind waiting a bit, that is. None of us are in shape for this right now.’

‘No sweat,’ Anika smiled. ‘I’m a patient woman.’

‘Citation needed,’ Sav joked.

At least I thought she did. I had no idea what citations were. Of course, judging by her chuckling, Lilyth did. This meant that the list of people in my social circle who speak in Otherworldbullshit grew by one.

This is really getting out of hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ireela interrupted, ‘but unless we have anything important to discuss, can we resume this in the morning?

I checked my interface. It was nearly two o’clock. To drive the point home, Ireela pointed to Aki who dozed off.

We agreed that it was a fine place to take a break. Savri and Arcarius helped Lilyth back to our room. In the meantime, I took a shower I really needed. By the time I was done, Aki was sleeping soundly in our bed.

Our.

I looked at Ren’s room.

There is also a second option. After today, I don’t feel like leaving Rennie alone.

Lilyth was still up, so I whispered to her:

‘Mind if I spend the night in Ren’s room? I don’t want to leave her alone after today.’

‘Sure,’ Lilyth said with a smile. ‘I guess you figured out things with her?’

‘Mostly,’ I admitted, fearing her reaction.

Lilyth gave me a warm smile, catching me off guard.

‘We can discuss this in the morning, but to allay your fears a bit - Aki and I are still fine with you having a relationship with Ren. We spent a lot of time discussing it while you were gone and we still realise that you and her are a thing we can't really prevent.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, trying to hold back tears. ‘I still love you guys, it’s just…’

‘You love Ren more.’

‘Y-yes,’ I bit my lip.

‘It’s not like the three of us are having what you would consider a normal relationship. So you have our blessing. Split the time between us and her as much as you want.’

‘Thank you.’

We were so tired with Rennie that we both immediately fell asleep. Still, it was nice to have her next to me. Chirpy didn't push his luck this time around too, since I could see he was rattled after his visit to the realm of Air.

I wonder what Nyxie did to him.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to rest quite yet, as, I imagine, a short time after we fell asleep the two of us found ourselves in the Antechamber Between Life and Death with Ereshkigal waiting for us.

She was wearing one of those pyjama things, pink too, and had rabbit-head slippers on.

‘Hi, girls!’ she waved to us. ‘I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done.’

‘Thank you,’ we both replied.

‘There are some things we also need to discuss! First some rewards, though. Ren, whatcha want? I can give you a Perk Point, the [Silent Step] ability or some basic spell.’

‘I’ll take the ability,’ my girlfriend answered after a moment’s consideration. ‘Magic I can learn at some other point, I am still low-enough level that Perk Points will not be hard to come by, while that ability… I can see some immediate uses for that.’

‘Good choice!’ Ere smiled and put her finger on Rennie's forehead.

She glowed briefly and then exclaimed:

‘That’s so cool!’

‘Put that to good use, kiddo,’ Ereshkigal responded in a cheerful tone and turned to me. ‘I imagine a perk point for you, Caei? Unless you can think of something of roughly equivalent value.’

‘That [Deadeye] ability would be nice,’ I answered half in jest.

‘I thought you would like that one, but I am afraid this task didn’t quite rise to the level I would be comfortable throwing it your way.’

‘One of the Great Game rules?’ Ren asked.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

‘Ayup. Rewards must be earned.’

‘Then what did I…’

‘You’ve made good progress in your attempt to turn your life around. That's good enough for me.’

Ah. Yeah. Lilyth got her gear back for the same thing.

‘The perk point then,’ I said, just a tad disappointed.

A message popped up before my eyes:

You have received 1 Perk Point (Current number of Perk Points: 1)

‘Cheer up, Caei,’ Ere quickly said. ‘Do well on your next task and you will get it or something of equal value.’

I felt my excitement rise, but then it died the moment I realised what that task would be to warrant such a reward.

‘Löwe?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Stop him and whatever he is planning. Take your time to recover though, first. This time I insist. If this becomes urgent, I will let you know, but you really lack numbers for this one.’

‘Lilyth and Aki managed to kill him on their own previously,’ I pointed out, less to argue and more to prod Ere for more details.

‘I acknowledge that, but you have no guarantees that this Maximilian Löwe will be as “easy” to defeat as the one in the Tower, and, I remind you, he almost managed to kill Lilyth and Aki then.’

Then a thought struck me.

Oh fuck.

Löwe had a master, an old Necromancer named Rivard. The whole reason I came to Dwynveia was because the fucker needed help in disposing of him, and it took the combined forces me, Laachersain, Löwe and our Sanguine “troops” to finally put him down. If he didn't do that here… or if my brother was around… or some other Sanguine… Like, I knew that Crimson Vicars were interested in their work…

Fuckity fuck fuck.

‘You understand the problem now,’ Ereshkigal said, not even bothering to hide she read my thoughts. ‘The story of this Maximilian Löwe is completely different from the one you knew.’

‘What’s going on?’ Ren asked.

‘Well… I’ve realised that our task will potentially be quite… difficult,’ I answered. ‘Yeah. I think we will take as long as we can to rest and prepare.’

‘Good,’ Ereshkigal nodded. ‘And one last thing. Anika.’

‘Is it a problem that she's a ghûl?’ Ren tried to confirm.

This was something I was worried about too. I wasn’t quite sure if Ere was on board with her being around us.

‘No. Essentially, she is in the same category of creatures as Phosi. Mortals turned into monsters against their will, so while I in principle believe that all undead should be destroyed as they are created by desecrating bodies of people, doing that to someone like Anika would still be murder. She’s still mostly the same person that she was, but please be careful around her. While ghûls are on the milder end of the spectrum and usually can fit in society, there can still be… issues. I wouldn't be worried about her eating one of you, she can possibly get overcome with bloodlust in battle and potentially go feral until she calms down.’

‘Won’t a [Sleep] spell solve that?’

‘Remember you have to touch her, and in the heat of combat that might be somewhat difficult. Also: just so you know, Life Arcana won’t hurt her.’

‘I never thought it would,’ I protested.

‘You didn't. A certain someone… might.’

‘Lilyth?’ I asked, defeated.

‘They have silly conceptions in her world. At least from our perspective. Anyway, I’ll let you two lovebirds sleep.’

Ereshkigal snapped her fingers and we found ourselves back in our bed. Chirpy, curled up in a ball, looked up at us weirdly, yawned and went back to sleep.

We cuddled together with Rennie and followed his example.

To no one's surprise, it was nearly noon by the time me and Ren woke up, though most of our growing group slept in. Savri, due to her duties, was up the earliest. I had no idea how she did it. So, when I dragged myself to the dining room I only found Lilyth and Anika, wearing clothes Ireela found for her, sitting there. They were both drinking tea and talking.

‘Hi, Caei,’ Lilyth waved to me.

‘Morning,’ I replied and yawned. ‘Where’s Aki?’

‘Watching Sav doing the militia drills. Arcarius is with them.’

‘Yeah,’ Anika agreed. ‘So the two of us were having a meeting of the no-longer human club.’

‘Turns out, we surprisingly have a lot in common,’ Lilyth laughed. ‘Alas, the one thing I thought we did was a false positive. Anika mentioned yesterday waking up on an altar. I arrived on Dwynveia the same way, but it turned out to be some old temple they were using as a base rather than the Tower of Trials.’

‘They?’ I asked, feeling dread.

‘Pale, wrong number of limbs, look to have never eaten anything, rather short on facial expressions, rings a bell?’ Lilyth said with a sour look on her face.

‘Fuck,’ I spat.

‘Lilyth had the same reaction,’ Anika sighed. ‘Though I assumed they were some weird undead until I spoke with her. She left the explanations about them to you.’

Not sure if I should strangle her or thank her.’

‘Figured you would be the best person to give her the Talk. And before you ask, the Necromancer was the only person she saw,’ Lilyth added.

‘Oooh, “the Talk”,’ Anika laughed. ‘Does the story involve banging?’

Definitely “strangle her”.

‘Unfortunately, no,’ I sighed. ‘They are monsters from the same place, as I am. Meaning some of my brethren are likely there. However, I think we should wait with a more detailed explanation for some planning session. We should all be here for that.’

‘Noted,’ Anika nodded.

‘Also those things, with some exceptions, aren’t terribly hard to kill,’ Lilyth added almost as an afterthought.

‘Yeah, I agreed. ‘We should make a relatively short work of these.’

Unless a Crimson Vicar is involved.

‘Why are you talking about such dreadful subjects so early in the mooooorning,’ I heard Ren yawn behind me.

‘Sister, it’s noon,’ Lilyth said with a shrug.

‘Oh.’

‘You had a difficult day yesterday, which is why we didn't wake you up. Truth be told, I’ve been only up for an hour or so.’

Chirpy quickly followed in after Rennie and, immediately, jumped onto Lilyth's lap and started demanding attention, which my wife happily provided.

‘Furry traitor,’ my girlfriend grumbled and then asked ‘Where’s my mom?’

‘In the village, ‘Lilyth responded, not stopping petting Chirpy. ‘She went to talk over our new master-at-arms with Baial and to arrange to cater for Anika’s special dietary requirements. And speaking of, there are some sandwiches left for you two in the kitchen, by the way.’

‘How thoughtful,’ I smiled and my stomach growled in agreement.

I was famished, okay?

‘Thank you for taking me in,’ Anika said as we ate. ‘I recognize someone like me can be a bit much.’

‘No problem,’ Ren said. ‘I mean, it just kinda happened, but the more the merrier.’

‘How did you know we were coming, anyway?’ I asked between bites.

It was something I've been wondering about for a while now.

‘Oh, that,’ Anika replied with an innocent expression. ‘I lured you in. Or rather… I tried to lure in some adventurers. I assumed I couldn't waltz into the local guild or whatever and post a job ad that said: “Hi, help me hunt a necromancer that turned me into an undead.” So, I had to get creative. I’ve been doing the vague “Oooh, undead might be here” bullshit in the hope someone would come. My original plan when you two came was to sell you a story that “I have seen signs of necromantic activity and maybe we could join forces.” Of course, my luck being what it is, the first two people I met could tell what I was immediately and I attracted the attention of the Inquisition. Fucking hell… How could you do that, anyway?’

I sighed and explained my Bloodsmell to her.

‘So that's how you and the assassin duo could see through my “just an elf” schtick,’ Lilyth said.

‘Wait… you too?’ Anika asked.

‘Yup,’ my wife replied and bumped fists with her.

The merry atmosphere of the late breakfast was ruined when a few minutes later Ireela burst in with Aki, Arcarius and Savri in tow.

‘There’s a potential problem,’ she panted from exertion. ‘A runner just came to the village. The Viscount of Ror-Bhyk is coming, with an armed party. He’ll be here in an hour or so.’

Ohhh, shit.