“You alright?” Jack wondered as they left the blacksmith’s behind them.

She favored him with a quick glance, but didn’t answer. Or, at least, didn’t voice an answer. The set of her face told Jack she was still dealing with something, although not what.

“Hungry?” he tried. “There’s an inn just down here on the left that serves a decent beef steak.”

This time she nodded. Sighing, he shifted to his side and wrapped an arm around her back, snugging her up against him. She looked up at him, a frown growing, but he kissed her on the end of her nose, and the frown broke. They both stopped there in the street and wrapped around one another for a moment while she huffed a few deep breaths with her face against his sweaty chest.

“I missed the way you smell,” she whispered into his shirt. “Have I told you that?”

He chuckled at that and hugged her tighter as citizens walked around them, giving them wide berth.

Chi drew away after a bit, her face more composed. “You said something about steak?” she said.

“What were you and Mister Ferreyra pouring over back there?” she asked once they’d reached the inn and had found a table.

“Lock drawings, mostly,” he told her. “I was thinking that, until we figure out how to make decent brass cartridges, the best starting point would be to copy an existing weapon that didn’t use them. I’m shooting for a Sharps 1859 dropping block.”

“Copy?” she wondered.

He nodded. “Designing guns is a whole lot harder than most people think. Particularly with the differences in how things work here.” He paused. “I figured the best bet for a first try would be to copy something I already know about that can be made with the tech they already have here. The 1859 was a breech loading single shot, so I won’t have to worry about feed ramps or magazines, or all that muzzle loading nonsense. It was strong, relatively simple, and designed around paper cartridges. Some of them pretty powerful.”

“So how’s it going?” she asked after the serving girl had brought them their drinks.

“Rough,” he admitted. “My memory seems like it’s a whole lot better than it ever was before I came here. I mean, I can remember things I hadn’t thought about in years, crystal clear like it was just this morning. But... well... it’s not like I poured over the blueprints for everything built on the planet over the past five hundred years or anything,” he brought a hand to the back of his head and gave it a scratch.

“I saw the drawings once, and I watched a couple of videos. I’ve got a decent idea of how the action works, and all, but it’s not like I’ve memorized the specific dimensions. Particularly given the variety of calibers they used. And, while black powder isn’t anything like as powerful as smokeless, it can still blow hell out of an imperfect action and kill the idiot holding it.

“The most frustrating part of it all,” he groused, “is that I’ve got nearly four terabytes of that kind of stuff on the hard drive of my damned laptop. Right there to hand, with no way to access it.”

“Why not?” she asked as though it were no big deal.

He cocked an eye. “Can’t find anyplace to plug the charger in,” he said, waiting for the punchline.

She frowned. “Why would you need to?”

He was still waiting, but she just sat there with a puzzled look of her face. “I give,” he finally said. “Why would I need to?”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “Didn’t you tell me you used Flare on that drugand you fought up by the river?” she asked. “Why not just use that?”

He lowered his head and gave her an eye. “Because I don’t want to assplode the delicate and irreplaceable electronic device with a lightning bolt?” he ventured. “Even a little one?”

She wasn’t getting what he was sending. “Do you mean to tell me you don’t have any more control over the element than shooting lightning bolts?” she asked, a tinge of disbelief in her voice. “At rank eleven?”

His frown deepened. “I mean, sure, a little. But the charger requires both a fairly precise voltage and amperage. Neither of which I have any faith in being able regulate, let alone mimicking the sixty cycle current alternation.”

“That’s only if you pretend to be a wall outlet,” she chided. “The better method is just cutting the cord and feeding it DC.”

“Which I still can’t do with sufficient precision,” he grumbled. “Particularly because, at that end of the charger, the permissible variable is even narrower. And how would I know whether I was getting it right or wrong until the smoke started coming out?

“I mean, where would I even learn such a thing?” he raised his arms. “By the time I found out I could generate that sort of energy, I was a whole universe away from anywhere I might find anything I could use to calibrate it.”

“I can probably teach you,” she offered.

“You can?” he straightened. “And where did you learn it?”

She shrugged and pasted a grin on her face. “Cha had a Switch, a wicked Candy Crush addiction, and a tendency to lose her charger,” she didn’t quite answer, hoping he’d miss the evasion.

She had no desire at all for him find out the particulars of her education along those lines, given their connections to the Dread Lord’s grotesque fixation on his biomechanical abominations, or the requirements that those in his thrall play their parts in the maintenance and construction of the necessary machinery.

He leaned back, shaking his head. “You are something else,” he said. “Like a living, breathing, sexy cheat code.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Let’s see your guild stone.” she said by way of response. “Unless you wouldn’t mind if I just used Identify as a shortcut. It’s quick, but I don’t want to use it without permission.”

He paused for a moment, a troubled look crossing his face. He’d expected a rather different answer to that comment. Something really was bothering her, and she was dodging. “Knock yourself out,” he waved a hand.

She examined the field for a moment after casting the spell. There were notations in it that were troublesome, but she filed them for later. The primary things she was looking for were his affinities and mana capacity. “Well, your intelligence, mana pool and magical affinity are pretty good,” she nodded. “You have the charger with you? And the laptop as well, I guess. May as well, while we’re at it.

“Could we do this later?” he asked, face serious. “Let’s just have a nice meal and enjoy some peace."

She tilted her head. “Later?” she asked, her tone a little sharper than it might be. “Aren’t you in a hurry?”

“I am,” he nodded. “But there are issues that take precedence. I’ve been getting a handle on things. I mean, it’s not like I don’t have a vast wealth of experience in not being able to do what I want, when I want. I’ve been learning to compartmentalize.”

“And what’s more important than getting your—”

“My girl’s got something bothering her,” he said into her demand. “And I need to figure out what it is.”

She stopped dead, her mouth still half open.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure I can listen without arbitrarily trying to fix it. Mostly sure, anyway. I’ll try, at least,” he cracked a smile.

She sat there unmoving for a long moment before sighing and allowing her shoulders to slump. She sat back in the hard wooden chair and smiled a small, sad smile. “How ‘bout we eat first,” she said softly. “And enjoy some peace.”

They were walking along a path some time later. Apparently, the Mundians went in for parks, and the one they were currently touring was green and cool, and well manicured.

“Where’s your stick?” Chi wondered.

“Back at the guild,” he answered. “I don’t really trust her in town like this. She still doesn’t won't stand for being touched by strangers, and tends to break them. Probably gossiping with Millie about what a jerk I am.”

She giggled. “You talk about it like it’s alive.”

He gave her a side eye. “Oh, she’s alive, alright.”

She slowed and looked square at him. “Seriously?”

“Meliad,” he said. “Ever hear of them?”

She shook her head. “Something from your Earthian lore?”

He nodded. “And apparently Mundian as well. She’s a tree nymph. Ash tree, specifically.”

“You chopped down an inhabited tree?” her eyes got round. “And she didn’t kill you?”

“Long story, he sighed. “We’ve come to an accommodation.”

A pond came into view as they rounded a bend. A couple of swans were swimming in it as though they’d not a care in the world. Jack shrugged internally. They probably hadn’t. More interesting than the pond, though, were the benches that were arrayed before it. Three of them, well spaced out, and set back from the water far enough not to be in immediate swan range.

“Let’s rest for a bit,” he suggested, veering towards the benches.

She gave him the eye for a second, but acquiesced. The ploy was utterly transparent, but she did have something she wanted to get off her chest.

They sat and watched the swans for awhile, arm in arm, Chi’s head resting on Jack’s shoulder.

“Jack?” she ventured some time later, her voice hesitant.

“Hmm?” he replied.

“What you said before... about how I’m the one who made me a priestess, not Jehsha.”

“I did say that,” he confirmed.

“You were right,” she confessed. “I wanted... I need to....” she gathered herself. “There’s a stain on me Jack,” she told him without raising her head. “Deep and dark and slimy, stretching back hundreds of years....”

He held himself from breaking in. Whatever he thought, he’d save it for later.

“Jack?” she tried again. “I can’t go with you.”

She waited for a reaction, but none came. “Did you hear, Jack?” she pressed. “I have to stay here. On Mund. I made a promise. Swore an oath, I suppose. A hundred years, Jack. You know what that means?”

“Welp,” he let out a heavy breath. “At least you didn’t jump out a window in the middle of the night this time,” and he started to get up.

Chi froze for a fraction of a second, before surging up and grabbing him by his ears, forcing his face around until they were nose to nose. “I’m not talking about leaving right this—” she got out before catching the twinkle in his eyes. She pushed him roughly away straightening on the bench. “You utter jerk!” she hissed.

He caught her and forced her against him against her halfhearted protests. “I can read, you know,” he whispered into her ear. “Not all that well, but I can. And I can hear. Chi the Hero. Hundred year countdown, then thousand something fetch quest.”

“Lives,” she whispered back. “I have to save ten thousand lives. To make up for those I’ve... I’ve killed.” She felt him nod.

“And I can do basic arithmetic,” he went on. “Even screwing around like I was playing an open world game with an uninspiring main quest, I’m going to be long gone from Mund, and probably dead by the time you fulfill your obligations to Jehsha. I’d already worked that out, dummy.” He pulled his head back to kiss her. Not passionately this time. Just a reinforcement of his feelings.

“You might not be dead,” she pouted before kissing him in return. “You’ve got a decent mana pool and a twenty-eight magic affinity isn’t anything to sneeze at. Longevity should be open to you at some point before your time comes.”

“Whatever,” he laughed. “I’ll worry about that when it rolls around. Meanwhile, is that what was bothering you? You thought that I couldn’t work out that you’d be staying behind when I moved on to Tarr?”

She nodded. Then she shook her head, deciding some payback was due. He stiffened when he saw the latter.

“What?” he frowned.

She took a deep breath. “Button,” she said.

His shoulders drooped and he released her, settling back against the backrest of the stone bench.

“She’s in love with you,” Chi informed him solemnly.

“I know,” he said to the sky directly overhead and with no great feeling

The answer gave her pause. She hadn’t expected a straight answer. “Then what are you playing at?” she asked with a hint of sternness.

“She’s a kid,” he said with no more feeling. “Regardless of whatever else is happening, regardless of what my nineteen year old body tells me, she’s a kid and I’m not. I’ve told her this. Repeatedly.”

“And now you’re just going to try and ignore it away?” her eyes narrowed.

He looked over. “And what would you suggest?” he asked. “Move along and leave her behind? I can’t. Not according to the old woman, at least. She insists I’m going to need Tiarraluna going forward. For what, she wouldn’t say with any sort of specificity. You probably already know how cagey she can be. But she was adamant. And given how she feels about the kid, she wouldn’t insist lightly or without a solid reason.

“I doubt Button would stay behind in any case,” he waved a hand. “She’d end up out there in the wild zones all by herself, trying to track me down... And, while I don’t want to... it’s not like I dislike her or anything,” he pleaded. “She’s a good kid. Maybe if she was older, or I wasn’t really somebody else wearing this nineteen year old skin... who knows what might have happened. But she’s not, and I’m not, and now you’re here. The stars didn’t align, I guess. But I sure don’t want her dead. Completely aside from what the old woman would do to me if I let anything happen to her Button.”

Chi sniffed. "You’re an idiot, you know that?” she chided. “Well, you should probably know,” and here she smiled a sly smile. “I gave you to her.”

“What?” he jolted upright. “What do you mean—”

“I told her that, when you cross over, if she decided to follow you, she’d have my blessing.” she grinned.

“And why in the hell would you do that?” he was horrified.

She shrugged. “Woman’s intuition?” she smiled. “I mean, it’s not like you’re crossing any time soon, is it? If you manage to finish your crusade here on Mund in anything less than two or three years, I’ll eat my tail. And she’s going to stop being ‘a kid’ at some point, right? Maybe she’ll grow on you.”

He put both hands over his eyes and leaned back against the bench. “You will pay, wench,” he mumbled in a guttural voice. “Oh, yes, you will pay.”