“Jax!” I barked. “The fuck, man?”

Jax jumped, startled at my yell. He looked around for a short moment, as if unsure of where he was or what was going on. Briefly, his attention caught on his own shadows, and he paused as if he could not fathom why they would be there. But when his gaze finally rested on me and saw the expression on my face, his eyes widened. “Donum! I… I be sorry, mate. I… I do nay…” He brought his hands up to his face in an expression of shame, but when they met his nose, he jerked slightly, blinking. Quickly hiding them behind his back, he stepped closer, “It were her taste, ye see. When ye cast yer spell. It… it overwhelmed me. I…”

“Jax!” I interrupted him, “Later. Need… air…” I gasped.

Suddenly realizing my predicament, he leapt forward. Reaching down, he grasped Sherr Hess by the arm, and straining slightly, rolled her unconscious form off of me. Finally able to fill my lungs once more, I just laid there blissfully for a few seconds.

“Are ye alright, mate?” he asked me. “Ye ain’t crushed, now?”

I took another good long breath before replying, “No, I’m not crushed.” I did not really know what to say just then, and an awkward silence descended. The two of us had just been individually caught up in our own separate… shall we say, inopportune moments, though mine was far less apparently intentional. I suppose if pressed, I would say that I had seen Jax in more compromising situations, but… It was not something a fellow discussed while it was still fresh in everyone’s minds. Most certainly, I did not want to talk about having to be rescued from the admittedly considerable bulk of a woman I had caused to fall unconscious through orgasm. That was a thing best brought up later. Over alcohol. Instead, I sat up and glanced over at the aforementioned individual, now sprawled on her back, “I guess you’ve gotten a bit stronger lately, huh?”

He looked away and gave a light lift to one shoulder, unconcerned, “I been investin’ proper. Same as ye.” Looking back at me out of the side of his eye, he asked, “Ye ain’t upset?”

I sighed, “I’m a little upset, as you are perfectly well aware. But…” I paused at Jax’s expression, which if anything, I would say had turned a bit coy, of all things. “But you explained yourself. I guess you aren’t used to that kind of thing off of…” I glanced at Hess again briefly and changed course, “that kind of flavor.”

Jax’s little half-smile grew into a full on grin as he inhaled in remembrance, “Oh, the flavor. The flavor! It were wonderful, me…” he stopped, jerking his head to the side and closing his eyes. Exhaling slowly, he looked over at Hess, “Ye done her good.” I blinked, lost for a moment in the change of conversation topic. “Wonder if’n her tank felt that one, eh?”

Her tank? Oh… “I’m not sure,” I replied. “The way she described it, she gets more out of the build up than anything. It would be nice, though.” My stomach took the opportunity to growl loudly. We both looked down at it in consternation. “Especially considering the cost. Though… I guess I didn’t really need to push quite that hard.”

He just gave another little half-shrug at that, “She were tauntin’ ye. She got hers, the scabby tube.”

“Scabby… Jax!” I said, taken aback.

“What? She be a dirty fool, if I ever seen one,” he said, seemingly confused. “What did ye think I meant?”

“I… well…” I stammered, “Okay, wait… Does ‘tube’ mean ‘fool’, then? Since when? How does that track?”

He shook his head and blinked at me, as if I had just questioned the foundations of the universe. “It just do, mate,” he said. “Some things ye learn at the tit, ye know?”

Sherr Hess woke up shortly thereafter, stretching like a cat that had just gotten the cream, seemingly totally content and blissfully unaware of her surroundings. For a few seconds, anyway. Stopping mid-stretch, her eyes snapped open, and she jerked upright. She quickly swept the room until her eyes landed on us, and realization dawned on her. Slowly, as she stared, her expression turned to amused speculation, her eyes crinkling and her tongue idly playing with a slightly elongated canine. Finally, she said, “Why, Donum… you never told me you had that in you.”

“He did tell ye, cow,” Jax said, before I could think of something clever, his expression unreadable. Then he glanced up at me, “I never seen it hit that hard, though, truth. Yer last one done me pretty hard, too,” he trailed off.

“Yeah… sorry,” I said hastily. “I don’t have a lot of control over the…” my mouth quirked self-consciously, “secondary effects.” What Jax had said was true, though. It had been a little too strong. Maybe it was just a sign of my increasing skill with the spell. What was it now, anyway?

Hess chuckled deeply, interrupting my train of thought, “Oh, no? Then some more practice would do you good, I think.” The innuendo practically dripped from her voice.

Jax bristled faintly, “It ain’t a thing fer fun, ya weapon. He’s already used it thrice over! And no thanks to ye, I say true! Goin’ that way. Me axe could scarce scratch yon weed, and with no Zombies to sink into, he’ll be tapped for a long while. What were ye thinkin’?”

“I was thinking,” Hess responded, her flirtatious demeanor evaporating, “that I want that box the ‘weed’ is guarding. I already resist poison, after all. It was a fair bet that I could have taken it.” She paused for a moment and then continued more quietly, “Nobody would have guessed that it was going to be such a thick topical poison like that.”

Taking a reconciliatory tone, I said, “Maybe so. Still… perhaps, you might admit that charging in with only your naked fists might not have been the best strategy?”

“I had a club,” she said defensively.

Jax snorted but refrained from comment.

“Fine,” Hess said with a huff. “It was dumb. Are you happy?”

“Well…” I said diplomatically, “Maybe not dumb exactly. Let’s just say… a little too impromptu.”

Jax rolled his eyes.

“Whatever,” Hess said. “What do you want to do, then, Lord Mono.” The sarcasm was rolling in thick with that line.

I hoped that we could get out of this Dungeon soon, if for no other reason than that I could graduate into a two-Word vocabulary, and Hess would have to stop teasing me about it. What would that be called? Bi-something? Or would it be ‘Di’? I always got those confused. Giving myself a slight shake, I brought my mind back to task and Hess’ question, “Well… there’s always the other path…”

Hess crossed her arms, “I’m not leaving without that chest.”

Great. “Okay…” I said slowly, “Can we at least see what’s down there? Or will that close off the other path?”

“I don’t know why it would,” she replied. “Why would you want to, though?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know. You said that that way was ‘Tongues’ as opposed to the ‘Extra’ that we went down. Maybe we’ll get some clues as to how to fight it?”

Her expression turned thoughtful, but before she could reply, our light, already sputtering from long use, finally died. “Maybe we should grab a few extra torches first?” Hess suggested mildly from out of the complete and total darkness.

When we finally emerged from the black pit, blinking owlishly, it was with the realization that it was not even yet noon. For some reason, I had thought that we had been down there for hours. I could not say why. Perhaps it was the lack of access to the sun. Or… more likely, it was caused by the wildly fluctuating biorhythms that throwing my healing spell around was inducing in me. I used to tell time more from the way I felt in the moment than anything else. Hungry? Must be time for lunch. Tired? Bedtime. Now, though, I got the munchies based on how well combat had gone, and it was seriously screwing with my internal clock. Actually, now that I thought about it, it was probably screwing with a lot of things. I frowned. That could not be healthy.

Unfortunately, there was absolutely nothing I could do about any of that right now. The internet, for all of its admittedly sketchy medical advice, was all but a distant memory, so I could not exactly look up the effects of repeatedly stressing my supply of Life Energy… not that it was likely that I could find out much about that anyway. I sighed… I was going to get diabetes from this. I just knew it.

And seeing as how I was thinking about it, my stomach took the opportunity to remind me that I had recently hollowed it out again. It was not so bad as the night previous, fortunately, but it was still noticeable, which was a whole other problem. There were no soft targets for Jax to leech off of, and the only visible sources of food were happily and obliviously munching on random field grasses about half a mile from here, guarded by a veritable army of killer scarecrows. Peering at the herd in the distance, one of them raised its head and bleated in our general direction. I shivered unconsciously.

“There’s got to be a way to get one of them,” Hess said from beside me.

I jumped slightly, her sudden appearance startling me out of my reverie. Clearing my throat, I said, “I think we may have to wait until dark. The scarecrows popped up at dawn, after all. Hopefully, they’ll go away again at nightfall.”

“That agrees with the riddle, anyway,” she conceded. “Doubt it’ll be that easy, though.”

I made a face. “Granted, I’ve never tried to hunt sheep in the dark,” I paused, caught off-guard at the absurdity of what I was saying, but pressed on, “but it can’t be that hard.”

Hess just stood with her arms crossed, “We’ll see.”

“Oy!” Jax yelled from behind us, “You two gonna gab all day or are ye gonna help me gather wood? Bunch o’ blithering tatties…”

We both sighed. After a moment, Hess jerked her head back toward Jax, “You go ahead. I want to test the defenses a bit. I need to get my club back to fight that…” she made a face, “tongue-y, flowery, plant-y… thing.”

“I was just going with plant monster,” I offered.

“Right,” she shrugged. “Anyway, those dead branches aren’t going to cut it.” She stopped, apparently caught off-guard by her own pun, and chuckled.

I took a breath, deciding that not acknowledging it would be for the best. “You’re not seriously considering going out there?” I asked instead, concerned.

“Just a gentle probe,” she reassured me, still smiling softly. “Go on. Help your friend before he makes the Goddesses blush.”

Hesitantly, I gave her a nod and walked over to where Jax had built a fire earlier. It had just been a small thing to get the torches going, and as he was burning already long dead wood, it was out now, though the embers were still hot. Jax walked up, carrying a large armload of dead branches, twigs mainly, and dropped them into a loose pile at his feet.

“Do we really need so much wood?” I asked. “We just needed another torch, didn’t we?”

“Dunno,” he replied. “But I need a fire to make a torch. And the way things be goin’, I figure we be at this a while. So I thinks to meself, why do the same chore over and over when ye can do ‘er once?” Chuckling, he slapped me on the back, “C’mon. It’ll be over afore ye know it.”

We both jumped just then, as a giant laser blast exploded from behind us. Spinning, we saw Hess casually leaning against the fence, tossing a rock up and down in her palm as she surveyed the destruction she had just caused. Nodding to herself as the debris settled, she took a moment to pick another spot and hurled the stone that way. Another blast followed shortly thereafter.

“Well,” I said with some aplomb, “at least we have some entertainment while we work.” It was like a fireworks display. A private, violently dangerous, military-grade fireworks display.

Some time later, Jax and I had assembled a large pile of dead wood from around the graveyard. All in all, it was an impressive mound. Maybe not quite up to the standards of Burning Man… Okay, not even close. Still, it was decent. Definitely enough, I figured, for a reasonable bonfire, if we decided to let it go all at once.

More importantly, it was more than adequate to light up all the torches we could ever want. And that was plenty. Truth be told, I was sweating buckets and dog tired just from bending over to pick up the damned things, much less walking them over to this cursed pile. I was frankly exhausted and therefore done.

“Fucking A, Jax. Don’t we have enough firewood yet?” I whined, trying to wipe the sweat off of my forehead with an equally sweaty hand.

“We ain’t even got the wood from that tree yonder,” he said, jerking his head at his next target for lumber acquisition as he dumped another armload onto the pile.

I looked at him in bewilderment. I had gone along with it at first because it seemed reasonable to gather up a bit for later but… I honestly was having a hard time wrapping my head around this. It was doubtful that we would ever need this much firewood. I mean, we were approaching a solid rick here, and he wanted to keep going?! I glanced back at the pile and reconsidered. Okay… maybe half a rick. Still, where was he even getting the energy for this? I knew for a fact that he could not have much more Toughness than me. Not yet, anyway. We were only on the Third Layer, and I had been investing in it at the same rate he had. He was not even sweating! And that made me suspicious.

I narrowed my eyes at him as a thought wormed its way into my mind, “Okay, Jax. Fess up. You’re feeding off of me, aren’t you?”

At my words, he reacted rather counter to my tone. Straightening up, he beamed at me, almost like he was proud of me for having made the connection. In my current mood, however, I took it as rather patronizing. “Why ‘course I be! I always be feedin’ off o’ ye, Donum. But ye caught me, true. I were a bit hungry, and I wanted to see what ye’d taste o’ when ye were taskin’.”

“When I was…” I paused, “Hungry?! After that little episode earlier, you were hungry?”

“A bit, aye,” he affirmed, “I guess ye might say it whetted me appetite fer more interesting flavors.” He winked at me without the slightest hint of shame.

My eye twitched, “Jax, I think it should be obvious that I don’t appreciate being used as an unwitting pawn in your…” I waved at him vaguely, “journey of self-discovery.”

“’Course ye don’t!” he exclaimed happily. If anything, he beamed all the more broadly. “Yer indignation be tastin’ pretty interesting, too!”

“Jax!” I began more loudly.

“And…” he interrupted, “And I think I be owed one or two at yer expense, do I not?” He cocked an eyebrow and waggled a finger at me, as if daring me to deny it.

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died on my tongue. The man had a point there. Still… it was a bit of a weird prank.

“I think I’ve got it!” Hess called from the fence line.

I was tempted to ignore her. I was not done with this little conversation. Not at all. Jax had been acting a little odd lately. I could not precisely put my finger on what it was or when it had started, but a lot of little things were starting to pile up. This little prank of his was… Well, I could not put words to it. But it seemed out of character. Usually, if he felt like I needed to be brought down a peg or two, he would just swear a blue streak at me and be done with it. Not that he had refrained from his usual litany of swearing, mind you. I would be really concerned if that suddenly disappeared. No, this just felt… manipulative, I guess? But then, it was a prank. What else was it going to be? I shook my head. Maybe I was imagining things. Besides, he had not actually caused any harm.

“Fine,” I said finally, raising my hands above my head in surrender. “You got me. Though I fail to see the humor in making me work too much.”

He smirked, “It weren’t supposed to be funny, ye gowk. I know that flavor plenty.”

There it was. I tilted my head back as the pieces clicked. It was a species thing. What an odd concept, to pull a prank only for the flavor of emotion… It was totally foreign to the human mindset. He had even explicitly said that before, but I had glossed over it. I guessed that I would have to get used to that sort of thing in the future.

So, with an air of defeated befuddlement, I just turned around and started walking to the fence, “Come on. Let’s see what’s up.”

It turned out that Hess had discovered something rather interesting. And also mostly useless. To any sane person, anyway.

“It’s an invisible maze,” she said, with a degree of pride. “Or I think it is. Hard to be sure.”

“A maze?” I repeated, looking out at the field. The tall grasses were dancing lazily in the wind, undulating in an unpredictable yet repeating pattern of waves running across the plain from one side to the other, totally uninterrupted by any sign of walls or barriers. The only thing out there were the scarecrows with their gleaming red eyes. “How do you figure?”

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“You see,” she began, “each one of those scarecrows only guards a certain area around it. Anything gets close enough?” She clapped her hands together, “Splat!”

“I be thinkin’ we got that part already,” Jax said impatiently.

“I’m getting there,” she said, looking down her nose at him. “Anyway, the key is that they don’t overlap. Not everywhere. There is a path out there to get past them!”

“A path?” I said uncertainly. “You’re sure?”

“Well… no,” she admitted. “But it makes sense. There was no guarantee that we were going to find the hidden stairwell back there, and the Dungeon is notorious for putting in multiple ways to get through obstacles,” she paused, “Although, some are more viable than others. But, more importantly, I know for certain that there is a gap,” she pointed to a place directly between two of the scarecrows, “right there!”

“Okay…” I said slowly. “But how are you going to test this theory? An invisible maze isn’t exactly what I would call ‘passable’ when accidentally touching the walls is lethal. One false step, and you’re ground meat!”

She shook her head, “You two would be, that’s for sure. I think that I might be able to take a hit. It wouldn’t be pleasant, though.”

“I’d prefer ye take no hits, if it be all the same,” Jax put in. “Donum here can’t be sparin’ to patch ye up again if this goes sideways.”

“Maybe once,” I said, after a moment of consideration. “But this really doesn’t seem necessary. Can’t we just wait until nightfall, and go then?”

She shook her head, “Maybe we’ll have free rein out there at night or maybe not. We don’t know that for sure. But one thing I do know is that the Zombies will be back once the sun goes down, and I think I’m going to need that club.”

“Be nice to have them Gems back, too,” Jax admitted.

“Right,” she sighed. “If only I had some sort of armor or a shield or something… That would make this much easier.”

“All we got be dirt and dead wood,” Jax said with an air of finality. But then after a moment, he amended, “And tombstones.”

I blinked. Slowly, I turned around, looking again at the rows and rows of granite stones, many of which were polished to a mirror finish. Mirror… finish… I pursed my lips. Against space lasers? Would it work? Probably… not all that well. But it might. “Hess, I think I may have a solution.”

Jax and I were standing by the fence as Hess slowly approached the gap she had found. She was holding a tombstone cautiously in front of her and sporting a small bundle of twigs tied to her back held together with a bit of hastily assembled bark strands that Jax had fashioned into some rudimentary twine. She looked simultaneously ridiculous and impressive all at the same time. That hunk of granite she was holding was wider than her torso and twice as long, and if I had to guess, I would say it was at least two hundred pounds if not more. Heavy enough that I would struggle just to lift the thing, much less carry it around like the oversized hunk of cardboard she made it look like.

“Ye sure this’ll work, mate,” Jax said. “Seems a bit sketchy to me.”

I wobbled a bit, as I turned to look at him. I currently had every single finger crossed, a few of my toes, my arms, and of course, my legs… like I was some kind of three-year old. So I was off-balance. “Do I look like I’m sure?” I asked incredulously.

“What be ye about, anyways?” he asked.

“Uh…” I hesitated, “It’s a luck ritual from back home.”

“Do it work?” he asked curiously.

I shrugged, “Can’t hurt.”

Jax, to his credit in my mind anyway, mimicked me.

As Hess took her first steps through the gap, we collectively held our breath. But no laser blasts came. Slowly, relieved, we exhaled. Satisfied, Hess retrieved a couple of sticks from her bundle and shoved one into the ground on either side of her. That had been Jax’s idea. Finding the path would do us no good, after all, if we could not remember where it was. It was the sort of Hansel-and-Gretel-type solution that I was accustomed to from long hours playing D&D. I approved.

As we slowly unwound, literally in this case, Jax turned to me, “Do ye think…”

Bip!

We turned just in time to see Hess ducking behind her makeshift shield as a turbolaser flashed through the air, parting the grass along its path like the Red Sea did for Moses. When it struck her slab, the force of it pushed her back a few inches, but most of the laser’s energy was deflected up and into the sky where it dissipated in the atmosphere. We froze for a moment, but when no further violence ensued, Hess stood back up, inspecting herself for damage. Finding nothing, she turned and gave the two of us a thumbs-up, missing the fist-sized chunk of smoking stone sliding off of her shield from where the laser had struck.

Jax and I grinned in nervous encouragement and returned the gesture before awkwardly rewinding ourselves. That one was on us. We had let the luck lapse.

“What were you about to say?” I asked.

“I do nay remember,” he admitted.

It was about two and a half hours later when Sherr Hess finally broke through to the campsite.

You would not think that it would take so long, as it was only about two to three hundred yards distant as the crow flies, but of course, the presence of the scarecrows put a bit of a kibosh on that whole thing. You might also be forgiven for thinking that navigating the invisible maze would not be such a big deal once you figured out the trick, but there was a hitch. I had assumed that all you would have to do is get a feel for their approximate range, and if you felt they were far enough apart, then you would just split the middle. No such luck.

It turned out that their threat ranges varied. Sometimes it was only by a couple of feet, and sometimes it was by several yards. Either way, that variance made it all but impossible to guess where the gap might be or if there even was a gap to exploit. It all had to be done by trial and error. And that meant that by the time Hess finally made it to the camp, the route she had found was a circuitous mess of dead ends and back tracking, with bits of stone and rubble and broken, discarded tombstones laying around everywhere. However, after she had gone back and taken up all of the bad path markers, we now had clear, if winding, path to our campsite.

Not that either Jax or I were particularly keen on using it, as one false step, clear path or not, would have spelled certain doom. In fact, Hess herself was smoking from several near misses where she had not quite gotten her shield in the correct position, and covered in grime, mud, and bits of grass from the turf that had been torn up when she had had to dodge out of the way.

Speaking of, one of the projects that we had gotten up to while she was pathfinding was repairing the fence from where it had been blasted to smithereens after one of her poorly aimed deflections. We were not doing it purely out of boredom, either. Only mostly. Truth be told, we were afraid that the Zombies might no longer be constrained by the barrier, weak though it was, and we certainly did not want them wandering all over the field come nightfall if we could help it. Also, we were bored.

“’Snails,” Hess swore, tossing her most recent shield to the ground and stretching grandly. “What a slog.”

“Just be glad we don’t have to get all the way to the town like that,” I said. “At that pace, we’d have been here for weeks.”

“Nah,” Jax put in, “We’d o’ died o’ thirst long afore.”

“I’m just glad to have this little thing back in hand,” Hess sighed, giving her club a couple of quick swings, “even if it is a piece of shit.”

“Oy,” Jax said in mock offense. Hess just wrinkled her nose at him.

“It’s still not much good against a plant monster,” I said dryly. “It’s too bad you can’t use Jax’s axe. That would make things a lot simpler.”

There was a moment of silence as I dropped that little nugget. It was a bitter pill to consider that we had just spent hours only to improve our odds by the slightest of margins.

“What about them Gem stones?” Jax asked finally, changing the subject. “Ye bring them back?”

Hess nodded, “Some. They were scattered around everywhere.” Hess held up her hand for us to see, “I picked up what I could find of them.”

“Let me hold on to them,” I said, with both hands cupped. “I’ve got pockets, at least.”

Nodding unconcernedly, she dumped the little pile into my waiting hands. My mouth twisted in consternation as I looked at it. What she deposited was mostly a collection of sand, pebbles, and other stray pieces of plant matter. I had to squint to find the little gleaming Gems mixed in. Concentrating, I began the tedious process of separating them out from the debris.

“How many we still got?” Jax asked as he watched me.

“Fifteen,” Hess said before I had finished. She must have counted them before handing them over.

“That all?” Jax asked, surprised. “We must o’ killed three times that many o’ them rotten bastards last night.”

Hess just shook her head sadly, “Be grateful I found that many. The camp was a mess.”

“How many Layers can we get off of these?” I asked.

“Something like two, probably,” she replied. “For the both of you.”

I nodded slowly. That was something anyway. “What about my spear?” I asked.

“Bro—,” she started, but a yawn overcame her and she stretched again. “Broken.”

Shit. I had not even gotten to use the thing yet. Not that I really wanted to. Regretfully, I dumped the precious little handful, now cleaned, into my pocket. Lesser Gems like these were only about the size of apple seeds, after all. It was a wonder she had found as many as she had.

“I need rest,” Hess said, looking around and idly scratching at her backside. Finally, spotting a bit of shade under one of the dead trees, she walked over and sat down. “You two should be okay on your own for a little while, right?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked. I still remembered the last time she had let me out of her sight all too clearly.

“I haven’t slept in a day and a half,” she said flatly, daring us to refute her. Then she yawned again, hugely, “Just scream if something happens. Or an hour or two. Whichever comes…” another yawn, “first.”

Before either of us could say another word, she had laid back, closed her eyes, and commenced to snoring softly. Frankly, I was more surprised than anything else. I had never seen anyone fall asleep that fast who was not ready to pass out drunk. Then again, I had heard stories about the military. Maybe it was a skill. If so, I might think about picking it up eventually. There were few things worse than lying down but being unable to fall asleep. It was something to think about for later.

Jax and I looked at each other. “Now what?” I said quietly as I motioned to give Hess some space. It was the stupidest thing, but I felt as though we were a couple of children who were still awake while our parents were napping, ready to get into mischief.

He pursed his lips in thought for a moment as we walked before brightening, “Maybe we should down a few o’ them Gems? Get to the Layer Cap?”

“Good idea,” I said, nodding seriously. “And I can turn off the Layer Gain sharing this time. There’s plenty for the both of us.”

Jax just shrugged, “Sure.”

I paused, my eyes flickering to his face to study his expression. That was a somewhat… noncommittal response. Unfortunately, I was not getting much from him. If anything, he looked bored. Finally, quietly sighing, I decided to let it go. He probably had not meant anything by it.

Reaching into my pocket, I fished around for the tiny things for a second before remembering the inventory feature. I rolled my eyes. One of these days, I was going to get used to these modern conveniences. Bemusedly, I waited as the ghostly image of the Gems floated into view. It even provided a handy stack count just underneath them, and I could separate them into different piles with a simple gesture. But I hesitated.

“Uh… how many did Hess say it takes of these?” I asked uncertainly.

“Sommat like… four, right?” he said after a moment.

I frowned, “I thought she said five?”

“No, that…” he paused, and started counting on his fingers, “How many do we got, again?”

“Altogether? Fifteen.”

He nodded, “Right, we can figger this. First, that be half fer each… so…” He started slowly divvying up the count, but he got stymied when he ran out of digits. Undeterred, he started to take off his shoe, but unwilling to let that continue, I took mercy on him.

“It’s seven and a half.”

His concentration shattered for a moment as he glanced up, “R-right. Uh… but that be fer two levels, she said. So…” He trailed off, starting to sweat at the prospect of dealing with fractions. Nervously, he glanced at me for help.

“Three and three quarters,” I said, trying not to grin.

Sighing in relief, he smiled, “There, then! We gots it, true!” But then he stopped, his short-lived happiness vanishing, “But how we ter be going about gettin’ three cue-watters of a Gem?”

His pronunciation was so off on that word that I almost did not process the question, but when I did, I had to stare into space, baffled, “That’s… hmm.”

We both stood silently, thinking that one over for a while. Finally, Jax said, “Hey… wait. Did we no split one this morning? How much be that?”

“Half,” I said automatically.

“Aye… that be…” he hesitated, “more’n a…” He stopped. It looked like his brain might explode if I did not step in.

“A half is two quarters,” I prompted.

“Right,” he agreed very slowly. “A-and we be needin’… t-three o’ them…” His expression was starting to go vacant.

“Let’s just take three Gems apiece,” I suggested finally. “That should get us pretty close.”

Satisfied more from not having to think about it anymore than anything, Jax readily agreed. Handing him over his share, we lightly cracked our knuckles together in an impromptu toast to nothing in particular and popped them into our mouths like they were a handful of peanuts.

Idly savoring the unidentifiable fruity flavor as the Gems hit my tongue, I said, “So, I was thinking, you’re Mr. Bushcraft, right? And we’ve got all these pieces of broken granite lying around…” I paused as the Power from the Gems entered my bloodstream and started settling around what I was starting to associate with my Core. “Do you know much about knapping stone?” I had seen a few survival videos about the process on YouTube. It was an interesting thing to watch over a plate of off-brand chicken nuggets and tater tots. Bachelor Chow formula 3C.

“A bit, aye,” he said after a moment of hesitation. He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily.

The flow of Power was starting to get really strong. So much so, in fact, that I was starting have some serious doubts as to whether eating three at once was such a good idea. “Uh… Jax? Maybe we… we…” I stopped, my eyes widening.

Something was seriously off. The Power was not just settling around my Core, I realized. It was also pushing its way out. Toward Jax. In that moment, I realized that in all that talk about fractions, I had forgotten that I was going to turn off the Power sharing feature. To make matters worse, Jax was absorbing his own Gems. And that Power was trying to make its way to me. I was no expert as to the inner mechanics of Power flow transfer, and thus had no idea if it was supposed to work that way or not, but the flow had absolutely no problem going both ways at once, logic be damned. In fact, it seemed to almost strengthen it, somehow. And it was noticeable.

Fearfully, I glanced at Jax. He was starting to gasp for air. Hard. “D… Donum!” he said, his voice rising in panic.

Desperately, I tried to disable the feature, but I could not speak. I could barely move. Barely think. The Power was all. And it grew. And grew.

Jax’s gasps started to turn to moans. “Donum! P…hah~” He collapsed against me, shadows flickering into existence all around us. Somehow, I caught him, and together, we struggled to remain standing, his muscles continually trying to give way and mine almost cramping from the tension. “What be ha— HAH!”

The flow redoubled, and Jax’s moans turned to wails, “Oh, Mercy! Please~ Hah! Make it… Uhn~” His shadows kept being summoned and dismissed. Resummoned even darker only to be replaced by yet darker ones.

But for all of Jax’s cries of bliss, my own face was locked into a rictus. It was not pleasure I was feeling, nor really pain, though the tension from my muscles was starting to cause some of that. I could not say what it was, but my veins felt like fire. It was like I was poised for anything. Like I could go anywhere. But I did not have a trigger to activate it, so it only grew.

The flow doubled again. And Jax lost his mind. He started screaming in earnest, clawing and biting at my exposed chest, desperately trying to latch on to something. And his shadows joined him. Stroking me. Caressing me. “YES! Oh, by the Hand! Donum! YES!!! Give it to me! I need it! Oh, YES!!!!”

There was a quality there to Jax’s voice just then. I could not say what it was. A certain timbre. The exultation of it. A plea. Something. Whatever it was, it triggered something in me. And my Power finally found a direction to go.

My erection flamed to life, heavy and hard. Absolute.

And Jax and all of his shadows went for it. All at once. But only he had enough substance to win out. He latched onto it like it was the Heavenly Rod of Life itself, desperately suckling at it, clawing at it, frustrated by the scrap of cloth separating it from his grasp. But he had become as a mindless beast, unable to grasp concepts like clothes and drawstrings. He knew only pleasure and need.

And in that moment, despite myself, I was extremely tempted to give it to him. There was no bone in my body that would ever entertain the idea of what was happening between us just then, but the Power had other ideas. It needed to be used. It needed an outlet. It needed… I needed…

Suddenly, Jax’s urgent and near violent ministrations proved to be too much for me, and despite the cloth separating us, I came. And I came hard.

And Jax knew. Knew before even I did. He thrust my encased member between his lips and drew the Power and everything that came with it from me, through the scrip of cloth, like a man sucking precious moisture from a dying oasis in the desert sand. As he did, his shadows dropped to the ground, writhing in a mime of communal orgasm.

Then it was over. And slowly, Jax’s eyes closed, his lips still sealed around me. Content. And he dropped to the ground, unconscious, his shadows vanishing in a puff as one.

For a long while, I stood there, trembling, unthinking, though it could have been but a few seconds. Gradually, the sagacious after-effect of the post coitus settled over me, and I stood staring at the contented smile on Jax’s lips in a strange mix of confusion, intrigue, and absolute horror.

My thoughts began to rage. What had happened? Why? Why had I let it happen? I should have stopped it. Could I have? I was not sure. That moment was… there were no words. Awful. Wonderful. Wrong. Beautiful. But before I could really get going with the self-recrimination, I was interrupted.

Congratulations!

You have added enough to your Core to gain a Layer.

The condensation process will begin the next time you sleep.

If you have not distributed your stat points, do so now.

Congratulations!

You have discovered [Ritual: Communion of Shared Power]

All loss from over Gem consumption will be held and applied to your next Layer.

You have allowed [Lilim: Jax] to consume of you.

[Lilim: Jax] has gained 5% loyalty.

[Lilim: Jax] has gained a flavor preference.

“Fucking what?” I said aloud.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Hess said from the side, and I spun. She was sitting on top of one of the grave markers, her legs spread, lightly stroking herself. “When I said to scream to wake me up, that really wasn’t what I had in mind. Not that I didn’t enjoy the show.