I looked down at Shawn through the digital presence in the roof of the ward room. He was looking up with his hands clasped, and his eyes were wide. I'd spoken to the druids through a digital presence before, and he lived with them so he should have heard about it.

"Why are you coming to me now?" I asked. "It's been some time since John left with the enemy champion-" Days, at least, though I feel as though I've lived years since then. "-And he had to have left willingly for the teleportation to have worked at all."

"The Head Priest wrote you a note," Shawn said. "I went to the building you made for him half an hour ago to clean it, dusting and sweeping and such. It took me a few minutes to find you."

"Alright, show me the note, then," I said. "Just place it on the table and I'll be able to see it."

"Ah..." Shawn said. "I left the note where it was in the Head Priest's private quarters. I didn't clean the room either, I thought you might have wanted to see where it was written, or something. I could go get it and bring it back here?"

"No, I'll go there," I said. "Please meet me there."

There must be something unusual for him not to have picked it up to begin with. At least there was enough of a chance that it would be worth looking for myself.

I stood up from the bed that my body was in, and promptly fell over as my split focus caused Shade's body to trip, both bodies reacting to the fall.

I had Shade's body walking with the equivalent of sleepwalking, background processes in control of the movements. Apparently when I tried to move both bodies at once there was a conflict, unexpected input pulled my focus rapidly between the two bodies. It wasn't a simple matter of more inputs and outputs, my consciousness was overriding and interfering with the digital queue of commands. This wasn't going to work.

I set both bodies to stay where they'd fallen down and sent my focus back to the local simulation and the display of the ward room. Shawn was just turning to leave.

"I have to finish my current project first," I said into the ward room. "It will be a few minutes, then I will come and see you."

"Yes, my lord," Shawn said, bowing. "I will wait at the Head Priest's building, at your convenience."

I kept Shade's body still while I got my own body back up onto the bed. I was mostly up when someone shook Shade's body's shoulder, distracting me. I grunted with her body and got the rest of the way onto the bed before turning my full focus back to Shade's body. My own body should hopefully stop grabbing my focus now.

I had fallen on my face in the middle of the street with Shade's body, and the person was shaking my shoulder again.

"Miss?" The person asked. "Miss, are you alright? Please say something."

I pushed myself up to a sitting position. My breasts hurt, as did my face. I hadn't even been able to get my hands in front of myself when I fell. My right eye was blinded by the blood I could feel running down my face from a gash on my brow.

I soaked my power into the body through her bag of holding to assess the extent of the damage. Entirely minor damage, deep bruising of the breasts and a small cut. I wouldn't even need to do a full repair that would black me out, a constant effort at high but tolerable amounts of pain would do.

I stopped the cut from bleeding and began reversing the deep bruising of my breasts, looking around me. There was a crowd of Forest Keepers surrounding me, looking on with concern. To my right there was a man who still had his hand on my shoulder, he was dressed like he might be a guard.

"Miss, we've sent for a healer," the guard said. "Just stay there. Can you speak?"

I frowned at him. "I'll be fine," I said. "What are you doing shaking someone who has a head wound? That seems highly irresponsible, what if you did more damage?"

He frowned right back at me. "I wanted to be sure you were-" he said.

"Uhuh," I said, interrupting him. "Sure. You can let go of me now."

I went to stand up and his grip tightened on my shoulder, pushing me back down. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you a guard?" I asked.

He pushed out his chest and looked down his nose at me. "I am, ye-" he said.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I guessed as much," I said. "I never seem to get along very well with guards, they always think they know better than I do about what I should be doing. They've yet to be correct in that regard."

"Now see here," the guard said. "Just sit quietly until my partner gets back with the healer to check you out."

Yeah, no. This was such a waste of time. I considered for a few moments how much later effort I would need to put in. The guard was just doing his job as well as he could, as he saw it. One more warning, then, and I would fix it later if I needed to.

"I am warning you, by Lord C.C.'s authority, either you will remove your hand or I will," I said.

There was a blip from the System when I claimed my authority, but I didn't catch what it was. The guard's grip tightened further and he used his other hand to wave through the air.

"Who are you to use the authority of the Lord of the Fortress?" he asked. "And how are you making blue screens, are you some sort of illusionist?"

I'd generated a system message in my annoyance, somehow, and the guard still wouldn't hear me.

"Tell Mal'Thorn that I, C.C., will repair the damage I've done," I said. "And that his guards will learn to hear those who speak with my authority."

"What?" the guard asked.

I extended the claws on my left hand and soaked my power into them, reinforcing and sharpening them. The guard was wearing metal arm guards over leather, which didn't help at all as my claws went through them like a knife through butter. My right hand catching his right hand as it detached from his arm.

I expected him to shout or scream. He just stood there in shock. The crowd that was surrounding us made a larger clear area, some of them shouting for more guards.

I pushed heat into the metal on the back of the hand I was holding until it began to glow and then used that to cauterise his arm to stop it bleeding. That caused him to scream and fall backwards, sitting down. I stood up and pulled the heat back from the metal on his hand and passed it to him.

"Just sit quietly until your partner gets back with the healer to check you out," I said. "Then go see Mal'Thorn about the hand."

I felt a bit gross. There was a good amount of blood on me, from my head wound that had bled a lot, and from the guard. Some had even gotten into my ear. Ick. I spread my power out over my skin, the silk of my dress, and then over the ground as well as I saw the small puddle of blood I had left there.

There was a small gust of wind that made the spectators move even further back as the blood converted into fresh air. I looked around to get my bearings and then headed back towards Shade's house, the crowd scrambling to get out of my way.

I reconnected to Shade's digital platform while I was walking, the people ahead of me continuing to move out of my way.

"What in the Realms are you doing with my body?" Shade asked, loudly, as soon as I connected with her.

"I'm putting it back where I took it from," I said.

"And you thought maiming a guard was a good idea?" Shade asked.

"You seem upset," I said. "I am taking responsibility for my actions, even if they were done with your body. I will restore the guard, and I won't be unnecessarily obstructed in the future."

"You don't think that they will take it out on me?" Shade asked, in a more normal tone and volume.

"I don't," I said. "And if they do then you can easily tell me and I will inform them of their error."

I had gotten fifty meters further along the street and people had stopped moving out of my way immediately.

"You're giving my body back to me, then," Shade said.

"That was the agreement, yes," I said.

"You aren't going to make me swear a more binding oath to you?" Shade asked. "Loyalty, non-violence towards you, anything?"

"I'm not," I said. "It would be annoying if you attacked again, but that is all that it would be, an annoyance. If you want your existence ended just tell me, much less irritation and effort for both of us. I'm not going to limit your freedoms, but I will end you if you attempt to harm those I care about."

I had arrived back in front of the balcony I had jumped from, Shade's house, if it was a house. The top of the railing was five meters above the ground, two and a half times the height of Shade's body. A vertical jump to that height wasn't possible in Shade's body, though I might have been able to make it with my own body.

I didn't really want to go through the door that was in the wooden wall in front of me and deal with more guards, even if they would listen to me while I was in Shade's body. I pushed my power out into the wooden wall and took two steps back to get a running start.

I extended my claws and dodged around three people before leaping up, stabbing into the wood. There was a thud sound as my claws found purchase, followed by a scratching sound as I pulled one hand out and stabbed further up, swinging my body as I began to climb. I fixed the holes I had made as I went.

It only took me a few seconds to climb up and over the railing. Guards burst through the front door out into the street and through the door into the room behind the balcony. They rushed towards me as I stood up, coming to a stop as I waved them back.

"Leave," I said. "I will come see you in a few minutes."

The guard in the lead nodded to me and he and the three others left, closing the door behind them.

I walked into the room and laid down on the couch that was along one wall. I was done having two bodies. If I had to do this in the future I was going to burn my consciousness out of my main body first, there were too many conflicts.

I pulled up my repair program and put it in parallel mode, targeting to burn out my consciousness from Shade's body all at once. Shade hadn't even seemed to notice that she had lost her body, so I was hopeful that it wouldn't hurt too much.

I triggered the program and there was a brief flash of pain followed by what felt like an intense full body itch over my body and my digital platform. I could feel my consciousness rebalancing between my two halves and it was not pleasant at all.

It was the work of only a few seconds to cut my connection to Shade's Mind Link and repair it back to her digital platform, and a few seconds more to repair her brain so that her consciousness shared back to her body. All that was left was reconnecting her to the common simulation and everyone else.

"Disable and remove all of the annoyances you set up, please," I said. "You should have full access to everything again."

I disconnected from the dedicated connection to her. I needed to go see what message John had left me.