They went up to the next floor, which was all single bunks and slightly larger rooms. The bathrooms had a tub as well as a shower.

Ros pressed on, up to the penthouse. There was another nightmare bunny suit in the sitting room of the penthouse, lounged like it lived there. Ros immediately switched to the recoilless pulse cannon.

Not much comes back from a hole that punches through most of its organs.

“How many Horror bunnies did you pick up?”

“About ninety. We may be back. So much for constant spawning.” She grinned at him and explored the big sitting room. She picked up a couple of works of art that were clearly not meant as loot, just decoration. She took every painting off every wall, but didn’t keep them all.

“Hey. Safe.” Brandon said as she moved an eerie purple landscape to the floor.

Ros examined the dial and finally just tried rattling the handle. The safe swung open.

“Empty.” Brandon sighed heavily.

“I think…” Ros used a leaf knife to pry at the bottom of the safe. She pulled out the metal floor and a strangely familiar looking tan lockbox.

“It looks like the cash box we used to use when we did car wash fundraisers in high school.” Ros said.

“And now I’m imagining you washing cars in a bikini.” Brandon groaned. “Like you weren’t sexy enough shooting shit.”

“One piece, modest one piece.” She laughed and lifted the latch on the box. It was bigger on the inside. “It’s a pocket box, a form of storage, different from spatial objects, but like I said, bigger on the inside.” She picked up a beautifully faceted emerald the size of her thumb. “Someone was skimming for their own retirement.”

Brandon took the emerald and Identified it. “At least 14,000 coin just for this one.”

“The Fifth Realm cures most of us of the awe of very expensive items.” She handed the box to him. “Have it if you want.”

He shook his head. “It’s yours, or we split it.”

“Hold it, then.” She turned away from the safe toward the bedrooms. A place like this didn’t have a kitchen, just a dining table and a replicator. Ros had been here before. There were two bedrooms. The one on the left was the nursery, set up for two school aged kids and a nanny. The room looked like it was carpeted knee high in bunny fur. Fur that moved.

It took Ros half a second to process the scene. Wall to wall Horror bunnies.

Ros emptied her shotgun into the room, shell after shell, significantly reducing the population of bunnies in the near half of the room.

“Cover the hole. Reloading.” She stepped to the side and out of his way as she loaded in more buckshot.

It took nearly twenty minutes of firing and reloading to clear the room. The carpet was soaked with so much blood that it squelched underfoot. Even Ros felt a little queazy as she entered to pick up any identifiable bodies. Her necklace sorted the bodies and counted them for her.

“This room must have been a thousand of them.” Brandon said. “At least packed in like that they got in each other’s way.”

Ros looked at the numbers in her count. “Yeah. Probably about right. Let’s do the master suite. I don’t want to leave this mess for someone else to walk into. There’s something wrong with the spawning rate here.”

“Or you asked to finish it today and somehow someone wrenched up the spawns for you.”

Ros was startled. “I mean… I know I’m being watched, but I didn’t think they were actively breaking the world for me.”

“It’s also been nine months since anyone I know went looking for the bunnies. It’s only been a day since you posted the chart.”

“It’s luck.” Ros said. “Everyone knows luck runs both ways, good and bad. Sometimes good luck is bad luck. This mess has been exhausting.”

“Then let’s finish it and go take a nap.” Brandon sighed.

“By nap do you mean sex?” Ros asked.

“I don’t expressly not mean sex.”

“Good. We can go to my place and use the tub for a soak. Oh.” She touched his head and cast Warrior’s Ease until he nodded and stepped back.

“Much better, thank you. Let’s do it.”

Ros had a habit she hoped she never lost of using the spell under her breath every few moments, sometimes every time she shot a gun with heavy recoil, so she was already healed up.

She opened the door to the master suite sitting room and swore as she switched to the pulse cannon to shoot the pair of seven foot nightmare bunnies. She switched back to the shotgun and cleared the room before she opened the door to the bedroom and the same horrorscape from the kids room: wall to wall horror bunnies.

It was a close repeat of the previous room with more places for bunnies to hide, including two walk in closets and a huge bathroom.

Ros was nearly ready to leave without turning in the quests when Brandon pulled out his shears and shook them in her general direction.

She nodded and started bringing out bodies one by one. She made a mountain of the bodies, confident that they and the blood would both turn to dust in a few days.

“2,222 Horror bunnies, 145 Gore bunnies, 18 Blood bunnies and four of the big ones. Plus the 297 lesser raaits that I’m not sure why I’m holding, since they drop the learning tapes straight into your hand or ring. Here.” She traded him the 1,111 Horror bunnies and 12 Gore bunnies he’d need for his quest chains. As soon as they were sorted, the quests triggered for both of them, which was unusual. The mine supervisor was rarely seen away from the quartermaster desk.

“So, this is the Seer who has caused so much interest. I think you have something for me. I’m triggering your Grublings quest permission. We are not accelerating quests for anyone except for you. Be sure to make it seem like you have to wait for your potions. These have timers. Also you already have the treasure map. Insert mysterious mumbo jumbo about lost flitter expedition. Oh. There’s more than one safe in the apartment but I won’t tell you where. Here is the trade.”

The potions were already in the screen when it opened, all labeled and fitted with a little timer.

The trade completed and then a second trade opened, a vendor trade window:

SE-23 buckshot, 10,000 rounds- 10,000 coin

Lapidary arts pocket room- 343,000,000 coin

Return enchanted Telekinesis Darts, set of 10 in wrist cuff- 10,000 coin

Ros went ahead and bought all three, she had to sell some of her mining loot to make up the difference, so she went ahead and piled in enough to cover the cost entirely. She put the cuff on her wrist.

The solo instance faded and she was left in a spotless version of the master suite.

Ros cycled her clothes into and out of her necklace, which cleaned them, and she washed her hands and face at the bathroom sink.

“We were in a closed instance.” Brandon said as he looked around in confusion, having just left his quest giver. “Now we’re out of the closed instance.”

“Which means we may or may not meet opposition as we leave.” Ros raised her eyebrows. “And that we should check the safes again.” She looked carefully around the room, looking for anything that could hide a safe. She walked to the master bed and touched the fancy carvings and scrolls.

A panel popped open. She pulled out a slender blast pistol. “Last minute self defense. Oh. There’s a key card too.” She looked it over, tried to Identify it.

Mysterious key- what could it unlock?

She went into the closets again. “Hey, come look.” She shoved aside a whole row of dresses and pointed at a safe in the back of the closet.

“Four digit code?”

Ros punched in 1234 and the safe opened. She glanced at Brandon who was absolutely flabbergasted.

“Sometimes safes in some of the realms open no matter what code you put in. Sometimes they’re not even locked.” She shrugged and pulled out an ornate jewelry box and a bag of coins.

She opened the box. Four pieces of exquisite emerald jewelry in carefully molded velvet lined spots. She Identified them.

“Emerald Cloak Pin of Command Presence;

Signet Ring of House Pellinor;

Emerald Earrings of Particle Shield;

Emerald Necklace of Teleportation” She read aloud.

“Teleportation?”

She focused again. “Teleport self and up to three people to somewhere the user knows well, cool down 12 hours, Range 100 miles.”

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“A get out of dodge quick item.” Brandon nodded. “Useful.”

“Take it. I choose the signet ring.”

He Identified the ring and focused on the details. “It’s nothing. Something for a defunct house.”

“In this Realm it’s nothing. There are seven thousand kingdoms in the Eighth realm and if you have the signet for one of them you are the owner of the kingdom.”

“That’s a long game.”

“And House Pellinor is a beautiful mountain kingdom with an astonishing waterfall and incredible commercial potential.”

He shook his head. “You’ve been there?”

“I have. If no ring was ever found the kingdoms held a tournament to find a worthy monarch. I fought for Pellinor, fought and lost.”

“There are four items. I won’t wear earrings, even delicately beautiful drop style earrings.” He teased.

“Particle shield isn’t the best, although it does shield against contact poisons better than the energy shield I wear now.”

“I’d like to give the pin to Martin. He’s the one who needs a command presence.”

“I can keep the earrings to give to the appropriate…” she stopped herself and ran some butterfly projections. “Moira the Seer will wear the earrings. I’ll make up some attractive medallions and bangles too. There’s a replicator jewelry designer. You just have to put the materials in. Not as good as a skilled smith, but I don’t have one of those at the moment. So.”

Brandon suddenly reached out and started identifying the dresses hanging in the closet. He picked out four and handed them to her. He even found matching shoes and in one case a handbag.

“Sometimes…” Brandon smiled ruefully, “the proper armor is satin and lace.”

Ros smiled and put them in her spatial ring without argument. They moved to the other master closet and found the dressing room safe in one of the drawers. The key was in the lock.

Cuff links, a pocket watch, a stick pin, but none of it was magical. Clearly the woman in the household was the powerful one.

They left, they moved the painting where the safe should be, and turned the handle. Once again it popped open. The safe was filled with paper ledgers and a bound book. Ros took it all, mostly to get to the moveable floor of the safe.

She pulled out a tan lockbox and opened it. “Not a pocket box.” She murmured. “Rolls of coins. All the papers are the same color. How disappointing.” She pried the edge of the paper and shook her head. “Or not. The standard coins are copper, ten coins is silver, 100 is gold, 1,000 is platinum and 10,000 is adamantium. Guess which these are?”

“Platinum?”

She shook her head and revealed the dark, oily green metal.

“Adamantine.” He half choked. “How many?”

She put a roll in her ring. “That was 500,000, fifty coins per roll, ten rolls, 2.5 mil each.”

“Wow. I can get a new ability or something.”

She chewed on her lip. “I need to open all the spatial objects I got from the Wurms yesterday. Also you can have all the gems in the other box if I can have the box for holding Spatial items.” A pocket box was better for holding searched spatial items than a room she had to walk into. “Killing Wurms I’ve got a lot more loot than one person should have but if I start just giving them away I won’t have enough for everyone.”

Brandon grunted. “Sell them at value. Don’t give away something like a spatial ring. I’d expect anyone could get one if they kill enough Wurms. I’d bet even when nobody gets eaten by them anymore the Wurms will still have spatial objects as loot.”

“I think you’re right.” Ros shrugged. “Come on, hot stuff, time for a long soak.” She led the way to H, past numerous parties of mixed level hunters.

“Plan looks like it’s spreading.” Brandon said as they entered the lobby and went right for the express elevator to the dome houses.

Ros punched in the code and they went up. The ride and the entry conveyor seemed longer than ever when she just wanted to see his expression.

“This is beautiful.” He said, looking around the garden. “There’s real fish in the fountain.”

“And I could buy birds or something too, I think the fish eat the plants on the edge.”

“Makes sense, mini ecosystem.”

“I’m using one of the big bedrooms.” She led the way upstairs. “And I won’t feel human again until I have a bath.”

“You should use a room, the best room. It’s your house, right?”

“Yeah, something like that. I’ve claimed multiple 24th floor balcony rooms too. I don’t use it in company much, but I have a self-only teleport ability called Blink. I’m not far from being able to cross the chasm from balcony room to balcony room. Eventually I’ll be able to get from the train station all the way to the mine lockers in one Blink.”

“Impressive. Blink?”

“Yeah, it’s an F grade, the soul stat governs the distance.”

“Nice. I don’t have any room for F grade abilities anymore.”

“I should look at your list. A bunch of f grade abilities are fusible, most are upgradable, some are removable, and I have a bunch of spare equippable abilities from Wurm loot.”

“Wait, what?”

“When a human is killed by a monster, there’s a chance that their abilities will show up in their spatial ring as equippable slips of parchment. I rarely find more than one or two per spatial object. I have a bunch, and you’re probably due a few out of the Wurm’s we killed together. I haven’t even looked at those spatial items. I’ll split whatever coins are in them.”

“Franklin won’t accept money from you.”

“He will if I hand him two bags and he can hand back seven mil.”

“No.”

Ros tipped her head questioning.

“He likes you. He thinks he has an obligation to take care of you. He won’t accept money from you. Probably not an ability or trait either.”

“We’ll see. Here’s the bath.” She cranked the faucet open and set the digital temperature while it filled.

“I want to say something important.” Brandon said.

Roslyn tilted her head.

“I accept that you don’t want to fall in love. I accept that you’ll probably have other men in your life and that’s ok, I’m not the kind of guy to be bothered by that, but I was already falling in love with Christine, the charming lunch date, before I knew she was a badass named Roslyn, and I can’t stop myself from getting attached.”

Ros couldn’t find her breath. She quashed her immediate need to run. She reached for her butterfly ability instead, looking through all the possible answers she could give him as listed by her ability.

“Ok.” She said aloud. “I can’t control how someone else thinks or feels. I like you. I trust you and I think we’ll be lovers for a long time. I just can’t see where I’m going to lose you, and it’s off putting.”

“I promise, if there’s anyone else you’ll know it before she does. And if we’re not exclusive we’re probably together to the end. I mean… you, a do over, showing up is the most exciting thing that’s happened since I got here.”

She nodded. “I can see how you’d feel that way.”

“And if we’re hunting together I can’t see us keeping our hands to ourselves unless we’re mad enough to not hunt together.”

The tub beeped and the water cut off.

Ros took off all her clothes and stepped into the bath.

Brandon hesitated just a moment and got in with her. “Being a marine showed me there’s leaders and there’s followers and I’ve definitely realized that I’m predisposed to follow. Franklin is a decent leader. I’ve been honored to follow him, for what it’s worth. However, I prefer, if I can arrange it, to follow a strong woman. It’s only partly sexual, my dad was a follower too, and my mom led with an iron fist. When I got out of the house I thought I hated living under my mom, but it’s not true.”

“I thought I was a follower when I got here the first time, but I was always the strong opinion, even when I thought I was following someone. I learned a lot while we spent a few months killing Evrets, including that I’m good at killing shit.”

“Did we know each other?”

She closed her eyes and smiled uneasily. “Yeah. I don’t know the full details of why, but two months and twenty two days after the fourth wave arrived, the Franklin’s Privateers invaded the Dorset Battalion and within two days they had overrun the Ibsen Group too. I had just managed to get on with a hunting party about three weeks before. I was finally out of debt. Then a few days later half a dozen guys from Dorset came running into our yellow halls, yelling that the pirates were coming. You personally were leading the charge, chasing those guys. You killed them all and the men I was hunting with, who I’m pretty sure didn’t deserve it.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? I was sent back to H with my hands tied behind my back. I was in a crowd of captured women. You, Martin and a few others I won’t identify, were the leaders. You collectively killed well over a thousand men in C and B during those five days. As far as I could see it was sudden, unprovoked and a complete extermination. At least we weren’t captive for long. We were allowed to hunt and make our own personal arrangements, except that some of the men were a little forceful in mate selection.”

“Oh? Who?”

“I’m not saying because it isn’t going to happen. The chain of causality is broken. Without the war, the men here won’t feel like victors due spoils. The women won’t feel coerced or beholden. A particular problem in your chain of command is an absolute zero non-entity.”

“If he’s going to erupt as a problem we need to know.”

“He won’t. He’s no longer pining for the fjords.”

“You killed someone besides the three I know about?”

“Christine appeared because she was trying to determine if you and Martin needed to die, but the one I killed was a mind control specialist, and without him I’m sure your approach would be more measured. Even with the three amigos killing people and kidnapping women.”

“I assume you’re not planning to kill me anymore?”

“No. That probability ended with Christine. Or… I can have five aliases, and Christine isn’t a bad name for one of them. I’ll even give her the same color hair.”

He smiled sheepishly. “I think I’m glad you decided not to kill me.”

“All three of you. I have a facet of the butterfly ability that marks pivotal people. I’d have to figure out what was going on, but some people I will recognize, and kill, some I might even kill on sight while they are weak.”

“I hope you will let me help when the time comes.”

“We’ll get you some disguise stuff.”

“I kept all three of the ninja suits the asshole killers used.”

“Excellent start. I believe their shoes were enchanted to be unfollowable?”

“Yes. Untrackable is what the description says.” He frowned suddenly. “Did someone rape you? Did I rape you?”

Ros was startled. “You? No, you were rooting out rapists if you heard any accusations. What makes you think you could be a rapist?”

He looked disconcerted like he didn’t want to say. “What happened when my people captured you?”

“Nothing. I hid in a corner behind some Evret bodies. Then one of your guys, covered in blood, mind you, saw me in the corner, picked me up by the collar and said. ‘This one didn’t fight.’ You said. ‘Are you blind, man? That one is a girl. Take her back to-“ she stopped suddenly. “Name I won’t say. The women who were holding the captives to make sure we weren’t raped.”

He grunted. “And how did all those women respond? Did none of them fight back?”

“Oh plenty fought back. You used a lot of stun rifles. I wasn’t able to get on a hunting team again until you, Martin and some of the other leadership left the station, we were chaotic for a while, but I got my feet under me, joined a group of mostly women hunters. Oh, and the boyfriend who cheated on me with my best friend, or maybe it was the other way around. He was cheating on her with me? I’m not sure, really.”

“That sucks. I promise if I’m attracted to someone you will know it before she does, which in all honesty will probably eliminate the desire to have her. I’ve always observed that half of cheating is getting away with something you shouldn’t do and the other half is being truly unhappy with whoever you have but being afraid to let the current person go.”

“I’m going to seduce Franklin.”

“I’m not surprised. Martin?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“He enjoyed being a pirate a little too much. Franklin wasn’t even around. I don’t think he came back from the city. Good reason for me to go with him when he goes. Keep him safe.”

Brandon grunted approval. “Were you raped?”

“If I was raped the man would already be dead.”

“Ah. Good point.”

“I like to circulate Qui when I’m in the bath. Do you have a Qui cultivation soul trait?”

He was surprised. “No. I’m not quite sure what it is. Some kind of magic?”

“Hmm… yeah, similar to some Asian practices, but the first thing you do is get your body transformed to have the channels where the energy flows. Do you have any soul trait slots left?”

“I… yes. Two.”

“Good. In the third realm Qui Cultivation becomes the difference between life and undeath. It’s… it’s a world like earth except it’s in ruins, zombie apocalypse ruins.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, we portal in one and two at a time, Qui Cultivators do fairly well. Non Qui Cultivators are constantly pealing the dinner bells. So. Hopefully people will take it seriously. The best way is to get the 100 coin Qui Novice thing and let all your gains be your own, or you can skip to what you can afford and probably never advance past what you choose. I… you can afford C-grade for sure. That’s Master level, sometimes called Lord, depending on which community you’re talking to. Less than four million coins, but if you do you won’t be strong enough to survive an hour in the Ninth Realm. I barely did myself, and only because an ArchDeity shielded me from the sun. The reflection off the ground into his shadow was peeling off my face.”

“Wow.”

“Blue Star in a Dyson sphere. Gorgeous. Billions of times the surface of the earth and if I understand it, probably a few dozen lower levels too.”

Brandon shook his head. “What is the next realm like?”

“Second Realm? Hot. Volcanos, lava flows, more obviously scripted quests, more obviously built as sets buildings. Even rowboats on the lava seas.”

“No.”

“Yeah. Not for the faint of heart. So. Sex?” She asked, trying to irrevocably change the subject. She had not, at all, been a fan of the second realm.