While Maya worked, she and Andy had continued to talk, and the awkwardness of knowing he was also Darrow had gradually faded, returning the casual camaraderie she'd enjoyed with Andy in the past. The temporary bump in their relationship smoothed out quickly, as Maya put the knowledge and her worries out of her mind and focused on the moment.

She made some quality goods, flipped a lot of them into money, and completed a good chunk of the necessary ingredients for the next step of the Diviner temple by the time midnight rolled around and her luck reset to -95.

Maya tossed her Trickster's Dice. -10. She went to roll a second time, but remembered Lucy's rule. Anything over -20 is good enough to keep. And... she was right. Maya could handle minor misfortune, but if she rolled even worse next time, things could go very badly.

"What's your quest for today?" Maya asked.

"I rolled 15, so..." Andy checked. "I need to buy something costing at least 10 silver from an NPC shop?"

"Typical trickster quest," Maya laughed. "Just send you somewhere random to do something you'd never expect. Guess it's time to go shopping."

They spent a good while perusing the Kalyx City offerings, Maya hanging back to let Andy's positive luck have a higher influence on their interactions than her negative. Between them it would balance out in the end, but the boost was still worth protecting.

He finally settled on a spellbook.

"I'm surprised," Maya admitted. "I didn't think you were into magic."

"But you are. If I'm going to keep up with your research, I should at least get the basics down."

Maya smiled faintly. "It's kind of nice having someone who'll follow me around unconditionally, with nothing better to do than support me in whatever I want to do."

"Mmmmm, don't get too used to it. I'll need a commitment one way or another from you eventually." His expression looked fleetingly pained, but he covered it quickly and resumed his usual smile.

"Well. I'm not good with commitment."

"I know. That's why we set deadlines for decision-making. But... I'm not sure I'm ready to put a deadline on this one yet, and I feel like you aren't either."

Maya looked away. "You're not wrong."

Andy cleared his throat, then changed the subject. "We should go out into the wild, level a bit. I want to increase in strength as quickly as possible. If we're going to take over this world, then there's no point in waiting. How many years will it take to take this place over at this rate? Too long."

"That's true. Look at Cydrin, he's come out of nowhere. That's what we need to do."

"Can we risk a higher level zone, do you think?"

Maya looked at the hazy barrier separating the Kalyx zone from the Forsaken Forest. Zone Three was well out of their usual level range, but... what was there to lose? "Why not? I wouldn't try this alone, but we might as well try."

"Over that way?"

"Yeah. We can clear out some driles on the way."

"I don't like those things," Andy confided. "They kind of creep me out."

"Well, they are weird creatures."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. We've been asking things all night."

"This is very important."

Maya clicked her beak, mentally preparing herself. "Okay?"

"Is your favourite color still purple?"

She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. "Really? That's your important question?"

"Yep, that's it. And you haven't answered."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

It took her a minute to get her giggling under control. "Alright. Yeah, I still love purple."

"And blue?"

"Sure, blue's alright."

"Not blue? What, then, has taken its place?"

Maya shrugged. "Silver? I don't know, it's not something I've put a whole lot of thought into."

Andy narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "Are you a cunning imposter?" he demanded playfully.

"Oh, no, I've been discovered, whatever shall I do?" Maya nearly stumbled over a drile nest, then they were surrounded by angry squeaking as the driles poured out to surround them. Eight or so, since it was a zone meant for new players, but still a decent little swarm.

Maya grinned. "I just happen to have the perfect counter for this situation."

She cast Inferno.

Fire flowed out from her in a wave, forming a perfect cylinder around her, and flash frying the driles as they ran through the suddenly flaming woods. As soon as the last one was dead, she began laughing maniacally as flames raged around her for the spell's remaining duration. It still felt so good to just incinerate her foes. She knew eventually Inferno would probably become irrelevant, as other abilities outleveled it and its general focus didn't retain its edge, but for the moment it was by far her best spell for dealing area damage.

And, of course, it just looked awesome.

Andy was staring, and Maya self-consciously stifled her evil laughter. "Just practicing," she said. "You know, for when we rule the world. Got to have a good overlord cackle."

"I didn't realize that was part of the job description," Andy said easily, regaining his playful composure. "Maybe I should try too." He cleared his throat, then laughed uneasily.

"Not like that, you need to embrace the inner chaos. You sound ashamed of it. Be bold! Muahahahaa!" she demonstrated, with a deeper voice and arms spread wide. "Laugh like no one is watching."

"Heh heh, ahh, hahaha," Andy tried feebly, but none of his laughter even came close to managing 'evil' and mostly sounded uncertain.

"We'll keep practicing," Maya decided. "Don't worry. I'll make an evil overlord of you yet."

They spent some time on Andy's laugh, wiped out another few drile nests, and finally crossed the border into Zone Three. Maya immediately felt tense, the will-sapping presence of higher level enemies making itself known.

She'd grown better at picking out the various types of mental interference the game provided, the longer she stayed here. At first, she'd assumed everything was her own, internalizing every reaction as her own, but especially with switching between characters she'd started to notice them more. The will-suppressing effect of enemies was a subtler thing. Except when she went into someplace far, far beyond her, it was usually hard to notice. Especially with luck pushing her around one way or another on a daily basis.

But now she felt it, the subtle pressure as they stepped from zone one to three, and recognized it as external and not her own.

"A bit creepy," Andy said, looking around uneasily. "Evil forest of doom?"

"Nah. It's full of monkeys and snakes and stuff like that. Nothing we can't handle." Hopefully. "Keep an eye out for monkeys who'll steal your hat."

"I don't have a hat."

Maya shrugged. "They'll try anyway."

Their first encounter with a monkey went... about as well as Maya could have expected. She spotted it just before it leapt on them with an unholy screech, fired an Ice Bolt into its chest, and jumped aside. Andy got his sword up in time to block the monkey, but it promptly grabbed hold of the sword in both hands and refused to let go. Maya started throwing sparks at it, just to get its attention, but it was fully fixated on the sword.

Still, with their adversary more intent on thieving than on slaughtering them all where they stood, it was almost easy to finish it off. It took longer than Maya would have preferred, especially since she could hear other squawks and hoots from the trees that meant they may well have more monkeys to deal with soon. But too slow or not, they still won. She counted that as a victory.

The next fight didn't go nearly as smoothly.

A snake sprang out and wrapped itself around Maya's throat before she even saw it coming, and that position allowed it almost full immunity from her spells.

Unfortunately for the poor snake’s long term survival, Maya didn't rely solely on spells. She wouldn’t have had enough energy to bring it down anyway, her spells didn’t deal enough damage to take down the level 25 Crimson Coil serpent, especially after switching her specialization.

Her twin unique daggers appeared in her hands as she drew them out of her inventory, slamming both into the snake draped across her shoulder. It was constricting, dealing damage and choking the air out of her, but snakes and choking weren’t on her list of fears and it hardly bothered her. After a while, you got used to ‘damage’ of most sorts. She may have a few specific mental hangups, but apart from those, she’d spent months adapting to how World 9352 worked.

She stabbed the snake again and again, as it sank its fangs into the side of her face and she felt the burn of its venom spreading through her body.

Andy wasn’t sitting idle. He ran forward, a knife in hand, and joined her snake-stabbing.

The snake kept stacking more and more venom, and was still dropping her health steadily as it continued to constrict, but it was looking severely battered by now. She glanced at the venom debuff and grimaced. -2hp every 3 seconds for 19 minutes. That would be enough to kill her with time to spare.

It took nearly five minutes to finish the snake, by which time Maya’s hundreds of health were dropping steadily through the 40s and toward single digits.

“Looks like this is a bit too high level for us after all,” she said with a scowl.

Andy collected the loot from the dead snake, as the one with higher luck. “So you want to go back?”

“Not much choice, I’m going to die in a minute or two. Better to do it in the Kalyx zone.”

They turned toward the barrier dividing the two zones, only to find their way blocked by a half dozen monkeys, looking quite pleased with themselves.

“Looks like they don’t want to let us by so easy,” Andy commented. “Think we can take them?”

“No. I’m quite confident we can’t.” Maya sighed heavily. “I’ll distract them, I’m dying anyway. Make a run for it and we’ll meet up back in the city. Maybe it’s for the best we stick to Zone Two for a bit longer.”

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