We continue teasing each other for a little while longer until it is time to head to our bedroom and get into the world of Turn of Destiny once more. We perform our usual nighttime ritual of taking my girlfriend’s leg off.

“It should be pretty close to its maintenance appointment.” Sam says I put her leg away.

“Maintenance? I thought you maintained it yourself.”

“Well, I can do the easy things.” She chuckles and scratches her head. “It’s still a piece of very sophisticated technology, you know?”

“Oh, right.” I look at the leg in my arm. “I can probably just cast a spell on it though. That should work, wouldn’t it?”

“Hmm… wouldn’t it be too suspicious if I suddenly stopped going to my appointments?”

“Good point…” I put down her leg in the usual spot. “I hope it doesn’t cost too much then.”

“Nah, it’s fine. The expenses are covered.”

I jump into bed, Sam immediately clutching her arms around my waist, dragging me down to the mattress.

“Hehe.” I smile and give her a kiss. “Would you like another kiss? Those expenses have been covered as well.”

“What expenses would that be?” She smiles and already gives me a kiss.

“Cuddles and scratches.”

“I wouldn’t mind paying more of those.” Sam’s embrace tightens a bit as she gives me another kiss.

“Alright then, then I’ll up the price a little.”

Sam smiles, boops her nose against mine and then starts scratching me behind my ear. “My beautiful, lovely, amazingly cute, girlfriend.” She kisses me once more.

“No you.”

“I think you meant, ‘you too’.” And yet another kiss follows.

“Hehe.”

We decide against fooling around for too much longer so we don’t let our family wait for too long inside of the game. Giving each other only a dozen or so extra kisses before we put on our headsets and are transported back to the world of Haurchefaud. Where we find ourselves back in each other's warm embrace.

“As much as I’d love continuing kissing you… this body is incredibly hungry.” Sam says as she gives me a kiss, now in her catgirl form. I could hear her stomach growl, even over both mine and her purring.

“Wow, I can tell.” I giggle. “Come, let’s get out of bed then.”

We quickly put on some clothes and head out of the room. I can hear some activity going on downstairs. I also notice that the hallways now have nice long blue and silver woolen carpets covering the stone floors. With marble planters sitting in very carefully placed intervals. I do not recognize what kind of flowers and plants are in them, but the blue and white color scheme continues here as well.

“Oh damn, those are some rare flowers.” Sam comments, pointing at the white ones.

“Are they? I don’t know them.”

“It’s a species of plants that’s only found on this continent. They glow with a soft white light at night and aren’t easy to grow. But I can tell that these are expertly planted. And luckily they don’t really wilt away when cared for well.”

“I suppose Hilda bought them.” I shrug.

“I think so too, I doubt she had enough time to go and forage for all these flowers.”

We follow the sounds and end up in the main hall with the sounds now clearly coming from the vault downstairs.

“Is anyone down there?” Sam calls out.

“Oh yeah!” I can hear my sister’s voice. “Nikki and I are just sorting some shit out down here. Hilda should be in the kitchen if you need her.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Why are you doing this in the early morning?” I ask. It’s a bit weird to communicate like this but the staircase down to the vault carries sound pretty well so it doesn’t really matter that much.

“Yes, tell her honey, why are we doing this right now?” Nikki does not sound very pleased.

“Well… I may or may not have promised it to Hilda that I’d do it last time, but I didn’t, so she got a bit angry at me and now here we are.”

“And you roped Nikki into it?” Sam asks.

“Of course, that’s what any good partner would do, right?” I hear a bonk echo up the staircase. “Ouch!”

“We’ll go and check on Hilda.” Sam laughs.

“Alright, tell her we’ll be up in half an hour.” Nikki replies, my sister staying suspiciously quiet. Probably to avoid Nikki’s ire.

The main hall also had the carpets changed and some planters added. We now even had some blue and silver banners hanging from the ceiling. I recognize the heraldic crest on the banner as the same one that my sister has on her shield, that’s supposed to represent me. With a winged lioness, holding a burning longsword, prominently placed in its center.

Sam pokes me and nods up at the banner. “Isn’t the theme a bit wrong for those? The crest should be in rose-gold, shouldn’t it?”

“That’s true.” Hilda appears behind us, she almost made my heart stop. I hadn’t heard her coming at all. “Oh my Goddess, sorry Ami. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I-it’s fine.” I take a couple of deep breaths.

“Then why are the banners like this? I suppose you didn’t just mistake the colour scheme, right?” Sam does not seem very surprised by Hilda so she just continues on like normal.

“Actually...” Hilda claps her hands five times on a distinct beat. As she does that the colors of all the woolen items in the room change. The lioness is now turning a rose-gold color with the surroundings turning into bordeaux red.

“Holy shit.” Sam looks at the banners with her mouth wide open, and honestly, so am I.

“Neat, isn’t it?” Hilda laughs.

“That must have cost a fortune.”

“Actually…” Hilda says for the second time, with exactly the same tone as before. “This one weaver is the father of one of the people Ami resurrected on the wall, and as a ‘thank you’ gift he gave us a huge discount and access to these rare materials on top of the discount we already had by making a deal with that one merchant. I still paid him more than he asked though. I didn’t want to feel like we were completely ripping him off.”

“Hmm, yeah, that sounds fair.” Sam nods.

“But what about the flowers upstairs then? Those aren’t in my colors, or do those change too?”

“No, they don’t, I just liked the look of them.” Hilda chuckles. “Did you know they could glow in the dark?”

I nod. “Yeah, Sam told me that.”

“Right, ranger, need to remember that.”

“Did you also get a discount on those?” Sam asks, when we are asking about the carpets we might as well continue about the flowers.

“No.” Hilda shakes her head. “Well… it is the say… I did get a small discount but as a trade with the flower merchant, I did promise her that we would join her on a botanical expedition.”

“So I guess we know where we are going then.” Sam replies.

“Yep, we should be back in time to log off so that’s not an issue. But I’m happy you didn’t outright reject the expedition.”

“Adventuring is fun.” I smile. “Of course we wouldn’t mind.”

“I did have some more arguments to persuade you, just in case.”

“Hmm?” I tilt my head. “Those being?”

“The expedition will lead us to the more tropical parts of this continent, tropical parts near the ocean.”

“Oh! That’s what we were talking about last time.” I jump an enthusiastic hop into the air.

“Yep. Tropical beaches included.”

“Sounds like it’s going to be a shame that we can only go there for three days then.” Sam ads.

“If only we had someone who could teleport us all back in one go so we can maximize our stay.” Hilda smirks and looks at me.

“Ooooh!” I oh.

“Ooooh indeed.” Hilda winks.

“And I take it Élise and Nikki are coming too?” Sam asks.

“Yep, as long as they sort our vault out. Or I’ll ground them instead.”

The three of us chuckle. But I’m sure my sister won’t miss the opportunity to go to a tropical beach with the entire family and Nikki wouldn’t either.

Sam’s growling stomach makes sure that we don’t continue talking for that much longer. Hilda has already prepared a nice plate of charcuterie and an assortment of cheeses together with some very good-looking butter. It’s not necessarily something I’d eat every day. But the different kinds of meats together with the delicious freshly baked bread, do fulfill me immensely.

Nikki and Lise join us a bit later. My sister’s hair is covered in dust.

“Where the hell did you find that much dust, sis?” I ask. “Didn’t they clean the place before we entered.”

“They obviously missed a spot.” My sister says as she grabs a piece of bread and the butter.

“At least it’s all neatly sorted now.” Nikki replies while she puts some cheese on her plate.

“That means we can all leave on the trip together!”

“Indeed.” Hilda nods. “Though I just thought about something…”

“Hmm?”

“Can you teleport the walker too?”

“Huh…” I think to myself. -I haven’t even actually tried teleporting other people… let alone machines… we should probably try that before we leave-