The gods walked back to their thrones. Tanashi sat on his throne, made of board games and cards. Guargen on his simple stone throne, blending into it perfectly. Finn sat on his bails of hay, stacked to resemble a throne. Drake sat on a throne of sandstone. Shurma on her throne of gold and jewels. Zee, on her bright nebules throne. And Samael flopped lazily onto her throne in the shape of the world tree.

Tanashi looked over at her and asked, “Are you feeling okay?”

“No,” Samael said grumpily and did not elaborate any more.

“Well, you can at least try and feel okay,” Tanashi said hesitantly.

“Fuck you!” Samael rebutted while summoning a bottle of fine wine and drinking from it, “It sucks that this does not affect me,” She added.

Shurma nodded and said, “I know the feeling. I haven’t gotten drunk from a good jug of mead in far too long.”

“HA! Then you haven’t added the right ingredients,” Zee scoffed.

“What do you mean?” Samael and Shurma asked simultaneously.

“I’m close to making alcohol that can even get us gods drunk. But it needs some time to complete.”

“How much time?!” Samael and Shurma asked simultaneously.

“A few more years. I’ll bring the tests every once in a while to see how it’s coming along.”

“Thank you!” Samael and Shurma said excitedly.

“ANYWAYS!” Tanashi interrupted, “Where did we leave off?”

Samael looked at the bottle of wine and hurled the bottle at Guargens head, and said, “Right here!”

Finn sprung up and caught it in mid-air before it could hit him, “I do believe that Ford just remembered that Tanya existed,” he answered calmly and set the bottle of wine down as far as possible from Samael. Samael grumbled something under her breath and summoned another bottle of wine.

“Ah, yes. That’s probably already resolved, though. It looks like they’re at the next town and halfway to the dungeon,” Tanashi said, opening up his screens.

“Good thing we record everything,” Drake said, pulling up a screen.

“That is a good thing indeed!” Tanashi agreed happily.

“I hope they don’t fuck up Tanya’s psyche any more than it already is,” Samael admitted.

“Agreed,” Finn said, pouring himself a glass of wine.

Guargen pulled up the screen and looked at everyone in the party, then leaned over to Tanashi and asked, “What are the game rules again? And what is my champion’s name?” Tanashi sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Then he looked up as though he suddenly remembered something and said, “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Tanashi walked away from the game board and into one of his personal spaces. There he saw the new toy Alpha had brought him. The shaggy-haired ginger boy Felix sat on the floor surrounded by books on human, elf, halfling, giant, drake, dwarf, and demon anatomy. Studying what poisons affect them the most, their weaknesses, the fastest ways to kill them, and the slowest.

Bending over, Tanashi asked, “Sleep well last night?”

“Yes, my lord,” Felix responded politely, not looking up from his book. Manners had been the first thing Alpha had taught him.

Tanashi nodded and waved his hand, creating a buffet of breakfast foods, and said, “Well, remember to eat plenty. I’ll be training you in physical combat soon.”

“Yes, my lord. I look forward to the training,” Felix said, turning to reveal his green eyes. Tanashi’s smile widened as he saw the bloodlust within them and the burning drive for revenge.

“That’s my boy. And be sure to pass my orders to Alpha when he comes by. We need to move onto phase two,” Tanashi said, then left with a snap of his fingers, returning to the game board and producing a large piece of slate, handing it to Guargen, “Here you go, buddy, all the rules and such. I don’t think you’ll lose this one,” Guargen smiled brightly and accepted the slate tablet. As soon as his hands clasped the tablet, it shattered under his strength, and Guargen began to cry.

“Yes, but he might break it out right!” Zee laughed.

“Yeah, I didn’t think of that,” Tanashi said, then looked at his planet and noticed it had moved ever so slightly to one side. He corrected it, “Did anyone move my planet?” he asked. And everyone shook their heads in the negative. “Huh, weird.”

***

Tanya cried loud enough for Ford to have to cover her ears. Her high-pitched scream rang over the entire camp. Ford immediately tried to calm her down, “Tanya! Please stop crying! I’m very sorry about putting you into stasis! I needed to keep you safe! Tanya!”

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“YOU-YOU LEFT ME IN-I-IN THERE! WAHHHAHAHAHH!” Tanya cried.

“I know! I know! I’m sorry! I am so sorry!” Ford apologized again.

Then Gimble came up behind Tanya and scooped her up as gently as a father would his daughter. He pulled her into his massive armored chest and said, “There there, little Tanya. Everything will be all right now.”

Tanya sniffed and calmed down enough to say, “D-do you p-promise?”

Gimble held up his massive pinky and pointed it at her, “Pinky promise,” he said. That put a slight smile on Tanya’s face as she grabbed Gimble’s massive pinky with her tiny hand.

Then she looked at Ford, “Now you p-promise,” Tanya said and proffered Ford one of her tiny pinkies.

Ford looked between her and Tanya’s pinky, “What am I promising to?”

“Y-you are p-promising not to p-put me in that p-place a-again,” Tanya stammered out through her sobs.

“I-… I can’t promise you that. Things happened in that dungeon that I’m glad you weren’t there to see. So, no, I won’t promise you,” Ford said, looking downcast.

Soft sobs soon increased in volume as Tanya began to cry again. Lilly walked up and smacked Ford upside the head with her staff, “Ford! Promise ‘er!”

“I can’t!”

“Ye can an’ ye ‘ill!” Lilly yelled over Tanya’s cries.

“But I-” Ford began, then got hit with Lilly’s staff again, interrupting her. “Ow! All right! All right!” Ford said, then walked up to Tanya, taking the tiny pinky in hers. Tanya immediately calmed down from a loud cry to a soft sob as Ford said, “Tanya, I promise to keep you safe as long as I live. And I will do anything to do so. I promise you that much.”

After a few more sniffles, Tanya nodded and pulled her pinky away, leaning into Gimble’s massive chest. Then Ford walked over to the fire and began making dinner as she always did. All the while, she thought of what to do with Tanya. ‘Should we bring her back to the city or bring her along?’ she thought.

“I say we kill her. Fewer problems to deal with,” Wrath suggested.

‘You just don’t like her.’

“That too.”

“I say we keep her. She might be useful for menial tasks,” Greed said.

‘No, we shouldn’t use her for slave labor.’

“Why not? Seems like a perfectly reasonable use of a freeloader.”

“You two are the freeloaders.”

“No, we work our asses off trying to make new spells for you!”

“Oh, and what an excellent job you’ve done. If the spell doesn’t hurt me, it keeps me injured. Great job, you guys. You should get medals.”

“Relax, Ford. I’m sure everything will work out in the end.”

“There is no guarantee! There is never a guarantee! All we do is hope and hope that things just might work out. But how has that worked for us now!? Half dead and now having to worry about a useless-”

“Ford!” Lilly interrupted, “Ye’re blatherin’ wi’ yerself again.”

Ford looked up and saw everyone looking at her with worried expressions. Then she sighed and looked down at the sauté pans of food she had, “Dinner’s ready,” she mumbled. A stack of bowls came out of a shadow next to her, and she began dishing out the food for everyone starting with Tanya. By the time everyone got the food, she had run out of bowls, leaving her without food.

Looking between the empty sauté pan and her bowl Lilly knelt next to Ford and offered her some of her cruciferous vegetables. Ford looked at it and waved it away, “No, thanks. I’m not that hungry right now anyway,” she said, then walked away from the others to begin cleaning the pans. As soon as Ford got far away, she began spraying the pans clean with Essence Thrower and getting as many burnt scraps off the bottom as she could.

After half an hour of scrubbing with her nails and spraying, Ford finally finished cleaning the pans and put them away in her void storage. She then sat back and looked up at the night sky. Admiring the constellations and thinking back to when she arrived on this Hell hole of a planet.

“We’ve gone through a lot, haven’t we?” Ford said.

“Yes, we have,” Wrath agreed.

“We need more things,” Greed said unhelpfully.

“We don’t need more things,”

“Sure we do! We need nunchakus!”

“We don’t need –”

“I think we should get some nunchakus,” Wrath interrupted.

“What?! Why do we need nunchakus?! Why are you two agreeing!?!”

“Because we all know.”

“We need a distraction.”

“Something to keep us busy.”

“So we don’t relive the last dungeon.”

“Gah! Stop talking like that! You sound like Kii and Mizu.”

“We sound like Kii and Mizu,” Wrath countered.

“We are all in our head. So really, we’re doing it to ourselves.”

Ford flopped back to the ground and sighed, “Now I’ve gone from saying ‘I’ to ‘We.’ Fan-fucking-tastic.”

“You know … We’ve been here for about a month. Maybe a little longer than that. So, where’s the moon?”

Ford looked around the night sky for a moment and realized that Wrath had a good question. She hadn’t seen the moon since she got here. So, there should be a moon somewhere. Ford shook her head and ignored the question, “Fine! I’ll make the damn nunchakus.”

“Yay!”

“Shut up,” Ford said grumpily. Then stood and turned around to see Tanya standing behind her. “Umm, hi?” Ford said, unsure of what to say.

“So, your name is Ford?”

Ford nodded, “Yeah. Sorry about lying to you about that back in town. Didn’t want you to go screaming my name across town.”

“Don’t worry about it. ” Tanya said. Then she took a step forward and stuck out her hand, “Propper introductions are in order. Hi, I’m Tanya, Tanya Sinn.”

Ford shook Tanya’s hand, “Hello, I’m Ford.”

When Ford tried to release the handshake, but Tanya wouldn’t let go, “Ford … what?”

“Just Ford. Can I have my hand back now?”

“Why don’t you have a last name?”

“Because I –”

“We.”

‘Shut up!’

“It is, We though.”

“Because we decided not to have a last name.”

“Who’s we?”

“That doesn’t matter. Let go of my hand!”

Tanya released Ford and began to stroke an imaginary beard as she thought. “What is she doing?” Wrath asked.

“I don’t know,” Greed shrugged.

“How about you take my last name!” Tanya exclaimed as though she had reached a fantastic epiphany. “You can be like my little sister!” Tanya continued excitedly.

Ford looked confused, “But I’m older than you.”

“No, you’ve only been alive for a month. Uncle Gimby told me.”

“Uncle Gim – Danm it Gimble!” Ford yelled back to the camp, causing the big guy to shrink slightly.

“Aww, come on! It’s not that bad an idea.”

Ford sighed and thought for a moment, ‘Ford Sinn. Hmm … it doesn’t sound half bad.’

“Plus, it kinda suits us.”

‘How so?’

“Well, look at our names, for starters. I’m Greed. She’s Wrath. We’re two of the seven sins.”

“See. Fitting.”

Shaking her head with a slight laugh, Ford said, “Well, let’s start over one more time.” She then knelt and stuck out her hand, “The name’s Ford, Ford Sinn.”