“Artifice,” Jason commanded several times, materializing a pair of shallow basins plus a mortar and pestle on the table in front of him. He’d already laid out his lighter, knife, and the set of small tools he’d bought from Jerrik earlier in the day. He set aside one of the basins on the floor.

Jason began with the things he knew would work. Using up half his remaining mushrooms, he mixed them with the strawberries and the insect powder, for two Restore traits and one Health. This resulted six ordinary, non-least health potion which would heal moderate injuries in a manner of seconds, but had to be drank with a wait time of about a half hour between uses.

He found it interesting that the least-tier potions were almost better, in that you could just keep on drinking them until you managed to heal yourself completely. Even if it took longer and they couldn’t restore lost limbs or other such grievous wounds, it still seemed like a pretty good trade off to him.

With that in mind, he then made a batch of a dozen and a half [Least Healing Potions] by combining the remaining mushrooms in a similar batch, but this time diluted them down. His skill told him instinctively when he’d added enough extra liquid into the basin, which at least for the healing potions was enough to get back three times as many.

That was the last of the mushrooms, which he would have to try and remember to gather more of when they headed out to the Wastes, whenever that ended up happening. He separated out two standard and three minor potions each for Lumi and Kera.

Then he asked Lumi to conjure some extra water so he could rinse out his mixing basin, and poured the runoff into the second one. He then picked up one of the clay balls he’d purchased.

“What’s that for?” Kera asked. She’d managed to slither her way up onto a chair, and was now draped partially across it, the rest of her body piled on the chair and across the floor. Her head bobbed up and down as she twisted around to watch Jason.

“Hang one, one second,” Jason said, as he realized he’d had a notification pop up while he was working.

Level Gained: Artificer 5. Skill Point acquired. Rune Sequence Learned: False Life, Lesser [False Life, Lesser] - By engraving the correct sequence of runes on non-living matter and imbuing it with mana, you can bring a semblance of life to one of your creations, allowing it to move about on its own, subject to your commands. Able to animate a single, relatively simple creation that moves without precision. Abilities and statistics of your creation depend on the crafting skills used to create it. New Runes have been added to [Engrave]: Capacity, Absorption, Controller, Motive, Continuous, False Life

“Uh. Ok, wow. I did not expect something like this so early,” Jason said, stunned.

“I can make golems now, I think,” he said. “Or like, homunculi, I guess.”

He shared the notification with the girls so they could see.

“Cooooool,” Kera said. “You have to make me an army of magic robot minions eventually, ok?”

Jason laughed. “That might be a bit out of my league just at the moment, seeing as I can only do one at a time currently. An army would probably require a ridiculous number of skill points.”

“You... just drank a potion that gave you some,” Lumi said slowly. “Potions are a thing you make.”

They all looked at one another.

A few minutes passed, while they considered the implications.

“That... sounds like the sort of thing that could really get me in trouble with the Archive,” Jason said eventually.

“I for one welcome our new golem overlords!” Kera declared cheerfully, bobbing up and down.

Lumi bonked Kera on her snake-head very lightly with a fist. “Stop memeing, you goof. This is serious.”

“Sorry.”

Jason cleared his throat. “It’s uh... kind of a scary thought, actually. Learning how to make something like that could be exceptionally dangerous. A true system exploit.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Not that I wouldn’t consider using it to give myself free skill points. But that seems like the sort of thing we’d absolutely need to keep to ourselves. In fact, I’m thinking maybe we don’t let on about that possibility at all, yeah? Not even to Therissa.”

Lumi nodded. “Definitely not til we’re stronger.”

“Fiiiine, no robot army then.”

“Golems aren’t robots, you know,” Jason said. “They aren’t even magic ones. That’d be more like.. clockwork soldiers or something. Steampunk-ey stuff with a magic flair, maybe. Golems aren’t even usually made out of metal, except maybe iron ones.”

Lumi peered at his still-visible screen. “Looking at your skill, I think Undead might fit in here too. It doesn’t specifically say golem. I bet if you used it on like, a bunch of bones you’d just end up animating a skeleton.”

“Ew.” Kera said. She attempted to scrunch up her face, and her disgusted expression looked extremely comical as a snake. “Please don’t make undeads. That’s gross.”

“Undead is both plural and singular, like sheep,” Jason replied pedantically.

Ignoring him, Kera raised a rather interesting question. “Hey, you finally learned a rune, right? We already know that enchantments are made by uh, locking mana inside runes to create permanent magical effects. And we know that potions are made differently, because you can’t very well inscribe a rune on a liquid.

“But you have that infusion skill thingy right?” She continued. “Instead of putting the rune on the potion, could you infuse a rune with a potion instead of putting mana into it?”

Jason blinked. “I, uh. I don’t know. That’s actually a really good question.”

“You’re experimenting today, right?” Kera asked. “Let’s find out!”

“I don’t know any other runes though,” Jason replied. “That’s what I went to ask Jerrik about; he’s going to try and get me some books on them.”

“Unless you want to just sit around and cast spells while I [Analyze] them, that is, and hope I learn something I could use. [False Life] seems like it’d need some better stuff to try it out on.”

“Why not?” said Lumi. “We’ve got a bunch of new spells we haven’t used. We could like go just outside the gates and let some off while you do your thing, and see if you can get anything useful. I mean heck, I’ve got uh....”

She trailed off for a moment, thinking.

“...twenty different spells just from spell shaping,” she said. “And Kera got a bunch of new stuff too. Plus you said that Flora woman might be willing to teach us. Maybe she’d be willing to come do it today?”

“Well if you two are all for it,” Jason said, “that’s good enough for me. Tell you what, why don’t one of you go ask Leska to send a message down to Flora, or maybe go yourself and ask, while I finish up with the handful of things I really want to try out?”

“Not as a snake,” he added with a pointed look in Kera’s direction.

“Aww. Fine, Lumi can go. I’ll change back when we go out. It’s fun being so different.”

Lumi rolled her eyes at Kera. “I still say enjoying being a snake is weird. But each to their own.”

She stood up form the table. “I’ll go speak with Leska, see if she’s willing to go play messenger. I want to see what Jason comes up with.”

She exited, and Jason examined one of the clay balls again. Kera stretched upwards as high as she could balance to get a better look.

Having already cleaned out the mixing basin, he put down the clay ball and took some Mellax, a salamander tail, and one of the flame sacs and placed them in front of him. He paused, unsure at first how one actually mashed the oddly preserved body parts of a mythical creature.

His skill presented the answer: you didn’t. First you had to chop it finely, then tenderize it, ending up with something like ground meat. Then you mixed in the other stuff and heated it up in water to leech out the properties, not unlike making soup stock. Fortunately, it seemed like his [Cooking] skill would help speed up the process instead of needing to take all day.

He should have realized this process was going to be kind of involved. Good quality item creation always was in games: either there were a lot of steps, you had to grind for the materials needed, or it was just really time consuming. Sometimes all three.

Well. He was committed, now, might as well get it over with.

He had to wait for Lumi to return to provide a better heat source than his lighter, but after a good ten minutes, he’d successfully mixed two ‘volatile’ and one ‘fire’.

He then diluted the mixture with additional water, stopping when he knew that he had enough for an additional potion, were he planning to bottle it.

That was not his intention. Instead, he immersed two of the clay balls in the liquid.

“Infusion,” he commanded, holding both hands over the basin. The mixture swirled, and then began to drain away along with his remaining mana, absorbed into the clay balls. As it drained, the texture and color of the balls changed, until they looked more like chunks of blackened volcanic rock with orange streaks running through them.

“Analyze Item.”

[Salamander Stone] - An unstable ball of clay infused with fire mana. Explodes in a small burst of intense flames upon impact when thrown against a hard surface.

He shared the results with the girls.

Lumi clapped her hands excitedly.

“Ha! You took my advice and made grenades!” She said, doing a little jig.

“I’ll test them while we’re out later, and make some more if they’re worthwhile. I don’t doubt they will be, though.”

After rinsing out the basin again, watching for any kind of reaction from the leftovers of the two brews, he prepared a second batch of grenades - but this time he mixed ‘Volatile’, ‘Restore’, and ‘Health’.

“A healing grenade?” Kera asked, peering at the single one he’d made. This one looked like a plain grey stone with glowing green cracks running through it.

“Yep,” he said. “In case of fireballs.”

“Or, well... dropped bombs,” he said with a wince.

He realized he had another notification. He brought it up.

Level Gained: Artificer 6. Skill Point acquired. Stat Point acquired.

“Another level?!” Lumi exclaimed. How many is that today?”

“Three?” He said, scratching his head. He brought up his point totals, and did some math.

“Weird. It looks like making potions is giving me equal XP for both Artificer and Alchemist.”

“Wait, but didn’t what we got from the dungeon get split unevenly between primary and secondary?” Lumi asked.

“Yeah, definitely. I guess that’s only applicable to quest rewards and kills maybe? Not skill use? I leveled pretty fast that night I first met you, for that matter. It looks like I’m getting maybe a hundred XP per potion, if I’ve got my numbers right.”

“You’re almost higher level than I am now. And you complain I’m OP,” she grumbled.

Jason grinned at her. “And I’m only getting started.”

He picked up one of the least healing potions he’d made earlier.

“Let’s see if this works...Disenchant!”

A spark passed through the liquid in the vial, which evaporated, leaving behind a small single-unit pile of arcane powder.

“Bro-ken!” drawled Lumi slowly. She’d sat back down and was now sprawling backwards in her chair, one arm thrown over the back.

He examined the vial with [Analyze Item], and was somewhat surprised to learn the trait ‘Enchanted’.

Curious, he mixed the powder with a single unit of ‘Might’, and was rewarded with a basic [Least Potion of Strength], which temporarily boosted the drinker’s Might by four points, for a short time.

He passed it to Lumi to add to her pile.

“Stop complaining, it’s not like this doesn’t benefit you too,” he admonished.

Then he began combining other pairs of ingredients, rinsing out the basin each time, sometimes including on object for infusion.

‘Perceive’ and ‘Night’ resulted in something that allowed the drinker to see in the dark for an extended period. ‘Produce Breath’, when infused into one of the stones he picked up, resulted in a small pebble you could hold in your mouth and use to breathe underwater for an hour. He made two of those.

‘Apply Fire’, made with one of the bits of salamander hide and an particularly oily plant resulted in a substance that could be poured onto a weapon in order to give it a temporary fire effect. Two ‘Restore’ and a ‘Calm’, when diluted, created something the system dubbed a [Serenity Tonic].

Kera, who’s finally gotten bored of being a crystalline snake and changed back to her normal self, immediately told him he should mix in some extra herbs for flavor and call it ‘Sereni-tea.’

Ignoring her terrible joke, he continued to experiment with different combinations, ‘Inflict Sticky’ produced a small bag of long, gooey filaments that worked like a glue-bomb. He wasn’t sure in the slightest why the clay ball had changed into a bag, but he wasn’t going to argue. He made three of them, figuring they would be useful for catching things or simply fouling the movements of larger monsters.

By that time, Jason was nearly completely out of mana. So his next potion was an obvious one, simply mixing ‘Restore’ and ‘Mana’ for a [Least Mana Potion]. It only restored 100 mana over about five minutes, but it was a far cry better than having to wait a few hours for his natural mana regeneration to refill things. He drank it, made a second one after it did its job, drank that one too, and then made a good dozen more of them. He passed the mana potions out equally.

Jason checked his XP level again just as Leska came into the room, bearing a reply from Flora, who agreed to meet them outside the gates in about two hours, after she’d closed up for the day. He glanced out the window, and realized he’d used up the whole afternoon between his trip to the market and making potion after potion. It was nearly time to eat again. He was starving.

No wonder Kera was getting a bit bored. He didn’t think he’d be willing to just sit there and watch someone work for hours on end.

Checking his XP levels again, Jason did some vague math. He’d been trying to keep track in his head, and thought he might have a vague idea of how much XP per level he needed. It probably wasn’t exact, but he thought he was relatively close to increasing both Alchemist and Artificer both.

Well, he still had two more potions to try, plus he still had a wand to try making. Well, one wand, one potion and one pile of magic dirt.

Jason made the wand first, because not only would it be a useful test, he hoped he might be able to sell it. He’d noticed that Kera’s staff didn’t have any kind of runic enchantment, and yet it was still a [Staff of Focusing], capable of a simple channeling effect that produced a bolt of pure mana. His hope was that not all wands or staves had visible runes, so he might be able to pass off a wand as a dungeon drop with no questions asked. He’d ask Therissa later.

Creating a batch of a dozen more [Least Healing Potion], he infused them into one of iron rods he’d bought. The process was relatively simply, resulting in a [Least Wand of Healing] that could be used twelve times before burning out.

Next, Jason opened the bag of enriched soil he had purchased from Flora. He poured a fairly large handful of dirt into the basin, and began mixing in the traits for ‘Hasten Growth’, but then on a whim changed his mind slightly. He picked up one of his spare least-heals, [Disenchanted] it for some powder, and then poured the powder in with the rest.

“Infusion.” As he’d hoped, his skill activated successfully, and the dirt absorbed the liquid, changing to a pale blue color that was flecked here and there with a silver sparkling.

He checked the result.

“There we go, Kera,” he said with a grin. “There’s your [Magic Fertilizer]. Step one in conquering the world with magic greenhouses, complete!”

“Yesssss!” She exclaimed. “See I told you you could figure it out.”

“Flora helped,” he admitted. “She’s the one who showed me what people sometimes make real fertilizer with.”

“Give yourself some more credit. I mean, look at all this stuff,” she said, gesturing around the table, which was now filled with an assortment of various consumables.

Jason went ahead and made a good half dozen piles of the fertilizer, after making a few more health potions to disenchant. He left the rest of the dirt alone, so he would have something to actually plant his seeds in later. Already he was planning to buy some more supplies from Flora; Therissa was going to have an aneurism when she saw all the stuff he’d made.

He hoped that the wands would work out as something he could sell. He didn’t want to flood the market with overly expensive potions; that might draw attention he didn’t need.

Heck, maybe the fertilizer itself would be sellable. He decided to offer a bag to Flora, to see how she responded. He could always pass it off as some combination of [Artificer] and [Herbalism].

Finally, it was time to address the dungeon core. Jason had absolutely no intention of reviving such a dangerous thing, and he didn’t have any clue as to what he might be able to use it for otherwise, besides grinding it into potion ingredient. He mused on the idea of maybe saving it to build a golem with, perhaps using it to power a really badass one, but he felt that might be veering off a little far into the ‘mad wizardry’ side of things. He’d have to learn more before he was willing to attempt such a feat.

So instead, Jason decided on combining the core’s trait, ‘Transmute’, with another of his currently untested ingredients: the Wisteria blossoms, which had the trait, ‘Self’. With any luck, he’d end up with a polymorphing effect, maybe something that would allow him to make a better version of Kera’s belt.

It took some work to shatter the crystal into fragments small enough he could grind them into powder; he had to get Lumi’s assistance for it. Then, reminded by his skill that the core produced four units instead of one, Jason mixed four sets of blossoms in, for a quadruple batch. He hoped he’d get something useful.

Just as he was about to infuse the mixture, Jason realized his skill was informing him that he needed an additional trait: Enchanted. Something about just the two traits wasn’t good enough, as if a least-tier potion didn’t supply enough mana for whatever the effect was.

Internally shrugging, and prompted by his skill, he disenchanted almost all the remaining [Least Healing Potion] in his personal pile, leaving him with only three remaining.

Jason then poured the eight units of powder into the mix, unclear why his skill was prompting him to use so much, but willing to follow through. He vaguely hoped this wasn’t a terrible mistake that would result in reawakening the core. Then again, he’d crushed it into a fine powder, and his skill probably knew what he was trying to do.

He hoped.

“Brew Potion, Infuse!”

With a dramatic flash of light that startled both girls, who’d ceased paying much attention to him, a gout of silver flame erupted from the basin. Jason pulled back in a panic, and almost fell out of his chair as a wave of dizziness swept through him. He felt his mana levels drop to almost zero, and he broke out in a cold sweat. The silvery flame died down, and he stared into a basin filled with a deep black, silver-flecked sludge that looked almost like a starry night sky.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his screen begin to fill with a series of notifications.

Pushing them away for the moment, he began to pour the potion into four of the larger bottles, and stoppered them up.

“Well, uh, that was unexpected,” Lumi said from the edge of the bed, where she’d been idly leafing through one of Kera’s books.

“No kidding,” Jason replied. He picked up one of the bottles.

“Analyze Item.”

[Elixir of Rebirth] - A legendary potion that allows the imbiber to completely change every aspect of themselves, down to their basic nature. Refunds partial or all spent points of any kind as the user sees fit, allowing them to choose a different path in life. Permanent.

“Holy shit, guys. This is a full character respec potion.”

“What, really? Lumi stood up and walked over to the table. Kera joined him as well.

“Yeah, check it out.”

Jason shared just his Analyze results with the others.

“Whoa.” Lumi said, impressed. “Is that like, actually legendary? Oh wow, it is. It’s got an orange name and everything.”

Kera picked up one of the bottles, turning it over in her hands, examining it. The liquid sloshed around inside, causing the silver flecks within to shine a little brighter.

She read over the description, looking down at it with a strange expression.

“Rebirth, huh...” she murmured to herself.

“I’m wondering if it might not be worth it for me to take one right now,” Jason said in response to Lumi’s comment. “I don’t exactly need [Improvised Weapon Crafting] anymore. Same for [Basic Throwing] and possibly even [Tailoring]; while they helped us out a lot, I’d rather spend the points on something else now that we’ve made our way to a town. Not so sure I need [Survivalist] either, really. Might be worth seeing what refunding an advanced skill would be worth. I could use more points in harvesting, or put them towards engraving.”

“I dunno,” Lumi said. “I feel like your survival skill is pretty important for when we’re out in the field. But is it worth using a Legendary-tier potion just for what, three skill points?”

“I mean, I could always make more, right?” Jason replied. “I know the recipe now, more or less.”

“Yeah, but how would we find another dungeon core? That seems like the sort of thing that would be pretty rare,” Lumi said.

“I mean, Therissa said that it takes whole armies to kill fully grown ones,” she said.

“I could always buy one, with the money we’ll be able to make with my item crafting skills. It’s not like money will ever be a problem. Unlike most enchanters, it’s not like I’ll ever have to worry about sources of arcane powder.”

“What do you think, Kera?” Jason turned to the other girl.

“Shou-“ he cut off suddenly.

Kera was standing very still, idly turning the potion in her hands over and over. She eyebrows were drawn together in a pensive frown, and she had a far-away look in her eyes as she gazed off into the distance.

“Uh, Kera?” Jason asked.

“A different path...” she mumbled to herself. She didn’t even seem to notice Jason’s concern.

She jumped as Lumi gently laid a hand on her shoulder, startled out of her thoughts.

“Hey, you ok?” the other girl asked quietly.

“I-“

Tears welled up in Kera’s eyes.

“N-No. Nope. I’m fine. It’s nothing,” she said, her voice thick. She put the bottle down, hard, onto the table.

Then she turned suddenly and ran into the other room, closing the door behind her. Jason heard thump, followed by a sniffle, from behind the door.

He and Lumi exchanged glances.

“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” Jason said with concern. “Should we...?”

Lumi hesitated.

“I’m... not sure,” she said quietly. “Maybe give her a moment, just in case that’s all she wants? Then we check on her.”

Lumi glanced at the now-closed door. “She... pretty clearly had something bad going on back home. That much was pretty obvious when we met her.

“We don’t know how bad it might have been,” she continued. “I’ve...definitely been getting the vibe she doesn’t want to go home. Like, at all. I don’t know if this is just she needs to process, or maybe there’s something else at work...”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He was never any good at this stuff.

He saw Ceri uncurl from his position on the bed. The small drake gave a concerned mewl, and hopped down to the floor, crawling over to the door. He pawed at the door with one claw, making an unhappy sound.

“Ok, that decides it,” Jason said, looking at Ceri for a moment before turning to Lumi. “She’s definitely upset. Here, help me with something. I need some water, and your shield.”

“Huh?”

“Artifice,” Jason commanded. A small teapot made of strange bluish material appeared in his hand. He pulled the lid off and held the pot out to Lumi.

“Water and heat, please.”

“Uhh, ok,” she said, confusion written across her face. She obliged anyway, first filling the teapot with water, then activating her flame shield and balancing the pot on top. It began to billow steam in a matter of seconds.

Jason pulled a small handful of herbs from the table.

“Believe it or not, Kera’s pun earlier had some merit. A bunch of these are used in tea-making,” he explained.

He crumbled some of the dried herbs into the pot. It was very hot, despite having only been in contact with shield for a few moments. He shook one hand with a yelp as he nearly burned himself lifting it away and placing it on the table.

He then poured half of one of the [Serenity Tonics] into the pot, and swished it around for a few moments. The he inhaled the steam deeply.

Definitely the beginnings of tea, with a slight scent of bergamot and lemon. He wasn’t sure where the lemon had come from, but he supposed it didn’t matter. It would still need to steep for a few minutes though.

So he gestured Lumi towards the door. “Might be better if you go first,” he said.

Lumi knocked once on the door briefly. Jason could hear Kera sniffling softly. The door wasn’t particularly soundproof.

“Kera? I’m coming in, ok?” Lumi called. “I’ve got Ceri here for you.”

She waited for a moment, then opened the door.

Ceri scrabbled his way across the floor, claws skidding, and then leapt onto the bed where Kera had bundled herself up into a corner.

Tears streaked the girls face, as she dejectedly stared at the wall, hugging a pillow to herself. When Ceri jumped up into her lap and started rubbing his face against hers, she let go of the pillow and hugged him instead.

She didn’t meet Jason or Lumi’s eyes.

Lumi sat down on the edge of the bed next to Kera, and put an arm around her shoulder. Jason quietly pulled one of the table chairs into the room, sitting himself down in the corner out of view. He tried to put the teapot down in his lap, and almost burned himself. Biting his tongue so he didn’t cry out, he then quietly conjured a small platter to rest the teapot on while Lumi talked softly to Kera.

Lumi leaned Kera against her. “Hey, it’s aright. You don’t have to hide. It’s ok to be upset. We get it.”

Kera bit her lip, and a shudder ran through her. She sniffled again. Jason conjured a temporary handkerchief and passed it to Lumi, who handed it to Kera.

She blew her nose loudly with one hand, still holding Ceri with the other.

“You told us when we met that things had been... bad... in the past,” Lumi said carefully. “Do you want to talk about it? It might help.”

Kera heaved a shuddering breath. “I’m...not used to having people to talk to.”

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want,” Lumi said, giving the girl a small hug with one arm. “That’s OK too. We just want to make sure you’ll be alright.”

“N-No,” Kera said with another miserable sniffle. “I-I’ll talk. I shouldn’t bottle it up. I mean I'm just...I’m not used to having someone to...”

She cut off suddenly, with a sort of half-hiccup.

“To.. talk to. N-not.. anymore,” she finished, eyes downcast.

“Then take your time,” Jason said. The tea wasn’t quite ready yet, so he handed an empty cup to Lumi, who filled it with small amount of conjured water. She passed it to Kera.

Kera took a small sip. The she took a deep breath and visibly tried to steady herself.

“I... used to have this friend. Aeryn. Spelled with a ‘y’ and an ‘a-e’ because her parents thought it was exotic or something. I don’t know. Anyway. I’ve known her most of my life. We were... very close. Closer than we should have been as kids maybe. I don’t know. Did everything together, shared everything, you know how it is.

“And I’m sure you can guess where that led,” she said with a long, drawn out sigh. “Over time, I fell in love with her. Some time in high school, I guess. I couldn’t really say if I’m into boys, or just girls, or really anything because I’ve always had her, sitting right next to me. Didn’t really ever notice anyone else, not really.

“Problem was... my parents were super strict, religious types. I wasn’t allowed to do all sorts of things. So many rules, and... my parents believed in very harsh punishments if I broke them. Me dating Aeryn would never have flown with them. So I tried to hide it. Stayed in my own private emotional bubble, pretending we were going on dates when we’d go out to the movies, always too afraid of my parents or that Aeryn might say no to consider asking her out in secret. Besides, Aeryn talked about boys all the time."

Kera held a hand to her mouth, and held back a sob for a moment.

“When it came time for college, I just... I couldn’t leave her behind. I tried. I really tried. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. So... I tried to convince her to come with me instead. I... I may have used the L-word. We fought, because she wasn’t into girls after all. She said all these terrible things, wanted to know if I’d been peeping on her or whatever at sleepovers, or had tried to take advantage, all sorts of horrible things. None of it was true, but she wouldn’t believe me.

It got back to my parents, and they said awful things too. Pulled me out of school, almost disowned me. They hauled me to some religious bullshit thing for so-called ‘therapy’. They forced me to pick a different college near home where they could ‘make sure I corrected my aberrant ways’.

“And...and it got worse. Aeryn...I don’t know what came over her. She turned...mean. She went out with this one guy, and started taunting me about it. I don’t...it was awful. I didn’t even know she had it in her to be like that. This one night, she snuck out to a bar with him, and started drinking and texting me pictures of the two of them with captions about how she was going to sleep with him like a real woman should, and...

“And... then she got hit by another car while they were driving drunk to go back to his place. She...”

Kera began to cry. “She... died. My one and only, flawed as she apparently was, died while off on some stupid crusade to make fun of her ex-best friend who just couldn’t bear to live without her and...”

She trailed off, unable to continue. Lumi hugged Kera to her, and Jason felt tears come to his own eyes. It sucked that things like this really happened, that people could be so awful to one another.

After a minute, Kera took another shuddering breath, and continued.

“I’ve... had to live with that for two years now. My parents watch me like a hawk, and shout about nearly everything. I’m constantly stressed out and my grades have plummeted. I miss my best and only friend. I...haven’t made new friends, either. A few of the boys at college made a half hearted attempt to ask me out on dates my freshman year, and I guess I sort of thought they were ok, so maybe I could be into boys too, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes. It hurt too much then. I didn’t want to get involved. I just wanted to hide away from everyone and be left alone. After awhile they try stopped trying. Who wants to be friends with the girl who sits around moping all the time?“

Kera quietly down at her hands, tears running down her face.

Lumi just turned puttering her other arm around the girl’s shoulder, and pulled her into a full hug without saying anything. Kera turned into her embrace, and cried quietly.

Jason felt awkward. He’d really never been very good with people, particularly upset people. That didn’t mean he didn’t feel bad for Kera; he really did. He was just never sure what you should say to things like this. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that’ seemed so...insufficient. The idea of just mouthing empty reassurances always left a bad taste in his mouth.

Then of course not everyone responded the same anyhow. Some people didn’t want empathy, others needed it, and some people just wanted to offload to a sympathetic ear who nonetheless would just listen without comment. Jason never could tell the difference.

Lumi seemed a lot better at this than he was. She just held Kera tightly without saying anything, hugging the girl as her quiet crying turned to heaving sobs.

At least there was one thing he could do though. It was a bit of a cheat in the sympathy department, he felt, but he could think of at least one time in his own lie where he would have been grateful for it.

The tea was ready.

Making a hand motion for Lumi to carry on, he took the empty cup from Kera’s hand, banished it, and re-conjured a large mug. He poured a good half of the tea into it, which was still quite hot.

After a few minutes, Kera had ceased crying again, and was sitting up and apologizing to Lumi for getting tears all over her shirt.

Jason passed her the mug, now filled with tea. “Here,” he said softly. “Try this. Should help you clear your head.”

Kera inhaled the steam deeply. “This is...wow. Yeah. That smells great. Do I want to know what’s in it?”

“Probably not,” Jason said sheepishly. “It should taste just like tea though.”

She took another deep breath, then sipped noisily. She blinked once, hard, then gave a long, satisfied sigh as she suddenly leaned back into Lumi, the tension draining out of her posture.

“Uh. Wow. That’s..." She blinked again. She breathed deep, and released a slow, shuddering breath as she relaxed. "It works fast. What is this?” She took another sip, and gave a sigh of contentment, her manner completely having done a one-eighty.

Curious, Jason conjured another mug and poured himself a small amount. It did smell good, that was for sure. He took a sip, and a strong, if pleasant, warmth washed through him and banished away a tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been under until it was gone.

“Holy crap, that’s strong,” he commented, eyeing the teapot. “I could’ve made a fortune with this back home.”

"It was your idea, though," he said, smiling at Kera. "I made some 'Sereni-tea'."

Kera gave him a slight smile, and a tired giggle.

Lumi snagged Jason's cup with her usual causal irreverence and took a sip of her own. Her eyes widened.

“Heck, I bet you could make a fortune here. That’s some great stress relief.”

Kera tilted her head back, taking several gulps despite the heat. Then she lowered her mug, closing her eyes and leaning back into Lumi with a great sigh of satisfaction. She held the warm mug in her lap with both hands, and just sat there with Ceri sitting in her lap, still rubbing his head against her.

“So... you’ve never dated anyone at all?” asked Lumi cautiously, trying to fill the silence.

“No.” Kera replied quietly, still leaning against the other girl. Her voice was steady now, if tired. “Just... I’d always had eyes for Aeryn alone, never really thought about being with anyone else, boys or girls. And then after that, it just hurt too much to think about.”

She opened her eyes, sitting up again. “All that... it’s a major reason why I’ve decided that even if we do find a way home, I’m not going to take it. My parents can go to hell for all I care, and I don’t have anyone else left to go back to there."

“Did you know?” She asked, “Homosexuality isn’t frowned on here at all. I asked. Leska was telling me that it’s rare outside the rather bored nobility, far rarer than at home, but nobody cares. She pointed out that when you have magical, all-female species that reproduce via other races running around, like Kitsune and Lamias, it’s sort of normal to run into from time to time. For that matter, for similar reasons sex between races or outside of marriage isn’t something most people make a big deal about.”

Kera gave a short, bitter laugh.

“When you first explained the situation we were in, I actually thought about, you know, finding a cursed belt or something that would turn me into a boy, and just living with it. Assuming it turned out I wasn’t into men too, anyway. That way I wouldn’t have to go through.. all that.. again.

Her voice grew stronger.

“Turns out I don’t have to. Here, I can literally be whoever I want, and people won’t judge me for it. I don’t want to go back. Why should I? I should just drink one of those potions, and re-write myself into something I want to be, instead of something everyone else constantly expects me to be."

“And you know the best thing?" she asked. "It doesn’t even have to be for good. If I decide I don’t like something? Boom, take another potion, change my stats, and everything’s different again, just like my belt. It’s like the perfect world for someone like me.”

Kera handed Jason her mug, and climbed off the bed with Ceri still in her arms. Lumi and Jason moving aside to make room. Kera turned to face them. She put both hands on her hips.

“So, screw my family. Screw the judgmental jerks at their church, and screw people like Aeryn. No more running. No more hiding. No more expectations.”

“I’m staying.”