“Welcome back, Teacher. Did you eat well?” She asked pleasantly with a wry and clever smile on her face as Solution took her place at Nua’s right hand.

“Of course, and… did you have a pleasant conversation with your new companion?” Solution giggled wickedly and Nua furrowed her brow.

“Actually yes, I think Yersin and I will get along marvelously but…” Nua began.

“Yersin?” Solution asked, cockeyed.

“He called himself ‘Orb of Death’ but he’s not an orb, and that is far too cumbersome, so he’s Yersin, now.” Nua explained matter of factly.

“Oh, well whatever, so you two will get along, I kind of had a feeling you might, that’s why I suggested you for the prototype.” Solution’s inhuman smile was visible only to Nua, and that only in part, but she didn’t have to see it to know it was there.

“Fine, but Teacher, you could have at least told me I was getting a… cohabitant.” Nua said with some small annoyance.

Solution shook her head, “Nope, much more fun this way, though I wish I’d gotten to see your face when he started blathering to you.”

“It’s alright, like I said, and he said, we serve the same god. That might as well make us siblings, don’t worry, I’ve got a ‘handle’ on this.” Nua said with a laugh at her own joke.

Solution frowned, “Puns are the most evil form of humor, I’m proud of you for managing it… but… save it for Yersin. I hate puns.”

“Hmpf,” Nua pouted, “Ever since I became a priestess, I’ve barely ever been able to get anyone to laugh at my jokes. It’s so frustrating.”

“And ‘that’ is funny.” Solution said with a laugh at Nua’s expense, as they rode further and further north.

It was a strangely friendly silence between herself and her Teacher, but it was one Nua heartily enjoyed. When they finally made camp that night intending to arrive at the next village the following morning, she set her orders quickly. “Two sentries per side, torches pitched every twenty feet in a staggered line.” Nua gave the order from atop her horse, only for them to look up at her dumbly.

“What, Captain?” Vargas asked, scratching his head.

“What didn’t you understand?” Nua asked patiently, trying not to let her annoyance show by the tension in her hands on the reins.

“Well, we understood ‘sentries’ but why all the torches?” Vargas looked dumbfounded.

“Do you want to know I’m coming to kill you from a hundred feet away, or when my knife is already up your ass, Sergeant?” Nua asked archly. He looked pale for a moment, and she explained, “You don’t have night vision, so you need light, and it is a whole helluva lot easier to see ‘into light’ than ‘out of it’. So set the torches at a distance and look that way.”

“Ooooohhhhh.” There was a collective groan of understanding out of the city dwellers she’d picked up.

“You realize that when I get back with you, you’re going to be working sixteen hours per day with Lymestra and Orcis… well as long as they’ll take pay for that many hours. Prepare to be tired. Dangerous. But tired.” Nua stared down at them with expressionless eyes.

They didn’t groan or question it, but rather got their camp established with relative competence at least, and when the sun set, Nua lay beside Solution completely at ease and starting to drift off.

Solution looked at the smiling, happy elf beside her whose eyelids were already drifting closed, and she rolled over on her side to stare at her.

Nua saw the wide eyes looking at her, blue reflected back to blue from inches away. Solution had propped her head up on her arm, elbow on the ground, and looked at Nua in silence. “Teacher? Is something wrong?” Nua asked with a yawn.

“Why are you so comfortable with me?” Solution asked. “You haven’t forgotten that I’m a monster, right?”

Nua yawned again and smacked her lips, “No, Teacher, I couldn’t forget that if I wanted to.”

“Right, I ate your hand, I’ve burned your flesh with my dissolving fluids, I ripped apart your conscience to make you torture a woman in exchange for the life of a man who died anyway. And if you die out here, I’ll take up the prototype hand, eat your corpse, and go home like it’s just any other day.” Solution watched for a change on Nua’s face, but none came.

“So?” The demon woman asked finally as the silence stretched.

“So what, Teacher?” Nua asked indifferently.

“So all that stuff I just said.” Solution looked at her with a brimming expectation.

Nua stretched out and looked over at her Teacher, and imitated Solution’s posture. “Alright, fine, you really want to know why I can be so comfortable lying next to you? Why I’m comfortable with your hands on me, knowing what they can do and have done, and may well do again?”

“I’m asking, aren’t I?” Solution demanded with piqued interest. “You’re not… in love with me or anything, are you? Because that, student of mine, is a bad idea. I’ll never love you, or anyone else not from my home. Some of my sisters have, but never me.”

Nua laughed, “No, definitely not, though if you found me attractive…” She snickered and waved away the joke when Solution just stared at her.

“Ahem, well, it’s simple, you’re just not that bad.” Nua said bluntly.

“You can’t be serious.” Solution replied with consternation.

Nua nodded, “It’s a bit relative I guess. Aalon got me pregnant, beat me, then sold me. Hodge had me tortured after I fell in love with him enough that I went to bed with him willingly. Raymond became a savage killer and he betrayed his country. The Dark Savior burned an entire city because of six agents in hiding, and killed more people than the demon emperor. Her divine father wiped out entire armies to make a point. Yes, you’ve done some… painful things to me.” Nua paused and smiled adoringly, widely enough that it was almost a mockery of Solution’s inhumanly wide grin, and touched her left forefinger to Solution’s nose. “But… everything you ever did to hurt me, made me stronger. You never tortured me just to make yourself happy. You ate my hand, and gave me power and support. You beat me in training, but it turned me into a skilled assassin. You twisted my soul to torture a woman in revenge, but I asked for the revenge. You kept your bargain over Raymond, it wasn’t you betraying me that got him killed.”

Nua shook her head vigorously. “I know you can’t love me, it’s fine, but I revere you as my Teacher, who has done more good to me through her evil, than any of thousands of humans who called themselves ‘good’. You burned fear out of me, you burned weakness out of me. You taught me to kill and between you and that foolish dead man I love, that demon in human skin, gave me back my life. Maybe I’m different than I would have been…” Nua suddenly leaned forward, and pressed her lips to Solutions for a brief moment, savoring the flavor that matched her exotic, feminine scent, and then pulled herself away while her Teacher stared at her silently.

A fierce snarl came over Nua’s face and her teeth bared like a wild beasts, “But I’m nobody’s fucking prey. And I’ll never let anyone hurt me again… except maybe you, because everytime that happens… I’m better for it. So… yes, Teacher, I will always be comfortable next to you. I’ll always lay next to you at ease." Nua rolled onto her belly, and bared her scar riddled back. "Everything I am, you’ve already touched or shaped. If the day comes that you eat me… because I died, because I failed, because you just want to… that’s OK too. I already owe you my life. I don’t care what you see, what you touch, or how you touch it. It’s a fair trade, for getting to become who I have, and who I am still turning into.”

She folded her arms on the ground and rested her cheek on it so that she was looking at her Teacher again. “Do what you want to me, sorry if I surprised you with that kiss, Teacher, but hey, you tasted me first, and by the way, you’re delicious too, when not melting me!” She admonished the curly blonde demon and put her hand on the arm that could dissolve her in seconds or weaks. “But no matter what, I’m fine with it, because of you, there’s nothing left to fear. If you ever really want my life, all I ask is that you let me make you proud of me first. And… if you can, let me see Raymond alive again. Any other questions, Teacher? I really am tired.” She yawned again and started to drift off as Solution’s twisted smile formed over her.

“I really did do a number on you, didn’t I, little elf?” She whispered as she looked over her slumbering student. She then touched her lips, “My… but she really does taste fantastic. Maybe I should ask our Lord to make another hand for her so I can have an excuse to eat her other one.” She giggled at the thought of her student’s agony, and what havoc she’d wreak if she had two such instruments.

Solution lay back down, and drifted off to sleep, feeling her student’s arm come over her and draw her close again, she relaxed and let it happen, before she gave in to her own desire for rest.

‘Well, we can talk again, can’t we?’ Yersin said patiently.

‘Wait, am I dreaming? Why is everything black?’ Nua asked as she tried to look around and even her elf eyes could not pierce the veil of shadow around her.

‘Yes, we’re dreaming, or rather, you’re dreaming. I wanted to go over something with you that is quite vexing.’ Yersin replied, and Nua attempted to make some kind of mental bow in her dream.

‘Proceed.’ She finally said, unsure if her bow was successful or not.

I seem to be unable to dominate your mind.’ Yersin said it as if he were scolding her, and Nua immediately folded her arms, or thought she did.

‘Have you been ‘trying’ to do that? Don’t do that, that’s very bad manners, I mean you’re part of ‘my’ hand. I’m not going to put you in dirty places on people except when killing them, keep your greedy mental domination games to yourself!” Nua said sharply and pursed her lips.

‘Well… that was the last way I ever expected you to say that… but yes, I have been trying and failing. Usually I would use fear but…’ It trailed off.

‘Right, Teacher’s work. I don’t have any fear left. You can’t scare me, Yersin. I’ll accept you as a partner, a comrade, even a companion as I carve my way through living people to take power. I want it. I’ll have it. But power isn’t to just be had for the asking, it has to be seized in some way, or well deserved in some manner. And that ‘some manner’ usually means killing. Keep faith with me, and we’ll kill together for the next thousand years, and when I’m gone… another will have you. And then you can start over.’ Nua’s words were honey sweet to Yersin and they both knew it.

‘What do you want of me?’ Yersin asked with a malevolent, but compliant voice.

‘To know how best to use you.’ Nua answered bluntly.

‘Simple. Kill. End lives of any race, even beasts if you have no other option. From them I will draw negative mana, I will then store it in here. This space you’re in is empty because there is no negative mana to be had. But inside here, while you dream, you can enter my world, and I can use mana to create, the way a carpenter shapes wood into furniture or other things.. The wood isn’t gone, just reshaped into something else. But you can draw on that mana I’ve taken from death as well. I can summon undead as powerful as skeletal dragons if you feed me enough, raise undead from existing corpses, and I can also heal powerful undead, or, you if you’re evil.’ Yersin explained his usefulness, and Nua didn’t doubt there was a smile coming over her face.

‘That… is great. I can hardly wait to feed you, Yersin. But… try to dominate or corrupt my mind again… and I’ll board a ship and throw you into the deepest part of the deepest ocean and you can spend the next twenty thousand years watching fish swim. I’ll be your partner, but I’m nobody’s slave. Do we understand each other?’ Nua asked with gentle sincerity.

‘It’s a deal.’ Yersin answered, ‘I cannot wait to see what you feed me.’

‘I won’t just feed you, I’ll stuff you full to bursting!’ Nua said, then laughed in her sleep as she cuddled against her Teacher, and drifted into an even deeper slumber.

Karlo stood in line at the treasury house with the platinum coin in his hand, his fist was clenched tightly around it, so tight that the milled ridges dug into his flesh. ‘Lady Kaiji…’ He thought sadly, his lips pursed together with the corners down into a frown. He stepped forward, it was like a long, slow march as people deposited or withdrew coins from their accounts. The sound of every footstep felt as loud as last night’s thunder, and the span of time between each step, though only seconds to a minute, felt like a day. The space from step to step, felt like inches, while the space from where he stood to the front, seemed the length of a continent.

Still, Karlo kept his agitation under wraps and tried not to think of what might be happening to her under the rule of her mistress and that monster that had held him fast. ‘Just do what they say, Lady Kaiji maybe a hostage… of sorts. But there were no marks on her, that you know, you saw almost every inch of her… several times.’ He swallowed at that memory, ‘She’s so… beautiful. I can’t help it if, well if my body responds to that, can I?’ He wondered, and he felt a slight push at his back.

He snapped back to reality and lifted his head. “Oh. Sorry.” He replied and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he realized he was at the front of the line. He put the coin on the counter and slid it over.

The response, was that the wood elf behind the counter put both hands on the counter and stood up slowly. “Excuse me…” She said with a bowing of her head. Her ears were twitching wildly as she rushed over to a back room and flung the door open. “Sir… another one.” He heard her say.

He saw a stooped, old human stand up from behind a desk, and catching eyes, the old man waved him to the back. The stares Karlo got as he moved out of line and circled to the back counter were ugly ones, but with no help for it, he did so, putting as much pep and dignity into his step as he could manage.

The elf bowed to him again, and returned to her place at the counter. The old man, who wore rich golden clothing that flowed around him so much that Karlo wondered how he walked without tripping himself up, had a mostly bald head and a wrinkled face. However his green eyes might as well have mirrored the greed in his soul or the sharpness of a knife. “Please, be seated master…?

“Karlo, Karlo Daki.” Karlo replied politely as he sat down opposite the old man. The elder gentlemen laid down the coin between them as he reclaimed his own seat.

“Do you not know what this is about?” The old man’s face formed a little smile, he seemed almost ‘amused’ by the confusion writ large over Karlo’s face.

“Well, the platinum coin, of course. But… I’m just here to deposit some of it and get change for the rest.” Karlo replied, “I mean, I know it’s a large denomination but…”

He stopped talking when the old man started laughing. “My boy, my boy you have no idea. We have a very serious problem.”

Karlo swallowed. “What?”

“The platinum is completely pure, no mixing of metals, do you understand?” The old man asked.

“Ah, well I know ‘what’ that means, but not ‘what’ that means, if you take my meaning.” Karlo scratched his head, and the old man began rapping his fingers on the desk.

“I spoke with the minister of finance and trade this morning, he had the coins melted, that’s how we know. The ‘gold’ the woman has been passing around is twice the gradient we normally use, and is also pure. What this means… well how to put this? The stronger the alcohol, the drunker you get, and the less it takes, right?” The old man said patiently, drawing a comprehending nod from Karlo.

“It’s the same principle with money, we mix metals in to reduce the purity so we don’t have to use as much of the primary metal, no gold coin of this kingdom is likely to be ‘pure gold’ it will have tin or copper or other substances to thin it out. It reduces the value to something manageable and keeps the available supply of gold up. These… have none of that. The gold is pure gold, the platinum is pure platinum and they’re both far thicker than any currency we’ve ever seen. Ours are barely larger than flakes, slightly thicker than the nail of your finger, these are one fourth the thickness of a finger tip.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Karlo replied, “Why is this important?”

“As I just wrote to the minister this morning, if these flow in too great a quantity, they’ll destabilize our whole economy. Simply put, it became our official policy today to ‘not’ make change for these. You can deposit it and we’ll register an equivalent value, but for the foreseeable future, until the Prince is properly briefed and we know how many coins like these to expect, there is a freeze on withdrawals over a given sum. My boy, the real value of these things is such that a single one could buy a quarter bowshot length of land and build a good house on it fit for a tradesman’s family.” The old man’s voice was agitated and his body started to get a case of the shakes.

“Now, I must ask you… how did you come into possession of it, and do you expect to get more?” The old man asked, but Karlo only heard a ringing in his own ears.

His mouth opened and closed for what felt like minutes while the old man seemed to take his reaction relatively in stride, allowing it to play out in front of him and sitting with shakes of his own until Karlo got hold of himself.

“OK ah, well, you know already about the woman who is throwing these out like coppers, I’m her… personal servant, at the hotel she’s now staying at. This was given to me by her… to use for her own purposes, errands and the like, while she’s away. I assist L- ah, her slaves.” Karlo replied uncomfortably under the sharp old banker’s eye.

“I see, well I’ll make an exception and change ‘this one’ for you, just this once. Believe me, you won’t need me to do it again, but… tell me, do you know anything about her, or where she comes from?” The banker asked with sudden interest. “You did say you serve her personally… do you know why she hasn’t chosen to open an account with us yet? How many of those coins does she have?”

The questions came fast as wild horses on the plains, and Karlo told him what little he could, concluding by saying, “I don’t know much more but… I know someone I can ask. One of her slaves, I’m supposed to go there tonight after I finish my errands for the day, I can ask questions, if you like.”

“Can you?” The banker asked hopefully. “I’d be grateful for any information that might help us to build the… appropriate relationship, with this visitor to our wonderful city.”

Karlo leaned forward as he sensed the opportunity. “I can… for the right price.”

“Very good, my boy… now you’re speaking my language.” The old man said with a clever smile turning up at the right half of his lips, and he extended a hand across the table, which Karlo took.

“Whether it be a long relationship or a short one, may we both benefit, as the stars desire.” The stooped elderly man said enthusiastically.

“May we indeed, now about this coin.” Karlo gestured to the object of what would soon become citywide consternation when word got out.

“Yes of course… but again, under no circumstances reveal that I changed this for you, so far, people think it’s only about twice as valuable, when the true worth comes out, everybody who used them will come demanding proper compensation for their loss since they inevitably got short changed by a bowshot. Everybody who has one will want to deposit it, and probably, like you, want local currency in return. Currency we don’t have. We run out of currency, we’ll run into problems.” The old man swallowed hard as he got out of his seat, went to a small safe sitting in the corner, and began tossing gold coins into a pouch.

Karlo walked out ten minutes later with disbelief in the reality of his new world, carved into his soul. ‘This is… what it is in our gold… she paid multiples of those platinums for Kaiji… how… how can I ever get up enough money to buy her freedom? What the hell do I do about this?!’ He wondered, and had still found no answers by the time he returned to the hotel.