They made camp a few miles away from the valley where they’d met the goddess, Aja, but neither Abby nor Zeke were comfortable enough to completely let down their guard. However, it was extremely dangerous to travel the mountains at night, so they’d been forced to acknowledge the need to settle in. For his part, Pudge seemed completely at ease to the point where he radiated a sense of contentment. Abby hated him a little bit for that.

The meeting with Aja had been discomforting, and Abby felt completely wrung out, like she’d been traveling hard for days without rest. On top of that, her head was pounding, her stomach was still twisting itself into knots, and her skin felt raw and inordinately sensitive. Even the slightest breeze was enough to set it alight with pain. The only comfort came from the fact that Zeke, for all his inflated stats, was in a similar condition. She didn’t take pleasure in his pain; rather, she saw it as a confirmation that her issues weren’t the result of her own weakness.

In addition, the encounter had left her feeling small, insignificant, and alone. Having Zeke there beside her helped with the last of those, but only time away from that monstrously powerful goddess would heal the first two.

After Zeke had summoned the cottage, Abby utilized her skill, [Makeshift Camp]. In a lot of ways, it was redundant. The cottage itself was more than enough to dissuade monsters from bothering them during the night. However, the run-in with the thugs sent by the assassin’s guild had reaffirmed its necessity. If she’d used it that night, she would have been able to hinder their attackers enough that the encounter would have lost much of its danger. The barrier that came with it would have prevented that first crossbow shot, which would have in turn given Zeke and Abby ample time to meet the attack.

She shook her head. Regrets were pointless. All that mattered was that she learned from her mistakes. And she had. Never would she make a camp without her skill again. The stakes were too high for her to do otherwise.

Abby settled into one of the rocking chairs on the porch with a sigh. Glancing in Zeke’s direction, she said, “Well, that happened, huh?”

They hadn’t spoken much during the journey out of the valley, and that trend had continued as they had put more distance between themselves and where they’d met the goddess. Both had been lost in thought, shaken, and in no mood to verbalize what they’d been feeling. But they needed to discuss it, if for no other reason than to make a plan for how they might complete the quest they had been given.

Zeke snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess it did.”

“Are you going to say ‘I told you so’? Because if you are…”

He turned to face her, asking, “So, you believe me now? About Oberon and everything?”

“I didn’t…well…I mostly believed you before,” she answered. “It’s just that…”

“I know,” Zeke cut in. “It probably made me sound crazy or something. I get it. But now that you know, does it change anything?”

“It changes everything.”

“How so?” he asked. “My plans are the same. You’d already agreed to go with me. So, we just keep going, right? We level to twenty-five, figure out how to move on to the next plane, and then we go.”

“That quest,” Abby said. “We need to complete it.”

That wasn’t preference or hyperbole, either. Abby felt a fundamental need to complete the goddess’ quest. It wasn’t quite as necessary as eating or breathing, but she had a feeling that if she tried to ignore it, bad things would happen. Not that she wouldn’t have pursued it anyway; that kind of reward was unprecedented to the point that she’d never even heard of anyone progressing past G-Grade in their racial evolution. It was the sort of opportunity that a person simply couldn’t ignore.

“You feel it, too, huh?” Zeke asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s like a needle in my brain. We have to do it. I just wish I had any idea how to go about it.”

“I…I can help with that,” Abby said. “With some of it, at least.”

“Which parts?” he asked.

Abby hesitated. She knew where some of the quest objectives could be found, at least generally speaking. One of them was reasonably close, though getting it would involve an incredible amount of danger. However, that wasn’t surprising, given the nature of the reward.

“Frost giants – or Jotuns – are northwest of here,” she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder and pointing deeper into the mountain range. Zeke had summoned his cottage facing back the way they’d already come. “They have a city somewhere in that direction, though I don’t really know anybody who’s been there.”

“Are they dangerous?” Zeke asked.

Abby barked a harsh laugh. “Everything up here is dangerous,” she said. “That’s why that other expedition didn’t go around like this. They’d rather go through an undead-infested forest than go through these mountains. So yes, they’re dangerous. I’ve never seen one, and I don’t personally know anyone who’s ever fought them, but…well, just trust me.”

She’d made a habit of studying the different monster types at the Menagerie in Beacon, so Abby knew at least a little about what they could expect if they wanted to acquire the quest item from the Jotuns.

“They’re stronger than the drachnids,” she said. “Most everything in these mountains is. There are goblins, caprids, giants, thunderbirds – the list goes on and on. I’ve even heard about cave systems that go on for miles and miles. There’s no telling what’s down there.”

Zeke frowned. “God, I hate caves,” he muttered. “Why does it always have to be caves? The others sound interesting, though.”

Abby couldn’t tell if it was bravado or if Zeke really wanted to fight the strong monsters, but she reasoned that it was probably a bit of both. He was committed to his progression in a way that few others were. Before, it hadn’t really made much sense to Abby. Sure, everyone wanted to get stronger. She’d made a host of poor decisions in that pursuit, and she knew most other adventurers were of a similar mind when it came to balancing risk and reward. But Zeke was built a little differently. Now, after having speaking to the goddess, Abby understood him a little better.

Progression didn’t stop at level twenty-five. There was more. An entire plane of existence where they could continue their quest for power. Knowing that gave meaning to their struggle in a way nothing else could have. More than that, though, it made her current world seem incredibly small and nearly claustrophobic.

“Sometimes, I think you’re a little insane,” she said.

He shrugged. “Me too,” he agreed. “But seriously – we’re stronger now, right? I got fifteen, and you evolved your race. We can take more powerful monsters.”

“It’s not as if we have much choice,” Abby said. “Like I said before, that quest pulls on me like nothing I’ve ever felt before. If we try to ignore it…”

“It would be bad,” Zeke stated. It wasn’t a guess, but rather an irrefutable fact. Neither of them knew exactly what would happen, just that it would be inadvisable to ignore the goddess’s quest. “What about the other stuff? You said you know where to find some of them?”

“I’m not sure about the warlock’s soul bit,” she said. “No idea where we could find that. I’m not even sure what a warlock even is. Giants are strong, though. Even the ones that aren’t elites or bosses, they’re far stronger than adventurers like us. Usually, people just leave them alone. So, it’s pretty safe to assume that the others are on at least the same tier.”

“Silas might have mentioned something about them,” he said. “Nobody fights them, though?”

“It’s not worth it,” she stated. “You get a lot more experience from killing them than you would for a normal monster their level, but it’s exponentially more difficult. I’ve heard that even the normal frost giants are on par with other elites, but even that’s not a fair comparison. They’re extremely strong and tougher than –”

“I get it,” Zeke said, his brow furrowed. “What about the other one? The wyrm?”

“In the Red Wastes,” she said. “South, almost all the way across the main island. There’s supposed to be a clutch of wyrms that live in a series of caves near the Lake of Flames.”

“Again with the caves…and what are they? How strong?” he asked.

Abby sighed. The last thing she wanted was to pick a fight with a wyrm. Frost giants and warlocks were one thing, but Wyrms were on an entirely different level. She’d fought their lesser, distantly related cousins, the wyverns that roosted near The Ashen Planes, and that experience had been traumatizing enough that she never wanted to even see another dragonkin.

“You know dragons, right? From stories on Earth,” she said. Zeke nodded in confirmation. She went on, “Well, wyrms are like them, but without the wings. They’re huge reptiles that breathe fire and live in caves. Think the size of a school bus, and you’d be close.”

“You ever fight one?”

Abby’s jaw nearly dropped, and it took her a moment to remember just how little Zeke actually knew about the Radiant Isles. Aside from the trolls, she’d been with him every step of the way, and he had precious little experience with the new world. More than some, certainly, but not nearly as much as his level might indicate.

“Nobody fights wyrms,” she said. “Most people avoid the frost giants, but there are still groups who go up there. They fight with other monsters, too. But nothing attacks the wyrms of the Red Wastes. Nothing. When they hunt, people hide. Monsters scatter. Everything runs. They are this world’s apex predator. And I have to assume that the Essence of a Flame Warden would be just as difficult to obtain, even if we can figure out where to get it. This quest is probably going to get us killed.”

Zeke leaned back in his chair, and for a moment, he was lost in thought. After a few seconds, he let out a sigh. “Well, Aja didn’t say it would be easy, right?” he said. “Nothing worthwhile ever is. We’ll just have to make it work. So, what’s the plan of attack?”

Abby bit off a retort, instead choosing to ask a question, “Do we still care about saving the princess?”

He looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “Of course,” he said. “I told Lady Constance I would try, and I don’t intend to go back on my promise.”

“So, instead of one impossibly dangerous quest, we’ve now got two,” Abby said. “And really, it’s more than that. Finding and collecting each of those items for the goddess’s quest probably counts as its own separate mission.”

“At least we won’t lack direction,” Zeke replied with a half-smile. “C’mon. Look at this as a golden opportunity. Nobody else gets a chance like this, right? Sure, it’ll be difficult, but we’ve done difficult before, haven’t we? Between us, we can make this work. I know it.”

“Wish I had your confidence,” Abby muttered. “Fine. Okay, so I think we should hit the Micayne Estate first. If we can’t do that, we don’t have any business trying to do Aja’s quest. Once we’ve saved the princess –”

“She’s not a princess, remember?”

“Whatever,” Abby said, rolling her eyes. “Once we’ve saved Lady Constance’s daughter, we’ll –”

“That’s kind of a mouthful,” Zeke interrupted again. “Princess is probably better. Yeah – let’s go with that.”

Abby’s jaw flexed as she ground her teeth together in frustration. “It doesn’t matter what we call her,” she said, her tone cutting through the air like a knife. For a second, Zeke looked like he was going to respond, but he thought better of it. “Once we’ve saved the girl, we can move to the giants. They’re probably the easiest of the four pieces. And after that, I guess we’re supposed to kill a goddamn wyrm.”

“Along the way, we probably need to find out what we can about warlocks and flame wardens, too,” Zeke added. “Because I have no clue what either of them are supposed to be.”

“Add ‘find a way to the next plane’ to the list, too,” Abby said.

Zeke smiled. “Probably a good idea,” he acknowledged. “Good. We’ve got a plan, now. That’ll make things easier.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “Yeah – until everything goes sideways and we end up going off on some other tangent,” she countered. “Remember, there’s every chance we’re going to run into the Crystal Spiders again.”

She left unsaid that it was almost guaranteed. Their seat of power was located within the largest city in the Red Wastes, which was the last definite stop on their hastily made, monster-slaying itinerary. So, even if they survived the sort of encounters any sane man or woman would go out of their way to avoid, they still had to deal with the powerful assassin’s guild. Abby’s shoulders slumped as the weight of it all came crashing down on her.

“We can do this,” Zeke said, reaching out to reassuringly grip her forearm. Abby almost jerked away at the unexpected touch. “We might have to get stronger, but that’s okay, right? We were going to do that anyway.”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “I guess you’re right.”

With Zeke’s hand on her arm, Abby found her mind wandering to all the possibilities that their partnership entailed. They had proven to be an effective fighting force, and though they were still growing as a team, their various abilities complemented one another. But more than that, they’d begun to develop a friendship as well.

And perhaps something more.

But Abby couldn’t stop herself from thinking that going down that road would be taking advantage of Zeke. Emotionally speaking, he was a damaged man. Two years of isolation would do that to anyone, even if you didn’t consider how bloodthirsty he’d had to become just to survive. It had left scars.

Zeke had grown to trust her, and she trusted him as well. Probably more than she’d trusted anyone since being reborn into the new world. Maybe more than anyone from her old life, either. However, that trust came with a responsibility. If she made the move a part of her desperately wanted to make, and then it backfired, it would probably leave both of them broken. It was a complication neither of them needed right now.

She knew that.

So, she was surprised when her hand found his, squeezing it tightly. She was even more surprised when she stood up and dragged him to his feet. But by the time she silently led him into the cottage and to the bedroom she’d claimed for herself, her doubts had been discarded, replaced by need.

“Are you sure?” Zeke asked, looking down on her. It was a moment that had been building for months, maybe since that very first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

Abby stepped close, her hand on his broad chest. She hadn’t been close to anyone in a long time, and in the wake of their encounter with the goddess, she desperately wanted to feel the comfort and safety of losing herself in someone else’s arms. Zeke needed it, too. So, despite her reservations, she nodded, saying, “I am.”

Then, he leaned down, and his lips found hers. After that, her doubts faded away into nothingness, replaced by the need of the moment.