We walked out of the rubble-strewn area of Chicago where the dome shield had covered. The emitter was now safely tucked into my storage ring. I had to find a clear spot to call back the fortress for it to land.

“So,” Martin said, “I see your hand grew back, was that because you killed the guy that cut it off?”

I gave him a confused look before I remembered I had my new prosthetic on. “No,” I chuckled, deactivating the meld runes and pulling the hand away.

Melding the mithril alloy hand with my skin, nerves, and bones was not a pleasant experience but it was less painful than getting a hand cut off.

I handed him the hand so he could admire the workmanship. It had cost me forty thousand credits to get it made by a master craftsman. And even then that was only for an unenchanted hunk of metal that could mimic all of the movements of a normal hand and wrist. The hand looked to be made of tiny scales and I had no clue how the crafter had assembled it but it was a thing of beauty.

It also incorporated the six rails that extended from within the palm. Those are what I had spent the majority of time carving my runes into. The rest of the runes allowed my mana to flow through the device to activate it like my real hand, then there was the Odin rune again, but this time I had connected it to a rune tattooed near my stump. When the lines of the knots met the runes activated covering the hand with the false image of my skin. It also activated the other runes that melded the two together. Once the process was complete I no longer had to run a trickle of mana to the hand. Unless I wanted to use it.

I hadn’t wanted to use it in the fight if I could help it but I thought I might need the additional dexterity the hand could provide. Turns out there was a learning curve with the device and I was glad I had only needed to activate the hidden mana cannon. The weapon wasn’t nearly as powerful as the cobbled-together one I had created before but it was more than enough.

“Wow,” Martin said, whistling in appreciation as he inspected the hand. “So this is what you were working on?”

Paul’s Left Hand

Quality: Masterwork

Armor: 42

Slashing resistance: 80%

Stabbing resistance: 90%

Blunt resistance: 60%

Cold resistance: 80%

Heat resistance: 60%

Magic resistance: 5%

Lightning resistance: -25%

This item was crafted by a master to be a fully functional replacement for a missing limb. Runes have been added by an advanced rune crafter to give life to this item. Contains a chargeable mana cannon. Item has the ability to self-repair given time. This item is soul bonded to Paul Fuller and cannot be used by another.

I did give up some utility by using this hand over my old one, not that my old one was in any condition to be used. The bonuses on the new hand more than made up for it. It was too bad the stats only applied to the hand itself. I would need to be careful of lightning but my Elemental Defence negated most of that downside.

Martin handed the hand back to me as I reattached it with a grimace. I flexed the fingers woodenly, still getting used to the odd feeling. There was some minor damage on it from my reckless use of the cannon at close range but I could already see the bits of metal reforming. Once my camouflage covered it up it looked like a normal hand and I couldn’t tell it was damaged.

Martin whistled again. “I bet you spent a good chunk on that. Did you do all the runes up yourself?”

“Yup, it took forever and was a pain in the ass.”

“You know I might have to get you to make me a weapon. The pistol is nice but at our level, it is getting less and less useful as it just can't deal the damage necessary.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Were going to visit some friends and there is a Bazaar in the city. How does a demonic staff sound?”

Martin chuckled. “Sounds fantastic. Fear the satanic Martin and his demonic minions!” he yelled, throwing his arms into the air.

I laughed while Fiona and Ska looked at us like we had lost our minds.

The fortress touched down with a crunch, settling on the rubble pile that had once been a building. We all climbed about, exhaustion getting to us. Before I shut the door I activated the explosives.

There were three distant booms followed by a cloud of dust as the building came crashing down a few blocks away.

I gave the city one last look, closing the door and hoping I would never have to return to this pit of despair.

***

We slowly floated across Lake Superior, heading north. I wasn’t in any hurry to return to my old home and I needed some time to think and unwind.

Fiona plopped into the chair to the side, surprising me and pulling me from my contemplation. It wasn’t surprising that she was in here, but that she was in her … I want to say mortal form, human form… I didn’t really know.

“So,” I said, waving my arm at her, “how often can you do this?”

It had been a few hours since we had left Chicago and I knew at some point she had changed back into her spectral form to heal.

“Two hours a day, for now.”

“Oh… so you can tell it will increase?”

She shrugged, “it’s a strange sense I get. It feels like my humanity is slowly returning.”

“That’s good though, right?”

She looked uncertain. “I- I don’t know. Even now, I don’t feel like I did back when I was alive. My skills from back then are gone, but I still have my skill with a sword.”

I guess it made sense, she wasn’t the same class as she had been back then. Identify still showed her as a Spectral Companion, even in this form.

“Does it matter? You are you, no matter what your skills say.”

“I guess not, but some part of me expected them to return and when they didn’t I felt a bit lost.”

The conversation went on for a bit before I changed the subject.

“I know I’m interesting and all but how come you aren’t spending your “uptime” with Martin?”

Her face turned beet red and I realized, I hadn’t seen her or Martin since we left Chicago a good hour before she came to chat. I choked out a laugh, forgetting that she had come from a world much more chaste than ours. Sure she had picked up some of our mannerisms along the way but she was still a shy maiden at heart.

She slapped me across the shoulder.

I gave her my sternest voice. “Now young lady is that any way to act. My god, what would your paramour think if he saw you acting like a brute?”

She just rolled her eyes and got up, “I’m going to go now.”

“Say hi to Martin for me,” I added with a wave. I heard her groan as she left. It felt good to tease her for a change. It was about time she got a taste of her own medicine for playing tricks on me all this time.

***

The trip was uneventful. We passed the remains of Milwaukee, it smelled of death and decay even far out over the water. Not a single thing moved within the ruins of the town. After that, I cut the fortress back overland. I could see the massive forest of the Kin and the grassy zone that separated the halves. I wondered if Klara was still alive. I would go and say hi but I had no idea where their city was located. All I could see were trees.

Dragons Rend came into sight within a few hours and from there I just followed the river north.

Through the remote viewer, I had spotted plenty of life. I saw the unmistakable signs of Orc hunters. I hadn’t expected to see them this far south but perhaps they had moved north from that other tribe.

There were no human settlements as far as I could see. This wasn’t a complete surprise, it had been what… seven, no eight months since I had been here. God, it felt like a lifetime ago. In most cases, it might as well have been. I was a different person than I was back then. Back then I thought I was hot shit, able to take on any opponent and get away. How fucking wrong and stupid I had been. That ignorance had cost my only companion her life. Even though she was back it still made me regret many of my choices.

Ska and Martin had joined me in the control room as we got closer. They could all watch the viewer through their own eyes, it kind of gave a weird out-of-body experience. But you quickly got used to it. Fiona had returned to her spirit form, having exhausted her time as a human. Martin said she wanted some alone time and she had moved to the roof.

I understood, I wouldn’t feel all that good about returning to the scene of my death either.

The town came into view in the distance. Even from here, I could see it had changed significantly since I had last been here. Large stone walls now sprouted up along the old highway, surrounding the entire town as far as I could see. I knew if the walls continued along the highway, a large section of town would be left exposed but perhaps they had no choice.

I knew the fight with the Black Dragon had decimated a large chunk of the fighting forces within the city. Hell, I didn’t even know if Earth humans still controlled the city. The picture became clearer as we neared the city wall. Our cloak was hiding us from view. I could clearly see humans along the walls but the flag they were flying definitely wasn’t one I had seen before.

It wasn’t until Fiona re-entered that we knew what we were dealing with.

“It’s the flag of the Asharon Kingdom,” she growled.

I had to think back on that one, “… wait, isn’t that your kingdom’s flag?”

She nodded.

“I thought they could only afford to send one person through the portal.”

“It appears they found the funding necessary or they flat out lied to me.”

“Any idea of what type of reception we can expect?”

She shook her head. I wasn’t surprised. I looked at the many many mana cannons that lined the top of the wall and pulled the fortress back and to the west.

“I’m going to put us down north of the city but well outside of these walls. We can reach the town by mount easily enough.”

The others nodded, seeing the same excess of cannons along the wall as I did. I also activated one of my message tokens, sending it off to Frathsar. Hopefully, he would be in town and could reply. I didn’t care that Fiona’s kingdom had annexed the city but I didn’t want a repeat of the incident with the Mohai Council and West Exit if I could avoid it. Frathsar would be instrumental in providing us information on that front… assuming he was around.