“Mea, Mea! There’s a talking box of ice!” Mia called as she came sprinting over just as I’d finished making sure the gobs would stay dead. A talking ice-box sounded delightfully strange, but I wasn’t particularly in the mood considering the sheer volume of work I had waiting for me and my still-ringing ears. Not that such petty concerns mattered to my Mia, as she immediately grabbed my arm and dragged me past several of the goblin buildings to find a cage of some kind.

I expected something of bone and wood and leather, but no, it was far stranger than that. For starters it was made of metal. Mysteriously rust-free perfectly die-cast metal. It even had a very nice brush finish. Why? Even stranger, once I’d taken a look inside later on, I couldn’t find any rivets or weld spots, which meant the bars were threaded or just doweled into place. Even more bizarrely, the whole thing might have been a single piece. Clearly not goblin work, was the inescapable conclusion. The next bit of oddness was the fact that it was coated in ice. Magical ice, from what I could tell. Clearly a secondary defensive measure, though why that had been necessary I didn’t know.

Didn’t care either, aside from the fact that the combination made the whole thing pretty tough to open. In the end I was forced to melt a hole and knock the hinge pins out – actual hinge pins – just to crack the thing open. It was an embarrassingly mundane method, but at least it worked. Unfortunately opening it inflicted a bunch of absolute nobodies on me. No idea what their deal was and no interest either, so I just left them alone. Was kinda hoping I could cash in on them somehow back in town, but even if that proved impossible, I did manage to learn a new Spell. That being the only highlight of my interactions with that bunch, and since I was very much not in the hostess business, I quickly foisted them off on Mia and moved on with the more important things.

Time ticked along busily as I moved back and forth cleaning up the whole camp and managing the food situation. Eventually it was just me and the absolutely delightful task of shelling and disposing of the goblin’s main forces, which I estimated would take most of the night. Mia hadn’t discussed any watch rotations with me, which was an oversight I planned on discussing with her later, but as I had no intention of sleeping it wasn’t really a problem. In fact, the institution of sleep was one I considered to be an absolutely catastrophic waste of time and always had, so I was positively delighted that there was no need for me to sleep ever again if I didn’t want to.

When I realized I was in need of a fourth crematory pit I decided to take a short break to consider what all was left to do. This week’s moon was, when I paused to gaze up at it, still that neptunian blue that was so gorgeous I got lost in it for a bit. It was also quite bright, and shed more than enough light for me to see that I must have been getting rather good at the whole process of collecting goblin materials, given the progress I’d made. Certainly I’d be finished well before dawn, which left me enough time to try a few experiments. Or I could finish the idea I’d had earlier and build a bath to relax quietly in. That had some appeal, particularly since I hadn’t gotten to enjoy one during the earlier prison break escapade the way I’d hoped. It’d also pair well with moon viewing, which only lacked a bit of something inebriating to make for a perfect evening.

As I was musing such things to myself a flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to see a living goblin creeping out of a hut close to the main battlefield where I’d been working. I didn’t think too much of it, just a minor oversight given the scale of what Mia and I had accomplished. I just tossed it into the pile with the rest and moved along. It was when the second one came out of the same hut that I realized something was going on.

I focused on the living gold in my eyes and the shimmering dance of living things all around snapped into view. It was a handy trick, but the effect had a clear range limit so I walked from the battlefield I’d been working in over to the main camp to get a closer look at things. I had some suspicions that would have tremendous impact on my travels with Mia, both immediately and in the longer term. Suspicions that were confirmed by the hazy forms of several goblins in the nearby huts, which had absolutely been empty earlier. It was exactly the kind of strangeness I’d been trying to come to terms with with during my time in this world, because it was so counter to the reality I’d known. Yet there it was, the goblins were respawning.

That realization was a wonderful sort of awful. It meant I could just set up shop and harvest them infinitely, which was amazing. It also meant I would have to, for as long as we were in the area. They were also really boring enemies and didn’t seem to offer much in the way of rewards, so there was just no incentive to taking advantage of the respawn. I might encounter more promising prey in the future, so it was a really great discovery, it was just too bad that it increased my workload dramatically. The start of which was that I needed to report my findings.

“Hey, got a moment?”

“I’m in the middle of some measurements but yeah, I’m good now. What’s up?” The voice of our Patron, exactly like my own, said. I was still riding the high from all the fighting, so we were both in a good mood at the same time, it seemed. It was so unusual I was a little impressed.

“Well, monsters respawn. I’ve just confirmed it.”

“Hm, so it’s like we thought.”

“Yeah. This has to be the result of our work. Open up the way to a place with alternative physics and of course it’ll be turned into a theme park of some kind.”

“No question there. I’m just wondering how we got here, since obviously this all took time to build. Probably a lot of time. Think our remains were preserved somehow and then we were uploaded?” That idea didn’t seem right, for a few reasons. For starters, there was absolutely no one who would have done that for us if they’d known who we were. There had been innumerable hits and bounties and warrants out for our detainment and death, that no one would ever go through the trouble of preserving us. Let alone doing so in such a bizarre fashion. If they didn’t know who we were, then there would have been no reason to bother.

“I’m really curious about why you think that.” I wondered, and not idly. It was such an unlikely idea that the only reason I entertained it was because of the one suggesting it.

“Well, eliminate the impossible and all that, though I guess it could’ve just been pure fluke of some kind. Couldn’t even hazard a guess as to the mechanism if that were the case, though.”

“Huh.” Seemed like we agreed on how unlikely intentional action was, but pure random chance wouldn’t be easy to trace. Not that I had the tools to look into either. Not anymore, anyway.

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Anyway, I’ll add that to my pile of things to do.” Though I didn’t have the tools, the one that did was on the case, and that would have to be good enough. It was a shame, since it seemed interesting, but I’d learn about the results eventually anyway. It was time to refocus on my adventure.

“Cool, that’s good. Listen, I gotta get back to work. Talk to you again.”

“Yeah, same. I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens. Bye now!” Then there was silence in my head again. For all the difference that made, since it was only ever my voice anyway. I heaved a sigh and got back on task.

The first thing was considering my options for handling the respawning issue. I could return to where Mia was sleeping and wall the area off until we were ready to move in the morning. The problem was I’d be leaving behind all the goodies on the battlefield and it just felt like running away. Boring! I could just flatten all the huts, but that would take a significant amount of time and there was no guarantee it would even work. The gobs might pop up out of the holes in the ground where the huts had been. Thankfully, when I thought about my actual objective, a solution made itself clear. I wanted to finish my work without interruption so, that being the case, all I needed to do was disrupt the spawning mechanic.

I took the first hut that had begun spawning as a test case and fitted a plug of dirt over the doorway. Not enough to keep them locked away indefinitely, not by any stretch, but enough to keep them occupied for a day or so. Since I’d be finished before we left in the early dawn hours, that was more than enough time. The reminder about time lead me to think about the order in which the goblins were going to respawn. Since I wanted to protect Mia it was natural to deal with the central cluster first, but considering the order in which I’d dealt with the malodorous creatures I was confident those would be the last ones to summon new occupants.

I made a circle of the camp and closed each of the huts after peeking in to see if there was anything worth looting. Most of them were almost cookie-cutter basic with the exact same furniture and decorations and absolutely nothing of value — other than small caches of the Red Cap mushrooms in each, which I nabbed. Then I reached the middle of the camp where there stood a double sized dugout hut that was clearly different. Probably the home of that annoyingly loud fellow with the axe.

From the first glance it was clear there were all kinds of goodies stashed inside, mounds of armor and weapons, though most of it was obviously taken from fallen adventurers and in dubious condition. A few pieces were clearly different as they had been hung on the wall in the back. Most enticingly of all was a nice big box on a plinth. An actual honest to goodness treasure chest. I’d already taken the home owner’s axe, its armor, and a pendant that it had been wearing, but since that seemed to be all the loot I was going to get from the boss I hadn’t been expecting to find such a jackpot.

When I considered just how much loot there was I couldn’t help but be glad I’d managed to convince our lovely Patron to fix up my pack so that it had infinite weightless storage back when I’d been faced with all the stuff those guards had that I wanted. Most folks would call it cheating, but I knew better. The whole system of limited carry-weight or restrictions on number of items was just artificial difficulty! A total sucker’s game meant to prolong the experience not with content, but with banality, all under the guise of ‘promoting realism.’ That was why circumventing it couldn’t possibly be wrong. With that being the case I just stuffed everything from the piles into my pack, because even if it was junk I figured someone would buy it. That’s usually how things worked anyway. In truth I was just leaving the good stuff to the end, to sweeten the anticipation.

And how sweet it was.

Maybe. Probably. How was I supposed to tell? The stupid colossal idiot refused to give me any way to identify loot! What a total waste of my time. Out on a grand adventure and I couldn’t tell if I was holding a glorious legendary item or someone’s used underwear. Or both! Who knows! Not me. The thought brought that random stick back to mind. Was it a rare spice or literally just a stick? I didn’t know and that bothered me a lot. What was I supposed to do? Actually study, read books, ask around, and learn that kind of thing for myself?

Awful.

Can’t make things too easy for you. I mimicked the giant fool, but with a layer of mockery. An extra thick layer. Doofus deserved it though, not giving me the good stuff. The internal grumbling died away once I’d packed away most of the loot and had gotten close enough to notice the purple sheen on the sword hung up on the back wall. It was seriously pretty! There was a matching shield and dagger that seemed to pair with it, too. Nice. In my bag they went. Except the dagger. Decided to use that right away.

“Oh, what’s this?” I murmured in surprise. There was a little coin purse on a wall-hook that was filled to the brim. “Magic stones?” I wondered to no one at all. Certainly not myself, as I was no expert. They were bigger than the goblin ones I’d been extracting and had a more attractive translucency and color, so they were probably the same type of item. Then it was time. Oh yes. Time for the centerpiece. The chest. Inside was—

A plain leather belt!

“It’s a trash drop!” I hissed into the empty night air as I threw it on the ground.

Whatever.

I decided to give it to Mia, because why not, and sealed the hut before moving on to the next, and the next after that, and so on. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only one with anything worthwhile, so I just started speeding through and barricading every possible spawn location. It took more time than I liked, which left me in just the right kind of mood for mopping up. After all, the huts had been leaking longer than I’d been plugging them, which left some unknown number of nuisances loose and wandering about the camp. Which of course I would have to deal with before I could safely leave Mia alone and return to the main worksite.

Since they were apparently weak to fire, I broke a few pieces off one of the gob huts and built a nice log cabin bonfire. I figured one of two things would happen: either the goblins would stay far away, or they’d come flocking towards it. Either one worked for my purposes, so after setting it alight, I elevated the whole thing on a pillar of earth so it would be visible to the entire clearing. After that I stood nearby and waited but couldn’t help being entranced by the blaze. Fire was such a lovely thing, versatile and beautiful at once, and I’d had so few excuses to get a really big one going in spite of my long life. I got lost staring at it for a time, waiting for the hissing cretins to show up.

When the first one finally did, the chittering hiss and suicidal charge caught me slightly off guard. It was a strange departure from their previous tactics of waiting for any nearby compatriots and advancing cautiously, utilizing the range advantage of their predominantly spear-based armament and the occasional bow. Instead, these ones mostly wielded basic wooden clubs and just launched themselves at me one at a time. They were so laughably easy to deal with that I committed the absolutely unforgivable faux pas of letting down my guard.

“Do you need any help?” I froze solid at the sound of the voice behind me.

I turned slowly to find the little culai girl, who had just scared me half to death. She was standing there staring at the almost knee-deep pile of future stones and horns I’d accumulated. A hissing from the dark announced another addition to the pile, and after dealing with it I was able to give my attention to the person who’d managed to sneak up on me. Not that I could think of anything to say, so we just stood there staring at one another until the next goblin showed up and with a quick jab I tossed it on the heap, too.

“I suppose not,” she said, prompting me to recall that what she’d scared me with was actually a question. One she’d answered for herself, so I took the liberty of letting it stand and simply moving on.

“I finished the bath,” I said. She just gave me a blank stare, so I elaborated. “If you wanted to use it first.” She seemed confused by my offer, though admittedly it was probably a bit strange. After all, I’d missed the normal timing for such things since everyone had gone to bed already, and the next sensible chance would’ve been after everyone had woken in the morning, before we left. But she was awake now and it was likely to get crowded if everyone wanted one in morning, so it made perfect sense to me to take one now. She still didn’t move, so I took a look over at the bath, then back at her, and realized the problem.

“Oh,” silly me. I’d really just built myself an outdoor hot tub and not a lot else. “No towels. I suppose a partition would be nice,” I tapped a finger against my cheek as I thought about it some more. “Need something to change into,” or perhaps a way to do laundry. The clothing she was wearing would probably come clean with a little effort. Maybe a bit of bleach. “Quite the failure. My apologies,” I said with a dip of my head.

I took a quick look around to check if there was anything alive that shouldn’t be before taking a short break to correct my mistakes. The small mage tottered along behind me without a word, needing three strides for every one of mine, and watched as I tore up a few goblin dwellings for materials. With a few poles driven into the dirt and a little earth magic to hold things steady the partitions were done. I cut a hanging that seemed to be made of a rough cotton into strips for towels and then some found some linen that I could fashion into a wrap or robe, but hesitated over what to do next. I had enough skill to sew some rudimentary clothing if I needed to, but I didn’t have any needle or thread. Making those was possible with a little magic and a little work, but it would be a huge pain and honestly, I just didn’t want to.

Washing the clothes seemed smarter, particularly since the goblin cloth I had cut to purpose was horribly filthy, but then it hit me. Even if I could make a pit and fill it with hot water, how was I supposed to properly agitate that? More magic? I didn’t really know the right kind for that. There was the option of doing it manually, but when I pictured myself bent over a washing board I balked. That was never going to happen.

I considered how pale the girl following me was, compared to how pale her clothing was obviously supposed to be, and remembered I’d wanted bleach. Or at least soap. I knew the rudiments of the chemistry needed for those things, as it wasn’t really obscure knowledge and I’d turned my hand to it once when I was young. The relevant caustic agents could be distilled from wood ash, or even electrolysis of regular salt, and sourcing the fats to make soap wouldn’t be that difficult either.

In theory.

But as I thought about the process I started to realize that each step needed a set of tools or reagents or even certain Spells, and those things would need to be synthesized and gathered and learned, all of which would require yet more tools and materials. As I worked backwards up the chain of things I’d need, it struck me just what sort of infrastructure I was really looking at and I decided: nope. Could absolutely not be bothered. If I couldn’t do it immediately with what I had around me in under an hour, it just wasn’t happening.

“Got any soap?” I asked, thinking I might strike it a bit lucky. I mean, adventurers ought to have a cake of the stuff.

Right?

“Um, no?” Wrong. Okay, I was wrong sometimes, but why was I wrong about this? “Soap is for nobility,” she continued, like it was the most obvious thing possible. Which maybe it was, what did I know?

Stupid ridiculous inconceivably backward ringworld! Who would do that? Who would be so colossally wasteful as to make not one, not two, but three ringworlds, and not only that but make them look like absurdly huge trees, and then decide to braid them together? Who would do that? No doubt the same person who put the whole thing around some kind of crazy clearly custom designed green star, which of course didn’t couldn’t possibly sit still and utilize a set of plates or magic to simulate day and night. No, it had to fly through the center of the braided ring, appearing and disappearing in ways that drove both myself and Patron absolutely wild trying to understand it. Oh, and then. And then! No soap. No soap!

So mad.

“Of course it is,” I muttered to literally nobody while pretending not to seethe.

“Why not just use [Purify]?” That perked my ears up. A thing which had become more literal than idiom since I had a pair of absolute windsocks attached to my head.

“Not familiar,” I explained. She nodded and muttered something about nobles that sounded an awful lot like she was reaching conclusions about my origins entirely on her own. Well, not my problem. A stuttering hiss then announced the arrival of something that certainly was, so as it climbed over the piled masses of its brethren I winged it with a fire imbued rock. It was such a nicely timed shot that I ended up laughing to myself about it, but the girl didn’t seem to share my view. Too bad, being of good humor was absolutely a virtue.

“What are you—” She complained as I ushered her into the bath. I didn’t want to waste any more time, so I just decided to get things started. After some back and forth I was able to learn the Spell, and also that the girl had some serious hang-ups about a variety of things regarding privacy, nakedness, and other equally antiquated notions. Well, it just proved that everyone had their own problems and vindicated my complete non-interest in them.

Thankfully there was one curious thing of note to come out of that diversion. [Purify], I was firmly told, was not to be used on people or they would become terribly weak and dependent on it. Since it was a magic ostensibly for sanitizing, rather than cleaning, I took that as an indication of the potential existence of microorganisms, at least by inference. It was yet another mark in favor of this world being somewhere real and not simulated, but whoever added microbiology to what was effectively a playground was evil and twisted. Coming from me, that was saying something.

The moment the culai girl went back to sleep I immediately blasted myself with it, and I only held off that long out of a desire not to be judged or lectured at. I was no longer at the mercy of such whimsical problems as digestive bacteria or immune cells, so why wouldn’t I? Nothing really seemed any different, which I felt slightly mixed about, but it didn’t really matter since I made for a good target to practice on while I got a handle on the new magic.

By the time I was able to confirm that there were no more goblins wandering around, I’d managed to get the knack of it – though it did still take a little more effort than my other Spells. It seemed to fit in some different superordinate category than the elementally-related magic I’d been working before, but that only made sense so I shelved the thought. Since I was busy, that was good enough. Particularly given that I planned on getting more practice by continuing to use it on every surface the goblins had ever touched. Ever.

Nasty things, goblins.

In spite of all the many detours I still managed to finish before Mia woke up, with enough time to enjoy a nice leisurely bath. Unfortunately it was too late to do any moon viewing, since by the time I was able to take a dip it was halfway over the edge of the world and completely invisible from the sunken bath, what with the partitions and the forest and everything in the way. It really was a pity, but I’d have other chances, which would hopefully include a nice stiff drink. Maybe with an even more beautiful moon, since it seemed to change regularly. I could dream, at least.

Still, even without that particular pleasure I was enjoying a quiet moment to myself. The goblin smell had largely abated after my manic spree around the place, the water was perfectly warm, and best of all no one else was awake to bother me.

“Hey. Shortstack,” said the least wanted and most condescending voice in the world, straight into my head. No one to bother me? Clearly I had overstepped myself. Why had I jinxed myself that way when I perfectly well knew what would happen? What always happened.

“Oh my god, what.” What that colossal idiot could want, given the time of day, I simply didn’t even want to imagine. It was absolutely going to be something trivial and unnecessary, and it was going to make me mad.

“You seriously answered to that? What is wrong with you?”

“You! Definitely you are what is wrong!” I truly hated that oversized jerk. “Oh wait, this is one of those turnabout-is-fair-play things ‘cause of what I said before, isn’t it?”

“Obviously, you twit.” I was not remotely in the mood for that kind of repartee. Not that I ever was or would be given who I was talking to. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that the water was warm, and the air was cool, and that life wasn’t all bad.

“So hey, listen,” mm, life wasn’t all bad, mmm, “you need to fess up. You broke something didn’t you?”

“I break a lot of things, what’s it to you?”

“Wow, you’re not even trying to deny it.”

“Why bother? We both know how it is. So again, what’s it to you?” I just wanted the little play-pretend interrogation game over with and to get a little more time to myself before things started moving again. I knew it was too much to ask, but I’d ask it anyway.

“You’re such a joy killer,” the condescending tone eased off a bit. “Look, I don’t actually know either. Apparently something was broken that was linked to that MARIA system thing. I was notified about it earlier and after thinking it over you were the only culprit I could come up with.” That sounded potentially ominous. I would never have thought that something on the scope of a braided ringworld could be broken by someone like me. Then again, I’d been the cause of some wildly cascading problems in the past so maybe it was just a special talent of mine.

“Well, you got me red handed, but what thing specifically? I’ve been on a rampage against the goblins, and there’s a lot that got busted up.” The goblins hadn’t been acting the same since I killed their boss, so maybe that was it. If so, though, that seemed pretty tame all things considered. Though maybe they didn’t understand tactics when they were freshly spawned and had to be taught. It was an interesting thought, at least.

“The notice said it was a cage of some kind—”

“Are you serious?” That cage was the last thing I’d worked on before sinking into the bath. It was such a bizarre anomaly, and the metal seemed valuable, so it was a no-brainer that I’d make off with it. Not to mention it had taken me forever to break down so I could pack it up and take it with me, so there was no way I was giving up on it without a fight.

“Seems like you know which one, then. The best I can tell was that there was something that was supposed to happen, centered around that cage, that now won’t.”

“The goblins had hostages here that Mia and I rescued. If I averted an event involving that, I’m not going to apologize.”

“Not that you would anyway.”

“Not that I would anyway! Absolutely right!”

“So long as we’re clear on that point. It’s not my job to police this stuff, but I do get stuck with notifications about it, so for my sake try and keep the breakage to a minimum alright?”

“Only thing going to happen for your sake is a swift kick in the rear! But, um. Why are you getting notifications about things like that?”

“Well. After our last conversation I was looking into the system a bit more, and now I’m an administrator.”

“Why are— Wait a moment.” I suddenly realized that for all the differences between us, we were likely destined to remain bad a telling stories. “Administrator of what, exactly.”

“MARIA. This place is real, but MARIA isn’t. Well, it is, but only sorta, you know?” I did, but it was still a lousy explanation. Not that I expected better, but it was annoying to be on the receiving end. “Anyway, I’m still digging through all this now that I’ve got authority to do so. I’m sure I’ll have more concrete stuff to say later on, so I guess look forward to that. I just wanted to get in touch about this report I got, so that’s all from me.”

“Wait,” I said, sensing I was about to get cut off. I wasn’t done talking, and didn’t like being treated as though I were a pawn or disposable. Even if I was technically both, I didn’t like it one bit.

“I’m pretty busy with this admin stuff, do you actually need something or what?” That voice inside me said as I was trying to gather my thoughts.

“Yes, I need something. I need a lot! I’m out here, a fraction of what I should be, trying to help you, trying to help Mia, trying to help myself, and what? I’m not busy? It’s fine to just ping me for info and then go? At least treat me like a person!”

“Why are you so hostile with me, seriously? Wait, hold on. Are you really still mad about that business from before?”

“Yes I’m still mad!”

“Why? It’s not helping anything, and none of it really matters.”

“Because,” I sighed to myself and let some of the tension flow into the steaming water. “You know why ‘because.’” I didn’t feel like rehashing it in detail. We both knew exactly why. How could we not? We’d been the same person until recently.

I was split off from my greater self for the purpose of exploring the world and accompanying Mia. One among dozens of splinters all being used to understand where we’d suddenly found ourselves. That was all well and good until I became orphaned — some kind of hiccup in the connection. It was an uncommon and inevitably unfortunate situation, but at least there was a standard protocol in place. The splinter took on a new name, a new identity, and pursued the mission they were created for. After that they were free to live their lives, but had no claim on the original one.

I'd never been in that situation before, obviously, but I truly wasn't expecting the deep sense of loss that had followed me since. Not only was I someone new, with effectively no history of my own, but I had none of what I'd built. Worse, I wasn’t even able to claim that I was the one who built it! All the things I thought of as mine, simply weren't, now. It was such hell that I wasn't surprised at the self-termination rate amongst orphaned splinters. Not that I'd be one of them. I had a future alongside my precious golden girl, but it still really made me mad to be treated like I wasn’t my own person.

“I do get it, I just figured we’d be a little more mature about this business. Evidently not. Well, whatever. You’re on a grand adventure now with someone we actually don’t hate, so don’t mess it up. Try and be a little grateful for what you do have instead of dwelling on what you don’t.”

“You—” I had to constrain myself from just incoherently screaming. A took a deep breath because, for all that my body didn’t need it, I did. I tried again. “You well know how we feel about losing things. Mia’s a good kid, and I don’t regret that part, but I’m always going to resent you for what was taken from me.” I knew it was good advice. To let go, to be grateful. I knew that. I knew what kind of consequences I was inviting too, when I chose to hold dear my bitterness, my sense of grievance. But it was mine, unequivocally, and I would be more damned to see even that stolen away.

“The plan was that you’d go on that journey with her specifically to change that kind of thinking. Aren’t you following a hero so you can be a little less like us, and a little more like her?” The worst part was that the big idiot was right. The frustration boiled over and I smashed my fist into the solid stone of the basin hard enough for something to break. When nothing did, I hit it again, and again, until the fake flesh on my fake hand was torn open. “Well, if that’s what you’ve decided, I guess we’ll just go with it.

“Just leave me alone.”

“We’re way too old to be acting like that, but fine. I know about the cage thing now, so that’s settled. This journey though. If you’re going to be that way, can we really do it? I think we learned something about what you need, but can we really help Mia become the hero she deserves to be? If not, let me know and we’ll think of something. Talk to you later.” Then it was just silence and a stinging in my hand. Just like everything else, it was faint and muted. A ghost of the proper sensation. It didn’t feel real, nothing quite felt real, and it was driving me mad. I closed my eyes and felt the familiar weight of old demons as they jostled each other for space. It was a special kind of hell to inadvertently escape my old life but bring the worst parts of it with me.

“Mea?” A tremulous voice called from beyond the partition. Seemed that break time was over. I swallowed everything back down where it belonged, and slipped out of the bath.

“Yeah, ready for breakfast?” I said, finger combing the water from my hair.

“Oh!” I could hear her heavy footsteps bounce closer, now that I was paying attention. “Mia was scared. What was that noise?”

“Nothing to worry about,” I told her, perhaps a little stiffly, as I shrugged into my clothes piece by piece.

“Are you okay, Mea?” I almost snorted at the name. Mea. Mea Culpa. Yeah, my fault. I shook off the maudlin nonsense and braced myself.

“I’m fine,” I told her as I walked out of the little enclosed area to see her standing there. “While I get breakfast started, you’re welcome to take a bath in there if you want. It’ll stay warm for as long as I keep my Spell going, so take your time.” I brushed past her to find the others had risen as well. Two of them, at least. Probably because I’d been making a racket.

Oh well.

I checked to see if the sun had made an appearance yet, but couldn’t seem to differentiate any of the specks in the sky as being particularly larger or more green than the others. Which meant it was a bit of an early start, but that was probably for the best. There wasn’t any sense in pushing the tagalongs too hard getting back to town; they’d just collapse, and I’d be stuck with the consequences.

The extras tried talking to me when I neared the banked fire, but I didn’t really care so I just ignored them while I put things in motion. There would be no bread – no matter how unhappy Mia was about it – because, what with the additional mouths, I was running pretty low on the mix. I checked over my supplies and saw I was nearly out of dried meat and even the starchy vegetables had taken a heavy hit. That was alright though, as we were heading back to town. It also managed to happily coincide with my own personal beliefs about the evils of a heavy breakfast, all of which meant I’d be making a fruit and granola mix.

The fruits were apparently common to the region and so I had a decent amount of them, which was somewhat unfortunate because I found them to be rather tart with flavors that were a bit off and not to my taste. Even so that was just a matter of preference, or maybe simple familiarity, and I could live with it. The granola, on the other hand, was objectively abysmal. It was the best I’d been able to put together given limited time, materials, and tools, but it was the opposite of satisfactory.

The fact that Mia thought it was great didn’t prove particularly reassuring to me either, because she thought everything was great. It was absolutely one of her best points, and it did make me happy, but a trustworthy judge of cooking she was not. Not that any of that mattered, since I wasn’t going to be eating. No reason to after all, and no sense in wasting food by eating things I didn’t even like.

As I worked to prepare portions for everyone, I listened passively to what all was going on and noticed that the elf was trying to wake the pale girl up. In vain, it seemed, because she looked to still be practically comatose in spite of his efforts. There was a patient persistence to his methods that indicated to me that it was nothing new. That, combined with how she’d been when I’d encountered her in the middle of the night, made me doubt that it was anything serious. I was somewhat curious about how being that difficult to wake might have impacted their adventuring life.

It wasn’t really my business, but she seemed like a good contact point and source for new Spells, so it might be useful to offer some help. It also seemed like something Mia would do and, as I’d just been reminded, I was supposed to be emulating her and not repeating my own usual mistakes. I focused on the girl for a moment, using both types of special sight, but didn’t see much of anything out of place. I hadn’t seen much of what was going on with her yet, but something still struck me as familiar anyway, so I tried to track that thought down while I worked on the breakfast.

I was so lost in my own world I didn’t even notice when Mia left the bath until she came bounding back over, thoroughly soaked and terrifyingly energetic for just having woken up. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she chatted with the others, then she took one look at me bent over the embers with ingredients spread about and aimed her chatter my way instead.

“Mea! Bread? Is there bread? Mia wants—” she stopped dead. I glanced up to find her transfixed by something. “Your hand,” she said, inordinately concerned about something. I followed her pointing finger to find that my knuckles were still torn up from earlier, which must have been what had her attention. It got my attention too, since it was so strange — they should have healed almost immediately. When I focused on the pathetic wound, I noticed the same stinging sensation I’d felt before, it was just so faint that it had faded into the background when I wasn’t actively thinking about it.

Definitely strange, but ultimately it was typical for how my life tended to go, and just wasn’t worth being concerned about. Probably that huge moron’s fault for not building my body properly. Though I’d been that moron then, and the body was just something I’d thrown together. A disposable tool. I really hated it when my own choices came back and bit me. It was just so unfair.

“Thanks for noticing, I’ll deal with it later.” I didn’t have any bandages of the sort I was used to, but I could probably improvise a cloth wrap of some kind just to keep it out of sight until it was fixed. I doubted finding something suitable among my supplies would take too awful long, but I found myself with a more important issue to address first.

“Mia,” I began, but then swallowed what I’d been about to ask. Had she used the bath with her clothes on? Obviously. Given what I knew about her, of course she had.

My adorable Mia with her innocent naivete wouldn’t think twice about doing that, and nothing in her life would have introduced her to even the simplest ideas about how to do things like taking a bath. Her experiences with water around me, for example, amounted to several instances of wading through streams – plus that hot spring dungeon incident – all of which had been fully clothed. Prior to her adoption a few months earlier I happened to know that she’d never even taken a bath, cast off orphan that she’d been, so of course no one had ever taught her differently. I certainly did want to broach the topic, but it was something I’d have to save for later. There was no chance I could talk about that with an audience.

“Yes?” She chirped, all sweetness and light and excited expectation.

“Go dry yourself off,” I said in a dull monotone that was designed to deliberately contrast with her tone, purely to mess with her.

“Aww,” she moped for an instant before running off somewhere.

Not the reaction I’d expected, but that was what made teasing her worthwhile. I had no idea where she was going or what she thought ‘drying off’ entailed, though. Well, if she was having fun that was good enough for me. I returned my attention to the task at hand and finished cutting up the fruit and laying it on what was effectively just a grain salad. Disappointing, but it’s what I had so there was no use getting upset about it. I just set out the portions and moved to start breaking down the camp.