I stood there looking over the scene of the lord’s death and Mia’s role in it, and realized I had understood nothing yet again. Somehow his death had been justified enough for Mia to do it herself, but what difference was there between that and the guard she’d had me spare before? Why were some deaths okay and others not? Was it fine now to let her know that I’d killed all the other guards? I just couldn’t follow the thought process very well, and I didn’t think I’d ever really understand it, so I just had to give up and trust Mia could handle things. What was far more frustrating was that my golden girl’s special magic wasn’t something I could copy, even having seen it several times.

Doubtless it was a product of her very nature. Something intrinsic and inimitable derived from her being a Wraith on the inside. Seeing her bowed over the lord’s body in some kind of morning, it was hard to reconcile the insane and raving monstrous thing she’d once been with the person she had become. The shadows uncoiled themselves, receding back into their places, fading into normalcy as though they’d never been anything else. It was strangely reminiscent of the way I’d brushed over the unknowable stretch of time between the death of her entire race and when I’d found her by resurrecting her people and curing her madness. Or rather, Patron had done that. I was just her travelling companion.

I waited for any further reaction from Mia, not sure if she would end up weeping or something, but she seemed lost in silent contemplation instead. While she was thinking deep and necessary thoughts, the rest of the assemblage was too stunned to react at all. I couldn’t even see them breathing, in fact, so I thought I ought to take things in hand and shape the situation to our benefit. A quick scan assured me that the serving staff truly had retreated and weren’t merely watching from a discrete distance. That left only involved parties, chief of whom had already promised to escalate matters with what he’d called the ‘shadow magistrate’ which, from context, sounded like it might be some form of internal affairs office. That was more or less what I wanted, so I just needed to tug the right strings to get him to fall in line.

“Envoy,” I began, making sure to tower over the man. His dazed expression evaporated, replaced by at least a half dozen kinds of terror. Good. “You were entrusted with a duty. Towards us. Now I charge you with a further duty.” I took a deep, calming breath to make sure my voice could handle things. It sure sounded cool and all, but the limitations were becoming a real pain for me to deal with. “You are witness to what has transpired here.” I gestured towards the ball where it lay, its white light glimmering off the lord’s dagger where it had landed after our brief struggle.

“Relay these events faithfully and accurately,” I swallowed hard to prevent a cough, “and without delay.” He was shaking, I noticed, but suddenly bowed low.

“Yes, princess!” It felt strange to be called that, but it wasn’t the time to correct him. I needed work done, and undermining my authority by insisting he change his mode of address was stupid. I didn’t have enough data to predict how things would turn out after such strange and high-profile events, but I didn’t really care, either. Whatever came our way would be handled like any other problem: at the time, with the tools available, and with the best of intentions. Namely, my intentions.

He called together the guards and discussed a few things that didn’t concern Mia or myself, so I ignored them. The only thing that did concern me was my golden girl; she really wasn’t crying, but she looked as though it might do her some good if she did. The first time was always hard. At least, that’s what I’d been given to understand. It wasn’t like I was particularly knowledgeable about that sort of thing; trauma psychology wasn’t a field I’d ever had a need to familiarize myself with after all.

Considering that, it’d be best if she could have some privacy, some space to sort things out where I didn’t need to listen to it, and someone that wasn’t me she could talk to might be nice. I also really didn’t want to get dragged into any further trouble by hanging around, which reminded me to drop all the temperature increasing Spells I’d imbued into those servants. They’d recover soon, so it was definitely time to go, though not before looting the lie detector, the dagger, and everything in his pockets. The magic-immunity necklace the fool had taunted me, that was definitely mine as well.

With nothing further to do, it was time to put the day’s events behind us and find a new adventure. Mia’s ‘cow balds’ had been dealt with, the thought of which almost made me laugh — she was a real cute kid. The trouble was, I didn’t know what was next. More monster tribes, probably, but there was no telling where she’d lead. I’d have to find out when she was in a better mood for that kind of talk.

“Mia,” I said, laying a hand on her shoulder. She shifted, looking up at me slowly with an unhappy expression.

“It hurts,” she said, holding a hand to her chest. “Did Mia do the right thing?” She really was asking, too. She was clearly pretty unsure of herself, and needed some kind of assurance from me. Unfortunately for her, it was the sort of question I was least equipped to help with. After all, if I knew how to answer that myself, I wouldn’t need Mia. But I did need her, and there really was no one else who I could pass it off on, no one but me for her to turn to. That being the case, the best I could do was try and reframe the question. Maybe it would help her figure things out.

“And what if you didn’t? You made a decision based on the things you knew and the predictions you made. Even if they were wrong, it doesn’t change what happened,” I pulled her up and tucked her hand into the crook of my arm, walking slowly out of the manor. I really didn’t want to deal with any more nonsense stemming from that place, and moving was good for straightening out cluttered thoughts and emotions. A leisurely walk was also a good way to let my voice recover between bouts of talking without making it obvious that’s what I was doing.

There was no one to stop or even notice us as we took the steps down to the manor’s front courtyard, where I enjoyed a nose full of crisp, clean mid-morning air. It was such a lovely thing to be away from yet another fetid place. Mia had so far demonstrated a terrible penchant for taking me to those, and I just had to hope it wouldn’t become a habit. In spite of being a lord’s manor, the courtyard itself was a fairly small thing consisting of a well-tended sward and a series of inlaid stones leading directly to the gate. The unlocked and easily opened gate, which that let out directly onto the cobbled streets of the town itself. I hoped not to see the place again.

“Feeling bad won’t change the consequences of your decisions. That pain you feel is, in fact, one of the consequences. Whether you were right or wrong, your task is to learn from this.” I said to Mia’s continued silence as we headed towards where my [Map] indicated our bags were. I’d left them with Anise and asked her to disappear with them for a while, which seemed to mean holing up somewhere not too far away. Given that the lord’s manor dominated the nobility-only northern part of the town, it was likely to be the small house that she and her companion purportedly lived in. A comfortable choice, and perhaps one that held some political protection, though not what I would have called particularly hidden.

I asked at length, since it occurred to me that need was generally a pretty good metric for decision-making.

“But,” Mia said, then fell silent. I gave her a measured look, but she was lost in thought again. I was genuinely curious about what she had to say, since it got very near the core of what made her and I so different.

“But it was only necessary because Mia didn’t see any other choice. That doesn’t make it right. Even if the lord had to die, Mia feels like there had to be a better way to do it. Mia just couldn’t leave it for anyone else, and the man was bad.” I nodded, and patted her hand.

There was so much to say on that topic. All the insights I had that she couldn’t possibly have grasped yet, being too young, too new to understand the way things rippled outwards and came back again. But I left it there; my voice simply couldn’t handle the strain. In spite of the rests I was taking, every time I said something I became more unintelligible — even to myself. It was a bit of a shame that sounding so rugged came at such a price, but the real issue was that my suddenly limited ability to talk could damage Mia’s prospects. I could always write a letter if I really needed to, but she’d surprised me with her growth thus far, and I was already trusting that she could become what I needed anyway, so whatever.

It would be what it would be.

With nothing more interesting than that on my mind, we came at last to an entirely unassuming whitewashed little house with a rather charming mossy roof that seemed to be where my stuff was stashed. I gave Mia’s hand another pat before releasing her and knocking on the door. After a long moment of silence, I took a peek with my living sight only to find that the house was not empty, merely tenanted by cautious people. A rather small glow of life was stationed at a window, and a larger one was quietly approaching the front. Just as it reached the door, I knocked again fairly hard, eliciting a rather amusing noise from the other side, then I let the life-sight go before it started causing trouble.

“Surprise tax audit,” I said to the elven man when he opened the door. I wasn’t sure who he was, but it was a good joke anyway. He stood there blank-faced and unblinking while Mia looked at me, then down at the man, then at me again. I finally cracked up when she opened her mouth to ask the inevitable question. I waved off further questioning by promising to explain later, since I saw an awkward bundle of baggage with pale arms wrapped around it approaching.

“Move your stick legs, Fen,” Anise said as she struggled past him. I appreciated the hustle, but I wasn’t in so great a hurry that she had to turn everything over at the door. Unless she just wanted it done and us gone, which I would have understood even if it would be disappointing. Anise was an interesting conversational partner and a useful source of information, that and she really was fun to be around. Losing her would be a blow.

“Hey,” she said, setting everything down and craning her neck to look up at us. “I forgot how tall you are. Anyway, here’s your stuff. It’s all safe, haven’t even let Fen touch it.” That was certainly vigilant of her, and I even believed her too. Given the state of my voice I was intending to let Mia handle any casual chatter in my stead, while I spent a little time considering how to convince Anise to stay on with us, but she was a step ahead of me.

“So, um,” Anise continued, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. Maybe she’d already made up her mind, or there were unknown circumstances. I prepared myself for the worst. “You’ll be leaving again?” I nodded, which at least came across in spite of my hat and veil, which somehow no one had commented on. “To fight another tribe?” Another nod. She twisted about, mumbling something while becoming quieter and quieter. “Can I come with you?!” She finally blurted out, at unnecessary volume.

“Nise, no!” The random elf guy said.

“Oh oh Mea, can she come, can she?” Mia’s eyes were practically sparkling. Seemed she wasn’t so ready to part with our newest addition either. I wasn’t used to having my predictions be so far off the mark, or rather: I was, but in the opposite way. Typically everything ended up on literal or metaphorical fire, and I was left clutching the literal and metaphorical ashes of all the things that had mattered to me.

“Yes,” was all I could really manage, in spite of how much I wanted to say. It was so strange to have something go my way for once that I almost started giving out hugs, I was just that giddy. Fortunately I stopped myself, because Anise probably couldn’t survive a hug from me. But it also made me think; if I could expect more such great turns for the price of leashing myself to Mia, then I had every reason to redouble my commitment to that course of action.

As the three of them talked and argued, I packed my new loot away in my bag and stowed it under my robes. Eventually Mia would want her stuff, but it wasn’t important immediately, so I stashed her bag as well. What was more pressing was that we were a very strange quartet having a loud conversation on the doorstep of a house in the noble area. We hadn’t drawn too much attention yet, but it was only a matter of time until we did, and we were still very much in range of anything that might come out of the lord’s manor.

“It’s bad to argue in front of someone’s house,” I muttered for Mia’s ears only. She straightened up with a little gasp and then looked into the house, at me, then froze, but I wasn’t going to help any more than I already had.

After an awkward moment of silence, she decided to invite them back to our inn. The elf guy, whoever he was, had a very firm stance on Anise not joining us, but fortunately for us, he was outvoted, and not just numerically. It was obvious just from watching that, of the two of them, she was the driving force and that whatever she wanted was exactly what would happen. It was neither my business nor interesting, so I was tuning them out until she delivered a line that immediately had my full attention.

“Fen, you know I have to take these risks if I ever want to be a mother,” she said, ending the conversation they’d been having. The guy had nothing to retort to that, apparently, but I sure did. Starting with: what? Anise must have felt my interest because she scrunched up her shoulders before turning to look up at me. She mouthed later, locked the door, and herded us on towards the inn.

There was one of the beastfolk strolling along in the direction of the manor house, but the street was otherwise clear. It remained remarkably clear all the way to our destination, only a few intersections away, where The Substantial Hind was located. Familiarity had mostly tamed the need to laugh, but I couldn’t help the snicker that escaped when I saw the inn’s namesake mounted to the wall again as we entered. It had once been a seriously large creature, easily thrice my height at the shoulder, or rather the hip, as the back end was all that had been put on display. It was truly juvenile humor, but that’s what was so appealing about it.

Beyond that, it was a place fit for the high-class neighborhood it was in. The main room was an open design with a high ceiling — which it needed given the size of the trophy. The materials were also of obvious quality, the walls and floor was a very nice fine-grained hardwood that had been stained and sealed and tightly joined. I was only an amateur carpenter at best, but I could recognize excellence. The fixtures were tasteful, though expensive looking, and everything was kept clean, tidy, and in good repair. They were also renowned for the meals and drinks they served, which I could appreciate but didn’t have any personal use for.

All in all, I was glad someone else was paying for it.

“You return!” Said the serving girl as she hurried over to greet us. I had to presume, given the way she immediately dropped into Mia’s orbit, that we had met before. With the heavy paints and elaborate dress she could have been Miss Byulla for all I could tell, not that I would recognize her even without them, but Mia somehow did.

“Jisell!” She said, going for a hug but aborting it into a strange clasped-forearms thing. “Mia missed you.”

“Mister Mougein was here but a bell past asking after you,” she continued, pointedly ignoring myself and the others in favor of Mia. I caught their attention and gestured to a table, which we took while Mia was being occupied. Immediately the guy, who’d followed us for some reason, started talking but Anise waved a tiny hand in front of him and he stopped.

“So, Mea. Clearly some things happened while you two were gone.” I shrugged negligently, deciding to play along. “No no, out with it. You basically throw your stuff at me and disappear for a week and come back looking like that? What’s with the veil?”

“Torture. Disfigured.” I said, playing it up a bit.

“And your voice!”

“Burned.” Her violet eyes were as just as big as she could make them, which was actually pretty impressive, but it was ruined by the aggressive set of her brows.

“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you!”

“Ask Mia,” I said since, while she wasn’t wrong, I couldn’t explain it without an irritating amount of effort. Plus Mia and I probably had conflicting ideas of what had actually happened, and I’d rather her version be the official one. A quick glance showed me that she wasn’t likely to get free in the immediate future, so I took the chance to ask after the question that was burning on my mind.

“Mother?” I gestured towards the elf when I asked. The look on her face made it clear he would never be the father, which in no way helped me figure out what their relationship actually was. Not that it was terribly relevant, but I’d always been the curious sort. She blew out a long sigh, looking off into space for a bit before answering.

“I’ve heard some culai don’t mind talking about this, but it hits a little hard for me, so I really don’t want to. But,” she said with a helpless little hand gesture and a smile, “it’s only fair, since you don’t seem to know already, that you hear it from me since it’s why I’m so keen on joining you.” That was a lot of talk that wasn’t an answer, but saying anything had become more effort than cared to put in for minor gripes so I didn’t and just let her continue.

“I’m sure you know about how the body changes once you’ve ascended your class.” I didn’t. “Well culai aren’t born with,” she paused and tried again. “We don’t really,” she took a breath. “I am infertile unless I can reach level one hundred. All the culai are. That’s one of the biggest reason most of us are adventurers, you know? There wouldn’t be any more of us if we didn’t.” Congenital infertility? And the system, which I’d just recently understood to be descriptive, could solve that? Even if it was only at a set point, that was absolutely something. Certainly something enough to rewrite my assumptions. Then there was the matter of the thing she called class ascension. I was approaching level one hundred myself, and needed to know as much as possible about what it would mean for me, so she really had my attention now.

“It’s more than just that of course. One of my broodmates ascended from scout and he said all the aches and pains disappeared, his eyesight got better, and his uneven legs got fixed. He claims to have gotten a little taller too, which I’ll admit would be nice.” She said, slightly wistfully, then gestured sharply at me. “Not that you’d understand what it feels like to be so small.”

I did, as it happened; things I’d lived myself, synthetic and virtual worlds I’d trekked through, and memories I’d had shared with me. I had a very wide base of experiences that few would ever believe or, in this strange place I’d found myself, even understand. But I just gave Anise an open-handed shrug, as though I couldn’t help my size. I wanted to hear more about this ascension business. It sounded like there were times when the system actually intervened, rather than merely recorded, and I needed to understand. Understanding was, after all, the first step towards exploitation.

I asked a few more questions but didn’t get much else on the topic of the ascension itself, which was a shame. That levels didn’t stop at one hundred was something I’d known in abstract, but I hadn’t realized there was much meaning attached to it. Or rather, any given individual class did stop there, but after it capped out there was an offering of more advanced classes to choose from. What form that took I didn’t know, and had no luck in finding out since I couldn’t really grill anyone on it. I figured I’d see what the guild resource room had on the subject, since I was certain there’d be something.

The conversation after that was in danger of bogging down into silence, since I wasn’t really going to just chat in my state and we’d run out of the topics I was immediately interested in, but fortunately Mia returned. She took up the explanation for everything that had happened since we’d parted ways; a telling that was, as I’d expected, quite a bit different from my view of events. I took out the lie detector at the appropriate point, so it could be demonstrated. The elf fellow, I noticed, seemed familiar with the device. It suddenly dawned on me to consider he might represent a non-physical threat, since I had nothing but vague suspicions about his background.

I resolved to do some investigating, the next time everyone was asleep.

Mia’s telling was a little tangled but didn’t take too long, which left the rest of the day free for all of us to head over to the guild and check out our next target. We managed to arrive at a busy time, so I peeled off to do a little reading in the resource room. I wanted to know what to expect with the remaining tribes; their habits and habitat, the known valuables in each area and so on, plus whatever I could scrounge on that ascension business. I didn’t want a repeat of the stupid stick incident. The are-you-an-idiot stare the clerk had given me over that — I hurried past those embarrassing memories.

The books that were available came in flavors ranging from immediately relevant to beginners, to unbelievably esoteric and of no apparent use to anyone. Sifting through them was generally as simple as asking the person on duty, but I wanted to read everything. With Mia coming into her own I might be able to find the time to do just that, though in truth she should do her own research. No reason it couldn’t be both, and when they came to find me I managed to talk her down from setting out immediately.

“Need to prepare,” I told her, and when she hesitated, I pressed the point home. “Going in blind causes problems,” I gestured to my veiled face and she conceded the point with an unhappy nod. I had her sit down and read the basic primers for the monster species we hadn’t encountered yet, all of which I’d already finished. Anise found a book called Dungeon Mage which seemed to concern surviving as a caster in close quarters combat. It was an interesting choice, enough so I set aside the regional botanical guide I’d been perusing and asked her about it with a gesture.

“Oh. It’s what you said,” her cheeks colored slightly, “on the road back from the goblins.” When I’d carried her, though I wasn’t sure what she had to be embarrassed about. Nor did I know what thing she meant, exactly. We’d talked about many things.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you. For the advice, I mean. I’d never thought about being caught out that way or how to deal with it. I’ve been thinking about it and realized I had made some really dangerous assumptions. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I assumed I’d never get caught in a situation like that; I’m a mage after all — I stand at a distance and hit them with my Spells.” She mimed aiming with one eye closed and firing a spell as she talked. She was a rather expressive person and watching her face ended up being both entertaining and distracting.

“But eventually, if I fight long enough, of course I’ll have to deal with something like what you were talking about.” The small smile she usually wore slipped a bit from her face as she continued. “I’m in it for the long term, you know? I have to take risks because I’m not getting any younger, and my goal is class ascension. That’s a long way off even in the best circumstances, so there’s every chance of things going wrong at some point. That’s why I decided to study up. Give myself the best possible chance.”

I remembered using Anise to teach Mia a lesson, but it hadn’t mattered to me if Anise herself benefitted, so I hadn’t thought much about it. Perhaps that was the specific source of my unexpected good fortune, because without Mia I likely would have simply interrogated her for what I wanted to know and nothing more. By including her in the lesson, it seemed I had invited Anise’s favor or loyalty. I wasn’t sure how to express that better, nor did I particularly understand it, but it was useful and so I needed to consider how to do more of it.

“Can teach more,” I offered, but she shook her head.

“Save your voice, I can tell it’s hard on you. I’ve got this,” she said, raising the book. “But if I have questions, I’ll ask.” She gave me a really nice smile and went back to reading. Mia was completely absorbed in her book too, so I decided we’d just make that the day’s mission. I had a few other chores in mind before we set off on our next adventure, but the resource room was as safe a place as any to leave them while I finished those. They were largely of a personal nature anyway.

“Errands,” I said to Anise as I got up to leave after I’d finished reading the handful of books and reference tomes that were relevant to our upcoming hunt. There had been precisely zero information, at least to the librarian’s knowledge, on class ascension involving persons who had more than one class at once. That left me in a bind, but I decided it didn’t matter. I’d find out soon enough, so whatever.

By the looks of things, Anise hadn’t made much of a dent in her own reading by the look of it, and seemed surprised that I was done, but she just gave me a little wave and went back to it. I probably should have said something to Mia, but she was hard to rouse once lost in a book, so I let her be. The reception area had cleared out in the meantime, with only a beastfolk man at the counter, but I didn’t have any business there.

I did have business with Liella and her stone-carpenter husband, so I made that my first stop. They’d been working with them on several products, the canteen chief among them. We’d worked out a deal to split the profit from sales of certain items; I’d supply new ideas and help them refine existing ones, while they handled manufacturing and sales. I was hoping my week-long absence hadn’t caused any issues for them, because I was a bit loaded up on tasks already to be adding any extra work. I just wanted to drop in, let them know I was still around and on board, collect anything I was owed, and drop off the next revision on the canteen. Their efforts so far had been pretty good, but not quite right yet.

“My! Dear, she has returned!” Liella called as soon as I stepped onto the sales floor of their shop. “At least, I do believe that’s you, Miss Mea?”

“Yes,” I said, the rasp worse than I was expecting. Perhaps due to the dust of the road the shop was on, that I’d over used it, under used it, or any other trivial little factor. She was immediately alarmed and bustled her way over to me.

“Are you well? You hardly sound yourself, my dear!” I enjoyed the vaguely schoolmarm charm the lady had as studied me over, tsking over the damaged clothes and hacked together hat.

“Ran into difficulty, but I’m here now,” I replied, managing far better than before. One of the reasons I’d bothered with Liella was her keen intellect, and razor-sharp intuition. She put both on display by leaving things at that, opting to take a step back and smooth out her many-pocketed apron with a decisive nod and a twist to her mouth that told me she was leaving many things unsaid. Her crafter husband chose that moment to come up from the workshop in the back, hands still wrapped in the characteristic metallic-yellow gloves of his trade.

“You return! With good news and, I can hope, perhaps a new design as well?” He said once he’d blinked his way past my new appearance. Instead of responding I pulled the note-laden sketches I’d made prior to the detour at the lord’s house out of my bag and handed them over. I’d done drafting work before, and he was fairly sharp, so we’d been able to figure out a mutually comprehensible language for blueprints in short order. He took my revisions in stride, but was skeptical of the utility of my belt buckle design. He promised to make a trial version though, and when he did, I knew he’d understand.

They hadn’t begun selling the canteens, since I hadn’t been satisfied with them, so there was nothing for me to collect. I wasn’t fussed though, business and investment were just like that; it’d pay off in the long run, and that’s all that mattered. I wrapped my business there with little fanfare and moved on to the next shop on my list: the tailor. Things went more or less the same there, and at the other places I needed to visit, until I came to the metalworking shop. I’d been told they were good – probably the best in town – and maybe they were, but they weren’t interested in custom orders from someone like me.

If I’d had my voice, I would’ve pressed the issue, but I didn’t and it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world. I wanted a few tools to help me dissect monsters and few more to help me gather plants. Nothing terribly complicated or made from anything exotic or dangerous, but they didn’t want anything to do with me or my order, they made that plain. Between a basic knife and a little magic, I was sure I could get things done, it’d just be messy and inconvenient. Possibly damage the goods. Well, whatever. Any business that refused to do business was a lost cause anyway, so I headed back to the inn.

When I got back it occurred to me that I’d resolved to let Mia take the lead on things, which ought to be about more than just the big decisions, the fighting, and other obvious things. She should at least be part of the deals I was making, even if she wasn’t quite ready to do them alone. If I never let her try, she’d never learn, obviously, so I decided I’d take her around and introduce her and let her in on everything. Tomorrow, though, because that little mistake cemented the fact that I had something else I really needed to do first.

The venerable tree in the inner courtyard of the inn was sturdy enough that I could lean against it without worry, so I curled up there and let my mind drift into neutral. I could’ve gone back to the resource room and the others, but Mia needed to do things herself, and I needed time alone now and again. I was always busy doing things and always had been, and there was always more to do, which was why I’d chosen to slow down a bit.

There were things slipping my mind; names, places, intentions — little details that made all the difference. It was bothering me quite a bit, but it was probably something I just had to get used to since I didn’t have access to my augments anymore. Well, it seemed worse than before after a week holed up in a prison and being tortured, but I just needed some calm nothingness to regain mental clarity. I was sure that would fix things, and if not then whatever. I’d just deal with being muddled the best way I knew how: find a really good fight. If meditation solved things, great, and if not, I was sure I’d get to brutalize something sooner or later.