"I think I’m going to keep you at the apartment, if it’s allowed," Maya told Hunter as they entered Kalyx. Hunter had a decidedly minimal repertoire of responses, which this time consisted of his tail wagging. She wasn’t sure if he’d stopped since she’d obtained him.

"At first I thought we could stay at the academy, but you are rather distinctive and I wouldn’t want to attract too much attention. I haven’t seen many other people with pets around the first zone, so I’m not sure how uncommon you are. The fact that the quest was so completely open makes me think it isn’t popular. Maybe because it’s hard." Maya frowned, running a hand across the solid gem embedded in her forehead, her new visual augmentation.

She wasn't sure exactly why it was called 'bloodline' except perhaps for the way in which she'd obtained it. Though perhaps it was because every model in the game was outlined in red lines, could be considered 'blood' at a stretch, though they were more a limn than the wire frame she'd have expected the more she thought about it.

Whatever it was, however she'd obtained it, she was glad to have it. While the game made navigating at night possible with an ever-present moon and dimness instead of true darkness in most cases, it was still far from simple to make things out in full night. The bloodline vision let her see everything very very clearly, perhaps too clearly. It would take time to get used to the busyness of her vision, until she figured out how to turn it off.

At the thought, the lines slowly faded until she was blinking in the regular pre-dawn darkness. Maya nodded and quietly wished she had her bloodline view back, and the red lines returned. Convenient!

If there were any drawbacks to her new augment, she couldn't see them. The steady maze of lines might have been dizzying at first, but she was sure that with a few days of practice she'd get used to it and be able to process the additional information it provided without any difficulty.

Then she reached the trade quadrant and wandered the streets for several minutes, trying to remember where the soulbinder could be found. Was it at the ordinary pet shop? Yes, yes it was.

The price for adding Hunter to her character permanently was 150 gold, which despite being a hefty chunk of her total funds Maya paid without more than a moment's hesitation. Then she had to accept a few pop-up windows which verified that the permanent modification was being done with her permission and she understood that any subsequent attempts would be increased in cost.

Maya read through and agreed to them all, and then a new window appeared with Hunter's stats. He didn't have a specific species, listed only as 'beast', but that was fine. Maya knew this must be one of those areas the world's designer hadn't cared to get into too much detail. His stats were basic: 85 health, 18 will, 96 stamina, 70 energy.

A secondary panel included command options such as 'free will' or 'tether distance' that allowed her to designate how far away Hunter could travel, or how much she wanted him to act on his own or whether she wanted to micromanage his combat abilities. She could pin his action bar to her own interface if she wanted to directly command him in a fight, or leave it to his own discretion.

She left it on free will for now, and set the tether distance to within sight, then unequipped the leash. Hunter remained at her side, looking up at her expectantly, and she smiled at him.

"Want to come check out my place?" she asked. His tail wagged. "I'll take that as a yes."

Her apartment always felt so sparse and unfinished when she came back to it from the mage academy, where everything was opulently finished and impeccably artistic. She hadn't done any decorating here, since this was very much a temporary holdover until she could finish her private conquest against Standalone and receive a house of her own.

As much as she would love to do some decorating, she didn't really want to take the time yet. Once she knew it mattered, yes, but for now she was still paying monthly rent and didn't want to get too attached to someplace she fully intended to leave. But for the first time, she felt awkward about it. Even if Hunter was just a dog, it felt lame to show him around her basic, bland, boring room.

It did have a few advantages over the mage academy. Mainly that it was NPC run and she couldn't be randomly kicked out if Shardlord ever decided he didn't like her again. Yes, she may be a bit bitter over that. She'd done nothing but try to help, and he was being a suspicious jerk just because Domitius was up to something. Of course Domitius was up to something, Domitius was always up to something!

But that was in the past, and Maya wasn't going to hold it against him. Well, she'd try not to. Regardless of whether or not she held a grudge against Shardlord, she still wanted to have a backup location that couldn't be snatched out from under her. It was nice to have a solid home base, somewhere she could store her belongings and switch them to Mayon if needed, or keep her backup equipment and crafting equipment without the risk of losing it in PvP.

She didn't plan to do much PvP, but she couldn't predict when or where she might have a trickster quest requiring it. It had happened in the past. And if she rolled badly enough, she might lose everything. Fortunately, the last time she'd died in PvP it had been against Sevard who was honorable enough to give her everything back, but she couldn't count on anyone else being nice.

Basically, it was her backup, her fortress, her storage room. A place to sleep if she ever decided she needed a break.

Which, honestly, now she was here...

"Do you need a bed or anything?" she asked Hunter, but he simply curled up by the window and lay there looking perfectly content.

"Alright. I'll look into it another time." She did want to test him, see what the extent of his capabilities were, but right now she had his stat sheet available so it wasn't as necessary any more. Having him fully bound and safe from being killed made her feel much more secure, and even if he was pretty low level at present she could always go hunting with him to get him leveled.

"Can pets level?" Maya wondered aloud. Experience bars weren't a thing here, levels appeared unpredictably. Sometimes she'd go weeks without leveling, sometimes she'd get two in quick succession. Whatever hidden mechanisms controlled their advancement, it was opaque enough that the players hadn't gotten a clear read on it so far.

"I'm going to assume you can unless proven otherwise," Maya decided. She spent some time perusing Hunter's sheet, which included abilities like Seek, Bite, Stunning Bark, and Savage.

"Looks pretty standard," she mused. "You're going to be a big help if that stun works at higher levels." She lay down and closed her eyes, trying to imagine what battles would be like now that she had a reliable secondary fighter. True, his damage output would be minimal, but if he could act as a distraction, or as a tank at higher levels...

She glanced over his stats and shook her head. No, he would never be a tank. She'd need to actually hire someone for that. Or bring Xaneta back in. But he would be a good support, maybe a scout type, maybe a control type, and definitely a good extra backup.

You could never go wrong with extra DPS.

"Would you mind if I just sleep all morning?" Maya asked. "I think I've pushed my luck as much as I want to. We can go out in the evening once it's safe to reroll. Sound good to you?"

Hunter's tail thumped against the floor.

"Then I'll see you in the evening."

Maya lay down and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.

"We we welcome you back, we..."

Maya sat bolt upright. "What?" She looked around wildly, but Hunter lay sleeping by the window and nothing else seemed to have changed.

"Bloodline?"

No answer. Not even wind.

She stayed sitting for a long moment, trying to de-panic, then felt at her forehead. The gemlike augment was still there, exactly where it had been. She frowned. Did the Bloodline augment have other side effects? Did it do something other than just give her the red light vision?

She slowly lay down again and closed her eyes, uneasy. There was something very abnormal here, and she had a lot harder time falling back asleep this time.

"We we we have been waiting," Bloodline whispered.

Oh joy. It was back. This time, Maya managed not to wake herself up in a panic, deliberately calming herself and maintaining the semi-dream state. If this was going to keep happening, she would at least try to figure out what Bloodline wanted.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Dark came, bound and drove we from home; we will return."

Maya blinked. Of all the reasons for a sinister entity to be whispering in her mind while she slept, this is not the direction she’d imagined the conversation going. "Are you saying… you’re basically hitchhiking in my mind until I visit your homeland?"

"Yes yes yes," it breathed, sibilant whispers overlapping and echoing.

"Where is your home?"

"North. Where the Blade of the World waits for its sacrifice, we must return and be ready."

"Okay… you know that the zones to the north of here are still locked, right?"

"Yes yes yes. We are patient. Now we must know you. Who are we now we are you?"

It took Maya a moment to parse that. "Me? I'm boring. Very boring. I mostly just run around doing random quests and trying to level up, and try to make friends."

"Do you? Now you have we. We will be friends."

Maya laughed. "I doubt that. There's not much we have in common."

"Not true. We are lost and alone and far from home."

Maya exhaled in slow agreement. "You're right, I suppose. There isn't a home any more even if I could go back. The world has changed so much I'd not recognize it if I saw it. At least you have someplace to go back to."

"You miss it?"

Maya considered that for a long time, so long that her thoughts drifted away and she dreamed of long ago and far away and distant vague images that remixed her recent adventures with memories she couldn't recall, and only returned to the lucid dream when Bloodline whispered once again,

"You, we?"

Maya resettled into the mental space, and found that she had reached her answer.

"I miss the people, not the places. There was nothing really worth rebuilding there. But I miss my family. I suppose I even miss my grumpy co-workers, in a kind of weird way. That's part of what I'm fighting for, the chance to get back the only one of my family who might have survived."

"We had family once," whispered Bloodline, and though its tone didn't change Maya felt the loss echoing behind its bland words. "Cyeer and Goldeye, but they left long before we were taken by Dark. We would not know how to find them."

"I don't know how to find my brother either, but I hope that by making a big enough splash here I can attract his attention."

Bloodline hissed questioningly, though Maya got a distinct impression of thoughtfulness rather than curiosity.

There was a long silence, then Bloodline spoke again.

"We can help you with this search, once we are returned to home. We have many friends at home who can surely find your kin."

"It’s not quite that simple. He doesn’t live here, on this world, but in a different one. And I don’t know which one. That’s why I need to do something to get his attention and bring him here."

Bloodline went quiet, like a gentle breeze rustling grasses, and Maya felt her grasp of the lucidity begin to fade, glimpses of dream intruding between moments, then Bloodline’s voice brought her back.

"We can help do that too. When we are home, we promise, we will find a way to bring your kin home to you. Even if it means we crush the stars to scream his name."

Then the dream ended and Maya slipped smoothly back into the deeper rhythms of sleep. But when she woke in the evening, she remembered, and she sat for a long time in contemplation.