Jaden groaned in relief as the curse expired; prompting a snicker from his companions, and a sigh of relief from Kyle.

“Thank god.” Jaden muttered, already regretting having created Chance.

“You’re welcome.” Chance’s voice whispered whimsically in his ear. The wind brushed his face like a caress as he glanced at Niko, and Lois.

“We’re never speaking of this again.” Jaden told them authoritatively.

“I’ll never not remind you of this.” Lois laughed at him. “Your breasts are like weirdly shaped pears!” Lois was doubled over, making air quotes as she mocked him.

Niko hid her smile between her hand. “The penis tree.” She muttered, inspiring Lois to redouble her laughter.

After a minute of torture, Lois regained her composure. “Seriously though, do you think about anything else?”

Jaden glared at her. “No comment.”

“I feel pretty now.” Niko stage-whispered to Lois conspiratorially.

“You should. Apparently your boyfriend over there spends half his time thinking about the shape of your butt.”

Jaden sighed in defeat. “I’m going to go talk to Aki. You guys can go laugh at me somewhere else.”

“Let’s go stand by the rock that looks like a boob.” Lois told Niko.

Niko smiled. “Not the penis tree?”

“Nah, boobs are much more interesting.” Lois told Niko, winking.

Niko glanced at Jaden, but he was pointedly not looking as he walked off. Shrugging, Niko followed Lois. Kyle moved to follow Jaden. “For what it’s worth, that tree definitely did look like a penis.” Kyle said sympathetically.

Jaden sighed again. “I appreciate the support, but I think I want to be alone for a bit.”

“As you wish my lord.” Kyle nodded, and walked away in a different direction.

Jaden checked his map, moving to stand in a location devoid of any Jeffs. “Oh great, and powerful goddess; I implore you. Please never do that again.”

Snickering, Chance walked out from behind a nearby tree as if she had been there the whole time.

“I was merely testing you. I wished to know what kind of person worshipped me into existence. I must admit, the results were unexpected.” Chance smiled in amusement as Jaden grimaced.

“You’re a cruel goddess you know that?” He groused.

Chance smirked. “I am essentially a goddess of luck. Lady Luck is a cruel mistress.”

Jaden shook his head at her joke, but she continued speaking before he could respond. “Don’t feel too bad. It isn’t really your fault. As a goddess, I have access to information you don’t. As an apology, I will share some of it with you.” She paused dramatically, prompting Jaden to nod, waiting for her to continue.

“You see, when new species are introduced to this…” She waved her hand around vaguely. “Universe, many of them fail to adapt. Some are killed by predators, or denizens of another shard. Some are killed by religious fanaticism. Some just fail to reproduce due to the stress of relocation, and slowly die off. While I don’t think any of these will be an issue for your species, every new inhabitant of this universe is inflicted with a strengthened need to procreate. It is a rather insidious, mostly permanent curse that is designed to alter your thoughts without you ever realizing it’s there. That is likely why you might find yourself thinking about such things significantly more than you normally would.”

Jaden blinked at her in shock. “You said mostly permanent. Is there anything I can do to fix it?”

Chance nodded. “First you had to be aware of it. Most species never even realize it exists. Next you need to reach one thousand base mana. I mean mana capacity, not just stored mana. Once you have reached that point, you are considered experienced enough to make your own choices in this land. Then you can use your mana to detect, and weed out the curse. I should warn you, before that point, any sex you have will almost definitely result in conception. Even most contraceptives will fail. It’s part of the curse. The good news is, your children won’t share the curse. It’s only intended to prevent extinction during the transplanting process.”

Jaden’s mind jumped to reviewing his relationship with Niko. It felt natural to him, and yet he recognized intellectually that things had progressed far quicker than they should. Before, he had chocked it up to them meeting under such stressful circumstances. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

“Does that mean my relationship with Niko isn’t real?” Jaden asked quietly.

Chance shrugged. “That’s up to you. What makes a successful relationship is too complex to be so easily quantified.”

Jaden glanced at Chance. “Why are you really telling me this? I don’t get the impression it’s out of the goodness of your heart.”

Chance looked slightly hurt for a moment before her expression became guarded. “Perhaps I merely wish to protect my only follower. Perhaps I wish to watch you suffer for the next few months to years, as you struggle to resist the ever-mounting pressure. As the embodiment of Lady Luck, it is my prerogative to keep my true intentions to myself.”

Sensing he had made a mistake, Jaden looked away awkwardly. “I’m sorr-” He started, but Chance spoke over him before he could complete the sentence. “I have delivered my warning, so I am done. I leave you with final words of wisdom. There is a difference between being cynical, and being a prick.” A bright flash marked Chance’s exit. Jaden rubbed his eyes for a fraction of a second before a low growl caused his spine to stiffen. Turning to direct his half-blinded gaze at the sound, Jaden’s spine stiffened upon seeing an arm-panther. Luckily, it was one of the smaller, juvenile creatures, but Jaden considered himself primarily a support mage. He wasn’t suited to fighting on the frontlines.

“Fuck fuck fuck.” Jaden muttered, silently activating his battle grid as he slowly backed up to give himself as much space as possible. The arm-panther decided to pounce at the same time that his hand of cards automatically appeared in his grasp. Lacking the time to strategize, Jaden grabbed the first card that came to his hand, slamming it into the grid.

“I play whatever!” Jaden cried, as the card flashed by his view. The image of the card channeled into his mind directly from the battle grid as he fell backward; pouring all of his mana into the image in a panic. The summoned creature, his Angry Hairball, screeched as the panther impacted it. The Hairball lacked the necessary weight to repel the panther. As a result, the panther crashed through the hairball; reaching around it to claw at Jaden. He screamed in pain from the lines of fire opened along his legs and torso, as the enraged panther dug its claws into him furiously.

Finally reacting to his mental commands, the Furball reached out a tentacle of hair, constricting the panther’s lower limbs. Still, the shoulder-claws continued raking into Jaden for another second as he attempted to crawl away. Finally the Hairball latched onto the upper arms as well, mana draining slowly as it struggled with the panther.

Desperately calling, Jaden glanced to where he had dropped his hand of cards. Weakly, he moved his arm toward it, summoning it back into his shaking hand with a thought. A moment later his next card auto-drew from his deck, appearing in his hand. Gasping, Jaden redirected the mana from his intelligence stat back into his free mana. “I play First Aid.” Jaden gasped, using forty mana from his new pool of eighty. The haze of blood loss began to clear as the magical bandages wound around Jaden’s wounds. Coughing, Jaden began crawling again, still too weak to stand.

Pausing to call up the stats for his Hairball, Jaden realized it had already spent half its mana. Understanding that he couldn’t escape in the time it had left, Jaden flipped onto his back; forcing himself to painfully sit up, and look at the space where the panther and Hairball continued to struggle against each other. Glancing at his hand, Jaden groaned. While he had monster cards, he still only had a little over forty mana. Hand trembling, Jaden grabbed a card, and played it. “I play Loyal Soldier!” He gasped weakly, pouring all of his remaining mana into the card. It was one of the cards he had several of in his deck, and he watched hopefully as the familiar soldier manifested, wielding a paltry forty mana.

Following his mental commands, the soldier ran forward to stab its spear into the panther. The spear penetrated six inches into its flank, eliciting a roar from the creature, but the spearhead proceeded to get tangled in the Hairball’s tentacles; eliciting grunts and screeches from all involved. Jaden flipped onto his belly again, resuming his crawl when he realized the soldier would be unable to kill the panther.

Grunting, Jaden faltered when he received a sudden communication. Jaden mentally kicked himself as he realized he could have called for help at any point. “Sir, I wanted to talk about the logistics of-” Four began, before Jaden cut him off. “I’m under attack! Send reinforcements!” Jaden called into the communication spell. “Yes sir!” Four said, obviously confused. Jaden resumed his crawl as he opened his map, seeing blue dots representing his forces. All of them were several minutes run away. Jaden glanced back, seeing that the Hairball was down to ten mana. The soldier had reclaimed his spear, but was unable to penetrate deeply into the panther. Even worse, the hairball covered so much of the panther’s body, that many of the soldiers attacks also inflicted damage on the Hairball.

Ruefully, Jaden called back the soldier, willing the Hairball to delay the panther as long as possible. Jaden resumed crawling, and fifteen seconds later, his Angry Hairball finally used up the last of its mana. Roaring as the tentacles fell from its body to evaporate into nothingness, the panther charged forward into the soldier.

Jaden panicked again, crawling as hard as he could while trying to ignore the sounds of combat. Within ten seconds the sound died down, giving way to an angry rumble. Heart sinking, Jaden knew what he would see as he turned. The last mana-wisps of the evaporating soldier faded; the panther striding forward confidently. Collapsing to the ground, Jaden gave in to the inevitable. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t fight. He watched the panther saunter forward emitting a low rumble somewhere between a growl, and a pur. It approached slowly, confidently, knowing its prey was too weak to fight back.

Whimpering, Jaden curled in on himself; not seeing as the panther suddenly stopped, ears perking up. Before it could react further, Niko burst from a nearby bush; swinging her sword in a downward arc that cleaved through its neck. Thinking the panther had pounced, Jaden curled even farther into himself, staying in that position until Niko moved to his side; putting a hand on his shoulder gently.

Jaden finally uncurled, fighting back tears of relief when he saw Niko. “Is this heaven?” He asked dryly, burrowing his head into her lap.

Niko laughed, and held her hand out to let panther blood drip onto his nose. “Smells like heaven?”

Jaden recoiled at the coppery scent of blood infiltrating his nose. “No, not so much.”

Niko ran her hand through his hair. Jaden stiffened slightly at feeling the wetness of the blood before deciding the comfort was worth it.

“I nearly died.” Jaden muttered, unconsciously deciding he didn’t care whether his relationship with Niko was a product of magical aphrodisiacs.

“You didn’t.” Niko replied soothingly, continuing to run her hand through his hair.

“I know. I just… I almost died.” Jaden began laughing brokenly, feeling this strange otherworld becoming real for the first time.

“Shhhh.” Niko shushed him soothingly. A moment later she began humming an old lullaby from her childhood; unknowingly imbuing it with mana to create a sleep spell.

“I… I almost....” Jaden’s voice tapered off as he drifted into sleep.