Author's Note: A somewhat short chapter this time, because I had very little time to write lately, but really wanted to get something posted. Next one will hopefully be faster and longer.

***

While Melissa managed to avoid the Curse of Blood, the vampire's bite left her with severe blood loss, which could be only partially remedied by Hilde's magic, it took a full day for her to regain consciousness, and then it was three more before she was strong enough to travel.

This delay was very welcome for me, since it gave me a chance to get used to the changes thrust upon me by the fight against the Necromancer.

You see, apparently breaking the life drain spell while pulling on the drained life force has the same results as suffering the Curse and then Subverting it, and I was now a Dragon of the First Circle.

I was stronger and quicker than I was before, and it took a lot more to tire me out. This may sound like every man's dream, and I am definitely not complaining about it, but suddenly every move I made, especially things that were completely relegated to muscle memory, required conscious thought. I couldn't even walk properly, since ever my feet pushed at the ground with just a little bit more power than my body expected, so that every step caused me to stumble. And then, of course, I would overcompensate for the stumble. Hilde says that this was a very common problem for people who managed to Subvert the Curse of Bones. People just aren't wired for such sudden changes.

Another common condition of people who have Subverted one of the Curses of Death, according to Hilde, was enhanced libido. To put it simply, I was horny.

More or less constantly.

Lucky for me, Hilde was in the same boat, and has been there for the whole week it took us to get to the fort. I don't even want to think about how walking around for a whole week in a state of constant horniness feels like.

Which definitely explains the night after the battle. And the one after that. And… yeah. Melissa was very emphatic about Hilde and me sleeping in a different room, once she woke up.

While Hilde spent her nights with me, her days were mostly filled with taking care of Melissa and aiding her healing. I helped her as much as I could, but that mostly amounted to finding firewood and cooking, which left me with a lot of time to burn.

Couple that with my need to get used to my enhanced body, I ended up in a more or less constant need to move, which I spent on exploring the ruined fort. I got myself a nice stout piece of wood to use as a cudgel, and got Hilde to give me a few fighting lessons, and went hunting for whatever remained of the Necromancer's forces.

Which amounted to nothing more than a handful of skeletons, which, between the little baseball I played in high school and Hilde's combat lessons, were fairly easy to destroy, once I knew what I was doing.

The fort itself was not in good shape. I had no idea how old it was, but it was old enough that nearly every outside wall was covered in ivy, and at least a third of it was so overgrown it was nearly indistinguishable from the forest. Inside the fort, no sign remained of any doors or other wooden furniture, and any decoration that once graced the walls was long gone. I found what appeared to have been an armory, but the few pieces of armor that were left in it were either rusted, rotten or both.

The one exception to the utter neglect of the fort was the suite of rooms that the Necromancer used when she was still alive. While she didn't bother with any decorations, she did manage to get useable furniture into the fort, and she had a library full of very well maintained books on magic and magical theory.

These books were mostly related to fairly vicious types of magic, and neither Hilde nor Melissa wanted anything to do with them. And naturally, everything but the most basic of spells was beyond my ability. But learning spells wasn't my purpose in reading the Necromancer's books. Instead, I learned about how the spells functioned, and on the uses and variations of various runes. Fighting the Necromancer was terrifying, and if I ever came face to face with another of her kind, I wanted to be ready with counters for their spells.

I also spent a lot of my time just thinking. When I first came through the portal, my main goal was to find a way back home. Now, however, I was starting to reconsider my priorities. My time here has mostly been a combination of intense terror and an almost painful combination of boredom and concentration. And yet, beneath it lay an excitement I could no longer deny. I've been an avid reader of fantasy for most of my life, and the chance to live in a fantasy world was not something I could just abandon.

Hilde, too, was a consideration. I didn't delude myself into thinking that what we had was even close to true love. It was more a combination of mutual horniness and admittedly growing affection. But whatever it was, I was enjoying it. Immensely.

And last but not least, the Curse of Bones changed me on a fundamental level I couldn't even begin to understand. I was some sort of magical being now, and I had absolutely no idea what would happen if I tried to go back to my magicless world. There was just no way I could return before I knew for a fact that going through the portal won't leave me as a mindless walking skeleton.

All of the above meant that I would be staying in this world for at least the near future. And if I was staying here, I would need the support and aid that the… Alliance of Light I seemed to remember Melissa referring to the loose federation of kingdoms I found myself in. And from what I understood, as a Dragon, I would instantly have a high status in the Alliance, but I would also have to take part in defending the Alliance from Necromancers and other Forsaken, as people who succumbed to one of the seven Curses were called.

And if I was going to have to fight Necromancers and Forsaken, I needed to be ready for them. I was probably the weakest magic user to ever become a Dragon, and there was no way I could just brute force my way in a magical battle. Finesse would have to be my way, and knowledge would be my rapier.

And that's how I passed the time it took Melissa to recover, and when we were finally ready to continue on our way to Aegis, I felt far better prepared for what the road would bring.