“Alright, since I’m here let me handle dinner,” He told Fontesh as they got back to her home. “Since Delair was showing off that she got the crafting skill does she have any practice with it?”

“A little,” Fontesh said with a smile, rubbing her daughter's head as she did. “When you left she was so insistent on trying to get it so we got her to balance out learning a bit of cooking, sewing, and art with a few of the villagers that could help her with that.”

“Awesome, well while I’m around why don’t I try and help her brush up a bit on that aspect too if that sounds good?”

The young girl was nodding enthusiastically while her mother only laughed. “If she wants to learn then I’m not going to stop her. Teach her well enough that she can cover the meals and that will leave me some time for some other things too.”

“Ha, sounds good. And you don’t mind her using a knife, do you? I’ll teach her the basic bits of safety while I’m here, but if you’re cool with it that would mean I could also teach her a bit of wood carving too. It’s another aspect of crafting so it would be good practice, especially since you have so many trees around to take advantage of. Plus, if we can get her enchanting before I leave it would give her something to practice making enchantments on too.”

“That’s fine,” She agreed easily enough before focusing on her daughter. “But Delair, if Ben is going to take some of the time he’s here to teach you then you need to put your all into learning, understood? He’s already trying something plenty hard on his own so you can’t be distracting him when he needs to put as much effort into his goal as he can.”

“Yes mom.”

Fontesh gave her a smile. She appreciated just how extremely difficult it was to awaken a skill and she didn’t want to get in the way of Ben’s original goal going out there, but since he seemed happy enough to indulge her daughter then she was happy to let him.

“Alright,” He said confidently, rustling the girl’s hair. “Let’s get started. First things first is proper knife safety. I’ll show you how to cut the vegetables for dinner and while we’re cooking I’ll try and guide you. Maybe we can talk about how flavours can be chosen to complement each other too. Hope you’re ready for this kiddo ‘cause now that I’ve decided to, I'll be making you learn as much as you can in the weeks I’m here.”

He said it with a smile and in response, Delair’s eyes lit up with excitement, ready to use the time to learn all she could.

After the meal, Ben spent a couple hours talking to the girl as Fontesh and Thera stood by, near enough to listen but less enthralled by the finer points of crafting and enchanting to want to get involved in the talk, instead chatting about what had gone on in the time since they’d seen one another, right up until it was time to head to bed.

They said their good nights as Ben and Thera moved to the same room they’d stayed in during their last visit as they looked at the shared bed before Ben focused on his girlfriend's face.

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not,” She firmly told him, slapping his arm as she looked away. “Just step outside and let me change.”

He did exactly as he was asked, giving her a few minutes before coming back and finding her already tucked in, a golden glow still spread across her cheeks.

It was a sight that had shown up more and more recently as they would part for the night and he could only wonder what was going on through her head, paying her the courtesy of not just checking without her permission, no matter how curious it might have left him.

“Want me to sleep on the ground?”

“Just get in here already you idiot.”

It was all the invitation he needed as he went to lie down, wrapping an arm around her as he did.

“Thanks again for coming all the way out here with me.”

“Pfff, if I didn’t then who knows what would happen to you? Just don’t get yourself attacked while I’m out visiting the surrounding towns.”

Thera still wanted to offer her services as a healer after all. The month he planned on being there to train was no short stretch of time by any means and she fully intended on doing her best to get as many levels to her job as she could before things went downhill.

“I’ll do my best. Also, would you mind picking up a few things for me while you’re going around? I’m going to need a lot more paper for notes and getting a few tools for Delair to use would be handy for her to practice with after I leave.”

It was as he was saying it that a small laugh couldn’t help but escape Thera as she leaned in closer. “You’re like a father who wants to spoil his daughter.”

“Hey, I’m not that old. At least say a brother spoiling his little sister.”

“Mmh, no. The feeling you’re giving is definitely that of a dad who’s excited his daughter is showing an interest in what he does. You seem more interested in helping her right now than you are trying to push your connect over the edge.”

“Thinking of how to train someone is just more stimulating,” He said in his defense. “For connect I just need to link up with the forest and hope it doesn’t make my brain explode. For training, I need to consider the best way to help her grow based on my own experiences while also taking the resources she has available into account. It is a perfectly normal level of interest.”

“Ha, sure, sure, if you say so,” She told him, not believing him for a second. It didn’t take knowing him personally to see how much he’d enjoyed the bit of time he’d already spent on teaching her, and Delair seemed like she was determined to live up to her promise with her mother to be an attentive student. If they survived up to the third wave and that really managed to be the end of things like so many people desperately wanted to hope, there was a very possible chance that Ben would be ending up with an apprentice of his own.

She couldn’t help but imagine that future. If Delair was going to become Ben’s apprentice then that would mean the girl would have to move to Stonewall, but that seemed like it could be hard on her in its own way. Sure, she’d have family in the form of Sachel present, but Thera knew that she would take more distant quests, as well as have to go out to preach as the oracle of Myriad.

Given that, it really would make more sense for Delair to be staying with her and Ben instead as she let herself imagine it. There wouldn’t be enough room in her aunt’s home to take someone in, but Ben did own an entire other house in town, its only issue being the number of deathtraps he’d built into it. If he took them out then it would be the perfect place for a family-

“What am I even thinking?” She muttered, shaking her head of the thought as Ben looked at her curiously.

“Thera?”

“Don’t worry about it,” She told him, leaning in to kiss and looking in his eyes as she did. “Hey Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to… Actually, don’t worry about it. I’m going to sleep.”

She was close enough that he knew that wasn’t true, feeling her heart pound against his chest, but as she laid there quietly, insisting on pretending she'd done as she said, he gave her a soft kiss before closing his eyes and forcing his mind up to his god’s realm.

When he arrived, the first thing he noticed was that it was a full house that night, with each god present intent on yelling at him.

“Oh no you bastard!” Myriad said first. “You go back down there and you ask her to finish what she was going to say!”

“It was just getting good too,” Helori said from atop his god, a snack in her hand and the first example he’d seen of a god eating as Anailia was coiled around them both, laughing as she was.

“It’s good to be respectful of those you love, but sometimes it pays off more to push an issue you know?”

“Now now, let them figure things out themselves,” Nare told them. “Better a bit too respectful than not respectful enough. Besides, it seems like the girl is going to force the matter herself sooner than later"

“...Is there a reason you’re all here?” Ben asked after it seemed everyone had given their say. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh no,” Anailia told him. “Helori let me know it looked like something interesting might happen so I came to watch.”

“And it sounded fun so I joined,” Nare chimed in. “It’s important to get breaks every now and then after all, but since it ended on a flat note I’ll be on my way.”

With those words he vanished, Anailia going with him and leaving only the more typical three in the realm.

“I wonder if I could get some privacy if I enchant my entire room with king of sacrilege,” Ben muttered. “If I just try and keep you all from seeing me then you could probably just focus on Thera, but if I cover a room that might give me that bit of privacy I’ve been lacking these last few years. Well, except from the grey, but I’m just going to tell myself they don’t watch me too much.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Myriad said cheerfully. “Just act like there’s no eyes on you and let whatever’s going to happen happen.”

“Why do you seem so happy about the idea of something happening?”

“Oh, I’m just excited for the future is all.”

“The future where we’re all going to be dead?”

“No, a completely different part of the future. Though admittedly one that will be canceled out by everyone dying. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Definitely need to consider enchanting all of Sonya’s place with sacrilege. Or maybe I can extend the effects of it to Thera while I’m with her? Another thing to test I guess.

“Oh, don’t be boring,” Helori told him, tossing some unknowable snack into her mouth. “Watching mortals just happens to be fun, plenty of people have our eyes on them in what little spare time we currently have. If you don’t like it just try to live a less interesting life.”

“Excuse you, I’m trying to live the most boring life I can. It’s this reality as a whole that seems to be going against that desire.”

“Then blame the universe for any attention you get,” She said with a shrug. “Anyway, what are we working on with you tonight?”

At the peak of his headache, he’d put a rest to training both his language studies, as well as working on examining the summoning spell, but with his minds free of their past pain he had been getting back into it again at full force, trying to make up for the time he’d missed.

“Both, but let's emphasize the summoning. Also, we’re skipping any language from Myriad. It made me gain one level of mental expansion in the past just getting the hang of one of them. I feel like if I start learning a new one on top of it it’ll just make my mind rip itself apart again.”

“Hey!”

“That’s fair,” Helori said, both of them ignoring the cube's complaint. “In that case, Myriad would you bring up the summoning spell again? We’ll discuss its aspects through the lens of my people’s tongues to work on both.”

“Sounds good.”

There was always so much to do. He needed to awaken connect, build Inux a new body, learn all he could about the mysterious summoning spell that had brought him to the world, and try to get a better grasp of how language worked as a whole to take all he could get from the archive, along with so many other smaller tasks. Each felt like enough to take up years of his life on their own, but together it couldn’t help but feel overwhelming if he let himself think on it for too long.

And now I’m adding a month's worth of training Delair onto the list. There really aren't enough hours in the day, but this is all stuff I’ve chosen for myself. In the end, I just need to do it.