The first thing Temate felt when he woke was pain. Searing pain. Not the simple pain of broken bones, or bruises, or abrasions. He’d felt all that before. Hell he’d been shot and stabbed before. It was the migraine that really hit him. The searing, thundering pain that started in his head and extended all through his body.

  He tried to bring up his good arm, the one he didn’t feel covered in bandages, which is when he noticed the second thing. Well, the second thing was the bandages, but the second important thing is that he couldn’t move. At first he thought it was just his arm, so he tried to sit up and couldn’t.

  He tried to open his eyes, and couldn’t. He tried to open his mouth, to shout, to simply sigh or breathe heavily and he couldn’t. That was the third thing. He couldn't breathe! Rather, he was breathing, he could feel that, but he couldn't make himself take a deep breath in or out. That was what rexed him. Yes, rexed, not panicked.

  Temate considered himself a straightforward, pragmatic person. A migraine was bad, you need to stop that. Make it dark, and quiet, and rest with lots of water so it would go away, or take painkillers. Not being able to move was bad, you needed to alert someone, make noises take loud rapid breathes, etc. Not being able to breathe?

  That was unnatural in a way that told Temate he wasn’t truly awake, so he rexed. Something strange was going on and the burning grew more intense as he y there considering it. He had his senses, he could faintly smell flowers and grass, feel something beneath him, and feel the heat. He could also hear.

  It was distant, but he heard the sounds of fighting. He heard a bellow, a Bears roar, then another, sharper roar and a screech. A shrill screech, one which he vaguely recognized from battling those things. He’d ignored the sound when fighting, blocking it out as unimportant, or an attack on his morale. Now it evoked an image in his head.

  The creatures. They were thin and gangly, misleading others into believing they were weak. They weren’t weak, they were fierce. He saw one in his mind's eye now, pinning him down. A twisted malformed human, waxy hairs flopping off its head like a destroyed mop. A snarling, vicious face.

  One arm pressed onto each of his as it id atop him. One foot on each of his legs and its face was in his face. It did not smell, as much as it looked like it should. Temate thought he knew what this was, sleep paralysis, but with a unique twist, or maybe he’d managed to open an eye and was seeing one of them about to finish him.

  It wasn’t that though, it was just sitting there, weighing him down. He examined it, looking the creature up and down. Not that he actually moved his eyes, it was more like he chose to look at it from different angles. In fact, the more he pyed with that, the more he felt like he was examining a highly realistic three dimensional model.

  Eventually, the creature stopped being a living thing as [Magic Eye] showed him its deeper magical elements. The building blocks of itself, he saw the dense muscle that made them up, and the core of light within them. A core that was oddly familiar, he focused, delving deeper.

  A swirling vortex of lights, a small cluster of gleaming spheres. He’d seen this exact scene very recently. When he’d Empowered. He was looking at what made these things them, what Power they held. How? Was it even accurate? Was he just dreaming? It felt real, that’s why he’d initially assumed it was sleep paralysis.

  A thought occurred to Temate, he took a moment to examine the creature, making a mental note of its [Powers] or [Skills] as Temate liked to think of them. [Dense Muscle], [Rotten Feed], [Pack Boost], a few others. They were basically stronger than they looked, could eat rotten and raw food without getting sick, and got even stronger the more of them there were.

  Then Temate tried to envision others. He started with the Goblins they’d met and saw… Nothing. The creature faded, but nothing took its pce. So he tried the Bears he knew, again nothing appeared. He frowned mentally and then tried his companions. Surrender, nothing. Pipuck, nothing. Toni... Temate blinked at the image in front of him now and immediately cast his mind away to make her disappear.

  Why was she naked? Was the creature he envisioned earlier naked? Yes, come to think of it, it was. He hadn’t noticed because of the situation, and ck of bits, but it was hard to ignore Toni’s nakedness. He moved on and resolved never to do that again, at least not without good reason. It felt rude, and not the least bit creepy, to be able to do that. So Temate thought about what conclusions he could draw from his tests instead.

  The conclusion he came to was this. Here in this space, whatever this space was, he could examine things with [Magic Eye] in finer detail. The question was how thorough was it, and why could he see Toni but not Pipuck or Surrender? He hadn’t used [Magic Eye] on her had he? No, he had! He remembered this morning, he’d used [Magic Eye] unintentionally when she’d lifted her bag. So it wasn't just anything then, but things he'd examined previously.

  The question then was, what was this space. He let his mind drift back to his senses, the fighting had stopped. His body was still burning but he had no way to do anything about that, so he put it to the back of his mind, which was easier said than done. This pce was oddly familiar as well, in a simir way to when he examined the pallid creature. Then the idea came to him.

  He was in the Empowerment space, how had he done that? He was unconscious, and he awoke because of the pain. The burning, searing pain. A pain going throughout his entire body, and with that another thought occurred to him and he focused in. Back to his own circle of glowing lights. Three swirling lights, like the stars of a microscopic gaxy, fshed into his vision.

  [Vicious Strike] and [Magic Eye] both floated there hovering around a central, nameless star. His core, as he thought of it, burned bright with fire and heat. Both of his empowered [Skills] also burned brighter than he remembered. The heat, it was here, the fmes of his core were overflowing with Power, but how?

  That didn’t matter right now, he could see two new [Skills] off of each of his empowered [Skills]. He didn’t bother examining them just yet, he wanted all of his basic [Skills] and didn’t want to be tempted. He also suspected that they’d require more Power as they were farther away. Pure specution from years of gaming, sure, but it was good enough justification for not checking.

  He reached out, and with all the fire in his core and grabbed the three [Skills] he hadn’t been able to cim before. The fire didn’t fully die down, but it was quenched and as the heat died down Temate felt himself drifting. He considered looking at the new [Skills] now, so many new [Skills] were avaible, at least 2 for each of the first 5. Before he could examine them more closely he felt his body, free from it’s burning pain, fade back into unconsciousness.

  Toni was burning with rage. It was so severe she could feel the fire. At first she’d wanted to go hunting the Nitha who had attacked Temate. However, even incensed as she was, Honey had a point. A point that made her even angrier, made her burn even hotter. Toni wiped a hand across her forehead, rubbing sweat off onto her arm and flicking it onto the ground.

  She wasn’t empowered. That stung to think about. She’d tried, she really had! She just couldn’t figure it out! It just… didn’t make sense to her. She looked over to the rge brown fuzzy bear standing nearby, sleeping and unworried. Milis had been no help either, she'd simply told her to 'let go of materia' and 'imbrace idea'! Stupid things like that. It felt almost intentionally obtuse.

  Honey had told her, “Materia and Idea are two of the great directions of reality. A realm will usually follow one path or another, this realm follows Idea, your realm followed Materia. In order to empower you must let go of the aspects of Materia which your mind obsesses on, or at least embrace Idea.”

  That had at least given Toni some thoughts, but nothing concrete. Nothing she could turn into a pn of action, or a solution to her problem. So Toni sat in a tunnel, back against a wall where a hive had once been and a wooden Bear totem now stood. It looked across the tunnel to a pile of rubble where a stone wall had been broken through again and again.

  Toni didn’t need to be here, she knew, the totem Bear and the Mayuk, a group of brown grizzlies who were the closest thing to a guard Bearbhaile had, handled the Nitha every time they popped up. Toni felt like she needed to be though, Surrender was here too, she refused to leave Toni’s side despite the danger. Pipuck was taking care of Temate, who rested only a chamber over.

  Toni’s face was furrowed, she had a bow instead of her gun, having foolishly spent the ammo. Sure, she had shot and killed six of the Nitha in their first attack, after they'd been wounded by either Milis or the Totem. But then they'd attacked again, almost a dozen the second time, and another Mayuk, a male bear named Mathan, and the Totem had handled it fine.

  Each time the Nitha attacked, a group of Daog, strange little beetle people who stood about halfway in height between her and Surrender, rebuilt the wall and cleared away the corpses. They were doing that now as she sat, one leg shaking as she examined the bow. She wasn’t trained with a bow, it wasn’t the same as a firearm, but the Bears didn’t have a crossbow.

  They didn’t have bows either, one of them had made this for her the night between the first and second attacks. Toni watched the Daog work, quickly pcing the stones into the wall and sticking them together with a paste spat from their mouth. She turned to Surrender who was sat in the telltale position of Empowering, making Toni flush with jealousy.

  She wanted to do that! She wanted the strength that came with it, she’d seen Surrender fight and was shocked. Surrender had surprised Toni, she had expected a small, weak thing. She was right in a way, Surrender didn’t fight directly but cwed at creatures joints from behind. Each cw strike Surrender made would see the creature stumble, and the wounded limb weaken, while she would slide back out of danger.

  After each fight, Toni had seen Surrender doing something. She had reached out to one of the bodies and though her hand hadn't quite touched the body it began to burn. Much like it did when Temate had killed the goblins. The first time Surrender did this, Toni was more frustrated and annoyed than mad, and said nothing. The second time, she decided to ask.

  “What did you just do?” Toni half grunted the question.

  “I am taking Power. For Empowering.” Surrender answered, looking confused.

  “What? You can do that?” Toni asked incredulously.

  Surrender nodded, “Mother says it is bad, to only do it to monsters.”

  Toni tilted her head questioningly at that, “These are monsters?”

  Surrender shrugged, “They attack to kill us and eat us I think, so even if they are not, I think they are.”

  Toni snorted at the memory, another example of the strange logic of this world. Maybe it was just gremlins though, or just Surrender? Toni leaned back and sighed, it was so hot down here. Oh, the heat wasn’t just her anger, or maybe it wasn’t her anger at all, but it definitely fueled her anger. It was just really hot down here. Toni pulled at the neck of her shirt, fanning herself. She looked back over at the gremlin, calmly focused on her ritual.

  How wasn’t she hot? Well, ok she was hot, but Toni didn’t mean it that way. Though the thought had her examining the gremlin. The gremlin was covered in soft brown fur, with slight streaks of green across her face. Her hands and feet were cwed, but still looked so small and cute. Big bat-like ears sat atop Surrender's head, twitching occasionally even in this moment of utmost focus. A small button nose barely peeked out of the fur of Surrenders face.

  All in all, she was cute, up until you looked down below her shoulders. The gremlin had traded out her worn tunic for a tunic and shorts provided by the bears. A gift for friends, they had said, though Toni felt it was as much an apology for Temate’s injury. The bow had been a gift as well. In some ways, Toni missed the original tunic.

  The original tunic had been patchwork and torn in a few pces, it made Surrender look like an urchin girl really. So it was nice to have the new, neatly sewn green tunic and pants. The tunic and shorts were held tight by a honey gold sash around Surrenders midriff. Too tight, Toni thought, her body filling with another kind of warmth as she examined the smaller gremlin.

  Only smaller in one way though, Toni noted, height. Their height difference was close to Toni and Temate’s height difference, that is to say at least a foot. Though it was hard to tell with how much Surrender crawled on all fours. The tight tunic, however, accentuated Surrender's other assets clearly. Toni wasn’t sure if it was because the other girl was so much shorter, or if it was the fttering dress.

  Her initial observation had been that the gremlins' boobs were almost as big as hers. Toni reached up and squeezed her own chest, not as a form of self-judgement, she hated girls like that. More in shock, as she questioned her original assessment of the gremlin. Surrender was what Toni would describe as a ‘shortstack’, really what anyone in her world would. It reminded Toni of an embarrassing number of totally normal goblin art she’d 'stumbled upon' while browsing for more innocent art.

  Toni flushed again at those memories and saw Surrender stir. She released her own boob and tried to act casual.

  “Get anything good?” Toni asked the other girl.

  “Yes, very good!” Surrender smiled broadly but didn’t eborate.

  “Well? Gonna tell me or are you shy?” Toni tried to smile, Surrender's smile lessened her anger. That just made Toni realize how tired she was. She hadn’t slept st night, she was too angry and too hot.

  Surrender thought about it for a moment, then replied, “Mmm, I get [Power] for hide better!” Surrender said pleasantly. Toni smiled, then a thought crossed her mind.

  “Why do you still talk like that? I know you can talk uh... normally, you’ve done so at least once.”

  Surrender’s fur vibrated slightly, in embarrassment maybe? Or irritation, either way she answered Toni.

  “I speak better when important, I like speak like this, make people think I dumb or harmless.” Surrender looked up with a sinister grin and spoke, “It make think I do not understand what they saying well, so no worry.”

  Toni smiled back at that but shivered. Smart, very smart, Toni was suddenly very gd they had the gremlin as an ally, a friend. Funny that, Toni didn’t know why she believed that so confidently, but she did.

  “I’m jealous, I wish I could figure that empowering thing out, but instead I’m just sitting here SWEATING MY TITS OFF!” She shouted out to no one in particur.

  Surrender tilted her head, “You hot?”

  “Yes! Aren’t you?! It’s torturous down here.” Toni continued trying to fan herself by fpping the neck of her shirt.

  “Hmm, I not hot, but if hot, why not take off clothes?” Surrender asked, Toni flushed and spluttered.

  “W-wha, bu, why would I get naked with strangers everywhere?!” Surrender blinked at her, not a single bit of cunning in those big blue eyes.

  “Naked bad?” She asked, all innocence.

  “YES, you- you should know that! You shouldn’t let people see you naked, it's not proper, and it’s embarrassing.” Toni expined.

  Surrender just shrugged, “Naked not embarrassing, just make people want mate. Mother say if like man and want mate be naked alone, but otherwise naked just make cool.”

  Toni turned beet red and shook her head “No no no no no, you should never be naked, I mean I guess if you’re… mating with someone.” Toni shook the image of Temate out of her head that those words invoked. “Then sure, but… but not in public, its bad! And bad people might try to… make you mate even if you don’t want to!”

  Surrender ughed, a strange, rough ugh. “If say so, but if I get warm, I get naked to cool. If not want mate, just scratch.” Surrender made another evil grin and Toni couldn’t stop the ughter it caused. Surrender joined her and the two were still ughing when Pipuck came running around the corner.

  “‘E’s awake!”

  Those were the only words he needed to say, both Toni and Surrender were up on their feet and moving immediately. They ran, both quickly outstripping Pipuck who swore as they did so. Surrender kept pace with Toni and the two came tearing into the healing field at the same time.

  Toni shouted, anger completely melting as she saw Temate sitting up on the edge of his bed. She ran over to him and practically threw herself into his chest as she gave him a big hug. He grunted, but didn’t compin as Toni began sobbing into his chest. He did compin when Surrender unched herself at him.

  “Cws! Surrender, Cws!” he choked the words out and Surrender, whined and hugged him more carefully.

  “I’m not sure what I did to get this reception.” He said, but he put his hand on both the girls' heads and gently pet them. Toni leaned back and looked up at the huge man and sniffed.

  “Shut up, you’re like the only person from our world I have contact with.” She said, unconvincingly to herself. She knew that wasn’t the only reason why.

  “Yes, but you’ve known me for what… two days? All I’ve really done is tell you to shut up when you talk too loud.” Temate replied with a soft smile. God that smile.

  “Ugh, we spent hours talking about myths on our original hike through the woods! Plus comforting me in the fae realm, encouraging me to rex and making sure I ate enough st night. Checking in to make sure I’m not tired or thirsty yesterday, and handling those goblins so easily! I’ve got plenty of reasons to like you!” Toni pouted and crossed her arms. Temate let out a low rumbling chuckle.

  “Alright, alright, but yesterday? How long was I out?” Temate said, he eyed her bow, and Surrender’s clothes with questioning eyes but kept those questions to himself. Toni noticed how his eyes lingered on Surrender's chest, Toni didn’t bme him, she kept staring herself.

  “It is evening a day after you fall, we help protect! Toni get veeeeeeeerry mad.” Surrender said, looking over at Toni who blushed slightly.

  “They hurt my friend! Of course I got mad!”

  “I take it, that's why you have the bow? Did you spend all your ammo?” Temate asked. Toni grimaced.

  “I… may have reacted… poorly when you were hurt.” She paused, looking at Temate’s face which was thoughtful. “It’s just, you looked… look, so injured. I couldn’t help it, Honey barely talked me out of charging into the tunnel to hunt the Nitha down and I-”

  “Nitha?” Temate responded, “An interesting name, I'd call them... hmmm, Darklings or something like that”

  Surrender stood next to the bed, her tail was running up and down Temate’s still bandaged arm, rubbing it softly. “Still hurt bad?” She asked.

  Temate nodded, “Yes, still pretty bad, but I should be able to help speed my own healing along now.”

  “Wha’?!” Pipuck practically shouted the word.

  “Just the bone, Pip.” Temate said, as if that cleared it up.

  “W-what do you mean?” Toni asked.

  “[Bone Salt] a new [Sk-], I mean [Power] I took while unconscious.” Temate replied.

  “YOU CAN DO THAT?!” both Toni and Surrender shouted that. Temate blinked and thought for a second before responding.

  “I guess, if you’ve gained too much Power your body will enter the state while unconscious. At least I did, I sort of half woke directly into it. It was an… experience.”

  Toni sighed, “Well I’m gd you’re okay, and stronger again…”

  “What’s wrong?” Temate asked, Toni bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to be a bummer but…

  “She not empower yet. Not understand.” Surrender answered for her.

  Toni gave Surrender a gre which the little gremlin intentionally ignored. Toni was about to add something when Temate grunted and made to stand up. Which prompted all three of his companions to excim and keep him sat down.

  “Rex! I got hit on the head, not my legs. I just want to walk and talk.” Temate offered his good arm to Toni. “Walk with me?” Toni blinked, then tried to desperately cover a slight flush as she took his arm. Made easy by the actual sweltering heat that still burned in her.

  “Of course, where to?”

  “An’ wha’ do you expec’ me to do?” Pipuck asked.

  “I expect you to come along, doctor.” Temate smiled at the spiras who sighed.

  “Only to make sure you don’ do anythin’ stupi’ again.” Pipuck commented, but grinned back a little.

  “Ha, you just run if fight happen.” That was Surrender who stood on the edge of the bed and held her hands out to Temate. “Can ride?” She asked as Pipuck spluttered at her comment.

  “Of course Surrender, watch the cws, and the head wound.” Temate ughed and the four companions left the healing field.