Nyla decapitated the crabman with a blade of purple flame. The cracks in the dragon’s maw pommel mended with the stolen life. As she roared in triumph, the fire-sword dimmed, revealing the double helix of steel that channeled her flames. “Whoo! Mari, I love this blade.” She cackled and threw herself at a giant floating sea urchin.
Riena chuckled next to me. “She seems to like her presents.” Our Commander hacked through an encroaching tide of inky coral and flicked a wave of acid at the octopus caster hiding in the reef. The creature smacked itself with all eight limbs in a doomed attempt to scrape the corrosive gunk off.
My satisfaction for the kill went down the bond and twitched a smile onto Riena’s lips, mixing with her own growing thrill for battle.
She brushed the hair out of her face, and those ruby eyes glimmered in the white light of the lesser voider’s soul cages that floated listlessly in this dungeon of worked stone bricks. “I have to ask, why an axe?” Said single-edged weapon hung loosely in her hand. The pitted back of the axe head oozed green ichor down channels that swirled over the blade. Any excess leaked along the edge and was reabsorbed back into it.
“For a novice, an axe has limited options, and they are all offensive. Wielding it shouldn’t distract you from your duties as a Commander while providing you a melee option. Your shade may be smaller than the rest of ours, but you’re already more than a hundred times stronger than you used to be. That strength is an asset for any hero. It’s best to start making use of it,” I said while conjuring and throwing ice-spears to pin the lesser voiders in place, disrupt their formations, and interrupt the squid-headed caster guarding the stationary voider brain that dreamed the rest of them into existence.
“The weirdest part is forgetting to eat for a whole week and not noticing. I—” Riena spun to face the approaching shark, but was too slow. It bit her arm, shook her, and then tossed her several meters.
I grabbed it by its dorsal fin and held it for Riena.
She sat up and patted herself down. “This armor is amazing. I barely felt that!”
The shark writhed in my grasp as my other hand continued to throw ice-weapons at distant foes. “Please, you don’t need to humor me. I know you could make something better.”
My Commander stood and tried to find a good angle on the shark before shrugging and hacking away at its neck like a tree. “Maybe—but—I—haven’t!” By the fourth swing, she killed the monster and was drenched in black gore.
A puffer fish expanded and sent Casimir flying over the battlefield. He rolled and landed onto his feet before sending a flurry of spear stabs at a school of pitch-black fish trying to swarm him. Each stab veered unerringly to a foe and delivered a payload of cracking electricity. The resulting arcs killed more fish than the spear itself. “Riena’s right. Most magic armor I’ve tried has a flashy trick or two, but this just works and feels great to wear.”
I wrapped the squid-caster in ice-chains and dragged him toward me. “Hmmm, I wouldn’t know. The only times I’ve worn borrowed gear were high tier raids or dungeon runs with a wealthy family’s heir, so I haven’t tried the commercial options. I do know it’s difficult to mass-produce magical combat gear, and that most combat Crafters only supply their teams or friends. It’s possible that the ones selling bespoke pieces lack a warrior’s perspective and don’t know what they need.”
“Ha!” Derek cracked a hermit crab’s shell with his crystal tipped bone mace and pulped the insides with a second swing. He then switched it to the bow configuration and shot a blood arrow that missed. “The real money is in armor repairs. Without a Crafter on your team, those costs will make most hunts unprofitable. Anything you buy at a store is a vanity piece. If you need basic gear, it’s better to requisition a tier 1 kit from your local garrison.”
After snapping the caster’s neck, I passed the chains to one of Casimir’s griffons and had him fly the leader’s corpse over the enemy forces to demoralize them. In that moment of distraction, I ran up their coral barricade and leapt for the voider brain. A midnight black kraken reached over the membrane hut sheltering my target and sent hooked tentacles toward me. I conjured a giant greatsword and swung it horizontally through the air into the creature’s eye. That sent it reeling long enough for me to slip through its tentacles, wreathe my arm in a blade of ice, and punch it into the voider brain.
All the sea life evaporated into nothing as the only true voider in the dungeon woke up and died. I began cutting up and preserving the lobes for later. “Do any of you see any signs of Axel?”
They didn’t, but I retrieved my real reason for this evening’s activities: monster parts infused with spatially aligned MP! While Riena would handle partitioning the dungeons with the other Commanders going forward, I made sure our initial lot aligned with my Crafting plans.
When we got back to the dorm, I almost rushed to bed, but then I remembered a topic I needed Riena’s advice on. “Hey Riena, can we talk about something… privately.”
Casimir jerked his head. “What the hell is Mari embarrassed about?”
Heat rushed to Nyla’s cheeks as second-hand embarrassment poured through the bond. She jumped to her room and sequestered herself. Right, she saw me leering.
“Oh, that’s extra weird. Nyla is mortified for Mari instead of laughing her ass off. Any bets, Derek?”
Our Guardian stretched and yawned. “No. Even with reading her emotions, she’s managed to be unfathomable.”
“I’m not asking you to put money down.” Casimir blew air out his mouth. “Maybe she broke critical infrastructure on accident and needs Riena’s help to fix it.”
“She wouldn’t be coy about that. Nah, I bet it’s something romantic. Mari hasn’t been able to use her weapons for days. She must’ve missed them, and Nyla caught her reading them poems or something.”
“Ooh, that’s way more likely than my thing. That’s the kind of unhinged shit Mari would pretend is totally normal.”
Derek tsked. “Dammit, she wouldn’t be asking for help about that.”
“Actually, it’s wild that she’s reaching out at all.”
Riena and I left the men to their speculating. I didn’t mind people thinking I was crazy. My supposed madness made others feel less insecure for their laziness. I treated it like a virtue to cultivate, a motive force for creativity and feats others wouldn’t dare imagine. When I leaned into it, it felt like a complement. When I wasn’t and close friends speculated on my sanity, it cut in a dull way. They felt my hurt and stopped before we closed Riena’s door behind us.
The Commander’s room was a glass hemisphere with a flat ceiling. Riena had selected a purple tint for the walls and blue for the floor over her aquarium in the bottom of the bowl. The exotic collection of fish didn’t obscure the fourth year team fighting their nightly battle below us. An attack drone patrolled the room, the bathroom, and the walk-in closet. It blasted any demon forming under her king-sized round purple bed or other furnishings.
We walked past the tea and Go table she would negotiate with other Commanders at and sat on her bed. “So!” Riena patted her lap. “What’s the issue?”
“I… You mentioned that those finding attraction in monsters were more accepted in the upper city. How do they handle that?”
“Like any other attraction. If a monster is a person, then things aren’t that different. There are health concerns for certain interspecies relations, but a plethora of devices are available to mitigate—”
I raised a palm. “Thank you, but I meant more how they…” What did I mean? “Monsters, they’re the enemy. It’s us or them.”
Riena shook her head. “We have alliances with several elven groves and many treaties with individual monsters so powerful it is appropriate for humanity to treat them like city-states. Not all monsters are our enemies.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with using monsters against other monsters, but those are all temporary agreements, stepping stones until we can purge the world clean. It may hold for our lifetime, but they are still the enemy. I don’t see how a healthy relationship forms with that bedrock of antipathy.”
“Uhhh, we’re going to have to live with some monsters. The Savior could make a Titan-killing gun tomorrow and endless portals will still bring endless monsters into our world. They are a fact of life. People don’t like to throw around the word ‘coexistence’, but it’s becoming more doable every day.”
I gesture to her room. “Your drones keep our dorm monster-free whenever you are home. This is a microcosm of the world. After enough human advancement, this space is monster free.” Coatlie hummed. “Mostly monster free. Is it so hard to imagine that one day we’ll secure Last Stand? Once our population replenishes, the plan is to expand our territory. The tide has turned. It may take hundreds of years, but humanity will reclaim Earth.”
Riena stared at my neck. “I’m curious if Coatlie has any thoughts about your vision.”
The snake uncoiled and floated in front of us. “Life exists in a myriad of forms. Each is a wonderful insight into how the multiverse experiences itself. That does include lifeforms that seek to exterminate other kinds. I try not to judge.” She flapped toward the exit. “That said, I think I’ll avoid the rest of this conversation.” Coatlie wrapped around the knob and opened the door enough to slither out.
Riena was still staring at my neck. “There is something about…” She leaned closer. “Do you not feel it?”
“I do.” Her proximity prompted increased heart rate, sweaty palms, and a blush. Through the bond, I sensed her growing interest, and my crush didn’t care what caused it. “Are you alright?” My tongue and abstract worry for my friend betrayed my desires.
“Better than… ever.” Riena breathed the last word over my jugular and tickled my skin. She blinked and shook her head. “W-what… were we talking about?”
“How to deal with my attraction to certain kinds of monsters.” Thankfully, none of the voiders stimulate my libido.
She giggled. The sounds were infused with Suggestions of calm, safety, and relaxation. “Out of all the things to worry about, you chose the one where all you have to do is follow your heart.”
Unlike her previous Suggestions, I resisted these. Riena’s behavior was off. “It’s not so simple.” How to explain that I always have to modulate what I want? “Blind passions can consume you.”
“Like this?” Riena bit into my neck, sending tingles along my nerves and involuntarily curling my toes. Incisors drew blood and a tongue lapped each drop.
While I wasn’t against such play, my Commander was clearly not in full control of herself. I sighed and pinched her nose shut. After a minute of bloodsucking, Riena gasped for air, creating enough of a gap to safely pry her off my jugular. As I released her nose, I gripped her shoulders and held her back.
After a few failed attempts to return to my neck and empty bites of air, the clarity returned to her eyes. “Why did I...?”
I checked her pulse and found one, ruling out undeath. “We believed your natural ability was Suggestion, but it might be a more evolved ability that includes everything Suggestion does. Old Absolute’s Ice Dominion acts as both Ice Creation and Ice Manipulation plus a few other esoteric effects, so there is precedent.”
Riena put her hands over her face, flopped on the bed, and rolled away from me. “I can’t believe I did that!” She broke the bond to prevent the wave of mortification from washing over the team. “What weird ass ability would make me bite you?”
“Plenty of abilities can affect the hero’s mind, but there are other possibilities.”
She sat up. “Like what?”
“Elves aren’t the only ones with corrupted shades. Lycans, half-breeds, and quislings are all—”
“‘Elementally aligned’ is the proper term instead of a euphemism for traitor.”
“Regardless, they are examples of humans whose shade turns them more monstrous or is replaced entirely, like with qui—elementally aligned individuals. You did mention that your father didn’t support your enrollment. It’s possible he—”
“He knew something I didn’t.” Riena stared at her hands. “It has been generations since a Hartgrove had a shade….” A dry laugh escaped her throat. “If this was the one time he tried to be a father…”
I scooted over and hugged her. “Whatever it is, I’m certain that you fight for humanity.”
Riena pushed me away and held her head. “It’s so obvious now! The way my father swirled his wine, his clothes, his penchant for Gothic architecture, and his widower streak: we’re fucking vampires, aren’t we?” She cackled. “Of course, the wealth hoarding elite are literal bloodsuckers… fuck me.” She fell on the bed and draped an arm over her face.
“We don’t know that for certain. Your ability could be Vampire or another new one.”
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“At least I’ll have red blood and not need a white uniform.”
“Riena…”
She laughed. “Your crush might have been the first clue…”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry, that was unfair of me. Zhencha!” The sphere rose from a charging station and beeped. “Fetch me my finest wine bottle and play string-heavy classical music.” She waved me away. “Leave me, Exemplar. This monster has to contemplate.”
I sighed and sat closer to her. “I’m not going to do that.”
“I Command you.”
“You shouldn’t be alone right now. I don’t understand all the currents coming to the fore, but I’ll weather them with you.”
“That’s what a thrall would say!”
I chuckled. “Your powers of suggestions aren’t that strong yet. Where did you learn about Vampiric power structures?”
“My father had a giant tome in his study with a skull on the cover. He told me not to read it, so that became my life’s mission… I should have put the pieces together sooner…”
We stayed up late and talked. I mainly listened to Riena outline the intrigues and plots of life in the upper city until she drifted off to sleep. Rather than leave her alone, I meditated on her bed until morning.
Coatlie and I left the dorm before Riena woke to journey with Nyla to class. The Vanguard gave me a side-eye. “Shacking up with the Commander, eh? Here I thought the power dynamic would get in the way, but I guess even Exemplar cares more about boobs than team cohesion.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that much more powerful than her—”
“Not what I meant.”
“—And her Hercules drone would give me trouble. Besides, we didn’t do anything. Why would you think that?”
“Pffff. Riena gets all hot and bothered while the two of you are alone. Then she gets mortified before ending the bond. I can put two and two together. You got busy, and Riena dropped her ability so we didn’t feel it. Even Coatlie thinks that's what happened.”
It’s true. Humans are hard to read, but she either wanted to mate with you or eat you. Since her jaw can’t unhinge, I discounted the latter. The snake helpfully spoke in my mind.
“Have you not noticed that Riena doesn’t get those desires about anyone?” I asked.
Nyla incinerated a goblin jumping us before responding. “I try not to think about the bond when it is up. The extra sensory awareness and teamwork is nice, but the emotional stuff is… difficult. The rest of you feel so much more that it’s hard not to get carried away.”
“That’s fair.”
A familiar far-off look consumed my friend’s face, and we continued to class in silence. Once there, we separated to our arenas, and my partner squared off against me.
“I love the skirt, but I’m surprised it’s white.”
Gabriel wore the white uniform with silver trim of a monster. “I’m not an Enigma anymore. Maintaining an immutable identity is one of the strict rules my former family has to follow. Without their special status, I’m no different than a friendly changeling as far as Last Stand is concerned.”
“It certainly DOES suck when those close to you don’t accept your change.”
“Yeah… I’m…” She hung her head and sighed. When she looked up, the fire was back in her eyes. “It took you—what?—18 years to figure shit out? I needed less than four months.”
I nodded. “A second rep with Exemplar should see that level of improvement.” I drank a haste potion and conjured two ice-axes. “Enough chit-chat, I’m in a hurry.”
“Hurry to get your ass kicked!”
Neither of us won the duel that day. The extra speed gave me the edge I needed to holdout against the assault, but with each moment, Gabriel discovered new combos and tricks. Our battle annihilated the arena, and Burn Bright had to intercept several errant attacks from hitting the other students. We traded barbs and blows in equal measure until we were both sweating, panting, and smiling.
The ugly hate between us wouldn’t evaporate in a day, but our relationship started with beating the shit out of each other. It could eventually rekindle the same way.
When I sat down at our table for Advanced Fabrication, Jeremiah flinched away from me. “Gah! Fuck Mari, is that human blood?”
I thought I had a certain post-spar glow. Upon examination, my armored hand was drenched with Gabriel’s fluids. “Worry not, the other girl was a regenerator.”
Bianca wrinkled her nose. “Quit bragging about your conquests and clean up.”
I rummaged through my satchel for my cleaning ring. A green gem glowed at the jostling. “It’s a lovely perfume.”
“Thanks, Hunter.” I slipped on the ring and lost my glow. “Really, what’s the point of weapons and armor if they are not drenched in gore? We forge these magical marvels for battle. That’s where their true beauty lies.”
“Yeah…” Jeremiah demurred. “At least when the blood isn’t red.”
X2 shook its head. “No, blood gets into my intake ports. I run a cleaning enchantment at all times.”
Bianca rolled her eyes and didn’t comment.
Before I could launch into a more impassioned speech about why the blood of your friends is a perfectly normal accessory, Gyro started the lecture. “MP forging is fairly straightforward. Instead of imbuing MP into your script, you pour it into the material itself. Doing so changes the meaning of the material you are working with, which both increases its MP capacity and adds material properties. It’s extremely wasteful, so industrial Crafters rarely bother with this process. There are a few aura tricks to it and this builds on the more advanced applications of what we worked on before…”
Once Gyro did it a couple times, I had it. Rather trying to fuse the MP with the material itself, you used it to shift what it was emulating. With this, I could turn any old steel into a spatial aligned metal with the lobes I harvested and make a proper spatial item with it, but I needed space first.
After the lecture had ended, I asked the table, “Any suggestions about what kind of room I should bind?”
“I stole one of the Commander’s gardens,” Jeremiah offered.
X2 didn’t look up from the ore it was refining. “Bianca and I each took a floor from our old tower.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bianca commented. “As soon as you want more, you can take more. Space doesn’t run out, and Aspiration will rebuild anything you steal. I would avoid grabbing a professor’s lecture hall or office. Never seen a Crafter graduate after that.”
“There are a few still in the running.”
“Tim is NOT running anywhere.”
“I meant metaphorically. Tim’s chair is particularly lethal. Did you see him run over a horned tyrant three days ago?”
“No, I was being productive.”
X2 and Bianca continued to bicker until class was over. I rushed down to the catacombs to meet Vanya. Instead of our normal coffee time, we were clearing a low tier dungeon as a duo.
“Took you long enough.” Vanya’s advanced weapons were holstered, and her old bow rested in her hands.
“Going back to the bow?”
“These things aren’t worth bullets.”
I agreed. We opened the curtain door and started popping Puffballs. The tier 1 demons were basically harmless fuzzy floating balls with large emotive eyes. They came in a full rainbow of colors that aligned with the element of their explosion. The monsters were fragile, slow, and dumb, but successfully territorial because their one attack did a lot of damage.
Vanya and I kept score and tried to kill them with ever more elaborate trick shots. It didn’t keep Vanya entertained, and she groaned after a few rooms. “They don’t even drop materials. I hate Puffballs.”
I bounced an ice-chakram through seven and made a rainbow. “Trips like these are relaxing. A cathartic mindless slaughter every now and then is good for a hero’s spirit.”
“If we weren’t hunting for Axel, then this would be pointless violence.”
“Violence is its own end.” Vanya furrowed her brows at that, so I changed the topic. “How are your dungeon runs going with Gabriel’s team?”
“Good. She’s suddenly a girl now, but I guess shapeshifters are gonna shapeshift. I don’t get it, but it makes her happy.”
I almost missed my next target. “What’s not to get?” Despite how casual I wanted to be, my heart raced. She still doesn’t know what I used to be. Why haven’t I told my friend?
“My next life, I could be a boy or a girl again. If I found either option particularly upsetting, then my generational mental health would take a hit. It’s a bit resource intensive to change that, and most elves live in the middle of nowhere.” She shot a few more Puffballs. “I really hope I don’t have a strong preference. That would suck.”
“It does.”
Vanya processed my words after a few seconds. “Oh. OH! Mari, I didn’t mean… Uhh… It’s fine. I… This doesn’t change my opinion about you.” She winced. “I don’t know what to say.”
“My bar is pretty low, so that was fine. I should have told you sooner. We’re going on an excursion this weekend and that’s why you’ve been doing dungeons with Gabriel instead of my team, but… I do trust you, Vanya. It’s just been difficult to say.”
“So, can I ask why you did it?”
“Well, I saw an ad for Valkyrie action figures that changed my life forever.”
“Really!?”
“No.” I killed the last Puffball. One of their nests looked exceptionally comfortable and an object caught my eye. “No fucking way.”
Vanya got closer and examined my prize. “You got to be kidding me.”
“No one goes to Puffball dungeons.” In my hands was one of Axel’s journals. I opened it away from Vanya. “The entire thing is in orcish.”
“Damn, I was hoping for a useful clue.”
“Coatlie can read it.” I was going to translate with Axel’s dictionary, but I couldn’t risk saying that aloud. If an eavesdropping orc heard my intent, they would send the assassins. “We’ll learn his mad ramblings eventually.”
“Right… the snake… We should hurry to class.”
We rushed upstairs and settled in for the lecture. The constant dungeon running had left lingering adrenaline in the students, so despite the Crone’s best efforts, no one fell asleep in her lecture, and I brewed 3 healing potions from monster parts collected by Fyrnell.
Once class was over, my team met outside of our next objective. Derek gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry Mari, I need armor repairs.” He pulled up his shirt and displayed four deep gashes. “The cuts stopped at the chainmail, but…”
“That’s fine.” I leaned down and inspected the damage. “The armor did its job. I don’t have any more leather, but any tier 4 materials should work for tier 3 gear.”
After clearing a dungeon of singing spiders, I patched Derek and Casimir’s armor with harmonic silk, song-infused chitin, and steel alloys made from the spider parts. These ugly patches worked because they were higher grade than the enchantments required.
“If you all have the time,” I asked while cleaning up my field Crafting kit. “There is a space I want to capture, and I need the monsters kept off of me.”
“This is a special moment in a Crafter’s career. I would be honored to help.” Riena’s mood had remained subdued. Her shoulders were more hunched, and her hair was a touch frazzled. The melancholy gave her a predatory aura that my eyes wanted to linger on. I resisted the physical staring, but the team knew I stared with my heart. Riena did her best to ignore it. “Where did you have in mind?”
I took them to a now empty dorm suite. All the furniture was flipped over, every drawer was emptied, and trash littered the floor. None of the lights work, and a dark mass shifted in the sink. It wasn’t the only movement in this ruin, but it drew my attention.
Before Riena’s drones could zip past me, I rushed forward and grabbed the corded flesh before it could slink further down the garbage disposal. The air rippled as I pulled against the creature. My aura strained to preserve the floor and sink while my foe had no such considerations. In the end, the vile creature relented to my strength and was wound back into the dorm.
Derek looked green. Casimir grimaced. Nyla poked the thing with her sword. “Is that a Twisted One?”
“Yes,” I answered after wrapping it around my fist. A Twisted One was created by ritualistically pushing a human through a small hole or other forms of slow torsional death. The resulting creature was completely blended with their own warped shade. “The Necromancer probably created this one with an unlucky second year. Nyla, would you do the honors?”
She pulled deeply on my love for all things heroic and burned the creature with both hands. Layers of ice shielded me from the flames as the flesh charred and flaked under Nyla’s gleeful ministrations.
Riena swallowed. “I suppose there was no way to save the student.”
I shrugged. “After coiling into a noodle, the brain is destroyed. It’s possible to extract the DNA and clone a new body, but that’s a different human.”
Once our team secured the area, Riena and I moved into the Commander’s room. If the rest of the dorm was trashed, then this room was destroyed. The word ‘Traitor’ was spray-painted in red above a bed slashed to ribbons.
“Scarlet’s goons sure were thorough.”
Riena kicked a bit of garbage through a glass hole into the empty aquarium. “Why do you want Axel’s dorm as your first space?”
“It’s fitting.”
“It’s a mess.”
I waved away the concern and pulled out my supplies. “I only need the space. The detritus within it is irrelevant until high tier Crafting. On that distant day, I’ll come back here and be reminded of all the struggles that brought us together this first year.”
“Why do you want to be reminded of pain?”
“Pain? This is a lighthearted side adventure with the fate of humanity on the line. Pain is when your friends die. The scale of the quest doesn’t matter.”
Riena crouched next to me and watched my runework. “Mari… Is there anything you want to talk about?”
She didn’t ask that question randomly. Whatever she is sensing about my emotional state compelled this line of inquiry. I continued working. “I’d rather get my work done and have more tools to keep my friends from dying. It’ll never be enough, but I have to do everything I can. I don’t… I don’t know which of you is going to die first. Normally, it’s easier to tell. There is someone scared or incompetent that I'd have had to save a few times by now. As soon as I look away, they get eaten or find a fate worse than death. That’s normal. I’ve grown used to it, but everyone is so competent here. I can’t mentally prepare myself. Nyla’s suicidal, but she stabilizes around you, so that’s not a critical emergency. The only one in our group that’s nearly died several times is me, but that’s normal. I always escape by the skin of my teeth. At this point, it doesn’t register unless I’m doing something really stupid like dueling a Frost Giant. I… I don’t want anyone to die. I’ve never wanted anyone to die. It’ll happen. It always happens. I need to… I need to keep working.”
Riena squeezed my shoulder and sent waves of reassurance. The small shake in my elbow stopped, and my hand had to work less hard to correct for the disruptions. “I have to believe there is a better way to handle our problems than buckling down and working harder.”
I scoffed. “You sound like Vanya. We’re not elves. We only have to hold it together for one life.” I shrugged. “It’s a self-correcting problem. Anyone that can’t is snuffed out before they lose it. People like Axel are the rare exception.”
Riena sighed and let me finish my work. Once the entire dorm was inscribed with spatial runes, we retreated to the exit, and I placed a previously prepared ring into a circle of enchantments. The once bright steel had transformed into a band that sucked in all light and was cold to the touch. All the runes were inscribed without visual feedback. A single error could result in a tear in the fabric of reality and hurtle us into the chaos between worlds.
I calmly imbued the formation with MP from my remaining voider lobes. There was no chance I made such an error. As MP filled the runes, they lit up with an ominous violet light that warped perception through it. When the ripples consumed our view of the dorm, it vanished. The space disappeared into my ring without a sound and only left a smooth white marble wall behind. Even the golden grains aligned. All evidence that Axel’s dorm had ever existed disappeared.
The ring remained cool to the touch. I slipped it on and transported my armor into it. The remaining barbs of the curse resisted the effort, but were overcome by the magic of the ring. I took the first free breath in a long time.
Casimir wrapped his jacket around my naked form. “Could you not have waited?”
I laughed and streaked back to my dorm. My hands were itching to hold a proper magic sword again. Finally, I can start being a proper Crafter for my team.
