Part 3

  Chapter 21

  The decision to go to Charlie’s Crypt final, we spent a couple more days hanging around the city, talking to various vendors and higher-leveled NPCs. Everyone was super nice because of my standing with the city, and the title I’d received after completing the event had also turned them all into followers. I felt kind of bad about that, as the kingship probably deserved to be Fred’s. But since I was party leader, I had reaped the reward there. Fred, thankfully, hadn’t made the connection.

  I put a few plans in motion with the intention of making it back to The Hallowed City, and since Matt was an NPC and wouldn’t be able to join us in Charlie’s Crypt, I delegated a few tasks to him. I wasn’t sure if putting him in charge of the other followers would even work . . . and there were so many other followers now I was a little overwhelmed, but it was worth a shot. So after hitting ‘Summon’ for Matt I gave him a couple orders and he set to it. I wasn’t sure all followers would follow verbal commands as eagerly as Matt, but at least in his case, they seemed to work.

  After the battle with The Black Queen, we had gotten a fair amount of Soul Space experience. One hundred and twenty cubed meters of it to be exact. The next time we were in the Soul Space, I used . . . all of it. I got on my hands and knees and dug a one-by-one meter tunnel starting at the end of the hallway which had become Greg’s sort-of-room. I had hoped I would hit some kind of barrier or some way to escape, or just anything. But . . . nothing happened. The tunnel just kept going and going. The only result was a really long useless tunnel, and it further solidified in my mind that there was no escape and no exploits to be found in the Soul Space, but I didn’t care. I would keep trying to figure something out.

  Before I knew it, we had consumables restocked, gear repaired, and mounts acquired. I had been able to afford enough for the party, but they were not cheap at ten gold a pop. The mounts were just horses. No dismissing them, or popping them into the inventory or anything like that. But they did acknowledge their owner, and interacting with them brought up a similar interface to followers. So I could ‘Summon’ mine if needed or set it to ‘Autonomy.’

  We did one final go through of the checklist of gear we had put together, and then we were off. We headed south out of the city toward Shell Woods. This was one of Mie’s main talking points against my plan. She wanted to head north because whatever phase two was, it likely entailed some mechanism to centralize everyone. Since we were in the southeast portion of the island continent, that meant going south would take us further away from the center of the land mass. Meaning, if there was some mechanism that centralized everyone during phase two then we were going the wrong direction . . . but I was still somewhat confident we would be able to make it back in plenty of time . . . Maybe confident wasn’t the right word.

  The mounts made the journey more bearable, especially when we hit the wall of mountains where we found a similar pass to Merchant’s Way. Not having to trudge through thigh-high snow again was a big plus.

  We made it through the pass without complication, and came to Shell Woods. I started to get overly anxious then, nightmares of massive troll breasts filling my vision. This was the area the mother troll I had encountered on my initial journey to The Notch had come from. I was fairly confident I could take on that level thirty-three troll now, but the memory and stench of rotten milk still haunted me.

  Shell Woods was about what you would expect from a typical forest, aside from a few things. The trees were about three or four times as tall and thick as a normal tree, their canopies so large hardly any daylight got through. The leaves were falling, all sorts of shades of yellow, orange, red, and brown as if it were fall, but it was early in the season, and the trees were still full.

  I walked up to one of the trees, curious. The bark looked strange. I ran my hand vertically along it and felt the sharp creases and edges of a carapace-like material. I guess that explains the name of the place. It was weird though. Their trunks were a deep purple and spanned six-plus feet each. There was minimal underbrush, making traversing the area manageable, even when off the path. I had a sudden thought. Didn’t Matt mention the Black Queen was from the south? From . . . Shell Woods?

  During the journey we ran into a couple mobs that gave small amounts of experience, and we were able to dispatch them . . . uhh. . . pretty smoothly. Okay. Actually, it was kind of rough . . . because we confirmed The Black Queen was definitely from Shell Woods.

  The spider-crab angler fish thing that jumped us was smaller than the queen . . . but still just as freaky. Like Mie said, the level difference was a real problem, but thankfully there was only one of them. I shuddered just thinking about it. It had a few abilities The Black Queen hadn’t had, thankfully. Like wrapping its target—in this case Mie—up in its speedy legs, and the ability to ejaculate thread-like darts. It still had the legs with scythes, which at one point during the fight ended up . . . severing Fred’s . . . penis.

  That hadn’t been fun to watch. So much screaming and soooo much blood. Like, a freaky amount of blood. Thankfully with his new ring, his first roll was another nine, which caused a ton of damage and a long stun from a bolt of lightning. I still didn’t understand how the system decided where to strike with lightning, shift mountains, or dislodge broken trees, but I didn’t care. It worked, and we were able to finish the creature off . . . but it had given me a thought. What if another party has a fairy dwarf too . . . ? That could be a big problem. For now, all I cared about was that his ability was our best way forward.

  After what we had started calling the ‘penis incident,’ and right before we made it to the dungeon gates, the group agreed, on Mie’s insistence, that Charlie was actually probably a pretty great guy. The conversation went something like:

  “I knew a Charles once. He was a great man,” Clara said.

  “I bet Charlie is also a great man,” Mie said, giving me a side long look.

  “Uhh, yeah! Charlie is probably an upstanding fellow!” Fred said, not wanting to be left out.

  Everyone laughed nervously, but I stayed absolutely silent, praying to God almighty Mie would just stop talking.

  Thankfully, she did.

  The trees cleared as we approached the initial structure of the dungeon. The large wall and gate we were coming up to sent massive Transylvania vibes running through my mind. The wall itself was constructed in a gothic style, and the old wooden gate looked like what you would find at the entrance to a cathedral. It was a two-door doorway, and to the right of it there was some old Catholic-Church-looking font chiseled into the dark stone wall.

  CHARLIE’S CRYPT

  Amid whispers divine, the wayfarer's bind.

  Within these walls, your spirit confined.

  Cross the threshold of forgotten lore,

  Hence, turning back shall be no more.

  A fleeting trial by divine command,

  Grasp thy chance with steady hand.

  “Well if that isn’t ominous I don’t know what is,” Mie said. “What does it even mean?”

  I stepped closer to give them a re-read. “I’m not sure . . . I'm not great at riddles, but that first one feels like once we are in there, we are trapped. No . . . our spirits are trapped.” I started thinking out loud and talking softly to myself, “Huh. I wonder if that means we can’t log out? That will make it tough when we have to get Mie her bottle of mil—” I froze, realizing my mistake.

  Clara was looking at me, then to Mie, confused. “You feed Mie . . . bottles of milk?” she asked. Fred also stopped looking at the inscription to listen.

  “Uhh . . . yes?” I said, unsure of how to respond and still thinking . . . If we are about to be unable to log out to feed Mie . . . then that is going to be a huge problem. Mie will have to sit out the dungeon or, I don’t know, figure out how to have Greg feed her or something . . . but that won’t work. Our bodies disappear. Maybe she can just survive being hungry? How long will the dungeon even take?

  “Why . . . are you feeding Mie . . . bottles of milk?” Clara asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “It’s because I am a—” Mie started, but I cut her off.

  “SHE HAS NO HANDS,” I cut in. “Her guide, GREG . . . uhh . . . CUT THEM OFF.” I was floundering, trying to keep anyone from saying out loud that Mie was a baby or put together that we shared a Soul Space. I still didn’t know if anyone from the ‘company’ was listening or watching us.

  Greg: I did . . . what?

  “Fucking Greg, right?” Mie said, playing along and giving me a smile, but then a moment later she sighed. “Sam, let’s just tell them. I’m tired of the lies.” Then before I could stop her or do anything she said very clearly, “Everyone. My Soul Space body . . . is a baby.”

  “A . . . baby?” Clara asked . . . then she started laughing. “Oh dear. This whole time you were feeding her bottles?! I thought you were just having copious amounts of intercourse, since you’re sharing a space and all that. Good for you, was all I was thinking.”

  I blushed and cringed at the same time, still nervous something was about to happen. Like we were about to be found out and kicked out of Hearth . . . then squished immediately.

  A moment passed, Clara still laughing, Fred confused, then another moment. But . . . no blaring alarms, no shit-head bunnies showing up, nor anything else.

  I breathed out a sigh of relief and gave Mie a ‘what the hell?’ look.

  She shrugged.

  I leaned in to speak in a low voice. Fred leaned way in too. God damn it. “It still doesn’t change the fact that I need to feed her every so often or else she will starve.”

  “Well . . . that’s not exactly true . . .” Mie said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, quirking my head to the side. Her tone was weird.

  “I just mean, I’d be fine if we couldn’t log out.”

  “But you would starve?”

  “Uhh . . . no I wouldn’t.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Yeah . . . uhh . . . remember that time I told you my Soul Space Body was hungry . . . ? And you got all confused because your hunger and thirst would just vanish . . . ?” She said it with not a small amount of innocence in her tone.

  I narrowed my eyes. “. . . I remember.”

  “I . . . lied.” She said it uneasily, and her eyes were on the ground.

  I didn’t speak for a long time, and when I finally did, I couldn’t stop the anger from seeping into my voice. “You’re telling me we could have NOT DONE FEEDINGS THIS WHOLE TIME?”

  “Yes . . . but it was us time,” she said with a small voice.

  Then she gave me a sort of expectant look as if it was my turn now.

  I shook my head, not understanding, then walked over and slumped against the rough stone wall. I let my gear get all bunched up as I slid down onto my butt. Mie moved to follow, hesitated, then stalked off, looking frustrated and throwing her arms up into the air.

  How is she the mad one here? Days and days of feedings, night and day. Never getting a full night of sleep, all because Mie . . . had decided she liked that time together? We could have even stayed logged into Hearth a night or two just to sleep. I heard the others discussing while I silently fumed. Clara was talking about the riddles.

  I was picking up some pieces though. There had been a few times where we hadn’t fed her for a long time . . . and she’d seemed perfectly fine. I should have caught on earlier. Us time? I didn’t get it. She could have asked for chill time . . . Meh. I probably would have turned that down. We were fighting for our lives here, and we needed to be leveling. And besides, how was I supposed to understand the needs and desires of a sentient . . . item?

  I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head, and listened in to the conversation. Mie kept throwing me nervous looks.

  It sounded like once we entered, we wouldn’t be able to log out or exit the dungeon. Clara—who seemed pretty good at puzzles like this—guessed that the last paragraph meant we only had one chance at the dungeon, or one entry to it, or something along those lines.

  Mie, apparently past my reaction, was bickering once again about the huge risk the dungeon represented. At this point I had to agree with her . . . a smidge. I hadn’t known about the dungeon rules when I’d come up with my plan. But what else were we going to do now? We were here, and since . . . I didn’t have to log out to feed Mie, it was time to enter.

  Entering, however, wasn’t straight forward . . .

  We found the option to ‘Enter with Party’ and hit ‘Yes,’ and the gates made a couple clicking and grinding noises . . . but when I tried to push them open, they remained locked. More mechanical clicking came from within the wall. Then the door presented a small bucket through a vertical slit. There was another inscription on it in the same font as before.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  To tread within these hallowed halls,

  Shed thy flesh as darkness calls.

  “Okay. No thanks, I’m out,” Mie said.

  “Come on. It’s just a little blood,” I said. I slid my finger along the blade of my axe, slicing it open. It stung, but I was a damn firefighter. I didn’t flinch. Blood dripped, dinking into the bucket.

  Nothing happened.

  “Huh. Must need some from all of us?” I said to no one in particular.

  The rest of the party performed a similar action, except Mie. I grabbed her wrist and finger.

  “OW! That hurt! Sam, what the hell,” Mie said.

  Dink. Dink. Dink. There was silence save for the sound of blood hitting the bottom of the pail as everyone took their turn. We waited for Fred to step away from it.

  Again . . . nothing happened. I reread the inscription that had appeared.

  “ ‘To tread within these hallowed halls, Shed thy flesh . . . as darkness calls.’ Oh. We’re dumb. We just have to wait till the sun sets,” I said, looking up at the rest of the group.

  Based on their expressions, they were not happy. I had somehow turned into the bad guy. I didn’t see what the problem was. It wasn’t like any of them were coming up with ideas. I did have to burn a health potion because Mie refused to heal me. That kind of sucks, and also what the hell?! She’s the one who lied to me!

  We camped outside the dungeon until the sun fell below the horizon and gave it another go.

  Dink. Dink. Dink. Dink, went our blood.

  Again we waited, and nothin’ happened.

  “You uhh, don’t think it means . . . like . . . actual flesh, right?” Fred said with some hesitation.

  I sighed. “Only one way to find out.” I found a rock and placed my left hand on it. I hesitated for a long while. I mean who wouldn’t? This wasn’t just some minor blood . . . this was my actual pinky finger I was about to cut off. Finally with severe effort, I brought my axe down hard and then promptly bellowed into the night a, “GAAAAAAAWD! FUCK! AHHH!” and finished with a growl. Tears streamed from my eyes. Why am I crying? I was supposed to be tougher than this. I dropped the finger into the bucket. The sound it made when it bounced . . . was horrible. The inscription showed some additional information now.

  0/4 requirements met. Additional flesh required from one or more individuals.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m not sure I like Charlie anymore . . . or maybe Charlie is our damsel in distress, and something evil has him caged up?” Fred said.

  “Charlie wouldn’t do this . . . ” Mie said again while looking at me.

  “No one would do this,” Clara said.

  I turned stiffly and went back to my rock, axe in my hand. Weeks of sleepless nights while doing this kind of shit. Fuck me.

  Finally, after plopping my whole left hand into the bucket, and doing the same for Clara and Fred . . . it was Mie’s turn. It took an effort. All three of us had to pin her down as I swung while she screamed and yelled curses upon our mothers.

  THUNK!

  After that horrible experience, and after we were all healed up—Mie once again not healing me; fucking hell . . . ?—we had met the four out of four requirements in order to enter the dungeon. More grinding and clicking. Another bucket exited below the first, larger this time.

  We all looked at each other in horror.

  I read the inscription and breathed out a steadying breath. The creator of this place was really enjoying himself. The piece of shit.

  At the bottom was written ‘JK’ in large letters.

  Cursing, I pushed the gate open, its doors creaking, and finally we entered the dungeon.

  CHARLIE’S CRYPT

  “Charlie, what the hell was that?!” Mie called out as we entered the level forty dungeon.

  “Come on out, friend!” Fred said.

  “Oh Charrrrlieeee, where are ya?” Mie called out again, her voice quavering. “I know it wasn’t your fault back there. You wouldn’t do that.”

  Though we had just come from a moonlit area, when we entered the dungeon the space felt bounded. It was dark. Really dark. So dark that even with light sources, my enhanced eyesight couldn’t pierce the darkness at a distance. We each had a torch in hand, but the darkness seemed to eat away at the light, and despite being in a massive courtyard, our light only traveled some ten or fifteen feet before it met a wall of blackness.

  The grass was dry and sharp beneath my boots. We traveled slowly along the path made up of far apart stepping stones. On each side of the path there were tombstones spread out in lines that I assumed continued beyond our circle of light. The word ‘crypt’ floated up in my mind. If the dungeon was going to throw an undead encounter at us right out of the gate . . . and each of these tombstones was a potential enemy . . . it wasn’t going to be good.

  “Can we not call out to our friend Charlie?” I hissed.

  “Why is he still our friend?!” Clara said. “Charlie is clearly a shitbag. WAKE UP, EVERYONE. HE JUST MADE YOU CUT OFF YOUR HANDS!” Clara yelled, her voice booming over the grounds.

  “Clara. Please be quiet,” I hissed again. Then I listened, making sure all had stayed silent. Thankfully, it had.

  We made it to a large building that looked awfully like an old Catholic cathedral. The door was similar to the dungeon gate, though this time it opened without a flesh sacrifice. But it was stiff, and it opened slowly with some long rusty grating sounds that penetrated the stillness behind us. The sound echoed through the interior too when we walked through the door. Churches always had that long form reverb, and this one was no different. I moved to the side of the doorway as the other players moved in.

  We found ourselves in a long worship hall. Red carpet ran down the middle of rows and rows of pews. It ran all the way down to a pulpit at which stood a skeleton wearing an old and ragged white cassock. It gazed in our direction as if frozen in time. We all stopped for a moment, waiting to see if it would move. It didn’t.

  We kept moving forward, and as we got closer I realized its arms had somehow cemented to the wood on the top of the pulpit, which was keeping him upright. There was a square-shaped pile of dust on top of the pulpit too, as if a large tome had disintegrated there.

  “Okay yeah. This place is as creepy as Greg,” Mie whispered. “When are we done?” she whined.

  Fred took another step forward past the pulpit, and we all flinched when a loud church bell vibrated down from above us.

  GONG!

  The skeleton behind the pulpit turned its head toward Fred.

  “Oh fuck,” I breathed out.

  In one swift motion, the skeleton reached underneath the pulpit and stabbed backward with a two-handed longsword, running Fred through. His health dropped by seventy-five percent, and I instantly activated all my buffs while inspecting the creature.

  Level 41, Necro Priest

  HP 1500/1500

  I rushed forward and slammed my axe blades down into the enemy’s back. They bit into his bone, but the numbers were not great, and worse, my weapons were stuck. Mie Flash Healed Fred while he cast his Arbitrary Blast. His boyish grin told me all I needed to know. I dove out of the way as the air warped. There was a flash, then BAM! Lightning rooted in from an open window, zeroing out the creature’s health, but the massive blast radius stunned all of us.

  {Stunned} for 10 seconds

  “What the hell, Fred!” Mie said. “I THINK WE TALKED ABOUT A HEADS-UP SIGNAL?”

  “I panicked. Sorry!” he called.

  Torches flickered to life one by one in a wave along the walls all the way back to our entry point. The cathedral door, already ajar, burst the rest of the way open, revealing an army of skeletons brandishing rusted weapons. Of course. It was almost too predictable. I looked back to the front of the church. The circular stained glass windows shattered behind the pulpit, and three enormous skeleton creatures clawed their way into the building, their claws breaking and chipping away at the stone. Their bodies had a structure that looked like a lion’s, and they had the beaks and talons of eagles. Their wings were still feathered, but the rest was just bone. These were clearly once huge gryphons.

  Level 43, Necrogryph x3

  HP 3000/3000

  “Remember how I said that if there were multiple mobs we’d be royally fucked?” Mie said in an even, pissed-off voice.

  “Yeah. I remember,” I said, watching the skeletons pour through the door, waiting for the right moment.

  Theodor: Fred’s blast cooldown at 20 seconds remaining.

  We had given Fred’s guide the job of keeping everyone aware of his Arbitrary Blast cooldown. As for Greg . . . Mie refused to let him help at all after we randomly found him naked in her bed, even though I had thought that it might help to at least have him call out the locations of enemies, and allies too when their positions were unknown. So, I did end up messaging him privately to clarify that we did want his help. I didn’t like needing his help, but we needed to be smart, and his perception ability was invaluable.

  The stun fell off, and I looked over to Mie and said, “Remember when I said to trust me?”

  We were all backing away from the necrogryphs toward the army of skeletons.

  “I remember you being an ass.”

  I pulled out two small thin objects from my inventory.

  Greg: NOW, SAM!

  Mie: NO, GREG! WE SAID NO HELPING!

  I activated the remote wands.

  BAM! BAM!

  The blast waves hit our backs. Burning and broken skeletal bones flew past my head, a sword whistled by, turning end over end. An axe buried itself in Clara’s back, and we were all blown off our feet. I slammed face-first into the red carpet and slid a few feet. Red pain bit into my face from the heat of what felt like a massive rug burn.

  Theodor: 3 seconds!

  Rock and bits of wood rained down all around. A necrogryph was suddenly right in front of me. It swiped, and still on the ground, I activated my vault. I landed behind it already in motion for an Ass Crack. My blow landed, the blade dealing little damage, but the stun debuff appeared above the creature.

  I glanced past it at the destruction I had caused at the entrance. Skeletons were still coming through, and Mie was laying into the mobs with her staff. She was oddly doing . . . great. Her staff was knocking legs and arms off the skeletons as if they were made of dried-out sticks. That doesn’t make any sense. She has some Strength . . . but not that much. I continued surveying the room.

  Pews were upturned, broken, and burning. I couldn’t tell exactly how many skeletons I had taken out, but the piles of bones told me it was a large amount. I smiled with satisfaction. The creatures had been absolutely blown to pieces from the two explosives, along with their triggers I had placed at the entrance. Handy little things, those magically activated beer taps. I had seen them for the first time all the way back at The Notch. The NPC innkeeper back in The Hallowed City had been super confused why I wanted to buy some of his. But after seeing the description on the explosives I had taken from Mike, I’d realized the remote activated beer taps were exactly what I needed.

  I laid into the necrogryph still stunned in front of me, then activated my sweep. I backed up to the back wall. The creature’s stun faded, but it stayed put, now rooted. I pelted him with spears at a distance, drawing them from my inventory one at a time. I was doing very little damage. How is Mie doing more damage than me?! Clara had drawn the attention of the other two necrogryphs with arrows, which also didn’t seem to be very effective against the boned creatures. She was blinking and diving around the room and avoiding them expertly, but she was in danger of getting herself and Mie trapped between the necrogryphs and the remainder of the skeleton army.

  A green flash came out from the corner as Fred reappeared from his hiding place behind a window curtain.

  Another flash.

  Another BAM!

  Lightning exploded the head of one of the two gryphs chasing Clara, stunning the second. She must have taken a shot at one I had rooted, as its attention was drawn to her. I was worried the skeleton army, still in numbers, had reached her.

  I looked at the spear in my hands and wanted to scream in frustration. Why am I so useless during all these fights?! Then I remembered Mie’s crazy damage, and spun around, watching her first Flash Heal Clara and then sweep her staff, knocking an arm off a skeleton. She cast her Holy Armor as a gryph bore down on her.

  She was doing incredible damage as . . . a healer. Then it hit me. I was so dumb. I popped my axes into my hands, a sudden realization forming. I flipped the axes over, so that I would strike with the flat hammer backs. Then I activated Reaper’s Dance, selecting all visible targets.

  My damage output quadrupled. I cracked the spine of the gryph in front of Clara, bones went flying, and I watched a four-hundred-plus yellow number float up into the air. It barked in pain and abandoned its strike on Clara. Then I was behind the next target. Then the next. Caving in ribs, splintering legs, cracking skulls. I watched in absolute ecstasy when my new storm axe unleashed chains of lighting that hopped from target to target, stunning as it went.

  I reached my last target near the entrance of the cathedral. Another green flash went out, and there was another lightning blast. Another gryph down from Fred. Having successfully drawn the attention of the remaining mobs, I backed out through the blown apart wall, double checking there were no other skeletons coming from outside. I turned to face the ones coming back out of the church, handling them one or two at a time. Most were at half health after my dance. And it only took two or three more blows each. I took a couple cuts, and an arrow through the shoulder, but a health potion resolved that.

  Then it was just the one gryph remaining, and another green flash put him down easily. I stumbled over the piles of bones, almost falling, and made my way back into the well-lit interior.

  The shattered skeleton corpses glowed green and blue. And I spotted a gryph glowing purple. But before I could go over it and loot, Mie stalked up to me.

  “What the hell was that?!” she demanded

  “Wha—” I started, but was quickly cut off.

  “ ‘Mie, remember when I said to trust me?’ ” she mimicked. “THEN BAM! I’M ON MY FACE.”

  “Oh . . . yeah, my bad.” I did feel bad.

  She decompressed and sat down on the floor. Something was definitely wrong with her. I could feel it in our bond and see it in her actions. She seemed upset, and I didn’t understand why. Had I really reacted that badly to the feeding thing? It felt like there was more to it than that. “Hey . . . are we . . . good?”

  Her eyes were on the floor, and I could feel something I hadn’t really ever felt from her before. It felt like a deep endless pool of . . . wet.

  I walked over to her but hesitated for a second, then knelt down and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. She was quivering. The others were across the room looking at loot, and I DM’d Greg asking him to turn the TV off for five and to give us some privacy.

  Greg: Weird, but okay.

  “What’s up?” I asked softly.

  She looked up at me, her golden skin extra gold and orange in the flickering torch light. Big wet tears pooled under her eyes. “I know what I am.”

  The blood rushed from my face. “What?” I said.

  “Oh, don’t play dumb, you fat ass crack.” She said it somewhat playfully. Then she whispered, “I know I’m an item.”

  I stayed silent a moment. Unsure of how to respond. “So . . . you knew I was hiding that from you . . . this whole time?” Guilt I didn’t even know I was holding bared its fangs and glared at me through the sobbing mess of Mie’s eyes.

  She nodded, swallowed, then said, “But I lied too. I told you I didn’t see anything in our Soul Inventory when you asked.”

  “You lied twice then. First the feeding thing then—”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Just kidding!” I said. “You know I’m kidding.”

  A small upward turn of her lips told me she believed me. She was an incredible liar though, and that more than anything scared the hell out of me. But there was one thing I had to do before anything else.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” she said, caught off guard.

  “For . . . you know. I didn’t know what it meant and I didn’t want to . . . spring the fact that you’re an item on you.” I said it and knew instantly I’d played it wrong, both because of her continued tears and, well, because I literally just called her an object.

  “Uhh, that came out wrong. What I meant was, yes, you are showing up in our Soul Space Inventory like an item here would in our Character Inventory. But it’s not the same. Our Soul Space . . . is real. You as a baby . . . is real. This—” I motioned to the dead skeletons and the cathedral. “This isn’t.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes glistening, then she threw her face and cheek into my neck, which ended up soaking my shirt and cloak. Not sure how to respond, I just stood there awkwardly for a moment. Then slowly, I brought my other arm up, and squeezed her. Without Mie, this place . . . really would be hell. Maybe our strange emotional bond sped up the rate of our friendship, because after another moment, I realized how much I valued her friendship. I cared about this strange being, whatever she was.

  After a while, she mumbled something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’M SORRY TOO!” she belted out.

  “For what?” I asked, but I knew.

  “For . . . GAH! YOU KNOW WHAT! YOU FARTING. BIG-CRACKED. ASS!” she shouted, then in a complete shift in mood, she looked up at me in confusion and asked, “Why am I an item . . . ? What does it mean?”

  “I wish I knew, but I don’t,” I said, “but, we’ll figure it out, together.”

  I stood up and held out my hand to her again.

  “Don’t. Aladdin. Me,” she croaked. And I suddenly realized what had started her anger at me in the first place. I’d asked her to trust me despite holding back a pretty epic secret she KNEW I was holding. God, I am dumb.

  “Okay that’s fair,” I said. “How about this then.” I held out my pinky finger. “A pact to . . . to never lie about the big stuff.”

  “I feel like I’ll need a definition on ‘big stuff’ . . . but it’s a start,” she said as she wiped her tears away, composing herself. She grabbed my pinky with hers, then held on tight and pulled me into a big bear hug.

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  Thanks for reading as always! More goodness coming soon. :)