Chapter 40 - Merging

Congratulations VIP Members!  This here is the complete post of Chapter 40 as an exclusive all-in-one package.  Your VIP-ness is finally rewarding you with something besides my gratitude.

So, what's the schedule going to be like for you guys?  Well, I could continue to just post these whenever they're ready.  Or (and I think this is slightly more fair for everyone else) I could post them whenever the first section goes live for All-access.

This is a trial run, so we'll see how this goes.

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I was floating… I think.

It can be strange, but so much of the way we perceive the world is intrinsically linked to our own bodies.  The physicality of them.  The wash of color, whether our eyes are open or not.  The little inconsequential sounds that go ignored yet surround us all the same.  The way the wind trickles through the fine hairs along your arm.

I felt none of that.  But what I did feel the English language is not really equipped to describe.  Nor any of the others I knew.  And how could they?  As far as I was aware, they too had been molded from minds much like my own.  The minds of physical beings.

If I had to, I would say it was like being thrust into the middle of whatever the opposite of a sensory deprivation chamber is… but without the actual capacity to sense anything?  There were… vibrations of a kind, I guess.  But that is not the right word.  The waves of it came in from random angles, all at once, and far too fast to make sense of.

Above.  Below.  Left.  Where my right testicle should have been.  Then that… other direction.

You might say they were loud.  Or soft?  Sometimes both.  Melodic.  Blue.  Marzipan.  That one kernel of unpopped popcorn left in the bottom of the bag.  Yellow.

And all so intense and demanding!  I wanted nothing more than to plug my ears, close my eyes, and shut it all out.  But I did not seem to be able to.

I could only think I was finally losing it.  Or having a stroke.  One or the other.

Then there came the other thing.  It was massive in a way that should have defied description.  But in this place, its existence was as a soothing balm to my already bruised psyche.  I could at least understand ‘big.’

Sounds came.  Actual sounds.  Not… whatever I was floating in.  Great, booming rumbles.  Music to my non-ears.

Between a pair of its massive appendages, the being somehow pulled existence together into a sort of light.  First an orange line.  Then planes.  Geometric prisms.  Eventually, they too twisted into shapes I could no longer make sense of.

I wanted to weep, but I had no eyes.  The light, once so beautiful, had become yet another misshapen horror.  I felt betrayed.

Now complete, the ‘shape’ the thing had constructed swooped down.  Or perhaps through itself.  It was hard to say.  But it seemed to scoop up some of the not-really-vibrations I was submerged in.

The pain lessened.

The contrast was so sharp, I nearly fainted.  If that was even possible.

Soon enough, the cosmic horror had tucked its bundle of insanity onto what might be described as a shelf, but I was tasting the aroma of A# at that moment.  So I could have been wrong.

This went on for what felt like ages, but if time was a factor in this place, I would very much have preferred it fucked right off.  I had enough to deal with.  The thing out there weaved its baskets of light.  My prison would stir, each pass weakening the mind-numbing pressure.  More and more of those glowing, nonsensical shapes were fixed out in whatever firmament of bullshit the entity was using.

I wanted to thank it for alleviating my torture.  But I could not speak any more than I could hear.  I wanted to reach out to it.  Touch it.  But I had no arms to extend.

Still the pressure lessoned.  The vibrations slowed.  Patterns of a sort began to emerge.  Pushing me.  Prodding.  First one way and then another.  Then in circles.

Again, the being passed its glowing box through my prison of potential, and finally, the conflict lessened to the point where I could actually focus on one single thing at a time.

There was a need.  An action to take.

I began to flow.

*****

We opened our eyes.

The world was suffused with so much light, it was near blinding.  But there seemed to be no source.

We did not care about that.  Our love was before us.  Finally.

Our hearts swelled.  Our breath caught.  We wanted to caress our skin.  To embrace.

Our lips met.  A phallus rose, instant and demanding.  A clitoris swelled, revealing the moistened canal beneath in invitation.  Each pulsating with its own unique want.

The difference confused us.

We pulled away too soon, mournful.  Our brows furrowed.  We had met with paradox.  In order to truly join, we had to move both down and up at the same time.  But that could not be.

Realization came.  We were not designed this way.  To be one and the other.

Sound intruded.  Unwanted.  Rude.

But…

“We have no time for this,” we reminded ourselves.

We nodded.  The maze did not care how disoriented we were.  Nor would it wait.  It could only collapse.

We turned to look at [our pet/Lynnria].  Again the confusion.  A difference of viewpoint.

Dismissal.

Burgeoning affection.

Kind of cute.

We do like her hair.

Staunch ally, so far.

A bit pushy.

A liar.

Who isn’t?

We shook our heads.  She had been injured in our defense.  We would help her.

Agreement.

Our hands rose.  The Words came.

*****

The three of us burst through the door at practically the same moment, a cloud of dust at our heels.  The wooden portal slammed shut the instant we were through, and the raucous catastrophe that had been chasing us for what felt like hours was finally replaced by a silence as complete as the grave.

Or… it would have been.

We were all gasping and wheezing for air so desperately, you would have thought a trio of bagpipers were warming up.

I could not speak for the other two—thankfully—but for myself, I was so physically exhausted, the urge to dry heave had taken hold of my spine and begun crawling its way up my throat.  However, that was in direct competition with my rather extreme need for more oxygen.  So I managed to choke it back.

Lynnria was not quite so successful.  I tried not to think about it.  All things considered, it was a comparatively minor footnote on the growing list of horse shit I would have much preferred purged from my memory forever.

I was not entirely sure what all had happened to me after resurrecting Arx.  The whole thing had wound up mashed together within my mind like some pastiche of 1970’s Italian art-house films.  Disappointingly, minus the theatrical stylings of Lou Ferrigno.

But whatever that all had been, it only reaffirmed what I already knew.  Preemptive resurrections were best avoided unless absolutely necessary.

Abruptly, a door on the opposite side of the landing smashed open.

“Mas—!” a woman’s silhouette shouted, but she was cut off by the door rebounding back into her face.

The doorknob fell off a moment later.

Arx and I shared a wearied but knowing look.  Our connection was still feeling quite raw, so the sudden appearance of the third member of our trio had hit us like a too-sudden jostling of a very well-used set of privates.  And from the white we had seen behind her, it would seem that at least some part of the vision we had shared was real.

“Wh-uruk… who was that?” Lynnria’s fractured voice weaved through our panting.

“Jax,” Arx and I replied.  Simultaneously.

Our noses crinkled in mirrored frustration, but then very slowly and deliberately, she closed her left eye.  I nodded in appreciation.  Just a residual echo.  Nothing to worry about.

Although, now that we were all in a well-lit area, I immediately noted the mysterious disappearance of a certain lime-green skirt.  Mostly because, from the way she was squatting against the wall, her fur-topped slit was winking at me with her every heaving breath.

Her hand snaked between her legs to break my line of sight, and when I glanced up, I caught the twinkle in her eye.

Minx.

A heavy weight thudded against the door.  It did not otherwise react.

Arx pulled a face.  “Maybe… someone… should go… let her out.”

A solid thirty seconds of sucking wind came and went as the three of us considered it.

“Can… anybody move?” I asked finally.

“Huh-uh.”

“N—Urk…”

Another thud pounded against the door.  Still nothing.

With a grimace, I crawled forward on the landing just enough to look over its lip.  There was no way I was going to make it down those stairs—with all their traps—and back up the other side.  Fortunately, further examination of our platform revealed another path.  The landing seemed to be built into a U-shape, ultimately joining one side to the other for the purpose of leading up to the story above, but consequently connecting us to the other side.

“Arx,” I began.

“Noooooo…”

Her reply was less an actual word than it was a cross between a howl and a moan.  But it was all complaint.  A moment later, she collapsed to the floor, and when I looked, I could see all the tell-tale signs of torpor.

Oh, you bitch!  Now, you finally give out?

There came another thud followed shortly by another, and continuing in a periodic rhythm.  It seemed she had started using her ax.  So far, the door did not seem to care.

I glanced over at Lynnria, but her head was currently stuck through a pair of balusters like a French noblewoman at the guillotine.  And just as limp.

Damn it.  I knew we shouldn’t have coughed up those Gems for her.

It was a silly thought.  What was done was done, and besides, there was no way she would have made it without them.  She might well have been every bit the runner she claimed to be, but it seemed her training had focused more on sprinting than endurance.  And now torpor had claimed her just as it had my overtaxed—and admittedly deserving—lilim.

It looked like it was going to be up to me.

Unfortunately, there was no muscle in my body that was agreeable to the notion of moving.  They had instead banded together into an emergency quorum so as to push through a hasty motion of slipping into an outr87ight coma.  I was trying to retain veto power, but that was not going over well.

A timid knock echoed through the entryway.  It seemed the door was resistant to axes.

With a sigh, I crawled to my feet again, relying heavily on the handrail for support, and began the long march to free my first companion.

*****

My vision swam for a few moments as I reoriented myself.  The last thing I remembered, I had been tackled to the ground by an extremely enthusiastic—and exceedingly topless—Jax.

I swear… one of these days, those girls are going to get me lynched.

Slowly, I spun on a heel just to take in my surroundings.  Though vaguely familiar, there was not much to look at.  It was just a room like you might find in any office building.  Drop ceilings.  Off-white, laminate floor tiles.  No windows.  Several nondescript doors.  And not a single label in sight.

I exhaled.  Great.  Just what I needed.

I had thought my escape from the maze would lead to some much needed rest and relaxation.  Maybe even a light nap, but it seemed the world was not done with me yet.

On impulse, I glanced down at my hands.  They looked normal enough.  Nice, long fingers.  Flat nails.  I gave them a wiggle.  Still functional.

Why had I thought they might be otherwise?

Unexpectedly, there came a click from behind me, and I spun in time to catch Mia entering the room.  She looked absolutely filthy, too.  Like she had just arrived home from working in a coal mine.

Her eyes widened on seeing me, and she immediately dropped to one knee.

“My lord!  Forgive me!  If I had known you were coming, I would have prepared myself properly and—”  Mid-sentence, her brain caught up with her mouth, and her head snapped up again.  “You’re here!  I—I mean you’re fully here.  How are you here?!”

“Uh…” I replied intelligently.  “I think I may be in torpor.  Jax must have accidentally knocked me out once I opened the door.”

“Oh.  She must have made it out then.  That’s good,” she murmured.  But then an indignant look crossed her face and she sprang to her feet.  “Wait a minute!  That should not have necessitated your full manifestation.  I could have easily guided you through the process now that I have had time to acclimate.”

I held up my hands in defense.  The way she talked, you would have thought I had some control over any of this.  But that seemed like way too long of a conversation.  And implied I had some grasp on the topic.

Instead, I just went with, “Okay.”

Fortunately, she seemed far too invested in the puzzle to note my dismissive attitude.

“Hmm, if you really were knocked into torpor, then it could be…”  She cast a pensive glance at the door behind her and began chewing at her thumb-claw.  “Yes, I suppose that makes a kind of sense.  Though, it might not be all that stable.  How lucid are you right now?”

I scrubbed a hand over my face.  Mia seemed to have the unique ability to put my brains into a spit-roast.  But I was also way too tired to care.

“I feel like my head is full of gauze.”

She chuckled.  “Well, that’s understandable.  You’ve had a busy day.”

“And you have an uncanny knack for understatement,” I observed dryly.

She crinkled her nose at me.

The conversation lapsed into one of those silences where both parties are waiting for the other to say something, but nobody realizes it until it’s already gotten awkward.  As it drew out, my eyes began to naturally drift downward… as men tend to do when around attractive women.

I had never actually stood face to face with her like this, I realized.  Or at least… not without also seeing the background behind her.  Despite her dubious claims of citizenship within my inner kingdom—or what-have-you—she still looked almost identical to Bline.  There were no signs of her turning into a copy of me any time soon.  Thankfully.

Quite the opposite.  She was easily one of the most gorgeous women I had ever laid eyes on.  Even through the grime.  If anything, the light sprinkling of sweat and dirt covering her cleavage lent her a sort of cave-woman-esque vibe.  All she lacked was a torn bodice and a scrip of leather over her groin, and there would have been no way John Richardson picked Rachel Welch over her.  And that was saying something.

Beyond that, of course, she had taken on a number of familiar secondary characteristics.  Fangs.  Claws… Antlers.  Those were somewhat unique.  They had grown out to six points by that time, and each were sharp as daggers.  Then there was the fully developed tail.  Which I quite liked, come to think of it.  It suited her.  It even had the same red highlights as the hair on her head.

Wait.  How long has that been there?  It’s not new…  No, I’m sure I’ve seen it at least once, haven’t I? Ugh… no more thinking.

The short of it was, in every way that mattered, she was indistinguishable from a ‘Do-lilim.’  So either her little theory was completely off-base, or there was something about me pushing her that direction.  It could have just been my Class…

Then again, there was my recently discovered ‘dietary restriction.’

I looked down at my hands again, just to be sure.  Still human.

Mia had been fidgeting under my scrutiny and, with my brief moment of inattention, she had taken the excuse to smooth her dress and run a few claws through her hair… subsequently causing her to realize the absolute state she was in, and she gasped in horror.

“No!  Just look at me.  And of course, you would show up now.  Oh, I must have the luck of the void!”  She slapped a palm to her forehead and sighed.  “Forgive me, my lord master.  I am unfit to receive you.”

I waved her off.  “Don’t worry about it.  What were you doing in there, anyway?”

She inhaled sharply through her teeth and held it for a few seconds.  “Just… a little housekeeping,” she managed shakily.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s al—fucking touch me!  Now!”  Her head jerked to one side as she fought with the uncontrollable impulse.

I smirked slightly, fighting with my own impulse to comply with her demand.  No matter their content, a tic should never be taken as a true invitation, nor anything else beyond the involuntary spasm it was.

Then again… a bit of light-hearted teasing never hurt anyone.

Keeping my face carefully neutral, I lifted my hand and extended it toward her, fully intending to stop before anything happened.  However, when I saw the look in her eyes… the slight hitch in her breath, the way her shoulders bunched together, her lips parting in anticipation, somehow I forgot I was only pretending.

As gently as caressing a flower petal, I traced my finger across her cheek and drew a lock of hair over her pointed ear.

“As you wish,” I murmured softly… before cringing almost to death.

Oh, you absolute dork!

Mia seemed to take it pretty well, though.

Stepping close, she looked up at me and purred, “Oh, here and what a disgrace, I am.  I’ve gone and gotten your finger all dirty…my lord.”

About a dozen follow-up comments sprang to mind, ranging from how dirty a girl she really was to asking exactly what it was she had gotten my finger dirty with.  And had I not been so self-conscious, I might have.

Instead, I quickly turned to one side and coughed into my fist.  “Uh… so.  Housekeeping, you say.  I can’t imagine what you must have found in there to leave you in such a state.”

The tip of her tongue parted her lips as she suppressed a smile.  “That way leads to your Core, mine sovereign.  Your activities today have put quite the strain on it.  I’ve needed to use some… creative storage solutions to contain that Gem your precious little Do-lilim fed you.”

I nodded slowly.  “Right.  The Grand Rank III.  That actually happened?”

“Oh, yes…” she breathed.

Moving on.  “So, my Core, huh?  I think I’d quite like to see that.”

“Myeah~?” she replied a tad too excitedly.  But then she realized what I was actually asking and plastered herself across the door.  “I mean, no!  No, that isn’t—a goat-fucking thunder-pus—puss-possible.”

“And that would be because…?”

Her eyes widened and she shivered at the question, but then she turned her gaze from me.  Firming her lip, she shouted, “Don’t you dare!  Your honeyed words will not sway me.  Only I may enter your Core.  It is my place.  Mine and mine alone!”

I was about to pursue the question—she had hardly answered it, after all—but then something else occurred to me.

“Your birthright.”

She started to nod, but then she looked at me sharply.  “You remembered that?”

“Maybe… some,” I replied softly, considering.  “Not that it explains much.”

She grimaced, then took a deep breath and held it.  “I am sorry.  Just… please do not ask to look inside.  I—I cannot… I cannot stand against you, if you push.  And were you to go in, I’m not sure I could pull you out again.”

“So it’s dangerous.”

A nod.

“Then you should have said that,” I said reasonably.

Which seemed to relax her somewhat.  “I am sorry.  Again.  It is an old argument, and there have been… incidents.  People think I hide secrets, or that they can unlock untold power.  Even those that listen assume a simple accumulation of Wisdom can protect them.  They do not understand.  Only I was created to handle Mania.  Not even—”

She stopped short at that.  But it was still enough to give me plenty to think about.  “Mania, huh.  As in Manic Energy and all that?”

She moaned slightly and arched her back toward me.  Then bobbed her head almost as an afterthought.

Good grief.  If I had not been so tired, I doubted I could have resisted the urge to question the Faen into a coma of her own.  But I was.  And I was honestly struggling to sort through the hundreds of quandaries dribbling out of my ears.

“Huh,” was all I managed.  Then I yawned.

Mia shot me a quick look, then plastered herself over the door a bit more dramatically.  “No, my lord!  You mustn’t ask me such questions!  I fear you are not prepared to hear the secrets behind Manic Energy.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I mumbled.  “So uh… I guess we should get to distributing my stats or something.”

She made a strangled noise in her throat and then deflated.  “I assume you want the same arrangement as last time?  Wisdom and Toughness?”

“Sounds good.”  Probably.  It was good enough for my past self, and the current me was having a hard time thinking of why it might not be.

Mia’s expression slowly began to crumple and, from the way her eyes were shifting about, I could tell she was struggling to think of something to say.  But then she brightened.

“Oh!  Uh…”  She delicately cleared her throat.  “You have had such an awful day, and here I am nattering on like a loon.  And so filthy, too.  I really must draw myself a bath.  And this dress!  Absolutely ruined…”

She took a few steps around me before slowing to look over her shoulder.

Some of the fog began lifting from my brain at the mention of a nice hot soak, and I sucked in a deep breath.  “A bath, huh?  Man… that does sound good.  Does that mean you’ve found the bathroom again?”

She stumbled a bit at my thoughtless questions and had to grip the doorknob to the exit to keep from falling.  “Ah~hum… my aching puss-pu—pretty sure I can find it.  Yes, my lord… if you’d like to… join… me?”

Mia’s suggestive question petered off as she stared into the now empty room.  To say she was non-plussed would be a mild understatement.

“Gone?!” she exclaimed.  “No, you can’t be… I was just about to… argh!”

Turning, she snatched open the door and began stomping back up the stairs.  It slammed behind her on its own, suiting her mood perfectly.

“First time I get the man to myself where he can even somewhat think for himself, and what happens?  Rolls over and falls asleep!  That’s what!  Ha!  Think you’re the only one that’s been working hard?”

Her grumbling became inaudible for a moment as she rounded one of the many flights back to the living quarters.

“Bloody imbecile!  What does a girl have to do?  Fish out her breasts and rub them over his…”  She paused her tirade to giggle slightly.  Then sigh.  “No, no.  We can’t be so crass as that.  We have to play this smart.  We’re only a mental construct right now.  We don’t have the advantages his others have.  Have to remember:  he is far less beholden to his own body while in the fabric.  Can’t just expect…”

Before she knew it, she had arrived at her door and barged into a familiar hallway.  Though, notably, this exit was nowhere near where it had been in the first place.  At least there was no sign of the Third, for which she was immensely grateful.  That was not a conversation she was anxious to resume, and not just because she wet enough to give herself a sponge bath.

She winced slightly and rolled her hips a few times.  Talking to him always got her riled up.  He always had so many questions, but his damned propriety usually got in the way before anything interesting came of them.

Although, now that she had some space to think about it, she had not been in any real mood for that sort of thing, either.  She was still covered in Manic residue and her dress was absolutely ruined.  She and this ‘Arx’ character were going to have a serious conversation about putting their master at unnecessary risk.

“Simple Rank II would have been more than sufficient…” she grumbled.

In a huff, she rounded a corner only to discover an absolutely massive hole in the wall.  Exposed bricks were tilted in and dangling along its edges, and if that were not bad enough, dust from the crumbling mortar had scattered all over her carpet.

“Oh, that’s just perfect,” she exclaimed.  “And where did you come from?  Huh?  Answer me!”

The hole could not do much more than be a hole, but it certainly gave the impression that it wanted to shrink from her outrage.  None of this was its fault, it seemed to complain.

To one side, a pile of fresh bricks took the inopportune moment to emerge from the floor, complete with a bucket of freshly mixed cement.  A shiny, new trowel had perched along its lip, eager as a puppy about to go for walkies.

Mia narrowed her eyes.  “And what exactly do you want?”

The trowel wilted.  It seemed to whine a bit.

Mia rolled her eyes.  “Insufferable.  That’s what it is.  Absolutely insufferable.  I swear, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.  Well, let’s see where this leads.”

Exasperated, she marched through and was almost instantly transported to an abandoned, dusty street running through the middle of an equally abandoned town.

There was not all that much to it.  Just a few wooden buildings running parallel to the road and the one intersection off to the left with a signpost marking the names of the roads.  Only a single broken placard was still attached.

What was left of it read, ‘Par-He—‘

Meanwhile, off to the right and in the far distance, Mia did not need to look to know it was there, but a walled citadel was just visible above the horizon.

Because, of course, she had recognized the place immediately.

“So that’s who you are,” she murmured.  “Interesting choice, my lord.”

And it explained the hole.  It would seem the matter of his second connection had sorted itself out… if a tad violently.  No doubt, she could have avoided the mess had she managed to find the plug sooner, but she could not be blamed for missing it.  It had been hidden, after all.

“Bloody wench…”  She sighed, then began to slowly spin, scanning the area.  “I suppose you would’ve been meddling in here, as well.  So then, where… ah!”

Spotting what she had been looking for, she stomped into what had been an empty lot.  Now, however, it had a new inhabitant in the form of a familiar, black obelisk.

Mia scrubbed a hand over her face.  Yet another thing to deal with.

She had to admit, these workings were cleverly designed, if inefficient.  And abject heresy, but that was an altogether different matter.

It was all part of the general disarray she had inherited.  There was no way she could manage clearing them out on her own.  Not anymore.  Their removal would cause a Core breach at the very least.  No, best to simply leave well enough alone.

Her pondering was interrupted by the faintly muffled sounds of a child crying coming from one of the buildings behind her.  She did not need to search for it, though.  The girl was not always in there, but when she was, it was always the same place.

And if she was there…

Mia turned and headed for the old brothel.  It was just on the edge of town and one of the few buildings with a bit of paint left to it.  In its heyday, it would have been a brightly colored and charming sort place.  Now?  Just another ruined wreck in a town of decay.

The inside was worse.  Broken tables and chairs were strewn all over the place.  Glass bottles laid shattered in front of the bar, though one or two were embedded into the walls.  A fight had happened here.  Once.  And long ago.

The little, gray-skinned child was huddled into the corner as she always was.  Sobbing her eyes out.  Though, when Mia looked, her features were indistinct.  Faded and worn, but not like the town.  This was something different.

“It’s funny,” a woman said from the bar.

Mia glanced at her.  She looked almost nothing like she once had.  Her skin was not quite so dark.  Her hair, once black, had turned white as snow.  She was altogether slimmer and less imposing than the hulking warrior she had once been, yet more voluptuous.  And of course, she had never had a pair of horns spiraling out of her head.

“I can remember why I was crying,” she said absently, staring into an untouched tankard of ale.  “But I can’t remember why I was crying.”

Mia sniffed.  What twaddle.  “I’m not really the person to be asking about that sort of thing.”

Arx turned to look at her.  For a long moment, she just stared, no doubt giving her the same once-over she had just received.

“You look like you’ve just crawled out of a sewer.  Whoever you are.”

Mia quirked an eyebrow.  Rude as ever.  “I was just on my way to find a bathhouse, but I got sidetracked.”

“You’ll not find one here,” Arx replied, turning back to her drink.  She did not move to touch it, though.  Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Stranger.”

“Maybe,” Mia allowed before joining the woman at the bar.

Casually, she leaned an elbow against it and allowed her eyes to rove about the woman.  Butterflies rolled up her belly, perhaps a residual side-effect of her earlier flirting… or perhaps something else.  Arx was her lord master’s creature, after all.

“But things always change.  Maybe if we look, we’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

Arx turned her head slightly, “We, huh?  Look, as I’ve said twice now, I don’t know—“

“I’m your daddy come to fuck you!”

Arx looked at her sharply and stood.  Rage flared in her eyes… but then just as quickly faded.  Replaced by confusion.

“I am Donum.  Not…”  Slowly, she dropped back into her seat, shaking her head.  “And anyway, that one never touched me with anything but his fists.”

Mia cleared her throat awkwardly.  She had never been a being of mercy.  Even so, it was strange to hear the woman admit to something like that so indifferently.  But as she had said, she was something other than she once had been.  This whole song and dance seemed to be a performance more for the sake of rote habit than anything of real significance.

“I apologize,” Mia said anyway.  “I have… a curse.  You should avoid asking me questions directly.  They make me say things I don’t mean.  As it happens, I am also Donum.  Specifically, Mia.”

Arx’s eyes widened.  “The Faen?”

Mia’s face contorted immediately.  “Queef harmonica!”

Arx winced.  “’Snails, you weren’t kidding.  But what’s a uh… harno… harm—”

“It’s not important,” Mia said quickly, cutting her off.  “I should ask how you want to spend your attribute points, however.  Since you’re in torpor.”

“But I’ve already…” she paused.  “Wait, that’s right.  I am in torpor.  I remember now.  But this is a dream!  I know it is.  How am I—“

“I don’t know!” Mia interrupted quickly, forestalling the question.  “It still doesn’t make any sense to me, but as you have said, you are Donum.  He pulls this kind of crap all the time.”

Arx started to give a reluctant nod, but then something else caught her attention.  Slowly turning on her barstool to face the door, she scented the air a few times.

“Hmm…”

“What is it?” Mia asked.

“I’m not sure,” Arx replied.  “But I’m going to find out.”

Mia watched as the taller woman stalked through the door, totally heedless and gave her head a rueful shake.  She had never much cared for interacting with mortals this way.  They tended to be a tad single-minded and forgetful while within the fabric.

But if this woman truly was being influenced by their lord, there was the possibility he might twist her dreams as well.  If that were the case… this could get interesting.

Mia quickly scurried to catch up.