Reiav wasn’t completely sure what she thought of Fora. Which is perfectly fair considering who I am.

  On the one hand, Fora had plenty of ideas about what to do next, and she wasn’t at all shy about voicing them. It was nice to have someone like that, because so far Reiav had been the one to decide everything.

  Pleseln—the most basic name Reiav had ever heard!—was more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person. She was prepared to defend them from hostilities but so far there hadn’t been anything. Eloi was still slowly shutting down and hadn’t been much use so far—Reiav had no idea what to do about him. Fora though? Well, she was the type of person to see something wrong and solve it. Even if Reiav didn’t really like the solutions she came up with.

  On the other hand, the way Fora acted left something to be desired. It was as if Fora assumed from the getgo that all of them would make it out of this fine—or at least she assumed that she would make it—she was hard to understand and Reiav prided herself on being able to read people. So Reiav couldn’t rightly tell if Fora actually thought she was better than them.

  It wasn’t that Reiav thought she would hate the strange suiki—er… not suiki? What else would she be?—once she got to know her better, but Reiav was fairly certain that Fora probably hated the three of them. At the very least she had to see them as obstacles or maybe resented them as useless creatures she had to keep alive.

  Reiav always thought far too much about other people, it’s exhausting to narrate. I, meanwhile, was a model narrator. I was trying to figure out how many conflicting dimensional barriers I could wrap around a sandwich before it exploded from the pressure and launched chicken salad across the path like some sadistic murder ritual—my record is seventeen.

  So it was with a frown that Reiav followed at the back of the group, walking through the now almost colorless streets that were oh so familiar to her. She didn’t even notice my sandwich because of her position, which is truly a shame.

  There was Bart’s tower of wonders that had been there as long as she could remember. There was Genso’s fine leather factory, which still kept the name even though Genso himself had long since left Teisel behind and no one rightly knew where he went.

  Reiav felt herself numbing slightly at the existential implications of all this. Fora had said they weren’t in the real world anymore, but the world of dreams. If that was the case, how much of the last few weeks hadn’t been real? Had any of her life been real?

  That idea didn’t make sense, so she shoved it to the back of her mind, blinking at the distance between herself and the others. Reiav hurried to catch up. She needed to think about something else!

  “And ever since then,” Pleseln was saying—Reiav still couldn’t get over the fact that that’s what her name was—“I’ve kept my ideal that any man with less than five fingers will get my revenge.”

  Fora looked impressed about something, she was holding a sandwich for some reason and Reiav wasn’t rightly sure where it had come from. “You didn’t catch him, but managed to cut off a finger while he was fleeing. That’s fun! Have you ever found a guy with less than five fingers?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s running away from me. I go with the traders as a mercenary to almost every village and town and I’ve never found him.”

  Fora nodded slowly, “Well I’m impressed that more people haven’t lost fingers, I feel like that’s a pretty common thing for people to do.”

  “But you’re missing my point, see, you only have four fingers.”

  Fora put the sandwich in her mouth and held up her hands, and sure enough there were only four fingers on each. Reiav frowned at that. They looked perfectly natural, so she must have been born that way. The sandwich started floating as Fora began talking again. “Well I’m not the guy who mugged you, if that was the question.”

  Pleseln frowned slightly at the sandwich but nodded, “I agree that it likely wasn’t you. I definitely didn’t cut off a finger on both hands.”

  Fora nodded, as if that was resolved, “I’ve never had five fingers before, what’s that even like?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know the difference exactly, but we certainly have more options if we have to give one away.”

  Fora glanced at her hands again, “That is a very good point. I’d probably end up trying out a prosthetic finger for a while if I lost one, I always thought things like that looked cool.”

  There was silence for a long almost content moment. Reiav had worked her way up to walk beside Fora, because stars, she didn’t like the girl; this was a very odd thing for Reiav, so she resolved to try and not not like her.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “So how old are you, Fora?”

  Fora frowned for a moment, then held up a few fingers, counting, “I think I might almost be thirteen finally, can’t be sure though.”

  Reiav tilted her head, “I apologize for asking, but how did a kid become an expert on magic?”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh what?”

  “Oh that question. I really would rather answer a different one.”

  Reiav blinked, did that mean she’d gone through something horrendous? “Oh, alright then.” If Fora had some repressed childhood trauma, that might explain why she acted more mature than other twelve year olds Reiav knew. Not to say that twelve year olds were incapable of being mature, but in Reiav’s experience, they were usually more… carefree might be the word.

  She thought quickly for a different question, remembering Ruirel. “So how do you like your potatoes? Mashed, hashed or baked?”

  Fora stared Reiav straight in the eyes for three whole seconds before she immediately looked down again. Had… Fora not truly met anyone’s gaze this whole time? That felt strange. There was a slight smirk on her face though as she finally responded, “I like them raw.”

  Reiav felt her composure split completely in half as a loud snort erupted from her throat. “Is that… is that some kind of a fundamental answer? You’re the second one to say that and I’ve only asked the question twice!”

  Fora blinked at her slowly, “Sparks, I thought I was being original. No, I have no idea what a potato is. I think I might have stolen some a few months back, but I really don’t remember what they tasted like.”

  Reiav caught herself staring with incredulity at the kid, and chastised herself for being rude, “Well then we’ll have to fix that! Once we get out of here I’ll get you some proper potatoes.”

  Fora seemed touched at that. What can I say? I’m a very food motivated person. “Thank you.”

  --

  Pleseln—whose name literally meant person, Reiav would never forget that now—jerked her head upward, her eyes focusing on something at the end of the street as she drew her sword. No one else seemed to have seen it though, so Pleseln the person simply grew more wary, “There’s someone there.”

  Reiav tilted her head at Pleseln, who didn’t seem inclined to continue calling out to whoever it was, “Is that not a good thing? Hello-”

  Pleseln held up a hand, and Reiav chocked down the half formed shout. The woman stared forward for a long moment before her eyes began to track across the area with the piercing gaze of a mercenary that knew something was wrong. “They don’t walk like a person.” She explained, shifting her stance as the group kept on moving, but slower ths time. “Be silent.”

  Fora was looking at Pleseln curiously, “No one else saw them, are you sure?”

  “Kid.” Pleseln practically insulted Fora, “If you want to live, then I wouldn’t doubt my instincts.”

  Fora had a strange expression on her face as she nodded slowly, “I’m not doubting you, just curious. There’s so much dimensional magic at play here that I can’t see crap.”

  Reiav gave her a worried look, “you can’t see?”

  “With my magesight.” Fora corrected, “My regular sight is fine and so is my soulsight.”

  “That’s a lot of different kinds of sight,” Reiav said, a bit confused. She’d heard of some larborak who could see through certain types of rock, was it like that? “Have—”

  Reiav didn’t see what happened. All she knew was one moment she was talking to Fora and the next she was screaming as something impacted her, she fell on her side, feeling another source of sharp pain there, then, something started clawing at her legs. It dug into her, attacking, trying to drag her away. It really is unfortunate that things like this existed.

  A thought that wasn’t her own bubbled up from nowhere, as it clawed at her and a scream finally made its way out of her throat. ~The monsters that drag you into the depths… They steal thought, emotion, leaving only an empty husk.~ The voice was unwavering, almost silent, but with a stark anger Reiav couldn’t ignore.

  A sword came between Reiav and the monster, cleaving it in half. The inky blackness of its spiderlike form curled in on itself, but the voice continued. ~Down into that pit of… of misery, for misery loves company. And yet I remain alone.~

  For a long, tense moment, the four of them stared at the monster.

  “Sparks.” Fora eventually said, “I think that’s a demon. Someone summoned a sparking demon in the between realm, what kind of idiot are they? I’d report them to Astral for that if I… Reiav? You look like you’re about to spontaneously die.”

  Reiav opened and closed her mouth several times, “I— I— Did… Did anyone else hear that?!” They all gave her blank looks as the spider like demon slowly disintegrated into black smoke. Reiav swallowed heavily, “I… I thought I heard a voice in my head, why was there a voice in my head?!”

  Fora glanced at the demon. “I’m by no means an expert on demons, but I think they’re almost all sub-sapient after being cursed one too many times. If this one was smart enough to talk it wouldn’t have died so easily.” She paused, “Probably.”

  “Probably?!” Eloi echoed, he seemed more panicked about this idea than Reiav was, and she felt like she was about to simply keel over dead. I find myself almost envious of Eloi’s ability to panic, it truly is a work of art.

  Fora shrugged, “You never know. There’s always an exception for this kind of thing. Anyway, Reiav, what did that voice say?”

  She paused for a moment, trying to recall, “Something about monsters who steal thought and emotion… uhh leaving you empty. And then I think about how… they’re… alone.”

  Fora blinked at her, “Huh, maybe whoever spoke had a mental illness.” The other three gave her blank looks, “Right, Virna is absurdly developed like that. Ah! Forget I said anything.”

  Pleseln the person raised an eyebrow, “Why would we forget—”

  There was a shout from somewhere nearby, and then a yelp of pain.