After their heart-to-heart, Theora felt extremely exhausted. When looking at Iso, she was reminded of the fact that a possibility existed where Theora and Dema could live a happy life together, even have a family, a life full of love — and it was too much. Theora’s heart lurched at the thought, the idea of having this kind of connection with Dema was still too much to bear. Theora couldn’t possibly hope to survive even holding her hand without turning to dust.

And when looking at Bell, Theora was reminded of the possibility that Dema might truly be evil, and just scheming to get out of this alive. But even if that was the case, Theora still didn’t want to fulfil her Main Quest.

Eventually, Iso got up and traipsed into the kitchen. “We’re done, mom,” she said. “You can come back if you want to.”

“What!” Dema shouted. “Why, not like I was tryna avoid you or anything. I was just busy!”

“Yes, sure. I believe you,” Iso said and nodded understandingly.

A moment later, Dema’s head appeared on the side of the doorframe, peeking into the living room. “Am I gonna get killed off now?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

“Of course not!” Iso yelled out. “You’re safe!”

Dema turned to her with an expression that slowly melted into yearning love. “Why, what a protective daughter I have! I love you!”

Even though Theora had not been the target, hearing these words out of Dema’s mouth sent an electrifying shock over her body to the point where she jerked up. At the sight of that, Bell rolled her eyes, and Theora decided to smooth the motion out by rising to her wonky feet.

“I’m… going to make tea,” Theora proclaimed, hiding her blush under her curly hair, looking at the ground.

“Sure!” Dema said, eyebrows raised just a little, as she and Iso were walking into the living room. “Food’s done, if anyone wants to fetch any. I made an earth-themed hot-pot with mushrooms and potatoes and carrots!”

It was at that point that Isobel stopped walking with a clatter-clatter, and stared at Theora. “Wait,” she said, and Theora turned to look. Iso’s feelers were twitching a bit, and her eyes widened a little in a newfound realisation. “You’re going to make tea?”

Theora nodded, avoiding her gaze.

“You have a tea brewing Skill,” Iso pointed out softly, and then her gaze went blurry as she looked at a System prompt in front of her. “Didn’t even notice that earlier.” Her eyes flickered around. “You can brew tea from anything,” she whispered.

“Yeah!” Dema confirmed. “She once made shale tea for me! Can you believe it? Shale tea!”

“Did she… ever make tea out of moss?” Iso ventured.

“She did!” Dema cheered. “Told you she was your other mommy, right? We turned you back whole together. She cleansed all your parts in her moss tea.”

Iso pulled up her moss eyebrows and widened her gaze, looking like she was about to cry. “That tea is yours? The one that’s still warm and cosy even today?”

“I thought moss would fit you, maybe,” Theora murmured with a dry throat.

Iso nodded, clattering all-around. “So the tea is yours and the blood is hers. Oh, you can’t believe how much I love this.” She grinned. “I have two moms! Mom and mommy.”

Theora blushed even stronger, and started feeling close to fainting, so she just nodded awkwardly, and vanished into the kitchen. It was a small one, and Dema had prepared a large pot with four empty bowls standing next to it. She hadn’t cleaned up, so a knife still lay on a small cutting board, and the scent of deep brothy mushroom concoction draped the small room like a warm blanket. The kitchen counter was on the left of the door, a small window let the rays of street lights inside.

Theora shut off the lanterns in the room. She was still blushing and preferred if nobody could see that if they entered. She carefully opened the cupboard hanging over the kitchen counter to look for utensils to boil water.

Unfortunately, having fled didn’t save her from hearing the rest of the conversation from the next room.

“And, you know, her tea’s the most delicious I’ve ever had,” Dema went on to mention, and Theora could hear Iso click a nod.

“Oh, yeah! Her Skill says the tea tastes better if she likes her recipient a lot.”

There was a short silence. Then, Dema asked, sounding positively shocked, “Really?”

“You didn’t know? Did you never bother to read her Skills?”

“How would I have read her Skills!”

“What? You’ve never formed a party?”

“A what!”

Promptly, Dema was invited to join, and accepted just as quickly.

Now, the little stat sheets of all the other three hovered in the periphery of Theora’s view.

“Oh, wow, you have [Appraise]?” Iso let out. “How did you not know Theora’s Skills?”

“[Appraise] always fails on her! She’s just too strong!”

Or too broken, Theora thought.

“Wait,” Dema continued. “You got [Identify]. Damn. Together we can rule the galaxy!”

Bell’s voice echoed through from the room too. “A party with access to both [Appraise] and [Identify]? This is ridiculous.”

Iso laughed brightly. “You have both! What are you even saying!”

“Having them on one person is not as useful, since I have to divide resources and levelling time between them,” Bell murmured.

Both Skills were indeed rather rare. Especially at higher Levels and with enough unlocks, it meant that a party with both couldn’t really be surprised by anything and had access to a vast amount of information on all their surroundings.

With a high-level [Identify], they could have probably found the culprits behind the Afterthought factories too. And, maybe, it was still possible. Isobel could [Identify] a crystal, find the exact cause of the affliction, and with help of Dema’s [Appraise], follow the lead back to whichever hero was responsible.

And then, what? These people had likely acted in good faith after receiving a quest from the System. Maybe they had felt bad about it, even. Or maybe they just didn’t care. If she were to meet them, what would Theora say?

She couldn’t come up with anything. From their point of view, they had protected the world by aiding in an attempt to suppress the Ancient Evil. Still, they’d accepted the fact that people in this town would suffer for it…

Ultimately, this was all Theora’s fault.

As she was filling the cups with boiling water, she still heard the scraps of the others talking to each other, but couldn’t pay any attention.

The Roaming Blight. Now, all of them would be stuck with her. First, she’d forced Dema in a position of having to follow her, and now, this extended to Bell and Iso too, because they had that same Main Quest, only because Theora hadn’t cleared it.

Well, maybe they weren’t truly stuck with Theora. While Bell had made her intentions to follow along rather clear, Iso had said nothing of the sort. Iso was planning to confront the System; that was her main goal. Could she pursue this idea while travelling together with them?

On the other hand, Iso had also mentioned that she wanted to protect Dema.

So, perhaps, they would really start travelling together as four.

Maybe they really would travel together.

Theora hiccuped, and pursed her lips. Rubbing her eyes, they left her hand slightly wet.

Why was she crying?

Only a single tear, but a single tear it was, at the prospect of maybe not having to spend all of her personal eternity alone.

At that, Theora heard Dema enter the kitchen, and averted her gaze and hid her hand. “So!” Dema let out, coming to a halt a few steps away, as Theora was standing at the end of the counter, close to the wall. “What do you think?”

Theora swallowed. “What do I think? About what?”

“About Bell! Joining us. That okay with you?”

Theora looked up and stared into Dema’s amber eyes. There was no hint of doubt in them, it didn’t seem like a test nor a challenge. She really just wanted to know, no strings attached? Theora filled up the last cup, and then whispered, “She tried to kill you.”

Dema waved off. “Barely a scratch. Honestly, she’s a baby. Not gonna harm me.”

That wasn’t wrong, strictly speaking. While, excluding Theora, Bell might be one of the strongest heroes in the world right now — if not the strongest — there was still a world between her power and Dema’s.

After all, that was the reason why the Ancient Evil had been sealed away and never beaten.

The Devil of Truth had been strong. He’d bested Dema in his Realm, where he was invincible. But outside of it, he would have lost. He was the kind of legendary evil ruler who could have formed a cruel kingdom and waged war against the continents. And then, one day, he might have been subdued by a party of mythical heroes going on a lifelong quest to defeat him.

The Ancient Evil was different.

All a mythical band of Heroes had been able to do was seal her away in the Cube of Solitude. Thus, the idea of small little Bell coming along and defeating her wasn’t necessarily convincing.

“This was her second attempt,” Theora said, in a low and defeated voice.

“Her second attempt?” Dema asked, raising her eyebrows. “Why, did I miss something!”

“Yes,” Theora confirmed. “While you were injured. Back then, the System mounted an operation to kill you. Bell was part of that.”

Dema frowned. She stared into Theora’s eyes for a moment, and then cracked a little smile. “But I’m totally still alive. Why, you protected me? That it?”

“I wouldn’t have let them harm you.”

Dema beamed. “So you protected me,” she whispered.

Theora felt the hotness seep back into her face. “That’s not why I am telling you. I—”

“How’d you do it? Bell doesn’t look obliterated to me. How’d you keep me safe?”

“Bell refused to fight me. As for the others, I destroyed their equipment and told them to leave.”

Dema’s face lit up in surprise, and she raised her eyebrows. “Their equipment! What, did you strip them?”

“No,” Theora answered, rolling her eyes and holding back a smile. How did that brain of Dema’s even work for her to come up with this? “Just their weapons. Anyway, this all means the System won’t stop trying to kill you. It’s not just me anymore you have to worry about.”

“I ain’t scared!” Dema cheered, loud enough to fill the entire apartment. “Whatever, these plans of the System so far are child’s play. Let them come!”

But Theora couldn’t share that excitement. “I agree with that concerning the first one, which is why I never told you. That first one, it could have never succeeded. Everything went perfectly for them, and they still failed. There was no path for them to win.”

“Why, of course not!”

“But this second one?” Theora continued. “Today? Today was a close call.”

“What!” Dema let out. “You should’a seen that girl! Baby! No way she could have ever won. She knew that herself too. Saw it in her eyes.”

“No, if you think about this attempt, there were ways for it to succeed,” Theora murmured. “The System was just very unlucky. It was unlucky in that Isobel refused. And, it was unlucky in that I asked you not to exhaust yourself fully.” She swallowed. “What if Isobel had accepted the quest? If she’d trained, found allies, come here with bad intent and a strong group. And what if you’d been depleted from fighting the Afterthoughts alongside me, and been just as spent as I was.”

Theora paused. “As I am,” she specified. “I’m drained from using [Obliterate] hundreds of times per day, for so long. I’m willing myself to stay conscious and focussed, and yet, I still almost lost it today.”

To be more precise, she had lost it. It was only Isobel alone who had averted a disaster.

Dema just stared, a rare serious expression on her face, and at the sight, Theora wanted to recoil, but stayed firm. “I’m not trying to make you worry about me. Just outlining the facts. The System exhausted me and my judgement is clouded. Do you understand what I’m saying? If a few things had gone differently…”

Even saying just these vague words felt like vomiting molten steel. Theora did her best to not lose herself on the spot. She took a breath to calm herself, and tried to fight back against her tingling eyes. “Yes,” she continued, “The first attempt, it was child’s play. But the second one wasn’t. This second one was up to chance.”

Dema nodded. “I hear you,” she said, in a voice that tried to be calming and soft. “But it worked out! System was unlucky.”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” Theora pleaded. Ah, she’d messed up. Now, a tear dropped down her face after all.

Dema stared back, a hint of a frown working itself onto her face. “Understand what?”

“The System, it won’t stop trying, and it has all the time in the world,” Theora said. “It only needs to win once. As long as its schemes have a chance to succeed — even if it’s just one in a million — you will die.”

These words finally broke through, but not in a way Theora had expected.

“Why, how daring,” Dema said in her smoky voice, carrying a soft and gentle threat.

Then, much to Theora’s surprised horror, Dema broke into a thin smile. She made a step forward, and in turn, Theora recoiled back in reflex, bumping into the corner between kitchen counter and wall.

No way to hop out. She was trapped.

Dema did not relent. She slowly raised her ash-coloured hand to place it against the side of Theora’s wide-eyed face. Her thumb wiped the tear away gently, her fingers slowly sinking into curly hair. The contact sizzled across Theora’s skin and sent shivers all over her, like being grazed by the claws of a predator, wiping her mind completely clean, instantly, as a wave of coal and ashen scent pierced her consciousness.

Dema’s face was inching dangerously close, amber eyes glinting.

“Little rabbit,” she rasped. “Breaking the rule again, aren’t we?”