After a little bit more talking and sharing of embarrassing stories from Viktor’s childhood, we finally reached the time we had designated to go to sleep to make sure that we woke up the next morning with enough time to deal with all of our parting affairs as well as breakfast.

Viktor and I slept together in his room along with Samantha. Viktor made me a nice bed on the floor, but I didn’t get much sleep. I was used to not really getting sleep, so I wasn’t expecting much detriment during our journey the next day. All I could really think about was the fact that we were finally reaching the end of our journey. Sure, we still had an entire day between now and our arrival at Malfuim, but after that, it would only be another two or so days until all of this would hopefully be over and Zeraph would be defeated.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep, little kitten? You have a long day ahead of you,” Sylak said from inside my head.

I just shook my head. “Not really. I mean, think, I’ve lived a good majority of my life on poor or very brief sleep. I’ve sorta adapted to it.”

“Ah yeah… Sorry about that.”

I snickered. “What for? Every time I slept bad wasn’t your fault. You were definitely one of the reasons for my poor sleeping habits, but you were by no means the most prevalent one.”

“I suppose that’s fair. It’s a little strange. I feel like there’s even more of you part of me nowadays. I’m experiencing a lot more emotions than I’d been used to. This little streak of hair doesn’t quite seem to be a completely accurate representation of what percent of each other we are.”

I thought about it and they had a point. I was experiencing a lot more negative emotions recently, but they weren’t completely overwhelming either. They were there and they felt like things many normal people might experience, if not maybe a bit stronger.

“I get what you mean. It’s interesting,” I finally replied. “But you’re also right.”

“What about?” they asked.

“I should probably get some sleep. Even with how accustomed I am to it, I should still at least attempt to get more than a couple hours of sleep…”

“Alright. See ya later. And hey, next time you and Jester talk, tell them to stop trying to change my clothes.”

I chuckled softly. “Will do. See ya.”

With that talk over with, I found myself able to sleep a little easier, but I still didn’t sleep great. I woke up a few times, plagued by visions. After a few times, I decided to just stay up. I just sat in bed for some time before I heard someone heading downstairs from above us.

Having nothing better to do and still fully awake a few hours before when we were going to wake up, I decided to find out what was going on. I quietly made my way out of the room and downstairs. There was sounds of tools and magic coming from the basement along with a faint glow from under the door.

“Who would be working this early in the morning?” I thought to myself.

Once again deciding I had nothing better to do, I quickly made my way down the basement steps in to the workshop to find Dameria set up at one of the tables, scrawling notes while tweaking something occasionally. When I stepped in to the workshop, she immediately noticed, her head shooting up to look at me. Her face was very alert, but when she realized it was me, she softened up.

“Good morning, Avien. What are you doing up this early?”

I continued to make my way over to her as I answered, “I couldn’t sleep, but don’t worry. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m used to not getting much sleep anyway.”

She chuckled and resumed her work. “You and I both. I’m almost always up this time. I usually stay down here until Amelia and the children wake up and I join them for breakfast.”

I stopped briefly. “Why didn’t you eat breakfast with us yesterday?”

She stopped working, turning back up to look at me. “I just couldn’t look at him. I felt so horrible. I just couldn’t, so I decided to leave early and keep my mind busy with building that arena. I know, even now, we still aren’t on amazing terms. It’s going to take some time.”

I nodded, taking a seat at the table. “Yeah, he’s angry. I know exactly what that’s like, but I can also assure you that you will be fine eventually.”

She smiled and resumed her work. “Well, I know about one of your parents, but what about the other? What are they like?”

I drooped a little in my seat. “Oh, well… I had a mother. She was an amazing woman.”

“My deepest condolences. Losing a family member is never easy, I know.” Her voice was extremely sincere. It was quite comforting.

After that, her and I just sat there for a while. She just continued to work on her project. I didn’t really have any idea what it was, but it looked somewhat like a bracelet. I decided not to ask and instead just wait to see what it ended up being.

At one point, Dameria looked up and seemed to take specific notice to my arms. I got a little embarrassed, hiding them. Even with my healing, I still had a few bruises and cuts that were yet to heal since our encounters with Damien. He’d done something of a number on the both of us.

“That’s a lot of injury considering the healing you should be capable of,” she mused.

I nodded. “We had a bit of a nasty run-in with an apprentice named Damien.”

“Are you talking about the blood puppeteer?” she asked.

I sighed, pressing my face down in to the table. “Yeah… That one…”

“I’m surprised the two of you were able to escape him, even with where you are.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t really all us. Plus, the three of us were pretty worn out after all the time we spent there. We got pretty lucky. Viktor wasn’t really too happy to bring him along either, but…”

I heard a sound and looked up. Dameria had dropped her hammer to the table and was looking at me with her mouth open.

“What?” I asked.

“You said you brought him along. What do you mean by that?”

I realized that we hadn’t actually told her about what was in the coffin and she probably hadn’t even seen it. “Oh uh… We captured him. We’re bringing him with us to Malfuim to meet with an illusionist. He’s actually out back in a big wooden box.”

Her expression of shock continued. “How…? Why? What?!”

“He asked us to. It’s kind of complicated to explain, but his guard was severely down when we knocked him out. Then, with my help, Viktor and I sealed off his essence and put him to sleep inside that box until we get to Malfuim. That was actually what Viktor was going to ask you to look at this morning. He wanted to hear your opinion on it to make sure he wouldn’t get out.”

She shook her head, seemingly to recover from her confusion. “Right… I could go do that right now, if you wanted.”

“He put protection on it to keep other people from opening it, so we can just do it after breakfast.”

She nodded. “Alright. That makes sense. But anyway, I was going to say that seems like a lot more than just a few days of damage against one apprentice. That seems like a long list of enemies worth of injuries.”

I laughed nervously. “I guess maybe I do take a little more damage than I’d like…”

“You apprentices these days… So reckless. Just because you can heal faster than mortals doesn’t mean you can’t die… Why don’t you wear any protection?”

I shook my head. “I can’t really fit any armor or extra protection anywhere under or over my jacket too comfortably.”

She quickly sketched something on a piece of paper and showed it to me. “If you were to shorten the sleeves up to around your elbows, you could wear braces around your forearms. You should be fast enough to use them to block.”

“That’s a great idea, but you’d have to cut the jacket to do that… It was a gift from my mother after she passed… I can’t really imagine altering it in any way…”

Dameria rolled her eyes. “You do realize, with magic, I could shorten your sleeve length and you wouldn’t even be able to tell. I know you may not think it, but I’m quite adept at creating and altering clothing. Plus, I could make you some durable braces that even have a regenerative material.”

I thought for a moment before quickly running back upstairs, grabbing my jacket, and running back in to the workshop. I placed the jacket down on the workbench. “Please don’t ruin it…”

She smiled at me, eyeing the jacket eagerly. “Trust me, I wouldn’t even think of it.” With that, she quickly got to work altering the jacket. She started by severing the sleeves and taking out a large section of them. She held it up to me a few times to check the length before reassembling them. Much to my joy, she was right, I couldn’t even tell that the jacket had been altered. I quickly slipped it on and found it felt just the same as before, only with a little bit of additional exposed skin.

“You were right, I can’t even tell. It looks great and it feels exactly the same.”

She beamed. “Thank you. I take pride in my work. Now, for the braces.”

With that, she quickly got to work molding the braces to my arms. She started with some fabric bases which she then made complete rigid around my arms. After that, she added the main protective material which consisted of some of the leftover mystwood from the golem that Viktor had given her mixed with some form of plant that apparently allowed the wood to regenerate from hits. She then forged a metal band which she fastened around the wood plating to keep it in place. After that, all that was left was to create the straps.

“There we go, all done!” she exclaimed as she then handed me the braces and excitedly motioned for me to put them on.

Much to my surprise, they were actually really comfortable to wear and the straps were easy to adjust depending on how tight I wanted them to be. They were also really lightweight, so they wouldn’t really hinder my movement. “They seem pretty sturdy. Thank you so much.”

“Indeed they do. Let’s test them out!” Before she had even finished her sentence, her fist was flying towards me, now clad in a wooden brace of her own. I assumed this wouldn’t be as flimsy as the ones she used against Viktor, so I quickly brought my arms up to block the slow-motion punch. Thankfully, the braces held nicely and I was only knocked a little off balance. I quickly regained my balance and turned around my arms to check the braces.

The metal of the braces was completely intact, but the wood was heavily dented and even a little cracked. I thought she might have to rework them, but then, much to my surprise, the fibers of the wood began to stitch back together. After about a minute, the wood was good as new, as though nothing had ever happened.

“Wow! That’s so cool!”

“Good to see that the vilicate properly bonded with the mystwood. Now, those braces should be able to take almost any hit thrown at them. I do have to warn you that, while they are fire resistant, they cannot regenerate while on fire and their regeneration time takes much longer the more damage they actually take.”

I nodded. “I will keep that in mind. Once again, thank you for the help.”

She smiled and nodded, returning to the work she had been doing before I’d come down. I decided I didn’t want to bother her anymore, but there was also still around an hour until Viktor would be waking up, as per the schedule we’d decided on, so there was something I wanted to do that was nagging at me.

I hopped down on to the ground in the middle of the room and crossed my legs. Having a good center to focus on always helped me to project myself in to my mind. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths before opening them and finding myself standing in front of my door. I walked forward and opened it, being greeted by the room of doors and an unexpected guest.

Sitting on the staircase, staring at the black door to the right was Jester. She was mostly naked and wearing just underwear and a fluffy pink towel. She seemed very intent on the door and didn’t even pay me any mind as I entered the room. It wasn’t until I actually waved a hand in front of her that she noticed me.

“Oh, hello there, green kitten. What are you doing here?” she asked, very disinterested.

I motioned towards the black door she was staring at. “I’m actually here because of that.”

“What about it? We’ve tried everything.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. I just… I had a dream or maybe it was a vision about this door and I think maybe I’ll be able to open it now, or at least, I’m hoping I will.”

I stepped forward, filled with determination. I reached down and grasped the doorknob, attempting to turn it. It didn’t budge an inch, so I tried again. I tried several more times and seemed to only succeed in amusing Jester. She was chuckling behind me. I whipped around ready to scold her, but then I thought of something.

“Hey, come here. Why don’t we try opening the door together?”

She shrugged and stood up, dropping her towel and walking over to the door. She placed her hand on the knob as well and we both tried as hard as we could to turn the handle. Unfortunately, it didn’t just not turn, it actually disappeared. I looked back at her, confused. “What in ser just happened?!”

“I believe the doorknob disappeared.”

I scowled at her. “I know that, but why?”

“Maybe we’re not supposed to go in there. After all, there’s not even anything in there. The whole place just echoes around a bunch when you knock on it.”

I frowned at that. When I had tried listening to the door, I heard a heartbeat. There had to be something in there. I just didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe this would work, but now we were no closer than before. I slumped down on the ground, trying to think of something to do, but when I couldn’t come up with anything, I decided it was probably time to leave.

“Goodbye, Jester,” I said as I walked towards my door.

I turned the handle and walked out, the last thing I heard before leaving being, “Goodbye, green kitten.”