Xander let the silence sit for a while and instead looked up at the cloudless sky. That had been a... deeply uncomfortable conversation for the both of them. Even though he’d lived hundreds of years, the memory of that time still stung, but hearing that she, an Immortal, had gone through similar experiences was shocking. From her tone, he suspected she was far younger than he.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Thirty-four,” Astra answered without hesitation.

“Is this what you always looked like?” Xander asked.

“Well, my face, kinda. But I always hated being the ‘Tall Girl’ and never getting enough to eat made me pretty flat. So, when I got the chance to make my own body, this was what I chose.” Astra looked up at him. She’d found her composure and smiled. “If you could remake yourself, what would you look like?”

Xander stared at her in thought. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

She burst out laughing. “Of course. A face like yours, who would change it?” She pushed his shoulder and continued giggling.

He stared down at her, watching as she finished off her lunch and the bowl poofed away. Thirty-four, he mused. She’d had a tough life. No wonder she had come to Ashguard to be an Immortal. “Why did you choose Healer?” he asked.

Leaning back on her hands, she shook her hair back from her shoulders and smiled at him. “I like helping people. I didn’t realize that it would be such an underappreciated Class. Or that I’d get harassed constantly for Skill Scrolls by other Players. Made getting through dungeons difficult when the Warriors would just charge ahead and gather the entire area’s monsters then get mad at me when they died. Like I can’t help it if they’re morons.”

“Dungeons? You never took me into those places,” Xander observed.

“Wasn’t allowed to,” Astra said. “Makes me wonder what it was preventing you from talking to me... what exactly runs this place.” She tipped her head slightly. “I accessed Ashguard through my headset... So, what happened to my body? How is it five hundred years later? Time here runs faster, so twelve hours at home was a full day and night cycle here. Five hundred years is...”

“Two hundred and fifty,” Xander supplied. “Approximately. It hasn’t been exactly five hundred since the Immortals disappeared.”

“What happened with that?” she asked. She didn’t look like she fully believed his math. “Maybe everyone just got kicked off for the update?”

He looked away. “Your health suddenly depleted and you did not come back,” Xander said, “A few days later, all Immortals were simply gone.”

“Sounds disconcerting,” Astra said.

“It was. After years of pointless battles in public spaces, the central square was simply empty. Taverns... the Guild Hall. We all waited for the Immortals to return. When years passed and you did not, the Cursed Ones began fighting among each other.”

“Cursed Ones?” she asked, tipping her head to look at him, chin resting against her shoulder.

“Your assistants. We discovered that while we could die of wounds, we did not age.”

Her ears flicked down, pupils shrinking as the repercussions of that hit her.

“It was another side effect of the Pact we made with the Immortals. No one knew until assistants who should have visibly grown old did not,” Xander explained. “Several assistants with little else to do with the Skills they had acquired, began fighting over the Vanaheim throne. That battle lasted for fifty years. Others retreated from society, taking over the towns Immortals had created near the border of the Southlands. Still, others chose to take up adventuring since there were still monsters that required extermination that normal citizens could not hope to face.”

“What about you?” Astra asked.

“For a time, I adventured, working with a few others to take count of the death toll from the Plague. Time passed, and the few Healers with Unlocked Skills died one by one. Now, only I remain.” That was not exactly how it had happened, but Astra Diane did not need to know anything about Isabella, or Baldur. “I had been away from the Cursed City for too long and did not find any friends among those who lived there. Instead, I chose to return to Aesir. Vanaheim seemed too unstable and given the reputation Cursed Ones had there, I decided to avoid it, despite having been born there. I now teach monster extermination tactics and history at the Academy and work with the clinic at the church. I tried to increase the number of Healers, but my Skill Scrolls cap at level fifty.”

Astra covered his hand, leaning in. “Don’t compare yourself to Immortals,” she said, “We’re cheating. I’m sure of it. What you’ve achieved, you did on your own power.”

Unexpectedly touched by her encouragement, Xander felt his heart skip. Pulling his hand away, he set his shoulders. “Aesir’s royalty wishes to go to war with Vanaheim,” he said. “The Holy Mouth will undoubtedly speak to you as soon as she gets the opportunity.”

She waited for him to finish, the weight of her silence pressing on him.

“I do not wish to return to battle,” he said. “I have refused... However, I cannot control your actions.”

Her ears flicked down. “What’s the fight even about?”

“A Cursed One named Johnas took the throne some ten years ago. He has steadily raised taxes on imports and exports to Vanaheim. Aesir’s merchants have found it most vexing. They have pressured King James to do something. I have been harassed and begged on multiple occasions.”

“Then it’s not my problem,” Astra said. “And I’m not going to drag you into it when you’re happy in your retirement.” She pulled her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “If I leave, I’ll probably just go back to the Southlands.”

“That still leaves the problem of other Immortals,” Xander reminded. “You may decline, but others may not be so kind as to keep to themselves.”

Astra sighed. “Yeah. A lot of the Players I knew would jump at the chance to get involved in a war, regardless of what it was about.” She set her chin on her knees, ears twitching as thoughts went through her mind at high speed. “I doubt they’d listen to me if I asked them to stay out of it. The best answer is to get rid of us entirely. But where to start on that...”

“I have been giving the matter some considerable thought. The Soul Stones are what allows Immortals to reappear after death.”

“Yeah. Getting rid of them,” Astra muttered. Her ears had slanted back slightly. “But they’ve been at the center of Mage battles and not taken a scratch.” Her ears flattened entirely as she glared into the distance. “That jerk camped the Soul Stone for hours. I lost fifteen stat points that day.”

“Pardon?” Xander asked.

“Before we met,” Astra said with a flick of her fingers. “Mage named Horhay kept targeting the Nifelheim Soul Stone Plaza with Fire Bombs and killing everyone there. Every time someone respawned, he’d do it again. Thankfully a Warrior with higher levels showed up and shanked him. Chased his butt around town for a while, but not nearly enough.”

“Perhaps investigating what the Soul Stones are will lead to what powers them?” Xander suggested.

“Probably,” Astra said. “I’ll help however I can... Xander... it’s been a while since I couldn’t log out. The longer I leave my body just... laying there... something could happen. I need to log out and I don’t know how.”

“Perhaps the library will have answers?” Xander suggested. “I will take you there.” He got to his feet and offered his hand to help her up.

* * *

As soon as Xander left her, Astra’s ears folded down.

“I never finished high school,” she said as she stared at the massive number of books. Endless shelf after shelf of the church’s library, stacked two stories high and the length of a soccer field. “What the heck does he expect me to do here?” At least he’d decided it was safe to leave her to her own devices and hadn’t assigned a babysitter. She rather wished she had one, though.

The last time she’d been in a library was middle school. She’d been assigned a paper on the oxygen cycle or something. She’d failed it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like reading, either. She just... struggled with it.

Astra started walking down the central aisle, glancing left and right as she found open spaces with tables. There were people at some of the tables, buried in stacks of books, taking notes. She [Examined] them out of curiosity.

[Brother Kyle] was a Human male with brown hair... [Sister Lillie] was a blue Dracoid... [Hugh, Professor of History] was a redheaded Giant...

Astra stopped and backed up. Ahh! Perfect!

“Pardon,” an old voice, sounding a little out of breath, said.

Stopping her intended path to harass the professor, Astra turned to find a Dracoid so old their coloring had faded to grey. [Grestra, The Holy Mouth] was addressing her. Ears dropping down, then up again, she turned to face the woman. “Greetings, Holy One. Is there something I can help you with?”

The Dracoid smiled, sharp teeth poking from her mouth. “Might I have a moment of your time, Adventurer?”

Too late, Astra noticed the Dracoid had put an arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the professor she’d wanted to talk to. Ears folding down, Astra had no choice but to be led away.

The Holy Mouth continued, “Our country is suffering—”

“Mnn,” Astra said. “Xander said something about this. I’m going to save you some time and let you know I think he’s right.”

The Holy Mouth’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “He is unaware of the full picture.”

“Look... I don’t think I’d even be that much help,” Astra said. “I’m Healer Class. I don’t have any offensive Skills except Raise Undead...”

“That is precisely why we require your assistance,” the Dracoid said. She had already drawn Astra back towards the door to the library and out into the hall. “There are only so many Healers left in the world.”

“Something like three thousand,” Astra said. “Look, I’m not doing anything without compensation.”

“Of course, we will compensate you.”

Astra was highly uncomfortable with this little chat and where she was being taken. She’d never been this far into the church building before. Her exploits had always ended at the sanctuary to get Holy Water for her Death Penalty. The building itself was incredibly large. She glanced to the right as they passed by windows that looked into the courtyard she and Xander had just had lunch in. Her ears flicked down, tail swaying in agitation.

“I heard that you gave Acolyte Heather a Skill Scroll this morning,” the Dracoid said.

“Um. Yeah. That was a gift. Because I wanted to,” Astra said, unable to break away.

“Her new Skills cap at one hundred. That’s rather kind of you. She has wanted to be a Healer for years. We have been researching how to surpass the level fifty limit of the Scrolls Xander can create.”

“Hmm... and that has what to do with me?” Astra asked.

“We will need people capable of using Cure and Resurrect if we want to avoid loss of life. But beyond that, people who are capable of creating textiles and equipment.” The Holy Mouth opened a door, leading Astra into an office wherein a Human man and a Giant sat in chairs near a fancy desk.

Astra [Examined] them. [Prince Rufus el Aesir] was a young Human man with blond hair and blue eyes. He had an arrogant smile. [Chancellor Jotun] was the Giant with a long mane of greying black hair and opulent jewels on the crushed velvet doublet he wore. Astra’s gaze flicked down to his doublet; [Crushed Velvet Doublet, Level 50]. Figuring she’d better be polite, she did something like a bow. “Your Highness, Chancellor,” she greeted.

Rufus and Jotun smiled, the Chancellor speaking before the prince could. “A well-informed woman, I see.”

Astra considered telling them that she could see their names and titles, then decided not to. Instead, she put on a customer service smile and stood, waiting for them to get to the part where they tried to bend her over and take her for everything she had.

Rufus stood and offered his hands out. “It is well and truly an honor to meet an Immortal,” he said, taking her hands. Clasping them near his chest, he bowed.

Unable to stop her ears from flicking down in distress, Astra waited for the man to let her go and stepped back to put some distance between them again. Unsure of what to say, she remained silent.

“Please, Honored Immortal, sit,” the Holy Mouth said, gesturing at one of the remaining seats. “We should discuss compensation for your services.” The Dracoid gave Astra no room to say no and pulled her into the chair.

Trapped, she wrapped her tail into her lap and picked at the fur, petting it to soothe herself.

“What Skills do you have, My Lady Immortal?” Jotun asked, leaning forward. The chair he sat in creaked slightly.

“She is Healer Class,” the Holy Mouth said, handing out cups of tea around the room.

Astra took the cup and stared into it, unsure if she should drink or not.

“Her Tailor Craft Skill is impressive,” the Holy Mouth said. “Do you possess other Craft Skills?”

“Yeah,” Astra said. “Blacksmith, Alchemist, Arborist, Farmer, Miner, and Hunter.”

“Are these sufficiently leveled that you could provide Skill Scrolls?” Jotun asked.

Astra glanced up, finding Rufus smiling charmingly at her. Good cop, bad cop? Or was it Interrogator and Honey Pot? Rufus was pretty but fell way short in comparison to Xander, and she still wouldn’t have bought what he was trying to sell. “Yes,” Astra said, lifting her ears as she found confidence.

This situation was in her favor. She had all the cards. Now she just needed to think of an outrageous price for her help.