Dreamland

As Spartacius was protesting that it was taking me too long to get dressed, I thought that maybe if he understood the complexities of the task, he would get more patient:

“Sorry Sparty, I still have not found the passing boots for these trousers and this specific jacket. Even worse, the trousers do not fit with the jacket. Maybe with this other jacket? But then I have no boots that fit with it. I have a limited number of boots with me. Besides, White Flower will need to spell me another blouse that should fit with the ensemble...”

He sighed, a bit exasperated.

“You too? Sparty!? You just narrowly escaped death, and all you care is to find the passing boots to your jacket?“

Oh well, he took offense to me calling him Sparty. I thought it would be funny. OK, whatever. No more Sparty.

But now, coming back to his criticism, for me, putting together an acceptable, decent combination of clothes was a kind of ritual, a step towards normalization. So, how can I explain this?

“It is not all I care, but I do care. As simple as that. Boots and jacket, trousers and belt, all these must fit! This is the basis for human decency! I don't know why you can't understand this. If something does not fit, it would be like an always itching sore toe.”

He sighed:

“That'll take the whole night. Why don't you just let her spell you a robe until you finally decide on something!? I told you my neck is hurting me for talking like this!”

“Oh, good idea!”

White Flower also found the idea good:

“Perfect idea! What color would you like it? Should it pass with your hair or rather your eyes? What about the model? The cut? Should it show your shoulders?”

“Ahm? I need to try and see how it works. Can you make a mirror?”

Spartacius yelled from his side, not realizing we were making fun of him:

“Please! It's just temporary!!”

White Flower answered unperturbed:

“Sure, that's my specialty! I could even dress a mannequin that looks like you. Or we make several, and you can compare them?”

“What? You could do that?”

“Sure, I am a master of illusions!”

Everybody laughed while Sparty raised his hands in surrender, falling to his knees.

“Nooo!”

“You can turn now; I do have a pink dress...”

“Finally!” - he turned and came closer with big round eyes - “Well, hell, Cala! It suits you well! Why don't you wear a robe instead of trousers?”

I shrugged. Me and wearing a dress?

“Ahm? No. I am rather the trousers type of girl. Let me see, these trousers here...”

White Flower interrupted me:

“Before you dress on new equipment, let me tell you my proposition first. That is if you are still interested. It may be useful that you are ahm... dressed only with illusions.”

“Okay? I am all ears!?”

“We could become one person!”

Okay, that was a bit unclear for me. What is actually on offer, and what do I pay for it?

“What do you mean, why should I do that? Who will be making the decisions, and how will we separate if we want to?”

She looked at me and shrugged:

“I propose this as some kind of emergency solution. The threats seem higher than I thought they would be, and we need more firepower to fight them. It would not be much different to now when I am hiding as a tattoo on your skin. However, if we become one, you could use all my magic power, not only a fraction of it. Of course, you will need to learn to use it, but I could do some easy shortcuts and serve it to you as prepared tattoos you read from as a starter. It can work as I did it for healing when you had to say the words: I want to heal you.

As you point out, only one of us will be able to actively make decisions. We can take turns at it. I could be better for some situations; you could be better for others.

When you are in the lead, I will not be able to heal on my own. You will need to think about it and heal yourself. The point is, now, in addition to healing, you could spell fireballs, ice lances, or ice explosions, everything I could spell. You will hear me as you heard the tattoo, but now, not in a whisper, but directly in your mind. You could also reply to me in your mind. You could also let me lead, and I would be in charge and do then all my spells. I may eventually also learn your assassins' spells if we stay longer together. To separate, we would need to ask a high-level specialized mage or priest. Not many could do the separation properly, but I know a couple I trust would gladly do it for me. Does this answer your questions?”

“Why do you propose this?”

“As I said, it is some kind of emergency situation we are facing. We would be much stronger. I am not speaking of only the wolshi, but It may be the only way how we could fight it and get out of here. Unless we want to wait until it gets bored and leaves. Before, it almost killed both of us in mere seconds. Being one would change that equation. You would not die from a couple of corrosive bullets. Even inside it, you would have a much higher chance of survival when we are together. We could heal and blast that thing from the inside until we get in one way or another out again.”

“I... I don't think I want to try that!”

“Oh... As I said, it is not only the wolshi. The threats seem to have a scale we cannot easily face otherwise.”

“Yes, you said that, and it's true. The point is interesting. Let me think a little about it. So we will have a bit of a separating problem if we want to do it?”

“True. I know and would trust only a couple of persons to do it properly, but it's solvable.”

While she said that, she lowered her head, then added with a shrug:

“As I said, I cannot do it properly from the inside; we would need the help of a great mage, sorcerer, or priest for this. I have only a couple of friends that I would trust to submit ourselves for such a complex operation, and I have high hopes that they would do this for me simply for our friendship. Old Oak, for instance. You must think about it, like separating siamese twins. It is that complex. I don't want to lie and say it would be easy, but it is doable. When we would like to separate, I could bring us to Serenity City to get us separated by him. It might cost us some gold, but that is not really a problem. Well, it is only an idea, a proposal, after all. You decide what the best way is, but think about the last couple of fights and then re-think what would have happened if you had the option to use my spells in addition to your own. Maybe you need a better understanding of what I can spell and what you could learn, but consider that in addition to various healing spells, you can say the spells of a fire mage, light mage, lightning mage, ice mage, and more!”

I had first to digest what she said. I realized before that she was high level. True, she was handicapped with a fragile body but had a huge mana pool with several spell areas, but I did not realize how broad her repertoire was.

"Does this mean you are some kind of generalist with limited knowledge in all these areas?"

She grinned and watched me askew:

"From what you know about me, did you have the impression that I know only low-level spells?"

OK, when I think of those camouflage spells and illusion spells, which she called mirrors: those are high-level spells. I would like to learn some of those. Yeah, I need to ask her how she did it.

When I think of her healing skills, those are exceptional. The one point she can't is that remote healing, but all the rest are above anything I've seen.

"You want to tell me that your fire mage skills are as elevated as your healing skills? That's impossible. Can you do a fire elemental?"

"Yes. No."

She grinned without adding more. I repeated myself:

"That's impossible. One cannot learn from scrolls, competitive classes."

She nodded and frowned as she answered:

"True. I did not learn my spells from scrolls."

"But that... that would take ages to learn?"

She smiled happily and nodded, raising a brow.

I was feeling like having stricken gold. OK, an assassin with multiple mage spells? Not a couple of scrolls in your pocket, but the whole library, including healing? OK, OK, first I need to learn those spells as she said it might take some time.

On the other side, this comes with a package: a voice in my head. Let me think this interesting proposal through.

Well, apart from the relatively small annoyance that some people with assassin-level senses might 'hear' my magic, the only change for me would be that I could talk in my mind with her instead of speaking. As a tattoo, she was rather quiet most of the time. Plus, I can even let her fight for me; that is a kind of a cheat, actually. I wonder how good her fighting is. Her magic is strong; I have seen it a couple of times. A magic Cala would be almost unbeatable at this level. A second Grackak. When I think about the idiot, he was not really good at fighting. He had these super-duper items and high firepower, but apart from that, he was a rather mediocre mage. That witch that I fought in Ivar's ruins was a better fighter.

OK, whatever. What do I do? Maybe I overthink this. We need an option to get out of the cave, and the game gives me one.

So is it still a game, or is it as Cala thought: not a game? As Cala, I was one hundred percent sure it was not a game. As Dolores, having logged in now, I am not so sure anymore, even if it seems to be the most realistic game I have ever seen.

I grinned at her:

“We do it!”