Mistaken for a Returnee

"What're you doing?" Faeyra asked as she stepped into the kitchen.

Aldritch tore his eyes away from the icebox and smiled at her. "Letting my impatience get the best of me." He chuckled. "The cake you made is… Something else. I'm finding it more difficult than I thought to resist the urge to eat it."

"Why don't you?" She laughed, "I know I said I needed to sit overnight, but it should be fine to eat now."

"Really? I was under the impression it must set for the full twelve hours. Has it not been only nine?"

She shrugged and began making coffee for herself and Sulika. "Twelve hours is the recommended time, allowing it to completely settle. But it's not like you'll get arrested if you eat it a few hours early."

"Will it change the taste?"

Faeyra lit the stove and set the kettle over the flame. With that done, she walked over to the icebox and tugged on the handle. "If it does, I'll make us another one." She smirked at him as the door swung open and an icy wind washed over them both.

The 'Icebox' was a bit of a misnomer, as it was far too big to be called a box: it was more like a closet. Thirty square feet of floor space, five narrow shelves along the two side walls, and two deep shelves on the back wall. Their icebox was on the larger side and was actually meant for a commercial building- One this size would usually cost upwards of twenty gold coins, but they'd gotten it dirt cheap due to certain… Circumstances.

Faeyra shivered as she stepped inside and started grabbing various items off the shelves: A jug of cream, a small container of sugar cubes, a two-pound cloth bag of mixed berries, and the copper tin containing Aldritch's cake.

"I'm still fascinated by the enchantment work on this room. The adjustment mechanism alone is a marvel of engineering." Aldritch muttered while inspecting the dial on the inside of the door.

The icebox had three settings: Off - which disabled the enchantments, Chilled - which caused the temperature in the room to hover around forty degrees fahrenheit, and Iced - Which forced the room's temperature to stay below zero at all times.

Faeyra kept the dial on the 'Chilled' setting, as they didn't keep anything on hand that required such low temperatures.

"I know what you mean. When we first got it, I probably spent the first week playing with the temperature settings." She laughed as she left the icebox, shutting the door with a bump of her hip.

Aldritch took the cake tin and the other items from her and walked them over to the table. "Oh, thank you." She said, smiling at him for the gesture.

She sat her items on the table beside his, then reached inside the cloth bag for a quick snack.

"Want one?" She asked while gazing up at him through her lashes. She pulled her hand from the bag and reached towards his face, slowly waving a dark red berry under his nose.

The berry smelled sweet- then it briefly touched his lips, and the barest hint of flavor came to him.

"Certainly." He replied- and without giving him the chance to change his mind, Faeyra pushed the berry between his lips.

Just as he'd expected: The berry was deeply sweet and held a slight tartness near the end. It reminded him of his youth, back when he would sneak sips of the Archpriest's 'secret' wine collection.

Faeyra's smiled coyly at him, "You liked that, didn't you?"

"Tis a good flavor. What's the name of this fruit?" He asked, leaning back slightly, away from the hand that was still lingering around his face.

"Rubora: it's a wine maker's fruit." She explained before lowering her hand. She tried not to show it, but she was a bit disappointed he'd leaned away from her. She'd hoped to get a different reaction out of the giant, one she hadn't seen before.

"Most people don't care for the raw berry due to its sweetness, but I rather enjoy a little sugar in the morning. Don't you?" She asked while walking over to the stove.

"Yes, I do. I suppose I've developed a sweet tooth in my Old Age." He said, emphasizing the last bit with a smile on his face.

Faeyra glanced over her shoulder at him and returned his smile with one of her own. "You're no fun, Aldritch."

Aldritch couldn't help but chuckle.

Faeyra poured herself a cup of coffee, then set the kettle off to the side to wait for Sulika.

With Coffee in hand, she grabbed a small knife from the countertop and returned to Aldritch's side.

"Would you do the honors?" She asked, offering him the knife handle.

"Gladly." He took the knife from her hand and opened the cake tin… The smell of chocolate hit him like a warhammer.

Aldritch eyed the cake hungrily and licked his lips- much to Faeyra's amusement.

She was used to men eyeing her like that, so it was still strange that Aldritch didn't. But the sight of him slicing the cake that she'd made, filled her with a different kind of pride.

She was proud of the cake she'd made.

Sure, it was a lot of work, and a part of her didn't feel like making another one if this one went awry somewhere… But seeing his anticipation made her feel like all that effort was worth it in the end.

With speed and deftness that belied his size, Aldritch had two pieces of equal size plated and ready for eating in seconds.

"I'm surprised." Faeyra replied, smirking up at him and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her left ear. "I didn't think you were the kind of guy who liked to share."

"What I'll share depends on who I'm sharing it with. While I'm certainly no dragon, I do have a tendency to hoard that which I value above all else. And when it pertains to my hoard… Well, I'm a very selfish man." He said, matching her grin.

"Ugh." Sulika muttered as she walked into the kitchen. "Can you two please keep the flirting to a minimum until I've had my coffee? Thanks." She finished, yawning into the back of her hand and moving to grab the kettle.

Aldritch and Faeyra glanced at each other before lifting their forks and starting breakfast- the first time the cake touched Aldritch's tongue, he could feel his eyes fluttering.

"Oh... Me. That's better than sex." Oakairo moaned- which Aldritch ignored in favor of eating another forkful of cake.

Seeing the expression on his face, Faeyra couldn't help but laugh, "Do you like it?"

"I love it- oh, and Oakairo says it's better than sex... He's also saying a few other things that I won't pass along."

"Why not?"

Aldritch placed another bite in his mouth before turning to look at her. "Because they aren't words to be said around the breakfast table."

"Now you're teasing me..."

"Seriously, can you not?" Sulika made an exaggerated gagging sound and plopped down in the chair beside Faeyra.

"Someone's grumpy this morning. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"I don't know, maybe. My back is hurting after tossing and turning all night." She replied, bringing the coffee to her lips: it was made just the way she liked it- two cubes of sugar and a generous helping of cream.

Perfection-

"Well, you're more than welcome to wake up on the right side of my bed tomorrow-" Coffee flew out of Sulika's mouth and across the table in front of Aldritch and Faeyra.

With her facing turning crimson and Coffee running down her chin, Sulika glared at Faeyra's coy smile.

"That's more like it." Faeyra muttered.

A few minutes later, after cleaning up her mess and drinking what was left of her coffee, Sulika was ready to start cooking breakfast.

She'd gotten dressed before coming down: equipping her usual suit of leather armor and utility belt- which held the sheaths for her wand and sword.

"Is that what you're wearing?" Sulika asked, motioning to Aldritch's old robe and armor… Which he never seemed to take off. In fact, it was the same thing he'd been wearing since the moment she first saw him.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Until I can forge something to replace it." He replied, stepping away from the table with his and Faeyra's plates in hand. He placed the two dishes in the sink and began washing them in the lukewarm water of the tap.

"You make your own armor?" Sulika asked. She didn't know why she was surprised; he was half dwarf.

While waiting for him to respond, she walked over to the icebox and grabbed a few ingredients for a light breakfast: scrambled eggs, toasted bread, and a few pan-fried vegetables- peppers, onions, and two kinds of mushrooms that Aldritch didn't recognize.

With those in hand, she grabbed a couple of pans from the cupboard and began cooking a few feet away from Aldritch.

Realistically, it would've been stranger if he didn't forge his own equipment.

She guessed it had something to do with how he carried himself- almost like he was above such menial tasks.

Yet she knew that wasn't exactly true.

Like right now: he didn't seem to mind washing their used plates and cups, but he was also living here and eating their food. They gave him a place to stay, and he helped them out where he could.

However, she knew that kindness didn't extend to everyone, since he was more than willing to let the people in the dungeon die. So, no, Aldritch hadn't shown disdain towards work, if anything, he seemed happy to work- provided he was compensated for it.

"Weapons too." He said, turning to face her. "Ever since I was eight years old."

"That young?" Sulika exclaimed. "Is that normal for Dwarves?"

"No." Aldritch shook his head. "I was a special case: because of my size, most Dwarven equipment was too small for me to use, and custom equipment cost more than the temple could afford.

However, the temple did have its own forge, which was free for us to use as long as we sourced our own materials... And didn't break anything in the process." He smiled fondly at the memory of his first 'sword'... Which broke almost as soon as he tried to cut something with it.

"That's handy. I wish I knew how to forge my own equipment. It certainly would've saved me a few shiny copper bits." Sulika laughed while dumping three scrambled eggs out of the hot pan onto a waiting plate.

"I could teach you." He said and noticed the conflicted emotion that flashed across her face. "Or not?"

"Don't get me wrong, I would love to learn… But I don't have the patience for craftsmanship." She said in a quiet voice. "It's why I don't help much in the lab. I'm too impatient, and no matter how hard I try, I can't help but mess something up."

"You do not enjoy alchemy?"

"Not really, no." Sulika replied without looking at him. "But it's not like I'm illiterate or anything. If she walks me through it step by step, I do fine. I just can't remember how and when to do everything- I don't understand how Faeyra does it."

"And I don't understand how you can fight with a sword and sling spells at the same time." Faeyra laughed.

"It seems like you both have things you're good at and things you struggle with, yes?" Aldritch nodded.

Sulika hesitated for a moment before nodding.

"What do you like to do for fun? I know you like to fight, your actions the other day proved that. But what else?"

"...I like to read." Sulika replied after a moment.

She dumped more eggs onto the plate, then sat the plate aside and moved on to the vegetables.

"A good hobby." Aldritch nodded. "What do you like to read? Action? Romance? Fiction? Non-Fiction? Perhaps something a little more… Intimate?" He asked and was surprised to see her face change shades, turning crimson in the blink of an eye-

Then her spatula clatter to the ground by her foot and Sulika cursed under her breath. She quickly brought her hand to her mouth to blow on it for a second, before placing her mouth on the side of her hand and sucking on the burn.

Faeyra leapt to her feet and rushed to Sulika's side, but Aldritch was a step quicker.

He took Sulika's burned hand in his own. "Rejection of pain." He whispered and poured mana into the spell.

Sulika sighed as the pain faded away to little more than a dull ache.

"Is she going to be okay? Should I go grab an anti-burn potion?" Faeyra asked, looking around Aldritch's shoulder at the nasty burn on Sulika's hand.

He shook his head gently, so as to avoid agitating her wound, guided Sulika to the sink and placed her hand under the mouth of the faucet. Unfortunately, though he knew cold water could be summoned from the faucet, he hadn't figured out how to work it yet.

The sink was simple enough: A concave copper basin with a slender copper pipe protruding from the rear. The pipe curved downwards six inches above the basin and had a small hole from which water flowed.

Aside from the pipe, the only objects Aldritch could see were three small, wooden buttons positioned in a triangle formation around the base of the pipe: the leftmost button was colored dark blue, the centermost button was black, and the rightmost button was colored dark red.

Aldritch took a guess and pressed the blue button- there was a soft click to indicate it was now locked into the 'on' position.

He saw Sulika's pained expression transform into one of relief as the water turned cold- however, he felt no such change. While he could certainly feel the water flowing over his hand and through his fingers, it had no temperature for him.

"Blue is for cold water, yes?" He asked Sulika.

"Yep." Sulika replied. "Don't you have a spell to do this? Is the water actually necessary?"

Aldritch nodded and gently rotated her hand beneath the water. "Cooling off the skin before healing can help prevent scarring. Cleaning and disinfecting cuts follows the same logic. Heal." He muttered while focusing on the wound.

Divine magic flowed from Aldritch's body to the burn on Sulika's hand: like a snake shedding its skin, Sulika's hand shifted from an angry red to a pale gray, then the outermost layer of skin started to peel off beneath the rushing water.

Aldritch cast Purify on the basin, vaporizing the dead skin via holy light and clearing the sink of any unwanted debris.

With that done, Aldritch turned off the water and released her hand, allowing Sulika to stare at her perfectly healed skin in wonder…

"My food!" Sulika exclaimed, she yanked her hand out of Aldritch's grasp and turned-

Only to find Faeyra finishing up the vegetables for her, "Relax, Foxy. I wasn't going to let anything burn in my kitchen." She said, smiling at the dumbfounded look on Sulika's face.

She'd completely forgotten Faeyra was here.

The rest of her breakfast was cooked by Faeyra, as Sulika wasn't allowed near the stove for the rest of the day. Once she was done, the three of them moved everything to the table and Sulika tucked in.

While she ate, Faeyra disappeared to feed Howie and Aldritch passively ate the food they'd set aside for him.

He thought about telling them it was unnecessary, as he didn't actually need to eat… Instead, he thanked them for the meal and ate it silently. He'd have to burn some mana later to digest everything, but that was nothing compared to the effort they'd put into cooking for him.

"By the way, I wanted to ask: You've used that pain spell on me before, but it felt different this time. Why is that?"

"It's due to the amount of mana I pour into the spell. I used slightly more this time, so the effect was more noticeable." Aldritch explained while watching moving stuff around on the table to save space… And to keep his cold cake away from the hot food.

"Why don't you use the same amount of mana every time?" She asked while carefully flipping the first slice of bread.

"That's too dangerous. Do you feel a tingling sensation in your hand?"

Sulika looked at her hand and tentatively rubbed her fingers together.

She did feel an odd sensation in her fingers, but she'd assumed that was due to the healing process.

"What you're feeling is the sensation of your nervous system slowly waking up. Rejection of Pain isn't a healing spell; it's a form of anesthesia.

The spell was created by the royal family's torture masters, after they discovered a way to make prisoners more susceptible to torture by temporarily disabling their nervous system-" He explained, only stopping because Synne trudged into the room with her ears drooping and her head down.

The puppy was still half-asleep, but didn't want to be alone anymore- Not with dreams of a cold bath running through her mind.

She trudged her way to Aldritch's right foot and flopped onto her side, laying her head against his boot and huffing exaggeratedly.

"Yes, she's adorable… But can we please get back to the fact you've been using a spell designed for torture on me?" Sulika hissed, keeping her voice low so she wouldn't wake the puppy.

"It wasn't designed for torture- that was an accidental byproduct. Originally, they wanted to make a spell that would allow the safe reconnection of severed limbs on the battlefield. And back in those days, it was easier to test new medical techniques and spells on captured enemy soldiers."

"Wait." Sulika said, raising a hand to stop Aldritch from speaking. "Why were the royal torturers- or whatever, the ones doing the experiments for healing spells? Shouldn't that be left to a doctor or something?" She asked, feeling genuinely confused.

"A fair question." Aldritch nodded. "Ever heard the saying; 'The best chef is a voracious eater'?" He asked.

"Can't say I have."

"Well, the theory goes, the best healers were the ones who knew how to destroy the body as well as fix it. So, the 'royal torturers' were also widely regarded as the best healers in the country." He explained while scratching Synne behind the ear.

He loved how her back leg twitched every time he scratched that spot.

"And yet they were overtaken by a fifteen-year-old half-blood with a chip on his shoulder. Some 'experts' they turned out to be… Then again, they had to wait for prisoners to be delivered to them, while you were actually on the battlefield." Oakairo chuckled as pride flowed through their bond.

"That's barbaric! What did they do to the healers who didn't want to torture people, and just wanted to- oh, I don't know- actually heal them?" She asked, looking at Aldritch with an expression that perfectly combined disgust with horror.

"They didn't do anything to them. People were rarely forced into an occupation and were never forced into a job that required them to either take a life or save one: Too many opportunities for spiteful people to weigh the scales of justice one way or another.

If a healer didn't want to experiment on prisoners, then they weren't forced to… But at the same time, it's almost impossible to create new spells or techniques without practicing on something."

"Aldritch is right." Faeyra replied as she stepped into the room.

"Even alchemists have to test the effects of their potions on volunteers. Honestly, I'd prefer it if we could use criminals too. At least then we could drastically reduce the possibility of an innocent having an adverse reaction."

Sulika's face showed her unease with the way the conversation was going. She didn't like the idea of forcing people to be test subjects… At the same time, she wasn't naive enough to think they'd be better off if those experiments had never taken place.

Faeyra approached Sulika from behind and wrapped her arms around the shorter woman.

Sulika looked over her shoulder at Faeyra, a slight smile on her face. She patted Faeyra's arm to show she was okay, then moved to pick up the now empty plate.

Faeyra helped her gather everything then left to get ready while the two of them cleaned up. This was their first assignment as guildmates, and she didn't want to leave anything to chance.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she pulled the top of her dress away from her body- revealing her bosom… And Howie looking up at her from the secret pocket near her stomach.

"Ready to go on an adventure?" She asked, smiling widely at the serpent… Who stared blankly at her in return.

"Great, me too!" She laughed and began running up the stairs.