The Outlands

Ellie shook her head, getting used to her surroundings as Gramps teleported them away from…wherever they had been. They were…in Gramps’s office in the guild, it seemed, and The Rumors and Ilmir were already there, waiting.

Ilmir rushed over to Gramps, giving him a hug. “Thanks, Uncle Evan. You saved my life, again.”

Gramps smiled, returning the hug and stroking her hair gently. “No problem. Anyone else would have done the same in my situation.”

“Look, this is touching and all, but couldn’t she just be revived?” Ellie asked. “Like, yeah it probably wouldn’t have been fun, but no permanent harm would have been done, right?”

Gramps shook his head. “If someone is killed by a god, be it from a smiting, or while the god is in Descent, they can’t be revived. The gods like people they kill to stay dead.”

Ilmir let go of the hug and marched over to Tess, staring her dead in the eyes. “For the record, I’m still calling this my victory.” Ilmir said stubbornly. “You only won because Fortune Descended. If she hadn’t, you wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Ellie groaned internally. This was not something that she wanted to deal with right now, and she was sure Tess didn’t either. She opened her mouth to speak, but Tess spoke first, and, a little bit to Ellie’s surprise, was staring right back at Ilmir.

“Fortune says she wouldn’t have Descended if you hadn’t called her decisions into question. She says it’s entirely your fault, and, as such, should be counted as my win.” Tess replied, then looked away. “Um, for what it’s worth, though, you did beat me before that. You would have won if you didn’t open your mouth.”

“But she did.” Ellie argued. “She wanted to prove that she was so much better than someone she both had a massive head start on and outleveled, and then crush that person’s spirit when she won. It was karmic retribution, pure and simple. Her hotheadedness caused this, so she has to deal with the consequences.”

“I didn’t know she was an Appointed!” Ilmir protested, “I just knew she had Fortune’s best blessing and that she wasn’t an Appointed before!”

“I wasn’t.” Tess replied. “Not until the middle of the fight.”

Eyfura placed a hand on Ilmir’s shoulder. “Give it up Ilmir, you lost. Were this a real battlefield, that would have got you killed. It almost got you killed and the only reason you weren’t was because Evan and I stepped in to save your hide.” She said, “This sort of thing is exactly why I tell you to think things through more. You know what you have to do.”

“But…!”

“No buts.” Eyfura said firmly. “You. Lost. Call it unfair if you will, but I will also remind you that our bet wasn’t even on if she could beat you, it was if she could give you a good fight or not. And, by my estimation, you would have lost if not for your own blessings and had a decent shot of losing anyway if Tess had chosen to drag it out more.”

She shot Tess a look. “We’re going to review this battle, by the way. There are things I want to talk about with you.” She looked back to Ilmir. “So, my point stands. Even if you want to claim you didn’t lose the fight, I think we all agree that you lost the bet.”

“I didn’t have that much trouble before the Descent!” Ilmir said indignantly, “She got one solid hit on me, that was it! Ellie would have pushed me way farther!”

“One hit is all it takes. That hit forced you to burn through multiple blessings, or you would have been killed. Blessings which, now that I’m thinking about it, Tess probably didn’t know you had until now. That means she was at an information disadvantage too, and probably would have changed how she fought you had she known. And, by my estimation, you were running low on Stamina yourself after all that, don’t give me the “It didn’t give me that much trouble” excuse. So, I’m going to repeat myself one last time. Hold up your end of the bargain, or I’ll be forced to give you a much more severe punishment.” Eyfura threatened.

Ilmir grit her teeth. “Fine.” She spat. She turned to Tess, gritting her teeth. “I’m sorry.” She said unconvincingly, “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Eyfura cleared her throat, giving Ilmir a meaningful look.

“I mean…sorry, really.” She said, much more sincerely this time, “I was out of line. Um…” She hesitated, looking back to Eyfura.

Eyfura didn’t seem to hold any sympathy, though, giving Ilmir a hard look.

Ilmir sighed. “Because I lost the bet, I have to separate from Ellie and act purely as your support for a month. I’ll do whatever you say while we’re out, no questions asked.” She looked to Ellie, “Is that fine with you?”

Ellie frowned, but nodded. “If I hear so much as a whisper of you being mean to her, though, I’m going to lay the hurt on you myself. Honestly, though, I don’t see why the two of us need to be separated like this. We should start training our teamwork, if you ask me.”

“In due time.” Ker replied smoothly. “We really can’t train the two of you at the same time in the same place due to your stat differences. Honestly, having Ilmir is pushing it, but I can let that slide for now because she’s training herself in things not directly related to fighting monsters.”

“Eh, she can just be a tank and scout.” Eyfura said, “She needs practice in those roles anyway.”

“We’ll discuss this later.” Gramps said, causing Ellie to focus back in on the conversation, “Tomorrow I’m going to spend the day with Tess teaching her more about being an Appointed. For now, I need to get these two back to Mael to rest.” He paused, letting his gaze linger over The Rumors. “I trust you three can keep the fact that Eyfura and I are Appointed secret? It’s not the biggest secret in the world so it’s nothing worth swearing an Oath over, but I’ll be less than pleased if you let this slip.”

Ker nodded smoothly. “Of course. That goes without saying, Guildmaster.”

Gramps smiled. “Good. I’ll see the lot of you around, then. Take care!” He gently grabbed Ellie and Tess’s shoulders and steered them back towards his office. While he walked, he gave them some instruction. “I have more work to do here,” he said, “So I’ll be at least another couple of hours. Ellie, you keep an eye on Tess and make sure she doesn’t show any signs of injury or fatigue or anything. She shouldn’t, but Amy said there’s a slim possibility, so don’t take any chances.

“If anything alarming happens, give me a call and I’ll make my way back immediately. Tess, I need you to not act tough. If you feel anything out of the ordinary, you need to let us know immediately. Fortune, if you’re listening right now, would you to hold her to that?”

There was silence for a moment, then Tess shook her head. “No response.”

“Must be too busy with Amy, then. That’s fine, Fate will pass the message along for me. You two go catch up and rest.” He said, opening the door to their house.

Ellie had already gone through and Tess was in the doorway when Gramps spoke up again. “Tess?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget to put the animal parts away.” He said, smirking. “It’s fine for short periods of time or if you’re somewhere without windows or something, but we don’t want anyone asking difficult questions.”

Tess blushed, and her ears and tail vanished, much to Ellie’s disappointment. “Sorry, I forgot. I’ve been keeping them on to help make my claws seem more natural, and to make my enhanced hearing feel less jarring to me.”

Ah, that was why. It made…some sort of sense, but Ellie wasn’t really worried about whether or not it was logical. She was more excited that she’d get to see wolf-Tess on a regular basis.

“We’ll stop by Rachel’s tomorrow, then.” Gramps said, “We can have her make some modifications to your clothes, so they swap between accommodating for a tail and looking like normal human clothes.”

“Oh, um, thanks. How does that…work?”

Gramps waved his hand. “Not sure exactly how it works, but Rachel’s the best in the business and she’s got magic for stuff like this. Transforming clothes is a fairly common request of high-end clothes shops, so don’t worry about it too much.”

Tess nodded. “Alright. See you…when you finish, then.” She said, stepping all the way through the door.

“Be back soon!” Gramps replied, shutting the door.

Ellie tentatively reached out for Tess’s hand. “Um, you…won the bet.”

Tess slipped her hand into Ellie’s, giving a gentle squeeze. “Honestly, it really doesn’t feel like it to me, but I suppose I did.”

“So…are we gonna go official or…?” Ellie asked shyly.

Tess nodded slowly. “Yeah. Let’s.”

“Then, may I…” She didn’t complete the sentence, but she was looking Tess in the eyes, and Tess seemed to get it, as she nodded. As Ellie leaned in, she was somewhat relieved to note that Tess was as red as Ellie felt she herself was, but that was only a fleeting thought, eclipsed by the sensation of their lips touching.

It was more awkward than Ellie had expected; she had never kissed anyone before, and she really wasn’t sure what to do. Tess had somewhat more experience and that helped things, but Ellie soon disengaged. “Sorry.” She said, looking away. “I don’t really know how to do any of this.”

Tess let out an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not that much better. I’ve only had a few others myself. We’ll have time to figure it out, use the internet if we have to.”

Ellie gave an embarrassed laugh of her own, and there was a silence for a few moments, broken when Tess spoke up.

“So…do we want to tell Gramps today? I’m pretty sure he’ll be cool about it, but it’s up to you.”

Ellie froze. She had forgotten about that. It would be hard to keep from someone as observant as Gramps when they would all be living in the same house. She had been just letting it all be for years now, for fear of things changing forever, but…Tess was being brave about her own situation, so Ellie felt like she didn’t really have a choice but to step up her game.

“Yeah. We might as well. I want to tell everyone at school when you come back, too, make sure everyone knows to keep their hands off.” She scratched her cheek awkwardly. “I tried to do a bit of discrete digging, and it was getting me weird looks, so eventually I just asked grandpa, but, um, everyone knows you’re a lesbian. Seems like they’ve been given a memory of you coming out a few years ago.”

Tess raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Wonder how he knew I would still be into girls; I hadn’t even made sure myself by the time he sent people out.”

“Probably asked Fate or Fortune or some other god.” Ellie mused. “But, um, speaking of gods…wow. I really wasn’t prepared for a bomb like that. You seem to have taken it well, though. Did you know something beforehand?”

Tess shrugged. “Fortune let a couple things slip about having a boss, so I wasn’t too surprised. That and I was kind of merged with Fortune at the time and that made it all feel more…normal? It was like…” She paused for a moment, then shook her head. “I can’t really describe it, not properly. You have to experience it to really get it.”

Ellie nodded. “Well, um…what do you want to do while we wait for Grandpa?”

“I have to unpack my stuff, for one.” Tess replied. “Then I have a bit of homework I want to finish up.” She hesitated, appeared to rally, then continued. “Um. I’m…coming back to school in a couple of days, I think. I’m going to talk about it with Gramps tomorrow, we’ll see how it shakes out.”

Ellie’s eyes widened, and then she rushed in for a huge hug with Tess. “I…I’m super excited!” She exclaimed, “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to go with you since you changed. If you ever have any issues or start feeling overwhelmed while we’re there, come talk to me, okay? I’ll be there for you.”

Tess tightened her hug. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Ellie let the hug linger, then froze as she caught sight of something dark on Tess’s Gi. She squinted a bit, then spoke slowly. “Tess, don’t freak out, but there’s a huge spider on your leg. Like…really big.”

Tess laughed, extracting herself from the hug. “That’s just Silky.” She bent down and picked up the spider, bringing it up in an open palm. Now that Ellie could get a closer look, she saw that it was indeed much larger than most of the spiders she had seen, save for the tarantulas at the zoo. If she had to guess, she would say it was a few inches across, around the same diameter as a baseball. It had a sleek, glossy black carapace with a giant red hourglass on the abdomen.

 “I wanted to surprise you, so I…did some practicing and pushed myself, and I…made a couple of pets.” Tess said, “It was painful, and they didn’t get much of a chance to do anything in the fight with Ilmir, but they’ve been a great help in dungeons.”

“This here is Silky.” Tess said, and the spider raised a foreleg in what was clearly a salute. “She’s the boss of a dungeon full of giant spiders, a Blacker Widow. I took away the ‘giant’ part and now she’s the size of a regular spider, but she keeps all the same stats. She’s...more prone to crushing damage from big things now, but I’m using her as a scout and sneak attacker, she’s been doing a great job of it.”

Ellie eyed Silky warily. She wasn’t fond of spiders at the best of times, but there was something disarming about the way this spider acted. It didn’t hold any of the…tenseness she saw in other spiders. Most spiders she saw she felt like would run away, hide, bite, or have some other fight-or-flight if approached, but Silky was perfectly relaxed. She didn’t seem like she would even consider attacking Ellie, and that salute from before was another point in her favor.

But that didn’t mean Ellie was fully comfortable with her. She backed away, sitting down on the couch. “Sorry, I’m going to need some time to get used to her.” She said, shaking her head. “You know I don’t like spiders.”

Silky drooped somewhat, somehow managing to look…sad.

“Can she…understand us?” Ellie asked, curious despite herself.

Tess nodded. “I gave her an Attribute that gives her proficiency in the “Common Language”, which, as it turns out, is English.”

“English is what?” Ellie replied, taken aback.

“Yeah, I ended up asking Fortune about it, and she said that they purposefully make it so that English becomes the dominant language on planes before introducing them to other planes. Said it makes things much less of a headache.”

“I…huh. I didn’t even think about that before, since we have a portal here in the house and stepping into the Outlands is so easy, but it was kinda strange that everyone in a different dimension spoke English.”

Tess nodded. “Glad they did, though. Would have been a huge pain to have to learn some other language just to communicate. Anyway, Silky here is going to stay around the house when we’re not in the Outlands, I’m planning to just leave her free to wander. She’ll keep the pests down for us, and if she gets too hungry, she can just use the old cat flap and find something outside.”

Ellie raised an eyebrow. “She’s not gonna get eaten by a bird, right?”

Tess smirked. “She may look like a slightly bigger than average spider but remember that she’s a dungeon boss. She can take out relatively big things like goblins no problem. She’s obviously not as strong here because of the mana density or whatever, but Fortune says she should be more than capable of dealing with whatever wildlife around here that would be interested in her.”

Silky swelled with obvious pride, then turned around so she was facing Tess.

“Let’s wait a minute.” Tess said, “I need to show you what room is mine and what room is Ellie’s. You’re not allowed in Ellie’s room while she’s here. No webs in there, either.”

Silky gave another salute.

“How do you know what she’s asking?” Ellie said curiously, “Do you have some sort of mental link with her or something?”

Tess placed Silky back on her leg, and Silky scuttled to Tess’s back, outside of Ellie’s sight. “Nothing quite like that, I just get a feeling.” Tess replied. “It’s a weird sort of…gut understanding of what she’s asking. Not terribly specific or anything, just enough to get the gist of what it is. Supposedly the more intelligent the creature is and the longer they’ve been my pet the stronger and more specific that feeling is, but I haven’t done much testing yet.”

“Right, um, anyway, I... think I would prefer if Silky stays out of my room altogether, though. It just…I don’t know, feels weird knowing that such a huge spider is just chilling there while I’m away.”

Tess nodded. “That’s fine, I just thought it would help keep your room clean of bugs. She won’t go in if you don’t want her to.”

“Thanks.” Ellie replied, relieved.

“Alright, uh, might as well introduce you to Isabella too, while we’re doing this.”

“Isabella? Is she that ghost thing that came out of you right after Fortune Descended?”

Tess nodded. “Isabella, it’s fine to come out now.”

Far from the vengeful spirit she had seen in the fight, a transparent child in a fancy-looking black dress stepped out from inside of Tess, giving a curtsey. “Hello.” She intoned, “I am Isabella. Nice to meet you.”

“She’s the boss of another dungeon I went to, Lady Isabella. Fair warning, she can talk, but she’s not much smarter than a little kid right now. Well, actually, Silky is about that smart too, but it seems different because Silky is way smarter than your normal spider so…yeah. Once I’m stronger and have made these two more powerful, they’ll get as smart as full-grown adults.”

Isabella nodded slowly. “That is correct.” She said flatly.

“She’s support for me.” Tess continued, “She mostly just sort of haunts me and uses her abilities from inside me, though she does occasionally come out when she has to touch an enemy for her abilities.”

Isabella gave another curtsey and stepped back into Tess, vanishing completely from view. “Right, so, those are my pets…” She paused, frowning. “No, let’s call them…minions for now, I guess. Probably isn’t the most accurate term and would get weird when they got smarter later on. Though, I guess pets can be plenty smart? Whatever, it’s not important, I’m gonna show Silky which room is yours so she’ll know to stay out of it, and then I’m going to go unpack.”

Tess did a small stretch, then started up the stairs.

“I’ll wait in your room to help you out.” Ellie volunteered. “Do you want to pass me the bag or would you rather keep that on you”

Tess reached for the bag, undoing the strap that kept it on her waist, then tossed it to Ellie. “Go ahead, just start with the clothes for now, since those are all coming back here.”

Tess paused. “Well, I might keep a couple of sets in there, I’ll decide later. Just take it all out for now.”

“Got it!” Ellie replied, taking it up to Tess’s room and beginning to take out the clothes. It had been a crazy day and it was only barely past four in the afternoon, but she was content. Tess was back, they were going out, and that was all she could really ask for right now.