Our first priority was gear. After the dungeon, Al’s armor looked like a sad bundle of leather straps barely hanging on beneath battered mithril plates. His didn’t have the handy “self-fixing” feature like mine, so it was going to stay that way. He also tossed his shield to buy us time during the escape. My armor wasn’t much better. More rags than armor at this point. At least it could repair itself if I left it out of Storage. However, judging by its state, that would take a long while.

We made our way to the commercial center to look for replacements. First order of business: exchanging coins. I stepped up to the counter and traded a thousand gold for a hundred mithril.

As I stored, or actually inventoried the stack, I glanced over and noticed Al hadn’t moved.

“You should exchange some coins,” I said, flicking a thumb toward the counter. “Trust me, they’re not gonna be thrilled if you try to pay with a pile of gold.”

He shook his head. “I do not need to. I already have mithril from Leylos.”

I blinked. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

He looked at me with a blank expression. “Why should I?”

I stared at him for a second, then shrugged. Fair enough. On Earth, back when we were collecting casino and heist money, we had a shared stash. But that was then. Before and after, we’ve always paid our own way.

I nodded, let it go, and we went shopping.

We weren’t even halfway through the armor section of the shopping center before I started questioning all my life choices. I’d found a perfectly suitable set of armor in the first store.

Al didn’t.

I pulled a set off a mannequin—a green-brown leather suit that flexed nicely but felt tough enough to take a beating. A hint of shimmer in the hide suggested magical reinforcement.

“This one’s not bad,” I said, turning toward Al. “Flexible, lightweight, and it’s got some basic magic resistance. Feels good, too.”

I didn’t even get the entire sentence out before he started shaking his head.

“I do not care for the stitching,” he said flatly, arms crossed.

I blinked. “The stitching?”

He gave the armor a once-over, unimpressed. “The seam placement is suboptimal for movement. I would feel it every time I took a step.”

I groaned and hung it back. “That’s got to be the twentieth one you’ve rejected.”

We’d been crawling through store after store, and he hadn’t liked a single thing. One set, he didn’t like the cut. Another, the color. One had "insufficient ventilation." Another had “excessive” ventilation. One had solid craftsmanship and looked great on him. He even liked it until he twisted to the side.

“It makes my backside look disproportionately wide,” he said, inspecting himself in the mirror.

I stared at him, dead-eyed. “You’re worried about how your butt looks?”

He turned his head slightly, expression calm. “I have standards.”

“I have murder fantasies.”

Al glanced at me. “Why are you rubbing your face again?”

I hadn’t even noticed that my hand was rubbing my cheek like I was trying to erase it. “Just trying to keep from killing you. Don’t worry, I’m hanging in there.”

He considered the armor one last time, then walked on. “We have not yet found the proper balance between utility and aesthetics. We must persist.”

And we hadn’t even started looking for a shield yet.

After a long, exhausting battle with my own murderous instincts, we finally found armor and a shield in the late evening hours. No, Al wasn’t happy with them. But in his words, they were “the least objectionable options we have encountered thus far.”

Rue was fine at the inn—I’d even paid the innkeeper to keep him fed. With Mahya still busy at the guild, Al and I grabbed dinner at the shopping center.

During dinner, Al straightened in his chair. His usual composed expression tightened, and he set his utensils down with deliberate care. “I wish to consult you on a matter,” he said, voice lower than usual. “But I find myself… hesitant.”

“What?”

He exhaled through his nose, then nodded once. “I have discussed this with Mahya several times already, to no avail. She refuses to acknowledge it.”

I paused mid-bite. “Acknowledge what?”

Al looked around, as if checking to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then folded his hands on the table. “Have you noticed a change in her behavior of late? She is more aggressive. Less considerate. Once, she was playful. Now, she is simply mean.”

I blinked and instinctively rubbed the back of my head, the spot she always smacked. “Yeah.”

Al gave me a look. “This is not merely physical. Her temperament has shifted. Did you notice when it began?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Just kinda... crept up, I guess.”

“Think carefully,” he urged. “Before Alaska, she was mischievous, yes. Rebellious, even. But not cruel. Not like this.”

I stared down at my plate, chewing that over, literally and figuratively. He wasn’t wrong. Before Alaska, Mahya was all snark and spark, but not a bully.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Yeah. Something’s off. But what changed?”

He leaned in slightly. “Do you recall what you gave us in Alaska?”

I squinted. “Uh… a headache? Frostbite?”

He didn’t even blink. “Fire affinity stones.”

I stopped chewing. “Oh.”

“I believe the fire affinity is influencing her,” he continued. “I have tried to reason with her, to point it out. She refuses to listen. She becomes angry. Defensive.”

I sighed and pushed my plate aside. “Her fuse has been a lot shorter lately.”

He nodded solemnly. “Precisely. I was hoping you might speak with her. Perhaps she will listen to you, since she dismissed my concerns. And if that fails… we may need to find her a water affinity stone. It could help restore some balance. Yes, it is rare and costly, but necessary. Because as she is now,” he paused, weighing his words, “she is becoming unbearable.”

I let out a long breath, staring at the flickering lantern above our table.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll talk to her.”

After a while, I glanced over at him, picking at the last bits of food on my plate. “How come you’re not affected? I mean, back when you first warned me about the affinity stuff, you said it was getting to you too, but I never saw any signs.”

Al leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. He didn’t answer right away, eyes drifting to the lantern above us.

“I was raised as a regent,” he said at last, voice distant. “From the age of three, my tutors drilled etiquette into me with the same intensity others reserve for combat training. I was taught to measure and moderate every gesture, every word, every reaction. One of the core principles of my education was self-control. Absolute control.”

He paused, glancing down at his hands. “In my case, the fire affinity did affect me,” he went on. “But instead of pushing me to lash out, it did something unexpected. It loosened the bindings somewhat. It allowed me to breathe. I have spent my entire life restrained by expectation and performance. The fire granted me a taste of freedom. Not recklessness, merely the space to be slightly less perfect.”

He looked over at me then, gaze steady. “But I am not immune. When I feel the fire flare too hot, when the urge to act without thinking rises, I fall back on what I was taught. Discipline. Focus. It is not a matter of being unaffected. It is a matter of knowing how to resist.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He gave a faint smile. “It is a battle. One, I am trained to fight. Mahya… was never trained for restraint.”

I sat there quietly for a moment and nodded. I had nothing to say.

When we got back to the inn, Rue was asleep in the common room, curled up on a rug near the hearth, snoring softly with one paw twitching like he was chasing something in a dream. I woke him up and we went up to our rooms.

Mahya was back too, hunched over a table with a mess of gears, wire, and some metal plates with runes.

She didn’t even look up. “Took you long enough. Did you find something that fits His Highness, or did you have to custom-order a holy relic?”

Al ignored the jab and walked past her without a word.

“Hey,” I said, dragging a chair over. “Got a minute?”

Mahya finally glanced up, eyebrows raised. “What for?”

“Just... wanted to talk.”

She sat back, arms crossed. “That sounds ominous.”

I hesitated. “Have you noticed anything weird lately?”

She frowned. “Yes, you got your asses handed to you in a dungeon.”

I almost smiled, but pushed on. “No, I mean with you. Your mood. You’ve been a little more... I don’t know. Sharp. Meaner than usual.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“See?” I said, pointing at her. “That. That right there. In the past, you would’ve made a joke or at least rolled your eyes. Now you’re just pissed.”

Mahya stood, the chair scraping behind her. “So what, you think we should split up or something?

“No,” I said quickly. “I’m not. I’m not attacking you either. Look, Al said he had already talked to you about it. He thinks it’s the fire affinity.”

She stiffened. “That idiot still on about that?”

“He’s not wrong,” I said, softer now. “Back in Alaska, before I gave you the stone, you were still you. Snarky and wild and... fun. Now it’s like someone swapped out the snark for a flamethrower.”

Her jaw clenched. “You think I’m broken?”

“No,” I said, standing to meet her glare. “I think maybe fire’s pulling you harder than you realize. And you won’t talk about it. You just get mad.”

Silence stretched between us.

“I don’t need you analyzing me,” she finally said, voice tight. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t,” I replied. “I’m just saying maybe you need balance. Maybe a water stone could help.”

She shook her head, backing away. “I’m not emptying all my savings because Al thinks I’m being ‘unpleasant.’ I’m not his project, and I’m not yours either.”

“I know that,” I said. “But you’re still my friend. And I’d rather talk to you now than wait until you burn everything down and we all regret it.”

Her eyes darted around the room, then back to me. Her shoulders lowered just a bit. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered.

“Good enough,” I said, sitting back down and letting out a slow breath. “Want help with the mess on the table?”

She sighed and flopped back into her seat. “No. Go away. I need to think.”

The next morning, we were halfway through breakfast, consisting of flatbread, olives, and something that pretended to be scrambled eggs but tasted like tofu, when Mahya dropped the news.

“I registered us for the dungeon again,” she said casually, sipping her tea. “Figured I’d show you two how it’s done.”

I groaned. “I’m not sure I want to go through that again,” I said, rubbing the side of my face. “I’m still in recovery.”

Mahya arched a brow. “You’ll survive. You’re a healer.”

I pointed at my forehead. “Doesn’t fix mental trauma.”

Al set down his fork and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “As much as I loathe the idea, I agree. The alchemical yield from that dungeon is too valuable to ignore. I would like another attempt.”

I stared at him. “Et tu?”

He nodded.

Mahya smirked, standing and stretching her arms. “Come on. Let’s get registered before the line gets stupid again.”

“I feel my soul groaning,” I complained.

She clapped me on the shoulder. “Tell it to chill. You’ll thank me later.”

“Doubtful,” I said. But I followed her anyway.

The bureaucracy wasn’t as much of a nightmare this time. Sadly, I grew accustomed to it, but still needed a solid night’s sleep to recover mentally.

The next day, Mahya met us in the inn’s courtyard, fully geared up and smirking. “So,” she said, tightening the strap on one of her bracers, “ready to see how it’s actually done?”

Al gave her a dry look. “You declined to come last time.”

She shrugged and tapped Rue’s nose as he ambled by with a yawn. “Stay here, Prince Floof.”

Rue didn’t argue.

I sighed. “Right. Let’s go get smacked around again.”

We stepped onto the dungeon platform once more and entered The Sanctuary of the Forest Lord for round two.

The first section, same as before, came and went with barely a scratch. Thorned bushes toasted. Crawling vines slashed. Creeping roots sliced, burned, and stomped.

Mahya twirled through the chaos like a dancer with a vendetta, her blades flashing through the undergrowth. At one point, she kicked off a tree trunk, flipped mid-air, and landed with both swords buried in a plant monster’s face.

Al muttered something about “unnecessary flair.”

She heard him, of course. “Sorry, should I fight less efficiently?”

He didn’t reply.

I zapped a particularly clingy vine off my leg. “She’s enjoying this way too much.”

Then we crossed into the second part.

Same as before. The trees loomed, the air thickened, and that sickly-sweet smell hit like a wall of fermented syrup.

I braced. “Here we go again.”

This time, Mahya was the first to charge. She dashed between the humanoid vine monsters, blades carving clean lines across their bark-covered torsos. She was faster than either of us, way faster, and she knew it. Her moves were precise, brutal, and flashy as hell. Bark split. Roots snapped. At one point, she vaulted over one creature, kicked it in the back of the head mid-air, and came down blades-first onto another.

“Is it just me,” I said, flinging Wind Blades one after another, “or is she showing off?”

“She is showing off,” Al replied, calmly launching a volley of Blazing Orbs.

Despite Mahya’s display, the enemies didn’t fall like normal monsters. Like before, they stitched themselves back together almost instantly. Fire slowed them, but didn’t stop them. Bark regrew. Vines lashed out. Roots locked them in place like they were anchored to the world.

Mahya caught one of the vine-creatures across the chest with a clean, slicing arc, and a second later, a thick branch shot down from the canopy and launched her sideways like a bat striking a baseball.

“Wha—damn it!” she shouted mid-spin, limbs flailing as another branch struck her midair, then a third caught her square in the back.

She slammed into the ground near me hard enough to bounce, then rolled, coughing and trying to push herself up. “Okay... that was unexpected.”

“Welcome to the club,” I said, grabbing her under one arm while casting Healing Touch with the other. Her shoulder was already swelling, and there was blood trickling from her temple.

Al grunted from somewhere off to the side. “Incoming.”

The vine creatures surged again, closing in fast.

Mahya shoved away from me, blades snapping to her hands. “I’ve got it.”

She dashed forward again, fast enough to blur. She ran up a tree trunk and jumped at a group of vines. A root whipped up from the ground and clipped her foot mid-leap. She faltered, twisted midair, landed on one knee, and was immediately slammed across the ribs by another branch from above.

She growled and leapt back into motion, sprinting low and fast through the undergrowth, blades flashing. She scored hit after hit, but nothing stayed down. A tree twisted and dropped another limb straight onto her.

She tried to dash through the line of enemies, but a vine creature followed her. She jumped again. Another vine yanked her sideways and slammed her into a trunk.

“Mahya!” I shouted, sprinting toward her and casting Ranged Heal. “You need to pull back!”

“I said I’ve got it!” she snapped, eyes wild, blood now running from a gash above her brow.

She dove between two creatures, slashing both, then tried to jump over a root, only to be grabbed midair by a vine and thrown into the underbrush.

Al was hunkered down behind his shield, casting Blazing Orbs from the sides whenever he could. “She will not listen,” he called out over the chaos.

“No kidding!” I yelled, dragging a Healing Touch across her back as she staggered upright again. “Mahya, retreat! You're not invincible!”

“Stop telling me what to do!” she shouted, striking wildly as she pushed forward again. “I’m fine!”

She wasn’t. Her strikes were still fast, blades whipping through the air in elegant arcs, but the control was slipping. That dancer’s precision, which she usually carried like a second skin, had started to unravel. Her footwork grew sloppier, and her attacks became more forceful yet less focused. Every hit she took only seemed to stoke her anger, pushing her harder and faster, further away from reason.

And every time I reached out with a healing spell, it cost us time, mana, and concentration. She refused to fall back, refused to listen. She fought like the forest had personally offended her, like every root and branch was part of some grand insult she couldn’t let go.

I kept my Protective Shield up, watching my mana tick down with each blow it absorbed. Between impacts, I cast Healing Touch on her whenever I could, juggling defense and support while trying not to get flattened myself.

Eventually, her pace began to slow. Not from exhaustion—she still had plenty of strength—but because the fire in her started to cool. Her swings became more measured. Her breathing steadied. She blinked like someone coming out of a fog.

“This isn’t working,” I said, not for the first time.

“We should retreat,” Al said through gritted teeth, his shield cracking slightly under another impact.

Mahya slashed at a root, trying to grab her ankle. “Fine.”

We staggered out of the dungeon, scraped, bruised, and trailing smoke and sap.

Al’s armor was barely intact, but his shield survived this time. Mahya’s gear was slashed and burned across the chest and legs, one pauldron missing entirely. Mine... well, I looked like I lost a fight with an angry salad.

Rue met us at the inn entrance, sniffed once, and tilted his head. “Why you go again?”

“Because we’re idiots,” I said.

“Big idiots,” Rue agreed and went back to sleep.

Al adjusted his dented breastplate. “Let us find something more durable.”

Mahya smirked, despite the blood on her forehead. “Next time, I really will show you how it’s done.”

“You said that this time,” I pointed out.

She pointed at her temple, where I healed a nasty gash. “Yeah. I was rudely interrupted by a flying branch.”

“Twice,” Al added helpfully.

Mahya shot him a glare. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

I sighed and stood up. “Can we go buy armor before the fighting starts?”

They both stared at me.

“What?” I said. “I’m tired. I get to be snarky.”

We trudged back to the shopping center—again—for new armor. Even Rue came with us this time, trotting along cheerfully. I finally bought him armor, too. It was about time.

His set was custom, of course, fitted to his oversized frame with padded leather panels and lightweight plating over the chest, shoulders, and thighs. Flexible enough not to slow him down, but sturdy enough to stop a blow. The helm was more of a hood with reinforced ridges to protect his neck and skull, leaving the ears free. He looked proud and very cute.

“Rue more dangerous now,” he said, puffing out his chest.

Al’s shopping went faster this time. He didn’t waste energy on things he knew he didn’t want. It still took a while to find something that actually met his standards, but we got there. Eventually.

Dinner was quiet at first, each of us caught up in our own thoughts. Eventually, Al set down his fork with a sigh.

“Perhaps,” he said, voice low, “the dungeon is beyond our current capabilities.”

Mahya didn’t look up right away. She just swirled her drink, then muttered, “Maybe.”

I froze mid-chew. “Wait. Did you two just agree to skip a dungeon?”

She shot me a look. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not. I’m savoring it.” I leaned back in my chair and exhaled. “Thank the Spirits. I’ve had enough of being a tennis ball.”