I woke up in the town Church with Louise looking over me. My head felt funny--awful, really, but strangely hollow as well. It took a little bit of time for me to piece together what exactly had happened.

"I'm glad you're alright," said Louise, and I smiled back at her. I... was trying not to think of what just happened as me actually dying, but... I shook my head and sat up, pulling Louise closer and resting my head against her shoulder. My head hurt, a bit; not the worst feeling I'd ever had, but it definitely wasn't quite on straight, and part of that was a fear that thrilled through me as tried desperately to recall exactly what had happened.

They'd cheated was what happened, of course.

The bitch with the double-poleaxe was an idiot, and alone, she never had a chance against me. She expected the difference in levels--and the difference in stats that came with it--to be everything in the fight. She started out thinking she could knock me out with one hit, and made big flashy moves to impress someone or other in the crowd. Those moves were... slow. Even the speed-centric abilities on her weapons and from her class were easy to read. She reminded me a bit of Mel, who was the only other polearm-user I knew, because the pauses and timing of her abilities were way too long, the setup too obvious. She depended on someone else making an opening for her.

I guess Slick, the skeeve who'd been sneering at the guy in green when we walked in, agreed with that, because he decided to backstab me from stealth, but his wasn't good enough to pierce my telekinetic sense. He wasn't impressive, either. Once I sensed him even a little, it was clear that his stealth skill was mostly mechanical; a lot of the sloppy mistakes I'd seen people make in my class were there, screwing with the stealth effect and weakening it every time he made a misstep. When I poked him with the blunted end of the Executioner, he proved astonishingly inept at dueling.

The real problem was their third--a wizard.

If there was sloppiness to his execution, I didn't notice. Spell circles appeared in midair and launched effects or set up zones faster than I could adjust. He also seemed to be able to read me just well enough, or else he planned ahead enough, to set things up where I'd be instead of constantly catching up. And... my efforts to stall him with telekinesis couldn't get past a magic barrier. In the end, he was damn near a match for me alone, let alone with two flunkies keeping me occupied.

I'd started to surrender and admit my loss, at the end, but apparently that didn't take. I didn't have a good memory of the moments leading up to it, though.

"What happened after I got... knocked out?" No point is saying 'killed', I guess.

"The thief tried to take your body. Max and his whole party threatened to hear him apart, which led to a big standoff. For a creep, he does at least have some loyalty." Susie came up next to me, and I turned to look at her. "Obviously we got you back, but..."

"But?"

"Apparently your fairy friend didn't take kindly to being stuck inside a corpse item."

I stiffened. My head felt hollow--because she wasn't there. "Where--"

"She's here." Susie made a gesture, and an item transfer window opened up.

[ Merry Julius Appleby ( Bound Fairy ) ]

I snarled at the window, suddenly terrified, and accepted it, immediately. The corpse item, if that's what it was... it had a strange quality to it, and I wasn't sure what to think, or what to do. "She died?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. She came out looking like a Roman gladiator, and she was fucking furious, but she never actually attacked anyone. She insulted them, taunted them, and they attacked... on defense, she was almost invulnerable, but she couldn't hurt them."

"Because the Caesarian Gentleman is a non-combat pet item," I answered, shutting my eyes again the pain that was welling up behind them. "It specifically had the ability to attack stripped out of it."

"Well, she was pretty fucking awesome." Susie sounded a little in awe. "But she ran out of mana, maybe. She suddenly shrank down and curled up and dropped as an item. I'm not sure anything actually touched her. So maybe, with you..."

I started to poke at the item, then stopped, and straightened and got to my feet, taking Louise's hand. "We should do this somewhere private. What happened to the guy in green?"

Louise's voice was quiet, gentle. "He lost," she said. "He lasted a while with potions, but you were right. He was never really paying attention."

I nodded, and we set out from the Town's chapel to the inn. "I guess he'll get revived, too? Or he was already?"

"He went in first. They're probably at the tavern, now. His team, at least, seemed to support him."

I just shook my head and added a mental note to talk to him, if everything else went well. When we had an inn room to ourselves, I sat down on the bed, trying to make myself comfortable, and started poking at the pet item in my inventory, trying to summon her or regain our connection.

My first attempts just gave me a big ol' headache for no obvious gain. Lacking a better option, I tried the Enhancement Sage on it, since it was the only Sage ability I had that interacted with items, but that also gave me a headache, and no window even appeared. The only other options I had were to try again with my Soulforged ability, or wait things out.

After only a moment, hesitantly, I activated the Soulforged ability, and the result was immediate.

Merry, as she immediately reappeared in my head, was changed, but far more importantly, she was hurt. She had some of Julius' stylistic trappings on her--notably, the little laurel wreath on her head and the bronze armor. There were black veins running through her, though, like something was corrupting her from within; far from only appearing on her skin, it seemed like corruption started in her armor and spread outwards from there.

As I looked closer, though, she didn't seem unconscious--she seemed locked in a battle with the blackness.

Without really knowing what I was doing, I mentally reached for her, trying to touch that corruption. As soon as I did, it felt like it was something fighting against me as well--a trap, a burning venom of some kind that wanted to destroy her, and but also me, as long as we were together. And while she was definitely alive, from what I could tell, she was slowly losing the fight.

While I didn't have a lot to spare, having just died, I mentally funneled experience to Merry, while also touching that blackness again, trying to keep my mind on how it was wrong, and how Merry herself was right.

She only snapped back to awareness after nearly all of my spare experience had been drained. With it, somehow, she'd found a way to hold the blackness back. Jay! Holy shit. I mentally "saw" her grabbing at my mind, in what felt like a hug. It hurts. This fucking toy hates me for trying to hurt people. It would have killed, uh, Jules, but I fought it, and it is fucking killing me.

I pushed the rest of the experience I had to her, without reserve. It wasn't much, since I'd lost a lot when I died. Can you survive?

I dunno. Yes, but it'll keep hurting me. Gotta break the rules of the toy. Her normally half-lidded eyes closed again as she focused. Took its magic, took its rules. Wish you'd had the phoenix chick instead.

If you had her, too, would it help?

Merry considered that in silence for a long minute. Yeah.

"Louise, give me Cassandra," I said out loud, not really paying any attention to what was happening outside of me. Once she was transferred over, I thought, maybe Merry could use--

I was surprised when, a moment later, the phoenix physically landed in my lap. I... well, actually, the feeling of her actually interrupted my thoughts, and I opened my eyes to look at her. My little turntable-wing phoenix squawked in concern and played a melody that she hoped would help me, her face looking genuinely worried for me. That moment of... of real concern, of seemingly real life in the little bird, suddenly made it impossible for me to just turn her into an item and kill her.

Because, I realized instantly, that's what I would have done. Without ever seeing her again, I would have just killed a pet, a friend.

Not alive, argued Merry, and I understood exactly what she meant. Cassandra was, like Julius, a created form of life, an animal made by a system. Whatever she looked like, there was a factory somewhere in the ether that created her, and would create ten million more if asked to do so.

And yet, as she sat there, showing genuine loyalty and love, I knew that I couldn't betray that.

With both hands, I picked up the foot-tall phoenix and nuzzled her head against mine. A panic I hadn't really been processing started to recede, and I breathed a little easier. Would you survive coming out, Merry?

I don't think it'd hurt any more than it does now. Merry straightened in my mind's eye. You want me to--

No, don't absorb her. She is alive, and she wants to help, just like Louise and Susie do. We're not... we're not alone. We don't have to try to deal with this just by sacrificing things. Somehow, those words actually hurt me, in the act of just thinking them. Not because they were true, but because... because the implications of those words were true. Because before, I did have to try to survive by sacrificing everything else, because I was alone.

And I'd thought for so long that I always would be.

Merry didn't respond immediately, but after a bit, a little fairy in armor appeared floating above the bed next to me, and my head once more felt just a little more empty.

"Merry!" Louise knelt down next to me and looked at her. Merry, in response, lowered down to the bed and stood there, awkwardly. "You're hurt. Let me try--" and she focused, I assume on healing magic.

"Help her," I whispered to the phoenix. "Whatever you can do, please, Cassie."

The phoenix squawked back at me, and I released her.

Over the next hour or so, it became clear that healing magic eased the symptoms, but it wasn't as decisive an advantage as me feeding her experience had been. Cassandra didn't just help boost Louise's healing abilities, but also seemed to be trying to keep Merry's spirits up, as only a similarly-sized creature could. The phoenix's little clawed hands and flaming bird-body were there to try to comfort her, which was something the little fairy had so far never actually experienced.

Merry, in return, hesitantly pet the phoenix that she had just been considering eating. They looked cute together.

In the end, we declared her more or less stable, but Merry and I agreed that we would need more experience--whatever it was, and why-ever it was helping--to help her fully heal. In theory, a little bit of grinding on the next floor or whatever would do that, but... well, it seemed like it would be safer to wait until we got out of the dungeon to do that, maybe?

After all, we were now only half a biome away from Kalamitus' Tower, which would have its own exit. He might even have some answers for us. Merry and I wouldn't be in any danger between here and there, and our best guess was that Merry was part of the reason he wanted to see me.

We talked a bit between us as we rested. Merry and Cassie both ended up in Louise's lap, Louise petting Cassie while the bird held Merry close, as the fairy just rested. It was, frankly, adorable.

"In my experience," said Susie into a brief stillness, not really connected to the prior conversation, "the best way to shake off the funk of dying is to get into a really good fight. And I think there's an optional miniboss you might be able to handle between here and the tower."

I gave Susie a look. "I'm not saying I can't," I said, "But you saw how I was with common enemies so far in the tower, right? My damage isn't reallly--"

"Your weapon wouldn't help anyway. He only agrees to a duel if it's non-lethal and no weapons or offensive magics are used. And according to what I've heard, anyone who tries to cheat gets suckerpunched into oblivion, so he's stronger than he lets on." She shrugged. "Apparently you get normal experience if he decides he lost, though."

I frowned. I didn't hold a lot of hope for winning a single random duel without any warm-up. "I would need to practice and grind a bit before then, I think, if only to get my head back on straight."

"Well, either way," Susie stood up from the third bed, "We might as well go fill in Max and see whether they're willing to wait for us while you play for a bit, or if we'll have to go our own way."

Merry cracked an eyelid and gave a sigh. She hadn't really said much out loud since she'd materialized; she'd responded to Louise's questions about her health, but mostly been quiet and shy in response to anything else. I suppose for a creature that had never been able to interact with anyone else...

She flew up in front of Louise, suddenly, and gave some approximation of a bow that was ...not really in any style that I knew, but recognizable. "L-Louise," she said, and although it seemed like she was struggling to speak... something else felt off, instead? "Thank... thank you. I... appreciate, it."

And then she few black into my head somehow, abruptly, before Louise could reply.

"She's so cute," gushed Louise, who was grinning from ear to ear.

I don't want to hear it. Merry seemed troubled. V-voice hurts. It's weird. It takes magic to speak, and magic... is speak. She shook herself, and calmed down. Her eyes, normally perfectly half-lidded, were a little askew, but they seemed to level off again after a moment. Gonna be okay. Just... just tired.

I gave her a mental prod that was meant to be a hug, and somehow, her emotional reaction to it was a lot more intense than it had been before. It was a good reaction--but mixed with just a touch of shock. You... uh, thanks. She gripped me back. I get the hugging thing now. Bodies like hugs. Little different than it is in here, yeah?

I never thought about it. I found myself smiling. But yeah, bodies like hugs. People, animals... it's just a part of us.

Merry put a hand to the black scarring for a minute, but she didn't seem too hurt by it. Then, she smiled widely at me. I'm glad I came out. And, uh, I guess I'm glad that the phoenix isn't dead. Jules wouldn't be able to hug me like she does.

That made me feel much better about the whole situation, as we left to go find Max's party.