“Dom. I’m Dom.”

  “And you’re a boy,” Sadie chides. “See how awkward it is to point that out?”

  “Okay, I get it, I’m sorry.”

  She glances at our handshake. “You can let go of my hand now.”

  I drop her hand. “Oh, yeah, sorry. So, well, what are you?”

  “Is this about the girl thing again?”

  “No, I mean... I don’t understand where I am, what I am, what you are.”

  I need answers. I’m not a guy who likes not understanding. None of this is fitting together for me.

  “Caverns of Thalassa. You’re Dom. I’m Sadie. If we’re going to have to keep doing these recaps, we’re never going to get anywhere.”

  I reach to hold her by her shoulders, realize that might not be the best thing to do and stop. She stares at my hands and sighs.

  “What are you?” I ask, lowering my hands. “Don’t say a girl. Don’t say Sadie. Don’t say a satyr. This place. It doesn’t make sense.”

  She shrugs and absentmindedly fiddles with the flute at her side. “I’m sentient, aware of myself, and not directly controlled by the system. I am your bondling.”

  So much information, I have to figure what part is the most important right this second.

  “The system?”

  She gestures widely to the river grotto.

  “Who runs the system?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “The system is what the system is. What I do know is that you have me, and that puts you at a distinct advantage.”

  “So, the messages, the text I see.”

  “System notifications,” she says.

  If I’m getting these notifications, the system must be some sort of computer or simulation.

  “I’m going to assume I’m not dead or sleeping.”

  She glances at me sideways. “I’m going to agree.”

  A sound tears through the chamber and it is not the roaring sound of a river pouring in, but the roaring sound of actual monster roaring.

  Sadie’s eyes widen.

  “What the hell was that?” I whisper.

  She spins around and her hooves patter nervously. “Denizen of the labyrinth.”

  Labyrinth? She didn’t say maze or chamber or dungeon. She said labyrinth.

  “Sadie,” I say, this time firmly grabbing her shoulders to ensure a clear answer. “Sadie. Tell me that’s not a Minotaur.”

  “If I told you that,” she looks away, “I’d be lying.”

  Where Sadie is a goat from the waist down, a Minotaur would be a huge man, but a bull from the neck up.

  “We run,” I announce, already turning. I don’t look back but hear the hoof steps as she follows. I hope I have the sprinting skill as I run down the incline, away from where I can best judge the sound came from.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  We run along the edge of the newly formed lake, far from where I started. We run for a few minutes. A half mile or more. I’m not winded. My cardio usually isn’t this good. We come to a place where the cavern closes in, the far wall coming closer, the crystal and moss speckled ceiling dropping lower.

  The cavernous room we were in funnels into a smaller passage more like a sewer drain, could be eight or ten feet across, lake water slightly sloshing into it. The walls are less rough. The river only trickles as a stream here.

  After we’re a few yards into the tunnel, I stop. The ceiling is right beyond my reach, but I can now make out the light source. Crystals coated in glowing moss. They look like cheap, velvet coated imitation quartz. I listen. No roar. No sound of giant hooves. No sandy gravel sliding to the lake. If it’s a minotaur, it’s not near us.

  I stare at Sadie, who is scratching the base of one of her horns. “How did you get here?”

  “I ran right behind you.”

  “No. See, before this I was in class and the world got all wobbly and stretchy and then I fell. How did you get here?”

  “You summoned me. It was, I don’t know, ten minutes ago.”

  “I mean, who put you here?”

  She points at me like I stole her cookies. “You did.”

  “No, no. Before that.”

  “Oh. Well, my mother was a florist, and my father grew wild berries. They met at Saturnalia. She liked the curve of his horns and he had this cute little beard that curled at the end. He headbutted her tail to show he was…”

  “No,” I snap. Then I lower my voice again. “No, no. I don’t need those details. Not what I meant. How long have you existed?”

  When she referred to herself as my bondling, I assumed that meant she would somehow behave the way I wanted. Not that I have any clue what bondling meant, but it sounds easier to work with than this. How do I have a bondling when I’m not even sure what that means?

  “Are you asking my age? You have the weirdest way of asking things.”

  I fight to control the volume of my voice. “Yes, I’m asking your age.”

  “I’m two.”

  “Two? You mean two years old?”

  She hits me with the narrowed eyes again. “When people ask how old you are, do you answer them in something besides years?”

  This is worse than dealing with an internet troll. God, I hope there aren’t trolls.

  “Sorry, you’re right. You’re two.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one. Years.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Ancient.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No satyr could ever live to be twenty-one. That’s as old as rocks.”

  “Not quite. How old do satyrs get?”

  She licks her lips. “Fifteen, maybe seventeen. Although, obviously, if you die, I die a lot sooner than that.”

  “Is that what bondling means?”

  “Yes. You crafted me. We share life. You die, I die. It’s in my best interest that you don’t die. So don’t be stupid.”

  I consider the small goat girl facing me, wearing a toga and carrying a flute. “Are you supposed to protect me?”

  She takes a step back, glares up at me and grins. She clenches both her fists out by her sides, and they ignite, wrapped in balls of pale fire, filling the tunnel with light.

  “Okay,” I nod, “That is absolutely freaking cool. Can I do that?”

  “You’re the summoner, Dom,” she says, shaking the flames off her hands. “Stay in your lane.”

  I’m a summoner? “What else can I do?”

  “You summon things and sculpt life force, the stuff satyrs call pneuma. Summoning me isn’t enough for you? Right now, let’s stick with not dying. Your life is mine. Try to not get us killed, okay? But for now, you need to concentrate on getting your basic skills up.”

  “How?”

  She cocks her head at me. “By…doing things?”

  I nod, feeling practically manic at this point. “So if you sit here and stare at the walls, you’ll gain a rank in Perception?” She nods. This System, whatever it is, at least in that sense it’s not much different from the world I came from.

  “Or,” she drags out the word for several seconds, “Maybe a better skill, like fighting or dodging, staying alive.”

  To what end? Is there a high score I’m supposed to hit? Is there an unlock that gets me home?

  The howl from somewhere behind us in the cavern happens again. It’s not the sound a bull would make. It’s a deep bellow, like a wolf if it were tremendous and had a smoker’s cough.

  “Minotaur, right?” I say with a sigh.

  She nods. “If not worse.”

  Bears would have been a better option. Why not bears?

  “Let’s keep moving.” For all I know, actual minotaurs might track by scent. It’s not something I ever recall reading in the mythology texts. Then again, female satyrs were never in the texts either, so I have to assume the connections aren’t always perfect information.

  After a few yards, the tunnel we’re in reaches a T-junction, with clusters of glowing mossy crystals lighting the passages at the corners. I randomly pick the right passage.

  Something has a torch, judging by the flickering, not moss-light. There’s a figure with distinctly backward jointed legs and horns silhouetted up the passage. And something big and low beyond it. I back into the shadows and step carefully, retracing the way I came, signalling Sadie to stay away.

  Another ding, another new notification:

  You have gained the Stealth skill (Emerging, Level 1).

  I am thankfully unnoticed by the goat man with the flaming fist and whatever the hulking pet is by his side.