I stared at the undead lord of the tower and his glowing blue eyes stared right back.

  The tension in the air grew thicker.

  The undead dog let out a long, low growl that made the ground vibrate underfoot.

  Then the man pced a hand on the dog’s snout without even looking, and it stopped. “What kind of tea?” he asked.

  “Oh, I have milk-thistle which is great for the liver, ile for rexing, and I even have some honey!” I said. “Amaryllis, where’s my backpack?”

  “I stored it,” the girl o me said. “I thought you wouldn’t , but I retrieve it in a moment.”

  “O-kay?” I asked.

  Stored? Was there an iory system all along and I had been lugging things aroue it all this time? Why couldn’t I get a handy tutorial that expined all of these things?

  “Well, I suppose some tea wouldn’t hurt. We’ll need a pot to boil the water,” the man said.

  “I have a kettle in my pack,” I said. “Just one cup though, I’m afraid.”

  The man looked at me, eyeing my most ear smile (it was extra ear because I had nothing to hide!) and then he looked over to Amaryllis and sighed. “Very well. e on in. Don’t mind Throat Ripper here, he’s a good boy.”

  The man stepped back to allow us to ehe dark halls of his fortress. His slippers made swishy sounds as he walked towards a room just past the entranceway. It was a lounge area, with a nice carpet. and a single chair o a table that stood beh a pretty delier.

  “Chairs, two of them,” he said to a skeleton in a frumpy suit in one er. The skeleton turned around, bare feet clickety-g as he walked off, presumably to get some chairs.

  I walked in before Amaryllis, head twisting this way and that to take iire room. The fort wasn’t built to be pretty, that much inly obvious, but some efforts had been made to make it feel homelier. Banners had been added to the bare stone walls and plinths with simple vases stood here and there, usually close to paintings.

  I approached one painting and took in the se. It was a big skeleton dog, teeth bloody as it smiled towards the viewer while standing atop a pile of furry corpses.

  “Do you like it?” the man asked. His voice was ft, but I had the impression the questio a lot to him.

  “Is that Throat Ripper?” I asked. The dog’s head perked up at the sound of his name. “It’s a very evocative image. I wish it was over a more peaceful se though. Maybe a nice field of flowers or something? This is really well made though, the proportion and perspective are nice.”

  “Bah, everyone’s a critic,” he said, but I had the impression he leased by the answer.

  “It’s horrific,” Amaryllis said. “And I’ve seeer from a drunk amateur in Farseeing.”

  “We ’t all measure up, I suppose,” the man said, his voice returning to a ft drawl.

  I tried giving Amaryllis a look, but it didn’t seem to cat. “So, we haven’t introduced each other yet,” I said. “I’m Broccoli Bunch!”

  “I’m Amaryllis Albatross. Pleasure.”

  The man crossed his arms, then nodded. “I’m Gunther. No st name, I’m afraid.”

  Amaryllis s that, earning her a gre from Gunther. I kicked her shin with the side of my shoe. Why was she being so antagonistic to the nidead man?

  “You said the puppy is called Throat Ripper?” I asked.

  Gunther shifted, chest puffing out a bit. “Yes. This is Throat Ripper the Marrow Eater. Just Throat Ripper is fine. He’s quite nice.”

  “Does he like scritches? Oh! Wait, I have a pet too! Her name is e and she’s the best kitten... Amaryllis, where’s e?”

  “She’s here,” Amaryllis said as she lowered the front of her jacket over her chest a little. It revealed e’s fluffy head.

  “You carry your pet around with you?” Gunther asked. “In such dangerous pces?”

  “e is a spirit kitten,” I said as I patted her on the head. She gave me a look aled deeper into Amaryllis’ chest. “I don’t know what hurt her, but I unsummon her if things get dangerous.”

  “Ah, I see. That’s quite clever. Ially, you may pet Throat Ripper. He’s quite fond of being scratched over his sternum.”

  I gasped and moved closer to Throat Ripper and raised my arm up close to his face to present my fist. Usually dogs were smaller than me, but it was okay. He looked at my hand, then towards the side of his head. What followed was a whole minute of me making cutesy the big puppy until he crashed to the ground hard enough that the entire fort shook, and presented where his tummy would be if he had any flesh.

  I didn’t eveo get on my ko scratch him!

  Two skeletons ambled into the room hefting big chairs that they pced around the table before they moved off to stand by the wall. “ I sit o Throat Ripper?” I asked.

  “I don’t mind,” Gunther said. He was smiling now. I think being friendly with his puppy made him like us a little more.

  We sat around the table and I brushed my hands over my skirt to them off. I wasn’t sure if using ing magic around a bunch of friendly undead was a good idea. I didn’t want a repeat of what happeo Bonesy. “My stuff?” I asked Amaryllis.

  She brought her hands up, revealing a ring around the base of oalon. With a deft flick she did something with the ring and with a poof, a pen and a piece of paper appeared oable.

  I stared. So did Gunther, but he didn’t look surprised at all.

  Amaryllis picked up the pen which looked like it had been shaped to be held by taloned hands and scribbled something on the page. Theapped both to the ring, and they poofed away. She stretched her arm out to the side, and a moment ter my pack poofed ien the ground.

  “Wow! That was great! What did you do?” I asked.

  “Are you not from a city?” Gunther asked.

  “Not ohat has magigs like that,” I said as I stood up to fetch things out of my pack. The kettle came out and ced oable o a stack of cups brought in by the skeletons who had left once again.

  “It’s a banking ring,” Amaryllis expined. “For a small transa fee you store things at a bank in any proper city. You send a mana burst through the ring requesting pen and paper, which of course is free. Then you request whatever it is you want withdrawn from your ste and they’ll teleport it to y. They sell certaioo, but the mark-up is exorbitant.”

  “So it’s not like a dimensional ste pocket lio y, just a sort of teleportation bea?” I asked. It still sounded awesome, but not as great as a personal pocket dimension.

  “What? Dimensional ste? That’s not possible,” Amaryllis said.

  I shrugged as I poured water into the kettle and then added some herbs to it.

  “Actually,’ Gunther said. “It might be possible. Dungeoainly don’t care about things such as limited spaces. If you could learn how that funs and tie it to an item... I suspect you would make a killing.”

  Amaryllis scoffed. “Impossible. And the only killing that would happen is your owhe banks find out you’re cutting into their margins.”

  I poured out three cups of tea, making sure not to spill any, then looked in my bag, and found some bread and a bit of cheese I had bought for the trip. It wasn’t the best of either, with the bread going hard and the cheese being a bit strong, but it was better than nothing. “Alrighty,” I said as I pced my jar of honey in the middle of the table.

  I took a sip of my tea, and licked my lips as I savoured the taste. It was really quite good. Amaryllis, after a bit of fumbling to grab her cup with her talons seemed to think so too, and Gunther made an appreciative noise.

  “So, what brings you girls to this sy backwater?” Gunther asked as he lowered his cup and took a piece of cheese to nibble on.

  “We’re with the Exploration Guild,” I said. “We’re both new, so they sent us here to map the area around the fort.”

  “I see,” Gunther said.

  “Ahat belongs to Deepmarsh,” Amaryllis said.

  “If they want it back, they have but to ask,” Gunther said. “But seeing as this area has been unoccupied for some years I don’t think that is likely.”

  “How did you e to live here?” I asked.

  Gunther looked at me over the rim of his cup. “It’s quiet. I don’t mind the wildlife, and the people are a day’s walk away.”

  “That must be so lonely. You would need so many hobbies to pass the time,” I said

  “I have Throat Ripper,” Gunther said before patting the big dog on the head. The creature had id itself down on the grouo him.

  “You must be very close then,” I said.

  Gunther paused, cup held halfway to the table for a long time before he looked up and gave me a wry smile. “Throaty here is why I am the way that I am. When he passed... I couldn’t accept that. So I embarked on a self-imposed quest to correct what I saw as a cruelty id down upon me by the world itself.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing too extreme. I was once a well-regarded arts dealer in derrun. I gave all that up in order to ge my css and bee the seed of what I am now. It allowed me t back my orue panion, even if it meant cutting ties with neighbours and... well, I didn’t truly have any friends, or family that I cared for.”

  Throat Ripper stood up and booped his master in the side with his head.

  “And so we set to travelling the world. Unfortunately any css with a pent for uh is generally poorly regarded. Either by superstitious fools or those who know what death mana do in a region if left there too long. We go from pce to pce, finding quiet little areas to settle down in for a decade or so before moving on. We have only been in this fort for a year and ge. The skeletons you see around us are surprisingly easy to find. Throat Ripper has a knack fging them up.”

  “You poor thing,” I said. I pulled the colr of my blouse out from behind my gambeson and dabbed at my eyes with it. “I’m so sorry that people are mean to you. But sacrifig everything t a friend back is... it’s beautiful.”

  “I... thank you?” Gunther said. He looked a bit unfortable, which I guess was normal after sharing su intimate story. “You mentiohat you were here to scout out the region?”

  “Yeah. We’re supposed to map the area around the fort, and explore it a little. We won’t do that, of course. The expl the fort bit, I mean. It would be way too rude to just trample around your home. But if you don’t mind we’d like to see what’s around and maybe map that out. Is there a way to do that without b your skeletons?”

  “You don’t mind the skeletons’ presence?” Gunther asked.

  “Should I?” I asked right back.

  Amaryllis covered her face with her hands. “My partner is an idiot, ahe world spires to keep her alive,” she said.