Soren sat shirtless on the edge of a lacravida-sized exam table in one of the med-bays aboard The Resolute Wind. They hadn't been back from Philos very long, the team had disembarked The Ghost of Mandachor, given their debrief to Commander Garrin, and casually dismissed. Aurania had ordered him to have a medical exam just to be safe and then she and Inelius had gone to one of the Liberty Union tech labs to start trying to get info out of the data core.

  Tamiyo stood in front of him, her eyes lit up as she ran scans and Elias worked a panel on the wall displaying more complex diagnostics. The lights overhead hummed gently, sterile white buzzing against the silence.

  “Just some minor bruising,” Tamiyo said with a hint of disapproval. “Looks like it's already starting to fade, probably be completely gone by end of tomorrow.”

  From the corner, Elias chuckled without looking up from his console.

  Tamiyo cocked an eyebrow and looked at him. “Something funny?” She said, but she didn't actually sound irritated.

  Elias laughed a bit more and glanced over his shoulder. “He can rip a door off that probably weighs thousands of pounds, he doesn't even need to touch it, but he can't dodge the damn thing.” He chuckled once more and turned back to his terminal. “Just a bit ironic I suppose.”

  “No one's perfect, Elias,” Tamiyo said with a slightly defensive attitude. “He still feels pain.”

  Soren spoke up. “It's alright, I'm OK Tamiyo.”

  She glared at him for a moment with her eyes half closed. Then she poked the bruise on his ribs hard enough to make a point.

  “Ow!” Soren winced as a small twinge of sharp pain shot out then quickly faded. Then he looked at her with the same attitude she was giving him. “You been hanging around Aurania too much.”

  She just shrugged and powered down her eye scanners, then turned to Elias. “Anything to watch out for that I didn't catch?”

  He switched his diagnostics off and turned around. “Nah, just the requisitions officer when you go ask for another new helmet. You're gonna use up all our credit before we find something to save Nox.” He leaned back casually against the wall and crossed his arms.

  Soren grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head. “Well maybe once we find what we need then we can do some chores for the LU, I'm halfway decent with a broom.”

  “You better be,” Tamiyo said, “You had 8,000 years to practice.”

  “It's not like I had a broom floating out in space with me.”

  “Yeah you did,” she said with a tone like she was presenting a serious factual argument. “Mop and bucket too. You were butt ass naked but the scraps of your uniform were floating around you, the name tag stuck to my window, said ‘Janitor’ right on it.”

  They all laughed together.

  “Wait, why didn't you bring his broom aboard then?” Elias asked.

  Tamiyo shrugged casually at the absurd question. “I already had a broom on my ship.”

  Soren laughed warmly with them. Interactions with Tamiyo and Elias like this had become common. Elias was a really grounding presence as Soren adjusted to his new reality, and Tamiyo had become like a protective little sister. He couldn't even imagine how different things may have turned out if she hadn't been around to buffer the initial lacravida wrath.

  As their laughter faded a bit, Tamiyo side eyed him with an amused look and one eyebrow raised. “So did it feel like you were gaining some control?”

  He thought back to Philos. “Yeah a little, I definitely think our meditation has been helping. I feel like I can focus internally better on the Aether Dust. But I do definitely need more practice. A lot.”

  “What about the mental link?” Elias asked casually. He was just being a diagnostic doctor, but the question caught Soren off guard.

  “Uh…” he hesitated and then averted his gaze awkwardly.

  Elias opened his eyes wide with curiosity, and just waited.

  “It's still there,” Soren said. “It's faded a bit into the background, I think we've both just grown used to it. But thoughts slip through now and then, mostly mine slipping through to her.” He rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to let himself turn red.

  “What thoughts?” Tamiyo said innocently. Soren wasn't sure if it was a trauma response to her past, but he had found she could at times be a bit oblivious to anything related to physical attraction between people.

  He just looked at her for a moment, letting his expression answer.

  “Oooohh,” Tamiyo said.

  Soren raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly, then sighed as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “The whole thing is confusing me. At first I was so thrown off by how open they all are with everything. But then I got used to that, and she ends up being so hostile to me in almost every interaction. Which, I mean I got in the beginning, and I guess maybe a little bit still now, but…” He hadn't meant to say all of it, it just spilled out. “I find myself strangely attracted to her.”

  Tamiyo tipped her head to one side innocently. “Is she the only one?”

  “Yeah,” Elias added on, “I heard something about Violet, Veolo, and a bunch of LU guys in a vacant room somewhere onboard.”

  Tamiyo raised her eyebrows and looked at Soren like this was her first time hearing about it.

  Soren quickly looked between the two of them. “No, no— I mean yes, they did do something like that but I wasn't part of it.” He was quiet for a moment, then added, “They did invite me. But just, no, didn't feel right.”

  “Why not?” Tamiyo asked lightly.

  “Eh,” Soren said, rubbing his neck again. He was trying to find the right words. “I don't know, it's not that any of them are unattractive, objectively they're all very good looking, but I guess I'm just not thinking about them like that.”

  Elias shrugged, “Makes sense, we're human, it's different for us.”

  “Wait,” Soren said quickly. “But I thought you had a thing with Amalia at one point.”

  He just shrugged again like he was wondering what Soren's point was. “Yeah, I mean nothing romantic. Violet too one time, and plenty of others.”

  Soren's brow furrowed and he looked at Elias harder.

  Elias just laughed. “You gotta remember, it's a lot more casual for them, very common amongst friends. But now that Riza and I have finally figured out how we feel about each other, I'm not really interested in anyone else either.”

  “Yeah she is a bit more reserved than the others,” Soren said thoughtfully. Then he quickly added, “Respectfully of course.”

  “You're not wrong,” Elias said, he didn't sound offended at all.

  Tamiyo smiled at Elias. “You too seem perfect for each other, she's definitely happier with you around. She's more casual and friendly with the rest of them too, that's all because of you.”

  “You been watching her pretty close?” Elias said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” Tamiyo answered with a bit of pride in her voice. “If I look too hard though she catches me, her perceptions are wild.”

  They all laughed a bit more.

  “So do you have any advice Elias?” Soren asked.

  “About Aura?” He thought for several moments.

  “Yeah she won't even let me call her that.”

  “Hmm. She usually only lets people she trusts call her Aura, maybe she's intentionally keeping you at arms length for some reason. She definitely acts different with you around. It's not really ‘good different’ but I can't say for sure it's ‘bad different’ either.”

  Soren thought on that for a moment, but it wasn't really advice he could act on. “So what do you recommend, then?”

  Elias quietly thought for a moment. “I can't say that your situation is exactly the same, you guys don't have the history Riza and I do. But they are both intense, and Aura is acting differently with you around. You may just need to give it time.”

  Soren wasn't sure if that made him feel better.

  “How did you handle needing to wait, Elias?” Tamiyo asked.

  Elias grinned awkwardly. “Well… for a while, not anything. Thinking back on it, I started developing feelings for Riza when we were still in the military. And if she knew, she never said anything. So I just kind of went my own way for a while.”

  He pushed off the wall and stuck his hands in his pockets. “After moving to Berilinsk, I became friends with Amalia and Violet, they had just moved there not too long before me. And I got to know a handful of others and I slowly grew used to the culture.”

  “How long until you got physically close with any of them?” Soren asked.

  “Uh, a while,” Elias answered. “Not 8,000 years, but a while. And I wasn't sure how to feel about it at first, with how I felt about Riza. But Amalia made sure things moved at a speed that I was comfortable with.”

  It still felt so strange to Soren. “And Riza and Amalia don't feel weird about each other now?”

  “Nope,” Elias said simply. “We've all even talked about it together. Actually if I had the desire to go do anything with Amalia, I don't think Riza would actually care. But I'm plenty happy. One six and a half foot deadly warrior woman is more than enough for me to handle.”

  Tamiyo actually snorted.

  Soren looked between them, then exhaled. “Thanks.”

  Tamiyo leaned against the side of the bed now, a little more relaxed. “You went through something literally no one can imagine. The most I can offer is that we're all going through one trial or another, so I'm glad you feel that you are able to lean on us for support.”

  Then she looked away, her gaze going distant. “I still… get anxious,” she said, quietly. “Sometimes, if I’m in an elevator with people I don’t know… I still catch myself calculating where I’d strike first if someone tried to pin me. It gets better, but it doesn't go away completely.”

  Soren watched her. She didn’t say it like she was ashamed. Just like it was true.

  “Being around the lacravida helps,” she added. “They don’t look at you like you’re fragile. But they don’t force you to be strong either. You just… are. However you are that day.”

  Elias nodded. “I don't think Aurania will stop throwing you off balance anytime soon. But they're good people, you can trust them.”

  They were quiet again.

  For a rare moment, Soren didn’t feel the weight of being the newest ghost in the room.

  “Alright,” Tamiyo finally said, pushing off the bench. “Let's go see if they found anything useful from the data core.”

  The tech lab was large, filled with various work stations for all manner of endeavors. Screens lined the walls, displaying streams of data, while a pair of Liberty Union techs hovered over a console in the center. They muttered back and forth, occasionally throwing glances toward a cluster of symbols showing on a large holoscreen.

  Tamiyo and Soren stepped inside just as another line of code scrolled across. Inelius stood near the back, upper arms crossed, lower arms on his hips, and eyes narrowed, while Aurania leaned over one of the terminals with her weight braced on her fists,

  Riza was seated at one of the side benches, gear strewn across the tabletop in precise, half-assembled rows. Her brows furrowed slightly as she adjusted a delicate piece of machinery with a soldering pen. When she looked up, she gave Tamiyo a small upwards nod.

  “Hey,” Riza said. “Tamiyo, come take a look at this.”

  Tamiyo walked over to see what Riza was working on. She had a curious look on her face.

  “Look familiar?” Riza asked.

  Soren recognized the glowing piece of tech that Riza had recovered. “What is it?”

  Tamiyo answered. “It's CIPHER tech.” She looked up to Riza. “It looks ancient, you found this on Philos?”

  “Yep,” Riza said.

  Soren felt like he was missing some context. “Is there something strange about ancient CIPHER tech being on Philos?”

  Tamiyo looked back at him. “Yeah, I know you've only seen a handful of CIPHERs, but have you noticed how we all look human?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah.”

  “That's because the Conservatory is the only place we are made. No one else has the technology to do it.” She looked back at the piece of tech on the table.

  She didn’t say it, but the question hung in the air. ‘Why was an ancient piece of CIPHER tech in a lab 40 light years outside the nearest Conservatory territory?’

  “What’s your plan with it?” Soren asked.

  “Well I have some ideas,” Riza answered. “But they kind of depend on what its functionality is best suited for.”

  Tamiyo looked at it closely, moving around it to observe from different angles. “I think it’s built for neural synchronization.” She picked it up and looked at the bottom of it, then set it back down. “We’ll need to spend some time analyzing it, but I definitely think we can get something useful out of it.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  A beep chirped from one of the terminals and one of the LU techs turned around. “Finally, there we go.”

  The screen shifted. Dozens of lines of handwritten symbols spilled across the projection, twisted, compact, and clearly written with a frantic kind of urgency. Tamiyo tilted her head, and even Inelius leaned forward.

  Aurania pulled her head back and her expression tightened. “That almost looks like… old scripture. Ancient lacravida, maybe. But it’s distorted.”

  Soren stepped closer, and a tightness pulled in his gut. His eyes moved frantically across the monitors.

  Aurania turned and looked at him, she must have sensed his distress through their mental link. “What is it?”

  “It’s…” he almost felt like he couldn’t get the words out. His eyes found Aurania’s. “It’s Enderfield.”

  She blinked, her eyes going wide. “What?”

  Inelius spoke up. “Wait, who’s Enderfield?”

  Soren didn’t speak for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He looked around the room to see who was listening.

  Aurania picked up on it and looked at the two LU techs. “You two, what you are about to hear does not leave this room unless myself or Riza authorizes it, understood?”

  They looked back, sensing the weight in the room. They nodded slowly.

  Riza spoke from her table in the corner. “That includes if Admiral Marrow or anyone above him orders you to. If that happens, you tell them I ordered you to stay silent and they need to come speak to us.”

  The techs stood up a little straighter and responded, “Yes ma’am.”

  Soren looked from Riza to Aurania, then glanced at the techs and said, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing that should get you in trouble with your command. It just contradicts thousands of years of lacravida culture so we need to be careful.”

  Their tension eased a little, but Inelius shifted where he stood, anxious to know what was going on.

  Soren looked at him, “You remember how I told you about The Professor?”

  “Yeah,” Inelius said. “On the way to Altina.”

  “Yeah well his name was Tywin Enderfield.”

  Inelius looked surprised, and after a moment of processing, he looked at Aurania, making the connection to her last name. She nodded before he even asked.

  “I put some pieces together back in Berilinsk,” Soren continued. “That giant mural in Silvara’s Hall, the central figure is undoubtedly Enderfield. I don’t really have a way to prove it, but Aurania saw one of my memories with him in it.”

  The LU techs looked understandably lost about the conversation, but stayed silent.

  “So how do these symbols fit in?” Inelius asked.

  Soren stepped closer to one of the screens and rubbed his chin while he observed it. “So, the thing with The Professor was he was a genius. There’s just no other way to describe it. And he had this insane memory, right? I’m pretty sure it was borderline photographic, but only of everything he’d written down.”

  Soren walked to another screen, looking over the familiar symbols. “So he’d just… scrawl chaotically. Walls, desks, panels, whatever was the closest flat surface, he’d just scribble away.”

  Aurania looked over the notes, then back at Soren. “So you can read it?”

  “Not exactly,” Soren said, squinting at a screen. “By the time I came into the fold, he had already developed his own sort of language with the notes. But it’s undeniably him.” He looked around more, like he was standing in a freaky dream.

  “Why was it in an ancient lab on Philos?” Inelius asked.

  “That’s the thing,” Soren answered quickly. “I thought there were only a handful of planets outside of Earth that were even being interacted with, maybe a dozen at most.” He scratched his head, trying to figure it all out. “I’d never even heard of Philos. Even if it had a different name back then, the planet is way off in a part of space I didn’t even think anyone had explored yet.”

  “Hey,” Aurania said, her voice almost kind.

  He snapped out of his thoughts and looked at her.

  “This guy sounds like the kind of asshole to keep people on a need-to-know basis. There’s probably a reason you didn’t know about it.”

  Soren found himself smirking faintly. She wasn’t being rude, not exactly. It was just her way of saying: Don’t blame yourself.

  “So how do we make use of this?” Inelius asked.

  Tamiyo stepped forward. “I think I can help.”

  They all turned and looked at her.

  “Remember, I’m a CIPHER. A really crass way you could describe me is a super advanced AI crammed into a really realistic robot body.” She turned and looked at Soren. “The language might have been indecipherable 8,000 years ago, but between what you recognize and my Intelligence Processors, I bet we can figure it out.”

  The mood shifted in the room, it felt like they were finally making some progress.

  “Finally,” Aurania said, thinking the same thing.

  “Let me know however I can help,” Inelius said. “Whatever the Conservatory is up to with this research, it can’t be good.”

  Soren and Tamiyo walked into the team’s common room after spending a couple hours meditating on his abilities on one of the upper decks. The Resolute Wind had an observation spire that sat up above most of the ship, where they could look out on the expanse of space and observe the stars and nebulae of the passing cosmos. Soren found it helped quiet his mind.

  They were a week into a 13 day journey to their next mission. The notes on the data core had taken Tamiyo and Soren just over 20 hours of continuous work to decipher and sort out. They had found research notes on a multitude of subjects The Professor had worked on, including some notes that Soren recognized as foundational elements of what he eventually did to Lulu. The information beneficial to Nox was far from complete. The Professor had begun planning for the Graviton Engine on Philos, but he had soon left, and whatever the Conservatory was after, it seemed related to the Graviton Engine. There was mention of another planet in the notes, however, one that Soren at least recognized the name of. Piria had been one of the planets being looked at for terraforming back in the 2080s, and although Soren had never gone there himself, he did know The Professor had some sort of complex there.

  The common room was cozy, a place of comfort to allow the team to unwind between missions and training. A massive L-shaped couch dominated the left-center of the room, its cushions slightly oversized to accommodate lacravida frames. The material was durable but worn in spots, with the kind of gentle sag that came from being used daily. There were always a few soft blankets laying about, and a pair of low tables sat around it for whenever someone needed a place to set a mug, a tablet, or a bag of snacks they would inevitably forget.

  The couch faced a massive screen that could be used by anyone. Soren had seen movies, serial shows with multiple seasons, and even some video games being played on it from time to time.

  Between the couch and the screen, the floor was more than just floor. It had become its own lounging zone. Thick modular mats had been laid down, layered over each other and arranged with ergonomic floor pillows and movable backrests. Someone had even tucked a few portable heating panels beneath the mats to keep the area warm, and a soft throw blanket lay abandoned across one corner like someone had cocooned and fled mid-movie.

  The far-left corner was quieter: several lounge chairs nestled near a low bookshelf stacked with physical novels, old game cases, and a few Liberty Union manuals someone probably meant to return. A small round table there often doubled as a solo reading spot or a low-stakes card table, depending on who claimed it first.

  Against the far wall was a wide rectangular viewport, its edges lined with subtle lighting strips. The starscape outside moved by as the ship traveled via Jump Drive. A padded bench ran beneath the glass, just deep enough to sit or lay back on. Someone had added a pillow to one end, and a potted plant to the other.

  To the right, the space flowed into a compact galley where Brolgar was finishing up a batch of food. The scent of roasted herbs and simmered broth lingered in the air, rich and comforting. His setup was nothing fancy, just a line of cabinets, two modular burners, and a heatplate wide enough to hold several pots at once, but it had become the gravitational center of many team evenings. A counter lined with metal trays divided the cooking space from the rest of the room, and a handful of mismatched stools were arranged in a semi-circle so others could hover near and chat while food was prepped.

  The near-right corner, just past the galley, had evolved into what Tamiyo jokingly called the "tinker zone." A collapsible workbench had been anchored to the wall, currently folded down and half-covered in someone’s half-dissembled drone. Toolkits were stacked in crates beneath it, and a vertical charging rack blinked softly with indicators from half a dozen headsets and handhelds.

  Near the door, in both corners, the team had set up the “grab-and-go” zones, small recessed alcoves with personal lockers, a hydration dispenser, and a wall-mounted board for notes and dumb inside jokes. Someone, probably Amalia, had drawn a cartoonishly muscled stick figure labeled “SOREN’S FINAL FORM” on one of the writable panels. It had not been erased.

  All of it together gave the room a kind of lived-in gravity, like a nest built by people who knew what it meant to be tired and still feel safe.

  Brolgar stood near the galley counter, seemingly waiting to dish up those who hadn’t eaten yet. He had prepared a thick stew he was serving into wooden bowls, and a tray of bread sat on the warmer beside him. It was cut into wedges and glistened with melted butter. The stew he served was hearty, root vegetables, leafy greens, and hunks of slow-simmered meat swimming in a spiced broth that smelled like it could beat even the worst cold into submission.

  Soren followed Tamiyo over, and Brolgar filled them each a bowl. He was calmly cordial with Tamiyo, but Brolgar refused to even look at Soren. The few times Brolgar would speak to him, his voice wasn’t hostile, just heavy.

  Soren stepped closer, hesitated for a moment, then grabbed one of the bowls and nodded a quiet thanks.

  Brolgar didn’t respond.

  The silence between them wasn’t charged, it was tired, worn like a callus. Soren moved off to one of the low tables in the far-left corner, bowl in hand, and sat next to Tamiyo as she dipped a wedge of bread into her own.

  “Whew! The smell will clear your sinuses,” she said after a bite. “But it tastes delicious.”

  Soren chuckled, but it faded fast.

  Tamiyo caught his mood and glanced toward Brolgar, who had gone back to wiping down the galley counter. “He’s not going to say anything tonight,” she said. “But I think he appreciates that you haven’t been trying to force a conversation.”

  “He hates me.” I don’t blame him.

  “He’s still hurting,” she corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”

  Soren looked down at the bowl in his lap.

  Brana walked in looking like she had just finished washing all the engine grease off and casually grabbed a bowl from Brolgar. Then she walked over and sat down with Soren and Tamiyo. After filling her mouth with stew and working through it, she let out a, “Got dayum Brolgar, how many fucking peppers you put in this thing?”

  “Enough,” he grunted from his galley.

  She just grinned and kept eating. She chatted with Soren and Tamiyo from time to time, but tonight she seemed more interested in watching what was on the screen, like everyone else in the room was.

  Veolo was playing some role-playing game with a good storyline, Soren had been able to catch most of what had happened so far. Something about a guy trying to save a world he didn’t belong to and the shared connections he made along the way. The other night there had been a bombshell revelation when they found out that the main character was actually a dream, so when they finished their heroic quest, he would end up disappearing.

  Veolo lay sprawled on the floor as she played, and most of the team was gathered around her in the large couch and floor space. They all lounged almost on top of each other, another of their cultural markers that had initially caught Soren off-guard. After a couple months of seeing them relax like this multiple times per week, he had grown used to it. That, and he had realized he was looking at them from a purely human lens. When he took a step back, he saw that the way they relaxed together was reminiscent of a pride of lionesses, which, given the ferocity of the warrior women, felt appropriate.

  Currently, Aurania was sitting on the couch, her chin resting in one palm and the other hand absent-mindedly rubbing the tension in Violet’s shoulder sitting on the floor in front of her. Riza sat to the left of Aurania and Amalia was laying with her head back on Riza’s lap while Riza casually petted her head. Raine and Inelius were there too, cuddling on the floor as they watched, but just slightly off on their own instead of fully intermingled with the lacravida.

  They all just sat and watched the game on the screen, a shared space where they didn’t have to focus and could unwind. Brana finished eating and got up to go flop onto Amalia. While not actually lacravida herself, Brana had lived amongst them long enough to adopt much of their culture.

  During a slightly dryer segment of the game, Veolo kept her eyes on the screen but asked, “Hey Soren, why do you and Tamiyo never come over and lounge with us?”

  Tamiyo tilted her head slightly. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you always sit over there,” Veolo said, making a vague gesture toward the far corner where they sat. “Like we smell or something.”

  Tamiyo let out a quiet laugh. “You don’t smell.”

  Soren felt a flicker of discomfort, not because she was wrong, but because she was right. He glanced over at the tangled sprawl of limbs near the couch, Aurania gently massaging Violet’s shoulder, Riza carding her fingers through Amalia’s hair, Brana half-curled on top of both of them like she was trying to claim their heat by osmosis.

  Now that Veolo was asking, he actually found the idea of joining to be appealing. Not in any sort of sexual manner, but there was something magnetic about the comfort they found in each other, the way the lacravida seemed to exist in layers of physical closeness without apology. It looked peaceful.

  But to him, it still felt… off-limits. Even though his brain told him that none of his human expectations applied here, his instincts hadn’t caught up yet.

  Tamiyo replied first. “It’s just… we’re used to it meaning something else,” she said. “Physical closeness in human culture usually comes with, like, romantic or sexual undertones.”

  “Yeah,” Soren added quietly. “It’s not really something friends do. Not unless they’re… y’know, more than that.”

  “That sounds lonely,” Amalia said in a sad tone.

  Violet turned her head slightly and said flatly, “Raine and Inelius are over here.”

  That landed with precision. Raine was half-curled against Inelius near the edge of the group, the two of them clearly enjoying the proximity but not entangled in any overtly intimate way. Still, they were close and comfortable.

  “Right,” he muttered.

  “It’s not about sex,” Violet said, her tone softer this time. “It’s about trust. About feeling safe and unwinding together.”

  “That sounds… really nice, actually,” Tamiyo said, her voice a little quieter than before.

  Soren shifted where he sat, his bowl now empty, his hands resting on the rim. He looked over the group again. The warmth. The stillness. The shared gravity pulling them inward toward each other like stars caught in orbit.

  He didn’t know if he was ready to be pulled in like that. But a part of him wanted to try.

  The door slid open again with a soft hiss and Elias stepped inside. He moved quietly, like someone slipping into a dream already in progress. As he passed the couch, he casually reached out and touched Riza’s shoulder. She glanced up and gave him the tiniest smile.

  He made his way to the galley, grabbed a bowl from the warmer, exchanged a brief grunt of acknowledgement with Brolgar, then headed over to where Soren and Tamiyo were still sitting.

  “How you holding up?” he asked, voice low, casual.

  Soren set his empty bowl aside. “Well enough. Brolgar seems to be having an angry day with me, though.”

  Elias gave a sympathetic shrug as he blew on his stew. “Ah, he’ll come around eventually. Just keep giving him time.”

  Soren nodded, though he wasn’t sure he believed it.

  Elias took a bite, chewed once, then said, “Oh yeah, saw Admiral Marrow down in the pavilion. He’s looking for Aura.”

  Across the room, Aurania’s head whipped toward them. “Shit,” she said. “Hide me.”

  Soren blinked. “Hide you?”

  “Yes,” she said, standing up so fast Violet was flung forward. “He keeps trying to ask me out and I’m running out of excuses. When he doesn’t find me in the pavilion, he’ll come here next. Hide me!”

  There wasn’t even a pause. Everyone started shifting like they were executing a practiced drill. Within seconds, Aurania was lying long-ways on the couch while people began sitting on top and in front of her. Riza, Amalia, and Violet all sat on top with their legs draped over so their weight was on the back of the couch and Aurania’s body was cradled in the bend of their legs. Inelius and Raine scooted down to sit on the floor and help conceal her hooves. Brana, Elias, and Veolo sat on the floor helping conceal most of her head and torso, but it still looked like there were some gaps.

  “Boss, you’re too damn big,” Riza said. “I think he still might see you down there.”

  “We need more cover,” Violet said.

  Soren saw Aurania’s head pop up from behind the couch’s armrest. She was looking right at him. “You two, get over here.”

  Tamiyo hesitated just a second, then ran over and tucked herself in front of Violet.

  Soren froze, caught between logic and instinct. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he did, and the room looked warm, inviting, but his body hadn’t quite rewritten the old programming yet.

  Aurania’s voice rose from beneath the pile, muffled but firm. “Get over here, that’s an order.”

  Soren let out a breath, stood, and walked toward the couch. A few bodies shifted to make room and someone tugged him down by the arm. He awkwardly settled into place, his head and shoulders helping conceal Aurania’s mid-section from view. He felt the warmth of it. The gravity.

  The door opened again.

  Admiral Marrow stepped in, one eyebrow raised. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said dryly, eyeing over 10 bodies crammed over a secret 11th. “Has anyone seen Matron Aurania around?”

  The pile answered all at once, conflicting excuses, scattered alibis, someone even mumbled something about her being in the shower.

  “She said she was headed to the pavilion,” Inelius added, trying to sound authoritative.

  Marrow blinked. “I just came from there.”

  A beat of silence.

  “Maybe the other pavilion?” Amalia offered, unconvincingly.

  Marrow lingered, looking at them like a man trying to solve a riddle he wasn’t quite sure existed. Then he sighed.

  “Alright. Please let her know I was looking for her.”

  Then he turned and left.

  No one moved.

  “Why does he keep calling you Matron?” Soren asked. “I thought that was a spiritual title.”

  “It is,” Aurania answered. “He’s just an idiot and knows nothing about us.”

  The group simply shuffled a little. Limbs adjusted, people resettled into the comfort of each other’s warmth and the glow of the game on the screen.

  Soren cautiously scooted down a little and let his head lean back against Aurania’s belly. He felt her react through the mental link, but she made no move to stop him.

  He smiled to himself.

  Brolgar was still at the galley, the only one not caught in the mess. Tamiyo glanced over at him.

  “C’mon, Brolgar,” she said. “There’s room.”

  He grunted. “I’m fine where I am.” But his voice wasn’t convincing.

  A few minutes passed.

  Someone asked for another slice of bread, and Brolgar moved toward the couch to bring it over. As he leaned in, a single hand shot out from beneath the pile, Aurania’s, and yanked him down with unexpected force.

  He let out a startled noise but didn’t resist for long. After a brief, token complaint, he just sighed and made himself comfortable. Amalia wrapped her arms around him, and no one made comment of how adorable the squat man looked, held by the bubbly woman over two feet taller than him.

  “This game’s alright,” he muttered. “I like the music.”

  Someone snorted. Someone else murmured agreement. And the room eased, like a slow exhale.

  They didn’t talk much after that. They just kept watching the story in front of them draw them in.

  Can you guess what game Veolo was playing?

  ?? Comment your answers below!

  Dark Resurrection: Shadows of Nekrom

  by SOMBRAcorpDT

  "... Even if I'm devoured, even if my body is torn apart, even if my head is ripped off, and even if my heart stops… I'll come back from Death. Such is my fate."

  [Death and Resurrection], capable of bending the fabric of space and time in order to bring Tristessa back to life.

  Points of interest:

  ?? Dark High Fantasy. The story is going to be brutal, with gore, extreme violence, psychological horror and uncomfortable topics. Be aware about it.

  ???? LitRPG and Soulsborne genre. No System. Statistics appear from "Chapter 76 - Divinity of the Dark Room" onward.

  ?? Slow-burn progression. For those who don't falter, at the end of every struggle there is a reward. That's the same for our lovely and very very weak MC, and also for the side characters that are going to appear as the story unfolds.

  ?? Lots of worldbuilding and lore. It's quite likely that I will write an encyclopedia at some point to add extras to the story. Some of them are going to be a compendium and a map of the world.

  ?? Some romance here and there (no harem, but our lovely MC is greedy, keep that in mind.

  ?? Release schedule: Monday to Friday. The average is about 1000-1500 words/chapter, but once in a while I'll release a 2500-3000 words chapter if the gods of literature are willing.