I have both hands over the wound in my gut. It’s a completely futile action, I have a matching hole that probably ripped out my kidney in my back. I can’t cover all the spots that need covering.

  “Raise his head,” Jes commands. She’s appeared out of nowhere and is kneeling next to me. Sadie lifts the back of my head and Jes spreads my eyelids open, examining each eye.

  “Relax, keep your eyes open.”

  “Look here,” Sadie says, pointing to her horizontal pupils. I’m starting to get used to that freaky detail.

  Jes holds her first and second finger together, like she’s swearing a boy scout oath. Her fingers glow in a warm, maroon hue. Never seen boy scouts do that.

  “How do you have magic left to do that?” I murmur.

  “Magic reserve,” Jes explains, examining my wounds. My pain immediately vanishes. “I can lower vitality to keep a pool of magic points. When I meditate, I fill up reserve pools so I don’t lower my actual vitality during fights as much. Like your horns make your summoning more efficient. I meditate, lower my vitality a little, and get a bunch of spell points to use later. I take, say, fifty points of vitality, turn it into a hundred spell points, only have to rest back the fifty points in vitality. Had it ready in reserve. But when I meditate, I can’t snap out of it. It’s like super deep sleep. I can listen to what you say, but if you said to stand up, it would take me maybe half a minute to break out of it. I have to be super sure nothing can sneak up on me.”

  “Wait, you can reserve vitality in pools?” I ask. “I want to set power aside.”

  “Dom,” Sadie says slowly. “I’m your pneuma pool set aside before combat.”

  Oh.

  “Sadie,” I ask, “How many vitality points do I have?”

  “Ask the System,” she says, as if that’s all I need to know.

  “System,” I declare. “What’s my vitality?”

  A smoked glass screen appears with my stats.

  Current Vitality: 51 of 300.

  30 Vitality maintaining Satyr Bondling.

  30 Vitality maintaining War Boar Bondling

  I guess she was right and that was all I needed to know. With Baco and Sadie, my true maximum seems to be 240.

  Jes touches just above the bloody hole with her glowing fingers and draws a thick line of flesh over the hole, like some sort of flesh magic marker. It tickles and itches in a warm and not unpleasant way, like stepping into a warm shower. A few more stripes, and she’s effectively drawn skin back into place.

  “Roll him on his side,” Jes orders. Sadie dutifully repositions me. I feel the bands of new flesh being stretched over the wound in my back.

  Jes sits on her heels and Sadie carefully eases me to my back.

  “No more,” Jes slurs, her head lolling loosely back. “Vitality.”

  She slides down and passes out.

  “Well, if I had to choose one of you to survive,” Sadie jokes awkwardly.

  I elbow her away and check Jes. Baco lies down against Jes’ side, pressed against her.

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  “Is she?” Sadie asks.

  I nod, feeling breath on my fingers. “She’s alive.”

  “She used all her reserves,” Sadie says in quiet reverence. “She kept buffing Baco over and over. Buffs are the least taxing spells, but she kept going. She fought like an angry goddess.”

  “Looks like healing isn’t the easiest.”

  She smacks me in the back of the head.

  “Sadie! What the hell?”

  “You almost died again, Dom. If your vitality hits zero, that’s it. Not just you, either. Me, Baco. Jes would have—"

  “I know,” I stop her. “I know. How come when Jes sacrifices herself it’s all noble, but I do it and I’m a jerk?”

  She pokes a finger into my chest. “Because we all need you Dom. I need you. Baco needs you. Jes, too. If you go down, you take Baco and me with you, and Jes won’t be far behind.”

  I swallow and sit up. She crosses her arms and turns from me, hoof stomping. Her tail is straight down, poking from the folds of her toga. I get up and brush myself off. Jes’ healing spell is amazing. Ribs are back, I can breathe, I’m reassembled. Now we need to find a Patch Leather spell. This vest looks awful with a matching pair of bloody holes in it.

  “We’re alive,” I offer.

  She spins around and I have a finger in my sternum again. “You were lucky.”

  “Lucky? I skewered his eye. Minotaur-kebab.” I wish I had a pillow to put under Jes’ head while she recuperates.

  “Not funny. You’re not funny, Dom. You know what? COWabunga. I don’t know what it means, but that was funny. You’re the one who was skewered, Dom.”

  “I just saved all our lives,” I argue. “We’re alive.”

  She sneers. “I know.”

  “You’re welcome,” I sing.

  She lets out a breath, rolls her eyes and looks at the ceiling. Apparently, no matter what world I’m in, I have a high level of the Exasperation skill. She looks at me and runs her hand over her horns.

  “You can’t die.” She’s suddenly outright full crying. “Dom, you have to be more careful. People depend on you. What would we do without Jes to heal you?”

  “What would I do without you?” I stress. “We were locked in combat. If you weren’t right there for me, I couldn’t have retreated into you. You knew, somehow, you knew to come running to save me. Sadie. Thank you.”

  She half laughs. “You’re welcome.”

  “Am I interrupting a moment here?” Jes mumbles. She tries to sit up. Baco manoeuvres under her arm and helps her straighten up.

  “You good?” I ask.

  She holds her head and raises a middle finger at me.

  “She’s good,” I tell Sadie.

  “I need a lot of downtime,” Jes says. She starts moving her hand through the air, swiping away notifications. “Healing you dropped me below ten vitality. Looks like that’s a knockout blow.”

  “Too much vitality loss too fast,” Sadie corrects. “You can walk and be awake with one vitality point left. It wouldn’t be easy. You knocked out because you spent too much without recovering.”

  Jes nods. “And I levelled stealth. And in a choice, I increased Violent Surge.”

  “That’s what made Baco super pig,” I surmise. I also have a choice to make. I concentrate and choose Impale to level. Perception just happens time to time and will level itself. Cooking? Not sure why I got that choice. Impale is combat only, and it seems to make more sense to level it before needing it.

  “Considering your bondlings are part of you, I’m real curious where she got all her common sense from,” Jes ponders.

  “Don’t you have to meditate?” I wonder out loud.

  “You take too many risks,” Jes says. “She’s right. You get yourself killed, you get us all killed. Sometimes it feels like I’d be safer by myself.”

  “Hey, we’re alive.”

  I can feel their stares boring into me as Sadie and Jes each mock me singing “You’re welcome.”

  “Can I meditate here?” Jes asks, moving a bit away from the slightly oozing minotaur.

  I look around. “Pretty sure the landlord chased all the tenants away.”

  Jes sits and closes her eyes. “Looks like I’ll be good in maybe a half hour.”

  “Ever think of going invisible while meditating?” I ask.

  “Can’t,” she says. “Expend or gain. Can’t do both at once. Being invisible has an immediate cost and then a maintenance cost. Cast is 20 spell points, then 3 spell points a minute to maintain. Med brings back 5 the first few minutes, then slowly accelerates to more per minute.”

  “Longer meditation is more efficient,” I surmise. “So, one twenty-minute meditation is a lot more than twenty one-minute meditations.”

  “Yes,” she sighs with a hint of annoyance. “And I can’t speak while meditating, so the longer we speak, the longer this will take.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “You rest.”

  Interesting. Having bondlings lowers your maximum vitality, but Jes actively pays to keep a magic effect in place. Different types of magic have different restrictions.

  Huh. When you’re about to die, the system goes quiet, holding notifications in reserve rather than filling your sight. I concentrate and a series of dings fill my ears. Impale. Psychic Translocation. Weapon Flair. Psychic Translocation again. I did overuse that skill a bit. I wonder at what level I stop forgetting which body I’m in.

  Sadie’s arms wrap around me from behind, hugging me tight. Thankfully, Jes’ healing also mended the ribs that broke from being thrown.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, touching her hand.

  I can feel her horns against my back as she holds me tighter. “You stupid, stupid man.”

  Yeah, she’s probably right. But you know what?

  We’re alive.