text: Baths were mundane things, things most people took for granted, things they did without thought. Though a bath with Penny was anything but mundane.
  
  Her request and his acceptance were the tentative touches between uncertain souls. But once their intents were known and shared, all uncertainty vanished, replaced by an electric sense of need.
  
  Sex in heaven was most definitely different. Their souls touched, like an energy that tingled below the surface, just as her touch, her warmth, her desire, tingled across his skin.
  
  Once they explored all the methods of cleaning that a bath could offer, Penny dragged him to her room—an actual room, not a bunk bed shoved into a closet. And it was there they enjoyed a second and third round, seemingly eager to outdo the prior.
  
  Morning came with that obnoxious ringing through Dhane's head, a ringing he now fully understood as his alarm clock. He mentally clicked it off and turned.
  
  Penny's mattress had a lot of give, almost to the point he felt sucked into the bed, as if demons below were trying to tear him down into the underworld. Or like a waterbed half-filled, his weight pressed to the bottom while the water tried to envelop him through the plastic.
  
  He wasn't ready for that wondrous night to be over. All he wanted to do was lay there in the warmth of the sheets that smelled faintly of lavender for a few minutes longer.
  
  Penny drew a finger across his cheek and he smiled.
  
  "Morning," he said, eyes still shut lest the day begin.
  
  She didn't reply and instead gently poked his nose, then his eyelids, and forehead. Oh, how he wanted to just skip the day of responsibilities, skip training, skip it all and stay here.
  
  Penny's fingers were soft, really soft, almost like fur. He opened his eyes to take her hand and kiss her fingertips, and found a massive, fuzzy black spider on his pillow.
  
  Dhane screamed! It was such a high pitched scream, someone probably thought a poor woman was being murdered in the streets. He flipped to the side with every bit of panicked strength he could muster, which given this damn mattress, would barely be enough to get dislodged.
  
  What he hadn't considered in all those fleeting thoughts, was how he wasn't that klutzy gamer who, despite loving all the hiking trails he could find—especially the ones he couldn't—always found a way to fall down twice, if not three times.
  
  No, Dhane was now an arachnomancer assassin. Such things tended to make a difference in the most inopportune times. Instead of barely dislodging from the mattress, he spun three times in the air.
  
  Fractions of a second later, Dhane, now wrapped in the sheet, fell back to the bed, bounced once, flipped, and slammed into the wall. Pain shattered down his face and neck for all but three seconds, then everything returned to normal.
  
  Normal . . . except now he stood there, arms wrapped behind himself, like a burrito in tinfoil, which just so happened to also trap a harry spider, squirming its fuzzy legs across his ribs.
  
  This produced an involuntary slap dance, except he had no hands to slap with, resulting instead, a lot of jumping up and down. The spider shifted lower and lower, finding a space near his groin, and tickled all the way down his inner thigh to the ground.
  
  The door opened and Penny stepped in. She was smiling, holding a tray full of breakfast items. When she saw him, a series of emotions flashed through her face—surprise, confusion, curiosity—before finally landing on a giggle.
  
  "What are you doing?" she asked.
  
  Dhane scanned the tiny room. There was nowhere the spider could have gone, not one that big, that fuzzy. And yet, it was gone as if it had never existed.
  
  "I . . ." he started, reaching for words to explain . . . what exactly? Did being an arachnomancer mean random spiders would show up to say hello? Hail, King of Spiders! Please, please, please be no.
  
  Penny placed the tray on the bed and helped unravel the sheet, drawing fingers across his skin and kissing his shoulder. Damn, she knew how to distract someone.
  
  He tried again, with something that at least resembled a truth, something that wouldn't send Penny running from the room, "Have you ever had a dream within a dream?"
  
  "I hate those! You wake up and then something terrible usually happens."
  
  "I woke up with a huge spider on my pillow."
  
  "Pfft. Spiders aren't that bad."
  
  "You're saying you wouldn't freak out if you woke up next to a spider?"
  
  "Nope," she said and pulled him down onto the bed. "I'd say, 'Hello good spider, you shouldn't be on my bed or I might accidentally squish you.' "
  
  "Oh really, and if it were this big?" he said, holding his hands nearly a foot apart.
  
  "In that case, I'd name it Kitty and teach it tricks."
  
  "Whatever! You're totally lying," he said with a laugh. And somehow he knew that was true, that she didn't like spiders. It wasn't because of her words or body language, but something deeper.
  
  Without much of a conscious thought, more of a curiosity, he called out to her affinity. Penny straightened a little, then creased her brow, almost looking guilty. Her affinity was noticeably brighter than it was last night, as if the pieces of Shadow had drifted away.
  
  "What's wrong?" he asked.
  
  Now she looked downright sad. "I like you . . . and of course, this wouldn't have worked if that wasn't the case."
  
  "What are you talking about?"
  
  "We shared our souls last night, it's why I know little things about you, how you didn't have a father growing up. How your mother worked constantly and you didn't have money, so you explored the forest with your sister for fun."
  
  As she said those things, it was as if she had reached into his mind and stolen them. No . . . not stole, but traded pieces of his past for pieces of hers.
  
  He knew she had two older brothers that she'd do anything for. Knew that she loved manga and played League of Legends. Knew that when her eldest brother died in a truck accident, she fell into a deep depression that ended with her taking too many pills to dull the pain.
  
  Penny turned away, hand cupping her mouth. The breakfast platter sat next to her, holding little bowls of grapes and strawberries, and two untouched omelets. "I . . . didn't tell you." Now she was crying, a sound like shards of metal sliding into his heart.
  
  Whatever it was, it couldn't be this bad. He tried to hold her, take her shoulders, but she pushed away, leaving him there to wait for whatever terrible confession she needed to make.
  
  "I have a damaged soul," she said, "and I used you to help repair it. Gave you my broken pieces." Penny turned, tears on her cheeks, eyelashes clumped together, her crystal blue eyes trying to summon his affinity as if needing to know how much she had hurt him.
  
  Dhane channeled his Light affinity for her, and a tingling warmth spread through his chest. It felt of her, familiar and welcomed and . . . scared.
  
  Penny's eyes widened. "What?" she said in a very small voice. "That's impossible. . . . You're completely unaffected by me."
  
  Dhane cupped her chin and wiped the tears away. He smiled and gave her the most gentle of kisses he could manage. "How could I be unaffected by you? Hmm? You gave me kindness, affection, love. If that's you using me, please don't stop."
  
  Penny looked down, shoulders slumped. Apparently, such words were only adding to the guilt that she lied, she hid this hope from him lest it not come true, that she knowingly put his soul at risk.
  
  "Look," he tried again, "I know what happened to your brother. I can remember your pain as if it were my own. Do you think you're meant to suffer for eternity? We all make mistakes. I mean, I tried eating one of your rolls...."
  
  Penny laughed and punched him lightly. "You don't hate me?"
  
  "No, of course not," he said. "I don't like dishonesty, however, I feel like I know you, know just a fraction of what you've been living with. If I can help heal your soul—even!" he said loudly, pointing his finger to make this point as clear as possible, "if I have to endure a hundred steamy baths with you, I'll just have to make that sacrifice."
  
  To which Penny gave him one of her radiant smiles that said everything that needed to be said.
  
  All said and done, there wasn't much time for breakfast. Other things took priority, after which, Dhane left Cali Bali in a sprinting hurry, all the way down to the arena.
  
  Trainees, in their various groups, waited on the main steps. Devron and Aaliyah were shouting at each other, an odd sight given Devron's apparent attraction to her.
  
  Were there fewer people today than yesterday?
  
  "What's going on?" Dhane interrupted.
  
  "See!" Devron said, pointing to Dhane. "Hells, woman, your baseless claims are false."
  
  "Claims?" Dhane asked.
  
  "Whatevs, not like I know the guy," Aaliyah said. "And he still ain't got armor, so I wasn't wrong about that."
  
  "Armor?" Dhane asked.
  
  Devron threw up his arms. "He didn't get the Royal welcome—told you that. Would you have armor if you didn't get a gold coin?"
  
  "I would!" Aaliyah said.
  
  "And how would you afford it?"
  
  "Don't know, get a job."
  
  "Oh? Doing. . .?"
  
  "Stuff!"
  
  Dhane sighed and sat on the stone steps. He still had tears through his shirt, though unlike the first day, had enough money to buy new clothes.
  
  He opened the Clothing app—skipped over the women's section—and loaded up an impossibly huge catalog of men's clothing. For 50 copper, he could have a nice black shirt. Interestingly, for the same amount, he could repair the silver, corded shirt.
  
  But he wanted something new, something that he picked out, not a hand-me-down given out of pity. And though a tee shirt with a murloc on it would have been great, he wasn't entirely sure how Penny would feel about it.
  
  Huh, he was already considering Penny in such decisions. This was his third day in heaven and he had a girlfriend that felt like they were on their one-year anniversary already.
  
  Well, black was a safe color. With a tap, the shirt gained a green checkmark, leaving him with 1 silver and 22 copper left. Since he already had a shirt equipped, he had to force swap one shirt for the other. In a blink—and a few shimmers of light—his silver shirt shifted into a black shirt.
  
  It was at this time that Nick appeared at the base of the steps, breathing hard. He waved, then bent over and grabbed his knees.
  
  Devron and Aaliyah were now going off on some other thing about tactics and skill combos. They seemed locked in disagreement, countering the other with new bits of, What about this? or That's obviously wrong! or even My mother would never act like this, followed by I'm not your mother!
  
  "Oh, god. . . ." Nick said. "I used to be an adventurer like you."
  
  "Until you took an arrow to the knee?" Dhane asked.
  
  "What? No-no, nothing that drastic. I just got so damn sick of running out of Stamina all the time. It really hits you like a wall of bricks. You could be in the middle of an attack and then Wham! you're out of breath, exhausted, and just want to sleep for a part of eternity."
  
  Dhane hadn't considered Stamina much, not since the first day of climbing Heaven's Mountain. Maybe he hit that wall once or twice last night. . ..
  
  Gorlan stepped out of an arena door and the groups went silent. Even Devron and Aaliyah's bickering went away, as if the Master of Arena had tapped the mute button on everyone.
  
  Nick summoned his phone and held it out. "Yeah, you've got to go. Take this and don't destroy it. It's not free gear, it's a loaner for a review. And," he said in a whisper, "I can get you a discount if you want to buy it, just don't tell anyone."
  
  Dhane summoned his phone and they tapped their devices together, then Nick hurried back down to the street, waving to a woman who yelled, "Nick, I want your meat!"
  
  Gorlan had said something, something that seemed to disturb the trainees. Of course, anything that made Gorlan smile was cause for being disturbed.
  
  "What's happening?" Dhane whispered to Devron.
  
  "Hells, man . . . we're training in the Wilds today." The Wilds were the collective term for anything outside the walls of civilization. Out there were the monsters, the horrors of the world, and where everyone went in search of adventuring.
  
  Gorlan called for everyone to follow, then marched down the steps to the main street, leading to the east gate.
  
  Aaliyah flashed Devron a glare, and the man seemed to wilt. What happened yesterday to garner such animosity?
  
  "Hold up, man," Devron said, reluctance clinging to his voice. "Aaliyah doesn't feel you're fit to be the leader anymore." Aaliyah stood off to the side, leaning on her spear, looking everywhere but at the two of them. "I know this is touchy, but I think we should just let her be the leader. It's only—"
  
  "What!" Dhane yelled, and Aaliyah flinched. Then he laughed and apologized. "Guys, I didn't want to be the leader in the first place. I don't know where this change of opinion is coming from, however, Aaliyah if you want to be party leader, you have my full support."
  
  "Really?" she asked.
  
  "Yup. So what happened yesterday?"
  
  They fell in line at the back of the groups and Devron sighed. "Man, we got third. Kevin's group, the douchebag, won with just six gears more than us."
  
  "Yeah, that sucks," Dhane said. "We made lots of mistakes. You went mana drunk, Aaliyah lost her spear to the second bird, I told you to block the bird and then mounted it like some idiot.
  
  "If we knew about your low mana, we could have spaced out your attacks more, and then instead of having Aaliyah draw aggro, I should have done that with an initial backstab. I can do more damage and then escape, which would help Aaliyah from overextending."
  
  He said these things almost to himself, replaying the events in his head in a near-perfect recollection, as if he had just finished a game and needed to write a review about it, identifying the pros and cons.
  
  "But," he said, "Aaliyah did a great job knocking the first bird over, and despite our mage having practically no mana—something that we really should fix—you're quite capable of taking hits, kind of a tank mage if you will.
  
  "So yeah," he concluded, "mistakes were made. And if I didn't die, we'd have for sure won; I still have four gears and never got my loot from the second bird. But we learned a lot, right?"
  
  Devron and Aaliyah shared a look and Dhane promptly remembered that Nick had given him something. He summoned his phone and opened the Inventory app. There, outlined in blue, was a set of black leather armor.
  
  ─ Midnight Leather [Rare] 60/60 Armor
  
  ─ +3 to Dexterity
  
  ─ 2 Damage Reduction
  
  ─ (Item Level 8)
  
  Huh. With two taps, the armor equipped, shifting over him like smoke. Even though he still had clothing equipped, the armor replaced the visual appearance of everything.
  
  A combination of leather and cloth ran from cowl to some type of flexible, light footwear. The arcane knowledge at the back of his head confirmed that this was how armor worked in the game. Instead of finding individual pieces of armor, armor was an item in and of itself. This freed other equipment slots to better tailor his character's build.
  
  Further, unlike other games, armor had a sort of health instead of durability. If the wearer received damage—no matter where they were hit—the damage would be taken from the armor first, which also completely negated pain.
  
  Even if an armor lost all of its health, the bonus attributes remained. As such, and in this case, he'd continue to receive a +3 to Dexterity and 2 Damage Reduction.
  
  The only problem with armor was how it didn't automatically heal like a player did. And to repair it would lower its total health, making it less effective the next fight.
  
  "Okay, okay," Aaliyah said, admiring Dhane's new set of black armor. It even had a sheath at the side with his Cobalin sword already equipped. "Whatevs Dev, don't think I can't see you grinning over there. I take it back, alright? Dhane is party leader again."
  
  Dhane blew a raspberry and slumped. "Come on, guys!"