Chapter 40

“I’m having second thoughts,” Thera said in the morning as they were preparing to head out. “I’m not going to be able to see anything, this is going to be such a pain. Why don’t we wait until uncle gets back and makes me one I can see through?”“Thera, that could be a couple weeks. Besides, it will actually break my heart if the cloak I spent two weeks on never sees any use, forever waiting in a closet for an emergency that will never come. We have to go out at least once.”

“Okay fine, just don’t let me fall or bump into anyone. Let’s just grab our food and come back here.”

“Sure sounds good to me.”

They linked arms and started to make their way through the town, Ben making sure to keep a slow but comfortable pace for Thera to keep up with, and went on their way. They hit each stall they walked by, trying to take a loop that would bring them across all the ones he knew of to the biggest restaurant in the town, before making their way back to the house. Unfortunately things typically went better in his head than in practice.

“Is something wrong?” Thera asked him after the first few stops. She had felt his arm slowly tense up throughout the stroll, but with her vision obstructed had no way to see what was going on.

“No, everything’s good,” He lied. On the first few stops he noticed they were getting some strange looks, but he didn’t think much of it. Now though some of the people were looking a lot more angry and he had to remember that even if she was covered up, she was probably easily identifiable to the majority of people living in the town as the person always in a cloak with various scary rumors surrounding her. Given that some of these people may have even been taken in by her magic those few weeks ago he had to wonder if she would actually be able to work in the town again once Falk was back and Roan was caught so he decided to cut their walk short.

“Hey I think we actually have enough food that we’re going to be sick by now, five stalls is more than I thought.”

“Oh I was kind of looking forward to the takeout from the restaurant, their food’s really good.”

“Oh yeah? Why don’t we go when you get your new cloak then? You’ll probably like it a lot more if you aren’t stuffed while eating.”

“Well that's true. Okay sounds good, but I’ll be holding you to it.”

“Hey now I won’t bail, I haven’t tried any of their stuff yet myself,” He tried to keep their conversation going while picking up the pace a bit, and made it back home.

“So are you going to tell me what happened?” She asked as they were sitting down and eating, sampling a bit of everything.

She was more perceptive than he’d hoped, but he still tried to brush it off. “I have no clue what you’re talking about."

She silently stared into his eyes, waiting for a real response, and he let out a groan. “Okay, I just wasn’t getting the impression that people wanted us around was all.”

“You mean people didn’t want me around,” She responded, putting her food down and turning away.

“Things will calm down soon Thera, try not to stress out.”

“Will they? I’m sure everyone who wasn’t already scared of me is now. And now I’m going to be stuck here alone until Falk gets back and sorts out my cloak. Hell, even when he’s back people still won’t want me in this town, but aside from Anailia this is the only place I have any close family. Even in Anailia I’ll still be by myself.”

“What about any friends in your homeland?”

“My charm is so strong it beats the darkness resistance of the majority of succubi. I’m just lucky Aunty Sonya's levels of resistance are high enough that she isn’t affected and Uncle Falk got a high-quality resistance amulet made.”

“A resistance amulet?” He asked despite himself, only to immediately tell himself off. Thankfully she didn’t seem bothered by it.

“It basically just covers you in a layer of whatever the resistance level is on the amulet, it’s usually hidden behind his fur. Still it’s not like everyone can have one of those things,” She teared up a little and hid her face in her arms on the table. “I never asked for any of this, you know. It’s not like I want to have this effect on people.”

“I know,” Without any thought he slid his chair over and gave her head a gentle pat, the same way he used to do to calm down his little brother when he got upset.

“I just want to be normal,” She said in a much smaller voice.

He didn’t know what he could say to help the sad girl at his side, so he tried to reassure her the only way he could. “Well either way you won’t be alone here until Falk gets back, I’m still around right?”

“Didn’t you agree to only stay here until you finished the cloak?” She asked, peeking up at him.

“I’m sure Sonya won’t mind me staying another week or whenever it is Falk gets back. Besides, I still have to paint those pictures I promised her; and anyway people are quick to forget, I’m sure in another week or two things will calm down.”

“We’ll see,” Still even if she didn’t seem confident about it she rubbed her eyes and sat up.

“I have confidence. Now come on, let's finish up here and do something, I still have to redeem myself in lowmage.”

She gave a small laugh. “I don’t think you could possibly manage that, but I’d like to see you try.”

“That's four wins and zero losses for me,” She said, adding another tally to a sheet of paper.

“Thera please, I’m asking you to have a little mercy on me and hold back a bit.”

“No can do, you’ll never get better that way.”

“This is also only my tenth time playing ever. I need to work on getting my strategy down is all.”

“Well then work away, until a merchant passes through with some new books there isn’t much else to do currently.”

“Alright fine, just you wait until I make a chessboard or something, you’ll be begging for mercy,” He was terrible at chess too, but hopefully she would be worse.

His proclamation only made her eyes light up though. “Is that a game from your world?”

“Yeah, it was a pretty popular one too. Honestly not my first pick for games I would make though, I just said that one because it’s hard.”

“Alright, you should definitely make some then.”

“Will do, but if you want to do something different aren’t there other games from this world we could play? Surely with all the different races around there has to be a good variety.”

“There is, but boards and pieces and whatever else you need have to be made, and if the craftsman you get doesn’t understand the rules they may make it wrong if you commission it. Sometimes merchants bring some to town, but this place pretty much exists because it’s on the way to a gate, board games aren’t a priority when every town is going to have access to at least a couple ones around.”

“So chances of me getting rich off selling Earth games?”

“Slim, but I’m sure any you try to sell at the next market will do well if you make some.”

“Cool I’ll keep that in mind.”

As they were talking a knock came from the door, and Ben went to check it while Thera went to throw on her cloak.

When he opened the door there were two guards present. “Hello there, would miss Thera be home at the moment?”

“And if she is?” He asked, a bit more defensively than he meant to.

The second guard spoke up. “You don’t need to be so worried, there's just a problem we were hoping we could get her help with, it’s rather important unfortunately.”

Thera had heard what they were saying as she donned her cloak and slid up behind Ben. “What could I possibly help you with?” She asked in genuine confusion.

“We need you to come to the guards room. Roan’s been caught.”