She led me into the open space between the lounge and the metal door leading outside before turning to face me. “According to your file, your divine aspect is spirit and your fate aspect is smith, making you a Spiritsmith.” “Very creative naming convention…” I muttered. “I find it refreshing how the smith classes are named. ‘Lifesmith’, ‘Flamesmith’, ‘Shadowsmith’…” she said, counting off the examples on her fingers. “It’s far more practical than some of the other classes.” “Like what?” “Well, using the knight fate aspect, a couple are ‘Glass Warrior’, 'Ghast', ‘Depth Warrior’...” “Those sound better than ‘Spiritsmith’...” I grumbled. “They’re also needlessly harder to remember,” she added. “But that’s unrelated to the matter at hand… I’ve never met one before, but I did some reading last night about Spiritsmiths and I believe I now have a reasonable understanding of their capabilities.” “You’ve got books that aren’t smut?” I teased. “There’s a whole library upstairs.” “Can

The warden let out a groan of disappointment. “Fine… So, the last thing we need to discuss is regarding the unique effects each divine aspect has on one’s physical body. The spirit divine aspect you possess reinforces your defenses against assaults made directly on your spirit.” “That’s pretty ambiguous,” I said, “feel like elaborating?” “Certain classes are granted magic which lets them attack the spirit of another in an attempt to control their mind. An example of such a class is the combination between the ‘ruler’ fate aspect and the spirit divine aspect, known as a ‘Despot’. A Despot is able to use their magic to forcibly control another through dominating their spirit. Controlling another in this way is known as a ‘forced compulsion’.” “That sounds pretty fucked up.” “It is indeed. However, because you have the spirit divine aspect, your natural defenses are bolstered against such attacks. You’re also a human, which means the passive effects any divine aspect are further incre

A home screen containing six icons over a dark gray backdrop appeared on the display. In the lower-left corner was a bar, next to which read: Storage: 0%. The warden sidled up beside me. “‘People’, ‘Monsters’, ‘Lore’, ‘Catalog’, ‘Camera’, and ‘Downl0ad’...” she said, reading off the names under the icons. “What are these? And what does this ‘phone’ know of monsters?” “Let’s find out,” I said as I thumbed the icon of the little green dinosaur over Monsters. A new screen with a search bar appeared, below which there was a list of drop-down menus, one for each letter of the alphabet. I swiped a finger across the screen to scroll down, finding each letter to contain nothing… except for one. Below ‘S’, there was a single entry: Lesser Slime. “It knows of lesser slimes?” the warden wondered aloud. “That’s oddly specific…” “Yeah…” My eyes narrowed in suspicion as I poked the entry. Another page appeared, on it there was a gray rectangle containing ‘IMAGE NOT FOUND’ in bold letterin

“Where’s the library?” I asked hurriedly, my face craning upwards to try and discern which of the four doors along the walkway led to the potential literary treasure trove. “What does the message mean? What does it mean by ‘downloading contents’?” “It means I can transfer the information in the book into the phone,” I said impatiently, thinking of all the potential such a thing would offer. “I see…” Her bubbly positivity faltered as her expression hardened into a solemn mask. “I’ll take you there later today,” she said, moving to the lounge's table and picking up ‘The Carnal Inn’. “Use this for now.” She held out the book as she returned to me. I accepted it, annoyed that we couldn’t get something more informative from the collection of tomes upstairs. “Why not now?” “We need to discuss something,” she replied before gesturing to the erotica. “However, you may first quickly test this function of the phone.” That sounds an awful lot like ‘we need to talk’... ominous... I nodded,

Being bathed in the natural light of the sun somehow magnified the contrast of the warden’s delicate black and white features, reinforcing my earlier impression of her looking like an illustration penned in ink that’d come to life. One that’d been drawn by an artist that’d put in all the care and love they could muster into capturing. Snowy hands raised before her, fingers loose; a grin curved her enticing lips as her dark eyes glittered with playful curiosity.Fuck…I raised my fists half-heartedly and firmed up my face into a mask of stoic focus, trying to hide my reservations about fighting her, even if it was just sparing.My eyes flicked to the tight white pants hugging her slender curves, then to the long black coat. &l