“Nice,” I said as Kasia twirled around in her new pants and tunic.

  We’d both showered again, and without all the grime Kasia looked like a different person. She looked happier, too. I guess being clean does that to you. The shower was actually pretty fun to use, and while I still preferred relaxing in a bath, it did have its charm.

  Kasia had used parts of her old worn-out outfit to stuff her boots so they fit better. Now she wasn't clomping around anymore. She’d also cleaned the boots and, honestly, she looked radiant.

  “You know, you have really beautiful hair,” I said. I hadn't really noticed it before, mostly because it had been a matted mess of mud and filth. Now that it was clean, it actually had a nice shine to it. “Come here, I’ll comb it for you.”

  Kasia’s face lit up. She sat down in front of me on the edge of the bed, looking excited.

  I grabbed my comb and started working through her hair. It was actually kind of relaxing to just focus on something that didn't involve looking over my shoulder for a minute.

  “You know, Hecate,” she said softly. “You’re like the big sister I always wanted.”

  I felt a little bit of pride at that. Yeah, a big sister. The cool one.

  But it also made me pause. Back in Asteria, it had always just been me and my parents. I’d never really thought about it much before, but now I wondered why I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. It probably would have been nice to have a little sister to teach things to, or maybe a big brother to keep the bullies away, though I guess I didn’t really need help with that.

  “But,” she added, “you’re also kind of like a little sister sometimes.”

  From the table across the room, Vasil let out a sharp laugh. I glared at him. What in Erotokomos’s shimmering mane was this? Did they have some kind of inside joke that I wasn’t aware of? Were they making fun of me?

  “Little sister?” I asked.

  Kasia looked at the floor. “Uhhh…”

  “Sometimes Kasia has to act like the big sister,” Vasil said. “Like with that drunk.”

  I thought about that for a moment. Maybe they were right. Maybe sometimes I needed someone to let me know that perhaps I didn’t have to kill certain people. Even though they definitely deserved it. And maybe I should have killed him.

  “He was rude!” I blurted out, trying to defend myself.

  “People usually don’t kill people for being rude,” Kasia said.

  “And I didn’t.”

  “But you were going to.”

  “Totally wasn’t.”

  Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. Probably wasn’t. All this could have been prevented by him not being a dick. Once again I was reminded just what a bunch of dicks a lot of the people in this country were. Then again, back home I suppose there was no shortage of them either.

  I raised my finger. “I was actually doing a public service. By showing him the error of his ways I have allowed him to become a better version of himself. A kinder version.”

  Kasia turned slightly. “How would killing him make him a better person?”

  “Okay, first of all, I wasn’t going to kill him. Second of all…” I was going to say a dead person is better than a bad person, but that would basically be the same as saying I was going to kill him. Clearly that wasn’t going to help my point.

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  “...Second of all, the threat of death is a powerful tool,” I said, finally finding a way to spin it. “He’s going to go home, look in the mirror, and think ‘Gee, maybe I should try being nice once in a while.’”

  “If he wasn’t too drunk to remember any of this even happened,” Vasil said.

  “Anyway, enough about my charitable work,” I said, standing up and checking my hair in the mirror. Still amazing. “Let's get going. We’ve got quests to quest.”

  Kasia got up and smiled. “Thank you, Hecate. Also for the gear and... everything.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said, waving it off. “You’re a really good person, Kasia. You deserve to have nice things. Hopefully, the leather will keep you from getting hurt, too.”

  Kasia looked at me with that reverent look in her eyes again, and tears started welling up. I could feel the awkwardness rising in my chest. I’m good at a lot of things. In fact, I’m good at most things, but dealing with crying people is not one of them.

  I grabbed her hand before she could actually start sobbing.

  "Kasia, you can’t keep getting emotional every time I do something nice for you," I said, my voice probably sounding a bit more frantic than I intended. "Doing nice things for each other is normal. You’re part of my team. You’re my friend. Maybe you're even sort of like my little sister... but definitely not my big sister!"

  She sniffed and snorted a laugh at the same time. "I know," she whispered. "It’s just... nobody ever..."

  "And also, I don't know how to respond if you're crying," I interrupted. “It makes me feel very awkward when people are crying. It even makes me feel awkward when I’m the one crying.”

  “You… cry?”

  “No!” I sighed. “Sometimes.”

  I quickly pulled on my mask, welcoming the familiar, itchy barrier between me and the rest of the world. Maybe this mask wasn’t so bad after all. The itch was a small price to pay for the feeling of disconnect it gave me. It was like putting a wall between my feelings and the rest of the world. When I had the mask on, I didn't have to worry about my expression or whether my eyes were twitching from the awkwardness.

  We headed downstairs. The place was busy with the breakfast crowd. I marched straight to the far wall where the quest board hung.

  I scanned the notes, hoping to find something easy with a big reward. I was about to ask Kasia if she’d spotted anything good, but remembered she couldn’t read. Maybe I should teach her. Maybe Vasil could, he did have that teacherly vibe about him. She’d probably like that.

  Most of the quests didn’t give any good rewards, or seemed like a lot of work. Now, I wasn’t opposed to hard work, but I didn’t want to do hard work.

  One of them caught my eye, and I pulled it off the board. “Rescue cat from tree. Reward: Vortex rune.” A rune for simply grabbing a cat from a tree seemed like exactly the kind of job I liked.

  I opened the satchel slightly. “What does a Vortex rune do?”

  “It steals a percentage of mana per hit,” Vasil whispered. “It’s a rare rune. Only slightly less rare than Steel.”

  “Alright, I’m definitely taking this one then.” I put the note in the satchel. “But I doubt that will take us very long, so I’m grabbing another one.”

  I scanned a bit more. “Deliver package. Deliver person. Deliver some rocks. Why are there so many deliver quests? If I wanted to be a mailman I would have chosen [Postwitch]. If that was a thing.”

  I tapped my chin. “Clear out dungeon. Reward: Wave rune. Keep anything you find in the dungeon.”

  “That could be a good one,” Vasil said. “Wave gives Attunement. It’s an uncommon rune.”

  “Yeah, but clearing a whole dungeon sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Sounds like a lot of potentially easy experience.”

  He had a point. What’s the worst that could be in a dungeon? Especially if the reward was just an uncommon rune. I mean, even grabbing a cat from a tree paid better, so this must be a piece of cake.

  I pulled the note from the board. “You’re right. Free experience and a free rune that matches my build.” I paused. “These two still don’t sound like they will take a lot of time.”

  “You could always take a delivery quest to complete on the way there,” Vasil suggested.

  I groaned. “Really, Vasil? I only have one point in Strength and Stamina, I can’t be carrying things around! If you’d just put in more effort, and had a bigger mouth, this wouldn’t be a problem. you are not pulling your weight for the team!”

  “We’ve been over this!” he said.

  I waved him off. “Yeah, yeah.”

  Kasia pointed at the board. “What about that one?”

  I followed her finger to a note that wasn't like the others. It didn't have a list of tasks or a promised reward. It didn't even have instructions. It just had one word written in jagged, shaky strokes.

  Viswa.

  Below the word was a map, if you could even call it that. It was a crude set of lines drawn in what appeared to be dried blood. There were muddy smudges all over the parchment and splatters of more blood. It didn't look like a quest someone had sat down to write at a desk. It looked like someone had pinned it there while they were dying.

  I pulled it off and brought it to my nose.

  “Don’t lick that!” Vasil said.

  “I wasn’t going to lick it!” I sniffed it instead. Because that’s what I was going to do, because I’m not an idiot. “Smells like blood.”

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