To say I was disoriented after waking up would be an understatement.

  Ves’s small home was dark - almost as dark as the cave had been, if not for the one window with the curtains partway open that allowed a sliver of sunrise through. Compared to my bedroom back on Earth, in which there were countless lights from my alarm clock, computer, power strips, and various other electronics, the difference was… well, practically night and day.

  And then, of course, there was the catgirl that was currently spooning me.

  It wasn’t unpleasant at all, but unexpected. I shifted a tiny bit, and felt Ves’s arm and leg hold me tighter. My mind started to overthink the situation: why is she doing this, why am I concerned about it, does this mean she “likes” me, is this a cultural thing, how can I make sure I don’t embarrass her or myself…

  While my brain was working overtime, I instinctively reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to check the time. That was a mistake: the time was still about fourteen hours ahead (or ten hours behind?), and the movement made Ves stir and groan.

  “Nnh… what’re you doin’...”

  “Ves? What’s going on?” I noticed that the battery was nearly in the single digits, so I shut the phone off completely. Thanks for your help in the cave, old friend.

  “Tryin’ to sleep…”

  I tried to sound as casual as possible. “Uh… why here?”

  She yawned (right next to my ear) and released me. “You just fell asleep right away. Didn’t even take your armor off.” Her voice became even quieter than before. “You looked kinda… uncomfortable. And I thought you might get cold, but I didn't have a blanket, so…”

  “You don't have a blanket?”

  Ves sat up and stretched. I saw that was wearing a simple brown nightgown that nearly reached her ankles. “I have a down quilt that I use in the winter, but the rest of the time, I don't really use a blanket. …It would have been too warm for you. Especially with your armor on, dummy.”

  “Oh, okay… Thanks, Ves.”

  “Just makin’ sure you got enough rest. Feeling better?”

  After a good yawn, I got up and stretched. “A little sore, but yeah, a lot better.”

  A genuinely happy smile grew on Ves’s lovely face. “Good! We’re going to see what you can do with your class today, and get in some practice for me, too.” She checked some cupboards, but didn’t find anything. “Ugh. Is your offer to buy breakfast still on the table?”

  “Hell yeah. Least I can do.”

  “Okay, great. I’d pay, or split the cost, but I need to use my reward money to get some new equipment.” She picked up her robes, which were just piled on the floor. “These just aren’t working for me. Uh, turn around for a minute.”

  I did as Ves asked, and heard her changing into the robes. It was definitely nice that she could use magic to almost instantly clean our clothes and gear. One less thing to worry about.

  Once she was ready, we left her house. It was still in the early stages of sunrise, but there were already people working, including carpenters, farmers, and bakers. The smell of bread was tempting, but it felt like a better idea to get some protein and not fill up on bread and sweets before our first real day working together.

  It was much colder than it had been the previous afternoon. Wonder how the seasons work here. Might need to get some cold-weather clothes before long.

  We walked to the inn where I had been treated to lunch - one of the tradeoffs for having a pleasant, quiet village seemed to be a lack of dining variety. The kind innkeeper who served me the day before wasn’t around, but a stocky, bald man with a thick beard, a scar across his face, and an apparently permanent frown emerged from the kitchen when we arrived.

  “Ves, a pleasure as always.” His expression and tone didn’t fit his words at all. “Guessing you stopped by to pay off your tab?”

  “Ahhh, right, that.” She gave me a brief embarrassed look. “Uh, Tabur, if we can pay for breakfast now, can I pay the rest back later?”

  The irritated man only replied with his consistent frown.

  I grabbed my coin pouch. “How much does she owe?” Ves tried to stop me, but Tabur interrupted her and told me the price in copper coins. I looked into my pouch and asked Ves about the conversion rate between copper and silver coins.

  “No, Jeremy. This isn’t your problem.”

  “Well, even if Tabur here lets me pay for my own breakfast…” His unchanging demenor made me unsure of that. “...I still need my partner to eat something before we get to work today.”

  Tabur answered for Ves. “Ten copper to a silver. Same with silver to gold.”

  I had enough to cover Ves’s tab, but wouldn’t have a whole lot left afterward. I rounded up and handed over just silver coins to Tabur. “Keep the change. Will that cover breakfast for us today, too?”

  One side of Tabur’s mouth actually curled up just the tiniest amount. I half-expected his skin to crack. “And then some.”

  “Well, keep it. We’ll be coming back here a lot, I think, so consider it… a reward for your patience.”

  Tabur told us to take a seat, and it wasn’t long before he brought out some plates filled with eggs and bacon. Ves still hadn’t said anything, and looked a little uncomfortable.

  “You really didn’t have to do that.”

  I swallowed a bite of food. “What was it you told me yesterday? ‘We’re helping each other out,’ ‘stop making such a big deal out of everything’, et cetera?”

  She smirked. “Cute.”

  “You said you needed the money for your gear, which is important to me, too. Ah, right - can you explain the whole deal with your robes?”

  Ves replied in-between mouthfuls of bacon and eggs. “They’re the same as your armor there. Got ‘em when the Goddess gave me the class. They’re supposed to act as a focus for my magic, but to me, they’re just uncomfortable and a pain to move around in.” She squirmed in her seat.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “So you need something else to wear that can still work as a focus, right?”

  “Right. So it’s gonna be more expensive than regular clothes, especially since there’s not a lot of demand for that sort of thing in Perrenbrook. Hopefully I can find something decent here, so we can make some more money, and maybe buy something better elsewhere in the future.”

  I could get behind that. Buying lower-end gear to essentially level up and farm some cash to afford better gear? I’d been practicing that for years, and I didn’t even know it.

  We finished our food and I stood up from the table. “Alright, which way to the shop?”

  Ves motioned for me to sit back down. “Hey, Tabur!”

  I turned to see the stocky man approach, carrying a couple of plates for another table. He grunted at Ves, who continued.

  “I’m looking for some new gear. Got some time this morning?”

  Tabur glared at Ves briefly before walking past her. He dropped off the plates at a nearby table with an elderly pair of long-bearded dwarves, then returned to ours. “Free now. C’mon.”

  Ves told me to wait for her, and followed Tabur out of the dining area and around a corner. Guess he runs a clothing shop on the side?

  The other innkeeper, the middle-aged woman, appeared a minute later and offered me some tea. I learned that her name was Yrin, and we chatted for a bit, before she had to take care of some other business.

  Fifteen or twenty minutes later, as I was taking another sip of tea, I heard Ves behind me. “Hey, time to go!”

  I turned and coughed up some of my tea.

  Ves’s bulky robes had been replaced by a very form-fitting, halter neck white dress that clung to her skin in ways that seemed impossible - it had to have been some kind of magic or enchantment on the clothes. Other than a pair of long, white gloves, her arms and shoulders were bare. Her generous breasts were fully covered, but prominently displayed. I could see her trim waist flare out into her shapely hips. Below that, the dress was shorter than I ever expected, revealing a few inches of her thick, creamy thighs. The rest of her legs were encased in a pair of stockings and thigh boots (both white, of course; there was definitely a theme to this outfit).

  Something else was impossible to not notice: Ves had a calico-furred tail swaying behind her. It made sense, but this was the first time I’d seen it. And it was really cute.

  She was trying not to laugh. “You okay?”

  I cleared my throat. “Wrong pipe. That looks… amazing. How do you feel? is it comfortable?”

  “Surprisingly, yeah. I’d heard rumors about Tabur having some kind of class, but didn’t realize he was some kind of enchanter, or… clothes-mancer. I thought he’d just take my measurements for now.”

  Normally, I never leer or stare at women, but my resolve was being tested with the sexy calico woman in front of me. I wanted to go find Tabur and give him a hug almost as much as I wanted to give one to Ves. “I like your tail, by the way.”

  The tail swished back and forth. “That was the worst part about the robes! Not to say anything bad about the Goddess, but having one type of robe for every Vitality Mage is just… ugh. Tabur was able to add an opening, and it feels so much better.” Ves spun around to show me. The bottom of her dress barely extended past the bottom of her perfect ass.

  I desperately had to change the subject. “It’s been a good morning so far, so let’s see if we can keep it going. Where to next, the Adventurer’s Network?”

  Ves crossed her arms, pushing up her breasts slightly. “Actually, is it okay if we go back to the cave for a bit? I wanted to check out that rune again.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to returning to that place, at least, not so soon. However, as an adventurer, I knew I’d have to spend a lot of time in undesirable places - may as well get used to that sooner rather than later. “Sure. Hey, are there any maps of the cave? Might be nice to have just in case.”

  “Don’t think so. You already saw most of it, anyway. There’s not much.”

  “Still… is there a place I could buy some paper and charcoal? Not just for a map - I could use it to make a rubbing of the rune. We’d be able to reference it anywhere we want.” What I really wanted to do was just take a picture of it on my phone, but while there was enough battery to do that, we wouldn’t be able to look at it much. Not to mention the fact that it’d be hard to explain if we wanted to show the picture to anyone else.

  Ves needed to get a new torch anyway, since she didn’t want to have to focus on magical light in case she needed to cast anything else. She led the way to the general store, where I got the parchment and charcoal. As I looked around at the other items on display, I wondered what else might be useful for adventuring. Probably a lot of stuff I’d never thought of. Stuff that gets ignored or glossed over in games and movies. It was irrelevant, anyway, since money was tight after paying off Ves’s tab. It was time that we got going.

  ***

  As we traversed through the cave again, I stopped every so often to add to my map. It looked awful, especially as I was having to hold the parchment up against the cave walls to draw. Ves looked kind of annoyed at the frequent stops, but didn’t say anything. “By the way, does this place have a name?”

  “If it ever had a real name, I don’t know it. People just call it the ‘Starting Cave’, since it’s where the new adventurers go first.”

  I wrote Starting Cave at the top of my map, and then nearly laughed at how bad it looked. The first tunnel was so much bigger than the others, because I didn’t plan ahead and ran out of parchment. I would have just made a quick second draft, but didn’t want to keep Ves waiting any longer.

  “Do you think that the Seekers came here to get the corpse?” It had just hit me that it must be in especially bad shape now, and since it was so close to the rune, there’d be no avoiding it.

  “Not a chance. You’ll see.” Soon, Ves entered the chamber with the rune - where I had first appeared - and held the torch out. All that was left of the adventurer named Gev was some dried blood staining the cave floor, including the blood that had revealed the rune. “The cave rats work fast. They eat like crazy, so when there are too many of them, they leave the cave and attack animals in the forest. Ignore that for too long, and they’ll start going after farm animals and unlucky people who are outside at night.”

  “Damn. We should try to take some out before we leave.” I drew one of my daggers, just in case I was caught by surprise again.

  “Good idea. Who knows when there’ll be new adventurers here. The only time the Network pays for killing regular cave rats is when they need to send a request for adventurers to another town.” Ves crouched down by the rune and held out her hand. She furrowed her brows as she focused, but soon relaxed as a light appeared in her palm, followed by the bloodstains. They quickly vanished, leaving no trace. Wonder if it’s easy for Healers to get away with murder, or if that would make a crime scene look too clean.

  “How was it? Casting a spell with your new outfit.”

  Ves stood back up and pumped her fists. “Better! Not, like, significantly, but better. Being comfortable helps.”

  I sniffed the air - the bleach smell was barely noticeable. “Hey, that is better. Nice work!”

  She grinned widely. “It’s still supposed to be a basic spell. Something I should be able to do without even thinking about it. I’ve got a ways to go, but man, making any progress feels great.”

  Her excitement was infectious, and her smile was a thing of beauty. But as lost as I was in her eyes, something caught my attention. “Ves…” I pointed to the rune. It was glowing, but so faintly that it was almost impossible to tell even with just the torchlight. Taking the torch from Ves’s hand, I stepped out of the chamber so that the glow might be more visible.

  “Whoa.” Ves crouched down again, but by then, the glow had faded entirely.

  I stepped back into the chamber. “Was that a… lingering effect of the cleaning spell?”

  “I don’t think so. Let me try something else.” Ves held out her hand once more, and focused on the rune carved into the ground. Her palm filled with light, and her expression grew more and more intense as she continued sustaining whatever spell she was casting. Or trying to cast. I backed up again, and soon we could see the pale glow on the rune again.

  A bead of sweat ran down Ves’s face. The light in her palm flickered, and she growled with frustration, then stopped casting altogether. “Fuck!”

  “You okay?”

  “This has to be an actual rune. It’s reacting to my magic. I just… I can’t… damn it!” She rose to her feet and slammed the nearest wall with the sole of her boot. The sound echoed around the small chamber.

  “Ves, for all we know, it can only be activated by some kind of elite wizard. You know, maybe it’s impossible for all but the one who created it, or something like that.”

  “...Maybe.”

  I knew she was thinking along the lines of “or maybe I just suck”, but it felt best to leave it alone… or just leave the cave entirely. Then I remembered to make my charcoal rubbing first. With that done, I asked Ves what she wanted to do next.

  “Let’s just kill some stupid rats and get outta here.”