“Hey, gang.” Isaac deposited his heavy backpack near his usual chair, stuffed his gloves into his jacket pockets, and stepped briefly back out into the hall to add his jacket to the coat-rack. He was flushed and shivering, Mark noted; just as well Alexandra didn't need to hunt tonight. Not that cold bothered her much, but it tended to limit her hunting options.
“H’lo,” Val said. “Good, only Dana left, and if she doesn't show soon, I'm sending out the dogsleds. Gods, it's cold out there.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Kettle's on in the kitchen,” Christian said. “There's hot chocolate and half a dozen kinds of tea on the counter, and enough mugs and spoons for everyone.”
“Thoughtful, aren't you. Thanks.” Isaac left for the kitchen, and returned with a steaming cup; Mark saw marshmallows peeking over the top. He set it on the table, and started unpacking his books and papers and his contribution to the junk food. “Whoever doesn't like you still hasn't given up, Chris.”
Christian looked up from scanning over his notes, expression turning wary. Mark tensed; what now?
“Why?” Eric asked. Val's hands tightened around her tea until the knuckles whitened, and Sara stopped flipping through a handful of paper and putting the maps of the levels in order, so she could watch Isaac.
“My mom's a by-law enforcement officer. They've been getting calls asking whether you're legally allowed to do this or that. Stuff like running a business out of your home, or living here when it isn't yours. Most of them have been pretty flimsy. Mom and the others have been telling them to get a life. You aren't doing anything to violate any by-laws anyway, I would've warned you if you were, but Mom recognized your name and the address from when she gave me a ride a couple of times and asked if I knew if there might be someone out to get you. Same someone starting all the nasty rumours, I figure.”
Christian sighed. “Yes, there is, but I'd rather not get into details,” he said tiredly.
“Sure, it's your life, just thought I'd let you know what's going on. They can't do anything, really. It's your grandfather's house, if he chooses to let you live here that's your business and his. You're making sure the yard gets mowed and the house is in good shape and everything, and I assume the taxes are getting paid. What you're doing is pretty small by business standards anyway, but in this city, as long as you don't have a sign up bigger than an average sheet of paper or so, and aren't disturbing your neighbours, you can do what you want. They might be able to get you audited, if they try. Have you been claiming everything you make?”
“Yes, and I have the records of who's paid me what,” Christian said.
“Then you're free and clear. Mom has friends. She's making sure the cops don't take the cult rumours seriously.” He shrugged. “She trusts me and my judgement, and they listen to her. Which is good, because there are a half a dozen unexplained disappearances in the last couple of years. Not that anyone's looking too hard, since the ones who vanished were all violent troublemakers, but they'd like to have an explanation. Anyway. Unless a dissatisfied customer wants to press charges for fraud and has some kind of proof that you didn't do something you claimed you could and would do, there's not a thing anyone can do to you legally.”
They'd just have to live without an explanation; Mark was hardly about to tell the police what had happened to the missing men, or why they'd never find them.
“That's good to know,” Christian said. “They have to run out of angles of attack sooner or later.”
“Don't these people have anything better to do with their time?” Val grumbled.
“We can wish,” Eric sighed.
Dana's arrival distracted them all, and the conversation shifted to less stressful subjects, while Dana got herself a cup of tea and unpacked her gear.
“Everybody settled and got your brains thawed out?” Christian asked.
“Would feel more settled if it were a little warmer in here,” Val said.
“It's just 'cause the front door's been opened and closed so much. It'll warm up fast, you'll see.”
Mark had no doubt it would, especially with Chris mentally bumping the temperature in this room a couple of degrees the first chance he got to concentrate.
“Okay, where were we?” Dana asked. “Sara, you have the maps?”
Sara spread her meticulous dungeon maps so the others could see them, and pointed to a small star. “There's where we camped.”
They worked their way through the dungeon, somewhat hampered by the disorienting black-and-white checkerboarding of walls and floor and ceiling that made it difficult to see side-passages and what lay ahead.
“You come to a large square room,” Christian said. “Same black and white stones. It's pretty much featureless, except that dead centre across from you, there's a humanoid figure made of what looks like bronze. Behind it you can see the edges of an archway. In front of the figure is a grey stone pedestal, and on this side of it, there's a couple of steps up to it.”
Sara looked down at the map, and frowned. “Chris? Are the stones the same three feet on a side?”
“They look identical,” Christian confirmed.
“And, oh, if I were to count them, would I get eight on a side?”
“Yes, you would.”
“This is the last room, guys. It fills up the last open space on the map. That door behind that thing has to be the way to the next level.”
Eight on a side, like a chess board. The final room. Definitely time to be careful and assume nothing.
“I'm going to walk over and take a closer look,” Dana said. “Not touching anything.”
“Hm. You're human... what, about five-foot-six?”
“Five-five, actually.”
“The top of the pedestal is over your head, you can't see what's on it from here. The bronze figure is so large that you come just about to its lower ribs. If it had ribs. It looks like a very detailed human male, in simple armour.”
“I'm going to climb up the steps.”
“Dana, don't!” Eric said urgently. “Let me check for magic... oh shit.” He sighed, when he saw Christian's expression. “Too late?”
“Well, you said it, but the cleric is already going up the stairs.”
“Oh no,” Isaac groaned.
“I'm inching back towards the door,” Val said. “First sign of trouble, and I’m gone.”
“The top of the pedestal is engraved with a grid,” Christian said. “There are figurines on it, incredibly detailed, half made of what you recognize as alabaster and half out of jet or something similar. To one side is a very small gold hourglass, about so big.” He reached into the cardboard box next to his chair, and set an egg-timer-sized hourglass on the table.
When Chris started adding props, something important was coming. Dana looked like she was enjoying this, even knowing she was doing something that, in-character, was stupid. Mark had watched them all do it at times, deliberately taking risks and flirting with danger; he didn't need Alexandra's senses to recognize the signs of increased adrenaline when it happened.
It really was amazing that humans had managed to dominate the physical plane so heavily, given all their odd and sometimes self-destructive behaviour.
“Hey, guys!” Dana said. “There's a chess board up here! I'm going to pick up one of the pieces for a closer look.”
“Uh-oh,” Sara moaned. “I'm trying to stay between Eric and the pedestal. At least I might survive something dangerous.”
Christian reached down into the box again, and produced the chessboard from the living room, made of two colours of wood. He opened it, dumped the pieces on the table, and put the board down, then began to set up the pieces, the darker ones toward him. “Mark, switch with Dana for the moment, please?”
Mark obligingly took his character sheet, just in case, and moved to Dana's chair, letting her have the one beside Christian.
“Please tell me you can play chess,” Eric said.
“Um, not well,” Dana said.
“Oh, great.”
“Show me which piece,” Christian said. “The rest of you start writing notes—from the minute she touches the chess piece, she can't hear any of you, but you can still hear each other.”
“Which means no advice,” Eric muttered. “Oh, this is not good.”
Dana gazed at the board briefly, then picked up the queen. “If this board is carved the way you said, she's probably pretty impressive.”
“The bronze figure opens its eyes, and says, 'Illegal move.'”
“Um, I'm going to put it back where it was and get out of here.”
“You can't see anything there, but you feel a perfectly smooth, curved wall around you, open only on the side towards the pedestal so you can reach the chess board. And you notice the silence.”
“We're yelling things at you, very obviously,” Val added.
“Under you,” Christian said, “a bronze panel slides back, and what looked like a textured bronze floor is suddenly a sturdy bronze grating, with darkness below it. The panel was just beneath the grating. Follow me?”
Dana nodded. “Okay, I'm in very very bad trouble.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I can't walk away, and this thing is presumably not doing anything else,” Christian nodded, “so I guess I'm going to have to move a piece.”
“Show me.”
Mark nibbled a fingernail, watching the board. Presumably their characters couldn't see it, so they couldn't offer any advice even by gesture. Probably just as well—he could very clearly imagine the antics that would create.
Dana moved a pawn.
“The bronze figure makes its own move in return,” Christian did so, “and then turns over the hourglass.” He flipped the little egg timer.
Christian was, by Mark's understanding, a mediocre chess-player. If Eric had been the one playing, it would've been no contest; as it was, there were bound to be repercussions when Dana lost.
A few moves in, Dana hesitated, while the timer ran out.
“Your character just had a large volume of very cold water pour over her from somewhere above,” Christian told her.
Dana made an interesting growling noise, but made a move.
The threat of the water, the pressure of the timer, being isolated, didn't exactly create an ideal environment even for a good player; Dana was right, she wasn't one. She got “soaked” twice more, and finally lost.
The invisible wall freed her cleric, and she fled from the pedestal gratefully, but the entire party had to fight a medium-hard monster that materialized in the room.
“My turn,” Eric said confidently. “I'm going to walk up to the pedestal.”
“Get up here, then.”
Eric and Dana traded, and in no time, Eric had won, without the timer running out even once.
“The bronze figure steps sideways, leaving the archway open,” Christian laughed.
Much later, everyone said goodnight.
Eric, thanks to some arcane in-family negotiations, had recently acquired a car that one of his cousins had been intending to sell, which had instantly made life simpler. He offered to drive everyone home, rather than leaving them to brave the bitter cold of midnight, and Christian and Mark began to clean up.
“You are just too weird,” Mark said.
“Maybe Dana's cleric shouldn't have been in such a hurry to be the first one up to the chess board, should she?”
“Granted, not her brightest move. Tell me something. I keep seeing the others do things in the game that would be incredibly foolhardy in real life. It's pretty obvious that it's fun for them to do. What is it with humans and self-destructive behaviour?”
“That's kinda complex psychology. Mostly what it boils down to, in my experience, is that everyone has both violent and self-destructive behaviour somewhere inside. Pretending otherwise is stupid, because it just gets out of control that way, or tips other things out of balance. If you choose things that let you play with those tendencies safely, though, they're nothing to worry about, and it can be intense. Like when your instincts get all stirred up. Role-playing is one form.” He grinned. “Sex with a blood-drunk lamia you know would never hurt you is another form. Anyway. There's a lot more to it, but with a group that's this stable and intelligent, it's mostly a matter of doing things that you would never do in real life, and enjoying the thrill of pretending to be in danger. It's a way of playing with instincts that evolved over thousands of years, but that we can't use in such literal forms in real life.”
Mark shook his head. “Humans should logically be extinct. You're all crazy.”
“Quite likely. Wait until you get down another level or two, if you think they've been bad so far. C'mon, admit it, you were having fun.” He deposited the glasses, mugs, and bowls in the sink, and turned on the water.
“All right, I have to admit, it is fun.”
“You like my weirdness and you know it.”
Eric returned, and joined Christian and Mark in gathering up the books strewn all over the dining room table, to return them to the den. “Ye gods, it's bitter out there, I'm glad I didn't let anyone walk home. So, where are these missing troublemakers?”
“Missing,” Mark said. “You already know too much about it. I will tell you that the city and the world are better off without them. Just a little less rape, abuse, and general viciousness.”
“I can't see you being that altruistic.”
Mark paused to look at him. There was a chance of the truth upsetting either of his humans, but he wasn't about to lie to them. “If you want a herd to flourish, you don't over-hunt it, and you only cull out the sick, so the healthy can breed. Antisocial behaviour weakens the herd a thousand times more quickly than any physical illness.”
“Then you're going after the mildly ill and letting the truly sick get away,” Eric said dryly. “Considering that a polluted and depleted habitat will weaken the herd even faster than individual acts of violence.”
“I know,” Mark growled. “But there are too many of them, and they're too visible, and most of the real sources are too far away. Not all lamias have that instinct as strongly and some see things differently. I'm doing what I can in this city that won't lay a trail back to you two.”
Christian gave him a mischievous grin. “If most humans are a wild herd you're trying to keep healthy, does that make Eric and I domesticated? And are we pets or breeding stock?”
“Oh, so that's why he helped you learn to shapeshift to female,” Eric teased. “I mean, you have to have one of each to breed. I think I need to practice.” He groped Christian's rear, and the witch squeaked. “Seriously, I'm getting that tired feeling again.”
Mark switched to Alexandra, whose instincts promptly informed her that Eric's energy levels were low; low enough that, with anyone else, she wouldn't feed from him unless she intended to kill. Jade's kitsune-kit wasn't taking dangerous amounts, but she was getting close to term, and it was better all around if they stayed on top of it.
Christian had done some experimenting, inevitably. The new static house spell he’d created, designed specifically and purely for Eric’s gifts to seize on and use as a battery at need, had needed a little tweaking, but they’d latched on more quickly than they probably had to the shields and heating spell so Christian considered that a success. That worked by itself to a degree that would keep Eric and Alexandra safe from each other, but if Christian was present and deliberately boosted the power levels above what was possible for an automatic background spell, it drove off the fatigue that was increasingly making itself felt. As witchy solutions went, it was elegant and efficient and rather fun to implement.
“You lost more,” Christian confirmed. “But we can take care of that. Just give me long enough to be a girl and I’ll come join you.”
“You don't need to,” Eric said. “You're still you, either shape, and just 'cause I generally only react to female bodies doesn't mean I have a problem with male ones.”
Alexandra regarded them both with interest. This could prove to be intriguing.
“Choose a bed,” Christian laughed. “And let's see what happens.”
“Hey, gang.” Isaac deposited his heavy backpack near his usual chair, stuffed his gloves into his jacket pockets, and stepped briefly back out into the hall to add his jacket to the coat-rack. He was flushed and shivering, Mark noted; just as well Alexandra didn't need to hunt tonight. Not that cold bothered her much, but it tended to limit her hunting options.
“H’lo,” Val said. “Good, only Dana left, and if she doesn't show soon, I'm sending out the dogsleds. Gods, it's cold out there.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Kettle's on in the kitchen,” Christian said. “There's hot chocolate and half a dozen kinds of tea on the counter, and enough mugs and spoons for everyone.”
“Thoughtful, aren't you. Thanks.” Isaac left for the kitchen, and returned with a steaming cup; Mark saw marshmallows peeking over the top. He set it on the table, and started unpacking his books and papers and his contribution to the junk food. “Whoever doesn't like you still hasn't given up, Chris.”
Christian looked up from scanning over his notes, expression turning wary. Mark tensed; what now?
“Why?” Eric asked. Val's hands tightened around her tea until the knuckles whitened, and Sara stopped flipping through a handful of paper and putting the maps of the levels in order, so she could watch Isaac.
“My mom's a by-law enforcement officer. They've been getting calls asking whether you're legally allowed to do this or that. Stuff like running a business out of your home, or living here when it isn't yours. Most of them have been pretty flimsy. Mom and the others have been telling them to get a life. You aren't doing anything to violate any by-laws anyway, I would've warned you if you were, but Mom recognized your name and the address from when she gave me a ride a couple of times and asked if I knew if there might be someone out to get you. Same someone starting all the nasty rumours, I figure.”
Christian sighed. “Yes, there is, but I'd rather not get into details,” he said tiredly.
“Sure, it's your life, just thought I'd let you know what's going on. They can't do anything, really. It's your grandfather's house, if he chooses to let you live here that's your business and his. You're making sure the yard gets mowed and the house is in good shape and everything, and I assume the taxes are getting paid. What you're doing is pretty small by business standards anyway, but in this city, as long as you don't have a sign up bigger than an average sheet of paper or so, and aren't disturbing your neighbours, you can do what you want. They might be able to get you audited, if they try. Have you been claiming everything you make?”
“Yes, and I have the records of who's paid me what,” Christian said.
“Then you're free and clear. Mom has friends. She's making sure the cops don't take the cult rumours seriously.” He shrugged. “She trusts me and my judgement, and they listen to her. Which is good, because there are a half a dozen unexplained disappearances in the last couple of years. Not that anyone's looking too hard, since the ones who vanished were all violent troublemakers, but they'd like to have an explanation. Anyway. Unless a dissatisfied customer wants to press charges for fraud and has some kind of proof that you didn't do something you claimed you could and would do, there's not a thing anyone can do to you legally.”
They'd just have to live without an explanation; Mark was hardly about to tell the police what had happened to the missing men, or why they'd never find them.
“That's good to know,” Christian said. “They have to run out of angles of attack sooner or later.”
“Don't these people have anything better to do with their time?” Val grumbled.
“We can wish,” Eric sighed.
Dana's arrival distracted them all, and the conversation shifted to less stressful subjects, while Dana got herself a cup of tea and unpacked her gear.
“Everybody settled and got your brains thawed out?” Christian asked.
“Would feel more settled if it were a little warmer in here,” Val said.
“It's just 'cause the front door's been opened and closed so much. It'll warm up fast, you'll see.”
Mark had no doubt it would, especially with Chris mentally bumping the temperature in this room a couple of degrees the first chance he got to concentrate.
“Okay, where were we?” Dana asked. “Sara, you have the maps?”
Sara spread her meticulous dungeon maps so the others could see them, and pointed to a small star. “There's where we camped.”
They worked their way through the dungeon, somewhat hampered by the disorienting black-and-white checkerboarding of walls and floor and ceiling that made it difficult to see side-passages and what lay ahead.
“You come to a large square room,” Christian said. “Same black and white stones. It's pretty much featureless, except that dead centre across from you, there's a humanoid figure made of what looks like bronze. Behind it you can see the edges of an archway. In front of the figure is a grey stone pedestal, and on this side of it, there's a couple of steps up to it.”
Sara looked down at the map, and frowned. “Chris? Are the stones the same three feet on a side?”
“They look identical,” Christian confirmed.
“And, oh, if I were to count them, would I get eight on a side?”
“Yes, you would.”
“This is the last room, guys. It fills up the last open space on the map. That door behind that thing has to be the way to the next level.”
Eight on a side, like a chess board. The final room. Definitely time to be careful and assume nothing.
“I'm going to walk over and take a closer look,” Dana said. “Not touching anything.”
“Hm. You're human... what, about five-foot-six?”
“Five-five, actually.”
“The top of the pedestal is over your head, you can't see what's on it from here. The bronze figure is so large that you come just about to its lower ribs. If it had ribs. It looks like a very detailed human male, in simple armour.”
“I'm going to climb up the steps.”
“Dana, don't!” Eric said urgently. “Let me check for magic... oh shit.” He sighed, when he saw Christian's expression. “Too late?”
“Well, you said it, but the cleric is already going up the stairs.”
“Oh no,” Isaac groaned.
“I'm inching back towards the door,” Val said. “First sign of trouble, and I’m gone.”
“The top of the pedestal is engraved with a grid,” Christian said. “There are figurines on it, incredibly detailed, half made of what you recognize as alabaster and half out of jet or something similar. To one side is a very small gold hourglass, about so big.” He reached into the cardboard box next to his chair, and set an egg-timer-sized hourglass on the table.
When Chris started adding props, something important was coming. Dana looked like she was enjoying this, even knowing she was doing something that, in-character, was stupid. Mark had watched them all do it at times, deliberately taking risks and flirting with danger; he didn't need Alexandra's senses to recognize the signs of increased adrenaline when it happened.
It really was amazing that humans had managed to dominate the physical plane so heavily, given all their odd and sometimes self-destructive behaviour.
“Hey, guys!” Dana said. “There's a chess board up here! I'm going to pick up one of the pieces for a closer look.”
“Uh-oh,” Sara moaned. “I'm trying to stay between Eric and the pedestal. At least I might survive something dangerous.”
Christian reached down into the box again, and produced the chessboard from the living room, made of two colours of wood. He opened it, dumped the pieces on the table, and put the board down, then began to set up the pieces, the darker ones toward him. “Mark, switch with Dana for the moment, please?”
Mark obligingly took his character sheet, just in case, and moved to Dana's chair, letting her have the one beside Christian.
“Please tell me you can play chess,” Eric said.
“Um, not well,” Dana said.
“Oh, great.”
“Show me which piece,” Christian said. “The rest of you start writing notes—from the minute she touches the chess piece, she can't hear any of you, but you can still hear each other.”
“Which means no advice,” Eric muttered. “Oh, this is not good.”
Dana gazed at the board briefly, then picked up the queen. “If this board is carved the way you said, she's probably pretty impressive.”
“The bronze figure opens its eyes, and says, 'Illegal move.'”
“Um, I'm going to put it back where it was and get out of here.”
“You can't see anything there, but you feel a perfectly smooth, curved wall around you, open only on the side towards the pedestal so you can reach the chess board. And you notice the silence.”
“We're yelling things at you, very obviously,” Val added.
“Under you,” Christian said, “a bronze panel slides back, and what looked like a textured bronze floor is suddenly a sturdy bronze grating, with darkness below it. The panel was just beneath the grating. Follow me?”
Dana nodded. “Okay, I'm in very very bad trouble.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Well, I can't walk away, and this thing is presumably not doing anything else,” Christian nodded, “so I guess I'm going to have to move a piece.”
“Show me.”
Mark nibbled a fingernail, watching the board. Presumably their characters couldn't see it, so they couldn't offer any advice even by gesture. Probably just as well—he could very clearly imagine the antics that would create.
Dana moved a pawn.
“The bronze figure makes its own move in return,” Christian did so, “and then turns over the hourglass.” He flipped the little egg timer.
Christian was, by Mark's understanding, a mediocre chess-player. If Eric had been the one playing, it would've been no contest; as it was, there were bound to be repercussions when Dana lost.
A few moves in, Dana hesitated, while the timer ran out.
“Your character just had a large volume of very cold water pour over her from somewhere above,” Christian told her.
Dana made an interesting growling noise, but made a move.
The threat of the water, the pressure of the timer, being isolated, didn't exactly create an ideal environment even for a good player; Dana was right, she wasn't one. She got “soaked” twice more, and finally lost.
The invisible wall freed her cleric, and she fled from the pedestal gratefully, but the entire party had to fight a medium-hard monster that materialized in the room.
“My turn,” Eric said confidently. “I'm going to walk up to the pedestal.”
“Get up here, then.”
Eric and Dana traded, and in no time, Eric had won, without the timer running out even once.
“The bronze figure steps sideways, leaving the archway open,” Christian laughed.
Much later, everyone said goodnight.
Eric, thanks to some arcane in-family negotiations, had recently acquired a car that one of his cousins had been intending to sell, which had instantly made life simpler. He offered to drive everyone home, rather than leaving them to brave the bitter cold of midnight, and Christian and Mark began to clean up.
“You are just too weird,” Mark said.
“Maybe Dana's cleric shouldn't have been in such a hurry to be the first one up to the chess board, should she?”
“Granted, not her brightest move. Tell me something. I keep seeing the others do things in the game that would be incredibly foolhardy in real life. It's pretty obvious that it's fun for them to do. What is it with humans and self-destructive behaviour?”
“That's kinda complex psychology. Mostly what it boils down to, in my experience, is that everyone has both violent and self-destructive behaviour somewhere inside. Pretending otherwise is stupid, because it just gets out of control that way, or tips other things out of balance. If you choose things that let you play with those tendencies safely, though, they're nothing to worry about, and it can be intense. Like when your instincts get all stirred up. Role-playing is one form.” He grinned. “Sex with a blood-drunk lamia you know would never hurt you is another form. Anyway. There's a lot more to it, but with a group that's this stable and intelligent, it's mostly a matter of doing things that you would never do in real life, and enjoying the thrill of pretending to be in danger. It's a way of playing with instincts that evolved over thousands of years, but that we can't use in such literal forms in real life.”
Mark shook his head. “Humans should logically be extinct. You're all crazy.”
“Quite likely. Wait until you get down another level or two, if you think they've been bad so far. C'mon, admit it, you were having fun.” He deposited the glasses, mugs, and bowls in the sink, and turned on the water.
“All right, I have to admit, it is fun.”
“You like my weirdness and you know it.”
Eric returned, and joined Christian and Mark in gathering up the books strewn all over the dining room table, to return them to the den. “Ye gods, it's bitter out there, I'm glad I didn't let anyone walk home. So, where are these missing troublemakers?”
“Missing,” Mark said. “You already know too much about it. I will tell you that the city and the world are better off without them. Just a little less rape, abuse, and general viciousness.”
“I can't see you being that altruistic.”
Mark paused to look at him. There was a chance of the truth upsetting either of his humans, but he wasn't about to lie to them. “If you want a herd to flourish, you don't over-hunt it, and you only cull out the sick, so the healthy can breed. Antisocial behaviour weakens the herd a thousand times more quickly than any physical illness.”
“Then you're going after the mildly ill and letting the truly sick get away,” Eric said dryly. “Considering that a polluted and depleted habitat will weaken the herd even faster than individual acts of violence.”
“I know,” Mark growled. “But there are too many of them, and they're too visible, and most of the real sources are too far away. Not all lamias have that instinct as strongly and some see things differently. I'm doing what I can in this city that won't lay a trail back to you two.”
Christian gave him a mischievous grin. “If most humans are a wild herd you're trying to keep healthy, does that make Eric and I domesticated? And are we pets or breeding stock?”
“Oh, so that's why he helped you learn to shapeshift to female,” Eric teased. “I mean, you have to have one of each to breed. I think I need to practice.” He groped Christian's rear, and the witch squeaked. “Seriously, I'm getting that tired feeling again.”
Mark switched to Alexandra, whose instincts promptly informed her that Eric's energy levels were low; low enough that, with anyone else, she wouldn't feed from him unless she intended to kill. Jade's kitsune-kit wasn't taking dangerous amounts, but she was getting close to term, and it was better all around if they stayed on top of it.
Christian had done some experimenting, inevitably. The new static house spell he’d created, designed specifically and purely for Eric’s gifts to seize on and use as a battery at need, had needed a little tweaking, but they’d latched on more quickly than they probably had to the shields and heating spell so Christian considered that a success. That worked by itself to a degree that would keep Eric and Alexandra safe from each other, but if Christian was present and deliberately boosted the power levels above what was possible for an automatic background spell, it drove off the fatigue that was increasingly making itself felt. As witchy solutions went, it was elegant and efficient and rather fun to implement.
“You lost more,” Christian confirmed. “But we can take care of that. Just give me long enough to be a girl and I’ll come join you.”
“You don't need to,” Eric said. “You're still you, either shape, and just 'cause I generally only react to female bodies doesn't mean I have a problem with male ones.”
Alexandra regarded them both with interest. This could prove to be intriguing.
“Choose a bed,” Christian laughed. “And let's see what happens.”
