Second Skin: Unified: A litRPG Adventure (Second Skin Book 3)

by M Damon Baker

  The rest of that day passed almost normally, and when it was time for bed, I curled myself around Tási and clung to her tightly. Although we had been around each other for the past few days, I might as well have been absent due to my preoccupation.

  “Lay down,” Tási whispered to me. “You’re an absolute mess. I’ll put you to sleep.”

  I let go of her and rolled onto my stomach and Tási began to knead at the bundle of knots in my neck and shoulders. The tension inside me melted away under her fingers and the sensation of warm flowing water that she channeled into me. As she washed away my burdens, Tási leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before she whispered softly in my ear.

  “Stop torturing yourself,” she soothed as she added even more calming influences into her gentle waters. “I’ve accepted what’s to come. You’re only making it worse for both of us.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tási,” I cried when I recognized the truth in what she had said.

  “Shh,” Tási hushed me before I could continue. “No more—no more guilt, no more anxiety. Just do what you have to do and come home to me when it’s over.”

  “I will,” I promised her through my tears.

  She didn’t say anything else after that, she only fed me even more of her soothing waters and sent me into the night with gentle waves of relief.

  I started the next morning with a few quick stops in the valley before I dragged myself to Ella’s house. Although I was determined to follow Tási’s advice, and simply do what was required of me without wallowing in my guilt, it wasn’t easy. When I knocked on the door Ella answered almost immediately, and I had to start our first session on a rather harsh note.

  “For fuck’s sake, Ella, how difficult are you trying to make this for me?”

  “What?” She replied in apparent confusion as she stood in front of me in her flimsy night dress.

  “Put some damn clothes on!”

  “Oh,” she blushed. “I thought it would be easier this way.”

  “Not for me,” I told her bluntly. “Not unless you’re trying to turn this into something more.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll go get dressed,” Ella replied quickly.

  Her tone was odd, and I couldn’t decide whether or not she had intentionally worn the thin dress that barely concealed her shapely figure. If she had, it was a rather sudden change in attitude from the very reluctant stance she’d had before—a change that I realized might actually benefit both of us.

  “Ella,” I called out to her. “Can I join you?”

  “Sure, come in,” she replied from her bedroom.

  She was almost dressed when I got there, but I stopped her from going any further.

  “That’s good enough for now,” I told her. “Lay down. It will be easier for you that way.”

  Ella only had her boots left to put on, so she did as I instructed and lay atop the bed. As she fidgeted nervously, I placed my hand on her arm and spoke to her before I began.

  “Ella,” I said to her as calmly as I could. “I need to ask you something before we start.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “You can ask me anything.”

  “Did you do that on purpose?” I asked her.

  “I... I don’t know what you mean,” she stuttered.

  “I thought you might have. Now I’m sure of it,” I sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered. “I don’t know why I did it. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

  “Ella,” I said as I took a deep breath. “It will be easier for me to do what I need to if I don’t have to hold back my desires the whole time, but that can… no, that will become very intense for both of us. It may lead you to do things you might not otherwise want to do. So, the decision is yours to make. Do you want to proceed cautiously, or was it your intention to be more… bold?”

  “I…,” Ella blushed. “I’m not sure I’d say bold, but I’m willing to let things go wherever they may.”

  “I understand,” I smiled at her warmly. “But there is one more thing. I think you already understand this, but I need to make sure that it’s perfectly clear.”

  “What we do here is between us, and us alone,” I told her as I looked into her eyes, letting her see the conviction in my words. “Not a hint of this gets out. No one must ever learn of what we do, especially not Tási. Do you understand?”

  “Is it wrong?”

  “No, Ella, it’s not,” I assured her. “But it would hurt her deeply, and as much as I want to help you, I’m not willing to make her pay that price.”

  “I understand, I think,” Ella replied.

  “Then I’ll begin. Slowly,” I said as I trickled a tiny tendril into her.

  I tried to restrain most of my passions, but I let some of them flow along with the tentative thread. Ella reacted immediately, and even with my eyes closed as I concentrated on the tendril inside her, I felt her body tense and heard the soft gasp that escaped her lips.

  There was far more passion that I was holding back, more than she could handle at the time. Yet even that thin thread, and the sliver of desire that slid through her with it, easily kindled Ella’s urges. I barely had time to begin my probe of her before it was clear that it was time for me to stop. Ella’s body was quivering next to me, and if I held her any longer, it would be more than she could bear. So, I withdrew the thin strand, and with it, the power of my presence within her.

  “Is that what it’s like?” Ella asked breathlessly after a moment.

  “That was a taste of it,” I said as I brushed her hair aside from her face. “There’s much more, but you’re not ready for that yet.”

  “I want it,” she practically demanded. “I want it all. When can I have more?”

  She reminded me of Tási just then. Like in the early days when I had been helping Tási after she had saved Venna, she had been overcome with the desires that were inherent in my touch, and lost focus on our true purpose.

  “Ella,” I tried to calm her. “You will have more, a great deal more. But only in time, and only when you’re ready for it. Remember why I’m here, and why we’re doing this—our goal is to heal you, to rein in your anger. The rest will come with that, I promise you, just be patient.”

  “That’s not going to be easy,” she confessed.

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” I told her. “But ultimately, this will be easier than trying to do it while I’m holding back.”

  “I felt you… inside me,” Ella whispered in amazement.

  “I know, I was there,” I smiled back at her.

  “How were you able to stop?” She asked. “There’s no way I could have done that.”

  “It took a very long time for me to gain the level of control I have now,” I told her. “A very long time, and I still have a long way to go. I don’t think you need to achieve that same level of discipline, and I hope that with my help, you can get where you need to be much more quickly.”

  “When can we do this again?”

  “In a day or two,” I promised her. “You need time to recover, and I don’t want to give you too much too soon.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Ella assured me.

  “You better be,” I offered her with a grin.

  I left her to rest for a while before she headed off to the Garrison, and I continued on my rounds in the valley before I also went in that direction. Ella was waiting for me in the training area when I arrived, and our daily sparring went as usual, although instead of parting in frustration, Ella favored me with a smile as she left.

  Over the next two weeks, I tended to the affairs of my growing community, and continued Ella’s care. Our time together grew more intense with every meeting, and it wasn’t long before our mornings together turned into very passionate affairs. She was a woman who had been deeply wounded, and when she finally found someone who made her feel whole again, she dove into our relationship with abandon. But even though our desires were being satisfied, I had trouble delving into her deeply enough to find the source of her p
ain. I knew it was there, and I could even sense it at times—it was almost as if she clung to it and kept it away from me on purpose, and the morning that I realized that she was doing precisely that, I confronted her.

  “You’re doing it on purpose!” I spat at Ella when I walked into her room where she was waiting for me. “You’re shielding your pain from me so I can’t find it.”

  “No!” Ella pleaded. “If you fix it then you won’t ever come back to me again!”

  “Ella,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “If you ever want to see me again, you’re going to lay down right now and let me do what needs to be done.”

  “But then it’s over,” she cried. “I can’t do that.”

  “It won’t be over, Ella,” I soothed her. “I think we both know that, but I won’t need to see you as often, and you’re going to have to accept that.”

  “Do you promise?” Ella begged me.

  “Yes, I do,” I told her. “I may heal you today, but your wound will still need to be tended from time to time. Your pain will fade, Ella, but I will always be there for you when you need me.”

  She reluctantly accepted my words, and once she lay on the bed, I pressed my hand to her chest, just above her heart. I had delved into her like this several times but had never managed to reach her core. This time, however, she didn’t try to hide from me, and when I felt myself slipping inside her, I located her cracked and broken center almost instantly. Unlike Tási’s core, Ella’s was a perfect sphere of bright light—uniform and singular in its essence, save for its single gaping flaw.

  A deep fissure of angry red magma erupted from inside the otherwise perfect circle. Hot, fiery vapors leaked out from the deep crack, poisoning everything around it. This was the wound that had been inflicted on Ella, the ugly consequence of the vile act that had been perpetrated on her. I dove towards the seething pit almost recklessly and poured all my energy into sealing the deep rent on her soul.

  My efforts yielded some results but were not entirely successful. Despite the raw power that I funneled into it, the wound was simply too much, too deeply entrenched, for me to heal in any single attempt. So, when I was spent and had nothing left to give, I slowly withdrew from her. As I took a final glance back before pulling away, the gash was still there, poisoning her soul as it had for years, but it was smaller, and obviously less powerful than it had been before.

  The effort was almost completely draining, and when I came back to myself, I was exhausted from the strain. Ella had not been spared either, and the toll on her had been even greater. Unlike when I had delved into Tási, Ella was overcome by the process, and had fallen into a deep sleep. I checked over her carefully, and only once I was certain that she was indeed only asleep and not in some other, more dire, condition, did I leave her to her rest.

  As I wandered down the path towards the Garrison, I pondered just what I had done. Healing such a deep, almost indelible wound was an amazing thing, and despite how tired I was from the effort, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment and joy, but my sense of pride was dampened by the cost. Not in the exertion that had been required of me, or even Ella, but the price that my healing had taken on Tási. She didn’t know the specifics of course, and never would, but she wasn’t completely oblivious either. If I could have done what I did for Ella without the more romantic components, I absolutely would have, but the deep connection that I was required to forge between us to reach her damaged core inexorably drew us towards that end. There was simply no way to delve inside her so intimately without the emotional complications, and once those connections had been made, they could not simply be abandoned. Despite what I had said to Ella before, I knew that we would always remain linked together by those bonds, even if she didn’t need me to heal her. Our fates had been bound together, beyond her need to be cured.

  My tour that day was half-hearted, and I returned home early after skipping several of my last stops. We had our weekly meeting scheduled for the next morning, so even if there were any issues that needed my attention, they would not be neglected for long. After I spent an awkwardly silent evening with my companions, I retired early, lying to them very poorly about being tired as I went upstairs. Tási followed me almost immediately and joined me as I got into bed.

  “Something happened today,” Tási commented as we settled in. “I know I said I don’t want to know about these things, but whatever it is, its bothering you, so if you need to talk, I’m here for you. All I ask is that you leave out the details.”

  “I found her core,” I blurted out.

  “It took longer than it should have,” I continued, leaving out the reason why. “But I finally reached it and was able to begin truly healing her today.”

  There was more to my story, and Tási knew it, so she simply nodded for me to continue with my explanation.

  “I thought that would be the end of it,” I confessed to her. “I mean, I’m not done yet, but I always thought that once I fixed what was broken inside her, that I could let her go and that would be it. I realized today that it’s not that simple—delving inside her created a link between us, nothing like the bond that you and I share, but it’s still a powerful connection—one that I probably cannot break.”

  “No, you probably can’t,” Tási’s reply surprised me. “And I understand your need to help Ella. Just remember this in the future. Remember the cost you must pay, the cost we must pay when you choose to heal someone in this manner. Make sure it’s truly worth it for the both of us before you consider doing this for anyone else.”

  Her words were not filled with anger or jealousy, only compassion and understanding. It reminded me of her precaution after our battle with the Black Hand orcs. She had told me then, in words that I still remembered vividly, that the dead heal no one, a precaution meant to remind me that, before I acted, I needed to consider the consequences I would suffer, not only the results I was trying to achieve. Ignoring pain that I might be able to alleviate would not be an easy thing for me to do, but perhaps, if I followed Tási’s advice and also considered the pain I might inflict, it might be a little less difficult.

  There was nothing left to say after that, so I simply folded myself around her and tried to clear my mind of all its confused and conflicted thoughts. The task proved nearly impossible, but eventually, the exhaustion of the day won out, and I drifted off to sleep.

  16

  After breakfast the next morning, my companions and I left to attend one of our weekly meetings. For the most part, these had been rather routine affairs, and all our projects, from the continued construction of more housing in anticipation of new arrivals to the development of our military, were proceeding well. So well in fact, that Evans felt we were ready to open up our outpost along the main trading road and was already considering several candidates for command of the facility. So, the revelation of that morning’s conference took me by surprise.

  “We’ve found silver in the mines,” Broda declared almost before everyone was in their seats.

  The room fell silent as everyone absorbed the impact of her statement. We all knew that word of our new realm was being spread, and that the news might cause some of the more established Kingdoms to move against us, but if word of this discovery got out, the likelihood of one of them seeking to take us over would rise to a near certainty.

  “Which mine, and who knows about this?” I asked her as my mind wrestled with the implications.

  “Both of them,” Broda replied. “There are thick veins in both mines. As for who knows, the miners of course, but I’ve managed to keep it limited to just them. They understand what this could mean just as well as you do.”

  “Where have you been keeping the ore?” Stel asked.

  “Most of it’s still in the rock,” she said. “They’ve uncovered quite a bit but haven’t extracted much of it yet. I thought it would be best for us to figure out where we’re going to put it, before we pulled it out.”

  “We already have too much of our treasure i
n the Garrison’s vault,” Stel replied. “Has Ridge completed the Palace depositories yet?”

  There were rather extensive secure storage facilities planned within the Palace, and fortunately, Ridge had already built them during the many weeks he and his assistant had been working on the construction there.

  “Good,” Stel responded when I told him so. “Then we will transfer it to the Palace vaults. Secretly, of course, at least for now. Perhaps disguised as construction material for Ridge?

  “I can do that,” Broda offered. “We can cover it with some rock dust while we bring it over. No one should be the wiser, even if they get a good look.”

  “What then?” Venna asked.

  “Why, we start minting our own coins, my love,” Stel grinned. “Every Realm needs at least one source of income. I think we’ve just found our first.”

  That was yet another momentous step for our Realm, one that would mark us both as a nation, and as a target. I only hoped that we could maintain our undiscovered status long enough for us to gain enough strength to withstand the inevitable challenges we would face.

  “We need to start paying the miners,” I broke in after I had a moment to ponder. “They’ve essentially been working for little more than room and board, but that’s simply not sufficient anymore. They’re employees of the Realm, just like the soldiers are, and we need to treat them accordingly.”

  “What do you suggest?” Broda inquired.

  “I have no experience with such things,” I replied candidly. “So, I will leave that up to you and Stel, but whatever you decide, make it retroactive to the day we started paying our military. It’s only fair.”

  A few eyebrows were raised at my suggestion, but no objections were made, so with the matter settled, at least for a while, we moved on to other things.

  “I thought that I had the best news of the day,” Venna pouted, “but I guess not. The inn is finished, and Travis and the others are negotiating with the herdsmen and farmers for provisions and have already secured a contract for a steady supply of ale from Shelt. They assure me that they should be ready to open for business within a week.”