“Of course I picked the Harem-Master subclass. …Yeah. I know how that sounds.”

The apartment feels almost absurdly small after everything it took to get here.

And still, somehow, it feels bigger than the room at the Feisty Dwarf ever did.

Kit and Raka are already standing by the little wooden table like they built the place with their own hands, both of them trying not to look too pleased with themselves and failing badly. Kit’s fingers trail across the smooth surface with open satisfaction, while Raka folds her arms beside her, wearing the kind of quiet pride that sits deeper than a grin.

The meal is simple, but careful. Rich stew. Fresh bread. A few herbs from a tiny pot on the windowsill that Kit is already pretending she didn’t choose specifically because it made the place feel lived in.

Perri settles close, bowl in both hands, her eyes moving from the food to the table to the curtains to the narrow balcony beyond them like she still doesn’t trust any of it to stay real.

“This is...” she whispers, almost afraid of the words. “Home.”

Kit’s amber eyes soften at once. “Yeah,” she says. “A place for all of us.”

Raka nods once. “Somewhere to rest. Heal. Grow. And keep each other safe.”

That does something to the room. Or maybe to us. The bond answers with a warm, quiet pulse, and for a second none of us says anything at all.

I sit back in my chair and let myself look at it properly. The small kitchen. The table. The closeness of the walls. The beginning of something that actually belongs to us.

Then I lift my cup.

“To family,” I say. “To us.”

They echo it softly, and the toast feels bigger than the room can hold.

Dinner stretches after that in the way good dinners do. Kit tells some ridiculous story from the market with just enough embellishment to make Raka roll her eyes. Raka gives her own blunt assessment of Perri’s training, protective even when she tries to sound practical. Perri listens with both hands around her bowl, still shy, still new, but smiling more now, speaking when she has something to say instead of shrinking out of the space entirely.

By the time the meal winds down, the candles have burned lower, the stew is gone, and the apartment doesn’t feel strange anymore.

Just full.

And sitting there with all of them in the candlelight, I know what it is.

Not an inn room. Not just an apartment.

Home.

For a while, none of us seems in any hurry to break the spell. Kit gathers bowls with that lazy grace of hers, pretending she isn’t mostly stealing chances to brush against me on the way past. Raka clears the heavier things without a word, solid and certain as ever, already moving through the apartment like she means to guard every inch of it. Perri hovers between helping and simply taking it all in, wide-eyed every time she glances toward the big bed like she still can’t believe it’s ours.

By the time the last dish is set aside, the room has gone quieter. Not empty. Not awkward. Just charged in a softer way now, with candlelight flickering against the walls and the kind of warmth that doesn’t come from the stew.

The first night settles around us slowly.

Not with urgency.

Something softer. Deeper. The kind of warmth that comes when a space finally belongs to the people inside it.

Candlelight flickers low across the apartment, warm amber catching on fur, skin, and the folds of new blankets. The big bed takes up almost too much of the room, a ridiculous, wonderful thing, all fresh linen, soft weight, and the faint scent of lavender still clinging to it. Bigger than anything we’ve ever had.

Big enough for all of us.

Kit is the first to sink into it fully, laughing under her breath as she stretches across the blankets like she means to claim every inch. Raka follows with slower certainty, one arm hooking around her waist almost immediately and drawing her in with that low pleased rumble that always seems to start in her chest before it reaches her throat.

I settle in beside them, and for a little while the room narrows to touch.

Kit’s fingers drift over me with lazy familiarity, light and teasing, while Raka’s warmth presses in close from the other side, steady and possessive in the way only she can make feel safe. We move together easily, not rushed, not performed, just us, learning the shape of this new bed the same way we learned the shape of everything else, by touch, by closeness, by trust.

When we finally pull apart a little, breathing easier, the room feels warmer than before.

That’s when I notice Perri.

She’s near the doorway, half-hidden by her own hesitation, cheeks pink, ears trembling, watching us with wide eyes that can’t decide whether to flee or stay. There’s shyness there, of course. Awe too. But under both of them, through the bond, I feel something sweeter and sharper.

Curiosity.

Wanting.

The sight of us together doesn’t send her running.

It draws her closer.

Kit notices first. Her expression softens at once. “You’re part of this now, Perri,” she says, voice gentler than her smile. “It’s yours too.”

Raka shifts up onto one elbow and reaches for Perri, brushing a stray lock of hair back from her face with a clawed hand made impossibly careful. “You don’t have to be scared.”

Perri swallows, eyes flicking to me.

So I reach out and lift her chin gently, just enough to meet those big green eyes.

She’s trembling.

Not because she wants to pull away.

Because she doesn’t.

When I lean in, she makes the softest sound, and her first kiss is light and fluttering, hesitant enough to break if I push too hard. So I don’t. I let it stay small. Sweet. Let her feel the choice in it. Let her settle into it instead of getting swept under.

The bond answers in a quiet shimmer of warmth that runs through all four of us at once.

When our lips part, Perri’s blush deepens until we all feel it. Her voice is barely more than a breath.

“My first.”

The morning light seeps softly through the curtains, brushing warm stripes across the bed and the tangle of bodies still half-buried in blankets. I stir slowly, still heavy with sleep and warmth, and the first thing I notice is what’s missing.

Perri.

I blink, glance down, then around. “Perri?”

Kit lifts her head first, hair a silver mess, while Raka grumbles low in her chest and squints toward the empty space beside us.

A soft clatter answers from the kitchen.

That gets all three of us moving.

By the time I sit up and drag myself free of the blankets, the smell hits first, fresh bread, herbs, and something warm and savory curling through the apartment. Perri is already at the little stove, small and bright-eyed, standing on the edge of her toes as steam rises from a pan and a squat kettle breathes spice into the air.

She turns when she hears us, cheeks warm, smile brighter than the room.

“Good morning,” she says. “I wanted to make breakfast for everyone.”

Kit leans against the doorway and smirks. “Look at that. Little bunny’s already making herself indispensable.”

Raka folds her arms, but her eyes go soft. “Smells good.”

Perri ducks her head a little, pleased and shy at the same time. “I’m ready,” she says. “Mana full... heart full.”

That one almost gets me.

I just stand there for a second, watching her move around our kitchen like she belongs in it.

And maybe that’s because she does.

The first few mornings in the apartment are chaos in the sweetest possible shape.

Perri starts waking before the rest of us, buzzing with the kind of domestic determination only a brand-new bunny priest with a full heart could manage. The first breakfast is half-burned toast and eggs salted like she’s trying to preserve them for winter. The second is better, mostly because Raka decides to help, which somehow creates an entirely different kind of disaster: one giant wolfkin trying to work a pan with all the delicacy of a siege engineer. Kit spends most of those mornings leaning in the doorway, arms folded, dry amusement dripping off every word. “If we all die,” she says one morning, eyeing the blackened bread, “at least breakfast killed us first.” By midweek, though, Perri finds her rhythm. The toast stops burning. The eggs stop fighting back. One morning she puts sweet rolls on the table. Another, berry tarts. And the look on her face when all three of us go quiet and actually eat for a second is worth more than the meal.

Every afternoon, we go back to the Slime Meadows.

At first it still feels a little ridiculous, a bunny priest and a thorn revenant turning low-tier slime grinding into a structured campaign. But the results are hard to argue with.

Ed is worse than ever in the best way, looming just behind the fight line like some impossible garden nightmare, his rose-thorn vines lashing out whenever a slime gets too close, ripping them away from Perri without taking the kill for himself.

Day by day, she stops reacting like prey. By the third afternoon she’s planting her feet, snapping Sacred Flame out with enough confidence to burst slimes mid-hop before they can smear her. She still gets stuck once, fully and gloriously, blue goo clinging to her from the waist down while she flails and curses with all the dignity of a wet kitten. I end up wading in laughing to haul her free, and through the bond I catch the first clear little pulse of thought from her, warm and mortified and entirely unfiltered.

“I hate this... but I love leveling…”

That gets me badly enough I nearly drop her back in.

The week keeps moving like that, mornings at home, afternoons in the Meadows, evenings folding us back together again.

At night the apartment softens. Kit sprawls across the harem bed with a book she only pretends to read half the time. Raka sits nearby brushing out her fur with that same steady seriousness she brings to sharpening her axe. Perri takes to sitting cross-legged on the floor with the Ashwood Prism Staff across her lap, polishing it like it’s something sacred.

We play dice sometimes. Kit teaches Perri how to cheat almost immediately. Perri tries it exactly once, fails completely, and looks so stricken when we catch her that Raka actually laughs hard enough to bare every tooth in her mouth.

And every night, when the candles go low and the Harem Bed starts humming softly under us, Perri curls up against my chest like she belongs there now. She still blushes when the bond warms with the ambient heat between all of us, still goes very still when curiosity gets tangled up with shyness, but she never pulls away. She just listens to it, to us, to the way belonging feels when it stops being theory and starts being a body around you in the dark.

By the end of the week, she hits Level 7.

Not because the Meadows got easier. Because she mastered it. Her timing sharpens. Her chanting gets cleaner.

The HUD blooms open in front of me, blue light across my sight, and when the level jump hits, I feel it through the bond before I finish reading it. More weight in her. More steadiness.

On the seventh night, after dinner, we end up sprawled across the ridiculous oversized bed with the apartment warm around us and the windows cracked just enough to let the night air in from the balcony. Perri curls against my bare side with a little sigh, one hand resting lightly over my ribs like she’s checking that I’m still real too. The bond around her feels stronger now, brighter, less frightened. When the thought comes through this time, it isn’t shaky. We all hear her.

“I don’t feel small anymore,” she says softly through the bond. “I feel... like I belong.”

That quiets the whole room.

Because I feel it too.

The week of rest is over. The week of building is over. What comes next is going to need more than comfort, more than slime-level confidence, more than warm mornings and crowded dinners and nights full of soft breathing.

Tomorrow, things get real.

The apartment goes quieter after breakfast.

Not silent. Just thinner somehow, the warmth of food and morning chatter fading as the truth of the day starts settling over all of us.

Kit and Raka linger nearby, pretending to tend gear that won’t leave its sheath today, both of them listening too closely to be subtle about it. Perri sits on the edge of the bed with her Ashwood Prism Staff across her lap, small hands folded around it so tightly her knuckles almost disappear. Her ears stay low. Her breathing doesn’t quite settle.

She knows.

I crouch in front of her, slow and steady, until those big green eyes have nowhere else to go but me.

“Today isn’t slimes,” I say. “Today isn’t safe.”

Her fingers tighten.

“Kobold Caverns is different. It’s dark. Loud. Tight. You’ll hear things in there you haven’t heard before. Screaming. Metal on stone. People panicking. People bleeding. That place breaks rookies.” I hold her gaze. “It’s supposed to. It’s where adventurers stop being children.”

Perri swallows hard. “I... I won’t have you there, will I?”

I shake my head once. “Not in the fight. We still can’t step in, not without gutting your XP. I’ll be right there. Watching. Coaching. But the fight itself?” I tap the end of her staff lightly. “That belongs to you and Ed.”

Her voice shakes when it comes out. “What if... what if they kill me?”

I take her chin gently and make her keep looking at me.

“Then we fail,” I say. “All of us.”

That cuts. I let it.

Then I keep going before fear can root too deep.

“But listen to me, Perri. You have everything you need to live. You’re fast. You’re smart. You’ve got light in your hands and more spine than you think. That dungeon is going to try to tell you you’re weak. It’s going to try to make you feel small. Like prey.” My thumb brushes lightly at the line of her jaw. “You’re not prey, little rabbit. You’re pack. You’re ours. And if you fight like hell, you walk out of there stronger than you’ve ever been.”

Kit moves first, sliding in behind her and wrapping warm arms around her shoulders. “Fear’s part of it, Perri,” she says softly. “Fear means you’re alive. Just don’t let it own you.”

Raka lowers herself down too, until her golden eyes meet Perri’s at her level. Her voice comes out low and rough and absolutely certain. “Every kobold in that cave will hate you because you heal. They’ll want you first.” Her lip curls, not in cruelty, but in challenge. “So show them teeth. Show them claws they don’t think you have.”

Perri’s breath catches.

Then the bond flares.

Not calm. Not comfort.

Resolve.

Bright enough that all of us feel it.

She nods once, clutching her staff tighter. “I... I’ll do it. For us.”

Kit kisses the top of her head. Raka grins, small but real.

I rise slowly, looking down at her with pride and that heavier thing underneath it I don’t bother naming.

“Good,” I say. “Then get your head right.”

I glance toward the window, where daylight still spills pale through the curtains.

“Today, you earn Level Eight.”

The cavern mouth yawns like a jagged wound in the earth, cold air breathing out the stench of damp stone, rot, and old blood. The sounds from within are faint but chilling, a distant clatter of chains, sharp yips and screeches that echo like laughter twisted by hunger.

I hate this place.

And I’m not alone.

Several low-level adventurers pace near the entrance, trying to muster the courage to go in. Perri stands near the edge with both hands wrapped tight around her staff. Kit and Raka stay close, silent now, their eyes locked on me.

This is it.

I step away from them and beckon Ed over. He glides into place beside a twisted tree, unnaturally still once he settles, roses glistening with dew like fresh blood. His skull turns slowly toward me, that eternal grin never changing.

I stop in front of him.

“Ed,” I say quietly. “We need to talk.”

He tilts his head. The roses along his spine shift faintly, like they’re breathing. He says nothing. Just waits.

I draw one slow breath.

“Today, she fights. Not us. Her.” My voice stays low, but it tightens all the same. “She has to feel the fear. She has to feel pain. She has to get hit and keep moving. That’s how she survives this. That’s how she becomes strong enough to stand with us.”

My hand closes around his thorn-wrapped arm, squeezing hard enough that I feel the bite of it immediately.

“You will let her fight. You will let her take the hits. You will let her heal through them.”

Ed doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just that silent, waiting grin.

My voice hardens. My palm is already bleeding against the thorns, and I barely feel it.

“But listen to me, Ed... if it’s more than a cut, more than a scratch...” I step closer, almost snarling. “You get to her first. You tear every godsdamned kobold in that cavern to pieces. You rip them apart until there’s nothing left but red pulp and bone. You save her.”

I hold his gaze, even with empty sockets staring back at me.

“Do you understand?”

For a second, nothing moves.

Then his jaw shifts.

One rose blooms darker than the others, petals blackening at the tips, and his voice slips out soft as a thorn dragged over silk.

“...Love.”

Then stillness again.

I stare at him for one long moment before nodding once.

“Good,” I say.

I glance back toward the cavern, toward Perri waiting at its mouth.

“Let’s bring her home.”