After watg Alicia disappear into her Heart Tree, Katrina walked downstairs aled onto the cou the living room. She’d only been up for a few hours and had the rest of the night to herself, but wasirely sure what to do with her free time. They had their Delving Lises, they’d found another Delver to help them with the Key Dungeon, and they’d even itted to being partners.

  Ihan a week, Katrina’s entire life had been turned upside down. It was a twist of fate she’d never so much as dreamed might be possible for her, a here she was. A promisiionship, a Delving party, she’d eve a bunch of new people in her ret travels.

  I wonder if any of them would be ied in staying in touch. Especially Elias, the Mermaid, he seemed really excited for a ge of pace. They were all really nice, and I bet Alicia would appreciate some extra pany now and then.

  Katrina decided it would be worth sending follow-up messages to everyone she’d met the other day. With her focus turo thoughts of productivity, she ended up with a small list of tasks that she would o take care of before they started delving in ear. Unfortunately, everything she could think of required her to be at home. With a regretful sigh, she texted Alicia a quick expnatory text and made her way to the train station.

  Although she’d previously been flyiween her home and Alicia’s, flight required a small amount of mana. With the threat of bat in the very near future, she knew she o serve her resources as much as possible. As a Regen Bard, she was their only source of healing, and running out of HP Regen in the middle of a dungeon would be catastrophically bad.

  Thankfully, this far from the city, the trains were pretty empty. Katrina was able to find a er seat, aled in to wait for her stop. She briefly wondered how much mana she’d used to keep Alicia’s SP up, when another realization dawned on her.

  I’ve been using Css Features! That means Css Progress!

  Calling up her Status S, Katrina quickly checked her Level Progression. For the st several years, she’d been stuck at 5% through Level 2. After the st few days, however, she was now at 61%. Her MP, however, had fallen to 72%.

  Wow, that’s more than I was expeg. I guess Alieeded a lot of help, though; I ying for quite a while yesterday. Still, my MP is lower than I’d like, especially given that we haven’t even started training or delvi. Once I hit Level 3, I unlock Bardic Spellcasting, which will be a huge help in the Dungeon, but how will I sustain all that mana usage? I o keep Regen up on Alicia and Tabitha, but also have enough for Spells when necessary. I ’t cast anything until I practid codify my spells, though, which costs even more mana…

  Katrina’s excitement over her Level Progression faded quickly as she started thinking about her mana problems. She’d always hoped that, when she joined a Delving team, she would be something like a flex support, adoptiactics to suit whatever problem came her way. With her current party, however, she was being forced into the role of a main healer, despite how ill-suited she was for the task.

  I probably shouldn’t sweat about this quite yet. We haven’t even had our first official pnning session with Tabitha, so I’m not sure what she’s capable of.

  It wasn’t long before Katrina made it home. She felt strange walking up the stairs rather than flying to her window, but her SP was the most disposable of her stats. If nothing else, the fresh blood she grabbed from her fridge tasted all the sweeter after the long hike.

  She moved to her desk, turned on her puter, and got to work. She sent emails out to everyone she’d met with the other day, thanking them for their time, but also extending invitations for tinued unicatio, she started digging through lists of different vendors that worked at the Dungeon Camp, and finally found the taformation for the lovely Alchemist that had sold them a Stamina Potion at Camp: Kevin the Owl Beastkin. She thanked him for his kindness, and shared that they’d made it home safely because of him.

  Once she’d finished all her messaging, she returo the folder with all her delving resources. It was currently saved only to her puter, and she wao ge that. She uploaded everything she had to the cloud, but also saved extra copies directly to her pho took some creative reformatting to get everything to make sense on a smaller s, but eventually she had an easily readable pn for future Css Levels aures.

  Her work at the puter finished, she shut it down and started ing her apartment. She’d been spending much less time at home retly, aerday she hadn’t even e home. In weeks and months prior, her existential exhaustion had made it difficult to care about the state of her house. Now? She felt oddly motivated to put everything in order.

  She put new sheets on her bed for the first time in months, threw the old sheets in the undry pile, then ran downstairs to put everything in the wash. She also finally sorted through the clothes from earlier in the week, taking the opportunity tanize her ste while she put everything away. Some shirts were meant for hangers, others o be folded, and she had aire drawer just for her jeans. It was in the middle of folding a pair of socks that she paused, taking a moment to examine what she was doing.

  When was the st time I folded socks? Or cared about how my closet was?

  When she’d first moved to the city, Katrina had instantly fallen in love with this apartment. Sure, it was small, and it had been difficult to fortably invite all her friends over, but it was hers. She got to live in the heart of civilization, to work and strive alongside millions of other people just like her.

  After the ge, she’d routinely spent months away from home. Traveling from town to town, doing everything in her power to stay out of sight. Whey had been recimed, and the blood rationing program had been instituted, she finally had the ce to return and try to rebuild her life. But she hadn’t returned home, not really. Any positive emotions this apartment had once held had vahe night of the ge.

  The ughter of friends no longer blessed these halls. The smell of home-cooked meals no longer filled the air. Whereas ohis apartment had held the vibrant life of Katrina the Human, the ge had tur into a cold prison for Katrina the Vampire.

  Every single day that passed had been filled with long, agonizing stretches of painful hunger. Powerful, haunting remihat she could lose trol at any sed, surrender trol to the murderous instincts inside of her. She’d felt trapped, uo do anything but gh the motions of the desiccated facsimile of her prior life. It was no wonder she’d never cared about ing up after herself.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when her phone vibrated; Alicia had just texted her.

  Why is she awake?

  It was a simple text, just an aowledgement that she’d received Katrina’s previous message about possibly not being there in the m. It had also been an answer, not to any specific question, but to Katrina’s wandering train of thought.

  Why did she care about her apartment noas she b to ge her sheets and fold her socks?

  It was all because of Alicia.

  Katrina smiled. She had someone in her life she cared about, who cared about her back. Someone she felt fortable around, who knew how hard the ge had been for her, and still wanted her around. Before putting her phone ba her pocket, Katrina paused while looking at her lock s.

  A picture of herself, taken about a year before the ge, stared back at her. Her Human self had sported unreasonably rge gsses, bright green eyes, and vibrant red hair. Her life hadn’t been perfect, but she’d been happy with herself.

  Katrina had never bothered to ge the picture after the ge. Why would she? She hated the person she’d bee, the things she’d done because of her Race. As small a thing as it was, the picture on her lock s had been a stant remihat, at one point, she’d beeed about the future. She’d made vacation pns with friends, wrestled with what she wao do for a living. She’d been alive.

  Not anymore. As a Vampire, Katrina was quite literally dead. Undead, specifically, but she never bothered to care about the difference. Over the years, she’d learhrough various forum posts that many Undead Races saw signifit decreases in their ability to feel emotion, with some g that their feelings had vanished pletely.

  The thought had always scared her. Without her feelings, without the specter of her guilt hanging over her, how many more people would she have hurt?

  For the loime, she remained unsure if her Undead status had affected her emotions. After all, ever sihe ge, she’d only had oiny sliver of happiness in her life; the month she’d spent with Sera. Even that time had been taihough, as she’d been keeping the nature of her Vampiric Curse a secret. It had been a hollow emotion, forced te only surviving through the denial of who she really was.

  Because of Alicia, Katrina now knew what the answer was. She khat the ge hadn’t stunted her ability to feel happiness, empathy, or love, because her heart was filled with it. For the very first time, Katrina the Vampire had hope for the future.