Pik couldn’t believe how lucky she was today! She’d finally met the one and only Lyssa up close and in person! An uncontrolled toothy grin spread across Pik’s face and she nearly fell over with dizzy delight at her unexpected stroke of good fortune. Retreating to the spot she’d informed the visiting group she would reside in if they needed her, Pik took to the closest waiting seat, checking to make certain it was dry before sitting down on it. Grin smoothing out, the young goblin returned her gaze out towards the baths hoping to be called on by Lyssa at some point during the demon’s visit…

                “Hmm… what is that?” Pik blinked once, twice, rubbed her eyes with both hands and then blinked again. Confirming that her vision couldn’t be the issue, Pik focused her attention to the group of bathers. Mayv’lar’s silver aura shown dimly, its brilliance almost too faded for Pik’s eyes to perceive. The weakness she could see in the freylar demon’s aura meant only two things. Either he was close to death for some unknown reason, or he’d used up an exorbitant amount of his mana recently. Zavis’ green aura along with Lulu’s blue aura were both as usual, intense and hard to look at. But Lyssa’s aura… Lyssa’s normally brilliant red aura now emanated in a peculiar purple color!

                “Kii’Tar, can I borrow your eyes for a moment?” Pik looked down to her lap and asked.

                “No need to ask. That’s what I’m here for, remember” The fist-sized pale silver creature responded from Pik’s lap. A tail-like appendage sloping back from the top of the hairless humanoid creature’s head arched upward to meet with the tips of Pik’s fingers, offering her his eyes in exchange for a small portion of her own mana. Kii’Tar’s white glowing eyes grew pitch black as Pik’s own purple hues lit up as if a light had been turned on behind her pupils. “You should now see what I see.”

                Pik did indeed see what Kii’Tar saw. She could see Mayv’lar’s silver wyrmling hovering above him and looking like it’d seen better days. She could see the winged green snake flying around Zavis, agitatedly trying to consume the demon’s mana yet being denied at every swoop and dive. Lulu’s fat blue donkey lay sprawled atop the lazy demon’s head, periodically yawning and syphoning in minute amounts of mana from the blue haired demon’s aura. Lyssa’s crimson boar snorted and slapped its hooves against the tile floors of the bath. But most peculiar of all was a new blue mana spirit Pik had not expected to see. Following the boar’s attention, the young goblin perceived the extra spirit. Verbally facing off against the boar, a blue spider-like spirit menacingly waved both its front legs and curved fangs at the boar.

                “Lyssa has two spirits now?” Pik’s voice raised quizzically. But when had this happened. Searching her memory the young goblin couldn’t recall seeing a purple aura hovering around Lyssa in her arena fight a month ago. Sometime between then and the present, this new spirit had come to reside around the red-haired demon.

                “Technically impossible, but not improbable” Kii’Tar chimed in.

                “What you just said… didn’t make any sense.” Pik exasperatedly sighed.

                “It’s impossible for denizens of this world to imbibe the aid of and share their mana with more than one spirit at a time. But if Lyssa happens to be an otherworlder then her existence may be fractured between two dimensions.”

                “Otherworlder? You mean like back when I had both you and Flo with me?” Pik turned her attention from the odd spirit display in the pool and looked back to Kii’Tar. Strange as his appearance was for a mana spirit, without his glowing white eyes he looked horrifyingly ghostly.

                Kii’Tar nodded. “Exactly like that. When a soul is transmigrated over from other dimensions, such as your original Earth dimension, it gains a new mana type while simultaneously retaining its original qualities. That’s why otherworlders tend to be compatible with multiple spirits when they first arrive in Elkan. Elkan’s cycle took claim to your soul after your first life cycle ended and that’s when you lost your Earth mana.”

                “So she was transported from another world? That still doesn’t make any sense… Lyssa’s been in Neth’Lareese for at least fifteen hundred years and this new mana of hers only just appeared!” Though she phrased it to be a complaint, Pik’s interest was piqued.

                “That… I’ve got no answer for.” Kii’Tar announced, reclaiming his eyes.

                “Kii’Tar’s eyes returned to their brilliant white glow while Pik’s returned to their original unilluminated purples. But the young goblin didn’t need to see the supernatural anymore to know that a unique, once in a lifetime situation, was now present before her. She couldn’t afford to lose this opportunity to interact with another otherworlder! Standing and leaving her post behind, Pik dismissed herself from the baths.

                “Where are you going?” Pok demanded as Pik rushed by the receptionist’s counter, the hem of her kimono fluttering in the young goblin’s wake.

                “Sorry mom! I’ve got something I really need to do. Can you ask dad to take over for me please?” Pik breathed, wildly waving a hand while using the other to grab onto the wall and swing herself around onto the stairwell leading down to the lower living quarters.

                “Your father is off who knows where doing who knows what I can’t just ask-“ Pok let out a depressive sigh, realizing her objections fell on deaf ears. “I swear, sometimes I feel like I was cursed with a human child instead of a goblin…” Pushing a button on the reception counter, Pok activated and tested a view screen. Making certain she could see her face and hear her own voice through the screen using a small camera device she held, Pok then left the counter to enter the baths.

               

*             *             *

 

                Flying down two, sometimes three stairs at a time, Pik reached the bottom of the stairwell and pushed open the large iron door that barred the bathhouse from her family’s hidden home. If Lyssa was actually an otherworlder then Pik had an incredible assortment of questions she wanted to ask her. How had Lyssa been summoned to Neth’Lareese? Why now? Was Lyssa planning on going to Elkan and if so could she take Pik along?

                She had an objective but in order to accomplish it, she had to keep Lyssa from leaving right after finishing her bath. That’s why, against her mother’s better wishes, Pik entered her parent’s room and dove under the bed. Pulling out the security box and plopping it onto the bed, she thumbed the dial code into place on the lock and the box’s lid popped open. An assortment of private documents and valuables were exposed to Pik but she only sought one thing. “Sorry mom, I need to borrow this for a bit.” Picking up and examining the master key fob, Pik nodded to herself. Returning the box to its closed state once again, Pik moved to leave the room but stopped at the doorway. She’d almost forgotten to place the security box back under her parent’s bed, her mother would have been furious if she noticed.

                After returning everything in her parent’s room back to as close to an undisturbed state as she could manage, Pik made her way back to the bathhouse reception area. Peeking around the stairwell wall she clicked her tongue. In times past, Pok often forgot to activate the remote reception kiosk. Apparently she’d remembered to activate it properly this time. The device’s motion activated sensors posed a problem. If Pik happened to trigger the sensors, her mother would come back and she’d be busted immediately.

                Keeping a low position, Pik pulled the kimono she wore down over both ears and flattened them against her head in order to make herself appear as small as possible. Following the wall adjacent to the kiosk, Pik cautiously inched her body around the receptionist counter until she had reached the blind spots on the other side. “I’m really glad this isn’t our busy time.” The young goblin released the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding the entire time.

                Creeping over to the main bathhouse door, Pik cracked it open just a sliver in order to check on her mother’s position. Confirming Pok wouldn’t be a problem unless a customer arrived, Pik silently closed the door and made her way over to the guest security terminals. “Which one are you…” Whispering to herself, Pik held up the fob to each terminal. Conveniently each in-use station reflected an image of the one using each terminal to store away their belongings. Pik hovered the master fob in front of each terminal until one of the forward facing displays lit up with Lyssa’s face. “Gotchya!” Pushing the fob into a hidden key slot, pik turned the fob.

“VOICE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM OVERRIDE. STATE NAME AND PURPOSE FOR GUEST OBJECT REMOVAL.”

                Pik’s heart leapt into her throat at the computerized voice resounding loudly from the terminal claimed by Lyssa. A red line appeared where Lyssa’s face had previously been and above it the words ‘Authorization log pending’ were written. Too frightened to move, Pik perked her oversize ears to listen for a response from the baths. What she heard reassured her that she had some time. A commotion had sounded from inside the baths. Breathing relief, Pik dared to focus on the terminal once more. “Kii’Tar” I need your help.” She whispered so the machine wouldn’t pick up her voice.

                “I got you.” Kii’Tar responded, placing two fingers on his lips he then reached out the same hand to Pik. Pik responded in kind by placing her index and middle finger on her own lips before extending her fingers out to meet with Kii”tar’s.

                “Pok. Contraband removal.” Pik spoke into the security terminal. The vocals leaving Pik’s throat were temporarily changed to that of her mother’s voice thanks to the mana she’d shared with Kii’Tar. The red display on the terminal changed to a bright green and the words ‘Authorization Logged’ replaced the previous message. The top of the security device then opened, allowing Pik the chance to remove Lyssa’s belongings. She removed the two pieces of tattered and torn clothing and hoped that the log the security terminals kept wasn’t something they would save into memory...

 

*             *             *

 

                “Why did you have to go and start kicking imps into the baths?” I demanded, following Lulu as we exited back into the room where our stuff was locked up.

                “Lulu wanted warmer water and the imps weren’t jumping in like they were supposed to…” Lulu grumbled.

                “Didn’t the bathhouse owner tell us not to mess with the imps though? She seemed pretty steamed at you for drop-kicking them like that…” Despite my frustrations I was both amazed and amused. Lulu’s physical efforts to retain her laziness were massively contradictory to her end goal. She’d stubbornly pushed fire imps into the cold pool just so she didn’t have to physically move herself into one of the warmer pools. Sad thing was this had involved her getting out of the cold pool, walking herself all the way over to the fire imps at the hot pool, and then punting them into the cold pool…

                Shrugging at me, Lulu padded over to the far wall and pushed a button. Warm air blasted down over Lulu’s light-blue hair and rippled her naked flesh. Convenient. That explained why the establishment’s hostess hadn’t provided us any towels with which to dry ourselves off.

                Chalking it up to my having been distracted, I determined that to be the reason I hadn’t seen these here before entering the bath. Large brown buttons lined the wall at evenly spaced intervals. Stepping up to a button next to Lulu’s I pressed it and immediately came under the assault of a constant high intensity blast of warm air. My body dried off in a matter of seconds while my hair took several minutes longer. My dryer time ended well before Lulu’s because her mass of hair was not only many times longer than mine, but it also fanned out onto the floor in a way that prevented the warm air from properly drying it. I turned to go retrieve my belongings and was surprised to see Zavis and Mayv’Lar already dressing themselves.

                “How did you… You didn’t even use the dryers…” I pointed towards Lulu and the dryer buttons, a quizzical look of confusion plastered itself over my face.

                “Tis the benefit of wind magic, my dear Lyssa.” Zavis grinned ear-to-ear. Holding up his hand he demonstrated a little show by making his tie dance sporadically.

                “I see.” I stated, doing my best not to sound surprised or impressed. I should’ve figured demons had the capacity for something like this. A magic circle had brought me here in the first place so it shouldn’t have phased me to know that Zavis, and probably Lulu, could use it too. Looking at my own hands I wondered what type of magic Lyssa had been capable of using. Did magic even have types? Could I use magic now that I had a demon’s body? Clenching my hands into fists I pushed the questions out of my mind. It didn’t matter if I could use magic, if a magic circle was required to transport oneself to other worlds. I would first need to get my hands on another one of those tomes with the appropriate spell…

                Placing my hand on the terminal I’d previously claimed for my belongings, found myself faced with a red text message with read ‘Personal affects confiscated, see associate for details.’ As I attempted to retrieve my clothing. It’d been only two articles, but they were both massively important because I needed them to cover myself. Without them I wouldn’t be able to go outside at all!

                ”Where’s my stuff?” I demanded, turning to the young goblin who approached me. Mayv’Lar and Zavis dismissed themselves. Zavis explained something to me about giving consideration to what he’d said earlier but I was too focused on the goblin before me to hear what he had to say.

                “I apologize if the clothes were important to you but it wouldn’t have been right for you to bathe and then redress into such soiled and dirty clothing. Not to mention they were torn to shreds so you should probably replace them anyway.” Pik bowed apologetically, offering a seemingly sincere degree of condolence for the missing clothing. “We have a gift shop where you can get some new clothes to wear. Please feel free to help yourself to anything you like as a token of our appreciation.

                “What about Lulu?” Lulu asked, peeking her head out from behind me. I could feel the cold wetness of Lulu’s light-blue hair touching against the length of my body. Five minutes under the air dryer hadn’t done her hair any good at all…

                “I’m afraid my mother has barred Lulu from our establishment for the remainder of the week due to the uproar she caused with the imps.” To this explanation, Pik addressed Lulu but did not bow or apologize.

                “Hmph! Whatever. Lulu just wanted warmer water and the imps wouldn’t cooperate.” Voicing her objections Lulu stormed over to the terminal. Accessing the machine and retrieving the bag of coins she’d placed inside, Lulu then made her way to the exit.

                “Wait a second! What about your dress!” I flustered, suddenly feeling embarrassed for Lulu’s disregard to her own nudity.

                “Don’t want it.” Lulu huffed angrily.

                “Girls shouldn’t go outside naked!” I protested.

                “Lulu is a demon. Demons don’t need to wear clothes. Lulu will wait outside for Lyssa.” Lulu commented before stomping out of the room.

                “She isn’t wrong…” Pik interjected, drawing my attention from Lulu. “You’re both demons so if you prefer it, you don’t have to see what the store offers. I am offering to let you take something for free though.”

                “No. I don’t think I could handle it if I had to go outside looking like this… Please show me to the shop.” Even if this was a different world with different rules, I wasn’t about to let myself die of embarrassment just because Lulu wanted to be the exhibitionist.

 

*             *             *

 

                I couldn’t help but notice the black dresses the Bathhouse’s shop offered. Picking one up off the shelf, I flipped it over in my arms to examine it. They looked identical to the one Lulu had been wearing today. Was the fact her dress originally came from this shop the reason why Lulu didn’t want it anymore? I sighed. She was Lazy, stubborn, and childish. Such a handful, and I wasn’t even supposed to be the one responsible for her. Placing the dress back on the shelf I looked to other areas that might hold something a little less… feminine.

                Drawing myself away from the dresses and over towards the section that housed shirts and shorts, I picked up a white T and unfolded it. I almost couldn’t contain my laughter at what was written on the shirt. In green text the words ‘I ♡ Goblins’ were presented in bold text. “So I can have any set of clothing I want?” I asked.

                “Any clothing you want.” Pik nodded, offering a sharp toothy smile.

                “Good, because Lulu has all of our money so I wouldn’t be able to buy anything anyway.” With the confirmation from the young goblin herself, I promptly adorned the shirt and dove back into searching for a bottom to wear.

                “Lyssa? If you don’t mind can I ask you a strange question?” Pik asked.

                “A question? Sure, I guess. Not sure if I’ll be able to give you a good answer though, but shoot.” Finding a pair of loose fitting brown colored shorts with drawstrings I was satisfied with, I promptly adorned them and tied off the strings to keep the shorts from falling down. I was glad Pik hadn’t asked me about trying on any women’s underwear when I’d passed by that section of the store.

                “Ahem.” Pik cleared her throat, coughing into a closed hand. “So this may sound a lot-a-bit strange but I just wanted to know…” Steepling her hands together and fidgeting, Pik suddenly looked embarrassed. Pik’s change in behavior had me suddenly worried about what sort of question she might be about to ask.

                “Do you perhaps, by any chance… Know how to use magic?”

                “Excuse me?” I asked, perplexed by the question.

                “Magic, you know, like spells? Incantations? Rituals? Those sorts of things.” Innocent curiosity flooded the young goblin’s facial features as she provided examples of what she’d meant.

                “I did try a ritual yesterday but it didn’t exactly go the way I expected it to.” I blurted out before I could cut myself off. What if Pik’s questioning were some form of trap? If so, I’d just fallen for it hook, line, and sinker…

                “I suspected as much. I’ve watched pretty much all of your matches in the arena and I don’t think I’ve ever once seen you use any magic before. You at least know how to focus your mana into strengthening your physical body though. I’ve you do it with almost every fight in the arena. That’s probably why you can fight physically strong opponents and still win.” Pik’s curiosity sounded authentic. It seemed to me she was also analyzing… If this were a trap I’d probably have felt more pressured, and not in a good way. But now I was curious as well.

                “You asked a question so I’ll ask a question.” I stated, more as a demand than a question seeking permission.

“That’s fair. What did you want to ask?” Pik nodded acceptance to my demand.

                “You asked me if I know how to use magic, does that mean you know how to use magic and cast spells or whatever?”

                “I do indeed.” Pik formed a wide grin on her face before asking; “Would you like me to teach you how?”

                “You can do that?” I asked, taken aback.

                “Mhm! If you want to learn more about how to use magic then you should come back later after-hours. I’ll be free then and I can teach you without any interruptions from my parents!” Pik’s smile appeared to be full of giddy anticipation, encouraging me to come back later.

                “Sure, I’ll do that then. And thanks for the clothes.” Concluding my conversation with Pik, I proceeded to rejoin Lulu outside, but not before snagging a black dress to take with me.

                As a man, I just couldn’t allow Lulu to walk back home in her birthday suit… If I had to, I was prepared to force her to wear the dress…