"God damn, my head is pounding," Zoey groaned, eyes fluttering as she awoke from her slumber.

Man, how long was I out?

Arms stretched overhead as she let out a long yawn, Zoey glanced around. She was still in the location of their battle with the Queen, which was, in fact, still dead, not far away.

She'd done her best to put on a good front to Rory, but almost as soon as he was gone, she'd passed the fuck out, her body demanding sleep to repair the extent of the damage she'd suffered.

And given how she… mostly felt put back together, she'd likely been asleep for a week or so.

"Not my longest nap, but close," Zoey yawned once more.

Alright, so…. Now what?

"Wait, rewards, that's right!" Zoey suddenly said, perking up as she did. "Reward interface, please."

Responding to her command, an interface appeared, but that wasn't the only thing that appeared.

"Aelia?" Zoey said, frowning as the world spirit appeared, looking rather annoyed.

"Yes, yes, hello. It is I, the grand spirit of this world and all that." Aelia grumbled, as if she'd been dragged all the way here.

"What are you doing here?"

"Truthfully? This is my punishment."

"Punishment?"

"Yes," Aelia flicked her wrist as a chair made of stone grew from the ground, offering the world spirit a place to sit. "E.O.N's doing."

"You going to explain why you were punished?"

"Simple, really," Aelia said as she leaned forward. "I made this-" She gestured around their surroundings vaguely for a moment before returning to her speech. "-harder on you two. I won't explain the full details, but the idea was that I wanted the Queen to be a lesson to you two, so I helped her gain some advantages she wouldn't have had otherwise."

"That seems awfully rude of you," Zoey said, deadpan.

"Well, the intent was to be for your own good, to provide you two with a challenge that you would fail, force you to flee, and maybe consider areas you could improve. Instead, you two punched through, and don't I have egg on my face now?"

"Egg on your face? That sounds like something Rory would say."

"I was borrowing a page from his book, given how much time you two have spent together."

"Oh," Was all that Zoey had to say.

"Anyway, while E.O.N. greenlit my plan, it wasn't without cost. In this case, it was being forced to act as an errand girl delivering your rewards. At the very least, the Architect isn't here. I can already imagine the fun he would have had with this."

"Uh-huh," Zoey said, already losing interest. They'd long since come to understand Aelia wasn't some patron looking out for their best interest; she was merely a symbiotic existence that benefitted from them excelling, but that didn't make them necessarily on the same 'team' for that matter.

"So, your rewards. First, half of an Obsidian Key, if you rub two brain cells together, you can figure out where the other half comes from."

"Top of the mountain," Zoey said as the loop half of a key appeared and dropped into her hands.

"Good job, you do have more than two brain cells. Next off-" She waved her hand in the direction of the Queen, which trembled and shrank, compressing more and more until it was a single black orb. "An energized Heart of Cooled Deep Magma. It was a regular Heart of Cooled Deep Magma that was given to the Queen to help uplift her in the first place, do with that information as you will."

The black orb floated over to Zoey, dropping into her lap.

"Because the Architect figured out a way to nullify the Queen's energies without returning them to her, those same energies concentrated, aspected by his method of nullification, thus."

Zoey watched as, from around a large cavern, what looked like swarms of flies shot toward them, revealed as ground-up dust once they were close enough to be more easily discerned. Cloud hanging overhead, it began to twist and spin, like a particle collider, also gradually shrinking until at last it was an oddly glassy-looking ring formed of what could have been mistaken for iron dust.

"A Ring of Perpetual Destruction," Aelia announced. "I will not explain what you might be able to do with that, because realistically, you won't be able to do anything with it; this is specifically the Architect's bonus reward. As for the final bonus reward, that belongs to you."

The scattered golems that had been destroyed, rubble littering the cavern, suddenly shot upward, launching toward them as, at the same time, a bar of pure magma was ejected from the main central column, colliding with the golem remains as they spontaneously melted, twisting and fusing until the final addition to the mix was added, patches of moss sucked in. Once more, compressing like most of the other rewards, it compressed even further, until all that remained was a single metallic ferrous-red seed.

"A Seed of Golem-Steel Moss. While you could examine it to learn what it does, I'll be direct, as per my punishment in being here in the first place."

"What was that?" Zoey asked, having damn well heard exactly what Aelia said.

"You're not nearly as amusing as you believe yourself. Oh, the days before the Architect had rubbed off on you were so much better."

"Uh-huh, you were saying?" Zoey asked, as Aelia glared at her, then glared upward.

"Seed of Golem-Steel Moss. You can plant it to grow Golem-Steel Moss, which has uses for alchemy, and honestly, none of that matters to you, so I'll skip to the important stuff. It can also be ingested, and while that would usually be considered unhealthy, given that Golem-Steel Moss can survive the internal environment of a living being and overtake it, choking the life out of it, for someone with the proper constitution, it will instead flourish within their flesh, making it ever more durable.

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"You want me to grow moss inside myself?" Zoey asked, staring at Aelia.

"I don't want you to do anything in this case; specifically, it's your call. Eat the seed, don't eat the seed."

Aelia looked upward, seeming annoyed for a moment before shaking her head.

"Fine. Yes, alright, it wouldn't have been easy. Still, you could have managed to survive eating it before this encounter if you had properly readied yourself. With your newest skill, it should be only moderately uncomfortable to overcome. Happy now?"

Aelia clearly wasn't addressing Zoey as she instead looked upward.

"Good, with that, my job here is done."

"Oh, quick question," Zoey raised her hand, much to Aelia's annoyance.

"Yes?"

"Can you give me a ride out of here?"

"No," Aelia said, rolling her eyes, before pointing at the column of magma flowing upward in the middle of the cavern. "Just ride the magma stream out. You'll be launched from the top of the volcano, and from there you can find your way back, I presume."

"You want me to go swim in magma?"

"Of anyone on my surface, there are none I believe would have an easier time of it than you," Aelia said.

Zoey opened her mouth to speak once more, only for Aelia to vanish.

She really does love to have the last word.

As entertaining as it was to see Aelia forced to run around, Zoey preferred not seeing her at this point, as she generally brought more complications than anything else.

Glancing at the rewards, Zoey took a moment to examine them anyway, her eyes widening as she did.

Each one of them was Extreme rarity.

Wow, Rory will love this whenever he eventually returns.

Making sure the items were safely stored away inside her inventory, Zoey made her way toward the column of magma, crossing her arms as she looked at it.

Swimming in magma wasn't anything I could ever say I expected to do…. But also, that's pretty badass.

The outer layer of her skin turned crystal-

Swell, I can still do that even though it fused and evolved into a higher-grade skill.

-as Zoey stepped into the magma. Unlike Rory, who was magically propelled, Zoey found herself flowing upward at a relatively normal speed. It was a fast-flowing 'river' but not 'magically exploding volcano' levels of speed.

Taking in the warmth of the magma, which, when paired with her armor and her durability, was more like a rather hot jacuzzi, her eyes began to flutter.

Ehh, what harm is another nap?

When Zoey awoke next, she found herself flying through the air, a massive boom of noise having awakened her.

"Oh," Zoey said, momentarily surprised. "I'm a meteor."

And then she crashed into the earth with the force of a small meteor, her damage nullification skill instantly activating. Waiting until the impact and the shock of her crash landing and the dust and debris it had tossed up faded, Zoey slowly got to her feet, dusting herself off as she did.

"Well, that's a hike," Zoey said as she held a hand over her eyebrows, the volcano she'd been launched from quite some ways away.

Not seeing a reason to dawdle, she began a slow jog -by her standards- back to their home. Occasionally, she'd spot monsters ranging from peak tier six to low tier seven. Yet, they all avoided her as soon as she made eye contact, a quick flare of her aura enough to dissuade them from bothering her.

Tier eight won't be long now.

There was still the fact that she had to face her bane once more in the tier seven bracket, but after the most recent developments during the fight with the Queen, she felt pretty confident that she'd be able to throw down and win with her bane or Rory's bane.

Continuing her journey, it wasn't until the next morning that Zoey at last found herself nearing the entrance she'd come to memorize by heart, only looking like a pile of rocks if one didn't know any better. Pushing past the built-in illusion, Zoey meandered her way down the extended tunnel until at last she found herself in the main workshop area.

"Home sweet home," Zoey sighed as a figure popped out from the whirlpool of not-quite-lava.

"Home?" Jinn asked, staring at Zoey, eyes wide.

"Hey there, Jinn. Look at you, growing another few levels."

The World Ichor Elemental popped its arms out of the magma, flexing once before diving back in.

Didn't even ask where Rory was. Ehh, kids get distracted easily, so no surprise there.

Making her way to 'her' room, a random room that she'd claimed for herself, she paused when she felt another aura nearby, a rather hefty, albeit familiar, one.

"Eia?" Zoey called out, changing direction and wandering until she found the serpent, coiled around what looked like a crystal of frozen blue flames.

"You have returned. The lack of distress tells me that Rory is fine."

"Yeah, he returned to Ehkorrus due to some emergency or something."

"The Waves, I would presume."

"That'd be it," Zoey confirmed.

"I would have preferred to return with him, but it is truthfully better that I did not have the chance, for I am busy."

"Yeah…. What exactly is that?" Zoey asked, pointing at the odd frozen flame crystal. With how time was far less of a noteworthy thing for her or Rory or even Eia, sometimes the only reminder that decades had passed was when something new popped up.

"A reward. I found a hidden Trial and cleared it. As a result, I was rewarded with this. It is a crystal that carries strong elements of energy-type concepts, specifically in the nature of heat."

"Uh-huh, and I know you like those tasty energy concepts," Zoey answered.

"Indeed. The one downside is that the longer you touch it, the faster the rate of absorption. Where I to uncoil, I would lose years of progress."

"You need anything then?" Zoey asked.

"Not particularly. I would ask for you to bring me a tier seven monster to consume, but it would only get in the way."

"Right…. So, how long have you got left?"

Eia eyed the crystal for several moments before her head turned back to Zoey.

"Three years."

"Not terrible," Zoey nodded. "Well, I'm going to go take care of my own digesting if that's the case."

"Did you find something tasty?"

"Not sure I'd say tasty," Zoey answered honestly as she retrieved the seed to show Eia. "Apparently, eating this thing would probably kill anyone that isn't basically me."

"Then I suppose you have fun,"

"Appreciate it," Zoey snorted as she left the serpent to her own thing.

Making her way back to her 'room,' Zoey flopped down on what could loosely be called a bed. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but with her level of durability, magma was like a jacuzzi; a not-so-comfortable cot was far from the worst thing in the world.

Lying there, Zoey held the seed up between her fingers, staring at it for several seconds.

Well…. Bottoms up.

If it were Rory, he likely would have spent days, if not longer, agonizing over the best way to maximize the use of the seed, but Zoey wasn't Rory. Tossing the seed into her mouth, she avoided chewing it, instead simply swallowing it and waiting.

And waited.

And waited.

Until at last, she felt a twinge in her gut, like something uncurling.

Well, that's an odd feeling…. Oh, and now it hurts. Fun.

The uncurling feeling had changed; now it felt as if something were crawling through her insides, surrounding her organs and carpeting her flesh. For a regular person, or even just someone without her insane durability, it would have been enough to overwhelm their body, using it as nutrients to supplement its growth. For Zoey, all she was forced to do was activate her Sword-Steel skill, as her flesh became harder than most metals. Unable to overcome her body, the moss instead did the next best thing, growing into nooks and crannies like extra padding.

It was a strange feeling, one that she put up with for what must have been weeks, but eventually, when it came to an end, Zoey could feel how her body had been changed; the moss had padded the interior of her body, before being slowly absorbed by her body itself, becoming a singular existence. Her softer internals were now protected by a layer of spongy material somewhere between moss and cartilage.

Standing up, from where she'd lain for the span of two weeks, really a blip to her, she flexed her fingers and then the rest of her body.

Going to have to break that in.

It was an unusual feeling, like waking up as a child and noticing you had new adult teeth.

Well, either way.

Smiling to herself, Zoey mentally patted herself on the back.

Not a bad development.

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