“Ah, shit,” I said, reaching for my jeans then stopping. “These are filthy. And I left my jacket and shirt in the stairwell on the way down to the lava chamber.” After getting clean in the tub, I didn’t want to put these clothes back on. Looking closer, I realized my boots had sustained several burns and tears in the fight with the Magma Apes.

Kyrine was toweling off her long, elegant legs as I spoke, but now she smiled and moved toward me. She held one hand over the pile of my sweat-soaked jeans, t-shirt, and my burned boots.

For a moment, she just stood there, her eyes closed, but then with a sighing noise my clothes and boots simply vanished, turning into a cloud of gray mist which flowed up into her outstretched hand.

“Now the jacket from the stairwell…” she muttered, and after a moment another cloud of gray mist flowed in under the door, rushing up to be soaked into her outstretched hand.

“What did you do?” I asked in wonder.

“I absorbed them. Now I can create new versions of them, any time you like.”

She extended her hand, held still for a moment, then pointed to the bed. My leather jacket, my jeans, my t-shirt, and even my boxers and socks were neatly folded on the edge of the bed. At the foot of the bed, my boots waited for me, as spotless and unscuffed as they day I bought them.

“Amazing!” I said. “And you can do that any time? No need for laundry ever again?”

“No laundry ever again,” she confirmed with a small smile. And there was me thinking this day couldn’t get any better.

When I was dressed in my new gear, Kyrine was ready and waiting for me, now clothed in a thin shift that barely covered her body. The jewels that made her hair and decorated her feet, knees, and elbows sparkled.

I grabbed her, and we kissed, a warm expression of affection. It was almost a lover’s embrace, and I wondered at the current status of whatever it was that I shared with Kyrine. Sure, I was her Keeper, but it felt deeper than that. We were tied together in a bond of cultivation, but it seemed we also had a budding relationship.

Was she my girlfriend? That sounded incredible, utterly ridiculous. Uncle Phil would go nuts when he found out my new girlfriend was a dungeon core.

Thoughts of my uncle brought me back to the present, and I let go of Kyrine.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“Not at all. I’m just thinking this is all a little crazy. But I’m happy. Happier than I’ve ever been, actually. Now, how about that mansion tour?”

Chapter 14

Fully dressed and eager to get my tour of the dungeon, I turned toward the door, but Kyrine stopped me with a hand on my arm.