"I didn't get the impression the islands were going to explode in a matter of hours. We should still get up properly, though."

"Mhmm. I'm new to this whole saving people business. Probably overzealous." Yaaaaawn. "I'm up, promise, let's get ready and go save some people."

"Do let's."

He puts his spiky fiery armour back on, dismisses all minions except for the flesh golem, and grabs some more rations for breakfast.

She puts her jacket and boots back on, and teases the tangles out of her hair with a brush. Then, for practicality, she pins it carefully out of the way with the help of an illusionary mirror. For vanity, she recasts her personal illusion with the help of the same, and then dismisses her fake mirror and gets to packing up the bedding and tent. Then: yes, breakfast, sounds good. Even if it's rations, it's, you know. Eating. Instead of not. For an unknown but long period of time. Eee.

And after they're done they can walk for a couple more hours along the volcano! Whee~

Exciting.

But it's with James, and it's important work, and she can plot about how she's going to adjust to this new Tyria.

"Do you mind if I live with you?" she asks, realizing that her housing situation is kind of... not.

"Not at all, I would love that," he responds simply.

"Okay!" She bounces a little while walking, beaming.

"I think I want to have some kind of personal income instead of just mooching from you for all eternity," she adds, because that seems like it's important to clarify.

"Weren't you planning on becoming rich off ancient knowledge?"

"Well, yes, but also I need to be a bit careful with that? I will eventually run out of ancient knowledge, and I need to make sure that I either earn enough off of it that I'm so rich I make money just by being rich, or have some other sustainable money maker besides, like, being paraded around being the neat living Orrian. I do not want to be paraded about Divinity's Reach as my only source of income, James, that does not sound like a great time."

"It sounds terribly boring," he agrees.

"Yep. Also infuriating." She pauses, then her eyes widen as an idea comes to her. "James. James. I could make puzzle books."

"—huh?"

"I had," she explains, "nothing but free time, and I was very bored. So I came up with ways to amuse myself. I bet some other people would find some of them amusing, too."

"You made up puzzles?"

"Mhm! Mostly illusionary ones that wouldn't translate well to mass printing, but there are probably some that other people would find fun. I'll have to think about it, but it'd be nice if my seemingly pointless boredom ended up benefiting me in some obvious way, you know?"

"I can give you startup capital for this."

"I would appreciate it, but it is not required! And you should maybe wait to see if I can come up with a good puzzle book that people actually like. There's a difference between puzzles that amuse me when I have nothing better to do and puzzles that amuse other people when they have lots of options, you know?"

"Yes, that makes sense. I could test drive them."

"You can absolutely test drive them if you'd like to!"

"That sounds like it would be really interesting," he says, and means it.

"eeeee," she squeals, very quietly.

He laughs and stops walking to hug her.

Hug!!!!

"I really appreciate how supportive you are. It's great. Good boyfriend. Full marks."

"I didn't know that was particularly supportive," he says with a wry grin.