In the wake of clearing the mental region, I quickly discovered that the system still had birthday gifts left to shower me with. This time, it was in the form of important skill-ups.

  The first was perhaps to be expected. While I spent part of the ride back to the cabin chatting with Cal and Verin, I used the rest of the downtime to revisit my Stygian Citadel. Despite having reconstructed my mental walls, I was still left with entire mountains’ worth of mental debris littering my mind, and I was intent on cleaning some of it up.

  While I wasn’t quite ready to make a second large structure, I figured forging a few more bricks couldn’t hurt. It was during this process that a long-awaited notification finally greeted me.

  Mental Magic has reached level 20!

  Congratulations! You have reached the Apprentice rank in Mental Magic.

  For achieving a new skill rank, you have been granted an augment.

  Augment of Incorporeality

  Enhances the strength of your mana and all mental spells and effects when used against purely mental beings that lack a physical body.

  Class Quest Completed: Raise an Advanced magic class to the Apprentice rank.

  +4 Class Points

  +10000xp

  I was somewhat surprised that my mental construction counted directly towards Mental Magic at all, although it made sense that the skill had been right on the cusp of a level. If nothing else, my battle against the reaper had used some active offensive magic in my hammer, which should have helped push the skill upwards. I doubted I’d make much use of the augment, but it was good to know I’d be a bit more protected if I ever crossed paths with another reaper.

  Already content with today’s gifts, I was taken aback when Mental Magic turned out to not be the only magic school to rank up today. Shortly after landing in the prairie, it was unanimously decided that we would have a feast, in part for my birthday, and in part to celebrate our grand victory.

  Of course, having been stuck in the jungle for weeks, I’d largely used up my stock of non-poisonous ingredients, necessitating another trip to Arbor. Verin grumbled a bit about the impropriety of making me do the shopping and the cooking for my own birthday, but in the end, there was nothing for it.

  The long trip to the king of the forest offered me ample time to train my Spatial Magic, letting me cover great distances by chaining Spatial Steps together, one after another. At the same time, I continued to cast Mold Space, both for the extra experience and to slightly lengthen my spatial hops.

  Even with the continuous training, it caught me off guard when the notifications arrived, twins to the set I’d received only shortly before.

  Spatial Magic has reached level 20!

  Congratulations! You have reached the Apprentice rank in Spatial Magic.

  For achieving a new skill rank, you have been granted an augment.

  Augment of Repositioning

  Short-range spatial spells and effects which instantly teleport you now have their maximum distance slightly increased and mana costs reduced.

  Class Quest Completed: Raise an Advanced school of magic to the Apprentice rank

  +4 Class Points

  +10000xp

  Along with the single class point I’d nabbed from leveling up, that put me a grand total of nine, now burning a hole in my pocket. I resolved to spend them all before we challenged any new regions, although I suspected we might take a brief break after our recent victory.

  That, however, was all for later. A few quick stories to Arbor netted me a veritable bounty of produce, and when I returned to the cabin, I used the bulk of it to whip up one of my best meals yet. Bolstered by my recent rank-up in Cooking and the Apprentice-rank augment that came with it, the food I made was truly a special treat, and we savored it all while breaking out the moonshine.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  For better or worse, by now, the three of us had impromptu birthday celebrations down to a science. All the usual suspects made their appearances, from board games to drinking games to drunken karaoke sessions. A bit more willing to participate this time around, I graced the others with my horrendous singing voice. With any luck, the dungeon would let us out early if just to spare itself from the screechy noises escaping my throat.

  Singing has reached level 3!

  If there was one major change to this party, however, it was the conversation. Perhaps it was due to my own growing willingness to participate, courtesy of my partially healed mind. Failing that, it might have been the result of us actually destroying one of the mana-collection sites. What had previously felt impossible now was firmly within our reach, and as if the flood dams had burst, we all found ourselves talking more and more about the outside world.

  In some cases, that was more of the usual -- what we would do when we escaped, and what we missed the most outside the dungeon. As we descended into our cups, however, more and more we grew nostalgic, offering up stories of our lives from before we all knew one another. Without Trauma Suppression steadfastly walling off my past, I found myself reminiscing about Earth.

  At first, it was just running them through past birthday memories, but that inevitably spawned tangents. Stories about my old friends. My parents. People, places, and things that I once knew intimately and would now never see again.

  Part of me expected those stories to be painful. To bring me to tears. More than that, though, they were relieving, and with each word, it felt like some invisible weight had been lifted off me.

  Gradually, we moved to lighter territory, discussing our next steps in the dungeon. Lacking the energy to make true plans, we instead talked in platitudes and optimistic promises. With the first path down, we’d clear the remainder in record time. In a single month, we’d be back here celebrating our second victory. We’d be out before any of us could have another birthday.

  Empty promises, and likely false ones, but they felt good to say nonetheless.

  As my birthday drew to a close, only one thing was missing -- at least according to Verin. Sitting stiffly in a wooden chair while Cal and I laid in the grass, the noble sighed out her frustrations.

  “Though I can hardly fault you this time around, I do feel somewhat saddened by our lack of time to prepare you proper gifts. You said birthday gift-giving was a tradition in your culture, yes? I will endeavor to make you something in the coming days, but it rankles that I have nothing presently.”

  A nice thought, but hardly needed. Already, this was a better birthday than my last. And besides, I’d received plenty of gifts. I caught the two of them up on my recent skill-ups, only belatedly recalling that I had more to look forward to as well.

  “Actually, didn’t Sett promise we could wake him up once we cleared one of the collection sites?” If memory served correctly, he’d promised to teach me some new spells, too. On top of that, I’d long since stalled in my Enchanting efforts, and I was looking forward to getting some guidance from him as well. “That should be more than enough of a gift for me.”

  My attention wandered as I pondered which new spells I might learn. Since last talking with him, I’d reached the Apprentice rank in half a dozen different schools of magic.

  And considering he doesn’t share Archmage Callis’s aversion to battle magic, I might actually learn some actual fighting spells this time. The prospect was enough to nearly make me rush over right then, with only Cal stopping me.

  “Wait! Shit! Wait!” Generally care-free, the roguish warrior bolted to her feet in a drunken panic. “Not that I made it myself, but I did have a gift for you! There was a big chest made out of vines that appeared after I killed the hydra. I had to haul it all the way to the mental region while dragging you two along. Did we see what happened to it? We’re going to have to go back!”

  Oh. Right. The chest.

  I’d grabbed it while the others had been out cold, forgetting all about it in the interim. With a thought, I summoned it from my storage, plopping it down between us.

  “Tada.”

  The panic-stricken expression on Cal’s face quickly vanished, replaced by equal parts relief and stupefaction. Without meaning to, I began to laugh, unable to help myself in the face of her tipsy antics. Verin soon joined in, and though Cal shot us a dirty look for laughing at her expense, she was soon chuckling along with us.

  For a long time, I’d worried that my car crash, so long ago, had been the worst thing to ever happen to me. Only half a year prior, everything had been looking irreparably bleak. I’d been trapped in a monster-infested dungeon with no creature comforts, my mind completely shattered, and my one chance of escape feeling impossibly slim.

  Undeniably, I’d had many ups since becoming a Protagonist, but had they been worth the downs? Would I have been happier had I left work just a minute earlier that day, avoiding the crash altogether? True, I’d have never cast a magic spell, tasted mana-imbued ice cream, or met the many wonderful people who’d helped me along, but wouldn’t it all have been so much simpler if I was still just ex-therapist Tess working at a dog shelter? At the very least, my mind would be whole, and I wouldn’t have to worry about power-hungry Antagonists hunting me down. Though I wouldn’t know them, Emin and Oachin would be alive, too.

  Though I shied away from those thoughts whenever I could help it, I had to admit that more and more, I’d been feeling it wasn’t worth it. Given the chance, I would happily rewind time back to that fated day, turn my radio down, and drive more carefully.

  Here and now, though, surrounded by good food and drink and laughter and friends who loved me, any such thoughts were banished.

  My mind was on the mend. Escape was in sight. I had a host of new spells waiting for me as soon as I woke up Sett. Life, for once, was actually looking up. And much more immediately-

  “Hey! Stop spacing out and open it already! Because if you don’t, I’m going to.” Not content to wait for me, Cal lunged for the chest. Before she could reach it, however, the warrior ran head-first into a wall of ice, hastily conjured by Verin from her chair. As she grumbled, I spared one last chuckle before taking her point.

  “All right, then. Let’s open this up and then head down to see Sett, deal?”

  Eager to see what we’d won -- and hoping that this year’s presents would be a bit less traumatic than last year’s -- I flung open the viney chest to examine our rewards.

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