So, the four of us walked together into that small village. I was still worried about what I might’ve changed about this place and its future by dealing with those undead, but Ehn insisted that it was all fine because those creatures only attacked because we were there. I couldn’t exactly prove otherwise, and was stuck taking his word for it. But if I really had changed something drastic and we ended up going back to a present that was different, I was definitely going to have some pretty cross words for him. Maybe even some loud, four-letter ones.


    The whole place seemed pretty empty at first as we approached, but I caught glimpses of people of all shapes and sizes peeking out of windows and from behind fences. They were watching us with obvious curiosity and probably more than a little apprehension. If Ehn noticed at all, he didn’t comment on it. He simply walked straight to the largest building in sight and continued through as the door opened automatically without even breaking stride. I was pretty sure that was something he had done, not anything about the door itself. Was he also telekinetic? Or had that been a spell that I hadn’t even noticed him use? Hell, for all I knew, he’d literally intimidated the door into opening.


    Whatever it was, I exchanged a look with Persephone, before she stayed outside with Cerberus to keep an eye on things while I followed the man in and prayed that we weren’t about to cause more problems for the people who lived here. Sure, I had maybe, possibly just stopped an army of monsters from doing bad things to this place, which may or may not have only come near it because we were here. Hell, for all I knew, Ehn planned on hurting this village himself.


    Yeah, okay, that seemed unlikely based on what he had said he needed from these people. Or rather, from the person he was looking for. But I still didn’t have a good read on who he was and what he was capable of. I wanted to think that he would be on his best behavior just to impress me and keep me on his side, which would mean he wouldn’t do anything too bad. Yet, anything could happen and I would have no way of stopping him. That was probably the most stressful part about this. If things did happen to go wrong, there was absolutely no way I could step in and save anyone from this guy. If he decided to do things the hard way, I was kind of screwed. We all were.


    Doing my best to shift that out of my mind, I focused on the room I was stepping into. This place looked like an old western sheriff’s office, complete with a couple jail cells in the back. There were two desks up front, only one of which was manned. The guy there had just stood up from the desk when I entered behind Ehn. He was a tall, heavily-muscled figure with dark blue skin and visible scales. He also had four arms, and wore a belt around his waist with four pistols arranged along it. They were all six-shooters, which gave me a bit of a mental pause, considering I didn’t think guns like that were around at this point. This was pre-American Revolution by most of a century, after all. But then again, what I had learned in my Bystander history class probably wasn’t quite right. Especially when it came to an obvious Alter like this. And a second glance at those guns, combined with a consultation with my item-sense power about what they were made out of, convinced me they weren’t exactly packing normal bullets either. They were like some mixture of an Old West and science fiction weapon. And I was going to go out on a limb and say the body armor I could sense under his old, ratty shirt was a lot more effective than anything ordinary humans would have available even in my normal time.


    “Can I help you?” the blue-scaled man asked, in the sort of voice that made clear that what he was actually saying was, ‘go away.’ His eyes shifted from Ehn to me briefly before going back again. Yeah, I couldn’t really blame him for instinctively seeing who the bigger threat was. I would’ve been paying a lot more attention to Ehn too if I was in his situation. Actually, I wasn’t in his situation and I was still paying more attention to Ehn. There was a big question remaining at the front of my mind about exactly how this was going to go. Was it weird that I kept expecting the worst? Or would it have been weirder if I didn’t?


    Ehn, at least for the moment, chose to speak in a pleasant, cheerful voice. “Good afternoon, Sheriff. Such a nice village you have here. The name is Wig. Just Wig. This is my apprentice, Felicity. I assure you, we will be out of your hair as soon as possible. As it happens, we also might be taking another problem off your hands at the same time. We’re looking for a man called Donner. Caitiff Donner.”


    Caitiff? I knew that word. It meant a coward or something like that. Despicable, that was it. The word basically meant ‘despicable coward.’ Was that this guy’s nickname? Was it meant ironically or did he just have that poor of a reputation? Either way, what could someone known as Caitiff have that Ehn would be interested in to the point of going through all this to find him?


    While I was thinking about that, the sheriff made a soft grunting sound of recognition mixed with annoyance under his breath. Then he raised himself to his full, impressive height of nearly seven feet. “Well, you can call me Dune. And before I tell you anything about the people under my care and responsibility, I need to know why you’re looking for him. Just so I can assure myself that I’m not handing over someone to a pack of wolves, you understand. Pretty though the package they come in may be.”


    Before either of us could say anything to that, the door behind me creaked open and a somewhat squeaky voice called out, “Dune, hey Dune!” The voice stopped suddenly as the person noticed us, and I turned to see a much smaller figure than the sheriff. He was still obviously an Alter, however. This guy looked like a humanoid grasshopper, standing just an inch or so taller than I was. His big, bulbous eyes took me in for a long moment, really seeming to stare longer than I was entirely comfortable with before darting to Ehn, then over to the sheriff.


    “Come in, Strex,” Dune calmly ordered him, beckoning the grasshopper man over to him. “We’ve got a couple guests, as it turns out. This is Wig and Felicity. And this,” he added in turn toward the two of us, “is Strex. He’s my own apprentice, I suppose you could say.”


    Strex murmured something about ‘it’s them’ a few times excitedly to himself before bouncing that way. He stretched himself up on his legs, which extended to make him tall enough to whisper in Dune’s ear. I caught something about ‘army’ and ‘ghosts’ and ‘dead things’ as he waved in our direction. Right, apparently someone had noticed what happened out there. And who had been responsible for it. Did that mean this was going to be more, or less complicated than it would have been? Because I was pretty sure it could go either way.


    For his part, the sheriff listened while keeping his expression neutral. Finally, he grunted and focused on us once more. “Well, it sounds like we owe you a bit of thanks for dealing with a problem out there before it came all the way to town.” His eyes found me, seeming to stare right into my soul intently for several long seconds before he spoke again. “So why don’t the two of you tell me why you’re looking for old Caitiff.”


    Hearing that name made Strex start a little bit visibly, but he quickly schooled his reaction and moved to the second desk, seeming to busy himself with several parchments he found in a drawer there. But it was obvious that he was paying rapt attention to us. I doubted he even knew what was on the papers he was shuffling around, to be honest.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Ehn spoke up again in that same pleasant, welcoming voice. “I can promise you that our business is nothing that would bring trouble to your town here, or its people. The man I’m looking for just happens to have information I’d like to buy from him.” As he said that, his hand moved to set several golden coins on the desk. “And speaking of buying things, consider this our contribution to keeping this place safe. I’ve been looking for Caitiff for a long time now. I’d like to finish this as quickly as possible, get the information he has, and move on. With any luck, Felicity and I will be far away from this place very soon.”


    Dune seemed to be considering his options for a few seconds while staring at the coins that had been left on his desk. Finally, he used one of his four hands to pull them over while speaking brightly. Or at least as bright as his voice seemed capable of getting. “Right, in that case, you can find old Caitiff down at the prospector’s cabin. You’ll want to go out the back side of town, near the big fence. You’ll find an old apple tree there in the corner. There’s a trail that’ll lead you down to the creek. Follow the creek south until you find the cabin. It’s not far. If he’s not there, then he’s on the creek itself panning for gold. Or he took off again. That happens sometimes.”


    Ehn thanked the man and we started to leave. As I turned to the door, however, Strex spoke up. “Hey, those other two outside, are they with you?”


    Ehn looked my way, clearly leaving how to answer up to me. So I turned back that way. “Yeah, they’re my friends. Why, is something wrong?”


    “Oh no,” the deputy quickly assured me. “I just wanted to say you have a handsome dog out there.” From his desk, he pulled out a leather bag and tossed it to me. “Maybe he’d like these.”


    Looking inside, I found three brightly colored ribbons, one red, one blue, and one green. They seemed to sparkle in the sunlight coming through the window. It was a sight that made me smile a bit to myself. “Thanks,” I replied genuinely, “I’m pretty sure he’ll love them.”


    For whatever reason, my words made the grasshopper man… blush? It was hard to tell, but it seemed like he was blushing. He made a sound that was like he was trying to demure, shuffling more papers before accidentally dropping them. Then he leaned down to pick them up and bonked his head on the desk.


    “Oh honestly, Strex,” Dune admonished him, “you’ve seen a pretty girl before, pull yourself together.”


    Well, that was weird. Now it was my turn to blush as I quickly moved through the open doorway. Why was he that flummoxed by me? Okay, sure, I supposed I was at least a bit attractive as a blonde girl, especially after over a year of regeneration powers and hard exercise. But still, that was… awkward and strange. Was that why he’d spent so long staring at me when he first came in? I’d thought he was trying to assess the potential threat or something.


    Well, whatever, it was probably just because of the time period I came from. Shoving that out of my mind, I focused on Cerberus as all three of his heads turned toward me. “Hey, buddy, I’ve got a present for you from the deputy in there.” With that, I held up the colorful ribbons.


    “Oooh,” Percy put in, “those are pretty. I think the deputy likes you.”


    “Yeah, apparently he made a good first impress—” Belatedly, I blinked up that way and then poked myself in disbelief. “What, you mean me? Why would the deputy like me? And what does that have to do with giving Cerberus some pretty ribbons?”


    “He thought Cerberus was your dog,” Percy pointed out. “So he gave you a present. But because it was ‘for Cerberus’ he wasn’t so nervous about it.”


    “Okay, what?” Reflexively, I turned back to look toward the building we had just come out of. “Why would he be nervous about giving ‘me’ a present? Why would he even want to give me a present? He didn’t know anything about me. I just freaking met the guy two minutes ago.”


    Percy blinked at me a couple times before turning to Ehn. “She hasn’t figured it out yet?”


    “Apparently not,” was his flat response. “Though I imagine it wouldn’t take too much longer. Particularly if we encounter many more people of less self control than we have already.”


    I started to ask what the hell they were talking about, when Percy pulled out a small hand mirror and passed it to me before gesturing. “You should take a look. See what everyone else does.”


    Uh, okay then. Frowning in confusion, I held the mirror up and took a look. Which immediately made me almost drop the mirror as I practically jumped back in surprise. That wasn’t me!


    Wait, no, it was me. Cautiously, I peered into the mirror again. Yeah, I was the one staring back. But it wasn’t the me I was accustomed to. It was like an idealized version of myself. It was recognizably the person I had always been, but every aspect was perfected. My eyes were a bit sharper, my cheekbones slightly more defined, with some sort of faint natural blush to them. My mouth was just a little… well, fuller or whatever. It was like staring at a version of myself that was perfect in every way. Which only got better (worse?) as I pulled the mirror out a bit to stare at the rest of me. Everything about my… everything was more defined and just… better than it had been before. Just what the hell was–


    “The Necromancer!” I blurted with wide eyes as the truth dawned on me. “Oh shit, he was a fucking Incubus! I totally forgot what you said about–oh. Oh.” Now I felt a little dizzy, and had to put a hand out to steady myself against Cerberus. That was what I had gotten from killing that guy, besides the increase in my necromancy. And yet, it wasn’t the only thing I’ve gotten. Or the only other thing, rather. Because while I was still staring at that mirror, my features changed in a rather dramatic way. Oh, I still looked like myself, but now I was a male version of me. A pretty male, but still male. I looked all the way down, past my suddenly-flat chest and down to– yeah, I was male all over. “What the fuck?!”


    Percy quickly calmed me down, and with a little thought and effort, I was able to shift back to my female self. Once I was trying to catch my breath from that, she explained, “Remember, Flick, Incubi and Succubi are the same thing. They shift their visible sex as much as they want, like changing clothes. You felt confused and threatened when you saw how you changed, so you instinctively shifted to a male form. That’s all.”


    That was all?! I wanted to blurt that back at her but caught myself and swallowed. “Uhhh right, okay then. Hang on.” I was almost afraid to do the next part, but I had to try. Besides, all my other powers worked fine, why would these ones suddenly malfunction? Maybe it was just because it felt so weird to do. Either way, I pushed aside those feelings and focused on shifting. Sure enough, just like that I was a male again. Another thought shifted me back to female. I tried that a couple more times, just to be completely certain there was nothing funky going on. But no, as far as I could tell, it was all working just fine.


    I also tried just using my facial-shifting power to at least bring that back to what I recognized as myself. Which worked for a moment, but as soon as I relaxed my focus on it, my face went back to that stunningly beautiful version. I tested that by shifting my face to look like someone completely different, and that general appearance remained but once again, the Incubus power adjusted it to be a more attractive version of what I had chosen. So, I could adjust my appearance to whatever I wanted, but the other power would always make it a better-looking version. Great. Just wonderful.


    “Fascinating,” Ehn noted, “it seems the Incubi power you have inherited is quite a bit stronger than the one you use to adjust your appearance manually.”


    “Oh yeah, it’s just fantastic,” I retorted, feeling the blush cross my face. God, this was weird and dumb. Why did I have to look different? Sure, I was still recognizably me. Someone who knew who I was wouldn’t be completely lost when they looked at me. But still, it was just… just weird.


    With some effort, I pushed that out of my mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand. “Anyway, you said you’ve been looking for this Caitiff guy for a long time, so let’s go find him. I can deal with being smacked by the hottie stick some other time.”


    Inclining his head very slightly in acknowledgment, Ehn turned to start walking once more. “Yes, of course. You need only speak if you’re in need of any… advice.”


    I had no idea what part of my situation I would ever want advice from him about, but I kept my mouth shut on that front. Instead, I just kept walking with a slightly anxious glance toward Percy and Cerberus. Whoever this Caitiff guy was and whatever Ehn wanted from him, it had to be less weird than what was going on with me, right?


    Right?