Vondris tumbled out of the violet portal, landing with practiced grace on the polished ferro-steel floor of her Chrono-Vault safehouse. The door, a seamless slab of black duranium, hissed shut behind her. She leaned against the cool metal, the faint hum of the field-stabilizer a comforting counterpoint to the distant, tinny thump of synth-beats from the Neon Slums outside. Her shoulder still throbbed faintly where the System’s vial had struck, a phantom ache compared to the mental lacerations Rhozal had inflicted. “A soul-bound lackey,” she muttered, pushing off the door, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from her tailored tunic. “Impossible. I’m Vondris. I outsmart gods for a living. I don’t get *stalked* by glorified pets.” The Chrono-Vault was her sanctuary, an extraplanar pocket she’d tricked a minor deity into granting her after a particularly lucrative (and bloody) escort mission. It was untraceable, unbreachable. Her gaze swept across the pristine, minimalist space: a single, ergonomic datapad nestled on a levitating console, a wall-mounted display cycling through various realm-market indices, and a small, perfectly calibrated nutrient paste dispenser. Serenity. Order. No beastmen. A guttural snarl ripped through the air above her, followed by a sound like a sky-galleon ramming a reinforced asteroid. The ferro-steel ceiling above the lev-console buckled inwards with an ear-splitting shriek of tortured metal, showering the space with a cascade of sparking wires and shattered duranium shards. A massive, plated form, wreathed in residual crimson energy, dropped into the room. Rhozal landed with a crunch that vibrated through Vondris’s very bones. His golden eyes, still blazing with terrifying devotion, locked onto her. He was impossibly bigger than she remembered, his reptilian-feline form rippling with an unsettling vitality. The tattered gladiator tunic he wore barely covered the muscled expanse of his chest, and a heavy, serrated blade, clotted with dark ichor, hung casually from his hand. He offered her a toothy, unsettling grin, a purr rumbling deep in his chest. “Master,” he rumbled, his voice like grinding stone. “You left too quickly. There were… loose ends.” Before Vondris could process the new crater in her ceiling, Rhozal reached behind him, producing a sack made of coarse, dark hide. He tossed it onto the lev-console. It landed with a wet thud, rolling slightly to reveal its contents: three severed, horned heads, their eyes glazed in death, their faces frozen in expressions of surprise and terror. “Ambush,” Rhozal explained, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. “They were waiting for you. Crude, but effective, had I not intervened.” He gestured with his chin towards a barely visible, shimmering field in the corner of the room. “A suppression field. Would have dampened your teleportation.” Vondris stared at the heads, then at Rhozal’s expectant face. Her sanctuary. Her perfectly sterile, beastman-free sanctuary. Now a scene out of a horror show. “You… you followed me,” she said, her voice a flat monotone. “Through a reinforced interdimensional portal. And then you decapitated my assassins.” “Naturally,” Rhozal purred, taking a step closer, his tail, a whip of corded muscle, thumping softly against the ferro-steel. “Your safety is my paramount concern, Master. And to answer your previous query, yes, the bond is quite effective at tracking.” [WARNING: UNREGISTERED DIMENSIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED. SUSTAINED PRESENCE MAY RESULT IN COSMIC IMPLOSION. CONSULT INTERDIMENSIONAL LOGISTICS INTERFACE FOR REMEDIAL PROTOCOLS.] The System’s dry voice was a fresh insult. Cosmic implosion? Because she’d skipped the fine print? Before she could unleash a tirade worthy of a galactic tyrant, a shimmering holographic projection flickered to life in the center of the room. Okhmar, the senile dimensional pharmacist, blinked into existence, his spectacles perched precariously on his nose, a wide, beatific smile on his wrinkled face. He was surrounded by an alarming array of bubbling beakers and glowing vials. “Ah, Vondris! Just the entity I wished to bother!” Okhmar’s voice crackled, overlaid with the distant sound of something sizzling. “And Rhozal! My goodness, the Trial-Dose C-47 seems to have had a rather… invigorating effect on you! Good, good!” Vondris crossed her arms, her fingers twitching toward her hip-holster. “Okhmar. My ceiling. And these *heads*. Care to explain why your ‘cure’ turned my former rival into a hyper-loyal, realm-stalking murder-machine?” Okhmar chuckled, a wheezing sound. “Oh, that! Yes, well, the C-47 was merely a Phase One. A diagnostic, if you will. To see if the patient’s… *will*… was strong enough to reject the Blood-Rot fully. And yours, Rhozal, is clearly quite robust!” He beamed, utterly oblivious to the menace radiating from the armored beastman. “Phase One?” Vondris’s voice was dangerously low. “What are you implying, you doddering alchemist?” “Why, the Phase Two booster, of course!” Okhmar clapped his hands together, sending a shower of sparks from a nearby apparatus. “The C-47 merely suppressed the Blood-Rot. To eradicate it completely, a booster is required. Before the weekend, I’d say. Otherwise, the suppression will fail. Rhozal reverts, and you, my dear Vondris, will find your dimensional passport permanently revoked for failing to complete a contracted companion welfare agreement.” [SUB-CLAUSE 7G: FAILURE TO MAINTAIN COMPANION WELL-BEING. PERMANENT PASSPORT REVOCATION IMPOUNDMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED. TIMELINE: 48 HOURS.] Vondris stared at the System message, then at Okhmar. “You’re telling me that if he dies, I’m stuck here? In Xypheris? The realm with the most insufferable Chosen Heroes in the entire multiverse?” “Indeed!” Okhmar chirped, then peered closer at his holographic projection. “Oh, dear, I’m running low on my Chrono-Sap infusion. Right, the booster! It requires the nectar of a Xylos-Bloom. Extremely rare, only blossoms once a century. But good news, Vondris! One just bloomed at the Qal-Azhari Proving Grounds! I hear the Chosen Hero, Tavlos, is rather fond of showing it off. He’s wearing it as a boutonniere to tonight’s ‘Valor and Virtue’ gala.”

The Efficacy of Unwanted Companions