Chapter 8: Chapter 8 – The Pauper Princess, Part 3

Once the door shut behind Luci, the frustrated fence pressed a finger to the counter. “Here. Now,” Stella spoke through clenched teeth.

Wip plodded over and popped his backpack down. Stella gestured to him to come closer and he did. Wip’s whole body braced for a fight.

Stella stared up at him. There were bags under her eyes. She hadn’t slept properly last night because of Wip’s little surprise, in the form of a new party member. She’d stayed up all night trying to dig up information on this Luci Black. It hadn’t helped that the girl’s profile picture had been taken with her cowl on, pulled right down to cover her eyes. She needed to set Wip straight.

She leaned in closer. Wip flinched. Then she raised her phone and showed him the screen.

Wip blinked, a little taken aback. “What is it?”

“What does it look like?” Stella said. “That’s your new party member.”

“Woah, you’re right! But why is she dressed like that?”

It was a photo of a far cleaner Luci. Her hair glowed like moonlight and her cheeks glittered like the stars. Her long, flowing white dress matched her stunning, silver eyes. Thick bangles were clasped around her upper arms which were linked across the body by a chain of silver rings. She wasn’t smiling. Stress lines were faintly visible at the corners of her eyes. Her smile felt strained.

Stella clicked her tongue. “It’s a news report from a week ago, idiot. Can’t you read?”

Wip raised his nose to the sky. “I know a few words.”

That prompted Stella to bang her head against the counter once more.

“I’ll read it then,” Stella said. “Princess of Sylexa reported missing, ten million kin bounty offered for her safe return.

“The royal family of Sylexa have announced that Princess Lucina Animana, Daughter of the Waxing Moon, has been missing since last month. Queen Serava Animana, Light of the New Moon, has offered a bounty of ten million kin for her safe return.

“The announcement comes after mass speculation from the public as to the Princess’ whereabouts. Suspicions were first raised when she was reported absent from Sylexa’s annual Rising Moon, a social gathering of young patricians and apprentices from prominent Sylexan cults and guilds.

“‘We call upon the good will of the Sylexan people to aid us in finding the Princess,’ Queen Animana said in a speech yesterday. ‘Our great nation is being torn apart by separatists who wish to strike terror in the hearts of the people. They will murder a child if it allows them to strike a blow to their enemies.’

“Sammus Bellum, head of the Mundi Guild and a longstanding rival of the Animana family, criticised the royal family’s handling of the matter. ‘We knew about the Princess’ disappearance a week ago,’ Mr. Bellum said. ‘But when we brought this information to the public, we were accused of inciting rebellion against the Cult of the Moon.’

“Tensions have been high within the region for several years, following the Aspar Guild calling for an end to their partnership with the Cult of the Moon, Sylexa’s governing body.

“The royal family have made it clear that the bounty will only be awarded if the Princess is returned unharmed.

“‘If you are thinking of handing the Princess to the enemies of our nation, then we will bring the might of Sylexa down upon you,’ the Queen said. ‘I will stop at nothing to see my daughter returned to me.’”

Stella put the phone down and grabbed Wip’s wrists. “Ten. Million. Kin.”

Wip blinked at her. “Is that more than—”

“Yes! It’s more than you’ve ever had. Way more. And all we have to do is turn her in.”

“But won’t you take all of it like you normally do?”

“Just half. It’s not taxable because it doesn’t come from the dungeon.”

Wip narrowed his eyes at Stella.

“Oh, come on!” Stella cried. “You owe me. You wasted two whole weeks rejecting every single party member I suggested we trial. I need your help with this. If I do it alone, someone will mug me faster than I can throw the money into the Gethalat.”

“But if we get rid of Luci, then I won’t have a party,” Wip said sadly.

“You won’t need one! You’ll never have to see that creepy dungeon again.”

Wip nodded. “You should have said so sooner. Now I definitely won’t do it.”

Stella released Wip, got out of her chair, walked over to the wall behind her, and smacked her head against it. Having grown up on a farm, Stella had gained a high pain tolerance. That hit wasn’t enough to deal with Wip’s crap. Instead, she took her flask from her pocket and pressed it to her mouth.

“We should not be discussing this in a public place,” was the last thing she said before gulping down enough whiskey to leave her mouth tingling.

“Alright, hear me out,” Stella said finally.

Wip’s ears perked up.

“You can still go into the dungeon once we hand her in.”

Wip nodded.

“You’ll have so much money you can hire new party members.”

Wip nodded.

“You can even buy aftos instead of taking them from a dumpster.”

Wip didn’t nod.

Stella’s gaped at him. “So that way every forger in the Pot won’t try to attack you on sight?”

Wip nodded slowly.

“Because fighting with forgers is bad, Wip! Gods!”

He nodded vigorously.

“And since a lot of people will want either the money or the Princess, you’ll probably get into a lot of fights with bad guys along the way.”

“Objection!” Wip shouted.

Stella took a deep breath. “It’s going to be something stupid, isn’t it?”

Wip’s face split into a smile and he threw his arms wide. “Don’t you just want to give Luci a big hug?”

Stella wanted to strangle him.

*****

The moon was out and only Luci knew. The afternoon sun had taken centre stage in the sky, hiding the moon by blindness. Nobody would even realise that it was there.

But it was still there.

Luci had decided it best not to waste the moonlight, even if she wanted nothing more than to flee from the Ravelin to the top of the nearby Zekskia Mountain Range and scream out her fears. She had convinced and unconvinced herself a dozen times over that Stella was going to sell her out, that this was all a ploy to gain her trust, that Wip was actually putting on a front to get Luci to trust him. The whole mental ordeal had sent her stomach whirling. Luci was on the verge of convincing herself that she was actually sick and, therefore, couldn’t go into the dungeon.

But the moonlight was there.

So, she sat cross-legged beside the door to the General Counting Room and took deep, slow breaths. Her staff was lying across her lap—its presence always rested on the edge of her consciousness, just there.

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Just like the moonlight.

With each breath, her thoughts slipped away. Her worries dissipated until they were nothing but a fly in the corner, buzzing and always there, but only a distraction. The bustle of the Ravelin vanished. The lap of the moat’s water, upset by a passing ferry, intensified as the rest of the world vanished. Then sound, too, was gone. The sunlight that tried to break through the crack between her eyelids faded into blackness. The cooling touch of water vapour, coming off the Gethalat, the beat of the sunlight on Luci’s pale skin, faded to nothing. All sensation was gone, and with it, the world outside of Luci.

Except for the moon, which was always there.

And at the centre of that emptiness was Luci. Or at least, what remained of her. This part of her she’d come to recognise as her soul. Just like the moon, it was there. With all distractions removed, she was weightless, frictionless. With an effort both great and subtle, she turned.

Of course, she, Luci, was still sitting in the Ravelin, still as a mountain. But here, in this internal reality, she was turning. Everything was turning. She waxed and she waned, she rose and fell. Steadily, steadily.

As steadily as the moon.

As Luci turned, she let the moonlight bathe over her soul. She drank deep of the moonlight. Of enma. It was everywhere, in everything, in the sun and the stars and in every living thing. Yet she couldn’t simply drink it, like one drinks water. It would overwhelm her to do so, like trying to swallow the ocean. Like trying to eat the sun.

Instead, she took it from the gentle moonlight.

After all, she was the waxing moon. It was her light to begin with. That was the way of the Path of the Moon: to not only absorb the moonlight but to be one with the moon.

Luci got lost in her meditation. Time moved of its own will. Was she there for minutes? Days? It didn’t matter. She’d stopped asking questions about her soul long ago. It was easier that way. The Path of the Moon worked, and that was what mattered. She could feel her soul growing slowly but steadily. Far too slowly.

Absorbing moonlight was one of three ways to increase her overall strength in enma. The second was, obviously, practice. She was going to get a lot of that today. The third, and easiest method, was by absorbing crystals.

It was a shortcut to growing the base of her enma, called passive enma. This would in turn increase the overall strength of her flows and spikes, the two general methods of enma use. However, Luci’s instructor, Praetor Gallus, had taught her that there were pros and cons to all things enma.

The pro was that you could grow significantly faster by absorbing crystals. The pure oxon energy housed within them could efficiently be converted to enma with a bit of time and effort.

The cons were that it took a lot of crystals past a certain point, the crystals were lost upon use, and that it wasn’t training her path, like what she was doing now. Luci’s instructor stressed the third con, which was why she had spent the bulk of her time at home struggling for the slightest bit of growth. By training a path, it became easier to manipulate enma, meaning she could use it for more than shovelling it into an afto.

Oh, and the crystal-absorbing method expensive. At level twenty-eight, she needed tens of thousands of kin to get to the next level. She had almost none.

Over the last few months, since she’d fled her home, Luci had felt guilty for wasting the moonlight by searching for work, doing odds and ends for a child’s wage, and wasting too much time on her now-dead phone. Now, she was making up for lost time, and that relieved her. Luci was calm.

She was as steady as the moon.

Bang!

“We’re going to Floor 4!”

“Kyaaa!”

Luci fell over from fright, her staff sprawling on the ground. Her hands shot up to her cowl to make sure it was on tight, then she whipped around to the source of her terror.

“Mr. Wip, you didn’t have to frighten me like that,” she said, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“That’s nothing,” Wip said. He slung his heavy backpack over his shoulders with ease. Luci was certain she’d fall over if she tried to pick it up. “The monsters down there are way scarier than me.”

“Oh.”

“And they chase after people and try to kill them.”

“T-t-that sounds terrible,” Luci said. She started to tremble.

“They don’t feel pain or fear. It’s like they were made just to kill people.”

“I-I-I’d rather you s-s-stopped talking now.”

“One time, I found a body that was completely dismembered. The monsters must have torn his limbs off one at a time before something huge bit a chunk out of his head. His brains were—”

Luci started crying.

Stella stuck her head out the door, took one look at the situation, and scowled at Wip. “Will you stop antagonising her? I’ll lose my badge if any more of my clients die because she freezes up the first time she sees a mezpinsor.”

“I—I don’t want to go in the dungeon anymore,” Luci wailed.

Stella shot an accusatory glare ay Wip, who responded by scratching nervously at his collar. Then Stella sighed and moderated her tone.

“Hey, Luci, give me your phone.”

Luci’s hand reflexively covered the pocket at her side. Her crying reduced to a sniffle. Her mind was racing with conspiracies about what nefarious plans Stella had for it. Also, she just didn’t like having her phone taken away, even if it was dead. It was the first thing she’d ever bought as she was fleeing the Praesummus, ironically using money she’d stole from her family. It had been her only real companion since then.

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking,” Luci queried, “why?”

Stella rolled her eyes. “Because you can’t get a connection to a SIN tower in the dungeon. It’s deadweight. Now hurry up. We’ve got chargers in the admin building opposite here. Free service for dungeoneers.”

The moment Luci heard the word “free”, her mind shut off. She stood, didn’t bother to smooth out her filthy, crinkled dress, and handed her phone over without question.

“Alright, your paperwork’s all sorted,” Stella said to Luci. “The system says you’ve never been in the dungeon before, so be extra careful.” Luci had the impression that Stella wasn’t actually speaking to her.

Before she realised it, Luci was standing before the Kimaw. She wasn’t sure what she expected: a rising chill from the great abyss, a terrifying aura, or to feel like she was being sucked in. From a distance, it had seemed terrifying. Up close, however, it was more surreal than anything else.

The manmade staircase went down and the light was swallowed by an unnatural darkness. Three metal handrails protruded too suddenly from the pitch blackness, which gave Luci the impression that she was staring into a pot of ink rather than the entrance to a monster-infested nightmare. Luci knew she should have felt afraid, but it just didn’t feel like anything more than a staircase—an excessively dark staircase.

No, she realised now that it wasn’t the Kimaw that terrified her, but the fact that the dungeon was just… there. If she could rationalise it, she would have found it more intriguing than scary, like a book needing to be read. But this? It was just there, and within it there were monsters.

Where did they come from? What were these dungeons? They’d been here for over two thousand years, since the day the first monsters poured out of the earth, known as the Emergence. Maybe if she knew what the dungeons were, her hands wouldn’t have been so clammy and her legs wouldn’t have trembled so much.

A hand clapped on her shoulder and Luci nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Don’t worry,” Wip assured her with a smile. “I thought it was pretty cool, too, when I first saw it.”

Luci looked at her feet. “Er, that’s not it. But thank you for your consideration, Mr. Wip.”

Wip gestured at the abyss. “Ladies first.”

“Ah, y-yes. Thank you.” Luci wanted to kick herself for adhering to that ridiculous social custom!

She looked down once more, took a deep breath, and pulled her staff close to her chest.

“This is what you wanted, Luci,” she whispered to herself. “You wanted to practice. You wanted to learn how to control it. That way, you’ll never hurt anyone again.”

Finding her resolve, Luci took her first step into the dungeon.

It all went downhill from there.

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