“So we just have to step into the circle and we’ll be transported into the old Aurelia castle?” Leo asked.
Sally nodded, “From there our attendants will fly us to the new foundation where the new retainers will fill the foundation.”
“Will they actually fill the foundation? Isn’t there a chance they would betray us?” Leo asked.
“ Yes, they will fill the foundation.” Replied Sally, “And they won’t betray us.”
Riya felt bile crawl up her throat, she knew exactly what Sally meant by that even though she kinda wished she didn't.
The whole thing had happened two days ago and she really hadn't talked to Jayden or Sally since then. Every time she tried to, she could just feel her skin crawl like she was a rotting corpse in the middle of the woods and the maggots were eating away at her body. She felt dirty for not speaking up and stopping the new retainers from signing away their lives and embarrassment cuz she could be so stupid to get tricked in such a way.
"We're here!" Maria said, her retainers bringing dozens of trunks behind her, "Is everyone here yet?"
"No." Sally shook her head, "Harry's a little late, He managed to get permission to borrow a few books from the Royal Library before we left."
Now, you might be thinking, 'Riya you're a book lover! Shouldn't you also be asking for books from the Royal library or something?!'
Haha.
No.
What Sally was leaving out was that the Royal library only and solely had non-fiction books, and she was a fangirl through and through! And there was no possible way to fangirl over Advanced Magic volume 32! And the fandom was probably full of old people and young academics grumbling over why transfiguration food can’t be eaten or something! She didn't want to pick up a magical physics book! She barely passed highschool physics!
"I'm here now." Harry said as he walked in, his retainers also carrying his trunks, "Everyone here?"
"Yes." Jayden said, "Now we can leave, Bernice? Evelene? Charge the Mana circle."
"Yes, My Lord." The two attendants said in unison, Riya watched as the attendants walked to the side of the room, there was this little square panel that looked to be made of multi-colored crystals, the attendants placed their hands on separate panels and the transportation circle slowly lit up into this beautiful golden colour.
"Right, everyone step into the circle, single file only." Jayden said.
Riya got into line behind Shuu and slowly watched as the people in front of her just… disappear…
"Is this safe?" Riya asked Sophean, one of her new attendants."
"It is, My Lady, though one may find themselves with a less-than-manageable stomach if they had eaten less than half an hour ago."
Lucky for Riya she ate an hour ago so she should be fine… right?
When she stepped onto the circle she instantly felt like she was being sucked into a high-speed Rollercoaster at a theme park. Think of the fastest Rollercoaster you have ever ridden, but increase the speed by 15 or even 20%.
"AHHH~~!!"
PLOP!
Riya tried to stand up, "I'm fine! I'm not dead, you guys!"
Riya instantly emptied her stomach the second she said that.
"Are you ok?" Deb asked her.
Riya nodded and tried to speak but felt her throat burn.
"Maurice! Clean the circle before anyone else gets transported, please." Sally said to an attendant, "Riya, didn't we tell you to not eat anything for half an hour?"
Riya felt her throat burn again when she heard Sally talk to her, but she had nothing else to throw up, "I did! I haven't eaten anything in an hour!"
"...Do you have a history of travel sickness?" Sally asked Riya.
Now that Riya thought about it, “I do feel a bit wheezy when I get into cars sometimes.”
“It’s most likely travel sickness.” Riya could hear the dismay in Sally's voice.
Riya could feel the other disappointed eyes on her from everyone else in the room after Sally said what she said. Riya felt her ears burn at that, "I didn't know that…" She didn’t know having a little travel sickness could lead to this…
Shuu helped her get up, "Why don't you rest for a bit? We aren't going to leave for a couple of hours at least. The Bellum Knights will take us to the new foundation and it'll be a while till they show up. "
Riya could barely hear him they all were looking at her it was bad enough She was a gullible idiot for falling for Jayden's plans in private be she also managed to make a fool of herself in public and now everyone knew she was an idiot they probably, no, they definitely wouldn't want anything to do with her anymore and she'll be alone in this horrible world for the rest of eternity-
"Riya? You've been staring into nothing for a while now." She heard a concerned voice say, "Are you ok?"
She was so fucking stupid, what if Sally and Jayden were lying that day?! What if instead of jail, the contract kills the perpetrator!? Did she inadvertently help commit premeditated murder?!
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
She felt a hand on her forehead, "Maria! She's burning up!"
"Valerie is still on the other side and she has all the meds!"
"How long will it take for her to be here?!"
The voices started to feel like everyone was talking underwater, her vision felt blurry and the world was spinning really fast.
"Riya? Riya! Can you hear me?! Shu get my mercury thermometer in my orange Trunk!"
"I'm not going through your private belongings, Sally!"
The world turned black.
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Riya was waiting for her date to show up, she came fifteen minutes early so she wouldn't be late and ordered an iced coffee for herself and scrolled through her date's instapage (no it wasn't stalking, she was simply making sure her date was legit thank you very much!) And was occasionally texting a friend of hers.
Beyond_Done: Best of luck for the date~!
BoredAf: thanks
Beyond_Done: Remember to call be afterwards to tell me how it went or to call me if she's sketchy af and you need someone to get you out of there
BoredAf: I'll be fine, she seems legit and we talked over the phone before
Beyone_Done: That could be a fake page and voice modulator, ai you know?
BoredAf: I'll keep that in mind
Beyond_Done: I'm serious, I've heard there's been a few kidnappings in the area
BoredAf: I'm more worried about Daniel and his little cult tbh
Beyond_Done: Daniel? The guy who looks like an NPC and is always late to class? What about him and what cult?!
BoredAf: Not cult per say, but you know how his Dad's so rich he could buy a medium sized country?
Beyond_Done: I did not know that but carry on
BoredAf: His Dad's a CEO at some big pharma company or whatever and Daniel's been spreading rumours about how they've discovered the secrets to 'eternal youth' and 'reversing ageing' or some bullshit like that and he's basically built a cult upon that
Beyone_Done: Damn… that is one Hell of a marketing campaign
BoredAf: ikr?
Beyond_Done: pretty sure this is going to end like that Homes scandal
"Hello?" Riya looked up from her phone. "Are you Projookta?"
"I am." She nodded, her voice squeaked a little at the end, "I assume you're Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth sat down on the opposite chair, "I am, but please, call me Lizz."
"You can call me Riya then."
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Riya woke up with a fever, she felt like her entire body was burning up. “Eh?” She said as she slowly opened her eyes, “What’s happening?”
“You have a fever, My Lady.” One of the attendants said. She looked familiar… Eivalenne? Elenve? Something like that, Riya's head hurt too much to think straight.
“Oh…” She said. Yeah, that was probably why she felt so shitty, suddenly, a thought came to her, “What about the foundation filling?” When was that going to happen? Or did she miss it?
“Apologise My Lady… But the foundation filling had concluded a week ago.”
Huh? She was asleep for so long?
“Pardon me, Lady Riya but you had also asked the same question to me and other attendants at least fifteen times in the last two days.”
Oh… She didn’t remember being awake before, “Did anyone come to ask me for anything?” She asked as she wiggled a hand out of the comfy layer of blankets to adjust the damp cloth on her head.
“My Lady.” Evelenee said as she took the cloth off her forehead, “Every one of your companions came to see how you fared whilst you were sleeping…” Evana plunged the cloth into cold water and squeezed out the excess, “They were all very worried for you.” Riya winced as Evanna placed the cold cloth on her forehead again, “Infact, many of the Lord and Lady messengers had stayed to wait for you to wake up, mostly in turns, currently, Lady Sally, Lord Shuu and Lord Jayden are all waiting in the opposite room for you to wake up.”
They… Were? Riya would have felt this pretty warm and happy feeling, but she remembered how her skin crawled and how Sally and Jayden… how they… She really didn't want to see either of them right now. “Send Shuu in please…” She said. She was feeling bored and also wanted to talk to someone who didn't refer to as "My lady" or "Lady Riya" every few sentences.
“Apologise Lady Riya but isn’t that improper?”
Riya just cut her off, she wasn’t really in the mood for following Noble etiquette, “It’s ok, we used to visit each other all the time back upstairs if anyone wasn’t feeling well…” She said… You know… like a liar…
“... Very well Lady Riya…”
And so Evee let them in.
Riya could barely open her eyes; everything felt cold and painful, but she didn't want to go to sleep just yet. "Hey Shuu," she croaked out, "Fancy seeing you here."
"How are you feeling now?" Shuu asked, "Sally said your temperature had reached 100 F when she used the Mercury thermometer."
"Well, it could have been worse," Riya said, ignoring Sally's name.
"Still," Shuu said, "Be more careful if you can. Valerie only has a limited supply of medicine."
Shuu probably thought that she got sick because she ate something weird or she stayed in the shower for too long. In reality, Riya was sure she got sick because she was having a mental breakdown over giving Jaden the recipe for The invisible ink.
"So how did the foundation filling go?" she asked.
"The foundation filling went well," he said. "All the retainers filled the foundation so the Foundation is pretty full right now."
"Oh..." Riya said, made sense, two hundred-something was a lot of people, of course the foundation would be full, "That's... nice..."
They both stayed like that for a while, talking about random things, "I found a craftsman who agreed to help make the paper making tools." Shuu said, "People say he's the most precise craftsman from former Schafer, he's so precise in his work- you should see the combs he makes, each tooth on them are so fine and of equal length from each other, you'd be left wondering how he even made them without machines."
Riya smiled but cringed again when Eveene replaced the damp cloth again, "That's pretty cool… thank you…" She felt horrible that Shuu did that, finding the craftsman was her job! Shuu already had so much work to do! She wasn't the only one he was helping!
Still, she couldn't help but feel this glowing warmth in her chest, she felt so thankful to have someone like Shuu around in her corner to make sure everything went smoothly.
Shuu left a little while after that, saying he had work to do and left after telling her to 'get well soon' one last time.
Sophean bowed slight, "Lady Riya, Lord Jayden and Lady Sally insist on meeting with you-"
"-Let them in." Riya said, her mouth tasted of bile but she ignored it, what did they want with her now?
"Understood, Lady Riya." Sophean said with a nod, after that she left.
Riya coughed and coughed and cringed when Evanna replaced the damp cloth again.
Riya grimaced slightly when she saw Sophean come back with those two.
Riya didn't really know why they were here. Them sitting there in front of her felt a bit awkward. She really didn't want to be near them after the whole invisible ink incident and then the transportation circle incident that she very well remembered. "Hi… Both of you…" she said, not sure what else to say.
"Hello." Jayden said, "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine." Riya said and promptly let out a wet cough again.
"We'd like to apologise," Sally said. "For all that's happened so far… We didn't mean to cause you so much stress that you got a fever…"
Riya didn't know what to say to that, "It's ok…" She said, not sure what else to say.
"We also… Don't want to hurt anyone." Sally said, from what Riya's limited vision and feverish mind saw, she looked very sad, maybe it was because of the fever but she started to feel bad that she had been so hard on them for the past few days. "We just wanted to keep everyone safe. You and Max… Well… You both worked so hard on our fake backstory…"
She did… didn't she? She was under so much pressure… She thought she was going to die… But she managed to come up with an excuse and come out alive…
"We wanted to give back to you in a way." Jayden said, "We didn't want your hard work to go to waste."
Suddenly the fact that they enslaved Nobles for their own gains felt a little less sinful…
Riya's head hurt, it's been hurting ever since she woke up, but her heart felt a bit lighter than before, "Thanks…" She said. "I don't… I don't fully forgive either of you two… But could you two please not use the invisible ink like this anymore?"
Sally and Jayden passed each other a look she couldn't quite figure out what it was, but they both turned to look at her with a smile, "We'll try." Jayden said.
Riya fell asleep again after they both left.
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“So why don’t you use your birth name anymore?”
Minerva looked up from her pizza, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What I mean.” Harpocrates started, “Is that you were the only one out of all of us original followers who used their birth name instead of your given name and have only stopped to do so a few months ago? Why? Finally wore thin Jupiter’s patients have you? After two hundred and fifty-something years?”
Minerva grimaced, “That’s not it, Jupiter is a patient man and allowed me to refer to myself because I wanted to.” No… She shed away her birth name, the last few strings of her old life for a different reason entirely.
“Oh so it was because-”
Minerva slammed her hands on the table and got up, “I’m not going to be having this conversation with you of all people, I have places to be and paperwork to do.” she said and then left the table.
“OH YA!” She heard Harpocrates holler behind her, “PAPERWORK AS IN THE DIVORCE PAPERS? OH WAIT! THOSE CAN’T BE SIGNED! NOT AFTER YOUR WIFE WENT MISSING! NOT THAT SHE’S MISSING BUT YOU DID TAKE AWAY HER MEMORIES AND THROW HER INTO-”
Minerva threw a glass at the bastard as she was exiting out of the Mess Hall, if only to make that gleeful, stupid bastard scared and to make him shut the Hell up.
She needed a drink, what time was it? She looked at her holopad, it was two AM, not the worst time to be drinking alone.