Katherine’s Room

Katherine stopped at the threshold of the main floor and the second floor, turning to Frill who followed her closely on the extravagant spiral staircase.

“How are you on meiyal? Have you Milled since the war?” she asked, checking her own reserves. She wasn’t exactly full to the brim, but with the type of meiyal system she possessed—they both possessed—it wasn’t exactly a problem. Not during normal situations anyway.

“I’m pretty much topped up,” Frill answered.

Katherine nodded and held up a finger. “Under no circumstances are you allowed to Gather or Mill once you’re on the second floor. Not without my permission. Understand?”

“Sure, but why?”

Katherine stepped on to the second floor and faced another door that was directly in front of the landing. She gestured for Frill to stand beside her. When the Aria in Red climbed through, the floor below them immediately closed, shutting off access to the stairs.

“You want to open it?” The Lady of the Void asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Miss Frill.” Sam interrupted out of nowhere. “Nasty things, awful things. None of that naughty, kinky stuff. I can point you where they are, but maybe later. For now, I suggest you let Katherine open the door.”

Frill hesitated for a second but eventually held the doorknob. Katherine saw traces of an observation Meiyal Art flowing from the maid, cautious of what was behind the other side. At the same time the Lady subtly positioned herself behind.

“Oh, dear. I can’t look!” Sam’s voice shook and subsided.

Frill pushed the door open and was immediately knocked off her feet. Katherine buttressed her just in time as the full force of the Nightmare Lands erupted from the room. The Aria in Red immediately curled up in a fetal position, hyperventilating.

Sam mimicked a grunting noise.

Of course, Frill couldn’t take it. Katherine expected as much. Even the tiniest influence of the Void Region could just as easily incapacitate an untrained initiate. Helpless civilians could end up dead in an instant. Still, there was no other known way of alleviating the Nightmare’s effects other than jumping in and getting used to it.

If memory served, this was the second time for Frill to experience the Nightmare Land’s influence. Each individual reacted differently each time until they could finally protect themselves from it.

“You’re a bully, Katherine. I hope you know that.” Sam’s accusing voice echoed in dramatic whispers that were left ignored.

Katherine gave Frill time, staying close to her and making sure she maintained physical contact. Their hands had intertwined at one point. Katherine half considered aborting the mission altogether, but the treasures she kept in her room—not just S.A.M.—would benefit Frill as well. So, she made sure the Aria didn’t forget she had someone to cling on to. This way, she could eventually recover. It took her five long minutes of silent panicking before she began to calm down.

“Better?” Katherine asked.

Frill jerked as though an insect landed on her shoulder, but she turned to the Lady. “Yes…I thought you said this was a trial for Grand Virtuosos? Why does it look like the Nightmare Lands in there?”

While it was true—the inside of the room looked more than a training facility and nothing like the Nightmare Lands—that the trials are of a level for practitioners who had all their meiyal marks unsealed, it had been rather mundane for someone of Katherine’s level. At least at the time before she went out Seeking.

For the purpose of further training Katherine, and allowing her to spend more time with her friends and actually have a life, Schrodie had painted this room into reality. With the help of the Order of the Void, they were able to transport a patch of the Nightmare Lands into this room capable of containing it. The Gatekeeper seemed to have kept his promise of constantly maintaining it to ensure than none of the Nightmare leaked through. For all the mastery that mysterious Schrodie possessed, he was incapable of painting the Nightmare itself.

“Oh,” Frill said after hearing the explanation. “I still can’t believe we’ve been in walking distance of the Nightmare Lands.”

“It’s just a patch,” Katherine said, pulling out a scrunchie. “Even if it does leak out, the only casualty would be the destruction of the entire manor before it disperses.” She began tying her hair into a ponytail. “Besides, your mother tends to some Nightmare plants, right?”

“Yes, but outside of the Nightmare Lands, they’re actually docile,” Frill retorted while recovering her breath. “Does Monarch Denis know about this?”

“Yep. But not Corwyn. I guess that’s why the Monarch immediately sent Kristel over? Maybe just part of the plan…not really sure.” Katherine Drew her Spatiera and retrieved her long cloak. She tied its arms around her waist.

Frill noticed the setup. “Is it that dangerous inside? You only do that when you’re serious.”

“Yes, plus I’m bringing you along. I have something inside that can be useful for you, but I can’t bring it outside.”

“For me?”

“Yep. You don’t have anything in your Exhibit at all, right?”

“Oh, I think I know about that.” Sam’s voice interjected without constraint, keeping on until it began to fade. “Let me go find it. How many meiyal marks does Miss Frill have now, sixty-ish? Not seventy, no? I couldn’t quite hear you on the courtyard earlier; too busy with the High Palace Network and all that. But somewhere around that range, right? Yeah, I know what you’re looking for. I’ll meet you there…”

All the while, Frill’s jaws had turned agape. “Are you telling me—”

“Depends,” Katherine interrupted, focusing her attention inside her room now that the distraction voluntarily left. “First we have to get through the trials. You can stay here until I pass the first one. Follow me when I tell you.”

The inside of the room was dark as though no light could pass through. While an observation Meiyal Art allowed a practitioner to study objects of interest via scanning and discerning their meiyal makeup, it did nothing to pierce the darkness.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

At a certain point during a practitioner’s lifecycle, especially when they’d hit a ceiling, they were inclined to return to their basics and find what they lacked or what could be improved to push that ceiling higher. This was the case for Katherine when she went back and dug deeper into her Siffera Meiyal Art. After learning what the Art was truly capable of, Schrodie had presented her this trial.

The darkness itself felt for traces of foreign meiyal systems. It would then deploy one to five dummies to attack the training practitioner. The amount depended on the trial’s preprogramming or if they employed an automatic assessment function.

Of course, since this particular copy of the trial in Katherine’s room was designed by Schrodie, it followed her mentor’s training regimen. As per his words, “Whatever the Grand Virtuosos do; you do better, you do harder.”

Katherine had retaliated most of the time by pointing out that, except for her, no other Grand Virtuosos had emerged during the reign of Monarch Denis and five other monarchs before him.

Schrodie had no care to give.

Katherine focused her Siffera towards her spatial awareness and stepped into the darkness. Immediately she felt ten armed dummies rushing towards her. One of them jumped for a flying kick. She spun and met the dummy head-on sending a kick of her own filled with every bit of her active Siffera.

The dummy’s foot bounced off her casual parry while its head shattered into splinters of metal.

A pair of metal heads anticipated her landing and prepared Meiyal Arts she couldn’t discern by feel. Three more jumped behind her.

Katherine Drew a second Meiyal Art, Rivasia, and stepped on the air before leaping off behind the three dummies. She kicked off on one of them, sending it to the pair on the ground, while feeling for the two other airborne dummies when the sudden presences of twenty more pierced her awareness.

The Lady of the Void quicky Drew a blade Meiyal Art and focused.

“Katastrofera.” Her voice reverberated in the entire room as blasts of sharpened meiyal sliced and exploded through all the hostiles around her. The darkness itself was dispelled in an instant, revealing dummies of varying shapes and sizes all scattered on a floor of pristine white. There were around fifty of them.

Katherine motioned for Frill to follow her on the next hallway.

“How many trials are there?” the Aria asked.

“Depends how far we want to go,” Katherine answered as she walked and Milled the Nightmarish meiyal. It was as she remembered it, repulsive yet divine. An oversaturation of power and truth twisting the mind with chaotic thoughts of self-mutilation and modification. Urges and whispers of perfection by grotesque union. She accepted the suggestions wholeheartedly, believing her form already an abominated masterpiece, yet maintaining awareness that she was still ironically of an individual piece.

It was acceptance and self-assurance bordering insanity, trusting truth and lie of the same concept at the same time. Once this self-depreciating confidence was attained, this contradiction to the concept of wholeness and togetherness—union above individuality, only then can the Nightmare’s meiyal be tamed. It was a constant effort of self-lie. A single slip either meant something as inconsequential as failure at Milling and recoiling from the Nightmare’s influence or something as significant as death…or something worse like turning into a Nightmare.

Katherine took the risk in stride. This, she had trained primarily during her return trip on Schrodie’s realm.

“We have one more trial to retrieve Sam, but I think he already went to my collection room, so two more.”

The next trial was an obstacle challenge. It was primarily meant for Grand Virtuosos to practice any form of mobility Meiyal Arts they had mastered. But with Katherine’s Rivasia, she simply flew through it all. She came here to retrieve her possessions, not train.

Frein will have a field day here. Maybe, I can train him here so he can get used to the Nightmare Lands. Katherine stored the idea at the back of her head. There was still the final trial to worry about.

“Hey, what’s this door for?” Frill asked as they walked through the hallway leading to the final trial.

“Oh, that’s my room,” Katherine replied. She didn’t need to use her Heart’s Will to read what was going on the Aria’s mind. “Want to take a look?”

“Can I?”

“If you can open the door,” Katherine teased. When Frill hesitated, she added, “It’s not locked.”

Frill braced herself and opened the door and was relieved when no backlash of any kind struck her.

The smell of fragrant petals filled the air and it immediately hit Katherine’s homing instincts. Tears unknowingly welled up her eyes and a single unintentional blink pushed one down her cheeks.

She ignored Frill’s worried inquiries as she entered the room and looked around the familiar faded green and blue colors intertwining with hints of playful pinks. Her bed was there, the same as she left it years prior, well-maintained thanks to Sam. Her study, well organized, with stacked papers of her research about Earth neatly packed on the corner.

On her nightstand was a single picture frame of her with her parents. Her father, Garm Militia, a sturdy well-built man with brown hair and red eyes like hers. Her mother, Catelyn Militia, had long, pearl white hair fixed on the same ponytail and golden-brown eyes on a face that closely resembled hers.

“You had the same hair as Lady Catelyn when you were younger,” Frill commented, admiring the picture from afar. “I looked up to her a lot. It was always a mystery to me why your hair suddenly changed.”

“It just turned out that way. Like Kristel’s, like yours.”

It was a topic for another time. While Katherine was grateful for the chance to reminisce, she didn’t want to linger. There were two more doors in the bedroom leading to more mundane but memorable things, but she decided to press on. Frill followed suit.

The final trial was a simulation battle. There was a small stage at the center of the room and within in was a replica of a Deep Nightmare made out of meiyal. This trial was specifically made by Schrodie for Katherine. No Grand Virtuosos were capable of combating a Deep Nightmare unless they also happened to be a Lady or a Lord of the Void. Katherine stepped forward and a simulated Deep Nightmare manifested.

It took the form of Frein.

My Lover Who Kills Me.

While what she told Sam was the truth—that she wouldn’t like to fight a Deep Nightmare of this kind—this replica was a sorry excuse for a simulation. It did little to be convincing, even the way it manipulated meiyal to craft illusions were subpar at best.

And the fact that it reminded Katherine of a cocky Frein who irritated her to no end during sparring sessions, it was as if she was presented the one chance she could let loose her frustrations without actually harming the guy.

The simulated My Lover Who Kills Me became a splat of meiyal residue on the floor in no more than five seconds.

“I thought you love the guy?” Frill asked, confused. “I honestly don’t have time for a boyfriend, but is that how love works?”

Katherine caught her breath, some slight Art fatigue trickled smoke from her shoulders. Without a proper meiyal core imbedded in her body, the smoke usually began on her nape before spreading throughout her back.

“Get yourself a man, Frill. It’s cathartic.”

With the final trial completed, a set of stairs emerged from the side of the room.

“Ahem, ahem, is this thing on?” Sam’s voice echoed as the two reached the third floor.

“Welcome, dear ladies…to Katherine’s prized collection. Touching is not allowed unless expressed otherwise by the proprietor. Any damages incurred will be charged onto your accounts immediately and debts should be paid within a month’s cycle. Standard interests mandated by the Financial Committee of Equity and Businesses do apply, for your information.

“Should your eye fancy any of these trinkets, artifacts, historic items, rare collectibles, one-of-a-kind creations, charged-meiyal materials, and more—save for yours truly, for I am enslaved-slash-devoted-slash-dependent to the proprietor—simply peruse the item’s accompanying purchase methods for ease of transaction. Once transactions are completed, note that you are provided a one-week moneyback guarantee. Any refunds or complaints thereafter shall be forwarded to the discretion and judgment of the Financial Committee of Equity and Businesses. Thank you for your time. Please, enjoy the tour.”

Katherine had allowed her talking M.O.B.I.L.E., a piece of orb device floating and vibrating in midair, to finish his speech before finally snatching him up with a tighter grip than she intended.

“I own this place, though,” she added.

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