In the beginning, a young girl labored over her grand working.  

She was tired and foul tempered as her heart beat painfully in her chest. It was a constant reminder of her physical limitations even as she worked hard to etch curving lines into a rebellious, wooden floor. She glared at the splintering material, her Skill in carving rituals into wooden mediums had only recently been developed and it showed. She would have vastly preferred to use her familial Estate’s actual ritual chamber—with its stone floor and essence-infused chalk—but she had to keep her working secret. 

Queasiness roiled in her stomach momentarily. With it, she glared up at the Artifact sitting center stage in the room. It was necessary to keep the Illuminous Benediction of Harmonious Weeping Silhouettes running, for so long as the circular moon-shaped Artifact’s pale light bathed the room it would ward the chamber against detection. It was as effective in its use as its name was long and pretentious. That described most Artifacts really, the young girl thought. 

She just wished active Essence didn’t make her feel so sick. 

Thankfully, the other two Artifacts in the room—kept apart to prevent a resonance effect that would pierce the warding—weren’t maintaining any ongoing effects. She wasn’t entirely sure how well she’d be able to use them when the time came, but in theory there should be minimal Essence leaking with items of such high quality. In other words, they shouldn’t make me sick. We’ll see how well that goes, I guess.

 Somewhat apprehensive now, the girl spared a glance back at the crux of her plans. 

“You’re not going to go out on me, are you?” She called out to the small moon. It thankfully didn’t answer—some Artifacts could after all—but she was still paranoid it would snuff out like a candle. She had no way to check the Artifact’s Essence levels and was gambling with its use, but it was made specifically for long projects like hers. Back from a time when those of her lineage had to hide the creation and utilization of their Mandalas. It was worth the risk, because without the Levels and Skills to hide this herself, she had no real options. 

As she tried to refocus on her work, her hand slipped. The razor she wielded cut shallowly across her flesh and elicited a quiet curse from her. The tiny blade was only a few centimeters long, but was high enough quality to pierce through her bolstered slashing resistance. For her current situation, it made for a terrible instrument—it had only been a matter of time before an accident like this happened really. The perfect tool would have been an actual knife, but she’d found it impossible to get her hands on one! She had to make do with the razor she normally used for carving her figurines. 

As she wrapped a bandage across her hand, she mused at the absurd disparity of her items. She had quietly walked away with some of the most powerful Artifacts of the Kingdoms, gathered over centuries by the Duchy of the Freyhells, as though it were nothing! No one even noticed they were missing from their displays, she scoffed. 

But a knife? Best not let her have one. She might hurt herself. 

She muttered under her breath, biting back tears as her hand throbbed painfully in time with her struggling heartbeats. Maybe she needed to have her ring checked? It was weak to prevent sickening her, true, but a ring of slashing resistance was common fare for youths of her family. Another subpar item I’m forced to deal with, she supposed. Feeling at her pulse, she was also reminded she’d need to take her medication soon. 

The young girl sighed as she watched the white fabric on her hand slowly turn red. It wasn’t fair, but she knew why her family kept tools—like knives—away from her. Her hands often shook from the weakness inside her, and the only reason she’d avoid undue attention from the injury was because her family had grown to expect this. They even procured her specially made crafted bandages.

They’d take her longer to heal but wouldn’t make her feel sick. Bandages of silk with no essence in them! In some ways revolutionary, but… the girl sighed. Her little sister would worry if she saw her hand, even if others expected a few cuts now and again. This was just too extreme, even for her, so she’d need to wear some gloves until it healed. 

That was the hardest part of the plan, really. It was enough to make her laugh quietly. Her little sister worried so much about her, but why wouldn’t she? What would you do if your favorite person in the world was terminally ill? She was sorry she couldn’t tell her sister what she was doing here. She loved her more than almost anyone in the world, but the little devil would betray her secret. Considering how dangerous this ritual is… she’d be right to do so, she thought. 

The young girl let out a melodramatic sigh her Mother would have berated her for. She lightly slapped at her face until her Talent [Perfect Smile] lit up her features. She’d need to continue being bright and cheerful so no one would worry! Everyone was always so impressed by how mature she was about facing her imminent and inevitable demise. 

They’d gotten used to her cavalier attitude, but really it was her Talent doing all the work. She counted on it, even if over relying on a permanent effect in this way risked hurting her. What was one more curse hanging over her head?

She took a moment to drink a green, lime-flavored potion so her heart wouldn’t stop in the next few hours. She didn’t have to take her medication more than twice a day normally, but with so much Essence saturating her from the Illuminous whatchamacallit she needed more. Her heart didn’t process mystical energies correctly and left her constantly vulnerable. 

She’d be… ‘better’ once she was back in her heavily warded room. She didn’t know all the details for her ailment, but Healers had told her that part of her heart was broken. It just hadn’t formed right since her birth. It wasn’t a unique Condition—it was a known issue amongst nobility when Blood ran too close and partners were from similar familial lines. While such unions could lead to higher Rankings, it could create Conditions such as her [Heart’s Bane Wasting].

The young girl stared about morosely as she rested kneeling on the floor. She wanted to continue, but her arms were trembling more than normal, likely from a Fatigue she’d suffered from too much strain. It wasn’t fair! She’d barely been working for an hour but her body was already at its limit! 

Maybe I just got unlucky with my Constitution check? What’s new there, she thought. Her physical checks were usually terrible even with bolstering tonics, and her Stamina pool was just too small to provide enough of a buffer. It just… wasn’t fair.  

It wasn’t fair. That was a mantra she’d cried out so much, it had likely been her first words as an infant! It wasn’t necessary to check her status screen to know she needed to stop, but she grabbed at the hand mirror she’d kept nearby nonetheless. The young girl didn’t enjoy checking her status, but she had to budget her Stamina effectively or she’d overwork herself in the future, like now. It was pitifully easy to do after all.

She just wished it didn’t hurt so much to turn the device on. 

Some days she dreamed of developing a Skill to craft her own internal Character System Status Menu. She’d be able to know everything about herself, whenever she wanted! All without having to use equipment. 

But her family would chide her for wasting valuable Experience and training time on such a useless thing. ‘Why not save your strength to invest in something actually worthwhile? Something that made you stronger, or faster, or smarter?’ But most people didn’t have to check their Status Effects and resource pools regularly. 

Most people didn’t wake up wondering if today would be the day that their heart gave out and they’d die, either. 

Besides—outside of the Military or Adventurer parties, people didn’t need to see their Status more than once a day, if at all. It didn’t change her position here though. She stared at the gold-framed hand mirror. Its red focus gem sat at the arch of the frame and gleamed with a familiar light. 

It was far from the most efficient model—and even quite old by modern standards—but that was why it worked so well for her. It didn’t bond to her, which meant it didn’t update without activation. That’d annoy anyone else, but it meant it wouldn’t torture her if she left it on. Literally. 

The girl ran a hand lovingly along the frame. Her mother had given her this mirror, and it was… special, if for no other reason. While it paled to Projection-Type rings or bracers, or even the cutting edge Visor types, tools that cast onto reflections used to be the common method for constructing and showing your CSSM.

They had a nostalgic beauty to them, or at least, that was what the young girl believed. It was probably her sentimental attachment speaking, as her Mother had given her this mirror rather than commission something newer, but fit for her disability. The heirloom had been passed on from Mother to Daughter for generations, and her Mother had given it to her as a promise.

With this, her Mother was telling her that she would live and one day give it to her own child. They would find a cure, the whole family swore to that. For their love, the young girl treasured the item, but it didn’t allow her to believe in what she felt were empty promises—no matter how sweet they may be. She was going to die… she felt it every day. It ate at her with every weak, faltering beat of her heart.

A sudden, faint pull and quick sharp pain from her Core snapped her attention back to the mirror. It was finally done activating, and had tugged at the stagnant pool of Ki inside her to “synchronize” her Status. 

Her heart stopped from the surge of Essence—just for a moment though. For most people, spending Ki was like breathing. Activating such a device would barely be noticeable and never painful. But every time she checked her status her Core had to cycle Essence, and her heart would ache, or even falter. And the pain would… well.

It would keep tinglingly in mild agony for the next few minutes, but she was used to that.

It doesn’t matter anyway... she thought. It wasn’t real damage after all—it didn’t cause Harm. It just hurt. It just wasn’t fair was all. Even still, she was proud that she could activate the mirror without using command words. But considering how much she used it, a small skill such as that was virtually useless. It was no actual Skill, after all. 

At first, when she opened the mirror, it showed only her reflection. After a moment, it shimmered as the crystal core on its top processed her Ki to update its last saved state. Once it finished, a familiar radial menu appeared.

[1] Radial Menu v2 [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/1-radial-menu-v2.png]

The options, like always, were between her Overview, Endowments, Backgrounds, Skills, Status, and Cultivation systems. In truth, most of them were a collection of follow-up screens, but that was due to the modifications she’d requested. Who wanted one giant sheet to pack all that information into?

She selected the Overview option and was rewarded with a long, drawn out delay. After enough time to make her worry her device might be malfunctioning, it flickered into motion. The four screens that appeared were the Registration information for her device, Attributes and Abilities summary, and lastly the one she actually needed. She quickly closed the unneeded projections.

[2a] Registration [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/2a-registration.png]

[2c] Attributes [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/2c-attributes.png]

[2d] Abilities [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/2d-abilities.png]

The part of her Menu she needed, her Monitoring Screen, showed her a run down of her various resources as well as her current wellbeing. And, well…

[2b] Monitor [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/2b-monitor.png]

It didn’t look good.

Her health was showing several points of Damage, as well as a Wound. Her vigor had nearly twice as much Strain still sitting there, and three points of Fatigue! Three!

The young girl was convinced this had to be a mistake. A malfunction! With a practiced gesture she returned to the radial menu and selected Status. By base, it was mostly just a giant log, but it did show her all the Strain and Damage she’d been taking to her vigor and health. Pressing against a glowing section of the log, she brought up her pending messages.

[3b] Winded Message [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/3b-winded-message.png]

[3c] Bleeding Message [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/3c-bleeding-message.png]

“W-what? No! This can’t be… ERHAAAH!” She couldn’t help but scream at the sight of the messages filling the screen—reports of Damage and Strain resulting in Wounds and Fatigue were all over! Dismissing them, she couldn’t deny the truth any longer. With one final look at her complete list of Status Effects, she closed out of her CSSM.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[3a] Status Effect Overview [https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/3a-status-effect-overview.png]

She understood why she had the damage—the knicks on her arms were a testament to that. She’d had no real way to prevent it. After all, the way to defend against Damage was to evade it (hard to do sitting down), deflect it (she had no shield), parry it (can’t parry your own weapon), or soak it (she didn’t have any functioning armor). She glared at her ring again. Stupid trinket, she resisted the urge to scoff. A Lady didn’t do such things. 

On the other hand, they could scowl. And scowl is what she did as she thought over her vigor’s current status. The Strain she was suffering had gone through her ablative vigor defense; her stamina. Once it was gone, she’d gained Strain directly to her vigor until her Fortitude checks failed to resist it. Once that happened, she got her first point of Fatigue and the Strain reset, triggering a Conviction check in the process.

And that had happened… three times. Three. Times! In what, an hour? She couldn’t even understand how she didn’t feel it. Shouldn’t she feel tired? 

“No! This isn’t… No!” She alternated between disbelief, shock, and pure, unadulterated frustration. She had suffered a Penalizing Status Effect for the Wound and one for all three points of Fatigue. That was four continuous failures on her Conviction checks to resist them! The statistical likelihood alone was—

“Ridiculous! Absolutely, Ffff… Gah! Prince’s preserve us!” She had been dangerously close to truly cursing out loud. Her Governess would have washed her tongue off for that. 

That would be the least of my worries, she concluded. 

Thinking back to what she saw, she recalled that first Fatigue’s Penalty had given her the Winded Status Effect. While names didn’t matter too greatly, as they were descriptive and not absolute, what did matter was that ‘Winded’ had apparently penalized all her future Fortitude and Conviction checks. No wonder she’d failed all of them!

One blasted unlucky check, and here she was. With her base-level Attributes, the amount of Wounds and Fatigue she could suffer before disaster was pitifully low. A single more point of Fatigue and she’d pass out on the spot! 

And yet… she still didn’t even feel tired. She was lucky that Lethal and Non-Lethal types of Harm didn’t combine. If her Fatigue had been Exhaustion—Damage to her Vigor rather than Strain—she’d have been… Dead. 

Well, what’s new there? She grumbled obstinately as she tried to figure out why she'd let it get out of hand. The answer came to her quickly, if only because it was obvious.

Of course, my Sofu’s potions. It was thanks to her Grandfather’s tonics that she had all three of her Buffing Status Effects. Normally, she assumed they only canceled out her pre-existing Debuffs caused by her background Conditions, but… was it possible that they might have been influencing her mind? All without her knowing?

She shivered at the thought. To suffer from Status Effects of the mind and not know it? That sounded like the very definition of insanity to her, and no one wanted the Aggravated form of Stability Harm. Most CSSMs couldn’t even track the step above Lethal! Still, as terrifying as mind altering brews were, they were her best explanation as to her oddly chipper attitude in the face of her adversity. 

Then again… it was also just possible that her dang Mirror was too weak to provide that information. No CSSM device was perfect, but hers was nearly as far from as you could get.

The girl pounded on the ground, before wincing. Right, hurt hand. She rubbed at the bandages and ground her teeth quietly instead. 

It just wasn’t fair! Crawling on the ground carving at wood wasn’t hard work! Well, okay, it could be depending on several factors, but surely it wouldn’t be hard for normal people. 

Normal people didn’t get tired walking from one end of their Estate to the other. Normal people didn’t have to have special food prepared by their Chefs that was low in Essence saturation because they’d get sick.

Normal people… didn’t have to wake up wondering if this would be the day they died. 

No, that’s the Negative Status Effect talking again! She slapped at her cheeks once more and her [Perfect Smile] popped back into place. After her pep up, she crawled her way over to a chair and sat down proper. Overlooking her ritual, she re-examined her Outermost layer. 

She had a lot left to do, but the outer portion related to the connection between her place in the Prime Expanse, the Material Realm, and the Realm she was targeting. The Book she was referencing had taught her a new one. A forbidden Expanse with three new Realms—each worse than the last.  

Thanks to her Artistry Skill of [Steady Hand], it didn’t look too bad all things considered. With a dollop of sickening Ki expenditure, she activated her Ritual Skill [Analyze Mandala] and verified that most of the patterns she’d made were accurate enough to hold Essence when the time came. Most, but not all.

She grimaced as she noted a section that would have leaked and caused a Backlash event later on. For not the first time, she wished that this was a Binding Ritual instead of a Scrying Ritual. Her familial Bloodline Talents gave her bonuses to Binding Rituals, and she’d likely be staring at a flawless diagram right now if that had been the case!

Another section I’ll have to go over again it seems, she complained. She’d just have to stomach it though, as the only Rituals she’d found so far that did what she needed were Scrying variants. 

Well, she assumed they were Scrying Rituals based on her [Mandala Identifying Inspection], the more advanced Skill after her analysis one. It was supposed to give her more insight into the nature of a Mandala—its purpose and workings—rather than just an analysis of functionality like its prerequisite. 

But it was barely helping right now! She wasn’t sure what this Mandala would do at all, and that terrified her. 

“Ugh!” She grabbed at her hair in frustration, nearly sliced her face open, and then set down her razor. She then properly collapsed into her own hands. She knew finding a cure for her heart was going to be impossible, otherwise her family would have done it already!

If she were any other bloodline, her family could have paid a Priest for a high level healing spell. Hells, they could have torn her heart out and used a regeneration spell to grow a new one! It would have been astronomically expensive to properly mutate her Pattern to prevent her malady from reforming, but her family would barely notice the cost. 

Lacking those options, she had to go to extreme measures. She couldn’t trust empty promises to save her life, no matter how much she loved and wanted to trust her family.

The Scrying Ritual she was constructing had said in its description that it could find similar information through sympathetic references. That sounded like Mysticism to her—who was no Witch thank you very much!—but without an actual target to scry she was relegated to less… direct methods. 

If she knew what she was scrying for specifically she wouldn’t need a cure, she’d already have it! The Book she had was full of amazing, wondrous information, but it couldn’t explain how everything worked. Or at least, she couldn’t understand it all at her level of comprehension. 

What she really wanted was an Alchemical Formulae to use. While she was no Alchemist, her grandfather was renowned for his Skills. It was one of the avenues her family was actively pursuing to save her. 

So far, there had been no guarantee they’d create the panacea she needed in time. If she could get the information her Grandfather lacked, then she would be saved! That was the logic that had started her down this road, only…

She stared despondently at her working, letting out more gloomy sighs into the stuffy room. She rocked back and forth as her mind spiraled in worry. Without knowing what information she needed, she was reaching into the void and hoping nothing nasty popped out all while relying on ‘Like calls to Like’ and other folklore nonsense. 

While Mysticism was a valid Occult Skill, and widely respected in many communities, it lacked concrete direction. It could be used as a reference, or guidance, but rarely as ‘proof’ of anything. You’d be hard pressed to find a court of law that relied on it! Well, unless they were really desperate.

It was just so incredibly stupid to be grasping for knowledge you didn’t have, or to use an unfocused scrying ritual of any kind. Let alone past the Dark Expanse! It was practically guaranteed to blow back in your face and open a door to an otherworldly entity that could unleash cataclysms. You were asking for death or worse.

The only reason she even thought this idea had any chance of working was because early on her Father had found an Entity in one of the other Outer Expanses that knew of a Formulae that could cure her. But it was a complex series of potions, pills, and surgeries to fix her. It was practically barbaric! Even still, it hadn’t mattered in the end. They couldn’t get what they needed from the Entity.

It had refused all their offerings and they had no means to Bind it. Not yet at least—this was the avenue that her Father was looking into, but her family had issues Binding Entities of that type. Not magically, of course, but politically. 

They’d get into a lot of trouble Binding an Angel. 

A thought came to the young girl as she picked up her nearby Book. There were many warnings in its pages to be careful how far one looked into its depths. It led to madness and death… but, given her natural familiarity with Binding Rituals she might be able to change her current Ritual into a Summoning Ritual, if she just had a little bit more information. She’d only have to read a little bit more, and… she could be careful, right?

If she could just summon an Entity that had the information she needed rather than scry blindly… hells, even if her current Ritual worked properly, it would likely have to be repeated several times. Each time it would grab another piece, bit, or scrap of knowledge needed. But if she had the whole cure?

It was tempting. So very tempting. But could she trust reading more? The Book was very explicit with its warnings.

For most of history, the world was rightfully ignorant of the darkness that laid beyond it—the Dark Expanse. But long ago, a man peered into that darkness to see what lay beyond. 

His discoveries single handedly built the world’s knowledge of Cosmology. Uncountable, interesting, weird, amazing Expanses and the Realms that constituted them that laid beyond. Entire separate universes similar to Ænerith, and yet always different. Some in small ways, most in larger ways. The man recorded all he saw in his magnum opus—The Book of Ways. 

It became very clear very quickly that this was not a book that was meant to exist, however.

For authoring it, the man paid a terrible price. After missing for several days, guardsmen entered his home and reportedly heard scratching from inside his own fireplace. He had bricked himself in. Excavating it, they found a desiccated corpse, one that looked to have been there for months, perforated with holes as though devoured inside out by unseen forces. Eyeless sockets stared out and the tips of his fingers were rough bone where they’d been worn away by clawing at the prison wall he’d made. But he never moved once exposed, despite the fresh scratch marks, and his eyeballs laid on the floor pristine and unmarred by decay, reflecting only dark shapes that couldn’t be seen by the guards directly.

They burned his house down with him inside. It was probably the correct decision, but the Book survived the fire.

After recovering that original copy, Seers deemed it too unstable to be destroyed without releasing unending horrors upon reality. Yet copies would appear through unknown means across the world from time to time. 

No one could explain how or track their appearances, but the copies were thankfully safe enough to destroy. Reading from the Book almost always ended in self-destruction, and those that didn’t die outright could and had unleashed devastating abominations. 

Even owning a copy with intent to use, or share it, was punishable by death in the girl’s country. 

Or so the young girl had been warned when she was given a copy.

It had taken her months to learn to read it, not because it was in another language—her Talent [Strange Tongue Translation] would have rendered any foreign language into something legible after enough exposure. 

No, it was hard to read because it was specifically scrambled; written like nonsense, more than a mere code. The Book required you to give into madness to understand it. Think like a madman, and the truth that existed beyond your world would open up. Those foolish enough to subscribe to this insanity would be taught how. 

Like her. 

[Worlds Beyond Words]. The first Skill the Book taught her allowed her to read more into what was written, sometimes getting glimpses of hidden thoughts or motives of the author. It was an interesting Skill, designed to reveal contextual information beyond what was presented. Similar Skills existed, of course, but none worked in the same manner as this one. She had been incredibly excited at first for the possibilities.

But her hopes were dashed quickly. 

It wasn’t as useful as she’d hoped it would be as it only worked if there was sufficient writing to sample, and it didn’t give context to the writing but to the writer. She’d found one case where a flowery description in a favored romance book had a deep underlying anger and annoyance to it. After reading through multiple times, she started smelling pastries. 

It took some guesswork, but she eventually deduced that the author had been hungry while writing. While it made for a novel discovery, now her stomach growled whenever she read the more steamy scenes. Most Skills didn’t have… drawbacks like this one, but that was what made it a Permanent Skill instead of an activatable one. Similar to a Talent—it was potentially very dangerous. 

Regardless—when the Skill was applied to a product of madness? Then it worked like she’d expected. It allowed her to see past the mundane scribblings and into the clear, precise intent that existed beyond. No guesswork or questions of context. A book of nonsense became a book of wonders. A book of miracles. The Book of Ways. 

While she held the copy in her hand, she winced as Ki flowed through her and instead activated her [Mental Notation] Skill. She preferred to use it to run through the table of contents she’d recorded from the Book. As an internal Skill, it was cheap with its Ki cost, and The Book’s table of contents was a mess of scribbles, so she found her version easier to contemplate—plus there was no risk of reading something dangerous there. Given her unexpected day off tomorrow, she figured it was best to plan out which section to read next. The Book was very evocative in its warnings about not being read at random, so she needed to think carefully. 

[https://hismajestysimmortalacademy.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/mental-notation-book-of-ways-toc-i.png]

The Book was out of order in places with odd grammatical errors/choices throughout. She still hadn’t figured out why, but despite the odd arrangements she’d managed to find the Mandala she was currently constructing to reach past the Umbral Realm—the specific portion of the Dark Expanse she was pushing past. It wasn’t all sunshine though, as a few of the patterns had burned in her brain when she looked at them. She’d never felt burning before, so it was a new and unpleasant sensation.

Still, the question she had to answer now: which Chapter would give her the best chance of finding a method to Summon? She’d started with Chapter 5 after reading Chapter X’s Appendix. Should she continue reading it and hope she didn’t come across something that could cause… permanent issues? Or should she search through other portions to see if there was something that might help her understand the book better? 

She considered the Glossary of Terms again, but it stated quite clearly not to read it unless you already knew exactly what you were looking for, and the Index was utterly useless. She knew there was a post-Index listed but no matter how hard she searched for it she couldn’t find it! Her Skills told her more was hidden here. Perhaps another Skill was needed? If she’d known that sooner then she would have waited to start her ritual! But she’d panicked and jumped the wand. 

Panicking was common for her, as she’d wake up multiple times every night in a cold clammy state, wondering if she’d make it until dawn as she’d drown in anxiety. It was like she’d been having nightmares, only… she couldn’t remember them. She also couldn’t remember when that had started. Had it always been that way?

Thankfully she could read her copy tomorrow while her grandfather fussed over her. Normally, she’d never dream of trying to do something so obviously stupid as reading the Book of Ways in front of someone who could reportedly see through any and all illusions!

She loved her sofu, but when she’d been given the book, she’d been told that people like him, individuals that would be nearly impossible to deceive, were more vulnerable to the obfuscation inherent to the Book. Something about what made them so strong made them blind to the Truth in the Book. She… didn’t really get it. 

For everyone else, the Book came with a basic, yet potent mental illusion. Anyone who couldn’t ‘See’ would be ignorant of its contents. It hurt her pride in her family that no one had noticed, but it was a perception altering effect rather than an optical illusion. Oneiromancy was scary like that. With it, her forbidden tome looked like another one of her steamy romance novels. It even changed its ‘title’ occasionally, and her maid had made jokes about it a few times. It was… eerie.

Maybe I’ll just take tomorrow off, she thought. Read one of my fantasy books instead. She didn’t often derive pleasure thinking of the future, but the Book had given her hope enough to dream again. Of Princes or Dukes, men of power, handsome as the High King, who would go with her on adventures around the world. It was a stupid, silly little dream but she wanted it so badly. She’d spent most of her life trapped ‘safely’ in her bedroom and the Book talked about traveling in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was addictive to her young brain.

She packed her things, and spared one last look at the still-glowing Artifact. Looking over the room, she resolved herself to rest and recover. She could research later. As much as she wanted to hurry, it would be worth the delay if she could find a Summoning Mandala with a fresh approach.

It could make all the difference in saving her life. 

----------------------------------------