I came up from the well, Callist behind me. The Devils had been defeated and the stones were all green. I was tired and my body was bruised. I hadn’t bathed since I left, and my tabard was dusty as per usual upon returning. The water from the well only made it more icky.
As I climbed out of the well, I noticed loud music coming from upstairs. That was very unusual. Maybe they were planning an early celebration for my return. I quickly dried off and headed upstairs, still wearing my chainmail and tabard.
When I reached the top of the stairs and opened the cellar door, I found myself faced with something that had never occurred at this mansion since the day it was built. A massive party. College students were everywhere. Music was playing and nearly everyone had an alcoholic beverage in their hands. I made my way through the crowd to try and find someone I recognized.
The first person I saw was Stephanie, she rushed over to me and I shouted, “What’s going on?! How could you let all these people in here like this?!”
“I’m sorry, Eric!” she hollered back, “It’s Delilah! She’s out of control! She said she was bringing a few friends over and then next thing you know, all of this happened!”
We were in the hall near the kitchen. I went in to see what was going only to find Anabel. She was frightened and pinned against a wall by two men trying to talk to her. I went up and shoved them. They looked like they wanted to fight back but then freak out and left when they saw me in full battle fatigues. I started to clear everyone out of the kitchen towards the front of the house. When I went into the drawing room, there was Emily, sitting amongst the wild party with a look of disgust on her face. She looked as though she’d given up trying to get them under control some time ago. When she saw me there and noticed my own angered expression, she nodded before getting up to forcefully shut the music off.
On the far side of the room, there was Delilah. She had a solo cup in her hand and was talking to a guy that looked about ‘her age’. I’d had enough. As the music disappeared, I stood in the doorway between the drawing room and the main hall, drew my sword and screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Everybody get the fuck out of my house right now!!!”
The entire mob sprang up at once and made their way to exit. The guy who had been chatting Delilah up turned and ran as well. I just stood there in my Callist regalia with my sword held above my head as older teens and younger twenty somethings meandered past me.
Delilah had a horrified look on her face and she began to cry. She said, “How could you?” before she ran to the stairs to go up to her room.
“Delilah!” I shouted, “Come back here. We need to talk about this. You need to clean this mess up! You know better than this. What if someone found the well or the stones?”
She yelled through her tears back at me, “It was fine. I told everyone the cellar was off limits.”
I pursued her up the stairs but she slammed the door to her room before I got there. I went to go confront her but I stopped just shy of turning the knob when I heard the sound of her crying. We could talk about it in the morning.
I turned around and headed back towards the stairs when I heard something coming from my room. I took a peek inside and saw a guy and girl in her bra making out on my bed.
I calmly said, “Oh, you didn’t get the memo?” as I raised my sword and sliced straight through a pillow. The young girl quickly pulled her shirt back on as the two of them ran down the steps.
I sat down on the bed and placed my face into my palms. How could she be so stupid? Of all people, she was the one who should’ve known the most to be careful who we let into the house. That’s when I heard a whimpering. It was Mischief. He was scared from all the noise and had been hiding in my bathroom. I called him over and he settled next to me on the bed as I pet him. That’s when I remembered.
I reached into my satchel and pulled the Jar of Entrapment out with Priscilla still inside. I sat her down on my dresser before I sat back down on the bed and started taking my armor off. She just sat there in the jar looking sadly at me.
“I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you yet.”
Her expression made it seem she could hear me, but nothing from inside the jar could be heard at all. I noticed that when she was screaming to be let out after I captured her.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I tipped over and slid my chainmail tunic off then said, “Help me understand this. You can hear everything that I say but no sound from the jar can be heard out here right?”
She closed her eyes and slowly nodded yes.
“Thought so. I suspected as much since your magic connection was severed once I put you in here. So let’s see…according to the Tome of Wisdom, anyone placed in the Jar of Entrapment is stuck in there until someone lets them out. Right?”
She nodded ‘yes’ again.
“And anyone trapped inside requires no food, water, or sleep while they’re in there. Correct?”
Once more, she nodded.
“I bet you’ve done a lot of wicked things to a lot of people. Haven’t you?” I pressed.
Her eyes got big and she began shaking her head furiously.
“Don’t lie to me. I may not know what I’m gonna do with you yet, but a violent end is still not out of the question. Although I might only banish you to solitude for a decade or so. So your best bet is honesty now. Let’s try again. You’ve probably done a lot of wicked things to a lot of people, haven’t you?”
She hesitated a moment then closed her eyes and nodded.
“That’s better. You know, my little cousin in the other room. She used to be the Goddess of Second Chances. Maybe I could learn a little from her. Maybe she needs a second chance. Maybe you need a second chance. We’ll see. But you know what? All you evil types are the same. You never quite learn your lessons do ya? I could leave you in that jar for a hundred years and you’d probably plague my descendants if you got out.”
She didn’t reply either way. Just kept looking and listening to me.
“I don’t know,” I continued, “I just know it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I should be celebrating. Not furious about the mess down stairs and talking to a washed up half demon. I’ll get back to you later.”
I picked up her jar and placed her inside my dresser drawer and closed it up. Afterwards, I signaled Mischief to come downstairs with me so he could go out to potty. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found all three girls cleaning the house up.
“Hey, Anabel. Next time you clean my room, there’s a half demon girl trapped in a jar in the top drawer of my dresser. Don’t let her out okay?”
Anabel replied, “Umm, okay. Sure,” as she went to take Mischief out back.
“Eric, we’re really sorry we let this happen,” Stephanie apologized.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
Emily strung up a bag full of trash and asked, “So I’m guessing everything went okay? Arduwan’s fine?”
“Yeah. I killed my first Devil finally. She’s with Wraith. She decided to stay with him after the life debt lifted.”
“Wow! Really?” Emily questioned.
I requested clarity by asking, “You mean, really, I killed my first Devil? Or really, Arduwan and Wraith are a thing now?”
“The second. I have no doubt you killed the Devil,” Emily answered, as she smirked.
I smiled back and said, “I appreciate the confidence. Do you girls mind if I go take a shower before grabbing something to eat?”
All of them agreed and continued cleaning as I saw myself off.
* * *
The next morning we all gathered in the kitchen to talk to Delilah. She informed us that she was moving out as of that day. She said she was staying with a friend until the fall semester started and then she’d be moving into one of the dorms.
“I can see now that I was wrong about everyone here. My wants and needs are not acknowledged. It was foolish of me to look down from the spirit realm and think I could ever fit in with all of you.”
“Delilah, stop all that. You already know that we’ve accepted you. We went through this,”I said, trying to calm and reassure her.
She sniffled and said, “No you haven’t! You hate me because I edited the universe to make myself one of you. You don’t see me as a real cousin at all.”
“You’re wrong about that. It was strange at first, but it makes sense now,” it was true. I really did feel the familial bond with her. I just couldn’t let her walk all over us and endanger the family ordeal. I continued, “This isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that my family…er, our family, has kept the well and the stones a secret for well over a thousand years. It was a huge risk having all those people we don’t know over here at once.”
“I already told you!” she cried, “I told everyone the cellar was a no go zone.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say, but you still haven’t learned that you can’t trust everyone by their word.”
“That’s just the thing, Eric. You can’t trust me either.”
Emily chimed in and said, “Delilah, this is bigger than that. We just need to take things slowly. You said it yourself that you’re just a regular teenage girl with hormones and a developing brain. You clearly didn’t think things through last night. Let’s just all calm down and talk about it some more later.”
“No, no!” she barked, “I’ve made up my mind. I’ve been banished to these lower realms and I’ve decided I was never meant to be here with all of you. I’m going out into the world and I’m gonna try to find my own place in it. I won’t try to force all of you to love me anymore.”
She got up and walked away from the rest of us. None of us knew what to say. But just then, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Stephanie said.
I breathed heavily and looked down at the floor as Emily put her hand on my back and said, “It’s okay. She probably just needs some time.”
“Maybe so,” I sighed again, “it’s just. I didn’t think things would go like this. I thought I’d defeat Shagrath and I’d come back here to spend some quality time with all of you.”
Anabel bowed her head. She was never one to relish in the drama of the household.
Then Stephanie returned and said, “Well, I’d hate to say it…but it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She stood in the entryway to the kitchen holding up a certified letter she had just signed for and said, “You’re being sued, Eric.”