Momo lifted the compact mirror to her neck, and inspected the reflection.

The scar was nearly healed. Just three neat little stitches, and a serpent-shaped crystal embedded beneath. The ‘surgery,’ if you could even call it that, hadn’t been as painful as she feared. After all, her pain tolerance had changed a lot since she contracted Mana Disease.

A sledgehammer felt like a pinprick now.

A few scrapes from Kezko’s surgical scalpel and a few sketchy healing salves and it was over with. No biggie.

Sitting upright in her bed, she eyed her rapier, which was perched on the wall on the opposite side of the cabin. She clenched her fingers, squinted her eyes, and brought her hand upward.

Black Nether began to rush down her veins, and…

The sword began to levitate.

She grinned.

Beyond the self-casting ability, having a mana gem embedded inside of her came with a few cool party tricks. For one, it gave her the power of sword-telekinesis, allowing her to move the rapier around the room like she was a Nether Jedi.

In an odd and uncomfortable way, she felt closer to her mother. The workaholic Jiwoo never felt comfortable describing herself as disabled, but assistive technologies were an undiscussed way of life in the Lin household—electric can openers, light-weight garden hoses, wooden handrails in every other room that her father had dutifully and silently attached.

It wasn’t uncommon to find her mother laying in the grass in the garden, eyes closed, chest heaving. She’d work like a horse laying seeds and picking vegetables for hours on end, ignoring her body’s demands until she was effectively unconscious.

It used to terrify Momo when she was younger, but eventually that fear just faded into annoyance; Jiwoo would always get up, dust off her sleeves, and limp back into the house, but Momo couldn’t help but wonder: why push herself that far to begin with?

All over a handful of tomatoes.

“Breakfast’s ready, your highness.”

Chevri’s voice greeted her at the door. Momo lost focus in her surprise, and the rapier fell to the ground, rolling until it reached the end of Chevri’s boots. Momo tried to clap the mirror shut quickly and tuck away her scar, but it wasn’t quick enough—Chevri was already on top of her, peeling back the turtleneck sweater and ogling her stitches.

“You’re insane,” she muttered. “I can’t believe you really let that crazy man do this to you.”

Momo shrugged. “I consider my body an improvised art piece at this point. What’s one new piece of jewelry?”

“It’s blasphemous,” Chevri muttered. Despite the young girl’s hatred for her father’s Chicken-worshiping, her vocabulary was still littered with religious artifacts. “At least it doesn’t look infected. I would have served him poison stew if I thought he really hurt you.”

“...And that’s sweet of you, really. But if you’re trying to kill a necromancer, poison shouldn’t be your goto strategy. That’s like feeding candy to a child.”

Chevri huffed, setting down a steaming plate of bacon, eggs, and diced onions on Momo’s bedside table before attending to Dusk’s food bowl.

“What are you going to do when we’re back?” Momo prodded quietly. “I heard the announcement. The driver’s taking the month off. It’s nearly avalanche season.”

Chevri laughed. “Not join your government, if that’s why you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t…”

“I know you better now, Momo. Of course you were,” Chevri said, rolling her eyes with a smile. “You can’t help yourself. You’re just… disgustingly helpful. But I’m going to forge my own path. To hell with working for some idiot in an oversized chef’s hat. If you can talk down a guy from razing the mountainside with his pet dragons, then I can manage to run my own caravan.”

Momo smiled broadly at her.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I’m proud of you, Chev. It even sounds like maybe I inspired you, just a little.”

Chevri grabbed the side of the door, and gave her a disgusted look.

“Oh, shut up.”

She slammed it. Momo laughed.

—

“You know, people usually come back from self-discovery journeys with a few fun anecdotes or, at worst, a tattoo in a language they don’t understand,” Sumire said, not trying to hide her skepticism. “Not a magical rock stitched into their neck.”

“It’s kind of pretty though, you have to admit,” Momo said, batting her eyelashes.

Sumire groaned.

“Of course it’s pretty. It’s in your neck. On its own, it’s a rock.”

“So you think I’m pretty.”

“So I think you’re avoiding the point,” Sumire said.

The sharp sound of a metal tool clamoring to the floor rang through the vast throne room. The echo wasn’t as pointed as it should have been due to the walls being mid-construction. All around them, skeletal construction workers were silently lifting tiles into place, gluing them together with paint buckets full of Nether puddy.

“Sorry,” one of the skeletons uttered, picking up the fallen instrument. He gestured to his own bony hands. “Slippery fingers.”

Vivienne, a few paces away, was supervising the work. She had her back turned to them, one arm rigidly bent at her back, the other instructing one of the skeletons where to place a stone beam. Nia was sitting on a stool just next to her, legs crossed, watching the paint dry.

“You haven’t even let me show you what it does yet,” Momo said, taking a step away from her over-protective girlfriend. “Watch.”

With a spin of her finger, she glided her sword upward. Sumire’s jaw fell open as the rapier danced across the wide ceiling, reflecting in the dozens of small mirrors embedded in the walls. Before the pirate could open her mouth, however, Momo took it a step farther.

[Taunt]

The sword began to glow blood red. In a matter of seconds, all the eyes in the room were on it.

Interesting. I was wondering if that would still work. It looks like I can channel Biscuit’s skills through the sword as well. That’s useful.

On her way back from the Twin Peaks, Momo had been brainstorming unconventional ways to up her Stamina. One that came to mind—and seemed rather promising—was finding ways to further train the undead hamster that was terminally powering her heart. She didn’t really enjoy thinking about him, as it made her claustrophobic, but it seemed logical that if she could make him stronger, she could power through fainting spells by activating him.

Kind of like injecting steroids, but with a hamster.

Sumire, mouth agape, lightly pulled at Momo’s shoulder.

“Momo, how?” she hissed. “Isn’t this bad for you?”

Grinning, Momo shook her head and tapped the crystal embedded in her neck.

“It’s a mana gem,” she explained. “It allows me to channel spell commands to my swords and harness their mana pool without touching my own. Kezko tells me it’s made of baryte, just like the oblivion stone. It stings a little, but other than that, it’s totally safe.”

Sumire shook her head in disbelief. “Momo, that’s… fantastic, if I am to believe it.” She pursed her lips. “But who the hell is Kezko?”

The doors to the hall burst open, and two more figures entered. To the left was Viktor Mole, talking animatedly to the decrepit necromancer at his right. His chicken trailed obediently behind, skirting close to his feet as he walked.

“My new Court Artificer,” Momo said, slapping Kezko on the back as he approached. He brightened at her touch, smiling despite having zero clue what they had been talking about. “He’s the one who put this gem and my neck, and he’s also going to help me out with my plan.”

Sumire looked like a deer in headlights. “Wait, what plan?”

“Kezko, did you get Vikor up to speed?” Momo asked.

“That he did,” Viktor said, clearing his throat. “Not that it took much. I was quite familiar with the science of baryte embedding, as you can imagine,” he eyed his undead bird. “But I never thought to embed one of those gems into a human, no less your highness. It’s truly bleeding edge work in the field of Nether Artificing.”

Sumire, ever the skeptic, immediately butted in. She jutted out her hand for him to shake.

“I’m Sumire, Momo’s Military Advisor and general strategist,” she said, then added, “despite my title, she only really takes about forty-eight percent of my advice. But as for your science, I’m having a hard time imagining how stuffing a gem into someone’s neck is bleeding edge work. How has someone not tried this before? There must be hidden dangers.”

Kezko laughed good-naturedly. “Of course, many have tried. Not only tried, but succeeded. I am hardly the only one to practice dark artificing. But the Dark Calamity has dramatically thinned our numbers. Jarva’s army killed an untold amount of us. Not to mention that Azrael, the best Dark Artificer there is, is no longer on this plane. The magic is legitimate, I assure you—but we lack practitioners.”

“I see,” Sumire said, finally letting go of his hand after holding it in a deathgrip. “Even so, do you really mean to say that there are no risks to this kind of magic? I don’t take kindly to someone shoving a rock in my girlfriend—highness’s—throat without evaluating the possible dangers.”

At Sumire’s accidental admission, Kezko raised an eyebrow at Momo, who blushed.

“No ill fate will befall your dear queen, I assure you. The only precaution I would take is to not go over the rapiers’ mana limit. While artifacts can’t get Mana Disease, they can explode.”

Momo’s eyes widened comically. “Explode? And you didn’t think to mention that beforehand?”

“It didn’t seem pertinent.”

Momo gave Sumire a look, as if to say I’m an idiot, thank you for asking the right questions.

Sumire smiled and mouthed, “it’s my job.”

“So,” Sumire said, temporarily concluding her investigation into Kezko to move onto a more pressing topic. “What did you mean your plan, Momo?”

“Oh, it’s simple enough,” Momo said, then smiled guiltily. She knew Sumire wasn’t going to like this one. “Do you happen to remember Death Row Fight Ring?”