We were eating breakfast of bacon, pancakes, and eggs at a nice but not too nice kitchen table when the king appeared at the cell door. The door itself was cracked open and the dungeon was now cleaner than it had any right to be. We might as well have been inviting the king into our cottage for as much as the dungeon looked like the dungeon it had been before.
“I thought I smelled bacon,” the king said, giving a big sniff. “Is that maple syrup?”
“Yeah,” I answered, my face full of confusion even as the king sat in a chair that Dom produced out of his inventory. It was maple syrup, as this world made syrup, in that you milked this particular syrup from domesticated fruit flies the size of cows. I’d picked it up at the wharf, discarding the idea of buying a few of the fruit flies to give to Beryle’s growing cooperative. Turned out, these flies ate something only grown in another kingdom with swamps.
“I apologize that it took me so long,” the king sat and dished himself up some pancakes. “I did have to check your story out a little more.”
“Of course,” Dom nodded, passing the maple syrup. They both ignored my stunned expression. Maybe, after being around my crazy schemes so much, Dom could take all this with deft aplomb, but I wasn’t used to dealing with me-like plot twists. I had plans and subplans. I had sideline plans for offshoot blindsides. I feel like I should have planned for this.
“I have to admit that I’m gratified to have thrown you for as much of a loop as you did for me,” the king waved a forkful of pancakes at me.
“Okay,” I tried to school my expression into something less shocked and distrusting. I didn’t succeed.
Charm +1
“I take it Cumbers provided you with the proper documentation?” Dom asked the king.
“He did,” the king nodded his head.
I wracked my brain for the name Cumbers. I could have smacked my forehead and almost did. Cumbers was Dom’s right-hand man. Cumbers hadn’t been mine. I hadn’t been able to turn Cumbers to my cause and had had to kill him.
Will +1
“Good,” Dom’s smug look was almost enough to make me smack him. I imagined smashing Dom’s face in with a mallet, but Dom just smiled at the look on my face. He knew my mood, but he must’ve thought it was worth it. If Dom was playful, maybe we weren’t in the trouble my mind had imagined.
Will +1
“I have class in less than an hour,” I complained, stuffing pancakes into my mouth to hide my softening expression.
“That school,” the king muttered, setting down a forkful of egg. “If you do have a good plan to take it out that doesn’t make the church take over the kingdom, I’m all ears.”
“We do,” Dom said, leaning back to wipe his mouth with a napkin that he then cleaned, careful to keep the spell away from the table and our dishes. It wouldn’t do to clean up the dishes when we weren’t through eating.
“Bunch of pompous buffoons,” the king expressed himself as if he hadn’t just thrown us in a dungeon. I wasn’t quite over it yet. Dom sure seemed to be, though. “They have declared that even I cannot cast magical spells without graduating from UNLV.”
“Jooooy,” Dom drawled. I picked at my pancakes, trying not to sulk childishly.
“They graciously offered me a tutor who could stay at the castle with me during my education,” the king growled out, stabbing the last link of sausage from the plate that Dom had pushed away from himself.
Dom shook his head in sympathy, and I watched, helpless to whatever scheme they were hatching together. I hadn’t felt like a simple woman since I’d entered this world until right then. I was even working myself up into a head of steam that could only mess things up. It was stupid. I knew that, but I hated being talked over. Dom cleared his throat almost nervously at a look at my face.
Will +1
“Cumbers is the king’s spymaster,” Dom told me and pieces I’d never had slid into place in the puzzle. I’d killed Cumbers because he wouldn’t pledge loyalty to me over all others. Dom had a different pledge of loyalty, and so Cumbers had been able to make the pledge. I’d been surprised at the time, but now it made sense. Dom only asked for loyalty that would never bring danger to Dom, me, or the Underground as long as we served the king. I’d crafted the new loyalty pledge on the knowledge that we would eventually be loyal to the king. I hadn’t known that the first time.
Intelligence +1
“Cumbers has told me enough,” the king nodded, pointing a finger at Dom. “I have to admit that I almost killed him for disloyalty when he told me he had pledged to you.”
I’d only known that the king’s previous spymaster had died under mysterious circumstances. That was why the king had been looking for a new spymaster. When we’d talked the first time, I’d been a mouse compared to him with only two thirds of the Underground under my command. I’d thought I was dead. He’d surprised me then too.
“It was Karma’s pledge,” Dom redirected the king to me, and I felt my feathers unruffle a tiny bit. “She really does have great admiration for you.”
“We are well-met Karma,” the king thrust a hand at me, and I shook it almost automatically. “I think though, that maybe we have flummoxed your wife, Dom.”
“Much to my dismay, I assure you,” Dom mumbled, and another tiny chip came off my anger.
“With food this good, it is a wonder you ever let her out of the kitchen,” and I knew that the king had meant to flatter me, but it popped that chip right back up onto my shoulder.
“Let me?” I started, but Dom cut me off.
“She is the true mastermind,” Dom insisted, probably wanting to keep me from ripping his balls off in my mind.
“Aren’t they all,” the king admitted out of the side of his mouth. Why had I liked him again? “Please forgive me, Karma. I’m quite giddy at the thought of this plan of yours. Cumbers has whetted my appetite even more than your cooking. Quite the brilliant mind and just what I have been looking for since that foul smell emerged from both church and school.” Could a tiny flattery get me back on board with the king? Well, yes, but mostly because it was the charm I remembered from before.
I made it to class on time, but only because the king gave me an escort back to UNLV. It hadn’t mattered because I had a new code of conduct violation due to being off school grounds outside curfew and without checking out with the guards. My punishment was the loss of the privilege of leaving school grounds for two weeks. Burnt looked a bit frayed around the edges at my trial, which was the true punishment because it wasted precious time. I could come and go at my whim without their supercilious permissions or lack thereof.
They’d had the nerve to tell me that even a summons of the king did not override their internal code of conduct. Mages were held to higher standards than even the king. I couldn’t wait to communicate to the king that they had used his upcoming tutelage as an example of how even the king had to follow UNLV rules. I took solace in the bags under Angel’s eyes and the constant sniffling and red nose on Burnt. I’d even offered to heal them, an offer they’d arrogantly turned down in favor of having already called a priest to make a house call. It said something about how tired we all were that none of us noticed that I was using magic despite them having taken it from me.
Dom and I were inspecting the finishing touches on Alma’s basement when he caught me yawning. Animal cages lined the walls, blood was spattered on the walls in true forensic glory, and a dog howled in the background.
“We should get a good night’s sleep before the main event,” Dom slid an arm around my waist and whispered into my hair.
Alma’s collie had a high-pitched yip that only got higher when taunted by an alley cat and a pair of crows. It was making the animals in the cages nervous to the point that I could tell they weren’t going to remain quiet much longer.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I don’t think that dog is going to wait,” I told Dom.
As if I’d cued it up in a movie, the dog gave a horrible howl and went silent. My eyes met Dom’s and I blinked. Alma had been going slowly mad from lack of sleep as the dog spent all night yipping at one of our familiars. Her neighbors were less forgiving thanks to Alma having said that she’d kill them before she told her dog to shut up. She hadn’t meant it as Alma was just as loud of the dog in the middle of the night when she yelled at it to shut up. She would lock the dog in the cellar only to have one of our familiars let it out.
“Maybe not,” Dom’s eyes got concerned. “We may need to send a heal at the dog. She just stormed outside, grabbed it by the neck and slammed it into the kitchen.”
“Poor thing,” I said, but I knew that Dom would take care of the high-strung animal. “How do I look?”
“Awful,” he growled into my hair. “But I like the bracelets.”
He was referring to the shackles. I was currently chained to the wall. Oh, yeah. And I looked just like Alma Greyn. My disguise spell had gotten a workout and the result was being able to stunningly reproduce another person.
“The guard’s been alerted,” Dom warned me, probably passing on the information from one of his crows.
“You should go,” I whispered back.
“I’ll be right on the other side of the wall,” he breathed at me, and my breath quickened.
“Go,” I urged him, trying to get into my role.
Dom left reluctantly. The next hour was a clusterfuck of crazy. It started with, “Ma’am, is that your dog?” escalated to “Did you hurt this dog?” and was punctuated by the dog’s pathetic whimpers that were actually just some mimicry that Dom’s crows threw in for fun. Don’t worry. We’d healed the dog, and it was sleeping peacefully through this while Malice mimicked all the whimpering. That was when the silence spell on the basement faded slowly out. We’d been practicing with that one too. Animal noises came alive around me as the “trapped” familiars found their voices, including Dom’s Spite who egged them on with more mimicry.
“What’s that sound?” I imagined hearing the guards say as I slumped in my chains, followed by, “Did you hear that?” and “Is that coming from the basement?”
“It’s just a wine cellar,” I could hear Alma’s high-pitched voice break through the animal whining and whimpering.
There were three rats squeaking, four birds squawking, a dozen cats howling, a handful of dogs whining, one racoon, and two ferrets rattling cages. Our Underground denizens had really liked the quests we’d given them, especially the ones with Summon Witch’s Familiar scrolls as rewards. We’d tested their loyalties and rewarded those willing to really work for our cause. Spite cawed louder when we could hear Alma screaming from the cellar next door.
“You can’t do this! This is an outrage! Do you know who I am?”
They knew who she was. We’d been feeding those guards & others more than free dinners and ale at our pub. All these guards knew Alma Greyn, Fillibuster Burnt, and Angel Hammock. Over the past week, the three of them had been the source of countless disturbances in their neighborhoods. The Underground had taken up our gaslighting efforts, spreading them around to a few more officials of UNLV. Every guard in the Capital was lamenting over these noble asses and their idi-fucking-otic antics. They were good and fed up by the time they ignored the woman’s pleas and burst through a hidden door behind the wine racks. How had they known about it? Whispers and rumors leaked out in poker games or over late-night or early morning pastries.
I gave a melodramatic moan as the guards squeezed through the opening and let my head hang so that my hair covered my face, a face that looked exactly like the shocked Alma as she squeezed in behind them. I could watch the scene through my vision spells even as I kept my face covered with blood-encrusted hair.
Skill Learned: Acting
Exp +20 (5,450/788,209)
“What is this?” I barely heard one of the guards say before Alma screamed like a hysterical teenager who’s dropped her make-up in the mud.
“Help me,” I ground out, my voice hoarse and pitiful at the same time. “Please.”
Acting +1
Exp +10 (5,460/788,209)
I felt the gentle hands of the guard push the dark matted hair out of my face. “What the?” he breathed out and I held back a chuckle. I needed that acting class for this one. What I wanted to do was howl with laughter, but instead I flinched from his hands.
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,480/788,209)
“No more,” I panted and sobbed out pleas that didn’t even form words. I thought of all the times they’d ground my spirit beneath their heels, and I whimpered. I thought of all the times Kat had cried in heaving sobs, thinking she was nothing because of their hubris, and I sobbed. I let it overtake me in hysterics I’d have never allowed myself to feel.
Acting +3
Exp +30 (5,510/788,209)
“Method acting gone bad,” Terra quipped in my mind, but I ignored her and indulged my self-pity even as I wailed out a panicked script.
Will +1
“It’s her,” I panted out, letting my eyes go wide. “Don’t let her touch me. She’s not me! I’m me! She’s an imposter! Help me.”
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,530/788,209)
The guards turned to the woman who wasn’t realizing that she wasn’t the victim. The real Alma’s eyes couldn’t stop sliding from cage to cage even as she kept babbling incoherently. I can’t say I blamed her. She would recognize each of the animals. We’d papered her street and the streets of her cohorts with posters of missing animals, each with one of these familiars’ faces lovingly sketched onto them. I had a drawing skill and an artist profession now.
“How did she capture familiars?” one guard asked the other. They had been patrolling this area so they too had seen all the posters appearing bit by bit over the past week.
“It’s warded!” I pointed to the floor, wishing they would think to unchain me. “The ward on the floor keeps them and me in. Please get me out of here. She’s crazy.”
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,550/788,209)
They both looked back at the woman blubbering at the entrance, her eyes wide with shock and confusion, and it wasn’t hard to believe what I was saying.
“The key,” I panted. “It’s in her robe pocket! Go get it. Please get it and let me out before she gets you too.”
Acting +1
Exp +10 (5,560/788,209)
That galvanized the poor guards. I’d be sure to give them extra wings when this was done. Even they were not immune to the scene of familiar-stealing, blood-splattered, demon-summoning-circled, magic-gone-wrong lunacy. The guards weren’t simple drones anymore. After a week of being exposed to the main characters of the story, these guards were as close to people as the engine could make.
They found the key in her pocket, one of them having to hold her arms so that she would let them search her. Of course they did. Those ferrets had sidled right out of that cage and deposited that key there mere moments before, having already returned to their cage to rattle some more. Those were Cumber’s ferrets and he’d been working with them all week to do it. He and the king, who were getting a blow-by-blow of the whole things from those two ferrets, were likely rolling in their chairs laughing over it. I, however, had to keep my wits. I wasn’t done.
Will +1
“That isn’t me,” I grabbed at guards I’d played poker with the week before.
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,580/788,209)
Only then did they start to notice that Alma and I looked very much alike. Eyes widened. Necks snapped back and forth like a ping-pong match at double speed as they compared my filthy, blood drooling face to her pale, horror-contorted one.
“Ma’am?” the poor guards’ programming tried to catch up.
“She’s been pretending to be me!” I declared and Alma’s eyes entered a new level of shock. The guards weren’t the only ones having trouble keeping up.
Acting +1
Exp +20 (5,590/788,209)
“Ma’am?” came the other guard this time.
“She’s been sacrificing familiars to keep my face and infiltrate the Universal Neophyte Leveling Venue!” I proclaimed and finally Alma found words.
Acting +1
Exp +10 (5,600/788,209)
“This is ludicrous!” and I was impressed that she found such a big word with her poor little brain melting out her ears.
“Quick! Help me dispel this.” I grabbed a nearby blood-smeared rag that we’d placed there just for this, and I scrubbed at the dried blood on the floor that made up the comical demon-summoning circle. “We have to free the poor familiars. Then you’ll see.”
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,620/788,209)
This was the hard part. There was no way we knew of to make Alma’s face look like anyone else’s. I cast a few sparks, threw my hands up with a cry of dismay and let my disguise smear.
Disguise +2
Exp +20 (5,640/788,209)
“No, no, no,” I chanted out, darting my gaze from Alma’s blooming anger and my own arms. “It’s backfired.” The problem was that I needed to drop the previous disguise and replace it with the new one. The good news was that the new spell was drastically easier than the previous one. “At least the familiars are released,” I breathed out, pointing at the cages where the animals were being summoned back to their homes.
Acting +3
Exp +30 (5,670/788,209)
“You!” she screeched at me, pointing. I was kind of glad she’d seen my face. “Arrest her!”
“No, please,” I begged the guards who were our stunned audience. Now I just needed a really good luck roll. Had the guards seen me? It had been a risk to know them so well that maybe they’d recognize me, but I’d hoped the disappearing animals would distract them. “You have to believe me.”
Luck +2
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,690/788,209)
A big burly arm over my shoulder let me know that I’d won. “We’ve got you,” the guard said, and then gave a horrified gasp at my face.
“What?” I asked and rushed to a nearby, expertly placed, wall mirror where I gazed on what had horrified the guard. I finally smiled, knowing it wouldn’t show right.
My eyes were where my mouth should have been. My mouth was sideways along my left hairline and my nose practically dripped off my chin. My smile looked like a bear had roared inside out. I could have laughed.
Will +1
“Get that thing out of my house!” Alma declared and I couldn’t believe that the arrogance still saturated her manner and mentality.
Two sets of hostile eyes turned in her direction, and I was lifted protectively into big guard arms.
“This is a matter for the king,” the one who held me ground out through clenched teeth.
“Absolutely,” the other responded, striding purposefully toward Alma.
“Fine, as long as this is cleaned up and out of my house,” Alma misunderstood even as the second guard grabbed both her arms and perp-marched her up the stairs. “What are you doing? Do you know who I am?”
“Does anyone?” I whispered and my guard held me just a little closer. I rewarded him with soft little sobs into his shoulder. Those college theater classes really were paying off. I guess my old college did teach me something. You think you’re never going to use algebra until that day you have to figure out how to do your taxes, and you think college electives are just for fun until most of them suck the fun out the very things that were supposed to help you let off steam. Theater had been different. I’d actually liked it.
Acting +2
Exp +20 (5,710/788,209)