Elia laid in bed and wasn’t sure whether she wanted to live or die. The bed was soft, so that was a point towards living. Her food was cold, and the best days of her life had just been consigned to oblivion, which were two big points to finding the nearest tall building. She was more worried about how ambivalent she was about it all. It felt like a clean fifty-fifty choice. No one should be comfortable living their life on the result of a coin flip.
An angry ball of toad squeaked at her side.
“It’s ok Quibbles. The bad guys are gone. We’re safe here, safe and cozy for a little bit at least.”
Quibbles slapped a foot on the ground in disappointment.
“Slavedriver. It’s never enough, is it? What’s the point then, why push me to a crossroads when I’m not allowed to turn the wheel? You’re just a normal toad, you don’t know how it is to carry the world on your shoulders.”
Quibbles looked at her with a hint of dismissal.
“Sorry. That was uncalled for.”
But Quibbles had a point. She took a deep breath and focused on herself. If she wanted to live, she needed a reason, a good one. So, what was it all for?
For joy? For anger? For fear, love, hate, disgust, unease, rapture–
Vengeance.
An errant gust tousled her hair. It was drafty, which was her fault for throwing furniture through the window. Violent, knee-jerk anger wasn’t going to start fixing any problems today. Go figure.
But she wanted vengeance, and more, she wanted to live, to get her life back.
The foundation of her self-pity began to crumble. She was Elia, and she would live through the day one way or the other like she always had. But going back to how things were, just her and Quibbles walking by the wayside, was unimaginable. There was food now, and people, friends and fun and stakes.
Glorious, terrible, frightening stakes.
The pact wasn’t perfect, but it was a place she might be able to call home one day. Within three days, that hard-earned peace would cease to exist. Three days. The first day she had spent unconscious on the first loop, the second day she had spent in Kasimir’s laboratory, and the third pulled between so many different people.
It was the start of day two now. A third of this loop was already spent, already wasted.
Quibbles bit her cheek. Elia frowned.
“Yeah, I should be getting up now.” She plied the angry toad off her and set him gently down. “You’re a good friend, Quibbles. I have met many toads, but none with an uplifting character like yours.”
Quibbles croaked a single bashful croak, turning away.
“Aww, is someone blushing? Look at you. I bet all the girl-toads call you mister handsome, you handsome little green smudge. And you’re right, I shouldn’t be too angry. I mean, I only lost a few days progress, some friends I made, and an almost first kiss. That’s all still there if we win. If we lose, then… then we lose…” A quiet, hot shudder shook her. “Ow. Ok, let’s not think negative thoughts for now. Careful Quibbles, we’re walking on shards of glass.”
Quibbles didn’t comment as he climbed into his little satchel, ready as can be. Elia checked her gear once over. The armor she wore over her chest didn’t make the jump, only helmet, bracers, and boots. She looked at herself in the mirror, still wearing her pants under her toga.
“I’m such a hot mess,” she said, wiping away a tear. “Hold it together, Elia. We’re not done here, not by a long shot. It’s all on us now. All on me.”
----------------------------------------
Despite the maze-like streets of the pact’s city district, finding Karla’s tower was simple. Compared to the other villas, it stuck out like a wedding cake placed next to a muffin. It was pink too, some sort of naturally tinged granite. The only thing higher up was a temple placed atop a hill further duck-cloud-wards.
That one didn’t look small even from hundreds of feet down.
“That’s a lot of stairs,” Elia said. “Lucky you that I can just carry you, eh Quibbles?”
On her way towards the tower, Elia tried to get a sense of scale for the space the pact lived in. They had improvised the fortification of a part of the city that had the most expensive villas and public buildings in a way that prevented random dregs or monsters from strolling inside. An alleyway was poorly walled off here, a road blocked there by furniture and abandoned carts. It didn’t look like any one of the haphazard blockades would stop a dedicated enemy, but they were clearly just meant to be easy to create, and slow them down.
And then there were buildings like Karla’s tower, which was a fortress in and of itself.
‘Must be lonely, having so much open space,’ she thought.
She shook the pangs of loneliness from her own heart. Checking on Karla wasn’t a priority, and it was stupid of her to try and go straight there. But if she was going to try anything risky, she would need another ring of grace. And she wanted to know if Karla was ok. That was all.
When she arrived, two large figures stood hunched next to the outer door. It was the only way in, Elia had checked. The walls were too slick to climb as well, and she would have likely been caught in the attempt anyways.
She counted to ten, stilled her heart, and approached the guardians in a way that might not make them instantly kill her. Perhaps they were reasonable people. Perhaps they too would be taken by the power of her panache.
“Howdy!” she called. “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
The two guardians didn’t move an inch. They had skull masks, a feature that was a theme throughout the Pact’s dregs. Elia stepped closer, but once she was ten feet away, a whispering voice moaned at her.
“Leave,” the left guardian said. “Party hard.”
“Alright…?” He seemed to have a hard time stringing just those words together. “I’m just here as a tourist. Do you guys just stand here all day, every day? Is this your job? Are you dregs? Karla and I go way back, so do I have to make an appointment or are you gonna let me in now?”
The two dregs slowly pulled out twin sabers.
“Party. Hard. Leave. Now.”
Elia may have been bad at social situations, but she certainly knew when she was unwelcome. Karla’s tower was a bust then. The thought alone roused a hot anger inside. The further she walked away, the more her fury grew into something ugly. A roiling ocean of emotion boiled beneath her thin façade of trying to act like she belonged.
She really did not. She was not enjoying life, lying on the ground in a drunken stupor like all the people around her for one. She kicked one of them over, poking them roughly until he blinked awake.
“Hey, what time is it? You got a watch? I also need directions.”
The man muttered some curses, something about directions and where she could shove it. Helpful. Really, really helpful. Every second that went by ticked closer to Rhuna’s arrival. She needed to do so much with so little, and here was this guy, drunk off his ass and wasting her time.
“What’s your name?”
“M-mephisto.”
Mephisto. Where had she heard that name again? Ah, right.
“Your wife’s a cunt,” Elia said, then let him slump to the ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, a familiar figure top-toed along the wall.
“HEY!” she yelled, gunning it right after. She slammed the door to the armory behind her and lo and behold, there was Mahdi aka Stultus Asinus aka the man formerly known as Harris.
“Please, if you’re going to steal stuff, take armory stock, not mine!”
“Relax Mahdi,” Elia growled in an annoyed voice that was anything but relaxed. “I’m here to ask for directions. You guys have an attendant, you couldn’t affix your greater souls otherwise. Where are they?”
He peeked from behind his arms, blinking slowly “U-up top, on the old temple,” he stuttered.
Figures. They all lived in temples, as if it was their natural habitat. “Alright. How do I get up?”
“They won’t let you close, neither there nor to their bowl.” She fixed him with a glare. “B-but I am a former godservant. I-I can bend some rules, sneak them out of their temple for a time, by tomorrow’s party when nobody is looking for them.”
“Alright,” Elia said. “That’s… alright. Thank you, Mahdi. You got a ring of grace?”
“T-three thousand souls,” he said. She paid the price without flinching. “Nobody ever buys these. They’re all out in groups anyways, and nobody likes planning for failure. Besides that, maybe don’t yell across the courtyards anymore? You’re bringing a lot of unwanted attention.”
Stolen novel; please report.
True. People who had been watching her, would likely see her enter and exit the armory too. Even the gods were following her silly little struggles.
Let them watch. She had questions that required answers.
One question was why Mahdi was acting so… differently from all the rest.
“Can you remember living this day before?” she asked. He nodded frantically. “Why? How? What’s the cause?”
Mahdi just shrugged. “Boons that’ll protect your mind, likely. Some magical items. That circlet you’re wearing would do the trick. A lesser shard warding your mind would definitely do it. Can you leave now? Your fashion sense is making my eyes burn.”
Elia looked down at her random ensemble. “You still got that good armor you showed me at clearwater temple?”
“I am not giving you the Everrust set even as a favor to Camille, and even if you have credit. It’s the armor of a lesser deity, either you pay, or you don’t get it at all.”
“Fair.” She wasn’t planning on stocking up on gear until she was absolutely sure she could solve it all in this cycle. The risk of her expensive gear suffering from attrition over the loops was too real and she could not afford mistakes, not against Rhuna. She dumped her pack on the ground. “How many souls would I get for about thirty-odd academy casting wands?”
Mahdi looked like he had swallowed a lump of ember coals. “Ah, I-I mean, they are good quality, but very dangerous and… and you got them from the academy, which means you were there recently. Your helmet, is that… frost damage? Oh, oh gods, you were the one who killed Yolon-“
She slapped her hand across his mouth.
“… and you want to affix his soul,” he finished in a muffled voice.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. Is that going to be a problem?”
He vigorously shook his head.
“Good. Then exchange all but one of these wands for souls and I’ll be out of your hair.”
He did. All in all, it netted her another 45,000 souls. He was probably getting the better end of the deal at 1,500 per wand, but on the other hand, the pact was a very limited consumer market for something as specific as conjuration wands.
She took a look at her soul-purse.
Soul count: x70,000
Seeing so many souls all in place softened a bit of her directionless frustration.
“I’ll get going then. See you at the party.”
She left the armory with a pep in her step, thinking about all the things she had to do. Rhuna was attacking in about one and a half days. Setting aside the problem of how to even measure the passing of time without a day-night-cycle, the pact only had around two-hundred non-dreg members present at the party. Elia could not believe that not one of them knew about this beforehand. Her first impression was that they were simply surprised by how fast Rhuna had attacked them, and didn’t have time to enact a response.
It was absolutely imperative that she convinced someone high up the food chain of the impending threat. Rhuna was going to adjust her schedule and methodology too, considering she had a crystal clear recollection of every other past loop. It was pretty much too late to do anything big now, but any failures she endured on the way now would be the foundation of her success in the next loop.
“Not so different from the maze,” she murmured, and Quibbles agreed.
The problem was her lack of proof. Who would believe the girl that had just barged into their last party via their forbidden fast-travel point? Karla was an exception; she would believe Elia if she claimed the sky was green. But the princess didn’t seem very integrated into the higher-end decision-making, considering how they locked her up in a tower.
Gods, that pissed her off.
“Hey pretty girl,” a hand alighted on her shoulder and Elia swiveled to give the swaggering Zane a death glare.
“Zane!” Elia said, twirling around. “Just the punching bag I was looking for!”
His expression froze as he awkwardly lifted his hand again. “How do you know my name?”
Elia scrutinized him for a short while, before deciding that he didn’t remember her between loops. She could use allies, but she could make enemies just as easily. Which she was poised to do if she let anger guide her actions.
She breathed in, breathed out. She had to be calm, like an ocean. “I’m psychic. I know you’re all part of the pact’s secret service as well, and that you’re kinda spying on me.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He scoffed. “We’re all friends here in the pact, and friends of friends. Who would need spies?”
He would have convinced anybody else, considering how little effort he required to sound like just another idiot. Clever, but the disguise did not fool her.
“And where do outsiders stand on that scale?”
He smiled a perfect fairytale-prince smile, and if Elia hadn’t known better, her heart would have made a skip. “Wherever they like. They could pass on by, they could settle down. So, what’ll it be?”
Definitely a pass for Elia. She didn’t have time to fool around anyways. Except, that had worked last time, hadn’t it? “… if I duel you with only a spoon and win, will you do one thing I ask of you?”
“Cocky one, aren’t you? And if I win, will you do anything I say?”
“Sure,” she limbered up, twirling her secret spoon. “This’ll only take a moment.”
Crow and Cat looked at each other. Unlike the adolescent in front of her, they had one hand near concealed weapons since the start. “Yo Zane, pretty sure she just cracked her neck as a flex. You sure you’re gonna be alright?”
Zane scoffed. “Please. I killed one of Avon’s knights in single combat just last week. This’ll be a breeze.”
It took Elia less than ten seconds to disarm him, then five more seconds to cut one of his remaining feet off. He hopped and swore like a pogostick before Elia knocked him out with a jab.
She twirled her kitchenware. His two companions tensed as she leaned down and slapped him awake.
“Hey, you won.” Crow crowed. “No need to step on our delicate little flower,”
“I’m just watering him,” she said, tipping her plastic bottle in his mouth. A few sips of water– refilled by the courtesy and discretion of the pact – and he was blinking away the haze that came with a nasty concussion. “Undead dueling rules, yeah? No harm no foul.”
“Who?” he asked.
“You lost, bud. Time to pay up.”
He groaned pitifully. “Beat up. By a girl. The shame.”
“Hey, shove that talk where the sun don’t shine, this isn’t the nineties.” She took a good look at his face, recognizing a few parts where his ring embellished the shape of his chin. “How old are you?”
“… seventeen and a half.”
Elia paused her gloating for a good second. “Now I feel bad about dunking on you. Listen, I need to know what the political landscape is like in the pact. Grudges, rivalries, dependencies, leverage. Who do I have to talk to get things moving?”
He scoffed in disbelief. “What are you, the world’s worst spy?”
“No, just a girl fascinated by levers.” She offered a hand. “But if you’re looking for a spy, I want in. I kinda like this place.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled himself up. He still looked like a puppy that someone had thrown in a river. It was amazing how much you could cover up with a little bit of confidence.
“Fine, but we’re taking you to home base first. We’ve got someone with a truthsayer boon there. Make sure you’re not lying out of your ass.”
----------------------------------------
The lid to the sewers clanked in place. Cat was the last to climb down, arriving with a wet splash. Now they were all equally subject to the stinking wet air below. The sewers didn’t look very used, and no rainfall meant you could walk through the accumulated filth. However, what was left behind was the stickiness of the floor, the humid air, and the smell.
“So, this is how you guys get around,” Elia said, gagging at a pile of ick. “A comfy set of secret tunnels for a comfy secret police.”
“We are not a secret organization,” Zane said. “We are a respectable family, and a necessary arm of the pact. And everything we do is for the good of the pact.”
“I dunno about that.” She eyed Cat and Crow, who in turn eyed her. They weren’t so happy-go-lucky this loop around, and Elia preferred it that way. They had their hands in the ongoing rumors surrounding Karla while to them, she must look super suspicious. They clearly didn’t trust her, and she didn’t trust them.
They walked a good while through the dried-out sewage bed, Elia pondering what kind of information she could pull out of Zane’s nose, and how.
“Why are you people so hellbent on partying all the time?” she asked after settling on the direct approach. “Is everyone a chronic alcoholic?”
“Wouldn’t you be?” he snapped. “The world’s fucked, and there’s nothing else really to do. One step outside the pact and you risk getting bounced by a dozen dregs, or mauled by an ensouled monster, or abducted by Rhuna’s creeps. We can’t go without supervision or in small groups, but in large groups you barely get any souls, souls we need to pay Greta for her aging potions.”
Elia watched a golfball-sized mushroom spore slowly drift to the ground. “The what now?”
“Aging potions. Because undead don’t grow up naturally.” That was news to her, and also where he just stopped talking. A piece of advice Rye had given her came to mind. She walked up to his side, and blinked prettily at him until he cared to elaborate further. “I’ve been seventeen for the past six years. Once I turn eighteen, I won’t need supervision, and I can go out and organize my own missions. Except for some reason, nobody is even taking me on the safer expeditions. It’s like they don’t want me to grow up, and I think my father’s behind it all.”
“Oh. Um. That sounds kinda sad?” Did that mean Elia hadn’t aged one day since her arrival? Her true ring of humankind certainly seemed to think as much, but it was prone to flattery more than any other piece of jewelry. “Mind you, there’s not much to look forward to out there. Even if you’re good, life’s a grind.”
“And if you’re not?”
Everybody knew the answer to that. It was a wide ocean out there, and every mistake added another lead weight to your legs. Elia felt more like she was approaching a whirlpool, as thoughts of the future caused her gut to twist painfully. She didn’t even know what success looked like, beyond making sure her closest friends were alright.
In truth, she knew that after tasting this sweet garden of Eden, she could never go without the allure of civilization again.
They arrived at an exit, which they didn’t take, instead following the sewer further down and into a dead end. Zane flashed a round sigil like a flower carved from colored metal. The wall in front shimmered, then disappeared as if it was just a poo-smell-induced fata morgana.
“Through here,” he said.
“Oh, I thought we were going through the other invisible wall,” Elia quipped, leaning against a wall before falling right through it. She fell in a pile of hidden weapons with a clatter. Everybody looked at her with a mixture of surprise and awkward stares “Ow. Ok, I get it, I’m not touching anything anymore.”
She followed Zane up and through a cellar before they emerged from behind an old grandfather clock straight into a foyer. The walls were old, and the wooden floor creaked like a groaning old man. Zane pricked his ears, then disappeared into a cloud of mini bats. A flurry of knives and other weapons hit the place he’d just been in. Two yelps came from the top of the bifurcated stairway, quickly followed by two people being flung over the balustrade.
They landed on tip toes without making a sound. Elia was ready for a fight but instead of moving to intercept, they simply bowed on their knees at the bottom of the stairwell.
“Young master, it is good to see you are well,” said the larger one, swaddled in dark cloths.
“Young master, we pay you our respects,” said the smaller one, clothed similarly. Elia inspected them closer from the side, eyes zipping between their dark getups, the short swords at their backs, and the star-shaped throwing weapons embedded in the wooden floor.
“Oh my gosh,” Elia half-whispered, half squeaked. “They’re ninjas.”
Zane meanwhile dusted himself off, pretending like he regularly threw people across his house first thing in the morning, and threw his arms open.
“Welcome to the thieves’ guild.”