Max watched Miss Ravenloft. Her slick black dress tugged at her body like a suit of armour. Her eyes pierced through the hidden natures that veiled her interest of this meeting. But above all, Miss Ravenloft was something else.
She had just killed a person. In cold blood. Or hot. Max didn't quite know. He kind of did, yes, but this was a point he didn't want to miss, a bend he didn't want to get around with.
Miss Ravenloft was a murderer. And she was now wafting, her black dress billowing out from under her legs, backwards, offering a deceitful grace but a powerful sweeping move. Max didn't know that by simply having someone walk towards him by just a stride that invoked the darkest of presence could make someone be put under tremendous pressure.
As Miss Ravenloft approached closer, Markus shot Max a remember what I told you look. Max gulped again. This was the second time today, and the last time he had gulped twice, he was in boiling trouble.
Best to keep still, he thought to himself.
“This is it?” Miss Ravenloft said. She took a look at Max. Then another. Then up and down his body, onto his legs, his eyes. “He is the Detected?”
“Yes ma'am,” Markus said, bowing down slightly.
Miss Ravenloft smiled thinly. “He looks a little… too little, you know what I mean?”
“All the Detected we've had so far haven't looked clean,” Penny said, clutching her hands close to her chest. “But he is…” she paused to search for a word, “better.”
“You healed him?” Miss Ravenloft glanced at Penny like she wasn't there, like she didn't deserve to be standing there with him. “How do you know you wouldn't have been transferred with any diseases?” Miss Ravenloft said.
“I-”
“Charmed by his looks? Or by his physique?”
“No, ma'am-”
Miss Ravenloft stepped closer towards Penny. Now she was looking her dead in the eye. Her movements still. Like daggers, Penny could feel the pain before it had began.
“I've told you before. Remember the last time that happened? Just because you've lost everything doesn't mean that there's nothing out there for you. It just means that at this very moment, this isn't what you want.”
Penny nodded. She could feel the tears about to flow from the sides of her eyes. “Yes, ma'am.”
“Remember Jason? Charmed. I don't know what you see in him, clearly I don't. But you attach yourself to him like a flea, like a performer to a trapeze. I've been there, Penny. You're not the only one.” Miss Ravenloft used her fingers to push the short hair that she had behind her ears. It didn't make her look better, it just made her look different. Max noticed this than he should.
“It will not happen again,” Penny said. “I know my…” she paused again. “Convictions. I promise.”
Miss Ravenloft nodded. Finally something was getting through to young Penny, even if it took a little graduating of her adolescent ideas.
“I don't need you to promise me anything. Promises aren't made of gold, they never were.” Miss Ravenloft pushed the hair back on her other ear. Now, Penny was less flustered, looked a little more perfect. She wasn't quite there yet, but Miss Ravenloft could see it forming.
“Now, I am in no need of you. There are other Detected I need you to fix up. Can you do that, dear?” Miss Ravenloft asked softly. Penny knew it was an order, not a request, and just because the way her volume was low didn't mean to change the meaning in her voice.
Penny nodded again.
“Good girl,” Miss Ravenloft said. “Now go.”
Penny lowered her head and left towards one of the dark chambers that lead down from the hallway. Max watched her go. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything.
“Now,” Miss Ravenloft said, turning to Markus, then to Max. “We can finally get to work, can’t we?”
Markus nodded. He looked at Max, who didn’t seem to move his head.
Miss Ravenloft looked anticipatedly. Markus nudged Max.
Max finally nodded.
“Max Mercier,” Miss Ravenloft said, then turning to walk back up the steps where her throne sat at the very top. “I know all I need to know about you.”
“I-”
Max almost said, but Markus nudged him again. Max gave him a resentful look, then a Maybe I shouldn’t have done this look.
“But the question isn’t really about me, it’s about you. It always has been. And today, the day you arrived here at the mansion, my mansion, is when you will know something very important, even more important than just being here,” Miss Ravenloft said, finally reaching the very top. She took a seat on her rightful throne.
Max gulped. Not again. It was the third time now. He didn’t like being told to, being told condescendingly to. He really didn’t like most of what Miss Ravenloft said, and definitely not what she was going to say afterwards.
“You are nothing without me,” Miss Ravenloft said. “And that is the truth.”
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Max stood there quietly. But the way that he stood quietly made Miss Ravenloft question if he was indeed not everything. Instead, he was nothing. Surely she knew which was worse.
“Are you a mute, Mr. Mercier?” Miss Ravenloft asked.
Max cringed. He looked towards Markus, who nodded as in to give a greenlight to Max. He turned back to Miss Ravenloft.
“No,” he said. Nudge. Markus nudged him again. “No, ma’am,” he said, correcting himself, unsure if that was the answer she was looking for.
“That’s good. It’s no good for me to have a Detected, man or woman, to be a mute, deaf, or any of those disabilities. I’m not saying they don’t have a place in this world. They do, just not in mine,” she explained. “Plus, it makes it easier for when I send you on potential missions and you’ve got to do what I tell you to. Or worse, you becoming a leader of your own and being unable to even speak to your own party members.”
What? Max was in confused land. Miss Ravenloft noticed it about him.
“Do you have questions, Max?” she asked. “Has someone told you to be quiet? Particularly so, right in front of me?”
Max shook his head immediately. “No, ma’am. It’s just… it’s a new place. I don’t know how to feel about all of this.”
“Good,” Miss Ravenloft said. “Being unsure is good. Being regretful, being resentful, being anything other than trying to leave here thinking that you could with your legs still connected is not a foolproof plan. Raise me some questions then, Max.”
Max searched his head for the questions he wanted to ask. Then he put them in a mental note, starting from the top priority to the last.
“Where am I?” he asked.
Miss Ravenloft chuckled. “Markus, you didn’t tell him?”
Markus played along with a friendly tone in his voice. “He awoke before we got here. To my memory, all the other Detected that came here didn’t really get up until we got to the throne room,” he said.
She nodded. “Well,” addressing Max’s question, “you’re in the Underworld. Out here, and out there, it’s different. Very much different. Two-headed dogs. Three-headed even. Crows with beaks bigger than the front of a ship. Things are very different around here.”
Max didn’t understand. He was scared first, but he didn’t understand anything that Miss Ravenloft was speaking. He didn’t see any three-headed dogs or two-headed dogs, or any dogs at all, or crows.
“The Underworld is… different?” he asked again, pegging the question in the way he wanted to ask.
“The Underworld is an alternative universe. It’s the same, but not really. Everything you know, you still know, but there’s things that are different. We’ve got weirder things here, yes, but the economy, the politics? More or less the same. I’m at the top, and you report to me for the most part. As long you do your job, quietly or spectacularly, then the only problem we’ve got is how much you can keep this up.”
Max nodded slowly. “Then what about me? Why am I here?”
Miss Ravenloft smiled. “Dear, you’ve been Detected. When you lose everything in that other universe, or the ‘real world’ as you probably call it in your head, you no longer have a part to play there. And that’s why you’re here. Do you understand?”
No, Max thought. “What is my part to play here?”
“You sure do ask a lot of questions. Maybe Markus you can answer this question,” Miss Ravenloft said.
Max turned to Markus.
“You’ll be going out there, kid,” Markus said. “It’s kill or be killed in the Underworld.”
“And that’s why I’d rather watch,” Miss Ravenloft said. Max glanced at her, knowing a little more than he would have liked, and then turned back to Markus.
“We’ll give you everything you needed. Armour, weapons, potions, shields, anything. But the most important thing isn’t you anymore, it’s about the things you will be getting, the people you will be… taking. That’s more important than you or your party members,” Markus explained. “I know you don’t want to be here, kid, but you’ve got to put your head on the line if it takes you to retrieve everything from a mission.”
Markus revealed through his armour clothing, on his leggings, that his left leg had been replaced with a dark blight. It was like tendrils, scratching and crawling their way up from his lower limb to his torso, but somehow there’s a curse that has been there to stop it.
“I did that,” Miss Ravenloft said. “People need second chances. Max, this is your second chance.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Max said, watching Miss Ravenloft from the foot of the steps. “What if I tell you that I’m just not up to the task with what you expect from me?”
“That’s why you aren’t here for a lovely vacation, dear. You’ll be here for good. At least, until you learn how to be what you need to be in every situation. And once that’s done, perhaps I’ll let you leave.”
“Leave?”
“Leave the Underworld. Return home, where people you’ve disappointed are still disappointed in you. Where the home you left from is still a wreck. Where the friends you’ve known aren’t, in fact, friends at all. Max, these are things you’ve left behind. You have nothing back home.”
Max stood there silently. Miss Ravenloft was right. She wasn’t just right, she was correct in every possible way.
“So, I’m stuck here?” Max asked.
“Not if you live in denial. Make something of yourself, Max. Show me you can be something more, show me some desire, some proof of living,” Miss Ravenloft said.
Thudding footsteps came from one of the dark hallways. One of Miss Ravenloft’s guards came rushing with sweat dripping down from his brows.
“Ma’am! Ma’am!” he called out.
“What is it?” Miss Ravenloft said annoyingly. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of goddamn something?”
“Sorry, but one of the Detected have found something. A contact.”
Miss Ravenloft’s eyes burned bright. “A contact? When was this?”
“Around five minutes ago, ma’am.”
“Useless fools! Take me to him, now.”
Miss Ravenloft stood and climbed down the stairs. Almost forgetting something, she stared imperiously at Max.
“There’s a lot of things you have yet to know, Max. But don’t worry, time will get us there.” She turned to Markus. “Get him whatever he needs for now. His first mission will be soon.”
Markus bowed lightly. “Yes, ma’am.”
As Miss Ravenloft disappeared following her guard into the dark hallway, Max could feel a presence sitting deep within him. He didn’t like it, no, but this time, it seemed infinite and boiling, unlike before. He could always throw these feelings away, but this one was like a rock.
No, he thought. A boulder.
“Come,” Markus said, grabbing Max by the shoulders once more. “We’re going to get you a compendium.”
He lead him into a random dark hallway.
“Is there anyway to get back, Markus?” he asked.
“I had two rules, Max,” Markus said. “I know when Miss Ravenloft asks, you can only accept. But right here, with only me, you only speak when I tell you to, get it?”
They walked a fair short distance before Markus realized that the kid needed to know some things. Not just for the kid’s soul, but for his too. It was what happened when he got here, and it was the least he could do for the kid.
“No,” Markus said. “There’s no way back. I’ve been here thirteen years kid. Better get comfortable in the soiling of your boots.”
Max gulped. This day went from worse to never, ever, ever getting better.