Agnor’s hut was dim and warm, illuminated by candlelight, and smelling of dead roses. The boss battle music was already playing in Akemi’s head the moment the scent hit her nostrils. She had half a mind to turn around and run, but she knew Brutus was waiting outside, arms-crossed, taking slow drags of his pipe. So she continued, stepping prudently over tea candles that littered the floor. Tiny fire hazards. The pika made a curious “eep, eep,” noise from behind, startling her.

“You’re still here?” Akemi whispered darkly, staring daggers at the tiny creature. The pika did not seem deterred by her menace. It instead nibbled at the ends of her torn pants, gnawing happily.

“Sweetie, is that you?”

Goosebumps ravaged Akemi’s arms, and she felt suddenly nauseous. That voice—she recognized that voice. It was shrill and high and feminine. It was her mother’s voice, unmistakable. It had that same accented, melodic lilt she had when speaking in English.

There’s no way.

“Be a duktig flicka and fetch the tea, won’t you? It’ll boil over.”

A ghastly tea pot appeared, like an apparition, next to her feet. Steam rose from its bubbling lid. It was the same old tea kettle that her mom kept around the house—a bulbous piece of Dutch white and blue pottery, with horses dancing along the handle and stem. It even had that same faint crack running down the middle. It was a perfect mimic of the original.

Akemi’s eyes stuck to it, mesmerized, for several seconds before reminded herself that this was a world of magic—and as such, a world of illusion. The tea kettle was just a trick of the eye.

Peeling herself away, she turned towards the source of the voice. There was a drape of fine, blood-red fabric separating the entry room from the main quarters of the house. Ignoring the tea pot, Akemi inched towards the drape. She could feel a faint heat emanating from the other room. Something was burning. Incense. The same cheap one her mom burned—to scare away the ghosts—every Sunday. She pinched her nose and pushed away the drape.

Akemi gasped, her mouth falling open.

The room was quaint and claustrophobic, with a ceiling that caved inwards at a swooping angle. Mahogany bookshelves were piled high with dusty tomes. A central table, circular and painted a startling red, held one flickering candle. Behind the table was a cushioned chair that looked as old as time itself—it was nearly a throne, with two aged purple cushions, wildly torn, white stuffing piling out. The lighting was so low and moody, Akemi could barely see.

But what she could see startled her.

Sitting in that chair was her mother, one leg tucked under the other, polite as ever with her gleaming blonde hair and cherry-red lips. She had her jockey jacket on, but the rest of her clothes were homely. A periwinkle dress and two sandals.

“You forgot the tea,” she commented dryly.

“What in the nine circles of hell is this?” Akemi retorted, horrified. She now knew what Brutus meant when he mentioned a fate worse than death. “If this is the punishment I’m getting for killing that junior knight guy, it’s way too severe. Just waterboard me instead.”

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Her mother smiled placidly. It was unnerving. Like watching a life-like puppet, sans the strings.

“Calm down, sweetie, you’re always getting so riled up,” her mother admonished her, reaching for something on the table—but her ghastly hand just went straight through it. It broke the illusion considerably. “Your father will be back soon. Why don’t you sit down and chat with me? We never catch up. I wanna hear about everything. What’s the gossip up in Stockholm?”

Akemi rolled her eyes. While seeing her mom again had given her an initial fright, the illusion, taken as a whole, was a pretty poor one. Her appearance was mostly spot on—although her mom would never wear her jockey jacket with her indoor clothes—and the accent was alright, but the words coming out of her mouth were pathetically off-base. Her real mother talked in small, quip-like sentences, took very little interest in Akemi’s life, and all in all, was a very quiet, practically mute woman. Not some 1950s British housewife with a tea obsession.

“Well. Stockholm blew up in some kind of nuclear apocalypse event, last I saw it. So that’s the news,” Akemi said, taking her time to examine the room. She rounded it cockily, dragging her muddy shoes and haphazardly opening and closing drawers, misplacing books, pocketing expensive-looking knicknacks. Actions that would have pissed her real-life mom off to no end.

As it turned out, that was the one thing she and the piss-poor clone had in common.

“Stop that!” her mother shouted, rising from her seat. Her voice momentarily dropped to a very low register—a growly, demonic thing. “Sit down and behave. I won’t have you rummaging around the kitchen like that. Did I not teach you manners?”

“Considering I spent half my childhood playing in the mud outside the horse barn with no one watching me,” Akemi said, opening a book and lazily glancing at the dusty pages. “No. You really didn't.”

Then something on the page caught her eye. The title of the chapter was “Cursed Curiosities - A Warlocks’ Guide to Unlocking the Secrets of Malevolent Objects,” and it had several illustrations of various magical items. Wands, amulets, tomes, but most curiously—pocket watches.

Ignoring her pseudo-mother’s seething, Akemi browsed through her inventory. She reviewed the watch that she had pocketed off the late cowboy.

[Warlock’s Pocket Watch]

An eerie timepiece haunted by the spectral presence of a lost lover. It bears a gruesome history, having become forever frozen in time on the day its owner's fiancée tragically passed away. This haunting relic now serves as a melancholic reminder of a love lost in the depths of eternity.

Tutorial Tip! Some items bear enchantments that can only be unlocked by a specific class. If you do not belong to that class, you won’t be able to view the enchantment. However, you can take the item to an Artificer to potentially alter the item and unlock the stored enchantment.

Right. The enchantment. I’ve gotta find an artificer one of these days to help with that.

“Are you even listening to me!”

Her mother let out a banshee’s wail of a scream. Annoyed at the interruption to her reading, Akemi turned back to face her. “Can’t you keep it down? I’m trying to educate myself,” she responded bluntly, causing her mother’s face to swell. The woman’s hands were wound into tight fists. She looked on the verge of explosion.

“You have the gall to talk to your own mother like this? Your own blood, your own—”

Akemi rolled her eyes, summoned [Orb of Pestilent Bloodlust], and flung it directly at her.

To her dismay, it didn’t kill the clone. It merely caused her to suddenly despawn, leaving Akemi alone in the dimly lit dwelling. She sighed, clapped the book closed, and added it to her inventory. “So much for a boss fight,” she murmured to herself, turning to leave.

Just as she was about to peel away the drape again, a new figure shuttered into existence in front of her. It was a man, skinny as a toothpick, breathing heavily, his hand to his chest. His face was cold and young but he wore a scowl fit for a sixty-year old military veteran.

Agnor | Level ??? Holy Warlock

“Huh,” Akemi said, closing the notification. “For some reason, I expected you to be… bigger.”

“You’d kill your own mother?” Agnor shrieked, giving no pretense. He reached towards her and curled his hand around her throat, sudden and choking.

Akemi could barely breathe, but she managed to choke out—“You wouldn’t?”