The stage was set, and the players were ready.

It was time to give one hell of a show.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to get started on my drawing.” Adam felt the pain mounting in his broken bones. Even just standing was taking a lot of effort. “Sit there and be quiet.”

“Am I understanding your ability correctly?” The Ghost sounded surprised, but more than that, it seemed vaguely awed at the idea. Just like Adam wanted. “When you fail, will I receive your ability to turn your blood to Ink? Your...gift from the gods?”

“That’s right. So kindly shut the fuck up and let me paint.”

“Quite the proposition you have there,” the Ghost mused. “Are you certain you’d like to gift me such a thing? Currently, I possess the body of a fragile, mortal human. Even if I distort and mutate, even if I move about my organs, destroying my vital points should still kill me. Do you not care to try those odds?”

“With my Talent that can’t hurt you? Yeah, I’ll pass.”

It’s not going to attack, Adam thought, trying to ignore the rising pain in his shoulder. No reason to. This is a much better deal for him. He’s uneasy, sure, but the Ink and my Talent are too appealing to pass up.

After a second of contemplation, the Ghost spread its arms out. “Then I offer you an alternative. My siblings still seek a body. Welcome their Haunting, dear Painter, and be granted power untold.”

“Now you just sound like you’re trying to sell me on timeshares.” Adam shook his head. “If my choices are between being haunted by an evil ghost, trying to fight a living curse immune to my only attacks, or relying on the skill that I’ve been practicing since I was a little kid...if it’s all the same to you, I’m going with painting.”

“You could also use your Lord Talent.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “I’d also rather not indirectly murder thousands, thanks. You really think I’d be down with stepping on that many lives just to survive? Were you the medieval equivalent of a tech bro CEO before you died?” He didn’t even care that the Ghost couldn’t understand half the words he was saying. The implied rudeness was enough.

“Speak as oddly as you will. Are you confident you can win this gamble, human from the World of Ink? Is that why you deign to challenge me so?”

“To be honest, I’m pretty bad at gambling,” Adam said, absently. His mind was already on the drawing – this one was going to be tricky. “I actually have a pretty addictive personality. Thankfully, my luck is so bad that I only ever gamble when I know there’s no chance of losing.”

He meant that too. This wasn’t a gamble. One way or another, everything would be settled with the pen in his hand. If he got his painting right, this would end with him stealing the “Curse” Talent and sealing it within his tablet. If he got it wrong...

Well, things would get just slightly more complicated.

Adam dragged his pen from top to bottom, splitting the screen in two – the drawing itself, and another file for him to write on. While his blood loss certainly put him on a timer, rushing would’ve been just as fatal. He only had one shot.

Now then...let’s start. It’s time to put everything together – and deduce the truth.

WHO IS LADY SOLARA?

Adam had been told that she was the daughter of Lord Vasco, but Penumbria didn’t have much information on her, even before this curse business happened. Considering how Aspreay was supposedly friends with Vasco once upon a time, it felt weird that he didn’t even seem to know who the girl’s mother was. Heck, everything Adam read up on before coming here had implied that Vasco never got married at all.

What could he extract from that?

— Lady Solara’s existence was not well known.

But why?

“Are you not – are you not going to comment on my ears?” Solara said that earlier, hadn’t she? She’d sounded pretty shocked. Based on that conversation and some things Tenver had said over the last couple months, it seemed like elves weren’t exactly well-liked around these parts. On top of that, it also seemed like her heritage was a secret.

What did that mean?

— Solara is either an elf and not Vasco’s biological daughter, or a half-elf.

— Either way, to put it mildly, this world isn’t a huge fan of elves.

Yeah...everything made more sense when Adam thought of it from that angle. Solara, whether blood related or not, was both an elf and – more importantly – the heir to Gama. If these lands hated elves, then that factor re-contextualized much of the current situation.

It probably played a part in Belmordo wanting her dead, aside from his lust for power. It also probably made it easy for Belmordo to gain allies in Gama’s royal court. Vasco may have been a popular lord, but his decision to bring his daughter into court was likely met with more than a little pushback.

— Vasco brought in Solara and named her as heir, pushback be damned. And there *was* pushback.

And that led to—!

— Solara searched for a way to gain a strong Talent, to help Gama – and to make the city more agreeable to her status.

That started to paint a picture of who she was.

As an outcast in another culture, Solara was probably very lonely and very worried about her father. She knew that her race would always paint a target on her back. How couldn’t she feel concern for the man who threw caution to the wind and brought her into his life? And because of her background, Solara was likely sequestered from the rest of the population, only knowing and being known through whispers and rumors.

No matter how much idealistic optimism she may have held in her heart, as the attacks on her character began to pile up, she would’ve inevitably wavered. When Solara eventually started suspecting Belmordo’s intentions, and began considering how many might support killing her – let alone her father – she must have despaired.

Enough so that she resorted to searching for ways to acquire a new Talent.

If only it had worked that way. Instead, she was given a Talent that was closer to a curse than a blessing; the haunting of a ghost who took control of her body, reshaping it into a monstrosity that grew more grotesque and uncontrollable by the second. At that point, Solara's only choice was to accept being trapped in the tower. More alone now than ever, she’d spent her days hoping that she would be killed before her choices impacted her father. Worst of all, because of her own inborn Talent, even death itself seemed like a faraway possibility.

Adam swiped away the notes document. This was as complete of a picture as he was going to get right now. He shifted his attention onto the sketch he’d started earlier, before Solara was possessed by the monster.

Nothing in those assumptions contradicts anything, Adam thought. The picture seems internally consistent enough. His wrist fingers flicked the pen from one point to another as he started moving the vector lines around.

He’d rather have done it freestyle, but this was faster – he could make mistakes and correct them without having to start over. Considering his injuries, there would be no retries if he got to the finished product and hated the result. Consistency is the best I can pray for right now. I can see the progression from point A to B to C...this should be good enough. It has to be.

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Well, it would be nice if things turned out that way. In reality, his theories were just like his drawing; rough, inelegant, and lacking in major details. You couldn’t sum up a person that easily. He knew that. Everything he’d envisioned was less of a deduction and more of a loose collection of guesses, each development spurred on by a mixture of bias and the wishful thinking that his ideas weren’t completely insane. Even accounting for how the bar for ‘understanding’ and ‘accuracy’ was lower due to his wager, this still wasn’t going to be enough.

That thought caused his pen to come to a halt. I need to not only understand her...but to also somehow get across the picture of who she was in a single attempt, made in only a few short moments. Even with all the time in the world, there’s no way I could pull this off...so why am I deluding myself right now?

What the hell was he trying to do?

There was no way this was going to turn out good. He was forcing himself to make something under duress, clinging on to the hope that misery, stress, fear, urgency and pain would paint a hexagram to summon something extraordinary from within himself. Maybe deep inside his husk there was a talented artist who could conjure up the most beautiful of arts, usually locked away by heavy chains of self-doubt.

Maybe I’m a genius, Adam liked to think. Anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome...maybe those are the chains that keep that genius hidden away. Deadlines are helpful. They force me to let out a bit of my genius, to show the world what I’m capable of. Bleeding out like this – being so close to dying – that’s just another way to force me to work. This is going to be...my best work!

He could do it, he told himself. He could create something so amazing that it would empower him with the wings of a genius, flying him toward whatever possibilities he dreamed of. I can fly – I am good enough!

It was bullshit, but Adam made himself believe it. An artist had to be borderline delusional when holding their pen, and an impartial sage when studying their mistakes. No one could make anything while second guessing their every move. To create, they needed arrogance. To edit, they needed modesty. In a situation like this, where the deadline was rapidly approaching and there was no time to look at things twice, modesty and reason just had no place for existing.

This will be an ugly work at best, Adam’s sense of logic told him. I don’t know much about the subject, so my ability won’t trigger. I barely had the time to sketch something out, so it won’t come out good. We’re still on the first floor. I should try to retreat instead. Maybe negotiate with Belmordo, tell him I agree with his plans.

It was sound reasoning, and it sang so sweetly to him, so enticingly, the beautiful music of escapism, the melody that encouraged cowardice as a virtue.

Adam banished it away.

I AM A FUCKING GENIUS, his inner artist screamed inside him, a manic grin overcoming his features. THIS PAINTING IS GOING TO BE THE GREATEST THING TO EVER GRACE THIS GODDAMN WORLD – AND IT’S GOING TO KILL YOU—RIGHT—NOW!

“I name it,” Adam declared, turning his tablet around:

“The Girl in the Tower!”

“Give it to me, Painter!” the Ghost snarled back, grinning just as widely, “your Ink—your soul—your Talent!”

A thin, translucent hue of blue formed around the tablet. Adam glanced at it, then lifted up his gaze to meet the Ghost’s, both of them wearily anticipating what was to come. The line flickered, twisted and turned, fighting to remain in their reality – and then splintered upward, creating a three-way connection between the tablet, Adam, and the Ghost.

“Are you nervous, Painter?” the Ghost asked. It almost looked like Lady Solara again now; a portrait of a human that had been deformed by editing software. “Are you concerned that you got it wrong?”

“What’s the point in being concerned?” Adam shot back. He watched as the line flickered between its targets, sweat dripping from his forehead, refusing to allow his confidence to falter. “Everything is done. Worries and regrets won’t change anything.”

“Pretty words. Do you believe them?”

“Of course,” Adam responded.

“But do you live them?”

“Now that’s a harder question you’re asking me.” Adam’s smile faded slightly, but there was some appreciation of his own bitterness in what remained of that grin. “I try. I think it’s right and try to live according to those rules. But...”

He held up his hand. It was shaking slightly. “Guess it’s not that easy.”

“Hmm...I must ask this, creature from the World of Ink. Do all painters choose pain? Why live a life that goes against your nature?”

“I suppose that must look crazy to someone like you. Not gonna pretend that I fully understand what you are, but it seems like you’re haunting the world based on the connection you feel with your inner nature. For the rest of us...for the ones who look deep inside themselves and don’t really like what they find there...saying it out loud is the first step towards changing that.”

Adam looked past the lightshow and down at his tablet. What a shit drawing. I know I was in a hurry, but I could’ve done better. So much better. If only I had the time...if only I had the skill... His thoughts were loud, and so he made his voice louder. “I am a damn good painter,” he declared.

He knew where he wanted to go. And he prayed his talent, his hidden genius, was enough to allow him to fly there.

The line began glowing brighter, so much so that Adam was forced to close his eyes to avoid being blinded forever. Before he could open them again, he was caught off guard by a feeling that was similar to an electric shock being sent all over his body. Similar – but not quite. Immense pain coursed through him, but even in the midst of that agony, a part of him focused on identifying what this exact feeling was.

Hmm. Was it that he had more control over his body compared to an electric shock? No, his arms and legs were convulsing as if seizing up. Did he feel less numb than electricity would have made him? No, that wasn’t it either; there was very little he could feel aside from an insistent ache searing his nerve endings.

Ah...of course. The answer came to him, clear as day, the entire thought materializing at once and fully formed.

It wasn’t that he was being electrocuted, but rather that the electricity was leaving him.

He must have passed out for a couple seconds, because the next thing he became aware of was a cloud of dust surrounding the room, and the vague sound of ghostly laughter. The laughter felt like it was far off in the distance, but even with his blurry vision, even amidst the wreckage, Adam knew the Curse was close by.

“....Paint...er....Tal...ine....ink...power...”

His hearing was rapidly returning with every second, but the taunting laughter still seemed too hard to understand. Adam’s head pounded, his body ached worse than ever, and suddenly he remembered what he should’ve been concerned about.

“My tablet!” he shouted, although he couldn’t hear his own voice. He looked down, touched its side to wake it up, and swiped the screen.

TALENT LOST

Stained Ink

Your wager was unsuccessful. Your painting was not a good enough portrait of her soul.

You have forfeited your Talent of ‘Stained Ink’ to Lady Solara, who shall retain it until death.