Backpedal. Stop. If Lambert finds out you’ve been gone only three months and not four years, your entire story falls apart and he’ll think you’ve tricked him!

My thoughts turned into a rushing river of panic. I stopped at a fancy waiting area, right after the inspector and I entered the bank.

“What’s wrong?” Lambert looked down at me.

“Inspector… Why is it that you believed me?” I asked. “My story… What if all of it is just a delusion, a dream created by a Folding Seed?”

“Is it?” The constable raised an eyebrow, examining me.

“No, but…” I mumbled.

“But?” He asked.

“Answer my question, damn it!” I glared at him.

“I already did,” he sighed. “You really do remind me of my… determined daughter who never came back from the Dungeon. Besides, the sphere of truth is able to tell the difference between a dream and a true statement. The Topaz-addled stories show up as orange color.”

“But what if all of it is an illusion, some kind of a lie that exists in my head that I just think is the truth?” I asked. “You’re still going to pay off four years of my debt? Buy me nice things like the armacus? You said that you don’t give out charity.”

Lambert sighed. I squinted at him, trying to get to the truth, trying to figure him out.

“My job is to discover the truth," he said. "I’ve already opened the case and declared you under my care.”

I kept staring at him intently, delaying my doom at the bank. Social situations weren’t like the death-defying fights in the Chasm with Folding Seeds or other monsters. They were a battle of words, not swords and fire. I knew that if I silently stared at him long enough he’d talk more and as he did I could figure out a tactic to avoid him uncovering my deception.

“Look,” he finally said. “I’m old, but not old enough to retire. Not much happens in Lomb. We’re far away from Illatius Undertown and the Guilds business rarely extends to the local farmers. At worst I have to deal with a dragon eating a sheep. It’s not everyday that a girl who looks like an almost-dead Topaz addict stumbles into my station asking for help and then threatens me with an arbalest that’s far too big to fit into her bag. This case is a bit of excitement for my otherwise dreary days at the office.”

I kept mum and he kept on talking.

“Even if your big declaration turns out to be complete nonsense, you are still a confounding mystery. You talk with a strange accent and move as if you don’t fit in your body… or the world really. I’ve never seen that old poster screw up someone’s hair and eye color like that. By all accounts you should be dead - nobody’s survived that long in a Folding Seed before. You look like a teenage debitor from Undertown and yet you read books about long-dead artists like a well-educated mercantile or even highborn adult. You’re a puzzle that refuses to fit into my theories, an enigma for me to unravel. So, when I do figure out what or who you are, if nothing else… When this case is solved, it will be a thrilling tale to share someday with my colleagues at a pub in Illatius over some pints.”

“Mhmmm,” I hummed as I realized that the inspector had a bit of a Sherlock in him, reading a lot more into me than I had presumed he could. He was practically tearing right through my rather pathetic disguise with his deduction skills.

“This enigma doesn’t need your charity,” I added. “I bet four years of missed payments is a lot more than you can afford to throw at a complete stranger. Does this bank accept… crystalized mana?”

“Hrm,” Lambert frowned just for a moment. “It does. Elli used to bring beast cores straight to the tellers. I remember how excited she was when…”

“Oh good,” I exhaled. “I have a lot of those on me.”

“You have beast cores?” He blinked.

“Monsters don’t accept beast cores as payment, inspector. There are NO banks down in the Dungeon,” I said.

Lambert’s frown deepened.

“I’m a bit embarrassed to have you pay that much for me, alright? I’ve yet to do any work for you. You’ve already paid me with fantastic bagels and coffee,” I said, eyeing the waiting area at the bank’s entrance with two couches and an enormous marble vase with an arrangement of succulents. “Can you just wait for me here? I’ll pay off the Guild with the beast cores and be right back, okay? You can show me where to buy stuff, but I can pay for things myself. I didn’t spend years in the Dungeon sitting on my ass.”

“Fine,” the inspector said. “See you in a bit.”

He went to the couch and grabbed a newspaper, flipping through it.

Yes! Social victory achieved!

I mentally patted myself on the back as I walked to the tellers, trying not to sweat bullets.

A bored-looking, blonde, female clerk in a white blouse sat behind a marble counter. When she looked down at me her expression shifted from surprise to disgust to concern.

“Hello,” I said. “I’d like to pay off my debt.”

“Step into the circle for identification please,” the clerk shifted wearily, pointing at a gold rune-circle on the floor. She was probably ready to call the guards or something to arrest me in case I started to demand money with a pointy knife to satisfy my cravings for Topaz.

I stepped back into the aforementioned circle. The clerk pressed something on her desk and the circle flashed beneath me.

“Grogtilda Lic Misem,” the clerk droned, readjusting her gold glasses. “Employee of the Fighter’s Guild. Family debt - two million four hundred thousand and sixty seven obliss. You’ve missed… three months of Guild payments.”

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My eye twitched. Two million?! That’s a gargantuan sum! Lambert bought me a breakfast for just a few obliss.

“I’ve been stuck in the Dungeon,” I said. “I have… beast cores.”

“Ahrm,” the clerk cleared her throat. “Place the beast cores into the container for evaluation.”

A metal container slid open, revealing a dark maw. I put my backpack down into the ground and dug deep into Saccy, retrieving nine beast cores taken from the Folding Seed victims. I rolled the cores into the container. The clerk pressed a button.

“Very good,” she nodded, looking at a flashing magic circle atop her desk. “This takes care of the missed payments and deducts five hundred and twelve obliss from your family’s debt. Step back into the circle please.”

With a sigh I stepped into the circle. It flashed again and my chest started to itch like mad. I resisted tearing off my armor to rake at my skin. The potent smell of sulfur coming from my tattoo lessened.

“Will that be all?”

“Those cores were worth that little, huh?” I asked.

“I’m afraid they were… evaluated as nearly depleted,” the clerk explained.

I sighed. The clerk gave me a “please make room for some customers with money” look.

“Can I exchange more beast cores for obliss without paying off the debt?” I asked. "I'd like some cash."

“By Guild law, a debitor of your level is not permitted to hold currency,” the clerk explained. “Any artifacts or mana crystals attained by you must be immediately surrendered to pay off your debt. Do you have any other items of value to deposit?”

"No," I shook my head.

The clerk squinted at me. She didn’t look like she believed me.

“That’s an artifact-style bag. You went almost entirely into it,” she pointed at Saccy. “Please deposit it into the evaluation chute.”

I grabbed onto Saccy and stepped away from the clerk.

“Security!” the clerk barked. A very large, bald man dressed in thick, dark metal armor plates materialized in front of me out of thin air.

“What seems to be the problem?” the giant man grunted.

“A debitor refuses to surrender her artifacts!” The clerk’s tone was filled with ice, leaving no room for compromise.

“Saccy is not an artifact,” I shook my head.

My leather sling was already in my hand, ready to bring down the bald Goliath that advanced towards me. I moved backwards as quickly as I could, casting a round rock into the security guard’s head. Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to Grogtilda’s body.

The thrown rock went a bit sideways and the guard easily swatted it out of the air. The rock ricocheted off the ceiling, flew down and smashed a lovely vase with succulents.

I choked, trying to speak and realized that the oversized man was holding me in the air by the front of my armor, not letting me take a single breath.

“Stand down!” Inspector Lambert's voice barked.

He had crossed the wide area separating the waiting area from the teller booths pretty quickly.

I made no sound, flailing weakly.

“Let the girl go, right now,” Lambert ordered.

I desperately glanced at his direction, croaking for air.

“She is a debitor,” the clerk said.

Lambert’s hand was in the air and the armacus on his wrist unfurled, opening like a petal woven from silver ribs, folding into a gun-like weapon in his hand.

“Inspector Lambert… why are you…” the clerk started to speak.

“The artifacts on her person are not to be taken away,” the constable spoke. “They are evidence in an ongoing case. Put her down before I open fire.”

“My apologies, inspector… I didn’t know,” the clerk said, “Bolk, let the girl free and stand down.”

I ended up sitting on the floor, hugging Saccy. My throat hurt like hell and there were tears in my eyes. Grogtilda’s body wasn’t having fun. I had been an absolute idiot. My hands were trained to act as if I was in a Chasm facing a monster in my chimera body, not as a weak, sickly girl facing a high-level guard.

“I’ll be adding another eight thousand obliss for the broken vase to your family debt, miss,” the clerk noted as Lambert led me out of the bank.

“Thanks,” I croaked, rubbing my throat.

“Don’t mention it,” Lambert sighed. “In hindsight I really should have gone with you to the desk. Your debt must be very large for them to act like that.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s bad.”

“Mind sharing?” The inspector’s armacus spun back into a tidy, silver bracelet with a series of clicks.

“Two million and some,” I whispered hoarsely.

“Ah, you must have come from many generations of debitors,” Lambert said matter of factly. “Undertown crime bosses are known for putting such unreasonable debts onto the families they own. A debt like that cannot be repaid. It might as well be infinite.”

“I’m going to pay it off,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“Even if you miraculously find a mountain of artifacts that’s worth three million obliss and deposit them at the bank, a Guild operative will simply tack on more debt from his end to your parents with false receipts of purchase,” Lambert explained. “An absurd number like this simply means that you are property of the Guild to do with as it wishes. The law of Illatius does not permit slavery, but this… this is simply a legalized, itemized form of slavery. I’m sorry to be the bearer of the bad news, Yulia. You and your family will be debitors as long as you live.”

“I. Am. Going. To. Pay. It. Off,” I growled out, punctuating every word.

“Stubborn, just like my little, lost Elli,” the inspector sighed. “This debt means that I cannot pay you legally or even give you cash.”

“And here I thought things were finally going great for me,” I rasped, trying not to cry. My blue-tinted fists were opening and closing in rage. I wanted to find whoever owned me and chew their throats open and suck out their souls. To dispense justice with my sharp, crystalline claws until I stood bathed in the blood of these slave-owners. Until the world was made fair for Undertown girls like Grogtilda.

Was I finally thinking like a chimera? Had I been pushed too far? The pale shadow of the dead Undertown girl that hid somewhere in the back of my head fluttered with rage, wanting vengeance.

“If… the rules aren’t fair,” I hissed out. “If the game is rigged against me, then I’ll have to break the game board… I will find my owners and make them pay.”

“I would have to arrest you if you… killed someone,” the inspector spoke and his words drowned in the darkness of my intensifying rage.

“You’re going to have to catch me first,” I said, pushing mana into my five new resonance branches.

“Hum?” Inspector Lambert spoke into empty air, his eyes sliding off me. “Very impressive redirection magic, Yulia. I can still hear your raspy breathing though.”

My invisibility song fell apart as I ran out of mana. I stood in the middle of the street, my eyes filling with tears. I regretted sticking with Grogtilda, wanted to give up on whatever I was doing, wanted to find a little, rich, idiot noble and to eat her soul.

It would be so easy. So easy to just… give up, to move on, to wear another person’s skin, to vanish and never come back to Lomb. To abandon honest, kind, hard working people like Inspector Lambert.

After all, people were just sheep to us chimera. Souls were just snacks to Astral Phantoms like myself. Little steps on a stairwell to immortality and limitless power. In a few hundred years nobody would be able to stop me. In a few thousand years I too could be a domain-goddess like Eunice… all I had to do was turn my back to humanity.

Lambert stepped forward and hugged me and I started to sniff into his shoulder. He didn’t have to say anything. The warm embrace of his firm hug was just like that of my adoptive grandfather Vladislav Kerenski. It gave me all the motivation I needed to push forward.