“Lic, have you lost your blithering mind?” Grogtilda’s mother barked from behind a wall of junk.

She must have felt the warning-pulse of the armacus, because she fell silent.

“M-my apologies, your esteemedness, my husband is a drunkard and an imbecile,” she stammered. “He can’t tell the difference between a lawman and a…”

Lic and I had finally circled a ceiling-high pile of garbage. I stared into the blue-tinted, bloated face of a very rotund, brown haired woman that was occupying a rotting, old couch.

“Ave Eunisii…” she gasped, her face growing pale as if she’d seen a ghost. Her mouth fell open in shock. “It cannot be!”

She was of a clear state of mind, not drunk like Lic. Her green eyes darted to my armacus and then horror and fear replaced the expression of shock.

Her mouth looked like she was silently whispering something as all of her chins trembled in terror.

“You can see her?” Lic looked at his wife and then at me. “She’s real?”

“Yes,” the woman on the couch whispered. “She’s real.”

“My daughter’s a lawman!” Lic declared jubilantly, hugging me harder than before. “My daughter is FREE! Nandine, we have to celebrate this! We have to have a street-party, invite everyone! Our little girl is alive and she’s back!” He rejoiced, waving his hands excitedly.

“Tomorrow,” Nandine said. “It is late. The clouds have dimmed. I bet… our daughter is tired after her long journey back home.”

I nodded. I had only walked for about an hour uphill in Grogtilda’s body and my leg muscles were already screaming. I had also noticed a craving for something, a very specific desire for relief. I thought about it and realized that I wanted to drink the pearlescent fluid from Saccy’s tied up bud.

My Topaz sap-addicted body wanted to relieve the pain and misery and frustration at the visible despair and deterioration all around me. Undertown was an awful place, a nightmare of a life. Roaches, spiders and moths were scattering away from the garbage piles all around me.

“Come, come,” Lic nodded, pulling me away from the aghast-looking woman on the couch. “Rest, relax, you are finally home. I’ll have a goodly nap myself, clear my h-head and we’ll talk in the m-morning.”

He led me on a tight path through the forest of trash to a room deep in the stone part of the house. The room was small and had a tiny slit for a window and a single, thin, slightly torn up cot filled with something that looked like dried seaweed. Stammering apologies Lic cleared random refuse and moldy-looking fabrics from the cot. The room was quickly becoming pitch black as the Chasm-clouds outside dimmed.

“Good night… my little kitten,” he said softly, sliding a lopsided door into place, sealing me in the tiny, confining, refuse filled, stone room.

I looked through the tiny slit window. The clouds have grown dim, obscuring the cavern. Undertown favelas were still lit with candles and flickering, weak crystal lights. A black, gothic, extremely unkempt station tower stood in the distance, the beacon shimmering atop it like the Eye of Sauron. The radiance of the grime and mildew-covered hex-beacon cast sinister-looking refractions on the gloomy clouds.

I looked away from the window with a sigh. Thousands of insects and tiny critters scattered across the room in the dark.

“Yeah, no,” I blanched as I glanced at the small, dirty, uncomfortable-looking cot.

Feeling extremely grossed out, I put Saccy down on the somewhat clear section of the floor and climbed inside, shutting the petals tight behind me.

I went down a rope ladder past a net filled with various tools and weapons and got into a lovely camping hammock that I had purchased in Lomb. I reached out to the second hammock hanging nearby, grabbed my chimera arm and closed my eyes.

I emerged from Saccy as Juni and listened in. The nightcrawler helmet was designed to amplify sound, so I could hear things quite easily with my large chimera ears. I heard hushed voices of the Misem couple straight through the shoddy walls and piles of junk.

"I still can't believe it! Our little girl is back…" Lic whispered.

"It's not her, you blighted, old coot," Nadine whispered, her voice cold.

"Whatever do you mean, Nani?" Lic asked. “It is her. She's a little blue and her hair is a shade lighter, but I recognize the line of birthmarks over her eyebrow.”

“It is easy to reshape a face with magic,” the woman sighed. “Easy to adjust or to steal someone’s face with biomancy. With enough money anything is possible.”

“Money?” The shoemaker mumbled.

“She has an armacus. I was an adventurer once,” the woman said. “I had one too. It wasn’t anywhere as fancy though. Hers is genuine magisteel, plated with palladium. Do you know how expensive a palladium-type armacus is, Lic?”

“No,” Grogtilda’s dad whispered hoarsely.

“Over a hundred thousand obliss, if my memory serves me right,” Nandine said. “Could be a lot more more now as I haven't been to the surface in two decades.”

“W-what?!” Lic gasped.

I whistled mentally. Antoine certainly gave me the best possible armaci he could make. I needed to thank him later for it. I didn’t know that Lambert and Antoine had spent over 200’000 obliss on me… but then again my crystalline-organic gems were practically priceless for the artificer.

“That armacus is worth as much as a small apartment up in Illatius,” Nandine hissed. "Down here it's priceless, unobtainable!"

Lic gulped.

“There is no way our girl could be wearing it,” she added. “I know that she looks like our daughter, Lic… but she’s not. It’s just not possible. Nobody ascends from below. No lowborn can escape their class or rid themselves of the debitor’s tattoo to get an armacus.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Who do you think she is then?” The old cobbler mumbled, his voice filled with fear.

“A magistrate's or the prosecutor's daughter maybe? Maybe a child of a very rich inspector? Those Nemendias assholes have ‘achievement missions’ for ‘gold crests’. Maybe she’s on one. One does not get to wear a palladium armacus without belonging to the lawmaker class.”

“You’re certain it’s real?” Lic mumbled.

“Of course it’s real. Bugs and mice are already fleeing from our home. They are terrified of the Repulser’s song,” Nandine hissed. “Do you not feel it tugging at your heartstrings?”

“What do we do?” Lic uttered, his voice filled with desperation.

“We endure,” Nandine said quietly. “I don’t know why this highborn mageling is wearing our daughter’s face… but it’s all just a game for them.”

“W-what?” the cobbler stammered quietly. “Are we in danger?”

“Not you, obviously,” the ex-adventurer said. “We are filth, dirt, nobodies. We are worth nothing, Lic. Not unless… one of them still remembers me, saw me down here, recognized me…”

“It’s been fifteen years since I pulled you in the river though. Why would they bother to find you now?”

“If she’s a powerful lawmaker's daughter… she might be here to execute someone who crossed a line or went against some magistrate’s plans upstairs. Once her job is done she’ll leave Undertown and we’ll never see our daughter’s face again,” Nandine whispered. “We could pretend that we’re her parents. She might even give us a few obliss, but I doubt it… Our girl is dead, Lic. She’s not coming back.”

Lic’s choking breath drowned in the sobs of a man who had lost his daughter for a second time.

I closed my eyes. Grogtilda’s mother had figured me out. Perhaps I shouldn't have worn the armacus… but then again it was driving local roaches and lice away from me. I didn’t want to be feasted upon by a thousand insects.

The shadows in the back of my head thrummed in misery. I didn’t know what to do. The bracelet kept me safe in Undertown but it also disconnected me from Grogtilda’s parents, placing me far too high above them in unreachable heights.

I couldn't bear to listen to the old cobbler’s tears much longer. I went back into Saccy and shut the entrance.

“Quite an interesting… family you have down here,” Dawn commented from my dress.

“You can hear them too?” I sighed.

“This window into the world has exceptional senses, thanks to your arithmancer magnifying all my senses with this… magitek contraption of his,” the painted girl nodded.

“Is there nothing I can do for them?” I mumbled.

“Right now? I doubt it. At best you can help them clean up a little. It’s going to be hard to change your mother’s mindset about you. Such is the fate of all the local unfortunates - they are just toys for the aristocracy.”

“I’m honestly feeling very defeated and drained right now,” I muttered. “Am I going to get attacked anytime soon?”

“No,” the painting replied. “We have thrown the trackers off your trail, for now.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ve seen enough of Undertown. I… think I’m going to sleep in both of my bodies until morning. Wake me up when the clouds light up the city or if someone comes near Saccy.”

I joined Grogtilda in another camping bed and closed my eyes, sending myself halfway into a Still trance.

. . .

"Wake up, my little crystal-monster, a new day dawns," Dawn sang loudly. "Your... human parents are awake."

I groggily yawned and relocated my consciousness into Grogtilda, climbing out of Saccy. The room was now completely free of insects thanks to the pulse cast by the armacus, but it was still a horrid, disgusting mess.

I unfurled my armacus and started to fire [Identify] at various things littering the small room.

[A crumpled up paper]

[A wooden plank]

[Glass bottle shards]

[A dirty, raggedy dress]

[A pair of torn up trousers]

[A half eaten apple]

I winced. The apple had been nibbled on by rats and was rotting.

I folded the armacus back into a bracelet and started to clean up the room as best as I could. I ripped the old cot open and turned it into a large bag, then I gathered all the trash into it and moved it into a corner, compacting it with my boot. Grogtilda's inability to smell anything was my advantage here.

I opened the door to the living room and looked down the narrow path of refuse. I could hear Lic and Nadine arguing in hushed tones.

I sighed as I continued my work on clearing the house. I was no stranger to cleaning up - I had always kept the house my grandfather left me in Donetsk completely spotless. Pavel's grandmother had been a hoarder just like Grogtilda's parents and about once every year I helped him clean up her junk-stuffed house.

As I cleaned the house of the Misems, I admired the different things I found. The trash wasn't exactly like that of my earth - there were no plastic bags or bottles here. Everything in Illatius had been made with magitek artefacts and some items had been clearly somehow mass-produced with magic. I had used the armacus to identify anything that looked remotely interesting.

[A pocket watch with a shattered crystal core]

[A brass key]

[A sword hilt]

[A mouldy self-reading kids book]

[A power-hammer’s handle]

[An old, rusted self-cooking skillet]

[A moth eaten blanket]

[A pillow with a hole in it]

[A broken dish]

[A self-cleaning broken bowl]

I shoved whatever seemed magical into Saccy for further examination later. I wanted to know how the local magitek stuff worked and taking things like broken pocket watches, self-reading books or self-cleaning bowls completely apart into their components and hexagrams seemed like a fun thing to do in the future.

I had finished cleaning about a quarter of the living room when Grogtilda's parents walked in.

"Good morning!" Lic said, beaming at me. He didn’t look drunk and he noticed the clean corner. "...you've been busy."

"Good morning," I replied. "I just wanted to help out a bit."

"That's unusually... kind of you," Nandine said, her voice hostile and cold as ice. "We appreciate it."

It didn't seem like she appreciated my presence here one bit. She, unlike Lic, looked twitchy. Her eyes were red and puffy, blue veins on her neck looking engorged. Did she perhaps take some Topaz at night or just didn’t sleep? She was holding herself up on thick, dirty, wooden crutches as there was something wrong with her legs.

"Grogs, do you want breakfast?" Lic asked.

"Sure, dad," I nodded with a smile.

Grogtilda's father led me to the kitchen. The cooking area was tiny and cramped, mostly due to more garbage surrounding a small stove. Lic set a questionable-looking pot onto the stove to heat it up. Then he pulled out something from a small icebox in the corner.

"Is that...?" I eyed the thing he was holding suspiciously.

"Squid from the river!" Lic smiled. "Your favourite. I'll fry it up just like you like!"

I tried not to blanche at the trash all around as Lic started to work on the squid.

"Do sit down," Nandine said, slowly limping into the kitchen and gesturing to a small, crooked, messy wooden table.

I looked at the table and pushed everything off it into a tied-up, filthy shirt that I had converted into a garbage bag. Then I did the same for the counters. Lic winced. Nandine looked gloomier than a cloud. The rotund woman sat down across from me, the small chair groaning under her.

"So," she said, looking at my armacus. "You're a lawman?"

"Yes," I replied. "I'm a Free Agent of the Lomb Constabulary."

"What might a Lomb Agent be doing in Undertown?"

"I came to see you," I said. "Why else would I be down here?"

"I see," Nandine replied briskly.

The atmosphere in the kitchen grew more hostile with every minute of silence that stretched on between us. Lic was busy wrestling with the slippery squid. Something inside me pulled at me. I got up and walked to him, assisting him with the preparation and cleaning. As I did, I noticed that he was smiling.

"I really missed this, daddy," my lips whispered with a soft smile as my hands wrapped him in a familial embrace.

Lic hiccuped.

"I-I'm glad you're back, my little girl," he said, his voice cracking. "I thought I'd lost you forever."

"I'm sorry, I didn't come earlier," I replied, my voice gentle. I felt Nandine's hostile glare cutting into my back. Lic noticed it and gulped, his posture drooping.

Something in me snapped. I spun around and stared at her. "Seriously! What is your problem... mom? Aren't you going to help us with breakfast?"

"You are not my daughter," she hissed out, her swollen, crust-filled eyes glaring at me with contempt and hate.