I had a friend when I was younger.

She was what I’d call my best friend.

Let’s call her… Bee, for the sake of simplicity. There is something about giving her an abbreviated name that makes thinking about this easier… It’s almost like I’m just telling you a story, detached from the reality of actually living through the experience.

This was when I was around ten years old or so. I had already been diagnosed, but the severity of the situation wasn’t quite apparent to me yet. Due to being unable to play with the other children without getting exhausted fast, I was a bit of a loner when young.

Sitting by myself and reading was the one thing I loved doing, even that early. It’s kind of funny how teachers always praise you and celebrate the fact that you read a lot even though as a child, you should be playing with other children.

That social interaction is way more important to learn, than what happens in Moby Dick. While books have essential lessons, there are plenty of things you can only learn with life experience.

Such as social skills…

Somehow, the teachers were always praising me for being so book-smart for my age, even though I was actually so socially awkward, I was unable to hold a conversation about anything apart from books with my peers for longer than a minute.

Then there was Bee. She was a transfer student from another town. It’s always awkward to transfer into a new environment, especially in the middle of a semester. Everyone had already formed their cliques and groups, so it was really easy to end up ostracized.

This is precisely what happened to her.

But, unlike me, she had at least a small semblance of social skills, so she approached me.

I still somewhat remember the conversation…

“Hey. Whatchu reading?”

“…” I remember being a bit absorbed in my book, so I didn’t realize she was talking to me. Generally, people of my age didn’t come to me for a chat.

“Hey.” She went again. I remember finally peeking at her from behind the book.

I would rather not describe her accurately because I feel that would…hurt too much, so let’s say she had vividly orange hair and freckles. Otherwise, she looked completely normal and unremarkable.

No distinctive features… None at all.

“Sorry… What did you say?” I mumbled awkwardly from behind my book.

“I asked what you’re reading!” She laughed a bit.

“I um…” I staggered. I wasn’t sure if she was laughing at me…or something else. “Um… It’s called ‘That time I got reincarnated as a potato farmer, but then it turns out my powers turn me into a potato. Now my goal is to become a salty and crunchy treat.”

“W-wha…?” She seemed quite stunned, and in retrospect, I can completely understand her confusion considering the word vomit I just spilled at her.

“It’s…an existential drama about…questions such as what it means to be human…and…what kind of potato chips taste the best…”

“W-what’s…escistenteal?” She struggled with the word.

“I-it’s like…when you don’t know who you are… And what your purpose in life is… I guess?”

“So… The hero in the book wants to be a potato…?” She tilted her head, and I’m honestly surprised she managed to gleam as much from my description.

“Yes…”

“That sounds funny! I watched a TV show about a guy who was a tomato, and his friend was a pickle just recently!”

Bee had an air of naivety to her, and maybe that’s what caused me to open up to her in the end, too. Instead of being treated like a know-it-all nerd, I was treated with…curiosity and a sort of…awkward respect.

We began getting along quite fast, and we ended up really bonding over playing video games together. Our go-to game was about collecting and trading various pocket-sized monsters. The game design was built upon trading the creatures to complete your collection.

Both of us got a different version of the games that contained different monsters, and we collected…traded…and giggled during sleepovers deep past our bedtimes.

During those sleepover monster collecting nights, we usually talked a lot. This obviously caused us to get scolded for staying up too late multiple times, but that was only another part of the whole experience.

One topic of the talks was my condition. I explained to her how my heart was weak, and because of it, I had to never get too worked up over things. I felt she really understood me, and I opened up to her about essentially everything I had ever thought of in my life.

My triumphs, my failures, my fears, and my strengths. It was a liberating feeling to have someone to talk to, even if she wasn’t really into books, we could still bond over many other things. I felt like, for the first time, I had someone my age to truly bare my heart to.

It was a special time.

A year and a half or so later, the gravity of my condition really dawned upon me. A miserable darkness laid its weight over my life instantly…and I was locked away in the hospital for the foreseeable future.

Bee came over though, and it was the highlight of my life back then. She’d always come over after school, and we’d play games and talk about everything. It really helped me feel like everything was still normal.

This continued until middle school ended.

Along the time I spent talking to Bee through middle school, I came to notice something about her, which in retrospective might have been more than noticeable even when she was younger.

She had this incredible desire to be acknowledged by someone she considered an ‘authority’.

This manifested the most obviously in her frustration with her younger sisters.

They were twins and quite a bit more proactive as people than Bee in general. They had sports-related hobbies and were quite competitive and pushy.

Whereas Bee herself, while a bit similar when with people she knew well if she was put in an even slightly unfamiliar environment, her personality would tone down considerably.

She was mostly completely overshadowed by her sisters, even though she was the elder sister. Or maybe that was why? Sometimes parents get the idea, that only the youngest child needs attention, even if the eldest is only older by a year or two.

Either way, she was craving attention to a dangerous degree.

I only ever found myself uncomfortable with her, when she got into arguments with her sisters. Physical violence was almost always the go-to solution to their problems. It wasn’t like Bee was the instigator all the time either, so it just seemed like the twins and her simply couldn’t get along at all.

They’d scream, pull hair and punch. The fights had to almost always be stopped by their parents.

Unfortunately, Bee was almost always blamed. Sadly, something I learned much later on in social media, is that numbers matter. If you got more people behind you, you’re more likely to be believed by those not privy to the details.

Two versus one was enough to almost always make Bee the underdog.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but when neither party is crying and both are throwing punches, it’s rarely just one person’s fault. Not to say that Bee wasn’t at fault, either. Her jealousy over her sisters was a really sour spot for her, and whenever we hung out, we’d always stay away from her sisters.

Obviously, her hatred towards them was completely misguided, but what kind of profound insight can you really expect out of a literal child? She just felt like her sisters were annoying, even though it was the fact, that her parents gave the twins more attention what truly bothered her.

For Bee, acknowledgement was everything. She always studied in school like crazy, just so her parents and teachers would praise her.

Eventually, I came to realize that’s how she saw me, too. I was a bit older than her, and kind of opinionated on a lot of subjects. She was one of those people, who never really grow opinions or thoughts of her own, but instead mimic the opinions of whomever they happen to consider the ‘highest authority’ at the moment.

I had a lot of opinions on things, so she would absorb a lot of my ways of thinking about various pointless subjects into herself.

I was an authority because the subjects I talked about were simply something she was unfamiliar with. She’d swallow anything I’d say and tell her, simply to get my approval, for I was the authority on subject X simply because I was the first one to talk to her about it.

Obviously, most of the things I probably told her were complete humbug. I was a stupid, socially awkward kid, and I most likely had nothing particularly informative to provide her.

But enough of that.

The change came in the transition from middle to high school.

Bee’s parents were doing well at their jobs, so they bought a new and bigger house further away from the place I was hospitalized at, and Bee moved over to a further away school too.

While she kept visiting, it was about an hour-long walk from her school to my hospital, so the visits got considerably less common.

As she visited more… somehow, I felt she started to get more and more annoyed with me.

I don’t think I did anything different, and yet she found it frustrating to play the usual games and talk with me. She’d give more coarse and swift answers to my questions, and she’d generally stay quiet while we played our stuff.

Summer vacation started, but I was stuck in bed, so seasons changing meant little to nothing, but something was certainly going on in Bee’s end.

For the next two and a half weeks, I got completely ghosted.

She didn’t reply to my messages or phone calls. I admittedly didn’t call or message her a whole lot… But it does kind of sting when on some messaging apps you can see when someone has read your message, and yet they choose not to reply for a long time.

Then, after another week, she returned all dressed up, smelling so powerfully like perfume, she was stopped in the corridor and given a warning by one of the nurses.

“Hey! It’s been a while” The person at the doorway was certainly my best friend…but… her face.

“Ah…! Welcome, Bee. I’m glad you managed to come over.” I welcomed her with the usual smile, but it was impossible to not feel a bit awkward with the amount of make-up caked on Bee’s face.

“Hahah! You look like you got ran over by a bus! Is the new look that shocking? I look pretty mature, don’t I?” She posed proudly as she sat on a stool next to my bed.

“Ahah…! Yeah! You look…pretty!” I lied. She looked like a clown. There was so much make-up on her face I could tell the exact spot on her neck, where the make-up ended and the skin started.

“Right?! The boys can’t keep their eyes off-of me anymore! Jess taught me!” She laughed, seemingly quite proud of herself.

“Jess…?” I tilted my head. It was a name I hadn’t heard of before.

“Yeah. She’s this super cool girl I’ve been hanging out with! We got a group of girls, and we’re absolutely the cream of the crop when it comes down to the entire school.” It slowly started dawning upon me.

“Ohhhooo…! That’s pretty cool! No wonder you’re all dolled up.”

“Right!? So, listen to this! Jess and us girls were walking down the corridor…” Her words started becoming a blur to me.

I looked at her, I smiled, I nodded my head, but I couldn’t hear a thing of what she was saying. I knew what this meeting was.

It was obvious why she was here.

The side of my eye twitched as I kept my façade going.

She had found better friends.

“Haha! That’s so interesting.” I lied and lied.

“Right?! We’re the coolest! That’s what all the girls said to me too! I’m totally the number two in the group already!” And she was probably perfectly fine with being number two. ‘Jess’ was her authority figure now.

She didn’t come here to see me. It had been nearly a month since she started ghosting me.

“So… Why didn’t you reply to any of my texts?” I giggled, even though my entire body was aching to cry. “Were the girls keeping you too busy?” I already knew the answer.

“LOL! Sorry! You got it! I was going all over the place with the girls!” She laughed as if it were the funniest thing.

“Hahah…! I see.” I quieted down a bit. “Well. I’m glad you had fun.” I nodded, forcing my eyes shut.

“YEAH! And can you bel-“ Her phone started ringing. “Ah! Just a sec.” She answered the overly glittery phone full of all kinds of little…stickers and whatnot. “Heyyy girl! Yeaaah. I’m totes free…! Mm… Right! Come pick me up at the mall!” She sparkled with positivity as she spoke.

She was so full of life and excited. Everything was great for her.

She didn’t come here because she wanted to see me.

She came here, because she felt guilty over the fact, that she was about to discard me from her life for good. She wanted to see I was happy and doing great, so she could leave me and join this new friend group without feeling bad about it.

“Sorry!! Something totally important came up!” She clapped her hands together, clasping that glittery phone in-between. She had really long fake nails on.

“Mmh. Don’t worry about me and go on.” I spoke, but it came out more like a whisper because I was so close to crying, I wanted to see her gone as soon as possible.

“THANKS! I’m off then! Bye!” She obviously didn’t pick up on it at all.

I was left by myself again, with only the lingering aroma of her overwhelming perfume hanging heavy in the air.

I cried to myself for a long while.

The bitterness of the realization was like a punch to the face, for I loved her.

She was my only friend. My best friend. I bared my very soul to her and without exaggeration, she was the most fun thing about my life… but I was… just another fruit to suck dry in her conquest for more attention.

She didn’t really care about me. No, she cared about what I provided her with. Maybe it was my own naivety, because I always thought, that if I feel like someone in my life is incredibly important to me, they must also feel the same way about me.

But that’s not how people work. Life isn’t that romantic.

It’s not that I necessarily wish to be the most important thing in someone’s life… I understand how narcissistic that is.

I just wish… I wouldn’t be so easily disposable that my best friend could let go of me in a single day without shedding a tear over it. I just wish…that as soon as my convenience to someone ends, I don’t get discarded.

I think, out of all things in life, I probably fear abandonment the most.

I fear being left behind because I’ve experienced it multiple times.

Bee’s weakness was her endless hunger for attention, and my weakness was my endless fear of being alone.

The Bee I had spent the best years of my childhood with was no longer there. It was someone else, with entirely different and new interests, while I stayed stuck being the same old me.

I hate…how change is sometimes synonymous with abandoning things from the past. I hate how friendships have to end, just for new ones to be born. I hate…how life isn’t like novels and comics, where true love and friendship prevails in the end.

People are disposable, and there is no person in existence who can’t be replaced by someone better because convenience is the core of friendship. After your friends are no longer convenient, all you need to do is find new and better ones.

It really goes to show you, how fake all the fantasy novels and comics about ever-lasting friendship are. I bet most of them are written by people who are just as lonely as I am, simply dreaming of a friendship that can withstand all hardship.

A year and a half went by without a message.

Then one night, my phone suddenly started ringing while I was in the hospital again.

It was Bee.

“Hhhey… Can you come and…pick me up from the parking lot…?”

“B-Bee…? What? What parking lot? Why are you calling me now?”

“Hoshpital parking lot… I’m here to vishit you.” Her voice was distorted. I don’t know if it was alcohol or what, but she was clearly under some influence.

“It’s three in the morning! I can’t just come there! Why are you here?! What happened?”

Now, you might be wondering why I didn’t just shut down the call instantly as I heard her voice, and I’m not really going to sugar coat it.

I’m a hypocrite.

I said all of those things about people being shallow and simple… Acting like I was somehow above it…even though I was just as shallow and stupid myself.

Even if I had been ghosted for over a year.

Even if I knew she most likely was simply drunk off her ass and didn’t want to go home to get shouted at by her parents for drinking while underage…

A pointless, shriveled up sense of hope within me still wanted to believe that this was my chance to get Bee back.

“Nnoothin…” She replied.

“Why are you out this late?”

“Maan…you’re starting to sound just like them. Forget it.”

“W-who? What are you talking about?!”

“Never mind… Sorry guys, no luck here.” Her voice was a bit distant from the phone. She seemed to be talking to someone else in the background.

“BEE!” I shouted into the phone.

“Bye.” She replied and closed the call.

A few weeks later, I got a message from her saying something along the lines of:

‘Sorry for calling you in the middle of the night. I don’t really remember what we talked about.’

I remember feeling bad for her because despite all, she was still my best friend. Even if to her, I was nothing but a fragment of her past, it’s not like I had made any new ones in my hospital room.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She was obviously veering off into a dangerous path because of her craving for attention…and as I was essentially an outsider to her now. There wasn’t anything I could do. There wasn’t anything I SHOULD do to begin with.

Years went by.

It was only a few months from the time I died. I remember having a really bad night, and somehow, numerous past regrets always love to bubble up around bedtime when you’re not mentally in the best possible place.

I remember getting this incredible urge to find out what was going on with Bee, so I sent her a message.

Maybe it was just to gain closure and to let go everything related to her properly, but I added a bit of a sense of finality to the message.

“Hey Bee. I know we haven’t talked in a long time, and I’m sure you have your life to take care of, so I’ll try to be as quick as possible. I just wanted to thank you for the great times we had together when younger, even now, I still remember those memories fondly. It was the best time of my youth and really helped me through some tough times. Your friendship meant a lot to me. Thank you”

Now, I didn’t know I’d just kick the bucket a couple of months later. This WAS NOT meant as a dying message or something!

It just…kind of happened.

The timing was just bad, and I wanted to free myself mentally…if that makes any sense. I didn’t want to get stuck thinking about her at night anymore.

Friendship breakups hurt just as much as relationships breaking up. Sometimes even more. Or…so I think. It’s not like I’ve ever had a relationship to begin with.

As much as I wanted to become cold and emotionless and just…set it all aside. I also didn’t want to act like none of the good times I had with Bee didn’t exist. Maybe she didn’t think of me the way I thought of her, but to me at least, those times were really important.

To my surprise, she replied to my message almost instantly.”

“I’ll call you in fifteen minutes… I don’t like talking when not drunk. Gimme a sec.”

I…couldn’t quite understand what it meant. What does it mean not to like talking when not drunk? What does that imply? What was going on with her? My mind was swarmed with questions, but it was all interrupted when the call came.

“Bee?”

“Yeah. Sorry for the call… I just felt like I should say these things properly and not through text.” Her words put me on edge. Was she going to vent out all of her lingering hatred or something on me?

“Yeah? What did you wanna say?” I asked, shakily. I remember feeling like crying the moment she picked up the phone.

“Sometimes I think back to our friendship, and I realize that it was the best time of my life too. It was a really special time, and I wish it went on for longer… But we grew apart. We just became different people.”

“U-uhuh…” I replied while my voice was cracking.

“So, thank you too, and goodbye. I don’t think we’ll ever talk again, but I had a good time with you when we did, and you’re still my best friend.”

“Y-you too…!” At this point, it was probably obvious I was struggling to not cry.

The phone call got ended on Bee’s end. I sat there in silence, sobbing to myself, while the incessant beeping implying the line was cut went on.

Even to this day, I still don’t fully comprehend that phone call, even though I remember her words almost as if I had heard them yesterday.

Something about the fact, that she instead had such a positive view of me even in the end hurt me much more. It hurt so much. All the physical pain I had gone through so far in my journey as a witch couldn’t even compare to half of the anguish I felt when I cried by myself in that very same hospital room I had spent the last ten or so years in.

Despite holding me in such high regard, she still held her craving for attention above everything. In fact, it wasn’t just me. It had risen so high up, that even her wellbeing and health came second. Judging by what she said about being drunk, I’m willing to bet she was ready to ruin herself completely, just to get the approval of her peers.

It had consumed her entire life.

The reason to why I was reminded of this, is because it reminds me a bit of Amelia. Her sense of justice overwrites her concern for herself. If even her own life isn’t as important as that justice…

Then there is no way I am either.

If I ever am to obstruct her sense of justice… I’m sure I’ll be discarded again.

I wish I could believe otherwise… But as I said before.

Life isn’t that romantic.

Amelia had fallen asleep a while ago. She seemed so peaceful in her sleep. I wondered if she was even nervous about this venture we’re about to embark on.

She doesn’t fear death… And while I do to an extent…

What I truly feared was losing Amelia as soon as she had become someone special to me.

Amelia is my friend. She’s someone I look up to.

I don’t want to lose her…

Not to death… Nor to her blind sense of justice, but if I were to step in the way of either one of those things for Amelia…

The end result would be the same, so I couldn’t help but admit the situation felt a bit hopeless. Like the world was preparing itself. The set pieces were falling into place in preparation for the world to teach me once again…

That letting people close to you always ends up with nothing but pain.

And yet… I craved that closeness so immensely…

I wished I could cry…

Eventually, dawn broke.

I don’t know if what fantasy dung produces is methane or something else… But judging by how weirdly bloated the coffin got when I wasn’t looking, it wasn’t difficult to deduce the key component to our plan was at least somewhat working.

I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure the woman said the coffin was made of some kind of mana-conductive rock? I don’t know if it’s a good sign when rock starts to bend like that…

Wait…rock isn’t supposed to bend in the first place, right?!

Something about this bombing mission was starting to get me really nervous for more than one reason. I needed to make sure Amelia was clear and away from this thing when it’d blow up.

The after mentioned Miss Shining Justice was up and armed in no time. A breakfast was swiftly made, and while Amelia seemed well rested, I couldn’t help but sigh as I ate.

“What’s wrong?” Amelia smiled to herself as she ate.

“Mmm… Nothing. I’m just nervous.” I lied. Lying had always been easy for me, but somehow it hurt a bit to lie to Amelia. I shouldn’t make it into a habit… Speaking the truth, however, was a bit too frightening right now. We’d come too far to just quit now.

“Hm. I can understand. It’s a rather wild undertaking we’re about to embark on.”

“It seems like suicide.” I let my real thoughts slip a bit without thinking.

“…” Amelia stayed quiet for a moment. “Look…Yverna. Should I maybe also raid the castle? I…” She seemed to realize how impossible her request was. She could not detect magic, so there was no point in her raiding the castle in the first place.

I sighed again and stood up, patting down my rags, after which I grabbed the wolf pelt from the ground. Amelia helped the pelt coat on me, I couldn’t help but look at my feeble arm. I was basically skin and bones under the clothes at this point. Dried up and weak…and yet, I was supposed to help in saving an entire kingdom.

It felt like complete madness.

I pulled the wolf head down to hide the upper part of my face a bit, so Amelia wouldn’t notice it if my expression made it clear enough how much I would rather not do this.

“Look! I am pretty menacing like this, right?” I feigned a cheery tone. “I’m sure they’ll be too scared to even approach me!” I snapped my fingers.

“Right…” Amelia sighed. She seemed almost… disappointed in something.

“We’ll be fine.” I slapped her shoulder a bit. “No point if even you start getting cold feet now.” I spoke and began dressing up in my dwarf disguise. Luckily, the wolf pelt didn’t look too out of place being worn over it.

Amelia was clearly troubled by something, but she swallowed whatever it was and then nodded. Without much of a word, we were off. The walk towards the castle felt longer than previously.

The vast fields tinted in blue felt like they simply kept on stretching further and further. An oppressive silence lingered everywhere due to the lack of wind.

We walked past the gates, and as usual, the guards were too tired to even pay attention to us. I could swear they looked even worse off than yesterday. The people were a tired mass of mindless shifting. The situation was dire, but could we really do something about it?

To save a dying kingdom wasn’t some sort of every day thing people do. Heroes from comics and such maybe, but I was a malnourished witch, whose magic essentially boiled down to being a glorified long-distance lighter, not to mention my companion. While she was strong physically, that was the extent of it. In a world of magic and mystery, muscles alone can’t get you too far.

We slowly wandered into the masses in an attempt to hide among them. Something about their glassy, empty eyes made it so incredibly difficult to figure where to even look.

My daze was broken with a jolt of surprise, when suddenly one of the dwarven guards grabbed my hand. Luckily, it was the real hand instead of the one full of forest beard. The man began dragging me along for whatever reason, so I didn’t try to resist avoiding creating a commotion. Amelia remained quiet, but it was clear she was very nervous from the faintest glimpses of her eyes I could catch through the goggles she was wearing.

“You look energetic enough to donate some more mana…” The guard grumbled. The poor man seemed almost irritated by what he was being forced to do to his own people.

As little as I wanted to get close to the hourglass, this was actually somewhat convenient. We did need to find some sort of opportunity to lay down the bomb after all.

The worn-out guard guided me to the line leading to the siphon while avoiding eye contact. The guard murmured something inaudibly and pointed at the hourglass before leaving me standing there. A few other guards were watching the line, but they seemed mentally absent as well. It must have been pretty depressing to constantly watch your people suffer day after day.

I gestured to Amelia with my hand to stand down.

As the line kept moving along slowly, I realized we had a minor issue. This was a prime opportunity for me to get close to the hourglass, but I wasn’t the one carrying the bomb…

It was in Amelia’s bag. Swapping bags was out of question considering the contraptions they concealed to hide our legs.

Then an idea flashed into my mind. Sadly, I couldn’t quite communicate it to Amelia, but I figured she might play along as long as I’d be dramatic enough.

I walked towards the hourglass slowly. The closer I got to it, the colder the air started to feel. A strange smell began wafting around. How should I describe it… a bit like if someone has kept the door to their room closed for a very long time, and then you step in.

The air was stagnant, as if even oxygen was getting sparser the closer one got to the stone.

A dwarf right before me began gasping heavily as he touched the siphon. His skin was already gray to a dangerous degree. Ashen puffs of dust began spewing out of his mouth as he exhaled heavily and fell over, his body crumbling into a colorless mass. Dust flew everywhere, and I covered my nose and mouth with a hand.

The expressions on the faces of the guards were indescribable as they came in with brooms to wipe away the remains of their own.

Until that point, I had never seen an expression so pained. Fear…anger, frustration and an immense sadness all mixed into one horrifying visage of absolute despair. Their tears left black splotches on the slightly dusty pavement as they moved the remains elsewhere and pointed at me and then at the hourglass.

While I’m definitely not the most compassionate person, having seen this display up close made it basically impossible to ignore the dwarves anymore. I couldn’t tell why they didn’t riot. I was unable to understand, if the princess was truly so valuable, that the lives of the rest of the kingdom had to be so easily forfeit for her sake. It was clear the dwarves thought this was wrong…but they still couldn’t voice their concerns about it.

Sadly, I didn’t have too much time to worry over these questions, as it was soon my turn at the siphon.

I pressed my hand against the siphon while supporting it with the other, gasping dramatically and slumping down.

“Ghhuuuhhh…” I groaned aloud; the guards seemed pained from the display as well. Amelia obviously came rushing to me, holding on to me closely and whispering sharply.

“Are you okay!? Why’d you touch it?!” The guards seemed to allow her to come to my assistance. We were still in disguise after all, so it just looked like a dwarf being concerned about his friend.

“Look closely…find a good spot to leave the bag, and we’ll go.” I whispered and nodded at my arm. Amelia then looked at it…thought for a moment and then seemed to realize what was going on.

I was touching the siphon with my fake hand; I was missing one arm, after all. Who’d have thought it’d be beneficial in a situation like this? Amelia shifted around to my side, facing the siphon. She let go of her bag and used her feet to kick it close to the hourglass. My bag was blocking the guards from seeing Amelia’s feet in the meanwhile. The zombie masses behind us probably wouldn’t notice even if we stood up properly, so even if some of them caught a glimpse of Amelia’s feet, it was fine. Her legs were soon hidden underneath my bag and we were off.

“We need to blow it up before the next one gets siphoned.” I whispered to Amelia swiftly as we were waddling away from the hourglass. I didn’t want to see more people die in front of me.

“Agreed. Let’s hide in that alley and get started. I’ve got my plan set up pretty straight already.” She nodded confidently. I didn’t really have the courage to ask her about the plan, as it frightened me to know what kind of danger she intended to put herself in.

The next dwarf in the seemingly endless line was already dragging his feet towards the siphon, so I raised my hand and pointed it at the bag. I was further away than I had ever been before in terms of casting spells. We were maybe a solid ten meters away if I had to guess.

The long distance, coupled with the fact, that the siphon was absorbing all mana near it didn’t make my task any easier. I wondered if it was even possible to detonate it from here like this, so my hand began shaking as I tried to focus. I could feel my breathing growing slightly erratic.

“Don’t worry. You can do it. I’m right here for you too.” Amelia’s voice pierced through my shaking focus. I could feel her grabbing my arm from behind and supporting it.

I began focusing the mana around the bag…but as the sparkles began amassing, they were slowly being absorbed into the siphon.

“Gh… The siphon is messing my casting up.” I groaned. My mind began racing. What could I do to aim properly…

“What’s happening? Explain, please. Remember, that I can’t see the mana at all.” Amelia stated in a steady, yet firm voice. Her confidence somehow calmed me down a bit, too.

“The…Mana is constantly veering towards the siphon as soon as I start amassing it.” I explained.

“Can you try to amass it while predicting the trajectory it’ll get drained in?” Amelia suddenly asked.

“A…whatnow?” I stared at her wide-eyed.

“It’s like shooting a bow in strong winds. If you want to hit a target right in front of yourself and the wind is coming from the right, you need to shoot to the right, so the wind will push the arrow to hit the target in front of you.” Amelia began guiding my hand slightly away from the bag. “Try again.”

“I… I think I understand.” What I needed to do was simply guide enough mana through the sigil. Which meant I could send a clump of it traversing the strange suction ‘wind’ the siphon was creating.

I did as guided and moved a mass of mana from outside the siphon’s reach into a trajectory that would connect with the insides of the chest. I watched with anticipation as the mana began to flow towards the hourglass, then disappearing inside the chest…

The next thing I remember seeing was the massive stalagmite expanding into the ceiling. Everything looked blurry and my head ached. I could feel something warm on my face.

A dark figure leaned over my blurry line of sight. My eyes began to focus slowly, and at the same time so did my hearing.

Screaming and a howling warning siren echoed in the cave. Amelia was shouting my name while panicking, as I reached for my forehead and groaned. I must have hit my head or something.

“YVERNA!! YVERNA!!” Amelia screamed in horror as I slowly reached for her. I realized my hand was covered in blood, when my bloody thumb left a print on Amelia’s cheek.

“W-what happened…?!” I slowly got up on my knees with the help of my companion.

“T-the bomb…was a lot more effective than we expected…” Amelia staggered, and with that, my eyes went wide as plates as I turned to look at the hourglass plaza.

There were dwarves laying around everywhere. Every single window around the plaza had shattered and blown the glass shards around. There was blood, smoke, and a lingering unpleasant odor all over.

The scene was horrifying.

The makeshift bomb had been much more powerful than I expected. I probably blacked out from the shockwave coupled with hitting the pavement, judging by the way my head was bleeding.

“N-no… I didn’t… I didn’t know it’d be this bad…!!” My breathing started getting erratic once again because this wasn’t at all what I had planned.

“YVERNA!” Amelia shouted and pulled me back to focus. “Now is not the time!! We must do as planned! Look!!” She pointed at the siphon. There was a gigantic crack in the glass, which caused the sparkling sand to escape and flow onto the street. Several guards were hustling and bustling around it.

We did want to create a commotion, but I never expected this’d be the result. I don’t know if methane explosions were supposed to be this dangerous. In fact, I didn’t know a whole lot about explosions in general, which made me feel a twinge of shame.

Why the hell did I suggest this idiotic idea anyway?! We were supposed to save the dwarves! Not blow them to pieces! What the hell was I thinking?!

While I began panicking, Amelia grabbed onto my shoulders.

“YVERNA! I know what you’re thinking!! This is not your fault!!”

“B-but…!” What was she saying?! Of course, it was my fault!

“I am the one who proposed an explosive! I understand you’re in shock, but we must act now! Otherwise, all of this will be for naught!!

“I…” I grimaced. Upon recollection…I guess it was indeed her idea… But I still agreed to go along with it, so it’s not like I was without guilt.

“I know. I didn’t expect it to end up like this either, but we must not forget our goal. Please. “

This was pure madness. We were real terrorists now. There was no going back anymore. A large group of guards already ran to the hourglass. They were searching around and assisting any wounded or unconscious dwarves away from the device.

“Okay… Okay. I’ll go.” I spoke shakily.

“Please.” Amelia nodded sternly and without leaving me much opportunity to speak, she ran off.

I was left by myself, hand shaking as I tried to gather myself. Amelia disappeared into the crowds, and from among the panicked masses and frantic guards, I could hear her roar.

“DEATH TO THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS!! LONG LIVE SUBTHERMA!!! DON’T BELIEVE THEIR LIES!! THE PRINCESS IS BEING CURSED BY SOMEONE IN THE CASTLE!! YOU’RE THROWING YOUR MANA AWAY FOR NAUGHT!!”

I started to understand her plan now. She was trying to incite a riot, or if not, at least this would pull the guards away from the castle.

I couldn’t hear the rest of her shouting properly as her voice seemed to drift further away. Now was my turn to act as well, so I began wobbling towards the castle. People were still mostly listless, simply staring into random directions. The ones who still comprehended their surroundings even a bit kept looking around nervously. A swarm of knights flowed from the building underneath the stalagmites into the streets.

It was easy enough to hide in the zombie-like masses as I proceeded closer and closer towards the structure rising endlessly towards the ceiling.

A castle-like building rose at the base of the stalagmite, connecting to it. A fence encircled the entry point into the structure, but with all the guards flowing out of the building, they seemed to have set the gates to not close somehow.

This made my entry a lot easier, not that it made me any happier.

…

Among the regular guards, who wore a rather generic set of armor with simple short swords, also marched heavily armored men in pitch-black plating.

The dwarves clad in darkness were much more menacing than the regular ones. They carried immensely large battle-axes of matching dark tone to their protective gear. Just like the normal guards, the dark ones also had their arms covered in decorative tattoos and their faces and most of their body were otherwise covered by the spiny pieces of metal.

I peeked around carefully when it seemed like there was a break in the flow of guards out of the stalagmite. It wouldn’t do me any good to sit around forever, so I decided to make my move and slipped in through the heavy castle doors. Luckily, they were left partially open by the flow of men.

The bottom floor of the castle at the base of the stalagmite was quite dark and surprisingly quiet. The most immediate strike force must have been located in here, so it was left vacant in their absence.

I decided to keep the dwarf disguise on, just in case I’d get spotted on the way to the king by someone.

There were long corridors to my left and right from the main hall. I’m assuming that was probably the housing area for the guards. Straight ahead at the dead center of the room was a long, big table. It looked as if it hadn’t seen much use recently, as it was covered in a noticeable layer of dust.

Windows were not present in the room, but there were lights of some kind affixed to the ceiling. Judging by the way they flickered, I’m guessing they were kept aflame with gas or something along those lines.

My observations had to take a back seat as I heard some noises from behind a door at the northern end of the main hall. I looked around in a panic, ending up hiding underneath the big table.

A strange noise of some kind of mechanical clacking grew closer, until the door opened and a bunch of armored dwarves rushed out. The clattering of their metallic shoes filled the room with cacophony until they exited.

I took a moment until I decided it was safe to peek out from underneath the table. The silence had returned to the hall, so checking out the room the dwarves suddenly appeared from was most likely worth a shot. It was quite surprising how such a large group just supposedly appeared out of nowhere like that.

It wasn’t all that surprising to find an elevator-looking thing in the room they came from. The dwarves did have to have some way of moving up and down the stalagmite, after all.

Big golden gears decorated the sides of the lift. It was like one of those big ones you see in hospitals often. The box was large enough to carry a group of maybe…up to twenty humans, so obviously even more dwarves fit in.

I stepped inside the elevator, and to my horror, instead of buttons, there was a lever of some kind attached to the wall.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it… Outside of pulling it, of course. The main issue was that if I pulled it…and then ended up traveling right into the heart of enemy territory, I’d be screwed.

Unfortunately for me, I got a sudden jolt of motivation to pull it, as soon as I heard some noises approaching the elevator room from inside the main hall. In a frantic panic, I pulled the lever with all of my feeble strength.

The door closed before me, as the machine began whirring to life. A mechanical clacking noise began ticking at fixed intervals as I began ascending. Upon looking around properly, there did seem to be some kind of system up over the door that indicated the floor I was in. It consisted of a metallic needle slowly shifting over several symbols as the lift moved.

If I interpreted the floor-indicator right, I went from the bottom floor to the first one right above it. To my horror, the door opened with a noticeable ‘DING!’ and I was left to stare at an empty corridor. I jumped out of the elevator, as soon as the door began closing again.

“Oh, no…Oh, no…oh, no…!” I finally got up and began pacing around properly. I needed to be ready to run away at a moment’s notice, after all.

The elevator descended to the bottom floor, and then started rising again. There was nobody around, but also very little in terms of hiding places. Three dark corridors that looked like they were expanding into an eternity stretched out before my eyes, giving me no clues as to what awaited at their ends.

All I could do was stare…as the elevator got closer to my floor…

…and then it went past it.

How did it go past the floor now?! Was there some fundamental part of it, I wasn’t understanding? My panic from before got a bit distracted by trying to figure out the mechanism of operating the machine.

Whoever used the lift seemed to have stopped on the fifth floor. I think there were a total of twenty, and I was on floor one.

After a moment of waiting for anything to happen, I pulled a lever on the wall to call the elevator again.

Observing the lever here very closely, there was a part missing from it that the one inside the elevator had.

There was something that resembled bicycle brake handles attached to the main stick of the lever. It was absent here for whatever reason, so I figured maybe this had something to do with traversing through multiple floors?

The elevator doors opened, and to my relief, it was empty. I stepped inside and began observing the lever carefully. As I checked it up close, I noticed on the left side of the lever was a beautiful decorative carving of an arrow pointing down and on the opposite side was one pointing up.

But the lever didn’t allow you to pull it to left and right… How did this work… Perhaps the break-handle-looking thing had something to do with it? Looking at the slot the lever was connected to on the wall of the cage, there was an indent on it that implied I could potentially move it to the left or right after pulling it down.

With no time to mull over it more, I pulled the lever and then tried to pull it to the right. It didn’t budge, and to my horror, the elevator doors started closing.

“Gaaahh… Work! Please!!” I tried to squeeze down the brake handle and then pull, and to my relief the lever finally gave way and moved to the right. “It worked!!” I celebrated to myself as the elevator began ascending higher.

Floors began flying by… seven… twelve… fifteen. I decided to go all the way up. Why? Well… Honestly, I was just making a wild guess, but usually big-boss types hide on the top floor or bottom floor of things, right?

When the door to the elevator finally opened, vast decorated halls spread before my eyes. Immaculate stone pillars stood on both the sides of a large corridor leading forward. Red and expensive-looking curtains adorned the walls. There were a few windows to the side of the hall, letting little light in, but otherwise the large hall was eerily quiet.

I stepped out and began walking through the corridor carefully. The curtains gave me a bit of peace of mind just in case I’d need to hide from something.

My steps echoed, making it all seem a tad more lonesome, but as I walked further, another sound began echoing around.

At first, it was impossible to figure out what it was, but as I got closer, I could tell it was a voice. Someone was talking.

“A riot was started by some of the more violently inclined peasants…” A slightly grimy sounding voice gurgled. It sounded a bit as if someone had far too much spit or drool in their mouth and tried to speak without swallowing.

“What arrogance…” An immensely deep voice replied. Despite the quietness, the sheer depth of the tone was like a quiet lion’s roar. “Do those ingrates not realize it’s all for the sake of Fanael…”

“Indeed… But what can you expect of the mindless sheeple? Worry not, your lordship. The umbral knights will surely rid all and any seeds of mutiny from the minds of your people.” The grimy grumbler continued.

I quietly sneaked ahead, and a grand ballroom-like space opened before my eyes. It had windows carved into the very stone walls, letting in the blue light, bathing the hall of smoothed out stone in a depressing hue. Enormous pillars decorated the sides of the space, providing me with a great hiding spot as I eavesdropped on the people talking. On the wall opposite of the eastern one with the windows, were indents carved into the stalagmite rock with beautiful decorative items varying from vases to armors and weaponry.

At the northern end of the area sat a throne carved out of the same rock the entire structure was built in. Upon said throne was a dwarf clad in dark and golden armor. A beard long enough to reach his midsection was a most distinct feature of his, but it was unkempt and worn out. His eyes were glassy like the rest of his people, most likely from draining his own mana to save his daughter.

Indeed, it was more than clear this man was definitely the king, judging by the crown that was resting sloppily on his head. He had an immense air of eminence despite some signs of desolation.

Next to him stood another dwarf with an unusually long nose and strange wrinkly ears. He had fancy decorative clothes on, reminding me of the curtains in the corridor I had come my way through.

He had an air of haughtiness to himself and was the source of the grimier voice. It was almost as if he were proud of the situation the kingdom was in…and soon enough it became more than clear as to why.

As I finally managed to calm my nerves a bit, I focused on the mana, only to discover the advisor was indeed not normal. As if he weren’t enough a bad person by his behavior alone, there was a noticeable amount of strangely murky mana around him. Was this what the mana of monsters looked like?

The amount of magical energy alone was evidence enough he was somehow special, and my deductions were given further evidence very quickly… in the worst way possible.