I spent the next two days shut away from everyone else. I couldn’t bear the idea of seeing Taele or my mother. This was all my fault, they had been waiting to escape until Halcroft left, but now we couldn’t. We could have escaped sooner, but I wanted to be able to defend myself. I thought it was worth the time if we had another combatant among us. I was wrong. I used Halcroft to help me gain enough levels to be useful after we escaped and I was paying for that greed.
There was a knock on my door midmorning on the third day since my mistake. “Lady Alea, it is time to go to Grimstel for your training.” Riza said loudly.
Right, healing training with Helen. My first impulse was to tell her to fuck off. Then I thought about all the people I had seen come through Helen’s clinic since I started helping her. I stood glancing down seeing I was still in my nightgown. “Is… is my mother out there?” I asked.
A beat. “Not at this time, I believe she is at the gazebo with lady Taele.” Riza responded through the door.
Helping Helen was very likely the last good thing I would ever do in my life. I needed to keep doing that for as long as I could. I grabbed a simple dress and opened the door. “I need to bathe quickly, shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” I said then pushed past her to the bathroom.
I took a shower drying my hair as best I could with a towel before dressing. I combed my hair out, and put it up in a simple braid so it wouldn’t get in the way. Doing that while it was still damp was dumb, but I didn’t care. I also ignored things like makeup and accessories, I just didn’t have the energy. “Let’s go.” I glanced at the Sukeshi that Halcroft had gifted me. Usually Riza carried it while I was in town so I didn’t have to be armed while I worked with Helen. I stood there for a beat trying to decide if I should bring it. I suppose it couldn’t hurt. I took it and the sling I used to carry it over my shoulder rather than on my hip.
We made our way out of the manor and I was happy to not have to run into anyone I was avoiding. “What is wrong, princess?” Riza asked once we had left the gate. My dower mood was apparently obvious, not that I was trying to hide it.
What could I say here? I’m depressed, wallowing in my own idiocy. Except the idea of depression didn’t really exist in this world. Obviously the emotions that went with it did, but not the clinical concept. “Just… I feel lost, I guess?”
Riza raised her eyebrow. “Oh?” She walked along with me in silence for a long beat. “Just because you’ve slowed down leveling doesn’t mean you aren’t making nearly unprecedented progress.”
I shook my head a little, somewhat glad she had misunderstood the situation. “Yeah… I suppose.” I just went with it. If she found out we planned to escape there would be hell to pay, I wouldn’t make our terrible situation worse. “I guess… I feel like I need, I don’t really know what.” I did. I needed hope, some glimmer that I wouldn’t be a slave sent to battlefields to kill Halcroft’s enemies.
Riza’s brow furrowed deep in thought. “Well, if it makes any difference our lord raves about your progress. I don’t know if I’ve seen him this happy in my more than two decades of service.”
I paused for a moment and I could feel the blood drain from my face. That was definitely not what I needed to hear, no. All my lies were coming back to haunt me. Riza had gotten a bit ahead and turned back. I spun in place so I was looking at the forest, so she wouldn’t see my expression of horror.
As Riza’s gaze bored into me I felt the same bubbling feeling from the day Isaac was maimed. It crawled up from my stomach as my breathing became more and more shallow. My vision began to gray at the edges. I couldn’t do this in front of Riza. Not now. I forced myself to breathe in deeply. “I… fear nature calls.” I managed to get out.
Then I activated Radiant Steps with all the power my vastly improved Magic stat could give me, I rocketed into the forest, almost catching my arm on a tree as I sped past several others. I could feel the panic rising, as the metaphoric walls closed in on me. I took another massive radiant step, but with my vision blurring on the outside I failed to avoid the trees this time. My arm smashed into the tree and I heard it snapback. I tumbled through the air before smashing into a bush.
Pain poured out of my arm, and I didn’t need a skill or knowledge to know I had either dislocated, badly sprained, or broken it. I burst into tears only partially caused by the arm. What would I do?
The words Riza had said, that Halcroft was pleased with my progress made my stomach clench. I could feel the bile at the back of my mouth. I couldn’t. Not this life. I couldn’t stay.
I ripped myself out of the bush as my arm roared at me in pain. Then I ran. At first I just wanted to be away from everything. To run from the people that counted on me, that were also prisoners. Then slowly, as my addled mind churned I envision my first home in this world. The house that my family lived in together. With the little alchemy shop that only rarely got business. Yet my mother cared for everyone as best she could.
My father, that went hunting everyday for game and tiny grade F cores. Such happiness, such simplisticity. I stopped, turned toward the Ysarain border, then ran. I had no idea what I was doing, it would take weeks if not months to get there on foot, and I would need to fight monsters every step of the way. Yet I just couldn’t stay here anymore.
I could run a long way between my Vitality and Agility, further and faster than the best marathon runners on Earth. It wasn’t exhaustion that made me stop, nor the pain still erupting from my arm. No, it was the people flashing through my mind. Mother, Penelope, Taele, and Farva. I couldn’t just run away and leave them. I stopped suddenly, my feet planting themselves in the earth. I couldn’t take another step. Staying, fleeing, I could neither.
I collapsed to my knees and screamed. Being pulled constantly in two different directions. I slumped down, as my mind whirled. I couldn’t be Halcroft’s weapon, yet I couldn’t leave them behind, and most of all I couldn’t give up. The fist on my good arm punched into the hard packed dirt of the ground.
I heard footsteps behind me. “Princess?” Riza had found me. I hadn’t even thought about her.
Of course I couldn’t escape her, she was faster than me at my best, and I was nowhere near my best right now. I just ignored her. My mind slowly reorganized itself from my impromptu rebellion. Impromptu… rebellion. I stopped shaking and my eyes went wide.
That was when it really hit me. I had rebelled, in my moment of panic and fear I had every intention of running away. Command crests worked on intention. If I so much as thought I should flee to Ysara the crest would heat up, but the pain would only start if I took any action on the intent. Yet I had run hundreds of yards and… nothing.
While I was still hunched over I considered what orders I was still under. Not to leave the manor except with Riza or Halcroft and even then never to go to Ysara. I also couldn’t communicate with anyone in Ysara even through intermediaries. Finally I couldn’t intentionally sabotage my skills, stats, or classes.
I considered the idea of going into town and eluding Riza for a few minutes and paying someone to send a message to Ysara. The crest didn’t heat up. I stood up suddenly, Riza letting out a little yelp. I took a step toward where I thought town was, still with the intention in my mind. Nothing. The command wasn’t there. I wasn’t being controlled.
Why? How? Was Halcroft dead? Did that even end the orders? Did Daniel screw up the ritual when he changed our crests? Was mother also not under orders anymore? What the fucking hell was going on?
I still felt Riza’s stare as a horrifying thought occurred to me. What if this was a test? What if this was a trap?
I staggered, only now fully remembering how much pain I was in. I looked at my arm, finally cognizant enough to actually examine it. I had dislocated it. I knew how to reset the arm, but I’d never done it to myself before.
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Finally I turned to Riza, she had a stern expression. What was she thinking? I wished so much that I could know. “Sorry Riza… I just, I don’t know…”
She stood there staring at me for a panic inducing moment. Then she began to reach for me and I cringed backward. “Let me help you with that.” Riza said somewhat to my surprise. She had to know what just happened right? That I tried to escape?
I allowed her closer and she grabbed my dangling arm. Not surprisingly considering she was a hardened fighter she also knew how to reset a dislocation. Despite knowing what was coming she did not warn me at all before she did. I yelped as she forced my arm back into its socket. “Fuck!” I yelled.
Riza began to chuckle a bit. “It’s always better when you don’t know it's coming.” She turned toward where I had to assume Grimstel was. “Let’s go.”
I gripped the hand of my previously dislocated arm and it still hurt like hell, but at least it worked again. I took a few hurried steps to catch up with Riza. “So… that’s it? Not going to ask why…” I let the question hang.
Riza shrugged. “I get it, some days are harder than others. I can’t cast aspersions when I’ve broken my own hand punching things in anger.” I furrowed my brows trying to square a Riza with anger problems with the calm and collected woman I knew. She blushed as I stared at her. I almost tripped at that. “It… might have been a few times… plus there was the time I nearly ripped the arm off my lover during my son’s birth. Of course that was entirely warranted since he did it to me.”
I nodded somewhat stunned. “Of course.” I agreed absentmindedly. I knew Riza had kids, but trying to imagine her as a mother was… not easy. “You’ve never really talked much about your children.” I said hoping to keep the conversation focused on her.
“They are both adults now, I come into town once or twice a month to see them otherwise there isn’t much to say.” Said the woman that appeared to be in her mid thirties. Fuck Vitality was a hell of a drug. I had known her for a decade, and the decade prior she was Taele’s guard. If she had stayed with her kids until they were 14, the age of adulthood in this world, She’d have to be closing in on 60 by now more than likely.
“What do they do?”
“Sam, my daughter, is a blacksmith, and Craig, my son, is an adventurer. He decided to take after me despite my objections, though he mostly keeps to the safe parts of the local dungeon, so not nearly as stupid as I was.” Riza reminisced.
Well that certainly humanized my prison guard. Not sure if that was a good or bad thing. It’s not as if I could so much as hurt her even if she did directly oppose our escape. Riza was our ultimate failure condition, if she finds us we just lose. To my knowledge she was almost as strong as Halcroft himself.
“I’d like to meet them both if you are willing.” I said cordially, hoping we could move past my panic attack without evasive questions.
Riza shrugged. “I suppose, we can stop by Sam’s shop on the way to the clinic, as for my son who knows when he’ll poke his head out of the dungeon again.”
After that we fell into a silent walk as we made our way back to the road. I tried to keep one step behind Riza so she couldn’t see me as I thought about my future. The escape plan was back on, and unless this was a trap it’s better than ever. Only Halcroft himself can give us orders, and he is hundreds of miles away at the capital.
The only people we really have to look out for at this point are Riza and Isaac. It used to be that both meant we were in serious trouble, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Isaac was still missing an arm since he wasn’t supposed to have it healed until I could heal it. Plus we can hurt him now. The crest only stopped a person from harming the controller of the crest, and themselves. That meant if Isaac caught us we could actually attack him.
Things were very suddenly looking up. I had hope again. I felt like skipping and giggling with excitement. Yet I needed to stay calm until this trip to Grimstel ended. It took every bit of my willpower to do just that.
--------------------------
We got to Grimstel and went down a side street from the market. There I saw a sign with an anvil and hammer hanging over a shop. “There it is, I wonder if she is working on something other than horseshoes today.” Riza snorted with a bit of laughter. Ugh she needs to stop making me like her, we are supposed to be enemies. Maybe meeting her family wasn’t such a good idea.
Nonetheless I stepped into the shop after Riza. “Mom!” I heard a bright feminine voice call out then something big smashed into Riza.
“Heya Sammie.” Riza said happily as she swung her daughter around and let her down. I finally got a good look at the woman, and she was big. Not like fat, no, far from it, I doubted she had much of any extra fat on her at all. No, she was muscular and tall. Riza was a bit taller than the average woman at 5’ 8” or so, but Sam was just above 6’, making me at just under 5’ feel even more tiny than usual.
She didn’t quite have as big of muscles as a male bodybuilder from Earth, they were a bit sleeker and more toned, but damn she had muscles for days. I had no doubt this woman could bench press a small car. Other than her massive muscles, she had frizzy brown hair, kind eyes, and a tunic with overalls under her leather apron. She appeared to be just a bit younger than her mother, maybe her late 20’s or early 30’s, not that that guess meant much in this world.
Sam looked down at me. “Who is this little cutie?” She asked.
Riza who barely ever smiled had one permanently planted on her face. “This is Lady Alea. She is a guest of my lord and I’m guarding her today.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you Sam, though your mot-” My sentence was cut off by Sam wrapping me in a bear hug and pulling me up and off the ground. The air in my lungs pressed out of me instantly as I was too stunned to do anything other than be hugged by the overly familiar woman. I attempted to breathe, but all I managed to do was make a tiny gasping sound.
“Good to meetcha little lady.” Sam said while continuing to squeeze the life out of me. It was a good thing I had gained all the levels I did because I think I might have actually died otherwise.
“I think you might be killing my charge.” Riza said with a bit of mock disappointment in her voice.
Sam immediately released me and I fell to the floor gasping for air. “Woops.” She said with a grin on her face. “What brings ya both here?”
Riza seemed to confirm I had not in fact died from the hug. “Just stopping by on our way to Lady Alea’s healing training with Matron Helen.”
I finally caught my breath. “I was trying to say Dame Riza hasn’t told me much about you, I thought it would be nice to meet you, but now I am uncertain it was the correct choice.”
“Sucha proper lady.” Sam said with a dismissing wave of her hand. Then her eyes seemed to lock onto the sword on my back. “Oh! What is that!” She said as she reached for the hilt of my sword.
I activated Radiant Step and sent myself back at a crazy speed. However, having learned from my other attempts at using Radiant Step in a cramped area I added some spin to the step so that I hit the wall of the building opposite Sam’s shop on one foot, my knee, and one hand, the other hand on my blade’s hilt.
At that time Sam did not follow up her attack so instead of launching myself with another step I just dropped to the ground instead. My hand was on my hilt, but I didn’t draw the blade.
Sam's eyes tracked my movement but she didn’t react at all, so I assume she has extremely high Vitality, but not the Agility to go with it. “Oh, you’ve trained a little monster, haven't ya, mom?”
“Actually I haven’t given her any training really, she did it all on her own more or less. Also she’s the one that helped me take down the basilisk.” Riza seemed to genuinely praise me.
Sam gave me a look then her eyes went wide. “Wait, you're really a Spellblade at 12?” She let out a high laugh, shaking her head. “And I thought I was hot stuff gettin a high quality blacksmithin class at level 100.”
I Identified Sam and got back [Artisan, 164], that was a respectable level for some her age. Well above the curve, she has a good chance to break 200 in her lifetime without taking any crazy risks. Of course if she joins an army and repairs gear on a front line she would level a ton quicker, but few people were willing to put their lives at risk just for levels.
“Yeah… level 58 and hasn’t even been unlocked a month yet. She’s training day and night; might have even impressed me.” Riza’s smile seemed just as genuine as her praise and it gave me pause.
Ugh, Riza showing this side of herself to me and meeting her super nice daughter was definitely not the right choice. I actually liked them as people, both of them. Now I had to potentially oppose someone I liked.
I pulled the sling that held my sword off my back. “Please stop it…” I was embarrassed by their words. “And if you want to look you could have asked.” I walked up taking the sheath out of the sling and offered Sam it.
“Sorry, I see a piece of art like this and I just haveta touch.” Sam seemed really excited to look at the blade. She drew it, the black blade gleaming off the late morning sun. “Oh… would ya look at that.” She ran her hand along the thin grove along the back of the single edged blade. “This musta been the work of a dual blacksmith classer.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask.
“Combinin minerals with metals like this without weakenin the blade requires special molten skills. So they must have a double element class. However, you can also see the artistry, the finesse, they haveta have a second Air blacksmith class too. Three elements means two classes dedicated to blacksmithin, and probably one of them exclusively dedicated to weaponsmithin.” Sam explains.
Oh wow, I knew this blade was special, but it sounds like the Artisan that made this blade was over level 200 in their main class if not 300.
“Mighty fine indeed.” She returns the blade to its sheath, handing it back to me. “Fires me up to make something just as pretty. Be sure to take good care of it, I’d kill ya if ya didn’t give it the love it deserved.”
I smiled. “Nothing to worry about there, I’ve taken care of my own weapon ever since I started learning.”
“Well dang, I actually like one of your stuffy nobles, mom. What am I to do?”
Riza shrugs. “She’s grown on me too.”
Sam elbows her mom. “Well especially after a little girl saved your bacon.” She shook her head. “Helluva thing.”
I dismissed the statement with a hand. “I just got lucky.”
Riza gave me a look before turning to Sam. “Well we better get her over to the clinic, I’ll see you in a few days, if your brother comes back to town tell him to see me before he goes back out.”
Sam pulled her mom into a side hug. “I mean I’ll tell him, but whoever knows with that guy.” She tousled my hair a bit. “Good meetin ya little lady.”
“You too Sam.” I said with a little bow of my head.