Sometimes…
Secrets were best left hidden. Open that box you found and you might have the truth. Or an answer. Or a chance.
Fear the box. Sometimes, you fell.
And fell, calling out without a voice, through the earth, through what felt like dead air, into a place you should not be.
Straight into an answer, a place no one could predict you’d be.
Landing with dirt showering around you, long, magical roots of plants that should never have been grown here, and pain.
Falling always hurt. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d done this. Fallen down a pit into a place of danger and secrets.
…At least once before. Twice, if you counted the ravine when she was small. But that had just been a crummy pit. It felt like the places she fell into were getting progressively more important.
Not that Mrsha du Marquin, the Doombearer of the Stone Spears tribe, child of The Wandering Inn, thought of anything at all at first.
——
Everything hurt. Her head was a jumble of weird ideas like the fact that she was getting tired of falling into pits.
Confusion. She’d landed on her shoulder, and it ached. Mrsha opened her eyes, dirt stinging her fur, and then realized what had happened. She sat up slowly, wincing. Everything was black, dark, and she had hit the ground hard enough to knock herself unconscious.
Not hard enough to splatter, and she must have bounced off the roots on the way down, which had slowed her fall. Darkness—dirt falling off her.
Mrsha remembered how she’d gotten here: swimming through the [Garden of Sanctuary] and seeing the roots…
What roots…?
…going through the floor, which was purely impossible. She’d made the mistake of touching the hole and…
Mrsha whined as she felt at her arm, then fully realized what was going on.
Then she panicked.
Mrsha was eight years old. Technically, older by Earth standards due to the discrepancies between years, but still a kid at heart. Even if, when she stood, dirt sloughed off the kilt she wore, a green, checkered pattern, and she had a t-shirt on, light and thin, saying ‘I Survived Liscor Hunted’. Which was a lie because she hadn’t been allowed to do the experience yet, and Menolit just kept handing out the t-shirts to people he liked.
Mrsha sniffed and felt at her nose. No blood. She searched around, looked up, and then got on all fours and did a panic run around in a circle, screaming silently.
I’m dead. I’mdeadI’msodeadohdeadgodsthisisitIregreteverything.
The last time she’d fallen into a hole, it had been the dungeon, and Zel Shivertail, the Halfseekers, Klbkch, Krshia, Xrn, and Griffon Hunt had gone down to rescue her. That had been bad.
This was even worse, somehow. Mrsha came to a halt and lay against the pile of dirt she’d landed on, panting.
I fell through the bottom of the [Garden of Sanctuary]. No one knows where I am. I am so dead.
She hadn’t wanted this! She’d just been curious! She’d been having a normal day. She did not want another adventure.
Seriously. And especially not ‘legendary, ultra-death, Named-rank plus plus’ mode. Mrsha’s eyes were refusing to adjust to the darkness, which suggested that it was pitch-black without any ambient light. Even when she looked up, she couldn’t see any light…Mrsha began trying to climb the roots.
Unfortunately, the long, dangling strands of the buried…flowers?…might be so terrifically long they reached down all this way, but they were slippery and damp, and Mrsha got barely up four feet before slipping and hitting the ground.
Something was wrong. She cried out as she landed and stared at the swaying roots above her head. The damn roots were too hard to grasp, and she was too weak! They were wet and dirty and—
…Rope?
Huh?
Mrsha stared at the dim roots in the darkness. Or rather…she clearly remembered the long, tangled roots. But instead of them, she saw long, thin strands of, well…rope.
Definitely rope. They were neat, braided strands. Just hanging from the ceiling.
What the heck? Mrsha felt at them gingerly, and they were slick with damp and dirt, but definitely not roots of any kind. Wait, where were the…
…What was going on? She stared up at the ceiling and tried to remember how she’d gotten here. Let’s see. She’d been swimming down—and then she’d fallen into a…what had she been chasing?
She couldn’t remember. Mrsha rubbed at her head, and then her panic reasserted itself. If she didn’t even know how she’d left the [Garden of Sanctuary]—!
She had to get out of here. Ropes or not, Mrsha swarmed up them towards the ceiling. But all she saw was dirt above; she didn’t sense the [Garden of Sanctuary]. And she only got five feet up before she slipped and burned her paws on the ropes on the way down.
Undeterred, frantic, she tried again. But Valeterisa’s magic had worn off; she was no longer enchanted with [Lion’s Strength], and even when she did haul herself up what felt like at least twenty feet—she patted the ‘ceiling’ and found only compacted dirt.
Oh no. [Groundswim] was deactivated. Mrsha tried to dig upwards and just got so much dirt cascading over her face she spluttered and nearly fell. Her paw brushed something sharp and hard—stone? She recoiled, lost her grip on the ropes, and tumbled down.
Ow. Only her [Fur of the Fortress] and [Lesser Toughness] Skills kept her from breaking bones from that fall. Come to that, Mrsha realized that if Nanette or Visma or anyone else had taken the twenty-foot drop, they would have been seriously hurt.
Okay, breathe, Mrsha. She had her Skills, Mrsha realized. Which was good? Something, at least.
It would not save her.
She knew where she was. There was only one place it could be in Mrsha’s mind, and she was desperate to escape before she super-died.
She was in Avalon. The lands of the Fae.
Where else would the ropes have led her? Erin and Ryoko had talked about the faerie rings of mushrooms, about make-believe faeries and the like. Not that her world or this one had faeries in it, which was one of the few good things as far as Ryoko was concerned. But Mrsha knew the stories. Ryoko had redacted the really scary parts, but even her tales of the evil faeries kidnapping children were bad enough.
…Mrsha did not want to be here. Nope. No way.
Get me out of here. Get me Saliss! Get me all of Manus, and let them get eaten here. Help! Heeeeelp!
It was just as well Mrsha didn’t have a voice because she might have alerted whatever was around her in the darkness by her panicked voice. As it was, she was halfway up the ropes again when she sensed them shifting in a way she didn’t like.
They were decently thick and twined together, but they were still the roots—ropes—of, well, flowers. Even if they were flowers now dozens of feet long. They could rip or tear at any moment, and Mrsha realized that if there was a way up—she had to be strategic about this.
If I rip these ropes out, then I have to get up twenty feet to the ceiling and somehow get into the [Garden of Sanctuary] without them. Plus, they might be the only way back through.
Mrsha was absolutely certain that the magical ropes had created some kind of portal, like Erin’s door Skill, and if they snapped—she instantly let go and forced herself to sit.
She was a [Survivor]. Think, Mrsha. Don’t panic—she glanced around the darkness, ears pricking for any sound whatsoever, but she heard nothing.
It didn’t mean she was safe, but she had to trust to her hearing and nose. She smelled a lotta dust, actually. Dust, dirt, the otherworldly fragrance of the ropes…stone. Virtually nothing else.
If I’m lucky, I’m in, like, the catacombs of a palace or a cave. Maybe I can go out there and get my bearings?
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. That was what the old Mrsha would do. The young kid who, frankly, might survive by luck and the goodwill of others. Or get eaten here. Or lose her soul.
What did Ryoko say about the faeries? Um. Never tell them your name. Never agree to anything? Don’t be here?
Be super polite, as if all of them were like Fetohep without the niceness. Mrsha recalled all the fairy-rules she knew.
If she ran into a fae, it would be a being from a different realm who had to obey certain pacts, but who were able and willing to kill small children. Mrsha didn’t just have Ryoko’s stories; Laken and Kevin and all the other Earthers had opinions on the fae, though theirs ranged from warily excited or happy to ominous and dire. Usually it depended on the culture they were from.
Erin’s were the nicest, like Tinkerbell, and frankly, the most inaccurate. From Ryoko’s understanding of them, Laken was closest. Mrsha had also watched movies via the [World’s Eye Theatre] and really, really wished she hadn’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth. Erin had forbidden the movie, but Nanette just had to drag Mrsha to a midnight screening. Then again, Mrsha had loved it.
Stupid past Mrsha.
If you run into a monster with eyes on its hands…
There was no way out. Mrsha’s heart was beating out of her chest in terror. Then her mind presented her with a question.
Why do I think I’m in the land of the fae?
There was no rhyme or reason for it. No one had ever seen a faerie in this world. But for some reason, she was terrified of this hypothetical more than anything else. And why did she think of Ryoko?
Mrsha stared at the dangling ropes. She felt her heart thundering in her chest. But faeries weren’t real.
Yet she was afraid.
…Why?
——
At some point, Mrsha calmed down. Her frantic thoughts turned into more deliberate decision-making. It might have been fifteen minutes?
It was a sign that Mrsha had been in life-threatening situations that she got to anything like a logical place of mind. Scared as she was, she had done this before, been alone, and she had the advantages of both multiple traumatic events and her life as a Plains Gnoll to draw on.
Okay, I need light. Gear check!
As soon as Mrsha stopped looking everywhere for threats, she took stock. She had a banged up arm and shoulder, but nothing bad. Her clothing was dirty, but that was all, and she had…her bag of holding.
Mrsha sighed in relief, then pulled something out of its holster on her side. She waved the Wand of the Mrsha in the air.
Aha! With it, she had access to four spells! She could cast two from a list each day:
[Lucky Glimmer], [Flick Fire], [Earth Clod], and [Scribe Text]. Mrsha often used it to fast-write things she wanted to say, so it had…zero charges of magic.
Creler shit. But it was still a spell catalyst, and Mrsha didn’t think Tier 1 combat spells were good anyways. But if she had to fight—
[Thorn Arrow] and [Stone Dart] were Mrsha’s top-tier combat spells. Tier 1 and Tier 2 magic respectively. She could cast [Stone Dart] three times a day, and it had the punch of a sharp piece of rock hurled by someone like Selys. For close-combat, Mrsha had [Thorn Paw], which made a fairly sharp thorn appear on her paw. She also had her teeth, and claws, and [Fur of the Fortress] and [Natural Toughness].
…No fighting. For stealth, she had [Natural Concealment]—which was surprisingly useful, but she was no Seborn. She had [Student] and [Scribbler] Skills, but Mrsha was low on useful Skills except in one department.
And that was her oft-forgotten class.
[Emberbearer].
It came to the forefront of her mind as Mrsha pulled objects out of her bag of holding. She was cursing her lack of organization; she had a lot of gifts and trinkets, most of which were in her room because she hadn’t thought she’d be doing anything interesting today.
However, she raised a paw, and something flared to life as she thought a Skill.
[Rekindle Flame]. [Lasting Ember].
A soft, orange glow filled the air at last, and Mrsha looked around. She saw a pile of dirt, pale, brown rope, and a long, long hallway of grey stone. The stone looked…ancient beyond belief. It had no inscriptions; this was clearly somewhere unused given the dust in the air, and when Mrsha gazed up, she saw a stone ceiling twenty plus feet overhead. And a small, tiny patch of dirt where the ropes were coming from.
No way up there without a ladder or staircase. I really wish I’d mastered geomancy spells now.
The [Druid] gulped. She held the ember up, grateful for it. She had [Light] as a spell, but that would tax her mana.
This was free. In this case, Mrsha had an ember from The Wandering Inn in her paw. Not a magical Erin fire, just one from the fireplace. She could conjure Erin’s fire with great difficulty, but this was perfect for now.
Mrsha spread out the items from her bag of holding and, after a moment, transferred the ember to something. She held up a little metal lantern and closed the glass lid; with a sigh of relief, she now had a steady source of illumination. And here she did have Skills.
[Increased Warmth: Ember]. [Lantern: Bright Illumination]. Instantly, the lantern tripled in brightness, and the entire hallway came into focus.
Mrsha covered the lantern, angling it so the light was a narrow strip, not anything to give her away. She kept sorting the items she had, grim.
Mother will search for me when she realizes I’m gone. But how long will that take? And even if she does, only Valeterisa knows where I was, and she might not guess I went all the way down. Damn! I covered the flowerbed! If they noticed the pile of dirt, they might figure it out…
But how did flowers do all this?
Her head hurt. Mrsha shook it, and tried to focus. Ignore that…
How long until they searched for her? Even if they did, how long would it take them to figure out she was at the bottom of the garden, underground?
This wasn’t like the old days where Bird or Numbtongue would have been looking to play with Mrsha. The girl imagined she wouldn’t be missed until dinner, and then they’d assume she’d run outside. Dalimont and Ushar might notice, since it was their job, but even with the best will in the world, Mrsha didn’t have high hopes for a rescue until at least half a day had passed.
I have to trust Ishkr will notice, if anyone does. Or can I send a [Message]?
No way. This place felt way too different from where Mrsha felt she should be, but she did have a [Message] scroll bound to Fetohep. Mrsha pulled it out and scribbled hurriedly.
Mrsha: Hey, Fetohep. Small problem. Can you read this?
What happened when you wrote on a [Message] scroll was that the letters would flash a moment after it detected you were done. But this time, the letters didn’t light up.
No magical connection. Great. Thought so.
Worth a shot, and it confirmed she was somewhere…else. But Mrsha would have known that already.
There was a sensation you got in places that were, for the lack of a better word, otherworldly. It was like the tingle at the back of your neck when something amazing happened, but in the air. Like the [Garden of Sanctuary]. However, Mrsha knew she wasn’t in the garden; the effect was way stronger than even Erin’s domain.
Back to her items. One of the things Mrsha was most wary of, despite still not having her bearings, was starvation. She’d been badly hungry before, so she sighed in pure relief when she found sustenance, at least, for a few days.
An entire jar of Calescent-grade cookies produced an aroma of mixed smells. Spice, sweet, even some chocolate…her cookies looted from his kitchen. Mrsha almost ate one then and there, but she caught herself.
I’ll need this if I’m here for a few days and there’s no food. Or to barter with. Faeries love cookies. She even had a half-empty water flask that she was going to desperately need, and she tucked those away at once.
What else did she have? Uh…her anti-appraisal ring, probably useless. A stack of notes of pre-written phrases. Her speaking runes that said ‘hey, listen’ and stuff like that—Mrsha actually moved them to one side.
Maybe they’d be good as distractions? Plus, hadn’t Ryoko said that magic from this world had been valuable to the fae? Lastly, Mrsha had a Tripvine Bag and Pepperspray Potion for ultra emergencies.
And her cape.
Mrsha’s eyes widened as she finally found something she definitely could use. The Cape of Heroes! Bright yellow, enchanted by Master Hedault; she fastened it to her neck and felt invigorated. Mrsha did a frontflip, landed on her feet, and nodded.
Mobility is mine! She ran forwards, raced sideways up a wall a few steps, and then gravity reasserted itself. She remembered the cape had a limited mana pool before it needed to recharge.
Can I reach the ceiling from here? Mrsha stared up at the ceiling as she picked up her lantern.
…Nope. Absolutely not. If she could run up the wall, she doubted she’d get more than eight feet, even with the cape, and she couldn’t run on the ceiling. The cape was useful. Not game-changing.
Still, she felt much more equipped. Lantern in one paw, holding it by a simple ring of iron, and Wand of the Mrsha in the other. Cape on her back; Mrsha was ready as she was going to get.
Oh yes, iron lantern. She hadn’t forgotten the cardinal rule of faeries. Mrsha took a few deep breaths and held the lantern up.
Orange light swept down the corridor like a warning glow, swift, yet only stretching a few dozen feet before seeming to double back in fear. The light wobbled as Mrsha took a few steps forwards. It was so quiet her ears hurt.
Normally, any place had noise, even The Wandering Inn at night. Floorboards moving. Wind. People sighing or breathing. Here?
Nothing. Mrsha could hear her own heartbeat thudding loudly in her ears, her breath coming in short, quick bursts. It was so quiet she thought she’d go mad.
This entire place feels…dead. Am I in the catacombs of the Faerie King? Dead faeries. Great.
This was the kind of adventure where Saliss would check out the name and prompt and decide he was underleveled. Maybe it was like a video game? Mrsha walked down the stone hallway, trying to make it like a game from Kevin’s laptop. Numbtongue didn’t want it as much anymore, so she’d played all the games on it.
Mrsha and the Catacombs of the Faerie King! Level 70+ challenge!
Instant death!
Wait. She paused as the light continued to do funny things. Mrsha glanced over her shoulder and groaned.
The roots of…whatever they had been! The ropes! Her mysterious level up!
Of course. This was why she’d gotten the announcement! She’d been awarded all the levels for entering the lands of the fae! Level 70…actually felt right for doing something that stupid.
Hey, levelling…system? I could really use my old class! I think it’s deserved! Pretty please? With a cherry on top?
Mrsha raised the lantern higher. She was in a long hallway, and the light was showing her what looked like…caved in dirt and stone on one end. True signs of decay or collapse. She blamed the flowers; there were cracks along the stone ceiling, and the ropes had poked through in more than just the one spot.
Damn things collapsed this entire hallway. The other way was illuminated by the bright orange light, but even so, Mrsha’s vision ended a mere forty feet ahead of her. She steeled herself and began to walk. She needed either something to build with, to get up to the hole in the ceiling without breaking the ropes, to know where she was, or friendly people.
Failing that, Mrsha just needed to see one horrific monster or trap or ominous message on the wall and she’d risk climbing the ropes even if they broke. All the while, she kept begging the Grand Design of Isthekenous for a single Skill from its announcement.
——
The first clue Mrsha had to where she was took her five seconds of walking. Her eyes were scanning the darkness as she plodded forwards, her senses failing her.
Sight, hearing, smell—all were indicating a void of dust and stone so nondescript as to be terrifying in itself. Mrsha had never, ever smelled something like this.
Stone didn’t smell like stone. It smelled like moss, rainfall, and a building always had the faintest odors of people walking through it. Invisible stains of scent left behind.
This place was truly empty. No one had ever walked here, ever, according to Mrsha’s nose. Or if they had, it was so long ago that even scent had dissolved. It was so deathly silent; she couldn’t hear anything. When Mrsha did hear something, she spun—and saw a fragment of dirt falling from the hole in the ceiling.
It was so damn quiet that it sounded like a huge patter of sound.
It was her eyes that revealed the next clue. Mrsha had been looking ahead, squinting in the darkness to see where this hallway led. But she realized, as she walked forwards, the light wasn’t helping her.
When she looked down, she jerked and halted. The orange tide of light emitted from her lantern had rushed forwards to illuminate the hallway, but had abruptly broken and stopped. It refused to go further, even as she walked forwards.
The glow of tangerine light was pooled in a huge arc on the ground, brighter over here, despite being further away from her lantern, forming a ‘u’ facing…something in the darkness.
Oh come on. Mrsha’s fur rose as she lifted the lantern, and the light moved like it was water, oscillating—and refusing to go further. It lapped against something ahead of her, and Mrsha’s sense of trepidation rose.
There was something there. She took another few steps forward, and the glow intensified—and remained frozen in the air, refusing to illuminate anything past a certain boundary. There was a sphere of darkness, a dividing line where light refused to cross and went back the other way.
Mrsha was surrounded by a glow now almost like the dawn…and reached a paw out to that curtain of darkness beyond. She hesitated…but it was just plain air. She coughed—there was dust in it—then put her paw out.
It turned dark, and she jerked it back, but there was nothing…Mrsha squinted into the gloom. Then she took a step—and her lantern’s light abruptly went out.
All the light in the hallway vanished. Mrsha stared at her lantern and nearly went blind.
The ember was still burning in it, but all the light was now contained in said lantern. Where it should have spilled out, obeying the laws of physics, it was a solar beacon, a miniature sun—yet one that provided no illumination. It was merely bright in and of itself.
It refused to leave the glass case. The lantern swung as Mrsha lowered it, then stared. It was as if even light had a ranking, and it was below the bar of entry for the space here. Yet if there had been natural, regal light, intended…Mrsha’s dazzled eyes took a moment to adjust. She gazed up at something in the darkness and sighed.
Ah. Of course.
It was a door. It was always a damn door.
It was huge. A door fit for a half-Giant, and not one merely Moore’s size. Thirty feet high; it dominated the hallway and was a third as wide. Made of stone with no handle, something carved into the surface.
Mrsha couldn’t see it since the light was refusing to come out of the lantern. She squinted, heart juddering in her chest, and thought the door seemed…weirdly familiar. It was super hecking dark, but she thought if there was any light anywhere, in the entire world, it was coming from here.
To be more precise…it was coming from something in the center of the doorway. Mrsha realized what it was as she made out the design on the door and things connected in her head.
It was a single keyhole. A strange design unlike the traditional keyholes she knew. Second—
She recognized the design. It looked like two outstretched wings over a crest that was familiar because Mrsha had seen it before. It was the symbol she had glimpsed just once in a special hallway in Erin’s [Garden of Sanctuary].
The hallway that led to the [Pavilion of Secrets]. Only, that had been a door at the end of a hallway of doors, far smaller, in a void of nothingness. Here? Mrsha was in a collapsed, empty passageway of stone.
…And one more thing. The markings on the wall were indented, not raised. They had no shine to them; they were literally just impressions without color or detailing beyond the size. It was as if—
Mrsha were on the wrong side of the door.
Why she thought that, why it provoked a shiver all up and down her body, the girl couldn’t have said. But the wrongness intensified. It was the lantern refusing to give light. As if it knew it wasn’t allowed to shine through the keyhole.
And the light beyond was infinitesimal. Tiny; it wasn’t bright light, like that of any spell or flame. It was just that compared to this absolute darkness, there was some light at all.
Nothing for it. Mrsha took a few more steps forward and had a thought as she felt along the door. The keyhole was, annoyingly, several damn feet above her head, even set far lower to the ground. Definitely all the light was coming from this. Mrsha eyed it.
I don’t think I’m in the lands of the fae anymore. Is this a secret part of Erin’s [Garden of Sanctuary]? It can’t be. She’s never hinted about this, and I think she would have if she had a free hallway.
She’d put all the food in here or something.
Yet it was no longer Avalon in Mrsha’s mind. She felt like the faerie folk’s land should smell of something, even if that something was unnatural.
This absolute void of detail spoke to her of the system. Mrsha recalled when Pelt had been so unnerved by the items rewarded by a <Quest>. He had said that while the swords and other objects were of certain qualities, he had not sensed the workings of any hammers on the sword that Redscar had been given.
The same eeriness applied. No one had ever been here. And Mrsha was beginning to think that she shouldn’t be here. Well, that was obvious, but she meant it in the sense of ‘she wasn’t even on the right side of this damn door’.
There was no crack or way to see through the door beyond the keyhole. So Mrsha had to get up to it. That proved trickier than she wanted, but she made do. She put the cookie pot on the ground, then, grimacing, stood on it.
…Too short by about a head. Wonderful. Mrsha had to balance the lantern on the cookie pot and hope she didn’t break either then, leaning on the door, wobble her way up to the keyhole.
Twice, she fell over with a crash, but Calescent didn’t make pots that gave up the ghost that easily, so Mrsha got back up. The damn rounded lid gave her trouble until she had the idea to flip it over; the oval depression let the lantern balance on it better, and Mrsha’s feet nearly slipped on the lantern’s top as she finally got her head up just high enough to peek one eye through the keyhole.
Then she gasped.
There was nothing beyond. But hold on—it was a different nothing than this place. Instead of the empty tunnel, it was absolute nothingness beyond.
A void. Not even the stellar cosmos that the Earthers told Mrsha was ‘space’, filled with stars.
This was pure oblivion. A nothingness so absolute that calling it ‘black’ was meaningless. It was a lack of color that Mrsha’s mind only translated as ‘black’ so she didn’t go mad. Absolute. Wondrously terrifying.
Okay, I’m glad I’m not over there. Mrsha was entranced for a good minute, then worried she’d come to a dead-end. She swiveled slightly, slipping as the lantern shifted, changing her angle—
The appearance of something blasted Mrsha’s eyes with such color that she gasped. A trickle of noise filled the void, as did the sight of something incredible.
A…huge, rounded dome sitting in the void. A brick pathway leading up to it and far, visible beyond the thin beams of the gazebo, past a square table with two chairs, was a door.
The same door that Mrsha had seen in the [Garden of Sanctuary]. Suddenly, she knew where she was, or at least, what she was seeing.
[The Pavilion of Secrets]. She was staring at a weird gazebo floating in the aether, painted white, like the weirdest place to relax Mrsha had ever seen in her life. So that’s where this door led!
…Was this Erin’s new Skill? Ishkr had said he’d visited Erin in a place like this. The real Erin, not whomever was masquerading as her. Mrsha’s mind was racing.
Wait, then Erin’s here! I can go help her! Bring her back? She glanced around, desperate, but there was no Erin present. Erin probably had to enter this place to do anything, right?
If the door was there…that meant the way back to the [Garden of Sanctuary] was right there too. All Mrsha had to do was, uh, squeeze herself through a gap smaller than her eyeball.
No problem! Mrsha punched the door and decided it was probably impregnable. Okay…but she had a keyhole here. Could you pick the lock? She didn’t see any tumbling things or mechanisms like Seborn described, and she was no [Rogue].
There had to be a way. At the very least, Mrsha knew where she was, and it was not in faerie-death-land. Or the dungeon, which, to be frank, had been Mrsha’s other worry. She did not want to run into Facestealer 2.0.
Mrsha’s legs slipped as she tried to lean forwards, and over she went with a crash. It was the loudest thing in the world, and cursing, she saw the magical ember vanish. Not that the lantern was much good; she scrabbled around, picking up cookies, reassembling her impromptu step stool. She ate a cinnamon cookie in relief and masticated furiously as she took a sip of water.
Okay, I’m staring into the [Pavilion of Secrets]. Then…wait. Where the heck am I?
If she was on the other side of…Mrsha stopped chewing. Then glanced over her shoulder.
Where…was…she?
There was a door in the [Pavilion of Secrets]?
Where the hell did that go? And why was it so damn—
Empty?
Then Mrsha had a thought, and it struck her like thunder. The writings from the original owner of all these Skills, the Harpy Queen, Sheta.
The last Skill the system had been assigning her when it caught itself. It was just an incomplete Skill, a thought, her mind organizing the letters and ideas, but when it came together, it spoke itself in Mrsha’s head. A certainty.
I am standing in the [Palace of Fates].
Eat liquorice, Erin. I got here first.
Now, how do I get out?
——
Mrsha finally got back up to the keyhole and had a plan. The plan was to stand there and howl the moment she saw Erin—but also to send a message.
She had one of her notecards, and she reckoned she could scrunch it through the keyhole. It would get mangled, but Erin would see it; in this void, any object would stand out. All Mrsha had to do was say ‘hey, Erin, I’m here! Get me out!’
And Erin would…figure out how to unlock the door, do something Erin-like, or at least they’d know they were both here and be able to talk!
Flawless strategy. Mrsha was a lot less scared than she had been, and if anything, she was now focused on what to do for however long she’d be here. First step would be making a permanent stepladder and finding a pee-spot. And a nap spot far away from the pee-spot. Then, maybe she’d take another crack at the roots and…
Mrsha kept losing track of the gazebo; unless you stared directly at it, it was just void. She swiveled right, left, and then saw a hazel iris appear. A black pupil. The whites of an eye.
Mrsha recoiled; almost fell over. She caught herself against the door, and the pupil dilated. An—
Erin? Mrsha’s heart leapt in relief as the eye pulled back, and she saw a face. She put hers to the keyhole, waving, trying to make a sound in her throat. Erin, it’s me! It’s—
That’s not Erin.
Someone stood there. Fully in view of the keyhole. Her body was familiar; she had a burnt t-shirt. White hair mixed with the brown, discolored hair that was so familiar. Falling out. Scars on her wrists. Her neck. A soup-stain on one cheek.
She looked like she was dying. A desperate [Innkeeper] with eyes so familiar Mrsha would have cried and shouted. But it was not her.
Who is that? Mrsha froze; the figure stood there, wearing Erin’s body, but every instinct in Mrsha’s body said it was not her. For one thing, she was definitely not smiling as she stared at Mrsha.
There was shock on her face. Shock…and wrath. When she spoke, she had Erin’s voice, but it was mixed with something otherworldly. Something that sounded like the voice who granted Mrsha levels.
“What are you doing in there? You should not be there.”
Mrsha recoiled with a clatter, and this time, the damn cookie pot broke. The sound echoed faintly in the [Pavilion of Secrets]; that was what had attracted this…being. Mrsha, cursing, rolled out of the way of the shards and grabbed the cookies, shoveling them into her bag of holding. She grabbed her lantern and heard a voice.
So faint because of the tiny keyhole, but in the dead silence—loud enough.
“You should not be there, Mrsha du Marquin. How did you get there? Erin didn’t let you in. You don’t own the [Garden of Sanctuary]. How did you…you have no right to be there. You have no key. Get out. Get out. WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?”
Mrsha had never, ever wanted a voice before now. Like Erin Solstice…this being did not have a calm reaction to stress. Her voice had risen from Erin-scary to unearthly.
More dirt cascaded downwards behind Mrsha from the tone. It felt like it was rocking the [Palace of Fates], even from a remove. Mrsha was trying to write an explanation—then realized the other Erin might not even see her.
Come on, speaking stones, come on! She fumbled with them and hit one by accident.
“Hi, Erin, it’s me!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m cute!”
“Damn it!”
“This is a misunderstanding, I swear!”
Damn these stock phrases made by her and Gireulashia! There was no convenient speaking stone saying ‘listen, I fell through a hole in the ground for some reason, and this is a huge misunderstanding, don’t get mad’. She was going to have one made up if she survived…
The being in the [Pavilion of Secrets] was not amused. In fact, it had passed beyond most levels of fury that Mrsha had seen in Erin Solstice. She couldn’t see it now, but she could hear it.
“You have no right to be there. Only one being has ever had the right to walk where you do. You have violated my rules. The dignity of the last Harpy Queen. Get out. Leave. No—there’s no forgiving this. Open the door. Do you hear me? Open it.”
There was a tremor, invisible; the door didn’t move, but Mrsha felt like the entire world beyond the keyhole shook. How powerful the impact was—
The voice rose until it was the same pitch Erin Solstice had spoken with as she threatened Kasigna. Until it had the rasp of a woman looking up at a sky full of falling stars.
“I am the [Pavilion of Secrets]. She asked for someone to judge her and all who came after, to be worthy of the land in which you tread. You walk on holy ground, the closest this world has for her. Her final place. I did not allow your passage. Open this door. Not even the dead gods have a right to this place. Not even the Grand Design until it is needed.”
I would if I could! Mrsha howled silently at the door, backing away from it as the air shuddered through that gap again. She began to run, racing away on all fours from the door, and the voice was only getting louder, echoing down the hallway. The lantern burst into light as Mrsha re-ignited the ember, but this time, the orange glow streaked down the hallway, tearing away from the door, running like Mrsha. That was not what she wanted to see.
The thudding on the other side grew stronger—then stopped. As if something on the other end realized there was no getting through, even with all the power it had been accorded. It fell silent one second—then spoke. A Gnoll girl was halfway up the dangling ropes, wishing Grimalkin had made her climb more in gym class, when she felt something cracking behind her. A voice spoke, louder than anything.
“HALT.”
Mrsha howled as the dust and air billowed down the corridor. She climbed frantically as the light scattered like breaking droplets before a storm. The word, the presence, blasted through the door and sent everything flying before it. The swaying ropes swung wildly, and Mrsha, screaming silently, tried to hold on as something picked her up and hurled her through the air.
Her grip was broken. She was flying now, too fast—and Mrsha heard a panicked howl coming from her throat. She didn’t know what was going on.
Who was that? How had she gotten down here? She’d been following…roots? Ropes? These were not the lands of the fae. Something was wrong.
Then she saw something rushing towards her and tried to turn, but she was going too fast. Too—
Crunch.
Then Mrsha heard and felt nothing at all. In the silence, a limp body fell, and the furious voice receded. There were footsteps, hesitant, then a voice.
“What? No. I only wanted to—no. Nononono. What have I…?”
Hands picked up the limp body, shook her, but Mrsha didn’t hear the voice, nor feel the shaking. The last thought the Gnoll ever had was—
How did I get here?
Then—
There was just silence in her ears. Silence, the roar of oblivion. And a sound, so distant, so encompassing, it filled all of reality. It was a single noise, an action—
Author’s Note:
The password is:
slam
