Chapter 46.4

“Look,” I said finally, pointing to the bottom of the frame.  “The title, I’m guessing.”

“It’s the same as the alphabet the card used.  Oh, I like this puzzle!” Lynnria said with growing enthusiasm.  Bouncing on her toes, she clutched at my arm and looked to Arx.  “Quick.  Translate it for us?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Arx replied with a prim, little sneer.  “I’m getting awfully dry.”

“No, ye ain’t, whore,” Jax said from behind us.

When I looked, I found her casually hanging on the rail by a single arm.  She had apparently decided avoiding the stairs entirely was the safest course of action—by somehow jumping up an entire story.

“Now, quit trying to make the master give ye commands,” she growled as she performed an effortless muscle up—quite an eye-catching feat considering her lack of a shirt.  “He’ll do it when he pleases and naught else!”

Arx flashed her fangs briefly… but then her eyes seemed to glaze over and a delighted shiver rolled up her spine.  “Yes, my First.”

That’s new.  For her to react that way even to Jax…

Maybe she was right.  Maybe Dolilim really did have some kind of instinctual pecking order they sorted themselves into.  Although, now that I thought about it, being my First came with an ability which made people under my influence drawn to her.

Wait… is that why Lynnria reacted so strongly to Jax touching her?

I glanced to my left, but at that moment, the youngest of our quartet was staring wide-eyed at Arx.

“Are you really a… a prostitute?” she asked eagerly.  “I’ve never met a man who would actually pay for that.”

“You lived too far into laoi territory,” Arx replied with a soft hiss.  “And no.  I feel disgusted just thinking about letting some man ever touch me again.  Unless…”

She paused and gave me a significant look.

“Absolutely not,” I said into the silence—provoking a deep gasp of enraptured delight from my gray-skinned companion.  “And frankly, I’m a little insulted that you would ever think I might ask you to do something like that.”

“Oh, Master!” she gushed, leaning heavily against me.  “It’s so good!  Don’t stop!”

Jax rolled her eyes.  “Yer too easy, Donum.  Ye know that.”

“Oh, shut up,” I muttered, then poked Arx in the ribs.  “Now are you going to translate this or not?”

“She certainly isn’t dry anymore,” Lynnria quipped.  “Even I can smell it.”

“Oh~?” Arx panted, grinning.  “Want a taste, pet?”

“Eww, no!” Lynnria said with an almost immediate scowl—there might have been a fleeting hint of hesitation, but I was not ready to read too much into it just yet.

“Are you sure?  It’s almost as good as his,” she persisted.

Stiff as a board, Lynnria twirled and marched to the end of the landing.

I sighed heavily and fastened my second with a glare.  “Arx, quit screwing around.”

“Oh, alright,” she said, favoring me with a sly, little smirk.  Leaning forward, she wiggled her bottom like a cat that had just gotten the cream.  “Let’s see what you say, shall we?”

Her free hand extended and traced a freshly glistening digit over the inscription along the bottom of the frame.  She frowned at it for a moment before straightening again, idly sucking the excess from her finger.

“It just says, ‘Where am I?’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” she confirmed.

My eyes squinched in confusion.  “Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with—?”

However, before I could finish the thought, Lynnria let out a sudden shout of jubilation.  “Grandfather!”

In the instant it took the three of us to turn, Lynnria had already vaulted over the railing… and crashed to the floor below a bare second later.  It did not sound like a particularly easy landing—what with the cracking wood and light tinkling of broken pottery.

The three of us still above quickly ran to the edge just in time to see the backside of a man striding down the corridor.  He was lightly armed and armored and carried himself with the easy, practiced grace of a man long used to the sword.

Not that I had known what that looked like prior to seeing him.  There was just something… dangerous about him.  Something that sent the hackles to stirring in back of my neck.

But if he was anyone’s grandfather, I was a moose! The guy looked all of thirty years old if he was a day… though he had given zero indication of having heard any of the chaos going on behind him.

Deaf as a stump…

“Ah, fffffuck that hurts!” Lynnria wheezed, painfully rising to her feet.

“Language,” I muttered absently.

“Course it hurts, ye howling bampot!” Jax yelled down at her.  “Ye can’t go jumping off anywhere ye please just because ye seen me do it.  I got a 14 fer Toughness and a skill what makes me lighter’n a shadow’s fart, besides!”

Lynnria ignored her in favor hobbling after her heedless kin.  “Grandfather!” she yelled again.

The man continued on his way, totally oblivious, but he was moving with a slow, cautious gate, as though expecting danger.  Which made sense given our location, but he had also failed to clock the 1812 Overture going on just behind him.  So I could not see how that would help.

Despite her injury, Lynnria managed to close the distance between them fairly quickly.  However, at about the same instant he rounded the corner, hiding him from our view, she froze.  Hesitant at first, her eyes began to dance around, baffled.

“I don’t understand,” she said.  “Where did he go?”

I frowned.  “What do you mean?  Can you not see him from there?”

“No, the second he passed the entryway, he just… vanished,” she said, then hobbled forward with a determined look.

“Wait a second,” I called.

I sent Jax a look, then jerked my head forward.  She nodded and, summoning her ax, she leapt back to the floor below.  Cautiously, she glided past Lynnria and rounded the corner.

A moment later, I heard her voice.  “Nothing here but hallway and furniture…  Can ye still see me, lass?”

“Yes?” she replied with mounting confusion.  “How could he be there one second and gone the next?”

“A domain line?” I hazarded.

“I doubt it,” Arx replied.  “If he was in the stadium, like Lynnria said, he shouldn’t be in our section of the Dungeon at all.  More likely, it was some sort of projection.  Or even an illusion.”

“It was no illusion,” Lynnria returned.  “Besides, I was in the stadium.  And here I am.”

“Only because I pulled you here,” I reminded her, deliberately not mentioning where I had pulled her from.  For both our sakes.  “And how can you be sure it wasn’t?  Did you smell him?  Touch him?”

“Aye,” Jax agreed, coming into view, barehanded once more.  “Don’t be a twally.  Did he turn nor so much as flinch when ye called his name?  Nay!  Like he weren’t here, were he?”

Lynnria seemed to deflate a bit.  “Then I don’t understand.  Why show him to me at all?  You would think… if it was an illusion, it would be to lead me into a trap.  But nothing happened.”

Jax shrugged, sauntering past and back toward the stairs.  “Who knows?  Would nay be the first time such as the Faen took to footering with us.”

For a few moments, Lynnria stared at the floor, rubbing at her bicep with an anxious little frown.  “I hope he’s okay.  He’s been stuck at his Boundary Cap so long, he doesn’t have a lot of time left before—”

Abruptly, there came a faint yet quite noticeable vibration in the floor.  It did not last long.  Nor did it seem to have any apparent effect.

“Donum, did you feel—” Lynnria began, glancing up.

And froze.

For a few, bewildered moments, she scanned the room.

“Donum?” she called with growing anxiety.  “Where did you go?”

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Sorry for the cliffhanger ending.  But they make excellent chapter breaks.  Keeps those pages turning, ya know.

I had fun brainstorming this puzzle.  I actually used that new chat AI to help me.  Most of its ideas were nonsensical, but it sort of gave me something to bounce off of.  Very useful for the creative process.

It's funny, though.  I had intended to accomplish a whole bunch of stuff with this chapter, but then my characters get to talking and suddenly the thing is over with and I find I've gotten almost nowhere.  That happens a lot, actually...