Queen's Gambit Chapter 18

Chapter Index:
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Previous Chapters:
Draconic Fortune (Noelle)
1
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2
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3
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4
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5
https://pastebin.com/A3JdE5Fu

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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 06

The One Who Bears Fangs at God

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For another trek through the servants' quarters, always at the heart of Noelle's and Ralsei's attention, Kris went back and forth between pragmatic and commandeering on one hand, and completely silent on the other. Even though there was little reason to be, they were all relieved when eventually, the archer guiding them broke this routine. "So, everyone." He stopped at the corridor atop another staircase, in front of a wooden door.

"The safe paths end here. Anything beyond this door and above, are the court halls. There are neither noble quarters nor servants' quarters. No far-off narrow stairways anymore. Only this." Slowly and carefully, always peeking ahead a little bit more as he did so, he opened the door and eventually revealed it to everyone else. Ahead lay a hallway a bit wider than the one they met the Berserkers in.

And there were no stairs leading to the main portion of it. Instead, the entire hall was uneven. The floor was flat, covered in several feet wide tiles, but all in a mildly steep fashion, with their group of five at the bottom. Instead of closed doors, the walls were lined with open doorframes that led into banquet halls. And between them, the paintings were different. Different paintings were mixed between what Kris already figured were enlarged tarot card designs.

But now, different objects and symbols were included. Going by how one featured spades and another hearts, even he could tell that the paintings here seemed to branch out to include all kinds of playing cards. "What follows from here, is merely a maze of halls such as this one. I'm afraid we can't rely on the safety of narrow spaces any longer."

At first, only Dasher, Kris and Ralsei peeked out. Then the shorter two of the three were pushed aside by their new reptilian follower. "Stop getting hung up, there's either someone there or there isn't." Sick of the constricting parts of the castle they dragged her through, Headbanger couldn't wait to squeeze her way out of the door and relax. Her sloppy, unfitting shoes cast an easily audible echo throughout the hall.

Kris showed little of a reaction on the outside, but on the inside, enough for it to probably show enough for Noelle to tell, he was upset to no end at how clumsy Headbanger was. He knew Noelle knew, because reading his expression caused her to chuckle. Not that that mattered, Banger had made enough noise. All he could hope for, was that they were lucky and that no-one was here.

What was he going to do? Shove away and tell the big dragon to shut up and be patient? She was a lot more friendly, but also over a head taller than him.

But his worry nonetheless proved well-founded. As they could hear steps that were neither Headbanger's, nor that of anyone else among their party. Slow, unsure steps, but steps nonetheless, and they were coming their way. Scratching an open spot on her legs beneath one of the many holes in her jeans with one hand, and holding a glass jar in the other, a Grunt wandered through a doorframe to their side, into their sight.

Her lower mouth was dripping with a bright beige, thick liquid, that shared its colour with the contents of the jar. "Hey!" She must have been drinking from it, and by the looks of the now very agitated archer pointing at her, to a fault. "That's my eggnog!" The purple dragon froze, then pointed at her drink. "Yes!" Dasher responded. "It's my favourite. It's got to be one of Temptress' last jars, and she's just binge drinking it."

This time, for lack of an option not to, Kris took the initiative and pulled Dasher back by his wrist. "Wait!" He pointed at the Susie lookalike and to his relief, she moved as little now as she did before. "Wait." He had to come up with something. She was going to notify the other Susies if he didn't come up with a solution. Or just attack them. He had to come up with something, and fast.

But what could he do? The very first thing he could think of, was, in spite of how absurd that was, flirting. Trying to recreate what worked with that first Grunt they ran into. But he knew there were more than the one, he couldn't use the same line on all of them. All he could do, was stay still and stall for time that way. He had no experience dating anyone let along flirting with anyone. How was he supposed to know what she wanted to hear?

Then he had an idea. When he tried to get the real Susie to flirt with some of the darkners in the Card Kingdom, she had some really weird pick-up lines, but he could chalk that up to Ralsei telling her to say things she wished someone told her. So without further thinking about it, he made his suiting gesture, shot hearts her way and announced: "You are unbanned from free ham sandwich day!"

Ralsei wasn't surprised by his choice of words, and Headbanger expected something bizarre like this, just going by the first impression she got from him. But Noelle and Dasher were confused, and a bit embarrassed. The Grunt gave little signs of reacting either way, apart from backing off by half a step. She was as surprised as the other uninitated were. But after a moment of being startled, she stuttered out a response. "Uh okay. Thanks...I guess? What is ham sandwich day?"

On second thought, this may have been a mistake, but Kris had gone this far, he had to commit to it. "A day where everyone who shows up gets free ham sandwiches. And you're invited."

"Awesome...maybe?" She really liked the idea, but the circumstances under which this conversation was happening really stunted it on both sides.

"But there are some conditions. You let us pass, you stop drinking that stuff and you don't tell the others you saw us. Okay?"

Still confused and a little scared, the dragon backed off and retreated to where she came from. "Sure. Can't stop the others from trying to get you though."

"That's okay."

When he was just about to relax after seeing her vanish, she peeked back into the hall. "But when that ham sandwich thing happens, you'll tell me, right? I'll be right here. Probably."

"Sure." When she retreated after that, he paused for a moment to see if she would come back, but she didn't. He inhaled, sighed and let his shoulders drop. Phew. Now he knew that there still was a multitude of purple dragons between them and the exit, but at least they had gotten past the first one. The ham sandwich day line was a success. She must have been really hungry for that to work.

Their break didn't last for long, the noise seemed to stir another Grunt from behind another doorframe on the other side. "What's going o- lightners. Girls! Hey you!" She turned around to where she came from and called for another one to follow her. "The lightners are here!" She didn't give her friend the time to get up and follow her though, and went right up to Kris and the others. "Stop right there." She seemed unsure as to how to approach them, but she did so anyway. "You there." She pointed at headbanger, who wasn't fazed by being singled out. "Back me up here. We're supposed to beat up these guys and lock them up."

Banger just grinned and put her hands together behind her head. "Nope. I'm with these guys now."

"Seriously? You let them talk you into switching sides this easily?"

Before this could get any further out of control, K repeated his usual gesture and directed his finger at their new enemy. "Your outfit is NOT disgusting!" He told the more confrontational dragon.

Their enemy was surprised and confused enough to the to take a step back and throw up her elbow in a defensive manner. "What the hell? What was that all about?"

Rockstar Susie stepped forward a little further. "I think that's his way of saying he doesn't want to fight you."

"What? I mean sure, I don't want to either, but what if Axe shows up? Nevermind Axe. What if Faith loses it for good and wants to make an example out of me? She's been bringing up weird words like 'wheelweaving' and 'scaphism' and I'm pretty sure she's talking about killing people in some way."

While they were talking, Noelle asked Kris with a lowered voice: "Who's Faith?"

"The nun."

"Trust me, these guys are weird, I get that, but I think they're for real. We're gonna beat Axe and bring the good old days back. How fun is hanging out in a boring castle like this if we could be partying hard like before?"

"I'll believe that you'll beat Axe when I see you get past Faith."

"Can't see if that'll happen if you won't let us pass."

"Good point."

Kris began to lose his patience, summoned his sword and took on a battle stance. "So are you going to let us pass or not?"

Apparently this startled the Grunt enough to throw up her hands, take up a defensive position and move back to the hall she had come from. "Dude, calm down. Yeah, I'm not stopping you. It's not me she'll make an example of anyway. If it's anyone, it's gonna be her." He started to understand that contrary to his expectation, the Grunts weren't as much violent as they were lazy and hungry.

Even with the first two or three navigated past, they still had a long way up. At the other end of the hall, the outer edge of the castle just had a tall staircase that led to another uneven hall for them to walk up in the opposite direction. And all along the way, they ran into more Grunts.

Noelle had to witness time after time, Kris pointing and shooting hearts towards creatures that looked and sounded exactly like Susie, and blurting out pick-up lines so bizarre, half the time they didn't sound like pick-up lines at all. At first, Ralsei could reassure her that there was some logic to it, as all he did, was reuse lines they heard from Susie when they tried to get her to flirt with darkners in the Card Kingdom.

But he couldn't keep that going forever, so he just wound up making up new ones as he went along.

And she wasn't sure whether she liked the new, less obscure undertone they came with. Lines like "Don't stop tackling the vending machine!" made way for him telling them things like "I want us to watch a movie together!", "You look inspiring.", "I would love to watch the autumn sun go down in your arms!" and even "You are the reason I get up. The only reason to keep going for me, is to see you again. You give my life meaning. Whenever I look at you, I feel like there is a purpose to life after all."

After sparing a Grunt with that last line, the prince picked up on Noelle's nervousness enough to tug at Kris' arm. "I'm sorry, I think you're making her a bit uncomfortable. And honestly, me too. It was different in the Card Kingdom, because of the player and everything, but I don't really like you talking to strangers like this."

'Talking to strangers like this' what was he hearing? Kris grinned. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were my Mom."

The prince blushed a little and laughed along with him. "I apologize if it rained a bit on your parade."

No, Ralsei was right. Kris was enjoying this way too much. Everything he threw at the Grunts worked somehow. They were all either flustered, or weirded out enough leave them alone. Which it was, he didn't care. He couldn't keep any of these drawings a secret from her any more, that ship had long sailed, so at this point, there was nothing restraining him any more.

What happened in the dark world, stayed in the dark world. He could tell the Grunts anything he liked. "Look." He passed Ralsei to get closer to Noelle. "If you wanted to be included, you just had to say something." On the very next encounter with two Grunts, he summoned his sword purely for aesthetic purposes, swung his other arm to point at the enemy and shouted. "Noelle! Flirt with them."

"What?" More and more upon hearing this, the scared doe pulled together and retreated deeper and deeper into her christmas robe. "What?"

Kris turned to her, went as far as to pull his hair away to try to give her a reassuring look and smiled. "Just say anything you like. Anything works. Look!" He stepped forward and pointed at one of them. "You!" The Susie to the left carefully pointed at herself. "Yes you! You're a murderer." Both their enemies looked confused. With an overly wide grin, he slowly raised two finger guns her way. "'Cause that outfit is really killing it."

The reactions from behind him were understandably disappointed, but he didn't care. What mattered was how his target reacted. The dragon he was speaking to, stammered out attempts at coming up with a response, but she just wound up announcing her departure and left. With one of the two gone, he turned to Noelle again. "See? Anything you say works. Just try."

All of a sudden, Noelle had second thoughts. His encouragement only intimidated her into burying more of her face in her robe. "I - uhm - I don't know."

Then he just spelled it out. "What happens in the dark world, stays in the dark world. Nothing you can say is too embarrassing. Just try."

"I'll...I'll try. You!" She had to take a deep breath to muster the courage, even with everyone being extra patient with her. She blurted it out with her eyes closed. "You're a hot piece!" And even afterwards, she pulled right back into her robe until only the eyes and antlers were looking out. "What..." She didn't say anything else, until she noticed Kris being upset with her. "What's wrong?"

"If you're going to be THIS straightforward, why not actually commit to it?" She didn't even answer. But even he could figure, that she wasn't really sure, what he meant. "Okay, look. Hey, Grunt!" He drew their previously unimpressed opponent's attention. Again, smiling, he raised both his hands, one stretched out, both fingers pointing her way. "That's a hot piece of ass you got there."

"What?"

This was enough to coax the doe out of hiding. "Kris, what has gotten into you?"

Now she was upset with him? Why? He was trying to help here. He just threw his arms up, knowing she would understand the gesture. "Isn't this the exact thing you were trying to say?"

"No I - I don't know what I was - you're normally nothing like this. What is going on with you?"

"I just told you. What happens in the dark world, sta - look, I'm sorry. What is it you want me to do?"

Noelle, blushing to no end over all this, just covered her face in her hands for a while and sighed. When she took her hands away, she was smiling. "I'm not mad at you. That's not it. I just never saw you - this dark world - the Susies - this is really bringing you out of your shell somehow. I've never seen you like this before."

He shrugged. What was he even supposed to say to that? Nevertheless, this was enough excitement for Noelle, and by the time they had any attention to spare for the Grunt they used those lines on, she was already gone.

So she left the rest of the 'flirting their way past all the Grunts' part to Kris. He asked Dasher if he didn't want to give it a try, but he insisted they weren't anything you could describe as a lady or a dame.

After a few more of those halls, at last, they got to a part of the castle where the floor wasn't a slope any more. Instead, the hall they got to was wider, and the ceiling reached much further up. It was decorated in an exorbitant way, with lines of gold formed to make up serpents and other figures, molded onto the top and bottom of every wall, and the sides of all the railings along the staircase that led along several floors, all of which were included in this one hall.

And that was not even mentioning the formerly well-decorated tables, with shiny silverware strewn across the folded white tablecloths. "We're almost there." To the left and right, apparently, there were more dining halls similar to this one. And at the very top, it extended itself quiet a lot further forward, all the way to a tall and wide wooden gate.

And just as expected, when they approached it, from one of the identical halls to the side, came a familiar face. Faith. Light world Susie, dressed up as a nun. She bore her teeth at them, swung her arm to the side, and in position for her to wrap her arm over her weapon. An enormous book with heavy metal reinforcing its cover on both sides - presumably, a bible. "This far and not any further, lightners."

With her bible in hand, once she was sure that they weren't just going to run for it, she walked further to the side to place herself exactly between the heroes and the exit. "I will deal with you myself, your punishment will be severe!"

Noelle froze in motion, but continued to tremble as she did. "Pu - What punishment?"

"You will be flogged two-hundred times, all of you! I found an entire wall covered in floggers and scourges! One more painful than the next. I will have plenty a choice for tools."

"Don't touch those, they belong to a friend of mine!" This was when at last, Dasher saw fit to step into the limelight. He smiled and moved past Kris and the others. "Regardless of that, my, my. Aren't we having a bit of an attitude here? Me and my friends don't have to put up with this. Getting judged like this by just any peasant frow that comes our way. Who do you think you are?"

"None are to be spared judgment before the lord! Lightners are no exception and neither are you, you coward." With a key pulled from a white band wound around her black robe, the nun opened the bible's lock and opened it up on a specific page. Once there, she held her hand over it with her palm pointing down at the page. A circular light shone from on the page and through it, a bishop's staff glided up into the air and into her hand. She placed the book on the floor and grabbed the cane.

"Coward? Bold words for a literal, fire-breathing dragon, armed with knowledge and weaponry, and who yet won't fight us on the spot before making us go through countless unarmed dragons. That isn't mentioning the effigies of pure, unadulterated sin you had no qualms directing our way."

"I've no need to justify myself before a coward."

"And I've no need to be judged by one." The archer, never ceasing to grin, took off his bow and placed it on the floor. From a sheath tied to his belt, he pulled a fencing foil. "If a fight is unavoidable, I will waste no arrows on you. And you will yet not strike me."

With one hand, he grabbed his tricorne by the side, and tossed it to have it spin into Noelle's arms. Without leaving time for him to go on any further, the nun already charged for him with her staff raised. In a visibly calculated fashion, the archer stepped aside just in time for her to miss him and before she could react by striking sideways, he lunged forward and in a swing too fast to follow, cut the sleeve of the dragon's robe open.

Startling her enough to nigh jump backwards. "What?" Dasher didn't respond. He just kept a close eye on all of Faith's movements, while never dropping his smug expression even as time went on. "Just wait, sinner!" She tried the exact same thing again. A vertical swipe with her bishop's staff, and again, he dodged it with ease. Followed by him cutting through the fabric along her upper arm. "The nerve!"

After this, she adjusted herself to grab her staff from further down, charged the backing-off human's way and put the strength of both her arms into an overhead smash strong enough for the staff's tip to crack the stone floor beneath where Dasher had just stood a second ago.

After he dodged and stepped back though, this time, his attack on the dragon left Faith flinching and grabbing her shoulder at the spot where he cut her. He must have cut more than just her clothing this time, and when she took her hand off of her shoulder, there was indeed blood on it. "You dare! Curse you! Why are you so silent anyway?"

He didn't do so until he was several steps away from her. "Maybe if you stopped talking and concentrated, you might actually hit me for a change."

She didn't listen to him. "Stop moving!" She just kept trying over and over. "Hold still, try measuring your strength against mine, weakling!" She struck for him with her staff time and time again, and time and time again, he dodged every single attack. The harder she tried to hit him, the deeper a wound he cut on her right afterwards.

And as time went on, her movements slowed down. Wounds and fatigue were wearing down on her and everyone noticed. Even Faith herself did. "By the angel!", she bellowed under heavy breaths, bleeding from several wounds on arms and back. Trembling under every breath. "How can one who strays so far from god, not fall to his vices?"

He made sure to get to a safe distance before he answered. He could, now that Faith was struggling to even stand. "That's rich, coming from someone who serves the Knight."

"Your 'Heroes' are not pure! They're deviants! They could never be true opposition to the dark forces at work."

"So because they aren't pure enough for you, we should all lay down our weapons and let someone even worse than them reign supreme?" Dasher wasn't smiling any more. "You can mislead Temptress like this, but that won't work on me."

After taking some time to recover, the nun bore her teeth at him again. "What would you know? You aren't pure either."

With newfound vigor in his voice, the archer taunted her. "If the path of 'god', the 'pure' path, is to serve Temptress and the Knight, perhaps your god is a false one, and his path is the path to damnation."

"How dare you?" She was angry. Angry and wounded enough to be in tears. Angry, but not in a condition to fight, and yet she tried anyway.

Once more, she raised her staff, pushed herself to run his way, and strike at the floor beside him. While she did, this time, Dasher did things a little differently. He dodged the attack in the opposite direction. When her grip on her staff loosened a bit, he seized the moment to forcible push it out of her hands for it to fall on the ground, and pressed the base of his blade, still essentially a sword albeit a very thin one, against her neck.

In her surprise, a gust of fire escaped her mouth and she tried to direct it onto him, but he wouldn't let her lower her head enough to do that, without pressing her neck and lower head straight into the blade. Then he restrained one of her arms with his free hand, and forced her to lie down on her back.

When he was sure he could, he placed one of his boots on her stomach to hold her down, grabbed the golden cross hanging off Faith's neck and ripped it off. "Admit defeat. And excuse me if I take a trophy." Something about their conversation was getting under his skin, but with a prize for his victory, a mischievous grin crept up his face. "Perhaps I can smelt this and turn it into something of value."

Kris came closer, with a face devoid of expression and simply told him: "Stop."

To say that Dasher looked troubled, would have been an understatement. But he eventually readjusted, placed the other arm at the dragon's neck to keep her pinned down, and rammed his foil into the ground, piercing straight through her side. "This is for Temptress." It was only after getting fully stabbed like this, that she finally gave in to the wounds and stopped struggling.

While he got up, the prince rushed closer to pacify her. And after the archer, albeit begrudgingly so, pulled his weapon back out of his opponent, the prince proceeded to heal some of Faith's wounds.

"What is it with you and Temptress anyway?"

From the way he sighed when he heard Kris ask this, the archer didn't like how to the point he was being. "Some of us are closer friends than others. Temptress was from our closer circle of friends. Seeing her turn on us like this hurt." He didn't say more than that, he just ventured forward up the linear staircase, up to the doors that led outside.

With Banger left to be the only conscious Susie present, Noelle came along to give Dasher his hat back. "Kris, I don't think he wants to talk about it." If she said so, it was probably true. Even though to him, it seemed like this was important.

The rings for handles the doors atop the stairs had, were heavy. Everyone helped grabbing and pulling the open. And even once it was open, when they left, they left right onto the flat stone ramparts of a flat rooftop, within a dark cavern. Diagonal tunnels led to more sets of entrances to the castle, spread all around these ramparts.

But rather than just ending at its outer edges, the roof led straight onto a busy square outside of the cave. Along the stone reinforcements on the outer edge of the roof, a barbed wire fence was erected. There was broad gate leading to the city, but it was closed and guarded by two strange creatures with plastic helmets and sunglasses.

One was a man made of cylindrical pieces of wood. The other was a person made of grey metal, and a ridiculously large portion of his whole body consisted only of his pressed-together legs, which were thinner and thinner towards his tiny feet. "Freeze!" More of them came out of a nearby booth next to the gate, opened it, and came closer to the party.

A glance off to the side revealed why. There was a sign next to the gate. Drawn on it, was a simplified sketch of a monster face with a round, purple snout and most of its eyes covered in brown hair. It was encased in a red circle, and an equally red line crossed out the Susie face diagonally. A very clear 'No Susies allowed' sign.

Everyone who came their way through the gate, came either with a sword or a crossbow. "Hands where I can see 'em."

They were here to stop Headbanger from entering. "She's nice, she didn't do anything."

"I said hands where I can see 'em." After a more stern reminder, they all carefully raised their hands. One of the wooden people came up to Headbanger and urged Kris and the others to give him a little space. He gestured for her to give him her guitar, which she did. Once he had it in his hand, he turned it around a bit and inspected it more closely before handing it back to her. "False alarm, it's just an instrument."

"An instrument of DEATH?" one of the other officers asked.

The one originally checking slapped the back of his helmet. "A music instrument. Now. Can I see ya without those glasses?"

She followed suit and removed the shades, and after a mere five seconds of the wooden man looking her in the eye, he backed off again. "Seems fine, clear!" As soon as he went back to the gate, the other security made way for the party and pulled the gate open all the way for them to walk through.

This was all strange, to say the least. The square was entirely made of stone, not concrete. As were all the buildings. The monsters passing through here and there were wearing simple, hand-sown clothes and short trousers, there were no elecric street lights and the vehicles that passed through were old-fashioned chariots, more befitting somewhere in the renaissance than anything about this fence and the people that guarded it. While they all awkwardly passed through, Kris couldn't help but stop and ask one of the metal men: "Why does a city like this have border controls?"

"Perhaps I can answer any questions such as this one." Behind him, having just arrived with a chariot while they passed the fence, another person came their way. He looked different from both kinds of people that guarded the fence. He was a monster, seemingly, but not really.

His face was that of a goat, but he wasn't a boss monster. He had the face of a regular, feral goat, with the exception of his horns being perfectly straight cones pointing diagonally to his upper left and right and his ears unlike the floppy, straight-downwards ears of a boss monster, hanging slightly down to his left and right.

He wore a shiny, bright red uniform with golden buttons and a green handkerchief looking out of a pocket on the right of his jacket as well as a hat that matched his uniform. His chariot was unusually large, almost like a fully sized, modern recreation vehicle except shorter and taller, due to it still being an old-fashioned chariot, with another goat man holding the reins of the horses strapped in to pull it.

"To answer this question right now, the Journeyman had this fence built after a bloodthirsty succubus drove away all the others for us and warned us of more dragons attacking if we didn't keep them out."

Kris figured that the enormous J that was built onto the side of the chariot and was big enough to cover as much of its side as was possible, stood for 'Journeyman'. What he was less sure about was: "So what's a succubus?"

The stranger pointed at Headbanger. "Why, dragons like your friend right there of course. Come." He went back to his chariot, up a small set of extended stairs and held the door in the lower half of the 'J' open. "I'll explain everything else on the way."

Kris was a little hesitant at first, but after he went ahead, followed this person and took a peek at the inside of the chariot, he waved for the others to follow. There really only was this one man and the one handling the horses. The inside was really comfortable. Every inch of its interior was put to use.

There were beds that were soft enough to double as couches all along both sides, exempting what little room the door encompassed, and accessible through a ladder-like set of stairs, there were two more rows of couch-beds up above. Headbanger couldn't wait to climb up to lie on her stomach on one of the upper ones, leaning her head on her elbow to lazily follow what happened below.

Dasher took the other side up above, leaving Kris, Noelle and Ralsei below with their host. "First of all, greetings." He shook everyone's hand. "I'm a page, I work at the Journeyman's tower."

"I'm guessing that's where we're going?"

"Precisely. Please, make yourselves comfortable." Opposite from the entrance door, there was a window, which he sat in front of. He shuffled to the side and pulled the curtains open to reveal the grey streets of a stone city. With monsters of all kinds walking along the stone bricks that made up its pavement.

"Welcome to Bedrock. The city beneath the mountain. Heart of the Kingdom of Taint. Anything a visitor could need, food, shelter, arms, potions, protection from succubi, you will find it here."

He had to stop the page right there, and raised his open palm to do so. "Yes, the succubi. Did you just say a bloodthirsty dragon drove all the others away?"

"Oh right. That was right after we first came here earlier today. They were roaming and causing mayhem all over. Before we knew what was happening, they had occupied Fortune's Keep and driven the last of us out of it. If it weren't for another dragon doing the same with her fellow dragons here, we wouldn't have had anywhere to go in this kingdom."

"What did she look like?"

"She was armed. Short sword and a shield, armor. But we weren't quite sure what was going on at first, because other than the armor, she looked just like the other succubi."

"A knight?" Noelle was a bit quick to jump to conclusions.

"No." Dasher, having made himself as comfortable as Banger, stared down at the shaken-up doe. "The Knight was a lot of things, but he was certainly a him and he certainly wasn't a dragon, at least his helmet looked nothing like he was one. This is someone else."

After that, the page continued. "Oh, and she was mad, really mad. Apparently she had unfinished business with someone called 'Beauty'. She couldn't go one minute without talking about wanting to kill this 'Beauty' person. So she told us she can't protect us forever since she was heading off to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that unless we do something about it, the other succubi are going to overrun the city all over again. So we took her advice and put up a border fence to keep them out."

Kris gestured towards headbanger with his open hand. "Not much of a border fence if you just let her in."

The page scratched his head. "Yeah, we agreed to handle it a bit on a case by case basis. And she came along with you guys and you guys seem fine enough. You've got to understand. Security must have mistaken her guitar for an axe or something, so they were extra careful at first."

"And the Journeyman? Who is he?"

"Oh, he's a travelling merchant and a jack of all trades, he's pretty quick to take over any place he gets to. Not barring this place either. This city doesn't have an elder or a mayor or something, so if you want work, he'll be the best address. And if you made it out of Fortune's Keep in one piece, you must have slain a lot of dragons to get here, so he'll want to talk to you. A dragonslayer is the best thing short of actual lightners to help us."

"Actually...that...we're that as well."

The goat's eyes widened with enthusiasm. "Really?" Kris pointed at himself and Noelle. "This is even better! I am confident that you will sort this out. We're almost there anyways. And there we are!" They stopped at a crossing between roads. They could see their destination from inside through the window. It was a tower that reached almost as far as this inconceivably enormous cave did.

At the very top, it was adorned with a giant golden 'J', and below, neon signs lined its front. They depicted a simplified cartoon image of a widely grinning, human face, the kind of human face you would see in newspapers a lot, usually accompanied with a headline that screamed of tremendous offense being taken on the part of the author. The face came with a moving neon sign of a hand pointing towards the face with its thumb, and below, the words 'All around the world, Baby!'.

"All around the world?"

The page was a bit embarrassed at this slogan being brought up and tried to laugh off his embarrassment. "The Journeyman prides himself with his eagerness to travel around every realm he visits, so he likes to advertise that he's traveled around he world."

Behind the golden doors at the base of the tower, were more people in uniforms like those of the page and the coachman. Some were goats like him, some were those metal men with long arms and short legs, some were golden women with extravagantly wide, golden skirts and some, made of wooden rods like one of the ones at the fence. The page led them to an elevator, covered in gold like the front door.

"Ahem." Dasher was generally a little slow in coming into the tower, and all the more hesitant to follow the others into the elevator. "I think I'll stay down here while you talk to the Journeyman."

"Actually..." The page left the elevator again, walked around the archer and first slightly, then with increasing force, pushed him towards and inside it. "...Mister Jay gave me express instruction to bring you to him if we ever find you again." The archer's breaths turned a little irregular and even when everyone had settled for a place to stand in the elevator, he chose to uncomfortably recline in the corner.

When the bell announced their arrival and the doors open, the page rushed ahead through several close-together, but open doors, and another page, standing guard, gestured for the party to follow him with a friendly smile. "Mister Journeyman, sir! We found a dragonslayer! And he's a lightner, too!"

A familiar, but unexpected, croaky voice responded to him with surprise. "Really! Then what're ya waitin' for! Bring 'em in!" They were being led into an unreasonably large office, the tables on which were all stacked to the brim with literature and statues, art and trinkets from different parts of the light world.

Whether it was the far east, the west, or the southern peninsula of the further middle east, any part of the light world, as Kris knew it, that had anything of value to offer in the vein of art and sculpture, had something from it lying on the tables or hanging on the walls. It was like being at Berdly's house all over again, but taken to an extreme. Behind the desk, stood the man that matched the voice. A human with an unnatural, orange tan, and bright blond hair.

He had the folds of an old man, but he lacked the weakness you expected to come with it. He was dressed in multiple layers of thin silken garments, with various patterns covering each layer and threads of gold woven onto all of them. Noelle was startled and almost greeted him by a title he probably didn't have. It still took some getting used to for her, to remember how the dark world worked when it came to art and custom card designs.

It was clear that this wasn't who he looked like, he was a fictional character she made up, whether or not she did so consciously. As soon as they arrived, the Journeyman came right up to them and shook everyone's hand before going back behind his desk. "Hey there, guys. Dasher. Welcome to my tower. I'm the Journeyman."

Kris carefully raised a finger to then point it at the merchant. "Let me guess, the name's because you travel a lot?"

The Journeyman began smiling as widely as he did on the neon sign and pointed at himself with both his thumbs. "All around the world, Baby! All around the world! Looks like you're already gettin' how this works. So I'm guessing you're the dragonslayer."

"No - no, we didn't actually slay any..."

He had to admit in hindsight, was being a little too meek with this correction, as he was cut-off mid-sentence. "Nonsense, kid, ya gotta take credit where credit's due. If my guy's right and ya made it outta Fortune's Keep alive, obviously you musta slaughtered your way right through dozens of succubi to make it. Hundreds even."

He leaned over his table and pointed at him multiple times. "That's dragonslayer material right there. Perfect. It's great. It's exactly what we need right now, cause things are lookin' bad. Real' bad. This realm's a mess. And it's a good thing ya brought this guy right here." In a more dismissive way, he pointed off to the side, where Dasher was not so much standing as hiding behind Headbanger's back and guitar. "...'cause he's the one that made this mess. Maybe he could do a thing or two to sort it out."

"So why do you call them succubi anyway?"

The merchant nodded in an overplayed fashion. "Good question if ya don't know." He pressed a button on his desk, and when he did, a panel in the clean white ceiling opened up. From within, a flat screen almost wide and tall enough to cover the entire back of the office, extended itself downwards. "Maybe only use half of it."

He made some adjustments with a remote control he picked from the table, and the display switched to limit itself to about half the height and two thirds of the width. "So, this girl right here..." When he pressed another button, it switched to a digital slideshow, but apparently, the picture showed the three basic Susies Kris and the others had encountered in Fortune's Keep. A Grunt, a Berserker and a Mistress.

"Wait, that's the wrong one. I hate prepared presentations, but ya can't just draw photos on the fly, right? Ah, there we go. Here's Veritas." The next picture he switched the display to, was what Kris expected hearing that name.

It was Susie, but as a Roman legionnaire. With layered stripes of shiny iron armor wrapped around to thoroughly cover her chest and shoulders, a bright red skirt below leaving the rest of her legs bare, an a helmet with a bright red crest. And to complete it, a long cape in a red that matched her sleeves, skirt and crest hung over her shoulder. She was armed with a gladius and a long, red tower shield, which had intricate patterns painted on its front. There were more dead Susies lying in the background, so Kris could only figure what happened to the Grunt in the front.

"She's a great gal! Little on the unstable side, but when the kinda stuff happens that happened to her, I guess that's par for the course. Veritas cleared out all the succubi from this city. It's safe again. For now. Reason they're called succubi, is because before she left, she told us a lotta stuff about them and what the Knight wanted 'em to do, that we didn't get. The name came from us trying to make sense of it. I'm guessing since you're lightners, he was planning for this whole place to be some kinda trap for you. Since you're right here, it looks like it didn't quite work out that way."

"What do you know about the Knight?"

"He's - I'm not sure, he's weird. None of my guys ever got close enough to talk to him. They say he's got some hot girls slammed right onto his armor, but stuff's always strange around him. See for yourself." He picked up his remote control and switched to a different slide, showing only a vague, humanoid 'something'. "Nasty guy. Can't take a single good picture of him. No matter how sharp the image, it always comes out blurred. And a lotta magic, 'specially if it's utility stuff, just stops working around him."

"My golden doors!" burst out of Ralsei. "That's why I couldn't summon them in the castle! Does that mean he was there with us?"

The Journeyman shrugged. "Guess not. The Knight's gone now. Temptress is on her own, but that leads us to her." Again he switched slides, this time giving them a clear photo of Temptress floating above an army of succubi. The picture was taken from behind her, but the antlers, the long blond hair and the red dress were more than enough to tell it was her.

Going by the angle, it must have been taken from the rocks above the coast, between the sea and the city. "That's where the real trouble starts. We can deal with the succubi. Keep 'em outta the city, everything's fine. I'm not sure what you guys know about dark fountains, but every realm's got one, and whoever controls it, rules over the whole realm sooner or later. For this realm, ya do that through something called the 'Throne of Achievement'. Up on the Terrace of Divinity above the Kingdom o' Heaven.

And that's where Temptress comes in." Now with much less a cheerful mood, he nodded Dasher's way. Kris had trouble reading people, but Noelle could tell the merchant's tone was was somewhat...scolding. "So what did ol' sunnyboy over there tell ya about him and this girl?" And accordingly, Dasher took off his hat, for his blue feather to not draw more attention and cowered a little further down behind the dragon in the back.

"That they were close friends."

That didn't lighten up his mood in the least. "Mhm. Close friends, huh? Well they were a little more than close friends. And we were all gettin' a little crazy lately, but she got hit the hardest. He was gonna fix it, but lil' sunnyboy was being a bit of a scaredy-cat. Isn't that right?" Dasher said nothing. "Anyways, so she gets impatient and 'course, one 'bad boy' comes her way and she's all eyes for him. It's like everything before never meant anything to her."

He switched back to the blurred picture of the Knight. To Kris, this all sounded tremendously familiar, except for the part with falling in love with the Knight. "Now she's out to trade our trust and friendship for an empty shot at some crazy guy in a suit of armor. She's makin' the worst trade-off in the history of trade-offs. My guys picked up that she's settin' out to try and get her hands on the Throne of Achievement to use for the Knight. If she can corrupt that throne, we got a whole lotta other trouble comin' our way. You gotta stop'em. Ya gotta."

"Wouldn't we have to get to that terrace first?"

"You can worry about the terrace, once ya've reached the Kingdom o'Heaven. There's a whole ocean between here and there, but that's why I know what lil' romeo can do to help fix this mess. I'll give you my chariot. He can operate it."

The prince stepped forward and placed on hand on the table. "The wooden chariot we came with is going to get us past an ocean?"

"What? No, that's nonsense. My Chariot. My real 'Chariot'. That'll be so fast, all the head-start she got won't matter. She's sailing, so you'll catch up in no time anyway. You're gonna see once you get there. It's up in the Fields of Despair, on top of the rocks that make up this continent. Right on top of the city, too. My guys can give you a ride up the cliffs. Or you take the shortcu - . On second thought, don't take the shortcut. Bad idea. But first, if there's any time to prepare for your trip, it's now. Once you're on the Chariot, there's no goin' back."

He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a piece of paper with a few addresses on it, which he gave to Ralsei, since he was the closest one to him at the moment.

"I got a few places for you to pop by. For a start, you're gonna wanna visit the Drakeforger in her temple. She contacted us and told us if any lightners come through, she wants to talk to them and only them. She's a great gal, and she's been around long before the succubi. You can trust her. If there's anyone who can tell you anything ya gotta know about dragons, it's her. Then there's my wife. Since it's not like I can rely on Dasher to get anything done, I want you guys to take along my wife, so she can keep me posted on what's goin' on."

"We got lotsa friends over in the Kingdom o' Heaven. She can get you in touch with 'em, while I stay here and make sure the succubi don't pull anything here. She'll be performing in a restaurant called the 'Sinwielder's Den' right about now." That name sounded familiar as well, but for different reasons.

"Aaand..." He pulled up another piece of paper, a list of some sort and mumbled a few bullet points. "Knight, Veritas, Succubi, Temptress, Throne, list...yep, that's it. That's all I got for you guys. If you turn around that list, you're gonna find some phone numbers to call if you need directions, I got guys set up for everything. A lotta stuff can go wrong, but logistics isn't gonna be the issue."

Kris came closer to Ralsei to get a closer look at the back of that list, and the prince looked up at the merchant. "Thank you. For all of that."

"Nothin' to thank. You guys are the ones with all the work. Ya got anything else I can help ya with?"

As if he was in class, the human raised his finger. "One of us needs a weapon."

"So you're looking for a blacksmith. Blacksmith, blacksmith. There we go! Got one for ya. And a few stacks o' cash for slaying dragons on your way here." He handed Kris a case full of dark dollar bills and the prince a small scrap of paper. "Tell him I sent ya. Whatever you need from him's on me. And don't forget the map. Bedrock's a big place, gonna need that to figure your way around."

Once Kris had made sure they had everything, including the map, he gave the merchant a thumbs up, and after their goodbyes, they were all back in the elevator and on their way to the ground floor sooner than they knew. Now with a whole list of places to visit before they were ready to set out to travel overseas.