In Loki's Honor

She squinted, then changed her mind about being spoiled and grinned.

*

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*

*

Elizabeth slipped out of the academy, using her House name to convince the gate guards. She took only a (battle maid) with her as an escort. It was a covert mission after all. She crossed the deserted streets and alleys, using the dusty mist that lingered in the air as a cover from the night predators. With a prayer of thanks to the Goddess, she reached the cathedral unassailed.

The doors were wide open. With the number of people crammed inside, any extra ventilation was welcome. With her (maid) so close behind Elizabeth could feel her breath, she entered the temple in search of her former guides.

The atmosphere was oppressive. The heat of hundreds, the smell of dirty bandages, sweat and other body fluids, dried blood, and pus. The noble lady shuddered, remembering their ordeal days past. People coughed as the ominous dust cloud entered the building and attacked the noses and lungs of the infirm.

The two satyr women were easy to find. They walked among the throng of wounded commoners laying around, giving aid where they could. The perceptive delvers quickly noticed the commotion created by some refugees begging the noble Lady for alms and went to meet Elizabeth on their own.

"Greetings," the Lady smiled as she dropped her hood. " I wish for a minute or two of your time if you please," she asked as she discreetly flashed them a gold coin.

"As you wish, my lady. Let's step outside for some fresh air."

They left the cathedral, much to Elizabeth's relief. Two streets away, they stopped by a ruined building.

"How may we serve?" They asked, wary of the unfriendly maid.

"I wish to talk about my friend's familiar. The book mimic," she replied as she placed a coin pouch on the satyr's hand.

The widow didn't move. "I'm sorry my lady, but we can't say anything," she refused and extended her hand so Elizabeth could retrieve the pouch.

"This is just a token of my appreciation for your services," the Lady smiled. "I won't demand an answer or accept the gift back." She looked at her hands, free of lightning marks, and appealed to the satyr's sense of sympathy. 'Please, I just found the little tome's magical prowess divine and had to talk to someone or I would go crazy."

That scored one for the noble Lady. The first layer of the widows' defense cracked, and she pushed the advantage.

Elizabeth would return to the Academy another coin pouch lighter but an order of magnitude wiser.

Bit she wouldn't expect to find someone waiting for her outside the gates. With his arms crossed, a young man stood there, blocking her way with an unreadable expression.

*

*

Isaac Hamilton. The heir to his House and one of the faction leaders in the Academy. Elizabeth cursed her locked Luck score. She swore she would save ten points to dump on it if she ever unlocked it.

"Good evening, milord," she curtsied.

"My Lady," he nodded. "I worry about such a delicate flower unsheltered from the harsh night dew," he flourished. "May I be so bold as to ask the reason for such a daring outing?"

"On, it's nothing. I just went for a stroll, to get some fresh--"

"Dust," he interrupted her, waving at the windless cloud of dust and mist surrounding them. It truly wasn't air worth breathing. But he wasn't done. Before she could retort, he continued. "And it was quite the stroll, to take the Lady all the way to the cathedral."

She wanted to make him eat that grin. Elizabeth steeled herself and used her Willpower to keep herself from stammering. "It almost seems like the Lord sent someone to tail us." Her [Combat Maid] flinched behind her. They would have a talk later, and she would need to do some awareness training. What if it was an [Assassin] instead? Elizabeth filed that for later.

"I sent nobody," he admitted honestly. She choked on the grunt she never let out. He tailed them himself, that's what he meant.

"It's late, and I am quite sleepy, my Lord. If I may—"

He stepped aside immediately but still interrupted her. "You may, but we might regret ending this fortuitous encounter earlier than it should, my Lady," she could swear his grin stretched another fraction of an inch. "I believe we hold disparate pieces of the same puzzle. It might do us good to share what we know. I believe our goals are aligned and open cooperation is the way forward," he put emphasis on 'open'.

"You overheard our conversation," breaking the unspoken protocol of their little charade, she stated, not accused or fished. Elizabeth was tired, stressed, and holding a weight too heavy for her own good. She almost regretted going out to get the truth out of the satyrs.

"I did," he admitted, accepting her "gloves off" stance. "But I don't have your first-hand insights on the matter. Allow me to be the first to share, as a token of goodwill."

She nodded and smiled.

"The mimic is not your ordinary monster. I had people researching while we were down there, no references to his species had ever surfaced. I had people copying the research of people who were researching the mimic, they found nothing. The consensus gravitates around a new species."

"A {Unique} species," Elizabeth conjectured.

"Coupled with a {Unique} Class, I must assume. We know for a fact that monsters get more Attribute points than people, to make up for the lack of intellect. That little book probably has more points than us both combined."

She recognized the tangential talk about Attribute points as misdirection. "What aren't you telling me?"

"That I was caught inadvertently discovering a little tidbit about our book friend which I was forced to promise to keep to myself. A promise I find in my best interest to keep, given the circumstances."

She crossed her arms under her chest, causing the front of her robes to bulge up. Elizabeth tapped her feet, demanding a hint at least.

"Have you ever glimpsed the book's {Status}? Did you notice it's aware of every attempt?"

She felt her eyelid twitch. "No, and I've tried. However, I never noticed he was aware of it."

"I did. Of hundreds of covert attempts, he never failed to catch one. You know I have an Ability to tell me when my {Appraise} was sensed."

She racked her brain to try and figure out what he was babbling about. A creature whose Status was never glimpsed? Even by Isaac, who had an {Appraise} score higher than two hundred? Not even once? What did this...

"You must update your knowledge on prophecies, my Lady," he whispered her a hint and the memory hit her like a truck.

Elizabeth's jaw dropped just a little, "Is the book a Transcendental?"

Isaac didn't reply. Instead, he stared at the few stars that could be seen past the mist and pretended he didn't hear her question.

She trembled. If out of fear, or outrage at the cheekiness of the Lord before her, she had no idea. But she now recalled the prophecy with crystal clarity. She also recalled the methods to figure out a Transcendental that didn't involve {Appraise}. A contest between equals came to mind.

"Charisma," she guessed and knew she was right.

Isaac held his hands behind his back and walked a bit away, whistling.

"More than one," she gasped.

"All this time, the church was seeking a 'person'," Isaac broke his silence. "They would never find it."

Elizabeth lost her balance and would've crumpled in a heap if not for the dutiful maid. "No way."

"Yes way. Did you see the artifacts Ambrose got out of nowhere? Who do you think could've crafted them, and gifted it to a random commoner?" He asked with a hint of envy. "She's not."

"What?" The Lady stammered, fighting to cope with the reveal. She felt like she was drowning as breathing became difficult.

"She's not a random commoner. I firmly believe Barbara Ambrose to be a Transcendental as well. A special one touched by Her!" The capitalization on his last word didn't escape her recognition.

"What do we do?"

"We—" Isaac never finished his thought. They were ambushed by a lithe figure that appeared out of the dust-mist cloud.

*

*

"~Isaac and Lizzy~ / ~sitting under a tree~" Eleanora sang and hopped a step on each syllable of her next sentence. "~A ~se-cret ~ren-dez-vous!"

She spun around and pressed her palms against her cheeks, her mouth making a wide O. "Shocker! What a scandal!"

Elizabeth wheezed. "It's not! I would never—"

"Why, thank you, milady," Isaac quipped, feigning offense. He stared at the petite girl. "We're not. Get your mind out of the gutter, my Lady."

Eleanora pouted. "Boring. So what are you two doing here?"

Both crossed their arms and stared at her. "You know very well," Isaac said. "Eavesdropper," Elizabeth added.

"Me?" She claimed innocence as she fluttered her eyelashes. "I just arrived," she shrugged theatrically. "But whatever you are plotting, I want in."

"No," Isaac rejected vehemently. "The fewer people—"

It was his time to be interrupted, by a sheet of paper she produced out of nowhere. "then I think I'll take this copy of Mrs. Blatherwick's report that was sent to half the faculty to myself. I am sure the Lord will get his hands on a copy by tomorrow, but it might be too late."

"You!" He tried to snatch the document but she was faster. It vanished into her storage ring.

"Here, here," she soothed as she placatingly gave each of them a copy, "We have the same goals. Now, how are we going to act on it?"

*

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As the creator, I could cross the mirror any time I wanted. While barbara slept on her {Living Silk} enchanted bed, I crawled out to the real room and baked some pastries. "Mom" left me a lot of notes in my pages, one of them telling me again to buy the damned {Charge} Perk. I did, and it unlocked yet another combination Perk without spending the Perk pick since I already had a superior version.

> Dimensional Charge (Combined, 1/7): Instantly teleport through the Ethereal world and reappear anywhere in the material up to (10+Strength+Mind/2) meters away, with any velocity up to your run speed. If you perform a melee attack right after returning, you deal 6x damage to both HP and MP and the target is stunned for 3 seconds. If you use Unicorn weaponry, you instead deal 15x damage.

I wanted to dig into my Class Perks but this one was important. Worst scenario, it would let me teleport to Barbara's side and defend her.

We needed to train, burn our fast-growth points, hone our Proficiencies, spend our Perks. Shit was about to get real and we couldn't be weaklings, lambs to the slaughter. I was hoping another group of survivors crawled out of the Labyrinth. Not only because it would mean fewer deaths but also to dilute our importance.

I had to focus on keeping the Force-Fire spell controlled or my dough would burn. The spell that created my magical oven was a variant of the infamous {Force-Fire Maiden} that killed Bundeus the first time around, in the bogs southwest of Windemere. With weaker fire and no spikes.

Today's bread was a simple muffin. For the breakfast, I sliced it and added a thick slice of cheese, slices of roasted pork shank slathered in dark mustard, more cheese, and some dried herbs sprinkled on top. The slices then returned to the "oven" to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

[Baker] was a cheat of a cooking Proficiency. So long the recipe had dough (or batter) and went into the oven, it was fair game. Compared with other broader ones like [Cook] or [Chef], it gave bigger bonuses per point of Proficiency. With a few adjustments to the recipe, I could swap the stove for the oven and even bake what would otherwise be fried food.

The mirror shimmered and a still sleepy Barbara yawned her way out of the secret bedroom. Her clothes changed into the Academy uniform just as she came out of the portal boundary.

"Mornin'", she stammered and sniffled the air, "What's for breakfast?"

I opened the "oven" but left a curtain of Air to keep the heat inside. The tray came out. The obscene amounts of cheese had dripped down the sides and formed a puddle around the muffin. On contact with the tray, it formed a crunchy crust full of circular marks where it bubbled before hardening. I carefully separated the crust from the tray without breaking it and laid them on the plate. Molten cheese dripped from the top, oozing over the crust.

I stated theatrically.

Its job done, the inside of the oven was assaulted by an Ice spell, devouring the heat as the cage dissipated into nothingness. Barbara dug into her breakfast with gusto, the tiny halfling girl eating as much as a grown human man and asking for seconds.

*

*

Mrs. Cormack met us in the corridor moments after we left the room.

"Ambrose, you have a visitor!" She shouted. By the looks of it, it wasn't a personal visit but a business one. And an important one.

Barbara quickly followed the dorm mother to the lounge on the ground floor. There I saw a student from the noble dorm, one that was in the joint session to determine who would go on the delve. He was one of the fortunate ones that didn't get a spot. On his robe lapel, the insignia of House Hamilton. So he was one of Isaac's minions. Probably the son of a knight of the noble House, here as an escort to the young scion.

"Miss Ambrose," he bowed a full thirty degrees, "Lord Hamilton sends his regards. He would like to meet you at your earliest convenience."

Which meant "as soon as fucking possible", regarding a noble summoning a commoner. What was going on was anyone's guess.

Barbara sighed, then glanced up at Mrs. Cormack. The dorm mother nodded. It was awkward for halflings to have social interactions with people twice their size regularly but they were used to it. "Lead the way."

The knight-student led us out of the building where a frigging' open carriage waited for us. We boarded and soon found ourselves in one of the noble dorm meeting rooms. We didn't wait long. The doors opened and Isaac, Elizabeth, and Eleanora walked in. With a curt nod from the young Lord Hamilton, the knight-student walked out, leaving us alone.

Barbara beamed at them, "How are you? Did you sleep well?"

The two noble girls looked at their perfectly healthy limbs and smiled back. "Like angels," Elizabeth replied for both of them.

Three pairs of eyes fell on Isaac. Barbara was curious and worried, while the other two women exuded impatience.

"Ambrose, the three of us talked last night. If you allow me to go straight to the point, our three Houses want to sponsor you."

Elizabeth nodded while Eleanora grinned like a merchant about to make a great windfall. I withdrew to think about what that meant. In the Labyrinth, while I was lost in mushroom land, Isaac offered Barbara a job as a retainer of his House. This place had several levels of relationship between a Noble and a commoner. You could be a sworn vassal, with lots of benefits but little freedom even though they were considered part of the noble House and shared a bit of its status. The knight-student that led us here and his family were examples of that. Vassalage was usually hereditary.

You could be a retainer, a long-term employee that enjoyed some freedom and good pay but had a lower social status. You weren't considered part of the nobility and were just a step above a servant. You were also expected to stay employed for a long time. To break the contract, you had to petition the Lord. The servants were just rank-and-file guards, maids, gardeners, laborers in general. They were considered part of the House but more as its building blocks. Murder notwithstanding, depriving a Lord of their cleaning staff was akin to throwing dirt around the chambers of his house.

Then the sponsorships. These were reserved for high-profile people, like [Heroes], daring explorers, virtuoso performers, or powerful spellcasters. People that were too big for the gravitational pull of the noble House. In exchange for protection, support, and a stipend, these individuals did their thing and the bragging rights of their exploits went to the sponsors. But were they to screw up royally, the noble House could deny any liability. They would still lose some face, but not as much as a vassal or even a retainer going postal, for example.

It was obvious Isaac didn't want that but was forced to share the prodigy [Crystallomancer] with the other two. As her familiar, I was part of the package.

Barbara felt wary and confused. Even though her secret bedroom and wealth would put these three nobles' chambers to shame even if they pooled their resources, she was still a commoner in spirit.

"What happened? Why the sudden change? I was fine with the previous agreement," she asked but her eyes wavered back and forth between the three.

"You'll grow too strong to be a retainer to our House," Isaac admitted. "We've seen the artifacts you own, the spells you used in the Labyrinth."

"We would be cripples for a long time, maybe forever if it weren't for you," Eleanora said and flexed her regenerated arm. "We want to repay the kindness and shield you from some of the backlashes from the Academy and the Kingdom. Even if we don't say anything, they'll find out about your power."

"Wat Elly means," Elizabeth added, "is that they won't turn you into a pawn in their games with our combined sponsorship. Our guides may remain silent, but Mrs. Blatherwick will have to file a report. The country lost a lot of people. They'll need every bit of help they can get to rebuild. And that includes forcing people to work for them, even if they don't want to. We worry about your safety."

Isaac took the lead again, "We heard talks last night about drafting the third and fourth-year students into a task force. They'll replace several classes with 'field assignments'," I could hear the air quotes in his voice. "And the Royal Mage-Knight Corps will watch them closely to recruit the commoners that do a half-decent job."

"That's not too bad..." Barbara wondered. Entering the Corps meant earning a knighthood from the King.

"They don't expect nobody else to come out alive from the Labyrinth," the level-headed Elizabeth started to explain. "But monsters will still spawn down there. After the city is restored to its former glory, they're going to send a massive expedition down there to cull the monsters and get the drops for the Crown. The death rate in these expeditions is massive. Do you want to go back down there? I don't. And they'll send the commoners exclusively, with a few noble commanders."

"I stand corrected," Barbara tittered, then shook her head, stood on her chair, and curtsied. "No. Sorry, I was overwhelmed a bit back there. It was too much for me. I'll be honored to accept your joint sponsorship."

"We didn't even talk about your stipend!" Eleanora cheekily protested. "How's fifty gold crowns per year?"

They called the standard coins by the picture on them. The gold was the "Crown", silver an "Eagle". Coppers had a gatehouse, while platinum carried the ruling king's effigy and was called by his name.

Despite the pile of platinum coins burning a hole in her dimensional storage, Barbara's eyes went wide. A gold coin per year was enough for a commoner family of four to live in relative comfort. As a mage, she obviously would make more than that but fifty was way above the high end of her aspirations before the delve.

"Each," Elizabeth added, half-correcting her friend's blunder. "Fifty gold crowns per year from each one of us."

"Subject to review when you reach the third and then again on the fourth rank," Isaac finished.

The terms were so good I suspected they knew more than they were supposed to. I almost forced a System-enforced social interaction but held back. I honestly didn't need to know. And maybe I should be less paranoid and accept their generosity at face value. Whether they knew or not, it mattered little. We exposed too many cards and we needed allies.

"We understand you don't need our sponsorship," Elizabeth said staring at my balled-up ribbon eye-stalks. "But we owe you big. You want to keep a low profile and we thought this could help."

My intuition told me she was practically begging me to take the deal.

Barbara suggested.