CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“You sure you don’t want to just get a room?” Gair asked. “I don’t mind sharing if it’s Polo’s snoring you’re worried about.”
“Hey now,” Polo complained, “I happen to have a very good reputation at sharing sleeping places with people.”
“I’m fine!” Em called back up. Her boots found firm ground, and she sloshed into a small puddle of mud and flinched. Still, anything was better than having to bunk with either Gair or Roden alone.
One by one, the others followed down the swaying ladder.
“Sasha, can you summon one of those light spells?” she called up. “I can’t see a damn thing down here!”
“On it!” Sasha slapped open her inventory and swiped through it as she hunted for another light potion.
The dim glow of her holographic screen revealed everyone’s pale faces and chattering teeth.
Everyone shuffled close together for warmth, a chill biting into the dank air around them.
Eventually, the dryad downed a small vial and a glow rose off her skin.
The cellar was anything but what Em expected.
And she was thrilled.
A grandfather clock ticked in the corner, a lush pile of random rugs covered the muddy ground, patchwork quilts and excessive pillows piled atop the beds—and the beds were the best part. Hundreds of them crammed the sprawling basement, perfectly made, some even stacked multiple mattresses high.
So many, too many. All of the wonderful spare beds.
Em burst out laughing.
“Why even hide these down here?” Roden scowled.
Why not?
Polo launched across the room, flinging his yellow boots off and jumping from mattress to mattress. The bed springs whined and groaned in his wake. The imp flailed and danced with his own tail, whooping.
“Well, this is a fun twist for once,” Sasha mused, hands on her hips. She shot Em a smirk, nodding in approval. “Not gonna lie, sweetheart, this is starting to look a little more original for once.”
“If we can get some magic or answers tomorrow, this will be just the beginning,” Em promised.
“Whatever dream the Great Authors gave you, it sure was strange,” Gair said, sinking into a nearby bed and burying his face into the pillows with a groan. “This isn’t how I expected tonight to go,” he muttered into the muffled blankets, just audible enough for Em to overhear.
This is exactly what I hoped for.
See? I’m not so bad.
“You sure these Fae can get you what you want?” Roden asked Em as they both hovered by the ladder while the others claimed different corners of the room. Sasha began building herself a mattress fort, Polo already left muddy footprints on a quarter of the beds, and Gair simply let out a quiet snore.
“No,” Em admitted. “But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know why you need to delay Kriqir’s destruction now that we have the relic,” he growled. “It just prolongs Novella’s suffering and the deaths of innocent civilians.”
“The damn prophecy is what killed Faylorn,” Em snapped. “Don’t you get it? Unless we change my story, it will only get worse for all of us. And even when we win, and the questline is complete, we’ll have nothing left but ruined names and a life of unemployment in the Fan-Fiction Theaters.”
“But you might just make everything worse. You know that, right?” Roden asked.
“At least I tried to make a fucking difference then,” Em retorted. “Unlike you.”
He shrugged. pushing past her. “Yet I’m not the one who needs to prove themselves to all of Novella in order to be happy.”
What an ass, Em glared daggers into his muscular back before picking the bed as far away from the others as possible—but especially from Roden and Gair.
No matter what temptations her story threw at her—like a rainy night trapped at an inn within forced proximity of her love interests—she wasn’t having it.
Even if it made the half-elf angry and disappointed her childhood best friend.
“You youngsters all decent down there?” Myffie called from the cellar door upstairs.
“Depends on what you want us to be!” Polo yelled back.
Em threw a pillow across the room at the imp. A wave of stray goose feathers burst out upon impact. She scrambled back to the ladder, craning her neck to peer up at the gnome. “We’re fine and very much celibate, thank you.”
“You mentioned needing to go into the Fae Forest tomorrow.” Myffie tossed a small paper down the hatch to her, grinning past her glasses. “This was dropped off at my doorstep. It might be what you need.”
“Thank you.” Em caught the fluttering paper.
“To enter the Veil of Maas, you must have an invitation,” Myffie explained. “So, use that.”
“A masquerade ball?” Em read aloud.
“The Shadow Fae Prince is hoping to reunite with his life-long-enemy, the Heartless Vampire Queen, tomorrow,” the innkeeper explained. “It will be quite the spectacle!”
“Does the Shadow Court have any seers or mages who could help us locate a place I saw in a vision?” Em asked.
“Why of course!” Myffie said. “Sevren the Blood Fairy can interpret dreams…but only if you’re a Chosen One or Main Character. Or if you don’t mind him sucking at you a little.”
“Thank you so much!” Em exclaimed, clutching the invitation to her heart. She knew deep down that a masquerade ball was as unoriginal as everything else she’d encountered in her story so far, but hopefully this would be the last trope before she could steal the plotline back from Stephanie.
You wish.
“Did I hear masquerade ball?” Sasha popped out of her mattress fort across the cellar. She scowled underneath her smudged makeup. “Sweetheart, that couldn’t get any more cliché…”
“Relax,” Em told the dryad. “This is a small hiccup to get what I need.”
“Oh, I love a good dance!” Polo jumped on his bed, twirling. “Just the excuse I need to give Em a much-needed makeover.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Em cringed.
“Pleeeeeeeaaaassssee?” The imp begged, dropping to his knees and holding out his folded hands. “You might never get another chance at showing the world you’re the Almighty Queen of Stars, Princess of the White Rose Valley, and Heir to the Cursed-But-Once-Uncursed-Tower!”
Em grit her teeth against the temptation.
On one hand, a makeover as a Main Character couldn’t be more stereotypical than sharing a bed in an inn with a love interest. However, if she were to be the star of her story and break the trope of hiding her identity as a Chosen One to the world, she needed to flaunt herself.
“Fine,” she caved.