Chapter Seventeen

  (Nine Years Ago)

  "Sitcon animod amissitnemelc, Lerdnasi arhclup, son idua!

  Atsui aut atcidniv te tse atinifni aut aitneloveneb!

  Tartenep sarbenet eaut eaitarg nemul erup,

  Ecipsa aidrociresim des, ari non son euqati."

  Peter Winslow, high priest of Isandrel, bowed toward the crystal facsimile of the moon that hung from the Votiv Chamber’s ceiling. Dozens of white robed acolytes surrounded him in orderly rows, copying him so perfectly that every move he made looked like it was creating a ripple that spread outwards across the large circular room.

  Situated at the top of the Selenian Tower, the Votive Chamber was sealed so that not a single ray of the sun’s profane light could befoul Isandrel’s most holy shrine. The only way in or out was through a pair of thick stone doors that had been magically barred to prevent anyone from intruding on the morning prayers.

  The chamber would have been as black as a cave, were it not for the candles shining from within the walls. A thousand alcoves housed a thousand tiny guardians that protected the priests and their acolytes from the shadows, just as Isandrel, Goddess of the Moon and Retribution, guarded Nyr against the night.

  Unlike Ondarra, whose light blinded those who looked at it and scorched the land in a blatant display of celestial insecurity, Isandrel’s moon glowed with a soft, gentle light that the whole world could admire without consequence.

  The fifteen foot spherical idol was carved out of white, sparkling crystal, and hung suspended forty feet above the worshipers’ heads by an ornately woven rope. It slowly rotated so that the candlelight could reflect off of its shimmering surface, casting patterns across the walls and floor so intricate that a mere glimpse could take a man’s breath away—or they would have, if Peter had been able to feel such things.

  Though the crystal moon paled in comparison to the beauty of the true moon that graced the night sky, it was said that something precious to Isandrel had been sealed inside it. That created enough of a link between it and their goddess that she would hear their prayers even while the sun blazed outside. And come nightfall, they would emerge from the tower to bask in Isandrel’s wondrous light.

  Bowing his head, Peter spread his arms and began the second verse of the prayer.

  "Sanimulli metcon eauq atalucammi retam, lerdnasI arhclu,

  Tnulov erecon sibon iuq sii ba sout sorebil egetor!

  Tnureucon otiretearp ni sibon iuq ii te,

  Rutnaitap munretea ni oicidui out itneipas bus manitu!"

  “RUTNAITAP MUNRETEA NI OICIDUI OUT ITNEIPAS BUS MANITU!” the acolytes all concluded in unison.

  Up and down, up and down, the robed and hooded worshipers bowed in their unthinking, unfeeling dedication to Isandrel. The same prayer had been recited the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. Somewhere in the back of what amounted to Peter Winslow’s mind, he understood that he had repeated this exact pattern every day for the past nine years.

  How long that was, or even what a “year” was were completely lost on him.

  Tomorrow, he would wake up and recite the prayer again, and then again the next day, and then again…

  That was when something caught his eye. The movements performed by his acolytes were all perfectly in sync—except for one on the other side of the chamber.

  They stood almost exactly opposite from Peter, and every bow they made to the majestic false moon was just the tiniest bit off. It would have been undetectable to a human, but for an NPC who had literally been programmed to notice such things, it was as plain as the daylight he hadn’t seen in almost a decade.

  The high priest pointed an accusing finger at the robed. “You’re not supposed to be in here!”

  But the intruder had already noticed him as well, and before the words had even left his mouth, a sackcloth bag appeared in their hand with a flash of blue. They hurriedly fished a tiny green bead out and threw it onto the floor at their feet, shattering it—and spawning a small tornado that reached all the way up to the ceiling.

  The air inside the chamber was instantly whipped into a violent frenzy, blowing out half the candles and flinging the nearby acolytes backwards into their brothers and sisters. It also flung the stranger straight up into the air hard enough to blow the robe right off of their body, revealing the young woman underneath.

  She was dressed in a tight-fitting ninja’s shozoku, and had a black scarf wrapped around her face. The scarf was long enough that two tassels hung nearly to her ankles, and they trailed behind her every time she moved like the twin tails of a comet. A thin gap between the scarf’s layers revealed the barest hint of light brown skin and a pair of chestnut eyes that glittered with excitement.

  With a graceful flip, she landed atop the crystalline moon, grabbing hold of the rope with one hand as it swung dizzyingly beneath their feet. Down below, more and more people were joining Peter in pointing up at her, unable to do anything but protest her presence. Cries of “You’re not supposed to be here!” and “Help! Guards! Intruder!” echoed almost deafeningly in the circular room.

  There was another flash of blue as she summoned an iron dagger to her hand, and cut through the rope with one clean slice.

  The moon fell, carrying the intruder down with it. A split second before it hit the ground, she kicked off of it, launching herself into a backflip. The crystal idol shattered with a hair-raising CRASH, flinging razor-sharp bits of crystal in every direction.

  The NPCs fell to their knees and covered their heads in perfect unison, cowering as the debris rained down all throughout the Votive Chamber, though miraculously it only seemed to land in the spaces between them.

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  The intruder touched down a moment later in a catlike crouch. If she cared one iota about the mayhem she had just caused, she didn’t show it. All she seemed to see was a small shape that now sat on the floor of the Votive Chamber, in the exact epicenter of the crystalline explosion. Her eyes practically glowed with greed.

  Everything went still, as if Nyr itself was waiting in silent anticipation for what would happen next.

  In a burst of motion, the intruder sprinted across the room. Her slippered feet slapped against the chamber floor, though not as loudly as they should have, and she dove forward to slide across the smooth ivory surface on her knees. She passed the out of place item, her hand whipping out to snatch it off the floor and throw into her inventory without another blue flash.

  And with that, the world seemed to come unfrozen again.

  “Help! Guards! Intru—” Peter Winslow shouted, only to swallow his words when the script in his brain suddenly switched. “THIEF! HELP! GUARDS! SOMEBODY!”

  Like before, his cry was immediately echoed by the acolytes, and within seconds the Votive Chamber was echoing with desperate pleas for help.

  Leaping back to her feet, the Thief ran straight for the wall of the chamber. With yet another blue flash, she hurled something out in front of her. It hit the wall and stuck there, a blob of brown goo with a thumb-sized red cylinder stuck in—

  BOOM!

  The Selenian Tower shook, and suddenly the Votive Chamber was flooded with blasphemous, heretical sunlight. If the worshipers of Isandrel noticed that Ondarra was defiling their most holy place of worship, though, they didn’t show it. They merely kept pointing at the retreating figure as she dashed up to the hole she had just created…

  And jumped!

  The ivory spire stood four hundred feet tall, dwarfing everything else in Tal'Rakkesh. Countless silver chains—the Oathchains, they were called—adorned its walls, stretching for miles across the entire city. Each one was attached to a house where a worshiper of Isandrel dwelled, representing the unbreakable bond their faith created between them and the goddess of the moon.

  Reaching to her neck, the Thief tugged her scarf free, releasing the mop of curly black hair that had been contained inside it.

  Miranda whooped in exhilaration as she plummeted toward Tal'Rakkesh. The wind was roaring in her ears, her blood was on fire, and her mind was ablaze with pure, unadulterated life! This was it. This was everything! Her entire reason for being alive, and the one thing on Nyr she could never get enough of.

  “Grab!” she yelled. The scarf immediately came to life in her hand, wrapping around one of the Oathchains, and she grunted as her journey downwards abruptly ceased. Tal'Rakkesh became a blur beneath her as she rode the silver chain the rest of the way down like a zipline.

  Behind her, alarm bells began to ring. In seconds, every NPC in the city—from the guards to the common townsfolk—would be on high alert, eyes peeled for the one who had stolen their city’s most precious treasure. Even as she flew past, she could see people pointing up at her from the streets below, doubtlessly echoing the high priest’s cries back in the tower.

  The thought of all those people looking at her was so intoxicating that she almost didn’t notice the wall that was rushing up to meet her.

  “Release!” she shouted. The scarf obeyed, unwrapping itself from the Oathchain, and she fell to land neatly on the roof of the building below. Her momentum carried her forward for a few more feet, her soft black slippers sliding across the clay shingles before finally coming to a stop.

  A moment later, a System message appeared.

  PRIMARY QUEST:

  STEAL THE HOLY TREASURE FROM THE SELENIAN TOWER.

  OBJECTIVE COMPLETE:

  ESCAPE THE SELENIAN TOWER WITH THE HOLY TREASURE.

  OBJECTIVE UPDATED:

  ESCAPE TAL' RAKESH WITHOUT BEING CAUGHT OR KILLED.

  BONUS OBJECTIVE FAILED:

  ESCAPE FROM THE SELENIAN TOWER WITHOUT BEING DETECTED.

  She grinned to herself as she climbed to the top of the peaked roof. She had failed the bonus objective on purpose. Where was the fun in making a clean, consequence-free getaway? A robbery that didn’t end with a daring, skin-of-your-teeth escape hardly counted as a robbery at all.

  And what a robbery it had been! The tension as she’d made her way through the tower, dressed in one of the priests’ own robes, had been thick enough that she could have taken a bite right out of the air—and delicious enough that she’d actually wanted to. And those last few seconds, when her sticky bomb had blown a hole in the wall and she’d jumped out of the tower? Glorious!

  Another message popped up.

  YOU HAVE INCURRED THE WRATH OF ISANDREL.

  Miranda burst out laughing, then looked up at the sky. “You want it back? Come get it, you ugly chunk of space rock!”

  She had no idea if the Goddess of the Moon could hear her when the sun was up, but it didn’t matter. Her heart was still galloping, her blood was singing in her veins, and the feelings she’d been running from for the past two months were finally gone.

  For now, anyway.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they would catch up to her again eventually, but that was a problem for later. Much later. For now, all that mattered was that she felt like she was on top of the world!

  Perched atop the roof, Miranda looked down over the streets below. She could already hear the city guards clank-clank-clanking their way down the streets in their dingy armor. There had to be at least a hundred of them, and every single one was looking for her. Just thinking about it made her grin stretch so wide that it was almost painful.

  Unable to put it off for a second longer, she flicked her fingers to bring up her menu. A couple seconds of scrolling through her inventory, and…

  She sucked in an astonished breath.

  AVARICIOUS HANDMIRROR

  FEW BEINGS IN NYR CAN CLAIM TO MATCH THE LEVELS OF ENVY DISPLAYED BY ISANDREL, AND FEWER STILL WOULD WANT TO. FOR CENTURIES, SHE HAS SCOURED THE LAND FOR ANY WHO MIGHT EQUAL HER BEAUTY. USING THIS HANDMIRROR, SHE STEALS THEIR REFLECTION AND BESTOWS IT UPON HERSELF, OFTEN KILLING THE REFLECTIONS’ OWNERS IN HORRIFIC WAYS FOR THEIR UNWITTING SINS. BUT THE PLEASURE OF WEARING ANOTHER’S FACE IS FLEETING, AND SHE ALWAYS SOON RETURNS TO HER TRUE FORM TO SEEK OUT ANOTHER MORTAL UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE BEEN BORN MORE ATTRACTIVE THAN MOST.

  THIS ITEM IS IMBUED WITH THE MASQUERADE SPELL. FORCE SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO THE MIRROR TO CAPTURE THEIR REFLECTION, THEN GAZE INTO THE MIRROR YOURSELF TO TAKE ON THEIR APPEARANCE. THIS IS ONLY AN ILLUSION, AS THE USER DOES NOT PHYSICALLY TRANSFORM INTO THE STOLEN REFLECTION. EACH REFLECTION CAN ONLY BE USED ONCE BEFORE IT IS RETURNED TO ITS RIGHTFUL OWNER.

  PROPERTIES:

  MASQUERADE (10MP PER MINUTE THE SPELL IS ACTIVE)

  A shiver of manic glee ran down her spine, and she closed out of her menu. Ashes, it had been so long since she’d felt this way! She needed more of it. So much more! And she would have it, she promised herself. Now that…

  Hey, Jackdaw! Want to hear a joke?

  Her smile faltered, and her eye twitched. For half a second, the thrill came close to slipping away.

  Then, forcing a grin back onto her face, she buried those dark, painful memories deep inside her subconscious where they couldn’t hurt her. It was over. He was out of her life, and she never had to think about him again. From now on, all she had to worry about was…

  “THIEF! HELP! GUARDS! SOMEBODY!”

  She looked down to see somebody pointing up at her, his voice echoing through the streets. Armored soldiers seemed to materialize out of thin air, closing in on her position like a flood, and Miranda felt the excitement come roaring back until it was all she could feel again.

  Letting out a triumphant laugh, she turned and dashed away.

  TO BE CONTINUED: 2/21/2026