068 Conspiracy on the Works - Part 1 - Selena’s POV

  In the middle of the dirt road was the grotesque, headless carcass of a minotaur… flies buzzing, flesh flayed, ribs like snapped tree branches, and worms. So many worms. Wriggling and blind, fat and wet, they squirmed through what used to be its guts, what used to be my hiding place.

  Oh, yeah. Also, I was inside it.

  I clawed my way out, coughing through the rotted stench of bile, blood, and decay. The guts squelched around me like a soaked mattress of meat. A lung collapsed somewhere near my foot… not mine, thank you… and I shoved aside a spleen with a grunt as my head finally breached the sticky open cavity.

  “Pfhah—” I spat a chunk of something. Probably a kidney. “Okay… ew. Big ew. Maximum ew.”

  Breathing fresh air again was like kissing heaven. My ribs ached, my skin itched, and worms clung to my back like curious fans. I peeled one off my shoulder and flicked it with a sound of disgust.

  I looked down. Thin undergarments. Nothing else. Blood-soaked, worm-decorated undergarments. My ass was out in the wind, on some road, somewhere far from civilization. I could feel the sun, which meant I was visible, and if anyone saw me, they’d probably think I was either a monster or a very committed street performer.

  “Okay. Focus.” I straightened up, took a breath through my mouth (still stank), and ran fingers through my blood-matted hair. “Let’s do a mental checklist. I’m Selena. I work for Arcana. I’m the Fool.”

  The Fool. Not just a job title, but a position. A role in the Arcana hierarchy, complete with responsibilities, dress code (optional), and an ESP that matched the name.

  Play Pretend. That was my power. My ESP let me assume the powers, abilities, and sometimes identities of figures from myths, stories, or make-believe… so long as I had the imagination, mental strength, and props. Props were key. You couldn’t play Cinderella without a slipper, right? Or summon the Big Bad Wolf without at least some fur on hand.

  And this time? I went all out. Minotaur in the Labyrinth. Old school. Classic myth. But with my own spicy spin. I didn’t just build the labyrinth. I became it. Or rather, I turned the minotaur into my living, magical, shifting maze, and hid myself inside it. Who thinks to look inside the monster for the real trap?

  They were all so busy trying to kill the beast or chase the other guy… none of them thought to ask where the maze actually started.

  “Of course,” I muttered to myself, dragging my bare feet onto solid dirt, “I probably should’ve made a better exit plan.”

  The minotaur’s corpse collapsed fully behind me, its chest cavity imploding with a wet shlorp. I turned and gave it a weak salute. “Thanks for the ride, buddy. You were gross, but you had a great work ethic.”

  There was no one else around. Just trees, the road, and a sky that was way too cheerful for what I’d just crawled out of.

  I shivered and started brushing more wormy grubs from my arms, legs, and neck. I still felt them crawling where I couldn’t reach. Uegh. I needed a proper shower. Or maybe several. With bleach.

  Where were the others now? Had they escaped? Were they still trapped? I tried to recall the last moment I saw them… Merrick, Greg, that annoying butterfly guy… had they gotten to the other guy, right? Hah. I’d put so much effort into the meat-puppet labyrinth… maybe I went a little overboard. But hey, method acting.

  A breeze passed, and I hugged my arms tight over my chest. The undergarments were drying now, which somehow made everything feel even colder.

  I started walking. No destination in sight, but I needed to get somewhere with clothes. Or a bush big enough to hide in. Either worked.

  “So now what?” I asked aloud. “Do I call for pickup? Do I pretend I’ve been through some horrible trauma and con a free meal out of the locals? Or do I just keep walking until someone mistakes me for a cryptid?”

  No answer. Just the trees rustling and a crow calling in the distance.

  I smiled to myself.

  “I should call Boss,” I said aloud. My voice came out hoarse, throat still raw from screaming internally inside a rotting myth-beast.

  But then I looked down at myself—barely covered in my worm-spotted underthings, soaked in gore and mystery fluids—and blinked slowly. “Wait. No phone.”

  Of course. I didn’t have it on me. Where would I even put it? There wasn’t exactly a pocket sewn into the inside of a minotaur’s liver.

  With a grimace, I turned back to the deflated corpse of my recent meatsuit and knelt beside it, picking through slop and bones. This was not the glamorous life the brochure had promised.

  “Come on… where are you, baby… aha!”

  I yanked out my flip phone from the half-digested cavity between a lung and a spine. Miraculously intact. Tough little thing. I flicked it open, and the screen lit up weakly with a satisfying beep-beep.

  Ark. That’s what it said on the contact screen. Just one word.

  I pressed call. The tone rang once. Then again. Then stopped.

  No connection.

  I sighed and sat down on a relatively clean patch of gravel. That meant Boss was either in a dead zone or ignoring me. Either way, business as usual. I clicked open the messaging app and typed out a report.

  Subject: Merrick.

  He’ll be trapped here for some time. I’ll make sure of that.

  Send.

  A pause. I stared at the blinking cursor, then chewed the inside of my cheek.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Something didn’t sit right.

  So I added another line:

  The kid you told me not to hurt—he got me.

  Came at me with a butterfly knife. Took me down in the minotaur.

  I hovered my thumb over the send button. The text felt strange. Like it wasn’t just a report—it was a confession.

  Boss didn’t usually care if someone “got” me. This job came with losses. Setbacks were expected. Deaths too, if you weren’t creative enough. But that kid… Boss made it very clear. Do not hurt him.

  Which, let’s be honest, was weird. Arcana didn’t do “spared targets.” We were the knife, not the scalpel. Hit, kill, vanish. Neat little exits. But this boy—Mark, I think?—he was off-limits.

  Why?

  Who was he to Boss?

  I pressed send.

  The wind picked up and blew my hair into my face. I tied it back as best I could with a vine. Not fashionable, but effective.

  And I thought about that fight again.

  He was good. Not great. Not trained to the level I did. But sharp. Instinctive. Stabbed me in the side with that sleek little knife like he’d done it a thousand times before.

  “I am looking forward to meeting you again,” I muttered. “Butterfly boy.”

  Yeah. He wasn’t normal. Not in Boss’s eyes. And that meant something.

  Arcana started small, just a bunch of mercenaries chasing coin and contracts, barely more than a rogue’s gallery with matching pins. But now we were a machine. Organized. Funded. Names and faces and titles pulled from tarot and myth. Boss made sure we played roles, not just games.

  I was the Fool. I wandered, I improvised. I lived in the in-between of chaos and genius. The first card, the last chance. And even I didn’t know everything.

  I should hide in the forest.

  That was the first thought that popped into my head after I sent the message to Boss.

  The trees loomed ahead—thick, gnarled things, warped by the residual power I’d poured into this place. Roots like claws, bark like scars. The labyrinth was crumbling, but the power lingered, whispering through every leaf and shadow. I’d made this forest into a story, and I was its author, its trickster, its heart.

  I was the core.

  And if I got caught… if I was taken down now…

  Boss would be furious. Not the yelling kind. The quiet, soul-crushing kind. The kind that didn’t come with second chances.

  I started walking again, bare feet squishing through damp earth, already planning the best tree to climb and disappear into when I froze mid-step.

  A weight filled the air. Like a stage light suddenly snapping on.

  I slowly turned around.

  Merrick stood there.

  Elegant. Calm. A sharp figure of pale precision in a world full of chaos. His coat was slightly dirtied from travel, his dark hair windblown, but none of that dulled the cold gleam in his eyes—or the gun he had pointed straight at my face.

  I blinked at the barrel.

  “…Aren’t you supposed to be busy with the Nerun guy?” I asked, tilting my head. “What are you doing here? And more importantly, how the hell did you know I’d be here?”

  His voice was smooth, effortless. Like he didn’t need to try to be terrifying. It just happened naturally.

  “Because if the core wasn’t the skinhead,” he said, “of course it would be you.”

  I smiled. “Flattered.”

  “As for Nerun,” he continued, eyes never leaving me, “I trust my students to handle him. He claims he controls the forest… but if he truly did, I wouldn’t have tracked you so easily.”

  Touché.

  He stepped forward, the muzzle of the handgun never trembling, never twitching. “Now. How do you want to do this?”

  I didn’t answer. Just stared at the silver glint of the barrel.

  “I’m armed,” he said, tone like a teacher patiently explaining a lesson to a willfully dumb student. “You are not. If you want this to be a contest of ESP, give up. Mine is primed. Ready. One blink, and I tear through your neural pathways like they’re paper. If it’s a fight you want, understand this: I only need a thought to explode your skull.”

  I believed him.

  And that was saying something, coming from me.

  I lifted my hands slowly, palms open. “All right, Merrick. You got me monologuing. That usually means I’m stalling.”

  “Then stop.”

  “Rude,” I muttered. “You know, Boss told me not to hurt your little butterfly boy. So I didn’t. I could’ve. I should’ve. But I didn’t. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “That depends,” he said. “Why were you here at all?”

  “To play the part,” I said. “That’s what I do. I’m the Fool. I build the theater, I set the scene, I wear the mask.”

  “And you trapped my students in it… with me.”

  “You lot walked in willingly,” I shrugged. “Well… somewhat willingly. And besides, it’s not like you guys were in real danger. I mean, sure, the minotaur was a little bitey, but it was all story magic. Illusions. Mostly.”

  It was lie. People could die here.

  He didn’t look impressed.

  Wow. He was so hot.

  I said it out loud before I could stop myself. “Wow. You are so hot.”

  Merrick frowned. No reaction beyond that… just a micro-shift in his face like someone just dropped a bad joke in a funeral.

  Typical.

  But what else could I do? I was honestly at a painful disadvantage here. No props, no costume, not even a sock puppet. Just me, covered in bits of dead minotaur and wearing next to nothing. No stage. No script.

  My ESP, Play Pretend, demanded more than imagination. It needed flavor: material, myth, and narrative hooks.

  Right now, all I had was dirt and skin.

  So I went with it. The nuclear option.

  I hooked a finger in the little string at my hip and tugged, letting the muddy fabric slip a little. My other hand traced the torn strap of my bra, pulling it to the side… not to reveal everything, but just enough to set the stage. Symbolism mattered in storytelling.

  Merrick’s voice cut in, sharp and cold. “What are you doing?”

  “If this is your idea of seduction,” he added, raising the gun slightly, “then you’re a fool.”

  “Wow,” I said, clutching mock-offense to my chest, “hurtful remarks too? I’m quite proud of my figure and assets, thank you very much.”

  I took a step forward. His aim didn’t waver. But his eyes… well, they were watching.

  “Ever hear the story of Adam and Eve?” I said softly. “No clothes. No shame. Just the raw start of humanity. Temptation, innocence, exile… and power.”

  Play Pretend stirred inside me. The threads of the story caught hold, woven from centuries of whispers and guilt and curiosity. This version was primal. Stripped down. Fire before tools. Language still forming in the back of the throat.

  My breath slowed. My posture shifted. I dropped low on instinct, muscles tightening as the earth around me felt heavier, more real. The last of my undergarments fell, exposing my bountiful mounds.

  “I don’t have a fig leaf,” I murmured, “but I think this will do.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me who you work for.”

  “Come on, you know that already,” I said. “You’ve heard the name Arcana, haven’t you? And your moniker… ‘The Magician’ is it? You’d fit right in with us. Ever thought of joining Arcana? Benefits are great. We have a guy who turns anxiety into actual grenades.”

  His expression didn’t change. “You’re not going to talk your way out of this.”

  “Who said anything about talking?”

  His finger twitched.

  “Fine,” he said. “Die.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  I dropped.

  The bullet cracked past my ear. I hit the ground on all fours, skin scraping against rough soil, and ran… not upright, not like a person, but like something older, feral.

  Because this wasn’t just Adam and Eve anymore. This was every myth of wild, naked spirits… dryads, sirens, Neanderthals clutching stones under starlight. This was the raw story of survival.

  And I was inside it.

  Pain exploded in my head like a hammer… telekinetic and telepathic force slamming into my brain, trying to shut me down from the inside. It was Merrick’s work.

  But I’d prepared for this too.

  “Split,” I whispered.

  And in my mind, I saw them… Adam and Eve, two halves of me, two threads of consciousness. The pain split between them. My thoughts forked. I stumbled, but didn’t stop.

  Merrick raised his arm to fire again, but too late.

  I crashed into him.

  Skin to skin. Heat to heat. I invoked another name. Succubus. Temptress. Weaver of dreams. Every folkloric seductress, every whisper in the dark that ever stole a king’s breath.

  No costume? Didn’t matter. ‘Pretty’ was close enough.

  I pressed against him, chest to chest, heart to heart. My lips brushed his neck. My fingers tangled in his collar.

  “Say,” I whispered into his ear, “do you love me?”

  For a moment, his eyes went dull.

  Just a flicker.

  Just long enough.

  My bewitching succeeded.