Chapter Twenty-Three - Summons

This might be the only chapter I do today. I have a buncha paperwork to handle :(

***

Rosario returned ‘home’ rather late. Fortunately, Lord Abernath was asleep already, and when the dogs started to bark all it took was releasing her mana a little to have them both shut up instantly.

She climbed up to her room in the attic, practicing her silent movement the entire time. A maid ought to be able to move without making noise. Her few levels in [Rogue] helped with that. 

The day had been satisfyingly productive. Plenty of experience for her [Scullery Maid] job, some time spent exploring the city, and... as somewhat reluctant as she was to admit it, she also got to spend some time with Cricket, which was nice. 

The clown-girl was growing on her... like some sort of fungus, perhaps. Rosario was tempted to come out and tell Cricket some of her secrets, but at the same time... why? Cricket wasn’t pressing, and for the most part, she seemed to be judging Rosario based on who she was, rather than on her levels and jobs, which was nice. 

Rosario had very few friends, and wasn’t entirely sure how that kind of thing worked. She hoped that her inexperience wasn’t taking too much of a toll on things. 

In any case, Cricket had been very supportive today, helping Rosario find more enemies to kill after the first few [Forest Raptors]. 

The experience there had been quite worthwhile as well.

Rosario’s first top-level class was Archmage, and that had been a good choice. The job gave her access to plenty of utility spells that helped her travel and finish quests and such. It also gave her relatively easy access to early-game funds. It definitely made maxing out her second job, [Sword Saint] much easier.

Magic in this real world was still strange to her. She felt like she had to sit down with a textbook at some point, though the idea of actually studying didn’t appeal. 

Give her twenty mansions to clean from top to bottom to level her [Maid] rather than a single textbook that needed to be read and studied. Studying did not make the numbers go up.

She knew that it would still be useful, obviously. She had a lot of instincts with regards to magic that she couldn’t quite explain. Some of her skills, no doubt, helped her, but she lacked the concrete fundamental understanding that she suspected a native would have.

So far, all the spells she tried to cast worked, but Rosario wanted more than just spells that worked, she wanted to know why they worked.

Her more physical skills were simpler. [Cut] worked as it should, and moving in combat was a breeze. When she put her mind to it, it felt like the entire world slowed to a beautiful crawl, and when she wanted to move, she did. 

A backflip? A spin in mid-air? The kinds of stunts that were reserved for blockbuster action movies? She could do them all with preternatural ease. 

Years of playing had taught her some amount about knowing which move to use when, but further practice was going to be required if she wanted to become a true threat.

In the meantime... well, her excursion with Cricket had taught her that in the worst case scenario, she could rely on insane speed and incredible brute force in a pinch.

Even without using a skill like [Cut], a swing of her knife with her whole heart put into it rent the air and made it boil and the wind blasting away from her motion alone was enough to defoil a tree from twenty paces away. 

Cricket had stood well away as she experimented and gave her encouraging little golf-claps.

Mostly, Rosario was concerned about the state of her dress after every attack, it was starting to become--

“Your Master Summons You.”

Ah, there it was. The daily reminder that someone wanted her attention.

Rosario slid into her room, undressed, then tsked as she looked over the cuts along the edges of her skirts. She had a small sewing kit and some materials that had been laying around the mansion, but she was tired, and didn’t feel like fixing things at this hour.

Grumbling to herself, she looked down at her underthings. When she came to this world, she was wearing the standard ‘naked MMO character’ underpants and top. They were form-fitting and nice enough, but they were also her only pair, and she had been here for several days now.

Sure, she was a gamer, so wearing the same underwear for days in a row was nothing new, but still, there were limits to these things.

Tomorrow she’d have to see if she couldn’t sneak out again and do some shopping.

She laid down and stared at the old wooden ceiling. That would be a better way to spend her time than the alternative. That message...

The Thieve’s Guild wanted to hire her to do some assassination work. They wanted Lord Abernath gone. There was a list of others as well. They promised payment in gold.

She didn’t want anything to do with that. Sure, the rebellion seemed like they had a... if not good then at least respectable cause, but this wasn’t her nation and these weren’t her people or problems. 

With great power came the great responsibility to mind her own damned business.

So no, the rebellion was going to have to handle things on their own. She only knew one of them, and Penny had left her with mixed feelings.

Rosario shifted onto her side, closed her eyes, and tried to will herself asleep.

It took a long time, but eventually she must have slipped into consciousness because she was awakened to something poking at her. It felt like someone had smacked her on the face with a wet rag.  

She jumped, senses reaching out but... there was no one there. The sun was slowly rising outside, and she could hear birds starting to chirp. 

Then she noticed the messages.

“Your Master Summons You.”

“Your Master Summons You.”

“YOUR MASTER SUMMONS YOU.”

YOUR MASTER SUMMONS YOU”

“HURRY, FAITHFUL MAID, YOUR MASTER SUMMONS YOU”

“YOUR MASTER SUMM--”

The messages were overlaid one over the other, with the oldest, most discreet one at the front. She pushed it aside and inspected the increasingly desperate messages beyond. 

Her stomach twisted. Her master needed her. 

It was like a sudden urge washed over her. Faint, maybe, but not so much that she couldn’t still feel it. Out there, somewhere, her master needed her. It was urgent. It wasn’t a joke. 

Rosario stood and almost left her attic room then and there, only logic won over. 

She knew that her master was in the Castle. She’d heard that the Castle was the prison of the Demon Lord and... well, putting one and one together to make two wasn’t hard. The Demon Lord was the former ruler of these lands and the person that she roleplayed as the protector of. If anyone had answers it may well be him.

He was also very well guarded. 

She, on the other hand, was strong. Very strong.

She wasn’t sure if even thick stone walls could stop her, if it came to it, and guards? The average guard was on par with some of the monsters she and Cricket had run into and those could barely even register her when she chose to move, let alone fight back.

She wanted to go in there and find her master. 

But that didn’t mean she was going to rush over in her underthings. 

So, Rosario prepared, and unfortunately, that only took a moment, as long as slipping on a new dress and doing it up, really. Still, if she was to meet this master of hers, she would do it as a spotless maid ought.

She just hoped that her master was worthy of the visit.

***

Garth frowned at the device he held.

It had been ripped out of the clutches of the old Demon Lord.

The Lord had been in his cell, as he ought, but when Garth started to search it, he was quick to pull out the device... and some powerful magic.

The cells had been made so as to make any sort of magic-use exceptionally difficult. It was built to contain an ancient Titled, after all, and to abuse his mind and body. Every week they’d enter and draw blood and snip some hair. The old lord’s comforts were few and far between.

So, how in the world had he accumulated any magic? And how had he made this?

The device was a bell. It was small, easily fitting in the palm of Garth’s hand. It was made of brass, and if he had to guess, it had started as a candelabra, or one of their candle holders. Had one of the guards forgotten it in the cell one day? That was possible. Probably a drunk idiot like Sir Akronim. 

The bell had small runes inscribed along its interior edge. Carved and filled with Demon’s blood. A potent reagent, that. 

He [Inspected] it. 

[Simple Servant Calling Bell]

Enchanted bell, third tier

Third tier. The Demon Lord had not entered the cell as anything more than a middling enchanter. So... had he been switching out his job for decades whenever no guard was near, all to slowly, slowly sneak in a few levels? 

That sounded like the kind of thing someone was wily as him would do.

Though... to what end? The man was old. Even the graceful aging of a Titled had its limits. Decades without seeing sun or anything larger than his cell, or of eating anything but soldier’s rations and stale bread hadn’t been kind either.

Garth stared at the bell again. All that, for this? 

Couldn’t the Demon Lord have made a weapon, or a way to escape? Why this? 

It was stupid. But stupid didn’t suit a man like the Demon Lord, or a man that had planned something across decades. 

Garth swallowed. He was already on his way to report this. And of course, it had to be now, today, when half of them were out of the Castle dealing with the local rebels. Some heads were going to roll for this.

***