As they made their way across the vast chamber, Dall glanced down at his glistening, sweaty palms. He turned his gaze back up towards the stiff figure of Avice marching in front of him. She’s nervous… he thought. Of course, she would be. The face of the woman he had just met had burned into his memory. Achaea… He frowned. That feeling… it was just like Mother’s…
Following Avice, he entered into the narrow crevice that Achaea had created. The second he did, a strange scent filled his nose, and the air around him turned stale. But seeing that nothing was happening to him, he pushed forward and walked steadily down the brightly lit hallway.
After walking for a couple of minutes, Dall decided to break the silence. “Where do you think this leads?” he probed her.
“I have no idea. And… I don’t think I’m ready to find out.”
He moved to her left and put a hand on his sword. “Just know that I’ll be here to protect you when the time comes.”
Avice smirked and said, “Still pulling out those classic one-liners, huh?” Seeing Dall cocking his head to the side with a confused look on his face, she merely shrugged and waved him off. “I appreciate the sentiment, either way, pretty boy. Thank you.”
“It’s… no problem,” Dall responded slowly. Looking over her figure once more really did reinforce the fact that she was from another world. She was strange, and it almost felt like whatever he said to her wasn’t treated as seriously as he had wanted. The way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him as equals… He had thought it before, but there were very few women on the continent that spoke with him like this. It truly was a breath of fresh air for him. Somewhere, in the deepest depths of his heart, he found it a little sad that they were parting so soon. But as soon as he recognized that feeling, the dreadful negative emotions suddenly overwhelmed him.
‘Stop treating her so kindly’, the voices in his head would whisper. ‘She killed your people. She doesn’t care. Just end her now and escape while you can.’
Dall tightened his fist and hit himself in the leg, to which Avice glanced at him awkwardly. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Everything’s fine.”
Avice pursed her lips and shrugged. Dall sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. Stop thinking like that. Those aren’t the words a Greatsword should think. He smiled wryly, thinking of his family back home. Father would be disappointed, and Ellie would chew me out. I’m sure Cyrilia wouldn’t care either way, and Veral would tell me to fight him to cool off… He sighed. I must get back home.
“But daaang though.” Avice’s voice pulled him away from his thoughts. “Look at these walls,” she said, tracing her fingers against the unbelievably smooth surface.
“They are pretty strange,” Dall commented. “You don’t find architecture this fine anywhere in the Empire.”
“’Fine’, huh?” Avice said with a pained voice. “This is everyday stuff for buildings back home. Too bad I never learned what they were and what they were made out of. Looks like I’ve got something to look forward to when I get back home, huh?” She turned to him with a broad smile.
“I guess you’re right, Avice,” he responded. “Oh… I guess we’re here.”
The two of them eventually came upon a fairly large chamber, with a small, white table sitting directly in the center. The monochrome, tiled floor stretched from wall to wall. There were three doorways that Dall assumed led to other areas of Achaea’s abode. The wooden walls curved upward to form a dome, similar to the War Council room back in Central. And dangling from the top of the ceiling hung an intricate, golden chandelier - similar to those he’d seen in the previous room. Achaea stood next to the table with a grand smile.
Once they were fully in, Avice let out a small groan. Her knees buckled, and she slammed her hand against her forehead. Dall held his arms out to catch her if she fell, and he asked if she was okay. She held out a hand to tell him that she was okay, but Dall kept his suspicions. Even her breathing was ragged. But then, as quickly as her pain came, it disappeared. He peeked at her face to see if she was in pain,
“Welcome to my dining room, dears,” she said. With a snap of her fingers, three wooden chairs materialized out of nowhere, and set themselves equidistant apart tucked inside the table. “You two must be incredibly hungry.”
Avice pressed her hand to her stomach and said, “I haven’t eaten at all since I got here. I haven’t been all that hungry, to be honest.”
“That was just the constant adrenaline pushing you, dear. Why don’t you both come on over and sit yourselves down.”
Dall warily stepped forward while Avice made her way to the table, seemingly without a care in the world. What is she doing…? Why is she not cautious? But now that he thought about it, he was pretty hungry. He made his way to the remaining chair and put his hand on it. Feeling the grooves beneath his fingers, he pulled on the chair and sat himself down. He turned to his left to see that Avice had already sat down.
“Now then… are you ready for dinner?” Achaea said with a smile.
“I sure am,” Avice said. “Let’s see what you got, Achaea.”
Dall nodded. “If you are truly who you say you are, then I’m privileged to eat food from an ancient era.”
“Lighten up, Dall,” Avice chuckled. “You don’t have’ta sound so serious.”
“I… guess…” he muttered. Dall then glared at her. What is wrong with you? Why are you so carefree?!
“Here we go.” Achaea clapped her hands, and plates of food drifted towards them from the doorways.
Dall’s eyes widened. “They’re floating,” he whispered. “Amazing.”
“Whoa, you’re using the Spirits to carry your food for you?” Avice asked. “I could only get them to listen for a couple of minutes, but you’ve just got them here waiting on you. That’s kind of cool!” Avice beamed.
“When you get to my age, these things just come naturally to you,” Achaea said.
The plates floated closer and set themselves down onto the white table. The second Dall saw the dishes before him, his stomach growled violently and his mouth watered. A massive slab of meat covered in colorful, sweet-smelling sauces sat right in front of him. More plates followed after, carrying on them loaves of piping hot bread and bowls of clear, steaming soup. Just sitting in front of this food made him even hungrier than before. He would’ve dug in straight away if it weren’t for his need to be cautious. He took one glance at Avice, and his jaw dropped as she stuffed her face with every single thing she could find in front of her.
“God damn this stuff is good!” she sang gleefully. “The smells are just so sweet!”
Dall furrowed his brow, and hesitantly looked at his plate. “What’s wrong?” Achaea asked him. “Go ahead and eat your fill, dear. No harm will come to you.”
“S-Sure,” Dall muttered. He took the silver fork at the side of his plate and stabbed the meat. The second he did, an ear-shattering shriek pierced his ears. There wasn’t even enough time to panic, as the sound came and went within a second. The hell was that?! Chills poured down his spine. He anxiously looked up at Achaea, and found that the sweet expression she once wore was now replaced with a terrifying, ice-cold glare. Dall swiftly brought his hand to his sword when Avice loudly chugged the water in her glass.
Gasping for air with a big smile, she cheerfully looked to her left and said, “Thank you so much, Achaea!”
The intense feeling in her eyes disappeared, and Achaea returned Avice’s smile. “This is the least I can do, dear.” The second Avice went back to her food, she stared down Dall.
“Y-Yeah… thanks, but… I’m not too-”
“Eat, Dall,” Achaea cut him off. “Please,” she said smiling.
“Come on, Dall. You haven’t even touched your food. Honestly, this is a thousand times better than the stuff back home.”
“I… I guess I’ll take you up on the offer then.”
Dall tightened his grasp on the fork and glared at the food. There is definitely something wrong here. He glanced at Avice, whose entire demeanor had changed the second they came into this room. Achaea did something to her. Dammit, Avice was the most cautious one, and now she’s fallen completely for whatever trap’s laid out for us. He poked the meat, carved out a slice, and nervously put it in his mouth. An electrifying shock ran through his veins, and saliva pooled in his mouth. S-She was right. Jeez this really, really is good.
He took another bite and took a swig of water.
But it’s not enough to make me trust her.
Then, he took a bite of the soft bread, and drank the soup. Even then nothing happened to him. Then a thought clicked in his head.
I see! His eyes slightly widened. Avice must be playing along to keep suspicions off. That’s… the most hopeful situation. He sighed. It’s best I take it that something’s happened to her.
“Can I get seconds?!” Avice asked.
“Of course,” Achaea responded, clapping her hands twice. More plates of food appeared from the doorways, and they all landed in front of Avice. “You will never go hungry as long as you’re here.”
Dall couldn’t help but feel disturbed by her words. But he couldn’t do anything about it. At the moment, he was powerless.
Seemingly hours went by, and Avice kept stuffing her mouth until she was finally satiated. Dall, who had stopped eating after a while, watched with a wry smile and a warm heart. Achaea, on the other hand, never took her eyes off of Dall, which didn’t fail to alleviate his wariness of her.
Avice, sensing the tense atmosphere, cleaned up the remaining food off her plate and took one last sip from her chalice. Patting her stomach with a satisfied look on her face, she turned her eyes to Achaea and said, “Um, Achaea. If it’s alright with you, can I-”
“Hold on now, Dear,” Achaea spoke softly. That same sweet scent from before tickled Dall’s nose, but this time the dose seemed much more powerful - so powerful he gagged and nearly threw up on the clean table. Squinting his eyes, he glanced at Avice and her eyes seemed woozy and blank. “It’s quite late. You spent this entire day suffering from so much. From that monstrous creature, to fleeing from capture, to climbing this dreadful tower… You need a rest, dear. A very much, well-deserved rest.”
“D-Do I…?” Avice whimpered.
Dall gazed at her and held his breath.
“You do.” Achaea stood, moved behind Avice, and wrapped her arms around her. “We all do at times.” She smiled. “Come now. It’s near midnight, now. Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll go down to the room you’ll be sleeping in.”
“Yeaah,” Avice responded lazily.
Seeing her in such an entranced state, Dall stood up, his hand on his sword. “What have you done to her, Achaea?” he asked, vitriol dripping in his voice. Avice glanced up at him sleepily and smiled, wondering what he was doing.
“I have done nothing, Dall,” Achaea said. “Why don’t you put down that weapon and wait here for me while I put my dear, sweet Princess to sleep? That way I can deal with you personally.” The second those words left her voice, Dall shivered. A cold, sharp pang stabbed at his heart. The look on Achaea’s face terrified him to the core. Even after facing certain death countless times, he felt like a child under the gaze of this woman. “You know nothing, Human,” Achaea hissed. “Be a good boy and sit still.”
“Achaeaaa. Why’re you being mean to Dall?” Avice asked playfully, just like a young girl would.
“I’m not Dear,” Achaea said. “He’s just not following the rules.”
“You better not harm her,” Dall managed to leak out.
“Oh no. I have something else special for her,” Achaea responded. “You have my word on that. So you just sit here and be patient. Understood?”
Dall’s heart pounded in his ears. He tightened his grasp on the hilt and nodded. Avice lazily stood up, pushed her chair in, and spun around, doing all this with a broad smile on her face. She playfully sung to herself, “Nap time, nap time,” and waved at Dall. He returned her wave, and Achaea led her down the hallway in front of him.
Now he stood there, alone.
A terrible chill crept up his spine and he rubbed his hands together. He glanced around the spacious room, narrowing his eyes at empty spaces in the air. It feels like something’s watching me, he thought. He put a hand on his hilt and took the time to investigate the room.
“That smell from earlier,” he muttered, his voice echoing throughout the chamber. “That’s the thing that’s messing with Avice’s head.”
Dall approached the table and picked up one of Avice’s forks.
“This, too. The room’s filled with the stuff.” He glanced at the other two pure white hallways. “Smells like they’re coming from there too…” Taking a moment of respite, he took one large breath, and decided to investigate what else Achaea’s home had to offer.
After spending a couple of minutes walking down the hallway closest to him, he came upon a new room. Unlike the one he had previously dined in, this one appeared to be much smaller. His boots clicked against the shiny surface below him, and a burning smell brushed against his nose. Those things Avice had picked up before, the ones she claimed were similar to objects from her world, sprawled about all around him. They hung from the broken, splintered ceiling, coiled around thin pillars, and tangled around his legs wherever he stepped.
“What is this place?”
His eyes rested upon a single, stone pedestal rising from the floor in the middle of the room. A glass, cylindrical cover rested on top of it. He couldn’t make anything out from it, thanks to how white the cover was. He curiously took a step closer to it when a voice yelled,
“Who goes there!?”
Dall nearly fell off his feet. “W-Wha!?”
“You. You’re not Achaea. Identify yourself!” The voice of a young woman screamed.
He looked around the room frantically, trying to find out where it came from. Dall anxiously took a step forward when a powerful wave of energy slammed against his body. “What’s happening?” He asked in disbelief.
“Don’t you dare take another step without telling me who you are. Honestly, have Aldrian brains really de-evolved that much through the years? What happened to common courtesy!” The voice sounded very much like the noblewomen he was familiar with back home. And that voice irritated him. But before he could speak out, the voice said, “Oh, I know! The time has come, hasn’t it? All those Despairity things have been vanquished and we can finally return to the surface! Right?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dall muttered. However, he knew that he wasn’t going to get any answers at this rate. He took a couple of deep breaths and calmed himself down. “My name is Dall Greatsword.”
“Huh? ‘Dall’?” the voice asked. “That’s strange… You’re not one of the Extension experiments are you?”
“I’m a human being,” he responded.
“A ‘human’? Oh geez, now look at me,” the voice sighed. “Well, I’ll uphold the etiquette. My name’s Crisia. Excellent to meet you, Sir Dall.”
“Umm,” Dall raised his voice anxiously. “Nice to meet… you, too… I guess- Miss Crisia, this may sound presumptuous of me, but I have to ask. Where are you?”
“Me? I’m in here.”
“Sorry. Where exactly is ‘here’?”
“In here, idiot,” Crisia growled, another wave of powerful energy blasting him backward.
His eyes once again fell upon the glass cover. No way… he muttered in his head. He carefully approached it, making sure to keep his legs high to not troop over the wires, and now stood before it. Having been exposed to this sensation before from the war, he could tell that something magical sat inside of it - no, something more than magical. Something akin to an artifact. Something just like one of the Instruments. Dall gently placed his hands on the glass, and an electric shock ran through his fingers. Amazing, he thought, a smile appearing on his face. Is this what it feels like to use actual magic?
Getting a good grasp on the cylinder, he lifted it slowly, and a white mist emerged with a piercing hiss.
Once the lid fully came off, Dall glanced down at what sat on the gray table, and he raised an eyebrow.
“A… piece of cloth?”
“Excuse me, this piece of cloth is a product of the brightest minds in all of Alder! Number six in the Support Series! Crisia the Shroud!” the woman’s voice cheered excitedly, her voice echoing.
“Interesting,” Dall said, putting a finger to his chin. “A sentient piece of clothing. I’m familiar with magically imbued weapons and armor, but something with its own will and thought?” A strange giddiness rose in his heart. “This is interesting. I wonder if-”
“Don’t touch me!” she yelled at him, right as he reached out to grab her.”You may have piqued my interest for a moment due to the fact that you are neither Ruby-Eyed nor an Aldrian, but I won’t allow another step further. Something of my visage can only be worn by a truly high-ranking Aldrian. At least one of the Generals or higher!”
“G-Got it, just lower your voice,” Dall said, putting a finger over his lips.
“And why should I? What danger poses a threat to you?”
“It’s Achaea. That woman is taking advantage of a friend of mine. I fear something terrible will fall upon her if I don’t do something to stop her.”
“Achaea? A threat? You’re not lying to me, are you? She’s the only Aldrian here left after all the others died.”
Dall narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean ‘died’?”
“Exactly what I mean. I’ve been sealed here for who knows how long, and the last thing I can truly remember is Achaea telling me that she was the only one left.”
“And that fact doesn’t seem suspicious to you? Not at all?”
“What reasons must I have to doubt the fifth General in the army?”
Dall held his head in his hands. Ughh. This is a lot of information to process… he thought. Suddenly finding a powerful ancient artifact in our backyard is… Not to mention the fact that it chewed me out for not being polite enough… He shook his head and said, “Listen, all I’m telling you is that my friend and I are trapped in here with no way of getting out. Achaea is planning to either kill us or do something much worse. It’s good to know that something like you is here.”
“H-Hmph. I am more powerful than the other Supports after all,” Crisia mumbled.
“Okay, I’m heading back now. I’m sure that if Achaea finds me here, I’m dead on the spot.”
Crisia remained quiet for a moment as Dal stared at the brown cloth on the pedestal. “Tell me, Sir Dall. Has the emergency protocol been deactivated?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m doubting myself,” Crisia said matter-of-factly. “I was created here after the Tower had been forced underground, under the name ‘emergency protocol’. I find it hard that someone less than an Aldrian or Ruby-Eye can make it so far beneath the earth, especially for someone like you who lacks magical compatibility.” She paused. “So are we risen? Is it safe out in the world, now?”
Dall paused for a moment, taking in what he had just heard. The voice of someone who has lived for at least a millennium shook his core. The very fact that this being doesn’t know what the world looks like resounded inside of him. “It is safe,” he said. “And thanks to Achaea, I might never see it again.”
“You truly are alleviating Achaea’s hostility,” Crisia chuckled. “Should the need arise, come to me. I will aid you and your friend should you require my assistance.”
Dall smiled. “Thanks, Crisia,” he said, leaving her behind and returning to the dining room.
When he got there, a chill ran down his spine, and he came face to face with Achaea. “And where have you been?” she asked coldly.
“Exploring,” Dall said. “I didn’t mean to offend. I apologize,” he said, bowing his head deeply.
Achaea glared at him for a minute before eventually waving her hand. “It doesn’t matter. Come with me. I’ll show you to your room.”
“My room?” he asked.
“Indeed. I refuse to deprive you of proper hospitality,” she said with a grin. “After all…” She approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You have no chance of stopping me. Now come. Let’s not waste time.”
Dall couldn’t tell how many turns he had made to make it to his room. Every time they had rounded a corner, Dall attempted to make mental notes on any significant landmark, but he found nothing. The walls, the floor, the ceiling… everything blended and meshed together, completely robbing him of any sense of direction.
So he couldn’t help but feel anxious when he finally set foot into the room. “Now then, it’s time. Have a good night, Dall.”
“Yeah…” Dall said listlessly. He had never felt this amount of fear in his life. His arms trembled, and his heart sank into his stomach. The second Achaea left and shut the door, he collapsed and fell to his knees. “H-How… How powerful is this woman…?”
The walls appeared to be made out of something completely different from the ones before. Uneven, splintered wood made up the walls and floor. A bed sat in the corner of the room, a lantern hanging just to its side. A familiar scent tickled his nose, which made him shudder in fear even more. Achaea had completely remade Dall’s room. To every last detail. Dall forced himself up and glanced up. A black mark was scorched directly above him. “I made a mistake,” he muttered. “Again…”
“A mistake,” that same, malicious voice rang in his ears again. “That’s right. This is what happens when you try to assist the girl that brought ruin to your friends.”
“Stop,” Dall growled. “This was my decision. I’m seeing it to the end.”
“That’s what you keep saying. Keep doing this, and you’ll lose your life, just like your m-”
Dall bit his lip and shut his eyes.
I can’t think like that, he thought. I can’t. His eyes wandered over to his bed. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, this sense of familiarity was pulling through for him. If, for at least one second, he could relax, he felt he could be ready for the fight to come. I need to rest. I’ll feel better in the morning…
And so Dall collapsed into the bed, shut his eyes, and fell asleep. The weight crushing down on his heart lifted, and he spent a good night’s rest.
The very next thing that greeted him, however, was the sound of Avice screaming.
