I can’t say I went to the platform at Labyrinth Square brimming with much enthusiasm. My head was killing me, and I felt like I’d just been run over by a train. The weight bracelets on my wrists and ankles seemed so heavy today. Even though they only raised my felt weight by ten percent, I would love to take them off and feel lighter. It would have been so fucking great, except Deckard would have noticed right away. Speaking of the devil, I sure was in for a lecture once he finds out what I did with my skills.

Not how I pictured today.

You’ll reap what you sow, won’t you?

Well, ready or not, I was bound to face the consequences of last night. So I pushed my way through the smear of the seekers, who seemed to have forgotten yesterday’s success of mine, reaching the platform and getting within sight of Deckard not long after. He stood there casually with his hands in his pockets, all too aware of my presence. 

The amusement in his eyes at the sight of me was plain to see.

“Hi!”

He responded with a raised eyebrow at the grumbled greeting I gave him. “No ‘good morning’? Last time, you were annoyed that I didn’t give you one.”

“It would have to be one.”

“Not off to a good start, huh?”

Giving him a long, intent stare was a mistake. My brain throbbed with pain. “You know that damn well!” My comeback was a little snider than I meant it to be.

“True, I know that crestfallen look and can see the pain behind your eyes. You don’t have to tell me to know you’d rather be anywhere else than here,” Deckard said, enjoying my suffering too much. “The droopy ears, the lax wings, and the tail trailing lazily behind you are typical of terrans suffering from a hangover. Also, a sign that you had fun last night.”

“What happened, anyway?”

“Do you want me to tell you here or...?”

I looked around at the Seeker vanishing into the depths of the Fallens Cry, waiting for their teammates or returning from it with their loot. None of them showed any noticeable interest in us, but I knew better. They didn’t have to stare at us with their ears open. All it took was one skill, and they could hear and perceive everything Deckard and I were talking about.

Did I want them all to hear about my nightly misadventures? Definitely not!

“Let’s go!” I said, to which Deckard gave me ‘I thought so’ look and an amused nod. A few moments later, we were engulfed in white light and disappeared from the platform in the center of Labyrinth Square.

One seemingly not very important thing about the transfer into the depths of the Labyrinth slipped my mind. Every time I teleported across the platforms to the first floor, Traiana’s cries echoed through my head. Normally not much worth mentioning as the soft wail faded away within a few breaths.

Now the cry hammered my head with such force it made my knees buckle. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Traiana was wailing right in my ear. Without any hesitation, I deployed [Indomitable Will] to stop this vicious mind assault only to find it, to my dismay, utterly useless. As always, the skill did not classify this cry as an attack. And believe me, I’ve tried blocking it before.

While struggling to work out how to defend myself, I thought of Blaine. Perhaps it was just like the pain that he claimed my skill, with training, should be able to block, but it was too late for me to learn that now that I was suffering.

With my mind clouded by the cry, I lifted my teary eyes from the ground to look at Deckard for help, only to stop and gape in disbelief ahead. There in the grass hung a misty haze shining white like the runes of the Labyrinth. Pain forgotten, I stared at the ghostly apparition of Traiana.

Shaped by this strange mist, she was in the same pose as her statue on the platform up in the square depicted her. That of a woman brought to her knees in battle. Just as I remembered her, she wore armor damaged by a fight and was pierced by several arrows. One broken protruded from her chest, the other three from her back. Tears streaming down her cheek and the blood gushing from her wounds that ran down her armor glowed more intensely than the rest of this apparition.

If I found any difference between Traiana up there and the one I was looking at, it was that this one seemed more alive. I could have sworn I saw her breath, blink, and even glance at me out of the corner of her eye before she vanished like an autumn mist with the morning sun. With the apparition gone, her cries echoing in my mind died away too.

“Sorry, girl,” Deckard’s voice reached my ears. “I should have warned you.”

Raising my head, I looked at him blankly. “You knew this would happen?”

“Sort of. It hasn’t happened to me in a long time, so...I kind of forgot.”

“I-it happens...more often?” The idea of this sudden and quite overwhelming welcome to the Labyrinth didn’t sit well with me.

“That depends on how often you get hammered.”

Wait, what?! “Did I hear her cry so fucking loud because I have a hangover?” I preferred to keep my mouth shut about seeing her ghost, as I had no fucking idea what I just saw, what this ghostly Traiana actually was. It very well could have been a figment of my imagination, which would make me nutcase or something in my blend of the beasts coursing through my veins that would have made me even more of a freak than I already was.

“Exactly, and don’t be surprised. When you drink, your scruples go down. You’re basically opening your mind.”

“And the hangover...ah, my mind is still ‘open’. Fuck!” As my eyes were sensitive to light, my ears to noise, so was my mind more receptive to external...shit, like mind attacks or to whatever the labyrinth did to me. 

“Yeah, let me tell you, it was damn idiotic to get drunk during the Mind Wars,” remarked Deckard offering me his hand to lift. “Quite an experience, huh? Because of this, you won’t find many seekers going into the Labyrinth with a hangover. The lives saved are worth the little bit of suffering, don’t you think?”

I took his hand and, with his help, got back to my feet, knowing what he was getting at. “Don’t worry. I’ll never get drunk like this again.”

His loud laugh made me wince as my head throbbed with it. “How many times have I heard that? I swore it myself and not just once.”

Biting my lip to get over the pounding headache, I had to resist the temptation to argue with him, to correct him that it wasn’t just empty words. I just knew better. After all, I couldn’t say what else would come my way in life. I might as well not touch alcohol before I end up cold and stiff, as I might get wasted tonight again.

“You know, it’s not just the cry. Some even claim to have seen Traiana herself,” Deckard said as he made his way between the sprawling hills and meadows of the first floor. I don’t know if it was the twitch of my ears, my bated breath, or something else, but he knew at once that I was one of them.

“Listen, girl. Don’t overthink what you saw. It’s nothing but a trick of the labyrinth.”

Was it? She seemed so alive.

As we wandered the first floor in an attempt to find a suitable place for me to practice, I told him about my experience with the imprints in the stone blocks scattered around the labyrinth floor.

“Same shit like what you saw. As a soldier, I’ve escorted Imperial explorers into labyrinths more than a few times. Up to the 100th floor, and no matter what they touched, no matter how drunk they got, they never found or discovered anything new.”

Yeah, I know. I wasn’t the chosen one. Just, it was all new and strange to me...confusing. Was I different from the others, more than I thought? Or was it common, as Deckard was now telling me? These were the questions that always ran through my mind when I encountered something like the ghostly apparition of Traiana.

According to my shitty mentor, it was nothing, nothing out of the ordinary, and I should have just let it go. Unable to do that, I silently followed him through the tall grass, lost in thoughts. No wonder I almost hit him when he stopped in his tracks.

“Traiana’s tits! Again?”

Deckard’s swearing took me by surprise. At first, I thought I’d done something wrong, that I’d told him about my skills without realizing it until I noticed his expression. He stared into space.

“What happened?” I raised my question, straining my senses only to see nothing out of the ordinary. Just hills, meadows, grass, and horned rabbits that avoided us. His perception was vastly superior, though. So I kept my guard up.

He didn’t answer me right away, not until the focus returned to his eyes. “There are beasts and monsters at the north wall.”

What wall? There was none around here. “You mean Castiana?”

“Yeah, the city. A wave of the buggers came from the north.”

“Wait, I thought the beasts and monsters wouldn’t go near the labyrinths. And you’re saying it’s already happened once?”

“That used to be the case until six years ago. First, it was one attack, then came two within a year. Now it’s two to three a month.”

Damn, so not just once. “Shouldn’t we go back, then?”

“Do what? Defending the city? That’s what the Castiana City Guards are for, so hold your horses. San was just keeping me in the loop.”

Oh, Captain Rayden. I was going to ask earlier how she communicated with Deckard when he was down here in Fallen Cry.

“How do you talk to her?”

He grinned at me. “Trade secret.”

“Magic tool?”

“It’s not a big wave, so you don’t have to worry, and you can focus on why we’re here,” he said, completely ignoring my question. Realizing I wouldn’t get more out of him, I looked above me, shielding my eyes from the artificial light. “Are you sure they don’t need us there?”

“As if someone with a hangover is of any use to them. Look, San called off the master guards from the Labyrinth just in case. But for now, she had no reason even to raise the alarm. If anything goes wrong, she’ll let me know immediately. So put it out of your mind.”

Easier said than done.

However, as we moved on and I spotted our destination in the distance, my worried mind quickly shifted its focus to my skills.

“Here will do,” Deckard said as we reached the flat top of one of the hills.

Wracked by jitters and with a lump in my throat, I knew it was the time. Time to tell him about my skills.

“Deckard,” I said and paused. “About yesterday...”

“You had a hell of a night, didn’t you?”

“Well...”

“If you feel awkward about it, don’t. I say you did a great job of celebrating your level 100, your class evolution. Instead of the shame you ooze, you should feel pride.”

If only he’d let me finish. “I messed up my skills yesterday,” I said quickly in one breath, waiting for his reaction.

He frowned, puzzled for a second, then realization crossed his face. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Well,” he said, searching for the right words when I nodded. “You came to me looking for advice on your skills. I gave you some, but you didn’t think it was enough. So you told Blaine to join and give you his opinion. Then you brought in your squadmates. Interesting bunch, aren’t they? I think they’ll be perfect for you.”

I couldn’t agree more about Squad Four. We had a lot to give each other. It startled me I told so many people about my skills, though.

“T-that was it, wasn’t it? I didn’t tell anyone else about my skills, did I?”

Deckard laughed heartily. “Just the whole tavern.”

“Shit!” My whole body went cold.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, girl. Not everyone was curious, and the ones that were had a lot of fun. You rarely get a chance to mess with other people’s skills.”

I was in favor of being more open about skills. It was just another thing to let everyone know about them. 

“I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Why? You told them in general what skills you wanted to replace, and the guys and gals of the Guards started arguing what General Skills would be best for you in that regard. You should have seen the look on San’s face. I only saw her so surprised when I told her about you. She had no idea her guys and gals had it in them.”

Great, Rayden was there, too. I wouldn’t be too shocked if Lord Wigram showed up, and Sah was off in a corner somewhere making notes.

“Well, I guess you can imagine how that kind of discussion might have ended up.”

How? Wait! “Don’t tell me there was a brawl because of me?”

“Nobody blames you, and besides, they’re used to it at Drunken Filly. There’s not a night there without a good brawl.”

“What about the damage?” Was that the reason for the coin loss in my hoard?

“Paid for by those who caused it. It wasn’t that much, though. The tables and chairs there are of high quality, made to last. However, the truth is that woodwork is one of the more lucrative crafts in Castiana.”

No shit. If tavern brawls were a common thing, the carpenters had no shortage of work.

“I guess tailors...seamstresses are in the same boat?”

“Blacksmiths, alchemists, rune masters, tool makers, cooks. Basically, every craft finds a use up there,” he said, pointing up to where somewhere above us, beyond the false sky of the Labyrinth, was the whole Castiana. “Such are the Labyrinth Cities. It is not just the seekers who profit from the depths beneath the city.”

Although I hadn’t given it much thought before, now I saw it wasn’t just the city center that was thriving on the presence of Fallens Cry. Questionable was the condition of the Broken Mug then. The Inn should be in much better shape.

But back to my skills. “So, [Striving Mule], [Dancer’s Stride], and [None to Squander] are skills...”

“The best and most suitable skills you’ve had access to.”

“But there are better skills, right?”

He laughed. “Of course there are. There are always better skills.”

“How do I get them?”

“Here we go again,” Deckard sighed, as he had most likely said this to me last night. I felt for him, but my brain just refused to remember. “It’s not something I want you to focus on. Put your head into training. The rest will come in time. Example! You start learning to use a sword, and one of the first skills you get is [Sword Handling]. Pretty common skill, not one you want to keep, but not taking it would be a mistake. It will help you with training, and as you get better, you will gain access to [Swordplay] and more. 

“At that point, it’s a good idea to switch skills. You’ll lose levels, but it will still help you in the long run. [Sword Mastery]; [Sword Art] are some of the best General Skills I know of for a sword wielder. But forget about reaching them in a few weeks. It’s not the levels that matter. It’s your ability, proficiency, and mastery that make the difference.”

There was a lot to take in, and it brought up a shit ton of questions, too. Was [Tail of Poison Empress] the same case? Just a basic skill, nothing special. Yet if I mastered it, I might have gained access to a better one. Then what about [Master’s Shield], or [Indomitable Will]?

“The same goes for Class Skills, Deckard?” 

I sort of expected his headshake. In all the years I’ve been a slave, I haven’t gained access to a single new skill. True, I made no effort. Still...

“That’s what class evolutions are for. As you get better, you get to achieve greater things. The new classes reflected that and so do the skills. A sword fighter becomes a swordmaster and so on.”

“Doesn’t that make Class Skills weak then? Should I replace [Indomitable Will] and [Master’s Shield] as well?”

Deckard let out an amused sigh. “How come you’re asking the same questions you asked last night. Not necessarily. Even weak skills have their merits. It’s easier to level them up. Easier, not easy! It’s not unusual to have such skills at a much higher level than yourself. I have three of them myself, and your [Indomitable Will] is a shining example.”

“Oh...” Not a bright response, I know, but that’s all I could manage.

“Ultimately, it’s about what you expect from your skills, how well you learn to use them. You wanted to keep these two, and I fully agree with you. Mental defense is a must, and shield skills can be extremely versatile. When the time comes, you can replace them with a more appropriate General Skill or not. Either way, you have to learn to use them properly. All your skills, starting now.” he said, motioning to the familiar training track he put up during his lecture. Yeah, I got a lecture from him. Only it wasn’t the one I quite expected to get.

Was he serious, though? “You mean now? Like right now?”

“Yes. Off you go!”

“But I have so many questions?”

“It can wait. Go!”

“I was hoping you would help me with [Ride of Ancestors].”

“You want to try it in your current state?”

Oh, my hangover. Yeah, not the finest idea, when my mental defenses weren’t at their best. It was enough how badly the Labyrinth messed with me.

“Then, didn’t you want to teach me your fighting style?” I was really looking forward to that.

“That was before your class evolved, before you switched your skills. Given how far you went in shuffling them last night, teaching you how to fight now is not worth the effort. You’re used to some strength, dexterity, speed, and so on. You’re basically used to a different body. Just like you need to grow into your body, I need to see what you are now capable of and where your limits are. So get your ass over there! Now!”

I gulped, feeling his presence for the first time, and it was damn domineering. It made me shut up even though I had other questions. Without realizing it, I tucked my tail between my legs, wings pressed close to my body and dropped my ears.

Deckard made it clear. Trying to question further would be like shooting myself in my own foot. The track it was, then. 

And it was hell.

Running while my head was being tormented by a hangover was simply anguish. Add the hurdle jumps, and the track turned into first-class torture.

It quickly got the questions about last night, about what happened after the skill session turned brawl, out of my head. Instead, I focused on just surviving this nightmare and on Blaine’s advice regarding [Indomitable Will].

Seriously, I wish I had been able to block the pain with it right now.

Only I had no idea where to even start. 

Up until now, I have used the skill solely to defend myself against outside attacks, against Dungreen’s orders that strived to force me to do as he wished, against the attacks of mind mages who sought to destroy my mind. It was always something foreign that tried to take hold of my mind, something I could distinguish, recognize and grasp. 

Whether caused by someone else, the pain was coming from my body. It was just another piece of information for my brain to process, not an attack. So, how do I get my mind to recognize it that way?

It was a question I’ve been trying to figure out for a good part of the morning. Only with a receding headache did I realize I was using [Indomitable Will] as something other than a defense against external attacks. How many times have I put my mind at ease with that skill? How many times have I prevented my mind from shattering from within? Hell! I was using [Indomitable Will] to counter the effects of my own skill. [Master’s Toy] was a nasty skill, of which, and his efforts to make me admire my master, I would most gladly erase from my brain. Now, these jarring memories could prove to be a hint to master my pain tolerance. What a cruel irony. 

Like everything, it turned out not to be so easy. 

Just remembering my efforts to defend myself against my own feelings, influenced by my own skill was challenging. To put it into practice then, while I was trying to train under Deckard’s guidance, seemed almost impossible.

By the time lunchtime rolled around, I hadn’t made any progress, none whatsoever. If anything, I just made it harder for myself to train while my headache slowly faded on its own.

At least [Behemoth] and [None to Squander] weren’t so hard to use and let me make the most of the food Deckard rewarded me with.