Somehow, we got out without incident. The carriage was waiting for us and took us back to the manor in one piece. I gave up the charade as soon as we were out of sight and instead focused on getting trying to settle my head. I was starting to get dizzy, and between that and the motion of the carriage it was difficult for me to keep any of the snacks from the party down. I managed, though. Somehow.

  Once we were inside the Rosecrest manor, both of us relaxed a little. I went to go have a seat in my favorite lounge while Deacon grabbed Grimoire. One of the maids went and grabbed juice and water after a subtle sniff likely caught the whiff of alcohol on me. I had several glasses of water before Grimoire and Deacon arrived.

  “So, I take it the evening was a success?” Grimoire said, standing by the couch that Dean took a seat in. “You’ve made it back in one piece, at least.”

  I let out a long breath and looked at Deacon. Grimoire, instead, pulled out a small square box from his pocket and pressed a button. Suddenly, a wave of pressure swept past me and seemed to engulf the entire room. That had apparently been enough to make me lose the contents of my stomach.

  I’d brought a small trash bin next to my seat for just that reason.

  “Hm, maybe one piece was a bit of an exaggeration. You’re alive, and not in jail though.” He offered a cloth and I used it to wipe my mouth before taking a long drink of water. “So, why do you feel the need to secrecy?”

  “She stole taxes from the crystal. A lot of them.” Deacon replied, giving me time to recover. Grimoire blinked in surprise. “And may have slapped the Duke’s son hard enough to give a concussion.”

  “Explain. Now.” Grimoire said, staring at me with a look that said I best tell the truth and he better like the answers.

  “First, I want to get Deacon on the same page.” I said, deflecting, “What do you know about moderators?”

  He closed his eyes and swore silently. “Enough to know that one showing up means a lot of powerful people are going to be very eager to see them gone. Violently.”

  Grimoire glared at me, “Yes, it will be quite the problem.”

  “Well, I was given a rather large manual to read through about rules and responsibilities. Apparently, this country just seems to be going down the list of them.” I held up my hand and started ticking fingers down as I spoke, “Restraining people outside of enforcement of the law. Discrimination or unfair treatment based on class or statistics. Using system functions outside the scope of their mandate… which I had to look up what mandate meant.”

  I wasn’t done though, “Let’s not forget the big ones: slavery, sexual exploitation of a minor, and attempted destruction of Veldern were all flagged when I accessed the alerts. I don’t even know how you’d destroy the city, let alone attempt to destroy the world.”

  Grimoire was as still as a statue as he took it in. Deacon had gone wide eyed and pale faced as I’d gone on. I rubbed my hands over my face trying to scrub out the images bringing them up fed to my newly enhanced mind. Imagination was apparently of one of the increased stats. Probably Insight.

  “The only thing that was listed just under destruction of Veldern in terms of punishment was the creation of a plague, and I do-” Grimoire had moved to put a hand over my mouth.

  “Do not even think of it. The last person who tried was in this kingdom and the whole country was razed to the ground.” He looked, frightened. Which of course meant I was terrified at the very thought.

  Deacon cleared his throat, “So, world ending talk aside, what does her being a moderator mean for us?”

  Grimoire stood up and paced the room, which had me concerned. He started speaking though. “Initially? Nothing. If she was discovered at the party then nothing we do will change the outcome.”

  “So, I just sit here and wait?” I asked, my expression sour and my tone matching.

  “No.” Grimoire said with conviction. “Instead, we’ll have to get you better training. Most moderators are caught within their first year and mostly by accident.”

  “Wait, so this has happened before?” I was stunned. “Do people just get turned into moderators or something?”

  “Yes. And it’s relatively common.” Grimoire sighed, “It seems to be something that just happens, though not with any kind of thought put into the choices.”

  “Wait, so it’s random?” Deacon asked, “And how do you know all of this?”

  “Previous occupation.” Grimoire said, dismissively. “And yes, it seems to be. Usually they just receive instructions to access their manual and then go do something stupid.” His gaze turned to me, “Like put a ludicrously high penalty on a person.”

  I didn’t shrink from his accusatory stare. “Would it have been better if I’d just killed him then?”

  Grimoire tilted his head slightly as he considered it. “Probably, to be blunt. Chatterdeem was barely a noble and any backlash would have fallen on your father and not you. You wouldn’t have even been looked at as a suspect.”

  I flopped backward into the couch I was sitting in. “Great. I’m starting to think that should just be my default problem solving solution.”

  “It tends to make clean up easier.” Grimoire noted.

  “And fewer issues later.” Deacon, of all people, added.

  “And only just makes me feel like shit instead of possibly putting me in danger.” I finished.

  “Not necessarily.” Grimoire took a seat on one of the comfortable chairs and let out a breath, “Lady Danielle. Or if you’d prefer Lady Dani, since you wince every time someone called you Danielle.”

  I shrank into myself as I felt my cheeks heat up.

  “Very well, Lady Dani, then.” He said, like he wasn’t reading me like a well worn book. “As many problems as killing will solve, it is good that your first instinct wasn’t to do so. You do not remember, but it was one of the things your mother and father tried to teach you for years.” A faint smile crossed his pale blue face, “Back when you wanted to be a warrior like your father.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  This was one of the first times someone had mentioned the Danielle from farther back in life. “What happened?”

  Grimoire sighed, “Your mother died in the Flower Fields, some kind of accident, we aren’t sure. You withdrew into yourself then when Calmar started to become more involved you started acting out and forcing yourself to go out. Bad friends led to bad decisions, and so on and so forth.”

  My brow furrowed, “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “Yes, well I can only tell you from my side of things.” He stood back up, “And we got off topic. Deacon, are your preparations to go out hunting almost complete?”

  The bard nodded, “Just waiting on a spot to open. Group has been decided, there’s just a wait list for the closest monster lairs.”

  “And further out?” Grimoire asked.

  Deacon took a moment, eyes looking up as he thought about it. “There’s two about a days walk away and counter and another clock, but that one is fliers.”

  “Accept one of the ones a day out. Getting Lady Dani out of town for the day will be a good idea, especially if she did slap the duke’s son.” Grimoire turned to look at me, gaze expecting an answer to his unasked question of why.

  “It was his idea. He make an ass of himself and I slap him and storm off. I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me though.” I cringed and felt nauseous at the memory and grabbed the waste basket. “I hadn’t meant to put that much force into it, though.”

  Deacon rolled his eyes at my actions, “He did seem a little more friendly than I was expecting at your warning.”

  “He mentioned a book we talked through.” I winced as the thought brought a massive wave of needling prickles through my head. Details I didn’t need kept popping up. The way his hair was parted. The wooden panels of the room that still smelled of varnish. Caked on make up. The color of-

  “Wait… Deacon.” I said, pulling myself out of the memories. “Did he seem to have a lot of make up on?”

  “Hm? Oh, I imagine it was covering the bruise. Nobody was really talking about it though.” Deacon looked over to Grimoire, “Should I have said something?”

  Grimoire was instead looking at me with intense scrutiny. “Lady Dani… how are your mental stats?”

  I took a quick look, “Uh, 46, 41, 39, and 18.” He looked confused, “Oh, uh, Intelligence, Insight, Charisma, and Perception.”

  “Hold up.” Deacon was starting to sit up, “Wh-”

  Grimoire cut him off and stepped up next to me and put a hand against my forehead. He must have felt something concerning through the gloves because he snapped his attention to Deacon, “Get ice and water. Now!”

  I didn’t know why he had to be so loud. After all, I felt fine. “Grimoire, I’m fine.”

  He pushed me so I was laying down on the couch. “You’ve been flushed since we sat down. I thought it was just embarrassment or drink. Lay still and…” He looked around searching for inspiration.

  The world seemed to get brighter as it clicked, “Oh, you’re trying to get me to stop thinking…” The world got brighter again as I realized what the problem might be. If I was flushed, it was because I was hot. If machines ran hot, they could break the small components inside by melting them or making them easier to warp.

  What the… My mind started to flood with thoughts of metals with high melting points and high conductivity. That went into what the metals could be used for, like wires. Wires mean computers, and computers meant-

  I was knocked out of my thought spiral by something very cold hitting me in the face. I shouted in surprise more than pain and looked around. Grimoire was holding a small metal bucket. Deacon was beside him, holding a pitcher and glass.

  And I was on the floor, now surrounded by ice that was quickly melting. The couch that I’d been sitting on was askew, and the waste basket and table were both knocked over. Several cushions had also fallen from the couch.

  Then I started to feel the pain in my limbs. My arms and legs were both sore, and my body felt like someone had knocked me around a few times. I laid my head back on the floor and groaned, “Ow.”

  The two men looked between each other. Deacon spoke up, “Did you understand what she was talking about?”

  Grimoire shook his head, “It wasn’t a language I had heard before.”

  My head tried to latch onto that idea, but I thunked my head hard enough against the ground to rattle something. “Talk later, fix now.”

  Deacon jumped, but Grimoire just looked resigned. “I can spend the time making tea, or I could expedite matters. Your choice.”

  I tried to figure out what he meant and a high pitched sound started piercing my skull. It didn’t take a genius to know what was going to happen. “Hit m-”

  The world went dark before I finished.

  Grimoire knelt beside the girl, fingers to her neck as he checked for a pulse. When he was satisfied, he picked her up in his arms and looked at the bard. They left the room and the butler didn’t speak until after depositing his charge into her room and closing the door behind him. “It’s just Mage’s Mania. It’ll pass.”

  Deacon had left the water pitcher and glass in the room with Danielle. “I know she gained a lot of levels, but it shouldn’t have been that bad.”

  The butler sighed and led Deacon back to the Flare Flower Lounge. “Yes, but what are the thresholds to worry about?”

  To his credit, Deacon didn’t respond right away, “First is usually around the forty to fifty mark. Second is around sixty to eighty. Third is eighty to a hundred. After that, risk is negligible.”

  “And the symptoms?” Grimoire asked as he began to clean up.

  Deacon started to help with the furniture, “Minor bouts are just… elevated mood and often a feeling of being high. Major…” He went wide eyed and closed his eyes, “Nausea and intense bouts of clarity. If it gets too bad, fever and seizures.”

  “She went from a Mental Score of 70 to, at minimum, 130. At once.” The butler stood and turned to look at Deacon, “So, which of you do I blame for almost killing her?”

  Deacon flinched at the words. He couldn’t meet the butler’s gaze, instead lowering his head to stare at the ground. “She asked my opinion. I told her not to push herself and give the changes time to take.”

  “You told the girl who has been pushing herself for weeks, since a life changing event, to go easy on the levels?” Grimoire asked with the patience of a drill instructor waiting for a recruit to say the wrong thing.

  The bard sensed the danger, but couldn’t think of a way out of it. He gulped before speaking, managing to raise his head enough to meet the butler’s eyes. “Y-yes.”

  Grimoire took a deep breath to center himself, closing his eyes to give himself time. “Deacon, you came highly recommended by a mutual friend. So I am going to take this as an oversight.”

  Deacon let out a relieved breath.

  He had to it when the knife appeared at his throat. Grimoire spoke, “It is the only reason I’m not filling out the paperwork to find a new bodyguard for Lady Dani.”

  Deacon remained very still, not daring to speak to the man who, until five seconds ago, had been a friendly face in the house of strangers.

  The knife left Deacon’s throat, and the bard gasped for breath as Grimoire made the blade disappear, “I swore an oath the the original Lord Rosecrest. To protect the family to the best of my abilities so long as his line lives.”

  Deacon nodded rapidly, “I… I understand.”

  “Be sure you do. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Grimoire stepped past Deacon, “I’ve got to get something to clean the spilled vomit before it settles into the carpet.”

  When he was out of the room, Deacon collapsed into a chair and held his head in his hands. After a few minutes, he snorted to himself, which turned into a self deprecating laugh. Standing, he headed out of the room shaking his head. “There’s something wrong with me. I can’t believe that turned me on.”