Several hours later, she awoke from fitful sleep. The dream had begun to recur, not quite a nightmare, just herself suspended in a sea of green light. The first night, she had been alone in a vast neon expanse, nothing but endless green around her.

  This time the stillness fractured. Emptiness gave way to restlessness, then jittery nervousness, like caffeine burning in her veins. The green expanse no longer felt calm.

  Her pillow was gone, and the rough linen blanket had twisted itself into a knot around her ankles.

  Her heart was racing. She lay still, waiting for the room to settle into something familiar.

  Zara was determined to get answers today. Food and shelter were secured, at least for now. What she could no longer tolerate was ignorance. Whatever had happened, she was done circling it in the dark.

  Next to her bed sat a pair of… sandals? More like sandal-shaped slabs of stiff leather with straps. Urz had probably placed them there while she slept.

  At least they were adjustable. She slid her feet into them. Slightly oversized, but better than going barefoot. She tightened the straps until they felt snug against her dirty skin.

  Sucked out of her life and stuck here with green men and who knew what else. In some nameless nowhere. And she still had to go out and earn a living.

  Well, I can’t have them throw me out just yet.

  If she was going to survive here, she needed to be useful.

  Learn something while she was at it.

  She grabbed the mop in the hallway on her way and strode up the stairs in search of one of the orcs. Today it seemed to be Drakar’s turn at the front desk. He wore cleaner-looking clothes than yesterday. A pair of worn-looking brown leather pants, sandals similar to the ones she’d been given, and a crude-looking linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Zara looked at his thick forearm. It was probably thicker than her thigh.

  He was writing in a notebook, hadn’t noticed her yet.

  “Good morning!” she chirped as she approached.

  Drakar’s head sprang around in surprise before his eyes met hers and recognition hit.

  “Morning,” he just grumbled as he half-turned in his chair to speak to her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, politely smiling.

  Drakar either didn’t notice or didn’t care that her tone was somewhat cheerful. What was worse, he seemed irked by it.

  “Sorry, no food yet. Urz is making deliveries. Veyra does the cooking, but she’s still holed up in her room.”

  “I’m not hungry, but I promised to help, so here I am.”

  “Hey—uh—”

  “I can clean, I can cook… kinda… I can organize,” she cut over him.

  “Wait, we—”

  “I can do some paperwork if you have any, I can take stock of things,” she kept cutting over him, determined to make herself useful, the slightest bit of desperation leaking through her words.

  “Please, stop.” He started massaging his temples with his large hand.

  “Sorry—I…”

  He raised his other palm toward Zara.

  “I understand. You’re scared.”

  “I—”

  “If you really don’t know anything about what Zharona was saying, we aren’t throwing you out,” he added calmly.

  “I want to know how I ended up here too, and more importantly how I can get back.”

  “Hey—how did you get here?”

  Zara blinked at him.

  “You… heard the part where I said I don’t know, right?”

  Drakar lowered his head and started massaging his temples, with both hands this time.

  “Someone died yesterday. What exactly happened?”

  Drakar sighed dejectedly, then inhaled once more and began to speak.

  “There was an explosion. Guards found three people, bloody and unconscious. The militants tried to heal ’em and get answers.”

  Zara raised her eyebrows. “And what’s that got to do with me?”

  Drakar sighed again and looked at her. Zara felt like she was being judged, but he continued.

  “They wouldn’t wake up. They ate if force-fed and crapped ’emselves but still wouldn’t wake up, no matter what.”

  Zara listened, mildly disgusted and trying her best to hide it.

  “Master Khurak heard about all this and started working on a cure of his own. I’m no healer, just a herbalist. All I know is he spent days up in his room just studying and writing.”

  “… and?”

  “And what we did didn’t work. Only you regained consciousness.” He poked her in the chest with one enormous finger.

  “I was unconscious? That doesn’t make any sense. I was at work before I woke up here. I was just going home to sleep.”

  “Hey—you didn’t have red hair before.”

  Zara felt a prickle of unease creeping into her. She remembered the cracking stone body, obeying orders without question. Not that she could question them if she tried; she had no mouth, couldn’t speak. Unable to breathe. Tightness. Constraint. She pushed it all back down.

  “I’ve always had red hair,” Zara said defensively, unconsciously grasping at a lock of hair on the back of her head.

  Drakar looked her straight in the eye and asked, “Do you know anything about that explosion?”

  “I just told you—”

  “Just answer.” He kept staring at her before softly adding, “Please.” There was a strange glint in his eye.

  “I don’t know anything about any explosion. I was nowhere near any town’s border.”

  Drakar dropped his gaze and relaxed.

  “Sorry. Guard skill. Sense deception.”

  Guard skill?

  Zara gaped at Drakar, still somewhat bewildered.

  “It’s not foolproof. ’T’s why Zharona wants you questioned, but I believe you… for now.”

  “Right…”

  “What’s yer class?”

  “Class?”

  “What? Hey, humans don’t call them classes? What do you do?”

  “Oh, um… I’m a maid.”

  “Maid? There you go with the human words again.”

  “Maid. It means cleaner, sort of, housekeeper?”

  Drakar’s eyes lit up at that. “Oh, hey, that’s useful. If you really do want to help. Pretty dirty around here.”

  Zara had a slow look around the main room. The orc was not wrong. The worn wooden floor was somewhat clean but had streaks of dirt near what were presumably high-traffic areas. The pushcart in the corner was filthy with caked-on grime, and even the shelves holding the assortment of liquids were dusty. One corner of the room had the beginnings of a spiderweb forming, to name but a few of the problems.

  Then she remembered. “What about the one who died?”

  A grim look fell upon Drakar’s face. His jaw twitched, and his left tusk along with it.

  “We don’t know…”

  His right hand grasped the back of his chair and squeezed. The wood creaked loudly for a moment until he realized what he was doing and stopped.

  “I’m sorry. Urz said he was a good man—err—orc.”

  “He was. Kindest orc in the valley. He’d help anyone if he could. No exceptions. Didn’t even eat meat. Said it was wrong toward the animals.”

  He snorted softly. “Weirdo.”

  “How can I help?” Zara shifted the conversation, adopting an intentionally cheerful voice.

  The orc growled contemplatively. “You can start down here. Said you can clean, right?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “Drew water earlier, there.” He pointed under the tall reception desk.

  A keg-sized bucket of water rested on the floor. Zara was about to protest that there was no way she could lift it, then noticed two smaller buckets and a sack beside it.

  “Use that too,” he added as she noticed the sack.

  Zara heaved and barely dragged the monstrous bucket from under the desk and filled one of the smaller buckets from it. She knelt beside the sack and opened it. An overpowering scent rushed up, sharp enough to sting. It drove into her sinuses. Her eyes began to water.

  “Powdered needleweed. Stop sniffing it or you’ll give yerself a nosebleed.”

  “Whew, this thing is strong.” Zara aimed her face away from the opening.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Just use half a…” He then looked at her hands. “A fistful per bucket.”

  Holding her breath, she reached inside the sack, retrieved a handful of powder, and submerged it straight into the small bucket beside her.

  “That’ll do it,” the orc commented, then, having lost all interest in Zara, sat back down studying a page of his notebook.

  She tentatively removed her hand from her face. He was right. The smell had faded into a fainter but still pungent minty scent.

  Now, where to start? The spiderweb? Why not?

  “Can I use this for everything?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just wipe everything with it,” he said dismissively without looking away from his work.

  Zara gripped the handle as if she were born holding a mop and reached for the spiderwebs in the offending inner corner of the room. Mopping the ceiling hadn’t been on her to-do list for the day, but if this was the job she’d been given, this was the job she’d perform. She meticulously walked every edge of the room, making sure to clean every nook. She even found the spider producing said webs. Squished it with her mop, then dunked it in the bucket.

  She had to admit it was satisfying to see the progress.

  Once that was done, she located a rag, dunked it in a fresh bucket of needleweed water, and approached the shelves. This was going to take a while.

  The first bottle she touched made the entire row clink. Cleaning hadn’t drawn a reaction from Drakar before. This did.

  “Hey—be careful with those!”

  “I’m just going to wipe them down. It’s really dusty here.”

  “Just be careful. Some of ’em are expensive.” He dove back into his notebook, ignoring her.

  Who does he think I am?

  To whoever placed them here, partial credit. The bottles and tins were labeled: headache, migraine, vale lily extract, gravecircle powder, blood thinner, blood clotter, mint, fever, to name but a few.

  Why is blood thinner right next to blood clotter?

  Okay… Gravecircle powder? But what does it do?

  After a few more rhetorical questions, Zara stopped questioning the logic. There was no point. Just pick up bottle, wipe clean, wipe shelf, put bottle back. Like any good maid should.

  When it was all done, she mopped the wooden floor for good measure, taking extra care to clean off the dirt streaks near the door. She couldn’t go home, she couldn’t text a friend, she couldn’t even scroll social media on her break. It was mildly depressing.

  There was one thing left to tackle, the grimy pushcart. The grime looked like a mix of herbal stuff and weeks’ worth of dirty hands. She’d need better tools for this if she didn’t feel like spending six hours polishing the metal frame.

  “Drakar?” she spoke loudly across the room.

  “What?”

  “Got any degreaser?”

  “What for?”

  “This pushcart looks like it’s been dragged through the fields.”

  “Urgh, third shelf from the door, second row, first bottle,” he replied absentmindedly and looked away again.

  Pleasantly impressed that at the very least he did know where everything was, she walked toward the third shelf. She opened the unlabeled bottle and was greeted with the harsh, dry smell of basic soap.

  She poured some of it in her bucket, dunked her rag in it, and began to scrub. Did he make this soap? She didn’t think much of it at first, but this soap really broke down the gunk on the first pass, and by the third it was squeaky clean. Not long after, she stared proudly at her work. The pushcart was spotless, tarnished but shiny. She pocketed the bottle of soap.

  There was also a bed on the side without a window, but she wasn’t about to start doing laundry, and the wooden divider was weirdly clean, must have been new.

  The shelves were wiped clean, the labels on the bottles finally readable.

  Most importantly, the pushcart no longer looked like it might make you sicker than whatever brought you in.

  Having finished cleaning, she returned to Drakar. She grabbed a metal mug from a line of them on the front desk, dunked it in the big bucket, and drank her fill.

  “Looks all better now!” she announced proudly while wiping water off her face with the back of her hand.

  Moments later, Drakar also seemed to have finished with whatever he was writing, closed the notebook, and stood up.

  “You done already?” He looked out the window. “Only been a few hours.”

  “Well, your floor and shelves have seen better days, but they’re clean now!”

  Zara was oddly proud of her work. She couldn’t control where she was, couldn’t go back home, but she could make this one room spic and span. It was something.

  “Why do you have so many chairs? I’ve been here two days, and I haven’t seen a single person walk in.”

  “Hrmph. That’s a good thing. Last time these chairs were full, a mine shaft collapsed. Before that, Greezle migration.”

  Zara raised an eyebrow. “Greezle?”

  “They’re pests, usually harmless but frenzied in numbers. Strip the meat of a carcass in seconds.”

  “So, like piranhas?”

  Drakar squinted. “What’s a piranha?”

  “Small fish with really big teeth?”

  Drakar began laughing, a low guttural laugh. He laughed until he choked, clutched his stomach, and continued to laugh for nearly a minute.

  “Thanks, I needed that. Small fish with big teeth, she says,” he wheezed.

  “You’re… welcome?”

  “We don’t get that many patients. Most of ’em go to the militant healers in town, those who can afford it at least.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Master Khurak is powerful, but…”

  There was the sound of a door closing upstairs, followed by footsteps.

  “But?”

  “He’s… a little weird sometimes. Most folks don’t… know what to make of him.”

  The footsteps got louder as Drakar spoke, and before Zara could ask any more, a voice interrupted.

  “Master Khurak is eccentric. If anyone weird is here, that would be you.”

  Zara turned around to face the new addition to the conversation. It was the orc woman she’d seen briefly once before, on the floor downstairs.

  It wasn’t obvious from the floor, but standing up, the orc woman was tall, half a head taller than Zara. Her face was smooth and heart-shaped, with a delicate jaw and thin tusks that somehow didn’t ruin the symmetry. Her black hair was tied into a high ponytail.

  The whole thing made her look like the most vicious Barbie doll Zara had ever seen.

  She wore a simple fitted dark green robe, fastened with a thick, sturdy leather belt. Her outfit seemed markedly cleaner and newer than Drakar’s.

  “A human would also qualify as weird, I suppose.”

  “Hi, I’m Zara. Zara Silverhart.”

  “Veyra.”

  Don’t any of these people have last names?

  “Drakar, why is this human here?”

  Drakar’s jaw twitched before replying. “She’s the one I told you about. The other two died. Had ’em hauled off to be burned this morning.”

  “Interesting.” She observed Zara, who was getting increasingly self-conscious about her own very dirty appearance. At least she wasn’t barefoot.

  “Hey—you feeling any better? Zharona took off with Master Khurak, but maybe they could have a look at you later?”

  “Weak,” she sneered.

  “So then?”

  “Drop it, Drakar. I don’t know why, but I can feel what happened. There is nothing they can do for me.”

  “Just trying to help…” Drakar added, mildly annoyed.

  “So, why are you still here?”

  “I don’t know how I got here. Drakar said he’d help me.”

  Veyra’s gaze shifted toward the offending orc.

  “Naturally. Of course he did.”

  “I really have nowhere else to go. I’ll work while I’m here.” She gestured across the room, which Veyra did follow.

  “Hey—you’re just hungry. I’ll just go fix up something we can eat, and we can talk about it.”

  “Oh please. If I wanted livestock feed, I’d just go out and graze. Just give me twenty minutes. I’ll have something ready.”

  And she walked off and back up the stairs as quickly as she appeared.

  Drakar groaned.

  “She seems fun.”

  “Don’t worry about her. She’s… annoying sometimes,” he groaned for a second time.

  “Oh! Before I forget.” Zara walked over to the shelf with the blood thinner and clotter and picked up the bottle labeled blood thinner.

  “What about it?” the orc raised his eyebrows.

  With the bottle demonstratively in hand, Zara walked over to a half-full shelf on the opposite side of the room, where she placed the bottle gingerly.

  “Hey—don’t just move stuff around.”

  “No. That’s how you get someone killed one day. Never put those together. Never.”

  Drakar opened his mouth and closed it, opened it once more, sighed, and closed it.

  Before long, the smell of cooked meat began wafting down the stairs.

  “Food! Let’s go,” the orc said excitedly and motioned Zara to follow.

  They walked up the stairs. The upper floor was just a hallway with two doors on either side and one at the back, which was open and dimly lit. That was the origin of the delicious aroma.

  The inside was a small kitchen, dominated by a table that took up most of the space, with one small wood-burner stove near the wall. Drakar motioned for her to sit. She sat on the chair closest to the stove. The smell was making her mouth water. That’s when she realized this room should have been warmer. It wasn’t.

  Odd.

  Drakar quickly grabbed three plates and forks from the nearby cupboard and practically threw them at the table, then sat down with a big grin on his face.

  “I don’t know what humans eat, but I trust this will satisfy.”

  Out of the big pot came a wide slice of steamed beef. Or was it pork? Who cared. It smelled delicious. Veyra placed one on every plate. Out of the other came some kind of homemade thick-cut noodles.

  Drakar didn’t even wait for Veyra to sit down. He was already shoveling noodles down with his hands, the fork he laid for himself doomed to irrelevancy.

  Zara studied the plate in front of her, salivating. Still, she waited for Veyra to finish and join them.

  “Well, at least you have manners.”

  Zara was too engrossed in the meal to be offended, plus it seemed like it was more of a jab at Drakar.

  “That was great,” declared Drakar, having finished his meal long before the others thanks to his efficient use of both hands.

  “Clean yourself up if you’re done. Get us some water too. This barrel is empty.” Veyra pointed at the water barrel behind her.

  Drakar grumbled but picked up the empty barrel and left the kitchen.

  “Thanks for the meal,” Zara chimed in, she too having finished.

  “So, a human in Tharok’s Landing.”

  “Zara. Yes, I’m a human. No, I don’t know how I got here. No, I don’t remember anything else. Drakar used his skill thing on me.”

  Zara saw the question coming from a mile away, and while she understood the problem now, she didn’t have any answers for them. In fact, she could contribute her own questions to the pile.

  “You’re filthy.”

  Zara wanted to protest but then looked down at herself.

  “I know.”

  She produced the bottle of liquid soap from her potato sack of a dress.

  “What are you planning to do with that?” Veyra raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t know? Wash?”

  “That’s for the laundry. We have better soap in the shower.”

  “You have a shower?!”

  Veyra transitioned to raising both eyebrows.

  “Why wouldn’t we have a shower? It’s behind the house, outside.”

  Drakar returned with a barrel full of water, casually placed it down in the corner, and served everyone with a mug of water.

  Veyra drained hers instantly. “Urz?”

  “Still out on deliveries. Told him to ask about Master Khurak when he’s done.”

  “He led the ritual. If the same thing happened to him…”

  “Hey—we’ll figure something out.”

  “Packages for tomorrow?”

  “Week’s worth of ’em in storage. I was gonna go forage in the woods, but now…”

  Drakar growled contemplatively.

  “You could still go, just make it quick.”

  With a full stomach, Zara was zoning out. This conversation didn’t involve her. To her at this moment, they were the radio playing in the background.

  Her eyes drifted toward the window. The sun was beginning to set. The view wasn’t much to write home about, trees all the way up, no skyline in sight. A bird was flying over them until it stopped. Frozen mid-flight.

  She barely had time to process it before her view of the world crumpled like a paper ball and shot itself like a needle toward her.

  Darkness.

  This time, however, there was no childhood home. She stood frozen in nothingness for a moment until she heard the voice. Not a cacophony of voices anymore. Just one female voice echoed by others.

  “Maid class advanced:

  Maid: level three

  Skill awarded: And everything in its place.”

  And then she was back.

  The silence continued for several more seconds even though she was back in the kitchen.

  “Congratulations!”

  “Hey—what?”

  Drakar stared at Veyra, confused.

  “Our human guest here just leveled up.”

  “Wait, really? Congrats!”

  Zara was still shaken by what had happened. Level three? A skill?

  “Uh, you could tell?”

  Veyra frowned slightly. “Most mages can.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Hey, where did I put the…” Drakar started rummaging through the kitchen cupboard.

  “Here we go.”

  He then laid three tiny shot glasses on the table and proceeded to fill them up from the flask he just found.

  Zara sniffed the glass. The liquid was red but didn’t smell of alcohol.

  “I don’t really drink.”

  “Don’t be silly. Hey, it’s tradition. It ain’t even as strong as beer.”

  “I guess…”

  “Veyra, do the thing.”

  Veyra sighed but smiled and snapped her fingers once. A spark briefly lit up the room. The shot glasses caught on fire for a few seconds, then started bubbling. When they stopped, the drink began to emit a pleasant sweet smell.

  “Bottoms up!” Drakar said and emptied his glass before the others even touched theirs.

  Zara drank it and enjoyed the sweet aftertaste. It almost made up for having no dessert.

  “What class are you, if I may ask?”

  Zara blushed slightly, a little embarrassed to admit it after the display of magic.

  “I’m a… a maid.”

  “A maid? The kind the human nobles have?”

  “Uh, something like that.”

  “How curious. Did you run away from your estate, perhaps?”

  “No, I—”

  “Hard to tell with her, but she’s joking,” Drakar reassured her.

  Veyra yawned. “I’m still so tired. Drakar, please show Miss Zara to the shower. Maybe give her some better clothes. We may not have much, but we certainly have something better than… that.” And she pointed at Zara’s dirty, slightly undersized sundress.

  They all got up and one by one left the kitchen. Veyra entered one of the other rooms. Zara followed Drakar down to the basement.

  “There’s a donations box of clothes here, or just stuff people forgot and never came back for,” he said as he opened the final door Zara had never seen behind. It was just a closet with a few boxes.

  “Shower is out back. Towels are already there. I’m gonna go up and man the front desk.” And he left her there with the box of random assorted clothing.

  Zara wasn’t the biggest fan of wearing other people’s clothes, but anything was better than this. She dragged the box into the hall and started going through the clothes. Almost everything was way too large for her, but she did manage to find a black pair of linen pants and a white linen shirt that was only a little oversized.

  She wasn’t sure what the shower looked like, so she closed herself in the closet for a moment to change first, even if it did mean dirtying her new clothes a bit.

  Now it was finally, finally time for a shower. What could they have? Probably a solar-heated one, in which case she should hurry since the sun had set for a while and the water might not be warm for much longer.

  Zara sprinted up the stairs but didn’t make it as far as the front desk when the door opened and inside stepped two leather-clad figures.

  “Zara Silverhart?” One of the new arrivals read off a piece of parchment.

  “Yes?”

  “You are to be taken in for questioning on the orders of Commander Zharona immediately.”

  Sadly, it would be a little longer until she could have a shower.