The very fact I didn’t know how to ride a horse was getting to me. The Wreck of the Envoy was a few kilometres out, but with the tight timeline I had, I couldn’t just rely on walking – outside of the fact that it’d mean walking for several hours!

  Selenia let me out relatively early when I told her I was busy, and said my blacksmithing and alchemy lessons would resume when I got time. She also made some amazing eggs and bread, and that was also something I wish I could learn to do. Cook, I mean – not make eggs.

  I then visited Madeleine, but as I crossed through her door she was already busy with her day to day. I didn’t spot her brother anywhere, and… as much as I missed spending time with Madeleine, I… really didn’t want to involve her in my business.

  She ushered me in regardless, and told me about how she was taking care of someone between the workshifts anyway. I gave up, and just decided to tell her I was going out on an adventure. Madeleine smiled and handed me an ancient looking backpack. The leather was brown and fading, and the straps had clearly seen better days.

  But it was light. So light! She even gave me some of her healing and symphony potions, throwing them haphazardly into the backpack… and I didn’t hear it clink, crack, or even ‘thud’ to the bottom.

  I strapped it around my shoulders, and having donned the black leathers of the adventuring outfit Ophelia had purchased for me on my first trip to the forest, I was ready to set out!

  Until the stablekeeper informed me that the only way I was getting there was on a horse of my own, which was out of the question. Those four-legged freaks were great at kicking people's heads in, and I never learned to ride.

  I found myself on a carriage instead to Knifehollow, a town close enough to where the Envoy involuntarily moored. Amaril shone over the horizon, engulfing the land in its gaze. That was a sight I would have preferred seeing.

  Instead, in front of me was a pale woman whose body was inked with strange squiggles. Apparently, they were tattoos, and Vesper wouldn’t stop talking at me.

  “Are you sure you don’t want your fortune told, Miss?” she again questioned, the violet cowl shifting upwards and revealing her mousey-face.

  She was short, shorter than Addy for sure, and her face had that petite look. Well, if it wasn’t for the two massive golden frames that made her glasses, the tattoos that ran up the left side of her face – they looked like weaving tentacles reaching out to grasp and tug at her eye – and her raven-dark hair curling over the side of her face. The rest of her garment was just as odd; violet with black trimmings that seemed far more appropriate on a Sister of Elora, with how deep the cut was and how much of her skin she showed off.

  Except her skin was coated in black tattoos as well. Spiralling tentacles with runic script. If I focused too long, it felt like the tentacles beckoned and waved, and the words rearranged to make comprehensible sentences.

  I quickly found myself not staring at her, but at my books.

  “I’m sure I don’t,” I said, keeping my attention on the pages of my novel. The peasant girl had just been brought to Count Visya’s castle and was about to learn about her new life in Castle Thedric.

  “Odd,” Vesper cooed, but each time she talked it always felt like she was… singing, in a way. Her voice was melodic, and she felt the need to stress syllables like a child reciting playground poetry. “You aren’t supposed to say No, The Whispers didn’t consider that possibility, Miss. Are you sure you don’t want your fortune told?”

  “No!” I repeated, and turned away from her on the bench. I stared out the carriage’s backside, even if watching the road behind me made me nauseous.

  “Weiird,” Vesper sang out again. “The Whispers told me you would be interested. You are her daughter, right?” Her eyes looked upwards, and her nails poked at her lips. “Though, they might have been trying to say you are a ‘Sugar Woman’ instead…”

  I closed my book with a resounding thud. “Excuse me?!” I shouted.

  Vesper raised her hand up at me, silencing me with her finger. She turned to the darkness beside her and nodded her head, before whispering in a crackling tongue that hurt my ears. I blinked, not sure what was compelling me to stay silent, but I at least had the sense of mind to raise my hand to my ear and try to clear out whatever was irritating me.

  It only stopped when she stopped talking.

  “No, no, I am sorry. She refers to you as the Sweet Daughter right? That’s what I’ve heard…”

  I turned my head to the shadows, but there wasn’t anything there. My attention was fully on Vesper. “What did you say?” I slowly began. My hand clenched atop the pages of my book. A moment later, I felt the familiar weight of my artifact.

  Vesper however was… being Vesper. She reached into her own backpack and pulled out an apple. She brought it to her face, inspecting the skin. She then bit into it, and the juices poured down her chin.

  “Yourtha shweetesht dhashta, rsht?” she ‘mumbled’/’talked’ out, pointing at me.

  “Swallow your food, woman!” I chided, and somewhere in the world, I heard Ophelia laughing at me.

  “Rsht, rsht!” Vesper said, swallowing the piece of her apple. She looked at the fruit and then pushed it towards me. The bitten part and all. I lurched back.

  “Whispers says you’re the Sweetest Daughter, but it also said you were meant to be a rabbit? Have a bite!” Her hand wagged the chewed out apple at me, and I raised my hand to push her hand away.

  She fought against it! “I don’t want it!” I screamed, raising my hand and slapping the apple away. It rolled slowly against the carriage floor, and then fell off into the road.

  “That’s a shame, ain’t it? Anyways, we were getting your fortune told, right, Miss?” Vesper immediately said. I shook my head back awake, just realizing I had just been staring at an apple roll away.

  “Huh? Yes! I think,” I confusedly replied. I didn’t even realize my mistake before Vesper grabbed my wrists and pulled me in. My book went flying, and the Abyssal Dagger caught on the floor.

  “Good, good! I was gettin’ curious, and Whispers said you’d have no Love Line, but a good Fortune and Life!”

  “What..?” I replied but she immediately flipped my hand over. Her main hand held my fingers closed, and her off-hand came atop.

  Her index slid to the center of my hand, and started tracing the lines. “See? Long life line,” she began, putting more pressure into my palm and tracing it upwards. “Means a lot of time left, and with how healthy it is, I imagine quite a few children.”

  I pulled my hands away from her grip. “What? Wait, what are you doing!?”

  “Seeing if you’re the girl that Whispers told me about, obviously. Bad social skills, smells like lye constantly, and is dying to know if she’ll have children with the uh…” Vesper turned her head to the darkness. “[Paladin]? Good Elora, really? You know there’s easier ways to ruin someone else's life, right?” She tapped her lip at the statement. “But easier might not be better… tell me, Ms. Sugar Baby – you like the hard way don’t you?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Excuse me? I would like you to stop calling me that! Also Ms…,” I began, my anger and irritation growing.

  She raised a finger again. “Vesper Hallows. Though, people call me Ms. Hollows. I prefer Vesper.” Vesper proceeded to pull out another fruit, this time bringing out a pear. She took a bite, but this time swallowed it!

  Progress.

  “...Okay, Ms. Hallows.”

  “Hollows,” she quickly corrected me.

  My jaw twisted in confusion, and my mouth guffawed for longer than I’d like. “Okay, Ms… Hollows?”

  “It’s Hallows!”

  I stared at her eyes as she happily took another bite. “Vesper!” I finally shouted. “Explain who you are now.”

  My fingers clenched again, and the Abyssal Dagger appeared in my hand. Vesper’s eyes shot down to the black blade, examining the long edge.

  Finally, she smiled. She handed me the chewed pear, which, for some reason, I took in my opposite hand.

  “Excellent! You have a knife. Could you cut this in two for me, Miss?”

  Her spit and pear juice slid atop my fingers, and I again shook my head. “What the hell? How are you doing that?”

  “Doing what?” she questioned, and then nodded at the dripping pear.

  I flipped the Abyssal Dagger, and its compact, darkened blade slid into the flesh of the pear. White fruit juice flowed out of the body, hissing and becoming steam at contact with the blade. It cut through the stem with ease, and I handed both halves to her.

  “THAT!” I shouted. “Why did I cut that for you?”

  Vesper shrugged and took the unbitten pear from my hand. “Because you’re awkward? I mean, you haven’t even told me your name.”

  I waved the Abyssal Dagger at her, its pointed tip still stained with fruit juice. “No! What are you doing here, Ms… Hallows?”

  “I just told you it’s Hollows! You should really tell me your name.”

  “VESPER!”

  “That’s my name,” she corrected me, and I swear I could feel something burst inside of me.

  “Ashley! Now who in Torment are ya, ya prissy slag?”

  “There it is, Ms. Hart!” she casually stated, nodding at the darkness beside her. My eyes twitched. “I’m... a nobody! Well, I’m a [Dreamer], or an [Oracle], really. You should really look at people’s tooltips if you get the chance, Ms. Ashley ‘A’ Hart.”

  Right. I groaned in frustration, and then gripped the dagger tighter. “And what do you want?”

  Vesper tilted her head. “Right now or in the long term?”

  “What?”

  “Well, right now, I’m looking to get to Knifehollow and follow you to the Sunken Wreck and get something the Drowned Queen has with her. Longterm, I’m hoping to unseal some chains and let the Dreaming Ones dream about our world too. So, we’re aligned.”

  “None of that makes sense,” I flatly responded. “And more importantly, none of that –”

  “I thought you were smart? Like, I thought a [Wizard] had to have high intelligence, and a [Necromancer] higher than that. You’re not really coming off as smart to me,” she chided, and bit another piece of that pear.

  I flung the bitten piece I was still holding at her head. She weaved her head to the left, but I had been practising with flinging daggers for a while, and it felt natural to me.

  The wet splosh of the overripe fruit hitting her in the forehead mixed with its sweet smell. “Ow!” she groaned, rubbing the mess off her face. “Warn a girl first before you do somethin’ like that?”

  “You aren’t really giving me a reason not to stab you, Ms…” I stopped myself from being corrected. “Vesper.”

  “Well, Whispers said you weren’t going to stab me, so if you stabbed me, Whispers would be wrong and I don’t think that’s right, you know?”

  “That’s not a reason!” I shot back.

  “Well, how about this one – I don’t care that you’re trying to, unsuccessfully if I may add, run an underworld. If anything, Whispers and I find it interesting, and we want to co-opt your insanity to accomplish our own goals. That should fit well with your Ledger-based philosophy right? I’m using you to accomplish my goals!”

  That was at least something I could work with. “I don’t see how that benefits me at all?”

  Vesper leaned back on the bench, her hands clenching the carriage’s handles for support. “Well, from what Whispers told me, you have one rotation to figure everything out. And I already know where I’m going, which is also where you're going! So, when the carriage stops, I’m going to head to where we should be. You can follow me if you’d like, I’d enjoy the company. Otherwise, Whispers says it’ll take you most of the morning just to get the courage to ask someone their name.”

  That wasn’t inaccurate either. “Okay, so where are we going?”

  Vesper’s grin was unsettling, carving up to either side of her face. She pulled out a peach, and now it was going too far.

  “You hand that over, or I will cut your hand off,” I waved my dagger at her.

  Vesper sniffed the peach, and then turned her head. Her irritating expression turned into a surprised guffaw, and then a defeated pout. “All Signs point to yes, you will cut my hand off,” she murmured, handing me the peach.

  I took the Abyssal Dagger and carved into it. The wet flesh yielded to the sharpness, and without thinking, I pushed the knife's edge to the pit. It didn’t catch, but I could feel the tension of easy flesh giving way to… well, easy ‘peach seed’. I stopped pushing through, but followed its circumference to cut it in half. I took the unpitted side, and let the weirdo handle her half how she wished.

  I bit into the peach, savouring the bite. They remained to be my favourite fruit. I slowly chewed, while Vesper just took an unsophisticated bite, letting the peach juice splatter against her face.

  “Wfre goin’ tcha tha–” she said, chewing with peach-meat flying out of her mouth.

  “Amaril’s Sake, lady, chew with your mouth closed and talk after!” I shouted, and heard Ophelia’s voice again.

  She glared at me, closed her mouth, and then angrily chewed a peach. “Okay!” she burst out. “We’re going to Dagger Edge rocks that’ll reveal a cave entrance. It’ll take us to the Den of the Drowning, where the Drowned Ones take still living captives of a shipwreck to turn them into their kind. If we don’t get there before the tide changes, everyone in there is… well, going to Drown and become a Drowned One!” She cheerfully stated. “And Whispers tells me that you should have no problem with the Drowned Ones, and you can probably [Dominate] the Drowned Queen, but I need to kill her for the seal.”

  I nodded slowly, taking another bite. “So… intelligent undead?”

  “I dunno, you tell me, [Necromancer].” Vesper said. “It has to be done right after a ship wreck, or the cave there moves.”

  “So, a bunch of undead… shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Vesper smiled at me and kicked her legs like a schoolgirl waiting for class to end. “Maaaybe.” She sang out. “Between the two of us, we should be fine! You don’t seem much like a fighter, though. Shame that, but Whispers says you have others to fight for you, so you should be fine.”

  “Is Whispers a real thing, or are you just insane?” I blurted out.

  Vesper again smiled, tapping the side of her head. “Is it insanity if I’m right, Ashley? You’re too concerned about what is and what was – I like hearing about things that could be and what is yet to be.”

  My hands pushed against my eyes as I wearily rubbed them. “I hate fortune-tellers.”

  Vesper bit into the peach again, before throwing it out of the carriage – mostly uneaten, completely wasted! “I don’t tell people fortunes, Ashy, I tell their futures! Or, one of many, that the Dreamers dream about. We’re about to stop. Want me to tell you about your children?”

  I raised my head as the carriage stopped. I could either go with this insane lady and have her talk at me… or try to talk to villagers to figure out where this Den even was. I tilted my head, and only one question came.

  “Nah. Are… Jasmine and I going to remain friends?” I finally asked, since the way Vesper talked and chatted made me miss her.

  She blinked, before turning to the darkness beside her. She nodded, and talked in that ear-grating tongue. Finally, she paused, and then looked at me.

  “Whispers says yes, but can be made into an ‘Absolutely’ if you let me join your Cult… Sister Necessity?”

  “Sister Necessity?”

  Vesper shrugged again. “Darn, I figured you’d know who that was. Anyways… we’re off.”

  The carriage stopped as soon as she said it, and she got up with no concern. “Together then, Ashley? Or do you want to talk to the villagers and meet me later?”

  I looked at Knifehollow, and all the people there. A lot of unknowns, or… this weird girl. I groaned again and got up, slipping a bookmark into my novel.

  “Lead the way, Vesper.”