Deathwish, Part 1: Cinderfell

Note: This is a continuation of A Dapper Tale. It is recommended to read that first for context.

Alicia fell to the ground, dropping her prized book as she was pushed over. The group of girls, just a couple years older than her, enjoyed tormenting her whenever adults weren’t around. It was infuriating, as they were experts at not getting caught.

“What’s the matter, Alicia? You always brag about your plans to explore the Inverse, but you can’t even handle a little stumble?”

She scowled as she stood back up, turning to the girl. She was well dressed, like the rest of them. Their families were certainly better off, but Alicia kept telling herself that didn’t make them better than her. “Shut up! I know you pushed me!”

The clique of girls laughed, the ringleader most of all. She had long and neatly combed blond hair, same color as Alicia, but her eyes were a sharp steel color instead of blue. She spoke with haughty confidence, looking down on Alicia. “I have every right to push you. Your family is beneath mine, and always will be. Don’t like it? Just try and challenge me. You would never win in combat… non-caster.”

Alicia bit her tongue as she waited for the nuisances to leave. Rather than leaving, the ringleader continued as she was egged on by her followers. “You’re so stupid… you think you are special? That Vorpals wouldn’t eat you alive the moment you walk back through that Gateway?”

Alicia lost her composure. “Vorpals don’t EAT people, you idiot!”

The girl pushed Alicia down again, a faint air of ice in the air circling around her. She wasn’t much of an ice caster, so she couldn’t use it for anything that would actually harm anyone, but Alicia despised the fact that her bully had a power that was exclusively used for making her look and feel more impressive than she actually was. Sometimes it was done by tapping the back of her neck with a freezing burst in class to make her jump, and the rest of the class to laugh. Other times she would chill Alicia’s warm school lunch, turning a previously less than appetizing meal into a borderline inedible mush.

“You’re a freak, Alicia. No one likes Vorpals, except for you. They are monsters. That makes you a monster sympathizer.”

Alicia started to get up before being tripped again as the girls laughed. “Vorpals aren’t just monsters! They-”

“No, they ARE monsters. Everyone says so, especially those that are a lot smarter than you! Just you wait… you are going to be a Vorpal yourself one day. But I guess that’s a fitting fate for a moron like yourself.”

The girls laughed as they walked away, and Alicia fought back tears. The most bitter part was becoming a Vorpal, even for someone who wasn’t planning on entering the Inverse in their lifetime, was a disturbingly real possibility. Vorpals would frequently find ways to slip into the real world and attack people. They were usually unsuccessful, and quickly exterminated by local combat trained casters, especially local Gatekeepers, but every so often, they would slip by all defenses and kill someone.

And that was why something needed to be done. Vorpals weren’t completely lost, or at least Alicia refused to believe that. Dapper had helped her, when he had no real need to. She owed her life to him, and she refused to believe that she would never see him again. So the only option was to go find him again, and make him remember. Make him prove to everyone that Vorpals were not just monsters.

Alicia picked up her book and dusted it off. A Super Simple Guide to Vorpals. It was a stupid title, as the book was mostly meant to teach children about Vorpals rather than actually answer tough questions on what they were, but any kind of information on Vorpals was exceedingly hard to find at all. Even the book she now held cost an entire year's allowance. While her family wasn’t especially wealthy, that was a lot to pay for such a simple book. She still couldn’t understand why the children’s book was so expensive.

She had read it from cover to cover multiple times, trying to pick up everything and anything. While it wasn’t deep, all the information was supposed to be completely accurate and well corroborated, by accounts from the very casters that so often dealt with the subject matter. Usually, by fighting them both in the real world and the Inverse, in an endless war with no real winners. And yet, one sentence among the platitudes and obvious advice ruined it all:

Above all, Vorpals are unpredictable, and may entirely change their behavior at the slightest of whims.

Was that really true? It was at least partially true. All the Vorpals that Alicia had met certainly did not exhibit a stable personality. In a very academic sense, they were psychotic. Insane. They had sentience and some fundamental primal urges, and everything else was up in the air. She had a lot of theories on how to handle Vorpals, but no chances yet to test them.

She couldn’t help crying as she walked home barefoot. Earlier, the same bullies had stolen her shoes, feigning fake outrage when she accused them of the theft despite the fact they had admitted to doing it before. Now, the most expensive book she owned was all dirty, along with her favorite pink dress.

She entered the small house as the family shadowpup got up to greet her. It was partially transparent at all times, but still wasn’t old enough to completely disappear - or even appear, for that matter. It licked her hand, and she petted the fawning hound on the head before it wandered off to find a new place to lie down. By the silence in the house, she could tell neither her father or mother were home.

The whole of her hometown Cinderfell was quiet at the moment, being the early twilight hours, but during the day it was positively bustling. Everyone rushing about their lives, her family included. Her father was a craftsman that made a decent living, but even she could tell he wasn’t amazingly talented. Her mother was a stay at home mother, but ran a lot of errands. Despite what happened to her before, being kidnapped by criminals and very nearly killed in the Inverse, her mother still allowed her to walk home alone. Alicia would have considered this terrible parenting if it wasn’t exactly what she had wanted. Too much supervision always resulted in her parents trying to direct her attention away from her chosen subject of study: Vorpals and the Inverse.

She walked to the kitchen and opened the cold box. She threw together a sandwich haphazardly, with some sliced meat and cheese without any condiments. She poured a glass of water, and sat alone at the table without activating any of the light fixtures, instead sitting in the dark to match her feelings. Out the window, she could see the slave market. No one was there at this time, but she knew exactly what it was. The day she learned the truth about slaves, her childhood officially ended.

Alicia got up, and grabbed the bag she had packed the day after arriving back in Cinderfell. After her unexpected trip to the Inverse, she already new definitively that she was going back. Her frustrations of that day dealing with bullies had been the last straw. She was only a teenager now, and had planned to wait till she was older. But no more. No more waiting, no more preparing or studying. It was do or die, now or never.

She shoved some leftovers in her bag, also grabbing a longterm chill pack. It was risky to bring anything created with casting into the Inverse, as Vorpals could sense such things, but the amount of cold it produced was probably small enough to be safe. Also, while the food in the Inverse seemed at least edible, it did not sit well with her afterward. After eating only a single thing in the Inverse, she had been continuously queasy a week after, which concerned the doctors supervising her more than it probably should have. To be safe, she would bring her own food for an extended journey.

Walking into the backroom closet, she rummaged through spiderweb infested storage containers, frequently stirring up clouds of dust, until she found what she was looking for. An heirloom of her family, passed all the way down from her great grandfather. Sacred thermal energy, carefully crafted into a small one foot wide disc. A key to the Gateway.

The casters who originally made these keys were not fools. The energy within these keys was impossible for Vorpals to detect, so carrying one in a bag was safe. But if any Vorpal actually saw it or learned she had one, they might do anything to obtain it. That easily included murder, given Vorpals could become homicidal for far less.

She slinked through the night with her improvised travel cloak obscuring most of her, fashioned from the dress she had received as a gift from a Vorpal named Oracle. Her simple brown travel pack was the only thing not covered by the cloak, but she hoped that wouldn’t matter too much given the muted color. She wore her sandals, given she still didn’t know where her normal shoes were. She quickly made her way to the Gateway at the center of town, with no buildings immediately nearby. She waited patiently for the guards, with their hovering flames acting as torches, to leave for a break. She knew they often let their vigilance slip given the long periods of inaction from the Gateway, but also that they would react very quickly once the Gateway started to open.

Alicia sprinted as fast as her legs would carry her, staying low to the ground both for speed and avoiding detection. She quickly held the key up, eliciting an ignition of red cascading light running along the lines of the massive stone doorway. It began to slowly open as she heard yelling behind her from the guards, who had spotted her. She slipped through the crack before the door finished opening, and ran as fast as she could.

The guards likely wouldn’t follow her far into the actual Inverse, if at all. Those stationed at the Gateway weren’t exactly the most responsible or proactive members of the guard, as such duty was hated by everyone for its mind numbing boredom. They would simply file a report and let others deal with it in the morning, since someone sneaking into the Inverse and not out was much less of a concern.

Alicia knew she had to search the Inverse, no matter how long it might take. No matter what, she would unlock its secrets.

And at any cost, she would find Dapper again.

Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy my novel! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.