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RIKO BARRETT

Terra Kha'Sim was three hours away when the Night Dancers kidnapped me. In one-sixth of that time, we somehow traversed to the ruin known as the Tomb of the Boom—a site twenty kilometres away.

Isn't this the tomb of that king Trebor was looking for? The king rumoured to have lost treasure?

One of the Night Dancers, Batta, had the ability to turn reflections into portals. He called it Bad Moon Rising. This was what they used to suddenly appear from the pond, using the water's clear surface as a portal.

We used this ability—along with two mirrors and a hawk—to traverse the desert. It was a bit confusing to grasp so Batta had to explain it to me by naming the mirrors; Mirror A and Mirror B.

The hawk takes Mirror A, flies ahead one kilometre (the distance limit of Bad Moon Rising), and places it on the ground reflection side up. Batta, who carried a backpack full of mirrors, places Mirror B on the ground, connecting it to Mirror A. The hawk would then fly through Mirror A and fly out of Mirror B, returning to us.

We would then jump into Mirror B and fly out of Mirror A. Meanwhile, the hawk flies another one kilometre ahead with Mirror B.

It's easy to grasp if you were experiencing it first-hand, but pretty hard to explain to someone who's never seen it.

By doing this, we arrived at the Tomb of the Boom in a little under thirty minutes. We didn't even have to walk through its entrance. The hawk, whose name I recently learned was War Machine, placed a mirror right on the top floor.

Jay Kay caressed the hawk's head, rewarding it with a piece of meat. "Good girl. That was a lot of work today. Your stomach gets runny if you eat too much so I'll give you the other treats later."

War Machine replied with a squawk of anger.

The room we were taken to had an exposed window with no glass—this was how the hawk got in here in the first place. Staying here during Terra Kha'Sim was not ideal.

We relocated further into the ruined castle, securing a large open room with nothing exposing us to the outside.

It was good they were taking this sandstorm seriously. Back in Clint's village, someone was blinded because a flying rock hit him in the head.

"Alright, My Lady." Essio folded his coat, neatly storing it beside his sleeping bag. He sat cross-legged near the fire and continued reading a book. "This is our haven while Terra Kha'Sim rages outside. Please make yourself at home."

War Machine flew to one of the support beams, perching to get some rest. Oyecomova leaned against the room's entrance with his eyes closed. The others—Batta, Jay Kay, Dr Teeth, and Mikey S.—made torches and announced they were going to explore the ruin some more.

"Don't worry, Boss," Batta waved back, leaving a mirror in the room. "If we find King Benjamin's treasure, we won't hide it."

When they descended the nearby staircase, their orange lights flickered into darkness.

It seemed as if this ruin was built by a legendary architect as, despite the part we were in being closed off to the outside, it used natural sunlight to light the place up.

I gazed in their direction for a long while. "Should they really be exploring this place?"

"I wouldn't worry," Essio answered, marking something on the book with a charcoal pen. "This place is relatively safe and those four can hold their own. We camped here last night and made sure it was clear. There are a few mimics but they're not something we have to worry about. You can deal with a mimic, right?"

"They won't be able to trick me. Even if they did, I can easily punch through one.
"Anyone with a sword can. The strongest monster this ruin hosts are the mimics. Don't worry about those four."

Beside Essio was a stack of three books. I flipped through one, finding folded pages throughout with grammar and punctuation corrections written on its pages.

"I enjoy reading books, but I enjoy finding mistakes even more so," he explained. "A missing comma, a misplaced period, wrong spelling—I get excited when I find them. This is a pretty weird hobby, right?

"No, a weird hobby is collecting people's hair and making dolls out of them. This is just odd."

That got a laugh out of Essio. "What do you do for fun, My Lady?"

"I never had any hobbies. You were there for a month and I was still pretty young. My entire day was taken up with training and lessons and meeting other noble families. And that routine became even more crowded with age."

"I see. I'm sorry for bringing it up." Essio marked something on the page. "You can go explore the ruin if you want to."

"What if I run away?"

"You're a smart girl, Riko. We both know you won't do that."

He was right. Even though I wanted to, escaping from them was the stupidest decision I could make.

Firstly, either Terra Kha'Sim ravages me or the worms swallow me whole, whichever comes first.

Secondly, even if I did survive those, I had no way to navigate the Great Sand Sea. I didn't know which direction Clint's village or Roa was.

Thirdly, I went with the Night Dancers with the reassurance that they wouldn't harm anyone in the village. My disappearance might make them reconsider that promise.

"Oyecomova and I won't be doing anything eventful," Essio admitted. "You can join the others. Or go explore on your own if that's what you prefer."

I ended up taking a torch to explore the famed Tomb of the Boom.

The ruin was a strong-rooted keep that spanned eight stories high, each level higher growing slightly smaller than the last. Calling this place a ruin wasn't accurate. That word—ruin—evoked an image of a once mighty castle rendered to nothing but rubbles of stone and brick. They were grand structures that collapsed as a result of siege and battle.

This place wasn't that.

The Tomb of the Boom was a messy dirty but still very much functioning keep. It was as if its inhabitants simply packed up and left. But if the Great Sand Sea suddenly appeared, it made sense why it was left in this state.

Ruin wasn't the best word to describe this place. Abandoned was.

The halls were set up like a maze. If you weren't already familiar with its layout, you'd find yourself lost within its walls. Some keeps were built to be confusing so that if enemy forces found their way inside, the defenders would have the advantage of knowing their way around.

After hours of exploring, Uncle Salty's words of how this place had no treasure rang true. I went through every room, searching through every crack and crevice with nothing of value to show for it.

Anything that had remotely any worth was looted a long time ago.

I returned to the base room where everyone had already returned. They were in the midst of cooking supper.

Beside Essio was a cube of deep red about the size of a hand. By its aura, I could tell it was a cursed artifact.

"What is that thing?" I asked.

"It's a mythic artifact. A Soul Cage."

"What does it do?"

"This is supposed to be white, but it's useless if it's in that colour. To activate its power, it needs to absorb the blood of six different people who are willing to end themselves—one for each cube's side. Then, it'll turn into a crimson colour." He raised it. "Now you can use this. You imbue it with your mana and it traps whatever you throw it at. Time doesn't pass for whatever is inside and all they'll feel is 'white'. Whatever that means."

"How do you release whatever's inside?"

"You just tell it to. But only the person who threw the cube can do so. There are a lot of museums and universities that have Soul Cages, but they already have something trapped in them with no way of letting them go. And seeing as they're indestructible, they're completely useless."

"Is there something in that one?" I asked.

Essio shrugged. "Who knows? But do you know why they're classified as a mythic?" He placed the cube on the floor and patted it. "Hypothetically, let's just say that something was sealed in here. The moment I release it, the Soul Cage teleports itself to a random part of the world."

There were three possibilities with the particular one he had.

The first was that it was empty and he was going to use it to capture an S-tier monster or bounty. Maybe he held onto it on the off chance the Adventurer's Guild put out that specific request but this was a longshot even for Essio. Based on his explanation, Soul Cages could be worth double or even triple the reward of an A-tier mission. Sure it might come in useful for an S-tier one but the requirements had to be that they captured the creature and not kill it.

The second was that it was empty and he was going to sell it once we reached civilization. There was the possibility that they found this while looking for me and never got a chance to exchange it. This was the most likely outcome.

The third was that there was already something inside worth more than the Soul Cage itself. There were a few S-tier monsters I could think of that lived near here that could be worth more than that cursed artifact.

There were a few other possibilities but I ruled them out because they didn't involve Essio's principle—money.

"Essio," I told him, "I find it funny that you're connected to Clint and I through money. Was money always this important to you?"

"Not always. Just like many things in life, something came up in mine that changed my perspective. It opened my eyes to one universal truth—money is everything."

"What changed your perspective?"

"You don't need to know."

"You're holding me hostage until my father accepts your demands. I ran away so I wouldn't be a part of these royal squabbles. And just when I thought I was out, my family name pulls me back in." I stood over him, unknowingly calling out Comfortably Numb. The others took up arms when it bared its sharpened teeth, its bright yellow skin transitioning to pure black. "I deserve to know why I've become a bargaining chip."

Essio raised a hand, ordering the others not to take action. "You've grown to hate your status. A lot of nobles that shed their titles always return to it. But not you. I admire that. At least for now." He chuckled and pointed to the floor. "Very well. Sit down."

The others returned to their cooking as their boss told his tale.

Diaye Essio was born the youngest son to a family of nine. They weren't well-off but they did their best to scrape by. Essio's father worked as a cobbler in the town's saturated shoe market and his mother didn't have a stable source of income, taking the odd job whenever it popped up. His older siblings did what they could to help out.

"We didn't have much, but we appreciated what we had," Essio said. "There's this popular saying that I took to heart. Money can't buy happiness."

Since Essio was the youngest, they didn't force him to work. They were still able to make it to the next day and they weren't desperate enough to force labour upon a child. But they also didn't have time to watch over him as they were always doing whatever they could to get that extra coin.

While he was a kid, Essio spent most of the time with the other children playing throughout the town. One day while trying to scout out a location to build a base, he went into the nearby woods and found the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. Her skin was light and smooth and fair, her hair a luxurious golden brown. Even though she was sitting on the wet ground reading a book, she went about it elegantly.

He approached her, striking up a conversation that went smoother than he expected. They talked and talked until it was well past sundown and they had to run home to a scolding.

The girl's name was Beth and she asked a favour before they parted ways. "This is where I go when I want to be alone. Please don't tell anyone."

The next day, Essio went back to that spot and found Beth patiently waiting with a giant book she wanted to show him. The more days that passed, the less Essio hung out with his friends until he was only spending them with Beth. Over the course of a few months, he fell in love with her.

What Essio found strange was that he never saw Beth in town. Even if by accident. The only time he saw her was when they met up at her secret spot.

This all changed when his town celebrated a local festival. He spotted Beth among the nobles who lived in the mansion over the hill. Everything finally made sense; from her atmosphere, to the fact she was never in town, to why she needed a secret place to be alone.

Beth was the daughter of a noble.

During the festival, the noble children weren't allowed to be alone and were each accompanied by at least two guards. Essio couldn't approach her, but Beth gave a smile of acknowledgement which was all he needed.

"My secret is out," Beth said playfully the next day.

She admitted that when she was young, she would always come here whenever she wanted to be alone. And over time, it was the place she associated with comfort.

Knowing that her father would never approve of a marriage between them and that even his love was one-sided, Essio confessed his feelings.

Beth didn't laugh at him or feel sorry. "Good. I thought it was just me," she smiled with relief.

Essio didn't know what to make of these mutual feelings so they made a promise to each other that day. Once Beth's father informs her about an arranged marriage he plans to make, they would reveal their relationship and ask for his blessing.

From then on, Essio worked in secret, saving up money for what he and Beth would do if her father didn't approve of them.

When they turned sixteen, the time to approach her father came and they were turned down by society's unwritten rules.

Beth's father gleamed down on them. "If you marry a commoner, consider yourself one as well."

They ended up marrying anyway and moving to a nearby village. Essio found work as a farmhand while Beth used her education to work as a librarian. They lived happily for a couple of years but would fight occasionally over the same topic.

Because Beth was a noble, she was used to its perks and would often spend their hard-earned money on random things. Essio put her happiness over his own for a while but began to lecture her on how careless she was with their income.

This continued until their savings ran out. After a long talk about how they should proceed, they came up with a plan. A massive coal vein was uncovered in a town ten leagues away and the colonel sent out requests for workers to help out. Essio would be going to this town until the mine ran dry, sending most of his salary to Beth. Meanwhile, she would stay at home and continue working as a librarian.

The mine took four years to empty and Essio made enough money to live comfortably for the next three decades. But when he returned home, Beth was nowhere to be found.

He interrogated everyone in the village until someone pointed a finger back to their hometown.

It turns out that the money Essio sent Beth wasn't enough as she spent most of his salary within the week she received it. Beth couldn't live the life of a commoner and lost the genuine love she felt for him.

She ended up begging her father to take her back and he agreed on the condition she annulled her marriage with Essio. Apparently, she didn't struggle with that decision and ended up marrying the man she was betrothed to all those years ago.

Essio's worldviews were ripped to shreds that day and he crumbled into depression. That long darkness sprouted him into the iron-willed man he was today.

I couldn't offer any words of reassurance. Instead, I just watched Essio stare off into what seemed like a memory. He smiled gently as if recalling a nostalgic fairy tale.

Essio finally spoke, "The world revolves around money—that is a universal truth. With enough of it, you can buy anything. If you need food or shelter, you buy it with money. If you are sick, you can cure it with money. People shed their humanity for money. And if you pay a man enough, he'll walk barefoot into hell."

A noble like me who wanted nothing to do with her house was no different from Beth. No, I took my status for granted which made me much much worse.

"There is one saying I do agree with—money is the root of all evil." Essio made a face of disgust. "What bothers me is that so many people utter that line yet still cling to the benefits of money. Shouldn't giving in to that temptation make them just as evil? So who's worse? The ones who turn a blind eye? Or me, someone who accepts that evil into their heart? Both sides are doing the same thing, but I recognized and owned up to what I was doing. Wouldn't that make me a saint between the two?"

I held my silence.

"Money can't buy happiness," he mocked. "That saying is pure bullshit. It's a lie made by the rich to keep themselves above everyone else. I had everything I ever wanted right in my hand and it was snatched from me because I believed that lie. Never again. That is my nature, and you'd sooner divert a river from its course than to deny it."