Dragon Eye

A

Oracle

Phantom Watcher

Seed of Doubt [Pa]

Red Sight [Ac]

Black Trail [Ac]

Following Gaze [Ac]

Phase Shift [Ac]

I held back an annoyed sigh, as yet another group passed by me, triggering yet again my ‘Dragon Eye’ skill. This was the first time since coming to this world that I wished I did not have it. Sure, I’d wished many times before for more useful skills, but this was the first time I truly wated to get rid of one. These incessant notification screens, filled with information I did not care about –

Dragon Eye

A

Diplomat

Name Brand

Burden Shift [Ac]

Language Comprehension [Ac]

True Sight [Ac]

Silent Discourse [Ac]

Burden Shift [Ac]

Dragon Eye

A+

Oracle

Medical Psychiatry

Aker’s light [Ac]

Heart of Truth [Pa]

Henry Myers’ Guidance [Ac]

Anat’s eyes [Pa]

Silent Lullaby [Ac]

“Right.” I mumbled.

This was the last drop.

I gave up on any hopes of socialising and wandered deeper into the art gallery where I, somewhat unintentionally, had found myself in.

I had hoped that I would be able to get away from the crowd (although it wasn’t really a crowd, just a very high percentage of high-ranking individuals), but my hopes were quickly disproven.

Dragon Eye

A-

Archer

Sharpshooter

Heavy Crossbows [Pa]

Sports Crossbows [Pa]

Marksmith [Pa]

Camouflage (Urban, …, …) [Pa]

Craft [Ac]

I politely smiled at this individual who passed by me, before dropping the forced expression. I desperately looked for an escape, a place to hide for just a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at most, where I wouldn’t be bothered with notification screens every few seconds. I noticed a duo idly chatting and walking towards the painting I was ‘admiring’, and my search for an escape intensified.

Suddenly, because for some strange reason this realisation had in fact been sudden, I noticed a fabric cord blocking off a dimly lit hallway. It was no doubt not part of the current exposition (or was it an art auction?), meaning that it would be empty.

“Good evening.” One of the two people greeted me.

“Good evening.” I politely replied with a nod.

Dragon Eye

A

Rear-guard

Numberphile

Lucky Roll [Ac]

Long-term interest (str) [Ac]

Reflection Mitigation [Pa]

PMT sight [Ac]

MS office suite [Pa]

The screen popped up before my eyes as the second person passed by me. I clenched the edge of my dress in frustration. But, as soon as the two of them had left the room, I gracefully walked to the cordon and somewhat less gracefully dove under it. I felt no remorse in doing so, as trespassing was nothing new to me.

The hallways in this dimly-lit part of the expo centre twisted and turned, wrapping themselves around one another. I understood why they had been blocked off, as one could very easily get lost in these parts of the ‘Palais de Eaux’.

What did surprise me was the abundance of paintings, even in this section that no one was meant to visit. Perhaps it was part of some permanent exposition, or perhaps this section would open to the public later during the evening. Truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of event this was. My sister had told me that I was an art expo, but Gerard seemed very keen on buying some of the pieces, and I myself had formed the opinion that this was more of an opportunity for high rankers to mingle in something similar to a private club, as the actual art exposition seemed to be taking place upstairs.

I took a deep breath, having somewhat calmed down and let go of my frustration after listening to Gerard monologue and having so many system windows thrown at me. I fixed a few strands of my loose hair, straightened out the part of the dress I had been clenching onto, and turned around, with the intention to head back to the main area.

A shadow wavered at the edge of the curved hallway, before vanishing behind a painting-lined wall.

“Excuse-” I cut myself off, realising that it hadn’t looked quite human enough.

Was it too tall? Too curvy? It had looked as if it was made of several smaller shadows and not a single one.

A voice at the back of my head told me that Etienne would go and check it out and that I should do the same. Common sense told me that it was a steward that had come looking for me after seeing me wander off to the off-limits zone, meaning that I’d have to go after them to use my ‘Black Trail’ skill, to make them forget that I was trespassing. Hence, I didn’t really have any options.

Slowly, in a fashion I preferred to describe as discrete rather than sneaky, I walked down that corridor, hoping to catch another glance of whatever or whoever that had been.

The shadow vanished into a hallway to my right, one that I knew, thanks to ‘Backtrack’, did not lead back to the main expo hall.

It wavered in the dim maintenance lights of this painting gallery as if waiting for me to follow.

I couldn’t be quite sure that there was a person attached to this shadow. Perhaps it was the fact that there were no people around to trigger my passive calming skills, but my heart rate began going up, as this just didn’t sit right with me.

I shook my head. If I were to head back, I would have to pass by the hallway it was in anyway and I’d see what it was. My common sense kept telling me that it was just a steward, or a waitress, who’d run off to check their social media or something of the sort. So, I decisively, albeit still very softly and quietly, walked towards that hallway intersection. The shadow moved away, further down that painting-lined hallway, but it didn’t fully vanish.

I was about to peak over the corner, to get a better look at the shadow’s owner, but decided at the last minute that it was very ‘un-high-ranker’ of me.

“Excuse me,” I spoke as I stepped into the hallway, “It appears I’ve-”

It was not a steward.

The thing was almost as tall as the corridor, with a fine torso and even finer arms. It did not have any legs, as its lover body simply merged with that wavering shadow that had lured me here. It did not have a face per se, nor did it really have a body, as I realised, examining it closer in my frightened stupor. It seemed to be made out of hundreds of tiny - brushstrokes? They shifted ever so slightly following the rhythm of a non-existent set of lungs.

The thing mumbled something intelligible, before sliding further down the corridor. It stopped again, a few meters ahead, definitely waiting for me to follow.

Was it trying to lure me into a trap? Were there more monsters waiting down there in the darkness?

I took a step back, not daring to turn around.

The thing tilted its head to the side, before sliding ever so slightly towards me. It waited there for an endless second, before returning to its previous position.

“Nope.” I whispered and spun around.

Stop being a coward.

I was facing the creature once again. Any form of apprehension I had previously felt had fully vanished from my mind. It was as if I’d never seen a horror movie before and didn’t know how following monsters in a deserted building usually ended. But I followed it nonetheless.

MP - 2

A part of my mind I was no longer sure I had access to, materialise a white blade in my hand. Ignoring how uncomfortably hot it was to the touch, I carried on walking.

The wooden flooring under my feet was covered in a thick layer of a tacky yellow liquid that the creature had left behind as a trail. I noticed that whatever corridor we were walking down was always just a tiny bit dimmer than the surrounding hallways.

The creature made of shadows and flaking paint finally came to a stop when we entered a portrait gallery. This room had a glass ceiling, that exposed the marshland waters above it. Somewhere far, far in the distance, above the waterline, tiny lanterns illuminated the paths in between the dozens of islands that surrounded the ‘Palais de Eaux’. They should have shone like stars, but the murky waters and the glass ceiling refracted and twisted their light, making it dim and eerie. In this oval room, separated in three by walls covered in paintings, there were none of those dim orange maintenance lights that had lined every corridor up until now. If not for my ‘Dark vision’ skill, I might not have even seen my guide disappear behind the left-most wall.

Still possessed by whatever force had taken away my self-preservation instincts, I followed it.