Master Maker

Chapter 6 -Cross Roads Deal

I walked around the underground world, taking in the beauty of everything around me. Something about this room felt familiar and I looked around it a few more times, a huge light was in the center of the room, the furniture was the color of dark wood and had red blankets draped over them, it was the layout of the cave, only more enchanting. I went over to the couches and sat down, staring at the light source. It was almost like a huge hole in the ground, with a dome of frosted glass over it. I placed my hand on it, it was cold yet it seemed to be glowing.  I sat back my mind was reeling. The sound of a clock suddenly dinging made me jump. I looked around the room to see that a huge grandfather Clock was in the corner it was chiming the time, I counted as it chimed ding1, ding 2, ding 3, ding 4, ding 5, ding 6, ding 7, ding 8, ding 9, ding 10, ding 11. I got up thinking ii had missed a chime along the way. Nope.

“interesting little piece isn’t it?” Lucis’ voice was soft but clam

“how long was I asleep for” I could hear the panic in my voice, had I been missing for a few days?

“relax, little demo,” Lucis said brushing a strand of hair behind my ear “we got here at 8, you slept for two or so hours”

“that’s it?” I said looking at the ground

“that’s it, “Lucis said chuckling softly while his hand fluttered through my hair and stopped on my cheek. I couldn’t help but push my face against his palm and place my hand over his. I looked up at him. A small smile playing on his lips. He brought me close again his face inches from mine

“Now,” he said in a whisper, “where were we” he brushed his lips over mine, biting my bottom lip. I took his face in my hands and pressed my lips to his again, his skin was cold under my hands but at that moment I didn’t care. The kiss deepened and Lucis lifted me once again and walked us over to the couch, he sat down with me on his lap, his hands trailing up my back as I ran my hands through his long hair. I found myself shifting on his lap trying to get closer to him. He let out a low moan as I shifted. I let out a small giggle trailing my hands down his chest catching the seam of his shirt and pulling up and off of him, for the brief second that we were no longer kissing Lucis yanked my dress off and pulled me down onto the couch, getting onto me and kissing my neck, I looked above me, watching the fish swim by and some water plants floating cross the glass. Lucis’ mouth was trailing down my body, causing me to moan softly and making my back arch a bit.  Then he suddenly stopped. I propped myself up on my arm to look at him he was staring at me, he had hunger in his eyes. I sat up and touched his face, his green eyes focused on me, he kissed me again, taking the back of my head, and leaned his forehead on mine.

“not yet” he whispered and got up. He handed me my dress and kissed my forehead. I swallowed hard trying to figure out what exactly just happened. He sat down next to me again, holding my jaw in his hand and turning my head to face him. He kissed me softly and whispered

“you don’t trust me enough” confused looked at him his face shifted once or twice and settled. Almost instantly my fingers came up to my mouth and I began gnawing at the skin. He took my hand and kissed it, laying back as he pulled me onto him. Lucis started playing with my hair and circled his fingertips over my back. I felt myself getting sleeping again, soon my whole world went into darkness

I woke up in the dark, in my room. Familiar smells hit me like a truck and I started to believe that everything had been a dream. I looked around me my laptop on the desk a sliver of light was coming from it, I got up and opened it. a note was laying on the keyboard,

Come join me

The same perfect handwriting was on it; the paper was the same thick gritty texture of the other note. I put it down on the desk pulling up the chair and sitting down. I got back up and grabbed my phone, checking the time. It was almost 9 pm. I sat for a few more seconds and thought about it but in the end, I placed my headset on and logged into the game.

I was back in the cave, it was dark and the fire pit only had embers in it. I moved to the mouth of the cave looking at the dead world.  My Dragon appeared and hovered, I ventured out of the cave and started to follow the dragon. I ended up a shop keeper and was put into a quest. Following my dragon to a bridge. I started to make my way over it when two huge trolls jumped up and blocked my way on either side.

“you are trespassing girl,” the one in front of me said, I turned to see the second one had my dragon in his arms, one hand clamped around his mouth to stop him from breathing fire or attacking

Lilith: release my dragon, and let me pass

 I typed out in the chat

“not likely girl,” said the first troll “here’s the deal, answer 3 questions correct and you can move forward answer wrong, well, you’ll find out”

Lilith: release my dragon, then I’ll play your little game

“very well” the troll holding my Dragon let him and shooed him off before I was able to create a command

“The first question,” said both trolls at once

“what has to be broken before you can use it,” they said again at the same time. I sat thinking for a few seconds

Lilith: an egg?  I typed out, slightly unsure about my answer

“is that your final answer? They said I sat for a few seconds again thinking, it had to be that, I couldn’t think of anything else that had to be broken before you could use it

Lilith: final answer, egg

 The trolls shifted away as soon as the answer was given,

“Next question: there is a one-story house in which everything is yellow, yellow door, Yellow walls, yellow furniture, what color are the stairs?”

Lilith: that’s easy, there are no stairs, it’s a one-story house

I typed out and the trolls moved away again

“The last question,” both trolls said together

“what is always in front of you but you can never see?”

 Lilith: your face?

“is that your final answer” the trolls suddenly boomed in my ears, I wasn’t sure though, I sat for a few seconds looking in front of me

Lilith: air?

“Are you sure, this is the last chance” the trolls boomed together, I looked at the screen, staring in front of me as though the answer was going to pop up in front of me

“ten, nine, eight…”

Shit, s**t, s**t I thought to myself and typed out the first thing to pop into my mind

Lilith: the future

The trolls disappeared and I was free to walk over the bridge, on the other side stood a tall dark figure, I smiled to myself as I walked closer, I felt like I should have been scared but I found myself drawn to him. Lucis was hidden by the shadows, but his green eyes were the first thing I saw, they were glowing like a cat’s eyes at night.

“huh, you got different questions to me” his voice sounded in my ears, making me smile more, we walked along the river looking for the next thing we had to in the quest, we had to find some golden thing and take it back to shop keeper. Yeah, I say a golden thing because I couldn’t remember what the hell we were looking for. Suddenly something huge came out from behind the trees, swinging a huge club. I jumped back looking back at Lucis, he had his weapon up at the ready.

“go for the eye he shouted swinging his heavy sword at the thing's legs, which seemed to only make it angrier. I pulled my bow and arrow from my back and aimed, shooting off an arrow that landed into the thing's shoulder.

“the eye” Lucis said loudly, moving away as the huge club was swung again, it hit the ground and caused it to shake, smaller creatures started running down the big one’s arms, attacking from all sides. I pulled out a knife and killed them off one at the time as they came up to me, Lucis was slicing through a few at a time, bringing more attention to himself

“Aim,” he said softly “breath in and let it fly, aim, for the eye” h seemed very calm which in the long run helped, I positioned myself aiming, I let an arrow fly hitting the big creature in the neck it roared and hit the ground again. I aimed again this time focusing on its eye. I released the arrow, hitting its mark. A loud piercing scream came from the creature. It staggered forwards and fell to its knees then hit the ground with a thud, the huge body burst into hundreds of tiny spiders that scattered all over the floor, I let out a scream pulling the headset from my head, and fell backward on my chair, instinctively hitting and running my hands down my body. I hated spiders and I couldn’t deal with real-life or not, I heard a voice coming from the headset but I sat on the floor motionless, breathing hard, stupid, stupid game. I peaked at the screen and saw that we were standing in the forest, with nothing but trees around us. I put the headphones back onto my head and heard Lucis ask if I was okay

“I don’t know,” I said to myself knowing that he couldn’t hear me,

“I heard you scream”

Lilith: huh?  Typed out feeling confused. I heard him laugh quietly to himself

“talk little Demon,” he said “didn’t you see the gift I left you” I hadn’t turned on the light so I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, I pulled the headset off and looked at them. They weren’t the black ones that I had always had, they were white, with green trimmings. I put them back on.

“you really shouldn’t have,” I said softly

“How else was I going to hear that voice of yours” he replied we started walking along the river again “so spiders?” Lucis said trying to hide the amusement in his voice

“Oh shut up,” I said feeling slightly annoyed “suppose it’s going make some of these quests harder to do for me”

“well definitely the next part of this one” he handed me a scroll

 Into my trap you walk, a fine meal you’ll make.

Try to outrun me you won’t

Stick to the line you will

Legs of eight, eyes of the great

The red and yellow will flee

“God f*****g dammit,” I said a little too loudly, we walked on the sound of the running river was the only thing cutting through the silence between us, the grass under feet soon turned to rocks and dead ground, we came to the cave opening, some stones that were clustered together were worming a walk away going over the mountainside, I made a move towards the pathway when a sound caught my ears.

Go through and win

Go around and die

The words were a whisper in wind but I heard them clearly, I pulled my bow and arrow and my back, holding it at the ready.

“Okay now what?” I asked

“We go in I guess,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. I looked back to see a Viking, man behind me.

“Justine” Lucis said “took you long enough”

“those stupid bridge trolls kept killing me with their dumb questions”

“well let’s do this” Lucis said walking forward, the other guy Justine walked right in, I stayed on the same spot unmoving, Lucis turned at the mouth of the cave and extended his hand to me,

“do you trust me” I looked at him outreached hand and then looked up to his face? did I?

“I guess I do,” I said softly, slowly moving forward, I didn’t take his hand I walk right past him to the dark cave.

It was too dark to see anything, the sound of crunching coming from our steps was distracting. I heard a clicking sound, second, the chamber in front of us light up the Viking guy was holding a ball of fire in his hands he flung it and it lit up all the fire post points on the walls.

The floor was littered with bones and sticks,

“Whatever you don’t look up,” Lucis said his voice was harsh and serious. I kept my eyes forward and focused on the stare case that was ahead, I heard something fall from above and snack the ground with a heavy thud. My heart was beating uncontrollably, I started to turn when Lucis voice my ears in a whisper “keep walking, don’t look back” I froze on the spot as heard a metal slice through something and hit the ground. I looked back. Behind me was a giant spider laying in a two-piece. I started to back up against the cave wall. As I touched the wall something stuck to my hand I pulled away from it, my bare skin was covered in webs, I put my hand over my mouth trying to stop myself from screaming as I looked above me. There was a huge thick web with spiders walking along with it” Lucis was by my side in an instant

“do you trust me?” he whispered my eyes were fixed on the horror that was above me, I was transfixed and unable to move. Lucis grabbed my face and made me look into his eyes

“Little demon, do you trust me” I stared into his eyes, and slowly nodded my head “walk towards the stairs, keep your eyes to the floor don’t stand on anything that looks like a web, we all started making our way towards the stairs my eyes darting from the brick to brick looking for anything that might look like a web.

“f**k” I heard Justin’s voice, and then a stone scrapped and sank, everything went dead quiet. I turned around to see that a few of the spiders that were up on the web were now on the ground, and they were moving quickly towards the three of us. Justine had a huge ax in his hands that he was swinging around knocking and cutting anything that came close to him. Lucis was away behind him taking on anything that would get past Justine, I looked up to see that more spiders were coming down the walls, I felt helpless and frozen. With shaky hands, I pulled my bow and arrow into a waiting stance shooting arrows that missed their targets I fell to my knees in panic. Un able to help, unable to do anything. The message in the scroll came up and played over and over in my head.

“red and yellow: I said softly to myself

“what” Lucis shouted back at me

“red and yellow” I shouted back “red and yellow will flee”

“still not making any sense” Justine grunted as he swung his ax again

“it’s in the scroll, into my trap you walk, a fine meal you’ll make. Try to outrun me you won’t. Stick to the line you will. Legs of eight, eyes of the great. The red and yellow will flee.” Lucis turned to look at me

“What color is your dragon?”

“blue,” I said shaking my head, I looked around when something caught my eye. Red and yellow, it was ‘fire’.

“fire, red and yellow is fire” I shouted, suddenly both men dropped their weapons and were now holding balls of fire in their hands which was shot out amongst the spiders, making them run either out the cave or back up into their web all except for one. One huge spider stayed on the ground slowly making its way towards us,

“any other bright ideas,” Justin said looking back at me, I looked at the spider noticing that its legs seemed too small for its body. Legs of eight I thought to myself

“yeah go the legs” I shouted, I aimed with my bow and arrow, aiming at the spider’s head.

Concentrate

It wasn’t my voice in my head it was Lucis’. I let out a breath and I let an arrow go, hitting my mark perfectly, the f*****g thing exploded into tiny spiders again which had me closing my eyes with my hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that was edging to escape my throat. Heard a clung, and someone was holding me.

“shhh, they are gone little demon” I could feel Lucis holding me and his hand stroking my hair, I opened my eyes to look at my shoulder there was nothing there but I swear I could feel the action I looked up to see Justin holding something gold in his hands.

“let’s back to the shop keeper shall we?” Lucis is soft to me we headed up the stairs and made our way out of the cave. We were on a high point and looking around almost took my breath away for a world that only existed in-game it was beautiful, the landscape seemed to stretch on and was never-ending. A small creature came running past and jumped up into Lucis' arms and settled on his shoulder. I looked at it but was unable to figure out what the hell it was. Aa crow then landed on Justin’s shoulder and then I heard a roar, my blue dragon was hovering in the sky, twice the size I had seen it earlier. The dragon hovered lower and landed a few feet from us.

Justin looked at him in awe

“have you ridden him yet,” he asked

“you can ride them?” I asked confused,

 “well yeah, it’s the perks of getting a dragon you and learn to ride them”

“how come you have a different animal,” I asked

“it’s random, you’ll see only a few with dragons, crows are the most common, but you can teach it to do stuff to”

“meet us at the shop,” Lucis said making his way down the mountain

“Wait,” I said moving towards him

“take a flying lesson,” he said smiling

I watched them as they both walked off. Walking back to y dragon I touched his shout and looked at him. He let off a huff of warm air and nudged me with his head to move closer I walked up to his one wind which was flat against the ground. I slowly and carefully climbed up on his back and settled in-between his wings, holding onto the ones. He let off a roar and took to the sky without so much as a warning, I could feel the rush of adrenaline coursing through my body.  The dragon flew through the sky over the world and coming close to a huge body of water as it swooped down I could almost smell the salt coming off the water as the dragon dipped its huge feet into it gaining more speed and launching back high into the air the feeling of being free came to an end far too quickly when my dragon touched down on the ground again taking me to the shop keeper, where we waited a minute or two for the two men to arrive

“How did it go?” Justin asked

“it was amazing,” I said looking over at the dragon that stood tall and proud behind me.

Once we finished off the quest, I logged off and climbed into bed my intention was to get some sleep in the real world however that almost seemed impossible, I wanted to be back in the game world, or at least in a bubble with Lucis. I felt like I would do anything to able to be back in that underwater bubble with him again,

I guess I had eventually fallen asleep, but I couldn’t be sure I found myself lying in bed imagining the game world that I longed to be back in. I wanted to be soaring through the sky and not have damn care in the world. Taking on big ass creatures and fighting my way out of a sticky situation. I knew that I had changed in the last few days and I was hoping it was for the best. I didn’t feel like that quiet sacred little girl anymore. I felt like I could take the world head-on and not giving one f**k about what anyone had to think about it.

 my alarm sounded and I sort of stared at it for a few seconds turned it off and got out the bed. I took longer to get ready than I normally would have, I pulled on a black off the shoulder top with skinny jeans and nude high heels, I did my face up, and even did my hair. I gave myself one last glance over in the mirror and made my way downstairs. my mother was in the kitchen holding a note in her hand, her face looked pinch and strained. She looked up at me and smiled. It was a very forced smile but I gave her one back

“it’s the invite,” she said with a shaky voice waving the paper in her hand

 “great tell them we won’t be there,” I said grabbing my bag

“I already said we would, you have a plus one as well”

“ah huh,” I said moving to the door

“so you can ask Greg to go with, “she said looking at me

“ah well, Greg and I aren’t together anymore so I think I’ll skip that” 

“oh, well.” She trailed off as though she lost her train of thought “they need you at dress fittings today at 1” I stopped dead in my tracks

“I didn’t agree to that” I hissed at my mother

“well, your father wants it so I’m saying you will” my mother stood in the kitchen with her hands on her hips.

“sure, whatever makes everyone happy I guess, let’s just ignore what I want,” I said yanking the door open slamming it closed behind me. As I walked down the sidewalk I was in my head again thinking about the game, I found myself wishing I could bump into my dangerous knight in shining armor.

I could hear a car slowing down next to me, the window opened, blasting out heavy metal.

“want a ride” his voice was music to my ears I turned and saw Lucis was the driver of the car, I half smiled at him when he got out and opened the door for me.

“well, what a gentleman,” I said running my fingers over his shoulder as I climbed into the car.

As we pulled up at the school I noticed that everyone we passed was looking at the car, some looked surprised while others looked at it in anger and others just stared. Lucis parked the car and got out without a word I was just about to follow when the door opened and he held out his hand to me. I took his hand and got out, I was about to walk passed him when he did the unexpected. Lucis closed the door behind me and took my face into his hands and kissed me hard. When he pulled away he looked me in the eyes.

“do you trust me” he whispered I smiled at him

“with my life” he kissed me again, took my hand, and walked me into the school.