Chapter 4: I Was Summoned to Save the World, So I Ran Away

The royal palace of Lumenvale had seventeen kitchens, nine prayer halls, four indoor gardens, three grand ballrooms, and exactly one broom closet that smelled strongly enough of vinegar to conceal a fugitive hero.

Milo Park stood inside it with a stolen servant’s cloak draped over his shoulders, one boot half-laced, and a wicker lunch basket hooked over his elbow. A mop handle dug into his spine. Something damp and possibly alive dripped from a shelf above him. On the other side of the thin wooden door, armored footsteps marched past in perfect rhythm.

“Search the eastern wing,” a knight barked. “His Majesty wants the Hero brought to the council chamber before dawn.”

Another voice, lower and amused, answered, “How far could he get? He doesn’t know the palace, can’t ride, and asked Sir Garrick if swords came with safety toggles.”

Milo held his breath so hard his ribs complained.

The footsteps faded down the corridor. Somewhere in the palace, a bell chimed twice. Two hours until sunrise. Two hours since Milo had learned, entirely by accident, that King Albrecht the Very Polished intended to present him at the emergency war council as “the divine spear that shall pierce demonkind,” which sounded less like a job title and more like a legal waiver.

Milo had not meant to eavesdrop. He had only been trying to find a bathroom. Unfortunately, palaces had a malicious tendency to label bathrooms as “refreshment retiring chambers,” while labeling war rooms as “private solar galleries,” and so he had opened the wrong carved door and discovered a conspiracy served with tea.

“The Hero’s weakness does not matter,” the king had said, voice smooth as lacquer. “Symbols are stronger than swords. We will march under his banner, unite the wavering duchies, and demand levies from the temple cities. If he dies gloriously, he becomes a martyr. If he lives, he becomes ours.”

Then another noble had asked whether Milo might object.

The king had smiled.

Milo had closed the door very, very quietly.

Now he crouched among dust, disinfectant, and moral clarity.

Quest Available!
Main Scenario: Accept the Crown’s Holy Mandate
Objective: Become the symbolic head of a continental war.
Reward: Fame, political authority, ceremonial armor, probable assassination attempts.
Failure Penalty: Unknown.

Accept? Y/N

Milo stared at the translucent blue window hovering inches from his nose.

No.

The window flickered.

Are you sure?
Declining a Main Scenario may affect narrative stability.

Milo mouthed the words, I have never cared less about narrative stability.

He jabbed N.

The system window minimized with a sulky chime. A small red badge appeared at the edge of his vision.

1 Pending Consequence

“Get in line,” Milo whispered.

The broom closet door opened.

Milo’s soul attempted to leave his body by the nearest available exit.

A girl in a plain brown maid’s dress slipped inside, shut the door behind her, and immediately planted a gloved hand over his mouth.

“If you scream,” Princess Celestia whispered, “I will scream louder, and then we will both have to explain why we are hiding in a janitorial cabinet.”

Milo stared at her.

Without her jeweled circlet, shining armor, and procession of attendants, Celestia looked less like the untouchable sword-princess of a kingdom and more like someone who had lost an argument with a laundry basket. Her silver-blond hair had been shoved under a servant’s cap with limited success. Several glossy strands escaped to frame sharp blue eyes, and flour dusted one cheekbone in a suspiciously deliberate attempt at disguise.

Milo carefully peeled her hand off his mouth. “Your Highness?”

“Lia,” she hissed.

“What?”

“My name. For this purpose. I am Lia, a humble palace maid.”

Milo looked at the sword strapped under her apron.

She followed his gaze and adjusted the apron over the hilt. “A maid with hobbies.”

“Are you chasing me?”

“Escorting.”

“Against my will?”

“If necessary.”

“That feels like chasing.”

Celestia’s mouth tightened. In the cramped closet, with their shoulders nearly touching and the sour smell of vinegar wrapping around them, the princess looked impossibly awake. Milo, by contrast, felt like a collection of bad decisions wearing boots.

“You cannot simply flee the capital,” she said.

“Watch me discover new forms of can.”

“My father placed the city gates under watch.”

“I figured.”

“The royal stables are guarded.”

“I also figured that.”

“You do not know the roads, the language variants, the coinage, the laws of guest-right, the seasonal migration patterns of fangboars, or which berries cause your bones to sing.”

Milo paused. “My bones can sing here?”

“Only once.”

“Noted.”

Celestia leaned closer, lowering her voice until it was thinner than a drawn wire. “Milo, listen to me. If you run blindly, you will be dead before noon.”

The seriousness in her tone punched through his panic. He remembered her in the training courtyard, sword bright under morning sun, shouting orders while his ridiculous Defensive Tutorial Shield turned elite knights into unwilling participants in a slapstick obstacle course. He remembered her catching his sleeve afterward when his knees gave out, not laughing until she knew he was unhurt.

He also remembered her father’s smile over the tea table.

“If I stay,” Milo said, “I become a mascot with a target painted on my chest.”

Celestia looked away first.

That was answer enough.

“I do not agree with his methods,” she said.

“That’s a beautiful phrase people use right before helping with the methods.”

Her eyes flashed. “I came here to stop you from being dragged into the council chamber.”

Milo blinked.

“I also came to stop you from dying in a ditch,” she added. “Both can be true.”

The bell chimed again somewhere far above them, a silver note trembling through the palace stones. Celestia went still. Her head tilted, listening past the walls.

“Servants’ shift change,” she murmured. “We have perhaps eight minutes.”

“We?” Milo asked.

She opened the door a finger’s width and peered out. “Unless you prefer I alert the guards.”

Milo tightened his grip on the lunch basket. “For someone dressed as a humble maid, you’re very threatening.”

“Thank you.”

They slipped into the corridor.

The palace before dawn was not the palace Milo had been dragged through yesterday beneath banners and trumpets. That palace had glittered with gold leaf, stained glass, and enough marble to bankrupt several mountains. This one belonged to whispers and candle stubs. Shadows pooled under tapestries. Servants moved like ghosts with trays of bread, stacks of linens, polished boots, silver pitchers steaming with hot water. The air smelled of beeswax, yeast, and banked hearths.

Celestia walked with her head lowered, shoulders rounded, perfectly matching the pace of the servants around them. Milo tried to imitate her and immediately looked like a man pretending not to be chased by national policy.

“Relax your hands,” she murmured.

Milo unclenched them.

“Not that much. You look dead.”

He rearranged his fingers.

“Why are you carrying the basket like it contains explosives?”

“It contains breakfast. That’s basically explosives after royal kitchen beans.”

Her lips twitched despite herself. “What did you steal?”

“Bread, cheese, apples, some kind of meat pie, three boiled eggs, and a pastry that winked at me.”

“Currant sprite tart. Do not eat it after sunset.”

“Because of magic?”

“Because it becomes opinionated.”

Milo decided not to ask.

They turned down a narrow stairwell used by servants, descending away from high chambers and into the palace’s working belly. Heat thickened. Pipes clanged in the walls. Somewhere below, cooks shouted over the roar of ovens. Celestia moved decisively, choosing turns without hesitation, while Milo followed and tried not to trip over his stolen boots.

The boots were beautiful. Soft brown leather, brass buckles, enchantment stitching around the soles. They had belonged to a decorative suit of armor in a guest hall, which Milo felt only mildly guilty about robbing because the suit of armor had not technically been using them. Unfortunately, they were half a size too large and squeaked when he panicked.

At the bottom of the stairs, a pair of guards stood before an archway leading into a torchlit passage. Milo’s heart slammed into his throat.

Celestia did not slow.

“Laundry for the lower barracks,” she said briskly, pitching her voice into a bored servant’s drawl.

One guard glanced at Milo. “He new?”

“Kitchen runner. Dropped a tray of pheasant gravy on Lord Embric last night.”

The guard recoiled with sympathetic horror. “Saints preserve him.”

Milo lowered his eyes and attempted to look like a man haunted by gravy.

“Go on,” the guard said, waving them through. “And tell Cook the third watch wants more pepper rolls.”

“Tell third watch to stop losing them at dice,” Celestia replied without missing a beat.

Both guards laughed.

They passed under the arch.

Milo waited until they were around the corner before whispering, “You are disturbingly good at this.”

“I grew up in a palace. If you cannot impersonate a servant by age twelve, you never learn anything useful.”

“Like sword fighting?”

“Like which ministers are cheating on their taxes.”

The passage led to a loading yard enclosed by high stone walls. Dawn had not yet touched the sky, but the eastern horizon had softened from black to bruised purple. Wagons waited in rows beneath canvas covers, their wheels rimmed with mud. Stable boys yawned. Oxen snorted clouds into the cold. Crates of vegetables, barrels of salted fish, and cages of unhappy chickens filled the yard with the wet earthy smell of market day.

Beyond the far gate, Lumenvale stirred awake.

Milo glimpsed steep roofs layered with blue tile, chimneys smoking, bridges arcing over canals that reflected lampfire in trembling ribbons. The capital wrapped around the palace hill in rings of wealth and stone, beautiful and predatory. Somewhere out there were gates, walls, guards, and probably several people whose sole duty was recognizing clueless summoned heroes in stolen boots.

Celestia pointed to a wagon stacked with empty flour sacks. “In.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Unless you can become invisible.”

Milo hesitated.

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Search result for: invisibility

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2. Premium Stealth Aura – 2,400 Satisfaction Stars
3. Sponsored: Sneaky Goblin Starter Pack – 299 Satisfaction Stars

Current Balance: 0 Satisfaction Stars

“Not within budget,” Milo muttered.

Celestia stared at the empty air where his system window hovered, then at him. “Are you reading invisible nonsense again?”

“It’s not nonsense. It’s monetization.”

“In.”

Milo climbed into the wagon and burrowed under scratchy flour sacks that immediately filled his nose with powder. Celestia slid in after him with significantly more grace, pulling a tarp over them. Darkness swallowed the world. Milo found himself wedged between a crate corner and the princess’s elbow.

The wagon lurched.

Milo bit back a yelp as the stolen boots squeaked.

Wheels rolled over cobblestone. Harness bells jingled. Outside, a driver cursed affectionately at the oxen. The wagon joined a slow procession toward the loading gate.

Through a gap in the tarp, Milo saw torchlight smear across stone. Heard guards checking seals. Heard a chicken declare war on existence.

Then came the voice he had dreaded.

“Hold this wagon.”

The wheels stopped.

Celestia’s hand closed over Milo’s wrist, warning him still.

A guard approached. Leather creaked. A spear butt tapped wood. “What are you carrying?”

The driver spat to the side. “Empty sacks, two crates cracked, and my sour mood.”

“Orders from above. We’re checking all outgoing wagons.”

Milo’s mouth went dry.

The tarp lifted.

Cold air knifed in.

Celestia moved before Milo could think. She grabbed a flour sack, tore it open with a quick jerk, and flung a white cloud into the guard’s face.

The guard stumbled back, coughing. “What in—!”

“Rats!” Celestia shrieked in a perfect servant-girl panic. “Rats in the sacks!”

The driver shouted something unprintable. Chickens exploded into noise. Someone yelled for a terrier. The oxen, offended by the commotion, surged forward.

The wagon lurched through the gate.

Milo bounced off a crate, swallowed flour, and saw stars.

Behind them, the loading yard dissolved into chaos. Guards coughed. Servants screamed about rats that did not exist. The driver whipped the reins and cursed the oxen into a lumbering trot as the wagon rolled out beneath the palace arch and into the waking city.

Celestia collapsed back under the tarp, face dusted ghost-white, eyes bright.

Milo stared at her. “Did you just weaponize flour?”

“Improvised obscurant.”

“You are terrifying.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and this time she smiled.

For three streets, their escape consisted of darkness, jolting wood, and Milo trying not to sneeze hard enough to become a national alert. The city smelled different at ground level: horse manure, wet stone, frying dough, river mist, charcoal smoke, and the sharp green bite of herbs laid out by early market women. Voices rose around them as Lumenvale woke—shop shutters banging open, priests chanting morning blessings, children arguing over whose turn it was to carry water.

Milo pressed his eye to the tarp gap.

The palace shrank behind them, a crown of pale towers on its hill. Sunlight gilded the highest spires first, turning them briefly innocent.

His chest tightened.

He had run from jobs before. Bad contracts, exploitative publishers, a mobile-game investor who believed “fun” was an unnecessary expense. But he had never run from a prophecy. There was no email trail, no resignation letter, no polite “I appreciate the opportunity.” Just stolen boots and a princess disguised as a maid, fleeing a king who wanted to turn him into a flag.

A system badge blinked.

Achievement Unlocked!
Nope% Speedrun
You declined a divine mandate and escaped the starting castle before completing basic combat training.

Reward: +1 Cowardice? +1 Survival Instinct? System uncertain.

Milo glared at it.

Celestia noticed his expression. “What now?”

“The universe is being sarcastic.”

“Then the universe knows you well.”

The wagon eventually slowed near the outer market, where city noise thickened into a living thing. Celestia waited until the driver stopped to haggle with someone about turnips. Then she lifted the tarp, scanned the street, and dropped lightly down.

Milo followed less lightly, landing in an alley between stacked barrels and a wall sticky with old posters. His knees wobbled, but freedom blew cool across his face. The sky above Lumenvale blazed pink and gold. Pigeons fluttered from roof to roof like scraps of dirty paper.

Celestia adjusted her maid’s cap. “We take Rivergate. It will be crowded. Keep your head down.”

“I thought the gates were watched.”

“All gates are watched. Rivergate is watched by people who care more about fish tariffs than faces.”

“That is the kind of guard I respect.”

They plunged into the market.

If the palace had been marble and whispers, the market was color and impact. Vendors stood beneath striped awnings shouting over one another in a dozen accents. Fishmongers slapped silver-scaled river carp onto wet boards. A woman with green-painted lips sold jars of captured dawnlight that glowed like honey. Dwarves in soot-stained aprons argued about hinge prices. A centaur pulled a cart of cabbages while reading a scandal sheet. Somewhere, a lute player sang about a baron’s romantic misadventure with a cursed goose.

Milo tried to look everywhere at once.

“Stop gawking,” Celestia murmured.

“There’s a guy selling bottled thunderstorms.”

“Poor quality. Too much rain, not enough thunder.”

“How do you know that?”

“I bought one when I was fourteen.”

“Why?”

“Diplomacy lesson.”

“That explains nothing.”

A pair of city guards pushed through the crowd ahead, helmets catching sunlight. Milo instinctively ducked behind a hanging display of sausages. Celestia grabbed his sleeve and dragged him onward.

“Do not hide behind meat,” she said.

“It was available cover.”

“It was smoked venison.”

“Then it died for a cause.”

At Rivergate, traffic slowed to a churning bottleneck. Wagons piled with fish barrels, farmers with baskets, pilgrims in gray cloaks, and grumbling merchants pressed toward the arched gatehouse where bored officials collected taxes with the dead-eyed efficiency of all bureaucrats everywhere. Beyond the gate, Milo could see a ribbon of road sloping toward the river valley and open countryside.

So close.

A herald in royal blue shoved onto a crate near the gate and unrolled a parchment.

“By order of His Majesty King Albrecht,” the herald cried, “all citizens are instructed to report suspicious sightings of the newly summoned Hero! The Hero is distinguished by foreign dress, peculiar speech, weak posture, and an air of divine bewilderment.”

Several nearby people looked around with interest.

Milo slowly straightened his spine.

Celestia’s mouth flattened. “Weak posture?”

“That’s what bothers you?” Milo whispered.

“It is imprecise.”

The herald continued, “He may be accompanied by traitorous elements seeking to mislead him from his sacred duty.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed to knives.

“Reward for information leading to his safe return: one hundred gold crowns.”

The crowd erupted.

Milo felt dozens of heads turn like sunflowers seeking profit.

Celestia grabbed him by the back of the cloak and hauled him into motion. “Plan change.”

“Is the plan running?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. I know that one.”

They ran.

A fishmonger shouted, “That lad looks bewildered!”

“Everyone looks bewildered near your prices!” someone shouted back.

A guard spotted them. “You there! Stop!”

Milo did the opposite.

Celestia darted between wagons with the agility of someone who had been trained from birth to navigate battlefields, ballrooms, and inconvenient consequences. Milo followed by bouncing off obstacles and apologizing to vegetables. A basket of pears overturned behind him. A goose attacked his boot. Someone’s laundry line slapped him across the face with damp stockings.

“This way!” Celestia shouted.

They veered off the main road and down a steep lane toward the river docks. Bells rang behind them. The city woke fully into alarm.

Milo’s lungs burned. His stolen boots, perhaps enchanted for elegance rather than fugitivity, squeaked faster and faster. Ahead, the lane ended at a low stone quay where barges bobbed on brown-green water. Dockhands stared as Celestia vaulted over a coil of rope.

“Can you swim?” she asked.

“In theory!”

“Bad theory?”

“Very bad theory!”

She grimaced, spotted a narrow barge pushing away from the dock, and sprinted for it. “Jump!”

“Absolutely not!”

Celestia jumped.

She landed on the barge roof, rolled, and came up in a crouch. The boatman yelled. The barge drifted farther from the quay.

Milo skidded at the edge.

Behind him, guards thundered down the lane.

Celestia extended a hand. “Milo!”

Milo looked at the gap of churning river water. Looked at the guards. Looked at the system window that popped helpfully into view.