Chapter 8: Interesting….

“So. What say you?”

The words hung in the air of the chamber, carrying the weight of centuries. Arafel’s voice was calm, patient, as if he had all the time in the world… which, Jessica supposed, he probably did.

But Jessica wasn’t calm. She was frozen stiff as the bone in her inventory, her flaming locust body motionless.

‘A body.’ The word repeated in her mind like a skipping record, a broken echo.

It was too much. She had spent four days as a flickering consciousness, first trapped on a dying torch, then crammed into a lifesaver bug which she had almost died in, countless of times now. The idea of something permanent, even though partially. It was still something hers. Her mind couldn’t quite wrap around it… It was like offering water to someone dying of thirst in a desert.

‘A body.’ She said it again, subconsciously in disbelief.

“Yes,” Arafel reaffirmed, his tone firm, almost offended by her hesitation. “A body of your own. I do not make idle promises, little flame.” A mutter followed, quieter but still audible in the shared thought-space: “Why would I lie? This old fellow has not uttered a falsehood in ages. My reputation precedes me, even in chains.”

Jessica caught the mutter. A small, reluctant scoff escaped her. ‘…Hmph! You sly old man.’

“Kukuku.” The laugh was warm, genuine, utterly without offense. He had expected that reaction. Had perhaps even hoped for it. A creature that questioned, that doubted, that pushed back, that was a creature worth bargaining with.

The laughter faded, leaving a comfortable silence. Then:

“So, little flame. What say you?” A pause, weighted. “You may take as long as you need to consider. Time is abundant here, even if patience is not.”

Jessica stared into the darkness where she imagined his immense form resided. Her mind churned, not with doubt, but with logistics. How would this work? What were the steps? A free level and a body sounded wonderful, but the path between here and there was entirely dark.

‘Uhm… Old Gramps.’ She spoke carefully, each word measured. ‘How exactly… how do I get the rewards? After I retrieve the lever, I mean. Do I bring it back here? Is there any other hand-in process or anything like that?’

Arafel’s presence shifted, as if he were about to answer.

But Jessica’s mental voice cut in again, faster this time, the pieces clicking together in real-time.

‘Wait.’

A pause.

‘Wait, wait, wait. I think I get it now.’

The words tumbled out as she worked through the logic.

‘You said earlier, retrieve and activate. Not just retrieve. You didn’t say ‘bring it back to me.’ You said activate it. Which means…’ Her mental eyes widened. ‘But I can’t activate it with this body. This locust. Six legs, no hands, no way to pull a lever. So I need something with… with hands. Something humanoid. Or at least something with opposable thumbs.’

Another pause, the connections sparking.

‘And if I need a humanoid body to activate it… and the rewards are a free level and a body…’ Her mental voice dropped to a whisper of realization. ‘They’re in the same place. The rewards and the lever are in the same place. The body I need to activate it is the body I get to keep.’

She stopped, letting the conclusion land.

‘Am I close?’

Silence.

Then, a sound Jessica had not heard before from the ancient presence. A deep, genuine, free laugh. Not a chuckle, not a dry ‘kukuku.’ A full, resonant, chamber-shaking “HAHAHAHA!”

“I knew it!” The voice boomed with delight. “I knew, the moment you stumbled into my chamber, that I had found the right one!”

For the first time since her arrival, Jessica felt the weight of his attention shift. It wasn’t the diffuse, ambient pressure of his presence. It was a focus. An invisible gaze, ancient and vast, landing squarely on her tiny flaming form with genuine interest.

“As expected of someone with a low level who still survived up till now. Being able to cut through centuries-old riddles in a single breath. You are one sharp little flame.”

Jessica’s mental smirk widened, ‘And you,’ she shot back, ‘are one sly Old Gramps. You knew exactly what you were doing, letting me figure it out myself. Making sure I was worth the investment.’

“Kukuku…”

“Hehehe…”

Their laughs intertwined in the dark chamber, one ancient and resonant, one small and fiery. If anyone could have seen them in that moment, they would have sworn they were blood related. Grandfather and granddaughter, sharing a mischievous moment over a scheme well-hatched. The same glint in their eyes, the same curve to their smiles, the same absolute certainty that they had just found the perfect business partner.

Jessica broke the laughter first, her mental voice buzzing with fresh energy.

‘Alright, Old Gramps. So when do I start? My six legs are itching. I’ve got a lever to find, a body to claim, and a free level waiting for me. The sooner we start, the sooner we both get what we want.’ Her flames burned brighter, fueled by purpose.

“Kukuku… Patience, little flame. Patience.” Arafel’s tone was fond, almost paternal. “Rest first. You will need your strength for the journey ahead. I will open the gate for you at first light. Even cave locusts require rest at least once in a cycle. You have been running on empty since the moment you arrived.”

‘Oh.’ The word was small, surprised. She hadn’t realized. Hadn’t stopped to realize. From the moment she’d possessed the locust, she had been moving, fighting, fleeing, surviving. Not once had she simply… stopped.

She checked the system’s internal clock.

<< 4 days, 19 hours, 09 minutes, 24 seconds >>

Four days. Almost five. Running on nothing but borrowed time and burning fury.

‘I guess… I really do need a beauty sleep.’ The thought was wry, self-deprecating. ‘Can’t claim my rewards looking like a half-dead bug.’

She found a relatively flat spot on the ashen bricks, away from the pooling shadows. Her locust legs bent, then straightened, then bent again as she tried to find a comfortable position.

‘How do bugs even sleep?’

After several awkward attempts, she simply… stopped moving. Her flames dimmed to a low, steady glow, a tiny ember in the vast dark.

‘Alright, Old Gramps. Good night.’

“Rest well, little flame. Tomorrow, your true journey begins.”

Her consciousness, for the first time in nearly five days, began to drift. The edges of her awareness softened, blurred, and finally surrendered to the embrace of slumber.

In the darkness, ancient chains rustled softly, and a pair of invisible, ancient eyes watched over the smallest, bravest creature to enter his domain in millennia.

****

Opening her mental eyes, Jessica was greeted with the same darkness she had closed to.

The chamber was unchanged, the distant torches, the ancient stone, the weight of unseen chains and older presence. For a disorienting moment, Jessica wondered if she had slept at all, or if time had simply looped back on itself.

“Kukuku. Good morning, little flame. Sleep well?”

Arafel’s voice grounded her, pulling her consciousness fully into the waking world. Her vision sharpened, the compound-eye panorama resolving into clarity.

<< 5 days, 1 hour, 32 minutes, 12 seconds >>

‘Five days.’ She blinked, or performed the locust equivalent. ‘I actually slept for hours. Real, actual sleep.’ The realization was almost foreign. She couldn’t remember the last time she had simply… stopped. In her past life, sleep had been a rushed necessity between work shifts and late-night streaming attempts. In this life, it had been non-existent.

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She addressed the darkness. ‘Good morning, Old Gramps. I slept like a zombie.’ A mental grimace followed as she registered her current position. She was still standing exactly where she had stopped moving the night before. Locusts, apparently, did not have the concept of ‘lying down.’

‘Standing sleep. That’s a new one. But… yeah. I actually slept well. First time in… well, ever, in this body.’ She finally admitted.

“Kukuku.” The laugh was warm, genuinely amused. Then, a pause. The weight in the chamber shifted, grew slightly more serious. “Are you ready, little flame?” Another pause, letting the question settle. “Let me remind you, this journey will not be easy.”

‘Since when have I had it easy?’ The response was immediate, flat, and carried the accumulated exhaustion of five days of pure, unrelenting chaos. ‘Wolves, mushrooms, swamp monsters, and a near-death experience from an ancient entity’s casual presence. Easy left my itinerary somewhere around day two.’

“HA! Right, right. I should have anticipated that response.” The chamber trembled slightly with his amusement.

Then, without warning, the far corner of the chamber changed.

A swirling vortex of deep, bloody red materialized out of the empty air, its edges crackling with energy that made Jessica’s antennae twitch. It was a portal, there was no other word for it, a wound in reality itself, spinning slowly, invitingly, terrifyingly.

Jessica stared, her tiny form bathed in the crimson glow.

“As I said yesterday,” Arafel’s voice came from behind her, though ‘behind’ was a relative concept in the darkness, “the location of the lever lies beyond this chamber, in a place I cannot see. The portal will take you there. From that point forward, you walk alone.”

A pause. Then, with a return of his sly, grandfatherly tone:

“Be careful on your journey. Try not to get squashed. Or at least…” A chuckle. “…not too early. It would be terribly inconvenient for both of us if you expired before reaching the destination.”

Jessica’s mental lips twitched. ‘What marvelous, inspiring words to hear right before stepping into a mysterious hell-portal. Truly, your motivational skills are legendary.’

She turned back to the swirling red. Its depths seemed to pulse, almost like a heartbeat. Or like it was waiting.

She began to move with a slow Leap-boing! Each jump carried her closer to the crimson glow. The heat from it was different from her own flames, deeper, older, resonant with something she couldn’t name.

A few inches from the threshold, she stopped.

She turned back to the darkness. The place where, somewhere in that impenetrable black, Arafel’s ancient form lay chained.

‘Old Gramps.’

The word hung in the shared space.

‘What are you going to do? When you’re finally free, I mean.’

Silence. Not the empty kind, but the thinking kind. The kind that stretched and twisted as an ancient mind, for the first time in perhaps millennia, considered a question it had not asked itself.

“…I do not know,” he finally admitted. The words were slow, almost wondering. “I have not… I have not truly thought about it. Freedom has been a concept, a distant goal, for so long that the after never seemed real.”