《The Puppeteer》Chapter Two - Escaping from Dungeon
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Morning came to a tire Cassandra. Sometime in the night, the memories of Sandra finally merge with her own. She finally understood that she is a sixteen-year-old orphan girl. That is considered to have beautiful, flawless skin thanks more to her healing magic. Long black straight hair that goes to her butt. Perky small breasts with long nipples. Compare to her E cup monster that was in her previous life, she quite happy with the downgrade except for the nipples they could have been smaller. Her bright blue piercing eyes that the former girl thought was her most impressive part of her face. Other than her small perky nose and rosy lips, Cassandra could only shake her head at the girl's concept of what is beautiful. With the looks that Sandra has would have landed her a modeling gig.
Cassandra wishes she could head back to Sandra's master hut, but now that it is not hers and that she is legally an adult, she needs to escape from here. She either will be use, abuse, or killed for her core if she stays here alone. It finally dawns on her that the old mage that kills her master may have been behind the attempted kidnapping. Feeling fear in her heart, she jumps when she heard the gate is unlatching. Checking to make sure the spell was still in place and realizing that it had not used up too much mana. Most likely because of her not imposing any movement to the instruction of the spell. The next spell she is planning will cause a drain on her mana. The spell will last no more than ten minutes before she will have to rest and meditate once she cast the spell.
The guard almost steps on her as he enters the compound in front of the dungeon and looks around. He then polices the area of the hundred dead rats that was laying around with arrows embedded in them and retrieving his arrows. The guard pile the rats on the ground no more and a foot from her. Sandra's face twists in horror as she bites her lip to keep her from screaming out in horror. After ten minutes, the guard opens the gates wide and allows the adventurers to go into the dungeon and mine the ores and clear the first floor of rats. The guard sat down and started skinning the rats and cutting off their tail. An hour later, the guard calls for someone to take the rat to the butcher. Dungeon meat has high mana infuse in their body that it can help casters and even martial warriors to increase their Mana pool for a few hours. It takes a few weeks of eating the rat meat to feel an increase in their Mana pool.
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Using her knowledge as a magician and as an illusionist in her first life, she was able to get a little bit of an understanding of this world magic. The fact there is no magic exists in her world. The tricking of the eye was something she was good at, as for her imagination it deeper than a well, as her grandfather always told her. When the servants walk into the courtyard of the dungeon to gather the rat meat, she cast the illusion spell and use a friendly face from her memory as her own face. Charlie had blond hair and was her best friend when she grew up on Earth. She had a plain simple face and was not considered cute or beautiful but a plain Jane type girl. Something she needs right now so as not to stand out. Sandra walks over behind the other servants and closes her eyes. She picks up a basket of meat that one of the other servants was filling to be taken out of the courtyard. Muttering to herself, it is only meat' over and over in her mind. She almost stumbles while holding the staff and the basket. She was able to carry both out the gate and lift the basket onto the wagon minus a piece of rat meat for later in case she didn't find any food. The staff she carries is invisible to everyone as the illusion completely hid it from view. Still, it did not help in navigating while under the effect of the illusion.
Slipping away and hiding in some bushes several hundred yards from the dungeon was easy. Sandra signs in relief as the spell drop as she sat down in the bushes group for several minutes, she is hoping that she gain back enough mana to cast another spell. After a few moments, she figures she could wrap herself in an illusion of being a bush and meditate to make another go at escaping as a servant later in the day. Feeling tired but knowing she cannot fall asleep until she is safely away and in a safe spot. She settles down to meditate for an hour. She felt someone was brushing aside the bushes around her. Opening an eye, she can see a young man in leather armor that looks familiar. The man is looking around the bushes for something, narrowly missing her nose with his fingers.
The man turns his head to look over his shoulder, "No one over here either, why does the boss think that girl escape that dungeon. No one has seen her since she was abandoned in the dungeon by that fool that killed her. Now Miss Hart wants us to search for her until we find her body or core!"
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A shrilling whiny girl voice from behind the man said. "Hey Henry, we can go hunt in the dungeon and make some money looking for her there or continue to look for her here and waste money."
"Great idea Carol! Let us grab a few extra people to hit the new floor!"
"Your joking, right? We couldn't get anyone to help because we set up that bitch! No one is going to group with us until we move to another city. I already ask daddy to send me to a better dungeon, and he said he would do it in a week!" Carol boasted.
"What about me?" Henry ask. "Why should I be punished and trap here because you hated Sandra's looks!"
A hard slap could be heard as Carol scream at Henry. "Do! Not! Say that bitch name or even compare her to me again, or I have daddy throw you to the wolves! I spent a lot of time to punish that bitch with those powders I bought! That bitch shows up every day looking pretty and sweet no matter what I did to her. I hope she rots in hell." Spitting on the ground near Cassandra.
Cassandra can see Henry tremble in fear in front of Carol as memories of a woman flood her mind. For the last three months, Carol has been like a best friend to Sandra. Gods know why with that damn whiny voice. Strange rashes and small boils seem to have appeared all over her body the last few months, only now does it make sense. The rashes and boil that was most likely from powders. The memories of some men in town would flirt with her, and not Carol only made Carol jealous. If not for her healing powers, Sandra would have been miserable while cover in rashes and sores.
Cassandra left her bushes after the two went into the dungeons. As she travels through the town and she stole items like an old torn backpack, an old dirty holey bedroll. Some patch up kid's clothing that was close to her size and a bit baggy. The shoes that she is wearing, she dirties them up and makes them look a bit worn. As for her long hair, she thought about taking a knife, cutting it short, and tossing her beautiful long black hair into a burning pit of debris that someone started. But the fact that her hair was long, beautiful, and shiny nothing like the frizzy, dry hair she uses to have on Earth. Since she decided she was going to leave the small town for a city, she decided to leave her hair alone. She later found an old abandoned shed outside of the town that had a broken flint and a crack copper pot that can hold about a pint of water in it, so she added it to her pile of stolen items. Boiling the piece of rat meat she had hidden away. It took about an hour of staring at the meat before her hunger forces her to cook and eat it. Surprisingly the meat tasted good, and she can feel the mana from it flow into her and filling her up much faster. She kind of regret picking up a few more, but still rats terrify her.
There are three towns, and each is about twenty miles away more or less a mile or two. One to the northeast that is called Kisator and was half the size of this town. The one to the south is called Brooktown and has a creek that runs farther south into a river. It was a small fishing and trade village on its banks. The one to the southwest was a small hunting village of Nanoor that not even a third of this town and nestle in the Dank forest. Yeah, Dank forest, what imaginative naming she rolls her eyes. Far to the north are two counties, both smaller than this county, and she not sure if they are friendly or not with this county. She vaguely remembers a few skirmishes, but Sandra never took notice of anything beyond her town. To the south along the Janko river that flows into a Grand Lake is the County capital called Korda with a population of a few hundred thousand people. Beyond that, Sandra's memories are vague. Still, she thinks the Captial of the Kingdom Lorn is on the other side of the lake and was consider the largest city in the kingdom. To the southwest is an empire beyond the Dank Forest that is said to be a hundred times bigger than this kingdom but was in decline. The Dank Forest keeps both sides from meeting due to its monsters. Sandra was not interested in the world around her but only the present here and now, thinking about how to get money to survive on her own. Cassandra is the opposite. She loves knowledge because it helps to make her puppets back story and write stories for her show. She got a lot of making up to do on learning this world history and lore. More than that, she needs to keep up on this kingdom's politics to survive any future wars between Kingdoms. She is not a hero, nor does she like surprises, and waking up in this world is a big surprise!
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