Meanwhile...

Luke had, of course, freed himself of the ropes Nikola had left him in like three minutes after making sure she was gone. It was awesome and terrifying just how real it had felt when the blood rushed back into his ankles and feet; they had even gotten the tingles right.

The World of Wills had always been one of the most true-to-life gaming experiences in the world. In it, blood gushed from wounds, getting sliced by a knife felt sharp but almost like nothingness until the wound was discovered; everything felt as it did in the outside world. They had achieved total realism when it came to violence.

Before tWoW had started doing its gaming retreats, players who were ninnies had been able to toggle the pain off entirely in their settings menu. Luke was exactly that kind of ninny. If the player was truly a masochist, they could also increase it, but Luke hated pain. Why be ow when he could be not ow? He slammed the 'no pain' button every single time - strangely, he had flicked through the menu when he and his friends had connected to the game and the option was mysteriously just gone.

That was what had spawned their idea for a No Deaths Run. Clearly, they had messed that up, but before plodding up to Nikola's house they had been deeply cautious. Their gaming experience had been peppered with splooshing level one slimes all over the grass and shopping with the meager amount of coppers that got them.

And speaking of his friends; since Nikola had gone to bed, he had opened up his Blue Box and used it to frantically message each of his comrades separately. He even had shot off a few messages in their group chat.

They hadn't replied.

While waiting for them to acknowledge his words, he had scoured the room for secret exits, loot, and anything that could help him escape. Short of using the basement cleaver to fail spectacularly at his No Deaths Run, there was nothing useful to be found. The room was bare bones and utilitarian, despite its nefarious purpose. When he woke up, his hunger bar was about half full, and his NPC captor hadn't barged in to wake him up and wave knives around in his face like he had assumed she might.

His friends had also still not replied, which was beginning to concern him. Were they actually mad at him? He had been the one to suggest stopping by an NPC murderer's house. But in his defense, he hadn't known she would develop a consciousness and go all stabbity stab on them for trying to reset her.

Lukeknight64: Guys, come on. I know it was shitty of me to make us all go do the thing I wanted to do

Lukeknight64: but like, how many people in the world can claim that they were shanked by NB?

Luke sighed, collapsing in a heap on top of the furry blanket Nikola had brought for him. It was time to consider his options.

He was too much of a ninny to kill himself while the pain settings were on, so he couldn't just respawn.

His friends were pissed at him, so he couldn't just ask them to come get him.

Nikola's basement was devilishly sealed, so he couldn't slip out while she was gone.

So that just left... the bug report.

From what Nikola knew of the palace's layout, the Queen's throne room was to her right. The bulk of the guards gathered there, and their patrols would likely all intersect in the area as well... so if her goal was to escape, it made sense to her that she should put some distance between herself and where the Queen sat.

She moved heel to toe up the hallway she was in, doing her best to not produce any fleshy slaps with her feet, and peeked around the corner. She waited a few beats just to be sure nobody was on to her. When nobody bobbed into the hall, she slipped down to the other side and couldn't believe her eyes when she spied what looked to be a cutting board hooked to a far away wall. A kitchen!

She was standing in front of a branching path, and to her right was a kitchen-looking room, sitting several doors away. She didn't know what was to the left because she didn't check; she focused singularly on the room with the knives and fire in it, eager to equip herself with a kitchen knife or, if she was lucky, a cleaver.

This whole ordeal would be much easier if she could get her hands on a weapon.

Nikola noticed that she could hear deep, hollow footsteps approaching. The palace was so open that every noise made within it echoed and bounced around, so she couldn't figure out what direction they were coming from. She froze in place, squinting to try to improve her concentration, but it didn't help.

Oh well. If there were indeed weapons in the kitchen, she would at least be able to defend herself against the owner of the feet making the steps.

She swiftly closed the divide between herself and the room with the cutting board, and as she sped past the door frame, the rest of the room opened up to her. It was indeed a kitchen, and it was unoccupied to boot. It was fancier than the one she had at home, utilizing metal, wood and even some marble, but she didn't have time to take it all in like she wanted to.

A knife block was out in the open with handles sticking out of it, which undoubtedly meant there were knives stabbed into it. Nikola almost salivated as she reached out for one of them, and a tingle crackled down her spine as the sound of metal scraping against wood entered her ears. She pulled out the largest of the knives, thick and meaty but sadly not in the rectangular shape she so desired. The footsteps, while diffused, were getting louder and closer together. Nikola nestled into the crook beside the doorway, the prisoner on her back mushed against the place where two walls met. She held on to her two bunched up wrists with one hand, and the handle of the knife with the other.

She gulped as they approached, and mentally prepared to defend herself. The gaps in the guards' armour were mostly around the joints, the throat especially, so she held the knife at an outward angle a little above eye level and prepared to pounce.

She felt a peculiarly bad feeling ping around in her chest when she thought about killing the guard. Maybe the person who was approaching her had a family and kids at home, and they were just doing their job... but part of her barked that if the guard was willing to work for somebody who jailed humans simply because of their humanness, they didn't deserve her mercy.

The footsteps reached a crescendo, thudding in her ears as their owned passed through the doorframe she was crouched next to.

But the guard barely even got to step into the room, because she was gliding the knife's edge across naked flesh within the same second he crossed the threshold between hallway and kitchen. It was a good thing the guards in this place didn't seem to patrol in pairs, because he fell with a rancorous smack, a few pitiable gurgles leaving his mouth as he started to choke on his own blood.

Nikola couldn't help but watch, drawn in by death's unspeakable allure. She noticed that the guard's eyes were icy blue like hers at the same time as their colour drained away and dulled, the spark of life leaving him. She had expected the prisoner on her back to scream, or protest in any way at all, but she stayed flush with her back, breathing steadily.

Just how tired was she, that murder didn't bother her at all? And speaking of tiredness, just how tired was Nikola herself? She had been running off of pure adrenaline for some time now, but even with her body as tense as it was, she was starting to notice that her energy reserves were depleting. Even after a fresh murder, a pervasive exhaustion was tugging at her, begging her to lie down.

But she couldn't. She was still in a castle full of bloodthirsty elves, and she had just felled one, which was going to be noticed any minute now because of how much he was bleeding. The pool was just starting to edge into the hall.

Nikola scanned the room while there was still some calm before the storm and, to her surprise, there was a door sitting plainly at the other side of the kitchen. An exit! The kitchen staff must have had a need to leave the kitchen frequently, to dispose of spoiled food. She tiptoed over to the potential exit, careful not to slip on the dark liquid while moving across the tiles, and leaned her body weight against the door evenly. It opened outward without a fight, and light came spilling into the room, illuminating the countertops and cutting boards behind her.

Just outside the door was a pillowy, loamy floor of dirt. A hole had been dug out of a portion of it, and inside was a collection of food scraps with a rag draped over them. A few banana peels were sitting defiantly on top.

The escapee and her companion moved through the small backyard easily, because while stepping on bare soil with her feet didn't leave her feeling clean, at least it was quiet. She used her toes to rake the spots behind her to destroy the footprints she was leaving, and then continued on her way.

There was a stone wall out back, covered in thick, sturdy-looking vines, but with someone on her back she doubted they could hold their combined weight - even if she didn't feel like she weighed more than 100 pounds.

So she chanced going around front. Two guards were stationed by the double doors at the entrance, but other than that the area was unmanned. The biggest problem was that there was nothing to hide behind, no conveniently placed row of vases to conceal her. It was either crouch and hobble along slowly, hoping to just not be noticed, or zoom across the courtyard and hoping she was quick enough. Both options presented some difficulties for her, considering she had a passenger.

Nikola decided that it was probably best to start with stealth. She could always take off into a run if she was spotted, but she doubted that she would be able to yeet along quietly enough that she wouldn't draw attention. She knelt down into something close to a runner's starting position, but then she ambled along the bottom of the wall, using the balls of her feet to propel herself forward.

At first, things seemed to go swimmingly. She checked in on the guards frequently, checking to see if they were whispering anything amongst themselves or drawing their weapons, but they simply stood there in a trance-like state. They didn't even seem to be breathing. But then, when she hit the halfway point, one of them raised their arms. They could have just been stretching, but the strung out Nikola took it as a sign of them readying to pursue her and pushed off her heel with the sort of fluidity only someone prepared for the worst would have.

She broke into a sprint and made a sharp turn when she made it past the gates, veering to the right and then elongating her strides; she was now going for distance rather than sneakiness. She chanced a brief look behind her to see if anyone was actually after her and it was just in time for her to take a hefty chain-link to the face, knocking her clean off her feet. The red-haired girl went skidding ahead, ragdolling across the stone almost comically until she came to a stop with her arms all tangled around her neck. Nikola, on the other hand, went in the direction the momentum pushed her and crashed to her knees, catching herself but just barely. She felt the stone tear off some of her skin and dreaded the idea of looking at her palms when this was all over with.

"No…" Nikola rasped, half-defeated. How was she supposed to get out of this place? If this was all a game, shouldn't it be fair?

A butterfly landed dramatically next to her with a long, slow flap, probably flexing over having caught her twice in one day. Could butterflies be smug? The guard dismounted its back and leaned down to grab one of her limp wrists, clapping a set of manacles over them when they got both of them into the appropriate slots.

"Another human apprehended," he boomed, also stupidly dramatically, as if he had won. "No human can outrun the hand of the Violet Queen for long." As he started to half-pull-half-lead her away, Nikola's brows rose. She was momentarily disarmed. Was that… the same thing he had said last time?