“Seven!”

  Emmet’s voice. Right. She’d been training in his basement. She’d nearly forgotten about it. She tried to struggle onto her feet, but she could barely move her arms, that pain still fresh and debilitating.

  Footsteps clicked near her head, and Emmet helped haul her to her feet.

  “You know,” he said, “when I offered you my gym to train in, I didn’t think you’d try to kill yourself.”

  “How else am I supposed to learn?” she snapped, the pain making her voice short. “And besides, I was doing fine until you walked in.”

  “You don’t look fine,” Pocket said from Emmet’s shoulder.

  “And I suppose slimes are now experts in human health,” she said.

  “Depends on our area of expertise, but—“

  Seven swore as the world tilted beneath her feet, her vision blurring.

  “Seven?” Emmet’s voice again, but she could barely focus on it. It wasn’t power making her feel this way—in fact, her flame had dulled entirely. But maybe…

  “I think I overdid it,” she managed to croak out.

  “No joke.”

  “It was fine until now.” She felt weightless and heavy all at once as Emmet helped her make her way back upstairs, and, while it was a little embarrassing, she was grateful for the help, at least.

  Emmet helped settle her onto the couch, and she glanced at the time: eight in the evening. Four hours left. Not the smartest thing in the world to exhaust yourself right before the shift, she thought, leaning her head back. But, well, she hadn’t even thought about the shift in hours. Maybe it was just her way of dealing with the uncertainty of it all—and the certainty that she was probably going down there to die.

  “I did some research,” Emmet said, bringing her an immaculately crafted sandwich and an ice-cold glass of tea. Seven didn’t wait for his permission to devour both.

  “And of course you found a ton of information about my secret condition.”

  Emmet scowled, settling down across from her with his own plate of sandwiches. “Well, not exactly—but I can take a guess at what’s going on there. Maybe you get faster and stronger with the dice you drain, but it doesn’t mean your body doesn’t feel the strain. You’re not exactly a gym rat.”

  “I run,” she interjected, her mouth half full. “And fence, and ride.”

  “Sure, your cardio’s probably in a good spot,” Emmet agreed, “but you’re not exactly doing any body conditioning or lifting, and you’ll probably need to if you want to avoid getting hurt.”

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll get right on that in my…” She mockingly checked the clock. “Three hours and some change until I’m thrown into the depths of hell.”

  Emmet’s face went grim, and he shook his head. “You’ll be fine,” he said. “And when you get out, we’ll have a very strong case in your favor for negligence on LMC’s part. You’re still way too new to send into Hell’s Maw, and that’s one more thing we can use against LMC.”

  “If I survive,” she muttered, annoyed. She left the rest of her sandwich untouched, suddenly restless, and got to her feet. “I’ll be back,” she said, making her way to the doorway. “I need the air.”

  From the look on Emmet’s face, it seemed like he did too.

  ***

  Seven went straight to the gambling quarter and drifted like a ghost through the dayshift workers gambling during their hours off. She went straight to one of the dice poker tables and took a seat there, listening to dice clatter beneath the dim lanterns onto the dirty wooden tables packed with desperate miners. No one recognized her—or if they did, they pretended not to care. A few gave her a look of pity. So apparently word got out, she thought, accepting some dice from the dealer.

  She played until she could barely keep her eyes open. The rounds went strangely well for her, and she played quietly, her hands quick, her moves intentional. She pushed when the table hesitated, folded when they were too confident. The pile of chips in front of her grew faster than it should have.

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  There was something soothing in going through the motions of the table. Almost like playing Beggar’s Chance again, which she’d mostly avoided since that night. A way of surrendering control, of controlling what she could control. And, as chips changed hands and dice clattered to the table, Seven reminded herself with each hand what Rook—and her curse—had cost her.

  She’d been denied the life of her siblings, cast aside like refuse. She’d been framed, and the only proof of her innocence would send her entire kingdom spiraling into chaos. And now, trapped in Luckville, she’d already made far too many enemies in the short time she’d been there.

  But she was tired of playing it safe. Tired of trying to survive, rather than thrive. Tired of being forgotten, of being cast aside. She would earn back the right to use her family name again. She would rise from the ashes of the scandal that had destroyed her life. And she would build something bigger and better than her family had ever dreamt of.

  By the time she returned to Emmet’s home, the fire was low in the hearth, and Emmet was asleep on the couch. She stood there for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall, then padded over to the spare bedroom that she’d hoped would become hers.

  She figured that tonight, at least, Emmet wouldn’t mind.

  ***

  She couldn’t sleep, though her shift loomed ahead of her. The mattress was the most comfortable thing she’d slept on at LMC by far, but her thoughts were a buzz, and rather than helping calm her, the exhaustion from the afternoon’s training only meant that her body ached, and every little movement woke her up. The room felt too small, somehow, and even Emmet’s faint snoring in the living room did little to calm her.

  She held her palm up in the darkness, tracing the strange glowing marks on her palm with her fingertips, the mounds of her old scar illuminated faintly by the lit triangles. Only two were fully complete, the others left to the imagination. Was there some sort of trick to unlocking it? And if she did unlock it, what would it do?

  She rolled onto her side and checked her gear again, stacked up against the wall. Tools, weapons, rations, even a few dice—everything she’d thought she could carry through the tunnels realistically. It didn’t feel like enough.

  She flopped back over and let out a long sigh, squeezing her eyes shut. Sleep was still impossible.

  Pocket muttered to himself by her feet, then crawled up onto her chest, settling there, an almost comforting warmth against the night chill.

  “Want me to tell you a story?” he asked. “Might help you sleep.”

  Seven shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Once upon a time, there was a princess who made terrible decisions and died in a mine.”

  “Really?”

  Pocket blinked innocently. “Not helping?”

  “No.”

  “I have another story,” he said. “This one’s about a slime who inherited a very comfortable mattress and lived happily ever after—”

  Seven grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at him. Pocket dodged it with a startled squeak.

  Silence settled again, and he crawled back onto her chest.

  “You could always run,” he said quietly.

  “Can’t,” she said, and held up her wrist. “Bracelet, remember?”

  “Hmmm, right. You could pull some royal strings—get your family to come rescue you!”

  Seven had to laugh at that. “Pocket, they’re the reason I’m out here, remember?” It wasn’t entirely true—she’d certainly made her own way out to LMC—but it was true that she’d still be back in Veilhome if it weren’t for them. “And besides, I want to do this, Pocket. I need to do it.”

  “Why?”

  She paused, not quite sure how to answer the question. Pocket wasn’t wrong—she could probably figure out a way to get out of her predicament—but something felt off here. Like LMC was trying to bury something, and Seven along with it. She couldn’t help but think that, while survival seemed nearly impossible, she needed to see where LMC dumped those they wanted to get rid of. Perhaps then she could figure out what they were so worried about hiding. And besides that, there was another aspect she’d thought of while letting her mind wander in the basement.

  “Because if I can survive it, Rook won’t be able to touch me. I’ll be a legend. And with that kind of clout, I can build an army.”

  “Why would you want an army? Is that some sort of royalty thing?”

  “Because it’s going to take more than me and Emmet to take down LMC.”

  “Yeah but—“

  “And even if I can’t convince anyone to help, LMC has to be hiding something down there. If I found all of those abandoned work sites so close to the surface, imagine what I can find at the bottom.”

  Pocket turned a sort of grayish blue, muttering to himself. Perhaps he was unconvinced. Seven could hardly blame him. But, whether she wanted to admit it to him or not, she knew that her desire to go along with Rook’s sentencing went further than simple practicality.

  It wasn’t about finding better loot. It wasn’t about finding LMC’s secrets.

  No, instead, she knew, going to Hell’s Maw was a simple bet. Her life against the house. The biggest one she’d made so far. The biggest one she might ever make. And, though she was sick with fear, she couldn’t help but notice another emotion creeping into the mix. Another feeling she’d chased since she was young, often in increasingly destructive ways:

  The thrill of a good bet.

  And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she couldn’t step away from it.

  The lift came that night, in darkness, the lantern shaking faintly through the fog of the evening. Seven stepped inside, her bag too heavy, her feet moving with a mechanical sort of numbness, her fingers buzzing faintly with excitement.

  She stepped into the cage, her boots too loud on the metal.

  The gate shut behind her with a final, echoing clank, and she plunged into the earth.

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  ? Phoenix Flight [Lite LitRPG - Dungeon Diving - Slow Romance] ?

  by RainyLiquid

  Weak to Strong, gathering of powers, skills, and spells.