Chapter 1475 (1/2)

Alana froze with her lips slightly apart when she opened the door and found Helen standing there, one hand on her hip and her usual scowl of ‘I wish we were just fighting’ written large across her face. But very quickly, Alana’s expression turned solemn and her hands dropped to her sides; in a way, she had known that she would be coming. She had chosen a Path by approaching Helen and asking for passage to the Nexus. This was the inevitable result of her true progress on that Path.

”So?” Helen asked simply. Her expression didn’t change.

Alana pressed her lips into a line. She felt somewhat reassured by her own, very human, sensation of her heart pumping blood through her muscles and organs. When she spoke, she chose her words carefully. ”I felt my own weakness in the finals. I understand how close I came to losing that fight. And I cannot deny that my victory was less due to the strength of my image and more due to gamesmanship within the fight. But still... I want to try.”

“A win is a win,” Helen responded mildly. She was using her own image as she carefully studied Alana, staining the air around her a mild pink with the intensity of it. Being carefully weighed by Helen was a curiously impersonal thing. At the moment, it was like they had never met, fought, eaten, or laughed together at all. The attention that Alana now earned was a pure thing of merit, sundered from personal feelings.

”You have a week. Sharpen your spear, Alana Donal.” Helen said before she turned and left, leaving Alana with a strained sense of erratic glee.

A week was a small amount of time. But after her fight against Paolo and Kayle, Alana had quite a few ideas about areas of her image that could be refined. At least a dozen small steps popped into her head that would let her improve. And what she had learned from watching Randidly Ghosthound through the years was that it was these small steps that eventually carried you all the way toward power. As long as she went into a Dungeon and spent a few months honing herself within...

Alana clenched her fists so hard that she subconsciously released tongues of orange flame that danced across her knuckles. Whatever Helen had seen, it had been enough for a chance; as long as Alana could take the next step, she could earn herself a ticket to the Nexus. Her excitement was so genuine and pure that she belatedly realized that the flames had extended up along her arms to her biceps and began to singe her cotton shirt. Chagrined, Alana brought herself back under control.

Behind her in the suite they shared, the door to Hank's room opened and the gunslinger poked his head out. ”Is that woman gone? I ain't associatin' with her ever again. You know she tried to cut my revolver in half?”

”Maybe that's considered flirting in her culture,” Alana chuckled and closed the front door. “Besides, I know plenty of men that would kill for the ‘shot’ on her you had. Isn’t that right cowboy.”

Hank made a strangled noise in the back of his throat that made Alana laugh. She walked toward her room, but he cleared his throat and spoke before she got there. “Ay reckon that it won’t be these pistols that eventually slay her… but there is another issue. You seen Ancho today?”

Alana paused briefly. She considered telling Hank the truth: that she had seen Ancho hanging around with some of Wivanya’s children and a few ogres, that convinced the horse to try drinking ale and spitting it at a match to pretend he was a dragon. The sight on Hank’s face when he learned of his horse’s escapades would be priceless.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to blow up Ancho’s spot if the strangely intelligent, yet otherwise mundane horse was able to return without issue. So Alana offered Hank a small smile and lied. “Have you checked the stable? Well, you know he doesn’t like it there, he might be wandering about Kharon. I’m about to head out, so I’ll look for him as I’m departing and let you know if I see him.

Then Alana slipped into her small bedroom and shut the door behind her. Very quickly, she gathered up all of the few objects that she had scattered around the room: her spare clothes, leather wristguards, a whetstone and rag for polishing the head of her spear, a few spare dollars of currency on the bedside table, and the half-read travel report sent back from Vye’s explorations.

The book was the last thing Alana picked up. Of particular interest to her was the section on Zone 11’s Epic Dungeon. A few had gone in to cull the numbers of monsters that periodically exploded out of the Dungeon, but Warlord hadn’t yet wanted to commit a large number of Zone 11’s forces to the endeavor. Which meant that the hitherto unseen Dungeon Boss was a perfect foe to test herself.

She tossed everything into her interspatial ring. She only had a week; she would need to start immediately.

*****

Before even the clumsily tied rope came loose and the extendable ramp began to slide back toward full extension, Commissioner Arrietti was there. His hand snapped out and seized the metal handle and dragged it the half meter back into its original position. With his other hand, he looped the rope once more about the ramp and deftly tied a quick knot. Then he stepped back and glanced around at what had previously been the main route of ingress and egress into Kharon; the gate had been disassembled and all of the rope ladders and ramps were stowed away. Now it was simply another edge of the city, without any lingering structures.