Chapter 89: The Oblivion Maiden

  Alabaster

  Alley opened his mouth to speak before closing it again, he opened his mouth once more and again nothing came out. Finally, on his third attempt, he managed to exclaim

  “Wait what!? You mean that thing that was seeing through my eyes down in the castle is your brother?”

  “Mhmmm” responded the ghost who was obviously pleased at his shock. Alley knew that there was a good chance Denderra was just trying to distract him from pressing further about The Dead Man’s Hand. But he had to admit it was quite an effective distraction.

  While Alley had mostly put it out of his mind other than resolving not to go back into that underground castle, he had to admit he was both concerned and curious about the encounter with the creature that had been in the midst of taking him over. That thing…Denderra’s brother apparently, had easily manifested Cards out of Alley’s Deck.

  Never mind that the Deck was bonded to Alley and shouldn’t have been accessible to anyone else. And that was on top of the small matter of Alley’s Deck being Curse Locked so it shouldn’t have been able to Manifest anything at all! It was the sort of thing that gave Alley hope he might be able to use his Deck to its full potential one day, while of course utterly terrifying him.

  Mind still spinning from the revelation and possibilities it represented, Alley took a deep breath and righted himself.

  “Alright, why don’t we back up a little, just who the hell are you?”

  It was Denderra’s turn to be taken back, though after a moment she seemed to almost puff up with pride.

  “I,” She said in an almost haughty tone. “Am Denderra of House OpalDark, younger sister and sole heir to The Cursed King Anaten OpalDark, and renowned through all of Asztra as The Oblivion Maiden.”

  Alley had never heard of a place called Asztra, and had he not ended up in that hidden castle, he would never have heard of these people or titles. They certainly had an impressive ring to them, he gave them that. Alley’s instincts told him to crack some joke or make a sarcastic comment but he ignored them. Denderra was a potential font of knowledge equal to or perhaps greater than the journals Alley had found in the swamp manor, he would gain nothing from annoying her for no reason.

  Besides all of that when she had opened up to him and Darius the previous day Alley had found her an engaging conversationalist. The trick seemed to be getting her to open up in the first place.

  “ Why did they call you The Oblivion Maiden? In fact, what is an oblivion maiden?” Alley might not be the widest traveled or the most urbane, but he had some grasp on people, and in his experience, everyone had the same favorite topic, themselves. If there was a way to get the ghost to reveal useful information he figured letting her chat about herself was a good way to go.

  “Well,” She said, offering a little grin. “Nat was the really famous one because he could raise whole Undead armies and he made his castle fly and stuff, but even he couldn’t enter and leave the Void between realities at will.” It was almost imperceptible but her smile widened just a little bit.” I can.”

  Alley had intended to play dumb if need be so that he could prompt the white-haired girl into revealing more information. That proved entirely unnecessary, as he had no idea what ‘the void between’ realities was, a fact that was plainly evident from the blank look he gave her.

  “Well I was expecting you to be impressed, but I take it you have no idea what the void between realities is?” Alley inclined his head.

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  “I do not.”

  Where he had expected her to sigh and complain about his lack of knowledge, the ghostly girl instead covered her mouth and let out a giggle. “Ummm well It’s where Doom Resonance flows into the world from, and Oh! I know. I think you saw it through the Transiteration Gate in Nat’s castle.” Alley idly swatted a mosquito in his arm as he thought about it.

  “You mean that black place with the cold wind and endless nothingness?”

  “It's nicer than it seems once you learn how to manipulate it.” Somehow Alley found that a little hard to believe. His one glimpse into the ‘void’ had been a terrifying experience. Thinking back to it was a little bit tricky, while Alley remembered his time in the castle under Cursed Isle. It was something of a disjointed mess in his mind.

  First had been the fall down the chasm after his defeat by Creed. Next, he had pulled his injured self together and found the castle. There had been the strange Resonance-fueled braziers, and the Deck in what he could only describe as a church or shrine. After that, it got a little harder to put things in order. He had seen all sorts of visions as the Deck had forcibly bonded with it, and Alley found it difficult to differentiate what had been vision and what had happened.

  “I remember,” He said slowly “That empty figure started Manifesting Cards from my Deck.” Denderra nodded again.

  “Right, that is my brother. He knows how to do things like that because he made The Crown Of The Cursed King.” Alley had all sorts of follow-up questions he wanted to ask about that, but he figured there would be time in the future.

  “And he wants to kick me out of my own body.” At this, Denderra looked a little sheepish.

  “Well not you specifically, he just wants a body again.”

  Alley fell silent, both because it was just a difficult topic to process, and because he was hoping it would prompt the ghostly girl to say more. It didn’t work, and after a few moments, he spoke again.

  “Can he do it if I don’t go back to that castle?” The ghost's response was a single word, lacking in the mirth that had been present in her voice previously.

  “Yes.”

  “And you think you can prevent this?” He had been hoping she might perk up a little at that question, but she suddenly seemed coy in the extreme.

  “Sort of. Normally Nat would need you to enter the Void, but because you are connected to him via his Deck he can slowly work his way inside you.”

  Alley had to admit he was getting a little sick of this nonsense, it felt like every time he turned around he was greeted with some additional bad news about how he was absolutely going to die young. It was about time to start solving these issues, if he was ever going to recover his mother’s Card and find out how Creed did what he did Alley needed to be alive.

  “I’ve been blocking him for now, though I worry with your sudden jump in Doom from that tree bitch reality will reshape to let him bypass me. Doom does stuff like that sometimes, but the good news is that we can potentially expunge some of your Doom in a Rank or two.”

  That was good news indeed, but something else about all of this struck Alley. While he might not consider himself a student of the human condition, reading people was a skill one had to develop if they wanted to predict their Challenge opponents, and besides this hardly took the most perceptive of people to notice.

  “Hey,” Alley said, a sly little smile working its way across his face. “You saved me with The Dead Man’s Hand back in that castle.”

  “Castle Lethe” She added absentmindedly.

  “Right, back in Castle Lethe, and you are helping me now.” The ghost frowned a little, obviously wondering where he was going with this.

  “I understand why you might help me now. We know each other a bit, you have seen the kinds of people I and Darius are, and hell maybe your brother is an asshole.”

  “Okay…” Denderra replied, still unsure.

  Alley met her pale eyes as he asked. “But why did you help me then? Surely even if he’s a jerk you would care more about your brother than about me.”

  The almost white ‘skin’ of the ghost's face exploded into a deep scarlet, Denderra opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and simply vanished back into Alley’s Dealer. Blinking a few times, Alley knew he had pushed things too far. On the upside, his suspicion had been all but confirmed. While she might be looooonnnng dead, it was always nice for the ego to know a pretty girl thought you were handsome or cute.

  Letting out a little snort at his own arrogance, Alley headed back inside to go over his collection and prepare for his departure from Rak Town in the morning.

  My boy Alley focussing on the important stuff "Am I hot?" hahah