A deep shade of red pulsed through the darkened cave, flooding every shadowed nook and every hidden crevice with an ominous monochrome. But the crimson dye was fleeting, its brilliance slowly fading away until darkness nearly swallowed the chamber until only a single pillar of red stone at the room's centre remained illuminated, its dim glow barely enough to outline its own form.

  Then, as if drawing breath, the pillar regained its strength—until, with a rumbling pulse, another wave of red light burst forth, washing over the cavern anew. After, the stone dimmed once more, and the cycle repeated.

  The rhythmic waves of bleary light exposed the cave's every peculiarity, if only for a brief revealing moment. In the short revelations of those pulses, a strange sight emerged—an assortment of objects hovering near the ceiling. Rocks, books, cups, and other scattered oddities drifted together in silent defiance of gravity, suspended by nothingness.

  Atop the glowing red pillar, a girl lay on her back, arms outstretched, fingers delicately pinching a splintered shard of flint. Like the monolith beneath her, the fragment synchronously pulsed with the same soft crimson glow.

  The waves of red came in steady, all-encompassing beats, each one washing through her, like a guttural tremor swallowing her whole. She felt it in her bones, in her breath, in the very rhythm of her pulsating life. Slowly, her very own heartbeat adjusted its regular pumping to match the monolith's unyielding cadence. They beat as one—stone and flesh in a perfect, calm harmony.

  Meanwhile, that small crimson flint stole her attention, its faint glow reflected in wide, unblinking brown eyes. A hollow obsession corrupted her glazed gaze as if the shard had ensnared her very soul. Eyes so deeply enthralled by the flint yet simultaneously not quite present in the room either.

  She pocketed the red flint and…

  A pair of grand oaken doors swung open, their weighty creak swallowed by the lustrous foyer beyond. The eager intruder strode inside, unbidden.

  On the stairwell, a servant—hurrying to answer the incoming guest—halted midway upon recognizing the intruder. For a fleeting moment, trained decorum faltered. Despite years of discipline, a sharp, disapproving glare slipped through.

  The girl entered the massive greeting hall of this noble estate, her shabby rundown clothes of frayed wool a jarring contrast against her surrounding opulence. The servant's barely concealed ire didn't help fend against the unwelcoming coldness.

  Yet, despite the silent rejection pressing in on her, the girl couldn't have been happier to be there. She met the servant's disdain with a wide, deviously amused grin, drinking in their disapproval as though it were a personal delight.

  The intruder lifted her arms without so much as a greeting, presenting a wide clay tray piled high with dark, fluffy chocolate squares. Between her fingers dangled a small, overstuffed brown bag bulging from the plentiful substances within.

  "I brought brownies!" she declared, grinning.

  The servant swallowed their disdain, forcing the thinnest veneer of cordiality. With stiff reluctance, they gestured for the girl to follow. The servants' movements were more warden than host, and their posture was more watchful than welcoming.

  Wordlessly, the servant led her through the mansion's grand corridors, finally ushering her into one of its many opulent lounging rooms.

  The lounge, vast enough to dwarf even the grand greeting hall, was already occupied with a few early arrivals. Scattered throughout the space, a handful of teenagers—each close to the girl's age—and a few unfortunate servants busied themselves with preparations for an upcoming event.

  But she paid them no mind. Her gaze cut past the idle rabble, locking eyes instead onto a single object across the room—a cube-shaped artifact that instantly seized her attention.

  Without a second thought, the girl shoved her tray and bulging brown bag haphazardly into the servant's arms, barely sparing them a glance, her excitement flaring, too wild to contain.

  The girl erupted with giddy glee, her voice warped by the heavy accent of her impoverished upbringing. "OH MY GOD! Is that the Incalescent firebox?!"

  Heedless of any response, she dashed toward the object, her feet skidding at the last moment to avoid crashing straight into it. Her hand moved but then stopped, hovering just above its surface. Her hands trembled with restraint, unwilling to tarnish the beauteous jewel with her touch. Her wide eyes gleamed with something close to reverence—pure, unfiltered love.

  She toured a circle about the device, drinking in every detail with hungry eyes. It was a sturdy brown box slightly tapered at the back. The front surface—a convex pane of deep, inky black—gleamed like a darkened mirror, reflecting only the faintest hints of light. Atop the box, two long, slender metal rods jutted upward, angling away from each other in a way that seemed both strange yet undeniably intentional.

  A young boy, only a year or two older than the girl but markedly taller and broader, approached.

  Everything about him stood in stark contrast to her—his garments were richly coloured and intricately layered, his skin unblemished, his hair smooth as silk. When he spoke, his voice carried the crisp precision of practiced elegance. Every syllable was perfectly enunciated.

  "Yep, I was worried for a while that it wouldn't arrive in time for the show tonight, but luckily, it came in just this morning. Turns out, getting a high-profile item like this shipped out to some no-name hamlet like this isn't exactly easy."

  Despite the refinement of his words, an unmistakable excitement bled through. His carefully polished demeanour cracked just enough to reveal his own boyish enthusiasm, his face alight with mirth—much to the silent disapproval of the ever-watchful servant.

  The girl studied the marvellous relic from a distance, soaking up all its beauty, but distance could only satiate so much curiosity. As much as she tried to hold back, she needed more. "Well, are you going to turn it on? Let's see this baby purr!" she demanded, her voice tinged with impatience.

  The boy's verve soon turned to hesitance. He hadn't actually tested the machine yet, driven by a foolish fear that, upon activation, it might fail. It was a silly concern, really—what did it matter whether he turned it on now or later? And yet, the doubt lingered.

  The girl's eager look broke through any of his self-conscious defences, and he knew he would have to push through if only for her.

  With a deep breath, the boy steeled himself and moved to the side of the box. Trying to mask his nerves with a veneer of nonchalance, he gestured toward the controls. "Sure. The control dials are on the side here. Though nothing's being broadcast right now, so all you'll get is static."

  The boy was using all kinds of terminology that were completely foreign to the girl, but unlike the typically irritable gravitas of unnecessarily flowery noble speech, she was loving every second of the created befuddlement. "What's static?"

  The boy flicked a switch jutting from the box's side, and suddenly, the black pane at the front of the box whirred to life into a scattering of white and black dots incessantly jittering in an unplaceable pattern, all while chittering with a constant shuttering drone.

  "That is static," he explained, his voice barely audible over the noise.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  To an outsider, the box whined with an irritating sting. But for the girl, the moment the machine hummed to life, it danced with divine music. She was instantly energized by its complex excitations.

  It was as though the machine had reached into her very veins, intertwining with her own lifeblood. She could feel the copper ropes—those delicate, sinuous snakes—inside, pulsing with power. She sensed that hidden current waving its way through the copper to awaken the black pane into that mesmerizing canvas of noise.

  "This. Is. Amazing!" she breathed, her voice thick with awe and delight.

  The two teen's giddy revelry was then interrupted by an unsure query from behind, "Excuse me, Sir Yearn, where do you want to put the candy?"

  The girl couldn't help herself. She cupped a fist over her mouth to stifle a chortle. "Sir? Hey Yearn, I didn't realize you invited jesters to this party."

  She turned to face the newcomer who had interrupted them. The boy, just like her host, was decked out in a wild, multi-coloured array of flamboyant costumes. He probably thought himself quite the handsome figure, but to her eyes, the extravagant garb only confirmed her earlier claim: a jester through and through.

  Yearn raised a hand to cover his growing smirk, but the newcomer clearly did not appreciate the humour. The new boy's face turned as red as his shirt collar, the noble not taking the offence lightly, "How dare a dirty pea—"

  Yearn swiftly stepped between the two, his tone calm but firm, ready to de-escalate the issue. "Woah, Puce, relax. She's cool."

  "But she's not even using any honorifics to address you!" Puce exclaimed, flinging an accusatory hand to the girl in question.

  "And you don't need to either, at least not while my parents are gone. Let me formally introduce you two. Puce, this is Tiffany; you know, the one I talked to you about?" Yearn seemed to emphasize the end of his statement as if referencing a very directed conversation they must have had earlier.

  Tiffany didn't even try to hide her delight at the thought of the snobby noble Yearn needing to warn his friends about her before introducing them. Even better was the drastic shift in Puce's demeanour after Yearn's clarification.

  "And Tiffany, this is Puce, first son of Earl Sorrel. He will be staying at this residence for the next few weeks, so I hope that you can go easy on him… please."

  A mischievous grin tugged at Tiffany's lips as she considered him. "Don't worry, Puce, I don't bite… much." She extended her hand out in an offering to shake his.

  Puce squirmed, visibly uncomfortable, his gaze flickering from her calloused hand to Yearn before forcing a strained smile and returning the gesture.

  Tiffany released his hand, her attention drifting over his shoulder to where he had come from earlier. "So what's this about candy?"

  Puce, still frowning at his now-tainted hand, glanced back to Tiffany in confusion. "You're the one that brought them over didn't you?"

  Tiffany paused, her brow furrowed in thought, trying to piece together what he meant. Then, as the realization hit her, she sprang with jubilation.

  She jumped upward, looping one arm around Puce's neck and squishing his cheeks with the other. "Oh my goodness, he's so precious! Yearn, can we keep him?"

  As soon as Tiffany took hold of him, Puce tried his best to squirm out of her grip but somehow found himself incapable of matching the dainty girl's strength. It wasn't that she was particularly strong, but his own strength appeared to be somehow withheld from him by some seemingly supernatural force. "Unhand me, wench!"

  Tiffany paused, her eyes glancing down at the flustered boy trapped within the crook of her arm. She sputtered with laughter, the absurdity of his words too much to resist. "Wench?" she chuckled. "Okay, at first I thought you were kind of a pansy, but I take that back. Yearn, this guy's a riot. I think I'm in love."

  Yearn merely shook his head in expected disappointment. "I thought you were going to go easy on him?"

  Tiffany quickly released Puce, then pointed an accusatory finger at Yearn, her expression utterly deadpan. "I never agreed to that."

  Yearn rolled his eyes and made his way toward a nearby table where the servant who had guided Tiffany earlier was arranging a buffet. "So, what sorts of 'candies' do you have?"

  Tiffany's face lit up at the question, as though she had been waiting for someone to ask since her arrival. "Hey Puce, say what."

  Taken by surprise, Puce replied with the requested, confused question, "…?" But as his mind moved, his lips didn't respond, remaining completely still. Similarly, his entire body froze in place mid-step for just that one moment.

  Out of the servant's hands, a small brown bag flew through the air and landed gently into Tiffany's waiting hands.

  "I got everything you could ever want for a good party!" Tiffany said eagerly, her excitement barely contained as she pulled smaller containers from within the bag, revealing a diverse array of pills, capsules, and powders of different sizes and colours.

  "I got molly, Venin, flakka, Fillip, coke, Xylose, Levulose, Odium, A whole bunch of papaver-based goodness, Gore root, White nectar-"

  She kept pulling out more and more bottles of the varied substances, releasing them in the air where they idly floated, suspended impossibly like a strange, chaotic pharmacy. Puce and Yearn stood frozen, their mouths agape as they watched, stunned into disbelief.

  Behind them, the servant had stopped in their tracks, visibly pale, shocked still by the sight of Tiffany's expanding arsenal of substances.

  Eventually, Yearn shot an arm forward, halting Tiffany's eager showcase, interrupting her with a little concern tinged in his voice. "Woah, Tiff, you went super hard this time. This is… a lot of…” Yearn's mouth dried as he struggled to find the right words. "…really intense stuff."

  Tiffany giggled, her elation unrestrained. "I know." She popped open one of the bottles with a flourish, tossing an orange capsule into her mouth. "I also have some more basic stuff if some loser wants to actually remember tonight."

  Tiffany pulled out a smaller pouch and opened it to reveal a collection of paper rolls packed with different leaves. Each roll had a number inked carefully on its surface, indicating which type of grass had been used inside.

  She pushed the pouch forward toward the two boys in offering. Yearn silently declined, his expression unreadable, while Puce didn't even react, still recovering from the earlier shock of the 'candies' revelation.

  Tiffany shrugged, unfazed, pulling one of the paper rolls for herself. She stuffed the pouch back into the larger bag and pointed casually toward the table. "Also, I made some pot brownies because… well, pot brownies."

  Tiffany puckered her lips around the paper roll and placed her thumb and middle finger together. A sharp snap rang out from her pinched fingers, though they didn't budge; the end of the paper roll in her mouth was suddenly set alight.

  She sucked in a deep breath through the burning paper. She let the chemicals dance in her lungs for a bit, then pulled her joint away and released a satisfied sigh, exhaling and expunging a thick blue smoke. The blue smoke curled in dizzying vortices of curls and turbines for a few moments before shifting to green and rising to the ceiling.

  Puce's mouth moved slightly as if finally finding the will to speak again, though his voice still choked for a second in search of the specific words he desired.

  He swallowed heavily and then tried again. "Should you really be mixing drugs like that? Or… taking them at all?"

  Tiffany's brows furrowed at the perceived insult. "Hey! I make only the best quality stuff you got that? Like, for example…" Without missing a beat, she thrust her hand back into the bag, pulling out a simple, clear vial. Inside, a thin metal sheet divided the container into two sections: one side contained a small splinter of red flint, and the other, a perfectly symmetrical blue prism.

  She eagerly pointed to the blue prism. "This right here is my magnum opus! An actual, real arcane pill. This stuff is so pure that if you don't drain all of your essence before consuming it, you will literally die! It is actually incredible." She grinned. "And until I came along, only the biggest team of Ersatz eggheads were able to create these."

  Puce took a step back from the increasingly terrifying bag of horrors.

  Yearn simply shot her a disbelieving look. "Ersatz University manufactures drugs?"

  Tiffany rolled her eyes, "Arcane pills are so much more than simply drugs." She flashed him a mischievous smile. " The fact that they give the greatest high ever is just a happy accident."

  Yearn laughed at the girl's antics, clearly unconvinced. "Uh-huh, sure."

  Meanwhile, Puce threw a worried glance at the other substance in the hallowed container "And the red rock?"

  Tiffany's smile faltered, her face twisting to an irritated scowl as her arcane pill was so easily dismissed. She should have known that a bunch of ignorant nobles wouldn't appreciate the effort that went into her work.

  With a sharp motion, she shoved the bottle back into the pouch and dismissively mumbled a response to Puce: "Don't worry about that."

  But just as quickly, she tossed her scowl aside, her upbeat demeanour snapping back into place. "Instead, what we should be worrying about is where the alcohol is!" Tiffany sung that last part with a playful eagerness, and Yearn was content to show her around the preparations that he had made for the party, including the plethora of snacks and, of course, alcohol.