The first thing Olivia noticed as she woke from that deep sleep was Anne clinging tightly to her. It was comforting, in one way. It was nice to have a hug after what she had just experienced… But on the other hand, Anne’s grip was a little too tight for her comfort.

“Anne… You can let go now!” Olivia urged, but she didn’t respond.

“Anne! We have to go.”

“Not yet…” Anne sobbed.

“Anne! I’m fine!” Olivia insisted, now struggling to push the young mechanic off of her, but her grip was like a vice… “Let go!”

Helen, who was still watching from the screen spoke up, “Anne, I really do need to ask you to leave. You can keep hugging her when you’re out of the dungeon.”

Anne’s grip loosened and Olivia shoved her to the ground with one foot before quickly standing up. That may have been a little harsh but… Sometimes Anne had too much energy for her own good…

“S-Sorry Mistress… Sorry Boss…” Anne said, looking up from the floor. She began to climb to her feet then froze.

“Anne? What are you doing now?” Olivia asked, looking down at her in bewilderment. She was behaving more unusual than ever today…

“There’s a mirror.” Anne said softly.

“What?”

“Its Miranda’s pocket mirror. Its… Sitting open under the table…” She said that as though she had discovered something important but… It was just a part of the makeup kit.

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about trying her makeup…” Olivia groaned.

“No, that’s not it. Its…” Anne paused for a moment, “Never mind, it’s not important. I’ll just leave it there.”

They walked out of the dungeon, and Olivia heard the sound of the stones moving and sealing the room behind them.

“We still have the entire afternoon left.” Anne said, “Maybe we should continue our investigation?”

“No.” Olivia said, shaking her head. “We can’t… We’re out of our depth…”

“Boss?” Anne turned to look at her, concern on her face. “Come on, we’re the only ones working on this, we have to keep going!”

“No…” Olivia repeated, “We’re just a couple humans from the middle of nowhere… We have no powers. We have no magic. We’re just here so the real participants have someone to enslave.”

“Hey! We’ve been doing great so far! We’ve only been enslaved once each and Eliza got the first room opened without any powers!” Anne encouraged “You’re smarter than Eliza right?”

Olivia sighed… She wanted to rest against the wall but… She didn’t know which walls might also be… Purple… She never wanted to see that face again in her life…

“Its different now.” Olivia said “The first room was easy. This one… We can’t even touch the walls. Its probably a switch on that marked stone, but if we can’t touch it we can’t-”

“There was a marked stone?! Boss! You gotta show it to me!” Anne said excitedly.

“I said we can’t press it!” Olivia repeated, “I’m not going in there again!”

Anne pulled a large wrench from the front pocket of her overalls and held it up “Don’t worry, I won’t touch it! And you don’t need to go in there if you don’t want to. I’ll be right back!”

“Anne no!” Olivia called out, reaching for her, but she was already beyond her reach… That girl was just too fast…

She stared at the entrance to the secret room for a few moments… Anne… If she touched something she would be all alone in there… B-But… She couldn’t bring herself to step any closer to that hallway. She could practically feel the danger emanating from the stones she knew were… Purple…

“Finally!” A voice rang out, “I thought you two would never split up!”

Suddenly, Olivia felt herself pinned against a wall. What happened? She looked around but didn’t see anything. She did feel someone holding her though…

“Down here.” An annoyed voice said.

She looked down, and she saw something red and black just beyond the edge of her breasts…

The mysterious person let out a sigh and took a step back. Olivia could feel her breasts lifting and then falling as Raven’s head popped out from under them. “Those things are gigantic! How do you even get around with those blimps on your chest?” she scolded.

“Sorry…?” Olivia asked, before realizing that she was the one being assaulted. “Wait no, what were you doing down there??”

Raven stood up fully, her head rising up to just below her chin. “I WAS trying to enslave you, but I got stuck in those… Things!” she said, pointing at Olivia’s breasts.

“I’m sorry my overgrown melons inconvenienced you!” Olivia said in a mocking tone. “But is now really the time for this?”

“I already got thwarted three times and spent two rounds mindless!” Raven whined, “I wanna have a slave!”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “I guess you’ll have to try again later then.”

“No!” Raven pouted, then Olivia felt a hand on her chin, pulling her face to look back down at the vampire as her eyes began to glow red. “I want a slave now! And you’re it!”

“I-I’m… It…” Olivia stammered, finding herself falling into Mistress’s gaze…

Mistress’s eyes were all that mattered to her now… She could feel her worries melting away… She could feel everything she was doing before growing… Distant… Unimportant…

“That’s right. Now repeat after me. I am Mistress Raven’s slave.”

“I am… Mistress Raven’s… Slave…” Olivia repeated softly.

“I give my life to my Mistress Raven.”

“I give my life… To my Mistress… Raven.” Olivia repeated, feeling those words becoming true… Mistress Raven was everything to her…

“I worship my Mistress Raven.”

“I worship… My Mistress… Raven…” Raven was her goddess… Raven was the greatest being of all…

“I will do anything for my Mistress Raven.”

“I will do… Anything… For my Mistress Raven.” And it was true… If she asked her to go down into that hall and enslave Anne for her… She would. She didn’t even care whether that would be against the rules or not… She didn’t care about the purple tiles either. She had to do as her Mistress commanded…

“Finally!” Her mistress cheered to herself. “Now, follow me! I want to have some fun with my new toy~”

***

Anne walked into the room, careful to avoid touching any of the walls. She wasn’t wearing a shirt so even bumping her arm against one of the walls might give her one of those visions. She assumed her heart was a little younger and stronger than the Boss’s but she should be careful anyway.

It didn’t take her long to find the marked stone Boss mentioned. She expected an etching or something but… It looked like someone had marked the stone with an X in red lipstick… And she only knew one person who had a makeup kit…

Had Miranda left this mark during their last investigation? Why would she do that? She expected to win easily, and there wouldn’t have been any game after that. She examined the stone and noticed that the mortar had a split all the way around the edge of the stone. It was definitely a button.

She took her wrench and pressed it against the button firmly, feeling it slide inwards before the sound of stone sliding against stone pulled her attention to the other side of the room where a new doorway had formed.

“Well, that was easy enough!” Anne said to herself, resting the wrench on her shoulder as she began to walk towards the new hallway. This one was a winding corridor that split several times. If she wasn’t careful… She could get lost in this maze…

She should probably turn back and get the others before going further… As she began to turn though, something caught her eye. An arrow in red lipstick…

How…? She knew for sure this passage didn’t open during their investigation of Eliza’s enslavement. She traced the path the arrow pointed, and there was a split path… With an arrow pointing to the left…

Then another to the right… Right again… Left… Anne followed each of the arrows until she found herself in front of a large doorway. This must be it… The next clue…

She opened the door and inside was a very elegant bedroom, with a massive bed adorned with silk sheets. There was a diary sitting on the stand next to the bed, with some numbers written on the stand next to it. She was just about to walk over to it when she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.

It was Mistress! Or… It… Kind of looked like her. There was a painting on the wall, showing what looked like a much younger version of the green haired woman… She looked like a teenager in that picture… How old would that make her? She was an elf so… Fifty years old? Thirty? Actually in her teens?

Next to her was a slightly older looking elf. Her ears were a different style, but she couldn’t think of any other creature she could be. She had long red hair and was gripping Mistress with one hand and holding a hand up as though waving at the painter.

She looked down from the painting and to the diary. There were three numbers. 40, 65, and 82…

She opened the book and turned to page 40…

“Things are going pretty well, I think. They say the first month is the hardest, and we’re just over a week beyond that. Crops are starting to come in, so the land has enough mana now to be fertile. I was a little worried at first if Mom gave us enough food to last, but she was right. I just had to believe in myself. I’ll do a couple more hours in the mana generation chamber to be safe. Its exhausting but its worth it…”

Anne turned to page 65 next…

“We just celebrated a successful second month a few days ago, but I got a weird message. Some lady who introduced herself as Drell. She claimed my kingdom was doomed to failure if I didn’t buy some bullshit she was selling. I told her to stuff it. We’re pretty much self sufficient now.”

Anne’s heart sank. If she knew her story tropes… She had a bad feeling about what she would find on the next page… Slowly, she turned to page 82…

“I don’t know what’s wrong… I’ve spent hours in the mana generation chamber every day this week but… The land is failing… The crops are dying… My general told me the land is fading in the outskirts of the kingdom, and his soldiers are having relentless nightmares… What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I keep the kingdom stable anymore? He’s been pressing me for answers but… I don’t have any… I’ll try to spend longer in the generation room… Its torture to do it so long but… I can’t let them down…”

Reading the pages back to back made it clear to Anne that this Drell person must have been behind that… Maybe this person forgot all about the encounter by the time things started happening?

“What do you think you are doing?” a harsh voice called out. Anne spun around to see a portal on the far wall with a woman standing on the other side. She had jet black eyes and black hair, pale skin and black lines going down from her eyes to the bottom of her chin. “I’ve been getting alerts about people messing around in my realm for days now!”

Anne looked over at the painting… She was DEFINITELY not the owner of this realm… “Uh… S-Sorry, my Leader just wanted to play a game and put us here.” Anne said, trying to minimize what was happening.

“A game, you say? Is that why so many realms are connected here…” The woman said with a pondering tone… “Well then… I shall warn you once more. Tell your Leader to cease this game of theirs.”

“I-I can’t.” She lied, “They’re being hands-off until the game is over. We’ll… We’ll be done soon, probably! Then we’ll be out of here!”

The woman narrowed her eyes and raised a hand as though she was going to cast something… Then paused… “Very well… You’re more trouble than you’re worth anyway. Know this though. I’ll be watching you. Cease your meddling and focus on your… Game. Or else.”

The portal closed and Anne let out a sigh, falling to her hands and knees. Was that… What the others had seen? Was that… Drell?