Chapter 2: Chapter 2: The Children of the Abyss

Chapter 2: The Children of the Abyss

Lily stood in the circle, the Lumox orb warm in her palm. Should she break the barrier and deal with the shadows outside?

A voice came again, this time not in her head, but muffled beyond the red film:

“Princess, hear my call. Aid us in the darkness. Guide us to the Abyss.”

Right. Whatever happened, it was that voice’s fault. Did this guy actually get her killed just to “call” her here? And where even was here? Xantia? She was in her avatar, after all…

Whatever. She shoved the light into a fracture. The barrier cracked and broke.

The first thing she saw was a black-hooded figure, arms thrust high and shouting at her, five more cloaked shapes lurking in the gloom—a cave tableau straight out of a second-rate B-movie, complete with that guy hamming it up front and center.

Normally she was shy, but in her avatar’s body she felt back in Xantia; confidence came with the horns, and she was more the self she’d honed in hours of RP than the girl behind the VR headset. She snapped, her voice sharp:

“Are you the idiot who called me inside my head?”

The hooded figure in front of her hurled himself to the floor, arms flung wide.

“Yeeesss—yes! Oh Princess, I was the worm who called Your Hellishness to guide us—yessss!”

The others scrambled after him, dropping like dominos, foreheads pressed to stone.

Lily stopped mid-step. Her anger evaporated, replaced by secondhand embarrassment so strong it prickled her skin.

Why did I leave the circle again? she thought, cringing.

While the man in front didn’t stop babbling, she tried her luck. “[Inventory].”

Since she’d already confirmed she was her alter ego Lilithia Nocturne from Xantia, and had just cast a game spell, she might as well use the time sensibly and test more.

A blue, fluorescent, transparent display unfolded in front of her. Categories flickered into place, tabs she knew by heart, and every one of them was filled with the items she’d had on hand when she last logged out. Nice, but also bad. Because most of her real hoard was tucked away in guild banks, the global Xantia banking system and her house chest.

At least, small victories. Luckily, she’d just restocked before logging out; she’d grabbed a few things for housing—she’d just bought a new mansion—plus gear for the next planned raid, and today’s raid loot was still sitting in her inventory.

She searched her inventory and found what she was looking for. With a mental click on the item, it materialized in front of her.

Almost instantly, a massive two-hander manifested in front of her. It was huge, black, engraved with red, glowing runes, and wreathed in black smoke. The sword slammed into the floor with a loud bang and drove itself at least fifteen inches into the ground with a deafening crunch. The shouting man stopped with his babbling and looked up; she saw his face pale under the hood. Lily looked at the sword, her customized weapon, the [Nocturne Crownblade]. With one hand she lifted it easily; it felt almost light to her.

Her main class as Lilithia Nocturne was [Hellweaver (Demon Spellblade)], and part of that class was the customizable sword, upgradable every fifty levels and leveling alongside her. So, Lily was genuinely relieved she could pull the [Nocturne Crownblade] out; at least she wasn’t defenseless.

But who were these people, and why was she here? She needed answers now. She lifted the sword and laid the blade on her shoulder; the motion came as muscle memory, her standard RP pose when she was in her demon princess role. Except… was this a role anymore? She’d been “here” maybe ten, fifteen minutes, and already her real self was sliding into her alter ego’s stride.

“Are you finished now?” she asked, then paused, thinking it through. Probably best to stay in role. They’d called her a demon princess, and well, she was technically one. “Worm. Why did you summon me?”

Good thing she’d had years of RP alongside the grind; Lily was the kind of player who slipped completely into character.

The squirming man finally spoke again, slower, less noisy. “I’m Acolyte Sevrin, oh great one—oh supreme being. We seek your guidance and strength. We are willing to serve you for eternity and offer you our souls, and in exchange you conquer the kingdom for us!”

Lily stared, blank. “What?” slipped out before she could stop it.

Wait… why would she even want their souls? And what kind of sweaty request was that? Did they seriously expect her to kill the current king and put this guy on the throne?

He repeated himself, breathless and shaking: “Oh, Princess, we summoned you—so hear our call!” He was even paler now, eyes flicking to the blade like it might decide to eat him.

What, is there a problem with my weapon? Lily thought. She’d only pulled it out because he wouldn’t shut up. Whatever.

“No,” she said, cool and flat. “I don’t know you, and I’m not humoring some ridiculous request out of nowhere. But let me get this clear—” She let the words hang, tasting the rhythm of them, the weight of this voice. Her RP experience clicked into place. “You summoned me from my…” She paused, then rolled with it. “Abyssal castle, just to waste my time with a minor request?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

A beat of silence. Her delivery was getting better. She could feel it, the posture, the cadence, the tilt of her chin, muscle memory from late-night raids and long RP threads.

The lead cultist—Acolyte Sevrin—pushed to his feet, and so did the five behind him. The way they rose was less reverence now, more resolve, a scrabble toward the last shreds of nerve.

“So, Princess,” Sevrin said. His tone had changed: an edge of something brittle and angry under the reverence. “You don’t wish to humor our humble request?”

Lily watched him, her expression unreadable.

“Well,” he went on, the mask slipping, “it’s not as if we did not predict a demon to be unruly.” His mouth curled. “But we summoned you. We have complete control over your fate—” He threw his head back, voice breaking into a shout. “YET!”

They lifted their hands up, while around their fingers circles of light flared into being, and chalky glyphs begun to rotating around the circles. Then from those circles, luminous chains unspooled, glowing, link by link, and reaching toward her.

Ok, reaching was generous. They didn’t snap out. Nor they lash. They… drifted. They slid forward at an earnest, tragic wobble, like jellyfish trying to remember how tentacles work.

Are these guys serious? Lily thought, biting back a laugh that felt dangerously close to a scream.

She didn’t need the HUD to tell her what she was looking at. The spellwork was so basic it hurt. She’d seen it in starter dungeons, the kind of CC mobs used to punish players who refused to learn interrupts. In Xantia terms, this was the level 15 [Cultist] skill [Bind]—a training-wheels restraint. It was the kind of thing you rolled your eyes at before breaking it with a sneeze.

Sevrin threw his arms wider, hysteria creeping into his grin. “Hahahaha! Freeze before the power of the Children of the Abyss! Hahaha—”

Lily cringed so hard it wrinkled her soul. They cannot be serious.

The chains finally reached her.

Nothing happened.

They hovered at the boundary of her dress, trembling, shedding a little light like nervous glow-worms. Sevrin, still laughing, gulped air and screamed the keyword: “[BIND]!”

Nothing.

Not even a tingle. The spell touched whatever she was now—skin, aura, armor, something—and met an invisible wall. No tug. No debuff. Just the forlorn drape of useless magic pooling at her feet like someone had spilled strings.

Lily stared at the floating links for one long, astonished second. Then the astonishment burned off.

Enough.

The truth slammed into place so hard it rang: she’d died in a fluorescent coffin of a store, a man with a gun and a panic attack yanking the last thread of her life—while the voice of this incompetent idiot clawed through her skull, summoning her. Her death was on him and his cringe friends. On the other end of that thread, these idiots hooked a ritual and reeled her into their basement like a prize fish. For what? To “offer their souls” and beg her to topple a king because they liked the word conquer, to make him and his little goon squad own a kingdom. How would he even run one? And then, as a finale, he tried to leash her, to force obedience, with a freaking level-15 [Cultist] [Bind] that wouldn’t hold a low-tier trash mob.

It was grotesque, and it was definitely enough. She was fed up.

She slid the [Nocturne Crownblade] back into inventory with a flick of thought. Then Lily simply walked forward. Sevrin blinked, he must have expected; thrashing, screaming or negotiation, at least. Instead, she closed the distance in three unhurried steps, the hem of her dress whispering over stone.

The chains tried to adjust course, wobbling heroically. She ignored them. They scraped harmlessly across her like light over glass.

Sevrin’s mouth dropped open. “Wait—”

She didn’t let him finish. She turned her wrist, weight shifting through her hip, and backhanded him across the face. She didn't interfere, nor did she scream or growl. It was an irritated, reflexive motion, the kind of slap you give a mosquito that has outstayed its welcome.

The effect was not reflexive.

A loud sound cracked the chamber. Sevrin left the ground like a limp puppet cut from strings, and hit the cave wall hard enough to spiderweb it.

The other acolytes froze in horror, their spell circles flickered, and the chains dissolved in midair with a sad, dejected chime.

Lily lowered her hand and stared at the trembling fissures radiating from Sevrin’s impact point. Her palm stung faintly, like she’d slapped a bell.

“Are you kidding me?” she said to him, looking at her fingers—there was no blood or bruises—and then at Sevrin. Blood at the corner of his mouth. Alive, but deeply reconsidering his life choices.

Level nine-hundred ninety-nine, she remembered, detached and clear. Right. That tracks.

For a second, she considered hauling him up by the collar. That felt dramatic. Instead, she just stared, breathing slow, letting the silence rearrange itself around her.

One of the other cloaked figures made a broken sound and dropped their hands. Another stumbled backward, tripping on his own hem. A third fell to both knees so fast it sounded painful.

“P-Princess,” someone whispered, voice raw. “Mercy.”

Lily stopped.

What am I even doing? Did I almost kill a guy because his existence annoyed me? No. He’d killed her first. So… fair.

But this wasn’t a game. The scene in front of her wasn’t pixelated. It was stone, dust, blood, breath. It was real.

The heat in her chest guttered. The rage that had flared up vanished as quickly as it came. She exhaled, long and thin, then looked toward the cultist who’d asked for mercy.

I’m not a monster, she thought.

Then she flicked her [Inventory] open. The blue pane blinked alive. Her fingers moved without thinking, and a [Greater Healing Potion] dropped into her palm. She tossed it underhand to the cowering acolyte.

“Go. Heal your friend,” she ordered.

The cultist choked, scrambling. He caught the bottle with shaking hands. His eyes went wide at the glow in the glass, but he said nothing, just stumbled to Sevrin and crouched.

He tipped the vial, and only a droplet touched Sevrin’s lips. But it was enough. Sevrin jerked, a gasp tearing from him as something knit itself inside. His back cracked. A shoulder popped back into place with a wet, ugly sound. He blinked, unfocused, breath coming fast.

Lily didn’t wait. She lifted her hand and cast [Telekinesis].

Magic ran along the groove her mind already knew. It felt natural now—too natural—the shape of the spell forming in her head before she finished the word, the tug of invisible cords responding like obedient muscle.

Sevrin yelped as the spell seized him. He slid from the wall, boots rasping over stone, and drifted toward her. Fear crawled up his face; panic woke behind his eyes as memory returned.

When he hovered at arm’s length, he opened his mouth; “Ex—excuse me—”

Lily raised a palm. “Stop.”

He stopped.

“We’re going to talk properly,” she said. “I need information first.”

She let [Telekinesis] ease him down until his boots found the floor. He swayed, one hand to his cheek, eyes fixed on her like a cornered animal watching the lion that decided to sit.

The other acolytes didn’t move. In the cave a torch hissed somewhere, and dust drifted through the light like slow snow.

Lily held his gaze until his breathing matched hers.

“Good,” she said, voice even. “Let’s start there.”