Page 23 of I Ran Away to Evil
Rufus handed Tulith his slip, and she passed over hers, then they both read their respective instructions quickly, nodding. When Tulith was done, she passed Rufus’ writing to me. It was almost illegible, but years of reading court ledgers and scrawled bureaucratic missives had prepared me for this day:
No less than two hours of baking each workday.
Required inner-kingdom travel on one rest day.
Two full 8-hour rest periods on Saturday.
By Order of Commander General Rufus Triever, King’s Dogs of the Black Fortress, punishable by the First Order.
Huh. It turned out, Rufus was actually the most powerful general in the Dark Lord’s army. And he’d just bowed politely to me with a friendly, “Until next week, Princess,” then left.
I looked at the slip in my hand, confused, then back up to the empty doorway.
“Wait, Rufus, wait!” But it was too late; I was alone with Tulith. The maid continued to hold the bars of the cell open and waited for me.
I wasn’t ready. I needed a minute to blow my nose again, and I needed time to gather myself. “Can we swing by a wash station before I meet with the Dark Lord?”
“As you wish, Princesss.” Tulith nodded, knowingly.
“Thank you.”
I had a lot to think about before I met with Keith.
CHAPTER 14
Self-Destructive Suicidal Princess Come to Punch Him in the Face
Keith
Keith thought a spell to detect self-destructive suicidal princesses come to punch him in the face was too specific.
After a while, he did manage to configure a [Detect Suicidal Intention] spell. Now, all he needed to do was carefully trace it onto a new construct, and he wouldn’t need to worry about this happening a second time.
He could leave it in the castle moat and move on.
If another Henrietta, not that there was anyone else quite like Henrietta, but if another person who didn’t intend to fight but just die appeared, they would be captured and delivered to Rufus.
Along with anyoneelsethinking about ending it.
He used his once daily [Construct Creation: Medium] ability to reshape stone into the rough outline of an octopus and started sprawling ink designs over its back. To help capture intruders, he gave it the ability to scale walls and leap unnaturally far for its size. And a lot of arms—more than eight.
It looked like some tentacle monster from the Depths of Despair Dungeon off the eastern coast.
It was perfect.
He then reviewed his character sheet logs, and had to drag his attention away from calculating success rates. He hadn’t really used his midsize construct skill much recently. Once he had hit level sixty, giant constructs had become available, and who would make horse-size creatures when you could make dragon-size golems that shook the earth when they walked?
No one, that’s who.
Keith was preparing to activate the mana circuit when a knock sounded at the entry to his workshop, startling him.
Tulith escorted Henrietta in and curtsied before leaving. Keith really needed to set some kind of warning alert in case they interrupted him during another Great Work, or he might really get murdered by his wayward princess.
“Let’s see it.” Keith walked over to Henrietta and reached out a hand, waiting. She smelled like cinnamon, honey, and vanilla today. He resisted the urge to lean in closer.
“What?” She looked up at him with wide eyes.
“The prescription.” Keith motioned with his hand again to give it over. Rufus always gave out post first-visit instructions.
