The Maid and Her Princess - Chapter 52: Chapter 52

"We're pretty high up already. Although..." Audrey sighed, tapping the snow that caved them in. It was hard as ice and their breath fogged it like glass. "This guy..."
She withdrew Ares from her bag. There was something peculiar about it. Its eye was shaking and strained. It was if it was searching for something. More oddly and strangely like Ares, a white glow surrounded the statuette's form. Has this been guiding her the whole time?
"It's glowing?"
"Yeah," Audrey said. "It hasn't stopped glowing and shaking for a couple of hours now. Which means... we're probably coming up on something."
Audrey shivered. Madoka only had light armor on under her cloak but she felt the flames burning within her. Still, Madoka moved to take her cloak off and offered it to her friend. When she did, she realized the scar above her heart still ruined her skin. Audrey made a noise in protest.
"N-No need. S-Sorry for worrying you," she mustered, pulling a layer out from her portal. She was all bundled up like a babe. Madoka wanted to hold her but kept that to herself. "How are you not cold with only those garbs on? Damn, the fighter job class is overpowered..."
Madoka shrugged.
"So I take it we stay here for the night?" Madoka stretched. They've been walking for awhile since the bloody hills. Audrey looked further in the crevice.
"I guess," She said. "You don't hear any spooky things in here, do you?"
Madoka shook her head and it was decided. There was a deeper cave further within. The crevice was icy and ancient with no signs of anything entering it recently. Audrey could slip in easily but Madoka got stuck going first. Audrey started giggling.
"Step-sis?" Audrey asked in a strange joking manner at Madoka's compromised position. "What are you doing, step-sis?"
Madoka was too preoccupied with her current predicament to worry about the meaning behind the joke.
"A-Audrey!" Madoka whined. "D-Don't look! Or help me!"
Why must she be too big? Madoka never felt so embarrassed about herself. Her frame was not like the younger noble ladies who were lithe and graceful. Her frame was earned by training and strength. When she thinks about herself, she finds the person staring back at her in the mirror as someone she is proud of and ashamed of at the same time.
With this body alone, Madoka has weathered those awful nights with nobles, shook both rain and sand off, trained with a brutal Lord and a militant Head Maid. She was not like the plump and rich noble women, she was powerful and tempered by the forge of life.
So why in this moment with her friend's laughter did she feel like this way? She would rather be a shell from the sense of shame. Her silence was noticed by Audrey. She could not see Audrey's face but at the moment Madoka did not want to.
"S-Sorry," Audrey said. "I'll help you through. Might be a bit uncomfortable, though."
"Whatever," Madoka grumbled, swallowing her insecurities. There were more dangerous things to worry about. "Get me through or help me out."
"Okay! Three! Two! One!"
"W-Wait, Audrey!" Madoka hesitated after what she saw but it was too late.
At the final count, Madoka felt the full force of Audrey's arms on her bum. The maid squeezed through and slid further down the hollow's ice laden incline. She screamed as she careened down into darkness.
"Madoka!" Audrey's concerned voice echoed above her. The volume grew quieter and drowned out as she slid.
Ice shards sprayed Madoka's face as she descended rapidly. Perhaps she should have told Audrey to pull her from the crack above instead of pushing her in. She tried to dig her hands into the ice to stop her fall but to no avail. The pain was meaningless to her but she realized she was fast approaching the edge of the slope. A small gap above a pitch black depth was between her and a solid wall made of ice.
If Madoka could groan she would. Feeling the free fall curl her stomach before crashing into the wall, she guarded her head and braced for impact.
"Shit," was all that she could muster.
She was waiting for the pain to fracture her body but it did not come. What was going on? Madoka watched the wall break on her and she tumbled through. She skipped off hard rocks like a skipping stone across a lake and ricocheted off another wall.
Still, she did not know if she was flying too fast and the pain simply has not caught up yet. So she lay there out of breath.
"Madoka!" Audrey's voice carried from somewhere above her. "Whoa, whoa!"
She heard the skidding of boots scrape somewhere close by. Madoka was waiting for death or something bad to fall upon her but the familiar white glow illuminated the floor beneath her. This time, even her clothes were fine. She inspected herself and she was alive!
"Thank you, Ares," Madoka prayed. Audrey tumbled near her, landing on her butt. "Thanks, Audrey."
"Ow," she felt her back. Madoka sprang up immediately and checked on the former princess. In her hand was the shimmering, shivering talisman of the kind god Ares.
"Princess? Are you hurt?" Madoka felt her friend.
"It's Audrey," Audrey protested, but acquiesced from Madoka's worried look. She smiled with a radiance that beamed enough to warm the entire cave up. "I'm fine, you workaholic maid. Thank god I managed to buff you in time and you didn't fall down there. I'm not so sure that I wanted to find out the terminal velocity of a human on this world yet... Madoka?"
Madoka hugged Audrey. She can say anything she wants about Madoka.
"You saved me again," Madoka whispered into Audrey's ears.
"Awww don't act like this, Madoka," Audrey pouted. "I don't know what to do when you're like this! I had a lot of restraint back then when you were stuck!"
Madoka did not let go and embraced her tighter.
"M-Mercy, uncle! Uncle!" Audrey slapped Madoka's back. "Can't breathe!"
"Oh, sorry," Madoka finally let go of her.
The two laughed for a moment before realizing that they were stuck in the cave together.
"Welp," Audrey said, wiping off herself from all the ice. Madoka swatted her hands away when she attempted to clean off Madoka. "Suit yourself then."
She brushed herself off. Light only came from Madoka's aura. The girls inspected their gear. The talismans somehow survived and since Madoka had the protection of Ares her own weapons did not harm her as she tumbled head first through the ice wall. Audrey looked at the wall that Madoka crashed in before pulling a torch from the storage portal.
With a snap of a finger, Audrey cast her strange fire magic on it. Madoka considered herself lucky with how many miracles Audrey was capable of creating. Madoka was still scared of the fires, however, flinching as Audrey raised the torch to see the wall.
"This seems man-made," Audrey traced the ice-encased wall. "The stone doesn't match the cave. Perhaps if I..."
"What are you trying to do?" Madoka looked at the dark walls. Only the fire's light reflected off the icy surface. Audrey placed her hand on the ice. "Careful!"
Madoka was now painfully aware of what the cold could do to flesh. She was not a smart girl by any means, but it was capable of freezing her own arm off. However, she also knew that Audrey was not an ordinary person. Slowly, the ice around her hand melted away.
"Back away," Audrey leapt back with surprising agility. Madoka followed. All of a sudden, the ice covering the stone broke and collapsed in sheets as the melted area from Audrey's hand spread.
"So you have been practicing your Cherish movements," Madoka commented on her movements. A loud cracking noise reverberated throughout the cave as the last sheet of ice shattered on the ground. Audrey suddenly became bashful.
"So what if I have been?" She said with a sigh. "Got to keep up with you somehow."
Madoka could say the same in regard to Audrey's abilities and cleverness. Despite her tantrums awhile ago, she realized she might feel jealous of not being able to wield magic. She would never admit it. The wall caught her attention when all the excess ice slid off and joined the slushy puddle below.
"This is..." Audrey stared at the wall. " A mural? Fresco? Maybe those mean the same thing. Anyways, wow!"
The artwork was unlike anything of the Palace, Madoka observed.
"Do you have any idea what we're looking at, Audrey?" Madoka stared at it.
Strange symbols surrounded the mural which consisted of many strange drawings. Audrey contemplated at the sight.
"It appears to be a drawing of an old battle of some kind," she guessed. "The small figures look like they're fighting off a strange being. I'm not sure what the big ring above them all means. And these symbols..."
"They're not like the ones on the ruins," Madoka said. She guessed, really. "Perhaps the big ring is the sun?"
Audrey furrowed her brow as she thought more on the matter and surrendered by shrugging.
"I'm not really a history nerd or an archeologist, so I don't know," Audrey stepped in the puddle to approach the symbols below the mural. The symbols surrounded the whole drawing, but Audrey and Madoka could only reach the bottom row with their hands. "These letters..."
"D-Don't tell me you can read them," Madoka gasped, taking her hand off the symbols.
"No, I can't. Wait why is that scary to you?" Audrey looked at Madoka defensively. "I don't know anything about the world besides the books from the Estate. And!"
She said, raising her voice before Madoka could speak.
"Your English is getting better," Audrey smirked. Madoka realized that she was speaking Commoner, English and Noble interchangeably. She clicked her tongue. She will be more careful when she speaks. "Well, I'll tell you what I think about these symbols. I wish I spoke more with the Japanese exchange students at my old school. That way I could have a better shot at reading these words. But I'm not sure even if they're actually hiragana or kanji. Aaaand I lost you."
Madoka realized she asked for way more than she bargained for. Part of her was afraid of Audrey bringing something up that her mind could never understand. She would feel as sick as she did when she realized Audrey was telling the truth that she was not from this world. How could anyone believe in what she is saying besides Madoka?
As these questions swam inside Madoka's mind and got caught on snags in her thoughts' river, Audrey perked up.
"There!" she pointed. "An opening in the wall! Let's do some cave diving, huh?"
"B-Be careful," Madoka cautioned, but she followed her to the crack in the wall. Audrey was staring through the passage with awe. "It could be another slope."
"No," Audrey said excitedly. "It's a cavern. Should have enough room to finally do it."
"You mean..." Madoka's own excitement matched Audrey's. "We can do it in there?"
A nod and a grin was her answer.
The mural of the battle would have to sit here forever, she supposed for she did not hesitate to go. Madoka made sure she would not get stuck in this narrow hole in the wall and squeezed through. Audrey slipped between easily. Sure enough this cavern was large enough to do it in, man-made or not. Audrey manifested the storage portal and waited for Madoka to finally pull one of the bear's massive legs out. Perfect size for chopping and cooking.
"Wind blade!"
Some time later, the two were having bear meat in an icy cavern. Audrey commented on how clean the meat was. Madoka recalled when she pushed the bear into the portal. Strangely, the dark tentacles sprouting from the beast sluiced off of its skin — leaving an unusually large but simple bear behind. Chunks of it were missing from those things. The "parasite," as Audrey called the tentacles, dissolved into a black viscous substance. It seemed to weaken the bear and its ability to use magic which luckily allowed Madoka to survive the black lightning.
It seemed that Audrey did not know a thing about bears. She thought its lightning control was tied to an organ in its body but only could guess. That was odd to Madoka since she usually was knowledgeable about most things. She spent an unusual amount of time searching for the core that allowed it to use lightning, which of course never existed in the first place.
The bear was using magic, obviously. Even Madoka knew that. She knew that from talking with the Palace mages. Audrey even gawked as Madoka drug the bear by the head effortlessly and pushed it into the storage portal. It was easier to do when the bear was missing the parasite and was not actively trying to kill her. Madoka decided to leave the specifics of cooking to Audrey and keep eating while she rambled. By the end, nothing but a bone from the bear's leg remained. Madoka wondered a few things about it.
"What's shakin' bacon?" Audrey asked. She still ate properly, Madoka noticed. Like a true Royal. "You've been staring at the bear bones for awhile. Hehe."
"I was just thinking that its fur could make a nice coat," Madoka mused, ignoring the princess's odd joke.
"Oh," Audrey pondered for a moment. "Well, when we get going we can see what we can do with it."
"Where are we going?" Madoka asked. Audrey grabbed the strange talisman from her bag. Ares.
"This guy won't — okay, okay!" Audrey seemed to be conversing with it. The glowing talisman seemed to be giving her an earful. "Deeper within these ruins."
"Ruins?"
Audrey's core flared and she used a new fire spell Madoka's never seen before to the roof. It was a gathering of sparks that launched up to the roof. Madoka saw the rest of the cavern as the flare illuminated the walls.
They seemed to be in the ruins of an ancient Palace. Madoka gasped in awe at the magnificent albeit half-destroyed and sprawling archways above their head. This place must have had so many places to clean!
"Yeah," Audrey said, ignoring the view. "Didn't mention this, but this mountain range is known as the Hall of Royals. This particular mountain we're in, as this annoying artifact tells me, is known as the Hall of the Frost Queen. It wants me to return it to the nexus ga- I mean the altar located somewhere deeper within. Apparently, it can't just tell me what gifts it will give me in exchange. So visiting the ruins it is!"
"Y-You mean," Madoka stammered. "Like the ruins we visited during last summer?"
"Yeah!"
"I-" Madoka was not sure about running into another god. She did not even understand the last one they ran in.
"Come on," Audrey leaned back, stretching her legs back and forth on the ice, making a cone. "We're a lot tougher now and besides, Ares has chosen to help you a lot you know. We will have to give the kind God a 'thank you' when we meet it, yeah?"
Madoka considered it. Then she nodded. Her stomach was full and she needed exercise anyways. After they packed everything back into the storage portal, the two moved along the walls while they searched for a way out of the cavern.
"That talisman," Madoka wondered aloud. "It is not like the green magic that healer used. How does it work?"
"Beats me!" Audrey said. Madoka groaned at how immediate her reply was. She was using the Divine Treasure, somehow, without a second thought on how she was accomplishing that end. "I'm sure you are racking your brain over how I'm so nonchalant over this thingy, but I have decided my brain will pop if I think about it for too long. All I know is that these talismans are overpowered, YOU'RE overpowered and the item box really make me confused on how the Devs let it pass through QA. That's a little, uh, role playing game joke there but yeah. Your guess is as good as mine."
Madoka felt the ancient stone of a wall buried in snow and weather. This place seemed to have not been disturbed in ages. This place felt holy to her, like a forbidden place to a slave like her. Well, she probably was not a slave anymore. She was whoever and whatever Audrey asked her to be.
"Here," Audrey said further up ahead holding up her hand against a barrier of ice. Her hand glowed orange as the heat emanated from it. Like the sound of glass shattering, the ice gave way. The two watched as the shards of crystal ice slid down into the depths.
Madoka heard them clatter on stone below.
"Well, Madoka," Audrey said. "It's dungeon explorin' time, yee haw!"
Her sudden enthusiasm and strange words did not instill confidence in Madoka. She silently regretted her commitment towards being whoever Audrey wanted her to be.
"Tomorrow," Madoka said with a yawn.
"Nae waaaah, Madoka! Don't blueball me like this!"
It was too late, Madoka had slunked off and began to assume a loafing position. Audrey folded her arms and watched her maid with disbelief. Madoka simply yawned again and suddenly felt a blanket hit her face.
She smiled and knew she had won her way to a good night's sleep.