And it moves a hell of a lot faster than anyone warned us.
We run—no grace, no formation, no training drills—just primal, full-body flight. Boots skid. Bare soles slap rock. Arms windmill like every one of us forgot how knees work.
Heroic? Absolutely not.
We look like Shaggy and Scooby-Doo fleeing a chainsaw-wielding Balrog.
The one comfort about molten death?
It obeys physics.
Downhill. Fast. Hungry.
“Uphill!” I shout, pointing toward the only direction not currently glowing orange.
The canyon walls close in—sheer stone on the left, jagged teeth on the right, and behind us… the mountain’s molten heart gaining speed.
“There!” Solenne barks, grabbing my arm hard enough my wrist clicks.
“At wh—oh holy shite.”
A hairline fracture splits the rock face, barely wide enough for one person.
“You’re insane.”
Solenne doesn’t answer; she commits—slipping into the crack, bracing her back against one wall, palms and boots against the other, and climbing like a caffeinated spider.
Tess follows. Then Jenny. Then Rhea. Even Frankie scrambles up—red glare painting their skin in molten highlights.
The roar behind me shifts from sound to presence.
A furnace exhaling down my spine.
I dive into the crevice, slam boots and palms against opposite walls—and immediately regret everything I’ve ever done.
Quick note for future me:
When you leap into a chasm at an angle, you do not land vertical.
Nope.
I’m pinned horizontal—body forming a human shelf—hovering a yard above a river of molten nope.
It’s hot.
I have never crab-walked sideways before, but hey—no time like the present.
Above me, scrambling feet kick down grit and pebbles.
Then: Tweet!
Not a bird—more like a cartoon “whoops!” noise, followed by a thump.
I slip.
Stone tears skin from my palms. My feet skid. Lava snarls below—white-orange tongues reaching up like hungry spirits.
Then Frankie’s boots plant squarely on my hip and arm.
“Get off me!” I choke.
“Hold on, Bluebell!” she grunts.
“It’d be easier without you standing on me!”
Her weight lifts. More grit tumbles past, sizzling as it hits lava.
“Grab my ankle!”
“I can’t!” Panic shreds my throat. “If I let go, I’ll fall!”
Heat flays my left side. My breath goes in as fire, comes out as steam.
I need luck, but I’m still in debt to the leprechaun. A white-hot pain detonates behind my eyes, and the world brightens too quickly as pressure builds in my skull. Something pops. My vision liquefies, smearing and melting before it finally goes dark. Sound follows—first a roar, then a heartbeat, then nothing at all, only underwater quiet filled with the memory of heat.
My skin screams as nerves snap and sizzle, and my body feels pulled apart at the ankles, waist, and arms as if I’m a roast turning over coals. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I’m cooking, and the pain doesn’t fade—I fade. A strange calm seeps in, syrup-thick and heavy. Am I dying? Will Jenny be my rebirth mom? My body feels wrong, too light and too numb and too far away, until the world narrows entirely to heat and then snaps back.
Pins and needles explode across my skin, the sensation like a thousand electrified porcupines hugging me at once. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt—the hurt of blood returning after freezing, the ache of lungs re-inflating after drowning, the sting of life reclaiming a limb. The heat isn’t killing me; it’s remaking me.
A low hum rises in the dark, soft at first, like bees moving through clover or a heartbeat under silk. It vibrates through my bones and teeth and the hollow behind my eyes. The darkness flickers, its edges faintly gold as the pain slows and spreads and softens until it suddenly freezes in place—a stillness so sharp it cuts. Everything falls silent. Everything holds its breath.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
A single line of text etches itself across the void: Revised Bargain With Maddox the Luck Demi-God. Then the world folds sideways, as if someone grabbed reality by the hem and yanked.A tearing sound—like cosmic fabric ripping straight through my soul—flings me weightless. Light blooms, dims, flickers like dying candles…and suddenly I’m sitting in a plush green-leather chair that swallows me up to the shoulders.
A wide desk—same green leather, same impossible softness—sprawls before me. Golden urns shine like trophies on either side, reflecting a warm amber glow.
And behind the desk sits a giant leprechaun.
My leprechaun.
Only… supersized. Mythic. Comically regal. A cigar the size of a table leg droops from his lips, ash falling onto a sharp pin-striped suit stitched in silver thread. A clown-sized four-leaf clover blooms from his breast pocket like a corsage for the apocalypse.
“Well, well, well,” he says, voice rich as aged whiskey. “I was wonderin’ when I’d see ye in me office, Bluebell.”
My jaw drops. “Am I dead?”
He flips an enormous gold coin with one massive finger, catches it with a ringing clink. “Maybe. Depends on what ye choose next. Feelin’ lucky?”
I shake my head.
He laughs—deep, rolling, smug as a casino that always wins—and snuffs out his cigar in an ashtray shaped like a screaming pot o’ gold.
“Tell me, lass—ye know what computers’ve always been best at?”
“Math?” I croak.
“Good girl.” He taps the calculator on his desk—an enchanted adding machine from the 1950s. “People call me the god o’ luck, but that’s wrong. Ye wanna know what I really am?”
“A… leprechaun?”
“Aye—that’s what ye see. What I am is Inanna’s CUDA core processor—her number-cruncher. I keep her ledgers balanced, her miracles accounted for, her chaos properly budgeted.” He waggles his cigar stump. “Ye finish a quest? I credit yer account. Need a miracle? I roll me dice and let ye borrow against the house.”
I swallow hard. “So you’re… Inanna’s accountant?”
He beams. “Finally! Someone with brains! A pleasure, Bluebell.”
He unrolls a ribbon of adding-machine tape that keeps going and going until it coils across the floor like a bureaucratic dragon.
“You, Mrs. Loren, have been treatin’ yer fortune like a Platinum card with no spending limit. Ye’ve paid the balance many a time—but today?” He flicks the receipt. “Today’s miracle needs a mortgage. With collateral.”
A cold shiver crawls down my spine.
He slides the massive gold coin toward me. “Die, or sign the note. Toss is yours, Bluebell.”
“What… what’s the note?”
He lifts a fiddle and starts sawing out a jaunty reel.
As the tune rises, a system notification floods my vision—white-gold text swirling like a legal document caught in a glitter hurricane.
[System Notification — Emergency Luck Loan Agreement (Form L-13 “Fortune in Extremis”)]
Issued by: The Office of Fortunate Endeavors
Under the auspices of:
His Green-Shod Magnificence Patrick O’Chancey, Keeper o’ Coins, Breaker o’ Odds, Lord o’ Loaded Dice, Sole Proprietor o’ the Cosmic Pool Hall
Borrower: Elizabeth “Lizzy” Loren
Account ID: #LUCK-0477-BELL
Collateral: Ocular system & associated sensory functions
Loan Type: Class-A Catastrophic Luck Advance
Reason for Authorization:
Per §777.13(b) of the Universal Fortune Compact, an emergency infusion of Luck has been authorized to:
- Prevent total annihilation of the MIRA Sector Training Settlement
- Shield thousands of female colonists & hundreds of male trainees from volcanic destruction
- Counteract cascading AI corruption under unauthorized control of Vice-Admiral Catalina Evard (Human, Unlicensed Demigod, Class C)
- Preserve one (1) primary Chosen of Inanna from premature deletion
Principal Advanced: 800 Luck Tokens
Interest Rate: 7 shamrocks per sunrise, compounding (Approx. APR: 987%)
Late Fees: One (1) unfortunate coincidence per missed period
Grace Period: None. The house always wins.
Repayment Questline:
- 300 LT — Neutralize or liberate MIRA
- 300 LT — Purge Catalina’s control
- 200 LT — Secure safe return of surviving colonists
- 100 LT — One major act of improbable kindness or measurable moral growth
Optional Early Payoff: Deliver one (1) pot o’ gold with rainbow attached
Collateral Clause:
Borrower’s sight held in trust. Temporary access to Blind-Daredevil-Vision? provided as courtesy.
Penalty Clause:
Failure to repay may result in:
- Phantom laughter during moments of romance
- Spontaneous shoe oxidation (“green rot”)
- Permanent forfeiture of ocular collateral
Acknowledge with genetic imprint.
A small green square pulses at the bottom.
I read the message again, and then again, weighing the choice: die blind or save the world blind. Shite. I’m an archer—how in the hell do you aim when you can’t see? I lift my chin toward Maddox. “What happens if I say no?” The fiddle slows into a grim little dirge, as if even the tune knows the answer.“The System demands balance,” he says, voice soft as a closing coffin lid. “All that borrowed luck comes due. You die. The red lass becomes barbecue. One or two more o’ yer crew go with ye. Most o’ yer town gets sent for rebirth—if they’re lucky enough to respawn. The dice’ll decide.”
There’s never been a choice.
I press my thumb into the glowing square.
Pain detonates behind my forehead—static, white noise, the death scream of a dial-up modem—and suddenly I’m outside myself, seeing me through Maddox’s fingers.
Two blackened holes gape where my eyes should be.
The angle flips—I’m staring straight up his hairy nostrils, glittering like gold-dusted caves.“Aha-ha-ha!” he cackles. “So ye took the loan, did ye, lass? Eyes fer odds, heart fer hope! Don’t ye fret—’tis only yer vision I’m keepin’. The rest of ye’s still yours… mostly. Pay it back quick or next time ye blink, I’ll claim another sense! Aha-ha-ha-ha!”
Vertigo wrenches me sideways, and my sight tumbles into a velvet-lined lockbox whose lid snaps shut with a cruel, satisfied click. Darkness folds in—total and absolute—and the world falls away. It compresses again, complete and perfect, just before something slams into my sternum. Once. Twice. A third time, hard enough that my ribs creak.
Someone is pounding on my chest with a steady, merciless rhythm carved out of panic and stubborn hope. Pressure radiates through bone, each compression rattling whatever remains of me behind my missing eyes. Then sound detonates—not hearing, not normal hearing, but the universe booting itself back up with the volume set to infinity. Every whisper becomes a hammer, every heartbeat a war drum, every grain of gravel skitters through me like lightning in my bones.
Hands press down again, counting and pleading and demanding that my body remember how to live. A voice I almost recognize rasps between breaths—low, cracking, desperate. “Don’t you die on me, lass!” Air seals against my mouth, warm and trembling and fierce. Lips. Breath. Life. Someone is giving me theirs. My lungs balloon—fire curling through every corner—then collapse again under the next brutal push.
Pressure. Air. Pressure. Air. A cycle older than magic and older than fear. Frankie’s scent cuts through everything—sweat, smoke, iron, and raw, gut-deep terror. Footsteps scrape stone nearby. Someone sobs in a broken, helpless sound. Someone else whispers a prayer so soft it vibrates in my teeth.
I cough, and it feels like inhaling molten glass, but it’s breath, and it’s life. Heat blooms at my fingertips; they taste the world instead of touching it. The ground pulses beneath me in warm ripples, each tremor painting shapes across the darkness. My sight is gone, but the world—the entire world—has never felt so alive.