Autumn evening steals in a little quicker than you're used to. That calls for fire to warm soaked and shivering bodies, and a shelter to block the gently rising wind. The former is the product of hard work but the latter is serendipity - one of Princess Kikil's travel castles can be found a few kilometers down the river and it's a perfect improvised shelter.

Even if you've never seen a Princess you'll likely feel some sense of personal connection to Princess Kikil. She builds castles, you see. If she stays in one place for a while it'll be a huge complex as filled with defensible tricks of mathematical subtlety as it is filled with sweeping spires. If she's just passing through she'll still leave some little maze or shelter or tower - she especially likes building lighthouses - behind her, swiftly to be overgrown and weathered into the landscape. While a lot of her works are too far out in the wilderness to move into, some are indeed occupied by aspiring hermits who are happy for the free real estate. Plenty more are left uninhabited for lost travelers to stumble into.

This one in particular is built like a birdwatching hide - sunken and low, entirely hidden from one angle in particular - you'd suspect built to spy on Princess Qiu as she worked to clear this river. It's a cozy enough space, but in these close quarters with the wind rattling across the exterior and the fire flickering in the middle, it's just eerie enough for ghost stories. It's also suitable for gossip, party games, or the general camping experience, but Cyanis was the first mover in the space and decided it was to be ghost stories.

Hyra actually took to the activity first with the energy of someone who hasn't had the opportunity to talk out loud in too long. She's good at it too, telling it like she just heard it herself, letting her eyes go large and startled while keeping steady eye contact until, almost like a small jump scare, she shifted her whole attention across to someone else. 

"On Tuesday the Sixth of April, Countess Klarissa's bank account ran dry," said Hyra. "She didn't notice. Why should she? She wasn't a technomancer. Wasn't relying on any burrower services or features. She was a creature of the new world and held no truck with demons, so that surely meant she was safe. Everything she'd earned was from her own hard work, and now she was powerful and respected and independent. She hadn't asked for anything from anyone so now she wasn't going to give anything to anyone in return. She put up a huge fence around her land and told everyone to keep out. No matter what! One time when two children snuck in to steal her apples she [i]drew her sword[/i] and spanked them with the flat of the blade until they were in tears. Stay out! Work your own land! What's mine is mine!

"Or so she thought. Countess Klarissa had forgotten the wishing well, you see."

"Wishing wells are, of course, common - a well is more likely to be a wishing well than to be safe. Whisper into it and the water will carry your voice down deep, deep, deep into the depths. Normally it's a priestess' job to guard the well and draw the water but young Klarissa hadn't seen it that way. All that chanting and nonsense just to get a drink? Nonsense! So she snuck a sip when nobody was watching and it was easy - water was water! So she snuck another and another and got used to it, and when you're used to it you aren't as careful. And when you're not careful, and you're not chanting to keep your voice busy, you're always in danger of saying something that might just sound like a wish to the ears that listen at the bottom of the well. And little Klarissa had said '[i]I wish they all listened to me![/i]'."

"And for a while that's exactly what they did."

"She got used to bossing people around. It came naturally to her and she had a lot of orders to give. Stop this, do that, go away, give me that. She thought she was just charismatic and had a way with words but every word she said was amplified by the invisible demoness that hovered behind her shoulders and brushed her hair as she slept. And each time she gave an order it subtracted a few more dollars from her bank account."

"Now sometimes service cuts off when you hit zero. Some people unknowingly waste their technomagic for years until it disappears without a trace one day and all the demons go home. But sometimes you get an [i]Afterpayer[/i]. These are the most dangerous demons of all because they're authorized to extend you credit - and that's exactly what Klarissa's demoness did. Day by day she used the power she thought was her natural talent, thought was her ordained birthright, and day by day the demoness clacked another bead across in the abacus."

"But there was hope. You see, when a demon is granting you credit it needs to provide warning of [i]some[/i] kind. It can, however, get fairly abstract or hostile when doing this. Sometimes it whispered its warnings at the same time as other people were talking. Sometimes it made milk curdle or roosters lay eggs. As the credit progressed red lights began to dance in the sky and a passing monk took notice. She came to investigate the village, demon-smiting staff in hand, searching for the signs of corruption. But just as surely as the monk could smell the demon the demoness could sense the monk and she decided that now was the time to call in her debt."

"In a swirl of water and algorithms the demoness appeared before Klarissa. It told her of her debt and told her of the price. She was to descend with her into the depths of the Burrowing World, collared and leashed, dressed as a maid to cook, clean, and wait on the demon's every whim until her debt was paid. Klarissa balked, panicked, and ran. She ran towards the town, calling for the monk - who heard her! The monk raced out to defend her with staff in hand, and Klarissa ran towards her saviour in relief."

"But then they both came up short."

"There was, you see, a fence in the way."

"Klarissa's own fence, her own gate, her own KEEP OUT signs were now no longer a defense against small children. They were now a cage that was keeping her locked in. The monk tried to climb, but she was not young and the barbed wire line at the top seemed so excessive now, didn't it Klarissa? And the demon was able to come out at a leisurely pace, take the girl by the hair, and start whispering the terms and conditions of her new role as it dragged her down into the depths. There she toils still, a single slave in an empty hell, working off every order she ever gave."