I wasn’t getting paranoid or anything. I just figured that if I hugged the edge of the cavern, the invisible monster would burst from the wall and lay eggs in my spleen.

So fuck you, invisible monster! I jogged toward the center of the cavern, then slipped along rows of tombstones, my bare feet scuffing the ground. I veered into one aisle, then swerved to a different row, pausing occasionally to look and listen.

I didn’t hear anything, but I saw faded writing on a handful of stones. Too faded to read more than random letters. I kept going, to the nearest SUV-sized tomb. That one actually had a few legible words: ‘--servant to the faithful ... servants of her own, smoke golems who loy--‘

The sentence stopped there and I ducked to the other side of the tomb and tried to quiet my breathing.

“It’s still moving,” Princess said, equally hushed. “I think it’s near the center of the chamber.”

“There’s nothing there,” I said, peeking around the corner.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” she said. “Keep all your eyes peeled.”

I huffed a quiet laugh. “Every one of them.”

Then I took off again, weaving between stones. I trotted toward one of the eighteen-wheeler-sized tombs, partly because I was looking for cover--maybe even an entrance into the tomb--and partly from curiosity: I wondered what the writing might say on the grandest tombs.

There was no writing on the big tomb. There was no entrance, either. There was nothing but a huge slab of stone.

“Alex!” Princess whispered, and the nearest tree rustled.

Black branches swayed and twigs scraped.

I spun toward the sound and didn’t see anything.

Still, I backed away, toward a nearby tomb with a recessed alcove. The onyx slab was the size of a compact car, except taller. More like two compact cars stacked on top of each other, though I really needed to stop with my stupid vehicle-based measurements and--

“It’s here,” Princess gasped in horror. “It’s here, it’s right outside. I can see it, oh, no. Oh, please no.”

“Where?” I demanded, scanning the tombyard.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” She sounded near hysterics. “Oh, goodness. Oh, my terrible goodness it’s enormous. It’s horrible.”

“Stay calm,” I said, stepping away from the tomb’s alcove. “I’ll find it. I’ll find you.”

“It-it’s huge and fleshy and horrible and--“

An anvil fell on the back of my head. A heavy solid unforgiving weight. Pain flashed white and red behind my eyes. My vision flickered, and my knees buckled. The next thing I knew, I was stumbling forward, desperately trying not to fall.

I staggered a few steps, stumbled off a tomb then wobbled to the side and spun messily to face whatever had attacked me from behind.

There was nothing there.

Health: 32/50

Without my increased Fortitude, that blow would’ve killed me. One blow. Instant death. And I still hadn’t even seen this fucker.

“It’s gone!” Princess said. “It moved away from me, it’s gone.”

“It’s over here now, clubbing my head in.”

“Oh, no. Are you okay, do you ...” She made a humming noise. “You’re hurt. Badly. I can feel how badly you’re hurt. You should run, Alex. Leave this place.”

I didn’t answer, too busy eying the gloom past my raised hatchets.

The black tree was motionless.

The orange light was steady.

I spun in place, alert for the slightest movement, the slightest shadow. Then I spun faster, suddenly convinced that the creature was behind me. I didn’t see a thing, though. I didn’t hear a thing. I hadn’t heard any sign of the attacker except for the crunch of impact against my head.

And Intuit showed me nothing but tombs.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Leave this place,” Princess repeated. “Leave me. I’m ... I’ll sleep again, most likely. It’s a painless way to fade away. You owe me nothing. I have no claim on you. And even I did, I’d release you from it.”

“I’m staying,” I told her.

“No, Alex, please. Don’t hurt yourself on my account.”

“I’m not staying for you, Princess,” I said. “I’m staying for me.”

“We haven’t even met! We haven’t ... oh. You’re not staying for me?”

“Right,” I said. “Now shut up.”

“Well, you needn’t be impolite,” she whispered, her relief clear in her voice, before shutting up.

I spun one final time, then stalked back the way I’d come, past the tomb with the alcove and toward the big featureless one beyond. My head pounded with hard throbs of pain, and a trickle of blood dripped down my neck. I moved quietly, my bare feet silent on the stone floor. My gaze never stopped, trying to catch this stealthy fucker before--

Another impact threw me sideways, breaking my left shoulder. I felt the snap and almost howled in agony. I slammed into a tomb and dropped my left-hand hatchet--and automatically bamfed it into my domain.

With my left arm useless, I chopped wildly with my right and finally caught a glimpse of the creature. Well, sort of. I didn’t see anything directly, but Intuit showed me a box.

INTUIT: Chirotry the Shaper, Level 9

I didn’t know what ‘shaper’ meant, but I learned two bits of vital information.

First, the third spider-beast was already rising to the fucking roof of the cavern on a silken cable. That’s why I hadn’t seen it. It was hiding among the stalactites, walking through them like, well, like a spider on the ceiling. Intuit had caught it for the briefest moment, lofting upward fast on spider silk after it broke my arm.

Second, what I learned was this:

Health: 19/50

I was in bad trouble. One more hit would put me down forever. Yet I didn’t immediately add a point to Fortitude. I needed to keep those as long as possible. Instead, I whimpered in pain, popped a pearl bead, and kept my gaze high until Intuit flashed again. Sure enough, ‘Chirotry’ was stalking me from above. Crawling across the ceiling. At least with Intuit toggled, it wouldn’t surprise me, not again. Which was a weird function for an ‘identify’ type skill, but I’d take all the help I could get.

“I can heal you,” Princess whispered. “Once. Perhaps. If we’re touching. Though at some cost to myself.”

“I’m okay,” I said, in a pained whimper.

“You’re not.”

“I can heal myself twice.”

“Then do it, Alex! Before you--before anything happens.”

I didn’t. Instead, I focused on not fainting from the pain, keeping my eye on the Intuit flag above me, and retracing my steps. I only had two more Fortitude heals. I didn’t want to use one until absolutely necessary. I’d rather stagger back through the Hole to the courtyard, eat my final pearl beads and wait a couple days to heal.

So I reeled past the tomb with the alcove, aiming for the exit. And I got halfway to the big blank graveyard slab before Chirotry started moving across the ceiling. Tracing my steps from above.

Despite the Intuit flag, I only caught glimpses of the creature itself. Partly because my eyes were blurred with tears of pain, but mostly because that fucker changed shape.

And size.

And color and texture.

A huge, semi-translucent thornspider-looking Chirotry turned into a smaller one with extra legs. Then it stretched out waaaaay too long, into a giant millipede. The millipede got skinnier and skinner, then darkened to a pitch black snake-thing that looked like a deep crack in the ceiling.

Only Intuit showed me that it was crawling across the ceiling, trying to get directly above me. Then it spread as it crawled, becoming a ... a slime mold. Like a living carpet, undulating across the stalactites. Undulating fast. Too fast. I wasn’t going to make it to the Hole.

This was no time to mess around, so I put my back against the big tomb and assigned another point to Fortitude. My head throbbed as my blood boiled as my wounds knit together. My shoulder burned so intensely that I almost expected to smell roasting meat. My skin tingled then stung then itched.

Strength flowed through me.

Health: 53/53

“Get ready, you scuttling fuck,” I muttered, watching the ceiling. “I am going to kick your shape-changing ass.”

“Alexinwulf!” Princess said. “Language!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Well, perhaps I’m teasing a little,” she said. “Considering your current predicament, one must allow for a slight linguistic laxity.”

“‘Predicament?’ Is that what you call a homicidal millipede?”

“I would go so far as to say ‘quandry,’ ‘plight,’ or even ...” She paused. “It’s preparing to attack.”

She was right. On the ceiling, the spreading ‘carpet’ of Chirotry thickened toward a central point. It turned translucent again, with orange streaks that mirrored the glow of embers. Limbs coalesced into jointed monstrosities like praying mantis arms, but a thousand times bigger.

I lowered my head, pretending that I’d noticed no danger from above, watching only with my peripheral vision. As if I’d scanned the ceiling, then given up. Instead, I looked down the aisle between graves, and crept toward the stacked-compact-car tomb with the little alcove.

I wanted a bottleneck. That creature could change shape and size, color and texture. I wanted to give it only a single angle of attack. The alcove looked perfect for that, for shielding my back and my sides.

I pretended I was still injured, too. I kept my left arm dangling and walked in a pained shuffle. Trying to look like wounded prey.

As I moved, I caught brief glimpses above myself from the corner of my eye as Chirotry shrunk to the size of a regular thornspider. To be less visible, maybe, or more dense? Or maybe just more maneuverable, in the spaces between the stones. Without looking directly overhead, I couldn’t detect a single sign of ‘the Shaper’ other than the Intuit tag. Its coloration matched the ceiling too closely. Still, the tag dropped very slowly toward me on a strand of silk as I pretended to stare in fright toward unseen dangers in the tombyard.

I waited.

The creature dropped lower.

I waited.

The creature dropped lower.

I waited and--

“Strike!” Princess shouted.

--I moved.

In an instant, I sprang sideways onto a low tombstone then jumped as high as my increased strength allowed. Which wasn’t that high, but Chirotry kept dropping and I stretched out and swung my hatchet and chopped through the strand of silk holding the creature in the air.

It didn’t fall far, but the sudden plunge clearly surprised it. It flared with spikes defensively as I landed ten feet away, then scuttled a few wary steps ... and grew two praying mantis legs from its head, oriented toward me.

“And now,” I growled, cracking my neck, “you’re stuck down here with me.”