The wooden floor shattered beneath me and I dropped.

Sparks faded. The world tilted. I heard Kathina gasping and panting.

Stones blurred to both sides as I fell, illuminated by the faintest flecks of skystone. A sledgehammer struck my hip and sent me spinning wildly. The dim glow of the lighthouse, receding above me, strobed in my vision as I faced upward, downward, upward, downward, upward--

Then darkness swallowed me.

My webtouch spread wide, trying to orient me in the spiraling chaos, trying to latch onto any stable landmark--then another impact struck me, that time in my calves. Pain flared and I cartwheeled in the air and slammed into what felt like a wooden frame.

I crashed through the beams, the impact pummeling and slowing me, before slamming into a shock of ice-cold water. The current swept me aside. I gulped water then struck stone, then the rapids shook me like a hound shakes a rabbit, and I might’ve blacked out for a second. There was no way to tell, but next I was tumbling along in a steep stone-banked river that spat me into the air and I fell again before I hit bottom.

My lower back slammed against a rock floor but my head whipped onto something softer. Still, I felt myself passing out, and I reflexively checked my stats.

Health: 2/57

Well, goddamn ...

* * *

When I opened my eyes, the darkness didn’t change.

I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Yeah. Complete pitch blackness. No skystone this deep, not even flecks.

And I hurt. Everything hurt.

Health: 6/57

Mana: 12/24

So I hadn’t been unconscious for very long. The pearl beads were still healing me. I suspected that if they hadn’t ticked my health up a few times before--or even during--that painful plummet, I’d be dead.

Okay. Okay, so where was I? At the bottom of a goddamn well in the Old City. Except there wasn’t any water, or I’d have drowned. So more like an elevator shaft. Except I could smell water somewhere nearby. My head rested on a bundle of soft material, and a stone floor sloped beneath my aching, limp body. There were few lumps, some rocks or plants or rubble on the ground. I sensed an open space above me, a high ceiling or something, I couldn’t quite tell.

I closed my eyes and the darkness still didn’t change. I was pretty sure that’d broken my pelvis or tailbone, but my head felt okay. If I’d splashed my brain across the stone floor, no amount of beads would’ve saved me. Thank god for this bed of moss or whatever pillow I’d--

My webtouch finally identified my ‘pillow.’

It was Kathina’s corpse.

She’d fallen just before me, and apparently we’d taken that wild ride together. Then she’d splatted an instant before me. My head was lying on the chunk of meat that used to be her thigh.

I jerked upright in disgust--well, I tried. But something gave in my back so I just sort of jerked, then collapsed again. But at least I collapsed away from the corpse. I didn’t puke. Bile rose to my throat and I gagged, but I didn’t puke. I breathed carefully and focused on the trickle of water falling from above.

I had a vague memory of hitting water ...

Princess told me,

“Yeah,” I said aloud.

My voice sounded weak in the near-silence. The only sound was the splash of water. I lay there for a time, feeling the pain wash over me in slow, horrible waves. I wasn’t sure how much time, but eventually the pain dulled a little. Enough for me to focus, at least.

When I cast my senses outward, I felt a pool ten or fifteen feet away. Shallow. More of a puddle, and not much bigger than a jacuzzi.

I wanted to go clean off but I wasn’t sure if crawling was a good idea, so I lay there for a while longer.

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Loot corpse?

TREASURE! 9 pearl beads, 2 foam beads, 12 gel beads.

TREASURE! 1 embroidered beltpouch, quite stylish.

TREASURE! Assorted women’s clothing, mangled.

TREASURE! 1 satchel with various contents, inventory that yourself, lazy bones. Lazy brokenbones.

“Jerk,” I muttered.

TREASURE!

TREASURE!

TREASURE! One Gem of Shapeshield

A gem.

Holy shit.

Holy shit! I’d failed with Tiral-ur, but I’d pluck the gem directly out of Kathina’s half-demolished head. Another gem. I’d heard that extracting them almost always broke them, so I hadn’t been surprised at my failure earlier. Yet maybe looting them worked for me half the time? Or at least some good chunk of the time? Maybe it worked for Treasure.

So I looted, and immediately felt a new presence in my domain: Gem of Shapeshield.

Ha. Ha! Worked perfectly.

Another gem.

I let the triumph warm me for a minute, then I said, “‘Shapeshield?’ Well, that’s a ridiculous fucking name.”

Princess said, with a mental sigh.

I asked.

she told me.

I said.

she said.

She faded and I focused on recovering. By which I meant, I ate all of Kathina’s pearl beads then I dragged my sorry carcass closer to the pool of water. I didn’t quite get that far before I collapsed again, though.

The next time I woke, I felt almost human.

Health: 13/57

Mana: 24/24

I still couldn’t see anything, but my webtouch senses had settled and extended. I was in an unevenly-domed chamber of what felt like rough stone, with a trickle of water coming down one side and no visible exits at ground level. And I was alone. Which was good news. It meant that nothing was going to jump me while I could barely move.

Except the sense of security made me nervous, so I checked again with webtouch. And I noticed that one of the rocks on the wall was roundish and about the size of my head. Like a miniature kobold.

I kept my attention on it ... and it moved.

Verrrryy slowly.

Almost undetectably slowly, but enough to make my heart clench.

At least until I got a clearer sense of what it was. Not a kobold. Not an immediate threat. No, it was a snail. A giant snail that was eating the scum off the moist rocky surfaces of this cavern. Huh. Unless it started hurtling fireballs from its antennae or some shit, it wasn’t a threat.

Still, I kept track of it as I washed the gore from myself. Because it wasn’t impossible that it would start hurling fireballs. Getting clean took a while, considering how weak I felt. Also, it wasn’t like I had a mirror so I didn’t know how much gore remained. I felt a little better, though.

Then I steadied myself and approached Kathina. The fluids were ... upsetting. And bits of tissue squelched underfoot. I held my breath and grabbed her satchel and pouch.

Then I washed again.

Then I sat in the farthest corner of the chamber and breathed for a few minutes. I might’ve drifted off again, but it was hard to tell in the pitch blackness.

And finally, I inspected the new gem in my domain.

Shapeshield, huh? The name surprised me. Why did a ‘shape shield’ give someone the power to project a flexible, translucent, lightening shield instead of, say, just a shaped shield? Well, that’s what it had granted Kathina at least. Maybe she’d customized her gem just like I had?

Yeah, hadn’t Wren said that gems acted differently for different people? Sure, like Tansy had wished for a spiked tail.

Well, let’s see how this new gem acted for me.

When I removed it from my domain, it didn’t look like much. Well, not in the dark, at least. No facets, no glimmering colors. It felt like an ordinary marble.

I pressed it to my forehead.

Accept Gem? 14% Chance of Successful Implantation

“What the fuck?” I said, lowering my hand. Fourteen percent?

After a few seconds, I tried again.

Accept Gem? 14% Chance of Successful Implantation

I thought for a moment, then asked, “What are the consequences of an unsuccessful implantation?”

SUPPORT: Unsuccessful implantation results in the destruction of ALL gems.

“Oh, now you’re answering questions clearly?”

SUPPORT: An Archmage wields more power by mastering many facets of a single gem than other Gifted wield by accumulating multiple gems.

“Whatever you say,” I said aloud, “But does an archmage wield more power by mastering many facets of a single gem and also accumulating multiple gems?”

SUPPORT: An Archmage amasses power beyond gems.

“Well, that explains nothing,” I said. “So talk to me about facets.”

There was no answer.

“Okay, let’s try this again. Tell me what you mean by, ‘more power by mastering facets?’ How many facets does a gem have? How do I master them?”

There was still no answer, so I lost my temper a little.

“Listen you disembodied fuck,” I said, touching the gem to my forehead again. “I’m tired of this shit. You don’t think I’ll roll the dice on fourteen percent change just to screw you? I’d roll the dice on fucking five percent. Now tell me what you’re talking about or I take the risk.”

SUPPORT: Without a gem, you will die in the Old City. If you attempt this and fail, you will not survive.

I gave a bitter laugh that sounded more like a bark. “Maybe so, you smug chunk of internal monologue, but I’m not the only one who cares. That matters to you. You want this. You want me on this path. You want me alive, am I wrong? You need me alive, so talk or I roll the goddamn dice.”

SUPPORT: New facets are discovered upon achieving a higher tier. A higher tier is achieved every ten levels. You are currently level 9. Barring disaster you will discover a new facet soon. Sharing too much information with you is unwise, untenable, dangerous, fraught, unsafe, perilous, deleterious ...

The synonyms kept coming until I said, “I get the point, Doctor Thesaurus.”

The presence faded and I lay back on the cold stone and thought for a while. Not clearly, mind you. I didn’t come to any conclusions. I didn’t even really identify any questions. I just let my thoughts circle around. Because I was feeling overwhelmed again. Trapped in a hole in an underground city, with a splattered corpse, in a fantasy world, thinking about tiers and powers ...