In the space of a second, time expanded past its natural borders, the sounds of high-pitched screams reached a crescendo, and my entire vision was swallowed up in that blinding light.

For just that moment, like a hallucination brought on by a mix of stress and temporary blindness, I saw myself.

Not Tom, not Olsgolon’s copy, but myself.

I looked emaciated, haggard, and unwell. The dirty clothes I wore hung loose off of my thin frame, and around one ankle was an iron shackle, its chain leading off into nothingness.

I saw other people flash by - my dad, my mom, teachers, classmate, Ryan, and finally, Tom. Each person passed by in turn, not even glancing at my chained image as they went, and as they passed the chain, it, with a life of its own, reached out to them, hungry, dragging me behind it.

Finally, the image of myself took action. As the chain chased desperately after Tom, my figure dug his nails into the ground, dug in his heels, kicked and struggled and yelled silently. When that didn’t work, I watched as I grabbed the shackle around my ankle and pulled, blue veins appearing on my forehead and on my sinewy thin arms, pulled until finally the shackle snapped and I was thrown backwards.

Tom had just passed me and he turned back, a look of concern on his face as he glanced at me where I laid on the floor.

In a flash of motion, I scrambled on to all fours and leapt at him like an animal, snarling and wild. I tackled him to the ground, and begun driving graven fists into his perfect face.

All this in less time than it takes to count to two. Just as quickly the vision was gone. In its place white light, and a ringing in my ears, and a terrible aching in my muscles, and a question. A question without words, but one that asked something like: “will you take it?” Except the question was more than that, like a pool no wider than a puddle but which reaches down into the depths of the earth.

Focus, I told myself. Don’t just say yes. What do you want, Miles?

I thought about my fight with Olsgolon, the abilities it had shown, keeping in mind, of course, that whatever I got would be applied to my nails.

Morphing both organic and non-organic material into living creatures sounded like an amazing power, but what would it do to a nail? Would it just allow me to grow my nails out at will - a semi-useful skill, I supposed - or would I create little nail soldiers who would scour the planet for treasure? I wasn’t sure if that second one was an amazing idea, or laughably bad. Ultimately, I doubted it would work very well. I didn’t want my future power to rely on the bet that you could make organs out of nails.

The tendrils were interesting, and seemed like something that might work. Long nail tendrils to wrap around enemies, or else I’d take the flesh web power, and shoot strands of nail from my fingertips.

But these concerned me as well, since they had been so slow as to be almost worthless for my opponent, and I didn’t know why. Was Olsgolon distracted? Weakened by the explosions? Using all her mana elsewhere? Was it just part of the nature of the magic? Or was the magic so expensive in mana usage that you couldn’t do much more that Olsgolon did with it - even with as much mana as I assumed the thing must have had. Creating a sudden barricade to split up opponents was how Olsgolon applied the power, and that wasn’t anything to sneeze at, but I was still unsure.

I remembered the doppelganger, smiling as its hand fell off and regrew, then firing a sharpened bone from its palm. I would have loved the ability to regenerate like that, but again, if it only applies to my nails, how good is it, really?

Finally, there was the shooting of bones itself. If I could shoot my nails - whether they were sharpened and hardened like bones, or not - off of my fingers like a gun, lighting them on fire or melting them as they struck opponents - that could be very useful. Especially if they were sharpened and hardened.

There was the obvious concern that the nails wouldn’t reform like the bones of Olsgolon did. It would be terrible to have my nailed ripped off of my fingers every time I wanted to fire a shot, and then have to still wait until they regrew the following day before I could “reload.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

On the other hand, I’d thus far been able to use magic on nails even when they weren’t attached any more, so perhaps I’d be able to do that. Maybe I could load the nails into a makeshift gun, and will them out with magic. There was an idea.

I still had no idea how this choosing of abilities worked, if it would work. I wished I could ask Amaia, who was surely not far away, but this was the moment, and although it seemed to last forever, it wouldn’t. I had to make my decision.

I focused on the shooting of bone, the creation and launching of it. I pictured myself using it - which was easy, as I’d seen a copy of myself use the power.

“Will you take it?”

“Yes.”

My vision begun to clear. Fire. Fire still raged around me, casting everything I saw in shades of red and orange, faint shadows flickering and dancing on the walls in the distance, caught in the gaps between flames and smoke. At my feet were shards of something which must have been the core, Olsgolon, but it looked different, the surface of it having lost its luster. It was a dull gray metal now, and the inside was no different. I had half expected to find the interior of the core filled with blood and organs, but this was somehow more disturbing. It was just a broken orb, no sign that it had ever been anything more, anything alive, evil. Here was the god of the Kalamuzi, a pile of broken metal.

I realized that someone was yelling in my ear, and then a hand was on my shoulder. I whipped around, still on edge, but I sighed in relief when I saw who it was.

Naomi - dressed in that golden dress again - looked up at me. “Uh, hello? Anyone home?”

“Yes,” I said, shaking myself. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” She laughed, looked to Amaia - who was standing beside her and kept glancing around, Naomi’s staff in one hand. “What’s there to be sorry about? You did it!”

And then she reached up and hugged me, wrapping her hands around and squeezing tight. I was stunned, and didn’t return the hug before she had already separated.

Naomi looked as surprised by the hug as I did. She averted her eyes, cleared her throat. “Ahem. Thank you for, like, saving me, or whatever. Again.”

Amaia put a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I actually started to tear up, though at the time I had no idea why. I wiped at my face. “Don’t, don’t mention it.”

“Good!” Naomi said. “Then I won’t. Let’s all pretend this never happened. So, what’s the plan?”

I cleared my throat. Then, like realizing when you wake up that you’ve missed your alarm, I looked around in horror for what I assumed would be the quickly approaching Kalamuzi army. “Are we safe?” I said.

But it seemed we were. The Kalamuzi were there, a large host of them in the middle distance, but they were writhing in silent pain on the floor. The killing of Olsgolon must have affected them badly.

The Talkers seemed to be in better shape, and though they winced in pain as they did it, I saw a few of them stuff their pockets full of treasure, put on weapons and armor, and leave their suffering kin.

“What, from the Kalamuzi?” Naomi said. “Yeah, they’ll be out of commission for a little while. Hopefully long enough that they all die when the dungeon collapses, y’know?”

I blinked. “Collapses?”

Naomi narrowed her eyes at me. “Yeah, collapses. As in like, falls apart? Caves in? You do have a plan for how we’re getting out of here in time, right?”

I had a feeling that the “collapsing” detail may have been mentioned before, but if it had, it had completely slipped my mind. But it was fine. I did have an escape plan.

“The way out is this way,” I said, pointing to a distant cavern mouth in the wall, trying to stay calm in the face of Naomi’s concerned stare. “I made a friend down here, and he gave me directions. Basically a straight shot to the surface, he said.”

“You plan to walk?” Amaia asked.

“Well, run, probably,” I said.

Naomi collapsed to the floor in an exaggerated show of defeat. “We’re dead. Oh what cruel fate. Why did I ever get stuck with this idiot?”

Then she jumped back on her feet, emotion like a light switch, and began poking at me. “What the hell is wrong with you, huh? Why didn’t you just fucking, I don’t know, do better?”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Not enough time,” Amaia said.

“Then how do people normally destroy a core?”

“Normally,” Naomi said, a little spite mixed in with the words. “People bring an item with them that brings them back to the surface. Have it with them the whole time, just in case, so they don’t, I don’t know, die? Or like, they buy one right before their final go at the dungeon, if they’re cheap. Even if the dungeon is too deep, it at least gets them part way out. That’s what normal, sane people do.”

I looked to Amaia. “I’m guessing we don’t have any of those.” She shook her head.

A rumbling noise resounded through the floor, and then bits of dirt fell from the ceiling high above, and little rocks, too.

“It begins,” Naomi said woefully.

“Well I’m not fucking dying down here,” I said. “You can sulk if you want, but I’m making a run for it. Maybe we’re closer to the surface than you think.”

“I agree,” Amaia said. “It’s worth a shot.”

Naomi sighed. “I suppose.”

We began to jog away. I made sure, of course, to reach down and grab handfuls of treasure as we passed, stuffing them into my backpack after Naomi handed it back to me.

“RENA,” I said aloud. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Miles.”

Naomi snickered. “A good a time to pray as any, yeah?”

“Please tell me you were able to take enough. Please, RENA.”

“Your monthly payment is paid, Miles, and I took the liberty of sending the money your mother requested, as well. As far as what remains, you-“

I was grinning. “That’s enough, RENA. That’s all I needed to know. We’ll talk more later.”

“Of course, Miles. Good luck.”

I had done it. I had managed to pay off what I needed to that month. Probably most of the rest of the debt, too. It felt…less good than I had expected. It was probably because of the whole “about to die” thing. I took some small solace in the fact that my mom wouldn’t be homeless, at least. Very small solace.

It was short lived. Another thought hit me. “What about Cadoc?” I yelled as we ran.

“What about him?” Naomi yelled back. “You’ve probably doomed him just like you doomed us, you idiot.”

My heart sank. Somehow the thought of Cadoc dying down there alone completely negated any satisfaction I got from saving my mother from destitution. Maybe that makes me a bad son, I thought, but that’s how it is. Fuck. I really hope Cadoc got out, somehow.

Just then, another rumbling. We were nearly at the exit now, the beginning of the long tunnel to the surface. I thought the rumbling was just another quake cause by the dungeon collapse, but it was closer, more localized. Just to the right and behind us, in fact. I wouldn’t have stopped to look, wouldn’t have even thought twice about it, if a familiar voice hadn’t rang out from the same direction.

“I have come to save you all!”