Cooper settled into her office and collapsed to the sand bed with a sigh. The leader of this little band of misfits was exhausting. It had taken quite a bit of work to extricate the concessions she needed, and she dearly wished she could sleep. This world had a remarkably quick cycle. Day and night flowed into each other so quickly, but she would need to sleep soon. She was nearly to the next dark cycle, and the lab got restless in the dark.

She extended her serpentine form. It was, she reasserted, the most real part of her. Of course, her ambivalent natures didn’t agree well with some obscure rules of particle physics in this reality, something to do with a cat both living and dead, yet not undead. Had she known, she’d have brought something to stabilize it, but new universes were always unpredictable, and given the sheer size of this one, she was lucky to have gotten away with such a minor inconvenience.

As she slithered out of the receiving room and into her sleeping quarters, she found that she was walking again, briefly, and then back to proper slithering. Even after years of practice and training her keen mind to tolerate the disruption it was disconcerting. Worse, she could feel both bodies, sometimes, though rarely hear both body’s thoughts. Changing one’s biology had a profound impact on the brain.

At her level, she had plenty of extra brainpower to devote to keeping the humanoid side under rigid control. When she’d acquired her second body, it’d seemed like a fantastic idea. Now she wanted to devour her past self for such a naive assumption.

On the way to her lab she cleaned out all the little changes her other body had triggered in its alternate mind. So long as she kept it clean, there were usually only stray chemicals and enzymes. But if she let it lapse, she could turn around to find whole new pathways, even a whole new self running parallel to her own mind. It was like shining your fangs. If you kept up with it you didn’t need to wait for new ones to grow in.

She put those thoughts behind her. She needed to test something, if she was right, she might be tangentially responsible. Not that anyone could possibly blame her–except they would anyway.

The supply closet was full. She’d recently received a fresh barrel. She selected five of the most intact skulls, the five closest to spoiling–not that they could go bad exactly. If you kept them dry, they barely healed and didn’t stink too much. But just little damage to the bone could delay flesh returning by months while the bone healed.

You could grow a human back from this–she’d proven that, although it usually broke their fragile minds. But it wasn’t their minds that needed testing.

Reluctantly, she put two of the skulls aside. She was using up the last dregs of the last batch of acid. There wasn’t time to make more.

The apparatus was old, but the supplies were plenty. The soul lens didn’t even require any mana.

Her hands moved swiftly, certain of their purpose. Both of her forms had hands now, so she didn’t need to deal with the unstable nature of her existence. Her shoulders however kept finding new places to rest along her length. But it was the nature of the affliction that it didn’t interfere with the work, it just nagged at her mind like dead scales that wouldn’t shed.

The skulls settled into the beaker in front of the lens. It was primitive, and she had to peer into the crystal to see anything, but the souls were there, still attached, waiting for either death or renewed life. Two were quite peaceful, one still raged. It wouldn’t remember why, but the anger surrounding its demise would persist until it got enough traction in reality to shift its emotional momentum.

Or the anger would grow, simmer, concentrate until it began to generate its own mana–at that point it became a race. Either the mana would empower the soul enough to become a true ghost, likely a poltergeist, or the anger would dissolve the soul. She had almost a thousand skulls ready for when that happened. If the system was forced to heal a soul, then she could gain some significant, possibly unique, insight.

She expelled air. Humans used it as a sign of exasperation. For her own species, it was a threat, though her tongue didn’t currently allow for a proper hiss. The souls remained. She was sure of it. They didn’t flicker or waver. They never went anywhere.

The deeper part of her relaxed, but one negative test didn’t solve the mystery. Was Owen some kind of anomaly? That seemed most likely. One anomaly was easier to come to terms with. If so, she had him under her grip. When he finally was allowed to ascend, she’d be there guiding his choice. He wouldn’t be allowed to make such a mistake. But she didn’t relax yet.

As much as it would be easier to label Owen a freak. It didn’t solve the actual dilemma.

What exactly had triggered his shift. He should have been all but immune. Without willful action there could be no change to an attunement. So either a fundamental law of the universe was wrong or–

Could it have been the pain? She ripped the lens out of the apparatus and went over to the cages. The specimens had been taught to be silent while she was in the lab, but as she approached the whimpering and crying began anyway. That could be dealt with later.

She set the soul lens in her eye like a monocle and lashed out, tapping one female in her side. It was apparently too much. The form collapses and begins leaking everywhere. Right, she was mundane.

She hadn’t known humans were so weak. The ones that made it out of their empire were monsters. Perhaps there was a weakness there–a possibility worthy of consideration.

Her blood froze. The soul flickered again, trying to go somewhere. Something had claimed these souls, but that was simply impossible, there was no magic. With this small of a foothold, there wasn’t even enough magic to begin setting up alternate planes. But the souls went somewhere before the magic dragged it back.

She needed verification.

Acid had been hard to come by, but her own venom had a degree of corrosiveness to it. Refining that into a useful product had been tedious and time consuming, but it could manage the one thing that so many humans begged for. True death.

Sort of.

Cooper replaced the lens and peaked again at the three skulls. She added the acid. She waited and found herself hissing, her tail writhing in anticipation. Bestial behaviors like that should be long gone, but electricity ran through her veins demanding she strike–if she’d been warm blooded, she imagined her blood would have chilled. The bones melted away slowly in the alchemical brew. The souls flickered.

“Giles!” No one responded. She dug into the drawers, shifting things around, but not leaving a mess. No more of a mess than before, anyway. Finally, she pulled out a sliver of bone. “Giles!” She poured mana into it, too much mana, it might take her months to recuperate the expenditure and in the meantime, Giles would be floating about and pestering her. Perhaps she could hide his anchor somewhere–anywhere away from her.

Giles materialized without a hair out of place. He didn’t gasp for breath. He just stared down at her calmly. “How many I serve, benevolent mistress?”

“What percentage of humans are likely to develop a hidden aspect?”

“Pardon, did you mean ‘Hidden’ as an aspect, or an aspect that is hidden.” The human’s eye fur bent down, and she perceived rebuke in his face, if not his tone. Her reply was curt. It would have included talons, but he was a ghost.

“I couldn’t say much either way. I have very few up-to-date numbers. For example, how many humans have survived?”

“Assume a full conversion. Eight billion individuals. And either case.”

“Under the restrictions, I would find either extremely unlikely.” She relaxed. “Perhaps only one in ten million, maybe a hundred million on average.”

That lightning feeling flowed through her veins to her mouth, and she spat venom through the ghost. The infuriating little rat didn’t even flinch. “One in ten million, so as many as eight hundred.” Eighty to eight hundred. Eight would be apocalyptic.

She needed to call for war. Immediate and total invasion. It would take organization, and a lot of acid, but the humans could be eradicated–no, acid was unnecessary for anyone who hadn’t begun the integration process.

No, she had to focus on the ones already out there. And leave billions to integrate? As many as eight hundred.

She began twisting, jerking about, a fear response. A serpent preparing both to strike and evade. It looked like a seizure in slow motion.

She hurled the local alchemical apparatus, mainly tubes, flasks, and piping across the room, relishing the release as the glass shattered. It wasn’t enough.

She moved down to the cages.

Each level affected each species differently. As a serpent they’d primarily increased her size, speed, and strength. Only with her humanoid form had she begun enhancing her magical and mental attributes. Each level was a tiny boost compared to other factors. At her level she could–except their forms were restricted. As guides they were empowered in some ways, but hobbled in others.

It was time to take out some of that indignity on the locals.

The first cage made it most of the way through the wall. The contents weren’t liquified, not with one through, but they were leaking. Humans were always leaking. The second cage made it all the way through the wall, but the wall had been weakened by the first throw. She picked up a third–

“Perhaps,” the voice interrupted her thoughts, and she struck through Giles, using enough mana in the strike to disperse his form. The voice persisted. “Perhaps, mistress, you could seek other educated opinions?”

The others. Each of the incursions would have their own guide. Though her own faction was unlikely to be friendly with any of them. Though she could count on them to help with this–but not count on them to remain silent.

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Her eyes went wide. If her master thought she’d kept this–

The twitching slowed. She had a plan.

She would gather the powers of this world, and they would come crashing down in an unstoppable tide. But first she had to tell her master. He would lead a Holy War against this universe, and they would ascend together in a tide of blood.

She raced to put together the spell. Communicating outside a universe was expensive–and a closed universe even more so. It would cost her. In this environment the cost wouldn’t be only mana, but levels. She didn’t slow down. Her master would know what to do.

A form slinked out of the basement. Its silhouette appeared to be something like a cat, four footed and slender, except the snout had grown impossibly long, and the rump had grown impossibly fat. The tail could not be seen at all. Its front paws left gouges in the flooring as it dragged them forward. It sniffed the air out of curiosity. There were several new smells. She didn’t have a clue what they were, but they didn’t smell like food.

Ellie was hungry, and Noah hadn’t brought her food in so long.

She used to eat every day. Now that she was a puppy, she couldn’t eat that often. It was too hard to find food. But she wasn’t too hungry. She could wait. Probably because now she could eat a LOT in one meal.

The form lumbered to the stairs. Some of the new smells were people. She missed people. A lot of people had become bad or monsters or dead. Now she mostly talked to Noah. And sometimes dead people. She could hear these people talking upstairs. They weren’t dead which meant she couldn’t eat them. It was against the rules.

Ellie sank down to the floor to watch the stairs. She wasn’t supposed to talk to living people. But if the people talked to her, then not talking would be rude. Noah wouldn’t be mad at him then, right? A shiver of excitement shot through the creature, and it stretched luxuriously leading into a yawn that revealed a long maw full of razor sharp teeth. The mouth snapped shut.

Waiting was boring. The ‘puppy’ looked around the room. She could see everything lit up like it was daytime. Puppies had good eyes. But there was nothing interesting to look at. It reminded her of the basement–empty and boring. Well, less empty, but tools were still boring.

After a long while. Probably like ten whole minutes. Maybe more than ten whole minutes! Ellie grinned. They still hadn’t found her, but they’d find her faster if she was upstairs too. It was a thrilling idea. She shook her butt in excitement, wagging her tail.

Ellie got up again, and her front paws had reached the eighth stair before she remembered Noah. Noah didn’t want her going upstairs. Well she hadn’t. Not really. Her hind feet were still on the floor.

Ellie hung his head and glanced around the room. Noah wasn’t here. She’d have to be sneaky though. Noah had helped her practice being sneaky.

For a moment Ellie’s mind tumbled through that jumble of ideas. With shame she realized she wasn’t supposed to let anyone see her. Even if they were really nice and had candy. Even if they wanted to play with her. It was a ‘no matter what’ which meant never never ever not ever. That meant it was really important.

Her head drooped again, and this time it caught a glint on the stair. A sharp pointy metal bit was sticking out of the wood–in fact there were lots! Her eyes went wide. She’d had a set of hammer and nails. The nails had been every color, like a rainbow. Ellie’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a hammer. There wasn’t any. That didn’t matter–if you didn’t have the hammer you could SMASH! So she brought her paw down on the nail with enthusiasm, relishing the loud noise.

Wow, was she strong now! Super strong, like dad. Even stronger than Noah.

Ellie lifted her paw and peaked under. The entire nail had flattened into the wood.

She frowned. It was supposed to leave a little dot, not a line. He tried again. Over and over, eventually forgetting his disappointment that they were lines not dots.

She tried again, using lots of tiny smashes like she’d seen with a real hammer, that just left a bendy line and was way less fun. Ellie big smashed the next one. Then the next. Two spikes with two paws at the same time. She crawled forward, smashing as she went.

Until something bonked her on the head. Ellie turned to look at it. It was a hammer.

She looked up the stairs to see where it had come from, and to say thank you. Someone was disappearing around the corner. They were shouting, but Ellie had trouble understanding people talking anymore. That made sense though. Puppies couldn’t talk.

She looked down at the hammer. It was all the way down on the floor.

Ellie looked at the nails, then back at the hammer. It was a big hammer, like John Henry used when he built railroads. Ellie sniffed, remembering mama reading about John Henry while she sat in her lap. Reading time was quiet time, because if you were loud mama stopped reading.

Mama was gone now. No more reading. She’d asked Noah, but he said no.

Ellie went down and sniffed the hammer before she tried to pick it up. She laughed, it came out as more of a hissing roar. Her bark was weird, but funny weird, not weird weird. She couldn’t hold a hammer anymore. Not with paws. She was silly. She looked up to see if she could share her silly story, but the people were yelling.

She went back up the stairs and began smashing the last nails. The ones almost at the top of the stairs.

Noah wouldn’t be mad. They were clearly friends. They’d helped her find a hammer, and the lady had been pretty. Besides, she wanted to see if the pretty lady would share the Spongebob blanket. It had been in her basement after all. That meant it was hers. But she would share. Good girls shared.

She raced up the stairs. The stairs were small for her big paws, so when her paw landed on more nails, it made her trip, and she slid a little. Then something big hit her, and she went crashing down to the bottom of the stairs.

Owen didn’t stop to watch the tool box collide with the alligator monster. But after the beast had shrugged off the twenty pound sledgehammer, he was already sure this Plan B had turned into a delaying tactic for Plan C. He pinged the creature and ran. But not upstairs, not yet.

Instead he ran to the biggest toolbox in the room, a refrigerator-sized, red, steel monolith, with wheels added for convenience. He’d wasted a lot of time loading it down with everything he could, including duct taping on everything sharp he could find. That was a wasted effort now. He reviewed his preparations and was suddenly sure it wouldn’t be enough.

Rebecca was already trying to shift it, but even hurling her weight against it only made it inch toward the stairs. Owen took over and together they got it in place.

??? - Species: Ammit - Lvl 14

Aspects: [Retribution]

Owen tried not to think about the ammit. Most stories called it a goddess. At best it was only a powerful demon, a “devourer of millions.” They’d gone fishing for minnows and caught a barracuda. Except the barracuda had them.

At least the beast’s level wasn’t too high. That gave him a slim chance.

In his amateur guesses, he’d assumed unlocking such a powerful form would be harder. He’d speculated someone would need a divine related aspect, or perhaps something like Hunger and Multitudes before the form became available. At level 14, the ammit could only have one aspect, though it was a doozy.

He’d heard of people who’d received devine related aspects, like Holy and Sacred, but anyone who revealed such a powerful aspect was usually killed in the early levels, either from jealousy or the very real fear of a rising Titan, a monster or person the entire city couldn’t face. Like the dragon of Shenzhen or the wizard of Sao Paulo.

Maybe an ammit had that kind of potential. In the stories, Ammit was like an Egyptian Cerberus, a gatekeeper to the underworld, except in addition to serving guard duty she ate the undeserving souls. Although in some versions she was more of a dog eating table scraps as the real gods measured the souls and tossed her the garbage. He prayed that was the version magic had brought to life.

Either way, an ammit’s front half was a crocodile, while her rear half was that of a hippo. Most Egyptian gods seemed to be at least half beast. Ammit had apparently rolled doubles.

Owen peaked around the massive toolbox. The ammit was still at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Its crocodilian maw tilted in confusion. Yeah, Owen supposed a flying toolbox was an unexpected avenue of attack.

He mentally added his observations.

Strengths: Tough hide (front), resists bludgeoning.

Weaknesses: Slow reactions.

Owen waved Rebecca away, hoping she remembered to avoid his precautions. There hadn’t been enough rope to reach all the way down from the top floor. He regretted not simply moving the treasure trove to a lower floor, but time had been short. There were always more opportunities than time.

The creature was big. Rather than the hippo half shrinking down to crocodile, the crocodile had grown to match the massive haunches of a hippo. The face was reptilian with dead eyes. It lowered its face to the ground and hissed. Then it shook its rear back and forth.

That’s weird.

The crocodile mouth smiled. Owen noted that detail with little surprise. Of course whatever sick, twisted mind resided in that body, it would grin at the opportunity to eat a human, even if it remembered being human itself.

The next move came in one gigantic burst. The reptile legs barely touched the ground, but the hippo legs landed solidly and safely, although skipping every other step.

Owen had intended on carefully timing his attack, but the threatening charge sent a surge of adrenaline into him, and he shoved hundreds of pounds of tools crashing down on it. The tower tilted onto the creature’s head and smashed it down against the stairs. The front feet spread out, flattened to the sides, and the ammit began to slide down the stairs again. The tool box rode its head on the way down.

It halted halfway. The ammit’s rear feet had reached the bottom floor. Together the thick legs arrested the creature’s descent. The tool box stopped falling as well, and the ammit fiercely shook to dislodge it.

The ammit backed up and stared up at Owen. Something was off. Obviously there was a human mind behind those reptilian eyes– though it was likely degraded by a decreased intelligence. That was the downside of every truly powerful species, bestial forms in particular. Still, becoming a thousand pound soul eating Egyptian demon was probably worth a few IQ points more or less.

Owen turned to run to the next stairwell, but he stopped. The traps on the stairs weren’t going to stop this creature. At best, they’d buy time for Rebecca to reach the top floor. But he only had two traps that might stop the creature, and the elevator shaft was at the back, far from the stairs.

The ammit charged the stairwell again. Owen bolted.

A crashing sound as the top steps buckled under the creature’s bulk. Owen let himself slow down. Maybe he didn’t have to–

The ammit’s top half twisted toward him, already out of the stairwell. Owen fell backwards as the jaws snapped inches above his face. The creature twisted and snapped at the air. But didn’t snap him up. Owen scrambled back on all fours, watching the creatures writhe. It wriggled and pulled, but it didn’t move closer. The jaws snapped in his direction, but they snapped just as wildly in every direction, as it wriggled around.

Owen collapsed to the floor in relief, thinking how close he’d come to the snapping jaws. Next time, Owen decided, he’d cut through stairs closer to the middle.

The ammit had gotten lodged in the doorway, as its bulky hippo hips tried to force their way through. Owen reached for the dagger in his pocket. As he pulled it out, the tip left a shallow cut in his leg.

Warning: This is not a valid target for possession. Continued aberrant implementation of the curse will continue to degrade the enchantment.

Enchantment damage: 39%

He almost decided to waive all future similar notifications. You could do that. The system was remarkably responsive to intent. But he might need to know if future targets were valid.

He stood out of reach, holding out the dagger, undecided.

The enchanted dagger could kill the ammit, giving him enough mana to ascend, and probably get a few levels, though if he could share it, then Rebecca could ascend too. Except using the dagger meant also releasing the demon. There was a good chance the demon would simply leave the dying ammit and take possession of him. Apparently the dagger couldn’t possess him directly, probably because he was still not a player. No, he was something unimportant to the system, somewhere between furniture and scenery.

The mana he received from such a powerful beast might let him fight off the demon though. If he could find the willpower stat, or maybe it was will, wisdom, or psychic or mental defenses. It was a gamble, but the best odds he’d seen. Assuming even the dagger was enough to kill it.

The ammit scrambled for purchase as it began sliding backward, losing ground inch by inch. The desperate scramble continued until it suddenly stopped. He could hear wood creak with the strain of the creature’s sudden weight as its hind feet settled on the last intact step. The ammit jumped forward, clearing the gap. Its bulk shattered the door frame.