She awoke with a gasp.

She was elsewhere.

The light was curiously muted and even, neither daylight, moonslight, or stonelight but without the familiar flicker of candlelight. The room was bare and white and full of irregular beeps and tiny brilliant flashing stars. Her clothes were gone too. She was in a sort of half cape that barely covered her torso and there was a tube stuck in her right arm while her left was immobilized in some sort of baked shell. She poked it. It was hard and heavy. Some sort of armor? To protect her injured arm? Yes, that felt right.

The slab she was lying on was really soft too but with hard super smooth metal bars railing off the edges. It didn’t feel like an altar but then she didn’t really know what an altar would feel like either. This was not good.

The beeping noises sped up.

She was hooked up to a strange contraption. Opening the neck of her robe she could see there were badges taped on to her skin and the tube going into her arm was filling a bag of clear serum. They were draining her? Leeching her lifeforce most probably seeing it wasn’t blood. She did not like this. Where were her clothes, her weapons? Where was she? What had happened? In fact, she frowned, who was she? Last she remembered was fighting something, a dog? No, that was not right. But more importantly, she floundered, she didn’t remember anything about herself.

The beeps were louder now.

And faster.

Something was happening and she wasn’t ready. She needed a weapon. Perhaps she could use her armored arm as a club? She shrugged it out of the loose wrap that had pinned it up against her chest and levered herself up using the bars of the altar for support. Next the tube. She seized it with the fingers of her injured arm. It was hard to get a good grip with the restriction of the armor but after a couple of false starts she was able to wrench it out. ‘Ha! You won’t harvest me that easy‘, her silent soliloquy vindictively triumphant. ‘Now the badges.‘ Ripping them out the beeps became a continuous strident alarm.

The wall burst open and two alien figures rushed in. Humanoid but in strange uniform garb with masks and caps. The muted light brightened, blinding her as it flared to brighter than daylight. One rushed to the blaring alarm and silenced it deftly.

“Cdoe Geren cenalced.” The other spoke into its shoulder even as it slowed its rush and closed in to her. “Tehre tehre,” it spoke in a soft and gentle manner, “tehre is no cusae fr arlam.” She could almost understand it, catching one or two familiar words in the calming babble. “Yuvoe’ been blady irejund lvoe,” she shied away from its reaching hand. “Clam dwon seweite and we wlil srot you out sagihtrt aawy.”

She didn’t want to be ’srot‘d’, whatever that meant. And she knew that trusting soft words was unwise and often led to hard hurts. She vaulted out of the caged altar, grabbing the pole that dangled her stolen life essence, wrenching it from its stand and dislodging its disturbing contents to splatter on the floor. Using it as a blunt spear she fended off the still reaching hand. The alien drew back in alarm. The other one was coming at her from the side. She whirled, her staff narrowly missing its head as it ducked away. She jabbed at it. “Stay away you leeching vamp” she snarled. She backed away, giving herself room to move.

The two aliens also backed away to the wall they had burst through. “Cdoe Gery! No! Cdoe Sevlir, Cdoe Sevlir!” There was urgency in the cry. The wall opened up again. Oh, it was a doorway with a disguised magic door. They backed out in a scurried tumble. The door slid shut with a hiss of sorcery. She sighed. Safe for now. But now what? She paced her corner, kicking the altar slightly further away to give her more room. She swung her staff in a testing pattern. Jabbing and feinting. She had room. She had reach. But she was trapped.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

An insistent strobe was poking at her from just outside her vision. The [System]! She remembered with a start the triumph she had felt in unlocking it ahead of time. Before she could act on it further the door slid open again and three armored soldiers smoothly entered and spread out bracketing the room against her.

These were a distinctly different race compared to the previous beings who she had chased off. Or perhaps this was the soldier caste and the others had been a worker or specialist caste. These were significantly bigger and bulkier with heavy black armor and a shiny head with no eyes or features. They had their own staves though. Shorter than hers but also much more dangerous looking. They were silent and coordinated. Hemming her in. With a cry she rammed the altar towards the two coming round to the left and charged the one on the right. He, it, whatever, stepped slightly back and to the side and took her swinging staff on his own truncheon, directing it away from impact and preventing her from resetting. It knew what it was doing. She cursed. “Troathe’s Slimeballs melt you.” It flinched as she abandoned her makeshift spear, throwing her body forward and swinging her armored forearm at its faceless face. ‘Not expecting that were you’. By the flame she missed her shivs.

It didn’t go as planned.

Its face was as hard as iron and her armor was as strong as clay. Brittle clay at that. Agony tore through her forearm as her armor fractured. She didn’t stop. She flung her other arm over its head and wrapped her legs around its body. There was nothing to bite. There were no softer looking spots to gouge. What was this with biting? She never resorted to biting in the past. Gouging yes but biting was almost a step too far. She realised she was screaming in rage and desperation. A froth of curses and insults raining down on it.

It weathered them all, insults and stabbing fingers, all ineffective. It didn’t even try and restrain her or immobilize her. It didn’t need to. She had done it herself and even as she realised it she was out of time. The other two had cleared the altar from their path and she felt a sharp prick on her thigh as a patch was slapped against it.

“Aaarrrgghhh, you limp prickeddd…” The poison was fast acting. She scrabbled despairingly at her leg trying to dislodge the, the… thing. Muscles losing all power she slid down to slump on the floor as the hitherto silent intruders spoke, obviously deeming their mission complete enough to relax protocol.

“Ha Jsnotohne, gitetng a cdulde form a msolty nekad tageneger aye? Waht wlil the wfie say aoubt taht?”

“Suht yuor mutoh Bucre, you dcik!”

Consciousness slipping away she just had time to think ‘Sainted Heroes I need to learn their language…’

— -o- —//— -o- —

The room was still and silent. It was a different room and the altar she was arranged on; lower and slightly bent. Daylight streamed in a large, exceedingly clear window to her left. She was obviously in a very rich person's home, maybe even the [King]’s palace. Confusion marred her brow. What on [Kentron] was happening?

Why her? She took a deep breath. There wasn’t the same oppressive sense of containment that had so alarmed her before. Her gaze returned to the wondrous window. And the sky was blue, not purple. She swung her bare legs over the side and stumbled over on wobbly legs for a closer look. Grasping the sill in amazement she looked down on a completely alien skyline. She was so high. Higher than the tallest tower in the [Inner City]. Higher than the [City Walls] that repelled the infrequent [Beast Tides]. Her mind stuttered. And she was even near the top of the towers. She wasn’t on Kentron any more, that much was obvious. Something had happened and catapulted her far from the centre of the universe into a strange and wondrous new world.

And the number of beings scurrying around down there; she never even contemplated there being that many people in the entire world let alone in one city. Like [Antrons]. There were windows everywhere. This was a rich, rich place. Where were the [Walls]? The towering buildings just went on and on. This was too much! Strange beasts jostled and bustled at high speed in some sort of uncoordinated dance In the shade between the towers. This made no sense. She ducked as a loud flying monster passed by, thrumming through the air. Now she was looking she noticed there were more of them in the distance, all busily flitting in random directions.

She lowered herself to the floor. This was something else. A blue square flashed in the edge of her vision.

The [System]! It came back to her in a rush. She had defeated a [Monster] and unlocked the [System]. Numbly she assented to the flashing prompt and a blue screen filled her vision.