Sphinx - Level 10

‎ Known for their humanoid intelligence, and a love of riddles and puzzles.

‎ This creature is unlikely to attack unless threatened directly.

‎ Parts of this creature are edible.

Fuzzy. False. Cyn quickly read over the second Inspect result, after finally untangling the overlapping text.

Cadaverous Puppet Bloom - Level 17

‎ A rare species of sentient flora.

‎ This subspecies of Puppet Bloom scavenges for corpses and discarded biological waste, using its findings to create a layer of armor between its core and the world.

‎ Capable of powerful mind magic.

‎ Parts of this creature are edible.

“Don’t attack it.” Cyn barely managed to gasp out the words as she let go of Hex and scrambled sideways in an attempt to create more distance between herself and the creature. She had no doubt the Puppet Bloom could be a threat if it wanted to be, but to Cyn the fact its description mentioned scavenging rather than hunting was a decent indicator of the plant being neutral. How it could be both a plant and a creature she wasn’t sure, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

What was important was keeping her most recent meal down - When did I even eat last? - and avoiding combat with the much higher-level abomination. As she checked in on her party, Cyn also had to dismiss a notification. Not important right now. She saw Dana and Sam were still next to Scott, the pair seeming unsure if they should attack or not. The Archer had her bow in her hands and an arrow knocked, but the weapon was not raised to aim. Hex kept beside her as Cyn scrambled, eyeing the Puppet Bloom as it stopped walking closer to speak again.

“I could dispel my illusion, little Mage, so your friends can see what you do. But I think we both know that would create a… finality to this encounter. I would prefer not to fight.”

Another surge of panic and adrenaline. “Don’t call me that. Please.” Cyn was finding her new divine-quality skill, Mental Fortress, had a pretty awful downside. She was completely incapable of seeing just the sphinx. She could see the layered images, and she could see just the horror that was the Cadaverous Puppet Bloom, but her mind would not allow Cyn to see just the illusion no matter how badly she wanted to.

A niche problem, but a problem for her nonetheless. The Puppet Bloom tilted its human head to the side, the movement floppier than it should be. “As you wish, though it is an accurate moniker. Are we settled, you and I?” Where is its voice even coming from?

Cyn nodded quickly, now skirting around the edges of the trial arena to get to the exit on the other side. “Yup! No problems. I would like to leave now.” She was well aware that both her words and the high pitch of her voice betrayed that there absolutely was a problem, but she was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Cyn had never seen a human corpse before, grandpa’s open casket notwithstanding. Especially not one in the state of decay this corpse was in, and that was not even mentioning the grotesque way in which the body was being used.

“There is nothing stopping you from doing so.” Cyn saw the Puppet Bloom turn to return to where it once was, near her party, but did not stick around to see more. Without a second thought, Cyn bolted for the exit as fast as her legs would move. If anyone stays behind, that's not my problem.

She passed the threshold of the arena, arriving back into the main labyrinth paths, but did not slow down. Parts of this creature are edible. Nope, nope, nope… Cyn let her mind fill with that mantra, trying to dispel the uninvited memory of her Inspect result. It wasn’t working.

Needing to move even faster away from the living nightmare, Cyn started circulating her mana internally for the boost it would give to her agility. The burning pain, the damage she was doing to herself, the fact that with boosted stats she would definitely be leaving some of her party behind… none of it mattered in the moment. She intended to run for as long and as far as her body would allow her to.

Hex was able to keep up easily. Cyn didn’t know how much agility the Rogue had, but clearly it was a lot . When they hit the first crossroad, she still didn’t slow down. “Cyn…” Ignoring both Hex speaking to her and the annoyed sounds from Spam, she took a random turn. She heard a clatter of something metal on stones, before Hex was beside her again.

The numerous crossroads they passed through after that he did not even try to speak. A clang of metal on stone when she chose a direction, then a return to silence. Cyn didn’t know how long she had been running, mentally detached from the world around her, before Hex grabbed onto her arm and stopped, forcing her to stop with him.

The force of suddenly stopping popped Cyn’s arm out of its socket, but she barely registered it as everything else slammed into the forefront of her consciousness. It was as though a dam had burst, resulting in a flash flood of information she had been filtering out while focusing entirely on moving forward.

Burning pain all over. Low stamina? Internal alarms. A taste of copper filling her mouth. Blurry vision. Low health. Was she on fire? It felt like it, at least internally. More alarms. Spam, making a sound akin to nails on a chalkboard right in her ear. Annoyance. Fear. Panic. Neither of those emotions were hers, they came from her connection to the familiar. Restoration. Had she done that on purpose? Cyn wasn’t sure. Low mana. Low health again. Alarms. Danger. Danger. DANGER. Houston, we have a problem. She might have laughed at her own completely unhinged thought, if she was capable of laughing.

It was too much. Cyn blacked out for a few seconds, coming back around again on her knees. Hex was still holding her arm and now her waist, having kept her from falling directly onto her face. “Easy…”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Her only response to the Rogue’s whisper was to start heaving, expelling a mixture of mostly blood and bile. Losing consciousness for those few seconds had stopped her mana circulation, leaving Cyn feeling weakened beyond belief. She was shaking so hard it was almost an unintentional vibration as every muscle and joint screamed in agony, neurons misfiring from pushing herself far past the normal limits of her body. Cyn doubted she could even hold herself up, much less move, so she was thankful that Hex had not let her go.

She was still shaking when the Rogue moved them both a distance away, putting her in a sitting position she could barely maintain, after it seemed like her bout of sickness was over. The blurriness in her vision at least had improved, and she could see Hex was covered in a thin sheen of sweat along with breathing a bit hard. She watched as he lowered the mask and hood he had been wearing to take a drink, leaving it down and giving her repeated sideways glances. Had she seriously ran the Rogue nearly out of stamina? With her capacity to think clearly also returning, Cyn checked her resources.

Name: Cynthia Price

Race: [Human]

Class: [Mage] Level 9

Profession: [Creature Handler] Level 8

Health Points: 23/460

Mana Points: 0/1030

Stamina Points: 0/580

Fuck. If Hex had not stopped her, Cyn would have run herself literally to death. She did not remember even feeling the strain that was being put on her body until she was stopped. At least I leveled up in Creature Handler, probably from… She felt her still-racing heart somehow pick up speed, losing a health point before she could shut down those thoughts. It was not a good time to get upset or anxious, apparently. And honestly, she was ok with shoving anything anxiety-inducing into a box for the moment.

This was the second time she had dropped one of her resources below zero. And this time, she had done it with two of them. Cyn wasn’t surprised her mana and stamina were both still zero, even after a brief rest. The one other time she had done this her mana had taken quite a bit of time before regenerating again.

Thinking about the delayed information her body had given her, it was almost as if she started spending her health points after running out of stamina. In a fucked-up way, it kind of made sense. Even before the System, it was not unheard of for people to hurt themselves badly by pushing their body past its normal limit, generally while under the effects of adrenaline.

She still had no idea what was happening with her mana, though, once she ran out. It could also be pulling from her health points, but Cyn doubted that. Oddly, thinking through the possible logic of what she had done was kind of comforting. As long as she kept her thoughts detached from the possible long-term effects.

Hex cleared his throat. Jerked back to reality once again, she found the Rogue crouched in front of her. She had been kind of just staring at her menu in his general direction, and had not noticed him crouch. “Are… you alright?”

She went for the truth. “No.” Cyn’s voice came out in a rasp, and with some difficulty she pulled out her waterskin to rehydrate, using her not-dislocated arm. She wasn’t sure what was harder: pulling the damn thing out of storage, trying to get her arm to move, or watching Hex’s face as he tried awkwardly to come up with how to respond to her.

Cyn took a brief look at her arm as she raised the waterskin, and blocked it out before the sight took out the last few health points she had remaining. Just another thing for later. Spam was a silent weight on her shoulder, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at it right now. Sorry buddy.

“Maybe get some sleep then. And eat one of these.” The Rogue produced one of the Sanguine Lily petals, holding it out to her. Cyn squeezed her eyes shut, shrinking back as she fought the urge to gag. “Or… not.” Logically, she knew it made sense. They would restore a lot of health points, and she was frighteningly low on those. But at least for the moment she could not even bring herself to consider it. All she could see looking at the large, crimson flower petal was tiny, yellow blooms in… Nope, nope, nope. Rather than even try and explain herself, Cyn just laid down and was almost instantly consumed by a blissfully dreamless sleep.

***

“Thought we would never catch up to you. What in the hell was that?” Scott’s gravelly voice pulled Cyn into consciousness. Thankfully she did not startle, allowing her to pretend to be asleep still. Literally every inch of her body hurt, inside and out, and her resources were far from fully restored. But she was calm, and could think clearly. Cyn wanted - no, needed - to do some thinking and reflecting before facing everyone again.

“You heard the sphinx. It was using an illusion, and Cyn could see through it. What she saw spooked her bad enough to nearly outrun me.” Hex paused for a moment, and Cyn could hear the shuffle of the party settling down behind her. “What was I supposed to do, just let her run off alone?”

The Guardian sighed deeply. “No, no. You did well. Did Cyn tell you what she saw?”

“The only thing she said was ‘no’ when I asked if she was alright. She wouldn’t even take a healing item I tried to give her. She’s been asleep since I made her stop running a few hours ago.” After that Scott started asking about what had happened since the start of the floor for Hex, letting Cyn tune it out.

She felt guilty about her reaction to the Puppet Bloom. If it had been hostile, she would have been useless. Cyn had been totally consumed by a primal fear, and readily gave in to the instinct to flee. The grotesque horror of it was too real, and so wildly unexpected that she had just shut down. If it had been a status effect inflicted on her, Mental Fortress should have prevented it. But no, the fear was hers, a weakness Cyn would need to overcome. She couldn’t let that happen again. For her party’s sake, and her own.

Cyn mentally went over the details in her memory, both of the Inspect results and what she had actually seen. Over and over. Not because she wanted to - it would be infinitely preferable to shove the memory in a box and throw it into the sea - but because she needed to. She needed to get over it. There was no question in Cyn’s mind she would encounter an equivalent horror again, and she had to be ready for it.

She would probably see human corpses again one day too.

Only when she was satisfied she could relay what she had seen without having a panic attack again did Cyn open her eyes. She had wanted to get a look at one of her arms, knowing she had really fucked them up, but found Spam sitting nose to nose with her.

She jerked slightly in surprise, the bubblegum-pink frog not even twitching while continuing to stare directly into her soul with its black eyes. The party behind her went silent when she jerked, so Cyn didn’t bother to hide that she was awake. Instead, she reached one hand to the familiar, using Pet and whispering softly. “Sorry buddy.” It made a quiet, timid warble in response and leaned into her hand. Cyn could feel its concern in the back of her mind, making her pretty sure their Familiar Bond had deepened. At least there was a good thing that came out of the ordeal.

The position let her get a decent look at one arm, and it was better than she had anticipated. Her skin had vein-like cracks and deep gouges running through it, the edges and interior of the wounds appearing burnt, dark blue and crispy. The wounds unsurprisingly ran along the primary veins she had used for circulating mana. But, remembering how it had looked before she had blocked it out, Cyn determined the damage had healed at least some. She might be scarred, or have a more long-term effect like the blue of her fingertips, but she was pretty sure she would recover.

Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Cyn slowly sat up and turned around, ready to face the music.