A horrendous buzzing grew as Oriz’s mind struggled like a fly caught in a web. She felt her neurons frying, but fear made her spasm against the control holding her tight.
[Now, now…]
The presence relaxed, and Oriz felt her thoughts flow once more. Her eyes still itched with the intruder. A weight rested on her shoulder like a gentle hand with too many fingers. She itched, but she knew there was nothing she could do.
The presence — she knew who it was but dared not even think of the name — said this was an audition, but…
Laughter shook her eyelashes.
[Better you ask a question now than make a mistake later]
“An audition for what?” Oriz asked.
[Recently, a position in management opened up. I believe you were present when my brother met his fate, quite the spectacle to see a madman hoisted by his own petard. Normally, the position would go to Rue, dead man’s boots so to speak, but he fled, and so the position of Reward Master and Random Number God sits vacant]
The purring voice sent ripples of pleasure through Oriz. She couldn’t fight the feeling and it spread out through her Skein and into the woven cocoon. Her false worlds trembled and everything threatened to collapse as a white light burned through her veins, but the sparkling faded before it crested and only a dull agony lurked in the shadows. She wanted no more, but craved that sensation all the same.
Her grandmother always warned her to stay away from the Witch, but now the Witch sat within her.
But if this offer was real, then untold power awaited. She merely needed to impress.
“Why me?” Oriz asked.
[You and several thousand others throughout the system fulfill the requirements to replace the Gambler. One, fate has touched you. Two, you are currently engaged in a game of your own making. However, the third makes you special above the other candidates: you hold the same perverted attraction for the mortal known as Bella ]
Anger spiked through the pleasure like two waves crashing into each other.
“My love is not perverted!” she shouted. “I am nothing like the Gambler!”
[Then prove yourself unique…]
The voice laughed and receded, and Oriz shivered as sweat dripped from her body. She knew the — the presence — remained, and now she needed to prove herself. What had been a trial of love and a hope of catching Zoe now had cosmic stakes. If all went to her plan, she could hold Bella forever.
But if she failed…
Her heart pounded in her chest as the stark reality of her situation settled upon her. What would happen if she failed?
“If I don’t succeed?” she asked slowly. “What then?”
There was only silence in response. Oriz gazed out through her grassy domain as Bella struggled in the kitchen and Zoe raged against the pit. The silence grew so long, broken only by the whispering of brushing grasses.
At last…
[I am not the master of rewards, so I am not acquainted with prizes and punishments. If you fail, I shall do my best, but I am afraid I do not have my brother’s flair for the dramatic, nor his restraint]
With that, the voice settled away into Oriz’s eyes.
The grass brushed and rasped and Oriz dared not ask any more questions. She had only to act, and to prove that her plan was a sound one. It would take a few minutes, however, for the icy fear to thaw and allow her limbs to move.
While she waited, she watched as Zoe tore futilely at the pit that trapped her.
###
Zoe raged against the walls of grass. They were woven tight like a basket. Her claws of Mirror and psychic energy struck the Skein and caused it to split and peel, but no matter how many times she attacked there was always more slithering back into place. The weave continued perfectly, and it felt as though she made no progress. Around her, the hounds whined as they dug and bit at the grass.
She leaped up, hacking with both hands, but the ceiling merely rose away from her, forever inches away, taunting her like Tantalus. If she had her chains still she might…
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
No.
Her hounds scattered as she struck the ground.
The stench of cut grass and slobber filled the air as nauseous as vomit. Zoe’s breathing grew ragged as she tore and tore until she screamed.
“Enough!”
She threw her hands in the air. No progress had been made, and she wasn’t sure how much time she was wasting. It was mostly dark in here, with only glints of light falling from the woven rooftop of the pit. Was it growing closer as the grass slithered around her? She was sure that it was. Trust Oriz to crush her like this. Zoe couldn’t understand the alien’s motivations. Maybe they were too alien, but never had she felt such a divide between them. Their relationship had slowly disintegrated since Bella and Oriz returned from their first foray into Hell.
Before the apocalypse, Zoe had lost friendships because of boyfriends. Was it that simple?
She scoffed.
“Zoe,” she said aloud. “You’re trapped in a pocket of grass inside a larger pocket of grass and dreams by some mad alien who wants to… something… with your best friend in the apocalypse. None of this is simple or normal.”
It felt good saying it aloud. She sat down on the floor amongst the pile of soft mown grass. With her Mirrored skin, none of it was itchy, and so she let herself lay back and get comfortable as her hounds pressed up against her. She rubbed them behind the ears as she deliberated on her options.
How to snatch Bella from Oriz’s maddened clutches?
How to escape before the island melts?
[How to impress me?]
The Witch’s voice wove through Zoe’s mind, and her toes curled.
“You’re back,” Zoe said.
[I never left]
Zoe wasn’t sure if that was true, but she had grown used to the lack of the Gambler in her mind. To have his equal —
[He was never my equal]
The voice dragged nails through the flesh of her back. She shuddered and twisted in the grass as though she might escape, but the mind always remained.
“I’m sorry,” Zoe gasped. “Please, what do you want from me?”
[I merely wish to see you do your best]
“I don’t understand.”
[You find yourself trapped in a game. Two opponents seek the same prize. Victory is mutually exclusive. Is this familiar to you?]
Zoe nodded slowly.
“It’s like what the Gambler always did, but he’s dead… isn’t he?”
[Very much so, and I seek his replacement. Consider this an audition]
Zoe frowned.
“What? I’m not even level 50. How can I be —”
[You don’t want the job?]
Zoe shut up as pleasure roiled through her.
[Yes, funny how absolute power remains such a consistent lure. You are touched by fate, Zoe Chambers, stained by it, so you qualify. Oriz holds your prize and schemes against you. if she wins, she shall receive a power even gods crave. Now, try to impress me]
The Witch’s voice faded, leaving Zoe a sweating, whimpering mess in the grass. At some point, her Mirror left her, and the grass stuck to her sweat-slicked skin. She felt sick. Heat burned within her. Eyes bulging, teeth clenched, blood squirting through veins. The voice played with her flesh so casually, like a child pinching a fly before they ripped away the wings.
Her eyes gained focus, and she stared up at the ceiling and its speckled light.
“Compete against Oriz? I can do that.”
Taking deep breaths, she centered herself and settled into the stance of the Grasping Vine.
“You’re going to regret teaching me this, you weird psycho bitch.”
Inside her, a hound whined, and Zoe laughed.
“You’re right,” Zoe said. “She doesn’t deserve the title.”
She punched the walls, and the center of the world settled around her knuckles. Reality rippled out as she focused on her body path. The woven strands flexed, and Zoe reached for the harmony as her punch sang through the manifested Skein.
But before she could collapse a portal, every thread thrummed at a different frequency. Her body path technique collapsed from the inside out and a surge of feedback struck her fist. Zoe flew backward into the far side of the pit. She slapped the wall and fell into the grass.
With a groan, she stood and rolled her neck around from the strain. That was unpleasant, but far from her only option.
She produced a Chroma Viscera Core and held it above her head. The light shifted into a dappled rainbow upon the walls of the pit.
“When in doubt,” Zoe said with a grin as her hounds flowed back into her body. “Burn it all down.”
Her Skein flowed through the gem, and the light flashed a burning ruby red. The core remembered the violent and childish fire of the Flame Child. How easy it was for a child to see the world as tinder. Zoe’s heart panged for a moment — her or Moth? — as she realized the horror of the child and how she was using his pain, but it faded, as all things must in the face of necessity.
The present often demands we ignore the past.
Moth slipped from Zoe’s heart and coated her skin in a Mirrored hug. Brilliant red light bounced from her skin and lit the inside of the grassy pit like a goblet of blood. For a moment all was still as Zoe balanced her Skein with the rage-filled echoes inside the Core. She had to be careful that any feedback didn’t come back to her. She drew a deep breath and let it out.
“Now.”
[Manifestation of the Hound]
Seven hounds of spectral flame poured from her mirrored body. Their bodies burned a deep red while their eyes were starlight points of searing blue. They leaped out at the pit walls. Jaws of fire snarled and chomped at the weave of grass. For a second the Skein resisted, but Zoe saw the challenge and her heart thundered in her chest. She became the eighth hound, forming a hound of Mirrored flame-burning chrome with a core of a thousand colors flashing in her heart. She leaped for the wall and her very presence melted through the Skein. Claws struck the grass and sent them singing in black flame. She leaped, she climbed, and she ascended. The grass offered no resistance as her hounds transmuted the prison into smoke.
With a savage howl, she reached the top of the prison. The vast grasslands spread around her, and sunset flames licked the long reeds as her hounds spread out. Zoe laughed, a primal sound from her hunter’s jaws, as flames dripped to the ground beneath her. The dreaming world bucked and swayed as the grass wove itself anew as it was burned. A burning, growing land struggling to persist.
“Enough!”
Zoe whirled at the word.
Oriz stood a hundred paces away. She wore her grey robe. Her corn-yellow hair was tied back in a braid. In one hand, she held a sword longer than she was tall. With a sweep, she cut through the smoke. The blade’s edges glistened with rainbows like oil in water. In the billowing clean air, Oriz pointed the curved tip at Zoe.
“Time to put you down like the dog you are.”
Zoe snarled as anger burned into joy. She charged, and seven hounds charged with her.