Squadrons of mantis flew over the frozen forest. Their bulging eyes twisted on their elemental necks as they scanned the trees for their prey. They made dozens of passes as the hours wore on, never abandoning the hunt, even as Zoe and the others traveled further from the scene of the fight.

Jack led them along a twisting trail that was half animal tracks and half sidewalk. The trees grew up tall around them, sprouting from severed houses, or containing rooms within their branches. There were no clean lines of division, the roots emerged from the soil, twisted, and produced bark and wood and concrete in equal measure.

Fragments of architecture suspended all around them in a myriad of trees. They hid in a cellar with a roof of roots as a large mantis with a blackened carapace of midnight shadow stole silently along the treetops, its delicate feet dancing from leaf to leaf as it scanned for them. The walls were too straight and lined with bulbous growths resembling canned goods.

“What is this place?” Bellas asked as the shadowed mantis moved on.

“The system takes your world and breaks it down into raw ingredients before it shapes it anew,” replied Oriz. She was still tired, leaning on Zoe more often than not, but at least she was alert. “It is like incorporation. The trinity weaves reality into the shapes they deem appropriate.”

Bella stabbed one of the can-like fruit fused to the wall. Beans in tomato sauce spilled out onto the floor.

“Was this a can from our world? Or is this something new and grown?”

“There’s no way to answer that question.”

###

The sky shifted into the yellows of tea on paper as the mantis ceased their pursuit and Zoe’s party stumbled upon a crossroads. The forest crowded over the road. Frozen moss hung from the branches. Icicles dripped from vines strung between the trees.

Jack pointed down one road.

“If we go this way, we’ll reach the town in a few hours.”

Zoe checked her system timer.

“Will it take less than five?”

Jack shrugged.

“It should, but the distances have been growing as we go back and forth.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Trinch’s corpse,” Oriz said. “A high leveled grave will distort the world around it, especially a world as fresh as this one. It is the same process as the system creating a dungeon but on a much smaller scale.”

“Stretching an island is a smaller scale?” Anton asked.

“Everything is relative,” Oriz replied. “You did not see the entire dungeon after all, but the effects should reach an equilibrium point soon.”

Zoe stepped closer to Jack and delighted in the way his heartbeat spiked.

“You said there was a shortcut?”

“Yeah… It goes closer to the corpse of this Trinch guy you’re talking about,” he pointed down the other direction of the crossroads where the trees formed a dark tunnel over the road. “That way should take half the time.”

Bella started down that path.

“Suppose we’re going this way then.”

Anton offered his arm to Oriz, and together the two of them followed Bella. They discussed the formation of techniques, but their voices grew indistinct as Zoe and Jack remained in the center of the crossroads.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jack asked.

“You just did.”

“No… Yeah. Well, you three, you’re the ones who got the Magnifying Glass title for everyone aren’t you?”

“We are.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“That’s cool. I mean thank you! That level saved my life, sort of. Roman only took those with a body path, and that level bumped me up.”

“What did you think of the Smith?”

“Terrifying, but exhilarating. I never knew the future could feel so tangible.”

Zoe wasn’t sure what he meant, but before she could ask, a silver orb floated up to them.

“Chop chop,” said Anton’s disembodied voice. “Oriz says we can’t let you go too far behind lest the path change.”

“We’re coming.”

“Oh, I’m sure.

She could feel his knowing stare, and so she swiped her Willpower through his technique. It burst into silvery flecks of static.

“You’re all so relaxed,” Jack said as an icy wind blew. He shivered, drawing his arms close. “How does this not terrify you?”

“You hunted people and fed them to a demon.”

“But the demonic core… it was like a puppet, like drugs, like a burning finger straight up my ass and curling into my brain.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow.

“Was it just?”

He blushed, heart rate hammering, and she cut him some slack.

“Let’s go catch up.”

He nodded, mumbling something she could have picked apart with her Insight but let fade into obscurity. As he hurried down the frozen road, she felt a hot breath on the back of her neck.

Zoe froze.

Wet panting in her ear. That smell, gamey, musky, bestial. The trees grew up and tall and dark as midnight pines above a young girl. She couldn’t breathe, and she fell to her knees as the dog padded into view.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Sable black coat. Ears pricked up to hear the whispers of the world. A pink tongue lolled as it looked in her direction.

“You have delayed,” said the dog.

Zoe’s stomach clenched. She knew the dog shouldn’t be talking. No matter the monstrosities of the new world, this dog was wrong. Her Willpower struggled to assert itself, and she pushed her aura out across the creature.

Her Skein told her it was not there.

The dog stepped closer. Hot breath clouding. Fangs white as starlight. She looked into its eyes and saw a wild summer. Longing to abandon civilization. Longing to be wrapped up in civilization's embrace. Paradox of the hound, and in the deepest depths of the pupil rose a full moon that drew a howl from her veins.

She leaned forward and puked blood. It splashed onto the frozen tarmac and spread into a pentagram.

“The Witch demands you meet her,” said the dog in her ear. “Those of the dark fate should not walk alone.”

Zoe spat up iron.

“How?”

“Once the Gambler has had his fun, come to a crossroads. She shall be waiting.”

The dog bent down. Its pink tongue lapped at the bloody symbol, and she blinked as her heart jolted. She lay on her side. Cheek against the frozen ground. There was no dog. No blood. Jack rolled her over, his face drawn with concern.

He said something, but his lips made no noise. Bella pushed him aside and lifted Zoe.

“....” Bella said with a voice like falling rain. “....? … wrong, Zoe? You’re the doctor, mate, tell us what — you’re with us now?”

Zoe nodded, and Bella set her down gently.

Vitality surged, and Zoe looked around. No trace of the dog, but she could still smell the damp fur in the back of her nostrils like the echo of smoke after a forest’s regrowth.

Oriz and Anton watched from down the road. A silver eye floated beside Zoe’s ear.

“The Witch?” whispered Oriz’s voice.

Zoe nodded.

A sigh bled static through the eye, and Oriz indicated with her head that they continued.

“You have learned the lesson already, my disciple, that there is little else to do in this savage universe but keep moving forward.”

###

Trees bent over the frozen road. Icicles hung beside mantis pods on branches heaped with snow. They stretched and wrapped overhead until they formed a tunnel, and then the path dipped until trees became stone and one step in the forest led into another step in a cave without warning or understanding. They moved in hushed tones as the rock wrapped around them. Jack summoned sputtering flames. Petals of orange with blackened cores that drifted on a wind none could feel. Anton’s eyes whizzed around them, casting less light but providing a stronger sense of security as the little group continued deeper.

The stone groaned around them. Dust fell from widening cracks. Zoe felt a pressure upon her shoulders — an infinite darkness heaped overhead like a night sky turned solid — that only eased when Bella placed a hand on hers.

“You get used to it,” she said. “Being underground, I mean. It’s never not scary, but just don’t think about it.”

Zoe took a breath and nodded.

Should she mention the Witch? But she didn’t even know what to mention. Especially since it wasn’t real… Whatever had happened, whatever the Witch was, the meeting with the dog had occurred inside her brain.

Another brutal reminder that she was a part of the system whether she liked it or not.

She walked with Bella at the back of the group, alone except for the fact that everyone had near-perfect hearing and one of Anton’s silver eyes floated further back as a rear guard. Still, the illusion of privacy provided an intimacy to the candlelit cave tour.

“What happened back at the crossroads?” Bella asked.

Zoe released a sigh.

“The Witch sent a vision through my head.”

“What?”

“I saw a dog, and it spoke to me.”

“Not the weirdest thing I’ve heard in the last twenty-four hours, but continue.”

“It told me the Witch was waiting for me. Have you received anything about the Witch?”

Bella shook her head with an expression of distaste.

“Just the thrice-damned gambler,” she said. “Who I hope is listening because he is an utter prick with terrible taste and I hope he burns to death in a long and gruesome fashion.”

[How terribly cruel and unfair, but what a wonderful idea for a game…]

The entire group froze.

Oriz whirled. One moment she was at the front of the group with Anton, the next she had Bella pressed up against the cave wall. A grass blade shakily crept from her palm toward Bella’s throat.

“What did you do?” The grey-skinned woman hissed.

“Let me down! He knows he’s a —”

Oriz’s grip choked her off.

“You are a stumbling child. I would be saving my disciple if I merely twisted my fingers like so.”

Bella’s eyes bulged.

“Oriz!” Zoe shouted.

She grabbed her master’s arm. It was like pulling on steel. Her chain coiled around her arm, pulled, but it was for naught.

The difference in strength between them was a chasm she could not cross.

“Oriz, please. The Gambler fancies her. He has chosen her, picked on her, we don’t know why. She has a reason to hate him.”

Oriz turned her yellow gaze to meet Zoe’s pleading eyes.

“We all have reasons to despise the gods. The quicker you earthlings cease to think of yourselves as special as — invulnerable,” she spat on the floor. “The better for all of us. Yourselves included.”

She released Bella and staggered away. Even with the power of her levels, that outburst had cost her. Zoe helped Bella to sit up, the blonde woman gasping for air as Oriz pushed her way past Anton and Jack.

“Don’t touch me,” she said as Anton offered an arm. “I’ll wait for you at the end of the tunnel,” she turned back. “I do not apologize, disciple. The world is cruel, and we must learn to navigate such cruelty. If this makes us cruel in turn…?”

She vanished into the darkness and left a tension so thick it was hard to breathe.

“What a bitch,” Bella gasped. “Thanks for bringing her with you, Zoe. Is there a mark? It feels like there’s a mark.”

Oriz’s fingers had left purple welts around Bella’s neck that refused to fade even with the woman’s advanced Vitality.

Zoe tapped her forehead against Bella’s.

“Please, the game is almost upon us. Let’s just get to the end of the tunnel in peace?”

“You’re siding with her over me?”

“There are no sides.”

Bella studied Zoe’s face.

“Sure,” she nodded. “Whatever.”

Jack and Anton gave her a wide berth as she stomped ahead. Anton raised an eyebrow.

“Not now,” Zoe sighed. “Let’s just go.”

###

There was a cave at the end of the tunnel. Set on a hillside, it looked down on a barren slope of sickly trees and drifting ash. Bugs crawled through this wasteland, and beyond them, the town lay close enough that Zoe could count the windows on the buildings.

The town looked wrong. Buildings shunted into each other at angles that made little sense. A clash of historical styles with windows dark and broken. A coldness hung over the place that had nothing to do with the snow and everything to do with the grave.

As much as she looked forward to finding the polyp, she didn’t look forward to getting closer. It almost made her laugh, how human this fear of the uncanny still was.

But she did not laugh, for there was nobody to share the joy. Not in this sullen cave of wind-bitten silence. Bella and Oriz sat on opposite sides, each brooding and avoiding everyone. Anton sat on the edge, his silver eyes surveying the hillside, while Jack anxiously stood within the tunnel mouth as far from the cave opening as possible without entering the darkness from which they had come.

Zoe sighed and watched the timer.

[Time to Magnifying Glass appearance: 5 seconds]

[4 seconds]

“Well,” she said. “See you on the other side.”

[2 seconds]

[1 second]

[Stand by, dearies]

And the Gambler swept them up, all five of them, and took them into himself.