Zoe stood in a field of waist-high flowers. The bright colors flickered around her as the breeze rippled the stalks. A sense of peace washed over her as she reached for the new technique inside and underneath her Skein. Whereas her other techniques were pseudo-organs nestled somewhere between her flesh and her soul, the [Witch’s Embryo] was different. She’d expected it inside her womb, as horrifying as that thought was. Or at least inside her stomach, since the technique was clearly congealing from the vile ichor she drank inside the Witch’s universe of cloying, desperate souls. She could still taste the bitter sweat and leathery tears.
The liquid spread through her like electricity through metal and with it the technique. It existed inside her shadow, but not the shadow cast by the sun, rather the shadow beneath her skin, the darkness of the human flesh that showed no light. It stirred as she activated the technique, and the darkness crawled out of her.
It pooled in her pores, hesitant, seeping up like crude oil through cracked rock, before she unleashed the technique. Midnight ichor blasted out from her in a liquid sphere. The darkness surrounded her and cut off the sight and smell of the flowers. Ripples passed around the sphere as the mountain breeze split and diverged. She could still breathe as the liquid flowed through her nostrils and mouth. No matter how much her brain told her to choke and gag, it was breathable, and it thrummed as it passed back into her body and out of her pores. A circle of power formed and the flow of the sphere accelerated as she maintained the technique. It burned through her Skein, but she had so much Skein now she didn’t care.
She just needed to figure out this new technique.
The black sphere encircled her and cut her off from her surroundings andfriends. The fluid raced through her body -- into her mouth and out of her pores -- and she felt a sense of unmaking. Her cells drifted apart ever so slightly. Her pores widened. Shadow soaked into her Skein as she became unmoored from herself. She imagined it must be how a rock in the desert feels as the windblown sand slowly strips it apart. The feeling didn’t hurt, rather it was pleasant, the subtle warmth of exercise deep in her muscles, the breakdown of the self so that she could rebuild stronger.
But she couldn’t figure out what the technique did, so she let it fall.
The black fluid sloshed onto the ground and melted like shadows at noon.
Anton sat nearby, chewing on the end of a long-stalked yellow flower, and watching her with a dozen silver eyes.
“That was impressive,” he said.
“Was it?”
“It was a big black sphere, almost like a Mubilashi without eyes or teeth -- terrifying to be honest.”
Zoe smiled wryly.
“I don’t know what the technique does,” she said as she looked around at the untouched flowers. “Nothing seems different.”
“Maybe nothing out here, but how do you feel inside?”
Her Mirrored fingers traced a vein up her dark skin. She felt for her pulse. Did she feel anything different? Did she want to know? Silly question, of course, she didn’t want to know, but she would find out regardless.
With a tap of her fingers, she plucked at the resonance of her Skein.
And she saw the changes.
Before, the ichor floated around her Skein, but now it clung to the threads. It wasn’t entirely soaked in, and a large portion still floated between the strands, but she understood. By using [Witch’s Embryo] she accelerated the binding of ichor to her Skein. The strands that already absorbed the strange, shadowy fluid were thicker and harder. Skein never really had a color or a substance, it was strings, but it existed outside of an understanding of ordinary senses -- but these threads were a sharp and polished black. They glistened like wet chitin, like wire made out of beetles, like the empty depths of the night sky. Her mind chilled as she surveyed herself and she couldn’t be sure if it was fear or simply the effect of the [Witch’s Embryo]. She knew now what the technique did, but not what it meant.
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The vibrations faded and her vision of her interior faded with it. Out of curiosity, she brushed her fingers against a flower and thrummed her body path to see inside. She wanted to compare normal Skein to the darkened strands inside her.
Her fingers resonated and touched the bright gem of a plant, but she saw no Skein. Her eyes widened. She touched more flowers, and grass, even dug down into the rich scented earth, feeling for the presence of the tangled strings that bound the Crimson Armada in its knots of power.
She found nothing.
The Mountain reared up into the pale blue sky. She stared at the inscrutable edifice of stone, wondering exactly what was happening but before she could continue experimenting, Skidmark and Bella groaned awake.
###
Bella, Skidmark, and Anton sat in the grass encircled by flowers. Zoe paced before them, unsure of what to say. She was the only one uninjured -- each of her friends was blinded to some degree, and scalded from their experience of interrupting the Witch. It hurt her to look at them and know it was her fault they were injured. She wished she had some method to heal, but all her techniques were weapons.
Unless…
“How are your eyes?” she asked Bella for the third time. “Can you open them?”
“Can I?” Bella repeated. “Yes, but will I? No. The light hurts and it… the light mocks me. Even though I can feel how peaceful this valley is and smell the wildflowers… the Witch is burned into my eyes and there’s not much I can do about it.”
“It’s what we get for looking at a god,” Skidmark croaked. “We weren’t supposed to do that.”
“We also weren’t supposed to come to this Mountain,” Anton said cheerfully. “But look at us now! We’re doing so many things we aren’t supposed to do.”
“You’re not making me feel better, Anton.”
“I wasn’t trying to.”
Skidmark made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a sob and lay down and curled up. She was the least blinded but kept her eyes half-lidded and fixed on a single blade of grass before her. To Zoe, it was as though she were anesthetized.
Mist flickered out the corner of Zoe’s eye, and she turned to face the mountain. The stone steps led up its side, and she could hear it calling with the same incense-filled chanting that had heralded the portal’s first appearance.
But she couldn’t abandon her friends.
She crouched before them.
“I have an idea that I want to try.”
“Your new ability?” Anton guessed.
Zoe nodded.
“It rebuilds and reinforces Skein. I’m not sure what it will do to injuries but…” She frowned. “Let me test something.”
She sharpened a Mirrored finger into a blade and nicked her wrist. Blood flowed and she could feel her Vitality itching away at the wound. It would heal quickly due to her stats, but if she focused she could suppress the Vitality. Keeping the Vitality suppressed, she focused on [Witch’s Embryo].
The black liquid wrung out from her Skein and oozed from her pores. She could feel it preparing to burst into the sphere, but she hesitated and focused on the small cut on her arm. The black liquid flowed down to the wound and slid over. Cold entered her blood for a moment, like liquid nitrogen blasting skin, and she let out a gasp.
The technique collapsed and the black ichor evaporated. Her wound had healed, but Zoe now had a better idea of what poured out of her.
“It’s death energy,” she said with a gasp. “I could feel the chill. That same chill I’ve felt countless times before. It’s pure, distilled death energy.”
“It healed you?” Anton said.
“It did,” Zoe said. “At least, I’m not sure what it did but my wound is healed. I don’t feel myself gaining levels or even closing the gap to level 50 when I use this technique. It’s some other application of the death energy.”
“Will you run out?”
“No… I think my body is producing it at this point…”
She trailed off, not wanting to get into the heaviness she felt in her core, the soreness in her breasts, or the way her skin felt as though it were sliding on top of some thin layer of liquid. These were just sensations. They couldn’t be real. When she prodded herself or inspected her Skein, there was no physical evidence. Her skin was the same as always. Any sense of soreness, of swelling, was all in her head.
Anton repeated himself.
“Can you heal my eyes?”
Zoe nodded.
“I can give it a go.”
Bella looked toward the sound of their voices with her eyes squeezed shut.
“Yeah, let Anton be the guinea pig,” but her voice betrayed her nerves.
Her friends all sounded on the edge of collapse, but Zoe coudln’t help but feel excited. Something was building inside her, budding, blooming. Something that was long in the making and finally drawing to an end. She glanced up again at the Mountain. It waited as patient as stone, the mysteries of its making, of the universe, hidden in the dark folds and crags of its jagged peak. A sense of age rolled off it and filled her like the scent of dusty incense.
What was this place if it was not Skein? If it wasn’t part of the Crimson Armada? She knew the answers lay on the winding staircase. Everything would make sense if she could make it to the top.
“Soon,” she muttered as she walked over to Anton. “Soon.”