Zoe drifted through the cold and lonely void surrounded by her friends. She felt the warmth radiating from them.
Would their bodies sputter out and die like coals from a long-dead fire? Was the first trial a lack of air and now they lacked heat? Though as she gazed at the endless expanse of darkness and the corpses glittering like scattered stardust, she found it hard to believe this was a trial. No, this was a place where trials ended.
The dragon sent her here to prove herself, but those were just words. She had no reason to believe the dragon couldn’t lie, or that it owed her the truth. The devouring void in her heart drank too deep of the Mountain of Faith. She felt it coursing through her… no… that wasn’t right. It was her, in the same way a magnetic field was part of a magnet, in the way the iron in blood was part of a knife, in the way that whispered hopes were a part of the whisperer. It wasn’t the heat she felt from her friends, no, they floated dozens of feet away from her, a loose formation as the four of them willed their way to the gigantic pulsing slit of light in the far reaches of this bleak cosmos. Even with her Insight and their Vitality, she wouldn’t be able to feel their heat.
She felt their Faith.
It radiated out from them in whirls of invisible luminescence, the light of pure thought, looping and spiraling whenever their thoughts fired along a particular axis. Gentle waves lapped against her, buoyed her, and fed her as they willed their way above the corpse of a continent-sized dragon floating in the abyss.
Without thinking about it, Zoe reached through the Faith and guided her friends down toward the corpse. It was an extension of her [Heart’s Toll as One], but far easier to control. By twirling her fingers through the loops of expanding Faith, she could lean into their confidence, and where she went — they went.
It was abhorrent. Part of her, the human part, though it must be so small by now, cowered in a corner of her mind, but she ignored those atrophied shrieks of horror. They grew fainter with each heartbeat of her flock.
They flew in silent formation down toward the corpse to satisfy her curiosity.
Idly, Zoe wondered what she was becoming, if it was not human.
Status
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 55
Body: The Bell At The Center Of The World (Rank 5, Progress 5/10), Flesh of the Rabid Hound, Witch’s Embryo
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 262 (+12)
Vitality: 184 (+24)
Dexterity: 152 (-12)
Willpower: 251 (+12)
Insight: 156 (-12)
Skein: 1505 (+24)
Free Points: 6
Titles: Intrepid, Lodestone, Quest Breaker, Glutton, True Believer, The Magnifying Glass, Hellbreaker, Smith’s Blessing
Techniques: Our Hearts Toll As One, Empress In Time, Mind’s Eye Incision, Witch’s Transmutation
Accolades: Defy Fate, Out of World, Wielder of the Blade
Mountains: Faith
She turned a somersault in delight when she realized she had crossed the level 50 threshold. Had it occurred during her devouring or her meeting with the dragon? She couldn’t be sure, but — despite the circumstances she found herself in — a weight from her shoulders.
But 6 levels, didn’t feel like enough. Where was it recorded that she had devoured a Mountain worth of Faith? She puzzled over her stats and eventually realized that it wasn’t recorded. Was this some flaw in the system itself, or a relic of the Mountains not being a true part of the Crimson Armada? Though, as she floated she realized she didn’t know what to compare this feeling to. She had no other Mountains and no mentor who knew of them. What felt like a bottomless well of power might not be so.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Though, if she hadn’t taken too much, why did the dragon cast her out into the void?
She frowned. This was something she could feel far easier than analyze.
Zoe tapped her Mountain of Faith. Light flashed from her eyes to pierce the darkness and she shot forward like a bullet from a gun. Ripples splashed out into the weave of the void as she accelerated. Her grin couldn’t contain her joy at the feeling of raw power. Eagerly, she checked her status.
Might: 26(x15)
Vitality: 2760 (x15)
Dexterity: 2280 (x15)
Willpower: 3765 (x15)
Insight: 2340 (x15)
Skein: 22575 (x15)
Mountains: Faith
She had the curious experience of not believing what she saw, and having the Insight and Willpower to know it was happening. The Mountain of Faith multiplied her power fifteen times over. Reality bubbled around her as she shot toward the dragon's corpse. Her friends trailed behind her moving as slow as gnats in honey. She pulled up above the landscape of rent metallic scales. Light flowed from her eyes and bathed the creature below her.
It listed with its back to her. Vast, batlike wings torn and shredded like the sails of a ghost ship. The scales gleamed in steel and bronze, and millions floated in orbit. Someone, or something, had carved a bloody wound down the creature's back and pulled out its lungs. The bloody balloons floated like a second set of wings, though they were half shredded into the pale crystals that burned so brightly in this strange void.
Strange creatures crawled over the dragon. They moved like apes, or ants, hard to tell as their bodies flickered into angular shadows and wisps of smoke, but their faces beamed out with neon light. These faces too, shifted through a succession of expressions human and alien. Some hissed at Zoe as she floated a hundred feet above them. Some of them ignored her as they crawled over and chewed at the flesh of the long-dead dragon.
Zoe felt the light in her eyes draining. She panicked, for though power overflowed from her, it grew less. She checked her status once more.
Might: 3144(x12)
Vitality: 2208 (x12)
Dexterity: 1824 (x12)
Willpower: 3012(x12)
Insight: 1872 (x12)
Skein: 18060 (x12)
Mountains: Faith
The numbers kept falling. She gripped at her power with all her desperate need, but it slipped through her fingers. The light in her eyes burned brilliantly, but not as bright as it was. She had taken too much, and now she overflowed. It had taken so much effort, so much sacrifice, but now the power was draining away. Incandescent drifted from her eyes, and they whispered, and they hoped, but no amount of Faith could stop the inevitable, and this thought squeezed the last of the excess Faith from her soul.
Eventually, the numbers stopped falling.
Might: 1310 (x5)
Vitality: 920 (x5)
Dexterity: 760 (x5)
Willpower: 1255 (x5)
Insight: 780 (x5)
Skein: 9406 (x5)
Mountains: Faith
Her friends caught up to her after hours which felt like years. Zoe stroked her Mirrored hands, Faith’s light long since faded from her eyes. If there was anyone who understood the pain of sacrifice, it was Moth, and her sister stroked Zoe’s heart in return.
“What’s wrong?” Bella asked.
Zoe sighed. How could she complain? All that Faith she took, all that power, it was more than anyone was supposed to have. There were treaties and systems, and she was not above them.
Not yet.
The dark and eager part of her mind demanded that she return to that place of overwhelming power. She must take her stand atop the Mountaintop.
“I thought I had more power than I did,” Zoe said.
“Certainly looked like you had more than enough,” Bella responded.
“Yeah… but I worry about our return to Earth. How am I supposed to fight the Witch? She is so far above us, so far above anything mortal that I don’t know…”
Bella gripped Zoe’s shoulder.
“We’ll figure it out. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can do the impossible.”
Skidmark snorted as she drifted upside down.
“We’ve done so many impossible things that I’ve lost count.”
Anton’s silver eyes drifted about them and over the dragon’s corpse.
“You seem different, boss,” he said casually.
“I crossed over level 50,” Zoe explained.
“That’s huge!” Bella said. “Oriz… Oriz told me about the struggle to achieve that. Congratulations, seriously! No wonder you seem different, more… I don’t know how to put it…”
“Angelic,” Skidmark said softly. “She reminds me of the stained glass in the church back home, how I saw it as a kid, with the morning light filtered through.”
She blushed at the obvious nostalgia, but nobody made fun of her. They all just stared at Zoe until she was the one blushing.
“Alright, well, I still feel human enough,” she said to distract them. “I wanted to get a closer look at this, but I suppose we should keep moving toward that light.”
“Before we do,” Anton said. “We should head over there.”
He pointed toward one of his silver eyes as it circled above one of the spectral creatures crawling on the corpse. Except this one wasn’t crawling, it was sitting and waving, beckoning toward them. Zoe’s Insight saw the bright face on the creature as clear as day, but she wished she didn’t.
“I never thought I’d see her again,” Zoe muttered.
Even with her Willpower, she couldn’t stop the trickle of dread down her spine as she floated through the void toward the spectral creature wearing Cassy’s face.