Every time Zoe blinked, the pit deepened. Every time the pit deepened, the bone pile grew. The depth of the pit had reached a hundred feet but continued sinking, and the pile remained just under the level of the surrounding ground. Their rates of growth matched each other so that Trinch’s arm remained in place, stuck out the top of the pile like a green desiccated flag atop a ghoulish mountain. The long-nailed fingers twitched in the breeze and beckoned Zoe, daring her to make the leap and perish in the attempt.
She scowled at the remnant of the bastard who killed Princh… with her hands.
“I will use you,” she muttered, and then louder. “Are you in position?”
Anton’s silver eye floated beside her, and two more floated beside him and Jack where they stood equal distances apart surrounding the pit. They all held large rocks.
“Ready,” came Jack’s voice through the silvery relay.
“Say the word,” Anton said.
“Ok, me and Anton. Three, two, one, throw!”
She threw her rock like a shotput at the same time as Anton. The heavy projectiles cut through the cold air toward the bone pile. Zoe waited with bated breath as Anton’s eyes watched the bone pile from all angles.
A tentacle lashed out and grabbed Zoe’s rock. It drew the rock in and stuck it on a spurred femur before lashing out toward Anton’s rock. Just before Anton’s rock hit the bones, the tentacle caught it and dragged it down.
“Two isn’t enough,” she said. “Test with three.”
They counted down, and each threw a projectile at the same time. Three rocks sailed. The tentacle lashed out. It caught two, but the third crashed into a skull and shattered into frozen sods.
“Jack try your technique,” Zoe said.
“It’s not as direct as a rock.”
“Just do what you’re told,” Anton said.
In the moment of silence that followed, Zoe waited for a grumble or a retort, but Jack merely opened his arms and activated his technique.
Burning petals floated out from him like a flock of smoldering butterflies. They drifted out from him toward the bones but were snatched by the wind. Most spun away and burned out in the icy grasp, but some left blackened smudges across the yellowed bones. The tentacle did not emerge until a petal — burning red with a blackened core — brushed Trinch’s severed arm.
The tentacle lashed out and sliced through the petal faster than before. The long green hair split as dozens of eyes opened up along its length. They crinkled with mirth when they spied Zoe.
She could almost hear Trinch’s smug voice saying something condescending as the tentacle retreated into the pile.
“What do you think that means?” Anton said.
Zoe threw a rock, and the tentacle responded like a whip to snatch it from the air.
“I think,” she said. “The technique awoke the tentacle. This will be harder.”
“My life was never this hard before I met you,” Anton said.
Zoe smiled at his weary tone.
“I don’t know,” Jack added to the silvery relay. “Things keep on looking up with you around, boss.”
She could feel Anton’s glower through the eyes as her smile grew wider. A compliment was a compliment, and she wasn’t fully sure about Jack yet. She told Anton at the gas station that they were square, but… did she trust him enough to kill a man?
No, she would get the arm first, and then deal with Jack. She still held his heart in her technique, and her control hadn’t wavered. If she needed to, she could, and that would have to be enough assurance for now.
She would see Bella again.
But if she didn’t…
She clenched her teeth and almost doubled over as cramps wracked her abdomen. Her hunger howled at her. Soon, she promised. Soon.
“Anton, throw rocks. Jack, use your technique.”
A barrage of frozen earth fell toward the bone pile as petals burned the air. The tentacle whipped back and forth as it countered the assault. Its motions became frenzied. The eyes grew bloodshot as it snuffed out flames and shattered rocks.
Zoe sprinted toward the edge, her boots digging into the snow with each step, and she leaped. In the air, she had no control, only faith.
The tentacle’s eyes bulged. It whipped toward her, but her chain lashed out and flicked it.
[Ding!]
[Hello, Trinch! I thought you were dead!]
The tentacle recoiled from the touch of the chain and Zoe landed atop the pile. It shifted under her weight and she started sinking. The razor-tipped bones scraped against her boots.
[Self Reflects the World]
Mirror coated her, but the bones sliced it apart like razors through silk. She panicked, as the bones nicked her calves and blood flowed. The tentacle reared up above her. Her chain lashed out and grabbed the arm. She pulled, but the thing was rooted. The bones swallowed up to her waist. A dozen pinprick cuts bled profusely. She gripped her chain with both hands — the chain gripping her in return — and she heaved.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
The arm ripped free like a tree trunk from wet sand. Long veins spilled from the base like roots. They waved in the air. Blood sprayed. The bones crashed down to the ground and brought Zoe with them. A hundred cuts through her new midnight dress and her blood flowed, but she gripped Trinch’s arm tightly as she landed at the bottom of the pit.
The clattering echoed back and forth off the pit’s frozen walls and Zoe seized the cacophony.
[There is enough element to fill the void of two levels]
[Do you wish to incorporate?]
“Yes!”
She fed her voice to the noise and felt it swell before it returned to her in spiraling invisible tendrils. The air seethed with the descending essence.
[Round 1 double bonus applied!]
Her body shuddered and twisted as tendrils burrowed through the holes in her skin. New threads spliced into her Skein, and then it was over, and she lay in the silence she devoured.
The bed of bones shifted under her weight and the pit stretched above her up to the eggplant sky. She panted until her breathing calmed and dumped her free points into Vitality. It hit 40 and warm itched through her skin and flesh as her wounds healed that fraction faster. As she mended, she summoned her status.
STATUS
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 31
Body: The Bell At The Center Of The World (Rank 3, Progress 1/10)
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 87 (+8)
Vitality: 40 (+8)
Dexterity: 49 (+4)
Willpower: 86 (+8)
Insight: 35 (+4)
Skein: 200/298
Chains: 1
Free Points: 0
Titles: Intrepid, Lodestone, Fools Rush In (9/12) Quest Breaker, Glutton, True Believer, The Magnifying Glass
Techniques: Our Hearts Toll As One, The Self Reflects The World, Mind’s Eye Incision
With the three levels she had gained since leaving the gas station, Her Skein now sat at 298. Also, she hadn’t burned her Skein since meeting Oriz. It felt pure as it threaded its way between her flesh and her soul. Felt powerful, like she was woven from dynamite.
It was hard to know how the essence was affecting her. The metal she took after she battled the earthen mantis while defending the car, and the sound she took from the falling bones were both parts of her now. Would the sound’s distribution of attributes balance metal’s driven nature? She hoped so since the organic metal of the mantis had felt stranger than anything else she took into herself. She was used to a one-track mind, but now the tracks buzzed with some resonance she couldn’t pinpoint.
And the sounds were only echoes, did that mean she would continue to act so reactionary?
She missed Oriz. Guessing at the system was more trouble than it was worth. What would be, would be.
“Zoe?” Anton’s silver eye floated down on top of her. “Are you alright?”
A scratch healed on her cheek as she sat up.
“Better than ever.”
It took an hour to figure out how to leave the pit. Zoe used two gigantic ribs as ice picks to climb her way up the icy slope. The atmosphere at the top was tense, as Anton and Jack stood in silence. Anton made an expression behind Jack’s back, but Zoe was tired.
The incorporation, the snatching of Trinch’s arm, had left her exhausted.
And they only had 9 hours before they returned to the Gambler’s game.
“Do we head to the town?” Anton asked. “Or do we continue grinding levels?”
“This isn’t a video game,” Jack retorted.
Anton shrugged and focused on Zoe
“What’ll it be, boss?”
She considered as she wrapped up Trinch’s arm into a bundle she could strap to her back. The fingers twitched occasionally, and she felt a faint echo of a pulse in the dried flesh. It disturbed her to have it so close -- but she wasn’t sure if it was sickening, or joyful, considering whose arm it was.
She wished she could have seen the fight that smeared Trinch across the island like a bug on a windscreen.
“I think the level bonus is a distraction,” she said. “There’s no guarantee that levels will help. They didn’t help Oriz, after all. I want to complete my quest. If I keep putting it off…”
Anton nodded. If she kept putting it off, he would die. Jack would die as well, since he was now a part of her party, though they hadn’t divulged that detail.
“Let’s go to town then.”
“God,” Jack laughed as they started jogging. “I hope they have hot water.”
###
As they moved through the forest, Zoe inspected the latest prompt she received about her body path.
[You have reached rank 3 of your body path.]
[The Bell At The Center Of The World]
[Rank 3 upgrades]
* Sympathetic Resonance: Link two points in space and time by striking them with the same resonance.
* Echo Queen: Cast your senses into the vibrations of the land and learn all that strike upon the bell of the world.
* Counter Harmony: Negate violence with harmony by creating an equal and opposite force to any strike.
She leaped over a pile of rubbish stacked against a fallen log. The town must be getting close. She wanted to sprint ahead, but Anton and Jack couldn’t match her pace, so she kept steady and used her exercise-cleared mind to think: which ability to select?
These choices would affect the direction of her build significantly. But really, what was her build?
She made so many decisions on the fly with little or no knowledge. She had reacted to the apocalypse, and even now it felt like that wasn’t the worst thing… no, that was an echo Skein thought. She needed to act. She wanted to be the blade creating wounds, not the wound craving stitches.
She had the Might to deliver massive impacts, but her Vitality lacked. [Self Reflects the World] allowed her to tank damage, but the second the technique failed she became vulnerable. Even Jack might have a higher Vitality than her if he had been prioritizing fire. Her Willpower was as high as her Might, allowing her to impact techniques and break magic, but that required her to be in the thick of things.
Or was that a flaw in her thinking?
[Minds Eye Incision] and [Our Hearts Toll as One] seemed like back alley surgery techniques. They were medicinal but dark like poison compared to medicine. Was she using her build wrong?
She needed to speak with someone about this and select a plan that would allow her to match her build with her disposition. But for now, which body path ability could help her the most?
The first choice felt the strongest. After being inside the Bell at the Center of the World and punching the incursion with Trinch, she knew the potential of linking space and time. And with the time essence, she theorized was contained inside the [Fools Rush In]; she had a real chance at creating a devastating ability. Childishly, a secret part of her reveled at the thought of punching a wormhole into someone’s chest. However, knowing the Crimson Armada system, things wouldn’t be that simple.
The second choice felt too much like an overlap with Anton’s abilities. She couldn’t overstate how much she relied on him constantly surveying the area. Did she want to add to that? There might come a time when Anton didn’t stand by her side.
But she didn’t want to dictate her build by planning for failure.
That left the third option. It paired nicely with the technique she gained from Moth. The ability to negate and reflect force would be a powerful combination. She could defend against almost anything and it would solidify her presence as the vanguard during combat.
She imagined storming the enemy and disabling their greatest threat before wading amongst them and having their attacks bounce off her with lethal force.
However, that same confidence had failed her in the gas station…
Whichever decision she made, she would wait until she was sure, and so she put the matter to the back of her mind as the trees broke away and the town came into view.