The future was a looming mountain, but she needed only to look at her past to see the peaks she conquered before. Completing the Mirror Bell dungeon. Reaching level 20 in a week. Those had seemed impossible, but Zoe had achieved them.
She could do this, but she had to continue.
Zoe jogged, the weight of Oriz’s unconscious body on her shoulder no more burdensome than a backpack.
“What’s the hurry?” Anton asked as he matched her pace.
“A quest —”
Zoe bit off her sentence. Old reflexes encouraged her to keep the secret. Why spread worrisome knowledge? She could feel their hearts in her hands. They trusted her. It was her responsibility to shoulder every burden. To protect them all from harm.
Bella sprinted up to them.
“What quest?” she asked. “I didn’t get a quest.”
Zoe leaped a log. She landed, skidding in the snow and almost buckling forward, but her ankles dug into the earth, gripped, and launched her forward once more.
She had to explain it to them. She owed them the truth.
She outlined her quest as they moved, expanding on what she touched upon in the Magnifying Glass’s green room — so long ago it seemed now. Bella and Anton merely nodded. Death was not a new threat after all.
What had the system done to them?
After her explanation and a few questions, they continued in silence. They bounded between snow-covered trees like fleeing deer. The strange red eggs hung in the trees, a silent reminder of the alien world they moved through. But still, they moved with purpose, as Zoe led them toward the town like an arrow cutting through the air.
###
The swirling light hid the clouds, and when the snow fell, it was as though the hallucinogenic sky sloughed color. Gentle as feathers, drifting fat flakes cut the world in half.
Snow melted on their faces. Stung their eyes. Through the falling curtain, the trees thinned. Beyond their stark trunks, Zoe could see the grey blur of buildings. Still distant, it looked like the forest opened up onto a long hill before they reached the town itself.
It annoyed Zoe that the exit of the dungeon was so far from the town when the opening had been inside the plane right beside it.
She kept her senses peeled as she ran. Anton’s silver eyes patrolled. Was anyone watching them? She couldn’t be sure if it was paranoia, or merely the deluge of information swarming her brain. It was odd but reassuring to have numbers representing her attributes.
STATUS
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 28
Body: The Bell At The Center Of The World (Rank 2, Progress 8/10)
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 79
Vitality: 32
Dexterity: 25
Willpower: 78
Insight: 33
Skein: 246/246
Chains: 1
Free Points: 26
Titles: Intrepid, Lodestone, Fools Rush In (12/12), Quest Breaker, Glutton, True Believer, The Magnifying Glass
Techniques: Our Hearts Toll As One, The Self Reflects The World, Mind’s Eye Incision
Having a number for her Insight helped her categorize how heightened her senses were, as much as Insight related directly to sensory perception… She had 11 times more than before the system, but what did it matter that she could hear a leaf falling a hundred feet away if she wasn’t sure it was a leaf?
Her ability to sense with an aura was incredible, but she was growing aware of the limitations of each attribute. Willpower allowed her to expand to a greater distance, but her Insight and Dexterity limited the effective ability of her scouting. Could she even detect someone hiding under the snow or in a tree? Earlier she grasped the ravens, but they were just normal birds. Scared and confused animals that didn’t want the world to be the way it was.
If she dumped her free points into Dexterity or Insight, she would certainly become better at scouting, and other things… but she felt reluctant to spend the points in such a way. It was foolish to keep dumping points into Willpower and Might if she wanted to have balance, but should she pursue balance or specialization? Anton’s insight-based abilities would outpace hers unless she dedicated herself as single-mindedly as him. And that path felt wrong to her on a fundamental level. She lacked his curiosity.
This wasn’t something she could decide on her own. They had to discuss how they would function as a team. Or if they even would be a team once they returned to humanity…
Now she was getting morose.
She should have caught one of the birds.
Morose, and hungry.
“There’s something up ahead,” Anton said, as he stood where the trees broke on a clifftop.
There was no fence, and beyond the snowy lip lay a large truck stop spread out on the side of a frozen highway. Trees encircled both the road and the building, and piles of thick snow covered everything, including the row of a dozen trucks lined up outside the fuel pumps. A warm yellow glow spilled out from the windows of the gas station, like butter melting along the ground. Inside there were shelves of food and supplies, an empty dining area, and possibly showers.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“It is a beacon of home, of humanity, of wholesomeness, and it makes my heart ache,” Anton said.
Bella glanced at him.
“Yeah?”
“I’m thinking of writing a book about all this.”
“Can you even read?”
“Of course I can.”
“You think it’s as good as it looks?” Zoe asked.
That sobered them. They watched the building, but there was no sign of any people inside or out.
“There’s electricity,” Zoe added. “How do they have power when the plane got shut off?”
“Unless it’s not electricity,” Anton said. “We’ve seen stranger stuff…”
“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Bella responded.
The others agreed, nodding mutedly, drawn to distraction by the oasis of civilization before them.
“Let’s hurry then, looks like the path cuts down the hill.”
As they headed downhill, and through a break in the trees Zoe spied the buildings of the town. Grey, tall, but hills continued between them like a ring of ripples upon the land. It would take longer to reach the town than she had planned.
Though the sky wasn’t growing dark, the shadows were lengthening. Night, in its strange way, stole upon the land.
This just made Zoe even more excited to stop and rest somewhere safe.
####
Derek stood beside his boss, Roman, both of them squeezed inside Derek’s stealth technique as they watched the three strangers make their way down the long slope toward the gas station. Roman was his boss before the apocalypse. A middle manager for a regional hunting and farm supply store. The team was small, and the seven of them went on hunting trips once a season as a sort of team bonding activity.
It had been during one such excursion, as they huddled under tents in unexpected rain, that the System turned their lives inside out.
“That’s the ones I saw,” Derek pointed redundantly at the only visible humans beside him and Roman.
“They don’t look that dangerous to me.”
Roman wore a mask that muffled his voice, a large serpent’s skull cowled in crow feathers. It should have looked like a movie prop, but it bled menace into the air. A reminder of the demonic Skein burning through them both.
Besides the horrifying mask, they wore identical full-body camouflage. Traditional hunting clothes that were less than useful in the snowy environment they found themselves in. Derek shivered and wished that his stealth technique kept away the cold as much as prying eyes.
“I aimed at her, but I couldn't shoot. It was just like when we —”
“You’ve already explained yourself. She doesn’t believe they’re demons. They’re just food, like any other human,” Roman turned. Skeletal fangs framed a face hidden by shadows. “It pleased us you didn’t act on your own, Derek. Here, a gift from our patron.”
Roman’s hand settled on Derek’s shoulder.
[Hellfire Contract]
[Do you accept the gift of The One-Eyed Crow?]
[Yes] / [No]
There was no judgment in the System’s voice. There never was. That came from himself, from his memories of church as a child with his grandparents smacking his hand anytime he spoke or kicked the chairs in front of him or nodded off to sleep.
The System didn’t judge, but it encouraged. He could feel eagerness bubbling away behind the veneer of civility, like a maddened hotel clerk checking you into a room that would be your grave.
Or maybe the eagerness was himself.
Yes.
What other option could he take?
And the demonic Skein flowed into him. Recharging his pool and pushing him beyond his limits.
[Skein 23/56]
[Skein 47/56]
[Skein 76/56]
[Skein 82/56]
It burned as though Roman poured a kettle through his flesh and blood and bones. He drooped, but Roman's grip kept him upright through the ordeal. Derek's stealth technique folded away the grunts and moans of pain until there was no sound at all.
The three strangers were only halfway down the slope. Once they reached the base there was a quarter mile of highway before they reached the gas station. The woman was in the lead. Could she really be a human?
It was hard to explain, hard to justify his fear. And so he merely thanked his boss, and his boss’s boss, for the wondrous gift.
Roman nodded, but his gaze remained fixed on the approaching strangers.
“We prize them as food,” he said in a voice that wasn’t his — but what about him was his after he signed that contract? “Especially the unconscious woman. The one with grey skin.”
“Sure,” Derek said as he shrugged the hot Skein through his shoulders. “Should we worry about the mantis? They’ve been pushing closer every day and —”
“The mantis are only a danger if they are fools, and fools will not make suitable food.” Roman nodded like a puppet. “Escort me to the perimeter and then take up your position. If all goes to plan, our patron will offer us a much more substantial reward.”
They both glanced back toward the town with a shared sense of greed.
###
The descent down the slope was a pain in the ass. The path had vanished, and they had to pick their way over frozen rocks and compacted snow. It was slippery, and slow going. The threat of a long tumble and a snapped neck made everyone cautious, despite the temptation to sprint toward the glowing building less than a mile away.
The warm yellow light shone even more inviting as the surrounding snow grew darker. A neon sign pulsed in time with the sky: Serpent’s Nest Roadhouse.
Zoe stood a moment, breath fogging as the temperature dropped, resting Oriz’s weight, and enjoying the view. She knew she was on a time limit, but she could still –
“Everyone get back!” Anton yelled
Zoe moved before she even questioned him. Bella’s sword came up as Anton’s silver orbs raced closer and an orbit of surveillance.
“What is it?” Zoe asked.
The air shook with the sound of a monstrous chainsaw. Rumbles passed across her skin. A force beat against the aura of her Willpower, and she felt her senses retract, partly in a reflex recoiling like a hand withdrawing from a flame, and partly from the very pressure of this unknown presence.
Zoe looked up as a horse-sized praying mantis dive-bombed out of the frozen sky.
Zoe leaped back, throwing her arms out to catch Bella and Anton. She was just in time. The mantis struck the ground where she stood. Dirt and snow exploded outward and rained down on Zoe in cold clumps as she rolled away.
[The Self Reflects the World]
Mirror draped her in a scene of falling snow.
That should have been her first response, but she couldn’t rely on reflecting alone when she was carrying Oriz, no matter the woman’s level. Zoe didn’t feel right risking physical injuries with someone unconscious.
Setting her patient aside, Zoe stood to inspect the bug.
But the monster was unharmed.
The creature stood seven feet tall but around twelve feet long. Each blade was almost as long as Zoe was tall. Its hide gleamed like gunmetal, and its cold, composite eyes watched as she placed herself between her friends and the monster. It cocked its head. An infinity of reflections in that mosaic gaze. The mantis twitched and raised the enormous barbed scythes attached to its arms.
For a terrible moment, Zoe thought the creature was going to speak. Five wings fanned out from its back in a regal display, they caught the light like translucent blades, shimmering, before they beat, and buzzed. With the furious roar of a chainsaw, the mantis attacked.