Light spilled out amongst the flowers. Ferns bobbed and leaves swirled around Zoe. She stood in the garden, staggering under the weight of the System's attention as numbers raced down her spine.

[Calculating reward…]

She felt the system unspooling, linking her to some other entity, something…

Vast.

Her eyelids fluttered, and in the darkness, a blade passed overhead. Its edges sliced apart the horizons. Zoe fell to her knees under this sky of bright steel.

The sky noticed her, and it looked, and she felt upon her soul a pressure to part. To slice herself apart and make way for the blade. The sword looked upon the waters of the world and it spoke:

[Cut]

And through her, subdividing, decimating, again, and again, and a hundred more times, until cubes of Zoe floated upon a sea dyed red as a ruby in the sky.

She gasped upon a floor of cold red crystal. Severed lips — no, scarred — her body intact once more but struggling. She heaved for air that was not there. She pulled and pulled and only filled herself with emptiness.

Rue bent over her.

No mistaking him. Human, but less, more, his features chiseled into angelic form. He watched her with ageless eyes like a fisherman staring at a fish. Too small? Throw her back? She glared at him, fingers clawing the fine crystal dust that lay beneath her. With her high Vitality, it would take minutes to choke to death.

She made fists. Forced herself to sit up. He watched her, unmoving, smug in his power. Her chain coiled around her arm.

She threw herself at him.

He stepped to the side. One finger deflected her grasping chain, and the other tapped her throat. She hit the ground and gasped.

Sweet air flowed through her lungs. Taste of blood in her throat. She spat. Breathed. Taste of ancient dust and the sound — between lungs like bellows — of ancient battle and bloodshed soaked into the world itself.

“I admire tenacity,” Rue said. “Some might say there is a time and a place for tenacity, and another for respect, but they are wrong. To be tenacious is to ignore time and place, it is to insist upon oneself. So what if they strike you down? We are all struck down in the end.”

Zoe wiped her scarred lips and sat up.

“I do not do this for your admiration.”

“Of course you don’t, but you have it. Tell me, what do you think of my trophy room?”

Zoe scowled at his casual dismissal of her anger — no, not dismissal — approval. He received her anger as though it were only natural. Only right. And that made it all the worse! But she calmed her heart.

Either Rue or the system summoned her here. There was nothing she could do to interfere with them. Not yet, at least.

So, she examined her surroundings.

It was a room with many arches. Each without a ceiling or walls, they stood in a haphazard array, as though a giant had buried granite rings in the red soil. Within the interior of the rings lay shelves, and on the shelves were items that bled power. The air rippled, flickered, tore… and Zoe averted her eyes from gazing at any item for too long. Stars glinted as though off the tips of countless descending scalpels. The wind whispered through her hair, and she wondered at that, absently, that there could be a wind where there was no air.

But the treasure dragged her out of her reverie.

The shelves held all manner of things; flowers, clothes, daggers, swords, and broken handles, cuttings, manuscripts, pills, even sleeping creatures curled up in their nooks. There was no reason or pattern to the way they were arranged.

Rue leaned against an arch, a dagger on the shelf beside him with a handle of bone and a blade that almost wasn’t there. She hated how he waited, with aristocratic patience, for her to speak first.

But she let the hate simmer. No need to lose whatever opportunity was at her feet. The Grasping Vine always advanced.

“You said this was a trophy room?” she asked.

He nodded.

“One of many. This is a lower-tiered room. If you were to come to the Planetary trophy room, the ambient energies would tear you limb from limb. Maybe one day though, if you continue accepting my quests…”

The question dangled, but she ignored it.

For now.

She stood and dusted off her black scaled dress.

“So why am I here?” she said.

“Good, no respect between enemies. I approve,” he chuckled at her scowl and the sound crept through her veins, stirring her heart like the drums of war. “You are here to collect your reward. A personally given quest deserves a personally selected reward, don’t you agree?”

She didn’t want to agree with him but… she wouldn’t turn down a gift of such power.

“How does it work?”

“Take your pick from this treasury. You can have anything in this room.”

“Anything?”

Rue nodded, and greed out won anger. She started inspecting the shelves.

The arches were laid out in such a way that she could walk in any direction and find another one. The path spiraled and circled and everywhere she looked, a new treasure shone or glowed or sucked at her attention. It reminded her, with a pang of nostalgia, of scrolling through a streaming service and trying to pick something to watch before her meal cooled.

She drowned in choice, and in the back of her mind, the Gambler’s countdown ticked away.

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

She saw boots of scarlet leather and blood oozing from the seams. A bottle with an island floating inside with a thousand tiny boats catching even smaller fish. A crown made of finger bones lashed together with hair. Each item pulsed with power, some wriggled out the corner of her eye or danced with flames of all colors. After minutes it was clear, she had only scratched the surface of what lay available, but none of it had a description. She didn’t know what any of these things were, let alone what they did.

She gritted her teeth after a few minutes of wandering and looked at Rue. He stood in the same position, in the same pose, with one delicate eyebrow raised in expectation.

She almost asked to leave at the sight of his expression, but she ground out the words the smug bastard was waiting for.

“Can you help me choose?”

He nodded.

“You get three questions.”

She scowled and walked past him to point at something that seemed like a primitive squirrel trapped in amber. The cute animal was startled, but frozen without struggle. Her Skein thrummed against its Skein. Her Dexterity fumbled against the shape outlined by the resonance. Something about it connected to her deeply.

"What is this?”

He walked up to her with his hands behind his back.

“You don’t know?”

“How would I know? Earth has only had the system for a few weeks.”

“But you completed the quest, didn’t you? Once you’ve interacted with a polyp, you’ll be able to scan and identify any system-tagged object.”

“Oh.”

Zoe blinked, she scowled, she concentrated — glaring at the frozen squirrel until her eyes watered.

“How do I do that?”

“This isn’t my specialty, Lorilla would be much more gentle, but like this…”

She felt a whisper of pressure, like a thumb stroking her brain, and her attention shifted like two ideas locking into place. The squirrel popped into clarity in a way that had nothing to do with sight.

[Amberstuck Grenade: a reusable trap that petrifies its targets]

The words pressed against her mind lightly, without the creeping dread of the System’s true voice. But behind the description, she felt a curtain, and she pushed it aside.

[Essence: wood +6, blood +6, time +4]

The words floated into her brain, and Zoe let out a little gasp of wonder. Everything was about to get much easier with this little tool.

“It’s not a bad device,” said Rue as mistook her interest for the item itself. “We collected it from an alpine region on a shattered moon. Our reward for defending the Werewolves, but… that’s a story for another meeting. I didn’t think you would pick this one.”

The amount of Skein available inside the treasure was astounding. It could alter her build, and patch up the deficiencies in her stats. But more than that, Zoe was fixated on the time essence. Twice now she had seen proof of crafting with time. Her [Fools Rush In] title was one example of how to control time, and here was another. What could she do if she broke them down to ingredients? What else could she make?

“If I’ll be honest, it’s a little pedestrian for one such as you.”

Rue’s words pulled her out of her fascination.

“What do you mean by ‘one such as me’?”

“You’re all about charging forward, and this item is all about patience and trickery. Just look at your build. You have exceptional Might and Willpower for your level, so you can hit hard and interrupt Skein abilities. Your Dexterity and Vitality make your ability to hit and be hit a little underwhelming. You’re a big hammer with lots of windup and impact, but no finesse. Though your chain makes up for that. Quite the interesting artifact you have there, may I inspect it?”

She was about to say no, of course not, when the treacherous chain slithered over to Rue and into his hands.

Zoe felt his grip on the chain as he inspected the links. She expected him to be cold, but his skin was warm as the sun-kissed hood of a car. The Black Star system stirred in her mind like a cat in a sunbeam.

[Ding!]

[I like you]

[Do you want to be my friend?]

Rue patted the chain, but let it go.

“This is remarkable,” he said. “I can’t believe the Smith let you keep it.”

Zoe recalled that particular conversation and shuddered.

“I think he was trying to prove a point.”

“That’s all they’re ever trying to do,” Rue sighed. “All anyone does once they reach this level. Mess with the way things are out of boredom and justify it later.”

“Like destroying my world?”

“I destroyed nothing. I combined your world with the other planets around your sun. I brought new life and new opportunities. What you called Earth was as insignificant as dirt compared to what it has become. I don’t expect any gratitude, because of what you have lost, but you can feel the power thrumming inside your veins. That would never have been were it not for me… and I should add… all worlds fall to the Crimson Armada, eventually. It is just fate that brought the two of us together.”

A soothing voice echoed through the arches.

“You blame fate? You who so loves to rail against it?”

Lorilla stepped out from behind an arch as though it were a curtain in a boudoir. Zoe’s breath caught at the sight of the beautiful goddess. It was hard to pin down her features — what was the color of loveliness? For her hair fell in such a hued cascade. What shape is romance? Such lines were her cheekbones, and her eyes… could one mine and pluck crystalized hope streaked through with infatuation…

“Enough glamor,” Rue growled like a sword ringing against the stone.

The loveliness fell away, and Lorilla stood, slightly shorter than Zoe, in a brilliant red dress — an exact scarlet duplicate of Zoe’s own — with her pale pink hair in flowing locks and her pallid skin shining with the light of stars.

“What are you doing here?” Rue asked. His Willpower buckled and sent the red dust dancing. “I thought I wouldn’t see you until the game.”

Lorilla strode forward, her presence — Willpower? Dexterity? — slid between the gusts of Rue’s intent. Zoe found it hard to breathe as the two beings wrapped her up in their desires.

Rue’s fingers — surprisingly delicate — fell upon her shoulders. His grip pulled her a step towards him. The insistent pressure wasn’t as flesh-tearingly terrifying as when the Gambler held her, but it still outclassed her so much it was like looking at the sun.

“She is mine,” Rue said. “My experiment, my weapon. My. Damned. Champion.”

Lorilla straightened, imperious.

“I do not come here as your friend, Rue. I have a stake in her. I defended her against the Smith when you were in the depths of self-pity.”

Rue’s fingers lifted from Zoe’s fingers as light as dust in the wind. The technique wrapped around her just as fast, and just as soft.

Zoe stood frozen. Lorilla raised an eyebrow at Rue and held his glare. She smiled but did not move. Even the air hung still as Rue held the entire room at knifepoint. Zoe held her breath, struggling not to tremble. Sweat beaded on her skin, and split apart as it flowed, sliced by blade after blade pressed against her skin. Her vision darkened as her Vitality-enhanced lung capacity gave out.

Lorilla blinked.

The technique vanished, and Rue stepped away through the arches.

“Very well then!” he called over his shoulder. “We both make our selections and she picks! The best possible guidance from two of the masters of the universe, what better prize than that? Or do you disagree, Lorilla?”

He leaned through an arch with a slight smile.

“You better hurry!” he called as he pulled himself away amongst the rewards. “In forty minutes the Gambler will call us onto his show. And who knows which of us will be alive after that?”