As the Mantis Queen rose out of the water, her stature became even more majestic. Her frigid influence rippled through her chamber and the temperature plummeted. Even the flames tangled through Trinch’s Skein guttered lower.

Attendants scurried to place a long robe around her body. The rich scarlet fabric hung down around her body and the trim of fluffy white wool dragged along the frosted ground. Trinch wasn’t sure what creature it came from, since he’d seen nothing but mantis on the floating island. The bugs were thorough in taking control.

She gazed at him with an unreadable expression.

“You wear the flesh of one of my children, is this an insult or attempted infiltration?”

“Neither.”

“Then why?”

“I have come to help with your… weakness.”

The mantis drones hissed and clicked at him. Spiteful Skein swelled and washed against him as the contrasting elements caused turmoil. Trinch didn’t budge from his position.

“You are bold, stranger,” she said, and he detected approval. “What do you know of my weakness?”

“Your weakness is your strength. Your power has outstripped your followers. You can no longer create children capable of surviving your domain. I offer this fiery body and my experience of the system. You are my queen, let me be your king.”

The hissing drones grew silent at his statement. Even the queen seemed taken aback.

“Audacity!” one drone screeched, and the rest swarmed Trinch.

Element-empowered scythes slashed for his body.

[Cuddly as a Cactus]

Flames of Skein gouged out from his exoskeleton and lanced through the flesh of those fast enough to close the distance. They fell, smoking, but one larger brute weathered the attack. He strode forward, his exoskeleton scorched, and smashed down with a blunted scythe of stone.

[Greasy Black Peel]

The crushing weapon hit Trinch, and his body split apart. The blow crushed his flesh, but a new Trinch stepped away from the peel. His Skein was lower than he liked, but that was no problem.

He sidestepped the next attack as it slammed into the ground and cracked the ice. With the nimble swiftness of a flame, he leaped upon the larger drone’s shoulders.

It hissed at him with human teeth, and Trinch smiled in return.

[Heart’s an Empty Hole]

His chest opened as the Skein inside him stretched apart to create a true vacuum. A yawning maw of darkness sucked heat from the air. Ice crystals danced as Trinch’s empty heart pulled ribbons of rippling heat from the large drone’s head.

With a crack, the mantis drone’s exoskeleton skull burst as its brain froze. It stood like a statue as Trinch flitted to the ground on his 9 wings.

He was out of Skein, and at the Winter Queen’s mercy, and so he bowed once more.

“I did not come to hear the opinion of drones,” he said.

“You are a warrior, and your techniques almost match my own in perfection.”

Trinch nodded, willing to let such an inaccuracy slide for the moment.

“Thank you, my queen.”

“But I wonder, would one as free as you be willing to shackle yourself to my Monstrous Quest?”

Trinch looked up at her. His compound eyes bulged regardless, but now he truly was surprised.

“A monstrous quest?”

She waved a scythe in his direction.

[Monstrous Quest of the Winter Queen: Rule your island and spread your empire beyond]

Trinch nodded as understanding dawned. ‘Spread your empire beyond’ had no endpoint. This was not a quest that could end, it would become a permanent weight upon the soul driving them onwards. As the empire grew larger, it would become exponentially harder to expand.

A cruel impossibility of the system.

Yet what in the system was not cruel?

He stepped forward and touched his crimson blade against her pale blue war scythe.

Her blade pressed against his, seeking comfort, before it retreated.

“Why would you want to be chained in such a way?”

Trinch smiled as much as his new face allowed.

“Don’t worry. I have worked with shackles before,” a hint of his old joviality infected his voice. “Together we shall conquer this world. We shall rule as queen and king, as wife and husband, as Mrs and Mr Claws.”

A tear formed in one of the Mantis Queen’s eyes. She plucked it with her war scythe where it froze like a droplet of diamond. Its existence seemed to confuse her more than Trinch, and though he couldn’t read the depths of emotion warring behind her icy demeanor, he could understand their source.

It was lonely at the top.

She turned to him, her wings folded, her scarlet robe wrapped around her body in a way that made even such a statuesque giant diminutive.

“Why do you want this? Why do you want… me?”

Trinch gestured past her at the walls of her experimental chamber. The mists had cleared from the heat of his battle. Essence-rich treasures from the island studded the walls, fixed in place, glowing, pulsing with power. The white-chitin walls held them securely as they saturated the room with Skein and power. He pointed at one particular item in the back. A heavy item that throbbed with thunderous life.

“Because, my queen, you already have my heart.”

###

On the other side of the island, deep beneath the polyp, lay a chamber of polished black stone. It was cubic and industrious; the walls lined with benches and shelves, and the benches and shelves lined with tools in their spaces.

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A large construct lay in the center of the room. It resembled a metallic squid the size of a school bus. Sleek, aerodynamic, chrome, but for now it lay as dead and inert on the black stone floor as any husk of cuttlefish washed up on a sandy shore.

Two men paced back and forth before the construct’s nose. One was plump, the other severe, but both had expressions etched with worry.

“Maybe you could summon a demon that could finish the craft?” the plump one, Larry, asked.

The severe one, Severin, scowled at him.

“How many ways are you going to ask that same question? With the polyp under someone else's control, we don’t have the extra juice to summon more demons!”

Their eyes darted toward the pipe jutting out from the ceiling. Long threadlike chords trailed from the opening toward various nipples on the squid-like craft. Where they had once glowed with the golden Skein of the polyp, they were now as drab and dark as the walls encasing them. What had been a workshop had become a tomb.

“But we summoned that guardian!” Larry cried out. “I don’t understand —”

“Exactly, you don’t understand! But I do! The polyp let us work beyond our means, and now, we are stuck with our damned measly means. Look at you, fat and faint-hearted, how are you supposed to help me summon anything? And even if I wanted to try, it would mean banishing the guardian. Let me remind you, she is the only reason we are even alive!

“Can we finish the ship on our own?”

“I guess we’ll have to!”

Larry nodded, his face downcast.

Severin sighed. He rubbed at his eyes.

“I’m sorry Larry, I’m just stressed and scared and I don’t want to be eaten by god damned bugs.”

“I know,” Larry mumbled. “I’m sorry I’m so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, it’s just… you’re frustrating sometimes, and I’m already frustrated. Look, how about we have lunch and then get to work? The craft is almost complete, how hard can it be to finish?”

Severin examined the ship once more.

[Lesser Island Skipper: with a focus on maneuverability over power, this craft is capable of flight between islands. It can carry 24 people comfortably.

[Completion Rate: 86.7%]

It had been ticking up the completion rate quickly for the past few days and should have been done in the morning. Everything was all set for them — and some select others — to make their escape.

But now that was all ruined.

Because Sister Salt refused to listen to him about those damned savages. Those damned barbarians!

He snarled, his fists clenching with impotent rage. How was he supposed to help people when they kept ignoring him? She could have escaped with them. Her fortune telling was powerful, even if she couldn’t control it… but now it was all ashes.

With any luck, he could stay down here and wait out the mantis invasion until they finished the ship. However, even the guardian demon he summoned would eventually die under the onslaught of the mantis.

Or maybe he would just be lucky and have a damned aneurysm like his father before him.

Another sigh escaped his lips, but Larry’s drowned it out.

“What’s wrong now, Larry?” Severin asked with growing impatience.

“I, um, I forgot…”

“What?”

Larry poked his fingers together.

“Please don’t be mad, but I forgot the food.”

Severin blinked.

“You mean we’re down here with no food?”

“Yeah…”

Should he starve himself and work on the craft? His father always said fasting improved clarity, but that man’s brain had pulled its trigger. No, maybe he should eat Larry. The plump bastard would probably self-bast.

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Anytime, aneurysm, anytime.

“We’ll wait until the guardian gives the all-clear, and then you’re going to sneak out of here and get us enough food for the voyage. We’ll stay here until the craft is ready.”

Larry nodded and opened his mouth, but said nothing.

Severin walked over and gripped Larry’s shoulders. Gently at first, and then he shook him, hard.

“You useless, useless…” he released him. “Fine, I’ll come with you. Once the coast is clear, we’ll head up and get the supplies and the others who are coming, and then… then! We’ll stay here and finish the ship. Any complaints?”

Larry shook his face as tears streaked down his face. Severin gave him a gentle slap, and then another harder one. Why was he surrounded by such incompetence?

“Don’t worry, Larry, we’ll get out of here. We’ll get out of here just fine.”

Anytime, aneurism! Please! Anytime at all!

###

Ben lounged beside a crystal lake in a small park surrounded by skyscrapers. Smoke still stained the buildings, and a foamy scum lined the edges of the lake, the sky was an ominous red with pulsing veins, but otherwise, it was a good day.

In fact, it was the first day off that the system gave them since the tutorial began.

There were ten more days of this grueling hell before they received their missions and were released. From what they were told, the outside world — the old world — earth that was — had descended into an anarchic state of dog eat dog, and some of those dogs were people, while some were monsters.

He ran a hand through his long luxurious blonde hair. Level 20. A level a day. It had been enough to keep him in the forefront of the classes, but with the help of Mr. Biggs, they had kept their little cohort at the tip-top of the classes.

And all it took was a few unfortunate accidents.

He spied his friends coming from across the park and cracked open the bottle of wine he bought from the tutorial polyp.

Besides classes on weapons skills and technique formation, it instructed them on interacting with polyps and other system biomechanics. It was a crash course, and not intended to substitute for years of training, but it should be enough to set them light-years ahead of the competition on Earth.

Ben couldn’t wait to walk amongst those pitiful wrecks of humanity as a god. He grinned to himself. Yeah, he was getting egotistical, but with a jawline this good, it was only natural.

It was only right.

His friends neared. They met in a class on elemental essence identification. Assigned to study the same lump of rock, each of them had delved beyond the basic [stone] essence to discover traces of [metal], [sand], [bone], and even [silence]. To Ben, it reminded him of the labs in his undergrad. It was the first moment he felt a genuine connection with the other people trapped in this hellhole.

They walked up to the grassy slope where he had a picnic blanket spread out under a dying tree. Yellow leaves fell sickly and wound through the air. Each leaf avoided touching him through a subconscious use of his technique.

[Not the Face]

His friends gathered around him, and he took the moment to step outside of himself and his ego — at least a little — to pour four glasses of the sparkling rose.

He handed a glass to Gwen, a petite blonde with a knack for rapiers who he was hoping to bed, Miguel, the mustachioed pilot who had been flying a plane over the Pacific Ocean when the system arrived, and Nicole, a slender waif of a girl who was quite pretty once she had run out of goth makeup in the tutorial. He was hoping to bed Nicole again and perhaps persuade Gwen to join them. After all, the wine was superb; the day was young, and they were all the strongest in the city.

All except for Mr Biggs and his damned left hand Giuseppe.

But Ben didn’t want to think about them, or their plans once they returned to earth, or his place in their plans. He didn’t want to think about tracking down the people he knew, the people with debts, and extracting their power for Mr Biggs. He didn’t want to think about using his beautiful skills for something so ugly.

And so, with a toss of his lovely blonde hair, he didn’t think about those things. He clinked glasses with his friends, drank the wine, and focused on something that made him happy.

Himself.