With the last of her strength, Zoe lifted Anton off the ground.
[Skein 5/58]
Inhuman power coursing through her muscles. Even numb with pain and leaking blood to the point of collapse, she was stronger than any human before her.
That thought alone kept her going.
She nudged her free point into Vitality. Cold flickered across her ribs as the bleeding from her wound slowed. Now she had one extra Skein.
Anton weighed nothing, like a helium human balloon.
She blinked to clear her vision, clear her head, and aimed at the bone monstrosity towering over Bella’s broken body. The once-smiling woman still breathed. Ragged gasps spitting blood into the air.
Zoe hoped she would live.
She prayed they would all live.
Her plan had to work. There was no other option.
“I toss,” she said to Anton. “You jump.”
“I get it.”
He stood, balancing in her palms, and cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone.
“Hey, you ugly bastard!”
The monstrosity turned. Green eyes flashed with rage, and Zoe heaved.
[Skein 0/59]
She wished she hadn’t spent so much Skein on the airplane. She wished her control was better. Lashing out when a small amount would have sufficed. Maybe then the others wouldn’t lay cast about, broken, and dying.
But even the small boost of Skein to her Might made her muscles bulge. Increased her strength. Made her godlike.
Anton leaped from her hands at the last moment. The force of his kick sent her hands shooting back. He sailed through the air like a human javelin as dark spots bloomed in Zoe’s vision.
No Skein left, she was fading out. Consciousness slipped like sand through fingertips. But she gripped her mind with Willpower alone. Forced herself to focus, and watch.
This had to work.
Anton struck the monstrosity’s head. The clustered skulls snapped at him. But he ignored the chromelike teeth crunching on his flesh and thrust an arm through the open jaws. A cruel bronze dagger in his hand plunged into the pulsating pink mass. Teeth gnashed. Hands of spines and skulls reached up to grab him, but he thrust again and again.
The creature staggered. Arms falling limp. Huge taloned feet crushed graves. Stepping closer to Zoe.
A gout of blue blood sprayed into the air.
The creature’s legs fell apart as the puppeteer lost control. An inaudible, ethereal sound as cables of Skein snapped. Bones exploded out and rained down. Amidst its own carnage, the creature fell toward Zoe like a lopped tree.
Her eyes widened. She twisted, urging leaden muscles to move, just move! She rolled her limp body out of the way, as the creature crashed beside her.
An arm, a shoulder, a chest, a head of spilling skulls. Some fire still glowed green. A hand, each mirrored finger tipped in a grasping ribcage, shed bones as it reached for Anton. Plucked him, still stabbing wildly, and tossed him through the air.
The force of the throw snapped the monstrosity’s arm at the elbow.
Anton spun about and struck the branches of a tree. He didn’t fall out.
Zoe rolled over, vision fading, and stared at the pink mass. Blue blood oozed out of its stab wounds. The flesh quivered, pulled back like a slimy hood, and revealed a set of grimy teeth. Humanlike, grinning, the puppeteer hissed. A wet and squelching sound Zoe heard inside her head as much as her ears.
“I am not yet dead,” the words formed from ill intent alone. “But you soon will be.”
Weak strands of Skein cast out from the wrinkled creature. They flopped on the ground. Slapped down beside the scattered skeletons. Mirrored bones rustled, rattled, and drifted closer to the monstrosity.
No.
Zoe couldn’t let it happen. The creature bled. Slowly dying. She couldn’t give it one last chance to strike at them. She crawled closer. Each movement almost impossible. Her limbs sluggish as warmth filled her. Darkness swept. She closed her eyes. Couldn’t even feel the torn dirt under her arms as she crawled.
Sleep beckoned, but she refused.
No Skein. No strength. But she had one last trick up her sleeve. Her fingers closed around something smooth.
A mirrored bone.
And she reached for the system inside her mind.
[Level up! You are now level 3.]
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Earth: Vitality +4]
* [Mirror: Insight +4]
* [Sun: Might +2, Vitality +1, Insight +1]
The boost to Vitality would help heal after the fight. Help survive the dungeon to come. But if that was how she thought, she would have chosen Blood back on the plane.
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A boost to Might was compelling, as always. She could admit to herself the gains in strength were addicting.
But, as much as they tempted her, she glossed over Earth and Sun.
Attributes weren’t her current priority.
“I choose Mirror.”
The whispered words left her mouth, and frigid cold replaced the warmth in her limbs. She gasped. Her eyes snapped opened. The world seethed with information. The mirrored bones glowed with a translucent, reflective aura. She breathed, and that aura bent toward her. Long wisps, ribbons of pure reflection, flowed towards her mouth.
The pulsating mass radiated fear. Teeth chattered, but she heard no words. The mirrored bones frayed. Split. Became a tangle of mirrored tendrils slithering toward her tired body.
She felt, could see, the chords of Skein sent out by the puppeteer. Sigil-lined portals opened upon its skin. From them, cables shot out and wrapped around the mirrored bones. Entangled them, tried to keep them from sliding away.
But the monstrosity was dying, and the System’s confirmation of her choice reinforced Zoe’s will to tear the bones from her enemy’s control. The puppeteer’s Skein frayed under the combined weight of her Willpower and the ethereal consciousness that spoke inside her head.
Though the puppeteer animated the bones, they were not living. They were just raw materials. And Zoe wanted it for herself.
She would take it.
Though the puppeteer poured the last of its Skein into its spell, it didn’t stand a chance.
The mass of bones split apart. Disintegrating into mirrored snakes that slithered toward Zoe. They wrapped around her, sinuous across her flesh, and poured into her wounds. She screamed. Writhed on the ground. Revenge forgotten. Her plan forgotten. Only pain remained, as Mirror replaced her substance.
Black gunk oozed from the wounds. She vomited. A taste of burnt rubber and blood. Feeling under her skin like cockroaches fleeing a burning mattress.
She gasped, sobbed, and waited to pass out.
[Stop the pain. Reject the System.]
[Yes] / [No]
Through gritted teeth, she spat her defiance. Pain flared, white hot, blinding as gunk slid from her wound. Time slipped away. She expected the torment to last forever.
But the pain faded, and her vision returned. A clear blue sky above her extended up to a mirrored curve.
[Skein 4/63]
Part of her hoped for a Title after incorporating Mirror, but she supposed with all the people in the world it made sense someone else would have chosen it first.
She sighed and gingerly sat up. The aftershocks of pain made movement cautious, and slow, though only the old wound hurt. She felt it clotting. Hopefully, it would heal for good soon enough. Carefully, she brought herself to her feet and staggered over to the puppeteer.
It bared its teeth. Skin ballooned, sagged, and a bloodshot eye laced with green fire stared up at her from between folds. She understood its rage. Words that were not words conveyed in the ancient glower.
A timeless monstrosity plucking lives for centuries. It could not die. It would suck the flesh from her bones and make them dance. It was —
Zoe raised a foot and stomped. Crushed pink flesh under her heel until parts were sludge. She spat onto the creature as cold energy coursed through her veins. Filled her muscles. Her entire being flooded with cold.
She exhaled a frosted breath and staggered off to tend to the others.
Notifications echoed at the back of her head.
[Puppeteer of Bones defeated! Skein rewards distributed based on individual contribution.]
[Calculating contribution…]
[Contribution calculated. Distributing rewards…]
[Level up! You are now level 4.]
[Level up! You are now level 5.]
[Level up! You are now level 6.]
[The void within you grows. Do not let your hunger exceed your grasp].
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Earth: Vitality +4]
* [Mirror: Insight +4]
* [Sun: Might +2, Vitality +1, Insight +1]
The warning about the void sent a chill down her spine, but she didn’t really understand its meaning. She cursed internally at how she was stumbling through the dark. A rat in a shifting maze. How long could she keep living like this? How long could she even keep living?
Not for the first time, and she doubted for the last, she wished she had been faster in entering the Tutorial. So much of what was happening made absolutely no sense.
She neared Bella and dismissed the prompts from her mind. The woman lay gasping, eyes wide. She reached out a hand, and Zoe clasped it as she knelt beside her.
“We killed it,” Zoe said.
Bella chuckled.
“I got the same notification.”
She still gripped the sword in her hand. The blade remained hot, but no longer radiated intense heat like before. Blue scabs lined the runes.
Zoe checked Bella’s broken leg and gasped with shock. Bone no longer jutted out from the skin.
“You set your leg?”
“The sword,” Bella said through gritted teeth. “It's pulling me back together.”
Zoe checked the wound. Something slithered and stirred beneath Bella’s flesh. Bone clicked together and blood oozed from the wound. As she watched, a metallic thread stitched the wound closed from the inside.
Bella moaned with pain as her injuries sealed themselves. She squeezed Zoe’s hand tight through the procedure.
“What kind of sword is that?” Zoe asked.
Bella glanced at the blade with a complicated expression. Longing? Disgust?
“I don’t know… The System calls it a runeblade. I know it will strengthen me, but to be honest… I’m scared.”
Zoe understood the feeling.
“At least it’s fixing your wounds.”
Bella shook her head.
“It’s pulling me together, but it’s not healing me.”
Zoe stared again at the perfect stitches. Of all the things she saw so far since the world changed, this struck her as the most magical. After years of study, of practice, seeing a wound heal itself left a feeling of lightness she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Reminded her of the sunny day when she opened the clinic. A space for herself. She smiled before relief bubbled up inside her. First, she snickered, then she laughed.
Bella joined and, hands held tight, the two women cackled until Anton fell out of the tree and crashed onto the ground behind them.
He limped over, smiling in his odd way.
“You both leveled up?”
They nodded, and he rubbed his hands together. Though one arm still seemed stiff and sore.
“Good,” he looked at Zoe. “What’s next?”
Bella looked up at her as well.
“You killed the Bone Puppeteer, and you took charge before… so, what’s next, boss?”
Zoe nodded as the responsibility slipped around her neck like a collar. She didn’t need the threat of the quest anymore. Her actions had proved it to herself. She didn’t want these people to die.
So, what next?
“Find Joel, check on Cassy. We make sure everyone is looked after and leveled up. We rest, restore our Skein, and then we head through the gate,” she gazed toward the dark passage in the distant walls. An open mouth with hidden teeth, waiting for them to march inside. “Let’s see what else we can kill in this dungeon.”