Bella made her selection and time snapped forward. A stench like burning cinnamon assaulted her nostrils as a weight filled her hand. She stared at the silky black ponytail hanging from her grip. A ribbon the color of sunflowers kept the foot-long length of hair together with a simple bow. Blood dripped from the roots. The mass twitched in her grip like ten thousand leeches torn from their meal.
[Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy received.]
[Activate item to receive Garb Of The Monsoon Fairy (+20 to all stats).]
[Activate item to receive Lightning Dash (Use the Monsoon Fairy’s shoes to transform yourself and carried objects into a bolt of lightning).]
[Activate item to receive Lightning Slash (Blast lightning from the Monsoon Fairy’s wand).]
The information flowed into Bella’s mind, and she knew how to activate the item. Her Skein quivered at the ready. The Technique descriptions were simple enough, but her understanding would deepen once she activated the Charm. It writhed in her hands like a forbidden instruction manual begging to be read.
Exciting.
The runeblade keened through her mind. A hungry longing to add the Charm’s power to their own. With the Charm, she could overcome the cowering fear. She could move. She could be strong.
Strong enough to save them all.
But she hesitated as she stared at the Charm’s thirsting roots. Each strand ended in a serrated, twitching barb. Flecks of scalp and scabbed blood clung to the spines. The damp lock of hair made her want to vomit.
But she had no item for nerves.
The yacht was bearing down on them. Less than a city block away. It rode a black hole like the Grim Reaper’s pleasure craft. A dread funnel that swallowed the lake. Inside the black tunnel, she saw no sign of the cobblestone streets and rotting, once-picturesque, houses. Were they hidden by that shaft of darkness? Were they destroyed?
It drew closer.
Anton and Zoe kicked at the mirrodiles scrambling up the roof. The stubby claws of the reptiles slipped on the tiles, but the force of their thrashing, the sweep of their tails, propelled them up toward the party. Escaping the bloody froth of water. Cranetongues extended and pecked. Honking with the fear of the undersea dead.
Anton kicked with precision. Face straining against the yacht’s terrible pressure. His Dexterity made up for his Might as he knocked mirrodiles off their purchase and down into the grasping bones.
Beside him, Zoe dug her fingers into the tiles and swung all her might in a savage hammer kick. The blow crunched the mirrodile’s head into the tiles. Shattered teeth fell from its jaw as it slid down into the water.
Were they getting any death energy for the kills stolen by the skeletons?
Bella would find out for herself. Her grip around the lock of hair tightened, and she actuated the Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy.
[Skein Activation cost: 40]
[Insufficient Skein available]
The yacht drew closer.
###
A shiver ran from Zoe’s toes to her fingers, like she stuck her feet out of the blankets on a winter’s morning with the window open. The cool chill of death energy from the mirrodile torn to shreds in the foaming water. She hadn’t landed the killing blow, but she had contributed. It felt as though fighting generated some kind of fuel in the air, but only death provided the spark.
The cold worried her. Brought anxieties of entropy. Even in battle, as fear pinned her limbs, her mind strayed to the heat death of the universe, or was it the yacht’s aura of fear that sent her thoughts in such an infinite direction?
It wasn’t enough energy to level up. Not sharing the kills with the skeletons. And that sent another shiver of worry. Were the skeletons leveling up as they slayed mirrodiles?
She hoped they were mere puppets, but that brought its own dread. What kind of puppeteer could control an entire town? She didn’t want to find out.
Her Willpower allowed some movement. Barely any, but more than the others. She kicked a mirrodile away.
The yacht drew closer. A figure stood on the deck draped in tattered grey robes. Their wide-brimmed hat shaded their face. From that shadowed face, yellow eyes like twin volcanoes spouting the roiling fear.
She could run away.
Leap from one spire to another. Run along the long spine of a roof exposed and make her way to the safety of the island.
Be a coward.
But live.
It was cowardice if there were witnesses, but these witnesses would not last. How long could anyone last against the imposing figure on the yacht?
Bella leaned against her. Limbs stiff with the fear. Zoe hated the way she felt like a dead weight. But they were strangers, or were they friends?
“Take this,” Bella whispered and pressed something into Zoe’s hand.
Something horrendous.
Black hair wriggled against her skin. The ribbon glowed the color of dehydrated piss. She wanted to throw the item into the water.
[Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy received.]
[Activate item to receive Garb Of The Monsoon Fairy (+20 to all stats).]
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
[Activate item to receive Lightning Dash (Use the Monsoon Fairy’s shoes to transform yourself and carried objects into a bolt of lightning).]
[Activate item to receive Lightning Slash (Blast lightning from the Monsoon Fairy’s wand).]
Bella grabbed her shoulder.
“I don’t have enough Skein,” her voice strained. “Use it.”
Zoe locked eyes with the other woman and nodded. She abandoned all thoughts of cowardice, gripped the Charm, and accessed her Skein.
The second the strings of power within her activated, the hair flowed. An answering bundle of Skein inside the Charm sought hers. The hair raced up her arm, faster than she could react, and up her shoulder and neck. She grunted as the barbed tips pierced her scalp. Tendrils dug through her flesh like roots. Sought her spinal cord.
Latched themselves there like a parasite, and pulled upon her Skein.
The long tail of black hair hung limp for a moment before it fluttered in a breeze that was not there. Electricity crackled up and down the length.
Static prickled Zoe’s hair and skin. She floated, fingertips leaving their grooves in the mirrored tile, and rose into the air. Lightning crackled down from the unseen heavens and struck her between the eyes. She buckled as the electricity flowed through her. Wrapped around her spine. The sickening shifting of flesh as her body ballooned out, as though fleeing the Monsoon Fairy’s power. Her vertebrae separated, and the lightning sealed itself into the spaces. With a snap, her spine compressed, her flesh settled, and the power of the Monsoon Fairy was hers.
Light the color of a fireflies dance sheathed her body. A kiss like warm rain upon her skin, and the light. Lightning flashed from her heels, and a matching set of heels slid into place. Thunder rumbled out, and a gilded tiara settled upon her brow.
[Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy activated.]
[+20 to all attributes.]
[Lightning Dash Technique equipped.]
[Lightning Slash Technique equipped.]
[Duration 40 seconds.]
[Extending the duration costs 1 Skein per second.]
[Skein 20/117]
Damn, her Skein was low. It cost 40 to activate. No wonder Bella gave it to her. With the activation, instructions flowed into her mind. She flicked her wrist, and a slender ivory wand appeared in her hand. A sunflower ribbon trailed from the tip, half fabric, and half skein. It enhanced her attributes with a warmth like the smell of earth after rain.
Bella and Anton stared at her with wide eyes, and she grinned as her enhanced Vitality healed her burned lips. Forty Skein gave her Forty seconds on the clock. She had to be fast, but she knew she could be fast.
She still floated, as two translucent wings hummed from her back. Their use felt as natural as breathing.
“Alright,” she said in a bubbly voice. “Let’s do this.”
She gripped Bella’s hand.
“Are you ready?”
“You look like a — ”
Zoe clicked her heels and became lightning.
She dragged Bella into the transformation and they flashed across the water with searing speed and struck the island. Sand fused into a spray of glass. Bella fell into the scorched crater.
“— fairy…” She looked around, blinking. “What? That was so — ”
Zoe clicked her heels and flashed back to the spire in the lake where Anton shook away the rotting hands grasping at his shoes. Thunder rolled in the wake of her arrival. Anton raised his brows, but the fear of the coming yacht sealed his mouth. Even she felt the pressure, and the Charm boosted her Willpower to 55.
The yacht cut through the water less than a hundred yards from the house. The mirrored planks presented a mockery of the idyllic lake. Pink waves thrashed in the angular hull’s reflection. The figure on the deck — the dungeon’s final boss, she assumed — raised a hand. Palm out, fingers splayed, and a circular pattern sprung into life. A band of unknown symbols moving in a sinuous flow around each other. Through the circle, through the gate, she felt the figure’s Skein flow.
It passed through the gate and became a storm.
Thunder bellowed as lightning leaped toward her. By instinct, she swung the wand to intercept. The lightning flowed around the ivory. She heaved the wand with both hands. Its weight burdensome, as though the coiling lightning were a leaden chain. She raised the wand above her head. The yellow ribbon fluttered, and lightning arced up into the clear blue sky.
[35 seconds remaining.]
She grabbed Anton’s shoulder.
“Hold on,” she said.
He grabbed her arm as a mirrodile snapped up toward his leg. They became lightning racing across the lake. The jagged reptilian jaws closed around thin air.
But in the fraction of the second it took for them to travel to the island, everything went wrong.
The figure launched another bolt that collided with her in midair. She detonated. Lightning crackled as she spun away and crashed into a rooftop. Tiles shattered into mirrored dust. Anton was somewhere else. She still felt his grip fading from around her wrist. A splash somewhere — too dizzy to make out the direction, where Anton struck the water.
[34 seconds remaining.]
She stood. Her dress immaculate. Wand raised. Wings humming her onto her tiptoes. Where was Anton? Where was she? She shook her head, tried to clear it, and tuned in to the nearby splashing.
There.
Anton raced across a series of streetlights, each sticking a few inches above the choppy water, his leaping strides bringing him closer to the island. But the yacht sailed toward him. The figure raised both hands, the circular pattern widened, and the blue sky darkened. Pregnant storms folded out of reality.
The air prickled, as lightning prepared to be born.
[32 seconds remaining.]
Without thinking, Zoe clicked her heels. She flashed. Her senses wild and burning as she became the spear of Jupiter. She raced toward Anton, not to catch him, but to protect him.
Lightning snaked down from the sky.
She intercepted the blast. The explosion was her entire world. She saw only white. Black. A ringing. She tasted blood. Iron. Smoke rose from her body as she floated on the lake's surface.
The lake.
Was dangerous.
Something grasped at her wing. Boney fingers tore through the delicate membranes. She hissed and forced herself up. Humming, she floated above the surface of the lake. Listing as sparks bled from a wing. The water pink with blood beneath her, dripping from her yellow dress like tears.
Anton was nearly at the island. Bella already moved toward the treeline beyond the beach. She needed to join them.
But the yacht sailed between her and the island. The figure on the deck faced her. Their hat over their burning eyes. A hand raised and crackled with blue electricity.
She hovered, watching, seething.
[28 seconds remaining.]
Anton reached the island. She held the ivory wand to her side like a sword. If she used her dash she could go wide, go around the yacht, and circle toward the island.
But the figure, the final boss, could attack the island while she took the long way around.
She needed to distract him.
So if she couldn’t go around him, she would have to go through him. A violent dash to distract and disrupt and pass on. Once she reached the island, she could regroup with the others. They could plan their assault.
But for now…
A violent grin grew on her face. Was it her smile? Or was it the smile of the Monsoon Fairy?
She didn’t care. Someone had attacked her, and she wanted revenge.
[Skein 20/117]
[Skein 10/117]
[35 seconds remaining.]
She had just over half a minute to reach the island. With a swish of the wand, she sent a Lightning Slash toward the boat. The robed boss moved to defend, but Zoe didn’t wait.
She clicked her heels and became the storm.