Zoe’s new teacher held up a grey and slender hand. Blades of quivering grass sprouted from the lines and creases in her palm.

“As you can see, I have a body attuned to wood. Pliant wood, to be specific. Grass and sapling and so on,” she took a deep breath, a slight rounding of her shoulders as her gaze went somewhere far away. “Long ago, I lived in a sect that practiced a style known as the Shifting Forest. It took me a decade to master the seven stances. In the two hundred years I’ve spent trapped in this desert, I perfected the stances. My isolation may have led to a deviation from the source, I do not deny that, but this won’t matter to you. I will teach you the first stance: the Grasping Vine. I don’t expect you to master it, but I expect you to try.”

Zoe nodded. She could sense there was more Oriz wanted to say, but those weren’t questions for now.

“What is the Grasping Vine?”

Oriz straightened.

“When you attacked the worm, you closed the distance as quickly as possible. Since you have no ranged abilities, this was smart. But the second you sensed danger, you leaped away. Creating as much distance between you and the enemy as possible. Did you suddenly gain ranged abilities?”

Zoe blushed.

“No…”

“No, you did not. The basic theory of the grasping vine is to entangle your enemy. A plant cannot run, it can only conquer. The longer the fight goes, the more you grow, the more you wrap your enemy until you choke them off. Have you ever seen a tree deep in the jungle entombed by vines? That tree is dead. You must become the vine. This style will suit your tendency to boost Might over anything else. However, that brings me to another thing. No more burning your Skein. No more boosting your attributes.”

Zoe shook her head.

“It’s the only way I’ve survived. It’s… it’s a damned superpower! Why wouldn’t I —”

Oriz pointed out at the worm.

“See that thing? What if you burned all your Skein to defeat it, but another one emerged from the dunes?”

Zoe frowned. She saw Oriz’s point, but…

“I know there’s only one worm.”

“No. You never know there’s only one worm.”

“But —”

Zoe didn’t see Oriz stand. In a blink, the grey-skinned woman towered over Zoe. Aura buckled the air. Dust flew up in a twisting cloud.

“My best friend died because they thought there was only one worm,” Oriz’s voice hard as a whip. “My husband died because they thought there was only one worm. My master was torn in half because they thought there was only one worm!”

“I understand!”

“Do you?”

Zoe looked away.

“Yes.”

“Good. You rely on something that should be a last resort. This is not the methodology of the Shifting Forest. If you try to burn Skein while practicing stances you will learn them wrong. Skein burning does not produce stable power. If your Might keeps changing, your muscles will move at different speeds from step to step. Your body will not learn and your muscle memory will fail you when you need it most.” Oriz glanced over as Princh approached with a plank stacked with fresh sashimi. “Now, get up. It’s time to eat. Then, we’ll practice until dark, and then you’ll eat, and then you’ll sleep. In the morning you’ll practice again, you’ll eat, and then you’ll take a nap at noon.”

“What about the evening?”

“That’s when you fight the worm,” Princh grinned foully. “Every day, until it dies, or you do.”

Zoe looked between the two women.

“I thought you needed me alive!”

Oriz simply smiled.

“It’s important you take this seriously.”

“Deadly serious,” Princh added.

Zoe looked between the two. She hoped they were joking.

###

Living on the coast, Zoe never much enjoyed eating freshwater fish. Something about the way you can taste the mud in their flesh. Though she supposed those experiences were limited to when she ate the occasional fillet of fried catfish. Certainly, she never ate freshwater sashimi.

The mirror scaled fish became silvery fillets. Their flesh was compact, dry, and slightly reflective as though dipped in oil. Zoe ate with her hands and dipped each piece in a salty brown paste Princh called “herbs”.

Besides one or two questions, the three women ate in silence. There was a pile of fish, and Zoe found her appetite to be bottomless. It had been so long since she felt truly safe while eating. She could let her guard down and simply enjoy the taste and texture of the meal. The high level of background panic had finally receded.

Though not too low, since the dull rattle of chains from the bound worm was the constant accompaniment to the quiet meal.

Princh dumped the scraps by the riverbank as Oriz guided Zoe through the first few steps of the Grasping Vine stance. It was both a series of moves and a mindset to approach coming battles. Zoe followed along with the slowed motions. Her Insight, even lowered by the worm, allowed her to observe the way Oriz held herself, and trace the outlines of Oriz’s motions. Her Dexterity allowed her to replicate these motions herself. Were she back in the pre-system days of Earth, her attributes would make her a physical prodigy, but Oriz gave no praise or admonishment, merely continuing to repeat the motions.

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As they practiced, the winged baboons swooped out of the sky. They appeared in puffs of blue to steal scraps of fish left beside the river before flapping back up and vanishing in another azure cloud.

“A vine grows by applying pressure,” Oriz said. “You don’t need to be everywhere, but you need to be present.”

The sky dimmed as Zoe practiced the motions. Step forward to strike led to a step to the side. Never be still. Always grow. It wasn’t about the power in each blow, but about chaining attacks. Ensuring that you didn’t become defenseless when you attacked, or unable to strike when you avoided a coming blow. Oriz left Zoe to practice the first series of steps.

Night fell in the strange, even way of this world, and Oriz demanded that Zoe rest. She tried to go on training in the dark, determined to make the most of her time, but she could not fend off the chains that dragged her to the makeshift camp of driftwood flames and woven blankets. At last, she slept, fitful, sweating. She dreamed of baboons eating her flesh as she struggled to remember the stances.

And on the horizon, a pillar of shadow advanced, bringing with it the rain.

###

Princh shook Zoe awake.

Zoe blinked, half the sky lit by dawn, and yawned. Paused. Shouldn’t the entire sky be lit up evenly?

Princh nodded at Zoe’s confusion.

“The rain has come.”

She led Zoe away from the river to a low dune. They stood, the sand cool about their ankles, and gazed out at a vast plain of rippled sand. Dominating the plane, a pillar of swallowed light swept over the desert toward them. It moved in total silence as it passed over dunes and trees and half-buried ruins.

Viewed from the ground, the shaft of darkness was impossibly imposing. Zoe could not see the top. It passed up into the cloudless sky and beyond. If she looked too far, vertigo yanked her eyes away.

She had no problem with heights. The rising, twisting nausea was her mind telling her to stop. Some things should not be seen.

“What you have to understand,” Princh said as she puffed on her pipe. “That shadow is not real. Not like this,” she stomped the sand. “Not like us. It is a hole between realities. Two universes bleeding together. A scream of pain as one reality consumes another… have you ever eaten anything alive? Felt it biting your throat as you swallow it down?”

Zoe blanched at a cascade of memories.

“Yes…”

Princh nodded.

“As below,” she pointed from Zoe to the shaft. “So above. Now, Oriz disagreed about this exercise, but since you ate the fish she owed me, I get to train you for one evening.”

“I thought you disliked me?”

“I contain multitudes.”

Zoe snorted.

“Should I be thankful? Or worried?”

“You should,” Princh nodded. “That shaft links to another dungeon in the Crimson Armada system. I call it the Broken Glass dungeon, but nobody’s ever survived the fall, so the real name is anybody’s guess.”

Zoe bit her lip, the feel of scar tissue still unfamiliar.

“Why do you call it that?”

“See those specks?”

The pillar was about a mile away now. A solid shape like a twister frozen in time if not in space. Zoe narrowed her eyes as it rushed toward them, and she tapped on her Insight to focus her vision. A cool breeze rolled in the pillar's wake. This wind blew dust ahead like a vanguard, and in the movements, Zoe spotted dark specks, as Princh had pointed out, falling from the insubstantial pillar like darts.

The unceasing rain sent a shiver down Zoe’s spine.

“That isn’t water,” Zoe said as the pillar bore down on them and the wind grew stronger. “I’m guessing it’s —”

“Glass,” Princh grinned. “Jagged blades of natural glass. You know how sharp glass is?”

“They make some scalpels from obsidian. Sharpest things in the world.”

“But brittle, yeah?”

Zoe turned to look back at the camp. Oriz was nowhere in sight. The blankets were rolled up and tucked away. The boat lay upturned like a tortoise shell. Zoe felt exposed out on the dune, but turned back to face the pillar. Only a quarter mile away now. Thousands of blades fell in glinting sheets every second.

Her mouth was dry.

“Why are we up here?”

“So you wouldn’t have a chance to hide.”

“Those things will skewer me!”

“Listen up,” Princh pointed her in the sternum with a hairy finger. “You’ve filled yourself with Metal and Mirror. Why should you be afraid of glass?”

“Oriz told me not to burn Skein!”

“And well you shouldn’t, but burning is not the only use. Ignore the rain and follow my lead. Everyone is full of essence, they have to be, or the system has no use for them. Earn levels, swallow essence. You know this. Now, your Skein and your essence are linked. I want you to take hold of your Skein. Activate it, with your Willpower it should be easy.”

Zoe forced herself to turn her back on the approaching pillar. She could hear the rain now. Blades slipped into the sand like whispers. Clacking and cracking on each other in splintery explosions. Blasts of shrapnel that could cut any flesh with surgical ease —

No.

She gripped her Skein. Felt it wriggling within her mind’s control like a worm on a hook. Her mind followed the instinctual motions. She pushed the Skein down the channels of her Might —

Princh flicked her nose.

“No.”

Zoe blinked and released her Skein. She rubbed at her stinging nose.

“What?”

“Just grip it. Don’t force it anywhere,” Princh seemed uncharacteristically calm. “There’s no rush, alright?”

The blades fell closer, like a crowd shouting far away, and Zoe gripped at her Skein with jittery concentration. It slipped from her control. She cursed. Grasped again, lost it again.

She kicked the sand.

“I can’t do it.”

“Turn around.”

Zoe turned, and the pillar was upon them.

Dust blasted up the slope of the dune, driven by the cool wind trailing the pillar. Glass sliced through the air. Struck the sand and sank. Zoe couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her fists until her nails pierced her palms. She exhaled. Closed her eyes.

Reached for her Skein without any thought. Shadow swept over, achingly cold. Glass struck her neck.

And shattered.

Princh laughed in her ear. The hairy woman was invisible in the darkness. Zoe spread out her chains, and they glowed enough to give light to the dune. Blades fell and struck Zoe’s metallic skin. She felt her Skein dance under the silvery armor. Not going down the channels of her attributes, simply moving through her body, flooding her flesh with spiritual essence, bringing her two halves into one.

She raised a hand, inspecting the fingers as a glass blade, chipped and rippled, shattered in her palm. The raining blows were heavy, like standing under a waterfall, but resisting such force was a joy in its own right. Princh laughed, her mouth’s movements silenced by the thunderous shattering of glass.

The pillar of darkness gave way to light. It continued away across the river and into the distance. Vitality repaired Zoe’s ringing ears, and she marveled at the chrome finish to her skin. Princh clapped her on the shoulder.

“Some people need death staring them in the face before they grasp the basics.”

“You’re a healer. You wouldn’t have let me die.”

“That’s true,” Princh lit her pipe and puffed at it victoriously. “But you forgot that in the moment, didn’t you?”

Zoe couldn’t help but smile, and Princh’s laughter boomed out until she sucked too much smoke and coughed herself sick.