The green-haired woman spun a long icicle of ruddy glass between her fingers. Her grin crinkled her cheeks from ear to ear. The pipe puffed like a merry chimney.

“You harnessed metal easily enough,” she said. “Now it’s time for —”

Zoe snorted.

“It wasn’t easy!”

Princh flicked her wrist. The glass shard sliced through the air. Zoe blocked, and splinters exploded off her metal forearm. Razor-edged glass flakes bounced off her metal cheeks. Skein pulsed beneath her skin.

“What are you —”

Princh appeared inside Zoe’s guard. Zoe’s eyes widened. She swept up a knee by reflex. Never had she felt so slow. Princh’s forehead descended. Her headbutt crashed into Zoe’s chrome nose. Metal crunched.

Zoe shot down into the sand. She blinked away tears. Head throbbing with splitting pain. Feebly, she tried to move, but the blow had buried her up to her waist. Princh placed a hairy foot on Zoe’s head in a posture of absolute triumph.

“Do. Not. Interrupt.”

Zoe grabbed Princh’s foot and yanked. Nothing happened. Princh looked down her stubby nose at the growling woman.

“I respect the spirit of the effort, I do,” she leaned down and pulled Zoe out of the sand. “There are two reasons I could do what I did. The most important is that I outclass you in every possible way: strength, speed, intelligence, looks, you name it, and I have it. The second reason is… hmm, let me put it to you like this. What happens when you strike metal?”

Zoe pinched her nose. Vitality wriggled through the cartilage, but it still hurt.

“I don’t know,” she said, distracted. “It bends?”

“It either bends, or breaks, or it resists. Yes?” Princh waited for Zoe to nod. “Yes. Metal is strong, but only until it is overpowered. That is why a pure metal build is very rare. It has weaknesses. A lack of Insight and Dexterity means you lack flexibility when you approach situations. It is all well and good being a hammer, but what if you miss the nail, hmm?”

“What do you suggest?”

“Usually, people level up from birth with a plan. Either their parents or their sect tells them which elements to incorporate and which techniques to develop. This helps them prepare for the body they receive at level 10, and then the gate they receive at level 15. A proper plan reduces bottlenecks and incompatibilities. You didn’t have that luxury, and with your gluttony curse, you never really will.”

Zoe’s nose clicked into place.

“What do you mean by ‘body they receive’?” She wiped away trickle of blood from her nostril. “And what’s a gate?”

“You saw Oriz’s grass blades?”

Zoe nodded.

“Her body is based on the principles of early growth, and so her Skein and essence are bent toward that purpose. Gates allow you to transmute your Skein into a different element, and grant control over your environment. The dungeon boss, Zazzatha, and his disciples practiced the Gate of the Storm.”

Zoe pondered over the way the Cranetongues whipped the water of the lake, and how the dungeon boss threw lightning from his hands. Could she have a power like that at some point? Wearing the Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy had been intoxicating. She hoped she would have a choice in the Gates presented to her.

“What is your body?”

“Ten Thousand Droplets Become One.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m a healer. Now, you have Mirror essence, but you don’t use it. Why?”

“Umm…”

“Because you are ignorant. That excuse no longer flies. I want you to harness Mirror.”

Zoe blinked.

“Now?”

Princh grinned, a new shard spinning between her fingers.

“You have one minute before I start throwing glass.”

Zoe grasped her Skein.

###

Blood dripped from the hole in Zoe’s palm and fell toward the dune. Each drop sank into the pale sand, swallowed by the desert's immeasurable thirst, and Zoe watched them fade with blurry eyes. Similar wounds, deep precise stabs, marked her thighs, her shoulders, and her stomach. One glass blade even cut her ear in half.

Blood trickled, flowed, slaked the desert.

Weariness overwhelmed the pain. The only reason she wasn’t unconscious, wasn’t dead, was the same reason she was in this sorry state.

Princh.

The hairy green woman stood above Zoe and focused a technique.

[The Tide Returns]

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Princh’s hair fluffed out as she spread her hands wide. A falling droplet of blood hung suspended in the air. Reversed. Flowed back into Zoe’s wounds.

Zoe gasped at the warm, sickening feeling, as the technique worked upon her body. Her flesh repaired itself at dazzling speed. In seconds she sat completely whole.

Princh’s hair settled.

“Feel better?”

Zoe nodded, still too shocked to speak.

Princh puffed at her pipe. Black smoke dribbled down to the spotless sand.

“I thought it would work, to be honest. It was the trick to sorting out your Metal. Hmm, maybe if I threw more blades?”

“Enough!” Oriz marched up the dune. “You had your fun. If you want to torture my disciple, you can win another bet.”

Princh set her hands on her hips.

“I bet I can beat you in a —”

Princh vanished in a crack of force. Oriz stood atop the dune, palm outstretched, her entire body trembling with rage. Zoe looked about until she saw a puff of dust miles in the distance. Her eyes widened. What was she doing amongst these monsters?

Oriz exhaled, her body calming.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she wrung out her hand. “Now, it’s time to practice your stances.”

Mutely, Zoe followed Oriz back down to the riverside. Glass blades littered the sand, and they wove their way amongst them. The palm trees' ragged leaves suddenly made sense to Zoe. A gentle breeze slowly buried the shards, as the desert reset itself for the next time the shaft of darkness circled the world.

Oriz led her through the stances, and Zoe followed. It felt like a dance, constantly circling, moving from strike, to kick, to throw, and repeating. She needed extra focus, to avoid the half-buried glass, but the Grasping Vine was developed for such obstacles. Soon, Zoe lost herself in the rhythm as her muscles soaked up the exercise. Oriz corrected her here and there, but mostly, she simply watched.

After a few hours, Oriz called for a break. They sat cross-legged, as they had the day before, and Oriz scooped out cups of tea from a pot left soaking in the sun. They drank in silence, the light taste almost medicinal on Zoe’s tongue. Princh had not yet returned, and her absence made the camp eerie. Zoe drank, and relaxed. She had no thoughts of training, or the worm, or her allies in another dimension, only the tea, and her mind became as empty as the desert stretched out in infinite distances around her.

Oriz spoke first.

“How often do you reflect on your past mistakes?”

It took Zoe a minute to bring herself back to a state of mind where she could talk.

“I suppose I think about my mistakes a lot,” she set down the tea at the seriousness of Oriz’s gaze. “How else am I supposed to improve in the future?”

“But do you reflect on your mistakes, or merely ruminate?” Oriz nodded at Zoe’s silence. “Shame can be a powerful fuel, burning brighter than any praise, but if burned alone, without opening yourself up to other views, the toxicity of the fumes will poison you. Some people run from their shame by charging into conflict.” Oriz sipped her tea and let the accusation settle around Zoe’s shoulders. “Tell me, disciple, about your first battle.”

Zoe paused halfway to picking up her tea. Restlessness filled her. Skein — responding to some unspoken command — surged. Metal flushed her skin, faded, bloomed.

Oriz rose, tea still in hand, and gestured for Zoe to rise.

“Tell me as we walk.”

Zoe nodded, and they strolled along the riverbank. A baboon puffed into view, and watched them, before flapping away into the sky.

“My first… battle… I don’t know if this counts.”

“Let me guess, a schoolyard scramble? Fighting a bully?”

“No. I was fourteen, which is young for a human, but old enough that you think you’re old, you know?”

Oriz nodded, and gestured for Zoe to continue.

“I thought I had the world figured out. It was just my mom and I, and she did alright, but I gave her a hard time. I loved her, but that’s how kids are. One day, a Friday, I came home after school and she wasn’t there. None of her stuff was there. None of my stuff was there. Some things my grandparents left me, things I didn’t even realize were valuable until years later, were gone. I was alone in an empty house, and I thought it was my fault. You know, I was at the age where the world revolved around me, so how couldn’t it be my fault?”

They stopped atop a dune. Far away, across the river, a black pillar slid through the desert. Green fire fell in its wake like the aftermath of fireworks.

Oriz sipped her tea.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I ran,” and Zoe’s shoulders sagged under the burden of her words. “Our house was on the edge of town, near the forest, and I ran into the trees. Some kids, neighborhood kids, we built a little fort. Not too far, but far enough you couldn’t see the streets. I went there first, but it just made me angry. So I went deeper into the pines. Deeper and deeper until I knew I was lost, but I didn’t care. I slept on a pile of leaves. It was summer, maybe I would have died if it wasn’t.”

“I don’t think something as simple as cold weather could kill you.”

Zoe didn’t react to the compliment. She spoke like a stone rolling downhill.

“Wild dogs found me in the night. I woke up, and it was so dark. Living in the town, I never knew what true darkness was. I woke to growls, and then they started biting me. I ran, but it was a forest, all downhill, and I was just a little girl,” she stopped and stared out into the distance. “They chased me until I fell. Rolled to the bottom of a hill and hit some rocks. Might be the first time I really tasted blood. I thought… there was a second where I saw the stars through the treetops, through the clouds, and I thought I was safe. But they came down. So much quieter than you think a pack of dogs can be. I backed up against a tree, and I didn’t even realize I had a rock in my hand until the first dog charged me. It was too dark to see anything but the motion. I swung… if I think about it, I still feel that jarring collision right here,” she tapped her wrist and elbow. “But it takes more than one hit, and I kept bashing that dog. Another attacked me, but only one more. The rock broke against the second’s skull and I wrestled it on the ground. It bit me, and I bit back. I tasted its blood as it died.”

“The others didn’t attack you?”

“To be honest, there might have only been the two. It might have only been one. I don’t remember. I kept walking after that, just crying… crying for my mom. Deeper into the forest like the fool I am,” she chuckled, wiping away a tear. “The funniest thing is I don’t even blame the dogs. I was hungry as well. And a few days later I found a cave, there were more dogs, and my heart almost stopped in my chest. But these ones were friendly. Some still had collars, the poor things. They were lost, like me. I think I lived with them for six months — I can’t be sure — until some hikers found me.”

They sat on the dune and watched pieces of wood, scraps of tools and clothing, leaves, and other dungeon debris float down the river.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Oriz said. “I see that you have grown beyond the little girl in the forest, but some part of those memories shackles you as much as the chains on your back.”

“I know… I need to move past it. I need to —”

“No. The past is the soil from which we grow. This is the Grasping Vine. The first move is the sunlight that helps us break free of the dark earth, and with each move, each strike, each step, we climb ever higher, but the vine never leaves the earth. If it did, it would die,” she looked away, as though contemplating her own advice, before she smiled. “So, Zoe Chambers, are you ready?”

“For what?”

“To face your worm, and climb ever higher.”

###

The worm lay in chains, baking in the sun, its gilded carapace glinting and swollen. It twitched in the sand, as it slept, and within it, liquid organs congealed. Fingers. A face. Muscles, and bone. Wings. Features shifted, as the worm’s true form stirred beneath the golden shell.

Footsteps crunched across the sand, approaching, and the worm rolled over to face the intruders. Its sister and her master.

It smiled with gleeful anticipation, and, deep within its shelled exterior, a second smile formed on its true face. Soon, it would be free, and, once it devoured its sister, it would be whole.