Princh limped over to where Oriz sat cross-legged under the shade of a tattered tree. Nearby, at the foot of a dune, Zoe bounced on her feet, warming herself up for the coming fight.
Princh gripped the tree and twisted her spine. Vertebrae cracked. She leaned against the trunk.
“Took me hours to find my pipe. Did you have to hit me so hard?”
Oriz continued watching Zoe.
“I had to hit you hard enough for her to believe it. Zoe almost trusts me, I can feel it. I’ll tell her the plan soon.”
“Sure thing,” Princh blew the sand from her pipe. She packed midnight herbs into the bowl, licked the inky residue from her thumb, and lit the pipe. “Can you imagine how much easier your life would have been if you had a technique like that in your heart?
“I don’t think I would have had the guts to use it.”
“You? Yeah, right.”
“I was different before I came here.”
“Heard that before,” Princh said as black smoke cascaded from her nostrils.
Oriz smiled.
###
The worm breathed as its chains vanished. Long indentations marked its flesh where its shackles dug. It twitched, squirmed, and grinned.
Barbed antennae sniffed the air for Skein. Traced out the link between parasite and host. Sister stood so close. The body growing inside, the second self — true self — flexed chorded muscles and grinned with human teeth.
Soon, two would be one.
###
Minute by minute the sky faded to darkness, as though running out of power. A wind came with the dark, blowing downriver a scent of bloated carrion. Zoe’s nostrils twitched, Insight painting a picture of the floating corpse, as she hopped from foot to foot. Trying to stay warm.
The wind blew sand upon the small dune in front of her. Minute by minute, it grew. She moved through the steps of the Grasping Vine. Sand stung her cheeks.
“Princh will stop the worm if it is too dangerous,” Oriz’s voice came to her ear. “But if you want to avoid pain and mutilation, you must use what I have taught you.”
Zoe reached her Skein for the Mirror within, grasping at the essence, but her Willpower passed straight through like a scalpel through water. With a sigh, she drew upon her Metal.
“I’m ready.”
Sand pinged away as her skin blushed silver. The wind flagged a second — as the sky bruised — before it screamed. A dark curtain of grit swept past Zoe. She kept her gaze open as metal crept across her eyeballs, and smiled, ready for anything.
The dune exploded.
A wave of sand blasted toward her. Blocking everything from view. She braced herself. The worm burst through the barrier, its jaws gnashing as it dove for Zoe.
She stepped to the side in the first move of the Grasping Vine. The worm missed her by inches and crashed into the sand. She continued her movement and slammed her kick into the worm’s flank. A meaty whack sounded in the howling sandstorm. Bristled antennae flailed and twitched. The worm, wriggled, thrusting its barbed spears toward Zoe.
As each thrust came toward her, she stepped, avoiding by inches, barbs glancing off her metal skin, always stepping closer. The worm reared up to deliver a powerful overhead blow.
But Zoe was already in place. Her fist struck the worm’s underbelly with a devastating blow. Her steel knuckles cracked the gilded carapace. Translucent, blood-streaked liquid flowed down her wrist and left behind rivers of rust.
Zoe’s eyes widened. She pulled her hand free and, fighting the urge to leap away, stepped to the side of the worm’s grasping mandibles, and sent her knee into its side.
Carapace cracked under her blow. More fluid washed onto her. Rust bloomed on her knee. She grimaced and forced herself to step into the follow-up punch. But the worm twisted and leaped into the whirling sandstorm. She lost sight of it.
The sky neared total darkness.
“Sister shows no mercy,” the unseen worm said with its overlapping voices, and Zoe turned, following the chorus of childlike giggling.
A shadow moved. Zoe readied herself, but the shadow faded, giggling. Sparks flew as she ground her teeth. The worm was toying with her.
Not for long.
Zoe crouched, toes flexing in the sand, and she charged. It was harder to move like this, her flesh flooded with essence and half her Might stolen. But power still exploded down the steel fibers of her muscles. She felt like a tank picking up speed, and she charged toward the densest point of shadow where she hoped the worm lurked.
Heartbeat pounding in her ears. Howling wind scraping flakes of rust from her forearm and knee. She roared.
The shadow vanished, as blue lightning played along the worm’s antennae. Its face horrifically cherubic.
“No mercy for sister.”
Lightning blasted toward her, but Zoe was ready for this.
The first time, the lightning surprised her, but now she braced herself. She was fully metal, dodging would require far more Dexterity than she could access, though her Skein flexed as it begged to burn.
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Her two feet grounded, she extended a fist to punch the lightning.
The rust on her fist disintegrated. In a fraction of a heartbeat, the lightning coursed through her and flowed straight into the ground. She exhaled and flexed her fingers. The tips glowed a dull red. The pain was excruciating, but fading as her skin cooled.
She grinned.
Lightning struck her. Again and again. She weathered each bolt, her guard diverting the power into the ground. Leaving a trail of footprints in the glass as she advanced. Her skin glowed red, a splattering of brighter orange, a searing pain even as it faded in the cool wind. Specks of sand stuck to her, melting into glass, cooling, cracking as she advanced.
It had been so much easier when she possessed the Charm of the Monsoon Fairy.
The worm twisted out of the obscuring sandstorm. Lighting flashed, leaving trails of burning glass. It stabbed at Zoe. She stepped through the Grasping Vine, drawing close.
But her pace was heavy. The essence in her flesh like boots of lead. Flailing antennae swept out her leg, and she buckled. She caught herself on one knee, groaning heated steam. The worm reared, lightning crackling along its raised spears.
Her Skein stuttered. Skin flashing dark brown. Ruddy metal became burned and bubbling skin. Sand stung the wounds. Zoe screamed, bit off the pain, and forced her metal sheath to reform. Harder than ever, thicker, her Willpower bent to one purpose.
She dashed forward. Aiming at the gash in the worm’s underbelly. Fluid still leaked from the opening. She kicked with all her strength.
A hand thrust out of the worm’s wound. Skin the texture of living mirror. It extended a palm and stopped Zoe’s foot. There was no harsh rebound. It was as though her foot came to rest against a stuffed pillow. The sandstorm hushed, though the wind continued spiraling, stinking of rot.
Force speared from the mirrored palm and into Zoe’s fist. Her own blow, returned in double. She flew backward, metal wrist warping, and rolled through the sand. Limbs heavy and tired, skin flickering between metal and flesh.
She couldn’t sustain her Skein.
The worm slithered closer. Zoe rolled over, but failed to stand. The mirrored hand waved as the arm slipped back into the healing wound. The split carapace closed. Zoe forced herself up as the worm slithered closer. She stepped to the side. Punched.
And the barbed antennae thrust through her gut.
Zoe gripped the wound, tried to hold the antennae that speared her still, but the worm tossed her up. She slid free and tumbled into the air. Lightning struck her, and she hit the slope of a dune. Unconscious by the time she tumbled to the bottom, burned, and bleeding.
###
Oriz woke Zoe, gently, by setting a cup of tea on the sand beside the blanket where she slept.
“You did better,” she said.
Zoe threw an intact hand over intact eyes to hide from the day’s flat light. She felt finer than fine, but the memory of impalement sat cold in her guts.
“I would have died without your help.”
“Which is why we helped,” Oriz sipped her tea. “You are level 8, the worm is level 8, but you are fighting with half your resources. Be proud you lasted as long as you did. It is all thanks to your commitment to the Grasping Vine.”
Zoe sat up. She expected her fingers to tremble as she picked up the tea, but they were the steady surgeon’s hands she always had. Strange, the disconnect between body and mind.
She blew on her tea.
“What was the mirrored hand?”
“The worm took your essence. You had Metal and Mirror inside.”
“But why take that form?”
“You are struggling to harness Mirror. This parasite is part of you, it might be best to look inside yourself for the answer.”
Zoe nodded and sipped the sour and fruity tea.
“I want to fight the worm again,” she said.
“And you will, but I should warn you. It will be stronger.”
“How?”
“Come.”
Zoe rose and followed Oriz away from the camp toward the dune where the worm rested in chains. A layer of sand coated its slumbering body. Oriz rubbed her fingers in the air.
“Can you feel that?”
Zoe reached out.
“No?”
“When two beings fight each other, they generate psychic turbulence. This turbulence is ethereal, if your Insight becomes high enough you will notice its strange, cloying presence. It sticks to those who generate it, and whoever wins the fight will collect more. The more each fighter puts of themselves into the fight, the more turbulence they generate.”
“What if they aren’t the same level?”
“When you are low level, and still learning, you cannot help but put your all into every attack. When you are higher level, you learn restraint, but even still, a single high-level technique can provide a wealth of experience to an opponent,” Oriz smiled. “Should they survive.”
“How can I use this turbulence?”
Oriz nodded approval at Zoe’s pragmatism.
“On its own, it is useless, but there are two ways to make it useful. The first, as you will know, is by landing the death blow. Killing your opponent will catalyze the psychic turbulence into death energy. It fills you with a cold rush and pushes you toward your next level.”
“And the other way?”
“Meditation. By letting your experiences wash over you, you can integrate the knowledge within the psychic turbulence, just as you would integrate an element upon leveling up. This method is slower, but it grants an instant reward.”
Zoe stared at the pulsating worm, her tea forgotten, this thing meditating?
“What instant reward?”
“By meditating, you push your level up by a fraction of a decimal point, but you push it up. Through this method, one can train and level up without needing to kill opponents.”
Oriz pointed back toward the camp.
“Go, find a space to sit and reflect upon your fight with the worm. Let the memory wash over you, and soak up the enlightenment. The worm gained more turbulence than you, but that does not mean you cannot gain any experience. When the sky dims, I will collect you for your next duel.”
###
Zoe found an old pillar of stone half emerging from a dune and used it as a bench. She sat cross-legged in her approximation of what deep meditation should look like and closed her eyes.
She focused on her breathing and inhaled the psychic turbulence. It flowed into her as ephemeral as an idea. Shivers ran down her body. She tried to clear her mind but… again and again, she saw that mirrored hand thrust out. An open palm rejecting her final attack. Everything she had reflected back at her. She hurt herself by attacking, but what other option did she have? The worm stole from her. The worm wanted to kill her. Consume her.
If she didn’t fight back, she would cease to be… but why could it harness the essence that eluded her?
Over and over this point refuted her. Why could this parasite do what she could not? Sand piled up around her legs. She focused on the fight. Relived each blow, her Insight capturing the memory, but denying her the understanding to step beyond.
Footsteps crunched across the sand.
“It’s time,” Oriz said.
Zoe opened her eyes to a dimming sky. She blinked and unfolded herself, Vitality melting the stiffness from her muscles.
“I didn’t realize I sat here for so long.”
Oriz smiled.
“Then it was successful. Come, it is time to face the worm again.”