The pitch black is an awful place to fight. Claustrophobia sets in, though the potential space is endless. Swinging knuckles find walls. The floor is inevitable.
[Skein 45/131]
Zoe fell, and the chains swirled around her, binding her limbs with such subtle force [Self Reflects The World] didn’t trigger. What was her assailant? She assumed it was the statue come to life, but the chain had slipped out after she struck the stone… maybe some creature hid inside the statue?
Snickering leaked from the shadows as her limbs bent back. Darkness clung to Zoe’s skin like sweat as she lay hogtied on the dusty floor.
Hot breath trickled into her ear as a chain brushed Zoe’s cheek.
“Tell me… tell me what world you come from.”
“Earth, you piece of —”
A chain circled Zoe’s throat. Squeezed.
[Skein 40/131]
Her technique rippled. The chains blew out, loosening enough for Zoe to pull her hands free and up into the knot around her throat. The chains re-wrapped slowly, and as the chains tightened, she deactivated the technique.
Metal swept over Mirror.
Her fingers pressed against her throat, barely keeping the chain at bay as she groaned. She tapped her Skein as the chain ratcheted.
[Skein 35/131]
[Might 36 (41]]
She heaved. Her phenomenal strength pushed the chains away, but the links dug into her fingers. None of the bubbles had worse than bruised her, but there was a painful strength to this chain. It tore at her with ghostly barbs and her fingers grew hot.
The chain squeezed her neck, and she felt herself cut off from oxygen. Vitality gave her a minute before unconsciousness.
She reached for her Skein. If there was a time to use it, it was now. She would boost her Might until she could escape… but her Skein slipped through her fingers. Blood flowed and Zoe felt it like a loose thread being pulled.
Her Skein leaked, and she reached for it in panic. Why was she losing Skein?
Ever since incorporating Moth, her blood carried Blood essence. It was now a part of her power, and as her blood leaked, so too did her essence. She couldn’t burn her Skein with it flowing out of her control.
She reached through her Skein and tapped the Blood essence within her blood. Her Willpower flexed carefully as she guided it onto the chain links. A fine balance to avoid connecting with the Crimson Armada system.
But Blood defied her control.
She reached through her Skein and into the Blood coating the chains. She couldn’t help moving it like Metal, trying to forge a shape of hard strength, but Blood slipped from such control and dripped from the chains.
[Skein 34/131]
The chain rattled as she heaved, reaching for Essence, reaching for Skein, and her grasp slipping from both. The chain tightened and snickering echoed through the room.
“Are there more of you? Of you?”
The chain relaxed, and she gasped for air. Should she tell the truth? What even was the truth?
“My friends are coming. Oris, Princh, and Trinch. Do you know them?”
“These names mean nothing… nothing…”
The chain ratcheted closed. More blood dripped.
[Skein 33/131]
[Skein 32/131]
The chains around her body dragged her against a wall. For a moment she heard only her breathing. Fingers of mist crept over the mound of rubble blocking the entrance. They were lit with the multi-hued colors of the bubbles outside, but their light vanished as they entered the encompassing shadow of the room.
Zoe reached for her leaking blood. She felt it pulsing like a phantom pain. The creature in the darkness, the statue beast, sniffed the air. Zoe froze. It snuffled, and dropped to the floor, lapping and slurping. A tongue scraped across the floor. Wet and soft as it licked clean the chain wrapped around her neck.
A mouth pressed against the side of her face. Feathered lips suctioned around the chain and latched onto her skin. The creature slurped.
[Skein 30/131]
[Skein 28/131]
Zoe felt a sharp tug as the Blood essence unspooled into the creature’s throat. Her control over her metal skin slipped. Her flesh became mundane and the chains tore into it. More blood poured, and with it, Skein dripped.
[Skein 25/131]
She reached for that deep unraveling in her core and grasped. Insight bent toward feeling it out exactly, she closed her Willpower upon the strand and pulled. Might and Dexterity reinforced her spiritual attributes. Her build’s imbalances reared their head. She squeezed but failed to find a purchase, and the unspooling Skein tore through her mind with searing pain.
[Skein 23/131]
She screamed without air. Open mouth, silent. She reached for her Metal and flooded the blood. Heat flushed her wounds as her Metal pushed out the Blood essence.
[Skein 23/130]
The loss pierced her, but she had no time to mourn. She felt herself slipping into the encompassing darkness. Her lungs burned.
Her blood flowed like quicksilver from her wounds and coated the chain around her neck. She willed the metallic blood to join the ghostly metal of the Black Star chain. Her blood slipped in an extra link, and the chain loosened around her neck.
Before the chain could tighten, she spiked metallic blood through the links that crossed against her neck and made a collar of her noose. The chain pulled, but it only dragged her across the floor. With her breath restored, Zoe scratched at the face attached to her face.
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Her fingers dug, she only scraped downy feathers from rubbery flesh. A muffled snicker sounded against her throat. The tongue pressed. Licked. Suckled at the Metal infused blood, pulling it from her control.
With a twist of her Willpower, spikes erupted from the wound. They pierced the tongue, and the creature squealed. It fluttered away from her, but the barbs remained hooked in the tongue. It tugged the chain, but Zoe gripped the impromptu collar.
The blood keeping the chains pinned slipped away, and she gasped as it tightened around her throat. She used the last of the metallic blood under her control to make another link.
And extended the chain, linking it to her throat. It snapped against her soul. She felt the chain buckling down its length until it linked up with the throat of a sallow creature. It panted, against her, pulling on the barbs in its tongue while the rest of its body oozed from the cracked statue laying on the floor.
The creature matched Zoe’s strength as they tugged the chain between them. She felt it weaken, even as she weakened. The chain straightened out, and she gripped it with both hands. Every time one of them slipped, the other pulled harder. She pushed more metal into the barbs, curving them around, trying to make up for her lacking finesse by distracting her enemy with pain.
And the chain linked them to each other and linked them to a greater will. Two creatures of Skein lost in another world, fighting to the death….
Zoe gazed across the chain and found the eyes in the darkness. They were both so close to failure, should she push on, try to spear her barbs through its brain before it choked her out? Or…
“Hey,” she gasped. “Truce?”
The creature tugged once, weakened, and stilled. The tension was still there, but as long as Zoe kept her grip without tugging…
It tried to speak, but it only mumbled with her barbs through its tongue.
“I’ll let the barbs out,” Zoe said. “If you promise you’re done trying to eat me,” a silence stretched out in the dark. “Rattle the chains twice if you swear to a truce.”
There was another long silence before the chains rattled once. Zoe waited, and they rattled again.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m releasing the barbs, just back away.”
She withdrew the Metal back into her body. Her control over metal was so much more intuitive, but she felt a sense of apprehension as the Metal infused blood started pumping through her body. The wounds on her fingers stopped bleeding.
The creature backed away across the small temple room, but the chain remained just as taught. No matter how close or far they were from each other it was the same. Their fight took place in a different dimension than near or far.
“How about we split this chain,” Zoe said.
“It’s my chain… my chain… fine…”
Zoe held her breath while she waited for the inevitable double cross, when it didn’t happen, she relaxed.
“We’re good?” silence. “Ok, well, how do we split the chain?”
“The system…”
Bright energy pressed down upon them. The chain glowed with ethereal light and illuminated the room’s glistening walls. Shadows writhed as the Black Star system inundated the room.
[Ding!]
[+ 1 chain for sharing.]
The chain snapped in the center and spooled back toward Zoe. It wrapped around her neck with the now familiar weight. A ghostly burden she felt not upon her muscles, but upon her soul. Her theory that the neck chain — the collar — was the primary chain of the Black Star system seemed to be true.
Now she had a chain, the light coming from the ethereal metal seemed brighter. The creature emerging from the cracked statue resembled a wiry mass of blackened meat. A male figure, almost human, crawling and lifting itself from the jade. His jellied body set in the sweltering heat of the room. As he left the jade, the veins under the surface faded.
He sat there on top of his old shell, panting from the exertion. They stared across the room at each other while colors played on the fingers of fog leaking over the rubble.
“I’m Zoe,” said Zoe.
“I am Gool, Winged Legionnaire of…” his words trembled in his wizened throat like a turtle chewing cabbage. “I have been trapped in that statue… so long.”
“Did you fall down a dungeon?”
“No… no. I came with the Armada. We fought… fought and died. They captured my cohort. Broken...”
There seemed no weight of emotion in the ancient creature, simply the pressing of time’s passage. He stood, dried flesh creaking as his back straightened. Almost as tall as her. Zoe stood to meet him in the center of the room.
“You… you…” the creature grinned with teeth the color of mahogany. “Almost killed me.”
Zoe still felt the phantom grip around her throat.
“You tried to kill me first. Why?”
“I was desperate… so long without Skein… they tortured me in there, promised me my freedom… but then they died… you were the first person to return… your scent, your Skein, woke me…” it paused. “Thank you…”
It stared at the broken jade in the shadows. Zoe waited for it to look back at her.
“Are we good?”
“Yes…”
Zoe leaned against the wall. Despite the tension in the room, she felt some relief. “Do you know how to navigate the swamp?”
“Swamp?”
Zoe laughed.
“Seems we’re both lost.”
Gool nodded.
“I want to leave this… this room,” he stared at her intently, dark eyes glinting in the ghostly light. “I can feel my Skein returning, but… will you help me?”
Zoe rubbed at her throat. Did she trust this creature? They had fought minutes before, but she felt no subterfuge. It was an attack of opportunity, one that almost saw them both die. Now, another opportunity presented itself.
She extended her hand.
“Sure,” she said. “You help me and I help you. Together, we leave this damned swamp.”
Gool cocked its head, his desiccated muscles rasped as he reached out to grasp her hand. The shake was alien and uncomfortable, but solid.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations! You made a friend!]
[I didn’t want to jinx it, but I’m so happy!]
[+1 locket].
There was a flash of ghostly green light in the center of the room, so bright Zoe shielded her eyes. As the afterimages faded, she saw the object on the stones. A round locket of ghostly metal the size of her palm. Split into two pieces, with each half having an open clasp.
Gool snickered as he picked up half of the locket.
“A good… good omen.”
He clicked the locket into his chain. Light washed over him, and he straightened. Flesh filling out. Skin still wiry, and burned looking, but no longer dehydrated. His eyes brightened as he smiled.
“I have not felt like this in eons,” he gave her an odd look, as though he had known her for a long time. "Thank you, and please, let me return the favor.”
He gestured toward the other locket, and Zoe picked it up.
It was light in her hand, and smooth. Less like metal, and more like the shell of an insect. When she held the clasp up to her chain, it attached itself. A rush of dry wind through her veins as the ghostly light flared.
An ancient resolve settled into her bones. Not strength, but the fortitude of an ancient tree with roots a mile deep. Memories — flashes — of falling through incursions — marching upon a verdant planet — her cohort fighting under the burning sky — endless cities broken — screams — reaching for forbidden power to escape but only ending up imprisoned in jade. An eternity in jade.
She shuddered and looked at Gool with a new understanding.
“These lockets?”
“They bond us in this reality. Let us lean on each other as,” he laughed, and it was no longer a foul snickering, but something hearty. “As staunch friends should.” he looked down at the ground. “I am sorry for feeding on you. My hunger… but that is no excuse.”
Zoe shook her head.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know something about hunger.”
###
They left the ruined temple with the dawn and made their way through the swamp toward the beacon. Gool seemed amazed at the changes that had taken place since his imprisonment. He kept pointing at various structures and spoke of the city where he had been imprisoned.
Zoe nodded along as she followed him through the ankle-deep ruins of a marketplace. Three-legged frogs hopped away from lily pads. Clouds of glinting purple gnats flew up into the sky. Zoe lost herself in her thoughts.
Trust, and resolve, emanated from the locket, but it couldn’t dissuade a creeping dread. Why hadn’t she received a locket from Oriz or Princh? What did it mean that the Black Star system gave its blessing to this meeting, but not to the others?
[Ding!]
[Chains bind and bind. Enemies and lovers and friends all entangled! Play safe!]
[Tee hee hee…]