Claws slashed Zoe’s throat. They skipped off the Mirror coating of [Self Reflects The World], and the reflected force blasted away the horned beast’s paw. It snarled at Zoe, pressing her down into the matted grass. Zoe wrestled, trying to free her hand. Another claw hit her cheek, and the Mirror cracked with an explosion of force.

Her Blood flowed, filled her mouth. She coughed, and the beast howled. It pounded its chest and raised its claws for a final blow.

A noose of grass circled the beast’s throat. It scrabbled at the bright green chord, but the noose tightened and dragged it backward. Zoe struggled to her feet, dripping blood from the wound in her face, and trudged over to the wheezing beast.

It writhed on its back. Kicking out with clawed feet. Snorting. Eyes bulged with confused panic.

Metal coated Zoe’s fist.

She punched thick hide. Ribs cracked under the force. She punched again. The beast squealed, and she punched down through the sternum with a sound like ice cracking. The beast shivered in the torn up mud, and died.

Zoe pulled her fist from the horned beast’s chest. Steaming blood dripped from her hand, and poured from the cavity where the creature's heart once pounded. Its limbs splayed out in the long grass — yellowed stalks now stained with the dark sheen of violence — like a gorilla impersonating a gazelle. The long hooked claws glinted with sharpness beyond sharpened bone.

She sat on the large corpse and sucked down air as Oriz strode out of the grass with a stem between her teeth. Pale light soaked through the sky, a subtle beat in the distance as the tavern’s music continued, and the blue light of the beacon glowed ever present at Zoe’s back.

“How is your head?” Oriz asked.

Zoe rubbed at the deep cut on her cheek — already healing — before she realized Oriz meant the strange tingle of notifications. She reached out and probed the feeling, like moving a finger without moving her hand. Memory of her grandparents' old television, and the static buzz that coated the screen.

“I’ve almost leveled up twice,” she said.

“So you’re level 15 now?”

“Almost,” Zoe let out an exhausted sigh. “I’m not getting as much death energy from these beasts as I did the bubbles.”

“Your new body will require ever greater levels of energy to grow,” Oriz said. “Your progress is good for our plans, but I’m sorry I have rushed you through your progress. You just met the Smith, and now at level 15, you’re due for a meeting with the Witch. This kind of progress would carry someone from childhood to adulthood in a normal world,” she chewed the long stalk of grass. “We’ll get you to level up a few more times before you reconnect with the Crimson Armada system. You want to incorporate Metal again?”

“I can only incorporate Sound, Metal, or Mirror. And with the Lodestone title… it just makes sense.”

Oriz nodded as she inspected the beast’s bone-white claws.

“There’s a site nearby, where metal walkers fell. It should suffice,” she shook the paw, and the claws whistled through the air. “If we had the time or inclination, we could make a study of these beasts. See how they use their claws.”

“To what end?”

Oriz shrugged.

“Perhaps crystalize a slicing technique. Perhaps a new extension of the Grasping Vine,” she took the stalk of grass from between her teeth and flicked it away. “Call it Summer’s Thorns, something like that.”

Zoe rose to her feet.

“What are you avoiding?”

“I’m concerned about Trinch’s plan.”

“What plan?” Zoe scoffed. “He told me to kill beasts until dusk, and then meet him in the tavern. How am I supposed to reach level 20 by dusk? Oh wait, I forgot, he said that wouldn’t matter.”

Oriz pursed her lips.

“I share your anger,” she said. “And I respect your commitment regardless,” she gestured at the dozen horned corpses laying in their blood-spattered graves of flattened grass. “But I wanted to warn you. No matter how simple, or rough, he seems, Trinch is no fool. If he says it won’t matter, then it won’t. My concern is why he says that.”

Zoe focused on her Vitality, burning through some Skein to seal the cuts on her cheek and the bruising from the last few fights. [Self Reflects The World] was powerful, but she couldn’t maintain it indefinitely. Despite her mirror and metal forms, she was not invulnerable.

Skein activity caused an increase in the buzzing at the back of her brain. She was almost level 15. A week ago, such progress would have been incredible. She smiled. A week ago in Earth’s time, such progress would have meant nothing. A chuckle left her lips as she realized that no other human from Earth had spent as much time with the system.

Oriz raised an eyebrow.

“My concerns amuse you?”

“No,” Zoe stretched out her arms, and flexed her blood-crusted fingers, “No it doesn’t. Ever since I fell into this reality, I’ve been a tool in your plan. Not just you,” she added at Oriz’s sour expression, “I mean all of you,” she smiled. “You’ve saved my life and opened my eyes, and if I can get us all home, that’s great. But you all outclass me, so what good are your concerns when I can’t change anything?”

On this side of the lake, grass stretched out until the horizon. The light steadily increased and the endless grass rippled in the morning breeze. Beasts roamed the savanna, some monstrous, though their purple blood spilled the same as any other.

Zoe rolled out a kink in her neck. Even though she was so close to reaching her goals — and completing Rue’s burdensome quest — she just felt exhausted.

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“Aren’t you going to say something?” she asked Oriz.

Oriz smiled.

“You were more respectful before I started training you.”

“The Smith said something similar,” flicker of icy terror — the endless burned eye — tears of bubbling fat and charred blood falling like rain — bile at the back of the throat. “You said Princh was in position?” Zoe spat the foul taste that welled with the memory. “What position?”

Oriz pointed.

“You see the tavern?”

Zoe turned back toward the lake. About two miles away, the tavern looked as though a group of small houses were huddling together for warmth. Ramshackle, uneven heights, with a central stack in the center that stood three stories high and roofless. Percussive music floated from the open windows. A wild beer garden surrounded the collection of buildings. The light had a hazy, honeydew quality, despite the bright blue beacon cutting up from the large stacked building where the still was located.

“I see the tavern,” Zoe said. “Why don’t you stay there, by the way?”

Oriz scoffed.

“Because it’s a wretched place. Princh drew the short straw, which is why she’s currently hiding on the second floor of the still. We’ll join her at dusk.”

“Yes, but what is she doing?”

Oriz sighed.

“I found the matriarch of this brood,” she toed a clawed hand. “She should provide more levels than her offspring.”

“Alright,” Zoe said after a moment.

She followed Oriz deeper into the grass. Her master’s back was thin, wavering, as though she were another stalk of grass, and her yellow hair matched the drying field so perfectly, though the lavender dress showed a stark contrast.

She pondered on this alien and her motivations. Why teach her at all? What did they gain? The air softened like warm taffy as they marched away from the tavern.

“You said I’ll meet the Witch at level 15. I’m not sure what that will entail, and honestly, I’m not sure if I’m ready.”

“Nobody is ready for the Witch.”

They walked through the grass. The dry stalks rubbed against Zoe’s shimmering fishskin pants. It still amazed her that the material survived the fighting.

“What will happen? Is it like the Smith?”

“No. The Smith is inevitable, but the Witch is a choice,” Oriz turned to face Zoe, her voice lilting as though reciting from memory. “Stardust requires a star, but demons, for all their power, require willing souls.”

Zoe blinked. Were there demons on alien worlds? Were demons real?

“Is the Witch a demon then?”

“She is the mother of demons, but do not concern yourself with the Witch.”

“I’m pretty concerned.”

“The Witch is a choice, understand? She won’t come to you like the Smith or — system forbid — the Gambler. No, you must go to the Witch.”

“How?”

“You’ll receive a quest. Follow it, or ignore it. The Witch has power, but her price is dire.”

They stood amongst the swaying grass. Stalks rustled, flies buzzed, and a rich animal musk grew stronger.

“Did you ever meet the Witch?”

Oriz shook her head.

“I declined the quest. Trinch met her, but he did not bargain. I don’t know about Princh.”

“Master?”

Oriz placed a finger over her lips as she looked about the suddenly still expanse of grass. Nothing stood above the horizon except the two women. Flies hugged the stalks like blackberries. The tavern was long out of sight, its music long silent. Nothing on the horizon but yellow grass and, all around them, the air held its breath.

“Whisper,” said Oriz.

“You never answered my question: what is Princh doing in the tavern?” After an uncomfortable silence, she added. “If I’m a tool to be kept in the dark, at least tell me to my face.”

Oriz’s shoulders slumped.

“The system makes tools of us all,” she murmured, before looking Zoe in the eye. “Princh is in position to steal a Mirrorbell fragment.”

Zoe reeled. She stepped back. Mind empty with shock.

“What?”

“Quietly, Zoe. We only had one, but we need two if —”

“You lied this whole time?”

“Quiet!”

A roar shattered the silence. The ground rumbled. Oriz leaped away, and Zoe pivoted, rage clenching her fists. Another roar.

Zoe roared back as Metal flooded her flesh.

“I’m not scared of you! I killed your children! Come and get me!”

Silence was the response, and Zoe turned in the grass, crunch of stalks beneath her fishskin slippers, as she teetered on the line between weeping and wrath.

Then the ground exploded.

###

Zoe tumbled in a cloud of dust and clods. Dirt pinged off her Metal eyes as she looked around. Nothing. She gritted her teeth. She couldn’t even tell how high up she was, but she was falling now, she felt it in her stomach. She spent so much time falling from the air she should probably figure out some technique.

A shadow darted past.

Zoe turned in the air, but her Metal form kept falling.

A beautiful woman swam up through the air: the matriarch. Grotesque horns, heavy and curled, grew from the matriarch’s head, but her facial features were flawless. Enchantingly so. Zoe felt herself sighing, her lips parting in a smile, her scars of gluttony feeling desire that was beyond sexual.

No.

This was wrong. It was some kind of magic. Some kind of effect. Zoe reached for her Willpower. She had to bolster her mind, and resist…

But why?

The creature wasn’t attacking her. It wound around her as she fell, but it didn’t claw or spit or strike. Zoe felt the rage fading. Her fists loosened. Why was she angry?

Because Oriz lied…

It was a shame that strangers so rarely trusted each other. Perhaps… Perhaps Zoe could change that…

The matriarch’s body continued to enrapture. Petite but perfect features poured onto the long body of a monstrous serpent. Spines extended out the sides like the legs of a centipede. Her tail thrashed, and her vestigial limbs trembled, but all Zoe saw were curves.

Curves that went all the way down.

It wasn’t sexual; it wasn’t beauty; it wasn’t love or lust or anything so crude as to be dreamed up by the flesh. This was gazing at ancient marble and seeing the inspiration that made the chisel kiss the stone.

Zoe struck the ground, and the matriarch curled over her. Small, pearlescent teeth chittered and chattered. A smile. Liquid black eyes.

Zoe stared up, jaw slack, waiting.

Hands hung limp from the creature’s body. Boneless fingers draped across Zoe’s face. The black eyes wobbled. The smile widened. Words chittered, another language, an alien lullaby. The long, claw-legged tail wrapped around Zoe, wrapped around her snug and warm. This felt so wrong…

But Zoe didn’t want to feel right.

She released the Metal from her flesh and embraced the matriarch.