Miserable Henry stopped crying as he formed his technique. The bloody tears became bloody crows. Whirling about his outstretched arms in a furious tornado. Their red beaks split, but they remained silent. Only the sound of the Skein itself rubbing against the bones of reality. A sound like distant floodwater rushing ever closer.
For the first time in a hundred years, Miserable Henry smiled.
He couldn’t wait to kill Trinch.
###
Zoe gripped Miserable Henry’s silver robe. She could feel the Mirrorbell fragment in the pockets. Her hunger demanded she tear at the fabric with her teeth. Soon, she knew she would lose all self-control. Hell, she knew she was halfway there because she didn’t care about losing control.
The technique loomed above with the pressure of a tsunami, and Zoe sprinted for the open vault door. Feet slipping in the slick puddle of Miserable Henry’s melted body. Former body. She didn’t care about the distinction.
If she reconnected to the Crimson Armada system, she could incorporate the fragments. One was in this robe, and the other lay in Oriz’s. Now that they were together, the smell of their Skein only grew more appetizing.
She couldn’t really smell the essence, the Skein, it was just her gluttony’s attempt to guide her. But it smelled like sweet and fluffy cake. Still moist. Pink with strawberries. More sugary whipped cream than was necessary.
And beyond the delicious incorporation, lay the incursion to her world. Home. She fixated on this point as Trinch scooped her up and tossed her into the vault.
She flew through the air, as the chute filled with blood.
Princh and Crik caught her inside the vault. They all crouched, and Oriz stood before them with a blade of grass clasped between both hands.
But Zoe could only think about the proximity of the fragments. If she incorporated them, she could return home.
It didn’t matter if she was level 20. If she didn’t stabilize the incursion, the others wouldn’t be able to return.
But she could.
Trinch pulled the door shut as Miserable Henry’s technique flooded the chute. Bloody birds flew through the crack of the closing door. A small murder of crows dove at them, but Oriz slashed them apart with her blade. The door clicked shut, and his chains slithered out to lock them into place.
Miserable Henry’s technique thundered. A tide of crows splashed against the door. The metal buckled, groaned, but held.
For now.
“Get the fragments out,” Trinch said.
Zoe eagerly reached into the pocket of Miserable Henry’s robe. There was a brief tingle of static electricity across her skin, and her mind opened. The pocket was full of items, and she could feel each one at the tip of her fingers. The seven fragments were there, and so were weapons, rations, more clothes, medicine, tools, and piles of glass beads.
Though her mind was momentarily stunned by the connection to this pocket space, Zoe’s fingers knew what to grab.
She extracted her fist wrapped around a long and jagged piece of metal. A fragment of the Mirrorbell that looked like a chunky copper tiara…
Zoe frowned.
“This looks the same as the fragment I already incorporated.”
“Of course it does,” Oriz said distractedly. “It’s the first fragment of the dungeon. Everytime someone enters the dungeon, the quest resets, and more fragments are created. It’s a drain on the system, but… Trinch?”
The effort of propping up the door strained Trinch’s voice.
“Yes?”
“How will she level up?”
The question left a coldness in the dark, blood-spattered room. Beyond the door, the technique faded away. Silence reigned.
“You think that’s all I have?” Miserable Henry called out. “Get ready for another blast you fools!”
Skein trembled as Miserable Henry prepared his technique once more. Inside the vault, nobody said anything.
Trinch smiled and eased himself away from the door. His chains still held it close, but they were not as taut.
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” he said. “But I hoped.”
Oriz leaped for him. Her blade swung out for his throat. Razor grass snipped Trinch’s fur and touched his skin…
…but chains rattled.
And in an instant, Trinch bound them all.
Zoe couldn’t even struggle. Her body, and her chains, were wrapped up like a fly in a spider’s larder. She still gripped Miserable Henry’s robe in one hand and Trinch’s bone in the other. Chains wrapped around her hands and kept them closed.
Trinch crouched in the center of the room. Blood poured from the wound in his side. Bugs crawled through his grin as he lifted Zoe with his chains and guided her over to Crik.
“Crik will provide the levels you need,” his voice shuddered with glee.
Zoe shook her head.
“No,” sick emptiness filled her. “I can’t. I’m a doctor, I can’t kill him.”
“You killed Miserable Henry easy enough.”
No. No, she didn’t kill him, but she tried. The bone dripped blood, but still, it nestled in her grip. Waiting to be used again. Crik sobbed as Trinch’s chains brought him within reach of Zoe.
Chains lifted Zoe’s arm. Her eyes widened. She strained against the chains, tearing her muscles, cracking her bones with the effort of her enhanced body.
The chains held her firm.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“No!” Zoe cried out. “Stop this!”
Trinch’s grin faded.
“Crik failed to hold off the dungeon boss. He got us stuck in this dimension. It’s his fault. He deserves to die.”
“That’s not what happened!” Oriz shouted. “Stop this!”
“We can escape!” Princh said. “We can fight them. There’s another way.”
Trinch snarled, and chains wrapped around their mouths.
Zoe thrashed.
“I won’t let you use me!”
“You?” Trinch spat out a bug. “You are nothing but a tool.”
His chains lifted her arm as they exposed Crik’s throat. He brought her arm down in a familiar swing.
She activated her willpower. She reached out to the system. But it was not there. The muted static remained, the buzz of notifications, but she could not reach them.
Trinch smiled.
“Tools do not decide their fate.”
And he brought her hand down, and with it, the jagged bone, and stabbed Crik’s jugular. Blood welled, bubbled, flowed as Crik’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. Trinch’s chains released him, and he fell to the floor.
“It’s quite ingenious,” Trinch said. “The Crimson Armada ignores the chains and treats this as your kill. Now, I will let you level up.”
The buzzing in the back of Zoe’s head grew sharp. She felt the pressure of Trinch’s willpower fade, and she connected to the system. Icy death energy coursed through her veins.
[Level up! You are now level 16.]
[Level up! You are now level 17.]
[Level up! You are now level 18.]
[Level up! You are now level 19.]
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Blood: Vitality +4]
* [Rib Bone Of Trinch The Treacherous: Dexterity +6, Vitality + 6]
* [Fragment of the Mirrorbell (Sound, Metal, Faith): Dexterity -1, Might +7, Vitality +4, Willpower +7, Insight -1 (Lodestone Title applied)]
She reached for the fragments. One in her hand, and one in Oriz’s robe. Tendrils shot toward her. Braids of silvery Metal, honey white Faith, and invisible Sound. They poured toward her body.
Trinch’s Willpower snapped around her. She screamed at the denial. Her hunger was like a physical pain, a raging beast in her core, but she couldn’t incorporate.
“Are you level 20?” he demanded. “Did you select the upgrade?”
She snarled at him. Spat.
“19.”
Crik’s death hadn’t even been enough. It was so senseless. So wrong.
But Trinch only smiled.
“Good.”
And his chains clinked as he pulled Princh closer to Zoe.
“No!” Zoe cried out. “No more! Please —”
A chain wrapped around her mouth. She bit down against the ghostly metal until her teeth cracked. She focused her will, and tried to bind the chain to her, but it was like trying to spit at the bottom of the sea.
There was nothing she could do but look at Princh as her throat passed onto the jagged bone in Zoe’s hand. Their eyes met. Zoe knew the look. Someone facing death and trying to look brave, trying to console those by their bedside, all while terrified of what came.
Terrified of it ending like this.
Blood flowed down Princh’s furry body and stained her dark. It dripped from her toes, before the chains released her like a wet sack.
The notifications jabbed Zoe like knives. She screamed into the chain that gagged her. Forced her hand apart. Knuckles breaking as she tried to force herself to drop the bone. To cast it away.
Trinch shook his head.
“You knew her for weeks. I knew her for centuries. Crik may have doomed us here, but were it not for Princh, we would never have been in the dungeon,” he looked at Oriz. “I know you would have taken her place in an instant, but I could not allow it,” he sighed. “You’re the only one I ever really liked. Now, let us leave this hell.”
He gazed at Zoe and released his willpower.
Absolute cold.
[Level up! You are now level 20.]
[Level up! You are now level 21.]
[Level up! You are now level 22.]
[Level up! You are now level 23.]
[Level up! You are now level 24.]
[Level up! You are now level 25.]
[You have reached rank 2 of your body path.]
[The Bell At The Center Of The World]
[Rank 2 upgrades]
* [1: Your impact on an object’s stability now equals twice your total Skein.]
* [2: Your cooldown is decreased to 12 hours.]
* [3: You can bring a party member with you to the center of the world.]
Hunger screamed a banshee’s wail. She could smell the fragments. She wanted to incorporate — to feed — but the upgrade drew her attention. The power of it.
Miserable Henry’s technique crashed beyond the door. Without Trinch supporting it, the metal groaned and buckled. Blood hissed in the cracks as a bloody talon stuck forth.
Zoe had to choose, she wanted to choose, and she almost chose out of spite, when Trinch pressed his face close to hers. His saltwater stink like a bay full of seaweed. His teeth crawled with insects.
“Choose correctly,” he said.
Zoe selected upgrade 3.
And activated her body’s technique.
[The Bell At The Center Of The World.]
Time stopped.
Space folded, curved, from a point beneath her feet and up around her. She floated in an empty center and surveyed reality as it surrounded her on a wide circular wall, as though the world were an inverted bell.
And she stood as the clapper.
This was the perfection of her technique. She could reach out now and touch anything. Cause harmony or discord.
But she was not yet a god. The weight of her Skein was like dust in a sunbeam. She needed more. With a thought, she reached for Trinch and brought him into the center with her. He gazed for a moment at the technique, before nodding to her.
“Now, you may feed.”
She reached for the fragments, and they reached for her. In an instant, she devoured them. It was not enough. She needed more.
But…
[Black Star Incursion: 105%]
The world split, pulsed. A gash of garish light glared at them. Screaming in color. Trinch leaned back with a mighty fist. With all of his Skein, he slammed Zoe’s technique into the incursion.
The walls of reality vanished. They stood once more in the vault, and before them, the incursion rippled, stilled, and hung open in the air.
Trinch and Oriz stared, weeping, but Zoe couldn’t think.
She reached out for the metal door. Hunger consumed her, and she consumed in turn. The door split into a thousand fragments that swam like snakes through the air toward her outstretched arms. It wouldn’t be enough.
Not even the world would be enough for her hunger.
Metal poured into her, and the door disintegrated. Bloody crows flooded the vault, swept up the three of them, and poured into the incursion.
###
They fell through rainbow space. Pink and blue skies pressed together, and Zoe skipped between them like ice on a hot stove. Light passed through her in a sensation like growing crystals and she passed through light. A feeling of rising. Smell of refracting droplets arcing through the air. Pulled up against gravity. No darkness in sight. Not even when she closed her eyes.
She had no eyes to close.
Where were the others?
No sight.
No memory of sight.
Only color, and the pressure of speed, of movement, faster, racing toward a pinprick at the end of a tunnel without walls like a bullet aimed at god until —
She sat in an uncomfortable chair in a dusty office. Across a desk from her sat a man she had never seen. He dipped a wide-brimmed white hat and smiled with teeth of gold.
“Hello,” he said. “Terribly sorry to stop you on your way back to your beloved home, but I believe it’s time we had a little chin wag.” He glanced at a piece of paper on his desk. “You are Zoe Chambers, correct?”
Zoe blinked, and nodded.
“Wonderful,” he reached a manicured hand across the desk. “I am the Gambler. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”