Rue leaned forward. His face otherworldly, slender. Skin like faint copper with dull gunmetal eyes. A robe of malachite scales open to reveal lean musculature crisscrossed with scars, like a battle-marked mountain. He smiled, just as sad as in the operating room when he wore the skin of an old man.
Was that a dream? Zoe couldn’t be sure.
He towered over her. Zoe backed away and craned her head like staring up at a skyscraper. High above them all was a night sky. Stark stars like chips of diamond. Not a hint of atmospheric twinkling. Amongst them, slightly larger, a green and blue gem burned with light.
Earth?
Terror filled her.
Rue’s voice echoed around her. Inescapable.
“Zoe Chambers, you are here because you have proven interesting. Two titles. Intrepid, because you left a safe zone the moment it was defined. Do you know how rare that is? Of course, you don’t, but it should be commented upon.”
Zoe shook her head. She wished there was somewhere to hide.
“I was in a plane,” the anger in her voice surprised her. “I had no choice. None of us had a choice!”
He nodded.
“Yes. A coincidence gave you that title, but a hundred people on that plane received Intrepid. Only five remain. That makes you interesting. As for choices?” his smile grew cruel. “Welcome to the universe. You have a name, and your world has a name, but I should call you both dust. No choice in your planet’s history outweighs the bureaucratic decision to allocate your world to me,” his eyes flashed like steel in the sun. “Your second title: Lodestone. Received for being the first person to incorporate Metal. Both titles are products of chance, what’s interesting is that you are in the first party to enter a dungeon. Most people wait until level ten. To think you would enter a dungeon without a Gate. Before you even forged your Body!” His laughter boomed. “Well, I guess you didn’t know better.”
Zoe glowered up at the giant. She was astonished she could feel anything other than terror, but the way he dismissed her like she was a bug…
She supposed she was a bug to him.
“What’s so special about metal?”
He leaned close. His face filled the world.
“Because metal is the affinity I chose long, long ago. You are the first person on this planet to follow in my footsteps, and I wonder if you can follow that path to the end.”
“What’s at the end?”
He smiled and leaned back. His arms rested on the back of the couch. A mountain-sized man relaxing.
“Why, me, of course.”
She gazed up into his tired, metallic eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“We have changed your world for one purpose,” he luxuriated in his pause. “To create a champion of champions.”
“Why?”
Rue’s smiled saddened.
“My cohort,” he gestured to the five indistinct figures. “We have waged war longer than your civilization has existed. We are tired. We want to die. This world was gifted to us by the Admirals as a vacation spot. A safari zone. They hope to persuade us to keep fighting. But I hope,” and he glanced at the other figures. “I hope that one of you will rise up and slay me.”
Zoe trembled. Fear. Rage. Insignificance. She never believed in aliens, or god, and now faced something that could be both.
She forced herself to speak through the constricting fear.
“Why not kill yourself?”
“And deny the universe a splendid battle? Your world has much to learn, but it shall learn everything in time.”
The goddess shoved Rue with one delicate hand. The gesture strained her slender dress of amber strings. The shove was playful but frustrated. Zoe sensed a long history between them. Longer than anything she could imagine if Rue’s words were true.
“You’re scaring her,” the goddess said. “She doesn’t need to know all of this. Stick to the plan.”
“You’re the one who pulled her out of the teleporter.”
The goddess shrugged.
“Can’t deny she’s interesting, can you? Remember when she stabbed you in the eye? She really should have been one of mine.” She leaned forward. “Once you’re full of metal, choose blood, won’t you, little one?
Zoe blinked. She had no idea what to say, or how to respond, but one question welled up.
An urge more pressing than any other desire.
“Can I go, please?”
She couldn’t think of asking for help. For asking for the world to be turned back to how it was. She couldn’t think of anything like that. She just wanted the situation to be over. She wanted to be far away from the overwhelming pressure of these beings. She wanted to flee these gods who looked down at her like a bug.
Rue glanced down with surprise.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“You want to leave? I suppose I should let you go, but first…”
The goddess placed a hand on Rue’s shoulder.
“Rue…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on her,” he turned to Zoe. “Let me give you a quest, as a reward for catching my eye.”
[You have been offered a quest: The Burden Of Being Interesting.]
[Reward: Conditional.]
[Time to complete: Variable.]
[Do you accept?]
[Yes] / [No]
Zoe flinched as the prompt appeared in her mind. The unearthly voice range clearer, as though she drank a stream from its source. She wanted to clarify the strange, vague offer, but more than anything else she wanted to leave.
She nudged the prompt in her mind.
[Quest accepted!]
Rue laughed and clapped his hands. The slap of thunder knocked Zoe to her ass. Her ears rang. Blood welled up in her mouth. Flowed from her nostrils.
“Wonderful,” Rue said. “Simply wonderful. Maybe you’ll be the one to kill me, but for now, I’ll let you go with a simple bit of advice. The brightest stars are the ones who explode.”
Zoe shook her head, trying to clear the pain.
“What?”
He clapped his hands again. The thunder slapped her onto her back. She groaned on the wooden ground.
“Goodbye, Zoe. I truly hope we meet again.”
The table vanished.
She fell.
###
Zoe coughed up blood.
She lay on warm stone. Her eyelids glowed pink. Sunlight above her? Warmth across her body. Blood dribbling across her lips and down her chin. She didn’t want to open her eyes.
She didn’t want to see what fresh hell awaited her.
Everything hurt. Pain and shame flushed through her. How could she have cowered before the one who defiled her world? What happened to the woman flying across the ocean to get revenge on her ex? She couldn’t handle the self-recrimination, and so she retreated into her mind to examine the pile of notifications.
[Congratulations! Your party is the first to enter a dungeon. Title awarded: Fools Rush In (Incomplete). Complete your first dungeon to receive full Title.]
She couldn’t decide if she liked the sound of that or not. It was certainly interesting… She grimaced. That word left a sour taste in her mouth. She would have preferred a straight and simple boost to her attributes, but that was what her other prompts were for.
[Level up! You are now level 3.]
[Please select an element to incorporate:]
* [Wood: Dexterity +2, Vitality +2]
* [Mirror: Insight +4]
* [Sun: Might +2, Vitality +1, Insight +1]
She groaned. If she selected Metal before she passed through the door to the dungeon, then she could have made use of the 200% boost provided by Lodestone.
She wasn’t sure which to choose from the options presented here. Increasing Might felt right. She liked the strength to walk through an injury, and her Willpower helped fight off the depressing compulsions of those strange crawling heads.
She held off for now. Better wait until she found metal to incorporate.
But the goddess in her dreams mentioned Blood…
If only she chose before she went through the mirrored doorway. She swore to never let an opportunity slip through her fingers. Though, to be fair, she probably would have died if Bella hadn’t thrown her through the portal.
She swore to never let an opportunity slip through her fingers, unless it meant certain death. This neatly explained why she didn’t fight the cosmic gods that abducted her. Even if they wanted to die, a bug like her couldn’t perform the deed.
First, she needed to get stronger.
After meeting the goddess, she wondered what would have happened if she chose Blood. Had those been dreams? She wanted to believe they were, but an ethereal voice whispered the truth.
[You have accepted the quest: The Burden Of Being Interesting.]
[This is a multiple-step quest.]
[Step 1]
[Objective: Keep your meeting with the cohort a secret.]
[Time to Complete: until the completion of Phase 7.]
[Step 2]
[Objective: Reach level 20.]
[Time to Complete: 6 days, 21 hours, 23 seconds.]
[Step 3]
[Objective: Claim ownership of a Settlement Polyp.]
[Time to Complete: Pending]
[Reward: Conditional.]
[Failure: Failing any aspect of this quest will cause the death of your party. Will you let down others as you have so often been let down yourself?]
The notifications drifted through her mind. A sense of impossible pressure settled upon her. She didn’t even know what a Settlement Polyp was, and that last line was so pointed. This quest was aimed directly at her, but how was she supposed to complete it?
“Zoe?” Bella's voice called.
Zoe opened her eyes and flinched. For a moment she thought she was back on the table of the gods. But a panicked moment later she realized it was just Bella looming over her, face filled with concern.
Dusty sunlight streamed through the cracks in the weatherworn boards of the angled roof. Zoe sat up and wiped the blood from her lips.
“I’m fine. Where are we?”
Bella sighed with relief.
“Some old abandoned church. The door took us here.”
Thick dust covered the floor. Zoe’s nose itched just looking at it. The pews were simple and creaking. Veins of vibrant moss spread from the wooden walls to the pews. Golden sunlight spilled through holes. A scene of lush decay.
“I thought we were in a dungeon?”
Bella nodded.
“Can you stand? The others are already outside, but I wanted to wait with you.”
Zoe clasped Bella’s hand.
“Thank you. Was I out long?”
“A few hours.’
Zoe froze. Hours? Her memory was fuzzy. She recalled falling through an endless void, who knows how long that took?
Time to focus on the present. The countdown ticked away at the edge of her consciousness.
[Time to complete quest: 06:20:57:35]
[06:20:57:34]
[06:20:57:33]
[06:20:57:32]
[06:20:57:31]
She forced her attention away from the clock.
“Help me up?”
Bella helped Zoe to her feet. The wound in her side flared with hateful pain. Was it too much to ask for a god to heal her after dragging her into space and back?
Well, she hadn’t asked. Fear held her throat. She gritted her teeth.
No longer.
She walked with Bella to the open doors of the church and out into the sunlight. Time to complete a dungeon.
STATUS
Name: Zoe Chambers
Level: 3 (+1 free point)
Body: Metal
ATTRIBUTES
Might: 16
Vitality: 10
Dexterity: 9
Willpower: 15
Insight: 8
Skein: 30/58
Titles: Intrepid (+5 to all attributes), Lodestone (+5 might, +5 willpower, 200% metal attunement), Fools Rush In (Incomplete).