“Y’know, sometimes I feel like a tourist in an unknown land. Visiting famous places like ‘The Great Hole in the Ground’, ‘Rapunzel’s Tower sans Rapunzel’ and ‘Hallway #341 with T-section.’”

Elia peeked around a corner, surveilling the area for any threats to her unlife. In the end she chose the right path under the roman arch. Despite technically being in a new area, nothing much changed between the last checkpoint and the current one. The walls and vines were the same shade of gray and brown, the cobblestone was still slick with algae, and the goal was still tantalizingly close, yet oh so far away.

“But now, I’ve got someone to share this mediocre existence with. And that’s a plus in my book.”

None of the clouds ever seemed to move and Elia was thankful for it. Without the north-duck cloud as a static point, she would have gotten lost and turned around as soon as the towering dome slipped out of sight. Even then, the temple loomed closer one moment, only to appear infinitely far away in the next. The maze awoke impressions of grasping hooked vines, of a swamp pulling at every step and taking every chance to make her walk in circles.

But she was getting closer. She could feel it.

“Hey, voice in my head. Brain bud. Rye. You’re getting first-row seats to the medieval zombie apocalypse, don’t give me the silent treatment now.”

She didn’t get more of an answer than the vague impression of eyes burning a hole in the back of her neck, which wasn’t nice because Elia was getting bored. Hours and hours of careful mapping out of every hall, interspersed with the occasional enemy that she’d already seen in every previous iteration didn’t make for a compelling tourist log.

It seemed the task of entertainment fell once more into her lap.

“I really hope this isn’t an undocumented floor of the backrooms. Yellow tapestry and the drone of cheap office LED’s would have definitely driven me insane in my first year. Shambling undead are preferable to those kinds of monsters, I suppose. Only one rule you gotta remember and that’s ‘undead things can still die’.” She stopped for a moment, long enough to notice a pile of rags half sticking out of a hole in the wall at the end of the T-section. A corpse. Unmoving. Unclaimed. “Any second opinion on where the hell we even are, oh silent voice in my head?”

I hate you.

“Uh-huh. That’s a no then. And you, Quibbles?”

Quibbles remained entirely silent; it was much too bright out for a toad of any decency to be awake. As Elia stepped around to the poorly hidden cache, she ducked and swiftly stabbed the undead waiting in ambush behind the next bend.

NO!

Her arm went stiff with a thousand pinpricks, but the sword was already through the undead’s neck. Again. Silly undead. Its raspy breath was obvious from a dozen feet away.

You have gained: Soul x65

“Sorry, but you brought a crossbow to a swordfight. Your loss. Really lovin’ this sword though.” She stared poignantly at her shortsword, its tip now pointed at her face. “You can stop now, Rye.”

The only answer was a sad noise of defeat. Rye could only ever take over as much as a single limb and though Elia thought it odd that she was the dominant one in a body that didn’t technically belong to her, she’d take every bone thrown her way. While her brain buddy was in the process of slowly releasing control of her sword arm, Elia took the time to marvel at her loot.

Light Crossbow

A lighter construction of a standard crossbow. It takes time and effort to load a single shot but very little time is required to learn to wield this weapon proficiently.

It was great, but not as great as the bronze shortsword, though the green flakes along its rounded guard and scattered nicks didn’t inspire confidence. Still, it was – in her own words – ‘rad as fuck’. It would stay sharp enough for a few loops, unlike the crossbow which was more of a one-use thing. It didn’t come with a crank, and she was pretty sure none of the undead were stronger than her which left her puzzled as to how they were able to even load it themselves.

“Hey, Rye, are people in this universe stronger than – ah, nevermind. You still hate me.”

Oh well, one shot was all she’d needed for anything so far. And after Rye’s first few attempts at sabotaging her by paralyzing a limb, she was only more thankful that the undead weren’t exactly smart enough to aim well.

I don’t understand how you can live with yourself. This is the seventh person you’ve murdered. Tell me. Why?

The sound of heavy metal clanking choked her answer. Elia went completely still. A person, large, heavy, plate armor that wasn’t rusted like hers. Approaching from… the left? No, the other side of the wall. Which meant she was safe. As the clanking footsteps grew distant, Elia let out a breath, then continued ruffling through the corpse’s clothes.

…what was THAT?

“A new way to die, probably.”

What? Oh great, now you’re looting corpses as well. Great. Nothing’s holy to your grubby, dirty demon hands.

You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x1

“Under the circumstances, I’d say I’ve kept to my morals pretty well.”

Oh? And what kind of demon has morals?

“The I’m-not-a-demon kind.”

That’s not true, that’s not even a– oh, I get it. Haha, funny joke. Monster.

Elia sighed while ruffling through the poorly hidden cache. Nothing but poorly smelling clothes. “I don’t know what you think demons do, but in case you haven’t noticed, everything around us,” she gestured lazily with her sword, “is dead. And still moving. They’re not people. We’re in a medieval apocalypse à la ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and you don’t seem all that aware of exactly how screwed we are in this sink-or-swim world.”

Elia stared into a nearby puddle for a few seconds before trying to rub the exhaustion out of her face. Her drawn back cheeks and sunken eyes nestled in darkened shriveling flesh like a pickled plum had an uncanny resemblance to the other undead. The skin was paper thin and clung so tightly to atrophied muscle and bone that she would have seemed more at home in a graveyard or a haunted house on Halloween than wherever this was.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

She didn’t let it bother her too much. Not now when she was one, maybe two checkpoints away from getting out. Gaining as much distance between herself and the loud clanking threat was the current goal and to that end, she took a left.

Are we undead, too?

Rye asked it with such a brittle voice that Elia almost contemplated not to reveal the obvious truth. But the previous hours of nagging and judging had already drained her nerve. “Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed we’re only slightly better off than the average brain-rotted shmuck. Everyone else isn’t quite there which is why it’s so easy to kill them. Physically and morally. We even get loot for it! So don’t go all ‘oh, poor people’, ‘wah, don’t kill the undead’ and ‘they’re innocents, they only tried to stab you twenty fucking times’ on me. I’ve had all the time in the world to think this through and you’ve only been here for twenty minutes so take your noggin, add two plus two and stop being such a judgmental bitch.”

…you didn’t have to be so mean about it.

“Oh yeah? I didn’t, did I? Not five minutes ago, you were trying to get me killed. Get us killed. Sorry if I’m a tiny bit annoyed.” Seeing as that answer only gained her a small sad sniffle, Elia chose the most reliable way to end this conversation. She ignored it and moved on.

As it happened, another small glowing orb fell off the undead’s corpse.

Bone shard [Common] x1

The shard of a divine soul, undefined and undeveloped.

Once a common possession, now even a handful can make up a closely guarded treasure of an entire family. Combine twelve for a bone die of appropriate rarity.

Elia’s eyebrows perked up an inch as she held the shard in her hands. History lessons were nice and all, but she’d much prefer more… practical Information.

Is… is that a boon?

“It’s pretty neat.” She summoned the inscription with a short exhalation.

[Spirit] Psychometry [Uncommon] [Essence of Ego]

Through a touch, a thought, a flight of anger or tear of grief, an imprint of the soul is made upon even unliving objects. Read the traces of your own or an object’s soul and reveal a history long passed.

Pretty neat? I know people who would KILL for having an examinant boon. And it’s uncommon!

“That’s… rare?”

There was a derisive-mind snort.

No, silly, it’s uncommon. Rare is one step higher. But even a common boon is worthy of praise, as few can gather enough shards for one. I cannot believe you don’t know something so basic. Every village idiot knows the rarities up to rare at the least.

“Welp, I can only speak from experience and experience says: Common boons are too specific or too weak and uncommon ones aren’t even that much better for their relative rarity.”

That is simply not true. Even a common boon that tells you the price of fish can make you unfathomably rich. You just need to know how to profit off of it.

“Gee, what a way to tell me I’m an uncultured moron.” At least they found a topic somewhat removed from holier-than-thou rhetoric. “See, this is exactly what I need. A good explanation, no lore, no vagueness. Without you telling me that, why, I think I might have needed to gamble for a psychometry for my [Psychometry]. Why is [Spirit] blue? Is an essence of ego better than an essence of wrath? How does any of this even work? Nobody told me everything because everyone was busy being dead or trying to stab me in the gut.”

…you really don’t know anything?

“Yes! And I’m tired of being left out of the loop. So, if you have something to contribute to us both getting to civilization or the end of the level or whatever, then please, do that instead of sabotaging my proactive self-defense.”

There was a silence filled only by the crunching of dead dried leaves and the clatter of her armor as she rounded a corner into a dimly shaded area where she could clearly peek through some holes in the crumbling walls. It was prime spider territory and Elia decided that now she needed a modicum of focus. Stepping on one of them was one of the worse ways to go.

I… say I believe that you’re not a demon, what then?

Elia shrugged. “Then you’d save us both a lot of grief. You're stuck with me and while having company is nice and all, I am not giving up this second life just to die or spend the rest of eternity inside someone’s head.” She paused for a moment. “Huh. I never voiced that thought that way, did I? Makes me look like a hypocrite.”

Because you are. I AM stuck in your head. My head. Ugh, this is the worst. You’re going to keep killing people on the way there and I… I can’t stop you, can I?

“Nope. Not unless you want to kill us both.”

I’m not stupid, you know.

“Contrary to common belief,” she muttered under her breath. “Hush now, oh voice of unreason, we’ve a maze to explore.”

And just as she said that, her path turned a corner only to terminate in a dead end. There was a statue sitting on a podium, though its head and arms were broken off and any details could have been withered representations of clothing just as much as cracks and grooves in the rough gray stone.

That was quick.

“Don’t worry. God is here to spite my every step, but the attention alone is gratifying. It means we’re worth divine bullying.”

Did one of them burn your house down or why do you talk so poorly about the gods?

Elia turned on her heel but stopped as she realized how little she actually knew about this new world. “There’s more than one god?”

Oh yes, plenty. You should be careful only to stick out in a positive sense, lest you gain their ire. And always remember to give due sacrifice on a day of celebration, especially on Worgsdays.

“Always remember to bribe the gods, noted.” By the way she talked, Rye was a native and even casual conversation could reveal nuggets of knowledge worth their weight in gold. Not that concepts had weight, but the point stood.

“Knowledge is my strongest stat.”

Hm? What was that?

“Nothing.” Elia started on the path to retrace her steps. Take a left, down two hallways, then go straight at the T section. “If I ever have to do a google-earth challenge, I’d absolutely smash it. I–“

She stopped straight in her tracks, staring past a waterfall of shriveled Ivy. The hallway went on for quite a while to both the right and left – straight ahead and backwards in this case, but at the end of the hall stood a figure staring at the ground. It was clad in complete plate mail armor reflecting brightly where the sunlight leaked through a crack in the wall at just the right angle.

It looked so small. An illusion of distance; they were both a hundred feet away from the corridor back to the familiar part of the labyrinth. It was still too close for Elia. For all her casual outmaneuvering of the undead dregs and militiamen, she had never learned how to properly fight with a sword, even if she was damn good at it.

That skill melted when faced with someone covered head to toe in steel plates.

“No better time to learn than the present.” She sighed audibly, catching the attention of her companion.

…Huh? What’s up?

“Oh, nothing. I think I’m about to receive a lesson in my imminent mortality is all.”

Why? Wait, that’s… a knight of Loften! Oh, we’re saved!

“Saved?” She took a step forward, squinting at the familiar figure. If she could get a few feet on it, then maybe she could take the fight to the T-section where she wouldn’t be stuck with her back against a wall again.

They’re the knights of Loften! Our capital. Defenders of mortal lands, saviors of lone maidens and the poor; loyal, and honorable examples to us all. Even you should know about them. You do know about Loften, right?

Ninety feet. “Yeah, uh-huh, of course. Sorry, but as a citizen of the glorious U, S and A, I am legally permitted to only know the names of the nearest 51 states, the length of a football field in washing machines and the location of the nearest Wendy’s. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly from around here.”

Rye sighed but couldn’t keep the elation in her voice from spilling over. They can help us. Help me. They are devout to the point that they may even be granted an audience before a servant of the gods. An AUDIENCE. We can ask them for help, get you sorted out and go our merry ways.

Eighty feet. “You’re phrasing that in a way that makes me think you just want me out of your life. Is this you filing a divorce? Are you tearing us apart? Because I’m allergic to exorcisms.”

Seventy feet. Now that she was closer, the details on the armor appeared clearer. The cloth that should have held the coat of arms was washed of all color and though the shield was metal, it was bent and had clearly seen better days much like the singular enlarged pauldron draped over the left shoulder. The longsword held tightly in the knight’s left looked mighty sharp as did the helm which menaced with a visor reminiscent of a snowplow or a duckbill. A familiar duckbill.

Elia stopped in her tracks, frozen. “Oh. Oh no.” In that moment, Rye wormed her way into their body’s face and throat all the way down to the vocal cords, hijacking expressions, gaze, and voice.

“Heyyy! Mister knight sir! Or misses! I’m a citizen of the empire, I need help!” she yelled.

The knight didn’t say anything. It simply lifted its head, instantly zeroing in on the source of the noise. And then, it charged.