They weren’t really friends, she and the person inside her head. Even if they were, the voice known as Rye was probably not even real. This was all just a stupid hallucination brought on by long-term exposure to this recursive labyrinthine hell. Worse yet, just when she thought something good had happened and to herself no less, the world found a way to sour the pot yet again. They couldn't be friends, not like Quibbles, not when Rye didn't remember the loops. Without that, there was no way anyone could understand Elia.
There came the patrol, but Elia didn’t care. Everything was so distant, so muted, so bereft of sense.
With a sword in one hand and a crossbow she could only fire once held loosely in another, the world narrowed until it was only Elia, three faces and a dog.
The bolt flew. One face moaned, falling on its punctured leg.
The shield face came. It was the envy of all its peers and Elia, too. It swung its sword.
It hit metal. Sparks flew. A bolt hit Elia in the side. More sparks. The chestplate saved her life twice.
Elia feinted, staggered forward, and stabbed a face in the face.
The dog threw her to the ground. White fur, white teeth, white bleached bones. Chomp, chomp, chomp.
Her left hand hurt like a thousand cuts doused in apple–lemon juice, crawling with greedy ants. But she was stronger than some imaginary ants.
Brittle bones broke after too many swings against the skull. Someone was screaming. Elia stood. Another bolt dinged against her helmet, and she didn’t care.
The haze was back. Not Hanzarps handy haze, nor any kind of watery vapor. A fog of the mind, walls on every side, a narrowing of perspective away from all things pleasant and grim.
Nothing mattered. Just one step, then another, then another. She stabbed and was stabbed in turn. The undead died. The dog got back up and died again. The one with the crossbow was still shooting her and for that its death was less nice.
Silence. Finally.
Still, Elia couldn’t find within herself a mote of care. She didn’t even know why she was here, why she was standing at all and not sitting on the ground, catching her breath, and binding her wounds to make the haze disappear.
No. No, that wasn’t right. Sitting felt wrong. She had to stand, even if it made the ants climb up and down her leg.
Elia had to go, go somewhere. But where to? And why?
Time until lost items and souls dissipate: 1 min
Ah.
Her eyes fell on the smoky nonsense, then on the glowing orb atop the fountain. So that was it. That was the goal. She moved as if swimming through mud, pushing the air away with every step. She lifted her legs, one at a time. She fell, then climbed the fountain again.
You have regained: Soul x2474
You have regained: Bone shard [Common] x6
The smoke felt nice. Tingly. But that was it? That was all?
She went about, searching for more of the same feeling to clear the haze, to fill the emptiness. First, she searched the corpses. She knew how to search corpses, even half blinded by the emptiness inside her mind.
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x2
You have gained: Blue brilliant beetle x1
It was nice. But somehow, this wasn’t it. Maybe she just needed more?
Then, she went on to make corpses. She knew how to make corpses.
You have gained: Soul x61
And more corpses.
You have gained: Soul x350
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x2
And more still.
You have gained: Soul x1891
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x9
The haze was still there. It surprised her that it didn't leave after closing and opening her eyes again. The dissociation at least tended to stop when she left them shut for a while. Perhaps she was just tired then?
But being tired meant lying on the ground. And if sitting felt uncomfortable, then lying must feel even worse.
But if she couldn’t sit and couldn’t lie and had to stand but didn’t know why, what was the point? What was the point of it all? What was the damn point of it all if she couldn’t even remember why she was walking in circles?
Elia.
But she had to walk.
Elia, stop.
She had to go forward and never look back. Because she didn’t do backtracking. Forward was where progress lay. One step at a time. No matter how many steps it would take.
Please, Elia, I’m sorry!
And then the haze was gone, replaced with a soul-deep, soaking fatigue of every cell in her body. A fuzzy feeling known as Rye left her arm, leaving her to pull the shortsword out of an undead militia’s face.
Eep! I-I killed someone. Oh, oh no. I’m going to hell! This is your fault. Eliaaa! Ple-hease, Elia, answer meee!
Her tongue rasped against her lips. Dry. She could go for some water.
“Need. A. Break.”
Elia?
“Brain. Bud.”
ELIA! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you’re back! It’s been days!
“How. Long?”
Days!
“How. Long?”
I just said days! It felt like that at least, even if night never came. Elia, you need to eat, drink, sit down and rest. You’ve been staggering around, muttering about spiders, and shoving them up the gods’ unspeakables for so long I thought that was IT.
“Water. Dry.”
No you silly, water is wet. But you’re alright! Bless the gods. Bless Worga and Ruthe. Bless the twelve.
The surroundings were familiar, at least. There was the lion head statue, toppled over and completely defaced by time, and there was the fountain. She was right back where she started. As she checked her pockets and her soul count, her eyes bulged.
Soul count: x4776
Bone shard [Common] x17
Enough shards for another boon and she was approaching her last record in souls. “Let’s. Take. Break.”
Ok. Good. Thank you. And I’m sorry. I lied to you.
“Lied?”
I… thought this was a dream, at first. A horrible, visceral dream, but not real. I… can remember how you died. We died, together. I didn’t want to admit it, I don't want to now. I still think I'm going crazy and that the next thing I'll know I'll be back in bed.
“Hm.” Elia wasn’t in much of a mood for answering. Steadily plodding along she walked on the path to return to her last checkpoint, leaving bloody footprints in her wake.
Even before, I had been thinking. Of all the rude, blasphemous things you said, nothing really felt like it had a point. Like you were playing the madwoman more than being one. I… was quite shaken after seeing my own face in the puddle but later I wondered if you would have acted any different if I hadn’t slung those accusations at your face. And so, I pretended I didn’t remember. A clean slate for a clean impression.
A feeling of indignity and righteous anger warred against the relief she felt that her brain bud, that Rye wasn’t just a manifestation of her magical boon, that she wasn’t just like the other undead that didn’t change from loop to loop. More than that, hearing anyone’s voice after so long was almost a physical pleasure, even if it came from inside her own head.
Believe me, if I had known you would become like… that, I would never have dared as much. I’m no liar, it’s not moral. You were all loopy and mindless like the other undead, more beast than human. It was scary! But I had some time to think. And over those few days, every undead you came across tried to kill us for no reason at all. I tried to take control of an arm, but that just made everything… worse.
Elia looked down at the undead, then back to her gore-caked and admittedly quite cut-up sword arm. “Doesn’t count. He ran into it.”
Thanks, but I… let’s say I have a somewhat clearer perspective now. I was wrong in calling you a mindless murderer and a demon.
“Uh-huh.”
I’m sorry. Please, believe me when I say I am. I’m sorry. You’re not evil, just… a little misguided. Lost. Uneducated. I don’t regret saving you one bit.
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They reached the checkpoint and Elia nearly hit her face on the cup’s rim as she submerged her head in the clear water. A whole tub of it must have ended up in her stomach but the water level didn’t decrease in the slightest nor did she feel any more full. When her thirst was quenched, she sat down, leaned back, and let out the loudest, meanest burp physics would allow her tiny body.
I’m already regretting everything.
“Oh really?” Elia chuckled. “I’m just surprised at the reverb of that one. Did you practice while you were alive? Were you a professional belcher?”
No!
Elia laughed out loud as Rye descended into a mixture of embarrassed noises and half words. By the end of it, she was on her back, both of them in a maniacal giggling fit. Who knew the voice of another human could be so infectious? Not Elia, and Quibbles didn't quite have her sense of humor either.
“I haven’t laughed that well in ages. Must have been what, two hundred loops, three hundred since? Gosh, was it that long ago already?”
Loops as in deaths? You’ve been at it for that long?
“Don’t ask a woman her age.” Elia cleared a tear from her eye. “I stopped counting after the last time I disassociated like that, but I’m twenty-one on the inside forever baby!”
At those words Rye instantly sobered up.
This has happened before.
“I mean, yeah. Most of the times I just keep on going until I die of exhaustion or encounter some new monster in the labyrinth. It’s… not pleasant because I tend to walk pretty far and then I can’t get my souls and bone shards back afterwards.”
Elia. How many times did this happen to you?
“Rye. Seriously. Stop asking questions you don’t want the answer to.”
There was a lull in the conversation. Elia idly picked at some bandages around her arm. Did Rye apply these with one hand or did she do it herself?
Ok. We are getting you out of this place, now.
“Hold your horses young padawan.” Elia pushed herself up but paused midway. “Wait, do you have horses in this world?”
We do. They are mostly for important messengers and the war effort. Hard to breed, expensive to maintain, yada yada yada. City people can be so stuck up about the right breed but everyone else uses the trusty grug.
“And a grug is…?”
Four legs, two eyes, scales, a stubby tail? Lays eggs and provides hardy leather as well as some meat good for stewing? Seriously, you must have grown up FAR away. I grew up on a farm and we had oodles and caboodles of them.
“Fascinating. How many oodles make a pound?”
That’s… how much is a pound… you, you’re messing with me again. I can feel you smiling.
Elia laughed. “How awfully perceptive of you.”
So, what now?
“Now?” Elia stretched, then laid back down again. “Now, we take our government mandated twenty-minute per life break. And since I didn’t take one the time before, we have a whole forty minutes to ourselves.”
Wow. Your country must have been a horrible place for you to live in if you only get twenty minutes of breaktime. Even I had an hour or two of free time before going to bed.
She leaned back, making herself comfortable on the smooth cobblestone floor. “Well, as the government of this fine body of ours, we are legally allowed to screw the rules.”
We can do anything we’d like?
“Anything.”
A moment of awkward silence spread like jam.
Would you like to watch some clouds?
“Sure.”
And they did.
----------------------------------------
A good two hours later, they were still lying there, staring at the cloudless halo above them. Like a hole in the sky, it pierced a circle of cumulonimbus that reached from high to low, allowing matted sunlight to shine through forever.
“And that’s the north duck cloud.”
Wow. You are very good at spotting cloud shapes. They all just look like fluffy mounds of cotton to me.
“Well, I am the twentieth world master in spotting clouds back in my world. ‘The alabaster eye’ they called me.”
Wow.
“Yeah.”
A few minutes passed. Having another friend that didn’t want to kill her was… pleasant. And one that could talk back as well, though Quibbles would always be number one in her heart. He was the first to wiggle his way into her life after all and no matter what, nothing would separate them.
They don’t really move much, do they.
“Nope! That’s why I use them to navigate. Took me quite a while to figure navigating around that one as well.”
Why did it take so long then? I thought you said you were a master of clouds?
“Yeah. In spotting.”
Oh. That makes sense.
Did it really? Now Elia was unsure herself.
So. What happens now?
“What now?”
You won’t disagree with me if I say that I want to spend not one minute longer than necessary in this maze-like burial ground, right?”
“Oh, hell no.”
Good. Because I want out.
Elia smiled. “I get you. And I’d rather not die a whole bunch of times on the way.”
Neither do I! We have so much in common. I swear I won’t interfere with you anymore. No stealing your arm, threatening your life and calling you names anymore.
“Great!”
… but I do have a condition.
Elia motioned for her to go on.
Once we’re out of here, you give me my body back. I… it’s terrifying, being nothing but a passenger in my own body, with no control, no real anything. Even if you didn’t take it on purpose, please, give it back.
“Hmmm.” She thought long and hard about it, stroking an imaginary beard to kickstart her neurons. “Tell you what: If I succeed in getting us out in ten deaths or less, then I get to keep driving. If I don’t, then you’re free to take over whenever. Once we figure out the mechanics, of course.”
REALLY!? Wait, is ten deaths a lot?
“Yes. Really. I have realized now that I need a longer break. A vacation, if you will.” She put her hand on her heart and looked dramatically to the sky. “For both our sanity’s sake. I shall honor this pinky promise in its entirety. And if I lie or cheat, so shall lightning strike me dead!”
I feel like you’re pulling a fast one on me. I don’t have a reference for your average time to die yet. Oh gods, it sounds so horribly morbid and cold when I say it like that. Am I a bad person?
A quiet, yet pronounced croak crept from her pocket. Quibbles poked his head out, meeting Elia’s gaze.
“Quibbles,” she started, “do you, perchance, have something to tell us?”
“Ribbit.”
“Ah. I see.” She leaned away and half whispered to her reflection in the water. “A matter of grave importance.”
“Croak.”
“Oh, of course. You little rascal you. Just say that in the first place.”
“Ribbit.”
Are… you talking to a toad?
“Yes! And he told me that he is a prince under a terrible curse, and he can only be turned back with the kiss of a fair maiden.”
A… a what now?
“A virgin, in modern terms. And since I, of course, am quite the experienced woman, a femme fatale of fellatious skill, you must do it. Do it now.”
I… but I’m not a virgin.
Elia paused, already having ceded control over her lips as she held Quibbles ready for a kiss. “You… wait, really? Shit, that means… fuck, dammit. How old are you?”
Twenty-two, last I remember. I came of age last year, if that still applies to what you called the end of the world. Also, language. You have filthy habits.
Elia was already ignoring her, one ear perched against the toad’s mouth. “Oh, what’s that Quibbles?”
“Ribbit…”
“Oh. He says you’ll do as well.”
Oh. If I can help then I will. S-should I just kiss him on the… mouth?
“Yes. Now. Quick. Time is of the essence.”
Rye flowed into their shared face, kissed Quibbles and immediately released control again.
EWWW! He tastes like swamp! Wait, where’s the prince? Where– oh. Oh you lying little…
Elia meanwhile was buckled over, cackling like a mad witch.
I can’t believe I fell for that. That was the oldest trick in the book! I should have known better than to trust someone who confers with amphibians. You even made half those ribbits yourself!
“Force of habit.” Wiping tears from her eyes, Elia stood up straight and drank a cupped hand of fresh strawberry flavored water. “So. We can start on busting out right now. I know where the exit is.”
Really? How?
“Remember when we got launched through the air by magic?”
I… I’d rather not think about it. But yes, I do.
“Well, the labyrinth isn’t as endless as it would like to seem. I’ve been at this for years, but now with a bit of exploring, I think we can find a path to the edge within a few hours. Most of the undead nearby are cleared out anyways, so we should have smooth sailing for most of it.”
That sounds great! Oh, ooh, what about your bone shards?
“What about them?”
Well, the word ‘bone shards’ is very similar to ‘boon shards’. And back home, boon shards were just what people colloquially referred to shards of a soul. And enough shards of a soul make…
“A boon. Right, I get it. Quite the deduction, Holmes. And indeed, look at what I have in my pocket.”
You have fused: Bone shard [Common] x12 into Bones of Boons [Common] x1
Elia pulled out the bone die, letting it appear and disappear between blinding flourishes of her hand.
Oh. I don’t know what that is. But it sure has a lot of sides.
“This little girl here is our ticket to greatness. It’s a boon die. Imagine: Fireballs! Gummy bears!”
Infinite peaches?
“Infinite peaches – I guess – too! Just roll the dice and boom, magic boon got.”
Wow. That’s so… simple. You see, where I come from, we don’t have little pieces and physical boon dice thingies. The soul shards – bone shards, whatever – are part of your soul and the number needed to form a boon is a bit wishy-washy. We need priests and all to commune at an altar to even find out that we had a soul shard in us. It was quite the celebration when a kid gained their first and that one was always given as an offering to the gods so they would bless us with a long healthy life.
“Sounds like a scam.” Elia watched the million shapes flash across the die’s surface. Someday, she would get a good boon again. “Were your boons entirely random as well?”
I mean, not always. I know of two ways to gain a boon and one is by collecting souls shards through great deeds in your life yourself. Gathering enough for a whole boon yourself is beyond rare, but they tend to take inspiration from your “true inner self”. Not a single philosopher, alchemist or magus managed to pin down what that exactly entails. Only the gods and their immortal servants have the power to look so deeply into a soul, which is how they find promising mortals who they then direct where their talents are required.
Rye took a breath, the sound tickling at the inside of Elia’s eyelids.
The other – and much more frequent – way is to simply buy shards from another. For a fee, temples grant an exchange of shards though the fee was predictably steep for both sides.
And thus, the rich could eat the poor in a completely new context. “But those are just random shards, not the ones ‘cultivated’ in your own body.”
Which means that the results are a lot more… fickle. What that means, well, I know of a handful of people who ever got a boon – endorsed by the wealthy or the divinities themselves – and even then, half of them left the temple in tears. A fisher could get a boon for finding fish, but if he got one that allowed him to run as fast as a horse, well, he would be smart not to be a fisher for much longer.
“And they just popped up inside your body?”
If you managed a great deed, or showed enough dedication to a craft or art, you were rewarded. Killing someone to just take their shards is – was – not an option. It was simply unheard of, downright impossible. It didn’t work.
“Huh. Well, I guess someone loosened a few restrictions since then. Would explain why everything is so random.” Elia cupped her hand, tempered expectations flaring up at the weight upon it. Maybe this time it really would be a fireball. Or– no, best to suffocate all hope. The system was rigged, the die weighted and [Psychometry] the exception confirming the rule. Why she still got excited for these piddly liars dice, she didn’t know. It was possibly an addiction, or maybe an–
I want to throw!
“You sure?”
Yes! Yes. I… I never got a boon in my life, not that I can remember. My family was well off enough I think, but not rich in soul shards and certainly more invested in the wellbeing of our lands. Many would count four by the age of twenty lucky, especially for someone stuck doing chores and reading. But I still had to offer one to the gods.
“Oh. Oh you poor thing. At least corporations only tax your time, but God even taxes your very soul. How unforgivable.”
Gods. Plural. And because people didn’t often get the boons they wanted, many people offered their fully formed boons to the gods as well! They then gave back something of equal or greater value that the person making the offering could make better use of. Everyone benefits!
“Lalala, I’m not listening, gods bad.”
Please just let me roll.
Elia released control over her good rolling arm, and she watched as the die landed on a result in an instant, no sign of the stopping of time or encroaching darkness that made every previous roll so unnecessarily atmospheric and suspenseful.
You have gained a divine boon: Alternating Ruthersday vigor [Common]
Wow. It’s like magic, except better.
“Don’t worry, that’s just the precursor of a gambling addiction talking.” Elia looked for the boon but couldn’t find it anywhere in the smoke. “Hey, any clue where my boon is? I think it’s in a downloads folder somewhere and I can’t seem to find it.”
That’s…. weird. Oh. Oh no. I thought you knew. You can’t collect an unlimited number of boons. Not all souls are born equal and as a normal human, we are born with a limit between zero and three. Zero and three are both very rare, unheard of outside of legends and myths. I’m sorry, but I was born with one.
“Well that sucks. Assuming I have more than one, where would I check that?”
Well, with Hanzarps Handy Haze…
“Right. Smoke stuff.”
Don’t call it that, it’s a very holy technique. I practiced it so much that apparently, my body knows how to do it even when I’m not the one holding the reins. Have some respect, please.
“Respect, shmespect.”
Boons
[Spirit] Psychometry [Uncommon] [Essence of Ego]
[Empty]
[Empty]
“Oh, hey look, smoke stuff says I’ve got two more slots.”
…I hate you.
“Still no idea where the boon went, but I guess that means I gotta have a legendary title to go with my legendary slot number.”
Please stop.
“’Deathslayer Elia’. ’Elia the Darkstalker’. ‘Elia of the broken shortsword’.”
AAAGH!