Chloe stopped at the edge of the banister, right before the railings and looks, and Rosaendra spun the hanging, ‘3,’ as the other takes in the oncoming catastrophe.

“Doors...ah, they are actual doors. I thought you were just pulling my leg. “

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I barely know you.” She said, “But...that’s a lot. And there are monsters in every single one?”

“Yes.”

“If they all open...how many people would die?”

Chloe’s voice was low and even.

“The loss of life would be... I don’t know, unfathomable. Trillions of monsters pouring out of the doors with the sole thought of conquering it? I doubt we’d survive as a species.”

“Trillions? How can you be confident?”

“Ah, didn’t you know? There are over a trillion doors out there. All over the world.”

“Excuse me? A trillion? Isn’t that a bit ridiculous?”

“Yes.”

Chloe’s face didn’t change. Perhaps it hadn’t sunk in. Perhaps it hadn’t sunk in for Rosaendra either. The whole thing still seemed like a disjointed fever dream. Chloe’s eyes seemed to take in everything all at once. She glanced to the right, and her eyes rested on a door a bit further down near the stairwell that led to the lower layers of the apartment complex and moved towards it.

“Wait,” Rosaendra pulled out the mirror and set a hand on Chloe’s shoulder, “Would this one be safe to go into?”

“What are you doing?” Chloe asked.

“Asking the servitor if we should go in.”

“Can I do it with my Shard?”

Yes, it’s okay to go in.

“How do we get in? Do we knock?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Regardless of Rosaendra’s words Chloe, she still knocked on it with her knuckles. Shave and a haircut, huh? She finished the first part of the refrain, turned the handle, and was sucked into the darkness beyond, Rosaendra followed after her, finishing off the beat with two more knocks.

They come to a stop in a similar setting as the last time. Pale wooden beams stretched out beneath them — the insides of the great ship. It creaked and groaned and moved like a living being in great agony as the tides washed under it. Chloe staggered and caught herself on the nearby wall.

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“This is...Efra?”

Rosaendra nodded and drew her dagger. She doubted that her trick would work a second time, but she wouldn’t need it with another person. Especially a front liner. She pulled the mirror out of her pocket.

“What’s the objective?” She asked it.

“Sieze the talisman.”

“Sieze? Not destroy?”

“Correct.”

“What talisman?”

“It will be obvious.”

Uh-huh, thanks a lot. Rosaendra thought as she closed the mirror and drew her athame. While Rosaendra was talking, Chloe tried to pull open the door that they had walked out of.

“Are we stuck in here?”

“No, we have to complete an objective to be able to leave.”

“An objective? What is it?”

“We have to find a talisman.”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere in here.” Rosaendra motioned to the surrounding. This time, there were no floors above them so the pale, fog-veiled light bled in through the rafters at great intensity. Simply looking up was painfully blinding. “There should be a stairway...somewhere. At least there was in my first one...”

“So we have to explore? And fight?” The excitement in her voice was palpable.

Why was she so excited, Rosaendra wondered.

“Is there like, a store as well? A shop where you can buy and sell weapons and other items?”

“...no?”

Chloe clicked her tongue. Yeah, she was far too into this.

“We should make one.”

“What?”

“We should make a shop.”

“Why?”

“Not only a shop, a place where people can get information.”

“Again, why?”

“It’ll be helpful, wouldn’t it? Think of it this way, if the information wasn’t valuable, what’s the purpose of academic journals and peer-reviewed studies? If we want to fight effectively we have to know our enemy, what’s that saying? Something about knowing yourself and your enemies and not having to fear the result of a hundred battles?”

“Ah.”

“And we have all that money. We can buy a whole server farm, and hire a team, and...” her voice carried through the deadwood hall, and down through the split wood floors, reaching the ears of something that began to climb the stairs below them.

“Ah, well. There goes the element of surprise.” Rosaendra mumbled.

“Sorry.”

“Just get ready.”

Chloe fumbled with her sword for a good moment, trying to work it out of its sheathe hooked to her belt at her side. As she did so, Rosaendra grabbed hold of her blade and pressed it against the palm of her hand. While Chloe was still struggling to draw her blade, the creature climbed up to their level. It was another one of the squid creatures that Rosaendra had fought before, though it seemed a shade of darker gray. Around the tentacles that fell from its mouth, it wore coral rings like rings in a beard and carried an old, barnacle-encrusted club that looked as if it were made from a piece of an anchor.

It rushed forward and raised the club over its head just as it neared Chloe. Panic painted her face. Rosaendra drew the blade across her palm; the sharp sting of parting flesh sang through her body. Chloe stepped back, and the club clobbered the ground where she had been standing; the wooden floor buckled at the force of the blow. Rosaendra squeezed a bit more blood out of her hand, and just as the creature began to raise its weapon from the floor, she tossed her cut hand forward. Droplets of ruby blood splash the creature in the face. It flinches and uses it arm to wipe the blood; a streak of it near its bulbous colorless eye.

A faint connection lingered in the air between her and the blood on the creature’s face. She willed it to crawl across its face. It grunted as the droplets slipped into one of its eyes.

Burn. Burn. Burn. She willed.

It screamed in pain as smoke began to rise from its face. All in all, it took little more than a second to happen, though, to her, it felt like minutes. As it screamed, it thrashed around its club wildly; striking the ground and walls. Chloe finally drew her blade, and with a quick slice, managed to stop it as it bit through the cartilaginous flesh of its wrist. It shrieked in pain, but that was ended by Rosaendra’s athame puncturing the top of its skull.

“That felt...natural.” Chloe said. “Too natural.” Her hands shook as she grasped the hilt of her blade; the once shining surface was now stained and dulled with gray-brown blood.