Nix ducked down an unused side corridor. She didn’t want to stay out in the open where any of the cultists could trip over her on their way through Fleshsmith territory.

She was barely aware of how she got here. The late night whispers and screams echoing up through the depths were haunting, but the validation that K’tan truly had been working with the Fleshsmith cult even this far back — that he’d sacrificed children other than herself — was worse.

Now that she was convinced this wasn’t some dream, she realised that he knew of the hole beneath the floorboards. He’d never even hinted that he knew. Considering K’tan never raised a fuss about it, or didn’t even bother watching that end of the hallway during the nights, Nix — and every other kid — had assumed he was unaware.

But K’tan had used it.

Often, Nix could hear when the other kids would slip out into the depths. Either because they whispered out in the hall, or they let the floorboards thump back into place when they dropped. K’tan hadn’t made a sound.

In hindsight, it was obvious he let the kids use it without commenting so that nobody would even assume that he might do the same. The only other entrance was the main shutters, after all, and it would be a lot more difficult to sneak out that way. Not unless he had an accomplice.

Who was that person walking with him? Was it one of the carers? Another overseer? Nix wanted to know who else she would have to extend the promise of retribution to.

She needed to know what was going on in there, but there was no way she could barge her way in, and she found it unlikely there would be a convenient path to sneak in.

Nix’s eyes landed on Little God.

It was real.

Unless this was all some convoluted game by her own mind and literally nothing she saw could be trusted, then the eyeball was real. Whether that meant it was a part of herself — likely a mutation — that she somehow interpreted as a separate being, or it truly was a monstrously strong monster as its name suggested, she didn’t know. She couldn’t know. It was as real as anything else in her life.

It had shown the ability to see through K’tan’s skulk shroud; something that should be impossible in the low light of the tunnels. The small monster could understand and speak with Nix, albeit with difficulty on the oddest of subjects. But most importantly, Little God could not be seen by anyone but herself.

“Hey… Eyeball,” Nix started, her tone much nicer to the being than it had ever been. Little God simply turned to her and tilted in question. “You wouldn’t mind following after K’tan and telling me what he and anyone else he speaks to says, yeah?”

For a long moment — that might have been less than a second — the orb simply stared at her. Nix felt a hand grasp her heart. She’d ignored and spoken to it so dismissively for as long as she could remember now. What if it decided she was worth punishing? What if it ate her for making a request without offering a sacrifice, as was the normal way?

“I will perceive.” But the creature simply nodded, and floated through the nearest wall.

Nix blinked at the wall. The flat alloy was in pristine condition despite the number of centuries it must have stood here. She blinked again.

When she’d inspected Little God’s name, it had been so obscenely impressive that she just knew it was her mind playing tricks on her. But now? Now she found out that what she felt was likely real? She’d felt thousands of components even on a basic scan; who would ever think that was real? With that many parts, the being likely held a dozen inflections in its name. If not more.

Usually, an inflection on your name reflected the number of evolutions one had experienced. It wasn’t a perfect reflection, but it was always rather close. Except for prefixes which come with the first evolution, an evolution would combine multiple names into one with a single added inflection.

K’tan-thar held a single evolution, with the K’ representing an evolution along one of the Fleshsmiths’ paths.

This was… well, it seemed impossible. Had a monster been with her ever since she was a child? Ever since she’d been told that imaginary friends were dangerous and you should ignore them while never speaking of them. Had it always been there, and she’d just always told herself it had been her imagination… or had some god or monster inhabited the figment and made it real?

Maybe it was rather apt that she’d come to call it Little God.

It wasn’t clear how long had passed by the time the floating eyeball returned, but when it did, Nix felt herself searching out its name again. She had to make sure.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Little God stared at her, as if feeling her touch, but allowing it anyway. She found the name again. This time, the name component she found was smaller, but her surface sweep still revealed a thousand parts. She tried to narrow her focus. Her mind attempting to isolate a single component from the mass, but each second she continued, her headache grew worse.

She was viewing something that was — quite literally — beyond her understanding.

Nix felt that she was handling it rather well, considering she wasn’t bawling and screaming in a ball on the ground. Seeing things like this tended to fracture the mind. She decided that she would solve this new awareness of the being how she had always treated anything to do with Little God.

By ignoring it.

“Did you see?” she asked.

Little God nodded. “Always.”

Nix waited for the creature to speak, but it simply continued to float there.

“Well?” she prodded. “What did they say?”

“K’tan, good to see you!” Little God got right into it. “You’ve bought us quite the gift, my friend.”

“You know it is not a gift, K’ruul.” The eye leapt into the next person’s voice — likely K’tan — without any change in tone or inflection.

“Of course, of course.” Little God laughed, its static voice echoing endlessly in the narrow tunnel was beyond eerie. “Your group has got what? a year left? Excited to get out I’ll bet.”

“You know it.” The eye let out a gruff chuckle this time, clearly different from the previous laugh. Clearly K’tan’s. “I’ve been stuck at a single evolution for far too long. It’ll all be worth it once I’m done.”

“I’ll bet. I remember what it was like for me. Two evolutions in a year is quite the thrill. Say… how’s that curse girl coming along? Any sign if she’s worth the effort, or is she a dud?”

That made Nix perk up. They were clearly talking about her.

So they were eyeing me even before my mutations.

“It’s hard to say. Her naming was… odd. Apparently her curses have infected her base name enough to twist its description. I didn’t even know that was possible. But her body has also recovered in recent years. Forget being on her deathbed; she’s been walking around more than ever these past few days.”

“A cursed base name? That sounds like an amazing sacrifice!”

“It sounds like a bomb.”

“A mere risk.”

“Then you’ll be the one to take the blame for bringing her in before she’s ready?”

“… maybe we should keep her for emergencies.”

Little God let out an exacerbated sigh, which sounded no different to a thrum of heavy radio static. “I’ll let you know if there’s any changes with her, but don’t hold your hopes up. She hasn’t reacted as negatively to her naming as I’d hoped. I think she’s troubled, but she’s beginning to talk to others, so it could grow difficult to guide her to despair to cultivate the curses. For now, you’ll have to settle with the other one.”

Wait… other one?

“Of course! She’s a lovely offering. I’m sure the master of the Bloodforge will be overjoyed once we ship her out to our peripheral platform.”

What other one?

Suddenly it all crashed down on Nix. The short partner that was walking with K’tan. The way they never looked around and swayed on their feet. K’tan had already brought a sacrifice with him. One of Nix’s ward-mates was in there, enraptured by a dream bug, and about to be sent to her death.

The same as Nix once had.

And by the sounds of it, Nix had only avoided it now because K’tan considered her ‘not ready’.

They were all right here. Fleshsmiths involved in her death, organising an underground transfer of a sacrifice for the upper creeds of their cult. It was all planned. This wasn’t just K’tan selling off a few kids. He’d been placed in the position so he could siphon them out to the cult.

Did every cult participate in this? Did every ward have ass-holes like K’tan willing to sneak out the odd kid every year or so for the sake of human sacrifices?

They were here, behind this wall, and yet Nix could do nothing.

She looked down at her hands. The veins and arteries of her wrist stuck out; a sign of her sickness, of her curse.

Nix blinked.

I can do nothing? She thought. No. I have options now.

From beneath her robe, she pulled out a short length of chalk and began scribbling a ritual circle on the wall. It was just a basic fire summoning rite. Not void flames, carrion flames, or even nightmare flames. Just simple fire. The type you might start in a fireplace. It was weak and almost pointless considering there was no lack of electrical fire-starters, but Nix was confident it would react to overcorrupiton exactly how she wanted.

With the circle drawn and each runic detail etched around its edges, Nix drew the small knife from its sheath hidden in the front of her robe. She didn’t hesitate. The blade sliced through the palm of her hand and blood began to pour.

Shaking her hand to spread the blood — and even splashing some over the chalk circle for good measure — she grasped her name as a hymn flowed from her mouth.

Nix was going to kill them all.

It was unfortunately unlikely her ward-mate would survive this. Whoever it was had already fallen into their hands, and Nix had no way of helping them other than unleashing hell on their captors.

But Nix had been in that same position. She knew they would prefer to die while taking down those who tried to kill them, rather than dying as a sacrifice and enriching their murderers.

She felt pity, but she was not going to stop.

Knowing amalgamations sprouted from her blood — the blood of a perfect sacrifice — she spread it everywhere. There was a similar amount of corruption here as the Still Tower, and she was about to flood it with much more. Nix had no doubt the monsters would spawn.

Once she blew open the wall with her overcorrupted ritual, amalgamations would tear their way inside and kill everyone. They would kill K’tan. She doubted he’d be able to fend off one of those monstrosities that had been the size of a Trolley.

As the hymn of flame summoning reached a crescendo and the chalk ignited, Nix grasped her name. Blood simmered beneath her feet. Little God watched in enraptured silence.

Pulling at her name, the wall exploded. Metal melted through a raging ocean of blood. The amalgamations were taking too long, but there was still more she could do.

Nix ripped her name open.

Her sight fractured. And the world screamed.