I mentally prepared myself to fight for control of my mind, but to my surprise, the fight didn’t come. The alien presence merely sat there, inside of me, waiting.
“What is this?” I said aloud, my voice a nervous tremble despite my attempt to convey imperious rage.
Send out my aura and you will see, the voice said.
Your aura? No fucking way.
Bryan cleared his throat. “A little help would be nice. Care to share a knife or something? My weapon of choice for this battle is going to be pretty useless now.” He raised the squirtgun in his hand half-heartedly.
I cursed loudly. Then I shook my head and cycled my spirit, cutting off the flow to Squirter (a dribble of lube had continued to flow out of me this entire time) and rerouting it to another skill.
You have activated the skill: Knives Out!
Long, wicked-looking steak knives appeared in my hands, and one end of Bryan’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “That’ll do,” he said as I handed him one.
You have defeated Goblette, level 2. +2 XP.
You have defeated Goblette, level 2. +2 XP.
Your party has defeated Goblette, level 2. +1 XP.
Your party has defeated Goblette, level 4. +2 XP.
We swung, slashed, and stabbed low, knocking out little green monster after little green monster. Their blood floated atop the shimmering lube on the street like oil on water, creating a treacherously slick surface. After all the fucking around we’d done in the past twelve hours it almost felt nice to have a clear enemy in front of me to stab; none of this character exploration or magic system development, just good old-fashioned stabby mcstabface.
One goblette got past my defenses and sank a short blade into my thigh. I cried out in pain as the feeling of cold steel penetrating my flesh blinded me to everything else going on.
With a wave of my hand I cast a skill on the guy, just to give myself a little room, like I was a spellsword.
You have activated skill: Caged Beast!
The blue-topped transparent cube appeared around the little mayor of stabtown, leaving his nasty little blade sticking out of my leg. I grunted, grabbed it by the hilt, and, taking a few deep powerbreaths, began to yank it free.
“Gaaaahhhhhhhh HOLY MOTHERfuck! NOOO, nope. NO.”
Bryan came alongside me as he parried one attack and thrust overtop another, separating a goblette’s head from its body. “Jesus, Quart. Get it together.”
In one fluid motion he gripped the offending blade by the hilt and tore it free, slipping it out at roughly the same angle it had entered.
White, blinding pain erupted in my mind, and for a moment I lost control. A wave of magic suffused with pain washed out of me.
My aura.
When it hit Bryan he stiffened and gave me a troubled glance, but then he turned to continue fighting.
When it hit the goblettes?
They ran.
Turned tail and ran, little fuckers. Ran back up and down either side of the street, ran into El Zarape. Ran anywhere to get away.
Yes. Haha, YES. That’s right. Turn me loose, Little Magician. Feel my power flow through you, and surrender your—
“You play a shitty Palpatine,” I said out loud, regaining some measure of control.
“Sorry, what?” Bryan called over his shoulder.
“Bry-man, you ever read that book about the OP’d guy, used to be, like, the scourge of the world he got Isekai’d into but then he settles down in a valley, starts farming, tries to save the world by growing wheat?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. No, Quart.” He bent his knees, grounding himself for an attack as the next wave of enemies began to move in. The zombies. “No, I did not read Battemage Farmer.”
“Ha! Haha!” I bent down to pick up the bloodied blade that had, moments before, been sticking out of my leg. Spirit cycled through my channels and I felt my leg supernaturally healing, even though I’d picked up a nasty debuff.
You are bleeding! -1HP every five seconds until you stop bleeding or expire.
“But you have heard of it!” I yelled.
I glanced quickly through my HUD and then shoved it aside, satisfied to see my health was regenerating visibly, no doubt due to the combined efforts of my level and my copper cultivation body. After a few seconds the debuff ended and I breathed a short sigh of relief.
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“Only about a million times,” Bryan said. “From you.” He continued to mumble something about my “bloody awful books” but I elected not to hear that part. Anyway, the zombies had reached us.
“Hang on,” I called. “I’m going to try a thing. Uh… duck?”
Bryan turned and gave me a look of exasperation, then threw himself to the ground, belly-first. And not a moment too soon. I turned my gaze on the zombies and let my revulsion at their undead forms loose itself from my body.
Again, an aura blasted out from me in circles.
Again, the unwelcome voice spoke in my mind.
You toy with power you cannot comprehend. Again. Submit to me, Magician, and I will make us something the gods will fear. With my might in this vessel, we will rise to the Heavens. We will leave this miserable contest behind us. We will—
I don’t like interrupting, I told it, but you keep forcing me to do it.
The zombies slowed, confused. A few of the more intelligent looking among them stopped and stood still, watching me.
“Ok…” Bryan muttered. “You gonna tell me what’s going on? Or…”
“So, in that book,” I said. “The guy ends up finding out—oh, and this is a MASSIVE spoiler, Bryan, if you’ve only read, like, books one and two, so you can just go right ahead and not listen to what I’m about to say if you haven’t—”
“I’m never going to read it, Quart. Get to the point.”
“Right. So there’s an ancient dragon living in his soul and that’s why he has super crazy godlike fire powers.”
“Uh… right. As one does.”
“Well!” I gesticulated wildly at myself, then at the stunned zombies.
“Are you saying…”
“Yes!”
“And when you—”
“Yes.”
“And so now he—”
“Yes.”
Bryan let out a low whistle.
“Time to go now,” I said. The zombies were getting brave and coming closer.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
With a thought I deactivated Caged Beast. The goblette, bereft of its short sword, stood looking as stunned as the zombies had. Bryan punted it and it flew up and out over the crowd, squealing like a firework.
Meanwhile, I shoved spirit into my Incorporeal Sandstorm trait, grabbed Bryan, and away we flew.
Oh man, he thought, I’ve experienced some weird magic, but this is a trip.
I know, right? I’ve barely experienced anything and I can tell that much.
You fools, the alien voice said. The surprise at hearing it speak clearly to both of us while I wasn’t using the aura nearly caused me to fall out of the sandstorm trait, but I gritted my mental teeth and prepared to wrestle for control. No battle came. It just… spoke. Qi Magic is wasted on this worthless rock.
Bloody fucking fuck, Bryan’s mind yelled, is that what I think it is?
Ahh… yes, I thought back, feigning a casual tone. Sorry for the start. Bryan, meet Goth Neo. Goth Neo, meet my guy Bryan. This is… awkward.
I will find a way to break the shackles this contract has placed on me, Goth Neo thought. Then I will take possession of this vessel, hunt you and everyone you love, dominate your wills, and feed on you into the eternal abyss.
Yeah, I thought, so, Bryan, that’s Goth Neo. And how about you, Bry-man? Care to say something about yourself by way of introduction?
I do not.
I gave a mental shrug. That sounds about right. Goth Neo, that’s Bry. He does not.
As entertaining as I found our little absurdist throuple moment, I slowed our swirling storm and began to descend, having crossed over the freeway. I was looking for a familiar rooftop.
When I finally spotted it, it was due to the small figure standing atop it.
Sam.
I mentally breathed another sigh of relief and sped our descent.
The alien presence laughed darkly in my mind.
That’s enough of you. I sent a burst of spirit with the intention of shutting it up, and whether it worked or the alien mind just had nothing more to say, it fell silent.
Bryan and I separated and reincorporated atop the roof. I was getting better at the dismount; this time we both formed with our feet touching down and a good six-foot clearance between us.
“Sorry we’re late,” I said to Sam. Bryan took a moment to orient himself, clutching his stomach, but walked toward her.
She was standing at the edge of the roof looking out onto the moonlight city, her back to us. I glanced up at the moon and was again struck by a certain strangeness to it. I remembered gazing at the moon as a child and peering and squinting to make more of those contrasting patches of color. Now the contrasts seemed darker, deeper, more pronounced. And there were other shapes, too. Shapes that shouldn’t appear naturally.
Straight lines.
“What the…?” I began, but Bryan’s shout stirred me from my reverie and I looked back down.
Sam had turned to face us and Bryan was yelling wordlessly, his body having dropped into a combat stance. He gripped his knife in front of him.
Sam’s face…
Blood was smeared across her cheek. Her hair, frizzy and red, was puffed out more than usual on that side, and as she lurched forward the moonlight showed more detail. I wasn’t looking at her hair at all.
I was looking at her exposed skull and brain.
She growled like a feral cat and lunged for Bryan.
“Sam…” I said, my stomach clenched tight.
Bryan, his face contorted in grief, stepped into her advance, driving his knife deep into her gut. She growled and snarled, baring her teeth and never once breaking eye contact with me.
“Jesus.” My voice quivered. I wasn’t sure if I was cursing or praying.
Bryan turned to look back at me over his shoulder, one hand holding Sam back and the other still gripping his knife.
“Quart, lookout!”
I turned just in time to see a pair of zombies about to dig their bloodied, bone-bare fingertips into my back.
“Fuck!” I fell back on my ass and rolled as one of them lunged for me. Bryan pulled his knife free and Sam’s zombified form fell to hands and knees while Bryan leapt over me to defend me from the zombies who were crawling up onto the roof.
They kept coming.
My mind reeled in shock and horror. So stupid, I thought. I’d been so stupid. I had brought Sam out of that restaurant first to save her, to bring her to safety, but all I’d done was bring her to a slaughter and abandon her. Now she was dead.
Now she was a fucking monster.
“F-f-fuck,” I whispered.
A hand like a cold iron vice gripped my shoulder from behind and pulled, yanking me on my ass across the roof, and I yelped like a frightened dog. I struggled to free myself but the hand would not let go, so I crawled out of my equipped shirt to get away. Then I turned to see my attacker.
It was Sam. She was clearly dead and gone, her necrotic flesh now possessed by one of these Shayathar things, but looking into her face it was hard to reconcile. The cognitive dissonance was staggering.
“Sam!” I yelled.
The monster snarled.
“Fuck,” I growled again, backing up.
The monster advanced.
I closed my eyes and tried my very, very best to remember what her face had looked like before. Remember her hair without blood. Her voice as she called me nerd.
I failed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
You have activated Edward Butterknife Hands!
My pinky wine-opener glinted in the moonlight. I gritted my teeth and swallowed my feelings. Then I swiped as hard and fast as I could, ripping the monster’s throat open and bathing us both in blood.
You have defeated Shayathar Vessel, level 4. +4 XP
For a moment I just stared at my HUD unblinking.
4XP. That was Sam. That was all she was now.
“QUART!”
Bryan was surrounded.
Rage boiled up within me again, but this time I didn’t need to borrow anger from the Shayathar spirit hitching a ride inside of me.
I had enough all on my own.
The aura washed out, stunning our assailants, and I strode forward, knives out. Bryan glanced my way, then gave me a second, more assessing glance.
“Hello, Quart,” he said softly, and I had the impression he felt he was meeting his old companion again for the first time this go-around.
So, I thought. This was what it was really like.
I bent my knees and pulled back a hand of sharpened steel before stepping into the waiting embrace of the next zombie on the rooftop. Bryan grunted and joined in.
As the moon continued to rise, we baptized the dying city in the blood of its conquerors.