The first thought that ran through my mind after my little stunt was: Please don’t fuck this up and die in the stupidest fucking way possible.

As my feet were passing over the stone railing of the balcony, I focused on my hands. From one moment to the next, painful claws formed. They weren’t as good as the claws I used on the ship, but they dug into the stone well enough to slow my forward momentum. The hand I had placed on the railing dug its claws into the stone, adding a curve to my drop. With a grunt of effort, I ripped my army boots off my feet with telekinesis, allowing the claws I had grown on my toes to grip the rock and slow my descent further.

From seeing the way the room was laid out from above, I had assumed there was another balcony below I could fall into. There was, but it wasn’t as close as I had assumed. Also, being inside the chamber really hammered in just how fucking large this complex is. Standing up on a relatively safe balcony and looking down, I hadn’t given much thought to the height. Now there was nothing but my claws keeping me from falling to a messy death, I realized I had severely underestimated how fucking high I am, and how big this chamber is. How the fuck did I hear that cultist from way up here?

I fell for over a dozen feet, my claws scraping through the rock with a horrid screeching sound. I can handle nails on a chalkboard, but the physical sense of my claws tearing through stone was a much worse sensation and it was all I could do not to recoil and doom myself to falling to my death. Luckily I didn’t need to fall too much further, as my legs were suddenly kicking empty air.

I had kept one of my hands free for just this occasion. As my speed kicked up a bit without the resistance my feet were giving me, I reached out with my left hand as I fell, my right tearing loose from the stone wall that was suddenly no longer there. I had an instant to see the edge of the balcony rail and clapped my hand on it with as much force as I could, sinking my claws into the surface for good measure. The momentum from the fall turned my hand into a fulcrum and slammed my chest into the wall, but I had been expecting that. I tensed my core muscles as my chest hit the wall, getting a mild bruise but not getting my wind punched out of me.

The next two seconds were a mad scramble as I dug into the wall with all four limbs, carrying me over the lip of the balcony into the room beyond. Gasping for breath, I looked up—and saw a sea of cultists.

Luckily, seeing a man scramble over the wall like an uncoordinated squirrel wasn’t something they were ready to process so I had a moment to act before they did. I glanced up, saw that none of the magiSWAT crew were coming after me, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finally,” I muttered, straightening from my crouch and rolling my shoulders. “I can let my hair down.”

I gripped the weird, otherworldly powers I hadn’t touched in a year and ripped the lid off them. Six tentacles shot out of my back along the sides of my spine, the top two coming out of my shoulder blades instead of my shoulders thankfully—I didn’t want to know what it felt like to grow a tentacle into the metal plating of my Mantle. The tentacles arced around me and speared the six nearest cultists through the throats, which I then used their combined weight to drag me into the midst of them.

I suppose I should be worried about how willing I am to fully indulge in these powers. Back on the boat, every time I used them it was through a thick current of existential terror about what it means for me as a person to use power that was demonstrably changing me. If I was confronted by Ida or Alice about it, I’d probably argue that it’s necessary because the fate of our entire reality is on the line, plus the life of my brother. And while those things are both true—especially, particularly the part about Conner—if I was being honest with myself… I’m just tired of worrying.

For the past decade, I’ve been a mess of fear. Hell, most of my life. Afraid of my father. Afraid of the Doorman. Afraid of warlock pirates (which I still struggle with the idea of sometimes. I mean, seriously.). Afraid of being outed as a warlock. Afraid of what being a warlock is turning me into. Afraid of what influence my silent passenger has over me. And finally, afraid for Conner.

While I can’t do much about that last bit until I get Conner out of here, I’m at the point where I’m just… just going to toss the bones and see where they lie. I’m just so fucking tired of the anxiety.

There’s a part of me that’s been holding me back. That part that asks “What will this do to me?” It’s the part that wonders if my friends will recognize me in a few years if I pursue certain paths. If my brother will want anything to do with me. That part of me is talking right now, telling me Conner’d be horrified if he saw what I was doing to these cultists, what I’ve done to myself.

But my friends and family need to be alive to be horrified by me. I need to be alive to hypothetically horrify them.

So, I’m taking that little voice out behind the shed and shooting it. Not in the head; I might need it again someday if my life ever—however unlikely—calms down. Nope, just a couple of bullets in the knees to keep the fucker out of my hair. It’s time to stop being afraid.

“It’s time for you fuckers to be afraid of m̸͙͔̋͛̈́ę̵̞̰͚͉̉̃̋,” I said, the double-harmonic quality my voice had briefly taken when confronting my father coming out in force. Several cultists recoiled away from me.

I was amongst them now. Most were armed with knives and clubs, but a good chunk of them had handguns and a few submachine guns. They did more harm to their fellow cultists than to me. Any time I noticed one with a gun I set a tentacle up and over, sometimes stretching several dozen feet to impale the man or woman. I tried to grab the gun on the way back but failed more often than not, as I couldn’t see past the press of bodies.

“Colm!” Albright's voice punched into my head, feeling like he was shouting from a foot away. I flinched and was nearly brained by a table leg. I dipped out of the way and dragged my claws down the man's chest, opening his lungs to the domain air in a way they weren’t supposed to.

“Christ Albright!” I said, pulling in all my tentacles and whipping them around me in a fan pattern, flaying a ring of cultists around me. I scooped up a couple of pistols and began firing into the crowd. “You almost got me killed!”

“Hang on,” he said, effort in his voice. “We’ll be down in—“

“Don’t,” I said, surprised at how vicious I sounded. One pistol ran dry and the other jammed. I threw them with enough force that a couple of cultists went down. “Keep your people safe.”

“If half of what Beats is telling me is true—“ Albright began.

Ah, Beats must be using her sound magic to communicate down here. I growled, splitting my tentacles at the tips and sending them forward like a gross spear phalanx, punching through several rows of cultists. Again I yanked myself forward into them and laid about with my claws.

“Albright, you’re all half dead and exhausted,” I said with a wince as a club collided with my hip. The woman holding it soon lost a good portion of her head as I ripped my claws across her face. “And judging by what we saw outside, all of you will be needed to help the victims out of here.”

I stabbed two tentacles into the ceiling and pulled myself up as four cultists with automatic weapons opened up on where I had been a moment before. Using my claws and tentacles, I scuttled across the ceiling like a deep sea creature before launching myself at them from above. The first died from having my shoulder slam into his neck, the second from my fingers impaling his heart. The last two were impaled by two tentacles each and were hurled into the crowd racing up behind me, staggering them.

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“You can’t rescue your brother if you’re dead—“

“You’ll slow me down, Albright!” I snarled, interrupting him again. “You were right! I was holding back! And I can’t do what I need to do with you guys around. So sit fucking tight, recover, and wait for me to open the door out of here.”

I waited for a reply, but it never came. I heard the sound of distant gunfire. Sounds like they have their own problems.

With the cultists in the room thinned, I could finally get a look at it. The room looked like a staging area or parade ground… except underground, which you wouldn’t think would make a huge difference, but boy does this place feel weird. I could see markings on the floor, delineating space according to some organization I didn’t recognize. As I was forced to move deeper into the room to keep bodies between me and the cultists with guns, I came to realize that the focus of the room was further back.

Was this a staging area? I could see the room was segmented into delineated areas, spread out in a fan with a raised platform near the back. Because of the adjustments I’ve made to my eyes and how huge the room is (plus the cultists trying to shoot/brain me), I couldn’t make out anything more about the platform.

I leaned down and whipped my tentacles around in a propeller-like motion, trying to keep them at eye height and extending them at the same time. I was rewarded with more than a dozen voices crying out in surprise and pain as strips of flesh were rent from faces, necks, and chests. It also tangled my tentacles together in a clumsy braid, which I made use of by slamming my claws into the ground to hold my position as I whipped the mass of other-worldly flesh in the direction of the latest round of gunfire. The tentacles—now as thick as my thigh—slammed into a line of cultists, crushing heads, shoulders, and arms. I wrenched the tentacles apart, spinning them amongst the enemy like a vindictive weed whacker.

I dove into the midst of more cultists, avoiding a hail of gunfire.

It went on like that for a while. I don’t know how many of them I killed. All I know is that after ripping a dude's head off with my bare hands, there was no one left to fight. I was breathing heavily, my body shaking from exhaustion and pain. I whipped my head back and forth, looking for more threats, but aside from the occasional groaning figure on the ground, I was alone amidst a sea of bloody bodies. I was also covered in blood—some of it mine. I had several shallow bullet wounds that were leaking clear fluid that didn’t smell like blood. One on my shoulder, two on my right forearm, one on the back of my left arm, and two on my left thigh.

I inhaled deeply, calming myself for a few seconds before I examined the bullets in my right arm. The flesh around the hole was raised kind of like a pimple… which is gross. I’ve been shot before, and this hadn’t happened then. Then again, I don’t think I’ve been shot in my new, fancy-prancy eldritch black skin before. My skin started to change when I wore the Limbs of the Other Side for an extended period of time, and the Limbs are much tougher than regular skin. Plus, the doc said the black skin was reshaping the cells to be stronger.

I didn’t like the idea of bullets being in me, so I took two of my tentacles and thinned out their tips so they were needle-like, split them so they could grab… and sent them questing for bullets.

It hurt. But not as much as I thought it would. And after getting the first two bullets out of my arm, I was good enough at feeling around I could get the rest of the bullets out of me. All in all, it took about ten minutes, at which time I could see improvement in the bullet wounds on my right arm. I allowed myself a touch of optimism. I can do this.

The optimism lasted for all of three seconds, long enough to take a step towards the raised platform at the end of the room. That’s when my leg gave out under me and I collapsed on top of a corpse that was missing an arm.

I snarled and tried to rise, but my shaking limbs were slow to obey and it took amazing effort to rise to my knees.

“God damn it,” I hissed. “What the fuck is going on!”

Even as I said it, I knew what was happening. Whatever was going on with me that was hiding my body's needs was also hiding how tired I was. I guessed that now that I wasn’t riding the wave of adrenaline that comes with fighting nearly a hundred cultists, I was close to passing out from exhaustion. But, like, what’s new? I’ve been near total exhaustion for the past three days. Come on, body, get up!

I tried to rise to my feet but stumbled, barely catching myself on my hands and knees. “Fuck it,” I said. My tentacles don’t work like the rest of my body. As I had done on the island, I used my tentacles to lift myself off the ground like some fucked up spider and scuttled over to the platform.

As I approached the platform and the fuzzy shapes became more distinct in my nearsightedness, I sighed. I had hoped to find the cynosure, but the only thing here was an alter to the Distiller.

On the platform was a six-foot carving of what looked like a stylized condenser. A tight, spiraling tube with a single carved drop of some liquid coming out of the end of it. I raised a shaking hand to rub my face, stopping at the last moment as I remembered my hands were covered in blood.

“He’s not actually a distiller, you morons,” I muttered.

“I’m aware.”

I spun. Or, I tried to. Using my tentacles isn’t as instinctive as the limbs I was born with, so I just kinda twitch, then flopped, then deliberately turned to face the newcomer who was standing to my right. I recognized him. He was the main asshole at the bottom of the big chamber. He opened his mouth to speak, which is right where I sent one of my tentacles.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the parting of flesh when my tentacle pierced the man in front of me. I felt a vague tingling, which told me this was a pretty sophisticated sending or illusion. Since I still had Albright's amulet on, I was betting on the latter.

“I have been watching you,” the head cultist said, the tentacle in his mouth not interfering with his speech. I retracted it after trying to disrupt the illusion with no success. “And I am hoping you’d answer a question for me?”

I was about to tell him to eat a bag of hot dicks when a sigh tore through me, almost without my knowledge. Even through whatever filter that was on my discomfort, I could feel the exhaustion in my body like a subtle weight on my thoughts. I gingerly set myself on the edge of the platform, allowing myself a moment to rest. “Shoot,” I said.

“How is it you know of the Distiller?” The illusion asked.

“Second-hand knowledge,” I said. “I was studying something else and learned about it.”

“How uselessly vague,” the illusion said with mild irritation.

“Don’t know what you expected,” I replied. “We aren’t friends. If I see the real you, I’m going to rip your spine out and beat your followers with it.”

“You aren’t an Elysium agent,” the illusion said; a statement.

“Did the Hawaiian shirt give it away?” I looked down and saw my loaner shirt wasn’t recognizable as Hawaiian anymore. It just looked bloody and tattered. “Oh.”

The illusion went silent, regarding me with a look of strong dislike.

“Not going how you imagined?” I asked. “Talking up the enemy is what happens on TV. The only thing you accomplished is letting me know you’re watching me…” I trailed off as I began to direct a tentacle to carve a ward into the ground.

“What are you doing?” The illusion said. He was trying to sound confident, but I could sense the trepidation behind his words.

“Unlike you assholes, I know more than two spells,” I said, adding a second tentacle as I grew more confident in my motions. I glanced at the illusion. “Okay, you probably know three with that little projection. I’ll grant you that.”

“He’s doing something. Send them,” the illusion said to the side. I could tell he wasn’t talking to me anymore. “I don’t care if they’re ready! Send them! And cut the spell!”

Right before I finished the ward the illusion cut off. “Dammit,” I said with a sigh. The ward I had been about to finish was an anti-scrying ward that would give anyone scrying this location a big headache, induced by creating feedback with the spell. Eh, they might still be watching. I finished the ward.

As soon as I did so, the earpieces I had forgotten about screeched with massive feedback and I pulled them out of my ears with jerky motions. Oh shit! Were Beats and crew listening in on me? Oh, that makes sense. Oh god, I hope they didn’t provide visual data too. That’d be an awkward conversation. “Yeah, I’m a warlock. But I promise I’m a good one!”

I frowned at the earpieces in my hand, tempted to throw them away. Instead, I put them in my left hip pocket (my right had been destroyed at some point). I then started the grim task of looking through the bodies, hoping one of them had a bottle of water. I wasn’t feeling thirsty, but I knew I should be. I was hoping with some water and maybe a Snickers or something, I’d be able to mitigate some of this exhaustion I was/wasn’t feeling.

I didn’t find any water, but I did find a few chalky protein bars that I wolfed down despite feeling like I was eating slightly soft bricks. Any thought about eating the food of people I had recently killed was shoved aside and ignored as viciously as possible. I can have a mental breakdown when Conner is safe.

I heard a banging from the side of the room. I managed to stand without the help of my tentacles, rising just in time to see the double doors leading to another room crash open. The next moment, the biggest demon I had seen yet squeezed through the door, reminding me of those videos on YouTube showing how a rat can fit through any space its head could.

As soon as I had that thought, I amended it: It was more like an octopus. It had tentacles, but not like mine. Where mine are smooth, hard, black, and thin; this things were rough, and craggy, similar to an octopus if the octopus was also made of jagged crystal. As it forced more of its bulk through the doorway, I saw many eyes, each placed between where the many tentacles joined the body.

I sighed tiredly.