The first thing I notice once we crest the hill is another giant ooze like the one we fought not long before my little accident. However, the way it’s moving is far from the mindless instincts I have come to expect of monsters to this point. Rather than silently lurching around, chasing after its prey, this creature is employing intelligent tactics. It throws human-sized portions of its mansion-sized body toward the two dozen soldiers surrounding it, coating them in a sticky, viscous slime that sticks to the ground and nearby trees, significantly reducing mobility.

  The soldiers are holding their own, moving with coordination and skill. They weave in and out of the ooze’s attacks, and when one of their own gets hit, others move to distract and cover their injured comrades long enough for one of the two [Healers] among their ranks to work their magic.

  Unfortunately, they don’t appear to be having much success on the offensive front. They throw spears and weak spells toward the blob and hack at the slimy creature with swords and axes. Arrows coated in flame and ice fly from bows wielded by the two [Archers] operating in the midline. One particularly brave or foolish individual has coated his sword in an electric field, attacking at point-blank range. They actually seem to be doing something to the creature before a volley of slime comes out of what might be the monstrosity’s mouth.

  They are saved from being consumed entirely, but they hobble slowly back as others in the group fall back to cover.

  My body tenses. I want to rush out there and help, even against the nagging in the back of my head telling me that something is wrong. I give myself a gentle smack across the cheek. With my right arm, ensuring I don’t inadvertently do any damage to my [Health]. Just enough to force me to focus on the situation. Analyze it, go over everything I know, try to figure out what’s wrong with this situation.

  Lindsey gives me the answer as she points us to a person hiding behind some foliage, standing about a hundred feet away from the battle, on the opposite side of the giant slime as the hunters. Whoever it is, is too far for me to make out more than cursory details with my eyes, and far outside the range of my [Ethersight]. I move to tiptoe closer, but Lindsey stops me.

  She turns to us and speaks in a whisper. “Probably a [Summoner] of some sort, and I’d bet money that whoever that is, is the one controlling the slime and guiding it to attack with such intelligence and precision.”

  “Do we pursue?” Chloe asks.

  “No. Neither of you have a [Stealth] skill, and Sera’s arm is both loud and glows with her [Ether]. What I want you to do is wait fifty seconds after I leave, and then move toward the summoner. Don’t charge forward. Act casual, make it appear like you’re trying to avoid the blob.”

  “So, we’re a distraction,” I say.

  “Exactly. Weaken the summoner’s concentration, buy the soldiers a few crucial moments to regroup, and most importantly, keep their eyes and ears away from me.”

  I nod. Chloe does a moment later. Lindsey shoots the two of us a confident, focused look as she disappears into the underbrush. She has no technical wizardry like I do. She has no ability to heal, nor any of the wondrous spells that Chloe can cast with but a thought and the [Ether] to turn that will into reality. And yet, when I see her just disappear out of my sight, I realize that a level 30 [Ranger] has a sort of magic about her all the same.

  We stand at full alert, silently bobbing our heads to the cadence of the seconds passing us by, each keeping track with our fingers as we watch the battle unfold.

  It’s not looking good for the soldiers. They fight valiantly, rallying one another with calls to arms, aura spells flickering around, infusing them with vitality and easing the strain of their mounting wounds. Their [Healers] work valiantly, stitching flesh with grace and aplomb, keeping their own lives and those of their allies from falling into the River Styx. But their [Ether] is running low. The powerful spells they had been using fail, and the weak ones they are employing aren’t so much ‘staving off death’ as slowing its approach. Slightly. Very slightly.

  Chloe gives a pained look. I’m sure her class is resonating with her, urging her into the fray, telling her that she needs to heal these wounded people. And I sympathize with her. I don’t feel any compulsion by my class, but I see how much it hurts her, and I want to ease the pain my best friend feels. More than that, I know that I’m supposed to be some sort of guardian angel for the people of Earth… and of this plane of existence more generally. I want to help.

  But I know if we do, we’ll disturb Lindsey’s carefully thought plans. By saving one, we might doom them all. Or maybe we would save them all by acting, rather than leaving one to die. I don’t know which is the truth. And I know I’m in the wrong for trying to mentally shift the responsibility onto Lindsey as we execute her plans.

  But when Chloe rushes out after thirty seconds, I stop her. I grab her wrist with my mechanical arm. When she tries to break free, I hold fast, not saying a word. The two of us look into one another’s eyes, and even though our lips don’t move, I feel the weight of our silent conversation all the same. Her concern about her fellow human struggling against a monster and the person who probably controls it. Her need to heal, to fulfill her duties to herself as well as her class. The pain she feels, mentally and physically, at watching such a tragedy unfurl.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  To her I must seem like an unfeeling machine, capable only of weighing outcomes with mechanical precision. That I have no heart deep within my chest, unable to feel the humanness of everything going on down there. I remind her of our plan, and how staying coordinated with Lindsey is our best chance to save as many lives as possible.

  She doesn’t feel the same way. But I don’t relent. I refuse to let her go, as much as it pains us both so. She hates it. I can see from the tears in her eyes how much she’s hurt, not just by circumstance, but by my unfeeling grip. My mechanical arm, cold and metal, not the touch of warm human flesh, the touch of her best friend’s hand giving her that bit of comfort in the face of such an abomination wreaking unconscionable havoc on life and limb.

  The last twenty seconds pass, each slower than the previous, and the two of us make our way into the underbrush. We sidle through the bushes near us, making a token effort to be stealthy. With our lack of Skills to that effect, we probably do a horrible job of it, as though to hang a big neon sign over our head screaming ‘reinforcements are here’ in bright red letters. In other words, we’re performing our job perfectly.

  Not half a minute goes by before we’re spotted. The ooze and its summoner both turn toward us. The former fires a barrage of slimy goop toward Chloe, who incinerates it with the once-per-hour [Fireball] that her wand allows her to cast. The blaze lasts only a couple of seconds, but it’s more than enough time for me to start my [Glyphcasting] array.

  And my practice over the past couple of evenings has paid dividends. My fingers move with grace, tracing glyphs with precision my old arm could never quite achieve. My [Intermediate Ether Manipulation] skill is synchronizing with [Tinkerer] and [Basic Glyph Manipulation], helping me hold the glyphs in formation with thoughts that seamlessly translate into smaller and smaller movements that I carry out without having to do than will it to be so.

  I think some of this improvement is due to my better understanding of [Ether] as well. If it really is as simple as an effector for turning our will into effects, then [Glyphcasting] isn’t some grand discovery. It is merely effecting those effects by defining the outcome through glyphs, rather than creating a predescribed outcome based on a spell or a Skill granted to us by the System.

  The inverted [Heat] glyph links to a triplet of runes that identifies the target temperature: negative eighty-five degrees Celsius, cold enough that it should solidify the ooze no matter what it’s made of. Next I form an ad hoc glyph based on another quartet of runes, the largest one being something akin to [Spear]. In this case, the intent is to specify that the spell will take the effect of a glacial lance, rather than the ‘default’ shape of an outwardly-expanding sphere.

  I launch the lance, blasting it outward and into the ooze’s amorphous form. It hits home, delivering its cryogenic payload deep into the center of the blob, turning liquid gelatin into solid sludge. The others, seeing the change, take advantage of the opening I’ve given them. Chloe throws a healing spell, rejuvenating all within her range, and they begin hacking away at the creature. They tear off frozen chunks of its body and pulverize them with weapons and feet and fists and branches and whatever other objects they can use to this effect.

  I glance at my [Ether] stat and see that it’s just over six hundred. Burned a full nine hundred points in that strike, but due to my higher level and better control over my technique, I’m still able to fight. [Ether] strain starts to set in below a third of one’s maximum capacity, and becomes increasingly more painful below a sixth. As long as I stay above four hundred, I should avoid the worst of it.

  I decide on [Repulsion Bullets], willing the barrel within my mechanical arm to twist to the desired configuration and lock in place. Once it does, I fire another eight shots. In ideal circumstances, I’d burn fifteen [Ether] per blast. These circumstances are less than ideal, costing me twenty-two instead. But the damage each blast causes is significant. Solid chunks of ooze shatter like broken glass, falling to the ground and burying the ground in bluish-brown gunk. The dark purple core, itself the size of a large car, is now exposed, wriggling sickeningly in the center of its frozen body.

  Another of the soldiers, a [Swordfighter] of some sort, sees the situation and acts. Faster than I can move, he charges up the mass of icy sludge. He reaches the top, raises his blade, and thrusts it right into the creature’s nucleus. Once he does, the entire creature, core and all, begins to dissolve into the faint blue trace of ambient [Ether], followed by a pair of System notifications.

  [Your party has slain a Great Decay Ooze (Level 31). You have gained a boosted 3,600 Experience.]

  [Your party has slain an Ooze Summoner (Level 29). You have gained a boosted 2,850 Experience.]

  [Level: 26; Experience: 134,045; To Next: 16,055]

  [Current Stats: [Health]: 581 / 2,442 ; [Ether]: 186 / 1,544]

  [Current Stats: [Strength]: 31 (25); [Speed]: 31 (25); [Vitality]: 77 (62); [Mind]: 99 (80)]

  Seems Lindsey decided to go with ‘kill’ over ‘incapacitate’ or ‘detain’. A part of me dislikes the choice to be so final about things, but I understand the concern and why she did what she did. We don’t really have the infrastructure or technology to restrain someone from using their techniques at this time. Keeping someone at level 30 tied down is going to require several people, all above level 25, all constantly vigilant, ready to act the moment that summoner decides to try something funny.

  And that logistical nightmare is only going to get worse once more high-level people decide that crime actually does pay in this post-System world, and do exactly what our summoner friend just did, or something far worse. Plagues, so-called ‘natural’ disasters, and other acts of terrorism are just some of the many options I could see in which the social order might break down in the coming weeks, months, and years, all from people who’ve gotten high on a taste of power.

  And yes, the irony that I, eternal rebel Seraphina, am deigning to support the social order as it currently is, is not lost on me.

  But for now, as Lindsey speaks to the other soldiers, I need to speak to Chloe. She’s at her breaking point after pouring nearly every last bit of her [Ether] into healing the people around her, and I owe her more than a few apologies.