The alternative…
Announcement! The spiritual protections surrounding Haven have been disabled for the period of one hour. Happy hunting!
Holy shit. I take a hurried step towards the hallway and hesitate, pulse pounding in my ears. Where am I going? What am I doing? Wouldn’t the smart thing be to sit my ass in the shower and wait for the hour to be up?
Kora?
She doesn’t answer. I can feel her in the back of my mind, still alive, still watching. I can also feel her frustration, her impotence. The gods must be blocking Mentors from helping as well. It is cruel beyond their usual bullshit, designed purposefully to kill as many people as they possibly can. All the weak huddled in their little apartments are going to be hunted like animals and murdered. The survivor tally has clearly been static for too long. Someone got impatient. I wonder if this is all the Seventh, or if the other gods are in on it.
Maybe someday I’ll be strong enough to toss all their asses into a black hole.
But not yet. Tonight, I just have to survive.
I crack the door. Darkness. Of course, they turned off the lights.
There’s no way I should go out there. The world is quiet. My mind supplies visions enough to stick my feet to the floor. There could be assassins of eleven different species waiting just out of sight. If I were an alien, it’s what I’d do. Only a psychopath would walk willingly into the Ekinor apartments right now. Go after easy targets, and leave the strong alone. Humanity has to rank near the top of the ‘prey’ species category.
We’re down to less than 700 people, after all.
Fuck. Ben and Evelynn. The other elderly. I can’t leave them to die.
Gritting my teeth, I move as quietly as I can over to the door, my slippers silent on the hard floor. As far as I know, I have greater Perception than anyone else in the Tournament, so I feel confident enough when the hall remains silent. I slip into the darkness, letting my hand trail along the wall to my right.
There’s no sound, but the stone trembles under my hand. Once, and then again, like distant explosions rock the building. Shit. I pick up the pace, keeping my ears straining for any sound, moving quickly towards the glade. If any humans are gathering to defend ourselves, it’d be there.
Muffled sounds come from behind a closed door. No, not closed. Almost. It sounds like… eating. Slurping.
Feeling my stomach twist, I gently press on the door. It swings open on silent hinges. A bit of light comes from the bathroom, enough light for my eyes to piece together the scene. I wish I couldn’t.
Something thick and bulbous and shapeless crouches over a body. What remains of a body. An old man I vaguely recognize whose name I never caught. The creature wrenches at a limp arm, finally ripping it free with a sickening, squelching crunch. A maw opens, not on what I thought was its face, but low on its body, and the arm disappears inside to horrid slurping sounds.
Identification: B0751, Urnza Gourmand
Level: 24
Strengths: Toughness, Strength
Weaknesses: Needles
The Urnza are the Competitor species of the Sixth. A species of sentient self replicating slime, the Urnza developed civilization more through accident than intention. An Urnza grows by consuming other biomatter, assuming some of the strengths and weaknesses of its collective meals.
Gravity Manipulation.
Strengthen Gravity.
The slime splatters against the far wall, pieces of it and human remains crushed to the stone. The old man’s body is not spared, the pressure distorting its shape until it isn’t recognizable as human anymore. The purple haze of my power obscures just enough that I can pretend it’s something else. I hold the field as my soul energy plummets, not sure if the slime thing has some absurd regeneration power.
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy!
I let the field drop. My soul energy was down a hundred points, but now spins back towards full. As Kora once told me, the typical method of recovery for Competitors is to absorb the souls of sentients. Probably why Assless got to gain so many levels early; he built off his own success.
Part of me recognizes the ringing in my thoughts, the weirdness of what I’m thinking. I stare at the splash of red and white among the dripping slime. In the dim light, only the bones are clearly identifiable. The old man was dead, clearly, but something in me still revolts at the desecration of his body. My desecration of his body.
A scream from farther down the hall. The direction of the glade.
I’m fine. Gotta be.
I head down the hallway at a jog, straining my ears for more signs of lurking murderers. A crack like a gunshot echoes from ahead. Once, twice. Knowing Wellington’s, it probably is a gunshot. I move closer to the wall to get out of the line of stray fire. A bullet to the brain can end me just as easily as anyone else.
A figure looms in the dark. Glowing crimson eyes.
I don’t wait for Identification. My power slams the Ekinor into the wall. It—she—grunts, a blade, wet with blood to match her eyes, glimmering in a faint light. I pour power into Strengthen, crushing her against the wall.
The crimson points disappear. I twist, and the knife plunging for my back scrapes on my shoulder blade instead. Another strike is coming. No time to run or turn.
Weaken Gravity.
I jump, impossibly fast and high. Her blade scours my calf, ripping down as I leave her reach. I settle on the ceiling, weightless. Agony flares as my soul repairs the wounds. Or tries to. Something fights against my Boon, an insidious will competing against my soul to widen the wounds, not close them.
Fear ghosts across my spirit. I have to end this. Fortunately, she wasn’t prepared for the gravity to change. She’s drifting without a tether, arms waving, an astronaut without momentum. Her bony form is wrapped in dark mottled camouflage. My eye shies away from it through some magical misdirection. The blade in her hand pulses with a dark light in time with the pain of my wounds. Any second now, she’ll remember that she can teleport.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Strengthen Gravity.
My chest goes cold as my soul drains into the Skill. More even than I intend. She must be high level.
The slime died easy; Ekinor are more resilient.
The impact is louder than the gunshots still echoing from ahead. Her undead body, held together through their unholy ritual, shatters into countless pieces. The red light of her soul exits her half-powdered skull with one last gasping hiss of spite. Might have been overkill, but then again, maybe not.
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
I’m down to double digits. Definitely overdid it. The stab wounds finally close without the Ekinor’s active malice. I drop back to the floor, taking a deep breath amid the sounds of shouting and combat coming from the glade.
Her soul hits mine like a lightning bolt. I gasp as my energy blurs higher. The maximum rises, settling at 335. God, she must have been strong. Judging by how her Skill managed to defy my own Mythic Boon, she definitely was.
- Enough to fight, especially if I can find Wellington and his hunters.
I spare a thought to my friends. I hope they’re doing alright. I wish I could warn them. Listen, Gods, the Twelve, or whatever. Dozen. Can I call you guys Dozen? Fuck, nevermind. Just listen. I don’t ask for much, but I’d like you to take care of them if you can. They’re all good people. Or not people.
I sigh, scrunching my eyes shut. Prayers have never been my strong suit.
The party window pops suddenly into view from my right unprompted. Threenut, Zara, and Burl all show green and healthy.
Oh, I’m a dumbass. I can check. But who opened the menu? Kora still rages silently in the back of my mind, and I certainly didn’t remember it on my own.
Huh. Prayer answered.
Okay, Dozen. Thanks.
The glade is bedlam. Sickly green flames burn the willows, their long branches lashing like the trees themselves writhe in pain. Blood, most of it red, and bodies, most of them human, decorate the undergrowth. Dark figures swarm in the strange light of the burning trees, darting in and out of sight even for my enhanced perception. A rifle cracks, and a figure topples with a cry.
An explosion of green fire shakes the room to a chorus of screams.
It is a nightmare. If I go out there, someone might kill me without meaning to, just another figure in the darkness. I still have to go. Ben, Evelynn, even the dumbass influencers, they don’t deserve to die. Not like this, scared and alone in the dark. Heat billows off the flaming trees in waves, baking the earth and drying out my face instantly.
A footstep crunches next to me, grass dried from the heat of the flame. My power flares, but I pause as a hand, warm and human, comes to rest gently on my cheek.
Grettel. The old woman looks kind in spite of the two different colors of blood decorating her face. A curved knife rests against her arm in a reverse grip.
“Grandmother, are you okay?”
“Come, child,” she says firmly, waving away my concern. “Focus on the front. I’ll watch your back. We’ll save who we can.”
“Uh…”
“Trust me, love.” Her voice is warm, but there’s something in her eyes that makes me shiver. “You’ve nothing to worry from the shadows. Today, they learn that they are not the scariest thing in the dark.”
And she’s gone.
Like a dream after waking, I feel my thoughts drift away from her. Forcefully.
Nifty. I imagine that someone weaker would have already forgotten the conversation, but my soul is resistant to other people’s influence for a bunch of reasons. Stealth through inattention is probably easier than actually sneaking.
The willows, finally succumbing to the diseased fire, collapse with roaring cracks and flaring light. The brightening flame banishes the shadows to reveal a mesmerizing dance of violence. I pass in between two scorching bonfires, squinting to see through the heat. Another shot rings out, and a tall figure jolts and falls. My straining eyes catch at least four different species locked in combat, all of them fighting humans.
What the fuck? Is this some kind of interspecies collusion? And for what, to kill us?
I’ve never been in a battle like this. I’ve never even imagined being in one. This is about as far from my wheelhouse as possible. I have a good angle, at least. I need my entry into this fight to matter. So, someone important…
The same sickly green flame blossoms between the hands of another Ekinor, this one wearing tattered robes with deep azure flames in its eyes. A trio of more traditional undead warriors in plate armor crouch in defensive positions around it, looking like the Deathlord’s poorer cousins. There. If anyone warrants having guards, they’re important enough to kill.
The fireball grows, its arms spreading to encompass the crackling sphere until the flame strains at the caster’s will almost with a life of its own. The wizard’s gaze tracks on… something. Probably the source of the gunshots. It’s too far for me to meaningfully harm the bony asshole with any of my typical fields, but… hm. It is remarkably stationary while its Skill activates.
Narrowing my eyes, I target my indestructible bauble with Gravity Manipulation. I nearly lose my grip as its gravity shifts perpendicular to the ground. Alright, line it up and…
Strengthen.
The deity’s bauble snaps out of my hand in a blur of dull metal. I lose sight of it instantly in the shifting light of the fire. The Ekinor lifts its hands to throw the massive fireball, a gleam of triumph in the cold fire of its eyes.
And then, that head is gone.
The corpse stands for a moment, headless, the roiling fireball still balanced between its bony hands. Stands, and… keeps standing, long enough that the feeling of victory in my heart falters. Maybe my assumption about Ekinor are wrong. Maybe their vitality is actually contained in their chest, not their—
The fireball explodes.
The flash steals my vision. I blink madly, trying to clear tears and afterimage both. Fuck, this is a terrible time to go blind. Anything can come up and stab me and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Agony burns across my eyeballs, and I can suddenly see perfectly again.
God, I have a love-hate relationship with Psychic Telos.
The battlefield is still, or mostly so. The trio of bodyguards were incinerated instantly, their suits of armor empty and smoking. The shockwave plastered half the battlefield to the ground, and the others all stare, dazed, at the scorched and blackened earth where the Ekinor once stood.
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!
Holy shit. I guess it gave me credit for everybody that blast killed. Flame like a rushing geyser explodes into my chest, not burning, but living. My soul drinks greedily from it. My spirit sings to the beat of my heart and blood. I thought that the goenta horde offered a lot, but it was nothing before this. Nothing.
385/385.
A crack breaks the silence, and a stunned Drelni’s head explodes.
Chaos, like a sleeping giant, jolts awake from a nightmare. People of all species scatter, their fight forgotten. An Otachai, spotting the gap between the trees I’m standing in, scurries in my direction. The flames are too strong still for me to move aside, so I hold up a hand.
“Wait, little dude, let me get out of your—”
With a yipping warcry, it leaps, a gleaming needle clasped in its hands. My heart freezes. Legendary Perception catches the gleam of poison coating its tip. I’ll never get out of the way in time.
With a sound like tearing paper, a blade sprouts on its chest, and it flies back to fall, lifeless, to the ground. I take a shuddering breath as Grettel stalks past, dragging the blade from the dead creature and wiping it unceremoniously on its leafy head. She turns back, elderly face framing a pair of lively eyes, and smiles.
“I told you I had your back, dear. Good job on the dead shaman. Nasty business, magic.”
“Thanks,” I say truthfully, staring down at the dead Otachai.
What was an Otachai doing in this part of the glade? Killing humans, just like all the other greedy assholes who came to murder us in our sleep. Why did I think that it would listen, even for a moment? I nearly died because I’m a fucking idiot.
I feel sick. I’ve been around Threenut too much. It happened subconsciously, but something in my head shifted his entire adorable species into the same harmless space where kittens and puppies exist. I forgot, somehow, that they are an equal participant in this bloodthirsty game. I forgot, somehow, who made them. The same asshole who just exposed hundreds of innocent people to a group of bloodthirsty murderers.
Dickhead.