Heric steps back; his face falls into a grimace and his darkness begins to slowly fade.

  “We’re done? Blazing sun. Oh…shade…it hurts so damnably bad!”

  As the dark continues to ebb, the light of the slugs casts across his skin; his clothes, my spares, are shredded to ribbons. His skin beneath is a mass of cuts and welts where the petals, vines, and the heavy hands of the monster have left their marks. He oozes blood that is as much made of darkness as it is of the red of life.

  “Are you all right?” I step back from him with the pretext of dropping the boss from my spear and gathering myself. I’m injured too; my shoulder is still the worst of it, but my skin is cut all over, my ankle is skinned where the vine dragged me to the ceiling. But it isn’t my pain that drives my thoughts now, it’s the watering of my mouth as I hunger for the flesh.

  “No. I’ve never been in a fight like that before; I’ve barely ever had to fight monsters. We had our Marked take care of the worst of things and I never ventures into the dungeons. It’s…worse than I thought it would be. I didn’t feel myself.”

  “You were impressive. With a weapon you’d probably not have taken so many injuries either.”

  “You’re right.” He turns and eyes the door into the treasure room. It is incongruous. Rather than the folded and braided wood of the walls and ceiling, it is made of black stone. Shining volcanic glass formed smooth inside the arch of two boughs. It’s a mirror of him.

  “Looks like the architects have a message for you.”

  “What could they be saying? Beyond they’re watching?”

  “Who knows. Perhaps you’ll get something you need in the treasure room. I’ll come join you in a few minutes I’ve just got to…”

  He looks at me from the side of his eye. “Are you going to eat the boss?”

  “I have to. It’s a compulsion. This is much of the reason I told you, actually, I knew if we came down here and you didn’t know already then you’d be angry, confused. I don’t know exactly how you’d have reacted, but I can’t imagine that it’d have been good.”

  “Probably right. So, how do you do it? Just carve of a chunk?”

  “I’ll cook it. You can stay and watch if you like.”

  “I’ll watch, I need a moment anyway.”

  “Oh. Fair warning for you. Each time I’ve been in a dungeon, I’ve nearly died both times, but I’ve also been taken by a cocoon. I don’t know if this is normal, but it’s my experience.”

  “I don’t have time to hibernate.” Heric sits amongst the crushed petals and lets his head roll back until he is staring up at the ceiling. “So I hope that if it takes us then we make it out soon. I can’t bear the thought of my people suffering under Oran while I’m stuck being lectured by memories.”

  “Yeah.” I agree as I rummage through my pack that I’ve retrieved for the flint and steel. I pile some leaves and pull some branches down to form a small fire. I hesitate before lighting it, wondering if I’ll set alight the room itself. But, with the possibility of escape through the treasure room, I’m not too concerned.

  This boss is the first monster that I’m uncomfortable slicing into for my meal. I’m not sure I would have managed to do so if I hadn’t been driven by the slavering hunger that overtakes me when I’m in the presence of a boss. It is just too human. Even for its wooden armoured exterior, there is too much of a person in its figure and how it held itself in life.

  I take a chunk from its thigh, cut it into strips and lay it over the fire to char and cook. It wouldn’t be so bad if the cocoon were to take me again after this meal; it might give me an insight into the symbols, allow me to read Aviela’s book that languishes at the bottom of my pack with her claws. It would be sad for more of Heric’s tribe to die while we waited, but I can’t find it in myself to cry for them.

  I don’t like that in myself. Heric thinks I’m a good man, but I know I’m not. I don’t want to go into Oran’s territory for virtual strangers. I don’t want to do any of this. There’s something inexplicable that is forcing me to make decisions that don’t chime with my life and I don’t understand why I’m going along with the flow of this damnable river in which I’m drowning.

  The meat cooks black on the outside and filled with juice within; it’s heavier than most and chewy as I tear into it. Grease dribble down my chin and I scoop it back up and lick it from my fingers. I eat and eat until my stomach swells and I feel the warm embrace of sleep press at my mind.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I groan and stagger to my feet. The fire has fallen quiet, only embers on their way to ash, but I stamp it out nonetheless; the soles of my thin shoes protect me just enough not to burn but I feel the powder of the wood turning to something different.

  “Shall we go on?” I ask Heric. The man’s watched me sporadically. He gave up on sitting and had lain, slept, woke and looked at me some more as he dealt with thoughts best kept to himself. I wonder what is happening behind those deep black eyes; what I saw of him after the battle makes me concerned that there’s something more there than I want to deal with.

  “Yes. It’s time I find my weapon.”

  We go together, Heric leads the way and pushes open the obsidian doors with a bulge of muscle that hadn’t been there mere days before. The room beyond is larger than the last treasure room had been. There’s a table in the centre once more but this time there are more treasures.

  Heric stomps over to the table and takes up the weapon that lay across the front of it. A hammer. Heavy and thick in the handle with a head with two sides, one is the flat of striking iron and the other a spike, short and brutal. He takes it into one hand and swings it about himself, down at his sides, over his head, and back up vertical in front of his face.

  “They know us, don’t they?”

  “Better than we know ourselves.”

  “What a strange life we now live. A year ago violence amongst us was unheard of, punished by the architects themselves. Now. It is all I can think of. I will crush the skulls of those men and women who came to take my people away and I will feel nothing but satisfaction as I break them for their atrocities.”

  “The world has changed.”

  Heric chuckles dryly. “Indeed. It is indeed changed. I must confess that I like it less. I was comfortable as a father of the new ones. Now I have to be their saviour and avenger and I find myself discomforted by this calling. What is your calling, Pik?”

  “I do what I need to. I’m going to ascend to heaven, beyond that is not my concern.”

  “Will you step on people to ascend like Oran has? Like the Marked as a whole have?”

  Darkness pools at Heric’s feet; his body is still and ready like a hunter ready to pounce. I steady my breathing and walk right up to the table beside him and look at what remains now that he’s claimed his weapon.

  “You should take those seeds; if anyone else from your group is ready then you can use them to help them ascend. Be careful that you don’t pick someone who isn’t ready.”

  “Pik…”

  There are other objects too. Another flint and steel. A small knife. A bundle of needles and a ball of slender thread. A hammer. Some tongs. And a shirt. I pluck that from the table and hold it up to the light of a slug. It’s thinner than the fibers of the shirt I wear, light too. It has a silvery blue sheen that catches the light in strange ways.

  “You got the hammer, so I think it’s fair if I take this shirt. What do you think?”

  He sighs and lowers his hammer; the darkness that had seeped from his recedes and he falls back into his old self. “Sure, you can have the shirt.”

  “I don’t need any of these tools though, I can carry them in my pack for now and your little tribe can have them once we set them free.”

  “That would be kind of you.”

  “That’s all we can be, right? Kind.” I nudge him with my shoulder companionably and he sways with me. “Someone must be able to fix up our shirts with those needles, right? Though yours is more hole than material at this point. Did you even try to dodge those petals?”

  “Those petals were Blazing quick; you didn’t manage to dodge them either.”

  “Ah, yes, but I am but a lowly Heightened and you a grand and powerful Marked.”

  His lip curls and he clicks his tongue. “Don’t remind me. I don’t like thinking I’m like them. I’m not going to use my powers to hurt and control people.”

  “Absolutely. What’s the point in having power if you can’t help people?” The words flow from my tongue like quicksilver but I don’t believe them. I don’t care about helping people, not truly, I like being around them and seeing them value me after so many years of being nobody, but I am going to ascend. That doesn’t include others. If they are with me then that is wonderful, but I won’t stay behind to help others if it stops me from achieving my dreams of heaven.

  I stuff the tools and odds and ends into my pack and look around the rest of the room; it’s the same aesthetic as outside. Wooden walls of interwoven branches and the drooping flowers and glowing slugs. I wait for the moment to come.

  “Maybe they won’t pull us into cocoons this time.” I roll my eyes at Heric’s words as they herald the moment that the wrappings begin. I sigh, lock eyes with him as the cocoon wraps up the last of my body and swamps me in comforting darkness.

  Do you believe your will to be stronger than others, Pik? Is it will that makes you more? Ambition? You have come so far, your body and mind are honed beyond your level of advancement and that is an enigma in itself. But what is it about you that can be more than the others?

  I float in the darkness and listen to the architect’s rambling; it seems more real each time I encounter it. It muses.

  There is much that we hope for in you, Pik. You are not the boldest, not the strongest, not the most rapid in your ascent. But there is something else beneath it all that we cannot quantify.

  Well you have listened to our guidance and you should continue this if you are to blossom into that which you must be. It is more important than you know. Do not fall aside before you realise your potential, be selfish, be mindful, find your centre and connect with the world about you. You’re almost there. Keep your faith in the flesh and banish thoughts of the seeds.

  I had been considering it; the temptation to take a seed like Heric had and force through my transformation into a Marked in one sublime transition was so strong that I can taste it at the back of my throat.

  “If you’re still watching me, architects, tell me what I can do? How can I advance?” I think for a moment as the silence stretches. “Give me words, let me read so I can teach myself from Aviela’s book. Didn’t you want that for me?”

  The silence considers, then the words come from further. You will not benefit from words you did not learn, you are beyond implantation, it is time for evolution. Find faith in the flesh, Pik. Find yourself and become what you are needed to be.