by Azalea Ellis
"Adam, that was amazing!"
He grinned, self-satisfied and smug.
"Can you do other animals? How big can they go? Is that the time limit on them?"
He chuckled at my rapid-fire questions. "I can do anything I can draw, and they have the personality traits I'm imagining when I create them. A real giraffe would probably be scared of me if I leaned over and blew on it. I can go bigger to a certain degree, but it takes a lot of concentration, and the Skill isn't very strong yet. I haven't tried to animate any words yet, and I can't animate something far away from me. I haven't tried to do it with my eyes closed yet. And right now, the time limit is twenty-one seconds.
"You know," he continued in a low voice, "I think one of the tailos made it happen. We fought together, and I'd used some of the monster's blood like warpaint in the heat of the moment. I was just angry.” He shrugged, looking away in embarrassment. “The tailos seemed interested in it and my tattoos, and when he died, I wiped some on him, too. A useless gesture, you know? I just wanted…to let him know I thought he was a great warrior, and that he wasn't alone. And now I've got this ability to make my drawings come to life for a few seconds." He smiled again, less cocky and more melancholy.
I was about to ask for another demonstration when I heard a snuffling sound from the direction of the jungle. I grew absolutely silent, pushing my slightly enhanced eyes to their limit as I peered into the shadows. The fog was heavy, as it always seemed to be, and it obscured things in the darkness even more.
Adam slipped out his knives, which had gotten a great workout from all the battles we'd been through lately. He, too, scanned the dense foliage.
I saw movement and the tip of a snout and shouted, "Attack! Incoming from the trees," over my shoulder, not taking my eyes off the tree line.
Behind me, my sleeping teammates jumped awake at the same time monsters poured out of the deeper darkness into the edge of the sky-lit clearing.
By the time we had eradicated them all, the sun had risen, and everything from our camp to the tree line was covered in blood and dead monsters.
I had Sam cook up a haunch of one of the monsters and sample it. If his body gained any Resistance or anti-poisoning Skill upgrade from it, it wasn't safe for us to eat.
His eyes widened in surprise, and he took a bigger bite, juice dripping down his chin.
We all stared at him avidly, our stomachs grumbling jealously and our mouths watering at the smell of cooking meat.
"Well," Jacky snapped, "Can we eat?"
He nodded. "It's safe. And it tastes freaking amazing."
* * *
A week later, we neared the top of the mountain and stopped on a small plateau to rest, eat, and prepare before we faced whatever power was making the hair on the back of my neck rise up just from being close to it.
By my estimate, we'd only been gone from the real world a little over three days. But to us, it felt like we'd been climbing for seventeen days. The air was thinner near the top, and the water ran fresh like nothing I'd ever tasted. The bottled water companies in the real world had been ripping us off. Fresh mountain spring-water, my ass. Everything from the monster meat to the misty-yet-scantily oxygenated air here seemed designed to make us stronger, pushing us to our limits.
We pulled out food from our packs, all stuff that we'd hunted and gathered on the way up, and sat down in a circle.
Adam gave everyone's meat a quick zap to warm it up, and we all took bugs, fruit, or a tasty smaller animal out and set it in the center of the circle to share among the group.
Difficult though the ordeals of the climb had been, the team had changed for the better, growing not only in power, but in the sort of deeper confidence and comradeship that came from making it through hell together.
Sam let out a deep sigh and rolled his shoulders. “I’ve been wondering, what happened to Bunny? We didn’t make plans to save him.”
“I did make plans,” I said. “By now, Bunny’s told NIX some of the things he knew about us, with some key differences between his story and the truth. Keeping Zed a secret, and that we died here, or committed suicide by Trial, to name a few. Most of what he knows doesn’t matter for our safety anymore, but they’ll think he’s on their side so he’ll be safe, and we’ll have a man on the inside when we go back.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful frown. "So, what's the plan? For right now, when we reach the top, I mean," he asked me.
Jacky took off her gloves and dug into a comically large drumstick. In her hands, it looked like a barbarian meat club. "We go up there and destroy the enemy, no?"
He rolled his eyes and passed her his flask of water. "That may be your plan, she-hulk, but the rest of us would like to act in a way that's going to get us through the fight still alive."
She jostled him with her shoulder and took a swig of the water, no longer so averse to the touch of the boys, when once she could only stand to touch them if she was inflicting violence. "She-hulk? What’re you spewing out of your ass? For some reason, it doesn’t smell good…" she cracked her knuckles, play-threatening him.
He leaned back so far as he pretended to cower in fear that he fell off the rock he was sitting on.
While Jacky was busy pointing and laughing at him, Adam took a handful of inkberries from his pocket and crushed them in his fist, which was perpetually black-stained lately because of all the practicing he'd been doing.
Well, maybe not so much practicing as entertaining the group. Jacky begged for a show almost every time we stopped to rest, never-endingly delighted to see his creations come to life.
The drops of ink running from his fist burst into action almost before they even hit the ground, spreading into a cute, flowery meadow that looked like it came from a children's book. Small animals played among the flowers and peeked out from behind rocks.
Jacky's laughter sobered, and we all focused on it, what we'd been doing forgotten.
The fairytale meadow sprang upward, and then a small form pulled itself over an invisible edge, climbing into the frame. It was a comically muscular creature, broad-footed and club-fisted. Veins popped from its arms, and it had a small hunchback and no visible neck. Atop the body sat Jacky's pretty face, twisted in anger.
"It's a she-hulk," I gasped, already holding back a laugh.
Mini Jacky-hulk roared, shaking every blade of grass and petal in the meadow and causing the animals to freeze. She beat on her chest like a monkey, and then stomped forward. The animals leapt away, keeping a safe distance from her and her crushing hands and feet.
Real Jacky's eyes were wide as she watched her counterpart go uselessly berserk, lumbering around the meadow in circles as the more nimble creatures teased her.
By the time Adam's Animus Skill wore off, he was struggling to hold back laughter, and the rest of us were gasping on the ground, unable to breathe past our hilarity.
"That…is not…me!" Jacky finally got out. "Those rabbits never woulda escaped me."
I wiped the water from my eyes and finished my quick meal while they continued to joke amongst themselves. I'd grown closer to them than ever. Though I wished I could say I wasn't so weak, I feared for what might become of them if my plan didn't work.
Whatever was up above was powerful. Likely the most powerful thing we'd ever encountered.
When I was ready, I took a few deep breaths, focusing on my heartbeat, and slipped into the hyper-aware state that had once been so difficult to achieve. I'd been practicing, sometimes even in the midst of climbing the mountainside. It was getting easier and easier, as though perhaps solving the ring had given my ability a boost, but I still hadn't been able to reach out to that other presence again. It worried me a bit, though I wasn't quite sure why. Maybe because I didn't like the unknown, especially when it could be important to my survival.
When I threw my senses out, I was almost blinded by an aura that assaulted every sensory channel. After completing the ring puzzle, the smallest gift from the Oracle, I'd gained a vague per
ception of something new, an energy that couldn't be seen with the naked eye, but that flowed through all of my team, brightening when we used our Skills. But here, that was overwhelmed by power seeping from the rocks beneath, thrumming in the air we breathed, and sliding through the water around us. But overpowering all of that was a large mass above us.
It was unmoving, planted in the center of the caldera we'd have to descend into once we reached the lip at the top. It had roots longer and thicker than I could see, and all around it were smaller points of strength.
I gathered my seeking senses back into my body and opened my eyes.
The others were all watching me intently, the layer of mirth wiped away as they waited for news of the coming danger.
"Well, that vision was right. Whatever's at the top, it's powerful. Very, very powerful."
"Powerful enough to defeat NIX?" Jacky asked.
"If it could be used as a weapon, I don't see how it could fail to defeat them."
"But that's just it," Adam said. "What is it? How do we know if it's going to be useful for us? Or even something we can take back?"
"I'm…not sure," I said. "It's so strong, it sort of overwhelmed my senses. I could only get a vague idea of where it is. I couldn't tell what it was."
"How do you know this is safe, Eve? I mean, some Trial creature gives you something that makes you have visions of the future, but not before trying to kill you. What if this is just its way of finishing the job?" Adam asked, ever the pessimist.
Sam looked between Adam and me, taking deep, slow breaths to keep himself calm despite Adam’s words.
"Adam, something's going on that we don't understand, here. That Trial monster you’re talking about was…intelligent. It talked to me. Yeah, it tried to kill me, but it was just a test. When I proved myself to it, it gave me its blessing and wished me well. And what about the tailos? They were telepathic, sentient beings!" I patted the side pouch of my pack, where the tailos egg was nestled. I had brought syringes in my pack, and fed it frequently. "You said yourself you think one gave you the Animus Skill. Consider the possibility that not everything here wants to kill us indiscriminately."
He let out a sigh. "Fine. We're already here, anyway. If you think it might be the answer, I'll follow you," he said, but then he muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "not everything may want to kill us, but ninety-nine percent of everything seems designed to do just that."
Chapter 33
Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.
— John Milton
I crouched down on the edge and looked over into the steep, huge bowl cut out of the top of the mountain. Clear blue water bubbled and steamed like a witch's cauldron. It spewed up from nowhere and spilled out through cracks in the rocks, no doubt creating the numerous beautiful waterfalls that dropped for so long before feeding into the lake below. Submerged beneath the water, orange and red spots glowed hot, and caused the water to bubble more furiously around them. Large flat stones broke up the surface of the whole caldera. We'd have to cross on those to get to the middle.
I still couldn't figure out what was in the center, though I was squinting right at it. Steam rose up from the water there, with huge wafting clouds making a shrouding column so thick I couldn't see through it. "That's where we need to go," I pointed." But I felt other points of power, too. There might be monsters lying in wait. Or traps of another kind." I fed my armored vest a few extra drops of blood to make sure it was ready, though I kept it unfurled all the time at that point.
After a few minutes to psyche ourselves up, stretch muscles, and sharpen knives, we left our packs at the top and started the descent, jumping from ledge to ledge along the inside wall. Before coming to that Trial, I may not have been able to make those jumps, but I'd grown stronger.
When we reached the bottom, gathering on one of the flat stones, the water around us started to splash as if it noticed our presence.
"That's disturbing," Sam said, stepping away from the edge of our platform.
We jumped forward, moving from stone to stone, farther toward the center and the tower of steam. The heat grew more oppressive, and even the stone beneath our feet burned.
I was glad for the toughness of my feet, which had increased over the past two weeks of going around without shoes, but jealous of the protective boots the others wore.
The water became more and more frantic as we moved farther, and suddenly one of the red-orange spots below us shot up from the depths. It burst out, steaming with the sound a drop of water makes when you drop it on a too-hot pan.
The first thing that came to my mind was that it was a rock and lava golem. It was humanoid, with a featureless lump for a head, and limbs of rock held together by flowing lava. The second thing that came to my mind was that it was damn scary.
Jacky just happened to be on the edge of the platform it arose next to, and it caught her pant leg with a swipe of its rocky hand. She kicked it in the head hard enough to make the stone crumble, and it fell away from her into the water, leaving a smoking hole in the fabric of her pant leg.
Almost immediately, it recovered and shot to the surface again, this time climbing onto the rocky platform.
She squared off with it and started to fight, carefully avoiding the lava-flowing parts of it and crumbling away it's rocky limbs and head. One solid roundhouse kick to the abdomen cracked through its chest, and the thing collapsed into a steaming pile of rock and quickly cooling lava. "Go for the chest!" she called.
The water started to boil and jump even stronger all around us, and more lava golems shot upward. I bit my lip at the number, but noticed that there were no more red lights shining up from the bottom of the water, so at least there wouldn't be more than one wave of the creatures.
We started to attack, making surprisingly short work of them. We'd gotten stronger. A lot stronger. I was grinning cockily when the crushing sound of a lot of water crashing down blew past us, and a huge wave rolled out of the bottom of the column of steam, rushing out in all directions. "Damn," I said, the grin erasing itself instantly.
There was nowhere to run, and nothing to hold on to except the rocks beneath our feet.
"Jump when it reaches you!" I called out, and followed my own advice. I came back down into shallower rushing water, but the depth and strength of the tail end were still enough to knock me off my feet, and it was scalding hot.
I grabbed onto the edge of the platform and managed to pull myself back up after a few moments of spluttering. I was looking around to check on the others when something grabbed my foot. I had less than a second for the alarm to sound in my mind and to look back before the clear, watery fist yanked me off the edge and down into the water.
I kicked and struggled to swim away, but my efforts had no effect. When I looked down, I saw nothing, but I could still feel the fist around my ankle.
It pulled harder, dragging me down fast and far enough that the pressure of the boiling water began to feel uncomfortably strong. Finally, it stopped pulling and released my ankle, but before I could swim away, something wrapped around my torso and pressed against my face, pinning my arms to my sides and pushing against my nose and mouth, trying to force the burning water into my lungs.
I bucked and wiggled, but the liquid creature only swirled around me more strongly, completely dominating against my clumsy underwater maneuverings. Bug-eyed, I felt the air being squeezed out of me, and knew the burning panic of a person who's about to drown.
Then Jacky shot by like a rocket, ripping away my assailant and setting me free.
I swam toward the surface and sucked in a breath of air along with a little water. I choked and started to cough, but my head cleared and I was able to swim to another of the platforms. I spent a few seconds clearing my lungs and letting the dizzying heat of my skin cool, careful to keep away from the edge of the platform.
When I stood and looked down, I saw Jacky shooting around the wat
er like a superhero, decimating vague watery outlines left and right. She’d burst out for a breath of air every minute or so, then dive back in.
Above, Adam was still dealing with the remaining rock and lava golems, and Sam fought by his side with his crowbar.
A roaring crackle sounded from the direction of the column of steam, and out of its center burst a ring of that strange light-and-dark fire. The fire separated, and pieces of it formed into bird-like shapes and flew out in all directions. They eyed us on the ground for a few moments, circling overhead, and then one made a dive for me.
If not for Sam's screamed, "Don't touch it!" I would have counterattacked with a rake of my claws or a kick as it went by. I skipped out of the way instead, teetering on the edge of my platform for a second.
The water below me bubbled and burst upward in a vague humanoid shape, arms reaching for me.
Jacky shot out of the water, spearing through its chest with a single punch, and crushing a fistful of harder clear liquid within her fist. "Gravity Skill comes in handy," she gasped. “I can go side to side, if I just pretend that way is down. I got the water. You can handle these, no?"
I nodded. "Thanks for the save. We've got this."
She took another deep breath of air and shot downward, feet first.
I moved to Sam and Adam, jumping along the stone platforms and avoiding the swoops of the fire birds. "What's wrong, Sam?"
"Anything they touch gets…unmade.” He held up his crowbar, which was missing one end.
"How the hell are we supposed to stop them, then?" I moved my eyes to the sky, scanning for signs of an attack, which would be especially dangerous since all three of us were together.
Adam lifted his hand, then, and shot a bolt of electricity at one flying dangerously close to us.
It jerked at the hit, then seemed to burn out of control and devour its own body. A few chunks of flame hit the water and sank still burning, but soon extinguished themselves.
