Chapter 32: Chapter 32 - Gently Down The Stream

Oriz stoppered the vial as the droplet diffused through Zoe’s body. The powerful, essence-laced spice boosted her Vitality with an intricacy that astonished her. Cells bubbled up in her ruined eye socket. Her skin peeled and sloughed to reveal an unblemished layer of dark brown beneath.

Oriz removed her eyepatch.

Zoe’s eyes were whole again. She could see! Her ghostly shackles slithered away. She sat and rubbed at her wrists, blinking as she readjusted to proper depth perception.

“See,” Oriz smiled. “We aren’t so bad.”

Zoe nodded at her, still stunned by the regrowth of her eye, and glanced at Princh who remained smoking in the corner.

Princh bared her teeth and growled.

“Get in the boat and start rowing, newbie. And if you try to run, I’ll rip your feet off.”

Zoe glared at her, but stood, uncertain for a moment before her Vitality-enhanced blood flow removed any lingering numbness, and walked toward the wide canoe-like boat waiting further down the dock. She hadn’t seen the boat while laying down, but the wooden vessel creaked as it bobbed on the river. As she stepped aboard, her mind spun. Nausea made her reach out for balance, and she leaned against… a wall?

Wait.

Where was the boat?

She stood back above where they shackled her. Head spinning. Stone firm beneath her feet, against her palms. Solid, but wrong. It shouldn’t be there. She shouldn’t be here.

She bent over and vomited.

“What…” she spat. “What’s happening?”

Oriz rubbed her back with sympathy.

“This place is clingy,” she said. “It’s part of the Black Star system. Here,” Willpower driven aura rushed over Zoe, and the nausea ceased. “It won’t let you leave unless you focus. Better?"

Zoe nodded and stood. She looked between the two alien women. It spoke a lot to the recent insanity that she wasn't even fazed by speaking to aliens. Well, maybe a little.

"What about your third?"

"He's staying behind. Now, no more questions, and hop in the boat.”

Zoe nodded, still unsteady, and walked back toward the boat. She gripped her Willpower and forced herself to take a step at a time. The shadowy predators must have known about the ruin’s twisting reality and avoided it with the good sense only animals possessed. She gritted her teeth. No ancient labyrinth would pull her back. Her Willpower dipped as it fought against this hostile system, but Zoe persisted. She marched toward the boat, and each step brought her closer to her goal.

###

Zoe rowed for the rest of the sunless day. She tried not to think about the worm growing in her stomach and focused on the simple, repetitive motion. Even with her Might to empower her, and her Vitality to refresh her muscles, her shoulders ached. Despite the burning pain, the impatience, and the thirst, she kept her mouth shut.

If they wanted to tell her what they planned, they would. Her asking questions would only lead to more suffering. She told herself that she was biding her time for later defiance, but couldn’t deny the leash around her neck. No matter the motive, if you do what your captors say when they say it, you are just like any other prisoner.

But she was biding her time, and they would regret the way they treated her.

Oriz sat on the end of the boat with her back to Zoe. She dangled a bright green line in the water and, rarely, reeled it in with a catch. The fish were small and shaped like arrowheads. Their mirrored scales glinted in the light, and they must have fallen with the lake water from the Mirrobell dimension. Had any mirrodiles survived the fall? Or were their splattered corpses dried out in the dunes?

Oriz unhooked each fish she caught and placed them in the large clay pot sitting beside her. Sounds of splashing emerged from the perforated lid as the fish swam in tiny circles and awaited their postponed death.

Princh sat smoking on the bench opposite Zoe, her legs wide, arms crossed, and a glower of disdain crinkling her upturned nose. Whenever the boat slowed, Princh blew a languid ring of inky smoke into Zoe’s face.

“Don’t,” Princh said as the boat slowly rounded a bend.

Zoe raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t what?”

“Questions,” Oriz said without turning around as she secured a dried centipede on the end of her hook.

“It’s fine,” said Princh. “We’re almost at the tavern,” she ashed out her pipe and began repacking the bowl with midnight herbs. “Don’t. Simple as that. Don’t plan whatever you’re planning. Don’t think whatever you’re thinking.”

Zoe grunted and continued rowing.

“No defiance?” Princh struck a match and sucked the flame into the pipe. “What happened to the woman who tried to sucker-punch me?”

“I tried to befriend you first.”

“One must always be wary of befriending dark builds,” Princh said as though reciting from memory.

“What’s a dark build?”

Princh leaned forward and tapped Zoe’s breast above her heart.

“My [Eyes Of The Healer] lets me see your techniques. Especially since you lack the Dexterity to hide your Skein signature. I know the technique inside your heart. One of the vilest, most backstabbing techniques I’ve ever seen,” she studied Zoe’s face. “Do you realize what you look like to us?”

“How could I, Princh? You know so much more about the system than I do. I’m just stumbling along. Can’t you explain some of it to me? Share your wisdom?”

“There,” Princh waved a finger. “You hear that, Oriz?”

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“I heard. You win the bet.”

Zoe frowned.

“What bet?”

Dark smoke sieved between Princh’s grey-toothed grin.

“I bet Oriz a dozen fish that you would try to befriend us. Can’t use your technique without us becoming friends first, can you? But you won’t catch us that easy, no you will not.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing!”

“Keep rowing. Of course, it was what you were doing. Let me explain it then, you have a technique designed for a high Dexterity build. The user will hide the technique from eyes like mine and infiltrate organizations. They’ll make friends. Make alliances. Once they’ve done so, they’ll use that technique to snuff out the hearts of their so-called allies. Kill them in their sleep and nobody will know how or why until you vanish in the night.”

Zoe threw down the oars with exasperation.

“I didn’t choose this technique! It just formed after I absorbed the bell and —”

“No technique is an accident. If you don’t have a technique scroll, the system will form the technique based on your desires.”

“I wanted to know how my companions were feeling!”

“And how invasive was your desire to know?” Princh blew a ring of smoke. “Keep rowing. Ignorant you may be, but that doesn’t change the nature of your technique. Can it be used to keep someone alive? Yes. Can it be used to excite a party going into battle? Yes. But all medicine is just poison in a different quantity. Take it from me, I’m a doctor.”

“I’m a doctor as well!”

Princh leaned back with an air of insufferable smugness.

“Then you know exactly what you have inside you, but that’s not the worst of it, Zoe Chambers. No, you also have the scars of gluttony. Those burns on your lips? They signal to everyone you meet that you prioritize your own needs over those of your party. Nobody can trust you, and anybody foolish enough to do so gives you their heart to hold in your hands.”

Zoe shook her head.

"I was goaded into incorporating the Mirrorbell fragment. I didn't know about the curse or the technique. I didn't know!"

"So you didn't receive any warnings from the system? Nothing suggesting it might be a terrible decision?"

Zoe remained silent.

"That's what I thought. You're only upset there were repercussions," Princh spat black phlegm over the edge of the boat. “You make me sick, now keep rowing.”

Zoe picked up the oars. The rough wood stung her raw palms, but she continued rowing. Beat after beat, she pulled the boat downriver. Rowing and pondering on Princh's scolding.

How much of it was wrong?

She wanted to say all of it. That Princh didn't understand her situation. Didn't realize the stress of stumbling blindly through the apocalypse. But that was just an excuse. In the end, her actions had consequences. Just because the consequences were worse than she hoped, didn't make her the victim. She bowed her head and rowed, fighting to keep the shame from rising to her eyes, but Princh noticed the brimming tears.

“Who was it?”

Zoe glanced up at her.

“What?”

“Who goaded you into incorporating the fragment? Nobody who knows about the Crimson Armada system would tell you to do that. So, was it a friend? A lover?”

Zoe sniffed, wiped her nose with one hand, and went back to rowing.

“I don’t know him,” Zoe said.

“So it’s a ‘him’,” Princh nodded sagely.

“He’s not a human. Some kind of, I don’t know… but he calls himself Rue.”

Princh dropped her pipe. It hit the deck and snapped in half.

“What did you say?”

“Rue…” and Zoe’s eyes widened.

She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the meeting with the gods. Was everyone about to die? She flinched, waiting for her heart to explode, for fire to strike her down from the heavens, but nothing happened.

What?

She checked the quest again.

[The Burden Of Being Interesting.]

[Objective: Keep your meeting with the cohort a secret.]

[Time to Complete: until the completion of Phase 7.]

She supposed… she hadn’t mentioned the meeting with the cohort, but only that Rue had goaded her into incorporating the bell fragment. Was this loophole left intentionally? It seemed like the thing a god might do. Though there was another explanation.

This other dimension was interfering with the quest. The second she stepped back into her world, the ramification of the quest would play out in full. She, and all her party, would die.

“I don’t believe it,” Princh said as she picked up her broken pipe. “Judging by your expression I’m sure you mean Rue, the Blade Forest, the Crimson Armada’s personal god of war mowing down battlefields like a hurricane of knives… You didn’t mention this earlier? No, why would you? You don’t even know the significance…”

Princh vanished. The boat rocked in a sudden heavy swell. Zoe fought to keep her hold on the oars as Oriz placed a hand on the clay barrel to keep it in place.

“She just needs to take a walk,” Oriz said.

A few hundred feet away from the river, dust plumed. Zoe squinted and made out a figure pacing through the rippling heat.

“I don’t understand why she’s so upset.”

Oriz wound up her bright green fishing line.

“Princh and I, we’re ranked as city busters. Since we’re support builds, the exact definition becomes vague, but that’s about how powerful we are. You met Trinch in the shaft? He’s capable of subduing a continent. But Rue? He and his cohort are each ranked as planetary. As in it takes an entire planet of fighting forces to make it an even battle,” she sighed. “I’m afraid you’ve just made things a lot more complicated for us.”

“How so?’

“She’ll be walking for a while, why don’t you pull the boat over to the river bank? We can take a break.”

Zoe nodded and favored one oar to swing the boat around. She pulled toward the bank, hopped out, and dragged the boat up the mud and onto the sand. Again, she marveled at the strength of her recovered body. How much more powerful must someone like Rue be, that they could take on an entire planet?

Strength like that would be hers one day.

Oriz stepped off the boat onto the pale sand and studied the dimming sky. Lavender clouds drifted here and there. In the distance, a shaft of darkness crawled toward them.

“It will rain soon,” Oriz said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Might as well be honest,” Oriz sighed. “If you’ve attracted Rue’s attention, then we can’t just use you however we want, can we? Once we get back into your reality, we’ll be in his domain, and best we have you in perfect condition to make a good impression. Understand?’

Zoe blinked. What did they think her relationship with Rue was? Well, whatever they thought, she would not argue.

“I wanted to work with you from the beginning,” she said.

“I know, I know, that’s probably what’s gotten Princh so worked up.”

Zoe was about to ask about the plan to return to her reality when her stomach rumbled. Her knees weakened. She collapsed onto all fours. Heat flooded her. Something oily and pulsating squirmed in her core.

The worm.

Her eyes widened as she coughed and hacked. She felt it travel up her body like living cement. Thick and clogging. Bile filled her mouth. She cried as she heaved. It crawled from her stomach, into her throat, so bulbous she couldn’t breathe. Long golden whiskers emerged from her lips. They flailed in the hot desert air. Brushed and caressed her face with hideous familiarity. She wanted to swat them away, but her limbs were numb as she vomited up the disgusting creature.

It plopped onto the sand and squirmed in a bubbling sheathe of grey mucous. The segmented mouth opened, sucked air, clapping fat chitinous lips. It swelled to the size of a toddler, larger, wriggling in the sand and slithering away.

Zoe’s limbs could hardly hold herself upright. Oriz rubbed her back.

“There, there, it’s out of you now,” she handed Zoe a curved knife. “Now kill it.”

“What?”

“Feel that weakness? You just let a cursed item feed off your energy and essence. If you don’t kill it and reincorporate its corpse, you’ll never recover.”

Zoe took the knife and forced herself to her feet. She wobbled, lightheaded, but remained standing. Oriz gestured and her Willpower trickled over Zoe, solidifying the connection to her system and her attributes.

The worm continued sucking down air. Its body expanded as it lay panting at the foot of a small dune forty feet away. The whiskers on its head stiffened and grew. Barbs upon their shafts, each one as long as a broom. Its body was the size of a horse and grew longer by the second. Rolls of fat hardened from a buttery yellow to dull bronze. It faced Zoe with dull eyes gleaming like headlights. A long forked tongue flickered out between the lips as they curved into a mocking smile.

Zoe took a deep breath as her connection to the system and her attributes solidified. She gripped the knife so hard it hurt her palm, and charged.