“You defy me.” I wince. His voice is like a funeral shroud tearing in two. His jaw hardly moves, his throat jolting fitfully with each syllable. “So many fell so easily that I began to wonder if the gods failed to create any worthy challengers. I am glad to be proven wrong.”
He moves in time with the revolving stairs, climbing up each step carefully and keeping us under constant vigil. The silence grows to be awkward as we pace each other up the endless ascent. I am not in a hurry to break it; buddy isn’t attacking, which is a pretty remarkable improvement over the last… damn it, five minutes. That he keeps his distance tells me plenty—either his attacks movements are taking a toll on his soul energy, same as ours, or the illusion of his invulnerability is just that: an illusion. I know I’d be super dead if I took either of Threenut’s blows, and I’d’ve crumpled under my own Strengthen Gravity like a tower of blocks before a curious toddler.
After another precious minute has ticked down off the timer, his expression sours with disappointment. He clearly wanted some kind of conversation, and we aren’t obliging. A change in his posture, slight but definite, sets alarm bells in the back of my head jangling. Zombieman’s identification pops up again before my eyes as I study him. I hurriedly open my mouth.
“Well, uh, Irda, I guess we’re pretty happy you were wrong, too.” He rears back as if slapped. I'm certain, had he any eyelids, that he'd be blinking in surprise. “Seems like we're at something of an impasse, no? You probably can't reach us, and we probably can't kill you. Maybe we should all just wait out the timer and agree to murder one another at a later date. What do you say, Three?”
“Aye,” Threenut says warily, not taking his eyes off our enemy. “A vein worth exploring. What say ye, warrior?”
“Only the desperate and the weak seek terms. Which tells me all I need about you two.”
In spite of his words, his posture remains relaxed. More precious seconds tick by as we continue to pace one another around the giant staircase. My breathing is grating harshly in my ears, and my legs burn with each struggle up to the next step. Adrenaline has been keeping me going, but, if this was a playground, I would have been picked last for this particular game. Still, I force my legs to move and put every ounce of my Legendary Perception to watching our enemy.
“I do find myself curious,” he says after another long minute’s contemplation.
“We'll tell no tales to foes of the Tree,” Threenut snarls.
“The fool will get us both killed.”
I roll my eyes into a warning glare at the little man. We're stalling for time, shit-for-brains. I'll talk to the scary undead monster as long as he's willing. I'll tell him a thousand lies and make up fairy tales if it gets us off this goddamned staircase alive.
“My, uh, ally doesn't speak for both of us,” I say hurriedly, resisting the urge to kick the Otachai when his leaves bristle like a leafy tomcat. “What do you want to know?”
“First, how do you know my name?” he says, his glowing red eyes boring into me. “That is a secret I have not shared with any in this place.”
“You mean secrets like your title? You know, Irda Zelnar, Ekinor Deathlord, 1st Legion of the Iskari Empire?”
“Exactly such secrets.” His eyes flash a brighter crimson, though what that means is well beyond me. It’s hard even for Legendary Perception to parse the meaning of glowing undead light. “Tell me.”
“You clearly think yourself superior, so why don’t you tell me?” I ask, channeling my pedantic, tutor-to-the-athletic-department condescension. Trying to get certain elements of the university population to pass basic English and Econ had felt worthless at the time, but the experience did teach me how to craft an insult with nothing more than tone.
“Its Class must offer extraordinary powers of identification,” he murmurs, almost distractedly. His eyes dim as his focus turns inward. If I had an iota of combat knowledge or potential, now would be the time to strike. But I don’t, so I don’t. “Though no, you’re right, that does not track with the other abilities it has displayed. Some form of telekinesis, and a burdening power…”
Who’s he talking to?
“His Mentor, Competitor, same as you.”
Oh, shit. Do I make it that obvious when I talk to you?
“You’d have to ask an outside observer, but I imagine the answer is incontrovertibly yes.”
“Missing it by a mile,” I say aloud, laying the derision on thick to hide the lie. “Any other guesses, Deathlord?”
“Only one,” he says, his eyes flaring brighter again. He lifts a lone boney arm as if to skewer me with the pale bone finger on the end of it. “You have received outside aid from the Twelve.”
“Really?” I blurt, surprised. I mean, I guess he’s right, but probably not how he thinks he’s right. It wasn’t exactly a gift so much as a curse offered as a final rude gesture, like a child with a magnifying glass taunting an ant. From the strange little sparkle in the Deathlord’s glowy eyes, he can read me well enough to know that he is right, or at least close enough.
“We knew it,” he rasps, his voice triumphant. “In order to balance the field with my strength, the Twelve must intervene. No doubt the floral rat at your side received such illegal aid as well.” He lowers again into his fighting stance, sword still and ready at his side. “It is no matter. They cannot stop me, even if I must bring death to the gods themselves.”
“Whoa, wait a second, buddy, I kind of agree—”
He disappears. The horrendous clang of Threenut’s club reverberates through my chest, though this time there is a crack of splintering wood. The Deathlord skips off the sizzling barrier, more controlled this time. The sound lets me breathe again. I’d be meeting my maker a half a dozen times over if it weren’t for my unlikely alliance with Threenut. Does this dead sucker have some kind of teleportation power?
“No, Competitor. He moves too quickly for even your gifts to keep up.”
Fuck me. That is pure speed? What kind of anime bullshit is that?
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“I am not familiar with this allusion.”
Be glad.
I take a deep breath and flick my eyes towards the timer. 7:56. An eternity, but at least a shorter eternity. My soul energy sits at 77, not healthy, per se, but enough to work a little magic. But then I realize I’m tired. My breath rasps in my lungs, and my muscles burn. This would have been a shit Challenge for me regardless, adrenaline the only thing making it even possible.
“Three?” I gasp, forcing a trembling leg up to heave my body onto the next platform. I might die from the Challenge, Zombieman be damned.
“Twig?”
“How many times… can you do that?”
“Eh… twig…”
I glance over at his tone. He holds up the splintered nub of his club.
“Ah. Fuck.”
“Aye.”
“Do you have any other Skills? At least, ones that could help?”
“Given the proper wind and rain,” he says dubiously.
“Well, we’ve got a little over seven minutes until we can get off this fucked up carnival ride.” I bring my soul energy up to the edge of release. I can feel it trembling at the ends of the channels the gods have carved into my soul. “Whatever it takes, Three.”
“Aye, twig. Whatever it takes.”
The Deathlord tenses to move. His legs suddenly pump on empty air as Weaken lifts his feet from the ground. My soul energy plummets alarmingly, so much so that I drop him after a few seconds. What the hell? Those four or five seconds cost me more than fifteen points off my total.
“It is the level disparity, Competitor. Your achievements for defeating higher leveled foes have allowed you even this luxury; were the difference much greater, you’d be unable to affect him with any power at all. But look. You have given him pause once again.”
He stares at the ground, then up at me, then back to the ground. I can almost hear the dust between his ears stirring like sand whispering through an hourglass. He doesn’t understand me, doesn’t understand what I’m doing to him. But it is only a matter of time. Sweat pours down my face, and my heart beat is a physical blow in my ears. I slip on the next step, throwing myself over the edge. I make my feet in time to see him begin to move again.
Gravity Shift.
His upward spring turns again into a freefall towards the crimson barrier. Fuck. I acted instinctually, but stupidly. Gravity Shift has way too high a cost to use so carelessly. As he falls, he flips so his feet will impact first. He hits high up on the spiral, and smoke erupts with a sickening sizzle. He presses against the field and launches himself down towards the ground, flipping gracefully when he leaves the field to land neatly on his feet.
Uhh…
“What Artifact did ye claim, twig?” Threenut says suddenly, his hand on the bark guarding his shoulder. “At the last.”
“Oh.” I glance down at the ball making a bulge on my right hip. “It’s… it’s useless.”
“From root to branch, doubt fills me veins. Useless? Naught is useless in this place.”
I dig under my tattered dress and draw out the seamless metal bauble. Shrugging, I hold it out to him. He takes it tenderly between his hands, not seeming to notice the weight.
“And its use?” he says, turning it in his hands.
“Uh, it’s a child’s toy,” I say, eyeing the Deathlord. He seems to be planning something, which isn’t a good sign. His main course has been ‘attack as quickly as possible,’ which is at least something easy enough to predict. Shiftiness is not something I think we can handle.
“What sapling could lift this ball?” he says, leaning back and placing it on his little pot belly like an otter would a shiny stone. Despite our desperation, my heart almost breaks with how cute the little gesture is. “Surely it is more.”
“Yeah, a god’s toy,” I say distractedly. “Supposed to be unbreakable or something.”
“Unbreakable?” Threenut wonders. “How could ye say that—”
Threenut cuts off as the Deathlord spins in place. Once, twice, then a third time he spins, faster with each revolution. He snaps to a stop, his hand extended towards me. What the actual—
Metal screams on metal. Something hits me high on the chest and low on my left hip. I stumble back, catching on the next step. Cold, and then heat. Blood. I’m bleeding. Threenut stands in front of me again, holding the silver ball up like a talisman. Narrow gashes decorate his chest, oozing more thick sap like blood. Pain rips through me, once and then again. The pain of whatever-the-fuck hurt me, and the greater pain of my Psychic Telos stitching me back together. My soul energy drops to a scant five points. Pressure eases from my chest, followed by a clunk as something heavy falls to the churning wood.
I blink down at it stupidly. What the hell is that? A sword? No, part of a sword. Half a sword, somehow broken in the middle. Stained with bright red blood. That looks like Zombieman’s sword.
“Your faith in the green rodent has paid off,” Kora says, a note of disbelieving wonder in her voice. “He has saved your life yet again.”
And it hits me. That asshole threw his sword at me? So fast that I didn’t even see it, couldn’t even process it. But Threenut could, and did. The bauble… unbreakable…
“A fine Artifact, twig,” Threenut says with some satisfaction, tossing it lightly from one palm to the other. “No more useless than rain or soil.”
The Deathlord looks as shocked as I feel. To have reached level 24 already, the bastard has certainly killed plenty of things, Competitor or otherwise, since we were dropped into this alien forest. I don’t know if it’s intuition, imagination, or some symptom of having Legendary Perception and Identification, but it feels like I can almost read his thoughts.
No foe has offered even token resistance. No enemy has been able to stand before his skill and power. And yet now these two, unlikely and unassuming, aided by the gods themselves, have defied his will, hurt him deeply, and have now broken the weapon gifted to him at the start of this Tournament. For the first time, he wonders if he will prevail. For the first time, his confidence is shaken.
For the first time, Irda Zelnar, Ekinor Deathlord, knows doubt.
“Hey, bud,” I say, forcing my abused throat to raise my voice. “Listen, the offer stands. You go your way, we go ours. You come up here again, sure, you might be able to kill us. But I think you know that you might not, too. Why risk everything on an all-or-nothing gambit? We just have to be in the last ten thousand, yeah? We can all advance if we have a little sense.”
“I do not need a sword to kill you,” he says, baring his teeth.
“Oh. Oh buddy.” I open my mouth and gesture towards my teeth. “I don’t think that has quite the effect it once did. You’re, uh, missing some.”
He hisses, a dying man’s final breath easing from his lungs. It is horrifying, at least until it whistles through one of the gaps like a tea kettle.
“Come on, Irda,” I say, exasperated. I pause, heaving myself up to the next step with a groan. “As I was saying: come on. How many more times can you hit that glowing wall before it eats through your armor?”
“You are on your last legs,” he growls. “How many more times can you stop me?”
Internally, I want to scream, but not in fear. This motherfucker is so frustrating to talk to.
“Fine. Fine!” I shriek, not caring that my voice cracks. “Come on, then. Make your move. Kill or die. I’m tired of talking to your bony ass anyway.”
The Deathlord doesn’t come on. He doesn’t move. His glowing eyes pan between Threenut and I, his face expressionless. The time melts away, crystal blue fading towards zero. We watch each other, silently, as the crimson barrier disappears.
Congratulations! Minimum time to survive this Challenge met! Do you wish to continue?
Absolutely not.
Victory! You have completed a minor Challenge of the Tournament! Claim your prize, Competitor!
In the mood for something cozy, spicy, and otherworldly? Join Dr. Ryst Nova in the Andromeda Galaxy, 700 years from now. Ryst survives an attempt on her life, but now she's hearing voices she can't explain and dreaming of a man she's never met. When she goes looking for him, what does she uncover, and could she set in motion a string of events that will break reality itself? Find out in .
What to Expect:
- Female & male leads.
- LGBT leads & cast.
- Neurodifferent and nonverbal characters.
- Slow burn romance that turns NSFW spicy.
- Telepathy, Tantra, & psychic phenomenon.
- Seven book series. For the stand-alone Comedy Space Operas, start in .
- For the stand-alone Psychological Thriller, go to Discordant .