The air down here always tastes faintly of brimstone and metal. The walls sweat heat, slick and glassy in places where ancient lava froze mid-flow. Every sound echoes too long, sliding off the curved stone like we’re inside the throat of some sleeping giant.
I wink at Lenora, moistening my lips. “Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Then maybe…”
“I’ve never heard of it. Hey, Tess?”
“No,” Tess sighs. “I will not ask Inanna.”
Jenny giggles. Glitter poofs in a little cloud around her, and we all scoot back.
“Do it,” Frankie urges. “I’m bored.”
“I will not tempt Inanna to teach me something I already know.”
“I’m out of ideas,” I groan. “Meditation, concentration, frustration—I’m overflowing with that one—intimidation, exhaustion, excitement… even Frankie’s idea—”
“I can’t believe you rolled in a pile of—”
“I remember—humiliation didn’t work either.”
Tess glares. “I am not asking the goddess if she’s an exhibitionist.”
“Oh come on! I haven’t tried blasphemy.”
Tess rolls her eyes and paces a few steps away.
How am I supposed to figure out my Gift? I finally understood what everyone was talking about. It was something so common in the nine-tenths of Earth that lived their lives naked that my team only realized I didn’t know this morning.
I grind my palms into my eyes as if that alone might clear whatever blocked me from seeing the path forward.
Back on Earth I knew clothing underpowered my nanobots, costing me a century or two of extra life and slowing my healing. But today I learned something worse: coverings also robbed me of physical and mental enhancements.
My friends are superheroes. Jenny’s sparkly powers, Lenora’s healing touch, Tess’s godlike agility, and Frankie’s sheer physical dominance all came from their fully powered symbiosis.
Me? Nothing. Just a normal human with a bow—and, apparently, a fetish for clothing.
Yet here, in the VR, clothing doesn’t matter. Whatever dormant powers lay within me just needed a spark, a reason to ignite.
I mulled it over. Jenny expressed her power through movement and dance while touch and need drew Lenora’s gifts through the tips of her fingers, toes, and lips—she really could kiss a boo-boo better. Tess and Frankie’s abilities made them a speedster and a she-hulk at need.
And me? I just plinked plain arrows, one at a time, from my quiver. Accuracy from Dad’s teaching, years of practice, not a superpower.
Shite.
I sit with my back against the rough cavern wall—one of the “safe rooms,” places meant for resting and practicing other Inanna Rays—tucked between the endless halls and magma-carved chambers of the Gift area. The stone radiates a faint, steady warmth through my spine, like sitting against the flank of a sleeping beast. Thin wisps of vapor curl from hairline cracks in the floor, smelling faintly of minerals and ash.
My gaze drifts upward, unfocusing, past the black-glass sheen of the ceiling where ancient lava once cooled, into the eternal darkness of this world’s imaginary sky. My lips move in unspoken prayer. “I don’t know how. Tess swears I have a Gift, but what if she’s wrong? What if I had one, but I’m too old? Is twenty-eight too old? I’ve done everything they suggest, all the stupid stuff I can imagine, to spark my power, and nothing’s happening. I’m holding my team back. Can you help? I’ll try anything…” I mutter a sharp Gaelic curse. “Are you even listening? Am I worth your time?”
I let my eyes drift closed, a tear tracking warm down my cheek.
The silence presses in, deep and heavy—not true silence so much as a vacuum where ordinary sounds have been sucked out.
Something shifts in the dark.
When I open my eyes, the world is absolute black. My ears jerk and hunt, chasing the new sound of stone grating against stone. For a second my brain scrambles: where did everyone go? There’s no Tess pacing, no Jenny sparkles, no Frankie grumbling—just me and a dark that feels like a mouth closing.
“Tess?” My voice comes out thin, too small.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
A foulness rides the air—neither sulphur nor rot, more like Frankie’s gym socks after a week in a swamp. A whistle builds into an ear-splitting shriek and then folds into a skull-rattling roar. A pinprick of light blinks on, catching my desperate gaze.
“Tess?” My heart thunders, my breath stuttering. “What is this? Are you guys okay?”
I step back into the wall, rock digging into my neck, the ties of my corset freeing gravel and stones to plunk into uncomfortable places.
The light doesn’t stay still. It wavers, stretches, smears into a line across the dark like a match dragged too slow. The glow bends, bulges, and then snaps back in on itself—as if something’s wearing the light like a mask.
Laughter rolls through the chamber, low and menacing, echoing like it’s bouncing off unseen walls a hundred times larger than the room we’re in. My bladder betrays me as I scramble for my bow and my last three arrows.
“Who’s there?!?” The words shake right along with my knees, and the gravel that fell into my backside rattles like a maraca.
The pinprick blossoms into a haze, bleeding light through drifting mist. Dust rains from the ceiling. The laughter deepens. Shapes flicker inside the glow, spindly limbs that dissolve when I blink.
“Eww…” I mutter, half a whimper, half disgust. Did the phantom just pee itself, or am I going to need new underwear? Either way, something warm dribbles down my thigh. At least it squelches the maraca.
I take a breath, aim, and fire. The monster ripples like a stone dropped in ink as my arrow passes clean through its glowing eyes.
“Little git,” it snickers, voice oily. “You can’t hurt me.”
Second shot—straight through the chest. Nothing. My voice breaks. “Shite…”
“Foolish mortal,” it croons. “Grant me your soul. I will make your death… pleasant.”
My gaze chases the clatter of my arrows echoing faintly—a hundred paces away, useless.
I sidestep, my three-inch block heels scraping, praying they don’t betray me. Sweat slicks my thighs, sticky and cold—the last thing I need is this monster sniffing me like perfume. The thing prowls forward, ember eyes darting too high, too low, never where I expect.
I sight my last arrow, Dad’s voice in my ear, pouring everything I have left, my focus, every ounce of skill, every scrap of will, every desperate prayer poured into the string—
The shaft glows.
My jaw drops. Breathless, almost reverent: What in the name of— I loose before I can stop myself. The arrow wobbles, steadies like a guided missile, and slams into the mist.
THUMP. A spray of lightning bursts.
“Holy shite!” I shout, half terror, half wonder.
The shadow dims, no longer laughing, and charges.
I nock again—though I shouldn’t have another arrow. Yet one glows between my fingers, pulsing with life.
“Let it be real,” I whisper, soft as prayer, then fire.
Whoosh. Thump. Crackle.
The creature reels, thrown back, claws and wings spiraling.
“Spaun of Light!” it hisses. “The mistress said you were normal.”
“She lied.” My grin splits wide, feral and giddy.
One more arrow. One more miracle. It blooms in my fingers, thunder dancing across the shaft. I release, and the cavern erupts in Tesla arcs, the stink of burnt popcorn filling the air.
When the smoke clears, there’s no shadow left to kill.
I stare, holding another glowing arrow—drawn, ready to fire—and use its light as a torch to sweep the cavern. The space is enormous, two football pitches long and at least one tall, its walls glinting with the dull sheen of cooled magma. Steam drifts from cracks in the floor, curling like ghosts around fallen stones. “Come on, you Ifreann Spaun bastards. An bhfuil eagla oraibh roimh mo tóirse beag?” The guttural Gaelic snaps off my tongue like a curse—sharp, defiant, alive.
Silence answers—just the hiss of cooling rock and the distant plink of water dripping through the dark.
I sigh, my shoulders sagging as the weariness of an entire day of training crashes over me. The bow tugs at my fingers, eager to be released, but even its hum feels tired now, echoing softly through the heat-slick air.
Then words scroll across my sight like the opening credits of a sci-fi epic:
Congratulations!
You have discovered your first Gift.
- Imbued Bolt unlocked.
- Imbued Bolt +1
- Faith +1
- Archery +1
Combat Achievement
You have slain a Shroudspawn in single combat.
Reward: New Skill Unlocked:
- Identify Foe unlocked.
- Identify Foe +1
This is a knowledge-based skill requiring both study and practice to advance.
Six Luck Tokens used during combat.
Three Luck Tokens awarded during combat.
I settle on my heels, breath dragging in long pulls, sweat raining from my bare shoulders and pooling at the edge of my corset before trickling down uncomfortable paths to the stone.
“Imbued Bolt? Seriously? Did someone pluck that from the Magic Handbook of Some Nerdy Game?”
The name flickers. A cursor blinks, then deletes the words one letter at a time, pausing as if daring me to do better.
“Arcbolt,” I declare, chin high.
A pulsing question mark replaces the cursor.
“Well, that’s what it was,” I mutter, defensive as hell.
The word Arcbolt fills the spell name.
A footnote scrolls across the bottom:
Ability Modified by Gift Holder
- All arrows imbued with electricity.
- Electricity attacks gain experience at 2x normal rate.
- All shots deal 2x electric damage but cost 2x energy.
- This is an electrical attack and may harm the wielder and allies in conductive environments.
- Variants locked: you may not learn fire, water, earth, or air adaptations.
“What the frack?!?”
A soft, almost motherly chuckle echoes from the ceiling.
I gape upward. “Shite…”
“Be good,” whispers a kind feminine voice, “and maybe I’ll bless your team with rubbers—everyone but you. I’d hate to break up your Corset of Compelled Charisma set. You need those bonus stats.” A giggle. “Hum, let’s improve your look, show your… assets a little more clearly.”
I glance down at my outfit. Is it the lighting, or did the neckline just deepen? Is that… I swipe away a patch of muck and swallow. That’s my belly button. The self-repair and cleaning features finish their work, leaving me looking like a muddy mannequin dolled up for a pristine BDSM shop window.
“Thank you, Lady Inanna…”
Her mischievous chuckle fades into silence—then into something new. Footsteps. Faint, distant, echoing as if from across a park at night.
“This way!” Lenora’s voice, thin but desperate.
“Wait for us!” Frankie’s call, shrill and birdlike in the dark.
“I can’t believe she’s leaving you behind!” Tess’s voice—bootsteps like a drumroll, closing fast.
A spray of sparkles flares at the far side of the cavern, tearing open the black like a flare. And there they are—my team. My friends. Hell, my family.
My chest cracks wide with relief. My throat tightens. I’m not abandoned. Not alone.
I surge forward, sprinting toward them, bow lifted high. “I got my Gift—”
And then the heel of my stupid enchanted boots catches on a ridge. My legs scissor, my arms pinwheel, and I pitch face-first into the muck.
Fracking high heels.