Chapter 106

  Hollowroot Bastion, Part I

  We gather outside the castle’s front doors under a sky the color of bruised pewter, the air thick with the scent of wet stone and swamp fumes. The party is joined by the Serpentine Lord’s emissaries again. Each velociraptor perched on a pair of long, feminine legs. Jelly Boy is similarly seated atop his new accessory set. The blue-tinged, womanly legs impatiently shift their weight with an irritated elegance.

  I’m standing there in my full set of gear now. I look off towards the horizon, seeking any sign of our destination and what lies ahead of us. A tap on my left shoulder. It’s Walter. The skeleton is wearing a bowler hat and a new suit that looks like it’s fresh off a corpse. He’s holding a green ledger in his left hand. He makes a sound like he’s clearing his throat, though I can clearly see there’s nothing lodged in it (and he doesn’t have vocal cords, anyway).

  “The Hollowroot Bastion is that way,” he says, pointing in the opposite direction.

  “Er—right. I knew that.” I turn in the direction he pointed and look out onto that horizon.

  A chuckle escapes the skeleton. “Kidding. You were right the first time.”

  “Heh!... Uh, right.” I say, scratching my face and turning back around.

  “Sorry, Joe” says Walter. “Probably not the time to be joking. Just my nerves, I think. Cutting it close with our time here on the Serpentine Lord’s estate.”

  “It’s okay… I get it. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of this World Seed, and everything will be fine.”

  He just gives me a single nod of his skull.

  We settle into a comfortable silence.

  Liv stands a few paces away from me, Archewald-branded (and non-cursed, thankfully) cloak drawn tight, arms crossed, doing this thing where she looks calm but her aura is vibrating like a live wire. I sense it without even focusing on my [Aura Sense]. She keeps checking her potion belt and the little pouches and vials she’s made for herself. Her fingers move in a pattern like a nervous tic.

  Preston floats in his helmet bowl, the diving suit’s boots planted with purpose in the mud. He’s fussing with bottles and vials like a posh little pharmacist, his voice drifting out in that calm, aristocratic way. “I do believe we should have sufficient reserves for anything we encounter today,” he says to Liv, “I will hold onto the spares, if you need them.” I can’t help but wonder if Liv has picked up the zombie goldfish’s habits in taking up alchemy and potion-making.

  Grush stands apart from all of us, looming, a quiet war statue in his old military gear. Rifle across his chest. Grenades at his hip. His jaw works like he’s chewing on a thought, though I’m never sure what exactly is going through that man’s head. If anything.

  I wave at the Frankenstein monster. “You feelin’ ready, pal?”

  Grush let’s out a low, rumbling groan.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I mumble.

  I silently run through my own mental inventory, ensuring there’s nothing I forgot, when it hits me. I never performed my ritual Spell with Dr. Archewald!

  My eyes flick to the castle doors. Did Dr. Archewald count as a Monster for purposes of the Spell?

  Technically he’s… something not entirely human. It’s worth a shot, in any case. Wouldn’t hurt to have another Spell, I think. Even though I still need a lot of practice with my newer Spells already.

  I’m still chewing on that thought when the castle doors open. Dr. Archewald steps out into the gray morning like he’s emerging onto a runway. White coat flairs behind him, revealing an emerald corset and a silver pair of heels that would snap a normal ankle clean in half. His face is painted entirely differently than it had been when he visited the infirmary: purple lipstick covering his mouth, giving his lips a clown-like appearance, green tears painted onto his high cheekbones. A sucker hangs from his mouth.

  He pauses at the top of the steps, scanning us like a director checking his actors before the final scene. “Well,” he says, voice smooth and smoky. “Look at you. All bundled up like you’re going to a funeral.”

  Walter’s skull tilts. “Feels like it.”

  “Mm.” Archewald clucks his tongue and starts down the steps, the sound of his heels somehow louder than the bubbling and burping of the swamp. He stops near me and looks me over. Then, he smiles and nods. Looking at Walter, he says, “Well cheer up, bitch! You’re all here to save this damned world, not mourn it!”

  I clear my throat. “Before we go—uh. Doctor. Serpentine Lord. Whatever—”

  He raises a brow.

  “I’ve got this, uh, ritual spell.” I gesture awkwardly. “It’s called [Pact of the Novice Scribe]…” I stumble my way through an abbreviated description of the Spell. “Well, I meant to ask you about it sooner, but I forgot…”

  Archewald’s lips curl into a deeper, amused smile, around the sucker. “Of course you didn’t. You were busy getting tenderized like a cutlet by my old lil’ project.”

  “Right.” I swallow. “But… could we…?”

  “Do it?” he finishes for me, delighted. “Babe, in front of your own sister? Don’t make my blush.”

  Heat crawls up my neck. “Okay, but—What I meant was—”

  He waves a hand, cutting me off. “Yes. I know what you meant, darling. You don’t need to get all hot and bothered. It may work…” He emphasizes the word may like he’s dangling a treat just out of reach. “But no.”

  I blink. “No?”

  “No.” He leans closer. I can smell his perfume. It’s sweet and sharp and wrong in the swamp air. “It is not worth depleting your Stamina so soon after recovering. Or doing so and using a potion to replenish your reserves. Not now. Not this close.”

  His expression tightens, the theatrical sheen slipping for a moment. “We’ve already cut it too close,” he says, quieter. “I can feel it.”

  My stomach drops. “Feel what?”

  He taps the sucker against his teeth, then points it outward, toward the distant forest where the Hollowroot Bastion waits.

  “The fragment,” he says. “Breaking. Whatever awakened it kickstarted a reflection of the Contest… One that’s barreling towards its dramatic conclusion. Only an hour march from here and I fear we were too optimistic, and are cutting it far too close.” He looks back at me, eyes suddenly serious. “Don’t you feel it, babe?”

  I hesitate.

  Then I activate [Aura Sense]. The sixth sense blossoms to life, and immediately Dr. Archewald and Liv light up like bonfires. I do my best to ignore the sensory overload and I push it outward. As soon as I do, something crashes against the edges of my mind. A pressure. A wrongness. It feels like a massive piece of glass under stress, spiderwebbing with cracks, vibrating on the edge of shattering.

  My stomach turns and a migraine blooms behind my eyes. I retract my [Aura Sense], dampening it, though that does little to ease the throbbing pain in my temples.

  “Oh,” I whisper. “Oh, fuck.”

  Archewald nods, satisfied. “Yes. That.”

  He straightens, voice regaining some of its flair. This time, he addresses the entire party. “The World Seed is unstable, but itself isn’t dangerous,” he says, as if delivering a lecture to a room full of students who can’t pay attention because they’re too distracted thinking about dying. “But it has ways of defending itself. Expect the unexpected, darlings.”

  He gestures delicately, fingers fluttering. “Little tantrums of reality, typically. If you can get in quickly and claim it, you may avoid the most… dramatic of situations.”

  Walter steps closer, the green glow of his ledger reflecting off his ribcage. “And if we can’t?”

  Archewald smiles without humor. “Then it gets ugly.”

  He turns then, attention sliding to Walter. For the first time since I met him, he looks… unguarded. Like all the makeup and camp and sass are just armor he’s worn for so long he forgot it was armor.

  He takes the sucker out of his mouth and holds it at his side. “Walter,” he says, and the way he says the name is different. It’s softer… heavier.

  Walter’s skull dips slightly. “My lord.”

  Archewald’s eyes glisten. “Dinescu…” His voice catches, and he clears his throat with a sharp inhale. “He was a miserable host. And I would have absolutely forgiven him for the party snubs if he’d just shown up once. One time. Even late. Late-late, not fashionably late. Even without an excuse.”

  Walter doesn’t speak. He simply steps forward.

  Archewald steps forward too.

  And then they hug.

  It should be absurd, but it isn’t. It’s real. It’s grief and history and rivalry forged into something tender. Liv’s next to me now and I can sense even she can feel it. She shifts awkwardly. On the other side of her is Jelly Boy, and I’m shocked to see comically large tears welling in his dark eyes. His jiggly body is shaking… Is he crying?

  Archewald presses his forehead to Walter’s for a moment, eyes closed. Then, he draws back, blinking rapidly. “Go,” he says, voice sharpening again because it has to. “Before I change my mind and lock you all in a pocket dimension just so I can watch this whole place burn… It’s just not the same without him, you know?”

  Walter gives a small nod. “Thank you.”

  Preston’s diving suit inclines, as if bowing. Grush grunts once, which is basically a heartfelt goodbye from him.

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  Liv steps closer to me. Her hand brushes my arm. “Joe? Ready?”

  “No,” I whisper back. “But… Er, yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

  The raptors click forward in unison, their enchanted animatronic legs taking the lead with confidence. “Move,” says Fedora Raptor in that oddly human voice. “We escort. You do not deviate. One hour, if the path treats us well.”

  I adjust my wizard cap and swear I hear a low, satisfied purr from Shogmoth. Somewhere in the distance, the broken-glass pressure of the World Seed thrums like a heartbeat and I can sense the entity’s satisfaction at the possible destruction of an entire Realm.

  We turn away from the castle, following the raptors into the wet trees of the Miredrake Marshes.

  The march is short, but the tension and anticipation in the air drags out time like thread from a spool. About fifteen minutes into the trek it starts to rain. Rain needles through the canopy, tapping against leaves that look like torn black lace. The swamp gives way to firmer ground in patches. The raptors lead with that absurd click-clack of heels, tails swaying, heads darting left and right like they’re runway judges tracking for danger.

  How are their heels even making that noise? I think. Were they enchanted to always ‘click-clack’? It’s a stupid question and I push it out of my mind. I keep my eyes forward, but my mind won’t shut up.

  Chernobog.

  Archewald’s words replay in my head, on a constant loop. A contestant who wasn’t from here. Someone who became a Contestant anyway. Someone who threatened everything. Someone whose name was now encoded into the Game we’re currently playing.

  Veronica.

  My chest tightens as I remember what she had told me and Clyde back in the Bronze Gate. We were separated and she ran into something that branded her.

  Soul-touched.

  Veronica and ninety-nine others. A hundred people who went into Bronze Gates and came out with something… stuck to them. I rack my brain, trying to recall the specifics of her [Soul-touched] Trait, but come up short. I remember it sounding like a game-within-a-game.

  But what does Chernobog have to do with it?

  I don’t know what it means. Perhaps Chernobog was simply a title or description used by the System, and Archewald’s Chernobog had just taken it on like a mantle. But that explanation doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t know why…

  But I know this: if there’s even a chance I can fix it, I have to try. I should reach out to Veronica as soon as I’m back on Earth. Because the longer she walks around with that thing in her status window, the more it feels like it’s my fault. She’s my friend and I’m doing nothing to help.

  Does she even want your help, dude? You’ll probably just fuck up and make it all worse, anyway.

  The thought crashes in, uninvited and louder than anything else bouncing around in my head. I try to push it away, but it’s like pushing against a wall of smoke. Instead, I let it roost there and try to think about the click-clack of raptor heels.

  The trees eventually thin.

  The raptors stop. Fedora Raptor lifts a claw, halting us like traffic cops at the edge of doom.

  Ahead, the world changes. First, the air shimmers like a mirage. Then, the swamp ends and the foliage parts. A wall rises out of the marsh like the spine of a dead god—massive, pale stone veined with dark roots that pulse faintly. The outer barrier of the Hollowroot Bastion curves upward and outward, smooth in some places, jagged in others, as if it’s grown rather than built. Vines cling to it—thick, woody cords that look like they could strangle a horse—and there are carvings in the stone that twist the longer I stare, like my eyes don’t want to agree on what they’re seeing.

  “Edge,” Fedora Raptor says in that bizarrely feminine voice. “We leave you here. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  The raptor makes a sound that might be a laugh or a hiss. The other three pivot in unison. They walk away, heels clicking, disappearing back into the trees, exiting stage left.

  And suddenly, it’s just the party.

  Walter steps forward first, like he’s trying to pretend he isn’t afraid. He lifts a hand toward the barrier. The air in front of the wall shimmers. It’s subtle at first, like heat haze over asphalt. He pushes his hand forward, perhaps a centimeter. The haze instantly becomes a visible membrane of faint green-gold light, stretched tight across the space immediately in front of the Hollowroot Bastion’s outer wall.

  For a fraction of a second, nothing happens. Then, his fingertips whiten, turning from their usually stained bone-white, to a dusty, snow-like white. His fingertips start to crumble as if it’s being sandblasted by invisible grit. Walter yanks back with a sharp, rattling gasp. His fingers have turned into bonemeal. Powder spills down his sleeve like someone dumped flour into the air.

  “Ah,” he says, voice clipped and furious. “No.” I watch as his fingertips begin to regenerate, fresh bone springing from the ground-down nubs.

  Preston steps closer, the diving suit’s boots squelching. The zombie goldfish does a lazy circle in the fishbowl helmet. “As suspected. Current Participants only. Even with them in our party, we are not permitted entry. How… disappointing.”

  Grush reaches out, big meaty Frankenstein fingers slapping the barrier like he’s testing a window.

  “Grush, no—!” tries Walter, but he’s too slow.

  The barrier flares. Grush’s arm jerks back as if he’s been shocked. The skin along his knuckles smokes faintly. He growls low, offended, then crosses his arms like the wall just bullied him.

  Liv glances at me. “So, it’s really only us.”

  “Yeah,” I say, throat dry. “No pressure.”

  I look down at Jelly Boy.

  He looks back up at me, vibrating faintly with the kind of manic excitement only a slime can have at the threshold of possible annihilation.

  “What about him?” I ask. “He’s… not from here. But I don’t think he’s a Participant, either?”

  “He’s linked to you,” Preston says. “An ally. His aura signature matches the same plane as you and your sister, which is interesting. Perhaps the barrier to the Hollowroot Bastion will treat him similar to Participants?”

  Walter shakes his skull, tiny bits of bone dust still clinging to his suit. “Or it will atomize him.”

  Liv’s face hardens. “We’re not sacrificing him to test it. We don’t even know if it will let Participants in!”

  Jelly Boy blorps indignantly, then struts forward on those ridiculous legs like he’s going to prove a point.

  “Jelly—wait—!” I exclaim.

  Too late. He does a pirouette and steps through.

  The wall ripples around him, light bending like water around a rock and then he’s gone.

  “Fuck,” I hiss. I snap my head towards Preston and Walter. “Is he OK? He better be OK!”

  Walter shrugs and Preston awkwardly swims in the opposite direction, avoiding eye contact with me.

  “Fuck it,” I grumble.

  I step forward.

  The barrier hums and the air on my dace feels dense, like I’m submerging it into a pool of water. My skin prickles, electricity dancing over its surface that reminds me of the edges of Gates the moment before teleportation.

  Liv comes beside me, eyes steady.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  “Never,” I say. “But yeah.”

  We step through.

  The barrier parts for us like it’s been waiting. And the world opens. We’re in a courtyard, the walls of the Hollowroot Bastion at our backs. Jelly Boy is standing before us. He turns and does a little prance in place, like: See? Told you.

  I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

  “Okay,” I say. “Good. Good slime.”

  Liv lunges forward, wrapping Jelly Boy in a hug. When she steps back, his body’s been squeezed into the shape of her embrace. He shakes, a bit like a wet dog, and his round shape snaps back into form.

  I take in our new surroundings.

  Inside, the Hollowroot Bastion isn’t a fortress, so much as an outdoor sanctuary. A gigantic courtyard stretches out under a broken ceiling of twisted roots and pale stone arches. Light filters down from a large, circular hole in the ceiling—soft, silver-white beams that catch on drifting motes of glowing dust. The ground is a mosaic of polished black stone and creeping green moss, the patterns forming spirals and branching fractals that look uncomfortably like nervous systems.

  “Weird,” says Liv. “Is that moonlight? The moon wasn’t out when we first reached the wall…”

  “Yeah…” I say. I turn back to the outer wall, cupping my hands around my mouth and bellowing, “Walter! Do you hear me?!”

  Silence.

  “Huh,” I mutter, scratching at the side of my head.

  “I think it’s like the pocket dimension you were in,” says Liv. “I don’t think we’re just on the other side of that wall. It must have been a portal disguised as a wall, but we’re somewhere else entirely…”

  “Better than any theory I have.” I shrug, and take in the rest of the courtyard.

  In the center of it all is an altar. A raised dais carved from gigantic, dark roots that extend from the ground, breaking through the pitch of the stone floor. They twist upward, supporting a floating sphere—an enormous bubble suspended in the air, perfectly smooth, perfectly round. It reflects the courtyard like a fisheye lens.

  Inside the bubble something churns. A pulsing, decayed star. A tennis ball sized sphere of fractured light. The World Seed fragment. It looks like a heart made of stormclouds and cracked crystal, shedding little flickers of light that die before they touch the bubble wall.

  I remember Archewald’s voice.

  Be quick. Claim the fragment before things get too interesting.

  I don’t hesitate.

  I start toward it, boots scraping stone, Jelly Boy clacking beside me on his heels.

  “Joe—” Liv starts, but she follows.

  We’re halfway to the altar when the air in front of us tears itself open. A black portal blooms into existence like an ink stain spreading through water. It spirals, deep and hungry, edges curling like burnt paper. The temperature drops so fast my breath fogs.

  The black portal hangs there. A wound in reality. Then, something steps through.

  A man. He’s tall—taller than me by a couple inches—and built like he eats dumbbells for breakfast. He’s shirtless despite the chill that rolls out of the gate at his back, and there’s ink stamped across his chest in harsh, angular lettering. Some language I don’t recognize. His nipples are pierced with little rings that catch the pale light like tiny, mocking halos. One glows faintly with silver energy.

  His face is hidden behind a black ski mask. But his eyes, I think. His eyes are bright. Too bright. A faint red glow leaks out of them like coals in a fireplace. Despite this all, the man looks all too familiar.

  He’s rocking a black tutu, a pair of fishnet stockings. And a pair of boots that look like someone took a pair of red rain boots meant for a five-year-old and upscaled them to clown proportions. My brain goes into overdrive. What the hell is going on? It’s another one of those Gate Crashers. But here? Right now?

  The newcomer speaks—sharp, guttural words snapping out of him like spit.

  I don’t understand a damn syllable.

  Ping!

  A translucent window blinks into my vision, accompanying the familiar pulsing sensation of the System’s recognition.

  Language detected. Language: Russian.

  …

  Language integration complete.

  The man is turning in a slow circle, eyes scanning the courtyard, the altar, the hovering bubble with the storm-cloud heart inside it. His head tilts as if he’s sniffing the air.

  “This place,” he says, his voice muffled by the mask but still thick with accent. “Didn’t expect to end up here again… This Undead Place… with the ridiculous loot…”

  Liv’s hand clamps onto my arm. Not hard. Just… there. A reminder I’m not alone. A reminder she’s a healer and a damned good one. And she’s got my back no matter what happens here.

  Jelly Boy’s legs click against the stone as he shifts, his body vibrating like a live wire. He’s sensing the threat too.

  The red glow of the man’s eyes dims. Just a little. It shifts—red bleeding into pale blue, like his irises are being washed clean from the inside. No. He’s reading something. I recognize the light of a System window in the reflection of his darkened eyes.

  He lets out a short, incredulous laugh.

  “Huh,” he says, and I hate how casual he sounds, like he just got a push notification about a delivery app coupon. “Protect the World Seed and kill the intruders?…”

  His eyes snap back to us.

  The blue drains away. Anger rushes in to replace it, hot and immediate. The red glow returns, stronger now, like someone turned up the dimmer switch on his hate.

  He looks past Liv. Past Jelly Boy. He locks directly onto me. And even through the ski mask, even with the ridiculous tutu and the rain boots, I feel the moment his attention lands like a physical weight on my chest.

  His head tilts. His voice lowers.

  “Joseph Sullivan?” he asks.

  “Who’s asking?” I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I mean it to—like I’m trying to cut him before he cuts me.

  The man takes another step forward. The anger rolling off him is tangible. Even with [Aura Sense] suppressed, crimson flames of energy roll off his boulder-sized traps. It pushes at my skin and makes my teeth itch. Something in my gut tells me to run, or to freeze. My eyes widen. Does this guy have an aura-based ability? Something that provokes fear?

  The man draws breath to speak again.

  But he doesn’t get the chance.

  Jelly Boy moves.

  Those new legs—long, pale-blue, fishnet-wrapped, ruby-heeled nightmares—hit the courtyard stone and the sound is a rapid-fire clickclickclick that my brain can’t even process as footsteps. Before I know it, he’s airborne. The slime launches like a spring-loaded missile, body compressing and then releasing, and for a split second he’s a blue comet with stilettos.

  I blink, and Jelly Boy has already cleared the entire distance between us and the Gate Crasher.

  One kick. A perfect arc. A neat little whoosh of displaced air, as a blade-like blue-skinned leg slices through the air.

  The man’s head comes off so cleanly it’s almost less brutal.

  Then the blood erupts from the neck stump in a violent, pressurized fountain. A red geyser against the pale stone. The man’s head—still wearing that stupid, stupid mask—hits the stairs of the altar with a wet thunk, bounces, then tumbles down one, two steps.

  The body drops to its knees like it’s trying to pray. It tips sideways and collapses, still spraying.

  Liv screams. A full-throated, horrified scream that turns the beautiful courtyard into a nightmare scene from a slasher movie.

  The black gate behind him shudders, folds in on itself, and vanishes like a blink of ink being wiped off glass.

  Silence slams down on the courtyard.

  I stare.

  My mind tries to assemble words into meaning and fails.

  “Well…” I say, because my mouth has to do something to keep from vomiting, “…fuck.”

  Jelly Boy lands lightly, heels clicking, before he strikes a victory pose.

  One hand—pseudopod—goes to his mechanical hip. One leg pops. His slime-body jiggles with smug pride like he’s just nailed the final move on a boss.