The mist laden halls of the fortress became a blur of flashing blades as the three of us cut through the constantly forming guards. After the tenth creature we killed they started to repeat. I had seen The Stupid One die at least three times at this point. When I got the Abstract Feeder ability I had expected to have been coated in blood for most of my fights but now I was just soaking wet with my filled Essence pool struggling to consume the water that made up the guards’ bodies.

  While both my allies continued to flag either into near unconsciousness or back under the control of the creature that had attacked the fort, they managed to stay focused. Mist Valerie called out as we reached a mist filled chamber with long empty wooden tables and scattered cutlery, “Through the kitchens and up the spiral stair at the far side of the room.”

  We charged the doors together with one of the Valeries putting down another guard with an eviscerating slash. Leading the charge I kicked the doors open but slid to a stop as a pair of Mistguards formed, gave me a wary look and then turned to each other.

  The two men nodded and charged each other at full speed. The two of them collided and burst into a billowing cloud of mist. The figures swirled together, growing larger until they formed into a towering three meter tall guard with knotted and pulsating tumors on its face and neck.

  The giant monster reached over and grabbed up a kitchen table and I cursed. The table flew at me and I rolled to slide underneath it. Springing to my feet, I reached the giant raking my blades against its leg, causing misty essence to burst outward and gravitate toward me.

  My two allies were being besieged at the door by another host of guards. It looked like this one was up to me. Rolling away from the falling fist of the roaring monster, I spun and slashed with each blade leaving another guttering wound in its leg.

  The ground under my feet rumbled as the beast started to roar. A massive polearm started to form into its misty fists as I dodged between its legs and left another slash on the back of its knee.

  As I rushed out from under it I caught sight of the polearm sweeping in and cursed. The halberd blade struck my side with full force and sent me tumbling away and into a nearby wall. My HUD shuddered and flickered. Attempts to move the avatar’s arms and legs were unresponsive. Several flashing red messages dropped into my notifications.

  When I found myself unable to move, Lydia announced my debuffed status:

  “You Are Paralyzed!

  Your avatar has suffered a tremendous wound!

  You are unable to move!”

  “Ah shit,” I growled as I caught sight of the giant mistguard charging me with the halberd’s spear point leading. It was thrown out of its charge as one of the Valerie’s, I had honestly lost track of which, charged in and hacked into the giant mist beast’s side with her sword.

  Her twin joined her and the two advanced on the creature, trading off on delivering brutal strikes to keep the creature off balance. In my temporary immobility I marveled at the beauty of these two identical women using their amazing sword skills to as a team. Smooth determination was on their exhausted but focused faces, their long onyx colored black hair trailed from the confinement of their helmets and they moved like deadly dancers.

  Still well into my Blooded Buff my regeneration burst my health upward and I was shocked out of my thoughts. After the fifth tick my avatar twitched back to life as the Paralyzed debuff vanished.

  Staggering to my feet I resummoned my blades as I rushed to rejoin the fight. The creature recoiled from one of the Val’s slashes and then the other. One of the women gave her ally a sly grin, “You are learning quick.”

  The other returned the same smile, “Interesting that you think I’m the copy.”

  Rolling between them and drove both of my blades into the mist giant’s foot. The two women charged together and hacked into the monster from both sides with such powerful strikes that the beast was hacked into two pieces, both immediately bursting into a swirling cloud of mist.

  Walking into the bluish mist I spread my arms to absorb the monster’s Essence and speed my regeneration. Spinning in a lazy circle I saw both of my allies, one sleepy looking Valerie slapping the other in the head to keep her from falling under the beast’s control. Both gave me disapproving looks.

  Shrugging, I thrust a thumb toward my chest, “Hey, it may look silly but it helps me heal.”

  Valerie looked at her distracted companion and said, “I think that she and I should stay here.”

  Mist Valerie shook her head, “The closer I get the more control I lose.”

  She had slumped to her knees and was rubbing the heels of her palms against her eyes. Her voice was heavy with exhaustion and maybe sadness, “Do what you have to do.”

  Nodding, I hurried over to the stairs and yanked open the door. Mist billowed out of the stairwell like a wave and washed over the room behind me. I bounded up the stairs three at a time through the mist as it grew higher and higher, the sky occasionally appearing through slits in the wall. When I did occasionally crest the mist I caught sight of the empty star dotted sky with the Spiral at its center.

  Before long the mist got high enough to pour through the slits and blot out the view. After what must have been several hundred meters in pure mist I skidded to a halt as a figure materialized before me. My blades appeared in my hands but I restrained myself when the child sized figure raised its hands and called out in terror, “Please! Please, don’t!”

  The small boy; perhaps in his teenage years, was wide eyed, shaking and wearing only a simple robe. He had the violaceous skin of a native with long sharp ears and a stocky frame for one so young.

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  I flinched away, even in my dive chair back in the real world, at how the young figure was so similar to that kid from the photo… Grimacing at the painful memory I tried to shake off the thought.

  He fell to his knees as the mist withdrew around us and held up his hands in a pleading gesture, “I can’t… I can’t fight… you. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.”

  Keeping my blades ready, I asked, “What are you?”

  The mist child shook its head and stuttered like a skipping record, “I am so many voices. I am lost from my carer and wandering to this place. I do not… I am not sure what this food is I eat. There were many, now there are few. I am very hungry and I want to grow and be strong…”

  With a quick look down the stairs to assure that no ambush was incoming I asked, “Can I see the real you? The one behind the door?”

  The child looked at me with terrified black eyes and nodded, “I am… I can not fight.”

  Making my way up the stairs wary that the small mistling might attack me I wrenched open the door. The tower room was far beyond my imagination. What had been a mostly empty room with a simple bunk and dresser had been transformed by its current occupant.

  Mist coalesced into tendrils that climbed up the walls pulsing with light. Tongues of smoky vapor licked off of them and into the open air back toward their source. At the center of the room, radiating the tendrils outward, was an egg shaped object. Long translucent legs radiated off it and braced against the floor. The milky opalescent egg had hundreds of glaring black eyes and no true mouth. It regarded me with the same obvious fear of the child behind me.

  He spoke softly, “This is… my form when I hunt in one place. When I leave I become one form and come from the egg. Right now, my body… my true body is the mist.”

  With a sigh, I asked, “How many did you consume in the Fort?”

  The spider-like creature at the center of the room bobbed up and down and the child said, “Very many. First I made the ones outside sleep. With my many faces they were easy to confuse. I consumed them and those inside the… fort got angry. They ventured out. I made one of them sleep and I returned with their face.

  “No food have come since then. I am growing scared,” the small child reached out a hand to touch mine, “I am sorry for hurting…”

  Withdrawing my hand, I gave the creature a warning look as I said, “Let’s just keep a ‘no touching’ rule from here on out?”

  The child-like mistling nodded and withdrew its tiny hand as I continued, “You said you can take one form?”

  The child-like creature nodded.

  After a long moment considering the situation I said, “If you take on a humanoid form you can come with us and I will find you food but,” I held up a finger and eyed the creature at the center of the chamber, “you can only eat what I say. If you do what you’ve done here again, there will be trouble between us.”

  “My mist?”

  “Draw it in and keep it inside unless I say.”

  The creature frowned at that, his face far too innocently angry for a beast that had consumed an entire fort, and whispered, “I do not wish to be the servant of another.”

  Giving the child a kind smile, I said, “You aren’t my servant. I only ask that you follow those rules and you will otherwise be able to do as you wish.”

  The creature eyed me for a long moment and then nodded. There was a cracking sound throughout the chamber as all of the tendrils that had crawled up the walls snapped loose of their moorings and started to crumble into gray dust. I was nearly thrown toward the egg in the center of the room as mist started to swirl past me at an intense rate.

  Holding onto the wall, I looked down at the creature as it stood stock still for a long moment before collapsing into mist and joining the torrent.

  The swirling whirlpool of mist and light rolled into the egg-like creature pulsing with thrumming bursts of silver illumination. Voices, a symphony of them, babbled as they all fell toward the center. Heavy footfalls came up the stairs and I turned to see Valerie, her face a mask of shock, looking up at me before turning to the center of the chamber.

  The egg shook and writhed, filled with the sounds of sloshing and a distant choir of moaning voices. As Valerie joined me there was a sickening squelching throughout the chamber and the stones beneath our feet vibrated with energy.

  A thought struck me and reached over to keep Valerie from raising her sword as the egg split apart. She regarded me with an expression equal parts anger and confusion. Giving her a sympathetic smile, I said, “It’s just confused. I know that it killed a lot of people but if we give it a chance to learn, it could be a strong ally. We need strong allies.”

  She seemed conflicted for a moment and then finally nodded.

  We both turned as a figure with familiar lavender skin stepped out of the remains of the egg, now completely nude and regarding both of us with unbound midnight black hair pasted to her head and shoulders.

  If Mist Valerie was any indication Valerie was incredibly fit. Was that an eight pack… I was shocked out of my thoughts as I was punched in the shoulder by my growling companion, “Look away you dolt!”

  Rubbing my shoulder, I looked at her with raised eyebrows, “What the fuck, Val?”

  Too late, I realized that this had been the first time I had shortened her name but she took no notice, “You do realize that is bloody naked me you were just ogling?”

  Grumbling, I turned away, “I wasn’t ‘ogling’ per se.”

  She stomped away toward the creature saying, “Are you the same Mist… me?”

  The newly mistborn Valerie answered, “It was the form and the memory that you were most familiar with. I do not wish to be murdered by that man.”

  Valerie’s incredulous voice echoed from behind me as she rifled in her bag, “He said he would murder you?”

  “I did not say that!”

  As I started to turn something bounced off the back of my head and Valerie shouted, “Hey!”

  My hands went up in defeat and I returned to studying the wall in silence before Valerie spoke up from behind me, “Do you have any clothes that would fit me?”

  Grumbling, I withdrew a few pieces of purloined clothing that I thought might fit the broad shouldered and hipped warrior woman, tossing them over my shoulder.

  Massaging the back of my head I asked, “What do we call her? Can’t call her Mist Valerie.”

  A voice that sounded like Valerie answered in a sultry tone, “Is that what you were calling me?”

  Valerie answered with a cough as she said, “Could you not talk like that please?”

  “Why?”

  “Because people will get the wrong idea.”

  “Several of the women I consumed and a few men talked like this when…”

  She was cut off by a flustered Valerie, “Just do me a favor and don’t?”

  A thought came to me and I called over my shoulder, “Mystal? What about Mystal?”

  Valerie sounded exhausted as she grumbled, “I had a friend who liked to give things terrible names like that.”

  Mystal answered happily, “I like it!”

  “What happened to your friend?”

  Valerie sighed, “You can turn around,” I heard her stomping toward me as she said, “he vanished on a hunt, like so many others after the destruction.”

  She tossed me the remainder of my clothing and I put it away as I turned to see Valerie and the newly clothed Mystal joining her.