A man crawled through a cloud of heated mist. He was wounded, the tendons of his legs severed, and a gash across his eyes impeded his sight.

  “Please,” he sobbed.

  Two naked feet stepped after him through the cloud of steam, leaving a trail of blood along a frayed carpet. A figure followed, wearing a pale mask frozen in joy and holding a broken rapier. Wretch drove the splintered weapon into the man’s skull, ending his suffering too early for his liking.

  He stumbled forward.

  In the corridor behind him lay a handful of broken figures, throats and faces torn open. They had been motivated, running toward something deep within the facility. Still, he had found them, following the noise of their beating hearts and hurried footsteps.

  Wretch wasn’t unhurt either. He reached with a clawed hand, gripping a handle sticking out of his neck. With a rip, he tore the dagger free from under his clavicle.

  He walked forward with fiery eyes, the skin and muscles twisting themselves back together. Blood dripped from the tips of his claws, and each breath wheezed out between his sharp teeth. Despite the fire in his irises, his eyes were still cold. His body had long gone beyond its limits, forced to continue by fire and will, to keep moving, keep killing, until he was diminished to dust.

  He had ripped and torn through anyone he could find, searching for a revelation. And one had come, twisted out of the guts of his enemies.

  Violence was a language, and he had just learned his first words.

  Vocalizing bloodshed and death like a child muttering vowels, he focused on his Ember. It was flickering at less than a fifth of its full capacity. Any more, and he risked going mad, unless he already was.

  But the professor was somewhere, the other masks were somewhere, other Gulschaks were somewhere, and he needed to speak to them.

  He swayed forward through the narrow halls, a hand clutching the wall for support. As he stepped into a corridor, a recognizable smell brushed against his sharpened senses. Damp and sweet, a faint, unpleasant mix of mold and herbs. If he had the energy, perhaps he would have smiled. Now, he spared it only a single thought.

  There we are.

  He limped forward, following the trail up to a large double door of steel. A stream of cold air escaped from beneath it, cooling his blistered feet. It was locked, but that wouldn’t stop him. Bloodied keys filled Wretch’s pockets, and he worked through them. Finally, one slid into the mechanism with a soft click.

  Freezing air welled out as the doors opened with a creak from the rusted hinges. The gust caressed his bruised skin and aching muscles, urging him to rest. Still, he moved forward into the hall, eyes taking in the room from beneath the mask.

  Chains. Hundreds of them, swaying from the ceiling. Each ended in a metal hook, some of which were occupied. Dark arms with clawed hands, lower jaws, and legs. Some sewn together into amalgamations of twisting anatomy. Each was a limb that once had been his.

  He walked forward through the testament to his suffering. He passed a table fitted with restraints, the outline of a human imprinted in dried blood on the wood, it stirred nothing within him.

  Then he heard them, voices from the other side of the hall. Lanterns shone through the chains, flickering across his torn body. Wretch swayed through the chains, stepping out from the shadows with a blank expression beneath a grinning mask.

  Two guards. One screamed, but Wretch didn’t hear. A spear thrust toward him, and he took a step to the side, the tip passing a hair’s breadth from his abdomen. In one smooth motion, he moved again, gripping the spear and thrusting the broken rapier into an eye socket.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The whistle of a blade came from behind. He ducked just low enough, turned, and lunged. His claws tore, and his tail strangled. In just a few heartbeats, Wretch tore another man to pieces. The guard’s scream echoed through the hall beyond.

  Wretch left bloodied footprints across the stone as he stumbled forward into the next hall. It was massive, hewn from the spire itself and lined with enormous cages. On the other side, a group of twenty figures loaded goods into an elevator at a panicked pace. Among them stood a middle-aged man with a clean-shaven chin, a pair of glasses over cold blue eyes, and blackish-gray hair.

  Wretch froze. For a moment, Wretch and the professor locked eyes.

  Finally.

  Wretch burst into a sprint with newfound strength, his feet making soft sounds against the stone floor. The professor looked tired and gave a solemn smile as he leaned forward and said something to a young man beside him. The boy went pale, then nodded before rushing out of the elevator toward a massive lever.

  “Faster,” Wretch wheezed, closing the gap at a blistering pace.

  The Gulschak grabbed the lever and pulled with all his might. Chains screamed along the ceiling, and counterweights shifted in the dark. One by one, the gates drew open. Behind the steel bars, things moved, bundles of limbs shuffling and twitching.

  In a flash, something shot out from the cage beside the young Gulschak. An ashen limb the size of a tree trunk impaled him through the chest and yanked him inside the cage, cutting his scream short.

  “Oh, Wretch. My boy,” the professor said, his voice like silk from the other side of the hall. “To think I once thought you were just a source of material. Look at you now—a proper Blessed.”

  “If only we had more time together, but alas,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “All I can offer is a heartfelt reunion.”

  From the cages, distorted bodies extended hands and feet, each a stitched amalgamation more unnatural than the next. They blocked his path. Then, from the cage by the lever, came something worse. Six long limbs crawled forward, each ashen and lined with teeth. His skin. His teeth. They unfurled, revealing the horror in its unnatural glory, a core dangling beneath massive, spidery legs. A mass of dark arms wrapped around its center like macabre armor. Between a narrow slit in the arms, two fiery eyes peeked out. It looked at Wretch and showed him his name.

  Jonah of Lost Hope.

  Wretch’s body shuddered, a scene flashing before his eyes, Jonah’s massacred figure whispering his goodbyes before the Gulschaks took him. His lethargic body boiled and his howl reverberated against the walls.

  “YOU TWISTED PIECE OF FILTH!”

  “My only regret,” said the professor with a solemn tone, “is that I cannot stay to see which among you is my finest work.”

  The creature that had once been Jonah stretched its limbs, its arms serrated with teeth scraping against the stone. All around, the twisted creations crawled forward, some hissing, others silent.

  Wretch ignored them all, his mask grinning as he lunged forward with a broken rapier in hand, sprinting straight for Jonah. The creature was fast, striking toward him with its arms in wide arcs, each limb flashing forward like a scythe.

  Wretch dodged low, rolling under a strike and back to his feet. Another arm brushed past, tearing open his back before crashing against the stone with enough force to make it tremble.

  Pain shot through him, but that didn’t matter. He rushed forward, aiming not for Jonah but for the elevator beyond. On the other side of the chamber, the professor’s followers shoved the last of the luggage inside the elevator in a panic. Thick metal bars slammed down with the grinding of gears and rattling chains.

  A moment later, Wretch crashed into the bars with a thud, claws reaching through the gap and tail thrashing. The closest of the group stumbled back, just out of reach.

  “Yes! Wretch, that’s it. Hold on to that anger and fury. Use it,” the professor said in a tone of fatherly advice.

  With a snarl, Wretch threw the broken weapon through the gap in the bars. The blade cut through the air, flashing straight for the professor’s throat.

  A cobblestone shot upward. With a clang, it deflected the blade a second from the man’s smiling face. The stone hovered impossibly in the air. A broad, squat man stood beside the professor, one hand outstretched to control the stones. On the other side, stood another man, tall and skinny, gripped a longsword.

  “That mask,” the Blessed with the stones whispered with sorrow. “That was Jusjenko’s…”

  The Gulschaks’ faces were marred by grief and defeat, yet it offered him no joy.

  “You,” Wretch growled, clawing against the metal bars. “I know your faces. I’ll find you. And when I do, you will beg as we did.”

  The hidden elevator rattled downward as he burned their faces into his memory.

  “Goodbye, Wretch the Rat-Eater,” the professor’s voice called upward, the only one not stricken with loss. “Remember, the only true sin is mediocrity. You can survive this and then prepare for what is to come.”

  “I’ll gladly meet you then.”

  The platform vanished into the dark.

  “And when you beg,” Wretch howled after them, “I won’t listen, because you never did!”

  Behind him, the freed creatures of his own flesh and blood howled with him.

  Explorer of Edregon

  by Wizardly Dude

  The universe is dying. Thank God there’s a backup plan.

  Randomly selected by some mysterious higher power, Vin went from dirt-poor vagabond to humanity's hope for survival in the blink of an eye. Now a member of the first wave of humans sent to colonize a planet that defies all logic, Vin is expected to leave his wanderlust behind him and focus on the greater good.

  But when that same unknown power gives him the option to choose a class, Vin just can’t help himself from becoming an Explorer.

  In a patchwork world filled with impossible magic, deadly monsters, and powerful artifacts, it’s now Vin’s job to go out and discover the rules of this new world they need to survive on.

  If only the System wasn’t already threatening to kill him.