You have to fold steel to forge a weapon.

  "Who are you?"

  Brom was tired of answering that question. No, Brom was tired in general. He just wanted to sleep. The world was warm and comfortably black except for moments where, suddenly, it became a smear of brittle blue, wispy white, and moving color that turned cold and made his ribs hurt. He wasn't as big a fan then, probably because of the pain.

  "Who are you?!"

  The voice was so much more insistent now. Edged with some kind of panic.

  Brom didn't know that voice. It didn't match with anyone he'd ever heard before. He wasn't even sure it was human. It wasn't the System, it lacked that mechanical quality. It reminded him somewhat of Greg, and he didn't like that at all. Fuck Greg. It was all the fault of the god of the sea that Brom was mixed up in this mess. If Greg hadn't sent him to that Instance he wouldn't have missed TJ's message. Why had he even needed to go there? Fuck, he didn't want to think about it, he wanted to sleep.

  "TELL ME YOUR NAME!"

  The voice cracked in the darkness, thundering with inhuman power that finally made Brom more pissed off than tired.

  "Brom Jones, who the fuck are you?"

  He didn't say the words physically. He couldn't. He didn't feel like he had the air in his lungs. His mouth felt too full, like he was being forced to swallow something. This warm pressure that swam strangely and made his chest burn.

  "I am that which has existed since before the beginning. I am the eternal-"

  Brom was too tired for this bullshit. "Fucking name?!" Maybe his lips moved with that one, irritated as he was. It felt like something cold was being pulled up from inside him. He couldn't see his health bar, actually his whole HUD seemed to have vanished, and he wasn't sure how to feel about that. He'd gotten so used to those little details in the discreet parts of his vision, the world looked wrong without them.

  There was pressure. A resistance that went beyond his body and was more a reluctance of the soul. He felt like he'd jerked something's metaphysical chain, and now that something was rolling onto him, trying to crush him with its sheer bulk. Once again, someone was trying to push Brom into whatever space they thought he fit in, and he'd had enough of that shit. He heaved right back, applying his own pressure.

  "Name?"

  "They called me ?caelum."

  Sounded fancy. He didn't feel the least inclined to say it himself. He just lay there in the broken black, the cycling warmth, and tried to exist. He felt like a faded photograph that still held just enough of his features to evoke memory but no longer told the whole story. He'd thought he was going to die, and maybe that's what this was. Maybe the System was recycling him, and this vast presence was some sort of final arbiter of garbage, trying to get details before finalizing his deletion. Maybe that was why the HUD was gone.

  "You can think of it that way. Only one of us leaves here. A body can house only one soul."

  "Say fucking what?"

  It became clear in that instant, feeling the pressure from the other presence. It wasn't trying to put Brom in a box, it was trying to push Brom out. Out of what could only be Brom's own fucking body. This bastard was trying to body snatch him while he was weak! Screw that noise, Brom was just the generic kind of tired. The 'I just got the shit kicked out of me, I'd like a nap' kind. Not the 'I'm going to a farm upstate' kind. Who'd feed the cats if he keeled over here?! TJ of course, but that wasn't the fucking point!

  He put a spiritual shoulder against the bulk that had been smothering him and began to shove back. For once, he didn't doubt himself. Brom knew full well that he was strong, this new world had made him that way. He could remember the echoes of the pain when the System had first rebuilt him. He could remember dragging the heart of an eldritch monster into its throat, then steering Boss with his own chain-artery. He could remember the way monsters had practically disintegrated from a single blow and how he'd snapped the neck of a goddamn dragon. Whatever this thing was, in a contest of strength, it had already lost to him.

  Plus, this was his body. He might have done some horrible shit to it in the past, but he'd been eating healthy and exercising. He liked what he'd made of it. Excuse him for being attached.

  "No! No! It's mine! My blood! My power! You owe me a life! A vessel of flesh!"

  "Sorry, buddy, I don't owe you shit. Out you go!"

  The more he pushed, the harder it got. This thing did not want to go. It was vast, so much greater than Brom, and it had its claws dug in deep. Those claws tore something out of him with every push, something that felt suspiciously like the sensation of losing health. Brom couldn't stop though. In some ways not being able to see his HP bar was better in this situation. He didn't worry about it, he only worried about his spiritual squatter that seemed determined to stay. However, this tiny space of warm darkness they were in was Brom's space. It was shaped, fit, and tailor-made for him. It did not belong to the vast presence that had been trying to push him out to fill in more of itself. It wasn't wanted here, and one by one the anchors of its claim began to fail, like prying up fingers one at a time.

  "You cannot do this! You cannot! You filthy, foul, vicious little man! Give me what I am owed! Give me this bo-"

  "Get fucked, creep."

  He gave one last violent heave, and everything broke loose all at once. There was a sudden smell, steel and ozone, and a vast bulwark of power suddenly threw its weight behind him. Boss, helping shoulder the burden. The intruder was finally shoved back as it lost its grip, swirling away like it was caught in a cosmic drain. He felt that vast eldritch presence a moment longer and then the battleship-shark slipped back, leaving him with a gentle reassurance. They were connected; Boss wouldn't leave Brom to face a threat like that alone. The warm darkness fractured all around him as his eyes finally came open, notifications whipping past his eyes too quickly to read. His chest exploded in pain as Jonesy, dripping sweat and salt water, swearing a blue streak, continued chest compressions.

  "You mother fucking son of a bitch, when you wake up, I swear I am going to kick your ass into next Tuesda-"

  Brom hacked up a lungful of seawater, rolling to the side as Jonesy pulled his hands back and started laughing. For a moment, they stayed like that, Brom sucking air like it was a finite resource and Jonesy laughing his head off with a slight edge of exhausted mania.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "You look like shit, Jonesy." Oh, his voice was in rough shape. He sounded smooth as a country road.

  Johannes finally stopped laughing, his face grey with exhaustion as he stared down at Brom. "Yeah, well, you taste like shit, Bones."

  "Sorry, I didn't think mints were essential gear for saving the world." Brom managed a smile, and then slumped back down against whatever surface was under him.

  "You fucking cut it too close, idiot. Do you have any idea how I felt? Worrying that I was going to have to tell TJ?" Jonesy just shook his head, going to thump Brom's chest before remembering his ribs were probably not in condition for that.

  "On a scale of one to Artax?" Brom laughed, regretted it instantly, and kept on laughing. He patted Jonesy on the thigh, his head suddenly swimming. "You know, I think I'm going to take a nap." Which was the only warning he gave before passing completely out. Whatever limits he had, he'd more than exceeded them. This was beyond anything that his passive could handle. It was so far past the edge of human endurance that Brom was exploring the limits of exhaustion in the same way scientists explored the deep sea. He was oblivious to everything, just a weight to be moved from wherever he was to wherever he was going.

  But he was alive.

  When Brom came to next, it was in familiar settings. The ceiling of his own bedroom, and the smell of his own laundry detergent. Light traveled in predictable ways across walls still decorated with the floral wallpaper his grandparents had chosen. A warm, familiar weight rested on his chest, shifting now that he was moving. "Alright, old man, get off."

  The large black feline stretched, showing off his long claws, and yawned to reveal a few missing teeth. The purr doubled in volume, paws patting at Brom's face as Sabbath demanded he get up and procure the wet food to satiate the big cat's hunger.

  Except that wasn't right. Sabbath was gone. But Sabbath was right here.

  Brom blinked in utter confusion. "Am I dead?"

  "Close, but you didn't manage to stick the landing. Afraid you're still alive, Brom Jones." The dusty drawl straight out of a sunbaked western was not a welcome sound.

  He turned his head, spotting the god of the sea leaning casually against a wall and watching him. Brom didn't bother to ask how he got in, Greg went where he wanted. Instead, he just snorted and flipped him off, giving away the last fuck he had in the tank. "Why the hell are you here? Gloating?"

  "Congratulations, actually. That was very well done. Almost heroic." He raised two fingers in a mock salute, shifting his weight slightly. "Once the world realizes you're awake, everyone's going to want a piece of you. Figured a moment to get your head on straight wouldn't be unwelcome. So I'm here to give you a pat on the back and answer some of those burning questions you don't know you have yet."

  As Greg spoke, Brom had sat himself up, glancing down at his body and cataloguing the shiny new scars he'd picked up. His eyes went back to Sabbath, the old man having been displaced from his chest to his lap, still draped over him and purring. "Okay, first question. What in the Pet Sematary is going on?"

  "You're welcome." A smile split those exotic features, enigmatic eyes burning. "You were so pissed off that I made mourning him a quest point, you didn't even stop to think I was doing you a favor by tying him into the quest system, did you? Because once he was tied into the System... well, a second shot at life was a possible reward." A hand came up, forestalling the next logical question. "The only reason you got that cat back was because the Viewers demanded it. Nobody likes seeing the loyal animal die. Don't think it's a common thing, so take better care of him in the future. Maybe invest in home defense?"

  Brom's hand hesitantly reached out, scratching between those dark ears. "Yeah... yeah, I'll do that." Okay, well, fuck. There went all his anger in one fell swoop. He didn't like Greg, but he couldn't stay mad at the man who had just given him back his best friend. It was taking everything he had not to just scoop the old man up and cry in his fur. Sabbath wasn't Bean though, he wouldn't just passively sit there and take such an offense to his dignity without a swat or wriggle. It could wait till later.

  "So... What's the second question? Our time is, regrettably, limited."

  Right. Questions. Answers. Shit, he actually needed to think. "I have, like, fifteen notifications." The number was stark and blinking in the corner of his vision. It had never done that before. It didn't take a genius to figure out that meant at least one of them was really important. "Give me a summary before I open that up?" Like a fortifying shot of whiskey before walking into the cold.

  Greg's grin was like a mechanical shark, sharp and electrified. "I suppose the most important part is that you reached Level Ten. That's... a very big deal. Here, a little 'behind the curtain' info for you, and just you, because you've earned it." The god pushed off the wall, walking over and leaning in close enough that Brom could smell a cologne-like scent rolling off the other. "The person running this little 'Game' is incompetent. They made it so that every ten levels, your power spikes. Classes evolve, change, and grow in new ways. Then, realizing power spikes are bad things, they decided to gate everything. In order to hit that next shiny new power bracket, you have to survive a trial."

  Brom shook his head, turning his face away from Greg's stupidly expensive-smelling self. "I was level eight, so-"

  "Brom Jones, you shattered a cult, aided in the destruction of a Corpse Moon koi, and single-handedly snapped the neck of an infant Origin Dragon, then swallowed its power for yourself. After all that, when that dragon's displaced soul attempted to evict you from your own body, you told it to, and I quote, 'get fucked, creep'. You acquired the experience." Greg reached out, flicking the tarnished medallion that still dangled from Brom's right wrist, then straightened up, giving space again. "Even if you had a lot of help, it was still up to you to make it happen."

  He needed to stop telling bosses to 'get somethinged'. It always came back to bite him, it seemed. "So... you heard that?"

  "Existence heard that Brom Jones. Everyone in the office was watching you. We had a betting pool going on. You're not the first person to hit the trial, you're just the first person to survive it and actually earn the tenth level. Thanks to that, a lot of lives will be saved going on. But you can read about that in the patch notes. For now, I suggest you open those notifications, sort through your new reality, and get ready to face what comes next."

  Patch notes? He needed to ask about those. Instead, what popped out of his mouth was, "So what does come next?"

  "I don't know Brom Jones, it's your life to live. But we'll be watching."

  Brom was left in silence with nothing but the fading scent of cologne and Sabbath's increasingly less gentle insistence that it was time to be fed.