Achievement! “Two birds, one life threatening scenario!”
You managed to successfully complete a Challenge while simultaneously fighting for your life with another Competitor!
Reward: Your reward for completing this Challenge has been upgraded to a higher rarity (moderate)!
There is a brighter flash of light, and the boxes take on a silvery sheen, though they remain wooden and plain. I lower myself to sit on one of the broad steps, legs dangling. Threenut crouches nearby. His little leaves move to cover the wounds he took fighting the Deathlord, though the sap looks to be hardening already around the cuts.
“Well.” I reach out absently and stroke the little warrior’s head. He stiffens, grumbles, then relaxes into the touch. “I sure am glad I saved you on that ledge.”
“As am I, twig. As am I.”
Achievement! “Allies of convenience!”
In spite of all common sense or basic intelligence warning against it, you have formed a bond with a Competitor outside your own species!
Reward: The inevitable feeling of betrayal and heartbreak when you eventually have to kill each other (scales over time).
“Did you get…?”
“Aye.”
“Assholes.”
“Aye.”
“Okay. This Challenge is going to attract more people. Even if they aren't up to that bony murderhobo's standards, I'm not in the mood to fight anybody. Or die.”
“Agreed, twig.”
Silence stretches between us. And stretches. I lean back and close my eyes, feeling absofuckingnothing on my face, because there isn't a sun in this alien lavender hellscape. Still.
“Ye haven't stirred, twig,” Threenut says after a moment.
“Neither have you.”
I glance down at him, an inexplicable smile twitching onto my face. His giant green eyes glow like lanterns. He chuckles, the laugh coming from somewhere below his tiny round belly. It is infectious. I'm wiping tears from my cheeks by the time I master myself enough to find my feet.
The chests gleam in the not-sun, a silvery light all their own. I somehow know that the one on the left is mine without being told, moving and kneeling before it. It opens to my touch with the tell-tale pure white light of that other space. From within its depths, a pair of slippers rise to float in the air.
A pair of delicate, lacey, otherworldly slippers, like something out of a fairytale wedding. They have a low, wide heel that doesn’t look particularly unstable, a tiny step above flats. At first they appear white, just stained slightly lavender by the light of this place, but the longer I look, the more it seems they have a purplish sheen at their edges.
Stolen novel; please report.
An ache begins to form behind my eyes. My power is purple. My slippers are, apparently, purple. This whole damn place is purple. I don’t even really like the color. Wherever we go next had better be something as distant from violet as the rainbow can manage. Narrowing my eyes, I let my Identification trigger on the shoes.
Identification: The Slippers of Queen Elia, the Bounding Princess of Thellin (Rare Artifact, Equipment)
The Qellis homeworld is one of extraordinary peaks and valleys, higher and lower than any other native world. When Elia, princess of house Neyanmar and ruler of the mighty kingdom of Thellin, lost her wings in a tragic accident, these slippers were crafted such that she could still traverse the lands she would one day rule.
Imbuement: The wearer of these slippers will passively lessen any harm that a fall would cause to her person. Can fully negate the damage of a fall at the expense of soul energy, scaling with the force negated. This protection extends only to the wearer.
Now that is a magical item. Considering my particular powers, these slippers will be endlessly useful. The pain of shattered legs flickers through my mind, the reward for my ill-advised experimentation. I flinch, then shove the memory down with the veritable fucking library of painful memories I’ve managed to collect in the few days I’ve been living this nightmare. The lion, Cuddles, the literal god of fear or whatever, the tongue tooth dingos, the Deathlord… On the off chance I survive this, I don’t think therapy is going to cut it.
The chipped white polish on my toes disappears as I pull the featherlight shoes onto my feet. It feels like standing on a cloud, soft and light and airy. I jump, and my feet absorb the impact naturally, carelessly. The lace billows out almost like a pair of gossamer wings. God, for the first time in my life, I feel graceful.
“It is an illusion.”
Thanks, Kora.
I glance over at Threenut, who holds a… stick? It is a little longer than his broken one, made of some kind of silvery wood. Even so, it's barely the length of my calf, more a stick a little boy would pick up and wave around than anything I’d call a weapon. Yet Threenut twirls it expertly, its ends sparkling. He snaps it to the ready at his back.
Identification: The Favorite Stick of Rufus, Hound of the Gorinar Warchief Hor’mar (Rare Artifact, Toy)
The Warchief of the Borka clan liked his dog more than he liked any of his warriors, and so spent fabulous sums preserving and imbuing his pet’s belongings instead of arming his warriors. A favored mascot of the clan that conquered Hor’mar’s, Rufus outlived his master by nearly a decade.
Imbuement: This object has been imbued with ritual magic, rendering it practically indestructible. Additionally, any entity who attempts to steal or wield this Artifact outside of the owner will find themselves subject to a curse of moderate severity.
A curse? This dude must really, really have liked his dog. Mental note: don’t touch the fetch stick. Kora, what do curses even look like?
“It is impossible to say, as I am unfamiliar with the Gorinar. But… we should pay close attention to these descriptions. I have never Mentored someone with a power so potent as your Identification. The details provided are more than just a caption. We now know that the Gorinar organize themselves into clans, and are warlike, and, at least in this instance, that intelligence is not necessary for an individual to rise to power.”
And the… Qellis… have wings. Shit. The sky suddenly feels close over my head, like a threat hovers just out of sight in the emptiness. Coming into the tournament with wings feels like a pretty unfair advantage, if you ask me.
“Each species will possess their own unique advantages. Except…”
Except what? She doesn’t answer. I feel a scowl contort my face.
Hey. You just… you stopped yourself there, didn’t you?
“No.”
Yes, you did. Just say it. Come on.
“I was going to say… except yours.”
I blink, my face going slack. What do you mean, except mine? We don’t have any advantages? How would you even know? We’ve known each other for, what, three days?
“I… this is a discussion for later. The rodent looks impatient.”
My scowl returns tenfold. I nod vaguely as Threenut gestures down a path in the forest heading in the opposite direction from the Deathlord’s. I force my focus on the present, and, depressingly, force myself to scan the damn sky every now and then in case some hostile demon fairy comes swooping down to murder us.
At least my feet feel nice.
Oh yes, I’ll join the Discord server of my fave author, meet awesome people, and become super famous, right? Well, that was the idea ’til everything went sideways, and now my life is upside down and inside out.
Who can I trust? What is real? Is anyone on Discord actually a person? Or is it all just some whack game designed to drive me mad? I’ve got one friend who I sorta count on, but dare I confide in him my deepest, darkest fear: what if no one on Discord is actually real?
How far down the rabbit hole did I go in my quest for fame and fortune? There’s only one way to find out, so you know what to do. Yeah, click Read Here.
What to Expect:
- Female lead.
- Sapphic characters.
- An innocent, lovable gal with quick wit who gets in over her head on Discord.
- Comedy turned psychological thriller without violence or physical peril.
- Character driven. Found family. Slice-of-life moments.
- This stand-alone book is a spin-off from my series.