The surface beneath me shifted, undulating in slow waves like an ocean made of pale flesh.

  I sat up, and the motion continued beneath my palms, it was warm, and disturbingly organic… Millions of them. Maybe billions.

  They stretched in every direction, a sea of pale bodies moving in synchronized patterns that looked like currents. Some as thin as thread, others as thick as my arm. All of them bone-white with that same lustrous shimmer I'd come to recognize as .

  I stood, and the worms beneath my feet compressed, then flowed around the pressure my steps created. Walking on them felt like standing on a waterbed.

  Above me, the sky roiled. Dark crimson clouds churned and contracted like muscle tissue, shot through with veins of gold lightning that crackled lighting up the sky in golden hues.

  I couldn't see the sun. There were no stars.

  Only the red sky and the lightning that matched the color of my eyes.

  "What the hell?"

  My voice sounded muffled, like I was speaking in a soundproof room. The worms didn't react to the sound, but I felt something shift in response, there was a ripple in the ocean that had nothing to do with the surface.

  I turned in a slow circle, looking for any landmarks, for anything that wasn't just endless white worms and red sky. In the distance, maybe a hundred yards away, was a set of broken columns that jutted from the writhing mass. They looked like they'd been carved from fossilized worms, twisted into spiral patterns.

  Closer, maybe fifty feet to my left, I saw something that resembled a throne. More coiled worms, arranged in a rough seat with armrests that moved slightly, never quite settling into a fixed shape.

  "Fish."

  I spun toward the voice, my hand going to my hip for a weapon that wasn't there. The worm-sword didn't manifest... nothing responded.

  Mabel rose from the ocean about twenty feet away. She'd grown.

  Instead of the forearm-length worm that usually draped over my shoulders, she was easily six feet long, her body coiled in an elegant spiral that held her upright. The dark mark near her head stood out like a beauty mark.

  Her segments clicked together as she shifted to face me more directly.

  "Where are we?" I asked.

  "Your Sacred Soul." She sounded smug. "Your inner world. The space where your Origin actually lives. Though calling it a world is perhaps a bit generous. More like a wet nightmare."

  I looked down at the worms beneath my feet, watching them flow and twist. "This is inside me?"

  "Technically, you're inside it." Mabel moved closer, her body cutting through the ocean without disturbing the surface. "Every Sacred has one. Most people experience it as a meditation space or storage for their Regalia. You, however, have turned yours into an ocean of parasites."

  "Why am I here?"

  "The troll." Mabel's tone shifted, losing some of its theatrical edge. "When you killed it, you gained something. A Regalia. Your consciousness was pulled here to integrate it."

  "A what?"

  "Regalia. The items Sacred can store and summon from their inner space." She gestured with the front third of her body toward something I couldn't see. "Yours is waiting for you. I suggest we get to it."

  I followed her gesture and spotted it. It was a sphere of pale blue light floating above the sea of worms, maybe thirty feet away. It pulsed in time with the lightning in the sky, and something massive moved inside of it.

  I started walking toward it. The worms beneath my feet responded to each step, parting slightly to create firmer ground. It was like walking on a living treadmill that anticipated my movements.

  Mabel kept pace beside me, her segments rippling. "You're handling this better than expected."

  "Then you expected, you mean."

  "Obviously. I expected screaming. Perhaps some existential dread. A bit of weeping." She sounded disappointed. "Instead you just accept that your soul is an ocean of worms and move on. Where's the flare?"

  I stopped walking and looked at her. "You want me to panic?"

  "I want you to have a proper reaction to the horror of your existence. This—" She gestured at the ocean with one end of her body. "—is not normal. This is not what Sacred Soul spaces should look like. Sadie's is probably all organized light and brightly lit. But you? You're a pile of worms pretending to be a person, and your inner world reflects that."

  "Are you done?"

  "Not even close. But I suppose we should focus on the immediate concern." She turned back toward the floating sphere. "That thing is your new item. When you get close enough, you can examine it."

  I started to walk again.

  The throne grew closer on my left, and I got a better look at it. The worms that formed it were larger than most of the ones in the ocean, each one was as thick as my leg. They moved in slow, deliberate patterns, maintaining the shape through constant motion rather than staying still.

  Something about it pulled at me. I changed direction, heading for the throne instead of the sphere.

  "Where are you going?" Mabel asked.

  "I want to look at this first."

  "The Regalia is more important."

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  She made a sound like a hiss mixed with a sigh but followed me as I ignored her.

  Up close, the worms that had formed it had faces… they weren’t human faces, but impressions of them, like someone had pressed features into clay and then stretched it. I recognized some of them. The goblins from the bridge. The Gnolls. The wyrm… Cedric.

  "You ate them," Mabel said. "And now they're part of the furniture. How morbid."

  I reached out and touched one of the armrests.

  The worm beneath my fingers went still for a moment, then resumed its pattern. Information flooded through me when I made contact…

  It was all there. Everything I'd consumed, stored in this space.

  I pulled my hand back and looked at Mabel. "How much of what I eat stays?"

  "All of it. The physical matter gets converted into more worms, but their knowledge, the essence… their souls. You're building a library of consumed lives." She coiled tighter. "Eventually, you'll have so much information you won't be able to think straight. You’ll have to figure out how to deal with that when the time comes."

  I looked past the throne toward a house in the distance. It was trying to build itself, walls of worms rising and falling in stuttering attempts at stability.

  "Is that… where Rell is?" I said.

  "Your memory of her," Mabel corrected. "Your guilt, more specifically. You carry that place around like an open wound. It manifests here because you can't let it go."

  "I don't want to let it go."

  "I know... It's tedious." She moved toward the floating sphere again. "Now can we please attend to the actual item? I'm tired of giving you a tour of your own trauma."

  I followed her, leaving the throne and the half-formed house behind. As we got closer to the sphere, I could make out more details through the glow. There was something large. Something with fur and limbs and—

  The glow faded as I approached, like a lamp being dimmed.

  The troll hung suspended in the air.

  It wasn’t the mangled corpse I'd left in the ice cave. This one was fully intact, restored, its body frozen in a position somewhere between standing and kneeling. The blue-grey fur looked almost soft, and the massive hands were open, palms up, like an offering.

  Its eyes were closed. It didn't breathe, it didn't move, but it wasn't dead either. It was as if it was waiting.

  Runes I didn't recognize spiraled around the troll's body, glowing faintly with the same light that had surrounded the sphere. They danced along with the crack of lightning above, and I felt them pulling at something inside me… pulling at the worms themselves.

  I stepped closer until I was within arm's reach. The troll was huge up close, easily ten feet tall even in its suspended position. Its claws were as long as my fingers, and the muscles beneath its fur suggested strength that could tear me apart with little effort.

  "Touch it," Mabel said.

  "What happens if I do?"

  "The regalia needs to be claimed before it becomes functional."

  I reached up and placed my palm against the troll's hide. The fur was coarser than it looked, and cold… it wasn’t ice-cave cold, but the cold of something that had never been alive in the normal sense.

  Information flooded through me. Not memories this time, but data. Classification. Capabilities. Limitations.

  Ice Troll

  I pulled my hand back, and the information kept coming, settling into my mind like it had always been there.

  The troll was mine. I could summon it. Command it. Use it like a weapon or a shield or a beast of burden. It would obey without question, fight without hesitation, and return to this space when dismissed or destroyed.

  "Well?" Mabel asked.

  "It's a summon. I can call it out when I need it."

  "How barbaric. You consume creatures and turn them into slaves. Very tyrannical of you." She sounded pleased. "Can you use it now?"

  "I think so. There's a... a pull. Like I could reach into this space and drag it out." I frowned. "But something else is here. Something connected to the troll."

  One of the larger worms from the ocean rose up beside me. It was different from the others, it was darker, with crimson veins running through its segments. It extended toward the suspended troll, moving with purpose.

  "What is it doing?" I asked.

  "Asking permission," Mabel said. "That's one of your fragments. The pieces of you that developed their own semi-autonomy during the Trial."

  The worm coiled around my wrist, its body warm against my skin. I felt its intent through the contact… hunger, but not for food. Hunger for purpose.

  It wanted the troll.

  "It wants to consume the Regalia," Mabel said. "Merge with it. Turn it into something else."

  "Do you know what would happen?"

  "No idea. You're making this up as you go."

  I looked at the worm, then at the troll. The runes around the troll's body moved faster, responding to the worm.

  I made a decision.

  I lifted my hand, and the worm extended further, reaching for the troll's chest. "Go ahead."

  The worm struck.

  It pierced the troll's hide and burrowed inward, moving fast. The runes flared, burning brighter, and the troll's eyes snapped open.

  The troll grabbed the worm.

  Its massive hand closed around the worm's body, yanking it back out. The worm thrashed, trying to burrow deeper, but the troll was stronger. It pulled the worm free and held it up, examining it with eyes that glowed the same pale blue as the runes.

  The troll dropped from its suspended position and slammed the worm against the ground. The ocean of worms beneath us rippled from the impact.

  The fragment tried to escape, tried to dissolve back into the mass, but the troll caught it again.

  The troll lifted the worm, and I saw its mouth open, it had rows of teeth designed for crushing bone. It bit down on the worm's midsection, and I felt pain lance through me. It was like something being torn from my soul.

  The worm's blood sprayed across the floor. The troll shook its head like a dog with a chew toy, and I heard the worm's armor crack.

  Then the troll grabbed both ends of the worm and pulled.

  The fragment tore in half.

  I felt it… the death of that piece of myself, and the ocean beneath us responded. The worms surged upward in waves, trying to reach the troll, trying to stop it, but the troll was faster. It slammed both halves into the ground, crushing them under its weight.

  The fragment stopped moving. Its body went limp, leaking essence that spread across the worm ocean like oil.

  The troll stood, blood dripping from its mouth, and turned to look at me.

  Its eyes were cold. Empty. It waited, still as a statue, for something I didn't understand.

  "Well," Mabel said after a long moment. "That was violent."

  I stared at the dead fragment, at the black blood staining the white ocean. "What just happened?"

  "Your Regalia defended itself. The fragment tried to consume it, and the troll responded by killing it."

  The troll's eyes followed Mabel but didn't move otherwise.

  I looked at the runes spiraling around its body. They'd dimmed after the fight, settling into a low rhythm that matched my heartbeat now instead of the lightning.

  "The worms aren't strong enough," I said.

  "Obviously. Your fragments are powerful, but they're still only Grade 5 entities at best. That troll is Grade 4, reinforced by Regalia binding." Mabel coiled into a tighter spiral. "If you want to convert it, you'll need to be stronger first. Much stronger."

  I looked at the dead fragment, at the troll standing over it, at the ocean of worms that had tried and failed to protect one of their own…

  This place was mine. My inner world, my Sacred Soul. And I didn't even have full control over it.

  I walked away from the troll, heading back toward the throne. The worms beneath my feet moved faster now, agitated by the violence. The sky above churned harder, the lightning striking more frequently.

  "Where are you going?" Mabel asked.

  "I need to get back to Zo and Sadie."

  "You should examine the rest of your space first. There are other things here. Your mother's memories. The knowledge you consumed from Cedric. All of it stored somewhere in this mess."

  I kept walking. "Later."

  "Fish—"

  "I said later." I stopped and turned to face her. "How do I leave?"

  She regarded me for a moment, segments clicking softly. "The same way you came in. Just focus on the external world. Your consciousness will follow."

  I closed my eyes and thought about the ice cave. About my friends. About the cold air and the smell of blood and the two dead trolls on the ground.

  The worm ocean beneath my feet shifted, pulling at me.

  I felt Mabel watching, felt the throne behind me and the broken fragment and the troll standing guard over its own corpse like a sentinel.

  This place was a horror made from my own essence.

  But it was mine.

  I let the pull take me, and the white ocean dissolved into darkness.