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— THE BEARER CALLS TO YOU, KATHLEEN RAVENCLAST —
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It settled in the center, just standing there menacingly as the juices slipped off its sharp angles. Its handle was in the shape of a hand with claws, which unfurled and twisted as a mechanism clicked somewhere within its frame. More blood trickled out through a crack beneath its frame. When the sticky liquid fully washed off, it swung open and revealed a black vortex swirling silently within. I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. It was the bloodiest door I’ve ever seen.
My supposed Maker wants to meet me, huh? How convenient for it. I scoffed. Now that everything is out of the way so it can make its grand entrance.
If this was the only way out, then I supposed there was no running away, right? Spooky doors and unwelcoming architecture seemed to be the norm in this world. A searing pain shot up from my foot, as if a swarm of bees descended upon it. I jumped back with a hiss. The disgusting blood had managed to creep up on me amidst my complaining, and was beginning to silently fill the entire arena up.
My eyes instinctively went to the Plus Menu. Perhaps things could be too dangerous inside of there if it was this painful outside. Still, there were 1260 status points to burn through.
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Kathleen Ravenclast [+1260]
Human Healer, level 14
(No party affiliation)
[No Element]
Attack Power: 180 (F)
Magical Power: 310 (F)
Constitution: 485 (F)
Wisdom: 100 (F)
Movement Speed: 89 (F)
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First, I doubted Constitution reduced pain, but from what I’ve been hit with and gone through so far it had to be doing something, right? No ordinary person getting smashed into a solid rock survives through it. Sure, it hurt like hell, but I lived. I had points to spare, so how about moving it up to 1000? I eagerly hit the confirmation button on the Plus Menu interface. The number shot up into my first four digit stat. How exciting.
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— You have added 515 points to Constitution. You now have 1000 Constitution (E).
— Body’s recovery coefficient from damage has increased slightly.
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Oh, and it ranked up a letter? What does that mean in regular people speech? I wriggled my toes in the goo that stained them. The pain from the liquid’s burning heat stabbing my feet had dulled to a slight numbness, like shaking the tingles out of it after it fell asleep. Perhaps it was a placebo, but the Plus Menu did not elaborate beyond a simple description of the Attribute. Whatever E rank did meant nothing to me, but knowing it increased was good for me.
Attack Power was interesting. Not only did it help me smack that guy in the lab unconscious, it also helped me slay goblins. I might be a Healer, but I knew I had to be strong enough to beat those targeting me to a bloody pulp. Considering I had no allies, and the ones I did have were not helpful at all, raising my Attack Power to a nice even 500 points seemed like a good idea.
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— You have added 320 points to Attack Power. You now have 500 Attack Power (E).
— Strength and resistance coefficients have increased slightly.
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Again, it also increased a letter. 500 seemed like the baseline for increasing a letter on these Attributes. The new effect that arrived with it was more noticeable than Constitution’s coefficient or whatever that word was. A warm feeling flowed through my body, energizing me and lifting me up; I felt better and meaner than a second ago. The lake beneath me no longer stung at all. Increasing this stat also possibly meant that if I ever ran into more of those ugly Congealed Blood clots I could break them easier if I combined it with Wisdom.
Next, my magical power, that vexing thing, was a wild card to me. I don’t think I can heal myself. Looking inward at the magical sphere lets me feel the rush of energy coursing through me, then when I open my eyes I can see wounds. But they have only appeared on monsters and strangely, that Invader.
Perhaps Invaders aren’t human, though she certainly talked trash like one. All the ones that I’ve partied up with did not have such glowing sections on their injuries, which meant I couldn’t heal them. What a sick joke, eh? Let’s add a little to it. Say, make it a nice even 500 points and rank it up as well.
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— You have added 190 points to Magical Power. You now have 500 points in Magical Power (E)
— Spells [Heal], [Restoration], and [Stabilization] have been unlocked.
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New toys! Toys that I will be using on… Monsters? I peeked at [Stabilization]’s description, which told me it stabilizes lower-leveled unconscious individuals and brings them back. [Restoration] healed minor status ailments. None of these seemed to help the humans in a battle, but the spells were mine now. There were still 235 points left, but the pool of blood was slowly filling the entire arena.
I quickly glanced at the two remaining Attributes, and considering that the sticky blood was slowing me down from moving, I dumped the remaining 235 points into my Movement Speed.
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Kathleen Ravenclast
Human Healer, level 14
(No party affiliation)
[No Element]
Attack Power: 500 (E)
Magical Power: 500 (E)
Constitution: 1000 (E)
Wisdom: 100 (F)
Movement Speed: 324 (F)
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These stats were… acceptable. I suppose. Now, to get out of this stinky swamp. I resolutely took a step forward. The puddle didn’t make any ripples when my foot moved deeper into it. Instead, I felt tiny tendrils latching onto my skin. It was getting hotter with every step I took, but I marched forward towards the door.
I paused in front of the black swirling vortex inside the doorway. Tiny streaks of blue lightning raced in circles on its surface, looking ominous and beautifully dangerous as ever. Here goes nothing. Screw it!
I stuck a finger through the portal, feeling a painful and shocking sensation instantly wrap around it. When I yelped and attempted to pull my hand away, I nearly threw out my shoulder. The electric zap worsened, like a swarm of bees stinging my fingertips. Even worse, a force from the other side was sucking me slowly into it. Dammit! All these points and they couldn’t make this searing sensation more bearable? I swore again, then forced myself into the portal.
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It felt like I jumped into a lake’s cold embrace, with a surface full of shattered ice piercing my skin. Then a force shoved me inside completely. A loud metal bang came from behind me; the shutting of the door rang in my ears. The smell of nasty blood was instantly replaced by a fragrant grassy scent. Fresh, though my vision was still blurry. My feet landed on something grainy and smooth. Sand.
The sky was still red, but the air was nice. Never thought I’d see outside of the Rift, I mused. That was when I noticed the massive perforated wall’s pale pinkish color of flesh towering over the entire horizon. Every direction I looked, the walls were present, overlooking the plains I was dropped onto. The ground I was standing on was a combination of white sand and dirt, and thousands of bone piles and swords littered the ground.
What a cozy place the Bearer lives in, I shrugged. I made it this far, and it wanted me here. I had no choice but to accept its decorum. The crunching of sand and pinpricks beneath my feet seemed particularly loud in this desolate place, but I snaked around a large sword embedded into the earth when something dark and viscous began to rain down from the sky in front of me. I stepped back, nearly tripping over another pile of fragments to avoid a bigger shadow dropping from above. The thrum of metal crashed like a meteor, burying into the ground a few feet ahead of me, pushing up a cloud of dust.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That Movement Speed increase came in clutch. It was a huge axe. Or rather, the chewed up remains of its blade, still sharp enough to cleave into the ground.
Another shadow turned into a body, which splat on the ground with a sickening explosion of blood and broken bones. Limbs popped off with a crunchy, visceral sound from the torso. I saw that the gross fleshy wall actually extended into the ceiling through a gap in the “clouds.” A horrible theory snaked its way in my brain as another unrecognizable body splatted a distance away on a pile of grey bones.
Maybe I was inside the Bearer itself, rather than where it lived. I peeked at the first body and my eyes widened. Perhaps I was inside its throat? What the hell is a Bearer anyway? A shred of purple hair was still stuck on its smushed head, like a bruised cherry with fuzz growing in it. I recognized the piece of flesh that wasn’t completely splattered from the fall yet.
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— Katie Ravenclast, Batch 01059 Human [Dead]
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What in the hell happened to her? I wondered, before an evil sense of vindication stirred inside of me. Didn’t she make it out of the Rift? Serves her right. I wondered if Kevin’s fat form would be spilling through one of the holes above me soon with a slight morbid anticipation. I skirted around Katie’s guts and continued down a clear pathway that zigzagged through the ruins.
The floor beneath me rumbled as I continued. Black dots spilled out from the clouds hanging over this place. I presumed they were bodies of hunters, splatting to the ground. I continued my way into a white foggy area, ignoring them and stepping around weapons and bones. The silhouette of a small stage popped out ahead of me, reminiscent of the one the Main Family stood on and forced us to drink that purple goo. I was so focused on it that I nearly tripped over a body that had fallen. That’s when I recognized her.
It was Leah’s mangled corpse, staring lifelessly up at the ceiling, her pale peach eyes vacant. You… You were smashed to mist, right before my eyes. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Her corpse was here, right in this godforsaken place, guilt tripping and kicking me right in my gut. Her face was intact. It was bloodstained and dirty, but the rest of her was broken beyond repair. Even looking at her with magic proved useless. Her wounds didn’t glow, and she would never live again.
I knelt down quietly and closed her eyes with shaking fingers, taking a moment of silence for her.
“Sister,” I murmured finally. “That’s what you were for me. True family to me. It’s what you will always be to me. You showed me that there could be good things in this world. I— I’m sorry I couldn’t make it up to you.”
Something warm streaked down my cheek, though it was a good thing no one was around to see it. The smell of burning flesh wriggled into my nostrils, from right underneath me. It was Leah’s body. It began to melt, for an unknown reason. I panicked, though I didn’t know why.
“No,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me, won’t you stay a bit longer with me?”
It was too late. Her flesh, or what was left of it, dissolved into black mist comparable to how the dead goblins dissolved in the Rift. All that was left of it was her skeleton, which explained the bone piles. Most peculiarly, the Item Box tag hovered over Leah’s skull. I could store it? What for? A reminder of my failure?
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— Human Skull [Tier 1]. [Store: Y/N]
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What kind of sick and twisted monster would store their own sister’s skull inside their Item Box? With my sorrowful mood thoroughly stamped out by the menu, I looked at the tag scornfully, then selected “yes” without a second thought. You’ll keep your idol company in there, I supposed.
Perhaps, I could acquire some skills or even resurrect her for battle later to some capacity. A low level Human skull would be classified as a [Tier 1] object, though what exactly it was for was unknown to me. After the Plus Menu stored Leah’s skull, I moved towards the stage.
After I took a single step closer to it, I felt something watching me from the stage. My senses went on high alert, my pulse pounding. Dammit, I’ve been screwing around in this place for too long instead of searching for a way out! The fog lifted from the stage and I saw three figures standing on it, not making a move. Just from a single glance, I knew they were more powerful than I could imagine. Meaning, they could kill me if they wanted to.
“Last survivor of Batch 1061… Come to Us, blessed Child,” an ancient elderly voice came from the middle one. “Long have we waited for you.”
I stepped up the stairs with wobbly, unstable legs. I got a good look at the figures. They were humanoid, though they towered over me and had too many black beady eyes dotting their shriveled heads. Their skin, withered like bark, was fused to the ground. That was the only good thing for me, I guessed.
“So,” I started after a pause, “are you three the Bearer?”
The center one straightened up, stretching even taller. Its eyes looked me up and down, glowing red. It was searching for something inside of me, and my blood suddenly boiled wherever it looked on my body. Its jaw relaxed, easing into what appeared to be a smile or even relief. Was it planning to eat me?
“You are fortunate, Child,” it said. It seemed calm and peaceful, now that it confirmed something inside of me. “Your purpose has been untainted by the Bearer’s blood. We are the Bearer’s last Fragments.”
The other two bowed to me, but I noticed they didn’t have mouths which I supposed hampered their ability to speak cryptically to me. They were all tree-like, fleshy but covered in layers of brown hardened scales that looked like bark. Only their heads and limbs were pink, the same color as the walls. It didn’t seem like the Fragment was planning on explaining, but I couldn’t help but ask.
“What purpose might that be?”
The Fragment’s “tree bark” bristled as it contemplated my question. The other two rose even further up, tilting slightly as if they were scanning for a signal. After its unfurling calculation was done, it gestured all around us. The veil of fog lifted, revealing sacs that looked like pea-pods hanging above us. That’s when I saw that in addition to bodies falling from the honeycomb-like holes above, others were stuffed inside those sacs. Inside, tendrils jabbed into them and sucked blood out of them. The Fragment spoke gravely.
“Your destiny… Is to save Us from the Bearer’s Curse,” it explained, like that was a natural and reasonable thing to expect from a girl who just woke up recently. “As you can see all around Us, the Bearer is suffering. The more the Bearer consumes Rift energy, the more it loses Hunters and bleeds its own life force to make more. You— You were brought here to heal it. Heal Us. Heal the Ravenclast’s Bearer so that It may defend this House against the Rift’s Great Evils.”
I stared at its ugly face for a moment, listening to its pleas, but not really registering any of it. So this thing ripped me from my world just to drop this quest upon me? Something told me there was more to that story, but instinct told me that, logically speaking, if the source of everything bad that has happened to you in your new life is dying— let it. The fact that I was inside of it didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would. I didn’t tell it any of my feelings on the matter, though, and simply waited for it to speak again. The ground began to rumble again and more disconcertingly, all three Fragments looked at each other with terrified eyes.
The two silent creatures raised their withered hands, which glowed with a red aura. The Fragment's many eyes were still black and beady, but it still turned its face to me.
“It has found Us, so Our short time of freedom has come to an end,” it said calmly as the ground shook violently. It raised its hands and joined the others in the ritual. Then it asked me a question that threw me off. “What is your true name, Child?”
“It’s Willow,” I answered. It honestly wasn’t that important. Besides, wouldn’t it already know my true name, since it was the one who summoned me? Things were not adding up. “Liu Willow.”
The black eyes surrounding its head blinked, registering my name before the ground surrounding the stage quaked, swallowing the swords and revealing lava flowing beneath. Hell. I’m actually in hell, sharing my name with a demon.
“Go, Willow Liu. Seek the Truth of this World, gather strength from Rifts and when you stand above the Consorts— heal Us.”
Consorts? The faces of Emily’s Mainline Family popped up in my head. Their magic flared to life, forming a red circle on the floor. It was a portal out of here. Before I stepped on it, I took one last look at those creatures. The Fragment’s bodies began to slowly lengthen and threaten to rip apart entirely, as if something was pulling them from their heads. The middle one looked at me with something like sorrow on its twisted face. One by one, each was torn to shreds.
I winced and stepped directly into the center of the circle, feeling the electrical heat envelop me entirely.