Chapter 75: Chapter 75 - The Staircase

With the mirrored yacht as its fin, the creature had to be the size of a city block, if not larger. Its very presence radiated essences of Water, Mirror, and Blood. There was another feeling in the air, one that made Zoe shudder with memory: Lightning. She recalled with equal fear and longing, the feeling of lightning spreading through her body. The lightning she wielded, and the lightning wielded against her. Would stealing the Lightning essence from such a monster return some of that momentary power?

It was a stupid idea to try, but Zoe felt an optimism, maybe it was Moth, or maybe it was a newfound confidence in her abilities. She had fallen through dimensions and returned — why couldn’t she steal lightning from a dungeon boss?

The creature crashed through a house as a rainbow-clad Oriz nimbly evaded the chomping jaws. Blades of grass swung out and drew blood, enough to lure the creature onward in pursuit of its stinging foe. Oriz radiated peace and purpose. She moved backward, retreating in an antithesis of the Grasping Vine, but Zoe noticed how calculated each step, each leap, really was. She was using the dungeon boss’s superior momentum to maintain the close distance required by the Grasping Vine techniques. Just watching this fight, minimal though it was, taught Zoe as much as all the practice she had done over the last few weeks.

But while Oriz was as peaceful as a sunlit meadow, the dungeon boss was a raging storm. Dark essences clashed with each other as they circled a white core of hatred. The power in the flesh was unsustainable, but this was not a long-lived creature. Summoned for a singular purpose, for a singular iteration of the dungeon, why wouldn’t it rail against all existence?

Zoe wasn’t sure what the Mountain of Hatred entailed. From Oriz’s brief description, she believed it was related to the reward she relieved for her [True Believer] title: some kind of monstrous power boost that could take a level 30 creature up to the effective range of 150. She didn’t know how many levels there were, or how many mountains existed, but Oriz did. If Oriz wanted to be Zoe’s mentor — in deed and not just in name — then that knowledge would become hers.

The power would become hers.

She dismissed these thoughts as Oriz brought the beast back past the floating path of grass. She sailed over their heads with a graceful leap while the yacht crashed through it. The monster's head reared up and snapped at the air with a sound like a car falling off a cliff. Oriz’s stinging blade distracted it too much to notice the three humans leaping toward the open deck on its back.

Zoe hit the wood and rolled. For a sick moment, she thought Zazzatha was back, about to stomp on her jaw, the muscle memory of pain making her curl up into a ball, but Bella reached down to help her up.

The blonde woman looked like a punk warrior with her tattooed skin covering wiry muscles. The runeblade at her hip, and the emerald-tipped spear strapped to her back.

“Come on,” she said. “We have a fragment to find.”

Zoe nodded as the deck pitched and rolled. Even with her Might and Dexterity, she struggled to keep her balance. There was one door on the open deck and it led down into the cabins below.

“Let’s go,” Zoe said.

Her other plan also required her to head down into the cabins, where the wood and mirror of the deck met the flesh and blood and essence of the beast below. The door was locked, but she kicked it from its hinges and sent it crashing down into the dark stairs below. Splinters bounced off her Mirror coated skin as she activated [Self Reflects the World]. Anton’s silver eyes floated down into the dark, and Zoe charged after them.

###

The stairs led down and down and down. Winding, twisting, circling back upon each other like the intestines of a knotted serpent. The rocking of the boat and beast persisted. Every few steps the descending tower of stairs shook and rocked them from wall to wall.

After minutes of climbing down, Anton stopped. His eyes whizzed back up the stairs.

“This is unnatural,” he said.

“Of course it’s unnatural,” Bella retorted. “It’s a staircase inside a boat attached to a giant crocodile thing. What about that should be normal?”

But her tone of voice showed she felt the same thing as Anton. The same thing as Zoe.

“This is a trap,” Zoe said.

The second the words left her mouth, they all received a system prompt.

[Condolences! You have activated a trap!]

It was the Gambler’s familiar, if grating, voice, though this announcement had a pre-recorded quality. More fun, and less maliciously spiteful.

[The Infinite Staircase: hunger, thirst, boredom, all lay ahead of you while you navigate the ups and downs of the infinite staircase. Wherever you go, there you are, stuck in place, but don’t stop moving! Never stop moving!]

“I hate him,” Bella growled. “I really hate him.”

“We all do,” Anton said. “Be glad we have over five days before we see him again,” his silver eye floated up from the staircase below. “It’s looping. I can confirm that, but I can’t pinpoint the exact spot where up becomes down…”

He sent another eye down into the stairs, and after a minute, it floated down from the stairs above them.

“Why did he say we shouldn’t stop moving?” Zoe asked.

Anton shrugged and poked at a wall. He drew his finger away as though stung.

“What do you think these walls are made from?” he said with no small dread.

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“Stone?” Bella guessed.

But Zoe walked closer to inspect the wall. It appeared to be dark pink stone. Lit only by the glow of Anton’s silver eyes, it had a wet quality to its shimmering surface. She brushed a Mirrored finger against the wall. Something clung to her fingertip. It ate away at the technique, etching through the mirror until it exposed her dark brown skin.

“Acid,” she whispered. “We ran straight into the creature’s stomach.”

“What do we do?” Bella asked as she unlimbered her sword. “Cut our way out?”

She stabbed into the fleshy wall with her runeblade. The heat shriveled and blackened the flesh. It smelt like cheap barbeque, but the wound continued as deep as the blade.

“Looks like the flesh keeps going,” Bella said. “I don’t think this will work.”

Zoe looked down at her feet. The acid was eating into her fish-skin shoes. She took a step, and the acid stopped.

“The acid triggers when we stand for too long, which is why the Gambler told us to keep moving. Though,” she hopped from foot to foot. “I think that’s the opposite advice. If the trap wants us to keep walking, then the way to get out is probably to stay here and figure out how to neutralize the acid.”

“We need a base,” Bella said.

Anton and Zoe stared at her. Bella shrugged.

“It’s a joke,” she said.

“Leave the jokes to me,” Anton said.

Zoe laughed.

“See?” Anton said as a smug grin slipped across his stoic poker face. “I’m the funny one. You’re the emotional one. Zoe is the leader. We have our roles, let’s stick to them.”

“No, no,” Zoe said as she dismissed Anton’s bragging. “It’s just funny that we’re trapped in a looping stomach of a monster and we’re joking. It’s nice to know it takes more than this to break us.”

“Well, it might break us down,” Bella said with a grin.

Anton groaned and walked down the stairs.

“Please, stop with the puns,” his voice trailed up from the stairs before his footsteps faded. “I really can’t handle them,” his voice came from above as he walked back to where the others stood. A serious expression on his face. “My [Dandelion Gaze] scanned every inch of the loop we’re trapped inside. I can’t find a weak point or even a spot where up becomes down. Maybe my technique isn’t advanced enough or… I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”

Zoe nodded. She remembered being trapped in the labyrinth during that first night in purgatory. The whispering sand. The cold, ancient stone carved with symbols she didn’t understand. How must it feel for Anton and Bella to be trapped in such a situation for the first time? She respected the brave face they put up, even while all three of them hopped up and down like children’s entertainers.

But she was not as powerless as she was back in that first labyrinth. She was not as weak.

“I have an idea,” she said as she summoned [Mind’s Eye Incision].

The scalpel glowed between her fingers as it took form. She made a probing incision against the tough pink wall. The blade sank an inch into the flesh, and she felt the essence spiraling around the wound.

“See if the loop persists.”

Anton sent an eye floating down the stairs, but it quickly returned from behind them.

“The trap is still there, and I think it's shrinking. We’re running out of time.”

“Anton, examine the wall with your eyes. Don’t look for weak spots. Look for the opposite. Tell me where the essence is closest to the surface.”

Anton nodded but canceled his silver eyes and plunged them into warm, smoky darkness.

“What are you doing?” Bella asked.

“Conserving Skein,” he said as his hands rustled through his pockets. “You want to find the point where you can slice? Right, Zoe?”

Zoe nodded.

“I think my new technique can cut a way through the creature’s essence. If I can break the flow of essence through the trap, it should disrupt the loop and either let us descend into the cabin, or at least escape.”

And if she could carve out some essence for her own use… that was just a benefit. She wouldn’t endanger her friends for her own power. Not again.

Anton nodded at her statement.

“That’s what I thought, but I’ve already examined every inch of this place. It’s all the same. No weak point. No strong point. Your scalpel is too small to disturb the essence, but what if…. Here. Take this.”

Zoe felt his hand in the dark as it placed an object inside hers.

“The [Everywhere Lens]?” she said. “You think this will work?”

“It’s worth a try,” he said in the dark. “I’ll reactivate my technique in a moment and give us some light, just, don’t look in our direction.”

Zoe placed the monocle over her right eye.

[Everywhere Lens: A monocle that allows the wearer to project their ability everywhere that they can see.]

She felt ridiculous with the braided chord resting on her cheek. Silver light flared as Anton’s technique reactivated, and she no longer felt ridiculous. She saw everything, and she felt like God.

Everywhere she looked, she saw potential ruination. The world awaited her technique with bated breath. It was hers to cut. Her Skein flowed toward the technique. [Mind’s Eye Incision] cost nothing to summon or use, but she realized now it was because her uses of it had been so small. All that would change now.

Her Skein dipped as lacerations appeared on the fleshy wall. Faster. A thousand cuts. Skein dropping and she didn’t even care enough to look at the numbers.

“Zoe?” Bella asked from far, far away. “Why are you laughing?”

Zoe’s jaw snapped shut. She turned to look at her companions, but Anton’s glowing eyes winked out as he cancelled his technique. In the total darkness, she saw nothing, and the God’s eye view vanished as her eyes became mortal once more.

Cold sweat coated her skin. Her heart rate burst in her chest. If she had continued turning toward her friends, her technique might have… would have… sliced their essence to shreds.

A reminder that even when she thought she was more powerful, more prepared, she was still a child stumbling around celestial powers. She had to be careful.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I think you should only wear that for a second,” Anton said. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

She took a deep breath and faced away from their voices as she dismissed her technique. This was how things should be: her friends at her back and her Skein pointed at the world.

“Now.”

Light flared. The world became hers. She activated her technique and swung with all her Might. The sliver of a blade moved, and everything she saw, she cut.