The screeching sound echoed through the crowded cavern as the leeches thrashed, partway into the room, shaking the very floor through some means Calvin wasn’t quite sure of.

If they’re phasing through the walls, how are they shaking the floor!? His near-hysterical brain fixated on an immaterial issue.

“What in all of the Abyss is going on?” Loren shouted, shielding his eyes from falling dust as he looked above them.

“No idea,” Calvin lied, his mind refocusing. It might be best for everyone involved to keep his involvement in the leech’s rampage under his hat. “But we gotta get ready for anything.”

If shadowboxing Karen can wound it, the solution to this problem seems pretty simple. More Shadowboxing Karen.

Aye aye.

Heart of the Swarm

18/19 Bent remaining.

You can’t eat the brain of a swarm. That should buy him plenty of time to think of a solution.

Calvin burst into thousands of wasps, spreading thick through the crowded cavern, settling on every surface.

…on the other hand, a swarm has a terribly difficult time shutting out distractions. It was absolute chaos out there, and now his awareness was spread evenly throughout it. people were screaming, running, crowding the exit, even though there was no way to actually leave without riding the Unqua out.

People were swatting him, even though he wasn’t stinging anyone, making little bursts of pain twinkle like stars through his consciousness.

He couldn’t even close his eyes. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite fall into the proper state to start Shadowboxing. Maybe if his environment was calm, or if he didn’t have millions of eyes and antennae, he could do it.

Damn. Where’s that one hundred and twenty five percent correction to ignoring distractions when you need it?

Calvin shifted his priorities. He needed to find Kala, then he could undo his transformation and focus on the next plan.

Finding Kala wasn’t terribly hard. His awareness was spread fairly evenly throughout the panicking village, and he was able to locate the princess.

Heck, I’m even standing on her.

A few of his wasps were clinging to Kala’s body, and a few more crawled under her dress, the dim light revealing – No time! – He shifted the mass of his swarm slightly and dismissed them, poofing into existence right in front of the princess.

“What’s going on?”

“Brain leeches mad!” Calvin said, lacking time to explain. “Guard your head!”

He lifted his arms.

Calvinian summoning.

Atom Ant.

16/19 Bent remaining.

Calvin spent two Bent to make two towering Knick-knacks, each roughly a thousand pounds and six times stronger than they should have been.

Knick-Knacks were pacifists by nature, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be useful in a fight.

Play keepaway. Calvin mentally directed the lumbering pieces of metal to keep him and Kala away from being stabbed by a proboscis.

Gods I hope the leeches can’t just pop them like the Crystal Lattice did.

You and me both.

Calvin’s Knick-Knack picked him up as he spent one more Bent.

Multi Shaping.

15/19 Bent remaining.

Calvin fashioned himself a solid helmet out of Abyssal steel, padding his eyes and ears with soft cloth taken from Kala’s dress. The sounds of shouting and screeching suddenly became dull.

The rest of the mass of the spell, he spent on duplicating a large chunk of Sal’s white-hot filament glowing above them.

Why didn’t you make Kala a helmet? Elliot asked, seemingly confused.

Because I don’t think a helmet does any good. This is just to help me focus. Calvin remembered the time the monster had slipped right through Karen’s sword. There was no reason to think it wouldn’t do that when a helmet got in the way.

Shadowboxing.

Calvin opened his eyes in the middle of the cavern, mentally stripping away all the unqua and people, leaving the simulation with just him and the brain-leeches trying to press into the room.

Here goes nothing.

Calvin gave a great mental tug, and summoned Karen, then he did it again, and again, and again.

“Karen! No time to explain!” Calvin shouted, drawing their attention to him as he continued to create more and more copies of his foster mother.

He pointed at the creatures shying away from the heat.

“Mockingbird! Dimensional Fuckery!”

The Karens nodded as one, and without asking for more explanation, began launching their space-distorting attacks at the walls.

The shrieking and thrashing redoubled amid the explosions of impact, the entire cavern shaking under him. Calvin felt a swift jerk on his side as the Knick-knack carrying him had to move him out of the way of…something.

Gods, it’s times like this I really appreciate how much of an advantage it is that Karen just goes with the flow.

They formed into a circle without a word to each other, lashing out in every direction.

Each of Karen’s strikes dug a massive gouge in the cavern walls, cutting up the creature, and riddling it with wounds.

This might actually work! Calvin thought as he attacks drove the creature back. This was of course assuming these strange attacks could affect the creature in the real world as well as Shadowboxing.

That ruined one’s shape and color was exactly the same. Plus, they wouldn’t have gotten upset if they hadn’t taken real damage. This will work.

And it did work. Karen was whittling away at the monster’s long, corpulent bodies, landing blow after blow on their blue skin…Until one of the attacks tore a hole in shadowboxing itself.

Calvin saw a white nothingness beyond the wall of the cavern. Looking at it made his eyes ache, and a pounding started to build in his head.

“Well, damn. That’s all I can do on this end,” The Karen closest to him said, glancing at the widening white wound in reality. “You’re gonna have to do the rest on yours.” She looked over at him. “Good to see you alive.”

The pain in Calvin’s eyes redoubled as the wound snapped open further, increasing in speed at an exponential rate as it widened to engulf everything and everyone.

The assembled Karen’s flickered out of existence, disappearing into that white void, leaving Calvin floating in an ocean of featureless white headache.

Closing his eyes didn’t seem to help. The pain in his head redoubled, reaching a peak that nearly wrenched a scream out of his lungs.

Then everything was gone.

A fatal exception has occurred in User’s Meditation Ability. Please Wait while a System Administrator runs a diagnostic.

-Error, Connection Terminated.

You’ll thank me later. We’re kind of a fugitive.

***

Calvin tore the sensory deprivation helmet off, feeling something warm and sticky leaking from his eyes and nose.

Calvin licked his lip.

Yep, blood. I’m crying blood. That’s normal. Probably.

The villagers of the Abyss had gotten organized, Loren staying behind, watching every last man and woman climb into their unqua and began driving the squat, shelled creatures up the tiny set of stairs that led towards The Crack.

A full evacuation

Where are they planning on going? It’s not like moving a few hundred feet will make any difference to something that phases through stone.

Doing something makes them feel better than doing nothing. Besides, it’ll work.

Why’s that?

This thing’s after you, not them.

“Bah,” Calvin muttered. He hated it when Elliot pointed out the obvious.

Still, as long as the filament keeps burning hot, we’ve got a few hours to come up with a plan.

One of the thrashing leeches somehow caught the stalagtite the light source was affixed to, and the entire chunk of stone fell to the ground with a cataclysmic, explosive noise, burying itself deep into the stone beneath it.

The filament was extinguished, and the cavern was plunged into darkness, heat rapidly beginning to drain from the cave.

Calvin raised his eyebrows.

I know, I know, I fuckin’ said it, you don’t have to yell at me. I already feel stupid enough.

“Kala?” Calvin asked, glancing over at where Kala was being manhandled by his Knick-Knack, kept clear of debris and leeches and other people alike.

She looked a bit jostled, but otherwise safe.

“Yeah?”

“Time to go.” Calvin pointed at their unqua. It was more like a rental, but whatever. Calvin still hadn’t found one of his own and nobody would let him dissect one to study its shrinking ability.

Kala nodded and at Calvin’s command, the Knick-knack put her down and raised its cutting torch, blasting the white-hot flame into the air to provide the light she needed to navigate.

That’s not a bad idea.

Calvinian summoning.

14/19 Bent remaining.

Calvin summoned a couple hundred knick-knacks and had them raise their cutting torches to the sky.

The rapidly draining heat in the room began to recover as the hundreds of pinpoints of light radiated their own small amount of energy.

That’s one way to heat up the room.

I don’t have any of my volatile chemicals on me. Otherwise Calvin would have made an oil-fed bonfire.

Calvin glanced up at the Brain-leeches that had taken the opportunity to peek through the wall a little further. They were riddled with oozing wounds that were slowly closing in front of Calvin’s eyes.

The strangest thing was that several of the leeches seemed to have identical wounds, albeit in different stages of healing. What does that even mean?

I wonder where Nadia is. The Chained spirit’s duration was nowhere near expiring.

Calvin located the leather-clad princess across the cavern, escorting a couple wounded villagers to their Unqua, helping to carry them and their valuables.

No way.

Politics.

Ah.

Once Kala was in an unqua, Calvin sent a few knick-knacks to watch her back. He needed to see if the leeches truly wanted him.

Calvin swiftly pulled the Crystal component out of his belt, a uniquely shaped vial with the three primary ingredients sealed away in separate bubbles, the texturing distinct on each side to let him know which side was which without looking.

Multi Shaping.

13/19 Bent remaining.

With a flick of his wrist, he recreated the three ingredients in the proper amounts and the right direction, creating a massive spear of crystal, erupting from the ground and up into the writhing swarm, sending spikes in every direction upon reaching the ceiling. The mass of the crystal far exceeded the limits of Dupdomancy, but not the catalysts that created them.

Magic is weird.

Dupdomancy has reached level 19!

361 pounds, 95 minutes.

The crystal didn’t bother the creatures one bit, the shafts of metallic crystal sliding through the worm’s bodies without showing any sign of creating damage.

There was a sudden pressure in his side as the Knick-knack swung him out of the way of a proboscis that manifested out of thin air, striking at him before recoiling from the heat. I guess they want me.

Well, shit, there goes that idea, Calvin thought, sliding the crystal component back into his belt. He’d been hoping the disruptive effect it’d seemed to have on his magic would work on the damn thing’s phasing. Or at least harm it.

Plan B.

What, might I ask, is plan B?

Run away until I think of something better.

Even if he couldn’t kill the creature, he could evade it pretty easily.

I need a hand.

Calvinian Summoning.

Heart of the swarm.

Atom Ant.

Calvin created normal sized wasps, three hundred and seventy pounds of them, each one nineteen times tougher, stronger, and more agile than a normal wasp.

He aimed for the Crack, his swarm tightening into a thin stream as they flew at lightning speeds overtop the Unqua, air breaking around them.

Calvin’s stream of wasps widened out as they reached the other side of the Crack, where the Siphon lay beneath the platform.

He turned his attention back to the crack and waited.

Now to see if it follows me.

Gods I hope Kala is okay.

Moments later, he got his answer, as Brain leeches began to manifest everywhere around him, sliding out of thin air like they were stepping out of a curtain.

Is it invisibility or phasing, or what!? Calvin demanded as several thousand of his wasps were smacked out of the air.

Okay, so they’re following me. That’s good.

Then Calvin saw the whole thing.

The area that looked bitten off was host to an enormous stalk of some kind, dark blue and pulsing with sickly Warp energy that felt like it would scramble his brain.

The brain leeches were coming out of the crown of the creature, disappearing into thin air, their ends truncated, until they appeared right behind his wasps, attempting futilely to eat his wasp’s brains, slapping them to ground instead.

It’s all one thing, Calvin realized. But that doesn’t explain the identical wounds on its limbs.

It’s fourth dimensional. Elliot said with a gasp. That’s why it spilled into your Shadowboxing, that’s why you can’t hit it! It exists in more than three dimensions. Your attacks are so relatively small they don’t even touch it.

Why is it there now!?

It’s actively moving in time. It wasn’t there before, now it is. Imagine yourself as a string of Calvins, from past to present going on into the future, and from side to side, representing possible Calvin variations. This thing isn’t a string. It’s a spider that climbs over those strings and snips them. Chances are it’s probably eaten you a few times already, and likes the taste. Or will eat you a few times? I dunno.

Calvin tried to blink, but his wasp-eyes were static. I don’t get it. Are you saying this thing can travel through time? Why can’t it just go back and kill me before I knew about it?

Maybe? I don’t freaking know. Nobody knows the rules of fourth dimensional stuff. We monkeys simply aren’t wired to handle that information, and the System isn’t going to fix that.

Damn. That didn’t change what Calvin had to do. He had to find a way to kill or neutralize the thing.

There was only one thing he’d heard of that had something even a little bit similar to Karen’s dimensional fuckery attack.

I wonder what the real name is.

Aah, you meant the fuck-off blender from hell.

Refraction Spinner. Calvin thought, trying to roll his eyes and once again coming across the limitations of his wasp body.

He’d seen them a few times in shadowboxing, but he’d never ventured out far enough in person to bag a real one.

The Brain-Leech swatted a few more of his wasps out of the air, but not hard enough to kill the tough little bastards. Calvin was safe for the next few hours.

Thank the gods this thing is stupid. I don’t know what we’d do if this these monsters were intelligent.

…nothing? Elliot asked. How come when you ask for trouble like that, NOTHING happens?

Just lucky that way, Calvin thought, spreading his swarm out so search for a monster with parts that could help him deal with this one.

***Learner***

Learner watched as the Manifold Predator changed into the blue flying units, able to resist the Apex Predator’s attacks by refusing to give it a target. It was a shame, but the Apex predator would simply shift to the time when the Manifold predator’s energy was exhausted, picking away at it and consuming it.

There was precious little Learner could learn now that the apex Predator had fixated on Manifold Predator. Still, in the last desperate moments of it’s existence, it would most likely use all of it’s strength to escape, giving Learner a few more scraps of information before it was consumed.

Learner felt a twinge of…something in its units. It felt…not good about something eating the Manifold Predator before it had a chance to fully absorb it’s abilities.

Is it because I want to consume it myself, perhaps? No, that’s not accurate either.

As Learner was considering this, the manifold predator’s swarm suddenly dispersed in every direction, and Learner hugged the floor tightly, spreading itself out and creating another patch of dry bones, hardening the outside of its units to a flat surface. It had discovered through trial and error that its mimicking ability was lacking due to unspecialized unit’s innate recursive behavior.

It had adapted.

***

Calvin expanded through the entire platform, his swarm navigating down every tunnel, harried by the brain-leech’s appendages. Hundreds of them. Thousands even, as more space became available while Calvin’s swarm spread out. They began knocking Calvin’s wasps out of the air and crushing them en mass.

He still had enough wasps to map out the entire series of tunnels. Millions of them.

More wasps were grabbed by looming horrors, more were swept into the Warp by Lures posing as Spinners – fucking Lures, always looking like what you’re looking for - and Calvin’s mind was subjected to an instant of stunningly mind-bending sights before the wasps unraveled.

Through it all, his numbers were too high for the monsters of The Filter to make a dent. Not with Bad penny constantly refreshing his numbers.

There.

Calvin spotted Elliot’s Fuck-Off Blender. He knew it wasn’t a Lure because when he got close, the spinning fractal of bent light tore his wasps into chunks.

It had a bulbous brown body that floated in midair, and multiple pale humanoid hands, dozens of them, that spun a spiderweb of fractured space between them.

He couldn’t see the thing’s mouth, but its ass was completely undefended.

Calvin’s swarm converged on the creature, stinging it from every direction possible, even as it whipped around violently, trying to catch him with its powerful shield.

Thousands upon thousands of wasps were fed to the maw in space, cut to pieces in instants as they tried to get close enough to sting the creature.

Calvin had millions more.

It only took a few minutes before the creature fell to the ground, the fractal web of bent space fading away to reveal a toothless, gaping maw.

I guess it doesn’t need teeth to eat its prey, after all.

Calvin’s adrenaline surged as he looked at the dead creature.

Moment of truth.

He canceled Calvinian Summoning.

Calvin dropped to the ground, knife emerging from his hand. He brought it down and severed one of the Spinner’s hands at the wrist.

He grabbed the pale, inhuman hand and rolled forward as quickly as he could, a gust of air passing over his head.

Calvin whipped around and swung the hand, forcing Bent through the creature’s wrist.

He felt his Bent settle into well-worn channels in the creature’s wrist, forcing some strange substance through the hand ahead of it.

12/19 Bent remaining.

Abyssal alchemy has reached level 4!

Bent Manipulation has reached level 3!

At the end of the hand, a messy ball of refracted space slammed into the brain leech’s proboscis and corpulent body.

It tore them to shreds, scattering brain-leech gunk everywhere.

I can work with this, Calvin thought with a fierce grin.