Satisfaction and discomfort war within me as I stare down at the mangled face of what used to be a person.

There was something very different about this fight compared to my last scrap with a reaver. It was so much quicker, and there was so much less preamble. We exchanged, what, two lines of dialogue? I didn’t even know his name. His only distinguishing feature was that he acted smug.

As the adrenaline fades from my system I keep expecting guilt to take its place, but it never does. But then, was it guilt that I felt when I killed Shane Murtagh? I felt horror, certainly, and I felt the twisted need to justify my actions, but is that really the same thing as guilt? Did I feel sorry for taking that man’s life, or was it fear of how others would respond to the act? Is it selfish or selfless to feel that kind of guilt?

Regardless, I don’t feel that way, not this time. No effort of contrivance is needed to justify my actions; the terms of the hunt left no ambiguity as to its “kill or be killed” nature, and he willingly volunteered. If we are to view my actions in a legal sense, neither killing was a murder. If we are to view my actions in a moral sense, at least this killing is firmly self-defense. He tried to kill me, and my only way to survive was by killing him first.

So no, I don’t feel guilt. I feel vindication that I proved him wrong after his annoying comment in front of the other reavers. I feel relief that I’m not the one lying dead on the ground. I feel fascination at Cheshire’s clever tactics in that fight. I feel pride in my own use of spells.

I have no reason to feel bad about killing this man, and I have every reason to feel good about my success, and I think that’s what makes me so discomforted. I feel like I should feel more. Should I not feel some sense of loss? Is there not some inherent sanctity of life that I have violated? Philosophically, those ideas come to mind, but though they carry intellectual weight they lack emotional weight. I may ought to feel guilt or loss or regret, but they find no purchase in my heart.

And amid all that, perhaps because of that, one terrifying question surfaces in my mind: if this is how I feel about my second kill… how will I feel about the third, or the tenth, or the hundredth? Will there come a time when I feel no remorse over the taking of even an innocent life? Is such a mindset inevitable, when one commits to a path that is by necessity paved in bone and soaked in blood?

And if or when that day comes… would it not be a relief, to be free of confusion and turmoil? From the most cynical point of view, morality is merely an obstacle to be circumvented, for what need has a god to care for the morals of mortal minds? From a more idealistic perspective, I should be doing everything I can to cling to my humanity and sense of ethics, lest I become no better than the Demiurge I seek to one day overthrow.

My mind whirls with questions and scenarios, abuzz with consideration and doubt. What kind of monster do I want to become, and where will I draw the line? My conversation with Cheshire echoes through my thoughts, and I finally turn to face the creature that has become so important to my survival and development here in the Labyrinth.

Cheshire has been watching me as I stared down at the corpse, smiling and human again, though I see a few bite marks here and there from her scrap with the goblin dog. When I finally look up at her she asks, “Anything you’d like to share? You seem to be deep in thought.”

I shake my head. “No, there’s not much to say. I mean, I could talk philosophy for hours, but it’s all just scattered impressions, nothing concrete. The facts of the situation are obvious: he was a threat, and we neutralized that threat. There will be more like him, in this maze and beyond. I can’t afford regret.”

“Mm.” I can tell she’s not entirely satisfied with that answer, but she doesn’t press. “Then let’s loot the body and keep moving. Oh, and sorry I couldn’t nab the dog’s anchor. That would have been useful to have.”

I wave a hand dismissively. “It was an efficient disposal technique. No need to apologize. Also, on the subject of anchors and manifestations: how do we fix all that?” I ask, gesturing vaguely at Cheshire’s wounds.

“Oh, that’s easy. When it’s just minor damage, you can refresh my form by canceling the manifestation and casting it again.”

“Convenient.” I resummon Cheshire and then see about looting the dead guy.

He’s got what I take to be the standard reaver kit: a crossbow, a sidearm (a sword, in this case), and a belt lined with pouches and a quiver. I rifle through the pouches and find some beef jerky and a vial of green liquid. Cheshire identifies the latter as a healing potion, which in this setting’s context means a potion that will slow my wounds from getting worse but not actually heal me. I send it to my throne world anyway, along with the jerky and the sword.

For the crossbow, I have other plans. I want to experiment with my Gift more. I didn’t see the reaver cast any spells, but I cast [Exsanguinate] twice, and I’m hungry to turn that into an artifact. I grab the crossbow, focus on a mental picture of crimson energy flowing into it, and will it to do something cool and lifesteal-y.

“[Scarlet Repeater]!”

The magic sinks in and the crossbow crackles with red electricity. I grin and load the crossbow with a bolt, which takes me like a minute because I’ve never used a crossbow before and I’m kind of nervous. The electricity builds, getting redder and faster and strangely hot.

I aim at the corpse, pull the trigger, and somehow manage to miss, which is vaguely humiliating. Nothing happens to the ground or the bolt, though, and the electricity continues to build on the weapon. It, uh, it seems be getting quite hot, actually. Like, about to burn my fingers. I hiss at the crossbow and will the artifact to turn off, but it just keeps getting hotter, the electricity crackling more and more, and now I’m the slightest bit panicking.

Cheshire looks at the crossbow with concern. “What’s going on? Are you doing that?”

“Nope!” I toss the crossbow away from me back the direction we came and try to cool my singed fingers. The crossbow hits the wooden block, wobbles a few times, and then it explodes into tiny pieces. A few bits of shrapnel graze me but do no real damage.

I blink a few times at the scorch mark left behind and the scattered fragments of crossbow. A few more sparks of crackling red electricity arc between pieces, but then they die down and the shards lie still.

“What the fuck was that!?” I protest. “How the hell does that happen? Why!?” I glare at the ruins of my crossbow artifact.

Cheshire takes a few cautious steps toward the pieces and strokes her chin. “Interesting. I think I have an idea of what went wrong, but I’ll need you to run a test. Can you try to make another artifact?”

I give the catgirl a suspicious look but do as she asked, popping the reaver’s sword into my hand and holding it out. I create the mental picture of bugs flying into the sword and name it, “Carrion Blade!” Nothing happens, and I send the sword back to my throne world. “Huh. Ah, now I think I have the same idea as you. Area’s out of resonances, which means–”

“–they all got sucked into the first artifact,” Cheshire finishes. “And I’m betting those contradictory resonances had some kind of mutually-annihilating effect on the artifact.”

I grimace. “Well, that’s unpleasant news. That makes the aftermath of basically any fight worthless, artifact-wise. There’s got to be a way to discriminate between resonances. Bah.”

Hmm. I wonder if I could learn to see resonances the same way I can see souls. I flicker on soul-sight and glance at the fragments of the crossbow, but it’s just scribbles. Something to think about after our next fight, then.

“Alright, time to get moving.” I summon the compass and follow its lead.

We follow a winding path through the toy chest, sometimes having to clamber or jump where the connection between wooden blocks is uneven. I am lucky for Cheshire’s presence, as she is far more physically adept than I am and she helps me with both moral and practical support.

At one point, I catch sight of more Celebrants, but they’re feuding with each other atop a pile that has no clear path to the one I’m on. Since I doubt I’ll get a better opportunity to observe them safely, I flicker soul-sight and take a look.

Two details immediately stand out: most of the Celebrants are figments, and all of them have their souls streaked with the same white-hot ecstasy I saw in Averrich.

The figment-Celebrants are red meat, jutting glass, and flowing fabric, but their meat is leaner and the glass is cracked and the fabric is torn and tattered. Veins in meat and cracks in glass burn bright white, and blank-faced masks have had smiles drawn on in blood. When I follow the strings wrapped around their limbs, I see not the black glass tower but only an endless horizon of burning white. The white is featureless and uniform but it pulses and moves, and it burns with joy and need and exultant hunger. I can feel it reaching for me, grasping at me. A hand. An infection. An ocean.

I look away from the figments. The toy chest around us is black charcoal and white ink, sketchy and indistinct, but there’s something unnerving about the background. The longer I look, the more I get phantom images at the corner of my vision, tricks of perception that make it seem like the whole world is smiles and laughter and watching eyes. It’s the same presence as the burning ocean, just another form.

I focus on the one Celebrant that doesn’t match the others: a human, not a figment. There are no strings here, and when I peer deeper I see the remnants of a vibrant inner world: flowery meadows and quiet candlelight, reverence for the divine and the satisfaction of toil, all suffocated by joyous thorns.

They’re all infected by the same plague of mania, the twin to what I saw and felt in the Mourner’s maze. And somehow, disturbingly, Averrich carries that plague without fully succumbing to it.

I turn off soul-sight and turn to Cheshire to hear her take on the matter, but she’s in danger mode again: body stiff, face drawn.

“Mahiri,” she warns, and then she shifts into a hawk and takes off.

I follow the arc of Cheshire’s flight and catch sight of the reaver a number of blocks away. Mahiri has her crossbow at her side, goggles strapped over her eyes, expression smug. I conjure up a flock of crows to harass her while Cheshire closes the distance, but their pecks don’t seem to even scratch Mahiri’s goggles, and the reaver seems entirely unbothered by their presence.

My changeling-geist flies above Mahiri and transforms from hawk to bear, mimicking the owlbear’s trick, but the reaver moves in a blur and dodges out of the way. In the same motion, Mahiri draws her blade–the fancy sword with the animal-carving hilt–and slashes at Cheshire. Her sword cuts through bear-flesh like it isn’t there at all, and wherever the blade passes I see Cheshire’s form distort and start to melt into wisps of shadow.

Cheshire wastes no time in retaliating. She makes use of her quick-change trick to dodge Mahiri’s second swipe in bird form before switching to wolf form for a rapid lunge at the reaver’s leg. Mahiri is a moment too slow and Cheshire’s powerful jaws close around tender flesh, but when Cheshire flits away as a bird to dodge the next attack I don’t see any blood. The cloth is torn and I can see skin, but instead of blood and muscle all I see marring her leg is something strangely shiny.

Why is there no blood? I can’t use [Exsanguinate] if there’s no blood! My crows are doing nothing, so I command them, “Go for the sword!”

The summoned birds abandon Mahiri’s impenetrable goggles and dive for her sword arm, but with a single sweep she cuts through all of them and they melt away like smoke in a gust of wind. Cheshire takes advantage of the distraction to claw at Mahiri in bear form, but again no blood is drawn. Mahiri counterattacks before Cheshire can get away, striking in a blur of motion and cutting right through the whole of Cheshire’s form.

The animal melts away, and the charm bracelet falls–seemingly whole–at Mahiri’s feet. The reaver picks up the bracelet, pockets it, and laughs. At my side, Cheshire reforms, and I quietly begin to panic.

What do I do!? What do I do!? She countered all my moves! That’s cheating! “How did she do that?” I ask Cheshire, trying to keep the panic from slipping into my voice.

Mahiri, now moving leisurely and unblurred, takes a seat at the edge of a wooden block. She sheathes her blade, picks up her crossbow, loads it, and sets it in her lap. Then she calls over to me, “What, was that really the best you have? No new tricks?”

Cheshire grimaces and turns to me. “The goggles look alchemically-made, expensive components but nothing rare. The wound-sealing, that’s [Gold-Leaf Scales], it’s a Glory spell. And the sword–”

“–Is an artifact,” Mahiri interrupts. “Top of its class.”

Cheshire’s grimace deepens. “The second variety of fae artifact: an investiture of stockpiled power by an elf. This one seems to disrupt phantasms and homunculi.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t adapt?” Mahiri jeers at me. “I’m a reaver, demon girl. We hunt monsters much, much bigger and badder than you could ever hope to be. And every reaver knows that the key to a successful hunt is preparation. If you’re hunting a bear, come armed for bear.”

Cheshire crosses her arms at the reaver and asks, “And how much did it cost you, for that bit of preparation? How many debts do you owe Averrich for that sword? Imlashi, for the invocation?”

Mahiri shrugs. “It was worth it for the look on her face.”

I bristle. “Why? Why do you care so much? Is this about your eye? About Murtagh?” I’m half-curious, half-stalling. How do I beat someone who’s prepared for all my moves?

Thunk. A crossbow bolt sinks into the wood just in front of my feet, and Mahiri lazily reloads. The implication is clear: warning shot. “Oh, believe me,” she says, “you’ll pay for both of those. But, no, that’s not really what’s driving me.”

The fear is rising in me, the panic and terror and dread that I am about to die. “Then what do you want?” I ask, voice too shaky, too rough. I don’t know what to do, and I am about to die.

Mahiri sighs happily. “That. I want that fear coming off you in waves. It’s about showing you your place, you stupid bitch. You waltz into our territory, you steal our prey, and you act like you’re the big shot predator here. But you’re not a predator, you’re just a two-bit scavenger playing at being strong.”

What do we do? What do we do? We can’t make her bleed, she’ll just banish any swarms, and there’s no way I can recite the manifestation phrase before I take a bolt to the throat. I’ve got nothing that can touch her.

“You don’t deserve to make me feel afraid. You don’t get to make me feel vulnerable. You’re the prey, and I’m the hunter, and I’m gonna make damn sure you understand that for the rest of your short, miserable little life.”

She still has human limits, right? If I summon enough targets, maybe I can overwhelm her. But I can’t give her lead time, so I have to distract her and prime multiple castings at once. Can I do that? I have to try.

“Okay,” I say to her, holding my hands up in a surrendering gesture. [Carrion Swarm], [Carrion Swarm], [Carrion Swarm]. “You got me. I feel small. I feel powerless. I feel like prey.” I can prime multiple spells at once, it would seem, but the strain on my mind increases dramatically with each new casting. I’m already approaching serious migraine level. “You’re the big bad wolf, and I’m just the scared little girl who woke you up on the wrong side of bed. Point proven. So how about–”

A crossbow bolt lances my left hand and I scream in pain. Porcelain cracks and blood splatters, and the bolt pierces through to the other side but doesn’t quite pass all the way out, stuck lodged in my hand. I clutch at my fresh injury and glare murder at the reaver. My primed spells vanished with the shock of the hit, and I try to call them up again but with the agony hitting me in waves I can’t manage more than two before the strain becomes overwhelming.

“You wretched fucking animal,” I snarl. “Can’t spare even a moment to hear me out?”

Mahiri calmly reloads her crossbow and asks, “Sorry, do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’m going to underestimate you just because I have the upper hand? I watched you snivel like a pathetic worm right before you killed my friend. You may really be a worm, but you’re just as much a killer.”

Fuck. Fuck! There’s nothing I can do. I have no outs. This is a hopeless fight.

So I turn and run. I sprint away from Mahiri, back the way I came, and of course I immediately take a bolt in the side for my troubles. Another cry of pain claws its way out of my throat, but I keep running. I can hear her laughing at me, toying with me, relishing in my helplessness, but there’s nothing else I can do. I have to get away. I have to keep running.

Cheshire glides beside me, expression urgent. “I think I know a way we can beat her. It’ll work, I know it will, but you might not like it. Do you trust me?”

“No!” I hiss. Another crossbow bolt strikes me, piercing my left shoulder and deadening that arm. I clutch at it, stumble, hiss again. “But I obviously don’t have a choice, so just spit it out.”

“There’s a way around her sword’s enchantment. If–”

Echoing, manic laughter interrupts her. It is the innocent giggling of a delighted child, the raucous cheers of a frenzied crowd, and the uncontrollable howling of sanity’s fraying edge. It is euphoria itself distilled into a many-layered sound, and I know exactly what that means: the Reveler is near.

Cheshire breaks off into swearing and I hear Mahiri swear behind me, but then both of them are drowned out by the laughter getting louder, louder, louder–

–and the Reveler rises from the wooden block in front of me. A hundred grasping hands from a hundred too-long arms spill out of a porcelain mask that resembles the mask of comedy from Greek theater. Its smiling eyes bleed red, and more blood is splattered across its many twitching fingers.

I skid to a halt and try to course-correct, try to turn back and run the other way, any other way, but another crossbow bolt slams into my ankle. I stumble and fall and hit the ground, my head, everything stars and darkness and grasping hands, and then I feel a great and terrible shudder and the whole block I’m on unfreezes from its fixed point in space.

The block tumbles and I tumble with it, sliding from it, falling into the darkness below.

I fall through darkness, fear and exhaustion choking me, environments and backgrounds changing at a pace too rapid to keep track of, and then I hit water. I hit the surface and break through, still falling, sinking now, the water cold as ice a shock to all my senses.

I gasp for air like a fool and water rushes in, filling my lungs, and I close my mouth but I can already feel myself beginning to drown. Blood diffuses from three wounds, and bubbles escape my lips. My chest pounds. My lungs ache.

“Alice!”

I am drowning. I am drowning. I am drowning. I kick and struggle, but I keep sinking, down, down, deeper, drowning. My limbs weaken, my vision blurs. Everything is so cold.

“Alice! Alice, you need to stop holding your breath.”

Cheshire is hovering over me, floating in the water. Cheating bastard. I almost laugh, but I stop myself. I’m running out of air. I’m drowning. What’s she saying? Why would I do that?

“Alice, listen to me: your body isn’t real! Your lungs, your blood, all of it, they’re all just constructs! You don’t need to keep breathing.”

The water is dark, and cold, and there’s no escaping it. No swimming for air. Nothing to do but let go. I open my mouth and breathe it in…

…and I don’t drown. Water fills my lungs completely, but my vision stops blurring and my chest stops hurting. I drift, and I taste the ocean, and I do not drown.

I laugh, the sound warped by water but somehow still traveling. My panic leaves me in fits of erratic cackling, and I double over, fetal position. I nearly drowned. I nearly died so many times in just a few moments, but I’m alive.

I look around, and the dark depths of an infinite ocean remind me that I still have reason to be afraid. I shiver, from both the terrifying sight before me and from the ever-present cold. There’s nothing out there, just darkness and water and murk. But it still terrifies me.

I can feel the water surrounding me. I can feel the cold, wet dark. I can feel the pressure pushing on me, another reminder that I should not be here. Where am I? Is this really part of the same dream bubble?

I look to Cheshire for answers, and she seems relieved, but then a new expression crosses her face: absolute terror. She screams and reaches out for me, and then I feel something wrap itself around me and pull.

I glance down and see a tendril of skinless, bloody, pulsating flesh wrapped around my torso. It’s a tentacle of raw meat, but meat in the sense of ground beef or sausage outside a casing; there’s no sense of anatomy, no muscle or structure, just a hyper-flexible limb of pure gore.

It pulls me down into the deepest depths of the vast ocean. I pull at it, punch at it, scrape at it, but the most I get is blood beneath my nails. It drags me down and the pressure gets stronger, the force of the water pushing against me, pushing in on me.

I hear a crack, and then another, and I see cracks in the porcelain spiderwebbing across every visible bit of my skin. I scream and the tendril drags me deeper and I watch in horror as my chest caves in and then one-by-one each of my limbs shatters into pieces, and those pieces shatter too, my whole body crumbling to bone and porcelain, the water filling with blood and glass, everything shattering, splintering, fracturing–

–and I’m shielding my eyes from the glare of a burning sun, washed ashore on a sandy beach. The sand beneath my hands–my hands, whole and unbroken, unshattered, unmarred–perfect grains of white and black. The red tide, gentle, washes in and out.

My body is whole. I can breathe air. The crossbow wounds are gone. I am alive.

Am I? I stare at my shaking hands. The sun is warm against my body and the sand. My annihilation plays in mind on repeat. I shattered. I broke. I died. Was that death? Is this death?

I vomit blood and seawater onto the white-and-black sand.

“Oh my. Well now you could definitely use a drink.”

A voice. A new voice. A strange voice. Many voices, or maybe no voice, just sound and meaning. I push off the sand and stumble to my feet, and I look around.

The beach stretches forever, and the red ocean beyond, both broken by only one landmark: a massive beached whale, size of a skyscraper on its side, ripped open and ribs exposed. Built between the ribs is a ramshackle bamboo bar, and standing behind the counter is a roughly-human-shaped mass of roiling skin and glass.

It has no facial features, or maybe it has many faces, all familiar and all a stranger. It has no limbs, or maybe it has many, the exact number changing with every shift of my attention. Shards of glass jut from it oddly, or it is the glass and the skin flows from it; a glass face, glass hands, a glass heart beneath translucent skin.

It laughs, sounding just like the Reveler’s laugh but somehow twice as intense, and my skin crawls and shivers and I feel an awful euphoric energy seize my heart and then pass just as quick. “Come, come!” it cries. “I’ve prepared your favorite drink!”

I keep staring at the abomination. I feel like my brain is full of static. But… I don’t see anything else to do, so I slowly pad over to the bar and take a seat on a bamboo stool. I blink, and it’s holding out one of those coconut cups from tiki bars on television. Something sloshes within, and there’s a crazy straw sticking out.

“Take it!” the creature insists. “You’ll love it, I just know it.”

Hesitantly, I reach out and grasp the cup. The abomination’s limb holding the cup flickers, and for a moment a bit of glass touches my skin, and then the whole creature starts to shift and change. I set the cup down and watch in dull fascination as it begins to take a more human shape and more human features.

My shape, and my features. My porcelain skin, my dark red lips, my raven hair done up in a bun. My red eyes, pointed ears, and fangs. It’s my face, down to every detail. The body is mine, the exact same shape and size. The only difference is that she’s wearing a crisp three-piece suit instead of my weird vampire magician ensemble.

My doppelganger rolls her shoulders, cracks her knuckles, and grins. “Much better. Oh, I quite like this form. You have a lovely body.” She holds a hand–my hand–in front of her face and marvels at it. “Now, go on. Please, take a sip. Tell me you like it! Oh, I do hope you like it. Please, you simply must like it.” Her last words gain an almost despairing tone, echoing with a hundred kinds of melancholy, and her expression falls.

“I… uh…” I slowly raise the cup to my lips, hand still shaking, and take a sip. “It, um, it’s nice,” I answer honestly. “Fruity.”

Immediately her expression switches back to unbridled joy and she claps her hands excitedly. “Oh, wonderful, simply wonderful! I’m so glad I made it right. I’ve been so nervous about this moment, you have no idea. I’m so happy to finally meet you in person.”

“What the fuck,” I breathe, because at this point I really have no idea what else to say. I stare at my doppelganger, utterly dumbfounded.

She laughs and makes a little half-bow. “Oh, my apologies. I completely skipped over introductions. I know your names, of course, even the ones you’ve forgotten. And I… well, it would not be inaccurate to call me ‘Katoptris,’ as in my heart I am a piece of she, but I think that would cause quite a bit of confusion with the more important Katoptris. So, please, you may address me by my title: I am the Beast of Lamentation and Euphoria.”