I mull over ways to deal with my current nemesis, Mahiri, as we continue through the endless series of hallways and doors. It’s frustrating to face someone who can counter my abilities so perfectly, and I’m beginning to feel the painful outer bounds of my limited existing toolkit.

Part of my problem is that I only have three spells–plus the invocation from Bashe, but I don’t think that’ll really help me here–and I can’t get more spells until I kill Mahiri. The other half of my problem is the actual content of those spells.

[Prey Upon] is a classic example of a “win more” spell, a term from card games back on Earth that I’m happy to apply here. It’s a great way to refill my mana and in the long run it’s making me stronger, but having to kill an opponent before you can see any benefit is as “win more” as it gets.

[Exsanguinate] only needs an enemy wounded, not dying, and with the recently-added lifesteal it’s an incalculably valuable spell, but that condition of use does still matter. I wouldn’t really describe [Exsanguinate] as “win more” because it doesn’t need me to have the advantage, just an opening, but it’ll still never be the first spell I cast. I also doubt Mahiri will be the last enemy I fight that doesn’t bleed; fantasy is full of creatures like ghosts and golems that don’t have any blood to spill.

So that puts the onus of initiation on [Carrion Swarm] and on Cheshire. At its base level [Carrion Swarm] is only good for harassment and crowd control, not carrying damage. [Swarmheart] changes the math on that, thankfully, but even boosted bugs are still vulnerable to anti-summoner abilities, and just like with [Exsanguinate] I doubt Mahiri will be the last enemy to optimize in that direction.

I need to expand my toolkit and add more spells capable of raw damage output, preferably spells that work as initiators and are as unconditionally effective as possible. Of course, to add new spells I need to beat Mahiri first, so it’s something of a vicious cycle. Cheshire offered me [Soulfire], back when I first got to pick my spells, and now I’m kicking myself for not taking it. There’d be no fuss about how to beat Mahiri if I could just burn her soul to ash.

I mentally flip through the inventory I have saved up in my throne world. If I try to bring a sword to a crossbow fight I think Mahiri might just laugh me to death. Cheshire’s “caltrops” might buy me a few seconds, if that, but I have no faith in them making a difference. Toys, food, medical supplies–all things to make my life easier after I win, not things that can help me achieve that win. I could put the reaver’s gambeson back on, but it might actually impede my “rip the bolt out and regenerate” tactic if the projectile gets caught (and it’ll harm my magic, if I understand this system right). My throne world is full of random bullshit I’ve collected, but none of it’s actually helpful.

…Hmm. Idea: my inventory isn’t helpful, but the throne world itself might be. If the plan is to engage Mahiri in a scion’s duel inside my throne world, and if I have the capacity to create figments within my throne world and command them, could I then use those figments in the place of my normal summons? “Cheshire,” I ask aloud, “would Mahiri’s sword banish figments? You said it disrupts phantasms and homunculi, are figments part of the same category of being or something distinct?”

“Distinct,” Cheshire says with a thoughtful expression. “Figments are essentially made of the same ‘stuff’ as mortals are, same goes for night horrors, and all three are fundamentally corporeal or ‘real’ in a way that phantasms and homunculi aren’t. The sword wouldn’t be able to disrupt a figment because there’s nothing to disrupt.”

I’m torn between revealing my genius plan and asking followup questions about night horrors, but all my plans are derailed when the scenery flickers and a man in reaver garb runs his blade through my gut.

My brain short-circuits and I try to make sense of scattered impressions–a looming figure framed by neon lights, splashes of contradicting color–as I’m overwhelmed by sensory data and pain, pain, horrible pain. For a hundred eternities I am frozen in that moment of excruciating agony arcing through my body like lightning from the freshly-made hole in my chest, staring horror-struck into the dark eyes of the man with the arming sword lodged in my stomach.

He pulls the sword free, blood seeps from the open wound, and fear swallows me like Pinnochio in the mouth of the whale.

[Carrion Swarm], [Carrion Swarm], [Carrion Swarm]! I scream the spell in my mind, too panicked to form polysyllabic sounds. A flock of crows takes shape from churning shadow, and the summoned avians dive at the reaver, but I don’t see what happens next; the flight instinct sends me stumbling back past the threshold point, back into the eternal hallway, clutching at my wound and desperate to get away.

Run run run, we have to run, we need to run, run! I pick a door at random and barrel through, then another, not taking the time to close them because I just need distance between myself and the man who put a hole in my stomach that’s still bleeding. The pain wracks my whole body but is strongest in my core, my nervous system screaming at me that I am wounded and I am weak and I am dying, I am dying, I need to fix this.

What do I do? What do I do? Enough rational thought breaks through the haze of panic that I think to grab the not-quite-healing potion from my throne world. I uncork the vial and down the green liquid, immediately feeling a wave of strange prickling over my body that concentrates around my gut wound. The pain eases but doesn’t go away, and the bleeding slows but doesn’t stop. Fuck!

The sound of metal parting flesh and feathers alerts me to the hunter’s pursuit, and I whirl to see the reaver hot on my trail. He bears a few superficial scratches on his face but nothing significant, nothing deep enough to be worth exsanguinating, and there are already fewer crows than I summoned.

He holds his shield high, limiting targetable space for the avian attackers, and when they come at him his blade cuts through them in a blur of movement I recognize as that same bastard reaver trick they all seem to know. He’s coming for me, undeterred by my first and only line of defense, and I don’t know what to do. I’m paralyzed, watching death approach and not knowing how to stop it.

Then a tiger pounces on the reaver from behind, Cheshire come to save me once again. A spike of relief pierces the miasma of dread clouding my mind, and I force myself to move. Create space, then ideate tactics.

I pick more doors at random and run, hoping Cheshire will give me the chance I need to think of something actionable. I remember to close the doors behind me, this time, which with luck should slow down the hunter.

[Exsanguinate]?

Healing needed, but mana-effect ratio too inefficient with current enemy wounds. Cheshire may change math, can’t guarantee. Need another hitter.

[Swarmheart]? Giant centipede, giant wasp?

Too squishy, can’t contest in strength. Has to be something that can punch above its weight class. Something mean and quick and dangerous.

Cheshire reforms at my side, incorporeal once more, her latest homunculus body already slain by the reaver. “Sorry, weak anchor; couldn’t do more than slow him down.”

I nod and pop the bug-making chunk of amber into my hand. I step into another hallway, throw my back against the far wall, and cast, “[Carrion Swarm], [Carrion Swarm]: praying mantises. [Swarmheart]: Sergeant Slicer!”

Mantises of all shapes and colors are conjured up by my spells and then melted into goo by my artifact. The resulting giant mantis, which I have named Sergeant Slicer, stands at the ready with vicious spiked forelegs pointed toward the door I last came out of.

There is a tense moment as I wait for the reaver to come bursting through the door, but the moment passes, and then another. Was my “blindly run away” tactic more effective than I thought? Shouldn’t [Hunter’s Mark] let him narrow in on my location? Maybe it’s not as precise as [Find the Path].

I resummon Cheshire with the weird toy drone I found at the mall, since it seems I have enough breathing room to get through a full incantation. I consider digging through my inventory for the sketch of me, to try casting [Indulgent Vitality] before the potion wears off, but will it still work now that my appearance is different?

The question is made irrelevant by the arrival of Sword-and-Board, who kicks open one of the doors of the hallway with shield up and blade pointed forward.

“Kill!” I order my minions, and they move. Cheshire keeps pace with the stalking mantis, having shifted into wolf form, and they try to flank the reaver despite the narrow hallway.

Cheshire pounces from one side as the mantis strikes from the other, but the reaver raises his shield to block the mantis while simultaneously repositioning to drive the point of his sword through the skull of the oncoming wolf. Cheshire shifts into a hawk at the last second, but the reaver blurs again and carves the bird in half, causing Cheshire’s manifestation to dissipate. The toy drone, now in two pieces, falls to the ground at his feet.

The mantis, meanwhile, has successfully gotten one of its spiked, grasping, almost pincer-like forelegs around and over the shield. As the reaver turns his attention to his remaining opponent, the mantis pierces his shield arm with its spines and pins the arm in place, locked within the vice grip of an ambush predator whose grip strength has presumably increased proportionally to its growth in mass.

The reaver grunts his pain and grits his teeth, pulling back his sword arm for another devastating stab, but now it’s my turn. All the little cuts on his face from my flock of crows aren’t much, but they’re not nothing, and I catch sight of one more serious-looking wound on his leg–Cheshire’s handiwork, from their first scrap. Taken together, that’s more than enough for a right proper “[Exsanguinate].”

His leg buckles, his face bleeds, and his lunge is thrown off just enough for the mantis to land a strike of its own. The mantis pins the reaver’s sword arm, spikes sinking in and grip holding it in place. For a moment the two are locked in a contest of strength, and I take that chance to dart behind the reaver, wrap my arms around him, and sink my fangs into his vulnerable neck.

His blood hits my throat, hot and savory, and I drink it down with eager, vicious glee. He struggles, still grappled by the mantis, and manages to take a few stumbling steps toward the nearest wall, shoving me against it. The impact makes me cough up blood, and my lungs ache from the sudden force, but I don’t need to breathe anymore. I keep my hold on the reaver and bite down harder, tearing into his flesh and drinking liquid essence.

The pulse of life flows through me, his heartbeat pounding beneath my porcelain skin. I can’t feel my own heartbeat, not after my modifications, but I can feel his and it tastes so vulnerable. Like a flickering candle-flame in the dark, so easy to blow out with just a puff of air.

The reaver struggles against me with all his might, but I feel a strength in my limbs that I have never felt in my life. I feel a fire deep within me, something dark and terrible and all-consuming, and it makes me feel alive.

His efforts weaken, his mortal flesh failing him as all flesh inevitably fails. He screams his rage and pain and fear, and it becomes just one more flavor to the banquet of sensation that I am devouring.

With a final effort of will he manages to free his arm just enough to stab the mantis and shake me off, but it’s far too late for him. Another casting of [Exsanguinate] and he collapses, but instead of finishing him off with [Prey Upon] I climb on top of him and return to my feeding.

His life ebbs out within my grasp, and his faltering heartbeat is music to my ears. When at last the song stills, I am filled with a sense of joy and power that eclipses anything felt previously.

I keep drinking until I can’t drink another drop, the tap run dry. I slide off of his body and lie on the ground next to him, sighing pleasantly, glutted.

I remember the words of the Beast, castigating me for my joy. I remember Bashekehi, telling me not to be a monster. I laugh at their vain, petty judgment. Fuck the both of them. I enjoyed that kill, and I won’t feel guilty about it.

He was in my way, and he tasted delicious.

I bask in the afterglow of my first true feeding. The others feel so paltry now, so restrained. I freaked out over the difference in mana between Lena and Cameron, but both of those feedings now pale to the flood of mana that just poured into me.

My whole body feels warm and satisfied. There’s a strange energy to me, like an oddly calm mania; I feel like I could sprint up a mountain or fistfight a god, but the energy is coiled without tension, patiently waiting to be called upon.

All that, from just a single life taken. How much power could I have at my fingertips if I did it again, and again, and again? Would I receive the same multiplier if I drank a figment to death?

You enjoy the act of killing; you just can’t admit it to yourself. You want to take lives, because it makes you feel powerful. Well, Beast of the Labyrinth, I admit it. That felt good. And maybe, when the high of my victory fades, I’ll start to feel doubt once again.

For now, I think I deserve a bit of joy.

“Someone had a good meal,” comes Cheshire’s voice from elsewhere in the hallway. I don’t bother looking around for her, content to let my gaze wander across the ceiling.

“Better than any before it. Mm. When I asked Bashe if sleeping with him would kill me, he said his kind didn’t kill ‘with every sexual encounter.’ I’m beginning to think that was something of a lie of omission. They might not have to, but I bet they get more out of the act if they do. I’d say the same for all imps, and everyone under Shadow. It’s baked into the Throne, isn’t it?”

Cheshire walks into view, smiling down at me. “Dara is, as ever, the exception to the rule.”

“Yeah, that tracks.” I sit up and glance at the body of the reaver, my eyes half-lidded. “Well, this was an interesting lesson. Hot girl figment acting human: good amount of mana. Boy figment not acting human: less mana. Werewolf woman: more mana. Draining a man until he dies: insane amounts of mana. I think I got more from that than Lena and Cameron combined, though admittedly I’m going purely on vibes here.”

“No, I think that’s about right.” Cheshire pokes at the reaver’s corpse with her foot, though she can’t actually affect it right now thanks to being unmanifested. “It’s the difference between snacking on a bagel and sitting down for a full-course meal; both give energy, but one’ll last you a lot longer. To kill by feeding is the natural culmination of conflict and consumption’s intersection. In other words, it is the essence of Shadow.”

“Makes sense.” I crawl over to the dead body and inspect it more closely, rifling through pockets and searching for loot. I send his sword and shield to my throne world, and I find an empty potion bottle, but there’s nothing else of note.

I push off the ground and clamber to my feet. There’s a hole in my vest-and-blouse combo, which is annoying, but the wound underneath has completely healed. [Exsanguinate] continues to prove its worth, despite its glaring restriction.

“You know,” I complain, “this world has been lousy for loot. Why aren’t my enemies dropping weapon upgrades, or spell scrolls, or at least a few coins?”

Cheshire grins at me and answers, “Probably because you don’t know how to use a weapon, spell scrolls aren’t a thing here, and nobody in the Labyrinth uses money.”

“Bah! Get out of here with your fancy ‘logic’ and ‘reason.’ I want my murderhobo D&D power fantasy, dammit.” I stick my tongue out at her, then giggle. “Alright, let’s keep moving.”

I summon the compass and follow its lead back through the maze of doors. We make good time, and in short order we’re back at the threshold and crossing into a new zone of the Reveler’s domain.

The jump between areas is stark. The maze of doors was claustrophobic, but the enclosed spaces were a relief after the horrible heights of this place’s first two areas. This newest region doesn’t appear to have any dramatic pitfalls, but I can’t say for certain because most of it is pitch-black.

The parts of the scenery that aren’t black are glaring neon colors, glowing splashes of purple, green, red, blue, orange. Streaks of sharp light form twisting contoured paths across an endless black canvas. The texture of it all is like paint, and I’m reminded of the body paints that glow under blacklight.

“So tell me about your idea,” Cheshire prompts as we start moving through the strange new space. “You asked if Mahiri could banish figments, which makes me think your plan to defeat her involves using figments in some way.”

“Right, yeah. Okay, so: when we declare a scion’s duel, it’s going to be fought in my throne world, right? So what if I filled my throne world with figments and used them to fight her? If they can overwhelm her while I keep my distance, it shouldn’t matter that I can’t use [Exsanguinate] on her. And hey, do you know what the conditions of that stupid gold spell are, anyway? Like, if I hit her enough times, does she start bleeding again?”

“Hmm.” Cheshire chews her lip and considers my long list of questions. “That may work, though I wouldn’t put a guarantee on it. A big part of this fight is going to be Truths and Thrones: Mahiri has Summer at her back because she’s established a narrative where she’s the big scary predator putting a frightened prey animal in its place, and hiding behind walls of minions might just strengthen her position. There’s a chance that any figments you throw at Mahiri will fold like tissue paper thanks to the weight behind her. You need some weight of your own to match her in a fight.”

“Okay, how do I get that? What’s the Throne of Shadow looking for?”

“A Leviathan,” she says simply. “Your powers at their strongest when tapping into consumption, conflict, will, and want. Mahiri has made a declaration of the way that she thinks the world works, and you need to respond to that. You need to make it into a true clash of beliefs, a battle where the loser is devoured and the winner grows and evolves, incorporating the greatest strengths of the fallen and cutting away your own weakness. Mahiri says you’re just prey pretending to be a predator, a scavenger hiding behind cheap tricks. What is your response, and how does it tie into your personal Truths?”

I frown, and give the thought due contemplation. From the framing that Mahiri’s set up and Cheshire’s explained, I can actually see how my minion strategy would backfire: I’d be like a wounded animal hiding within the herd. If I could get into the fray and fight with my own two hands that would be different, or even just slinging spells, but she’s countered everything I have too effectively.

I can imagine how that scene would play out: I hang back and unleash a horde of figments, but she cuts through them all and chases after me, merciless and unrelenting. I run for my life, desperately trying to put more bodies between me and my pursuer, but it’s not enough. She catches me, she cripples me, she kills me.

“What about her gold spell?” I ask.

“[Gold-Leaf Scales] is an invocation she must have acquired from Imlashi, the imp of Glory. For any normal caster of the spell, it works like this: it stops wounds from bleeding by sealing them with gold, keeping the caster in the fight, but the gold doesn’t act like flesh and disabling or lethal blows will still disable or kill. Running water washes away the gold, which allows for treatment of injuries but also makes the spell less useful when near any sizable body of water. As someone who is not a diabolist, Mahiri will be further limited by needing to carry precious metals on her person to leech from for wound-sealing. Those metals don’t have to be gold, but gold is most efficient. If you could find whatever chunks of shiny rock she’s keeping in her pockets, and if you could then get it away from her, the spell would stop sealing fresh wounds.”

Ah. Opportunity. “Okay, new plan: I’ll use the figments, but as a distraction rather than a sincere offensive measure. While they’re tarpitting Mahiri, you can use a smaller shapeshifted form to find whatever she’s using as fuel for [Gold-Leaf Scales] and remove it. Then we’re back in business with the [Carrion Swarm] into [Exsanguinate] train.”

Cheshire taps her chin. “That might have a higher chance of working. Still, it leaves the question of Truths: what will your framing be, going into this fight? How will you respond to Mahiri’s claims about who and what you are?”

“I don’t know,” I murmur. “Blood, Gluttony, and Fear, but what do they really mean? Should I wish to be a predator and inherit the Eternal Conflict, or should I wish to be a scavenger like Azathoth? When given the choice and the power is in my hands, what kind of monster do I want to become? All these questions are echoing around my head like so much noise, but I don’t have answers.”

“I think you have more of an idea than you’re willing to admit.” Cheshire bites her lip and looks away for a moment, then turns her attention back to me. “Listen, Alice: the Throne of Shadow is about the self. Not the world of natural laws, or the world of shared identity, but the world of individual identity. Beneath every mask you wear, beneath layers of irony and insincerity, beneath the lies you tell to others and to yourself, there’s something there. Deep down, I think you know what you really are.”

I grimace. “Let’s just hope my plan works.”

We fall silent for the next part of our trek, just following the burning compass, until the echoing layered laughter of the Reveler fills the air. I track the sound and see that horrid mass of grasping hands off in the distance, laughing and swimming through air. There’s a scream, much more human than the cacophony of the Reveler, and then the monster dives down into the black canvas and vanishes once more.

I freeze up at the Reveler’s first appearance, but my moment of panic turns to confusion as it leaves just as quickly as it came. Was the Beast directing it once more, or was this a more random act? What was it doing here?

Where the Reveler left, I see what must have been its quarry: a reaver, the woman with all the knives, doubled over and clutching her head in her hands. Her body is shaking, and strange noises are emanating from her, something somewhere half between crying out in pain and… laughing.

Shit, is this what it looks like when someone turns Celebrant? And me without a convenient ledge to shove her off.

The reaver shudders and suddenly screams out, “No, no, it’s too much, it’s too loud!” She draws a knife in one hand and stabs it into her arm once, twice, thrice. She stabs at her leg, into her stomach, carving at her own body wildly. And she laughs and cries all the while.

I stare, stunned and disturbed, until her motions slow and stop. For a long pause she just breathes and bleeds, at last silent, but then she freezes up, twitches, and turns to face me. She raises her head and smiles at me with an utterly vacant expression.

The reaver-Celebrant takes a step toward me and I immediately shout, “[Exsanguinate]!”

Blood pours from her many self-inflicted wounds and she collapses like a puppet whose strings have been cut, but then she starts crawling toward me and I cast the spell again, panicked. She shudders and gasps and stops crawling, instead just lying there on the ground, shivering and half-dead.

“That,” Cheshire murmurs from my side, “is what happens if the Reveler catches you: your mind will be consumed by a joy so bright and hot that it drives out all rational thought. At first, new Celebrants try to cut it out, to break their bones, to burn it away or freeze it away, but the curse won’t let them die or give them relief. Inevitably, some quicker than others, they turn their frenzy outward.”

“Horrifying.” I look on nervously at the still-twitching body of the fresh Celebrant. “Is it… is it safe to use [Prey Upon] here? If I take a bite of her soul, will I get that infection inside me?”

Cheshire shakes her head. “No, that spell is safe. It’s using Abyssal magic as an enzyme to break down the complex structure of a soul into raw energy that can be more easily absorbed. That’s why you can use it on souls that would be incompatible if consumed conventionally through a scion’s duel, but that’s also why you get less growth from it compared to such a duel.”

“Interesting.” I take a few nervous steps toward the shuddering form.

“Oh,” Cheshire adds, “you should still avoid touching it with any part of your body. Poke it with a sword or something.”

I walk over to the dying Celebrant, careful to keep a good distance so it can’t suddenly lunge at me and grab my ankle. I summon the sword I appropriated from my last foe and gingerly poke at the reaver with the blade’s tip. “[Prey Upon],” I incant.

Shadows crawl down the length of my blade and bite into the reaver-Celebrant, finishing her off and giving me another tasty meal. I drink in the flow of energy, and the gears in my head begin to turn.

That Abyssal magic that lets me digest souls… could that be weaponized? Cheshire offered me the spells [Soulfire] and [Prey Upon] as separate abilities, but what if I were to combine them? Could I create a spell that steals soulstuff at a distance and feeds it to me?

Hmm. Food for thought.