In between each beat of my heart there is a moment.

That moment is filled with peace. With silence. With relief.

Since the split second after Quinn finished engraving that rune into me, I’ve lived for that moment.

Each heartbeat brings an inordinate amount of agony. An itch that burns to be released pushes against my veins. It pulses though my body to the rhythm of my heart.

Everything around me has faded into a blur. Time has become an abstract concept as I chase a sense of balance, but it eludes me.

All that is left is the moment. My beautiful, gorgeous moment of stillness.

***

A hand breaks me from my cycle of peace and pain. The hand is delicate, with strong fingers. Objectively, the hand is beautiful. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I, however, do not.

I hate the hand. The hand that did this to me. It brought this pain into my life. And worse yet, it broke my focus. Without my focus I can’t chase the moments between heartbeats. I can’t find my solace. My high.

“It’s almost time babe, you need to focus.” Quinn’s voice echoes at the edge of my consciousness.

Babe? Who the fuck does she think she is calling babe?

‘A contract with the Source of the world’ she said. ‘It might hurt a little bit’ she promised.

Fuck that shit. I’ve never been in so much pain my life. Actually, I’m surprised I haven’t received an-

Achievement Unlocked: Life of Pain Level 1- Endure unrelenting agony for a minimum of 12 consecutive hours.

Well, well, well. Think of the devil.

“Snowflake!” The hand becomes more insistent with it’s mission to torture and distract me, aka it shakes me harder.

My lips move, and something rumbles in my chest.

“Snowflake! You have to speak actual words!” Quinn’s voice once again pierces through my focus like a… like some sort of… I’m in too much pain to think of a metaphor. “Come on, at least open your eyes.”

“Go away,” I respond, as politely as humanly possible.

“Stop mumbling and open your fucking eyes,” Quinn’s tone turns decisively less cajoling and becomes much more demanding. “If you want the pain to go away you have to complete the contract. You’ll get as much Source as you could possibly need. All you have to do is focus on what you want to happen.”

Well. That changes things.

I take what feels like an eternity to gather my resolve, but every time it builds up enough to fuel my action, the warm darkness pulls me down. Its safe here. The darkness is another barrier against the pain. Quinn has lied to me before so can I even trust her? And if I can trust her, then what is the rush? I have time. It’ll be okay.

Just like that my resolve disperses. My mind generates doubt and accepts its own logic as flawless. It is so simple to not change. It is easy to deny reality and live in the hellhole you’ve built for yourself. That I’ve built for myself.

Its easy to blame your mistakes on others.; your weakness on those around you.

My mistakes. My weakness.

No one forced me here. And if I’m brutally honest with myself, I know that no one can help me out of here. Through my actions and inactions, I have created this situation for myself. There were so many other paths I could have walked.

My pain is just that. It’s mine. I brought it on myself. I can’t run from it, it is a part of me. I can’t hide from it, in the moments that fill the silence it will find me. The only thing I can do is accept my pain. Maybe I can use it to change myself for the better?

It is far more likely that I will develop some sort of toxic coping mechanism that will lead me to more pain in the future. But hey, conflict builds character, right?

… right?

***

With a monumental burst of willpower, I force open my eyes. I am immediately and thoroughly filled with an equally monumental amount of regret. Many, many regrets.

First of all, the pain is still there. The itch. The ache. The need for release. Unfortunately for me, that is the least of my issues right now.

We’re standing in a field of carnage. More than a field. There is nothing for as far as the eye can see. Nothing but corpses and the taint of war. Huge swathes of ground in unnaturally straight lines just…. Gone. No rubble or displaced earth, the ground utterly annihilated in a way I never thought possible. Erased. The ground is erased.

The corpses are of creatures I don’t know and don’t understand. Giants of an unknown race and their beasts of war. Majestic warriors I’m sure, if their fractured bones and rusted armor is anything to go by. At the very least, I can say that they were valiant warriors to the very last. The Mountain Creatures that have plagued my every waking moment since Quinn explained her hair-brained scheme, lay scattered across the plain. Some hewn asunder. Some crushed to rubble. A myriad of death, painting the tapestry of war.

“Come on Snowflake, we need to climb this thing together.” Quinn insists, gesturing to something out of my field of vision. “Challengers must approach of their own volition. It’s a cardinal rule.”

Climb? Challengers? I thought we were going to defeat the Unmoving Mountain?

I turn my head in the direction Quinn is gesturing. The thing dominating my vision leaves me breathless.

Opposite the scene of ancient death, there is a staircase. I hesitate to describe it as huge, or even gigantic. The sheer size of the thing redefines the definition of those words for me. From right to left it extends almost as far as I can see. The sheer girth of the thing is enough to make any mountain jealous. However, the most impressive thing about this stair case is not it’s girth. If I’m being perfectly honest, I have never cared about the width of a staircase before in my life, and I don’t intend to start now. No, here what matters is height.

I’d like to say that the way the staircase pierces through the clouds above us fills me with a sense of grandeur and awe. I would be lying. The staircase fills me with dread. No, maybe dread is the wrong word. It fills me with despair and a quite sense of helplessness.

I really don’t want to climb that.

“Slime-girl, form yourself into wings and give him a boost with each step. Nevasca, I need you to walk next to him for support.” Quinn’s hand slips into mine. Our fingers intertwine, and she pulls me up and forward. Apparently, I had been laying down? A warm weight settles on my shoulders. I look down to see slime encasing my chest. Glowing ribs run through the slime, making it look like I am encased in a slime covered skeleton.

“Big inhale Master. Try to take each step on an exhale. It will help me match your rhythm.” A mouth forms from the slime and instructs me on how to walk.

I know how to fucking walk.

But still, I can use all the help I can get.

Nevasca rubs against my side, her tails wrapping around my waist. I run my free hand through the soft ridge of long feathers that run down her spine. My beautiful, sweet Nevasca. So loyal. Always their when I need her. I honestly don’t know what I would do without her in my life.

“Step. Breathe. Step.” My focus isn’t strong enough to tell me who is talking, but I push through the pain to follow orders. All I have to do is put one foot in front of the other. Anyone can do that. I can do this.

I focus on the pattern, letting myself fade into the rhythm. My mind slips in and out of consciousness. The pain fades into white noise. My world consists of two things and two things only.

“Breathe, and step.”

***

A blue screen flashing in front of my face breaks me from my hypnotic-like state.

Urgent Notice!

By entering this zone, you have agreed to challenge the Unmoving Mountain, an optional Boss.

Best of luck to you Awakened. May your death feed the System.

I gather the will to focus and once again regret it.

We’re standing on a huge platform, far above the clouds. Although, oddly enough, there is still that strange dark cloud hanging far above my head. Honestly, that’s just weird.

With the stairs behind us, the object of our journey lays directly ahead, beyond the edge of the platform. An alien maw of epic size faces us. Tentacles, as thick as buildings, writhe in a lazy fashion beneath the gaping, toothed abyss that can only be described as a mouth. At this distance it almost looks like a beard.

If you looked at it a certain way, its as if the cliffs and crags above the fluttering eye lids are brows. Then the huge rock faces extending to the heavens are some sort of super tall hat. All in all, the Unmoving Mountain looks like an old man with hideous, alien features.

Oh shit. I take that back.

The Unmoving Mountain (Boss) has noticed your presence and is awakening from its slumber.

The tentacles start lashing out, without rhyme nor reason, slamming themselves against the platform beneath our feet. Their reach far extends what I thought was possible.

Thousands of luminous eyes crack open, one by one swiveling to find our small party.

“Snowflake, you need to make your move!” Quinn urges me. “I can’t hide us for long! The very fabric of the World is at your beck and call. Don’t hold back! Just take everything you need. You can worry about paying it back later.”

Pay it back?

Oh, right. For every iota of Source I borrow, I’ll be in debt to the System.

Fuck.

This was a bad idea.

“Hurry!”

Right, right. Got a Mountain to topple.

“Shape what you want to happen in your mind and push. Use the power that’s been building up inside you!”

What I want to happen? I want the Mountain to die but… I’m having a hard time imagining a way to kill it. Its emotions are calm, but the colors run deep. I can’t even imagine being able to stir those emotions to the point where it’ll just fall over and die. That is beyond me, even with unlimited power at my beck and call.

Maybe I could attack it from the inside somehow? Shove a massive shard of ice down its throat and boom?

No. That would never work. It could just evaporate the ice shard with its mouth-beam thingy. I only have one shot at this and I’m not going to waste it.

I could try to get the shard in through a different avenue? Not just the mouth?

No. Trying to get an attack through its mountain-esque shell is a foolhardy task. It would be like trying to skewer a crab with a stick. The tip would just slide right off. You’re better off just crushing the snippy bastard with a rock.

Hmmm… with a rock.

Didn’t Ra’hel mention something about high level Geomancers from her world summoning flaming rocks from the sky? Damn, that was ages ago. Back when I thought she wanted to have sex with me. Before she… She… Fuck. That is a rough memory. Rough like the way her scales felt against my skin as she tried to squeeze the life out of-

“SNOOOOOWFLAAAAKE!” Quinn’s scream brings me back to reality. “NOW! YOU HAVE TO DO IT NOW!”

In the back of the Unmoving Mountain’s throat a light is forming. It gets brighter and brighter as each second passes. Even though it is getting brighter, for some reason it isn’t expanding. No, it’s doing the opposite of expanding. It is condensing into a pinpoint of light too bright to look at directly.

No more time for thinking. All that’s left is action. It is either do or die, there is no middle ground.

My thoughts, plans, hair-brained schemes, and half-remembered comments condense into a singular thought. One idea.

“I hereby invoke my contract with the System! Use every ounce of Source available to me to crush this big bastard with a flaming rock from the sky!” My defiant scream echoes hollow in my ears. A grim reminder that I am but a cog in the machine appears before my eyes, stealing my thunder.

Achievement Unlocked! Deal with the Devil- Invoke a contact with the System that grants you immense power but is ultimately unfavorable towards you.

Contract Invoked!

Processing estimated debt….

Notice!

You have invoked a contract, placing yourself in debt to the System.

Until your debt is paid, the System will deny you access to ambient Source, instead using your supply to pay off your debt.

Each user of Source you kill will count toward repaying your debt. The System will assign each a Source value based on their individual prowess. Bonus points will be awarded if they have a high potential.

Warning: if you die before your debt is repaid, your home world will be consumed as collateral.