“Pantheon above…”

Myles processed the information as quickly as he could, trying to come to terms with what had happened. The more he tried to focus, the more his body felt like an alien conglomeration of extra muscles and bones. His abilities had changed, his powers had shifted, and his monsters were gone and replaced by his body.

He and Ashra were on their own, and without knowing what he could do, they were sunk.

The abilities seemed straightforward enough, but as Pecca and the warrior struck, that proved to be the biggest lie he’d told himself in a long time.

“On your right.”

Myles dodged without question, but his body was faster than before, and his magic was less at his beck and call. He’d intended to blast Pecca the way he had tried to before, but the kinetic blast he’d summoned hadn’t fully formed yet and couldn’t be stopped once he released it. As he hit the ground, the blast shot between Ashra and nightmare Marcus, spraying soil and grass into the branches.

From his place below, Myles watched Ashra dance around Pecca’s blades until the mace swung.

Jump!

Ashra did as she was told and lept into the branches as the mace connected with soft earth mere inches from his head.

Worry later, live now, Myles told himself as he sprung back. You’re just controlling a monster. It’s not you.

That seemed to help him come to terms with at least the mental aspects of it, and Myles did his best to believe it as he fell into a rhythm with Ashra. As they fought, the link between them reforged itself into something more and furthered his control as her body movements became his, her control becoming his control as the alien nature of things began to fade into motion.

Whether it was Myles’s lucidity or the progression of battle, they fell in time with one another, instinctively knowing the next step of the battle the other would take, and forged a breakwater against the storm of steel.

Ashra would strike out, Myles would raise a deflecting blast or knock an attack away with his staff, and the two would push back their attackers. Progress was slow going as the two nightmares took turns healing while the other held them off. It was becoming a battle of attrition the Runners couldn’t afford to lose.

Ashra moved from step to step with a striking grace Myles was all too familiar with, but even with growing control, he knew he was the weak link. He could feel their progress recede when they pushed against him, and Myles felt each misstep as sharply as a cut to the cheek. He was used to being defensive, not offensive, and could deflect strikes well enough with his quickly replenishing magic, but his attacks and counters were crude without his trained abilities or monsters behind him.

Crude enough to be abused by a well-trained opponent.

When the time came, Myles barely noticed Pecca had moved within his defenses as Ashra pushed him back with a Force Strike.

As he struck out at Marcus to keep himself alive, he caught the movement from the corner of his eye. The air cried as Pecca’s blade sliced low and was about to rake across his outer thigh. Time moved in slow motion as Myles saw a thick, green ooze drip from the cutting edge of the weapon. He was busy engaging Nightmare Marcus, and Ashra was already responding, bringing a strike down on his back to shatter his spine. As he was, Myles couldn’t move without exposing Ashra’s flank to the follow-through or the mace strike.

This is going to hurt…

Bracing himself, he prepared for the pain.

Pressure slammed into his thigh, his skin buckled under the force, and a sharp crack rang through the air. Pecca lost his balance as the blade of the knife snapped off and twilled out of the clearing. The look of surprise on his face was a near mirror of Myles as one forced back a mace, and the other fell to the ground like a string-less puppet as the snapping of bone faded away.

Ashra radiated pride.

“You did well to lure him in.”

Myles didn’t have an answer to that, simply looking down as Ashra circled to his right. Looking at what should have been a mess of blood and muscle simply wasn’t. From hip to knee, his entire outer thigh had become a plate of thick, gray stone with veins of black jet. At the center of the slab was the knick mark from Pecca’s blade no larger than the stroke of a quill.

Given the situation, Nightmare Marcus backed off, assessing the situation as Myles examined his interface for the culprit of the change. In moments, he’d found it in probably the most obviously named trait He’d ever seen.

Instinctive Adaptation

Skill Type: Active/Passive - Desert Steel Rabbitkin (Somniums Champion)

Cost: Scaling

Success Determination: Dexterity and Will vs. Speed, Need, and Difficulty of Adaptation

Effect: As an instinct, directly access your abilities of adaptation granted by your Monster Invoker Talent. Monsters who have willingly given you their power can be used to adapt your body and access their Skills and Traits as you envision, but it will take a toll. The harder you focus on a need, the more likely your body is to respond.

Results may vary.

The cost and difficulty of this Skill vary from action to action.

Well, that was at least helpful, and it explained why he could throw those kinetic blasts as easily as he had. How far could he push it?

“He is coming, my friend.”

The familiar phrase took him off balance. As long as he could remember, Ashra had never referred to him as her friend so casually. He was a monsterkin now though, not a [Monster Tamer]. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, and instead, Myles sent her the mental equivalent of a nod before closing his interface.

As he was distracted, the warrior seemed to have grown by a foot or two and his muscles bulged at the seams. Even from this distance, Myles could make out each cord of muscle under his skin like a snake tensed and ready to strike.

The display did nothing to comfort him.

Taking a breath, Myles settled into his role and trusted in his abilities. He didn’t have as much against Marcus as he did Pecca, but seeing as one was already dead and neither of them was real, it didn’t matter.

They had a nightmare to end.

Remembering his attributes, Myles knew he had a solid twenty-one in body now and nearly thirty in Dexterity. He was as strong as any human and faster than any normal person could dream to be. As a second mace appeared in Nightmare Marcus’s hands, Myles wondered if that would be enough.

Then, the nightmare opened his mouth, more than likely to speak or taunt them in some way.

Instead, a guttural noise like ripping flesh and tearing muscle slithered its way through the air from his flesh, and that’s when Myles noticed something pushing from his neck up the back of his throat.

“Incoming!”

He didn’t wait to find out and moved, intent on unleashing everything he had to stop the strange action.

Even with nearly thirty in his dexterity, it wasn’t enough to get to his target in time.

Nightmare Marcus’s jaw distended like a snake’s as the lump reached the back of his throat. His face contorted and the sound of snapping bones echoed in the air. His muscles stretched and twanged under the flesh, and a ball of dark metal appeared behind his teeth.

A cannonball?

As his foot touched down for his second to last step, Myles pivoted hard to the left, using force to ensure his departure. At the odd angle, Myles slammed into the ground hard, sending force through his body as the cannonball ripped through the air where his head had been and exploded the trunk of a nearby tree.

“Mists!” he cursed before rolling as the maces returned and came crashing down where his head had been. “Why can he spit cannonballs!”

Ashra was unconcerned as her confidence flared, raising Myles’s spirits as she spoke excitedly. “He is a worthy opponent!”

“Because he can spit cannonballs?”

“Because he is not human.”

Well, that was a bit offensive.

Myles sprang to his feet, taking an extra foot he hadn’t intended into the air and still a bit unsteady on the wider pads of his feet, and prepared for another strike. Ashra covered his right, a clear, smug pride flowing across their link as the pair of maces were pulled from the small craters in the ground. Pebbles fell to rejoin the earth, and dust wafted through the air as neither party moved. The two monsterkin watched the nightmare as he stood alone near the corpse of his ally. Silently, Myles hoped he’d be added to that pile soon enough.

Nightmare Marcus turned to the fallen body then, ignoring the two as the maces vanished.

“What is he…?”

In a fluid movement, the Nightmare’s grotesque mouth opened again and ripped a large chunk out of his ally’s bleeding corpse. A hand dangled from a broken arm before vanishing into its maw with a wet slap of his lips and the gnashing of teeth before swallowing loudly and going back for another bite.

Myles hesitated and almost retched at the sights and sounds of crunching bones and ripping flesh, but Ashra struck, slamming a foot into the exposed stomach of the beastly Marcus. Blood and half-chewed gore sprayed out of his broken maw in surprise, but the monstrous nightmare didn’t move from the spot he’d planted himself in. In a smooth motion, he tore off another chunk of Pecca’s corpse before using the rest as a weapon to club Ashra.

More blood spilled out from the corpse like a tipped-over cup, painting the ground in a macabre crimson arc before Myles fired another kinetic shot. The corpse came forward to defend, denting with a soft crunch before buckling under the force and starting to drip.

Ashra took the chance and went in for another strike as she lept into the air. Myles launched another kinetic bolt, keeping the monster on his toes as she reached the pinnacle of her arc. The air shook as she shot back toward the ground. Myles smirked as the beast kept all eyes on him. The arrow that was Ashra continued like a bird of prey towards the earth below, blurring slightly as another crack of air came from under her feet. Then, she became a shooting star as her fist glowed triumphantly.

Before the strike could land, a third limb ripped from Marcus’s flesh, spraying chunks of hardened leather armor and gore before it cracked and slammed into Ashra’s chest like a whip, knocking her off course and leaving her rolling into the brush nearby. In the blink of an eye, a second, third, and fourth tendril erupted from his armored hide in a wash of red and black and slithered in the air as Myles stared.

“Oh, come on!”

Marcu’s broken mouth wasn’t able to give a reply, but a familiar gurgling noise replied instead as a familiar bulge crept back up his throat.

Myles trusted in his instincts and called to Squishy’s power as he had unconsciously done with Nod’s, and within moments, liquid metal coated his arms and he felt the bones within change as the muscles melted into steel. He couldn’t describe the feeling if he wanted to, but the best he could imagine was how sugar reacted when it reached a high enough temperature and became like liquid glass.

You’re still you. Get through it, Myles.

The shot came, and Myles guarded. His hands flew up in an x in front of him and watched as the limbs flowed into one another forming a shield of kinetic iron.

The collision came, and the air stopped screaming.

As the two forces met, the weapon dented the metal of his shield and kept going. Myles's whole body was pushed back but not all at once. His feet refused to give as the rabbit feet widened with the same steely look and dug into the ground with spurs of iron and stone.

Myles could feel the strain on his body as the cannonball stretched and deformed the metal like a fist kneading dough, but something inside took that power, took that force, and didn’t allow his defenses to break as the force was lost to the kinetic iron’s natural power.

His defenses held, and Myles dared to smile.

We can do this…

I can do this!

The power was nearly his nature now as the metal began to flow again, becoming a pair of hands again, one much larger than the other as the majority of the steel gathered behind the sphere. It was time to launch his counterattack.

“Catch!”

Literally.

With a thought, the power lashed out, sending the iron sphere back at the monster who’d spawned it. His spurs kept him in place this time, but he could feel the force of the power he’d unleashed as the air screamed again. In his old body, bones would have shattered and his muscles ripped from his socket, but the liquid metal had no such qualms with it. The bullet ripped back with all the force of a crossbow bolt as it careened toward the monstrous creature.

Unfortunately, a pair of tendrils caught the sphere. The tendril stretched like rubber ripping in some places from the force before bringing it back in. Myles barely had time to react as the nightmare threw it back with almost as much force as it’d been launched the first time.

The shield stretched further, nearly touching Myles’s ears. Light bled through rips in the steel, and his skin screamed, but again, the metal held to its purpose.

Myles caught the blow successfully and as the metal mended, his pain faded. His body quivered with stored kinetic energy, and his confidence grew. This was it. Myles knew his monsters almost as well as he knew himself. Instinctively, he knew Squishy’s power like the back of his hand, and with that power, it was time to end this.

Please work.

He hoped, anyway.

Myles called on the abilities he was most confident with and lept at the monster.

His agility was something to fear on its own and took just a moment longer than he needed to right himself, but cannonball in hand, Myles rocketed towards his target.

Tendrils lashed out, but they failed to piece his flesh as they met stone. Nod’s stone spread like moss across his back as he flew towards the behemoth as his new carapace defended him from the barrage of attacks. In the span of moments, his flesh melted into rippling steel before colliding with Marcus’s chest, nearly splattering from the force as his liquid metal distorted.

The weight and force of it all forced Marcus to stumble.

Myles stayed in place as if Marcus hadn’t moved from the spot. In a blink, the liquid flowed back into the outline of Myles before receding and leaving sandy fur in its wake and a mace in place of his hand.

A guttural roar from the creature was like music to Myles’s ears, but that was just the appetizer. As soon as he could, Myles moved, lowered himself into a stance, and pressed the cannonball against his armored chest. Vaguely, he felt a sense of wonder at himself, and he couldn’t stop.

“Dinner is served.”

Lyna would have been proud of him as the world went silent.

Tendrils rose in time with Marcus’s arms as his massive maces prepared to make their descent.

As they did, Myles released his pent-up kinetic energy behind the sphere, and the nightmare’s chest ruptured like a poorly crafted still.

The black blood of the nightmare rained down into the glade as bits and pieces of the body clung to the branches behind him. Organs and bits of bones were among them as Myles stared through the near-body-sized hole he’d left in the monster’s chest.

Absently, he wondered where all the blood Pecca had was.

Tendrils limply hung above his head or fell down his back as he felt his power wane from exhaustion. He couldn’t relax yet though. Every muscle was on guard, ready for the nightmare to move at a moment’s notice.

Only when the body began to dissolve into aether did he let himself fall onto the ground, exhausted but invigorated at the same time in a way he couldn’t explain.

Rolling onto his back, Myles watched the lined sky change to a familiar purple he’d come to associate with Somniums and his island.

Is this how they always feel? Myles thought to himself as a lazy cloud drifted across the opening in the sky. Do they always feel this powerful? This satisfied with battle?

As he lay there, basking in his victory, Ashra’s head came into view.

“I cannot speak for others, but I do,” she said, taking a spot on his right in the grass. “It is the reason I fight. Is it not the same for you?”

Myles considered that.

“No.”

“No?”

“No, I figure when I have to, not when there's another option.”

She scoffed. “The answer I would expect from one who studies magic. Though, I have never seen your kind do… that.” He half expected her to motion to where the monster had been, but she didn’t. Ashra didn’t move and for a long moment, there was silence. “I will ask my parents to arrange a sparring match to test myself if you are willing to accept.”

Myles considered that. Squishy had gained power from Somniums. Could he? Could he help train Ashra here? Could he get used to being like this?

Could he keep this power?

Part of him screamed at him to, that it meant safety and survival, but that part wasn’t him.

He discarded the thought as fast as it had come. He didn’t need power, he just wanted his body back. So lost in his thoughts, he almost missed Ashra’s question.

“What magic allows you to fight like that?”

At least that one was easy.

“The magic of dreams,” Myles joked, smiling as the tension began to leave his muscles. Hopefully, everything would be back to normal soon and the others would return.

Unfortunately, what Myles meant as a joke was exactly the wrong thing to say.

“Will you teach it to me?”

“What?”

“Your fighting Class. It seems very flexible. If I could learn to do that, I would be unchallenged for my throne.”

As she spoke, Myles felt a hand on his and a familiar, unfamiliar tension crossing the link.

His mind locked up, keeping anything else to himself as he took the hand away and sat up, looking at her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Her tone changed in an instant, but she didn’t move from her place in the grass. “Because I am not of your kind?”

“No,” Myles insisted.

“Because I cannot learn?”

“I doubt that.”

“Because I am a woman?” she pressed, only now sitting up to stare daggers with her dark eyes. “Choose your next words carefully, Sand Walker, or I will rescind my offer to fight.”

“Mists, no, Ashra!” Myles interrupted, flustered. “I mean what I said, this is all a dream, a nightmare…”

She stared for a moment. “Your lord considers us so low? Simple dreams or nightmares for his people? Your kind may spur us for our nature, Myles Chase, but I assure you that I am more than that. For all you have done for me, I would ask…”

Myles held up a hand. Trying to get things back into something more civil. “I can prove it.”

She glared, a fight brewing under her gaze. “You can prove this is a nightmare?”

“Maybe,” he said, more to himself than her. “I can prove this isn’t what you think it is.”

He could sense her hesitation, her anger, but she controlled it well. “Then do so before we settle this.”

Myles considered the best way to present it. How could he…

“Think about it, Ashra. How did you know my name? I haven’t once mentioned it, and you didn’t tell me yours either.”

She stopped, letting the point sink in. Her eyes squirreled as she thought, closing slightly as her nose twitched. Then, the confusion cleared and she answered. “You told me, and I am of the royal family. All royals know one another’s kin by sight.”

Myles shook his head. “I’m not royalty, Ashra. Think hard, when did I tell you?”

Thankfully, she didn’t punch him and instead sat thinking. “You told me when we met in the glade, moments ago when you came to my aide…”

“No, I didn’t,” he pushed. “Think. I told you when I defended you from Marcus and Pecca the first time. When we became partners, and you accepted the terms of my contract as a [Monster Tamer].”

“The… first time?” She said slowly, her eyes searching Myles as if looking for something before they closed again and her face scrunched. Their connection seemed to twitch under her focus until finally.

Pure, unadulterated horror flooded the link, breaking all barriers between them as Ashra’s eyes shot open and stared at him in a new light with familiar eyes.

Nightmare Zone has been cleared!

Ashra Snowpelt has achieved lucidity.

Calculating rewards….

“Myles.”

He smiled. “Are you with us again?”

She stood up, looking away from him as she tried to emotionally gather herself. He could feel her picking up the pieces of her guarded emotional state, pieces of her he’d never seen before, and locking them all back under her control before facing him again.

“I am sorry for what I did under the influence of this place.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t do anything…,” Myles tried, dismissing the concern as too small.

She did not relent. “I did not mean any disrespect to you or Kendra. Please, accept my apologies”

“Disrespect?”

What had she…

Oh…

Oh!

Oh, Mists!

“Of course, Ashra.” He flushed himself as he realized what Ashra had offered him. Well, what she had offered her rabbitkin savior, Myles. Knowing her history and the horrid comments they received early on, it made Myles wonder which part of the fight was the true nightmare. Not wanting to dwell too long on how his rabbitkin self may have been set up by the nightmare zone, he tried to make Ashra relax. “There was no disrespect, Ashra. Besides, If anything, Lyna is the one that can’t find out. Kendra will just tease me, but Lyna may get the world involved.”

If it already wasn’t.

“I had not even considered that.” Absently, she added to herself, “If she finds out, I may have to make sure she cannot share.”

“Ashra!”

A ghost of a smile crossed her features. “It is… for the best she does not find out.”

As she spoke, the dungeon had finished deciding on their loot…

Combat Analyzed - Bonus Awarded for LV 5: Nightmare Forest Glade Clear

Treasure Distribution has been set to Need before Greed.

Assigned Treasure:

Myles Chase

10 Essence of Nightmares

Ring of Sand and Steel

Bridge Key

Ashra Snowpelt

[Hidden]

Class Update!

For successfully invoking the power of your monsters while you were separated, you have unlocked a new Class Path for the Journeymen rank [The Path of the Invoker] and the Class Path Talent - Invoker.

Taking it all in, Myles was only allowed to focus on one aspect of it all.

He was still a rabbit.