William Oh once sneezed near a Climber Possessed by an evil spirit.

‘Bless you!’ the evil spirit said reflexively, not daring to be rude around William Oh, and in the process exorcised itself.

• Jason Salazar

 

The floor wrapped around Will’s heel and propelled him forward at full speed, straight towards the floor-to-ceiling window.

Will threw his axe ahead of him, guiding it with his Phantom Snakes.

Crash!

The axe punched a hole through the strangely strong glass, and Will followed behind, smashing through the weakened hole face-first, using his mask as a battering ram and tumbling through the window.

There.

The body had fallen another thirty feet in the fraction of a second it had taken Will to jump out.

Will sent the Phantom Snakes streaking down, easily catching up with the man and wrapping around his waist, bringing him to a gentle halt to avoid snapping his spine.

Who are we dealing with? Will thought, landing on a platform of air as he turned the man around, prepared to cuss him out for playing chicken on the edge of the building or whatever stupid game the young men in the caravan liked to get up to.

Will froze as he came face-to-face with something out of a horror story.

The man’s face was contorting wildly as though the muscles were struggling against each other, his eyes and mouth oozing black substance reminiscent of the undead spread across the road beneath them.

Kline, I think his name is. One of the Carpenters.

As he saw Will, he gave a black-ooze grin and slipped a civilian dagger out of his belt. The kind they might use for whittling, cutting bread or rope.

He whipped the dagger up-

Will’s middle snake wrapped around Kline’s wrist an instant before the dagger plunged into the man’s own eye.

Why is he trying to kill himself?

Will put it together in an instant. Whatever was messing with his head was trying to secure a win by killing its host. Which meant there was a way it could be removed, as long as the body stayed alive.

Otherwise it wouldn’t be in such a hurry to kill its host. If It couldn’t be removed, it would gloat.

Kline stuck out his tongue, and Will shot forward, jamming his hand into the possessed human’s mouth before he could bite off his own tongue and bleed to death.

Will winced as the black teeth sank into his fingers. Carpenters were, as a rule, modestly strong, but it didn’t outmatch Will’s Resistance.

It hurt, but it didn’t break the skin.

Crack!

Will felt the teeth shift minutely as one of the man’s molars cracked against Will’s finger. The monster puppeting his body was able to muster more force than a man could sustain without injury.

Even if they saved his life, Kline was going to have a bad day.

Will secured the man’s arms and legs with four Phantom Snakes, then used the armor of the fifth one to create a metal gag, preventing him from biting down before withdrawing his hand.

Will glanced up and saw at least a dozen civilians and Climbers staring down at them in dismay.

Will sprinted back up to the rooftop, carrying the possessed carpenter along with him.

Kline was hyperventilating as he struggled against the Phantom Snakes, but the carpenter didn’t have any combat Abilities that the creature could use to get him out.

“Is anybody else-“ Will said, gesturing to the snarling man beside him.

“No, thank the gods,” Brenna said, the aged seamstress holding her family tight.

“What happ-“

“KLINE!” one of Kline’s party, presumeably his wife, shouted as she rushed towards him.

Will took a step forward and blocked the young woman before she got within range of the infection…if that were a concern.

“Let me…see him!” The woman shouted, trying and failing to muscle past Will.

“Not until the Priests of Holdna fix him,” Will said. “Where are the priests of Holdna!?”

“Right here!” The ancient saint Charnesa shouted, approaching with two other priests. Her expression soured as she spotted Kline behind Will.

“Lay him down.” she said, gesturing to the floor. “And don’t let go of him.”

Will did so, and the three priestesses knelt beside the struggling man, their hands glowing faintly as they pressed down against him.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Will asked, trying to divert the distraught woman’s attention towards himself rather than her husband, who had begun twitching and vomiting black bile.

“H-he said he felt tired and was going to go to bed early. I went to bed with him. He got up a while later and said he was going to pee off the side of the building. I-I didn’t think anything of it.”

“No black stuff when he got up?” Will asked, gesturing to his face.

“I’m sorry – it was dark,” She said, her voice trembling from barely restrained sobs.

“It’s fine, she can touch him,” Charnesa said, arriving beside Will and tapping him on the shoulder.

The saint’s gaze followed the young woman enviously for a moment as she collapsed beside her writhing husband, before turning back to Will.

“We need to talk.” The Saint’s words provoked a cold sweat. “Over here.”

“We can get the spirit out of him, but there are problems.” Charnesa whispered as they ducked out of earshot.

“Tell me.”

“Removing possessions like that are a bit like yanking a root system out of the ground without damaging it.”

Will frowned.

“The thing has laid roots inside him, and if we pull it out thoughtlessly, it will damage him beyond repair. Also, if we miss a piece of the root, it will regrow. Maybe not into the same demon, but something that will cause him to hurt himself or his family.”

“What are you getting at?”

“It’s going to be slow. Hours.” Charnesa said. “I would understand if you wanted to cut our losses here.”

Will understood what she meant. The excitement, noise and most importantly, the Charge expended at the top of the building would be like a signal fire, attracting the undead.

Staying in place for hours would definitely result in a confrontation.

“Could I just keep everyone in midair while you get the thing out of him?” Will asked.

“It’s an option, but there’s still the issue of the spirit, and whether or not there are more of them.” Charnesa said.

Will glanced around, not seeing any more spirits.

“What do you mean?”

“I think we’re dealing with a night terror. Undead that don’t have physical forms. Can’t see ‘em, can’t touch ‘em. They’re not even ethereal, they’re entirely separate from our plane of existence. They’ll trail after a Party until one of them goes to sleep, and then pounce. If the person sleeping isn’t particularly strong of will, they’ll be possessed.

“And is there a reason you didn’t warn us about them?” Will asked.

“They’re rare, there’s no way to prevent them from showing up, and if everyone was afraid to sleep, it would cause problems. I’ve seen whole parties try to stay awake the whole Floor. It isn’t pretty.”

“So what do you want from me, the spirit’s already in him, Will said, pointing. “Unless…”

Charnesa nodded, the ancient priestess following Will’s logic.

“Yes, they can come in groups. No one else has gone to sleep yet. I need someone with plenty of Focus to act as bait to clear the area around us of night terrors before anyone else in the caravan goes to sleep. Are you willing to put some of your Party in danger?”

“Yeah, me,” Will said, thumbing his chest. “Loth can keep the undead beneath us at bay for as long as we might need. We need June running the caravan. Of the remaining people, only Mason and Jason have about the same Focus as me. Mason’s too destructive to have him sleep-fight anything, And Jason is twelve, so we’re not using him as bait.”

“By that logic, aren’t you far more destructive than Mason? What if you’re possessed?”

“At the risk of sounding arrogant, I cut off my own hand to survive. I’ve got will for days. It’s literally my first name.”

“You’re right, that does sound arrogant,” Charnesa said, peering up at him for a moment before scoffing and shaking her head. “Teenagers. So convinced of your immortality.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “So be it. But remember that you are bearing all the lives in this caravan on your shoulders.”

Will appraised the Saint in front of him. To become a Saint, one had to be above level Fifty. There was a very good chance that Charnesa was completely capable of solving this crisis on her own and was overplaying the danger as a way to teach Will a lesson about…leadership or humility or some-such.

“You would never agree to this if you didn’t think you could restrain me somehow.” Will clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Old people. Always so convinced teenagers can’t see through their bullshit.”

Charnesa’s eyes narrowed for a moment, a small smile fluttering across her face. “Hmph. Make yourself ready, then. I’ll put you to sleep. If you kill everyone in the caravan while under a night terror’s control, it will be a valuable learning experience.”

Will went and got some of the carpenters to secure Kline’s arms and legs, and put a wooden bit between the man’s teeth to prevent him from biting off his own tongue – or anyone else’s, for that matter – Freeing up his Phantom Snakes before returning to Charnesa’s side, carrying the pillow from his section of the storage wagon.

“Let’s do this,” Will said, fluffing the pillow before laying down with his head propped up, clasping his hands together above his chest.

“Lay on your side.” Charnesa said, kneeling beside him.

Will frowned, glancing up at her.

“If you puke it’s less likely to go back into your lungs. I’ve seen it happen. It’s deeply unpleasant, even to a Climber with high Resistance.”

They might’ve had a bit of friction a few minutes ago, but Will wasn’t about to completely ignore good advice from old folk.

Will laid on his side.

“Seize control.” Charnesa murmured, and Will felt a tap against his temple, then –

******

Will’s eyes shot open with a start, and he tried to push himself up when his left arm blazed with pain, dropping him to the hard floor, clenching his eyes shut again.

Suboptimal Sacrifice detected…attempting to generate Class Seed…Retrying…Retrying…Failed.

Please place an adequate Sacrifice on the Altar. Poorly preserved or mixed Sacrifices have a diminished chance of successfully generating Class Seeds.

Will opened his eyes and realized he was still in the Trial room, the last year fading from memory, the wishful thinking of a desperate boy.

I had a dream where I imagined I’d become strong and went on dazzling adventures, Will thought, coughing as his throat was raw from screaming.

He groaned and tottered backwards, slumping against the white wall, unable to stand any longer than a few seconds as the blood loss was making him incredibly dizzy.

Well, I tried my best, Will thought, staring at the altar that had taken his left hand. There was nothing else to Sacrifice. No way to get his Class and leave this room. Just bits of metal and fabric from manically tearing apart the satchel and his boots.

On his left wrist, the string tied painfully tight around his forearm was the only thing preventing him from bleeding out.

It was tied with a little bow. Will hadn’t thought about it before, but something about that was incredibly funny to him at this moment.

Like unwrapping the present of oblivion, all I’d have to do to escape this place is just...tug on a string, Will thought, giggling at the gallows humor.

Will reached for the string, and hesitated.

This is the only way out now. The alternative is starving to death.

Even though he knew all that, Will’s mind was desperately searching for a solution.

What about Miasma? If I brought enough of it with me from outside, maybe I could…raise an insect to become a Monster, like Loth, and sacrifice it instead.

…Who’s Loth?

Will shook off the vague memories of the fantasy he’d been indulging in and focused on the now.

There’s light in here. That’s a form of energy. Maybe I can breed an edible fungus off my scalp and raise it out of my blood, making a life here. Once I recover, I can…do something?

You know that’s not going to work.

I am NOT giving up.

Over the course of several hours, Will ran through every possible scenario in his mind, but none of them led to him surviving this.

…You’re not getting out.

After what felt like ages, his will was ground down to nothing, finally admitted it to himself, tears streaming down his cheeks as he glanced down at the string, right hand reaching for the knot, ready to uncork himself and let it end.

He paused as he noticed something.

Beneath the skin of his left arm were black veins, barely held back by the tourniquet, pressing against the physical barrier, waiting to climb up his arm and into his chest. Once that happened, he would be free from this pain. He wanted nothing more than to let this torture end.

Wait, wasn’t it blood loss that was gonna kill me?

At that minor discrepancy, something bucked inside Will, a habit that had been trained to become as reflexive as kicking when tapped on the knee.

Muse in the window.

Nail through foot.

Sick soup.

Choking on stolen peanut butter.

Loth joining the Party

Letting Brianna go.

Will’s hopeless suicidal exhaustion gave way to a teenage crush, then shock and horror, then the comfort of being tended to by a mother-figure, then the despair of possibly dying from his own stupidity, then the joy of making a friend, then the impotent rage of letting someone go to their abuser.

The scenery around him smeared like grease on a window as the reflexive technique from his suppressed memories broke the control.

The last year flooded back into him.

The omnipresent light of the box he was in faded to nothing, plunging Will’s world into darkness, and the altar changed shape into something awful.

It looked like a horse-sized slug composed of silently screaming faces.

If this is a dream…Will thought, glancing around the surrounding darkness didn’t seem to have any beginning or end. There was no scale or frame of reference.

Who was to say that horse-sized slug was actually horse-sized, instead of really close to his eyes?

Will closed one eye and squeezed down on the image of the night terror with his thumb and forefinger, plucking it out of the air.

The little creature wriggled in his palm for an instant before Will crushed it.