“Just a scratch,” I tell him, wincing. “Maybe we can find something to heal it so it doesn’t hurt. Maybe another plant?”
Locke meets my eyes and I can tell he understands it’s not a scratch at all. “I can’t wrap it, not being on my shoulder like it is. We don’t have enough material.”
“I know,” I admit, looking around to see if something will help. There’s nothing, not unless we’re gonna wrap it with leaves, and who knows what that would do to him. “Just try not to move that arm too much.”
A soft little chime echoes around us and I look around, worried it means we’re about to be attacked again.
“It’s your XP level,” Locke says. “You reach one hundred?”
“I don’t know,” I frown. “How do I?—”
“Open your inventory. Tilt your head to the right,” Locke instructs. “It will list your current stats.”
“How did you know that?” I ask, doing as he said. A progress bar appears with a little exclamation point.
“I read some of the stuff Cipher gave me. Enough to figure out where to see that kind of information. The rest, I didn’t bother with.”
The progress bar is blue. A very small portion of it is filled and at the end of it, the numbers 60/100 show. Beneath it is mostly empty as if it’s waiting to be filled. The only words are “Tier Zero” beneath the progress bar.
“As you progress, this page will propagate,” Cipher says. “Your selected Glitch will determine the stats and attributes that will be listed.”
“No,” I answer Locke as I study the progress bar. “Sixty XP apparently.”
Only then do I realize my hand is still curled around something. I look down at my fingers, the stone still clutched white-knuckled in my fist. Both my hand and the rock are covered in blood and bits of gore that slowly drip off it. I think I see a little piece of brain that makes my stomach roil. I’ve seen a lot of shit in Dross, but I tend to avoid looking at the innards if possible. Particularly brains. I’d watched someone go insane after eating one once and it stuck with me. I want nothing to do with it.
“Inventory,” I say and the rock disappears, but the blood on my hand doesn’t. My menu is still open and I tip my head, switching back to the inventory. There, the blood rock sits. I tap on it and a small description pops up.
A Sharp Rock: throwable, bludgeoning
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Congrats! You found your first weapon! Use this weapon to throw at howler monkeys, crush their skulls, or silence your demons. I’m not picky.
REWARD: the sweet taste of gruesome victory. Great job, you little killer!
Cipher’s overly sensual voice echoes in my head, making me shift my weight on my feet. What the fuck is that? And why does he sound so . . . sexy?
“Fantastic,” Locke says, reminding me that we’re still talking despite Cipher’s achievement message. “I got thirty.”
“Right,” I answer, leaning down to wipe my hand off on the nearest leaves. It leaves behind a red stain across them, so bright against the green, it makes me nauseous.
Behind us, the howler monkeys start to rush back into the trees, giving up their chase now that they can’t reach us. The lone howler monkey still sits there for a few seconds longer, meeting my eyes. Only after I tip up my chin does he turn and walk away, disappearing back into the canopies. We can hear them in the distance as they go further, but they never disappear completely, like they want us to hear their warning. Like they’re telling us to stay away.
I stand and face the new zone. The Secret Abyss. There are still trees and underbrush, but when we walk only a few meters deeper, we find ourselves staring down into a massive hole in the ground. In the distance, I can see other small holes if I look hard enough as if the forest floor simply disappears. Many of them, you wouldn’t see until you were stepping inside them, a feat I nearly pulled off a few times as we moved around the largest crater. I step up to the edge and peer over it when I realize there isn’t much difference between this hole and the next. The brush disappears into the darkness below us, giving no hint as to what might be inside.
“This was a sixty-four percent chance of survival?” I ask Cipher, eyeing the dark openings.
“You are alive, are you not?” he replies.
“Yes, but I assume you expect us to go down in these craters. In the dark. How is that a sixty-four percent chance of survival for us?”
“Sixty-four percent . . . for you, Vespera.” I glance at Locke, worried. “Don’t worry. I will be with you,” Cipher reassures me.
But it’s not reassuring. Cipher is a machine, one that controls this world to some extent and one that’s playing the game. I don’t know enough about him to know if he’s really a friend or foe yet. But Locke? Locke had stopped to help me get the howler monkey off. And he’d made sure to grab me after I’d gotten the one off of him. Other players may be dangerous, but for some reason, something inside of me demands we team up, and remain that way.
I grab Locke’s face in my hands suddenly, forcing him to look at me instead of the crater he’d been staring down into. His eyes widen in surprise and he jerks as if to jerk away, but my grip is strong enough to stop him immediately pulling away. If he wanted to, he could rip right out of my hands, but he doesn’t. Instead, he meets my eyes.
“I need you to go into this with a level head,” I order him, my eyes fierce. “Watch my back and I’ll watch yours. Got it?”
