《Death Metal Alchemist (LitRPG)》 [1] >Compelling Chapter Title< Handsome Alex was all business even though his skull and spinal column were the last remnants of the man he used to be. I had his bones laid out on the floor of my train car as the starry sky whooshed past outside my window. With no ribs or arms or anything, he looked like a demonic sperm. ¡°You look like a Halloween decoration.¡± I lied and leaned closer. ¡°Why do you smell like coffee? Anyway, I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anything to worry about. Have you seen some of the rich weirdos on this train? No one will say shit once we get you some arms and legs. I bet half the drummers here were never even human to begin with. You¡¯re practically boring.¡± Handsome Alex ignored me. ¡°The guitarist approaches,¡± he warned, and with a puff of dust his jawbone cracked clean off. Without muscles and tendons to work it, his jaw had always just hung open, anyway, and he could still talk just fine without it. His eyes lit up with an eerie amber light marking each syllable. ¡°Hide me now, before she arrives. Hurry, you fool.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything but it was weird that his jaw had just fallen off like that. Wasn¡¯t he supposed to be indestructible? I shoved the stray bone into my pocket. Then I slid Handsome Alex and his rickety tail of yellowed vertebrae under the bench seat opposite where I was sitting. My hard-sided suitcase fit snug against the gap between the floor and seat and I put my feet up, wedging it even more firmly in place. I pinned my chin to my chest and pulled my derby down over my eyes like I was asleep. A moment later, the door slid open and a slender, dark-haired woman with a guitar case strapped to her back swept inside. I didn¡¯t flinch at the sudden blast of music and voices from all the partygoers out in the corridor. I performed a gentle, wavering moan of a snore, instead. I could see her reflection in the metal frame of the bench across the way. She was wearing a black, fitted leather jacket with lots of superfluous zippers and short sleeves that ended mid-bicep in lacy ruffles. I suddenly felt very underdressed in my Old Loser costume. Her jeans were also black but sort of faded with a hole in one knee. And she had on a purple shirt of some kind underneath the jacket. She saw me sleeping there and quietly slid the door closed, more polite than the obscene tattoo on her forearm implied. It was an anthropomorphized penis cutting itself to pieces with machetes. For some reason it had eight arms. Reminded me of Alex in his final form. In addition to the guitar case on her back, the woman was also carrying a green and purple duffel. The thing was bulging and she was straining to hold it up and started searching for someplace to set it down, but I had strategically occupied both benches in this car. I was asleep on one and had my feet and jacket on the other. ¡°You awake, dickhead?¡± she whispered, very, very low. I held in a chuckle. She reached behind her back using her free hand and slid the door open again, but only for a moment before slamming it shut with a schwack! ¡°Annie are you okay!¡± I cried as I pretended to be wrenched out of a dream. My hat fell on the floor. I looked around wildly for a moment, selling the idea that I didn¡¯t know where I was. I felt all over my bald head like the hat might be hiding somewhere up there. ¡°Oh, hey,¡± the woman said, a guilty note in her voice. I couldn¡¯t tell if it was real or not. ¡°My bad. Were you sleeping?¡± I bent down to pick up my hat and stuck it back on my head. ¡°No worries, man I was out.¡± After wiping my eyes and yawning behind my hand, I reached across the car and dragged my coat off the far bench. I placed it on the opposite bench beside myself and gestured for her to sit where the jacket had been. ¡°There, sorry about that. I¡¯ve been traveling a lot. This is Hawijimi still, right?¡± She grunted. ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s still Hawijimi out there.¡± She sat down, eyeing me with distrust. This was going perfect. ¡°You mind if I smoke?¡± ¡°Nope, make yourself at home.¡± She took off the guitar case and laid it on the bench next to her. That was a stroke of luck. She might have noticed Handsome Alex if she¡¯d stowed her instrument under the seat. She dug around in her duffel for a moment before pulling out a silver cigarette case and a lighter. The case opened to reveal a number of hand-rolled cigarettes. They might have been magic cigarettes. I was hoping. She flicked her lighter and watched me while she drew on the cigarette, which with her first exhale I confirmed was, in fact, magically-enhanced as I suspected. The way she puffed, it didn¡¯t last long, and she didn¡¯t offer me any. That was fine. ¡°So, you play?¡± I jutted my chin at her guitar case. ¡°You must be signed up for that whole battle of the bands thing, right?¡± I snorted, sort of amused and dismissive at the same time. ¡°The Cacophony, you mean.¡± There was no warmth or humor in her voice as she corrected me. Only irritation. ¡°And yes, I play. Swell observation there, Sherlock.¡± She knocked on her guitar case. I smiled. ¡°That¡¯s right, the Cacophony. What a name. So where¡¯s the rest of your band? Isn¡¯t the first stop tomorrow night? Shouldn¡¯t you be busy rehearsing or something?¡± ¡°They¡¯ll be boarding in the morning.¡± She looked at me warily. ¡°What are you doing on this train? You don¡¯t look like a¡ª¡± ¡°Like a contestant? Or a rich weirdo? Yeah, you¡¯re right. I¡¯m neither.¡± I held out my card and she just looked at me without taking it. Shrugging, I stuffed it back in my pocket. ¡°I manage a band. Sorry, a Sonic Combat Unit. We used to just call them rock bands when I first got into this business. Anyway, name¡¯s Kirby. Kirby Dufresne.¡± ¡°Mina Diamond,¡± she replied, narrowing her eyes. ¡°But you already knew that, didn¡¯t you?¡± ¡°Pardon? Not sure I follow your meaning. Are you a well-known act around these parts? I¡¯ll be honest with you, I¡¯m from Tulsa. That¡¯s in Oklahoma. This is actually my first action outside North America and Europe. First time on a train, too.¡± I winked like a dork. ¡°Don¡¯t tell the conductor.¡± She was staring so hard then, I thought she might drill a hole between my eyes. It was too good, we¡¯d really gotten off on the wrong foot and she was full of distrust. While she focused on me, Handsome Alex took advantage of the distraction to do his thing. I tracked his progress using our party interface: >Handsome Alex is preparing a [Compelling Narrative] >Stage 1 of 7 is 12% complete¡­. This was some seriously haunted shit. Handsome Alex came back from the first plane crash with a whole suite of mind-bending superpowers. Among them were a slew of like, video-game-styled windows, for lack of a better concept to compare it to. These windows could show me all kinds of freaky stuff about the world. Tooltips I had no business reading; stuff I would have told you was batshit just a few years ago. We used one of these windows to communicate with one another telepathically, I¡¯m dead serious: Handsome Alex: You are performing well today, Kirby. Keep her attention and I will have the story finished shortly. Handsome Kirby: No problem, Bud. Just let me know when she¡¯s ready. Handsome Alex: We will talk about the inappropriate modification to your chat tag later. Handsome Kirby: You don¡¯t like? Handsome Alex: You are not handsome. The tag is a lie. Hurt Kirby: /sadface Handsome Alex: You are also without a single shred of professionalism. Do let me work in peace now. Mina Diamond must have noticed I was sort of spacing off, because she reached right into my face and snapped her fingers. ¡°You still there, uh, dude? Furby. Derfy. Whatever you said your name was.¡± She snapped her fingers rapidly. Narrow, exceptionally long, and nimble fingers. She certainly had the physical attributes to shred. Or I assumed she did. Soon I¡¯d know for sure.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I blinked and pretended to bite at her hand. My teeth clicked in the air. ¡°Rawr,¡± I growled. I didn¡¯t say another word and sat back, arms crossed and grinning. My eyebrows waggled lasciviously. This was too far, and I knew it right then. I¡¯d gone from foil to clown when I bit at her finger. She surprised me by cocking her head to the side and smiling. Smiling with her whole face and a warmth I didn¡¯t expect. I caught myself mirroring her ¨C or was it the other way around? ¡°I don¡¯t know what your grift is,¡± she said, her smile still forcing mine. ¡°But I can¡¯t wait for you to try it.¡± ¡°Oh yeah?¡± ¡°I¡¯m gonna enjoy myself. Take my time.¡± She sat back, arms crossed. The smile and its warmth were gone but now her eyebrows danced, clearly mocking my own. ¡°I¡¯m gonna make you beg to die. You fucking amateurs.¡± >Handsome Alex has completed 3 of 7 stages. > Stage 4 is 61% complete¡­. It was taking too long but I didn¡¯t dare interrupt Alex, not now that the Compelling Narrative prep was over halfway finished. He¡¯d go apeshit if he had to start over at this point. My role in this part operation was just to distract our mark for two or three minutes so he could work. My best asset was being unlikable. Our targets would be so sick of me, they¡¯d never notice Handsome Alex digging inside their brains with his freaky psychic powers. Not until it was too late. But I had serious concerns that Mina Diamond here was going to kill me before we ever got there. I couldn¡¯t allow that to happen. There simply weren¡¯t enough hours left before showtime for me to find another body and complete the necessary rituals to puppet it around. ¡°Can we back up?¡± I said, uncrossing my arms and showing her my hands out at my sides. ¡°We got off on the wrong foot, right? There¡¯s no reason we should be at each other¡¯s throats.¡± ¡°You represent the enemy. We might be destined to meet in the arena.¡± ¡°Holy shit, lady. Holy shit. That¡¯s a little dramatic, don¡¯t you think? You act like this is a literal battle of the bands.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t it?¡± I realized she still had the cigarette case open on her lap. She¡¯d smoked her joint and squashed the roach on the floor but never for a second had she shut the damn case. Hurt Kirby: Hold on, buddy. I think we¡¯re walking into a trap. Handsome Alex: Do not bother me with this. Her story is nearly complete. Whatever is happening, you must deal with it yourself. Hurt Kirby: Brother I wouldn¡¯t bug you if I didn¡¯t think I had to. You gotta pause the narrative or something. Handsome Alex: I will not and you know this. It burns if I try to stop it before it finishes. I am muting this chat. Do not open another or I will be forced to block you again, despite the complications this will present in coming days. Mina smiled at me like she had hacked our entire conversation. I¡¯d have to ask Handsome Alex later if that was even possible. I tried to study the cigarette case more closely without her noticing, despite the fact our eyes were locked on one another. It was no use. She was watching me too close and if my eyes strayed down she¡¯d definitely notice. My only play was to wait for her to make the first move. I hated that, but at least I could be ready the moment the Compelling Narrative hit Stage 7. >Handsome Alex has completed 5 of 7 stages. > Stage 6 is 91% complete¡­. I flinched. Only nine percent to go? The finish line had snuck up on me. Mina noticed something was suddenly extra off and her eyes narrowed. The cigarette case was still splayed on her lap, but her right hand flicked to her pocket so fast it barely registered that she¡¯d pulled a little ivory-handled purse-pistol, probably a .22 with only two bullets, if my past experience with the ladies was any guide. >Handsome Alex has completed 6 of 7 stages. >Stage 7 will now commence¡­. The lights in the rectangular train car cut out and the voices of two-hundred and thirty-seven ghosts began to wail like they were going down in a fiery plane crash. I don¡¯t know why I always started laughing here. My usual nervous tic was cracking my knuckles until they wouldn¡¯t pop any more, not giggling like a dipshit. Handsome Alex floated straight up through the bench beside Mina. He had taken his sepia-toned, ghost-flame haloed, non-corporeal form, which meant this thing was basically a done deal. Compelling Narrative was just one of the superpowers he¡¯d gained in the afterlife, but we used it all the time. We¡¯re basically talking mind control here. I forgot the exact stages but it was along the lines of: Stage 1: Break into their brains Stage 2: Steal a bunch of their memories and hopes and dreams Stage 3: Replace that junk with false versions that support the Narrative we¡¯re after Stage 4: ????? Stage 5: Profit baby One thing for sure, if it got as far as Stage 7 then they were cooked. Handsome Alex hovered beside Mina like a biker tattoo come-to-life. She turned and took one look at Handsome Alex and gasped, squeezing the trigger on her little pistol out of reflex. Shot me right in the goddamn stomach. >Your vessel has suffered an [Injury]. >Your vessel has been afflicted with [Gut-Shot]. >[Gut-Shot] initially inflicts damage equal to 15% of the target¡¯s Base Health. >[Gut-Shot] causes your vessel to [Bleed-Out]. This is a damage-over-time effect which will accelerate the longer it persists. This status will not heal without intervention. >Current Health: 184% ¡°Granddaughter!¡± Handsome Alex scolded. It took me a second to place his accent because I¡¯d never heard him do Japanese before. The lights all came back on brutal as closing time at the bar. The two-hundred and thirty-seven ghosts shut right the fuck up. Mina dropped the gun and it went pop! Her last bullet left a pea-sized hole in the window set into the upper-half of the door. The corridor out there was a champagne-drenched sausage-casing crammed with rich weirdos who were stoned on everything money could buy and then some. Every now and then they¡¯d manage to organize a conga line. If she¡¯d just killed someone, it might be a problem. Or it might solve one. Time would tell. ¡°Granddaughter,¡± Handsome Alex repeated, calmer than you¡¯d ever believe. Like he was sitting cross-legged in his bonsai garden right at that moment not snatching this woman¡¯s body so I could turn her into magic rocks. ¡°Please be still and listen, little one. I have so much to tell you.¡± ¡°Hell yeah, story time.¡± I grunted and untucked my shirt in order to probe the bullet wound with my finger. I gave Mina the play-by-play as I did. ¡°Unreal. You got me right above my belt-buckle, lady. Look at that. I bet it would have stopped the bullet. Yeah, I¡¯m sure it would have. Goddamnit. And they call football a game of inches. Got nothing on death metal, am I right?¡± ¡°Kirby.¡± For just a moment there Handsome Alex sounded like Handsome Alex again. But that old bag of bones minus the bag was a real pro¡¯s pro. There was no hint of irritation in his voice when he continued. ¡°It would be most pleasing if you made yourself absent so that Mina and I might speak in private. It has been so, so long since I''ve seen my granddaughter. I¡¯m sure you understand.¡± ¡°Sure. Yeah, you¡¯re right. I¡¯ll scram.¡± As far as Handsome Alex was concerned, I was already gone. ¡°I hope you have been well, little one.¡± ¡°Is it really you?¡± Mina reached out to touch Handsome Alex¡¯s nasty skeleton face with its jaw missing and her hand became covered in sparkling pinpricks of light as it passed through. This always felt dirty, even to me, watching people hallucinate their dead relatives. I liked it better when they had a celebrity crush we could exploit or the like. But she was mesmerized by the whole thing with her grandpa, couldn¡¯t pry her eyes away, don¡¯t think she even noticed when I reached across and snatched her still-open cigarette case as I rose to my feet. I found a complicated rune etched into the silver interior, underneath half-a-dozen tightly-rolled magic cigarettes which I had to dump into my breast pocket for science and safekeeping. The rune depicted a series of geometric pentagrams, twisted together and stacked impossibly like something MC Escher would¡¯ve come up with on acid. ¡°Told you it was a trap.¡± I flipped the case open and held it aloft, like I was a fed flashing his badge. The bite of the bullet in my gut doubled me over, but only for a second. ¡°I better see if there¡¯s a doctor in the bar.¡± ¡°Kirby,¡± Handsome Alex interjected as I shoved the case into my pocket and slid the door open. I paused at the threshold with my hand against my belly. Nobody was lying there dead in the aisle, which always had a calming influence on me. ¡°Yeah, bud? You want me to get you something? Hankering for some of that peach wine again? You know I can dig it. I¡¯ve got you.¡± ¡°Kirby, stay out of the blasted bar. For the love of¡ª¡± ¡°Alright, alright.¡± I chuckled and then winced. I coughed up a shot-glass worth of blood onto the floor and that momentarily got Mina¡¯s attention back on me. Her eyes looked heavy, like a hypnotist¡¯s victim. But this was going to be so much worse than tricking her into acting like a chicken. I tried to sound like a human being: ¡°You gotta let him talk for as long as it takes, Mina. Believe me on this, babe. He¡¯s older than shit so at least half of what he says isn¡¯t going to make any sense, but Grandpa Spoopy Bones there tells the best stories. Gonna change the way you see the world.¡± Handsome Alex unmuted his chat to tell me to go away but as soon as the window popped up I muted his ass right back. I stepped out into a conga line and someone slipped a champagne flute into my hand. [2] Reap ¡°Hey, lemme see that bottle a sec.¡± I waved the cocktail waitress over. ¡°I¡¯m not supposed to let the patrons pour. I¡¯ll get in trouble.¡± ¡°Sweetie, you¡¯re serving free champagne. In a bar. On a train in some ass-backward dreamland called Hawijimi. A train full of billionaires who all happen to be lunatics.¡± I panned my gaze around the table at the rich weirdos. None of whom had turned out to be a doctor. We¡¯d all conga¡¯d here together. ¡°And you¡¯re dressed like that.¡± I gestured up and down sassily to indicate her outfit, which was basically a less-modest take on the Princess Leia bikini. ¡°Girl, trouble already got you!¡± Cherilynne Gates¡ªyeah, that Cherilynne Gates¡ªlaughed like that was the funniest thing she¡¯d ever heard. The woman was worth at least five billion and she was drunk. Everyone else at our table laughed along with her, each of them smaller fish playing their own angles. I didn¡¯t give a shit about any of that. I wasn¡¯t interested in hustling her. I just thought she might have a personal physician onboard. Shit, she had to be like ninety. ¡°Oh just give Mr Dufresne the damn bottle,¡± Cherilynne croaked, taking a sip from her own, empty flute. She was wearing this big ass American flag bow on top of a blonde bouffant that was definitely a wig. She shot me a wrinkly wink. ¡°I¡¯ll pay for it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s free. And you know it¡¯s free. Christ, Cherry-lynne.¡± I turned from shaking my head at Lady Gates and said to the waitress, ¡°I¡¯m not looking to get you in any trouble, sweetie, I swear. I won¡¯t do anything weird or dangerous.¡± I tried to arrange my face in the most innocent way possible. I have no idea what it conveyed, she mostly looked confused and worried. ¡°Fine, but don¡¯t tell Randall. I really need this job.¡± ¡°No worries, I don¡¯t even know who that is.¡± I took the bottle from the ice bucket she was pushing around on this little cart and thumbed out the cork. It bounced off the ceiling and landed at my feet. Then I handed the bottle off to the guy next to me even as it was starting to foam over. His name might have been Kato. I bent down to retrieve the cork, and then I lifted up my shirt and held it against the bullet wound to determine if it would fit. Too big; the cork, that is. Blood seeped out as I disturbed the dark little pock of the bullet hole, and Kato or whatever wouldn¡¯t stop gawking. The bubbly had bubblethed all over. ¡°You gonna pour that?¡± I asked him in a way that wasn¡¯t really asking. ¡°Or you gonna keep Lady Cherry-lynne waiting all night?¡± He started filling everyone¡¯s flutes like his life depended on it. When he got to mine I held it up full and tipped my cap to Cherilynne. Then I downed it in one gulp and went back to performing first aid on myself. I had to stretch the wound out a little bit if I was going to close it with this cork, so I went in with my pinkie finger first, followed by the ring. Just kinda tugging it out around the edges, trying not to tickle the vessel¡¯s tummy too much. After all that fingering, the cork finally fit snugly. I checked the most recent entries in my status log, confident I¡¯d fixed the problem: >Your Vessel has been affected by [Alcohol Poisoning]. >[Alcohol Poisoning] has been purged by [Kirby, Please. I Need You To Stay Sober]. >Your Vessel has been affected by [Rohypnol]. >[Rohypnol] has been purged by [Kirby, Please. I Need You To Stay Sober]. >[Gut-Shot] has been treated with [Improvised First Aid]. >[Bleed-Out] has been replaced by [Bleeding]. This is a damage-over-time effect which will decelerate the longer it persists. Absent aggravating conditions, [Bleeding] will end in 3 hours 14 minutes and 58 seconds. >Current Health: 67% ¡°Oh that¡¯s bad.¡± I¡¯d done the thing I always did. I¡¯d stayed at the bar way too long. Longer than I meant to. I couldn¡¯t even get wasted anymore with the purge effect Handsome Alex had woven into this vessel. It wasn¡¯t about that; I just loved the scene. I started crunching the numbers to figure out how much time I¡¯d wasted. Last I¡¯d checked, I was sitting pretty at 184% of my maximum health. I¡¯d bled out 117% since then ¨C it was a damned good thing I¡¯d cannibalized my last vessel before we got on the train. That Bleed-Out status had caused me to lose 1.5% of my health every minute. That meant nearly ninety ninety minutes had passed¡ªseventy-eight, to be precise¡ªsince I left Handsome Alex to finish implanting Mina Diamond with the Compelling Narrative. He was going to be pissed. ¡°Unless¡­.¡± ¡°Sir, are you okay?¡± Princess Leia the cocktail waitress looked worried about my bloody tummy. This shirt was toast. I stripped it off and the champagne cork protruded from my FUPA like a chonky wooden nipple. ¡°Can I get you a doctor?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re only now asking me that, but no. It¡¯s handled now.¡± I tapped my temple. ¡°I put a cork in it.¡± ¡°Yeah, uh, are you sure that¡¯s sanitary?¡± ¡°No I¡¯m not. Not at all.¡± I got up from the table, dropping my blood-drenched shirt on the floor. The air-conditioning in the bar was set extra cold and it felt sensational against the bare chest of this fat vessel. ¡°Hey, maybe you can help me with something else. I¡¯m supposed to bring a drink to the mortician; you wouldn''t happen to know which car contains the morgue, would you?¡± I could see that before I said anything, this poor girl had never even considered the possibility there¡¯d be a car full of corpses. It was written all over her face. ¡°Nevermind, I¡¯ll find it.¡± I knew that was doubtful. The train was damned near 600 cars long and they weren¡¯t all arranged in a straight line. Some were stacked into doubledeckers and others were attached side-by-side to create double and even triple-wide suites suitable for passengers like Lady Gates over there. Speaking of, she wondered where I was going. ¡°It¡¯s early, Sir Kirby. Surely you can stay for one more round?¡± ¡°Sorry, Lady, Sir Kirb¡¯s got places to be.¡± I nodded toward the barman. ¡°But my man over there says they¡¯re serving biscuits and gravy first thing in the a.m.. You in? Say, sevenish?¡± She chuckled, wet and lilting like a songbird drowning in a gold-plated toilet. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t miss it for the world.¡± She shot me that damn wink of hers again. I left the bar heading in the opposite direction from where I¡¯d entered. The first few cars on this side of the bar were the same as the one Alex and I had been assigned to: plain and small. An aisle ran down the middle and there were cabins on either side, six per car. The sliding doors to each were narrow and all had the same window set into the upper half as ours, but most were covered with bed sheets or newspaper or the like. We hadn¡¯t bothered. Handsome Alex had ways of maintaining our privacy right out in the open, when he wanted to. After ten or twenty of these slummier cars, I finally hit the money. All of a sudden everything was detailed in what I assumed was rich mahogany and brass. The aisle down the middle widened, was lined with soft rugs underfoot, and to either side there was only ever one cabin at most per car. This was clearly a stretch where they were attached two-and-three wide. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. It felt like it took forever to traverse the luxury cars, but shortly after they ended I came to a locked door. Picking it opened up a new phase of my hunt. ¡°Eureka,¡± I whispered as I felt along the wall inside a train car that had such heavy, industrial vibes I felt like I was back in my goth era. It was the type of thing they¡¯d transport oil or acid in or something. But on the other side of this wall I was feeling up, there were dead things. Humans. I could smell them. A sudden realization struck me. Handsome Alex smelled like coffee because he¡¯d recently been buried in coffee grounds. We¡¯d hidden him in a barrel of grounds once¡ªmany, many years back¡ªwhen we were taking him someplace where we needed to avoid cadaver dogs. I don¡¯t remember where, exactly. A crime scene, I¡¯d guess. The way these bodies smelled on the other side of that wall ¨C I knew right then he¡¯d woven some canine tissues into this vessel¡¯s sinuses, giving my sense of smell the same range and depth as one of those cadaver dogs we¡¯d dodged together decades ago. And then he¡¯d spent who knows how long buried in coffee so that his natural bouquet of decay wouldn¡¯t overpower me. ¡°Fucking thoughtful sonofabitch.¡± I could have cried. I found a loose panel, pressed it, and the outline of a door appeared. Steam hissed out from the edges and I laughed. This shit was just so fun. Secret doors to secret morgues. You¡¯d have to be even deader inside than I was not to love it. The door was locked so I got out my kit. This vessel wasn¡¯t as dextrous as the last one and I admit it took me a good twenty minutes to pick the damn thing, but finally the lock tumbled and I slipped inside the morgue. A pair of operating tables sat in the center of the room. Both held a body, covered by a sheet. The walls were lined with drawers and I could smell that many of them were occupied. My breath puffed out, which was amusing. You forget about stuff like that. And I must have tripped a silent alarm. The door locked again as soon as it closed behind me and the already too-dim lights cut out. I cursed myself but only for a moment because I couldn¡¯t have risked leaving it propped open, anyway. ¡°You¡¯ve stepped right in it this time, Kirbster.¡± I hung my head. ¡°He¡¯ll kill you for sure. And then he¡¯ll bring you back and kill you a second time on principle.¡± I un-muted the chat: Contrite Kirby: Hey bud, you there? Handsome Alex: What trouble has found you this time? Contrite Kirby: I knew you¡¯d say that. Well get ready to eat that chat because I¡¯ve gone and found the motherlode, is what I¡¯ve done. I¡¯m just shooting a note to let you know that in ten, maybe fifteen minutes we¡¯ll be sitting on a stack of essences that should last us all tour. How¡¯d it go with Mina? Handsome Alex: The narrative is complete. We only await your return. Forgive me for assuming you had become entangled in unwanted complications. You have done well in locating the assets. Contrite Kirby: You¡¯re forgiven. Handsome Alex: Have you found a doctor to treat your injury? I had actually forgotten all about it, but now that Alex forced my attention back to the gunshot wound I realized there was an unsettling cold spreading across the vessel¡¯s belly and legs. The fingers tingled with pinpricks, too. I glanced at the last few entries in my log: >The [Bleeding] effect has come to an end. >Your vessel has been affected by [Sleeping Gas]. >[Sleeping Gas] has been purged by [Kirby, Please. I Need You To Stay Sober]. >Current Health: 23% ¡°Oh shit.¡± Way too close for comfort. Also, the sleeping gas must have been completely undetectable. I was lucky that Handsome Alex had evidently anticipated me trying to get high on sleeping gas. Still wasn¡¯t going to thank him for making me immune to whiskey, though. I returned to the chat, but at this point if some security nerd found me in here and so much as breathed on this vessel I¡¯d end up on one of these slabs, so I had to come clean: Contrite Kirby: Alright look I fucked up. I need a portal. Handsome Alex: Impossible. I refer to the portal, of course. That you would find some way to sabotage our efforts was nigh inevitable. Contrite Kirby: Brother, I gotta have it, I¡¯m sorry. Handsome Alex: We possess supplies to open but a single bone portal during this venture, Kirby, and we will require it for the final maneuver. What trouble are you in? Contrite Alex: I¡¯m locked inside the morgue. I tripped an alarm, so they¡¯re gonna be here any minute. And I might have let my health fall down to 23%. Alex didn¡¯t answer again in the chat, but I could feel his rage from here. I could only see anything in the morgue by the eerie green light cast by some random medical monitor, but I hurried to the operating tables in the center of the room and dragged the sheets off both. I put my hands on their cold throats and squeezed gently. The corpse under my right hand was a nobody. A cook. He liked to paint, but he wasn¡¯t any good at it. Thirty-one years old with entirely average attributes across the board. I harvested him anyway. We were going to need as many bone essences as we could get our hands on now, and humans were practically overflowing with bones. The other body belonged to Rajah Superbus. He was perfect: Rajah Superbus. Human. Male. Age 27 at time of death by overdose. Notable Attributes: 1) Presence(15-30 essences) 2) Stamina(5-10 essences) 3) Agility(5-10 essences) Notable Talents: 1) [Singalong] 2) [Swagger] 3) [Stage Dive] I closed my eyes, and his soul was still warm in there. I drew it up though the palm of my hand and received a stream of notifications: >Harvest Results. Rajah Superbus. >>>27 Presence, 10 Stamina, and 10 Agility essences. >>>206 Bone, 192 Blood, and 127 Tissue essences. >>>[Singalong], [Swagger], and [Stage Dive] frameworks have been collected. >Your [Reap] skill has gained a Rank. >Your [Reap] skill has gained new utility. ¡°Sweet.¡± I called up the updated skill description: [Reap] Necromancy. Soul Magic. No Mana Cost Rank: 3 Description: [Rank 1]Harvests essences and talents from the soul of a recently-deceased asset. [Rank 2]Provides pre-harvest analysis of potential assets. [Rank 3]Allows harvest from multiple simultaneous assets. Physical contact restriction removed. The timing of this rank-up couldn¡¯t have been better. I needed to harvest every soul in this morgue and I needed to do it ten minutes ago. Suddenly the door opened up behind me with a hiss. ¡°Get your hands where I can see them!¡± screamed the security nerd who entered. ¡°Alright, be cool.¡± I spread my hands out wide at my sides. I could feel Reap yearning to activate, like the spell had a will of its own now. ¡°Maybe we can work something out.¡± ¡°What are you doing in here?¡± A flashlight lit me up from behind and imposed my shadow on the far wall. Security Dude must have noticed the withered condition of the corpses laying atop the slabs on either side of me, because then he asked, ¡°What in the fuck?¡± Over on the wall, the edge of my shadow began to burn with purple flames. It hit me that if this security nerd hadn¡¯t shown up and lit me up, I wouldn¡¯t have had much of a shadow for Handsome Alex to drag me through. The purple flames coalesced into purple bones, thousands of them, forming a frame around the darkness which was no longer my mere shadow. It now had obvious, impossible depth and it didn¡¯t matter if Dude turned the flashlight off now; the portal would remain until I passed through it or died trying. I activated Reap ¨C or maybe it¡¯d be more accurate to say I unleashed it. It felt like a dozen ravenous eels leapt out of me at every angle. The corpse-filled drawers all slammed open at the same time. Green and purple auroras danced in the air, flowing from their bodies to mine. Nice touch, I thought. Hopefully every rank up came with similarly upgraded aesthetics. The security dork saw all this haunted house shit going down and must have pissed his pants. He started screaming and blasting away. I hit the deck and army-crawled toward the portal as sparks flew off the wall all around it. Motherfucker had a machine gun, I swear. I couldn¡¯t begin to count all the essences and talents flowing into me as I fled. I prayed I wouldn¡¯t get hit by a ricochet. Even that would probably eject me and losing this vessel now would ruin everything. And no, I won¡¯t confess to whom or what I prayed. But goddamn if it didn''t work. [3] Dare Not To Utter His Name ¡°Whaddya mean it didn¡¯t work? I¡¯m here, ain¡¯t I?¡± I was sitting on a bench seat in our cabin wearing a too-small concert T for a band I didn¡¯t recognize. I Am Shartacus was stretched taut across my ample man-bosom. Handsome Alex was propped up on the bench across from me, his bones situated between a trio of red velvet pillows as he often requested. My butt was asleep from tailbone-to-taint. ¡°If I made it through the portal and ended up back here, then what¡¯s the problem?¡± I gestured to indicate my whole body. ¡°And I mean check me out. I made it through. I¡¯m right here.¡± ¡°In fact you did not.¡± Handsome Alex¡¯s eyes lit up with amber light emphasizing each syllable. ¡°The bone portal was altered in several ways the exact moment you entered. First, it was made to exclude blood and tissue from transport. Some hours ago, your vessel emerged as bones, only. I have spent the past four hours weaving it back together.¡± I realized suddenly that the sun had come up. The time-skip was disorienting. Handsome Alex continued. ¡°Another effect of the portal¡¯s unexpected reconfiguration was the rapid, unpreventable application of several valuable essences to your soul. Unfortunately we will be unable to remove them. The plan will likely need to adapt now to include you in a performance role.¡± ¡°Wait. Wait. What do you mean the portal was altered? An unexpected reconfiguration? How could you let that happen?¡± None of this made any sense. I squinted hard at Handsome Alex. ¡°That¡¯s it, isn¡¯t it? Of course it is. You didn¡¯t let it happen. You wouldn¡¯t. You¡¯re too much of a pro for one of your portals to go haywire. So something else is going on here. Something fucked with the portal; something so powerful you couldn¡¯t counter it.¡± I stopped. I thought. It was a lot easier with this freshly-woven meat-brain. ¡°Oh shit, don¡¯t tell me it was¡ª¡± ¡°Stop there. Your instinct is correct, but dare not to utter his name. Not so soon after his influence has been imprinted upon this realm.¡± The door to our cabin slid open just then and Mina entered. Her eyes sparkled as she saw me. ¡°Hey! Uncle Kirby! You finally made it!¡± She rushed up and caught me in a hug. She loved me, I could really feel it. In her mind, she¡¯d known her Uncle Kirby since she was a child; longer than he¡¯d even existed. She had a lifetime of memories with her two wacky uncles, all courtesy of Alex¡¯s Compelling Narrative. ¡°Hey, kid.¡± I peeled my way out of her hug and she went over to her guitar case and got it out. It was an old Gibson Flying V. The whole thing was painted to match her penis-torture tattoo. She started tuning it and I returned my talk with Handsome Alex. ¡°I feel weird, Bud. Real weird.¡± ¡°A revelation which comes as no surprise. Before we proceed any further, I must insist you take complete stock of the major changes your vessel has undergone.¡± ¡°Alright, one sec.¡± I first tried checking my logs out of habit but there were thousands of entries I¡¯d missed and parsing whatever Handsome Alex was referring to would have been impossible. The quickest skim showed me dozens of notifications from the corpses I¡¯d mass-reaped, literally thousands of essences being harvested, followed by entering the portal where things got all jacked up, then having all my blood and tissues stripped away, dying, being put back together by Alex, and finally waking up hours later to find my butt asleep. With the logs a mess, I¡¯d need to scope out my DNA to dig into these supposedly major changes to my vessel, instead: Dead Nerd Appraisal: Ossick Meldrath. Dead Man Walking. Soul Alchemist. 1,621 years old. Current Vessel: Kirby Dufresne. Human. Male. 43 years old. Attributes: 8 Strength 20 Stamina 17 Agility 23 Intellect 4 Spirit 35 Presence Spell and Powers: Rank 5 [Alchemical Soul Conjunction] Rank 5 [Alchemical Soul Dissection] Rank 5 [Alchemical Soul Purification] Rank 1 [Child of Rivulon] Rank 2 [Down Here, We All Float] Rank 5 [Mend Soul] Rank 2 [Putrefaction] Rank 3 [Reap] Rank 1 [Rivulon¡¯s Pact] Rank 2 [Shadow Boxers] Rank 2 [Weird] Talents and Traits: MUNDANE[Insurance Salesmanship] EPIC[Kirby, Please. I Need You To Stay Sober] LEGENDARY[Singalong] LEGENDARY[Stage Dive] LEGENDARY[Swagger] GOD TIER[Voice of Rivulon] ¡°Alex,¡± I said, ¡°what the shit. Why would he do this?¡± ¡°One could sooner shoot one¡¯s piss into space and extinguish the sun, than comprehend the motivations of beings as ancient and inscrutable as the Old Gods.¡± What did he just say? A hairline fracture suddenly zig-zagged from the top of Handsome Alex¡¯s skull to the bony ridge of his brow. I couldn¡¯t handle that right now. I had to focus on what Rivulon¡ª ¡ªon what the R-word had done to me. ¡°He¡¯s gone and made me into the baddest motherfucker since Freddie, is what he¡¯s done.¡± ¡°On the contrary, Her Royal Majesty¡¯s presence attribute never exceeded eighteen. Yours is now nearly twice that. The comparisons to historical earth figures would be more accurately limited exclusively to a handful of messianic figures.¡± ¡°He¡¯s gone and made me into a rock and roll god.¡± I felt mad with power. Looking at my DNA, there were a pair of new spells. Both had R-word¡¯s name in them so I was hesitant to even check the descriptions. They¡¯d wait. The legendary talents leapt out at me, of course. And I¡¯d never even heard of a god-tier anything before. Again, I ain¡¯t ashamed to admit I was scared to even read the tooltips for these. But more than anything it was the attribute scores that had me instantly feeling like the belle of the Boner Ball. These I understood at a glance, because the average human scored eights across the board, and without supernatural intervention they could never grow past fifteen in anything. My stamina, agility, and intellect had all shot up to superhero levels.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. With a little effort, seventeen agility would let me dodge bullets. But twenty stamina meant I didn¡¯t really need to. And shit, twenty-three intellect might finally make me smart enough to not get shot at in the first place. But it was the presence score that really made my eyes cross and my toes curl. A thirty-five in anything was unheard of, full-fucking-stop. I couldn¡¯t wrap my head around it. I was going to attract followers like some kind of religious figure now. And a marketable religion, at that, not like the Temple of Neverending Agony I was brought up in. Handsome Alex and Mina were just watching me struggling to reckon with it all. ¡°My presence is thirty-five now, dude. Do we even need to win this stupid contest? I think I might just be able to con Emperor Hawijimi into giving us a couple wishes for free now, right?¡± ¡°The Emperor is a powerful reality mage. He is immune to your confidence games.¡± ¡°Fair enough.¡± ¡°Now, I understand your hesitation, Kirby. I empathize, believe it or not. The Old God of the Unraveling is known for his love of intricate traps. But before we go further you will need to study your new talents and traits. It simply cannot be avoided any longer.¡± His insistence was making me nervous. While he was weaving me back together he¡¯d obviously already seen what the R-word did to me, and there was something in there that was going to fuck our plans good, I was sure of it. Stalling for time, I said, ¡°You know he slipped two new spells into my repertoire, too.¡± ¡°I am aware. I believe he forced these incantations into your arsenal as a trap. To use them would almost certainly result in outcomes both unintended and disastrous.¡± ¡°Alright then. Gimme a sec and I¡¯ll read up on these new talents.¡± I still wasn¡¯t eager to read the description for the god-tier Voice of R-Word trait I¡¯d picked up. He was a mean old bastard and I wouldn¡¯t put it past him to replace the tooltip with, like, a spell that turns the reader into an anthropomorphized herpes sore or something. Hard pass on that. Never again. But the three legendary talents I¡¯d acquired were recognizable, at least, the frameworks for which I¡¯d reaped from a corpse named Rajah Superbus right before I¡¯d fled the morgue. ¡°Superbus,¡± I muttered. ¡°Why does that sound familiar?¡± For a moment Handsome Alex¡¯s eyes flared bright yellow but he said nothing. I went ahead with reading the descriptions for all three of my new legendary talents: [Singalong] LEGENDARY TALENT Activating Singalong forces entities within earshot to repeat any phrase you sing. Can be toggled between Concurrent, Harmonic, and Call-Back. This Legendary version allows the talent to function over radio and television signals. Will not affect Gods. Limited effect on Angels and Demons. [Stage Dive] LEGENDARY TALENT Stage Dive is a crowd control ability. You may designate an area of any shape and size. Observers you select will be drawn to the designated area, where they will prepare to catch objects falling from above. This Legendary version allows the talent to function over radio and television signals. Will not affect Gods. Limited effect on Angels and Demons. [Swagger] LEGENDARY TALENT Activating this talent instantly doubles your agility and presence attributes. This Legendary version triples that shit. I paused. My blood, which was brand new, started to boil. ¡°Alex, did you plant a fucking story in my head, man?¡± I got up from the bench. ¡°We had a deal¡ª¡± ¡°He means to drive a wedge between us. You have my word as your partner, Kirby, I have not and will never employ my narratives upon you. More importantly, you have my word as your brother. He has given you unfathomable power. You are now indisputably stronger than I and he expects you to resent the hierarchy or our operation, where we have agreed I am empowered as the ultimate decision maker. The suspicious entries inserted into the tooltips are entirely of his devising, I assure you.¡± I looked at the tiny crack which had appeared on his forehead earlier. ¡°It¡¯s all about destroying you, isn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°As it has always been. My utmost regret in undeath is that I have drawn you into our conflict. This is my curse. I, alone, should bear it. You must read the final trait now, Kirby. It is unlike the talents taken from Superbus.¡± ¡°Alright, alright. Hey, why is that name familiar? Superbus. Do you know?¡± ¡°Superbus is the stage name of the Drix Consortium¡¯s acquisition arm.¡± ¡°Oh shit, those are the guys from that pocket dimension full of murderbots, right? They had a band entered in the contest?¡± ¡°Correct. And I have learned while you were indisposed that a cloned replacement frontman will arrive shortly, having already departed a titan-class warship currently in orbit of Saturn, which will allow their skew to perform tonight as required.¡± Skew was a phonetic pronunciation of the acronym for Sonic Combat Unit. The word felt extra-cringe coming from an ancient evil like Handsome Alex. ¡°They represent perhaps our toughest competition.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe they want to colonize Earth right when we¡¯re about to conquer it. I mean, I can believe it. Their dimension is full of killer robots and whatnot. But still!¡± ¡°Kirby, our reason for entering this contest is not to conquer Earth. Now, please, view the tooltip for your newly-acquired trait.¡± ¡°I know the goal is to break your curse, Bud, but if we can take over the world at the same time I¡¯ve always felt like we really gotta go for it.¡± ¡°The tooltip, Kirby. I beg you.¡± ¡°Alright, alright.¡± I laughed, but I felt legit anxiety when I looked at the entry on the very bottom of my Dead Nerd Analysis: [Voice of Rivulon] GOD-TIER TRAIT Sing, my child, and the worms will enter their brains. That was it. ¡°¡®The worms will enter their brains¡¯?¡± My face screwed up in confusion. ¡°I think that¡¯s Floyd, right? But that¡¯s it? What¡¯s it even mean?¡± ¡°I do not precisely know, but I have suspicions. He is the personification of the Unraveling. His goal is and has always been to break, but not outright destroy.¡± ¡°That¡¯s why he doesn¡¯t just snuff you out of existence, right? He wants to drive you insane; change who you are.¡± ¡°Correct.¡± A centipede as thick as my wrist wriggled out of Handsome Alex¡¯s eye-socket. He ignored it as it crawled onto the floor and began to shriek in a tinny voice. ¡°He will not break me.¡± ¡°Man, this could really put a twist in our plans, eh? How do you think we should move forward from here?¡± ¡°Nothing has changed in that regard. Same as before, we must build the skew in time for tonight¡¯s performance or we will be disqualified and required to exit the competition.¡± His eyes flared with what I can only describe as renewed fervor. ¡°We will begin with Miss Mina.¡± Mina stopped tuning her Flying V and turned to look into those glowing eyes set in his ancient skull. She smiled with excitement. ¡°Oh, oh! Is it finally time for Uncle Kirby to play with my soul?¡± ¡°Uh, yep.¡± Her eagerness to have me fuck around with her immortal soul was a little unnerving. That was the thing about a well-built Compelling Narrative; what made it perfect for this job. Without that enthusiastic consent, I couldn¡¯t do shit to enhance her beyond human limitations. Neither could Handsome Alex. Not without killing her. Mina Diamond grinned at the skin-suit she thought of as her dear Uncle Kirby. ¡°This is so bitchin¡¯.¡± [4] Shoving Worms Into Your Soul-Hole 7:17am ¨C The Current Time 7:00pm ¨C Soundcheck 9:00pm ¨C Showtime R-word¡¯s portal shenanigans had depleted our supply of common essences. That may or may not have been his goal; gods worked with enough contingencies you could never really guess what they actually wanted. And typically, they needed to dispatch angels and demons if they wanted to screw with someone on Earth, but there were always loopholes. When I got trapped in the morgue and forced Handsome Alex to open a bone portal through the voidscape, it gave our enemy an opening. And in the voidscape Mister R-word¡¯s strength was unlimited. Dude could just do whatever he wanted. So when he noticed me humming along in my spiffy little port-bubble he placed a condition on it which forbade the transport of blood and tissue essences. Not only did this result in your boy Kirby getting peeled like a goddamn grape, but it also ripped away every single scrap of blood and tissue I¡¯d reaped in the morgue and tossed it all into the void. Credit where credit¡¯s due: it was a solid prank. But when combined with my own fuckup that cost Handsome Alex most of the bone essences he¡¯d amassed over the course of the past year just to conjure the portal in the first place, and the fact we still had to complete his final form before sound check, what all this ultimately meant was that we wouldn¡¯t be able to animate any flesh or blood or bone golems for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, R-word had let me keep the specialized essences; the ones I¡¯d need to transform our bandmates into supernatural badasses worthy of jamming with us. I had no idea why he¡¯d done any of this, except that it was ultimately meant to unravel Alex. Mina Diamond leaned forward from the bench across the cabin from me, watching closely while I dumped the contents of my pocket abyss. That was where essences went when I reaped them; a specialized extra-dimensional sack that could only store objects stolen from souls. ¡°So what exactly are you doing?¡± She motioned toward the weird objects popping into existence and floating in the air between us. ¡°What is all that stuff?¡± The essences all looked different from one another. Those which were associated with attributes like strength and intellect and presence and whatnot manifested as cute little wisps of colored smoke, swirling in a sphere. They were weightless, like tiny worlds made of dancing gas, trapped inside a capsule. Meanwhile, the talent and trait essences were gnarly, asymmetrical gobs of translucent angel-flesh. Seriously, the way the Astral Womb made souls was by composting dead angels. Needless to say, it took every scrap of my considerable resolve not to snatch the moist wads of divine viscera from the air to gobble them up like the forbidden wontons they were. ¡°Alright,¡± I began, ¡°it¡¯s real simple-like. All this shit is what you¡¯d call magic. This right here is an agility essence.¡± I held up a tiny globe of swirling green mist and showed it to Mina. Then I traded it out for something that looked like a bleached hunk of pickled fairy foreskin. ¡°And this is a pure, unadulterated, guitar solo.¡± ¡°It looks like a nutsack made of rainbow boogers.¡± I held it up to the sun. ¡°I¡¯ll be damned. You¡¯re right. Nice eye, kid. And great words. You ever write any lyrics?¡± She beamed with pride. ¡°When I get inspired, yeah.¡± ¡°That¡¯s killer. You¡¯ll have to show me what you¡¯ve got some time.¡± I refocused her attention on the guitar-solo essence I was still holding between my thumb and forefinger. ¡°Anyway, what I do with this little booger-scrote first, is I dissect it. To do that, I use my fingers.¡± I cupped the waxy ball of speckled gristle in my left palm so she could continue to watch. It throbbed like something was trying to hatch out of it and glistened with glitter-filled beads of sweat. Then, using the long nail on my right pinkie, I punctured the top of its membrane. When I pulled my finger out it was lousy with foul, creamy custard. ¡°I really gotta dig way down in there if I¡¯m gonna get to the good stuff.¡± ¡°Kirby. We have discussed this previously.¡± Handsome Alex¡¯s eye-sockets pulsed with amber light. ¡°There are limits.¡± ¡°Hmm?¡± I tipped the oozing essence toward my lips, threatening to slurp out the slimy innards. ¡°Whatever do you mean?¡± ¡°There are limits to the behavior the subject of a compelling narrative will accept from their beloved uncle. Limits to what anyone can observe before rejecting their previously accepted reality. The story is our best solution. It is not perfect. And if the narrative unravels, I will hold you responsible.¡± Had he chosen the word unravels on purpose? Mina was in a trance. He¡¯d paused her or something; I didn¡¯t know he could do that. It was freaky. ¡°My bad.¡± I eyed Mina, sitting there motionless. ¡°You don¡¯t ever do me like that, do you? Just freeze me and wipe my memory when I¡¯m being naughty or something?¡± ¡°You cannot be serious. Does it seem as though I exert undue influence over your deeds, Kirby? Does it, truly?¡± ¡°You¡¯re right. I¡¯m dumb. You can unpause her; I¡¯ll behave. Handsome Alex undid whatever he¡¯d done to hit pause on Mina. She blinked a couple times, but otherwise gave no indication she was hip to what he¡¯d just done. She remained focused on me and the essences orbiting in the air between us. ¡°Alright, the first step of soul alchemy is dissection.¡± I concentrated on the guitar-solo essence and cast a spell: [Soul Alchemy: Dissection] Alchemy. Soul Magic. Low Mana Cost Rank: 5 Description: [Rank 1]Allows the penetration of Essence Membranes. [Rank 2]Extraction of Raw Essence is made possible. [Rank 3]Stabilizes Raw Essence for further manipulation. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.[Rank 4]Allows the isolation of Essence Compounds within Raw Essence. [Rank 5]Individual Essence Compounds may now be extracted and preserved. As the universe¡¯s first and shit I don¡¯t know maybe only soul alchemist, my specialty was digging up and polishing the essence of essences. Separating the meta out of the metaphysical. There was actually a lot of extra junk inside a soul; that¡¯s just genetics for you. This was important because you could only screw with a soul a set number of times, even with permission from its owner. Good soul alchemy was all about making efficient essence conjunctions. Too many mutations and the damn things would just break. ¡°That¡¯s how you make ghouls,¡± I told Mina. ¡°And believe me, you do not want ghouls. Nothing worse for a band¡¯s chemistry.¡± ¡°Next,¡± Handsome Alex interjected, ¡°he is going to make his regular claim that Yoko was a ghoul. Do not believe his lies.¡± I laughed. ¡°Brother she¡¯s like twenty. Watch this.¡± I turned to Mina. ¡°Do you know who Yoko is?¡± She gave a thin-lipped smile and shook her head, no. The essence compounds I¡¯d isolated and extracted were now levitating in the air alongside the other, whole essences. These looked like little fiber-optic worms, wriggling in four dimensions like living tesseracts you¡¯d find at the bottom of a tequila bottle. There were currently five of them; three colored green and two blue. ¡°So these are essentially the sickest of the sickest licks and rifts and whatnot.¡± I indicated the two blue worms. ¡°It¡¯s more complicated than just that, of course, but for our purposes, and right now, it¡¯ll do.¡± ¡°What are the green ones?¡± ¡°I call ¡®em artifacts. Let me explain.¡± I took a deep breath. ¡°You see, when the Astral Womb poops out a new soul, they get to go through this little tutorial bit as part of their pre-incarnative education. Basically it¡¯s like preschool for baby-souls. They learn literally everything about the universe, only to forget it upon becoming mortal; so fucked up.¡± I chuckled at the Womb¡¯s sadistic streak, but quickly regained my composure. ¡°Anyway. The baby-souls need to soak up all the information in the universe so they can make an informed decision about the path they want to take during their first few thousand incarnation cycles. Yadda yadda yadda; some of these iddy widdle souls will decide they want to grow up to be musicians, so they¡¯ll climb back into the womb for a few million years while she imprints the basic essences they¡¯re gonna need to pursue their destiny. When the souls are done baking, she cuts them in half and shoves one part into an egg and the other into a sperm. Really so incredibly hot every time I actually say this whole spiel out loud. That Astral Womb is one freaky¡ª¡± ¡°Kirby,¡± Alex interrupted. ¡°Right, yeah. My bad. I¡¯m focused like a laser-cannon mounted on a tiger-shark, Bud.¡± I gestured at the three green artifact-worms and elaborated for Mina: ¡°So the artifacts we¡¯re left with, those are the most basic-basics; the building blocks of the building blocks. Take the guitar-solo here; we¡¯re talking about essence compounds like pentatonic scale and arpeggio.¡± I flicked away two of the wriggling, green essence compounds and they shrieked in agony as their existence came to an end. I chuckled. ¡°Love that part.¡± ¡°Okay, so I think maybe I get it.¡± Mina got to her feet and looked at a floating wad of angel-meat from about an inch away. Completely unbothered. ¡°You open up these nasty little pods. Inside you find some magic worms. Some of them are primo; some are whack. You squash the whack worms and you replace them with primo ones. Then you shove that ball of bespoke, ''roided-out ghost worms into my soul and it¡¯ll make me shred harder?¡± I looked at Handsome Alex. He was an unmoving skull and spinal column, but I could feel him smiling. This girl just got it. She was going to work out great. ¡°Uh, yeah. I mean I do some more magic, if that matters. I have spells to purify the essences and then combine them in ways which create powerful synergies within individual essences. But I mean, you¡¯re right. Really boils down to shoving magic worms into your soul-hole.¡± ¡°Kirby.¡± ¡°Sorry. There¡¯s no such thing as a soul-hole. I just made that up.¡± She wanted to stay awake for the whole deal but I knew she¡¯d black out eventually. I asked her to lay down on the floor, at least. Then I did the magic; the shit I was really good at; the reason Handsome Alex kept bringing me back to life. Mina¡¯s eyes reflected the galaxy of essences dancing in the air above her while I orchestrated the alchemy with swooping, graceful gestures that looked absolutely ridiculous when performed by this frumpy-dumpy vessel. The attribute essences; the swirling gas-midgets trapped inside glass-like capsules, collided and re-conjuncted into their perfected forms amidst a flourish of sparkling, sacred geometry. It was among the most beautiful sights in the cosmos. The talent and trait essences burst into constellations of four-dimensional worms. Their shrieks filled the cabin as I eliminated the artifacts. Specks of worm-splatter rained down on Mina¡¯s face. She spat and laughed, finally closing her eyes. At the climax of my alchemical orchestra, I directed a fleet of elite essences into a vortex which drilled its way into her third eye. Yeah, you can run and tell your kundalini coach that it¡¯s a real thing, but it¡¯s not an actual eye so much as a spiritual sphincter; a spigot where a soul can enter or leave the body. But not a literal soul-hole. Oh no, don¡¯t dare call it that. The Compelling Narrative had conditioned Mina to open up and accept the changes to her soul. But even with her cooperation, this was some serious shit. As the vortex drilled into her third eye, her back arched and she clawed at the floor. Her jaw clenched until one of her molars cracked and violent spasms wracked her entire body. I had loaded her up with the maximum number of conjunctions; agility, stamina, spirit, presence, and a suite of traits and talents. Her soul would need time to recover before we could progress her abilities any further, but for the first leg of the tour she should be more than adequate. I briefly glanced over her RNA to confirm my alchemy had worked: Regular Nerd Appraisal: Mina Diamond. Human. Female. Twenty-three years old. Attributes: 5 Strength 17 Stamina 19 Agility 11 Intellect 15 Spirit 17 Presence Spell and Powers: NONE Talents and Traits: EPIC[Guitar Solo] EPIC[Power Chord] EPIC[Voodoo Child] ¡°Commendable work.¡± Handsome Alex¡¯s eyes flared excitedly. ¡°She will be a powerful addition to our skew. Voodoo child is a nice touch.¡± ¡°Hey I can do the classics; you¡¯re not the only pro in this operation.¡± ¡°Good, because much remains for us to accomplish before sound check, and I will require a significant portion of the day to reconstitute my final form. And much shall I require of you, too.¡± I felt Alex¡¯s evil monologue coming so I lifted Mina off the floor and laid her on the bench beside her guitar case, tucking her under a blanket that came from somewhere. She¡¯d be unconscious for another hour or two while her soul processed the changes. Then I settled in to listen while Alex did his thing: ¡°Tonight, my brother, our campaign begins at last.¡± We sat then, the silence growing fat and awkward. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± I asked. ¡°We¡¯re a little pressed for time.¡± ¡°Really? I mean didn¡¯t we get a couple hours freed up when R-word juiced me up into the perfect frontman? Like we only need to implant one more narrative now, right?¡± There was a knock on the cabin door. ¡°Correct. We need only implant the bass player. Please let him in.¡± I slid the door open and this seven-foot tall Lurch-looking motherfucker was standing there looking down at me. Beside him, in an equally-enormous case, was an instrument so large it could only be a stand-up bass. I shook my head at Handsome Alex. ¡°Oh for fuck¡¯s sake.¡± [5] Way Too Close For Comfort 1:04pm The Current Time 7:00pm Soundcheck 9:00pm Showtime Alright so things really started going off the rails when Handsome Alex screwed up and lured a jazz musician to our cabin instead of the hard-driving headbanger type we needed. I couldn¡¯t just teach this dude how to play guitar like a badass from scratch; that¡¯s not how it worked. Artifact essence compounds could only be removed when the subject¡¯s soul had already integrated the related concepts and techniques. Take Mina for example; she was a virtuoso guitarist even before I ever pumped her full of soul-steroids. The basic techniques underpinning her more advanced skills were already automatic. She could afford to lose those artifacts leftover from her soul¡¯s infancy, which allowed me to then stuff her full of hot-shit guitar-magic extra-dimensional alchemical-worms. But this big dumb clown had never even been in a rock band. He didn¡¯t own a bass guitar, only the coffin-sized upright bass that I made him leave out in the aisle between cabins because we didn¡¯t have room for it in ours. Not with his big dumb clown ass standing there. This was going to throw a serious wrench up the butt of our plans. Handsome Alex had this power to lure people to us by seeding their dreams with deja vu. What felt to them like a series of mystical events confirming their special destinies was actually just Alex bringing me souls to diddle. But apparently he¡¯d mistaken this highly accomplished jazz dork for someone useful to us, and the process of remotely luring in a replacement would take weeks, at best. It wasn¡¯t like him to screw up like this; he was the pro¡¯s pro, but I didn¡¯t have any standing to call him on it; not given my own recent missteps. So with Handsome Alex requiring most of the day to reconstitute his final form, it was going to fall to me to find us an actual bass player before showtime. Hopefully before soundcheck. The first thing I did was kill Handsome Alex¡¯s big dumb mistake with some nasty death magic: [Putrefaction] Necromancy. Corruption. Low Mana Cost Rank: 2 Description: [Rank 1]Inflicts the target with a decaying damage-over-time effect. [Rank 2]Consume the effect to inflict 75% of Putrefaction¡¯s damage instantly. I never got the big clown¡¯s name but his eyes went wide with terror as I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him further into the cabin. Didn¡¯t matter that he was a foot taller than me and built like the proverbial brick shithouse; chain-casting Putrefaction ate his big dumb muscles first. He started to cry for his mommy and I told him to shut up. Then it was like all the water got sucked out of his body. His cheeks puckered and his lips peeled back. Teeth started tic-tacking onto the floor as his gums turned black, his arms curled up into his chest as his heart failed, and next I knew he was on his back, kicking his quickly-withering legs like a dying cockroach. I hit him with the spell again and again until he was nothing but a man-shaped pile of ash, and then before his soul could escape I reaped a completely useless upright bass essence from it. Everything else had already been corrupted beyond use. After that I headed out to find a real bass player. The emotional backbone of any band. The empathetic one. And someone with at least one tattoo for fuck¡¯s sake. This was all like three hours ago. ¡°This should have been easy,¡± I complained while hiding under billionaire partygal Lady Gates¡¯s vibrating bed. She was standing over at the door to her luxury cabin, peering out the peephole. ¡°Are they gone yet? I really gotta get out of here. If Handsome Alex is done with his chrysalis before I get back he¡¯s going to kill me.¡± ¡°They¡¯re still out there.¡± She knelt down and put her cheek on the floor so she could look me in the eyes from across the cabin. Today she was wearing a bright blue wig with an inexplicable Karen cut. ¡°Maybe you should just stay, Kirby. Wouldn¡¯t that be nice?¡± I sighed and shimmied and twisted out from under the bed. It was tough because my gut was almost too big to fit in the first place. ¡°Look, Cherry-lynne, I know you¡¯re feeling a lot of powerful horniness in your soul for me right now. Just like all those people waiting for me out in the hall.¡± I grunted as I struggled up to a kneeling position. ¡°I know to you I¡¯m probably like some combo of Elvis and Jesus all smashed together, but it¡¯s not real. You only feel this way because an old god forced me to absorb the soul essences of an alien from another dimension who happened to be spiritually engineered to be ultra-humpable.¡± ¡°Are you talking about Rajah Superbus? Of the Drix Consortium? You have his essence?¡± I brushed myself off as I climbed to my feet. Then I crossed the room and offered her a hand up, as well. ¡°How does a sweet little old billionaire broad like you know any of those weird-ass words?¡± Out of nowhere she pulled some fucking alien stun gun thing and zapped me high up on my thigh. Way too close for comfort. When I woke up, they had me in some kind of anti-magic attribute-suppressing full-body condom thing. I felt like one of those red-hot pickled hotdogs you¡¯d buy at a gas station. I don¡¯t even know if that makes sense in 2025. Anyway, they had me all wrapped up in this indestructible, see-through cellophane crap and it was blocking me from using any of my magic stuff. The cabin I was in now must have belonged to the Drix Consortium. It looked like they were in the process of converting it to their tech. They¡¯d installed some sort of futuristic-looking terminal on one wall, and now wires and cables and shit were spreading out from it, creepy-crawling up the walls like tentacles. As alien as their tech looked, the Drix themselves appeared completely human. I didn¡¯t know what their true forms even were, but everyone was well aware that they owned soul engineering techniques that didn¡¯t even exist in our reality; techniques that weren¡¯t compatible with our system of physics and could only be used back in their own dimension.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. For the purpose of the competition they were calling themselves Superbus¡ªpronounced Soo-pur-boos¡ªand they all appeared to be ethnically Indian. No clue why they had made that decision; I assumed the sitar just sounded really cool no matter what dimension you hailed from. I saw Lady Grace on the far side of the cabin talking to one of the Drix. She noticed that I was awake and sent me a friendly little wave before casually gliding over to stand beside my condom-cage. ¡°Terribly sorry, Mr. Dufresne.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re an alien?¡± She laughed and then coughed and then after a moment she could speak. ¡°Oh heavens, no. I¡¯m just old, is all, and the Drix have ways of making me young again. Ways we can¡¯t even fathom.¡± ¡°Get the fuck out of here, seriously? You¡¯re just trying to reverse your aging?¡± I laughed and shook my head. ¡°Lady, Handsome Alex could have put you in the body of a twenty year-old. Any twenty year-old.¡± She shot a quick, nervous glance back over toward the Drix aliens. There were two of them. One had been working at their tentacle-monster console ever since I woke up, and the second joined him once Lady Gates had come to chat me up. ¡°It seems I may have acted rashly.¡± Her voice was low, aiming to avoid the De\rix overhearing. ¡°Our friend here have promised to reduce the age of my body at a cellular level, rewinding me to approximately forty-three years of age ¨C you¡¯re saying this Handsome Alex could do better?¡± ¡°Way better. And he would have been happy to do it.¡± Now my voice was low, too. ¡°If you hadn¡¯t gone and gotten his buddy kidnapped by fucking aliens from the murderbot dimension.¡± She stole another look at the Drix. Something seemed to be wrong with their machine and their body-language suggested they were arguing about it. But they must have been telepathic communicators because I didn¡¯t overhear shit. ¡°What if I help you get out of here?¡± she asked. I just scoffed. ¡°You are wild, Cherry-lynne.¡± ¡°I¡¯m serious. I saw them put you in here. I think I could turn this¡­. thing off.¡± She nodded at the magic-blocking condom-cage. ¡°If I did, would your friend help me?¡± I didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Mr. Dufresne¡ªKirby¡ªI hope you know it was nothing personal. And if it hadn¡¯t been me, someone else would have taken the Drix¡¯s offer once they found out you were the one who had stolen the essences, and that would have happened fast once people started noticing the changes to your aura.¡± ¡°My aura? Are you some kind of witch?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She suddenly looked at me with fresh orneriness. ¡°How old do you think I am, anyway?¡± ¡°Ninety-five,¡± came out of my mouth before I could stop it. She just smiled like a lizard. ¡°Kirby, I¡¯m over three-hundred years old. You musicians always think you own a monopoly on magic.¡± ¡°Well I¡¯ll be damned.¡± ¡°So what do you say? Can we let bygones be bygones?¡± ¡°Look, Lady, I can appreciate a good doublecross. You help me get of here, and we¡¯ll forget that you put me here in the first place.¡± ¡°And your friend ¨C he¡¯ll help me?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t talk for Handsome Alex. But if you don¡¯t help me out of here, I can tell you that he will find you, and ain¡¯t nothing gonna help you then.¡± She stole one last look over at the two Drix aliens. ¡°Can you handle them?¡± ¡°Probably.¡± ¡°And are you ready now?¡± ¡°Yup.¡± She knelt down and fiddled with the strap on one of her heels. Then, without another glance at the two aliens who still seemed to be in some sort of argument, she quickly reached over and pulled a lever down on the base of this thing I was inside. It came to rest with a click, and I immediately felt access to all my supernatural shit return. Lady Gates looked up at me and her eyes asked if it had worked. I nodded just as a warning beep began to boop from the anti-magic body-condom that wasn¡¯t working on me anymore. The Drix both turned to see what was up with their shit. Why was it beeping and booping and whatnot. I waved at them through the wall of my full-body condom and I hit them each with Putrefaction. There was a moment where I worried that these weird-assed interdimensional soul architects might have some sort of decay immunity or at the very least resistance engineered into their vessels but that was not the case. The two fuckers actually withered way faster than I¡¯d expected, and fell right where they stood as soon as I consumed the decay effect. I mean it, they were super fragile and started to turning to dust right away. ¡°Oh fuck.¡± It had flashed in front of my eyes for only an instant: Regular Nerd Appraisal: Joffrey Superbus. Drax Clone. Male. 4 days old. Attributes: 4 Strength 8 Stamina 8 Agility 4 Intellect 19 Spirit 4 Presence Spell and Powers: NONE Talents and Traits: LEGENDARY[Syncopated Slapping] The soul was evaporating fast; essences below Legendary on the ol¡¯ superpower scale had already fucked right off. I bolted forward and activated Reap, thinking I¡¯d just burst out of my wrapper or something, but the material was way more durable than I expected and I fell hard. For a minute I was just flopping on the floor like a fish out of water in a condom. Lucky for me, Reap had no trouble pulling the legendary essence right into my pocket abyss, along with a fat stack of spirit essences. And after a brief struggle I finally tore my way out, too. Everything was going to be alright. No, I hadn¡¯t found a bass player yet, and yes, soundcheck was now only like four hours out, but at least I had this legendary essence to show for my time. Handsome Alex would have to like that. I took a peek inside my pocket abyss to see what exactly the thing even did: [Syncopated Slapping] LEGENDARY TRAIT Syncopated Slapping gives every note you play a chance to disrupt your opponent¡¯s rhythm section. This trait is always active. The Legendary Version also has a chance to break your opponent¡¯s fingers. [WARNING] Membrane integrity has been compromised. Compounds contained within will be lost unless transferred to a suitable host. Time Remaining: 39 seconds. ¡°Oh no oh no oh no.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± Old Lady Gates was suddenly hanging on my elbow, trembling in fear at my response. ¡°Kirby, what¡¯s wrong?¡± I looked her in the eye and I sincerely meant this next part: ¡°I¡¯m really sorry for what I¡¯m about to do.¡± [6] I Dont Want To Ruin The Surprise 7:00pm Soundcheck The train pulled into this village full of thatch-roofed huts at about half past six. Middle of the fucking jungle. I kid you not, a gang of these sheisty little bearded monkey bastards accosted us as soon as we stepped onto the platform. One of them stole Mina¡¯s lucky pic. Lady Gates laughed until she split her latex bodysuit all the way down the back, revealing that underneath she wore naught but liver spots. ¡°Aww,¡± she whined. ¡°Kirby, be a dear and walk behind me, would you? The paparazzo would kill for this shot.¡± To reach the actual venue we had to hike even deeper into the jungle, about a mile from the village center, which was nothing but a ring of stamped-down dirt, anyway. That fact juxtaposed weirder than shit with the venue itself, which was a futuristic concert hall stuck out in the trees, like the Sydney Opera House but made of volcanic glass. Anyway, they had zero business putting a train station out here; I don¡¯t even think the place had a name. But this was the first stop on Emperor Hawijimi¡¯s Sonic Gauntlet for the Reward of Great Fortune and the Infinite Adoration of the Glorious People of Hawijimi and Her Colonies. ¡°Probably loses something in translation, am I right?¡± I was joking around with the venue¡¯s sound guy. He wasn¡¯t laughing. This stone-faced dude had a bone through the bridge of his nose and his balls were just hanging out from under a grass mini-skirt, like everyone else in the village. You couldn¡¯t find this place on a map, but the people here belonged to Hawijimi. That meant they all had their shit together like you wouldn¡¯t believe. The kind of brutal efficiency enjoyed exclusively in the empires of mad reality mages. This sound dude¡ªhis name was Three Quick Clicks of the Tongue, as far as I could tell¡ªwas better at his job than most of the bozos you¡¯d find back in the States. Part of it was that the soundboard and the stage were some of the most powerful magical machines on Earth. But mostly he was just dedicated to his craft; you could see it in the way he¡¯d get real focused on his work and start absent-mindedly twiddling with the bone piercing his nose. The soundboard ol¡¯ Three Clicks was manipulating was set in the center of the audience seating. It looked like a submarine had barfed out its cockpit. There weren¡¯t the usual mixers and equalizers and whatever else like you¡¯d find in a non-combat oriented concert hall. His job was to make sure that when certain sonic combinations were achieved they caused the proper balance of psychic and physical damage to the opposing band. ¡°So hey, Bud,¡± I leaned into his battlestation and said in my most conspiratorial tone. ¡°Imagine for a second that you were to find a bag on the floor all by itself with, shit I don¡¯t know, say fifty-million American dollars inside¡ª¡± [Handsome Alex]: I sincerely hope it is only out of a misguided dedication to comedy that you are engaging in this lame attempt to bribe an official representative of Emperor Hawijimi¡¯s Sonic Gauntlet for the Reward of Great Fortune and the Infinite Adoration of the Glorious People of Hawijimi and Her Colonies, Kirby. [Kirbdawg]: I know you¡¯ve refused ¡®The Cacophony¡¯ as reductive but we have got to come up with like a palindrome or something for that name ASAP if you¡¯re going to insist on using the whole damn thing every time. Shit¡¯s ridic, Bud. [Handsome Alex]: Perhaps you mean a portmanteau? A palindrome would in no way un-complicate the title of Emperor Hawijimi¡¯s Sonic Gauntlet¡ª I muted the chat. ¡°Anyway,¡± I said to my pal Three-Clicks. ¡°We all set here? Do I just like, go up there and sing something now?¡± He nodded and that was it, he went back to his equipment. I resisted the urge to say something snarky about how I thought we had something special blah blah blah and instead I headed to join the rest of Motley Skew up on stage: On lead guitar, we had Mina Diamond, former member of the anime-soundtrack supergroup Hypermagickal Girlz. She had painted her face completely white including her eyelashes and was otherwise dressed head-to-toe in a loose-fitting black leather suit. Playing bass, for one night only, was Lady Gates, among the richest women in the entire world. We had slapped on a long piece of duct tape to cover up the split on her latex bodysuit so no one would peep her upper-buttcrack. She had also recently become part interdimensional-alien, which I should probably explain: You see when I saw that the membrane belonging to the legendary essence I had yeeted out of that Drix dork was about to degrade to nothing, I knew I only had one choice: I had to get Cherry-lynne to let me stuff the essence in her soul-hole to stabilize it and then she¡¯d have to go on stage with us. In under thirty seconds I struck up a bargain with her, offering to vouch with Handsome Alex so he¡¯d help her get a younger body. She called me a saint and opened up her soul to me without any need for one of his stories. I was fully aware my messiah-like presence might have had something to do with it, but like the saying goes: any soul-hole in a storm. Don¡¯t look a gift horse in the soul-hole? Whatever; moving on. Since I hadn¡¯t dissected the essence I was going to implant in Lady Gates, the artifacts remained in there along with the compounds which comprised the legendary trait, and would provide her enough bass guitar basics to limp through the first show, when every band only had to play one song, anyway. Alright, so resuming the band introductions, behind the biggest drum kit you¡¯ve ever seen sat Handsome Alex. I¡¯m telling you Neil Peart would¡¯ve been like, it¡¯s too much. It¡¯s too much. My boy Alex had come out of his bone chrysalis looking fucking terrifying. He now had four arms, two of which extended from his shoulder-blades and had too many joints and bones like a pair of profaned angel wings. Each of his four arms was wielding a drumstick. He had not grown legs but rather his spinal column had thickened into a snake-like tail which he could use to operate the pedal for his bass drum. He was surrounded by a swirling, purple mist as he casually levitated behind his kit.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. His eyes flared as I stepped up onto the stage. ¡°It is time to work now, Kirby. Please take this seriously.¡± I snorted and rolled my eyes like I was too cool. But deep-down, where my heart used to be, I was shitting bricks. I wasn¡¯t a singer. I wasn¡¯t any kind of performer at all. I was a manager. What did I know about art? ¡°Alright, so we¡¯re good?¡± I said, too far from the mic for Three-Clicks to hear me. I stepped closer so that my lips were nearly touching it. ¡°Now I just sing something?¡± He nodded once from behind his militarized soundboard. Then he put on a pair of ear-muff style headphones and concentrated on his equipment. ¡°Here goes nothing.¡± The others had already done their checks and everything went off without a hitch. I went up there planning to belt out the first verse of War Pigs. That old Sabbath-era Ozzie felt like my vibe. I looked toward Handsome Alex one last time. His eyes had that eager glow. I really wanted to nail this for him. I inhaled, and then I sang the first line: Generals gathered in their masses¡­. As soon as I started ramping up to hit the high note at the end of masses, shit hit the fan. The stage lights overhead exploded in a flourish of sparks. Lady Gates shrieked and ran off-stage taking quick little tippy-toe steps in her stilettos. My voice was suddenly not my own. It was hardly what you¡¯d call a voice, at all. And yet it was also familiar, somehow. It reminded me of the sound stars make while being crushed into black holes. It was a chorus of annihilation. It felt like a fist was punching up out through my throat and out of my mouth. The vessel wouldn¡¯t survive much more of this. But I couldn¡¯t close my mouth and the roar of cosmic vomit kept coming. In the end I had to uppercut myself four times in the jaw before it finally shut. Which proved too late for poor Three-Clicks. My eyes were full of water but I could see him slumped over the soundboard. It looked like he¡¯d dug into the top of his head using only his fingers. Spongy brain matter was all mixed in with shards of skull and tangles of his dark, blood-soaked hair. It had all taken all of what? Four, maybe five seconds? I turned to look at Handsome Alex and his lack of a jaw made him look very surprised indeed. I felt that. Villagers started pouring into the hall. The whole place filled up with angry clicks and the sound of their grass skirts swishing. All of a sudden Mina was beside me, wiping something wet from my cheeks. ¡°Fucking metal.¡± She held up her fingers to show me the blood which had seeped out of my eyes. ¡°You good, Uncle Kirb?¡± I panned my gaze over the hall. A group had congregated around Three-Clicks and were probing the crater he¡¯d dug in his own skull. ¡°We better get out of here.¡± After soundcheck all the bands piled back onto the train. There were no accommodations on this stop. Historically, the hour or two between soundcheck and showtime were some of the most dangerous for performers, both in terms of overdoses as well as being murdered by the competition. But not for us; we bee-lined it for our cabin. When we got there, Lady Grace had already changed into a pink and purple bathrobe. She was standing in the doorway, signing off on a delivery with one hand and wielding a martini glass in the other. It was all-but-empty except for the toothpick-speared olive. How the fuck this delivery dude found her way out here, I have no idea. I guess when you¡¯ve got billions of dollars people just bend over backwards to make you happy. ¡°Hey, gang,¡± she chirped as we arrived. Then she turned to me. ¡°Kirby, dearest, be a pal and bring those boxes inside, won¡¯t you?¡± We filed into the cabin and I carried in the two boxes like she¡¯d asked. They were lighter than they looked. Handsome Alex hadn¡¯t said anything since my soundcheck and it was making me nervous enough to say dorky things like, ¡°So, should we rehearse or something?¡± Lady Grace ignored me. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about paying me back,¡± she said, and started opening up one of the boxes. She held up a t-shirt with Motley Skue written across the top. Handsome Alex sat behind a drum kit with yellow fireballs in place of his eyes. Notably, this Alex on the t-shirt had his jawbone back and was sporting a huge stupid grin. He was going to hate it. I tried to get Lady Gates to just put the damn thing away by shaking my head in rapid little twists almost like I was shivering but she was already shitfaced and didn¡¯t pick up what I was trying to lay down. ¡°How great are these?¡± She pulled the shirt on right over her robe. It made her look all lumpy like she was about to get caught shoplifting a shitload of potatoes or something. ¡°Isn¡¯t it skew?¡± Mina asked. I found myself now shaking my head at her instead of Lady Gates, and while she recognized I wanted her to shut up, she only smiled at me, instead. ¡°Like s-k-e-w?¡± Lady Gates narrowed her eyes. ¡°Sweetie, what year were you born?¡± ¡°What¡¯s that got to do with anything?¡± Mina stood from where she¡¯d been sitting on one of the benches. It legit looked like they might come to blows, so I figured it was as good a time as any to have the talk me and Handsome Alex were both avoiding. He hadn¡¯t even looked at the shirts and was just hovering by the window, gazing out with his back turned to the rest of us. I took a seat on the bench near him while our bandmates¡¯ voices continued to rise in pitch and volume. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Bud.¡± ¡°You have done nothing to apologize for.¡± He paused. ¡°Which is remarkable in its own right.¡± ¡°There isn¡¯t time to find a different singer before showtime. We¡¯ve got like an hour before they want us backstage, right?¡± ¡°That is correct.¡± ¡°So what do you want to do?¡± ¡°Nothing.¡± ¡°Nothing? Like, nothing, nothing? Like you don¡¯t want to go on stage? Just call the whole thing off, nothing?¡± Handsome Alex laughed and it brought a welcome chill to my heart. ¡°Oh dear, sweet, Ossick Meldrath. You don¡¯t see, do you? What you¡¯ve set in motion; what now cannot be undone.¡± Outside the voidscape, I don¡¯t think he¡¯d called me Ossick in over a thousand years. ¡°Oh ho ho,¡± I chuffed, excitement swelling. ¡°You must really have some good shit brewing to deadname me like that in front of mortals. Tell me everything. Right now.¡± I paused and held up a hand. ¡°No, wait. Nevermind. Don¡¯t tell me. I don¡¯t want to ruin the surprise.¡± Handsome Alex began to chuckle. We¡¯re talking the real thing this time; the cackling of an immortal villain. It was among the most evil sounds in the galaxy. And then Mina Diamond interrupted his mirth by cracking her Flying V over Lady Grace¡¯s head. [7] This Was All Getting A Little Weird The degrading membrane of the legendary bass guitar essence I¡¯d stolen from the Drix dork had stabilized while it was temporarily seeded inside the soul of Lady Gates. But now that Mina had splattered the tri-centenarian witch¡¯s brains all over the floor I only had a little under two minutes to find some other schmuck to stuff it into. Mina collapsed like a puppet with no hand up its butt, right there in the puddle of still-warm gore. ¡°Go,¡± Handsome Alex said to me with eyes flaring wildly. He¡¯d turned off Mina¡¯s brain, I realized, same as he¡¯d done before. Probably a smart move; she was still going to need that guitar later if I somehow managed to find us a new bassist and I doubted the neck would hold up if she kept hammering away with it like she¡¯d been doing. And she¡¯d shown no sign of stopping, despite having already smashed Lady Gates¡¯s face flat. I figured it was because she was so old. Normally, a head wouldn¡¯t just flatten all the way out like a balloon filled with pancake batter and ketchup. I zapped the essence into my pocket abyss and hit the door running. The hallways were eerily empty. All the other bands were in their cabins making last-minute adjustments. I sort of blacked out, I think. I just remember running and running. And then I stopped. ¡°This is seriously fucked,¡± I told the barman. There was no one in here, either, except for me and him. I downed my shot. ¡°Anyway, I better get moving.¡± [Handsome Alex]: Kirby, return at once. Lady Gates has not perished from her injuries after all. [Kirbdawg]: Hope I can make it back in time, Bud. I¡¯ve gone a long way looking for a suitable candidate here. [Handsome Alex]: Do please try. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the barman. ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll have one more.¡± When I got back to the cabin Mina was still in a trance, laying on the floor in the mess she¡¯d made of Lady Gates. The blood and brain bits were seeping into the folds of her black-leather costume-thing; the girl was so fucking rock & roll, even when she was comatose. Lady Gates, meanwhile, was standing over by the window with her arms crossed. She looked super-pissed despite having no head. Down on the floor, her face stared up at the ceiling like an empty Halloween mask leaking smashed hotdogs out the eye-holes. I looked at Handsome Alex where he hovered nearby. ¡°Can she hear us? Like, her ears are on the floor there in that puddle, right?¡± ¡°You are correct, she cannot hear without her ears.¡± ¡°Great look for you, Cherry-lynne.¡± I strolled right up to her headless body like we were back in the bar where we first met. The upper-portion of her esophagus had flopped out of her raggedly torn throat-opening and was dangling down her chest. It looked like a gray, tubular tongue and something was pushing out of it; old food mixed with bile or something. Dead bodies did weird shit and Lady Grace was a dead body now if I¡¯d ever seen one. ¡°Smells awful but ¨C you¡¯re gonna save a fortune on wigs. ¡°Kirby. Please.¡± I nodded my agreement. ¡°So what¡¯s going on here? How¡¯s she still kicking after all that? This should be way beyond anything witchcraft can accomplish, right?¡± ¡°While it is impossible to know with complete certainty, I do have a theory.¡± ¡°Okay, and?¡± ¡°I will explain, but first you should re-implant her essence. Time is fleeting.¡± ¡°Oh shit, you¡¯re right.¡± I zapped it out of my pocket abyss and the membrane was down to eight seconds before it would disintegrate entirely. Fortunately, Lady Gates had already given me permission to diddle her soul and she was in no condition right then to rescind her consent. However, her third-eye was squished all over the floor. So I had to slam the vortex into her throat-opening, and it went churning its way down into her heart chakra, which was another point-of-access for the soul but a lot sloppier. The smell emanating from the crater atop Lady Gates¡¯s shoulders was suddenly even worse. I gagged and covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve. ¡°Alright, not my cleanest work but I guess it¡¯ll have to do. We¡¯re seriously going to go onstage with her like that, though?¡± ¡°I suppose you have a better idea?¡± Handsome Alex crossed all four of his arms. An amused spark shone in the depths of his eye sockets. I thought for a moment. ¡°We could carve a pumpkin and stick it on her shoulders.¡± I smacked myself in the forehead. ¡°Shit, that¡¯s stupid. There ain¡¯t no pumpkins in the jungle. Dumb dumb dumb.¡± Just then something rapped at the door to our cabin. I tilted my head at Handsome Alex and he tilted his right back at me. ¡°Who could that be?¡± I didn¡¯t see anyone through the window so I marched over and slid the door open. A raven was standing there at my feet looking up at me like some sort of solicitor. Then the goddamn thing flew into the cabin and started flapping like crazy. Look I know they aren¡¯t really dangerous but I¡¯ve got this thing about birds, alright, and being stuck in a confined space while the fucking thing flapped around like a catastrophe had me cradling my head to protect it and maybe doing a little bit of shrieking for it to stay the fuck away from me you shitty little bird!Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Anyway the raven finally landed right on Lady Gates¡¯s throat-opening and started wiggling its little bird-butt in like it was settling into a nest. It used the sharp point of its black beak to scissor out wads of flesh until the hole was just the perfect size to get comfy in. Then its eyes flashed that spooky shade of Halloween-green and it cawed loud as shit. Then it began to cough like a human for like a minute straight. And then Lady Gates began to speak through its beak. ¡°Kirby,¡± she croaked. Her voice had become a cross of the raven she was now and the woman she had been. ¡°Be a hon and light me a smoke.¡± I did like she asked while her raven-head kicked into another coughing fit. I don¡¯t know what I was thinking but I tried to insert the cigarette into its beak and Lady Gates reached up with her hand and snatched it away from me. But then she went ahead and stuck it in the bird¡¯s mouth like I¡¯d been trying to do anyway and took a deep drag. ¡°Uh, yeah,¡± I said, backing away. ¡°Welcome back and stuff, Cherry-lynne.¡± ¡°Save it.¡± She pointed at Mina using the cigarette. ¡°Before anything else, I want to renegotiate the specifics of our arrangement.¡± I turned to see what Handsome Alex thought. I know I probably looked sort of concerned, but his lack of a jaw just kept him looking like he¡¯d seen something very unexpected. I couldn¡¯t help but laugh. ***** Backstage, I looked at the performance schedule which had been hung on the wall of our greenroom. ¡°We¡¯re going on as part of the third grouping,¡± I told the others, ¡°and we¡¯re matched up with Superbus, like we expected.¡± The way this worked for the preliminary round was pretty simple. The venue held three stages, placed in a precisely equilateral triangle anchored on the outskirts of the audience seating area. There were something like three hundred skews onboard, and we were all going to faceoff in groups of three. We¡¯d each take a stage, whoever they came up with to be Three-Click¡¯s replacement would fire a starter¡¯s pistol, and then it was fucking Monster Jam time. You just had to keep playing. If you stopped for any reason ¨C instant DQ. This first show was the only time we¡¯d be facing more than a single band at once. If we all three finished our songs then the decision on which of us to eliminate would go to a panel of judges, all of them Hawijimi¡¯s people, which meant they¡¯d be completely unbribable. And that in turn meant that the first stop on Emperor Hawijimi¡¯s Sonic Gauntlet for the Reward of Great Fortune and the Infinite Adoration of the Glorious People of Hawijimi and Her Colonies was known colloquially as the Gang Bang. Nothing crude, I swear. But it earned the name because what inevitably occurred when three skews were forced to face one another at once was the strongest two would team up to annihilate the third before they could finish their song. It was simply a safer practice than allowing the decision to be made by unbuyable judges. ¡°It¡¯ll be us, Superbus, and a skew I¡¯ve heard nothing about called Long John and the Donut Holes,¡± I explained to the others. ¡°Now it¡¯s possible the ¡®perbs are going to have a real hard-on for me after I killed like, every Drix in their skew, but they¡¯d be smart to team up with us to shitstomp this third team of nobodies, and I expect that¡¯ll be their play.¡± We were waiting in a tricked-out greenroom; even had our own shitter with a door and everything. Hawijimi spared no expense. Anyway it was almost showtime and the first grouping would be going on any minute. Handsome Alex had brought Mina out of her trance and she was all messed up when she saw that Lady Grace had become some kind of bird-headed chimera. Not that she felt guilty, but it was like Alex was always telling me: there were limits. Limits to what the subject of a Compelling Narrative would accept outside that narrative, and a woman with a bird in place of a head had evidently violated those limits rather thoroughly. Speaking of, Lady Grace¡¯s cigarette was now a pillar of ash dangling from the raven¡¯s black beak. Every now and then it would stand up on its little stick legs and crap right down her back. The duct tape we¡¯d used to cover the split she¡¯d splut in her latex bodysuit was all spackled with the bird¡¯s white booty-crumbs. And the Lady did not give a fuck. It was like she was the bird now, and her body was just something the bird was driving. I mean I get it better than most; a vessel isn¡¯t actually your body and sometimes you can¡¯t help but treat it like shit. But I say this as an immortal seed of evil wearing the skin of a man I never even met before I murdered him: this was all getting a little weird. The first grouping came off-stage to a round of applause we could suddenly hear through the wall. We never heard any of the actual performance ¨C the venue was built with togglable soundproofing, which was a big deal when some of the sounds could potentially kill people a mile away. The audience wore special headphones that protected them from any magical effects. Or at least the earmuff-style headphones were supposed to protect them. Hadn¡¯t done much good for poor Three-Clicks when I¡¯d done my soundcheck. Handsome Alex levitated beside Mina is his awesome nebula of purple gases. She looked like a crackhead if I¡¯m being real here; all twitchy like one of the monkeys we¡¯d been mugged by when we got off the train; eyes bulging and unblinking. [Handsome Alex] When the performance is over I will require your assistance. I believe it will still be possible to implant a new narrative, but it will be vital we keep these two isolated from one another during the process. [Kirbdawg]: Alright, one thing at a time though, Bud. Let¡¯s just make it through the show first before we worry about what comes after. [Handsome Alex]: A surprisingly mature perspective for one aged a mere millenia-and-a-half. [Kirbdawg]: Oh eat shit, man. I¡¯m actually being a pro for once and you¡¯re gonna twist my nips? Another round of applause echoed in our greenroom. The second grouping had ended almost as quickly as it had begun. I horked my face up into my best Jim Carrey and went, ¡°It¡¯s shoooowtime!¡± The others just stared at me. ¡°What was that?¡± Lady Grace cawed. ¡°It¡¯s uh, Jim Carrey, you know? The Mask.¡± ¡°Does he actually say that in the movie? Caw! I don¡¯t think I remember that line.¡± ¡°I believe perhaps you meant to say, somebody stop me!¡¯¡± Alex¡¯s eyes hummed with inner-laughter. ¡°Or smokin¡¯!¡± Mina chimed in. It was the first thing she¡¯d said since Alex had brought her out of her trance. ¡°Seriously? You too?¡± I jerked open the door which led out of our greenroom and headed for the stage. ¡°I¡¯m surrounded by amateurs.¡± [8] Was It Wrong To Massacre The Audience? This chick in the front row was wearing a giant yellow sombrero and there must have been a tank of nitrous oxide hidden inside it or something. Whatever it was sent the rich weirdoes into literal giggle fits. Six little hoses tipped with silver nipples dangled from the ludicrously wide brim, and every so often six of her pals would come party, suckling like piggies and punching their tickets to seizure town. By the time we took the stage I could see probably twenty of them all flopping around on the floor while rocking the dopiest grins. One lady among the floppers was wearing what I bet was a million-dollar tiara and her head kept smacking the front of the stage and it was spilling diamonds everywhere. But nobody was in a hurry to pick them up. Because that was the vibe out there in the audience; like a dangerously overcrowded flophouse in the horniest corner of Beverly Hills. I took it all in: the human blimp bumping up against the ceiling, easily sixty or seventy feet above us; the old men in matching rubber dog masks watching from their private balcony; the smell of opium and buttsweat mingling in a lavender cloud; kids who were way too young, filming segments for their Youtube channels; random outbursts of rich people laughing ¡ª you know what I mean; you know how they laugh. There was also a red-headed leprechaun giving a lapdance to a man seated in a throne who I won¡¯t name but it rhymes with Bing Gnarls; a lot more pogosticks than you¡¯d ever guess, doing things pogosticks never should; both chaps that were assless and chaps with extra asses; sapient powdered wigs; little people wearing monocles, serving finger-food on silver trays; goddamned rich people laughing again; the lizard people getting into it with those Illuminati fuckers like they do at every event; a champagne bottle popping, its cork rocketing hard off one of the sound-and-bulletproof windows. And standing outside that same window I saw the villagers with their dirty faces pressed against the glass, trying to steal a glimpse of the spectacle their town was built for. Most of them would never be invited inside. But in just a minute or two, I was going to start singing, and they¡¯d have a frontrow seat while all these rich fucks finger-banged their own brains out. I gotta admit I had some concerns: Was it wrong to massacre the audience? And regardless of ethics, how might it affect our odds of winning the larger contest? But to tamp down my nerves all I needed to do was steal a glance at Handsome Alex. A pair of miniature suns burned gleefully within each of his bony eye sockets. He wasn¡¯t even a little bit worried about what was to come. He¡¯d said as much after I accidentally killed Three-Clicks during soundcheck; he¡¯d said then that I¡¯d gone and put something in motion, something that couldn¡¯t be stopped. Cryptic as fuck. But I loved it, and I guess we were finally about to find out whether he was full of shit or not. Because the announcer was done with the other two skews and now he was floating over our stage. He was painted silver all over and had on these high-tech boots that flew him from place to place like Iron Man. But instead of rocketing around propelled by flames these things were farting out a shit-ton of bubbles like one of those machines you¡¯d rent for a kid¡¯s birthday party ¨C if you had a normie family and weren¡¯t an immortal seed of evil inhabiting a dead man¡¯s skin-suit and whatnot. ¡°Finally, on Stage Three we¡¯ve got Motley Skew!¡± The announcer¡¯s magically-enhanced voice rang throughout the hall, cutting through the crowd¡¯s intoxicated din with impossible clarity. He dragged his gaze across the four of us onstage and then took off his bug-eyed sunglasses and shot us the Stink Eye. ¡°Jeez, this skew really lives up to their name, don¡¯t they? I¡¯m saying, people ¨C just take a look!¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got Uncle Boner back there behind the kit, giving major dumpster-diving behind a Spirit Halloween superstore vibes, and then holy shit get a load of Fatfuck McLoser up front on the mic. Not much else to say there, honestly. But check out Lady Birdface! She has bird shit overflowing from the birdnest in her fucking bird-stuffed neck-hole.¡± He paused to take a calming breath. ¡°And then there¡¯s you.¡± He pointed down at Mina. ¡°You¡¯re hot. But you look like there¡¯s something major wrong with your brain. I¡¯m not sure if that makes you more or less hot.¡± He was right about that. All of it, but the bit about Mina¡¯s brain in particular. The poor girl was literally losing the plot; the compelling narrative was falling apart a little more every time something brought her attention back to Lady Gates¡¯s whole¡­. bird thing. She was staring at the raven with such singular focus that she began to slowly trot across stage in that direction, giggling and drooling. Her flying V hung at the end of its strap, banging against her thighs with each step, completely forgotten. I intercepted her at midstage and spun her around so she went staggering back over toward her mark. The announcer shook his head at the scene and bubble-farted his way higher up into the air. ¡°Alright, skew-heads. You know the drill,¡± he blared. ¡°Start killing each other at the sound of the gun.¡± Almost before he got the word gun out of his mouth, a plume of smoke puffed up from the soundbooth in the center of the audience and we heard the crack! of the starter¡¯s pistol. Handsome Alex and Lady Gates didn¡¯t miss a single beat. She started right in slapping some funky-ass riff like I never saw coming from the old lady and the effect of her Syncopated Slapping trait on Long John and the Donut Holes was evident almost immediately. Her bass-playing counterpart on that stage flubbed a note and then he cried out in startled surprise as the middle knuckle on the middle finger of his right hand suddenly snapped back at close to ninety degrees from its original position. Over on the Superbus stage, their bassist was all pissed off and sneering at us. He was a clone of the Drix dork I¡¯d killed and he recognized the legendary trait Lady Gates had just triggered; the one I¡¯d stolen from his predecessor. I wondered if they were able to clone him a copy of the trait on such short notice or if he¡¯d been forced to settle for something less.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Didn¡¯t matter. He couldn¡¯t do dick about his butthurt feelings right then, because it was obvious his team was also looking to take the easy-pass to Round Two by teaming up with us to wipe out the Donut Hole dorks, just as your boy Kirby had predicted. The Superbus guitarist was blasting power chord after power chord in the direction of the vulnerable Holes, bending the air between them like a heat mirage. He was wearing a huge elephant mask for some reason. The trunk was constantly getting in the way of his playing and he kept throwing it back over his shoulder and yelling at someone off-stage. I assumed it was the interdimensional alien wardrobe girl or something. Despite fighting against his own floppy trunk, his relentless assault was forcing the Donut Holes¡¯ frontman¡ªwho I assumed was Long John due to the fact he wasn¡¯t wearing a goddamned thing except for a strategically-positioned tube sock¡ªto counter with a series of desperate falsetto squeals like if you strapped every last Brother Gibb into their own electric chairs and then threw them all into a giant fucking blender. If Long John timed his screeches just right they would deflect the power chords like some sort of sonic parry. But within seconds of the starting gun one attack had already penetrated his lyrical defenses, the concentrated shredding force tearing a deep gouge down his bare thigh. Now his tube sock was soaked red. Meanwhile, Handsome Alex had started a slow roll on his cymbals at the precise moment Lady Gates slapped her first note. This was our scuzziest defensive counter, and the plan was for him to maintain it constantly from the moment a skew-off started: [Rolling Blackout] LEGENDARY TRAIT As long as you maintain an ongoing drum or cymbal roll for a minimum of four beats, one member of the targeted skew will be locked out of using or gaining positive effects from all talents and traits. The effect jumps to a different member every four beats. The Legendary version of this talent affects two opponents at once, with an increased duration of eight beats. The trait required four beats to fully deploy, but once it started swallowing up all their powers it was only a matter of time until the Superbus guitarist tore those Donut Holes to pieces. All it would take was for the blackout to roll over Long John and disrupt his ability to fend off the power chords. So you see we could have just waited this thing out. Victory was inevitable from the fourth beat on. But then we¡¯d never get to find out why Handsome Alex was so coolly confident about the unique issues my singing in front of a live audience might present. The fact that I was about to kill everyone in attendance. The mic in my hand felt like a detonator attached to a bomb so dirty it could force all these rich freaks to scoop out their own fucking brains with their bare hands. Because it literally was. I suddenly felt so at peace. I held the mic up to my lips, and in the moment before I began to sing the first verse of my very heavy take on Row, Row, Row Your Boat, I saw all four members of Superbus start to shimmer like holograms. The mothership was beaming them back up, if I had to guess. But they were too slow. I hit the third row and they all stepped back out of their transport beams and started ripping their scalps off. With every syllable I sang my voice became more powerful; volcanic; shaking the whole venue. Dust was falling from the ceiling and the entire audience started shrieking. Shrieking. Shrieking. One-by-one they all started to self-mutilate in wild and exotic ways. It was a sight so vile it could only have been divinely orchestrated. And I did something stupid. I went and had a religious experience and dared to say his name: >>>>>>>>>>RIVULON<<<<<<<<<< My teeth all blasted out of my mouth and embedded themselves into the sombrero-girl¡¯s face like brown and yellow buckshot. My tongue felt barely attached. One of the vessel¡¯s eyeballs had ruptured and was running down my cheek. It seeped into my mouth through a hole in my cheek. To my right, Mina fell on the stage and started puking out black foam that crackled with thousands of strobing explosions. It was a good thing she fell on her stomach with her face turned to the side, because you wouldn¡¯t want to choke on that stuff. On the other side of the stage, I glanced to see that the raven had tunneled down into Lady Gates¡¯s chest cavity and then burst out her back, where it then became entangled in the long strip of duct tape we¡¯d used to cover the split in her latex bodysuit. Seemed like forever ago. Anyway, the poor bird fell on the stage and rolled around at the headless Lady Gates¡¯s feet, becoming hopelessly knotted in the tape. A wet-sounding sploooorch stole my attention and I looked across the audience to discover that Long John had ripped off his sock and blood was geysering out of the crotch-wound. He proceeded to bludgeon his drummer with the sock. That should have opened the door for the Superbus guitar player to finish the Donut Holes off with a couple well-placed power chords, but I suddenly realized they were already all dead. Their body parts littered that far stage, and it struck me that they had died so fast because they were fresh clones ¨C same as the pair I¡¯d killed back in their cabin. Something about being freshly born made them weak as babies, go figure. And there were still two Donut Holes standing. If we all somehow lived through this they¡¯d advance to the next stage and the Drix dicks would be sent packing back to the murderbot dimension. I laughed. I heard Handsome Alex laughing behind me. Just straight up cackling; chilled my heart in the best way. And then time stopped. I¡¯m talking everything froze in place right at that second¡ªthe airborne gore, the floor-floppers and the brain-diggers, the villagers banging on the windows and cheering me on¡ªeverything except for me and Handsome Alex. I turned to face my old friend. ¡°Huma shef wuh thifeck is heffenung?!?¡± I said, my tongue finally coming completely detached and slithering out of my mouth like a slug. It splattered on the stage at my feet. [Handsome Alex]: Use the chat. Your vessel¡¯s speech has become incomprehensible. [Kirbdawg]: ¡°Holy shit what the fuck is happening?!?¡± Is what I said. Why has time stopped? [Handsome Alex]: It¡¯s because of him. There¡¯s a sound you come to be familiar with when you start running with entities of unfathomable power. A lot of them can teleport at will, but that¡¯s not really accurate. The really powerful fuckers, the ones I¡¯m talking about here, they don¡¯t actually go anywhere they don¡¯t have to. Instead, they bend space-time to be in multiple places at once. And like I said there¡¯s this sound when you¡¯re in the same vicinity as this trick. Like the shutter on an old, mechanical camera, or maybe it''s the sound of an impossibly enormous eye opening and closing. Possibly a sphincter of some sort. Whatever it is, I hate it. It usually means you¡¯re about to get your ass kicked. I heard it right then, behind me, and me and Handsome Alex were suddenly bathed in golden light. He looked so badass. When I turned around the scene was the same as before, still frozen, but a man was floating there in the air over the audience, sitting in an ultra-elaborate throne. He was larger than any human, both in height and bulk, but otherwise he appeared as one. He was bare-chested and his skin was smooth and brown. A thick, lustrous mustache extended into twin curls on either side of his face. The turban he wore over his raven-colored hair swirled and crackled with lightning. The smirk on his face had me feeling super uneasy. To make a point of how tough I was, I slurped some of the slime from the vessel''s ruptured eyeball off my upper-lip. But without a tongue to clean myself up I only managed to just spread it around, leaving myself a gross eyeball-slime mustache. ¡°Greetings, Lord Hawijimi,¡± Handsome Alex said from behind me, confident-as-can-be. ¡°We are honored by your presence." [9] Violence, Likely On A Cosmic Scale ¡°You have brought the unraveling to my sacred hall.¡± Emperor Hawijimi stepped off his throne and walked across the air toward our stage. ¡°Never our intent, I assure you,¡± Alex explained. He floated from behind his drumkit and came up beside me. ¡°But I must apologize, nonetheless. Rivulon the Unraveler has altered my companion¡¯s power-set in an attempt to sabotage our efforts to perform honorably and with distinction during the most revered Emperor Hawijimi¡¯s Sonic Gauntlet for the Reward of Great Fortune¡ª¡± ¡°I greatly prefer you call it The Cacophony,¡± the Emperor interrupted. I snorted a laugh and my sinus cavity started to come apart and collapse into my throat. I gagged and choked and finally coughed up a rubbery piece of something that should never have left the inside of my head. ¡°Harflefurf.¡± Handsome Alex ignored my undignified face-noises and continued to address the Emperor. ¡°Thank you, Lord Hawijimi, for correcting my mistake. As I was saying, the Old God Rivulon¡ª¡± ¡°So, Rivulon¡¯s in there?¡± He cocked his head and squinted at me like he was checking to see if the R-word was hiding behind my lone unruptured eye. ¡°No, not precisely. During transit through the voidscape, my partner Ossick¡¯s vessel was given a legendary trait which allows him to sing with the voice of Rivulon, but it is not a standard possession situation. No. Ossick is a soul alchemist and defiler, so it is strictly impossible to possess him.¡± ¡°Still,¡± Hawijimi began, slowly floating closer to me in a way I knew could only lead to trouble, ¡°there is a trace of the Unraveler¡¯s essence which persists within this vessel.¡± He held up two fingers, like a peace sign, and then he just barely flicked them in my direction and I felt what he¡¯d done. Deep within me, in my borrowed soul within my borrowed vessel¡¯s body, the legendary essence which R-word had stuffed in there still contained a single molecule of his power. Hawijimi had somehow used that speck of the Old God to summon him. I felt him\s influence growing within the vessel. I felt him crowding into the soul I was already occupying and suppressing. And then I felt his True Voice: ¡­.Hawijimi¡­. ¡­.Why have you brought me here?.... The true voice of an Old God was way too much for my vessel to endure. My face straight up fucking melted and then my lungs ejected up my throat-tunnel and were strained through my skull, not breaking any face-bones but pushing through the eye and mouth and nostril-openings, instead, like a kid making pasta with play-doh. In the process, my vessel¡¯s brain was irreparably damaged. Kirby Dufresne¡¯s memories began to invade my own. As an immortal seed of evil I didn¡¯t precisely require a brain¡ªlet alone a body¡ªto survive, but it sure made it easier to operate on Earth. Things were getting more complicated in a hurry. At the top of the List of Fucked-Up Shit Happening Right Now, was the fact that I was suddenly sharing a soul-space with R-word the Unraveler, an Old God whose purpose was to ensure nothing could last forever. He¡¯d been replaced by the New God, Entropy, a few billion years back, I¡¯d heard, and he never really got over it. The Emperor stroked his mustache and sat cross-legged, levitating about eight feet up in the air. I could still see all this because Handsome Alex was somehow sharing his vision with me. It was freaky as fuck, looking at myself from the back and learning precisely how huge this vessel¡¯s ass had been this whole time. Thicc Kirby: Thanks, Bud, for not leaving me in the dark. Is this all going to your plan? Handsome Alex: Quite. Hawijimi drifted down at a glacial pace. His expression was a mix of amused and ponderous; he was clearly deciding how to handle the half-melted nerd with the Old God trapped inside his soul. ¡°You ask why I¡¯ve brought you here,¡± the Emperor began, ¡°when it is I who should be asking why you have decided to meddle in my ascension trials.¡± ¡­.Insolent mage¡­. ¡­.My grudge is with the one known as Handsome Alex¡­. ¡­.Your petty trials are meaningless¡­. ¡­.The Unraveling is all that matters in the end¡­. The very fabric of my vessel began to unspool. I watched it happen through Alex¡¯s eyes. Each word uttered by the R-word sent both physical and metaphysical matter spinning off the body in viciously-twisting double-helixes. I was struck by the beauty of it and how sad it made me feel. I blamed the fleeting sentimentality on whatever link I currently had going on with Handsome Alex. For a guy with zero biological tissues he had always been awfully squishy. Speaking of Handsome Alex ¡ª he was up to something. Our party interface gave it away: >Handsome Alex is preparing a [Compelling Narrative] >Stage 1 of 7 is 3% complete¡­. Ok. So the plan Alex and I had discussed earlier involving Compelling Narrative was for me to distract Lady Gates after we finished our set so that he could implant a new background story in Mina¡¯s mind, one that would incorporate the raven which had become the old billionaire¡¯s new head. So the fact that he was initiating the process now, while we were in the presence of not only an Old God but also the Earth¡¯s most powerful reality mage, had me a little baffled. Thicc Kirby: Uh, what the fuck you doin, Bud? He didn¡¯t reply in the chat. When Mina had collapsed on stage after I¡¯d stupidly spoken the R-word¡¯s name, she¡¯d started puking up this black foam that crackled with itty-bitty silver explosions. It was frozen in time now, just like everything else. Except it wasn¡¯t quite like everything else, I realized. The silver flashes had initially paused entirely, same as the rest of our surroundings, but now they were slowly starting to strobe again within the ominous black barf. ¡°The unraveling is not welcome here,¡± I heard Hawijimi say to the rapidly disintegrating vessel I¡¯d been calling home. Big frumpy Kirby Dufresne. He loved his dog. And pancakes. And his stupid nerd memories were seeping into mine. I fucking hated dogs. Pancakes were cool, though.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Thicc Kirby: Alright Bud, whatever you¡¯re up to I hope you know what you¡¯re doing. I think my vessel is probably about to wink out of existence so I guess I¡¯ll just see you whenever you can find me a new one. No rush, I¡¯ll just be kicking it in Purgatory with the other boys and ghouls, you know how I do. Again, Alex ignored me. And this time I was really being dramatic and needy ¡ª usually he couldn¡¯t resist putting me in my place when I acted like that. ¡­.The Unraveling cares not where it is welcomed¡­. ¡­.Release me from this vessel so that I may show you true power, puny mage¡­. Hawijimi and R-word seemed like they must have shared a history of some sort. There was obviously bad blood there and I had to wonder if Handsome Alex had known about it; I was betting he had. The two of them were completely fixated on one another, as if the rest of the grotesque masterpiece I¡¯d made of the concert hall didn¡¯t even exist. It was always like this with super-powerful fuckers. Gods and the like. They didn¡¯t get together very often, and when they did it always had all the tension of an old west showdown. But this was something different. Something about their demeanors toward one another felt like legit animus. It felt personal. There was almost certainly about to be violence, likely on a cosmic scale. Then Handsome Alex¡¯s party interface said something completely fucking crazy: >Handsome Alex is preparing a [Compelling Narrative] >Stage 6 of 7 is 62% complete¡­. How had he progressed the story so fast? He had always told me that pacing was one of the most important aspects of creating a Compelling Narrative, and I was struggling to imagine how such an accelerated implantation could preserve his precious pacing. But more importantly: whose fucking mind was he planning to rewrite? Mine? He¡¯d promised he would never, and there wasn¡¯t much point anyway if Kirby¡¯s soul was about to be annihilated. If that happened it¡¯d reset me back to good ol¡¯ factory-specs Ossick Meldrath. Thicc Kirby: Dude, you need to let me in on the fucking plan. Are you thinking of trying to flip the narrative on Hawijimi? You said he¡¯d be immune to my charms despite rocking a 105 Presence attribute ¡ª what the fuck makes you think your non-legendary spell is going to work on him? Speaking of Hawijimi, his turban had become an enormous python made of sparkling jade glass. It was slithering through the air, looking hungrily at what was about to become my former vessel; poor, half-melted Kirby Dufresne. R-word was struggling to unleash his powers at all. He was inhabiting the soul of a mortal; dragged there against his will. I knew what it was like. You had to relearn how to walk again, let alone unravel reality. Handsome Alex still wasn¡¯t responding to me, but it sure looked like he was about to win his ages-long fight against the Old God without even needing to lift a bony finger. Suddenly I got a notification that stage six of the narrative had completed. That was it; someone was about to get their whole world rewritten. It all had something to do with Mina¡¯s black foam barf, I realized. I rode along as Handsome Alex levitated forward, now in his incorporeal form. He was headed straight into the middle of the two ultra-powerful beings, putting himself in between their brewing ultra-violence. Over on stage-right, the black barf rippled with tiny explosions as it formed into twin tendrils, each of which began to rise from the stage in slow-motion, looking like the thick smoke-trains left by rockets launching into space. Except black. ¡°Do please forgive my intrusion, Lord Hawijimi.¡± As Alex entered the space between the Emperor and R-word, he rotated in place to face the Old God. The twin tendrils made from Mina¡¯s barf suddenly insinuated themselves into my old vessel, melding with the metaphysical rainbow-colored helixes spiraling off as the presence of R-word was on the verge of completely erasing the vessel known as Kirby Dufresne from existence. I could only see through Alex¡¯s eyes, and Hawijimi was behind us, but I heard him laugh then, clearly impressed. And Handsome Alex started to tell the rapidly-degrading vessel a story. It wasn¡¯t for me, I realized, though I featured heavily in it. The story was for Rivulon. I could finally safely say his name, because now he thought I was his uncle, Kirby M. Dufresne. The M stood for Motherfuckin¡¯ awesome. Or at least that¡¯s how I was feeling all of a sudden. Because what Handsome Alex was doing here was fucking genius. It was the type of nasty, corruptive maneuver that made him the absolute worst; a top-five necromancer in the entire galaxy. The black foam barf was all that was left of the Compelling Narrative he¡¯d fed Mina. When I had said Rivulon¡¯s name it unraveled it from her mind. It was actually just dumb luck that she had barfed it out ¨C oftentimes a broken narrative came out the other end. But having the barf of that narrative on-hand allowed Handsome Alex to repurpose it in a hurry for use on Rivulon. Instead of needing to build a new story from scratch, he could simply perform some minor edits to make it fit the Old God instead of the young guitarist. And it would work because Rivulon was distracted by Hawijimi and especially because he was still dealing with how to operate my vessel. There was no telling how many millions or even billions of years it had been since he¡¯d last driven a skin-suit. And he was being forced to work everything through a flesh-brain that was bruised and swollen. Dude was fucked; he was going to be our slave and I loved it. And so did Hawijimi. ¡°A bold, bold display, Handsome Alex. Do you not fear the Unraveler¡¯s eventual reprisal?¡± >Handsome Alex has completed a [Compelling Narrative] >Rivulon the Unraveler accepts the story(97.82%) ¡°It is he who shall learn to fear mine,¡± my best friend replied. I was still seeing through his eyes, and when they flared triumphantly it was seriously rad from this vantage. ¡°You¡¯ve made quite an impression today, and it¡¯s still only the first stop of the tour.¡± The Emperor finally took a moment to survey the glamorous carnage around him. ¡°But this won¡¯t do, will it?¡± Once again he held up two fingers, but this time he swirled them nonchalantly in the air above his head. And then he just vanished with the sound of a great ancient sphincter blinking. Rivulon had fallen unconscious in the half-melted Kirby vessel as he fully integrated Alex¡¯s narrative, but everything else remained frozen in the middle of enthusiastic self-mutilation. Thicc Kirby: Well that was weird. I thought for sure he was about to rewind time or something so that all these rich freaks would come back to life. Who¡¯s going to watch the skew-offs now? Who¡¯s going to cheer our name and throw panties at us? Handsome Alex: The Emperor¡¯s sudden exit does come as a surprise. Perhaps he intends to keep his distance while repairing the damage done by Rivulon¡¯s intrusion. He likely does not wish to reveal himself to the revelers at this time, and working at a remove would prevent such an event from occurring. Thicc Kirby: Yeah, I guess that could be it. Anyway, I need to get something off my chest before we go any further. Handsome Alex: I know. Thicc Kirby: I get it that you were concentrating real hard and shit but man you gotta let me in on your plans when stuff like this is going down. Handsome Alex: It was you who asked not to have the surprise ruined. Thicc Kirby: Semantic bullshit, motherfucker. I felt us both grinning. Thicc Kirby: You are so evil. Seriously man I am extremely fucking impressed. You just made an Old God your bitch. Handsome Alex: It is more accurate to say I made him your nephew. Thicc Kirby: Damn, you¡¯ve got jokes, too! So is he going to be keeping the Kirby vessel going forward? What am I supposed to do? And what about Mina and Lady Gates? Are they salvageable after this? Handsome Alex: That will all largely be determined by how Hawijimi chooses to respond to the damage Rivulon has done here. But we likely have a great deal of work ahead of us to be ready in time for the next stop. Thicc Kirby: So what now? We just wait to see what he comes up with? Just then we got a notification on Alex¡¯s interface and it became clear what Hawijimi had decided: >All nearby corpses have been cured of [Death]. >[Detect Undead] has registered 682 new entities within range.