Chương 69: Trials

Three days since the start of the trials Nothing in the entire Academy, not even the dollhouse, could have prepared me for the dangers Pom-Pom and Parsnip faced voluntarily day after day.

"Aaah, it hurts, aaa-hah-haa-owww!"

"Cease your grubbish whining," Pom-Pom said.

"Yeah, grubbish!" Parsnip snicker-clacked. Pom-Pom made an incision in my back, while her daughter Parsnip plucked the hooked quill with barely hidden glee. I hid my tears in my many arms. Her rough treatment was revenge for me tattling on her trying to sneak out on her own again. The dang bug-brat.

"You could've told me the second trial was against a flying, heat-seeking urchin," I muttered sullenly. Pom-Pom snipped another quill in half with her mandibles.

"You seem remarkably composed for one so poisoned. Perhaps instead of complaining you should count yourself lucky."

"Why does everything in this place have poison?" I cried, yelping as she removed another one.

"It is an efficient tool of survival," Pom-Pom said calmly.

"Urchin-sparrows are so deadly and widespread, they are a chief component in hindering outside encroachment into the forest. Mimics and even the large shearclaw you faced avoid their nesting areas, while the fuzzy flying acid worms have made a habit of predating metal-rich organisms such as robots and golems. The quills are an adaptation to prevent predation, and it works; the quills made you retreat prematurely, no?"

"It's making me itch!"

"Clearly you haven't learned the lesson well enough then," Parsnip said in that high-pitched tone I'd come to recognize as an overwrought snobbish accent.

"Mother-mother, may I apply the antiseptic?"

"You may." Two insectoid hands grabbed me by the neck, holding me down firmly.

"This may sting a little." There was a wet smack on my back. Then pain. [Congratulations! You have reached Level 39] [Body +5, Sense +3, Mind +3, Soul +4, Free Stat Points +1] +++ Twenty-two days since begin of the trials In between intensive hunting sessions, the third and fourth trial fell within a single day. [Congratulations! You have reached Level 42] [Congratulations! You have reached Level 43] [Congratulations! You have reached Level 44] [Body +15, Sense +9, Mind +9, Soul +12, Free Stat Points +3] It wasn't their fault, really. Huntresses and hunters had a greatly differing challenge profile compared to the average Custodian. They hunted beasties big and small, culling numbers, keeping a sort of balance that was beneficial to them in their surrounding habitat. We protected civilians, and on occasion exploded violently if it was beneficial to do so. Except, that wasn't what Custodians were really made for, right?

Extra lives, teleportation logistics, magical gear, it all seemed ideally adapted to fighting in The Cauldron. Within system coverage of course. I could easily imagine that Custodians had been designed first to beat back armies of seemingly neverending foes underground, growing stronger with every kill, and that their deployment on earth was only an unexpected side effect of the fact that the amount of leakages through The Cauldron back home had been dramatically underestimated. We're killing machines.

So it only makes sense that we're good at killing. That was how I could rush through the early trials with ease. That, and a bit of luck. Perception is the key. Being friendly is nice. Being perceived as more helpful than hurtful secures our future place in society. I should ask Pom-Pom for remedial dance lessons. And then there was my personal progression to think about as well. I gained a spell mod point at level 40.

The choice was as always between increasing the stat scaling of an essence by one, gaining another spell from its spell list, or upgrading an existing spell. While I was always keen on getting more spells, passives, and stats, today I wanted to upgrade a spell I already had. I was spoiled for choice. Realistically, upgrading [Vampirism I] would make me more resistant to injury and pain.

[Arms & Arms Proficiency] might increase in power, though I wasn't sure what the use was without high quality arms to be proficient in. Maybe it would expand to include legs as well? [More Arms]? Yeah, no, I didn't need even more arms. [More Spider Eyes] could lead to better perception, or cheaper cost for more eye coverage. Six at the front, two at the back was my current comfortable maximum, with two of those being the lower cost secondary eyes.

[One Moment] could last longer, [Echo] could do more echo things, and just… there was so much choice. I needed a goal to work towards instead of just taking something that felt good in the moment. Reaching the top of The Cauldron and getting back home sounds like a good one. Foiling The Pactmaker's plans. Doing something only a magical girl can do. I hemmed and hawed. There was only one real choice. Even the real Fowl couldn't beat me in a one-on-one. He needed his many clones to deal with one spider Sam.

But what if I had more spider Sams?

"System, upgrade [Illusory Double] for me." [Upgrading [Illusory Double] to [Illusory Double +]] [Illusory Double +] Creates an illusory double that looks exactly like you at the point of casting. The double is non-corporeal, obvious at touch, and will mimic your actions unless ordered otherwise. Gain an extra maximum charge every [30] Soul. Ability to control multiple illusions scales off of Mind. Does not require a chant.

+ Illusions gain physical properties such as weight and tangibility, making them hard to see through. Further increases in future upgrades. Ooh, going in the right direction. I summoned a body double and gave her a high five. My hand sunk halfway into hers. But there was an audible clap and haptic feedback. You could bump shoulders with one of my illusions and not notice that they weren't real now. One or two more upgrades and I'll have an army of me's. Muhahaha! But back to the trials.

Trial number three involved circumventing or beating a giant slug that emitted a mist which turned hard tissues soft. It made my skin slough and my eyeballs deform, causing blindness the first time I'd stumbled inside. But I could fix myself with [Elasticity], and after roaming the forests with Parsnip for a bit, we happened upon its natural counter: Salt, from an old salt quarry.

"That's a weird looking machine," I said, gesturing at a rusted metal snail-thing built smack-dab into the saline stone.

"It is a breathing-apparatus, from the before-times," Parsnip had answered.

"I heard about it in the oral histories. We used to have many devices like these, and cities built like giant hives. Did you know that we originally came from a water planet? We used to breathe and eat in one motion."

"I did in fact not. What happened then?"

"Things changed. And so we changed too." As for trial number four, it was… broken. It consisted of a sandy room with a deep cone-shaped hole taking up most of it. And at the bottom was a robotic torso, sans all limbs, that was just sort of sitting there. It beeped at me, screeching in a frequency that made the sand jump and rush down towards it. A sonic weapon. And yet, I couldn't hear a thing. It was using the wrong frequency. It would probably be lethal to a bug. Or Addy.

I jumped down, then stabbed it with a chitin-tipped spear until it stopped making that noise and before it could bury me in sand. Almost feels like I'm cheating. And yet, there was a thrill to it. The thrill of the unknown, of possible rewards. That's one point against being a living weapon. Why make living weapons feel anything at all? Do we really exist purely for violence's sake? My heart was racing, and my joints felt like they'd gone through a tumble drier for three days by the time I reached the other side.

I didn't bother much with whatever remains of bugs stood at the walls. They were all a mishmash of uncommon cadavers, none of which I could easily fit into my build, in part because they weren't in the system database, in part because the names didn't actually tell me what the heck they did. [Zanzibar, the Zap-bug - Uncommon essence - Tier 2] [Krikitik, Beetle-Boom - Uncommon essence - Tier 1] [Screek, Noisy Bastard - Uncommon essence - Tier 3] No way I'm gambling my future on that.

Electrified hugs sounds fun though. I did find a pair of nice slings, bagging them together with a couple football-shaped bullets. There was something carnally rewarding about rummaging through loot after a day of hard-won victories. Like shopping, minus needing to weigh costs, plus a sprinkle of that life-or-death adrenaline slowly ebbing away. It felt good to have a ranged weapon again.

I was going through a frankly ludicrous number of spears just from hunting, let alone taking the trials, and I had to replace them myself. Every. Single. One. When I wasn't eating, sleeping, or dealing with Parsnip's pranks, I was crafting spears, knives, and hammers. The system had some neat tutorials for making improvised tools, but the one thing it couldn't replace was manual labor. Feeling the thrum of victory echo in my heartbeat, I looked up at the door to the fifth trial.

It was made of stone and carved with depictions of a people that walked on two legs and fought with weapons in four arms. The weapons looked awfully much like firearms, though maybe the spray of fire was just an artistic liberty. The architecture is getting more advanced. First was dirt, then came bone and chitin, then wood and padded cloth, and now stone. Like walking down the path of the bugs' history, step by step. I wonder which planet they came from.

I don't recognize their physical appearance from Cultures of the Worlds. Maybe there were other worlds connected to The Cauldron before all this? After all, if magic is flowing from the sister planets through The Cauldron to Earth, what happens once Earth is saturated? Where does the magic flow? Come to think of it, where does magic even come from? Without the pressure of deadlines and exams, pondering and philosophizing was becoming a daily habit. Still, I would prefer to hurry.

Once I finished the sixth trial, it would be proof that I was at least equal to Pom-Pom and thereby had the skills to survive out in the forest on my own. With its reward, I had a chance to make it all the way back up to all my friends. Hopefully. Maybe the essences in the sixth trial would even be a tiered-up rare. Maybe even a step beyond: Exceptional quality. I could feel myself salivating at the thought. Hope it's an actually usable essence though. For now, time for trial numero five.

I spread the door, and entered what seemed like an office building. The difference to the room before was… staggering. And there were two more rooms to go after this. How old was this place?

"Very old indeed, miss Rubens." I whirled around at the voice and found… a panda. Just a regular panda bear, sitting at a desk. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and nothing else. He glanced in my direction past his rimless glasses.

"I'll be with you shortly. Let me finish up this report." I blinked at him, then at the type writer he was pawing away at.

"I'm hallucinating. This is all one big illusion."

"Then why can't you see through it?"

"Because you're a solid illusion, or…" I frowned at him and crossed my arms.

"You're in my head." He tapped his face.

"I have a good nose, miss Rubens. There is no need to feel alarmed. I am simply a normal panda bear."

"Who can talk."

"All pandas can talk."

"That's a tall claim." He chuckled. Then he plopped down from his office chair and rolled around the desk like an egg. The panda bear landed on all fours, looking to all the world like a normal, cuddly panda, if you disregarded his shirt and the gleam of intellect in his eyes.

"Would you prefer if I growled and roared? I am a bear after all."

"I actually like you the way you are now: Round and cuddly." His voice darkened." Do not use the c-word."

"Sorry! Very sorry. Mucho sorrissimo." I bowed, which was an odd thing to do, but felt right in the moment. I played our conversation back again.

"So, you can smell thoughts?"

"If that is what you wish to believe, then yes." He leaned back, and sat on his fuzzy butt, holding the tip of his feet.

"Before we begin, any questions?"

"These trials, they don't just test skill and ability," I said.

"They're full of teaching moments." A fuzzy eyebrow rose. I chose to elaborate.

"The urchin-sparrow is quick and its poisonous spikes lethal in the long term, but it won't expect you to just take the attacks and push through. Sometimes effort requires pain in the short-term. The slug is lethal and unavoidable, but turns trivial with the right counter. Ergo, preparation is key. The robot in the pit…"

"... is tuned to the frequency of chitin, breaking even thick armor like glass. Speed is the key, though for someone with soft skin like you and I, we needn't even hurry. Sometimes, less is more, and more is less." The panda see-sawed back and forth, grinning. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Somewhere out there exists a thing that completely counters you, and that's just life," I countered, crossing my arms. That was what the Pactmaker did. He countered my moves individually, yes, but he also countered my entire build philosophy: Take away friends, whittle away the gear, make illusions and trickery useless, and all I turn into is a moderately fast target. Give me people to look after, and the speed advantage disappears too. Then again, even after all that I took him out, and some of his clones.

Maybe Custodians are the natural counters to wizards, not the other way around. No amount of prep could counter someone with an entire catalog of alien spells and magical weapons at the tips of their inhumanly empowered fingers. I sat down, curled up into a ball and, imitating the panda, rocked back and forth.

"You're the fifth trial. What do I get to learn from you?"

"Depends on the person." He rolled all the way onto his back.

"Some need to learn how to guide their allies. Others need to learn about the importance of sacrifices. And the rarest among them need to learn when to make the wrong choice at the right moment."

"What choice?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" He emitted a low, grumbling chuckle.

"I am stuck, you see, by ancient fae law. Unless I can beat a competitor, I will not be free." Fae? Down here? I really hope Pom-Pom didn't just abduct a random fae panda… the existence of which throws up its own many questions. Are all pandas fae? Did the fae take pandas from earth and uplift them? Is this just an elf shapeshifted into a panda? My head was swimming from a long day of hunting and chores, so anyone would have forgiven me for being blunt.

"What do I need to do to get past you?"

"You simply have to beat me at my favorite game." He pulled out a board, followed by handfuls of intricately carved figurines.

"Chess."

"Are you kidding me?" I groaned.

"Why do you — I've never played chess in my life!"

"Wager your life and succeed, and I will let you through. Otherwise…" He looked me in the eye with an undisguised hunger." I will eat you. Toes first." There was a wisp of fae power, ready to settle between us. It was as good as a loaded gun pressed to my forehead, and just as sudden. I swallowed and tried my best not to show my fear.

"I thought pandas only ate bamboo."

"If I wanted to stay dumb and infantile, maybe. It's like catnip to us. But I can and will eat meat. I am a bear after all." +++ Fifty-eight days since begin of the trials It was quiet. A quiet day. A quiet city. Parsnip was on the roof, having absconded with various snacks and honey. She slurped the sticky substance off her fingers before dipping them back into the communal bowl. I took a fried mealworm as long as my forearm and dunked it in, then bit off its head with a crunch.

"Huh. You were right. This combination isn't that bad."

"See? I am a gourmet, the beautiful cook, the effervescent convalescence of taste, terror, and toasted worms." She got up, did a cartwheel and a backflip before landing on one foot and staring down at me imperiously.

"Bow before my skill."

"I'd rather finish eating." People always said the future of protein lay in bugs. I for one was becoming more convinced with every chewy bite. Grasshopper powder for drinks, mealworm for flour, roasted crickets as garnish in place of shrimp. Arthropods existed below and above the sea. The discrimination against our landborn cousins was deplorable. Vote Sam for more bug food! I'm even starting to think like a spider. Hmmm. I chewed thoughtfully, only to feel Parsnip poke me in the thigh.

"Hey, hey. Tell me how you beat the fifth trial."

"No." People who hadn't taken the trial were forbidden from learning its contents, as that would nullify part of the challenge. And Parsnip had only beaten the first three. But that was only one half of the truth. Nobody could discover that I had won by eating the panda's king. Nobody would believe me. They'd all laugh, but apparently that was one valid answer to the question of 'how do I get past a carnivorous panda'? If only I discovered it on the first day, and not after two weeks of practice games.

I did learn a lot about chess though. I didn't realize baiting me into a blunder was that easy. How many real-life blunders have I slipped out of purely because I have the mobility of a queen and the long range firepower of a bishop? If life was chess, Addy would be a rook. Orianna would be a bishop. Becca would be a knight because she moves in tricky ways. And The Pactmaker… he's all the pieces combined. I really hope his king died when it was swallowed by that giant sky fish.

I sighed and continued nibbling on the mealworm. Trial five was done. Trial six was… also done. It was a roomful of mimics. Every type, every kind, every size, every level of danger, and yet they were not enough to stop me. If there was anything I knew how to deal with, it was mimics. Nothing is as it seems, eh? But I was afraid of the seventh Trial. It could only be attempted once. Those that failed it had their exoskeletons displayed in a special area at the end of the sixth trial.

None of them had any wounds I could see, but their faces were sprawled in ghastly expressions that broached the inter-species empathy barrier. No matter how much I prepared, I couldn't see myself beating it with just spears, daggers, and a sling. So, I never attempted it, and if all went well, I wouldn't have to. For today, I needed to recharge, regenerate, and review my progress so far. In between dance lessons I was risking my life on the daily here.

Even when the hunts or trials didn't end in my victory, the system acknowledged the experience with levels aplenty.

Samantha Rubens [Trigger Happy Arachnid, Lvl 49] Body: 266 Sense: 147 Mind: 167 Soul: 200 Free Stat Points: 4 Spell mod point: 0 Silver Soulcoins: 2891 (Shop unavailable) Extra lives: 5 (Reviving unavailable) Average emotion-crystal-core efficiency: 211% (Expand List) Essences (6/7): [Huntsman Essence - Uncommon], [Coral Leaper Essence - Uncommon], [Lesser Ur-mimic Essence - Rare], [Tentacle-faced Spider Moose Essence - Rare], [Vampirism I - Blood of Nezahualcóyotl - Rare], [Trigger Bug Essence - Rare] Passives: [More arms], [Vampirism I], [Proprioception sensors] Spells: [Arms & Arms proficiency], [More Spider-Eyes], [Illusory Double +], [Elasticity], [One Moment], [Sticky], [Echo] Augments: Minimap, GPS, Calendar, Timer, Calculator, Death sensor (Addy), Language translator packs (Various) Ten levels.

In two months, I've made ten levels. The increasing experience requirements are no joke. At this rate, we won't be talking about levels per month, but levels per year instead. I should put my last free stat points into Mind. The one thing the panda taught me was that one could never have enough Mind. Too bad then that it was my second lowest stat. I'm closing in on another pair of arms too. Yikes. Not that it's a bad thing but… eight arms? That means I'll need more Mind, and another period of acclimation.

On top of that, I'm supposed to be a spider, I already have eight limbs. Eight arms and two legs just feels… wrong. I looked up at the ceiling, dark and quiet. I should try to get out before that happens.

"You're going to try to leave soon, aren't you?" Parsnip's words cut through my thoughts. Egads, she was reading my mind! Well, she wasn't really reading my mind, my mimicry and gesture were simply growing familiar to her, and the reverse was true too. The little hellion had seen the speed at which I was breezing past tests she had prepared her entire life for, and taken it poorly.

After beating the second and then the third trial, Pom-Pom had forbidden her to take any further trials until she showed more progress in her studies. Truth is, she was already one of the youngest who had gotten that far, and as a third trial victor, she was technically allowed on most non-major hunts. But I could see it in the way Pom-Pom's jaw worked in silence when it was time for dinner; she was worried about her one and only living relative.

Bugs apparently created children by the tens to hundreds, though many parents perished from the strain. Of those children, over ninety percent died of sickness, predation, or exposure before reaching adulthood. The reasons were part biological, part environmental. Their knowledge of medicine was simply not as advanced as ours. Some of the wooden carvings throughout the huntress lodge showed Pom-Pom with a family of eleven.

All were mantis-people except for one standout-individual; she was tall, taller than Pom-Pom by two heads. She was a beetle of sorts, too wide not to be awkward, too strong to be just a random bug. She wielded a staff and a wand, both depicted as glowing with power. It was Pom-Pom's late master, the huntress before her, one in a long line of bugs that inherited the power to borrow the skills of the dead. Even someone like Pom-Pom has an idol. What Custodians did I look up to? Addy… was focused, dedicated even.

I suppose any Custodian had to be dedicated. Orianna was… studious? Sure, if you're dropped into this business without a clue, you'd need to study at least the basics. Instructor BlazeBlue was intimidating, commanding with presence. LT was overly friendly for someone in his position. He seemed the type to live for greasing the wheels of some bigger machine. But if I tried to imagine myself in their shoes, all I could imagine was failing disastrously. Is that what I'm lacking to overcome the seventh trial?

Confidence? How does one gain confidence in the face of reality?

"Hey. Hello-o. Antennae to Sam, are you still alive?" Parsnip was inches away from my toe, her pincers ready to pinch me out of my daydreaming. I blinked, trying to shake the fog of too many thoughts away.

"I'll try for sure." I got up.

"Pom-Pom's out on patrol, and the soldier ants are doing a drill above ground. While there's a commotion elsewhere, most of the apex predators of the forest shouldn't bother with little ol' me. Perfect time for a daring escape, don't you think?" Suddenly, four chitinous arms wrapped around my legs.

"Don't," Parsnip said in a shrill voice.

"Please. Don't go."

"I have to. I have friends and family up there."

"Are we not friends?" Parsnip said.

"I… dangit Parsnip, you know that's not what I mean." I scratched her head, massaging around the base of her two antennae. The little bug and her mother-mother had a place in my heart I would never give up. Of course goodbyes hurt, even for bugs. I ate their food and followed their traditions, I was accepted and nourished, and soon respected as an equal. I learned how to weave silk into knots and taught Parsnip how to cook. Beyond it all, I was a friend, and they were mine.

How could I choose not to help them in their own time of need? But I had friends above as well, Addy, whom I love and miss so dearly. If I stayed here any longer, I would maybe never try again. So when I looked Parsnip in the eye with a sad smile, she knew I was serious.

"I shall get you the best rope then," she said. Because even if it was to her detriment, a huntress couldn't ignore a friend in need. +++ The wall was sheer, the wind a hurricane. Standing on two feet was difficult. Climbing even moreso. Despite my five healthy arms and despite the godsend that was [Sticky], it felt as if the world was trying to peel me off like a tick and fling me deeper yet, to a place where even friendship was too abstract a concept to contemplate.

"Come. On." Custodian strength warred with the elements. Most critters that would have barred my ascent were hiding away in holes and nooks etched into the stone. But most was not all. The dim, ever-present shine of unfamiliar suns breaching the sky of clouds and past the shadows of distant giants dimmed further. I froze, then when that proved insufficient, threw body doubles in every direction. It happened automatically the moment some part of me understood that I was being targeted.

I'd added the [Trigger] spell from my trigger bug essence to my repertoire at level 45, automating emergency responses and freeing up mental capacity and time to think under duress. [One moment] triggered as the impression of a giant bird grew sharp in the clouds. It's big. Too big. It's the size of a small goddamn skyscraper. How am I supposed to beat that without a single usable firearm? And why is it attacking me? I barely count as a morsel. The steel bird didn't care in particular.

It just slammed into the side of the wall with its unbreakable talons, squishing half the doubles I had spread in an instant and tossing me up in the air. From there, I had a brief view of the small hooks on its wings which it used to climb the wall like a bat, or an archaeopteryx. Then, color surged, and its long beak jerked forward to skewer me. I shot a rope of spider silk at the wall, tugging me to the side. But the wind caught me and sent my smooth parabolic arc into a chaotic twist. Up turned sideways.

The only upside was that the bird was also affected, forced to steady itself in a torrent of wind whipping past at hundreds of miles per hour. Abruptly, I swung out of a cloud, allowing me to see the big forest I'd crashed into the first time. The silk rope snapped taut. Slowly, but quickly picking up speed, I raced back towards the giant jungle the exact same way as I'd done the first time. This is stupid. It's so, so stupid. Canopy, branches, trees. What followed was painful and obvious.

A trickle of rain tickled my face. I stared up at the stone-filled sky, lying in the muck. No broken bones this time, just bruises and the odd scratch. I could feel my body working at the edges, thinning the wounds, winnowing away any sign that I'd ever suffered. It was one of many daily hints that reminded me that I was not a human. I'm still just a bug. An insignificant insect with no control over my life. I slammed a fist into the ground.

I didn't know when I started crying, only that when I tried to clean my face, all that managed to do was to spread mud all over it. I was a bug. I ought to behave as such. What was mud but a normal state of a creature of the forest? What was an aphid but a sack of food? The unawakened animal-ants were a nuisance that quickly swarmed any threat, best avoided. The cold laser crabs didn't belong, machines of metal and stone that would find their niche or be subsumed by the jungle.

Not even the sun rose or fell down here. Perhaps time also didn't matter to a bug. After all, what measurements mattered besides the time since the last meal, the time until the next molt? My molt was overdue. Then again, I didn't quite feel stuffed full with nutritious thoughts. The way back to Bugsrest was drab, dreary, and long. The pillbug brothers greeted me with their usual enthusiasm. They didn't ask me where I'd been, or why I'd returned as they scrubbed me down with spider-silk rags.

No comment on my hanging head, nor on the quiet sobs that shook me on the occasion that I remembered a funny joke Becca had said, or the excited expression on Addy's face as she explained the difference between the Daleks and the Borg. How many levels do I have to wait until I can get back up? How many months, how many years? The longer I sat on the stairs in front of the huntress hut, the more I was becoming convinced that that was the wrong answer. It didn't matter much, the levels.

I'd chosen my build, I'd made myself dependent on technology and firearms. My reward for standing out was a special assignment, and a special adversary, and now I was here, stuck in bug purgatory. It's not all bad. The bugs are nice. Even though they appreciate a good severed-head dance a bit too much. How would the people of Creektin have reacted if I'd danced through the street with the ur-mimic's head? At some point, the shrill voice of Parsnip shook me from a comfortable state of self-pity.

"Sam! Sam! You're here, why are you here, wake up!"

"Wuh?" I'd fallen asleep. Blearily, I wiped drool and snot from my face and looked up. Parsnip grabbed me by my bruised arms.

"Come, come, there's an emergency."

"More laser crabs?" I asked.

"Can't you get your mother-mother to deal with it?"

"She can't. Absolutely, she can't." We reached the tail-end of a procession. The red, upright army ants of Bugsrest were returning from an excursion. They were usually organized in rank and file, carrying polished needle-spears and slings, and normally there were hundreds of them. Now there were twenty. The few that did return were battered, scarred, missing gear, antennae, limbs.

They carried their honored dead and wounded wrapped in giant leaves; leaving dead bugs outside the entrances attracted large predators, and despite their callousness and short-lived nature, even bugs possessed customs for the dead. The dead would be submerged in a great acid lake, wherein their soft tissues were melted and sublimated, and their souls set free, or so was the common belief.

Then the carapaces were gathered onto boats, washed, scrubbed, and used for a variety of tools, utensils, and decoration throughout bugrest. The only thing more common in this place than spider silk was chitin. Everybody produced chitin, in the end. On a stretcher in a third group, there we found her. Pom-Pom was sitting upright, trying and failing to step out of her stretcher. An ant with many small needles and string stuck to its padded shoulderpad pushed her down again. The ant chittered something.

The message couldn't have been any more clear.

"Stay down," the ant said.

"I have to get up," Pom-Pom countered.

"I have to. I must dance." Then her eyes met ours. We rushed to her side. Parsnip's mandibles froze. Pom-Pom was missing every limb on her right side, three arms and a leg in total. The gooey mass of fresh silk and antibacterial loam the people here used to stopper wounds was thick and soaked around the stumps.

"W-what happened?" Parsnip asked.

"We encountered an army, and a whirly-fiend. It was a walking calamity, with knives hidden in every steel nook, with lasers and acid breath and a carapace impenetrable by anything and everything." Pom-Pom stared ahead before suddenly grabbing the ant medic by an arm.

"Please let me dance. The people, they need faith. They need comfort." The ant medic didn't let her. Parsnip and I took Pom-Pom off his hands, much to his dismay. We hurried back to the huntress lodge, where the pillbugs quickly dressed and redressed wounds. Pom-Pom was not allowed to dance. It would have killed her. She seemed entirely alright with that.

"I am taking over your duties, mother-mother," Parsnip said, returning from the trial caves later that day. She was armed and armored with the dual maces of some short bug I'd seen in the fourth trial.

"I am ready."

"They do not respect you," she muttered.

"You are still a fledgling in their eyes. The people will not observe your dance. Without interest, the ant matriarchs will clamor for the removal of the huntress profession again. They will seize our relics and bury our tradition."

"Then I will prove that I'm more than—""You will not throw your life away for some inane tradition! Not while I still breathe." Pom-Pom turned to the side, tongue lolling from her mouth as some part of her mandible apparatus was either broken or dislocated. Parsnip, despite the fact that she should have been hailed a victor, stood there looking lost. She turned to me.

"What do we do?" I opened and closed my mouth. The impression of the steel bird came back fresh as new. The seventh trial too. Would Mom have reacted the same way as Pom-Pom if she knew what I was up to? Well, yes, absolutely yes. Unless I was so capable, so strong that even worrying seemed like a silly thought. That was the core of what a huntress needed to do. Dissuade worrying. Keep people hoping. Emotions were fuel in the literal sense for me, but outside of that they still held power.

The huntress lodge needed to accomplish something great, or the people would turn against Pom-Pom and Parsnip. And as a Custodian, how could I not try to help?

"I'll figure something out." The truth was, none of the essences in the sixth trial were good for me. They were rare, yes, but I had many rare essences. I needed something truly unique and exceptional. I found myself in front of the trial door again, door number seven. The door opened. Behind it there was a room that put the one behind me to shame in terms of technological advancement.

Where room number five was an office, and room six a plush-filled amusement park utopia, room seven was clinical and clean, not like a dentist but like a moon base. For a moment, I was expecting a scientist bug in white to come walking around the corner. But it was small, and empty. And on a table in the middle was an old, stone-carved bowl filled with a tarry black liquid. I gulped.

"The final trial is a trial of the mind," Pom-Pom had said.

"It is not necessary to become a good or even great huntress. But if you excel, a reward of treasure untold becomes yours. Or so I've heard." I stared at the liquid. Was it moving? No, I was imagining things. I leaned down. Just one sip was enough. I didn't even realize when I fell asleep. The walls turned hazy, I blinked six times in rapid succession, and then the room suddenly was different. It stretched further and further.

Test tubes stood left and right, foggy enough that I could only make out the bare shapes of vast creatures with hooks and claws. The light above buzzed, turning bright. At least that was an easy way for determining if I was dreaming. They definitely didn't have electricity down here. The long hallway of vats, desks, and laboratory tools ended suddenly. A wall of dirt blocked the way, burying a vat twice as tall as I was in crumbly earth. Another two to the right were toppled, but unbroken. And to the left…

A small vat, barely as large as my chest, lay on the ground in a puddle of amniotic slime. I picked it up, inspecting the long crack running down one side. It had a plaque, and unlike other plaques in this dreamland, I could read it. Xenotype: Deceptores rosei. Subtype: Vermis mentiphobus. Mimics. And the subtype means… I dropped the vat, tried to kick it away, but it was too late. There in front of the mountain of dirt stood a figure, labcoat patterned in stars and moons.

One hand split into three hooked tendrils, the other was pale and human, wrapped around a wooden staff, and the head was a long, undulating earthworm bowed under its own weight. It was the Pactmaker and the Ur-mimic and everything that inspired fear in me in one being. I'd learned to shoot my fears. It was cathartic, and took the edge off of the existential dread. Three shapely rocks whizzed at the monstrous wizard, who flicked them aside with a lazy bat of his hands.

"A sling?" It asked, derisively.

"Really? Degenerated into a rock-thrower, have you?" I grit my teeth. I was going to steal his staff and beat him half to death with it.

"So easily incensed." The staff clicked onto the ground and a deep, all-encompassing darkness spread from it to the ground, walls, and ceiling all around. Dark. Claustrophobic. Cloying. I ran, and ran, and ran. It was what I was good at. It was the right choice. Live to spend my life another day. Efficient, as Addy would put it. But his laughter chased me wherever I went, mocking, reaching a truly inhuman pitch.

"You are, as always, a pathetic excuse for a magical girl."