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"You think you could catch yourself one of those?" Claire whispered.

"Sure. All I\'d have to do is kill one first."

"Hey, it was a fair question. No need for sarcasm. We don\'t know for sure you have to kill monsters to bond them, do we?"

"I\'m pretty sure I do, but it\'s not fact yet," Alex admitted with a small shrug. "But I wasn\'t being sarcastic."

"Should have guessed," Claire grumbled. She adjusted her grip on the sword at her side as they continued down the street. They turned down an alley between two crumbling buildings. Rubble piled at the far end of the small side street and stretched out into what had once been a city block, now reduced to nothing but rubble. The walls of the buildings surrounding the area were pitted and carved to pieces.

A few recognizable pieces of masonry jutted up from the sea of crushed stone. The top half of a doorframe, askew and only just poking out from beneath a large pile of brick. A lone wall that leaned against the edge of a house, just a small push from collapsing to dust.

The hair on the back of Alex\'s neck prickled. He and Claire both slowed. The craggy clearing seemed empty, but neither of them were about to take a bet on it. They didn\'t exchange a word. For several seconds, they just stood and silently observed.

Seconds turned to minutes. Alex couldn\'t shake the feeling that something was off, but he couldn\'t see anything out of place either. He was just about to turn away from the rubble to find another path forward when a flicker of motion caught his eye.

A four-foot tall bird with a wingspan easily twice its height hopped into view, long black talons the size of bananas scrapping across the rubble beneath it. The bird had a pointed pencil-thin beak, almost to the point of absurdity, and two wide, bulbous eyes that would have fit better upon the face of a frog. They moved independently of each other to scan the surroundings as it continued to hop across the clearing, either uncaring or unaware of any potential danger around it.

Corpse Poker (Novice 2)

A crunch split the air. The Corpse Poker\'s large eyes darted to the side and it launched itself into the sky with a terrified squack. Alex and Claire both jerked their heads up just in time to catch a shadow pass above them and alight into the ground where the bird had been, just barely missing it.

Alex pressed his back to the wall, his breath freezing in his chest. A huge, catlike creature had landed in the center of the clearing. It was easily seven feet tall and four times as long if he counted the barbed tail swaying above it. Jagged bone growths jutted up from the backs of the cat\'s elbows and its mouth, so full of fangs that it couldn\'t close properly, dripped saliva as a hiss rose from within it.

Boneflesh Prowler (Initiate 8)

The Prowler leapt for the Corpse Poker, batting it with a huge paw. Feathers exploded out as the bird bounced across the ground in a mix of screeches and feathers. Somehow, it managed to get its gangly feet out from under it, though one of its wings was clearly broken.

Alex had no doubt in his mind that the Boneflesh Prowler could have killed its prey with a single blow. It had intentionally held back from using its full strength or the thick claws sprouting from its paws. The Prowler was playing with its food.

Claire grabbed Alex\'s arm. She didn\'t say a word, but her meaning was clear. This wasn\'t an enemy that they could handle. He fully agreed with her. They both inched back into the alley, but they only managed to make it a few steps before the ground beneath their feet trembled.

The clearing exploded. A powerful shockwave sent Alex stumbling back. He threw his hands up to protect his face as chunks of rubble flew everywhere, slamming into the buildings surrounding the clearing and screaming through the alley around him and Claire. Several of them pelted into his arm and chest.

Alex squinted past his fingers, and his eyes went wide. An enormous tentacle the size of a three-story building had erupted from the center of the clearing and wrapped around the Boneflesh Prowler.

Barbacle (Adept 5)

The Prowler yowled in pain as it desperately attempted to free itself, but the tentacle just tightened further around it. Cracks rang out in the air as bones snapped like paper. All the cat\'s attempts to fight back amounted to absolutely nothing as the tentacle slowly dragged it toward the earth, sinking back beneath the rubble.

For an instant, Alex locked eyes with the Corpse Poker, which still stood on the other side of the clearing. Its large eyes held about as much intelligence as a rock. The stupid thing didn\'t even have the good sense to make a run for it — but it didn\'t look like the Barbacle was paying it much attention in the first place.

It was just too weak.

Alex swallowed and took a careful step back into the alley. Claire matched his movements, and the two of them slipped back into the main road, keeping to the shadows to avoid drawing the attention of yet something else.

"I think I\'d prefer a different path," Claire whispered, releasing Alex\'s hand. "We need to move. That noise might have gotten something\'s attention."

He nodded mutely, then jerked his chin over toward another alley across the street. It wasn\'t like they could just traipse through the center of the city and avoid the alleys — the main streets were in plain view of the City-Eater Centipedes, not to mention all the other powerful monsters that were inevitably waiting for their prey.

We\'ve got to stick to the alleys, and so do all the other weaker monsters. Unfortunately, weak is releative. Something weak in the Mirrorlands is fucking terrifying to us.

Claire glanced up at the sky, then gave him a thumbs up. They both darted across the road and into their newly chosen alley. Alex grimaced as distant rotten scent offended his senses with all the subtlety of a brass horn. Sulfurous eggs and ripe, three-week old garbage mixed with the stench of something akin to a shaker bottle full of protein shake that had been left out in the sun overnight.

"Bleed me," Claire whispered as she gagged, pinching her nose shut. "What is that?"

Alex glanced over Claire\'s shoulder and grimaced. The answer had already made itself present. A large, lumpy gray form rose above the alley exit before them, bulbous and pustule ridden. Rivers of greenish-gray liquid poured from dozens of old wounds covering what could only have once been flesh. There was no real shape or form to the blobby mass before them. It bore more resemblance to a rotted bag stuffed full of compost than an actual living being.

They both paused, but a dead monster was a lot less likely to attack them than a live one. It was certainly safer than the alleyway behind them. A minute passed as they waited to see if anything would come to investigate the loud noise. But, if anything did, it didn\'t venture in their direction.

A wet squelch broke the newly minted silence of the city as a Corpse Poker hooped up onto the dead monster just beyond the alleyway. It still had both wings functioning, so it wasn\'t the same one from the previous alley. The monster\'s black talons tore through the wet flesh sack with ease and its wide eyes moved independently of each other to scan the surroundings as it drove its beak deep into the dead monster and started to drink.

Corpse Poker (Novice 2)

"Another one? That is bleeding vile," Claire whispered, voice nasally from still having her nose pinched shut. They both ducked to avoid the Corpse Poker\'s sight. For having enormous eyes, the monster didn\'t seem particularly observant.

Compensating, much?

"The bird?" Alex asked. "Or the dead thing?"

"Yes."

"Well, I say we kill it. At least we know where the other one came from," Alex said. "And given that one of the things is already dead, there\'s only one left to kill. You want it?"

"Bleed that. All yours. Are you really going to get close to that… squeezed rat? You\'ll smell like death warmed over for the rest of the week. I\'m going to need to melt my nose shut."

Alex ignored her and edged closer to the edge of the alleyway. The birds eyeballs were still bouncing about like pinballs, but it had yet to pick up on his presence. He poked his head out and slowly peered down the main street to get a better look at their surroundings and the rest of the corpse.

Bile welled in his stomach and burned at the back of his throat. It didn\'t look like they were going to figure out what the dead monster was anytime soon. The entire upper half of its body had been picked completely clean and left behind only pockmarked white bone, bleached and dry.

Maggots covered the ground around the bone. They weren\'t strong enough to get identified by the System, but some of them were almost as large as his fingers and easily three times as thick. They made a squirming bed on the ground on the far end of the street.

There were, however, no more Corpse Pokers. He couldn\'t see any other monsters with enough strength to be concerned about. That didn\'t mean things would stay that way. Alex drew back into the alley and crouched, moving slowly to avoid drawing any extra attention. His fingers found a rough piece of fallen rubble the size of his palm. He pulled it into his grip and rose, turning it over in his hand to try and find the best position to hold it.

Claire realized what he was doing and took a step back to distance herself from Alex and leave him enough room to maneuver in the small alleyway. It was just wide enough for two people to stand shoulder by shoulder, but not if they wanted to avoid getting hit.

Alex drew his hand back and waited to make sure the Corpse Poker wasn\'t going to move. He didn\'t want to waste the element of surprise. Fortunately for him, the bird was completely occupied with sticking its long beak where it really didn\'t belong.

He whipped the rock forward with all the strength he could muster — which, as it turned out, was actually a considerable amount. The stone streaked through the air and struck the bird right in the chest.

It let out a startled, airy squawk as its ribcage collapsed and a puff of wet feathers erupted around it. The bird tumbled off the back of the dead monster and landed on the ground in a splat. An instant later, a tiny trickle of energy, so faint that he could barely feel it, slipped into Alex\'s chest.

"Wow," Claire said. "That was… kind of sad, actually."

Alex was halfway through nodding in agreement when the corpse exploded.

Chunks of rancid grey flesh squelched as they struck the wall and rained down everywhere. Unfortunately for Alex and Claire, that also included the alleyway. They both raised their hands to block their faces and let out a surprisingly synchronized slew of curses.

An elongated, blue-veined hand with black, curled fingernails burst from the top of the corpse. The arm behind it had five different segmented portions and was covered in alabaster skin pressed taut against sinewy muscle and hard lines of bone within it.

A second hand followed after the first. Alex gagged as the stench filling the alley grew a thousand times worse. The air filled with a monotonous clicking as a gangly monster extracted itself from within the giant, bloated body lying in the middle of the street.

Its head was that of a human, with teeth yellowed and sharpened to points and gaunt eyes sunken in apparent death. The wispy black hair matted to it did little to conceal the top of its skull.

The monster didn\'t seem to have any feet. It walked on six gangly arms as it skittered down the side of the huge corpse like an insect. Every movement the monster made was erratic and jittery. Its torso wasn\'t all that much larger than Alex, but the length of its limbs made it stand easily twice his height. The clicking noise filling the streets came from the monster\'s mouth opening and snapping shut.

Corpse Burrower (Novice 7)

"I think I preferred the bird," Claire said, her nose still pinched shut. "And for the record, can I say I bleeding hate this place?"

The Corpse Burrower hissed, segments of its mouth peeling back like a blooming flower to reveal rows upon rows of teeth running down what should have been the inside of its head. Its many hand-legs pattered against the ground in a cacophony of scrapes as it raced toward them.

"I don\'t think it likes you," Alex said. He leapt all the way into the street, getting himself out of the alleyway as quickly as possible. Mirror shards expanded from his palm as he brought them down toward the joints of one of the monster\'s limbs.

His attack whistled by harmlessly as the Corpse Burrower yanked the limb out of the way and skittered back, its mouth undulating in an uncomfortably hypnotic pattern. Claire stepped out of the alley, her sword held at her side.

The monster dashed at them again. Alex readied himself and Claire lifted her weapon, but the spiderlike creature lurched at the last moment, flinging itself into the wall. Its limbs warped around itself like a plate of spilled noodles, burrowing into the wall with silent cracks. The Corpse Burrower barely missed a step as it dug itself into the stone and dashed across it.

Alex and Claire both dove in opposite directions as the gangly monster leapt. Its limbs flailed through the air, trying to reach both of them and failing to reach either, and it hit the ground with several loud clicks.

Most monsters would have fallen flat on their face if they\'d tried to attack two different directions and failed both, but the Burrower had so many limbs that it caught itself with no problem. It spun toward Alex and raced in his direction, darting from side to side in a serpentine pattern.

He moved away from the walls to keep the monster from being able to climb them and attack him from above, then raised his hands again. The Burrower skidded to a halt a moment before it reached him, clicking in fury.

It\'s intelligent. It knows that I can cut it and doesn\'t want to get hurt. That\'s really concerning. I didn\'t think monsters in the Mirrorlands would be this smart. Especially not at such a relatively low level.

A loud crack split the air. A pained hiss slipped from the monster\'s gaunt lips as Claire brought her sword down on one of its legs, black veins running down her right arm. Her blade sliced clean through the monster and an arm more than twice her height slipped from the creature\'s body and crashed to the ground beside her.

The Corpse Burrower might have had a lot of legs, but it only had a single set of eyes. It let out a furious hiss and spun in her direction, three of its limbs lashing out in an attempt to catch her.

Claire dodged out of the way of the first two, but the monster was fast. The third attack snagged her shoulder, ripping through her shirt and sending a splatter of blood across the sludge-covered street. She stumbled and the Burrower pounced. Claire flung herself to the side at the last second as blows rained down on where she\'d been standing with enough force to leave five small craters in the ground.

Alex was moving before the Burrower finished its attack. He slammed his palm into the seam in the monster\'s back hand-leg, sending a mirror shard carving straight through it and severing the limb.

The monster stumbled and spun toward him. Claire flung her blade with impressive accuracy, sending it blurring through the air and straight into the back of another leg.

It didn\'t completely sever the limb, but it left a deep gouge in the monster\'s body and lodged itself in its side. Another pained snarl erupted from the Burrower and it twisted back to Claire, judging her the easier of the two targets, and lunged at her before she could rise to her feet.

She rolled to the side, avoiding one of the monster\'s limbs, but another one slammed into her shoulder. Claire let out a hiss of pain as she was slammed into the ground. She grabbed the monster\'s arm and black veins shot down her own as she squeezed.

A loud crack rang out. The Burrower snarled and reared back, aiming to end her. Alex leapt, driving blades into another one of the monster\'s limbs. He didn\'t even wait for them to finish severing it. Alex leapt for the sword hanging from the monster, just barely managing to wrap his fingers around its hilt.

He yanked it down, sending a spray of dark matter spilling from within the monster. Its limbs buckled and the monster pitched to the side, unable to continue supporting itself. It hit the ground in a flail of arms.

Alex darted forward before it could rise, driving Claire\'s sword into its chest and yanking it up through the monster\'s head. It met a moment of resistance as it hit bone, but he sent a wave of mirrored shards racing down the blade. They sliced through the bone and the sword continued through the rest of the monster\'s head, bursting free in a spray of fragmented ivory and black fluid.

A rush of energy flowed into Alex as he jumped away from the dead monster and hurried over to Claire.

"You okay?" Alex asked as she pushed herself into a seated position with one hand. Her other hung at her side, blood dripping from a deep wound in her shoulder. Alex was no doctor, but he was pretty sure something was broken by the way she carried herself.

"Yeah. I\'ll heal soon enough. Faster if I get some blood," Claire replied through gritted teeth. "Just help me up. The goop is soaking into my clothes. Forget the pain. I want to save my nose."

Alex grimaced. They were definitely going to need a shower after this. A very long shower. He wrapped an arm around her good side and hoisted her to her feet, pressing the hilt of her sword into her hand so she could support herself with it. A shimmer of motion caught his attention.

High Grade Novice (Corpse Burrower)

A gray Soul Flame flickered to life above the dead Corpse Burrower\'s body. Alex snagged it. A freezing cold tendril pressed into his mind and his back stiffened. He could feel the Corpse Burrower.

He could see its many limbs, and how it had dug its way into the corpse of the body it had found like a mole through dirt. He could tell the monster had a horrible sense of both smell and sight, but it made up for it with remarkably good hearing — hearing that was muffled when it had shoveled itself into a corpse and was gouging itself on a feast of rotted flesh.

Alex\'s fingers tightened slightly around the flame. He felt the connection intensify. The flame sputtered in his hands, starting to lose some of its intensity. Alex hurriedly released it and the fire returned to normal. He shoved it into his Spatial Mirror and his mental connection to the monster severed.

"What is it?" Claire asked through clenched teeth. "Don\'t tell me you got stuck bonded to that hideous thing."

"No, but I\'m pretty sure I could bond to it if I wanted to," Alex said. "That answers my question. I think I can bond to any normal monster in the Mirrorlands. Just… not the Riftwarped ones, for some reason. Though perhaps I could, if I tried harder. I\'ll have to test once we\'re in a spot where it\'s safe."

"Lovely," Claire said. "You didn\'t bond to the Burrower, did you?"

"No. I haven\'t bonded anything yet. I want to see what other monsters I can kill before I make a decision on what I lock in. Wings could be useful, but the Burrower was a bit weak."

"I can think of six other reasons why it wasn\'t worth bonding to, but maybe we could get out of here first?" Claire suggested. "And if you\'ve got a free hand, I would greatly appreciate you pinching my nose shut. One of mine is currently on vacation."

"I think I\'d just get even more shit on your face if I did that," Alex said. "Probably better just to—"

His sentence froze in his throat as he spotted something shift at the far end of the alley where they\'d come from. A humanoid shadow watched them, almost entirely disguised aside from two dim red eyes observing them from the darkness.

No name appeared above it.

"What the hell is that?" Claire whispered, following his gaze.

The back of Alex\'s neck prickled as something passed above them. He grabbed the sword from Claire\'s hand and brought it to bear just in time to stop a black blade from slamming straight into the top of his skull.

A figure cloaked in wisps of darkness alighted on the ground before him without so much as a noise and spun, a curved blade in its grip arcing for his neck with blinding speed. Claire pushed herself back, releasing Alex so he could fight with both hands. He didn\'t even have the chance to look at the name forming above their attacker\'s head. All he could do was rush to block the strike before it could decapitate him.

The second strike rang off Claire\'s sword. Before the monster could recover, Alex lunged and thrust the blade right at its chest. It was so close that there should have been no time to dodge. His blade drove home, but it didn\'t meet so much as a modicum of resistance.

A flickering shadow twisted before him, red eyes boring into his. The same one from the alleyway. Alex spun to see the monster that had attacked them staring at him from where the shadow had been just moments before.

It swapped places?

The monster darted in the other direction, vanishing behind the buildings. Its shadow blew away, leaving them alone in the rancid-smelling alley once more.

"What was that?" Claire whispered, staring in awe.

"I don\'t know. I didn\'t catch its name," Alex replied, handing Claire back her sword as he stared in the direction the monster had gone. "But we need to get moving."

"Yeah. Good idea. We better find somewhere to hide so nothing else finds us."

"No." Alex shook his head. hurried over to where the Corpse Poker had died, spotting its relatively weak Low Grade Novice Soul Flame flickering above its body. He grabbed it and tossed it into his Spatial Mirror, quashing the mental connection before it could start. There was no point bonding to such a weak monster.

"No?" Claire repeated. "Why?"

"Because we need to go after that thing." Alex started into the alleyway and Claire followed after him with a confused frown on her face.

"What? Why?" Claire whispered. "We don\'t know what else it\'s capable of, and it was smart enough to back off when it lost the element of surprise. I didn\'t even hear it coming! It could have killed us before we even knew it was there if it was just a little faster."

"Exactly." Alex grinned at her. "That\'s exactly why we have to track it down. I\'m going to take its powers for myself."