Re:Cursed

"Too scared to do it yourself?" Kal said and approached the edge of the rail. "I'll do it."

To his credit, he didn't flinch when the next trolley came screaming out of the tunnel and blasted only a metre away from him. Despite that, he didn't step onto the rails, nor dash along its length to the token. All Kal did, was stand there, as trolleys occasionally crossed the intersection.

They came at odd intervals. Sometimes, there would be only a few seconds between trolleys, and others would have minutes between them. Enough time to casually walk to the token, sit around for a bit, then stroll back.

This wasn't a difficult challenge, all things considered. Even if your team didn't have an ability to snatch the coin without putting anyone in danger, it was still possible. Only it would test your courage and athletic ability rather than any ability.

"So much for not being scared," Mavi said.

Kal scowled at her words, and egged on, he leapt onto the rails as soon as a trolley passed. He tried to balance on the beam and rush forwards as quickly as his legs would take him, but rushing was clearly the wrong answer, as he slipped and fell between the tracks.

To make matters worse, another trolley rolled over him a moment before he would have lifted his head into its path. The close call left Kal wide-eyed and it took until another trolley rolled overhead before he crawled out from under the tracks.

Mavi couldn't hold in her snickers, and made a show of stepping over him to reach the rails herself. "How disappointing. With someone like you on the team, it looks like I'll have to do all the work."

While Kal grit his teeth and scrambled to his feet, Mavi pulled a scroll from her robe and unravelled it, chanting all the while. She uncorked a vial of blood and spilled it over the page. The crimson liquid sunk into the paper. The scroll stained for only a moment before the ritual circle ignited, then it rose back out of the page; eaten by the runes.

The squeal of another trolley reached them as Mavi's ritual concluded. With her hymn done, the scroll took on a life of its own. With glowing lines spread across the paper, it curled in on itself, as if wrapping something invisible. It ripped, and the torn canvas spread outwards. Soon, there was far more paper than any original shape could contain; all in the shape of a worm.

As the trolley sped past, the worm curled around Mavi's arm, and flung out to latch onto the end of the moving metal box. With a confident grin back to those watching on, she was pulled to speed. Her feet slid along rail. The ease at which she moved showed she had done this before, or at least trusted her balance immensely.

After barely a second being tugged along, the worm let go of the trolley. Mavi slid along the rail before slipping off the side, grabbing the token, and hanging by the worm. The summoned creature rappelled her down until she was only a metre from the lower platform and she let go. The worm dropped after her.

Only an instant after she touched ground, another trolley spun through the under-rail and crossed where she'd just been.

"So. You want this?" Mavi held out the token with a satisfied grin upon rejoining the group.

Kal, for some gods forsaken reason, thought it was a good idea to take her at face value. He reached for the coin.

"You know, I liked your earlier statement." She pulled her token away from his grasping fingers. "But I think we should take it a step further. Instead of letting the dead-weights have a go at the Tokens after we get ours, I say we only focus on ourselves. We each amass as many coins as we can individually gather. It'll encourage us to work quicker. You said it yourself; only the best in the team should pass."

With that, she skipped away, leaving a very distraught boy behind. Kal looked furious, yet he did nothing but stare into the dirt and hold his tongue. Tru was nervously petting his skitter-spawn. It was hard to tell if he wanted to be further from Mavi… or Kal.

Nyxil turned back to the rail, and found a token manifesting in place. Another accretion disk. She stepped forward, and it disappeared.

Ah. She glanced toward the observers. They can control when a token is offered.

It would be curious to see how comprehensive it is. Could someone come along without the rest of their team, with their hoods up, and get a second coin? Would they see through the teams having full face-shifts done? Bodytwisters were good at those… though it probably wasn't worth the effort for the second Trial.

"Nỷx," Mavi called. The paper worm around her arm seemed to be growing… slimy. As if water was seeping out from within. "Let's go. I want to get through as many as possible. We got to this one early, but we're bound to run into other teams at the next location." She spun on her feet, only for a chunk of wet paper to fall off the worm. "Ugh. Can't you hold yourself together for two minutes."

The scroll-wrapped worm hit the ground with a wet slap, the paper collapsing into a sopping pile with no living thing to be seen. Even if it had looked like the paper had wrapped whatever Mavi had summoned, it was only the scroll after all. Though, Nyxil wondered where the water came from.

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"Right." Nyxil didn't miss the way Mavi neglected to invite the boys. While the other girl was trying to impress the observers in the Trial, she had no such need. All she had to do was pass, and if there happened to be some clause about abandoning teammate causing a failure, she couldn't accept it. "Tru, Kal, no more dawdling. We're going."

There was movement from one of the upper tunnels. Nyxil would have ignored it, if it wasn't for the screamed words that followed.

"Don't you dare move."

Nyxil's knees bent — or knee and metal hinge — and her hand found her hilt, ready for a fight. When the observer they'd ditched back on the surface came running at them, she didn't relax. She clicked her tongue. With narrowed eyes, Nyxil inspected everything of the woman she could. If she was here, then that meant she hadn't decided to back off.

What were the Fleshsmiths planning? They knew any act would only raise eyebrows further.

"I told you to stay where you were until I came back. Do you want to fail?" The fleshsmith stormed up to them before Nyxil and Mavi could run for the next location.

Nyxil glanced at the woman's name. A sixth evolution. If she wanted to survive whatever the woman might be planning, she would need to surprise her. Ambush her. That was not someone she was willing to take in a one on one duel even with all her mutations. But with the three other Trial participants around, she couldn't simply cut off the woman's head with her claws.

At least she knew the limitations pinned to the Fleshsmiths. They wouldn't kill her. They would prefer to get her alone before they struck and captured her. With that, Nyxil's team were as much a team as a liability. The Fleshsmiths would be patient though. They would wait for the right time in this Trial before isolating Nyxil and slipping her away.

"You can't fail us. You're not the Adjudicator. There was no rule about listening to the orders of an observer." Mavi crossed her arms in impatience. "Now if you don't mind, I don't want to lose any more time than you've already cost us."

Nyxil was impressed by the girl's hard stance against someone so many evolutions above herself, but quickly realised the Fleshsmith wasn't wearing the creed stripes so many cultists were proud of. Still, maybe Mavi wasn't totally clueless. Her gaze did flick to the other observers watching over the token. Amongst them, were a couple of Scriptures that looked almost ready to leap down and intervene.

She didn't miss the Technocultist amongst them, looking on with narrowed eyes.

"Then move." The Fleshsmith narrowed her eyes at the attitude, but paid Mavi no more attention. "Pretend like I'm not here." She fell in step behind Nyxil, to the girl's chagrin.

"What's your name?" Nyxil asked.

At her side, Mavi tossed her a questioning gaze as if asking, 'why do you care?'

The Fleshsmith eyed her suspiciously, but answered regardless. "K'Sill̻."

It was an obvious lie. Though, the rest of her team accepted it without much thought. Nyxil shouldn't be surprised that K'Sill was trying to make herself seem weaker. She did it herself. The fake name was enough to at least gleam some information. Assuming it wasn't a blatant lie and had been her name at some point, then the prefix 'K' told Nyxil that she was of the main Fleshsmith path. It didn't reveal exactly what her abilities might be, only that she wasn't of the 'Zan' group. Yet just knowing that she didn't focus on the manipulation of souls was enough.

Nyxil had spent years in the Dark Star with a bunch of 'K's. She could deal with them. Mostly. Those following Zandisth's path were an unknown she would have been less confident ambushing.

On their path to the next location — led by Mavi — Nyxil never let down her guard. Even if she was unlikely to attack immediately, it was uncomfortable to have a source of malice hovering so close to her tail. Well, she may have been uneasy, but the jog gave her plenty of time to scour the curses in the woman's name. And there were many.

Curse of shackles. Curse of melting flesh. Even a curse that would leave her in a state of constant screaming. Though, it was difficult to tell if that was from pain, or simply a compulsion. Whatever this woman had done, she'd likely garnered the hate of thousands to have curses this bad.

The curse of shackles specifically was concerning. Did that follow a theme for what she'd done to be cursed? Or was it random like so many others? If the former, then no wonder she'd been chosen to go after Nyxil. Someone who had abilities geared towards capturing targets would be perfect in this situation.

In case K'Sill had a way to disable her without a fight, Nyxil would need to act soon.

But before that, it was time to earn a coin of her own.

The second location was far less grand than the eleven-way crossroads. It was a simple ritual chamber. Fourth down the hall on the third subfloor of the public spaces. The facilities here were about as good as you were going to get outside of a cult.

Chambers like this offered a comprehensive network of modular pre-carved runes and pentagrams. The floor itself could be changed to recreate any number of common rituals. It could perform some private ones too, but those would usually be done within the walls of the cults.

As Nyxil and Mavi entered the chamber — soon followed by the two boys and their observer — they both found the token immediately. Again, it wasn't hidden. The black hole token sat alone on the altar in the centre of the room, surrounded by a glowing ritual circle and a dome of slightly distorted space.

Mavi clicked her tongue. "Damn. We were too slow."

Another team was already here. Nyxil recognised two from her ward, though she didn't remember their names. Hopefully they wouldn't expect her to say hi.

"What did you expect?" she said. "It's not as if everyone would have gone to the same first location as us. On that note, we should probably head for the one in the Biovault next. Most will save that for last." What with how it is the closest to the finish line.

Nyxil and Mavi's presence did not go unnoticed. The team sent glances their way, and haste overtook their movements. It looked like they'd been circling the ritual, looking for a way in, but hadn't taken action. With another team on their perceived heels, they decided to act.

One boy leapt forward, seeming to almost float through the distortion field for a moment, before he triggered something invisible within the barrier and with a crack of thunder, was thrown to the wall of the chamber. His teammates — who had looked almost ready to follow in his footsteps — backed off. One dropped to his knees and pulled out a scroll. The hymn was short, and runes slipped off the page to interact with the barrier… only for each rune to explode and the paper to ignite in his hands.

Mavi, who had been ready to throw herself forward at the sign of the next token, now hesitated. "You got this?" she asked, tilting her head to Nyxil. "I have a way, but I'd rather not waste time setting it up if you do."

Nyxil stepped forward, past a girl who had strangely taken to throwing handfulls of seeds over the barrier. Surprisingly, it revealed a few holes in the first dome, but a second tossed them all the way of the groaning boy by the wall. She tried not to laugh as he took a third bunch of seeds to the face. His teammate none the wiser.

"Let's see."