System Lost: My Own Best Friend

My newest tool is far from perfect. The waterskin is hard to fill, awkward to carry, has no cap to prevent spillage, and leaves a slightly acrid aftertaste when I drink from it. Violet says that last bit probably means it needed a more thorough wash, but it beats raw snail flesh any day of the week. I think I also need to retie the knot at the bottom, because it starts to leak halfway back to the camp.

Still, I'm proud of it. It's a step forward. Being able to carry water means we aren't nearly as tethered to the underground stream. It puts such a spring in my step that I almost fail to notice the stray worm that's wandered into the tunnels.

"Oh! Hello there."

Predictably the giant silkworm does not answer me, or even react to my presence that I notice. Unlike the snails and geckos, "giant" here is only relative to a regular silkworm, which I assume would be no bigger than my pinky nail, rather than my entire hand. It's still small enough that I could just stomp on it, but I'd rather not—especially without shoes.

The worm and I face off awkwardly as it squirms around aimlessly while I just stare at it. It's a bit bigger than I remember, despite only hatching a few hours ago.

"Allison, what are you doing?" Violet asks.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I'm thinking about just leaving it alone. I've got my hands full with the waterskin and candle, and I really don't want to step on it."

"Okay?" she says, trailing off a bit and making it sound like a question.

"I also saw its brothers and sisters absolutely tearing into a sack of lizard meat earlier, so I'm a little nervous to just walk past it," I admit.

"Ah."

That leaves the worm and me at an impasse. It doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry, but I'd really love to get back so I can warm up my frozen fingers and toes. There aren't any other paths, though, and the longer I stand here the dumber I feel about being blocked by a little worm.

"I guess these guys are just gonna be around now?" I wonder. "How do you think they survive?"

"Maybe they won't," Vi hedges. "I think that nest was designed to ambush something much bigger, and we sprung it prematurely."

"That makes sense, I guess. It looks so weird."

I don't actually know what silkworms look like, but from what Maggie said earlier, they're supposed to be caterpillars. This thing is distinctly more...worm-like. No legs or eyes that I can see, and its oblong black body moves by writhing and undulating along the ground, unlike the more graceful slither of a snake. It's so slow and clumsy that it's hard to be afraid of it, despite how gross it is.

It's definitely carnivorous, though. I remember seeing them descend hungrily on the meat that Maggie dropped and they have circular mouths with rows of teeth like a lamprey—hence my hesitation to just walk right past.

I'm thinking about squeezing up against the far wall and shimmying my way past when Maggie shouts in my ear.

"Don't just stand there, stupid, it's magical!"

"What?!"

The worm is as startled by my exclamation as I am by Maggie, and its head whips around towards me faster than I've ever seen these things move. Before I can react, its disgusting maw opens up to reveal those lamprey-teeth and it spits something at me.

"Ah, frick!" I curse, raising a hand to block my face just in time for the sticky goop to glue that hand to my hair. "What the heck?!"

I back off as I try to pull my hand free, but another shot catches my leg and I trip backwards, landing hard on my back with only one hand to break my fall. By reflex, I try to use both hands anyway and tear painfully at my hair.

"Oof! Ow..." I groan, winded.

I try to sit up, but the same sticky webbing that's glued my right hand to my head has now also struck my head to the ground. Now I'm starting to panic.

"Oh no. Oh no no no," I mutter, struggling against the bindings. "Not like this! Not after I finally made progress. I don't want to die to a worm!"

I'm not going to let that happen. With my free hand, I grab the waterskin and upend it over my face. The freezing cold water soaks my hair and loosens the sticky bonds of the worm's silk. In one motion, I sit up and draw my knife, spotting the worm as it undulates its way towards us hungrily. Without a moment of hesitation, I slam the knife down on its head before it can spit any more webs.

It flails and twitches horribly, but doesn't make any sound or put up any more of a fight as a yellowish green ooze that seems way too thick to be blood leaks from the wound where my knife keeps it pinned to the ground. I raise my knife to stab it again.

"Wait, don't damage it anymore Violet!" Maggie shouts.

I stop, more out of surprise than compliance. I'm—? No, of course I am, that makes sense. I stand up and put some distance between us and the dying worm creature, leaning heavily against a wall as I catch my breath.

"Allison?" I call out gently. "Are you alright? Allison?"

There's no answer except for Maggie's derisive scoff.

"Fucked off into hiding as usual," she sneers.

"You're one to talk," I retort. "Have you just been sulking this whole time?"

"Shut up! Let me get a look at that thing before it loses all its magic."

I frown down at the worm, which has mostly stopped moving now—either dead or in its final throes.

"Why?" I ask. "And how did you know it had magic in the first place?"

"I'll tell you later," she huffs in exasperation. "There's no time right now, it's going to die!"

"Isn't that sort of the idea?"

I can feel a familiar pressure building up between my eyes, like a sinus headache. I don't bother to resist it, and the headache immediately clears in time for me to lunge forward and grab the bleeding worm by the head—what's left of it—holding it away from myself as I get to work vivisecting it.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"All the monsters around here are magical," I explain, carefully running my knife along what I think is the belly to split the creature open and get a look at its guts. "But that magic fades rapidly after they die."

"Again, how do you know that?" Violet asks with a sigh.

"My skill," I answer simply, as that's much easier to explain than the more intuitive sense I unlocked after that first peek into the realm of magic.

[Quick Sort]

Always arrange a set of objects correctly according to the desired order.

I scoop out a few globs of hemolymph and start inspecting the monster's alien innards. As I thought, it doesn't have anything that I can identify as an organ to create that silk or the sticky glue that coats it. There's a gland in its mouth, but that doesn't lead anywhere the way it should.

If I concentrate, I can still feel the last few dregs of magic leaking away as the creature dies. I want to try reaching for it, but I've learned my lesson about careless experimentation. I'll need to do more preparation first—maybe get my hands on a live one...

"That doesn't answer my question at all, Magdalena," Vi nags.

"Ugh, fine!" I groan, tossing the remains aside. "This thing's dead, anyway."

"That tends to happen when you cut creatures open and scoop out their insides, yes."

I ignore her sarcastic quip as I wipe my hands on my jeans and put the knife away.

"My skill, [Quick Sort] lets me organize things," I explain, grimacing at the now empty water skin. I'm not refilling that. "I woke up while Allie was freezing her fingers off prepping this dumb sack—why didn't you just take it back to the base first? Anyway, rather than deal with you two, I tried doing some experiments."

"You—how? You weren't in front."

I roll my eyes, then shiver. Damn, we're soaked after that. I'd better find a way to dry our clothes before we freeze to death.

"I can still think, unlike you, and it turns out that's all the skill needs."

I close my eyes and envision three things—the least magical candle, the dead gecko right after Violet's hunt, and the worm we just killed when it was alive. In my mind, I arrange them from most to least magical—in order, the candle, the worm, then the corpse.

"You...you can just do that?" she asks incredulously. "Sort whatever you want, by any metric, in your head? As a tier zero skill?"

"Yeah. Well, sort of."

"That's ridiculous," she murmurs. "What do you mean 'sort of'?"

I rub my back painfully and start limping back to our base camp. I'm not going back to the stream while our hair and clothes are wet, and I decide to leave the worm corpse where it is.

"You're not taking that with us?" Vi asks.

"We're not eating it," I answer immediately. Even I have my limits.

"No," she agrees. "But I thought you wanted it for...I don't know, reagents or something."

I blink at that. "What do you think I am, some kind of witch? Actually, that sounds kind of awesome, maybe I should be a witch. Eye of gecko, tongue of worm!"

"Maggie."

I shrug. "There's nothing useful left in it. It used most of its magic trying to tie us up, and whatever was left disappeared when it died. There wasn't much to begin with, but I'm learning how to sense it."

There was some magic left in the Gecko eyes, though. I wonder if it's a size or age thing, or maybe there's another factor I'm missing.

"Anyway, 'sort of.'" I sigh. "Mental organization like that is taxing. It's like...when Allie tried counting a million candles at once, it hurts my mind."

"You mean our head?"

I shake my head. "No, literally my mind. I guess if we're in front it would feel like a headache, but that's psychosomatic."

"Psycho-what?"

"Physical symptoms caused by a mental state. Like a stress headache, or nervous sweating. Damage to the mind can be reflected by the body, to a point. Maybe the soul too, but I'm on the fence about whether that's a real thing or not."

Violet sighs heavily. "So your nosebleeds aren't just exertion, like Allie thought?"

I have to think about that one for a second. "I can't rule it out, but it's probably a combination. Magic always puts a strain on the mind—our brain just isn't equipped to perceive more than plain old four-dimensional reality."

"Don't you mean three?"

"Actually, according to the theory of—"

"I know what special relativity is," Vi interrupts, to my surprise. "I just mean that we don't really perceive time as a spatial dimension."

I am absolutely not debating spacetime with the meathead.

"Sure. The point is, I need to be able to really clearly envision something. Not just the shape or idea of it, but the entire object. It works best with things that I'm either very familiar with, or which left a big impact."

Which is why I mostly just stuck to things like the candles or very recent encounters. Also myself, and hasn't that been revealing.

For example, let's look at a living Laser Gecko, the first Rock Snail we ran into, our most magical candle, and then me—us, I guess. I'm actually unclear on whether or not we can be considered separate beings, but for the moment I'm envisioning Allison, Violet, and myself as a unit.

From least to most magic—snail, gecko, candle, us.

Isn't that fascinating? We haven't been able to do much magic at all, apart from the skills, but maybe it's the levels? I also tried envisioning each of us separately, but I could only do myself and I still rate above a candle. That doesn't sound like much, but as Violet points out when I describe all of this to her...

"Nothing else exceeds the candles?" she asks in shock.

"Not that I've been able to find," I answer with a nod. "Each and every one seems to be packed to the brim with some kind of magic."

"How odd. What else can you do with this skill?"

I blink. "What do you mean?"

"As in, what other categorizations have you tried?"

"Hm? I tried checking for poison, but everything was even so I gave up. I think it needs to be something I could theoretically measure."

"And...that's it?" she hedges.

"Yup."

"You didn't think to try anything else?"

"Nope."

She sighs. "I don't know why I'm surprised. I suppose we can brainstorm later, but...what about the [Angel]?"

I stop in my tracks. I forgot about that thing. The creepy, tentacled, kinda hot avatar of the World Engine with a statue-like appearance and hair tentacles that rooted around in Allison's brain to induct us into this bizarre world of danger and magic. And I forgot about it?

"I...assume it's more magical than us."

"Assume?" Violet prods. "I thought we were supposed to be doing away with assumptions. If you can check, why not check? I know it made as much of an impression on you as it did on us."

Yeah, and that's why I'm afraid to do it. It already messed with our heads once, but now that Vi's challenged me, I'm not about to back down. Fuck it—what's the worst that could happen?

I close my eyes and focus. Candle...us...

[ERROR: Cannot assess latent entropic potential of entities exceeding [Sapient] class thresholds.]

I slam into a wall as a railroad spike drives its way into my brain. Nope! Nope nope nope nope!

"Fuck!" I hiss, resisting the urge to claw my own eyes out as the pain slowly subsides. "I cannot believe I let you goad me into that."

"I...I didn't think that would hurt you," Violet protests. "What happened?"

"I take back everything good I ever said about skills," I grumble. "They're a starting point, but we're screwed if we try to rely on them entirely."

"What, why?"

"Because they've got guard rails," I say miserably. "And they aren't there for our protection."