Charlie

  Black smoke swept through the clearing like a wave. Vetica’s body slowly disappeared into it. First, she faded until only a silhouette remained, then she was lost in the thick, billowing smoke altogether. Long, black wispy tendrils of smoke reached out and swirled towards the bears. Some bears tried to fight it, despite seeing what had happened to their companion. They roared, bared fangs, and swatted at the approaching smoke. Those bears were among the first to fall as the black cracks climbed and covered their bodies. The smoke decayed their flesh as it traversed across it, causing further harm until finally they grew still.

  The other bears fled, but the smoke didn’t take long to catch up with them. It chased them like a predator chases prey. Decaying bodies became corpses as the thick smoke continued expanding outward. The tendrils led the way, and the dense center mass of void-colored smoke expanded. The cloud of death grew larger and larger with each passing moment. There was no way the bears could escape in time.

  Charlie swallowed. He was glad King Scalea had sensed the threat ahead of time. If the komodon scalers hadn’t evacuated when they did, they might’ve shared the bear’s fate. He shuddered to think of his friends writhing in agony as the smoke consumed them. Charlie also worried about Vetica. Whatever this power was, it made sense how the Rawlin family had used it to gain power and infamy. It made sense why a man like Vedic would want control over power like this.

  A death-focused hex. It was perfect for a family of assassins.

  “I’m analyzing the effects of the hex now. Initial data indicates the smoke is only dangerous to living organisms. I advise we take caution. The rock body passive ability might mitigate or delay the effects of the smoke, but with your dungeon integrity this low, I would advise against relying on it,” Parent told him.

  Charlie nodded. A loud grumbling somewhere behind him forced his attention away from the carnage ahead. He turned and watched the leader of the sin bear scorpions he’d defeated not so long ago. After Charlie’s attack, it had fallen over, face-planting into the dirt. Now, it lifted its head at the sound of its dying companions and surveyed the battlefield. When it saw the smoke massacring and hunting its brethren, it bared its teeth. The bear rose slowly, attempting to stand on its hind legs. The pain was evident in its expression and movements. It stumbled, struggling to put weight on its injured leg. Blood poured from wounds all over its body, and broken spears of dungeon material lay splintered all around it, destroyed from the impact of the creature’s fall. The bear’s left hand hung limply at its side, clinging to its body by a few strands of flesh. Still, despite its broken state, the bear persisted.

  The bear’s scorpion tails wrapped around its weakened leg to support it. The growl in its throat grew to deafening levels. To Charlie’s surprise, the smoke stopped spreading toward the other bears. Though it appeared too late now. They were all dead as far as Charlie could tell. It stopped, and the smoky tendrils turned to point toward the roaring bear leader. The cloud turned as if it could hear the awe-inspiring, booming roar.

  Then it started moving toward its challenger.

  Charlie crawled closer to the base of the tree he’d landed near earlier and watched the smoke as it passed.

  It didn’t take long for the smoke to reach the bear and swirl around it. Even as the bear leader’s mighty claws whipped through the cloud of death, the smoke persisted. While the act wasn’t enough to dispel the smoke completely, the bear’s attack disturbed the cloud enough that Charlie could see what was happening.

  The bear leader swatted vigorously in every direction with its one good arm. The smoke raced to cover the creature all over again. Already, it was obvious that the horrific smoke would win this battle. The cracks raced up the bear’s skin, albeit more slowly than with the others. Perhaps it was because this creature was simply more powerful, or perhaps the smoke was weaker the further it traveled. It was impossible to know right now, but what was possible to ascertain was the fact that slowed or not, the cloud would prevail.

  Charlie noticed part of the smoke broke away from the fight and started heading in a new direction. Earlier, the smoke had moved past Charlie without noticing him. Whether it was because of his small stature, or the fact he was hiding behind a tree, he didn’t know. Part of him wondered if Vetica herself was forcing the smoke to ignore him, but it didn’t appear she even had that kind of control over this power of hers just yet. But whatever the reason, it mattered little in that moment, because the smoke had found another target. Charlie and the bear noticed it at the same time.

  The still-recovering Bleedy. He’d taken a hard hit when he’d attacked the bear leader and was swatted away.

  A hit he was still recovering from.

  But the smoke wasn’t overly concerned about whether Bleedy made for exciting prey or not. It moved casually towards the recovering creature, taking its time to pursue prey that couldn’t possibly escape. Charlie gasped when he realized it. He had to get the friendly racooneever out of danger as soon as possible.

  His dungeon integrity was low. He’d used most of it defeating the bear leader, partly out of necessity, and partly out of the desire to practice the move he and Orb had come up with prior. Now he regretted that. He’d learned he should manage his integrity better by now, but the whole point of this mission was to train. Of course he’d use his new move, even if he wasn’t too good at portioning his integrity into it quite yet. But now his friend was in danger, and Charlie’s options were limited.

  “I have to transfer Bleedy into the dungeon!” Charlie said.

  “There is a risk of the smoke getting inside the dungeon if we open it now.”

  “We’ll do it quickly!” Orb protested. “We have time!”

  “We don’t have enough data yet. If the smoke gets inside the dungeon, it could put all the scalers and Koi Levi at risk. Charlie left all non-komodon scalers within the dungeon to avoid them getting injured or killed. If his intention is to protect them, I must at least warn him of the potential consequences of opening the dungeon,” Parent said. “Charlie, are you willing to save Bleedy even if it risks the lives of your other minions?” Parent asked him.

  Charlie’s eyes darted from side to side. At the cost of the others? Bleedy was one of his best friends…but the scalers were his friends too. No, there had to be another way. A way to save him without risking the others. A way where everyone escaped unscathed.

  The bear roared. The roar was loud enough to grab Charlie’s attention. There wasn’t much time to save Bleedy, but the bear was doing something. Charlie raised an eyebrow. This roar was different; it felt as if an aura of magic was infused within it, and for a moment the smoke around the creature shrank back.

  Charlie noticed where the bear was looking. Its head swiveled toward the smoke drifting toward Bleedy. The decaying cracks had already crept up to the bear’s neck. Soon, it would be over for the large creature. But the bear appeared to be disregarding its survival right now. It looked back down at the nearly severed arm hanging limply from its body. Charlie noticed what had caught the creature’s attention. The injured arm was completely devoid of cracks. The lower part of the arm was loosely connected to the upper arm, and for some reason the cracks hadn’t affected it at all.

  Was it because the arm was already dead? Or maybe it was the fact that the arm was scarcely connected to the rest of the bear’s body. Whatever the reason, it made Charlie wonder. Did Vetica’s hex need certain conditions to activate? Was there a reason a nearly disconnected limb wouldn’t be affected?

  Charlie turned back toward the battlefield. He scanned what he could through the smoke. It wasn’t as dense now, possibly because it had spread so far from Vetica’s body to reach the bear leader. His eyes locked in on the bears that the komodon scalers and Vetica had killed before her hex outburst. Their bodies were unmarred by the smoke. There was no evidence it had attacked them. No cracks or decaying flesh. Their bodies would take a little longer for natural decay to set in. Which means…the hex could only affect living things. Apparently, the definition of living was loose enough that a nearly severed limb didn’t count as a valid target.

  The bear had apparently come to the same conclusion.

  It loosened its jaw and roared into the sky as loud as its lungs would allow. At the same time, it used its good arm to slash at the injured one. In one fluid motion, sharp claws tore the arm from the bear’s body.

  Orb shot backwards. “What the—? What was that about?” he asked.

  Charlie shook his head. He didn’t know either.

  The bear quickly reached down and did something to the arm that Charlie couldn’t see before picking the arm off the ground. The smoke had already begun assailing the creature again, but the bear ignored the threat. It turned its body in the direction of Bleedy.

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  The smoke had nearly reached the racooneever. Charlie shrieked. He’d allowed himself to get distracted by the bear. With a final push of strength, the Bear lunged towards Bleedy and stretched its remaining arm as far as it could. In it, the amputated arm was set into a closed claw, as if it intended to swipe at something. Horror overtook Charlie as he realized what the bear was doing. Charlie held out a hand instinctively, as if he could stop it, but the bear was too quick.

  The claw smashed down on Bleedy’s location, completely covering him moments before the smoke arrived. With that, the bear collapsed, and its face collided once more with the dirt. The smoke quickly overtook it.

  “Bleedy!” Charlie cried out. He started crawling towards the racooneever. He didn’t care about the smoke; he didn’t care about getting within reach of the leader of the bears. Charlie needed to check on his friend.

  Orb flew in front of Charlie and pushed into his chest. The dungeon core strained to hold Charlie in place. “Charlie wait! The smoke will kill you! It’ll kill us!”

  Charlie paused his crawl for only a second. He couldn’t send Orb to the dungeon, so he used an old favorite of his. He scooped Orb up with his hand and popped the dungeon core into his mouth. “You’ll be safe in there!” Charlie thought-spoke.

  “Hey! Charlie!” Orb complained. But Charlie ignored him.

  He resumed his hurried crawl. If Vetica had done something to make the smoke ignore Charlie before, it apparently didn’t work if Charlie charged into it headfirst. He could already feel the smoke twisting towards him. The moment he came into contact with it, it reacted, smothering him.

  He ignored it as best he could. Charlie slapped the ground as he hurried towards his friend. The smoke tugged at his limbs, wrapping around them as he moved. It tried to pull him in every direction, but Charlie fought through it. The smoke poked at his mouth and nostrils. He held his breath and snorted outward anytime it tried to enter his nose. For just a moment, he felt a burning sensation tingling on his skin. But the Rock Body passive quickly numbed the sensation.

  “Dungeon integrity is steadily declining. I recommend getting out of this smoke as soon as possible, Charlie,” Parent warned him.

  Charlie ignored the warning and kept moving. He couldn’t see anything as he crawled through the thick smoke. Even if he wanted to turn back, it was hard enough keeping his bearings as he charged forward. He did his best to move in the general direction where he’d seen Bleedy before the smoke had covered the distance between them. His lungs burned. He lifted his onesie to cover his mouth and sucked in a breath. He crawled and ignored the sick smell of death in the air. The stench of rotten corpses assailed his senses. His nose wrinkled in response. He had to keep moving. He had to get to Bleedy.

  “Charlie, the dungeon is on the brink of collapse. The Rock Body passive is on the verge of failure—”

  Just as Parent called out to warn him again, Charlie crawled into a small patch of clean air devoid of the eerie smoke. At its center was the bearpaw that now covered his furry friend. Inside his mouth, Orb started rolling around until finally Charlie relented and spat the dungeon core out onto the dirt.

  “I’m a dungeon core, not a breath mint! And from the smell of things, you definitely need one of those, buddy!” Orb went completely still in the air. “Wait, I don’t even have a nose. How can I smell?”

  There was a gap just large enough between two of the fingers where Charlie could crawl inside. He hurried forward, squeezing through as fast as he could manage. He stopped when he saw his friend.

  Bleedy was unharmed.

  Maybe the arm hadn’t been a last-ditch effort to harm Bleedy. Maybe it had been one to save him.

  Either way, intentional or not, the bear was the only reason his friend was still alive.

  “Bleedy! Are you okay?” Charlie asked.

  Bleedy was ragged and weary, but no more than before the giant bearpaw had slammed over him. Maybe a little shook from the surprise of a giant paw suddenly covering his injured frame. But overall, he was okay. He was lying there still in wolf form.

  Bleedy managed a faint nod. He nuzzled into Charlie as the baby approached and wrapped an arm around him. Charlie shook his head. It didn’t make any sense. Why would the bear help Bleedy? Its behavior towards the raccoon-beaver hybrid was hard to explain. One moment it was keeping Bleedy from joining the fight; the next it had swatted him away. So, why had the last thing the bear did before the smoke overtook it been to save Bleedy?

  He paused mid-thought. An odd tingling assailed him once again. Charlie wheeled around to see that the cloud of smoke was slowly entering the small hiding place under the bear’s paw. It hit him in that moment. The smoke had followed him inside. He’d led it right to Bleedy.

  “Oh, no…” Charlie turned and wrapped his body around Bleedy to cover the small creature as much as he could.

  Orb zipped frantically around the small space. “Charlie, we gotta get outta here! What do we do? Wait…I take back what I said earlier; let me hide in your mouth again!”

  Charlie’s eyes darted back and forth. If they teleported into his dungeon, there was no guarantee the smoke wouldn’t get inside as well, especially at this distance. But if his dungeon integrity was destroyed, all the scalers inside of him and Koi Levi…they would die. He needed a solution. Fast.

  There was a sudden pretense. A warmth.

  “Not them.” It was Vetica’s voice. “Not them. You can’t have them. I won’t allow it.”

  “Vetica?” Charlie called out.

  The smoke shuddered for a moment, but then continued pouring into the small space. It slowly moved to engulf them.

  “Not them!” Vetica’s voice was a shout. “I won’t allow it!” Her voice was clearer this time. The smoke recoiled. It pulled back from the hand and disappeared out of sight.

  Charlie quickly followed it, peeking through the gap in the fingers to see what was going on. The smoke surged back, back until it all flowed into the black hex still affixed to Vetica’s dagger. As soon as the last wisp had been absorbed, the hex glimmered and floated away from the blade entirely. It landed on Vetica’s hand, then disappeared. The young assassin still lay there unconscious.

  Charlie spotted movement in the distance. Merlin, and King Scalea wasn’t far behind. The large creature lumbered after the con man. It seemed Merlin had somehow escaped the lizard king and ran back toward the battlefield to help Vetica. Charlie smiled. That was just like Merlin.

  “Vetica!” Merlin cried out.

  Seeing them gave Charlie a little more peace of mind. Merlin and the komodons were all okay. He let out a breath of relief. He’d thought they’d escaped it in time, but it was nice knowing for sure. As soon as he tended to Bleedy, he would join the others. He turned to check on the raccoon-beaver hybrid when a deep rumble got his attention. He tilted his head, listening for the sound again. It didn’t take long. Another growl. The noise was coming from—

  Bleedy shot up and squeezed past Charlie. Charlie blinked in surprise. “Bleedy? Bleedy wait!” he called out, following the racooneever through the hole.

  “Bleedy, be careful!” Charlie warned, crawling as fast as he could. Bleedy ran limply toward the dying leader of the bears.

  The bear hadn’t been very far. It still lay where Charlie had seen it fall. Facing the paw that it had used the last of its energy to cover Bleedy with. The enormous creature fought to keep its eyes open. It growled again when Bleedy came to a stop in front of it. The growl was different from before; it sounded almost pleased. Peaceful.

  “Whatever outside effect the bear was under before now has faded. It has regained full control over itself,” Parent informed him.

  Bleedy tilted his head and leaned forward to sniff the bear. He whimpered at what his nose told him. Charlie didn’t need a strong nose to see what was going on. The bear leader was on the verge of death.

  Even though they had fought, and the creature had put his friends in danger, Charlie couldn’t help but feel bad for it. The bear had wanted to protect its own friends as well. Its pack or herd or whatever you call a group of bear scorpions. It had been trying to keep them safe. It had watched them all die instead. To lose everyone you cared about, all at once. It was hard not to feel bad for it.

  The bear’s eyes slowly scrolled over Bleedy one final time. And then, it did something that surprised everyone.

  It talked.

  “Gunther…” the deep, gravelly voice spoke.

  “What the hell?” Orb said.

  Despite his injuries, Bleedy perked up at the mention of that name.

  Gunther. Charlie had heard the name before. In Arcadeya, his friend Themis, a researcher, had initially thought Bleedy was the first hybrid creature that he had ever created during his research. But Zephyr, the interface Themis worked alongside, had quickly analyzed Bleedy and concluded he was not, in fact, the same creature. But how could a bear know anything about that research? How could it talk?

  It was a lot to take in.

  “Gunther…” the bear spoke again.

  Bleedy spat out his wolf-teeth dentures and returned to racooneever form. Even as a wolf, the bear had noticed a resemblance between Bleedy and this Gunther creature. What did that mean? What was going on?

  The bear looked at the dentures, and then back at Bleedy. It paused for a moment, its jaw distorting as if it were running its tongue along its mouth. Then, it slowly reached up with its one good paw and put a claw into its mouth. A moment later, the claw left its mouth, and the bear extended the paw outward. It dropped a single tooth in front of Bleedy.

  “Take…Gunther, take.”

  Bleedy slowly approached the tooth and scooped it closer with his paws.

  The bear nodded its head. “Gunther,” it said one last time before the life faded from its eyes.

  Orb and Charlie turned to look at one another.

  What was going on?

  The thought was still on Charlie’s mind when a notification announced itself in his head.

  Notice

  The bonded creature Bleedy has grown stronger.

  Wolf form has advanced to level 2.

  The bonded creature has unlocked a new form. Bear form. (Incomplete Set)

  I am typing this message after scheduling four chapters for release, the first one being the chapter you just read. Each of them is equivalent to about a chapter and a half in terms of length compared to my usual chapters. During my last update, I told you all I was not sure what my new posting schedule would be. Since then, I've worked on creating a plan that would allow me to comfortably continue posting the story without creating a schedule that was too intense to keep up with. I have decided on a format that I think will work well in terms of creating a manageable workload for me, while also ensuring more consistent updates for you all. More information about this new posting format will be released in the author notes of upcoming chapters.