The room remained silent, the breeze whispering through fractured panes. Somewhere below, wood creaked and settled like the manor itself had taken note of the heir who'd just arrived.
The manor had given him clothing, barely—but his stomach reminded him that magical rags did nothing to fill an empty gut. Hunger gnawed at his focus, dulling the rush of excitement the color changing ability brought on.
Time felt slippery. How long had he been in the manor? It couldn't have been too long, right? He couldn't tell anymore, and decided it didn't really matter. His limbs felt heavier with every step.
As he turned toward the door, he glanced down, narrowing his eyes at his last color choice. Blinding white. "Alright, let's not advertise our presence to passing aircraft." He focused, picturing the faded green wallpaper just beyond the master bedroom. His armor shifted, bright white bleeding away into muted, dusty sage. With a mental command he closed the face hole.
"Stealth mode…Hah."
He stepped into the hallway, eyes scanning. He tuned the armor again, adjusting shade and tone until it was close to his surroundings. Not perfect, but good enough that it didn't scream. At the top of the spiral staircase, he paused. The marble here was a stark white with pale grey veining, aged to a dull cream. He stared at it, then his arm, willing the green to fade. It did—swapping to a cloudy off-white that almost blended into the steps as he descended. The effect was oddly satisfying. The marble on the foyer floor was slightly darker, perhaps more worn from foot traffic. He shifted colors again—slightly darker now, almost pearl—and watched his feet barely stand out as he crossed the floor.
Stepping outside, he was greeted by full darkness—if you could call it that. Overhead, two moons hung side by side in the sky, both a pale, eerie green. Thane stared up at them for a long second, then muttered, "Definitely not Earth. And we are way past Kansas, Dorothy."
The grey stone courtyard stretched out beneath their strange glow, bathed in a muted, otherworldly light. Shadows pooled in warped, elongated shapes, stretching over the uneven flagstones like a patchwork quilt stitched from moss and charcoal.
He eyed the wreck of his car, still parked like a dead animal in the center of it all. Its once-shiny red paint was now a mess—cracked and blistered from the heat, with some sections bubbled and peeled back like sunburned skin. In others, the color had warped completely, dulled to a rusty smear beneath streaks of ash. His armor slid into a dull, matte grey to match the stone beneath his feet, but his gaze lingered on the car. He held up his hand, smirking faintly, and let the armor shift—matching the scorched, grimy red of the ruined vehicle. He couldn't help himself.
"…This is dangerously fun," he muttered, fingers flicking through tones like a bored artist with a paint set. "Chameleon unlocked." He walked slowly past the scorched shell of his car, the ghost of smoke no longer hanging in the air. The metal husk radiated silence now, hollow and charred like the aftermath of a dream gone wrong. Thane moved with purpose, though each step felt heavier than the last. Ahead, a door made of thick iron grates stood half-ajar, rust blooming along its edges. Beyond it, a narrow exit opened onto a path barely visible beneath creeping vines and fallen leaves. The overgrowth yielded just enough to show where the trail dipped into a sparse, sloping forest, its trees thin and wiry, like bones reaching skyward.
Wind whispered through the gaps, urging him forward. Everything felt quiet. Too quiet. Birdsong was absent, the wind almost reverent as it passed through the trees. He couldn't hear buzzing insects or scurrying animals.
Something glinted.
At the edge of the treeline, just beyond the overgrown path, a pair of eyes caught the green twin-moonlight and reflected it like polished glass. Thane froze. Breath caught. Maybe if he didn't move, whatever it was wouldn't notice him.
Then he looked down.
His heart sank.
Bright, reflective yellow.
The last color he'd set his armor to before he'd stopped cycling through options. He might as well have been wearing a flashing beacon.
He looked back up. The eyes blinked.
Then it moved.
A blur shot from the shadows. Indistinct at first, fast, impossibly fast. It didn't run—it launched. As it cleared the trees, moonlight painted the horror in clear detail.
Jagged white mandibles hooked out from an obsidian-black body segmented and lined with bright red spines. The thing's legs—dozens of them—grew in size as they trailed toward the rear, ending in limbs longer than a man's arm, all blood-red and angled for speed. Its body flexed as it moved, the entire center unzipping into a maw full of jagged teeth like a carnivorous zipper. Two eyes, red and glassy, sat on short stalks behind its mandibles, locked onto him with unblinking hunger.
Thane didn't move. Couldn't. His brain had simply stopped processing.
The monster curled inward, legs tucking tight as it formed a rolling, spined wheel of death. It tore through shrubs, flattening growth in a clean line straight toward the iron gate.
[System Hint: You should probably prepare to fight.]
That did it.
Thane's mind snapped back online with a single thought:
Nope. Nope nope nope nope.
The gate. It would have to come through the gate.
He gripped his flail, dropped his stance, and did the only thing his body would let him do—he started spinning.
Steel links rattled as the spiked head extended to full reach. He twisted at the waist, then the shoulders, building momentum with each turn. Faster. Harder.
He spun like a top just as the sound of tearing underbrush grew louder. The centipede wasn't slowing down.
Thane spun. Faster and faster. The flail whistled through the air, a metallic shriek growing louder with every revolution. His vision blurred, his balance shrieked in protest, and his stomach began writing its will. He had no technique—just raw panic and momentum. The world blurred into streaks of green moonlight, black trees, and yellow armor.
DING!
A piercing notification chimed inside his skull like a dinner bell slammed against a church gong. He blinked hard. No chance. The message flickered past his peripheral vision, unread and unimportant. He was already committed, locked in a personal tornado of flail, fear, and nausea.
"Hhhuuaahhggh—"
He gagged mid-spin, biting back the bile climbing his throat.
"This is so dumb!" he gasped between clenched teeth.
The ground trembled. Shrubs shredded. The monster was here.
With a screech of iron, the centipede burst through the gate like a freight train, still tucked into its rolling deathball. The spines caught moonlight like wet razors, hissing as they sliced air and stone alike.
Then it happened.
CRACK-THWUNK-KRRAANGG!!
The flail met flesh and chitin with a noise that should have broken the sky. It wasn't just a hit—it was a collision. The chain tightened in a flash, the spiked head connecting squarely with the center of the rolling beast.
Time paused for a heartbeat. Then—
BOOOOOM.
The centipede launched.
Its segmented body ragdolled into the air, legs flailing like streamers in a hurricane as it sailed—no, exploded—across the courtyard.
It smashed through the wall of the old manor like a cannonball, disintegrating brick and frame as it vanished into the darkened interior Thane had very specifically chosen not to enter earlier.
He stumbled to a stop, chest heaving, flail slack.
"…Holy crap."
A wet, crunching sound echoed from inside the building.
Then dragging.
The centipede slithered back into view, somehow still alive. Its body was grotesquely warped—segments crunched inward, one eye stalk dangling limp, two of its longer legs bent the wrong way entirely. Thick green ichor leaked from dozens of wounds, hissing where it hit the stone.
It opened its jagged, zipper-mouth in a strained, rattling screech.
"Skreeeeeeaaahk…"
Thane stepped back, raising the flail again with shaky arms.
"You've gotta be kidding me…"
But before the beast could lurch fully from the destroyed dining hall, the shadows behind it shifted.
No—surged.
A pitch-black mass, amorphous and silent, flowed out of the cracks in the stone and ceiling like smoke underwater. Tendrils of darkness, edges rippling with ghostlight, wrapped around the centipede with impossible speed.
The monster screamed.
Not a screech, not a hiss—a scream. High-pitched. Wet. Human, somehow.
It tried to fight, lashing its remaining legs, mandibles snapping open and shut with panic. The dark mass pulsed—once—and the centipede's entire body convulsed, legs twitching out of rhythm.
"NOOOHHK-KKKRAAKK!!"
it shrieked as it was dragged back, inch by inch, into the gaping dark. Spines cracked. Teeth broke. The eye stalk was severed mid-thrash, hitting the floor with a splat.
Within seconds, only silence remained. The dining hall was empty again.
Thane stood motionless, flail limp at his side.
"Oh–that's–that's not good.."
A low chuckle rippled through the night air—oil-slick around a toothy grin.
Thane froze.
From within the ruined dining hall, the darkness stirred. It slithered across stone and shattered glass, pooling into a column of writhing shadow. Then it rose, coalescing into a humanoid shape. It bent unnaturally, neck crooked and shoulders deformed to flow through the broken portion of the manor wall. Taking care not to touch it.
As it stepped out onto the courtyard flagstones it breathed in deeply, though it had no mouth. The shadows around its head twisted like smoke around a flame. A series of wet, grating cracks echoed through the courtyard as the shadow's limbs convulsed and twisted. Bones—or something like them—snapped into place with sickening pops. Joints realigned with a meaty crunch, tendons writhing like worms beneath its smoky surface. Its hunched frame jerked upright in sharp, unnatural motions, as if invisible hands were folding it back into a human shape that had never quite fit.
"Ahhh… after all this time… the seal is broken."
It stretched its arms wide, shadow tendrils trailing like torn banners.
"Countless years in that cursed manor. Watching. Waiting. Bound by those I called friends. Forgotten. Starved of power. But now..."
Its head tilted. The eyeless face turned toward Thane.
"You."
Thane didn't move. His brain still felt like it had been deep-fried by adrenaline and nausea. He had no idea what was happening. His legs were jelly. His flail hung limp at his side.
The shadow leaned closer. Red glints shimmered along its shoulders like fading embers.
"I see it now. The mark of the devourer. You slew the Crystal Warden. Broke the resonance lock. You were sent."
Thane blinked. What?
"You freed me. After all this time… my faithful have not forgotten. Your garb is… tragic, but the intent is clear."
The entity raised one long arm and gestured vaguely at Thane's reflective yellow armor.
"You've my thanks. Such as it is. Though I question your—aesthetics—and... choice of weaponry."
A pause. Then in a tone colder than Thane thought possible:
"Tell me, Liberator—has it begun?
Thane's heart nearly stopped. Say something. Say something. Say anything. Don't let it know you have no idea what's happening.
He straightened his back, trying not to wobble.
"…I've lived to serve. My life is a pittance for your freedom, great one."
The shadow's head tilted, the silence stretching like taut wire.
Thane wobbled on his feet.
Okay. You said the thing. Just… commit. Fake a collapse. Dramatic. Sold it.
He let his knees buckle and threw himself into a slow-motion fall, aiming for something that looked vaguely like dignity.
Then the nausea hit him like a freight train. His vision tunneled, heart pounding like war drums in his ears. The sky tilted. The moons doubled. He tasted iron.
Oh. Crap. I wasn't faking.
He hit the ground with a soft thud, flail slipping from his grip, and everything went dark before he could even curse about it.