"Get ready."
I say it quiet. The shape of the shadow on the tunnel floor is enough—long, wide, low-shouldered—and the energy signature rolling off it hits me square in the sternum before its body is even in view.
"Oliver. You're ragged. Check your OXI. Eat Scales, now. I need you full."
"Same for both of you, girls."
I pull my own numbers up.
[OXI: 1,301 / 1,600]
I open my inventory and take out a fistful of Scales—the small translucent ones, dry and dense in my palm—and chew them as fast as I can swallow them.
[Scales: 545 → 533]
[OXI: 1,600 / 1,600]
The heat of the refill spreads from my chest out through my limbs. I close my eyes for a second, let it settle, then draw the Eventide's hilt.
A second later, the thing I've been afraid of the last half hour finishes walking around the curve of the tunnel.
It barely fits.
