After the rumbling had stopped I stood waiting, but a minute after it stopped it started again. This time though it was leaving the area pretty quickly. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved that it was leaving or scared that I hadn’t heard anything. With a groan I swallowed my fear, I needed to work up the nerve to ask what was happening.

Master, I've found all of them.

Really?! They’re okay? I sank to the ground breathing a big sigh of relief. The electric anxiety finally left my veins. I looked over at the party in the system, they really were all still alive. Reid was in bad shape though, he was down to less than a quarter of his health. Something had injured him other than the fall.

Well, I’m not sure about Reid. Really they’re all not doing great in different ways.

What do you mean?

I haven’t laid my eyes on Reid, but I’m positive he’s here.

What? Here? Where?

I followed his blood here, and I can smell him past this door.

Door? You guys found a door? I waited a couple seconds after I asked, but didn’t receive a response. Aureus? There’s a door?

Yes sorry Master, there was an enemy but it was handled. You should come down here. These humans are a mess.

What? Their health seems okay other than Reid though?

That’s not quite what I meant… I could hear the disgust in his voice and wondered if they had accidentally gotten into some nasty monster byproducts.

Well, come up here and get me then. The monsters are dead?

Yes, coming.

I laid back on the rock and pulled up the GGC, they had been quite active while I was waiting. Since I had to wait til I got back to them anyways I might as well have some conversations.

[“Reflection of an Empty Throne” laughs saying that you wasted so much energy on worrying for nothing.]

[“Traveling Spring Painter” implores you to trust your teammates more.]

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” complains that you ignored them for so long.]

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” wonders why you never check the windows of the enemies you face.]

“Oh… Yeah I should do that.” I flushed, I had checked the status window of one of the horned rabbits when I first became a Candidate, but neglected that ability this whole time. I wondered if I ever told the group that they could check the status windows of enemies.

“Wait… I did that once it was dead. Can I check the status windows of alive enemies?”

[“Abandoned Bloodied Sword” frowns saying that a fight should just be a fight.]

[“Void Who Gazes Back” tells you that you cannot check them until they are dead.]

“What? Then why did you say that Seeker? You made me think I’d been missing out on a big part of hunting this whole time.” I said annoyed.

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” chuckles saying that “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” isn’t very good at communicating.]

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” complains that there is nothing wrong with the way he communicates.]

“Well… it is misleading, you know?” I replied with a sigh. At least I hadn’t almost gotten us killed by not relaying important information to them.

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” states that he was just asking about something that he was curious about and you made assumptions on your own. He adds that humans make very little sense.]

“Well I guess? But don’t you lose a lot of the nuance of conversations if you think about it that way?” I asked while glancing over to look for Aureus, I didn’t see him yet.

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” agrees with you.]

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” protests that he is very capable of communicating, and says that communicating and understanding human culture are not the same.]

“Ah, yeah you’re right. That does mean you’re bad at communicating by human standards though, don’t you think?” I asked, side eyeing his window. Aureus had reached me at that point, so I stood as he scooped me up again.

I furrowed my brows at him as we flew in a different direction than the hole. “Aureus, where are we headed?”

We are headed to that hole there. See it? In the distance there was a small hole between two large pillars I hadn’t seen there before.

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” mumbles to himself there is still much to learn about humans, he finishes writing something in his notebook as he grins to himself.]

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” laughs and agrees, yes there is still much that “Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” doesn’t know about humans.]

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” rolls his eyes saying that he is glad to have more things to discover at his age.]

Ignoring them I ask, “Aureus, did you make this?” as we approached the pillars. They were more like two huge thin rock formations than pillars since they lacked any sort of craftsmanship. The hole between them was about ten feet across and smooth. It descended straight down through the rock and I couldn’t see the bottom.

Yes Master, I made this exit once you asked me to come to get you. It was the fastest way, and I added landmarks so we could find it again easily.

I see… so Caro and Noel are beneath this hole?

Yes.

A small flame appeared next to us as we descended, after half a minute the small tunnel gave way to a huge cavern. There were carvings in a large wall to my left, they were rough and looked to be some sort of language I didn’t recognize, but were distinctly not similar to the runes around the Underhollow entrances I’d found previously.

I scanned the area looking for my friends, I nearly missed them and had to do a double take. Caroline and Noel were… hugging? They were locked in an emotional embrace as they made the most awful sobbing noises I’d ever heard. What in the world were they doing? As we got closer an awful smell hit me, they were covered in blood and guts, it was vile.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I can see what you meant…

Disgusting.

That’s a little… Well… Yeah, they’re… I wondered exactly which part of what was happening caused him to feel that way, the smell, the loud discordant sobs, or the snot they were unabashedly getting everywhere.

“Guys? Are you alright?” I called out. There was no response, “What’s going on?”

Humans are dumb. All the humans except Master of course.

[“Void Who Gazes Back” expresses that her contractor has experienced quite a trauma. She encourages you to comfort her.]

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” adds that those two can’t hear at the moment.]

Can’t hear? They lost their hearing during the fight, or was it a debuff of some kind? The Playwright said at the moment, maybe it was something that would be resolved with time. I took a hesitant step towards them, I wanted to comfort Caro but she was completely covered with filth.

Aureus, can you splash some water on them gently from a distance. Just get their attention.

Understood.

I could feel Aureus’ satisfaction as I requested that of him, an orb of water about the size of a yoga ball appeared above them and lost its form as he released control of it. The two of them gasped loudly as they flinched and looked around them. When they saw me, they both started to run towards me, arms outstretched.

I automatically raised my arms defensively and took a couple steps back as they approached. Pain flashed across Caroline’s face and a pang of guilt thudded into my chest. Noel on the other just stopped where he was and looked at me suspiciously.

“Ah… I didn’t think this through. We have no way to communicate.” I furrowed my brows as I thought of a way to talk to them.

Why don’t you just retrieve the healer so you can fix their ears?

I looked over at the door, it was huge but still pretty simple. To the side of it were the corpses of what I assumed to be the worm and some other monster they had faced. It was disgusting, some weird ball of flesh with more than ten arms. Parts of it were covered in scales while others were just human flesh. I walked my way over to the door giving both the two people watching me and the monsters a wide berth.

“REID” Caroline clumsily hollered at me, her voice thick with sadness. I finally realized why they were acting so strangely, they didn’t know he was alive. I turned to face her, she was already sobbing heavily again.

“P-A-R-T-Y” I yelled towards her, she looked at me with her head cocked. I started again “P-”, I stopped, I was yelling at a deaf person like some Karen who yells at people who aren’t native english speakers. How embarrassing. I continued to mouth party at her, while I tried to mime a system window. It took a few attempts before realization took over her expression. She sucked in a deep breath and a huge smile took over her face as she started crying again.

Noel looked between the two of us like we were insane, his partner in grief was now grinning ear to ear and shaking him as she deafly yelled “REID! IS! ALIVE!” Then she let out the most deranged laugh I’ve ever heard out of her as she released the shaken up and confused Noel.

I turned back to the door behind me to let them sort out things on their own, Aureus was right. There was a smeared line of blood that arced towards me from where the door was. Reid must have gone in here to avoid whichever monster he’d been escaping.

He should be just behind here, the smell of his blood is strong.

I glanced behind me, Noel had latched onto Caro and was shaking her, the tables had turned it seemed. He was distressed about something, he must not have gotten the message about Reid not dying. I started waving my hands around trying to get their attention, Caroline noticed and was smacking Noel in the face.

She must have been annoyed because she was hitting him pretty hard. It was that or she didn’t realize how hard she had been smacking him since she couldn’t hear it. Loud smacks resonated through the cavern as she tried to get him to stop shaking her and look towards me. Noel had been yelling some gibberish I couldn’t understand.

I just decided I’d go through the door instead. It’d been a while since they’d leveled up; they had to be close. If I just could level them up again I’d be able to restore their injuries and we could properly communicate. The doors swung open and there he was, leaning up against the wall. The entryway past the door consisted of a corridor that split in two directions. A maze?

Reid looked like he’d been hit by a bus. His head hung down dripping with blood. A large gash covered his chest, it had evidence of him trying to heal it some. Portions of it were pulled closed by fresh skin. A few smaller cuts were scattered about his body, but particularly I noticed on his hands and forearms. He must have been trying to defend himself. There were dark bruises already forming on nearly every bit of his exposed skin. I walked through the doors with Aureus before squatting in front of him. I wanted to help him, but I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do.

[Congratulations you have discovered “Collector of Gems and Stones” Labyrinth.]

[“Collector of Gems and Stones” cheers.]

[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” asks if you’re going to leave those two like that.]

“Well, they’ll figure it out once I level them up.”

[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” expresses that if you wanted to do that you shouldn’t have closed the door.]

“But I didn’t…” I glanced back at where I’d come from and there was merely a blank wall. No outline of a door or a way to get out. “URGH! Why!” I ran my hands through my hair, while I tried to process what I should do.

[“Traveling Spring Painter” smiles, telling you that Labyrinths are relatively safe, and suggests you try to disarm some of the traps.]

“And what? Leave Reid here? What if I get lost and can’t find him?” I looked at the chat waiting for a response. It was quiet, none of the gods were saying anything.

Aureus can you explore a bit? Please just take that left and every chance you get take another left. When I call you back you can do the opposite, take all rights.

Understood.

I settled down next to Reid, while I considered lying him down and trying to help in some way even if it was just cleaning him up. I was thinking I might lie him in my lap to give his neck some support, but I decided that I shouldn’t do anything other than trying to put pressure on his wounds. If I changed his position it could have some sort of negative effect on him. Well maybe, I’d always heard you shouldn’t mess with people who were in accidents since you could exacerbate their injuries unintentionally.

After a couple of seconds I got up and squatted in front of him again, looking for the injury that was causing the most blood loss. The gash in his chest – while significant – was already starting the healing process and wasn’t bleeding very heavily. There was a steady dripping of blood on the cold stone beneath him, his head was wounded somewhere.

I lifted his head up to see a gash that was dripping blood from his forehead. I didn’t have any fabric to use for putting pressure on the injury so I just pressed into it with my hands. Blood squeezed its way between my fingers and started dripping down my arms. I maintained that position for a minute, but it didn’t seem like it was helping at all.

“This isn’t working…” I mumbled to myself.

[“Golden Light that Shines On All” has sponsored you.]

~~*~~

Golden Drop of Life

(Potion)

Description: A single drop of this potion is capable of restoring up to 70% of a person’s life force. Mana and stamina regeneration rate will increase dramatically for the next 24 hours after consuming this potion. Depending on the user, permanent positive effects may be applied.

~~*~~

A small glass bottle with a few drops of glowing golden liquid materialized in my hand. The craftsmanship for that bottle was completely different from the one I’d received from my Naked and Unafraid quest. The glass was clear, the neck of the bottle thin and topped with a glass cap that had a simple decorative finial – it came towards a point blunted by a ball. There was an elegant design encircling the bottom of the bottle in frosted glass.

I pulled the top of the bottle out with a pop, the potion’s smell overwhelmed me for a moment. Honey and warmth was the only way I could describe it. I didn’t quite understand how I was smelling warmth, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that that was what I was smelling.

Carefully I lifted his head back pushing his jaw open, and slowly poured just one drop of the potion into his mouth. I put the potion into my inventory and pushed my hair out of my face as I waited.

A golden light began to emanate from his chest, growing brighter and brighter before I had to avert my eyes to avoid being blinded. When it faded away I noticed the wound on his chest had disappeared. The color was returning to his face, he already didn’t look injured at all.

“Reid?” I said gently. I didn’t want to push him too much, almost dying took its toll regardless of if it was physical health.

“Erm…” he grumbled as his eyes slowly cracked open.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked with a smile, I couldn’t help but smile even if the situation didn’t really call for it.

His eyes snapped open, he looked right at me and then punched me in the face. My head snapped back, I was more dazed than hurt. Reid had just hit me. Reid.