I was forced to split my focus between maintaining the field and running as we ducked through the tight passageways. A scream of danger told me that something was wrong. Without thinking I grabbed Aaliyah and expanded my field to its limits. Five impacts from above cost me nearly as much mental energy as everything until this point. "Fuck me!" I glanced up and saw five red slimy blobs burning their way to us. The lack of sound further irritated me. I pushed Aaliyah ahead of me and tried to figure out a new strategy. The slimes didn't give me much time. The black wave started to melt through my shield. I had to force myself to ignore how impossible that seemed. I activated Psychic Aegis and imbued it with the Strand of Adamance. The barrier wall shone like a beacon in the depths of the mountain. Nearly as soon as it formed the barrier began to crack. I activated Realm of Consciousness and grabbed Aaliyah to stop her from getting lost in the fog.

I directed the drained psychic energy to fuel the shield and grimaced as Aaliyah leaned against me. Please let the next evolution for this spell protect other people. My awareness spread along with the fog as I desperately searched for any more enemies. I swore when I realized what was going on. Aaliyah tapped on my shoulder but I ignored it. The slimes had dug beneath us and were trying to entrap us. I picked her up and pushed my body to its limit. Within minutes we were outside of my fog. My senses snapped back to normal, and the sudden loss of perception caused me to stumble a step. In the next moment, Psychic Aegis shattered. Son of a Bitch! Apportation's portal opened in front of me only to slam shut. The sight was so foreign that I stopped running. Had I never used it in the tunnel? Was it whatever took the sound? Why wouldn't it open? Genuine panic shot through me as I started running. It felt like it to us an eternity to reach the bridge.

We practically flew across the bridge as we raced toward the entrance. A scream of danger forced me back a step as the ground in front of us collapsed. A yawning pit filled with ruby acid crawled up the hole. The cavern was too low for me to make the jump. I cursed and launched Aaliyah like a baseball. Somehow the lack of sound only made her slam into the opposite wall seem worse. I was about to rush after her when I remembered the quest. Before I had time to think about what I was doing created twin blades of psychic energy and launched them into the crimson pool. The liquid parted briefly before reforming and pushing further up the pit. Danger and opportunity were often linked. My fear was quickly devoured by anticipation. Would the System give us an impossible quest? I looked up at Aaliyah who had gotten to her feet. What she saw in my eyes made her flinch back a step. The moment seemed to stretch on forever as I waited for her to make her choice.

She turned and ran from the tunnel. I let out a silent sigh and turned my attention to the slime beneath me. The wave behind me should be closing in which meant I had to make a choice. It felt like two paths opened up in front of me. One where I tested my barrier at its full strength against the pool in hopes of finding something. and one where I hoped that the slime wave couldn't cross the water. The moment of hesitation lasted only a moment. I turned and sprinted back toward the wave my spiritual energy circulated through my channels. Excitement warred with fear and it was desire that came out on top. I arrived at the bridge in minutes and found the slime launching itself across the stream. The sight was surreal enough to stop me in my tracks. I couldn't believe just how smart a puddle of acid was. When the portion that was on the same side as me surged toward me I forgot about my fascination.

My tao field formed to protect me as I ran forward. I hoped that my barriers could stop me from drowning. I launched myself into the stream and deep within the cold liquid. I hadn't been in the water for more than a few seconds before panic sat in. The water crashed against my tao and my tao was losing. I tried to shrink it as close to my body as possible only to realize I couldn't control any of my energy. In the next moment my mind and were inundated with spiritual energy. I thrashed and kicked in the water as the fear of drowning consumed everything. The water forced its way through my field and into my body. My dantian fought to absorb the energy as fast as possible, but for the first time, it was like a monsoon blasting the desert that made it up. My eyes scanned the raging river for any sign of relief and found a small ray of light.

I thrashed and kicked my way toward it as liquid fire spread through my entire body. It would have been an insult to describe what I was feeling as "pain". It was like the river was liquefied spiritual energy that desperately sought out a home. When I finally reached the light I surfaced from the river and sucked in air. Darkness clawed in at the edges of my vision as I pushed the strand of adamance through my entire body. My mind felt like an overused sponge and every muscle in my body felt torn. I crawled onto shore and rolled over onto my back. A small voice in the back of my head warned me that I wasn't safe here. That I needed to keep moving but I had no strength left. Even the thought of activating another spell made me want to pass out. When my will gave out and the darkness finally claimed I couldn't feel anything besides relief.

When I woke up I tenderly checked my body. The wounds I expected to find were gone. I felt fine, better than fine actually. I felt like I had slept for a week. I passed my inner eye over my channels and found them for lack of a better word raw. Based on the pain I had felt even this was a welcome surprise. I would have thought I had burned my channels. I flexed my fingers and got to my feet. Once I was sure that I didn't have any serious injuries I checked my bag. Thankfully whatever array that let the bag store so much was still active. The bag wasn't even wet now that I thought about it. Neither were my clothes. I scanned the cavern where I landed and found it mostly empty. It was only slightly taller than me and barely illuminated by the lake of whatever I had found.

The water itself was oddly clear. Whatever it was, it wasn't water. The liquid was almost perfectly transparent. It was so see-through that without the ripples and the aura it gave off I wouldn't have known it was liquid at all. Once again my inability to identify things kicked my ass. I couldn't tell if the liquid in front of me was some grand treasure that I needed to bottle or some kind of poison that really should have killed me. I also had no bottles— That thought died as I realized I did have some bottles. I pulled out my pill bottles and redistributed the pills. I only needed two bottles to fit them all which left me two to use on the liquid. Of course, these bottles weren't large enough to store much but Azariah or Desbera should be able to do something with them.

I filled the bottles and waited to see if I would get any new effects but there was nothing. It was like the liquid was now avoiding me which was just added to the tally of weird shit. Now that my exploration was done I needed a way out of here. I scanned the chamber again but there were only rock walls and the underground lake. I didn't feel like trying to swim again so I made my way over to the walls. I rapped my knuckles against each one and hoped that one of them would turn out to be hollow. I found what I was looking for at the tenth knock. It took me another minute to map out how large the hollow area was and to build up the nerve to attempt what had to be a stupid idea in any version of the world.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I smiled and slammed my fist into the cold stone. My fingers trembled as pain shot up my arm. I bit back a cry of pain and slammed my fist into it again. I rained down blow after blow until the stone started to give in and the skin on my knuckles cracked. I pushed the strand of adamance into my hand to reinforce it and kept going. The stone turned dark red with blood but still, I pushed forward. I couldn't be sure how long it took before I reached the other side. As soon as I did I dropped to my knees as sweat poured down my face. "I am not a fighter," I grumbled and got back to my feet. I sent a bit of spiritual energy into my robes and cringed. The array that powered its damage mitigation was gone. Either the liquid did it or I had overdrawn it when I swam here. I checked the self-repair function and found it too was broken.

"Well, I guess they served me long enough. I would have had to get a new set eventually" I spoke aloud and smoothed out the garments. Let's just hope I can make it out of here fully clothed. I activated Psychic Aegis in its bubble form and started down my new path. I quickly realized I had a new problem. I couldn't see in the dark. The further I got away from the lake the worse my situation became. I conjured two psychic energy blades to act like torches. They barely helped. They gave the whole situation a horror movie vibe where I could only see slightly ahead of me. I tried a few more things including my tao field but none of that made a difference. Note to self, buy torches the next time I decide to go spelunking. I froze at the thought. "Buy torches?" I chuckled and that chuckle turned into a laugh. "I can hear myself!" It had never felt this good to hear my voice before right now.

I scanned the tunnel but there was nothing that explained why sound had come back. Which meant it was either the slime creatures or something about that specific section of the cave. I checked the quest as well, outside of losing five hours there were no changes. I chalked that up to another mystery and pushed forward. I walked for half an hour before I came across something that made me nearly piss myself. A set of eight eyes in the darkness. My heart threatened to rip itself out of my chest. My fingers turned clammy and my mind blanked as my danger sense screamed at me to move. A thorny leg slammed into Psychic Aegis twice before my brain started working again. I let out a blood-curdling scream and unleashed Psionic Rain at its most powerful. Spiritual energy surged into spell after spell. Once my spells were all on cooldown I launched psychic energy into the darkness. The attacks didn't get the chance to have proper shapes and more resembled misshapen blobs. I wasn't sure how long I screamed into the darkness before I came back to reality. The eyes were long gone and so was my barrier.

I smacked at my arms as phantom legs crawled over me. The strands of adamance and lucidity flowed through me like a calming balm. When I had relaxed enough to take in the area around me I grimaced. I did my best to ignore what that monster most likely was and focused on the moment. Whatever it was is very dead now. The burst of spiritual energy had confirmed it a while ago. I only wished my attacks did physical damage. Part of me wanted to stay in the darkness to ignore the corpse but that wouldn't work. Who knew how long it would take for some other thing to find me? The tao of adamance acted as liquid courage as I got to my feet. I condensed my tao field to a few feet around me and summoned a small ball of psychic light. "You can do this," I repeated to myself until I worked up the nerve to go forward. I immediately wished I hadn't.

The creature was nearly as big as an alligator and still looked alive. My skin crawled and I resisted the urge to unleash another volley of spells at it. I didn't even consider collecting the corpse. When I saw the path forward I ran like a bat out of hell. I didn't stop running for another twenty minutes. Thankfully there were no more monsters. I decided to stop and take stock of my situation. Most of my spells were ready or would be ready again soon so I wasn't in any danger there. I pulled up my status screen for the first time since my impromptu bath and laughed at what I saw. My level had increased by two. It wasn't just the monster killing either the strange liquid had to have been like..."Liquefied Spirit Stones." I stood up and began pacing. If I was right then I had just come across a literal gold mine. It would explain why my channels burned and ached. I had absorbed too much energy too quickly. It would even explain why I survived the swim. My body and channels were reinforced by the Elixir. If that were the case I am probably the only human on earth that would have.

Which means if...If Aaliyah had stayed with me she would have died. I pulled up attributes and focused on Luck. Was that why? There was no way that any of this could be considered "Luck" though. I chose to stay here, we happened across this place but why? I scoured my mind for any reason to connect my choice to come here with Reason but there was nothing. I just picked it. Was it fate? If there was some predetermined nature to this then did Aaliyah have a choice or was it already determined? Did I have a choice? The thought was somber but it ultimately didn't matter. I had no way of knowing either way. Ultimately I made my choice, Aaliyah made hers and now I was trapped in a nightmarish underground cave system. It was yet to be seen if I had made the right choice.

I pushed the thought from my mind and focused on more pressing issues. I needed to find a way out of here and find where the quest wanted me to go. I pulled up the quest log hoping that there would be some kind of marker or path but there was nothing. I spent my free points, dividing them between Agility and Intelligence before I set off again. I walked for another hour before I started to hear a sizzling sound. It was a bit like someone had dropped food in a skillet filled with oil. Since there was likely no one cooking down here I mentally prepared myself for a battle. I circulated my spiritual energy and stepped into the chamber. I was promptly greeted by a scene straight out of a horror movie. A pool of dark crimson liquid surrounded a small island with a macabre collection of skeletons that had been dissolved together. It was like a psychopath had decided to forge a stand out of various animal, monster, and even human corpses. The liquid was gelatinous and nearly opaque. It did nothing to deal with the horrible scent that came off of it.

I had to fight the urge to puke as sulfur filled the air. Part of me wondered if I had somehow fallen through the earth and straight to hell. Every instinct I had wanted me to turn around and run as far away from whatever this was. My danger sense slammed into my mind just as Intellect Fortress triggered. I was assaulted with a torrent of mental impressions and emotions in an instant. It felt like I was being drowned in confusion, panic, pain, and fear. I tried to push the tao of adamance into the sigil but my soul wouldn't obey. It was like something had stolen control of my psyche from me.

"Consume?"

An eldritch voice slipped in my mind like a serpent that had found prey. That one word felt absolute as if it was heavenly law and disobeying wasn't conceivable. It felt like my psyche was being ripped apart. I was vaguely aware of my body moving toward the slime but there was nothing I could do about it. I could barely flex my fingers let alone control my body. My psychic energy was frozen but my dantian still surged.

"Mine"

The voice filled my mind again and blood dripped down my face. It took me a second to realize that it dripped from both my eyes and nose. I couldn't even feel the pain. My right foot hit something wet and let out a mental scream of frustration. I directed my rage at the voice hoping that it would hurt or force it off me but nothing helped. I desperately searched my mind for anything that would save me.