I made my way down the right pathway, alone. It was almost strange; the quiet and dark reminded me of when I first awoke, but instead of stumbling in a random direction I had a goal and the dark didn’t disturb me quite so much. Something about being alone soothed me, like I had been on edge up until moments ago. I figured this might’ve been some kind of worry, which was strange. I started to realize, as I crept down the dark tunnel, that after I regained some strange power from my savior’s blood, I think my emotions were growing in power as well.

A cackling snarl from down further in the tunnel snapped my attention from my idle thoughts. I hugged close to the wall, almost like I could melt into the stone and disappear. A sort of wet cough followed by more cackling echoed up towards me, but I didn’t hear any footfalls. I was distinctly aware of every sound and movement I made, my senses were fine tuned to a degree I couldn’t remember experiencing. After I waited a few moments more, not hearing any more sounds, I was emboldened and crept further down the tunnel.

As I turned a slight corner, I could tell from the empty darkness in front of me that the tunnel opened to some degree. I was cautious, my instincts told me the mouth of this tunnel would be a perfect spot to ambush someone, but nothing awaited me. I pressed forward and came out of the tunnel mouth as quietly as I could manage.

The tunnel mouth opened into a short and jagged cavern, if it could be called such. It was like a bubble had been carved violently out of the stone, but the carver left jagged rocks and high reaching pillars that arched up and across. The far end had crude cubbies scraped out of the wall, and there I could hear the faint sounds of cackling, low snickers, and heavy breathing. My vision wasn’t strong enough to make out figures, but I could see the faint outline of the entire room. It wasn’t large but there was a wide open space in the middle in a small dugout pit. I could hear pained and difficult breathing coming from the pit, but couldn’t see what was inside due to my distant angle.

There was little movement in the room, I sensed only the occasional movement of creatures laying down on the far side of the place or the occasional sound of a rock tumbling somewhere out of sight. I had figured one of these creatures would be on guard, it hadn’t been very long since one of them had dragged the pointy-eared body down this very tunnel. Yet there was no evidence of any activity whatsoever.

I pressed forward into the room, there was a small slope that I had to carefully lower myself down from the mouth of the tunnel to not make noise. I made a mental note about the slope, in a rush it would be difficult to run up and escape into the tunnel, but hopefully I wouldn’t need to worry about that. After my labors lowering myself into the rocky room, I crept forward with as much stealth as I could channel. I wanted to peek inside the pit in the middle of the room, I had a suspicion I wanted checked. Yet as I made halfway to the pit, only a few meters of slow crawling, a sudden sound to my left caught my attention.

A snarl and cough like I heard before erupted to my left. I stopped where I was and snapped my head to look in that direction. I saw the vague outline of a large figure squatting on a flat rock. From the way it was positioned it was looking out towards the pit, but even in the dark I could tell by its bulk and the faint shimmer on its scales; it was one of those creatures. Its long snout moved back and forth like it made some effort to scan the area, but it did so casually as it scratched its head. My diligence had afforded me to avoid detection by this bored sentry.

I had to make a plan, it could be moments before the creature noticed me. I needed some strategy to avoid this creature, kill it, but also not alert the others within the same room. Nothing I could think of had any real chance of success. I could attack the creature, with it not noticing me I could gain an advantage over it, but the fight would surely awaken anything else in the room or alert them that something was wrong. I could try to lure it into the tunnel, but anything I would do to get its attention would likely make it call out for help. Any thought that crossed my mind was ill conceived and guaranteed a layer of failure that I couldn't’ risk. Then the whispers returned to me.

Whispering words, voices of power and knowledge, they crept back slowly to the far distant part of my mind. Then as my worry and anxiety rose the words became more powerful and loud. They once again wanted to be used, but what word could I possibly manifest to quietly dispatch such a creature? Yet I listened, not having any alternative.

The arcane words always flooded in with the strongest at the front of the wave, but my memory of using a single word on Nefelair reminded me to be cautious. I let the words that yelled the loudest pass me by, I almost managed to push them away and search for anything else that might aid me like I did in my panic to heal my savior. Similar to when my savior had been wounded, the words didn’t fit or were entirely wrong. The arcane whispers seemed to beg for violence, to promise a fountain of blood or some other way to brutalize my enemy. I needed to kill or disable the creature, but in a way that was quiet and the words coming to me seemed to detest stealth or subtlety.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As I listened and waited, only moments passing but thousands of words crossing my mind in the short time, the words became phrases, and phrases became sentences. I was realizing that some of the arcane powers had very specific purposes; that was when I found one. A string of power that might actually work for this situation. I focused towards the creature and concentrated on the words, and I whispered into the ether, “May your mind become blank.” I quietly commanded, forcing the energy from my vitality into the air with my power.

The words hung in the air, and for a single moment the creature’s attention snapped in my direction after I spoke. Yet then its body became relaxed and it slowly slumped to the ground with a soft thump. I could hear its strained breathing, but it was quiet and still. I felt the energy in me fade slightly, but the tapping was manageable.

I quickly used the opening, I didn’t hear or see any other creatures react to the sound of the sentry falling over, I hoped that meant no others were awake or paying attention to the pit. I wasn’t sure how long the effect would last on the sentry, but I didn’t take any chances. I hurried to the pit, still quietly creeping along the floor like some feral animal. Staring into the depression in the ground, it was as I assumed; people of similar build to my savior and the body that was dragged down here lay still, wounded, or terrified at the bottom. The pit was only a short jump down, I would’ve been able to jump out and climb my way out I thought, but I supposed those at the bottom were too wounded or scared to attempt an escape. I suddenly had an issue I didn’t know how to deal with, “How do I get them out of here?” I mumbled to myself, accidentally breaking my silence.

One of the captured seemed to be awake and coherent, they snapped at my small sound and shuffled close to the opposite wall and stared in my direction. Yet it was obvious they couldn’t actually see me. I chastised myself for making myself known, but I would’ve had to reveal myself to them eventually anyway. I tried to muster as quiet a voice as I could, “Shhh” I hissed, feeling it was right to try this to beg for quiet. The awake person inside was taken aback, flinching at my sound, but they strained to look towards me with a little less fear than before. I took a chance and spoke in a whisper, “I’m here to help, can you climb out?”

The scared person waited a moment, but whispered back, “Im do’i heni…”

Of course neither of us could understand each other, “Here, I’ll help you climb out!” I said, bending down to offer a hand down to them.

I wasn’t even sure if they could see even a hint of my outline, but they seemed to see my offered hand. They looked around at those lying still or injured around them, thinking for a moment that stretched longer than I wanted. I wasn’t sure how long my enchantment on the scaly sentry would last. The captured person came closer, but didn’t take my hand, instead speaking again, “Im tur’t lae hain, glenn ge huav!” they whispered urgently.

“I am beginning to hate this language barrier…” I grumbled to myself.

The person seemed confused, “Im sae do’i heni cin…”

I could figure out what they were saying by their confused look after I spoke. Yet I got the distinct feeling this person wouldn’t leave the others behind, which made my job more difficult. I saw no way I could defeat even two of these creatures on my own without realizing my powers more accurately. The person lowered themselves down close to another of the captured who began coughing hard, they tried to quiet and ease them but the sudden loud noises made the creatures on the far end of the room stir. I knew my time to scout the area was up, so I made to leave with only a nod to the captured person I had spoken to, but I doubt they saw the gesture in the dark.

I made my way back towards the tunnel I had entered from, hearing a scuffle from the far side like someone rolling around on the ground and getting up. But then I heard loud footfalls coming down the way I had entered from. One of the creatures was walking down this way! I had to think fast, so I scanned the room once again. I then noticed something I hadn’t before, a slight sort of crack in the wall near the sentry I had debilitated. Even the sentry seemed to be stirring slightly, regaining some of their senses slowly but surely. The crack in the wall behind the sentry seemed passable, for me or someone of similarly thin size, so I scrambled in that direction.

Crawling into the cramped space I pushed myself into jagged rocks as I tried to escape detection. Then a light started to spill into the room out of the tunnel. Coming out were two of those creatures, one with scales like pitch and the other with an almost leathery blood red hide with only a few dark scales. Behind them they dragged a new body, unconscious but alive. I cursed myself as I realized my insistence to go ahead alone had doomed my savior to capture. As the two creatures dragged the limp body of my wounded savior with them, she seemed unharmed.

The red-leathered creature held a crude torch while the black scaled one dragged the pointy-eared woman behind them. They both barked out loud calls, causing a scuffle on the other side of the room as the other creatures barked and yipped at each other to scramble to their feet.

I had failed, I failed in such a gloriously incredible way. The one thing I had wanted was to protect the thing that had saved me from my entombment, but instead I just encouraged them to be captured. I didn’t want to look as they dragged the fresh body towards the pit. So I crawled further into the crack in the wall, descending down some small tunnel fit for a creature such as I, one that crawled on its hands and knees in fear of endangering itself at the cost of others.

I crawled, and crawled, descending, climbing, and shifting past jagged rocks and jutting stone. Until I fell out of the small tunnel into a small space. A pitch black place, one that I could sit and dwell in my own self pity. I lay in the darkness, reminiscent of when I first awoke and as lonely as when I had been trapped, but I doubted a pointy-eared savior would come to rescue me from myself. Yet then, I saw a glint.