Water Trails
Janus and the [Hermit], Lenny, sat facing each other, illuminated by the soft glow of a Torchstone placed between them.
Lenny spoke enthusiastically about his time in the tunnels, his gestures punctuating his animated storytelling. The man had offered Janus a taste of his homemade mushroom paste, claiming to have grown the mushrooms himself. The strange paste did not look very appetizing.
Janus, not wanting to offend his host, reluctantly sampled the concoction. It had tasted about as good as it looked. He held in a gag reflex as Lenny continued chatting.
"You see, lad, the key to surviving down here is adaptability," he remarked between mouthfuls of his homemade mushroom paste. "You never know what you'll encounter in these tunnels, but if you can learn to make do with what you have, you'll always come out on top."
“Uh, right.” Lenny had barely given Janus time to speak between his bursts of rambling.
"Boy, I know I've been talking up a storm," Lenny said, his arms gesturing wildly in every direction.
“Don’t worry about it.”
"You know, I haven't asked why you were down here..." Lenny continued, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"I guess you wouldn't have heard what happened in Crow Station," Janus said, his voice soft yet carrying the weight of recent events.
“Haven’t been there in a decade.” Lenny guffawed. “Haven’t been anywhere in a decade!”
Janus yawned, and attempted to fight off his mounting exhaustion.
“Crow Station was attacked. It’s a ruin.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know.” For the first time during their conversation, Lenny appeared to mellow out.
“You couldn’t have known.” Janus stifled another yawn. “I don’t take any offense…”
Janus felt himself drifting away. The cold cavern floor was hardly comfortable, but it didn’t matter in the face of his fatigue.
“You look like you could use a nap.” Lenny faintly smiled.
"Yeah... I think I'll..." Janus began to say, but before he could finish his sentence, he slid to his side, a faint snore escaping from his lips.
-
Janus' spine screamed out in agony as he drifted awake, having fallen asleep at a very awkward angle. He blinked his eyes, but the cavern was pitch black.
Placing the palms of his hands on his lower back, he stretched backward, eliciting a series of cracks and pops.
Lenny must have gone to sleep.
Feeling a little peckish, Janus reached around for his pack, but his hands met only cold stone. He stood and shuffled around, but in the darkness, he couldn't see his pack. Janus seized control of the ambient mana, spreading it around to illuminate his surroundings.
His pack was nowhere within his mana sense. In fact, there was nothing there at all. Lenny was missing.
Realization struck Janus like a ton of bricks.
He tricked me. He has my food.
Janus fumbled around in his pockets, but then recalled that they had used his own [Torchstone] for light the previous night. Lenny hadn't even left him with a light source. If it weren't for his mana sense, he would have been completely blind.
Anger momentarily overpowered his panic. After everything that had happened, it felt like the universe was toying with him. Lenny had seemed odd, yet energetic and kind. The man had played Janus like a fool.
He carefully made his way to where the tunnel intersected with the cavern. Retrieving his map from a pocket, he felt a pang of despair as his mana sense failed to make out anything on the paper.
He stood there for a moment before nearly smacking himself. He could still create Tsula’s revealing light with [Spell Weaving]. The light slowly formed on his palm, and Janus scrutinized the map.
He weighed his options, his mind racing as he considered the risks. There was an underwater stream nearby, indicated on the map, but the line suggested it could take half a day or more to reach it. While it offered a potential path to safety, Janus hesitated. Returning to Crow Station was also an option, but it carried its own dangers. He could encounter beasts or worse, the [Beast Lord].
Janus had read a lot of stories about the early stations. They were created, in part, to keep everyone safe from roaming monsters, but the genuine threats were other people. Many of the stories he had read revolved around slaying a dangerous [Necromancer] or [Shadow Knight]. Occasionally, surface-dwellers would assume monstrous guises, unleashing havoc until they were subdued.
Anybody in the stations with a skill or a class that manipulated their form would be heavily scrutinized. Often, changing ones form came with a plethora of side effects.
A question gnawed at Janus as he pondered the sudden assault on Crow Station. How had such a significant threat gone unnoticed by their defenses? Was there a breach in their detection systems, or had the [Beast Lord] somehow managed to evade their surveillance? And perhaps most troubling of all, how had he pinpointed the exact location to launch his assault?
Janus set his course for the underwater stream. With each step, he focused on the task at hand, pushing aside the nagging questions and uncertainties that plagued his mind. Returning to Crow Station was out of the question. If he had already made it this far, why turn back?
As the light in his palm faded, Janus reverted to his technique of dispersing mana to illuminate his surroundings. This approach was less draining on his mana reserves, allowing him to conserve energy. With each pulse of mana, he felt out the contours of the tunnel, navigating the darkness with cautious determination.
It was eerie, not being able to see anything in the tunnels. His mana sense only stretched a couple of meters. If a monster came through, he would have almost no warning before it attacked.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
With each step, Janus focused on the rhythm of his footfalls, a repetitive pattern that grounded him in the present moment. Left foot, right foot, left foot... It became almost meditative, a simple act of moving forward in the darkness. Time seemed to lose its meaning as he walked on, his senses attuned to the subtle shifts in the surrounding environment.
After what felt like hours, he detected a faint yet unmistakable sound: the gentle rush of water.
That must be the stream.
Many of the underground streams surrounding the stations were man made, and this one was no exception. The water ran through tubes, much like the tunnel Janus was already in. These streams served vital functions, providing water to sustain life within the stations or carrying away waste to maintain cleanliness and sanitation.
As he neared the stream, Janus couldn't help but hope that it served the former purpose rather than the latter.
Well, it doesn’t smell like a sewer. But it’s pretty far out from Crow Station.
The map hadn’t clarified what kind of underground stream it was. There was simply a label and a wavy line.
Janus found himself trekking for nearly two more hours before finally reaching the source of the rushing water. The journey was longer than he had initially imagined.
A stream isn’t really what I would call this.
The tunnel carrying the water loomed large, dwarfing the narrow path Janus traversed. His mana sense alerted him to a sheer drop into the rushing water below, with only a small walkway providing passage across. Uncertain of how to descend to the water safely, Janus decided to make his way across the walkway instead.
The walkway had been made of sturdy metal. It did not creak or bend, but Janus still felt nervous. It was very narrow, with nothing to stop him from falling off other than a railing on either side. This close up, the sound of the water was nearly deafening.
As Janus neared the end of the walkway, his mana sense revealed a ladder leading down. His hand grabbed the first rung, and he slowly shifted his weight from the walkway. He wasn’t sure how far he was above the waterline and began to make a slow, cautious descent.
The ground surprised him as it entered his mana sense and the ladder ended. Stepping off of the ladder, he turned and crept forward. As he moved further from the tunnel wall, he sensed a ledge. Below, the raging water tossed mana every direction, making it difficult to sense anything beyond.
Kneeling near the ledge, Janus summoned the revealing light array in his hand, its soft glow casting faint illumination around him. He leaned forward, intending to dip his hand into the water, when a movement caught his attention from the periphery.
Turning his head, Janus froze as he met the gaze of a familiar face framed by matted hair, the eyes wide with surprise and recognition.
Lenny!
Janus's heart pounded in his chest as he noticed his pack placed beside Lenny's. The sight startled him so much that he almost lost control of the revealing light array.
In an instant, Lenny reacted, swiftly unlatching a small knife from his waist. Janus watched in confusion as the man disappeared from his mana sense but remained visible in the light. The [Hermit] moved stealthily, as if unaware that Janus could still see him.
The absurdity of the situation would have provoked laughter from Janus if he weren't consumed by anger. Tsula's spell continued to reveal the man as he shuffled to the side. While Janus was not above being reasonable and letting the [Hermit] go after retrieving his stolen food, Lenny's audacity in pulling a knife on him left Janus seething with indignation.
Janus compressed mana to Lenny’s side and let it explode outward. It threw the man off his feet and into the wall. As Janus approached, the thief jumped back to his feet and lunged forward with his knife. After sparring with Devon, Lenny may as well have been moving in slow motion.
Janus sidestepped and circled around, now behind Lenny. He created a flash of light in front of the [Hermits] face and unclasped his quarterstaff. Unceremoniously, Janus reared back and slammed the staff into Lenny’s back with a thwack!
The thief grunted, spinning on his feet and nearly losing his balance. His legs emitted a pale green light, anchoring him firmly to the ground. It was as if he had glued himself in place, halting his fall completely.
“Hey, we can talk about this!” Lenny said with a smile.
Janus cautiously stepped backwards. “Give me my things.”
“Of course, of course,” said Lenny, gesturing toward the packs.
As Janus glanced at his stolen pack, the man rushed towards him again, catching him off guard. The knife sliced through the air, scoring the back of Janus’ hand as he instinctively reached out to defend himself.
The pain intensified Janus’ anger, and he quickly reinforced a flat plane of mana in front of himself. With Lenny on the other side of the barrier, Janus compressed and released mana on the other side.
The blast washed over Lenny, but he glued himself to the ground once more. The man sliced at the reinforced pane of mana. The blade bounced off initially, but with a determined grunt, Lenny tried again. This time, the knife sliced through the reinforced mana barrier, causing it to shatter.
Janus watched carefully as the green glow bled from Lenny’s legs. Just as the skill appeared to dissipate, Janus struck out with his quarterstaff while simultaneously forming a barrier of mana. As the thief dodged back from the staff strike, condensed mana formed and erupted outward.
The barrier protected Janus from the blast and Lenny had no time to activate his skill as the wave of mana pushed at him. He landed on his back, and Janus wasted no time, constructing a replica arrow point array over the thief's prone figure. Soon, mana arrows began raining down, piercing Lenny's body with each strike. The result was grotesque, eliciting cries of agony from the wounded thief.
Janus watched in shock, his eyes widening at the sight before him. The only people he had ever targeted with the replica arrow point were Devon, Pella, and Dario. Each of them had always demonstrated some form of defense against the magic. However, Lenny appeared to have no such protection.
Fuck! Hermit must not even be a combat class!
Janus hurried to Lenny's side, falling to his knees beside him. The wild look in the man's eyes had softened, replaced by a vacant gaze. Lenny's mouth emitted only a gurgling sound as he reached out and grasped Janus's arm.
Locking eyes with the [Hermit], Janus watched as the notification appeared.
[You have defeated an enemy: Hermit]
[You have gained 1 level]
Janus remained seated, the lifeless grip of the man's fingers firmly encircling his wrist. Once again, he felt a feeling of detachment. He had seen so much death in Crow Station, but now he was personally responsible for ending the life of another person.
Reflecting on the events since he met Lenny, Janus agonized over the choices he could have made differently. He could have declined to eat the peculiar mushroom paste, or maintained a more cautious attitude towards Lenny's seemingly friendly disposition.
Using such a lethal spell against the thief was a mistake. It was evident that Lenny's livelihood in the tunnels relied on stealth and theft. However, Janus' revealing had light swiftly nullified the [Hermit]'s sole advantage. He had been in control.
I couldn’t have known. Lenny could have still been a threat.
The thought wasn’t as comforting as he had hoped it would be.
Monsters, as far as Janus was aware, didn’t even think. They weren’t sentient. The System designed them solely as adversaries. They lacked the cognitive abilities of typical living creatures. Janus had never been faced with the reality of killing a genuinely living being.
“I would have just let you go,” Janus whispered, his anger completely drained, “Why didn’t you just back down?”
After the attack on Crow Station, Janus was no stranger to death. He had seen many corpses in the Backwash, in the station, and even in homes. Yet, this instance felt distinct. It wasn’t an external menace that had claimed the life of the man lying before him. It was Janus himself—the kid who loved to read stories, the kid who excitedly walked with his dad to the library for new book releases, the kid who dreamed of being a hero.
And how is this heroic?
His self loathing crawled to an all-time high. With trembling hands, he pried Lenny’s fingers from his arm, the chill of death already claiming them. Retreating with faltering steps, he pressed his back against the tunnel wall, seeking solace in its solidity.
Tears welled in his eyes, unbidden and unstoppable. They cascaded down his cheeks, mingling with the dust of the tunnels. His tears were not just for Crow Station, nor for his missing father, but for the dead man lying cold on the ground before him.
He sat there, unmoving, for an indeterminate amount of time. His stomach rumbled in protest, but Janus didn’t reach for his newly recovered pack.