Stephen
I swam through a lake of fire, the heat pressing in from all sides. My body was surrounded by a warm green miasma that warded off the flames but that was steadily getting eroded, and I didn’t want to see what happened when it disappeared entirely. I started panicking as the conflagration grew closer, the flames starting to lick my skin gently, but as soon as I resigned myself to the pain, salvation arrived.
My body was suddenly filled with an immense chill, starting from my stomach, and percolating throughout. It brought with it more of that green miasma and the cold also offset the immense heat. I found myself able to relax in a pleasant bath, the temperature moderating to a comfortable warmth. I felt my body strengthening as the new power roiled around and restored my aching and burned muscles, stronger than before.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but eventually both the fire and the cold began to subside in tandem and I finally managed to open my eyes.
Real life was much darker than my dream. A common problem, but it was quite literal in my case as well, as my surroundings were totally pitch black. I flexed my newly recovered but still sore arms and slowly sat up.
“Hey, you’re finally awake!” I heard Al say softly from somewhere over on my left. I heard Julia’s steady and soft breathing coming from the floor in between us and sighed in relief. We all made it to safety.
Anticipating my questions, Al continued, “I used a good portion of our Firelily powder for a fire trap. That’s how we escaped the spiders. You know what those are, right?”
I nodded, trusting in Al’s hearing to pick up my movements.
“Oh yeah, you probably learned about them from Victor as well. Well, anyways, that’s a part of the reason our lantern is out. We probably have enough left for the rest of our expedition, since you were prudent enough to bring extra, but I decided to save on fuel and just trust my hearing for the watch. No Paeric to ambush us down here, and those spiders are loud enough when they walk. I could hear them from a mile away.”
“How long was I out? Where are the others?” I responded quietly, not wanting to wake Julia, and choosing not to point out that there could, actually, be Paeric down here. I didn’t think that there were, but we were in uncharted territory.
“I uhhh don’t know. On either count. We couldn’t exactly leave you to go looking for them, and keeping track of time is difficult down here. We have been sleeping and waiting for you to wake up or for them to show up.”
A thrill of panic shot through me. I hated to do it, but I nudged Julia gently once, then harder again when she didn’t wake up the first time. She violently exhaled as she stirred, fumbling for her spear.
“Where are they? More spiders? Why is it dark?” She whacked me with her spear as she tried to get ready for battle and stumbled to her feet. I winced. Doing this with the lights still off was not my brightest maneuver.
“Lights please, Al.”
Fortunately, he was bright enough to already be scrabbling for the lantern when I asked. I had just started to get to my feet as the lantern came on. Seeing me awake, Julia’s eyes widened, and she threw me into a one-armed hug.
“You’re awake! I knew the treatment would work! We even managed to save most of the berries! Are you feeling all right? Did we make you even stronger? I was kind of hoping that doing this way would also help you get stronger since—"
“Julia, I feel great. Thanks. That’s the second time you have saved my butt this week. You definitely made the right decision.”
She let go of me and beamed, all while Al hovered in the background.
“I hate to butt in, but I was actually the one to-“
“Thanks to you too, Al. As much as I love both of you, we should really figure out how long it’s been.”
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I left them both blushing slightly and started to walk to the stairway leading up to the exit. They both followed happily, and, in no time, Al and I were straining to push open the door to the outside. Isaiah made it look so easy.
We stumbled out into the daylight, shielding our eyes as they adjusted. My blood ran cold as I got used to the sunlight and looked skyward. Being underground really had warped our sense of time. The sun was already moving down from its’ zenith and toward the west. Midafternoon.
The Mist was convenient enough to operate in a rigid and predictable fashion. It started to recede at noon at the beginning of the Hunt and moved outward for approximately 12 hours, before reaching its’ maximum distance and stopping, maintaining new boundaries. It stayed like that for exactly 6 days before starting to encroach upon its’ former territory, taking another 12 hours to reach the borders of the Mesa once more. Exactly 7 days from beginning to end, but best practice was to already be home by the time it started to come back.
It took us the better part of 2 and a half days to get to where we were currently. Even moving in a hurry, and with fewer distractions, it would probably take us another 1 and a half days to get back. Now that our third full day was nearly ending, we only had 2 days or so to meet up with the others, find Glasrock, mine as much as we could without incident, and leave. That was assuming that Isaiah and Ann were only lost, and that the worst hadn’t happened.
I was looking forward to seeing how we would pull that off.
Technically speaking, the Glasrock was supposed to protect us from the Mist. But that was assuming we found it at all, and that it worked, and that we found enough of it that it would last us on our return journey. Victor had mentioned that the records indicated that using it to repel the Mist would eat into the rock’s stored powers. They wouldn’t last forever, and I would be loath to use any of our stash on a hurried escape, even assuming we had enough to protect ourselves.
I whirred around,
“Time to move!” I pronounced, scurrying over to close the door. Though we were short on time, I still didn’t want anything coming down behind us. We hurriedly did that, then rushed down the stairs as quick as we dared.
Immediately upon re-entering the main atrium of the mine, we bolted down the leftmost path, but after following it at a swift pace, we found a dead end. There was no sign of the Ann-Isaiah duo whatsoever, like they had vanished. It took a bit for me to process that fact but eventually Al spoke up:
“Oh yeah, awhile back, when we were still walking towards the spider den, I thought I heard some rumbling coming from behind us. I brushed it off at the time, but maybe…”
It was a cave-in. I could see that the ceiling was still cracked and in shaky condition. I backed up a bit as I thought about our situation. I immediately quashed the fear that they had been buried and killed in the collapse. It was technically possible, but I refused to think about that option until I was forced to. That meant that they were somewhere on the other side of this wall. Digging was a possibility, but…
“They probably started looking for a connector tunnel.” I said, thinking aloud, “They wouldn’t have tried digging their way back through an unstable area. Let’s try another path to see if we can meet up with them from there.”
We would only start digging through there as a last resort. Last resorts would start to look more appealing about a day from now, though.
We doubled back and before we left, spelled out “Stay” with our remaining firewood. Now they would know to stay here if they somehow missed us and made their way back. Though the caves were cold, they were warm enough that we didn’t need to make campfires to survive.
With that out of the way, we sped down the path closest to the one with the cave-in. It proved to be just as annoyingly barren and long as the first tunnel that we suffered through, and so we were forced to slow down after an hour or so of bolting down the hallway. We still had some time, after all, and couldn’t afford to run ourselves ragged.
After slowing to a trot for a bit, Al threw up his hand and motioned for us to stop moving. What now? I thought to myself, peering out into the dark. After cocking his head for a bit, he hissed out a “get down” and turned off the lantern, flattening himself to the ground. Julia and I did likewise, pressing our faces into the cool rock of the ground beneath us and waiting.
We sat like that for a bit before Julia and I could finally hear them. Low, hoarse cries that solemnly reverberated throughout the tunnel. They grew louder and were joined by the sounds of flapping wings and snapping jaws. They rounded a corner, and we could finally see our newest obstacle.
Their skin was a pitch black, and their webbed, leathery wings beat with a steady rhythm to keep them in the air. Their bodies and heads were mostly reptilian, with long tails, sharp talons, and a triangular head that was constantly rotating, looking for prey. The reason I could see them, and presumably they could see me, was their eyes. They glowed a milky, eerie white and the swarm of the airborne predators produced enough light with the glow of their eyes alone that we could see one another clearly.
The Falwyr circled around and above us, gazing imperiously down at the interlopers who had transgressed upon their territory, before eventually losing interest and flying back the way that they came. Mercifully, these creatures were already known to us, and we knew that they didn’t naturally prey on large mammals. They typically went after rodents and smaller flying mammals like Wingen. But they would fight back if we bothered them too much, so we needed to be careful.
Al turned the light back on and we exchanged looks before getting into a crouch and reluctantly creeping forward. It was dangerous, but we had collectively decided to take the risk. After crawling for long enough that my legs were starting to get cramped, we came to a large cavern where Al was forced to turn the light off again. Fortunately, we could still see with no issues. Unfortunately, that was because a large colony of Falwyr were flying around in the eaves and the ceiling tunnels of the cavern, casting their dull white light over the whole scene. Our ears were filled with the chilling litany of that raspy hhhaaaakkk sound calling back and forth, like they constantly had something in their throats.
At the ground level, there were two other tunnels besides our own, one moving left and the other going right. I started to slink over to the leftmost tunnel before I got a tug on my shirt. It’s Al, of course, and he is giving me the “Are you nuts?” look while Julia also looks concerned. It took a bit of sign language and meaningful looks to convince them that this was our best hope of reuniting with the others quickly.
We managed to creep through largely unnoticed, only needing to stop for a bit when one of the Falwyr decided to perch on Al’s head for a short period, before eventually flying away. Apparently, it didn’t think Al was worthy enough to hold its’ magnificent presence for long, a fact which Al was certainly grateful for. We made it to our chosen tunnel and started to move faster, eager to put the colony behind us.
But soon after we had done that, Al stopped us again, frowning slightly.
“Guys, I think we’re about to have some company…”