Sebastian came to slowly, his head was pounding, and when he tried to rub his eyes he found that his right hand had been wrapped tightly in bandages. He sat up and noticed that everything was hazy as he looked around and it took him a bit to realize that it was because the air was filled with smoke. Then he realized that he seemed to be in a tunnel or cave or something and couldn’t help but wonder how he got there or if they had all died and this was the afterlife. A cry of “he’s awake!” followed by what he imagined was probably Sarah smashing into him from behind, wrapping him in a fierce hug that threatened to cut off his ability to breathe answered the question of whether he was alive or not.
He grunted, and tried to pry himself free, “Where are we? What happened?” he managed to get out once Sarah finally loosened her grip enough for him to speak, turning his head to face Kyle.
Kyle grimaced, “We got cut off by more Twisted as we tried to make our way through the pass. One of my men spotted a cave entrance from across the river and we decided to take refuge inside it, since it would limit the number of them that could attack us at once, but the young miss sealed the entrance with an unfortunate fireball that caused a cave in. On the bright side, it’s been nearly twelve hours since the battle and they are yet to dig through the rubble, on the less than bright side I have no idea whether or not we can get out of this hole.
“It actually seems to be an ancient mine as far as our scouting has been able to determine, and the air hasn’t gone bad yet so there should be another way out. Scouts haven’t found it yet though, and it may well be that there is just an air shaft cut somewhere.” He shrugged, “All we can really do now is press on and hope we can get out somewhere that isn’t flooded with hordes of orcs and goblins. Hopefully our way out will also leave us with a clear shot to Clearlake, but I wouldn’t bet on that. Hell, I honestly wouldn’t bet on our surviving long enough to get out of this hole, let alone fighting through to Clearlake before it gets surrounded by that horde.” He finished with grim finality.
Sebastian looked around more closely, he hadn’t been in any caves before, so he was going to have to take Kyle’s word about it being a mine. The tunnel they were in certainly did seem more even than nature tended to make things, but that was as far as he was going to get on the subject. Sarah cut in before he could reply to Kyle, “I said I was sorry! How could I have known that the entrance would collapse like that? I also told you that I could clear it, and you told me not to bother!” She had a strange mix of indignation, embarrassment, fear, and sadness in her voice and expression.
Kyle waved his hand dismissively while shaking his head, “If we go out that way, we die. If you hadn’t collapsed that cave entrance, we would have died. It may have been an accident, but you probably saved our lives. For as long as it takes to starve to death in this cave anyways.” He gave a halfhearted smirk as he delivered the last sentence.
Sebastian started to respond but barely got a word out before he spotted Owdel laying nearby. He shook off Sarah and rushed over to his side, wincing when he accidentally put weight on his bandaged hand in the process. His breath caught when he saw how pale the old man was and his eyes widened in shock when he saw the charred flesh on his shoulder where the arrow had been. He turned his gaze to Kyle, who answered his unspoken question, “He has been out since the battle too, we’ve done what we could, but without an actual healer that isn’t much. All we can do is keep it clean and hope it doesn’t fester. He should have woken up by now if all that was wrong was the arrow wound, but we figured it was similar to the reason you were unconscious for so long.”
Sebastian nodded, “Mana exhaustion, use too much at once and you pass out, usually wake up with a splitting headache.” He let a trickle of mana flow into his eyes, “Yea, he is definitely low on mana,” he trailed off as he saw something else. “I think,” he trailed off again, “I think the arrow might have been poisoned with something, or it’s an infection. Either way his mana isn’t restoring itself nearly as fast as it should be, and it almost looks like what he is getting back is being used up fighting against… whatever is going on in his shoulder.” he finished quietly. “I, I think he is dying.”
He realized that he had never really looked at the flow of mana in a person very closely, so far he had mostly just paid attention to surface levels, which was helpful when he was curious how much mana Sarah or Owdel had available, but the low level of mana surrounding Owdel made it easier to see deeper and as he concentrated he could see more detail. At first it looked like a dark vortex was swallowing all the mana that touched it, right where Owdel had been hit by the arrow. As he focused it looked more and more like the threads of mana were torn and frayed and instead of flowing along them the mana itself was siphoning away into nothingness.
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Finding himself at a loss he glanced around at the others, and was taken aback when he noticed similar dark spots in most of the guards. He looked down at himself to see if he had them too and almost panicked when he saw several in his bandaged hand. Mine are just dark spots too though, why would Owdel’s eat mana while the ones in me and the guards just sit idle? He noticed after a bit that all of the dark spots corresponded with bandages and couldn’t help but wonder if it was just regular injuries, and he was certain he was missing something obvious. He hesitantly channeled some mana towards his hand only to immediately stop with a poorly suppressed groan of pain.
Eventually he realized that everyone was staring at him, and Sarah seemed to be growing increasingly annoyed with every passing second. The attention made him realize how he must have looked, talking about how he thought Owdel was dying only to look around, flinch back from everyone, look at his hand, flinch again, stare at his hand, then do his glowing arm trick only to show obvious signs of pain. He felt his face heat up as he blushed in embarrassment and hurried to explain.
“Well I have good news and bad news now.” He said quickly, “I don’t think Owdel is actually dying, I think what I saw is just a regular injury and he is trying to heal himself, which is why his mana is still low.” He paused, glancing at his bandaged hand before continuing, “The bad news is that if it is anything like what I felt just now when I tried to copy what he is doing on my own hand… well… it felt like I stuck my hand into a furnace. My best guess now is that he is in a crazy amount of pain, but should recover eventually.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and he winced, “So you saw something strange, potentially life threatening, and despite being comatose for nearly twelve hours you immediately decided to try and duplicate it, on yourself?!”
“Now, when you say it like that it sounds really bad but-” He protested.
“But nothing, you could have died! I do not want to watch you kill yourself with idiotic, poorly thought out, hairbrained experiments that you just jump into without saying anything first! How long would it have taken you to explain what you were seeing before you started to fiddle with things? But no, you have to act like a child with a new toy the moment something catches your attention regardless of any possible danger! Do you even realize that if you killed yourself with that stunt it would have left me and these guardsmen alone to try and figure out how to escape this hole and somehow miraculously fight our way to Clearlake? Our best chance is for you to be alive and making enchanted items for these men to use!”
Sebastian wilted a bit during her tirade, and she got closer and closer while she yelled at him, shaking a finger in his face. After a bit though he thought that maybe he was a touch delirious or maybe just a bit disoriented from the chaotic nightmare they just went through, since about halfway through her shouting the only thought that really registered in his mind was that he found her adorable when she was angry like this, and that didn’t make any sense at all. She smelled like dirt and sweat and flowers, and before he realized it he had leaned forward and kissed her as she paused to take a breath. She stiffened in surprise and shock, then folded against him, wrapping her arms around him.
When they finally broke the kiss, he held her in a hug, whispering softly into her ear, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how worried you were.” Then he heard some chuckling and looked around, seeing some knowing grins on the guardsmen’s faces and blushed bright red, letting go of Sarah hurriedly. She looked around and blushed as well.
Kyle outright laughed at their expressions, “Well it seems everyone is feeling better now! Unfortunately, as heartwarming as this display might be, I’m afraid that now that you are awake and we know Owdel is stable enough to be moved, it's time to get on our way. The longer we sit here the more likely we either find out they are digging after us the hard way, or we starve to death in these tunnels.” Putting his words into action he turned and started to pack up the few things that he had taken out when they settled in, while issuing orders to pack up and get ready to move out.
Sebastian glanced at Sarah who somehow managed to look both embarrassed and happy at the same time. Strange that I can be happy trapped underground by a horde of monsters that I will still have to figure out how to fight through even if we find a way out. He smiled at her and then shouldered his pack as Kyle worked out the marching order. He wasn’t all that surprised to find that he and Sarah would be walking in the middle with the guards carrying Owdel’s litter. With nothing else to do, they set off deeper into the mine.