The priest fell halfway down the stairs before having to use his magic to stop himself. Well, with how much he had used it was more of a slowing down than a sudden stop compared to earlier.
He hit one of the stairs with reduced impact and grabbed onto another to stop himself from tumbling down the stairs as four of his men did earlier.
(“I can say with confidence, we are in some shit at the moment. Excuse my phrasing lord.”)
He picked himself up and listened upwards. There were no sounds of running and he took his time walking down the stairs. He reached around for something in the dark and approached a torch. He pulled it out of its holder and…
He reached into his pocket with his other hand. His hand touched against the map and he quickly pulled it out, after realising what he had done.
“No, no, no, no, no.” He quietly muttered as he placed the torch in the other hand. In his haste to check if he still had his map on him, he forgot about his injured hand.
His hand was covered in burns and other parts of his body had them as well but he knew through feel, his hand had not been cauterised by the woman's magic. The bleeding worsened when he grabbed the torch but he couldn't go without knowing what happened to his pocket. At a glance, his pocket was covered in blood but maybe it was worse than it looked?
He pulled the map out with his good hand and…
He placed the torch back into the holder on the wall and placed his head between his hands. He looked like a child that had been told off by his parents. If only it was so trivial.
The map had its centre covered in blood. Some parts of it escaped unscathed like the edges, but he knew trying to navigate through those floors with nothing more than the edges of the map he recorded was a folly of the highest order.
The first and second floors had been optimised through the use of boxes or blockages to stop believers from getting lost which resulted in its paths being easy for him to memorise. He spent most of his time in the dungeon on the bottom floor, so it was no surprise he knew it like the back of his hand. It was the floors between 2 and 5 that proved a problem. Floor 3, to put it frankly, was a bitch to map out when he first entered the dungeon.
It was larger than the prior floors and given the fact the space on the first two floors was more than enough to house the permanent residents, he wanted it to act as a buffer zone of sorts. He liked the privacy of having a floor to himself, so he made no serious attempts to map it, focusing his efforts on finding a route to the next floor.
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The fourth floor was a miserable experience. He had heard from sources in the motherland that this dungeon had five floors and the fourth floor convinced him those buffoons were lying to him. It took days before he found the stairway, not to mention all the still active traps he set off.
This is all to say, getting to the fifth floor with the remaining guards and setting up some sort of defence was going to be… difficult to say the least. Actually, that'd be a lie. He knew escaping their attackers at the bottom of the dungeon was nothing more than a pipe dream at this point.
If those adventurers all pursued as he went down the stairs, he wouldn't be able to do anything other than die a drawn-out death at their hands.
He began laughing as he walked down the stairs. It started as a small giggle and got louder with each moment that passed.
Half of his face was covered in his own blood, and a few small burns were scattered across his neck
“Hahah, I see my Lord!” He shouted. “I must admit, this is a disastrous situation. If I had stayed up there a minute longer I would be dead. Yet I am not. Losing my map has crushed my spirits. Yet I am still standing here, walking, talking and with a sound mind. I am sorry for my ungratefulness, my Lord. I lost faith due to a mistake I caused through my lack of caution. But I shall not allow this life you spared to go to waste. I shall continue to fight until your enemies are reduced to nothing more than essence for your resurrection. I shall fight to ensure this priest whose life you've spared will one day worship you probably in our nation's largest cathedral. NO, THAT ISN'T ENOUGH, I SHALL CREATE MY OWN CATHEDRAL THAT SURPASSES THE LIKES OF THAT LITTLE BUILDING THEY'VE BUILT FOR SUCH AN EXALTED PRESENCE AS YOURSELF. I SHALL ENSURE THOSE FALSE GODS AND CHURCHES THAT EXIST IN THIS WORLD SHALL BE CONVERTED TO OUR OWN. AND I SHALL MAKE SURE EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD SHALL PRAISE YOU AND ONLY YOU, THE TRUE SUCCESSOR TO OUR ORIGINAL AND FoRMER GOD. FROM THE HIGHEST CASTLE TO THE LOWEST SLUM SHALL SCREAM YOUR NAME AND PRAISE YOU FOR CONTRIBUTION TO OUR RACE.”
The priest began coughing and struggled to catch his breath. He cleared his throat. It felt somewhat sore after that long rant but he convinced himself that they would get out of this. He felt inside his pocket again and pulled out a few spare cubes of essence.
“But I hope you will forgive me when the time comes, my lord. I convinced myself with that man's help, I needed to create something to keep his mouth shut and money alone wasn't enough. But it was and in the end, I wasted that essence reserved for you. I'd ask you to forgive me for this sin but I am to commit an even greater sin. Using it for my own purposes. I hope you can forgive me when the time comes and I face you in the afterlife.”
He sighed before placing the cubes in his mouth and began chewing. It took some force before they cracked.
(“Based on my prior research, this should at minimum replenish my mana. I planned to show these findings to those in the motherland but even then, I imagined they would kill without a second thought. And don't wrong them honestly. What was thinking of playing with our lord's lifeblood? But regardless I can't afford to waste the powder without knowing how many enemies remain. I think that tall man is too injured to continue and those around him are too weak to be considered threats. So that pink-haired woman, the boy with white hair, a blonde woman and a woman who has tanned skin. Once I see all of them, I can go all out.”)
The powder would also restore his mana, at a much quicker rate than the cubes, but the other combat benefits it provided were too valuable to be wasted for mere recuperation.