Mig climbed up the rope to the ledge, ungracefully and awkwardly crawling onto the ledge at the end due to his wound. Mig crawled on all fours a few feet to the left, opposite of Aj, and plopped onto the cold floor of the ledge face first. Aj let go of the rope he was holding on to and dropped his butt to the ground, laying his legs out in front of him and propping up his torso with his arms backwards. After holding himself up for a few seconds and heavy breathing, the exhaustion set in. Aj gave up on trying to keep his head up and looking out for danger and laid completely down.
The two of them felt the bitter cold of the floor beneath them seep into their bodies. The few parts of their skin exposed by the attacks of the creatures, becoming frozen to the cold floor. Neither of the two of them cared about the uncomfortable floor though due to their exhaustion and injuries. To them, this cold numbing ground was as comfortable and safe as their beds in their rooms at home. Aj contemplated their wounds as he laid there.
His first wound was right under his right shoulder; he'd received it from the ambushing mantis’ first attack. The wound was triangular in shape and a few inches wide. Kit had stitched it up, but the Aj still felt it throb with every breath as if it was tearing ever so slightly. Next he had some scrapes on both sides of his abdomen. The mantis had ravished his abdomen when Aj managed to grab two of its arms, leaving him a score of cuts from his sides to his belly button. Apparently Kit’s stitching has its limits, because he only stitched up the deepest of those scrapes. His eye was also throbbing and that was inadvertently from one of Kit’s thicker bark. Kit sprung out vines from Aj’s abdomen to arrest the movement and assault of the mantis’ lower legs, but the three top arms left continued their assault. When one of its swings was just about to take off Aj’s face, Kit somehow raised a gnarled shield out of his vines to block it. Of course the impact of the mantis’ arm caused Kit’s shield to slam into Aj’s head giving him a concussion and black eye.
All in all he thought, he got out pretty lucky. If they hadn’t managed to take it out at then end, he would’ve died. Kit remembered the creature continued to attacks as it was held. Kit was screaming at Aj to “FOCUS HERE” and “FEEL THE HEAT’S FLOW”. Aj tried to do what he said but so much was going on. He felt a warm sensation come from his chest, build up and then explode outward. He wasn’t sure if that blast that scorched the mantis came from Kit or Aj or both. The mantis was reduced to a black charred shell. Aj tried to replicate the sensation, while it was fresh in his mind but felt his body recoil in response. His limbs shook, his wounds ached and throbbed. He quickly gave up and decided to focus only on breathing for a while.
Aj and Mig laid on the ledge catching their breath for a solid hour before either of them said a word. Neither of them had made eye contact or looked at each other, other than to check to see how injured they were. There was a heavy tension in the air as they recovered. Mig broke the silence first.
“Can you walk? Or do you need longer?” Mig asked, a slight edge to his voice as he forced himself to his feet.
“I think I got it” Aj said, peeling himself off the floor and standing up, wincing in pain. Mig nodded in response and walked to the charred chitinous corpse of the mantis that had attacked Aj. Unceremoniously he began stabbing his sword into the dark blue inner flesh of the mantis. It looked to Aj like he was fishing around in there for something.
“What are you doing?” Aj asked, genuinely curious. Mig stopped poking around in the flesh of the Mantis and cocked his head.
“You don’t know what I’m doing?” Mig asked, turning away from the corpse towards Aj his lips pursed. “I should have asked this earlier, how much experience do you have outside of a stronghold in the underworlds?”
“I’ll be 100% honest with you, this is my first expedition” Aj said factually, as if the truth was the best option. He could see that Mig had begun smiling in an up and tight kind of smile that Aj recognized as someone becoming very pissed.
“Mig if you would’ve asked I would’ve told you!” Aj quickly blurted, trying to remedy the situation before it got any worse.
“I didn’t ask though! You saw a commoner that just got left behind by his one shot at getting somewhere and thought “This guy looks like he’s got a sword and an able body, why don’t I just get him to tag along with me to our deaths! I bet he’ll even do it for no money because he’s so desperate! Who cares who’s depending on him in his life and what he wants. He’s probably so damn desperate that I bet he won’t even ask any questions about myself and figure out that I have no idea what the hell is going on!””” Mig took a breath, as Aj alternated between looking down at the ground and up at Mig’s eyes.
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“You were right though Aj” Mig said while nodding at Aj venomously. He gave another heavy pause before looking at the ground in front of Aj and said “I didn’t ask”.
A whole minute went by as Mig stared at the ground and Aj was silent. Mig simply returned to jabbing his sword into the flesh of the mantis creature.
“What do I say?” Aj asked Kit mentally.
“Hugh” Kit said sluggishly as if he was dozing off.
“Dude are you sleeping?” Aj hurriedly asked Kit
“Sorry man kinda in and out. I don’t know why but being me in you is a lot more tiring” Kit replied. Aj couldn’t blame either of them, Kit for being tired or Mig for being angry. There were too many unknowns. About being a sovereign, about being a sovereign with the original sovereign still inside you and a plethora of unknowns about the underworlds in general.
“It’s okay man, I’ll try to figure it out” Aj said mentally to Kit, certain that he wouldn't figure it out and find the right words to say. Ironically Kit was much more proficient socially than Aj was. He just always seemed to know the right words to say.
“Just be honest man, tell him how you…… feel now” Kit replied, taking a break in the middle to let out a purring yawn. Aj let Kit rest and waited for the right time to try and make things right. After a few minutes of waiting for the right moment, that moment never came so Aj simply blurted out.
“I’m really sorry Mig, I didn’t know how dangerous things really were and I didn’t know what I was getting you into.” Aj blurted quickly. Mig took a few more good stabs into the carcass before turning around and looking at Aj.
“Great start Aj, but you ----” Kit said prompting Aj to add more to his apology. Aj scrambled in the moment to understand Kit’s meaning before saying out loud to Mig.
“I would never have done it if I knew Mig. I swear” Aj said.
Mig furrowed his eyebrows and stared at Aj, his gaze penetrating his eyes. After a few seconds he simply turned around and once again began poking his sword through the creatures’ carcass leaving Aj unsure if he accepted his apology. This time though there was a dull thud as Mig thrust his sword into the carcass. Even though he was upset, Aj noticed the excitement in Mig as he began sawing and scooping out the flesh of the creature. After dropping his 5th handful of clotted mantis guts onto the floor Mig stopped.
“To answer your earlier question I’m harvesting this thing’s heart shards” Mig said, reaching his left hand deep into the hole he and the explosion had made all the way to the shoulder. He seemed to struggle as he pulled something out of the creature. Aj heard a wet tearing sound as Mig removed his arm and body from the carcass, something clenched in his fist.
“This is a heartshard,” Mig said, opening his palm and showing it to Aj. To Aj it looked like a blue strand of flesh and that resembled a wrapped mint somewhat. It had a circular center and ended with two tapered ends of gray flesh. Its center had two spirals of blue flesh as well. Aj reached out and poked it with his finger. It was both surprisingly soft and hard.
“To answer your next question, they can be used by heartsmiths to create heartstrung weapons, armor and artificial hearts. Obviously that makes them worth a lot and that makes them the main currency used in the underworlds” Mig explained thoroughly. Aj thought that he seemed to be softening up as he explained it.
“Gotcha” Aj said “So we should definitely try to get the one’s out of the other two we’ve killed down there”. Mig nodded in response, agreeing with Aj.
“I know we’ve just been through a lot and we’re both injured. Let's go down there, I’ll show you how to harvest the heartshards and then we go back to Rojasroc.” Mig said “I don’t know what your entire deal is with the families, but if you need somewhere to go, I can talk to my Mom and see if you can stay with us for a bit.” Mig finished. To Aj that sounded like the sweetest deal ever, the idea of a nice, warm and safe bed almost made him want to cry. He nodded in response to Mig.
The two of them climbed down the ledge together. Mig showed Aj how he made educated guesses on the creatures to guess based off their circulatory system, where their heartshard would be. He then showed how to delicately sever its connection to the carcass without damaging it. Mig even let Aj try on the last corpse, guiding his hand and talking him through it once again.
Things were looking up as the two finished up shop and began to leave the cavern. Until Aj got a sickening feeling that he was being watched. It felt like there were eyes looking all around him, looking deep into his very core. It felt wrong and familiar. With a sudden and deep rumbling the tunnel ahead of them collapsed. To Aj it looked like four pillars of stone had suddenly ejected from the wall into the tunnel so forcibly that it collapsed.
“Fuck” Mig said.