Nick sat down to recover from the brutal, exhausting melee, listening for any sounds that would indicate another desperate battle would soon begin. A fight that he couldn’t afford in his present state. He pressed his body into a crevice in the wall, making himself as small and still as he could while he waited to see what would happen.
He was prepared to quaff his elixir if another flesh-render reared its ugly head, but he wanted to save it for an emergency if he could. There was a chance that Sophia was injured, and he needed to make sure that his partner was ok before he used his only source of healing.
Nick stared out into the distance, with one hand gripping the hilt of his sword and the other holding his wand, straining his ears for the sound of chitin-covered feet skittering across the stone floor.
To his relief, nothing arrived on scene. It seemed that he’d avoided alerting the matriarch to his intrusion, at least for now. He looked down at the force-flinging tool, hoping to see more gems lit up, then frowned. Unfortunately, defeating the beast hadn’t recharged the fickle device.
I need to figure out how to power my wand reliably, but there’s no time to worry about it now. With a growl of frustration, Nick rose back onto his feet and continued on his way, heading for the path leading up, and hopefully out of the infested mining complex.
He unclenched his jaw and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, leaving the sandpits behind him as he approached the far wall of the cavern. Whatever awaited him ahead, at least he would be able to see it coming. Nick kept walking with his sword held before him, ears straining to pierce the ominous silence. The tunnel gradually widened as the grade grew steeper, which he took to be a promising sign.
Before long, other branches began opening along both sides of the corridor. He stuck his head inside each, listening for a few minutes before pressing on, searching for any sign of Sophia or indications that more flesh-renders were lurking nearby.
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Not long after, Nick came to a stop, having spotted something interesting ahead. He ran his gaze across the room that the tunnel opened into, a chamber where the tracks came to an end in front of some sort of shaft. He took in the remnants of a decaying conveyer belt and what appeared to be the frame of an elevator inside.
It must have been used to lift ore from the carts and haul it up to the surface. Suspecting that he was finally getting close to the mine’s entrance, he began following the only other tunnel branching off from the chamber, which inclined steeply as it wound its way up toward the level of the bog.
Before long, he realized that the light had begun to change. Huh. That rock is glowing a different color than the rest. No, wait. That’s sunlight! Nick felt a visceral surge of relief as he crossed the final stretch of passageway and stepped into daylight.
He raised one hand to shield his eyes from the blinding swath of blue sky above, until they had time to adjust to the brighter environment. That was a lot easier than I feared, and I didn’t run into the matriarch along the way.
When Nick was able to peer into the distance, he started scanning his surroundings, searching for any trace of Sophia or predatory beasts nearby. Taking in the lay of the land, he realized that he was standing on a hillside, looking down at a part of the bog that he didn’t recognize. This wasn’t too surprising, as he’d only crossed a fraction of the marsh. Any given stretch of the biome looked the same to his untrained eye.
That was when he realized that he hadn’t seen a message confirming that the quest was complete, even though he had stepped beyond the boundary of the mine. It was an ominous sign, but maybe the System was waiting for them to find each other first.
“Sophia,” he called, raising his voice in the hope that she’d already made her way out of the lair. With any luck, his partner was waiting for him to arrive, having found an alternate route to the surface. As Nick completed an increasingly frantic and ultimately futile search, a ball of leaden dread formed within the pit of his stomach. A foreboding that proved itself to be a genuine premonition twenty seconds later.
That was when he heard a faint, frantic voice emanating from the passage behind him. It was Sophia, calling out for help. As little as Nick wanted to return to the deadly underground lair, he didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. Leaving his friend behind never even crossed his mind.