Nick awoke sometime later, his body bathed in a pale blue glow.
At first, he was too muddled to remember what had happened. All he knew for certain was that his mouth was full of sandy grit, which had been shoved deep into every crevice of his body, and that he was hungry. After all, he had only had one mouthful of fish for dinner. Two bites, he corrected himself. I have a fancy bloodline trait that doubles whatever I eat. Or close enough at any rate.
With that thought, Nick realized that the haze shrouding his mind was lifting. Before long, he could remember everything that had happened. He rubbed away some of the stress banded tight around his temples as the realization came crashing home that the ground had opened up and he’d been swallowed by the bog.
“Shit.” He rose to his feet and spat out a mouthful of sand, his relief at being alive shifting into concern when he saw that Sophia wasn’t lying beside him.
Before Nick was ready to start looking for her, before he was ready to do anything, he turned his attention to the words floating in front of his face. As he had been expecting, a block of text was hovering in the periphery of his vision, waiting patiently for his perusal.
While finding his partner and making sure she was safe was his primary concern, he had learned to pay close attention to the direct messages that the System sent his way. Especially out on the bog, with its proximity-and-tower-entry-initiated events.
With a now familiar signaling of intent, the floating text shifted to the center of his view, and he read the words as quickly as he could.
System message: Proximity-triggered event.
Event, ‘Escape the flesh-renders’ lair’, has begun.
You have discovered a regional point of interest and have been offered the chance to participate in an optional quest.
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Victory conditions: leave the lair without being detected or defeat the inhabitants for an additional reward. Primary reward will be determined based on performance.
Warning: the event’s danger will increase dramatically once the lair’s residents take notice of your intrusion.
Optional quest my ass, Nick griped. That sinkhole in our campsite wasn’t an invitation that I could refuse. He was careful not to make any undue noises while he processed what was happening, taking the System’s warning about stealth seriously.
While the galaxy-spanning AI tried to kill him on a regular basis, it was direct and honest with its approach to doing so, unlike Taltos, who seemed to take a perverse delight in misleading his victims. Although Nick had to admit that he had yet to catch the Mad God breaking his own rules or lying outright, though his experience in dealing with the deity was thankfully rather limited.
Before surveying his surroundings to discover what he had gotten himself into this time, he began palpating his body to make sure that nothing was broken. That he hadn’t lost any of his gear to the sinkhole. All the tools and resources that he had collected over the course of his adventures. Nick let out a soft sigh of relief five minutes later, having discovered nothing worse than a few new bruises and a stiff neck.
Better still, his pack was still on his back, and all the objects attached to his toolbelt were still in place, held secure by their straps. This belt wound up being worth its weight in gold, he gave his very first modified item a friendly pat, then turned his mind toward more serious matters.
Steeling himself for a dangerous encounter rather than the night of sleep he’d been looking forward to, he drew his dagger, rose to his feet, and took a long look around, trying to figure out just where in the hell he was.
Nick found himself standing in a vast underground cavern, the floor of which contained equal measures of sand and bedrock. But the unusual footing wasn’t the most interesting feature of the sprawling subterranean space. Every bit of exposed stone emitted a pale azure glow, which provided a decent amount of light given the sheer scale of the place.
By now, his eyes had adjusted, and he was able to make out the entirety of the enclosure. He realized that the sand didn’t possess the same luminescent properties as the rock, rendering the chamber’s floor a molted patchwork of radiance and shadow.
Oddly enough, the place felt strangely familiar. Its contours triggered memories from his old life, those lazy days filled with an endless procession of online games. He had been relying on those experiences less and less as time went on. But they still came in handy from time to time, and they had something to offer him now. Because Nick’s gaming brain was telling him that this wasn’t just a cavern. It was an extensive underground mine.