"Naomi!"
A spike of alarm shot through Jade as she saw a pit open beneath her friend, dropping her into darkness. She dropped an empty healing potion, leaving Luis to fight the last few undead and sprinting towards the hole Naomi had just disappeared into. Or rather, that was her intention.
"Stop him! Jade!"
Aylin's voice broke through the conflict. She immediately saw the problem. One of the cultists, the tall leader that had stabbed her in the side, was fleeing towards a nearby side hall. She was nearby, and the only one fast enough to intercept an opponent that kept disappearing in and out of shadows. If he returned with more reinforcements, they'd be in trouble. Still, she hesitated, freezing in place. She couldn't abandon her friend…
"I'll help her!" Nythis called, dashing towards the pit from the other side of the room. Smoke curled from the end of her smoldering staff, and her robes were covered in ash. "Go!"
You don't have to do it all yourself. Words she'd heard countless times over the years. Every time she'd ignored them, she'd regretted it in the end. Trust your team.
Jade hesitated for a split second longer, and then made a snap decision. She spun, dashing after the escaping leader.
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Naomi screamed as she slid down a steep incline, scrambling for purchase against the smooth stone. There was nothing to grab onto, nothing to arrest her fall, and she continued to slide at a terrifying speed. Images of spike-filled pits flashed through her mind, and she braced herself, expecting the worst.
WHOOSH
Naomi shot out of the slanted end of the shaft, dropping several feet onto a stone floor. She hit hard, the impact cracking her armor's protection and knocking the wind out of her. Her momentum sent her sliding across the room and into the far wall. This second impact wasn't cushioned by any protective enchantment and was far more painful. Naomi gasped, dazed and seeing stars. Everything hurt with a throbbing ache, from her feet to her head.
It was dark, the only illumination coming from a small shaft of light filtering in through a hole partway up the far wall. The scattered remains of the skeleton that had fallen with her lay strewn around her. Naomi sat up with a groan, pushing them aside and searching through her bag. She retrieved a healing potion, one that was still intact, and gulped it down. The pain eased, her mind cleared, and suddenly, Naomi could see a little better. Well enough to notice the dark, hooded form stumbling towards her from the other side of the small box of a room she was stuck in.
That sight brought her back to full alert. Naomi scrambled to her feet, reaching for her guitar-
It wasn't there. The strap had torn free from her shoulder in the fall.
No, no, no!
Her instrument was lying in the corner of the barren room, a short distance away. She ran for it, completely forgetting about the sword at her waist in her panic. The cultist lunged for her, slashing wildly with his short blade. She tried to dodge the attack, but there was nowhere to go. The dagger sliced her across the shoulder and arm, tearing through her armor and drawing blood. Naomi screamed again, this time as much in anger as fear, and lunged for her instrument. She scooped it up in both hands, spinning to face her assailant and hitting him with the fastest spell she had.
WHAM
The 'Sonic Boom' erupted from her like a cannon, blasting the cloaked figure across the room and slamming him against the far wall. She was about to fire off another spell when a wave of dizziness overcame her. Naomi steadied herself against the wall and looked down to see the man's knife sticking out of her chest.
I've been stabbed… She thought dumbly, staring in horror at the hilt protruding from her right breast. Only a portion of the keen blade had punched through her armor to pierce her flesh, but that did little to assuage the spike of nausea the sight elicited.
Shouldn't it hurt…?
The pain came a moment later, rolling in with the inevitability of an oncoming tide. She coughed, and a few drops of blood splattered onto the ground in front of her.
"Your friends can't help you here." The man grunted, struggling to pull himself to his feet where Naomi had thrown him. "But the lord of death will preserve me."
He was stumbling towards her now, hands balled into fists. Crackling, dark energy gathered around his fingers. Naomi fought back her fear, concentrating on pouring mana into her instrument as she forced her fingers to play a sequence of notes. She fumbled it once, the magic dissipating in a painful backlash. She winced, trying again.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Come on…!
He was close now, near enough that she could see a line of blood dripping from his nose. The pain in her chest intensified. Naomi almost froze. She would have, had this been her first few days in the Labyrinth. But the trials of constant battle had hardened her against the effects of fear and pain. Though her mind was muddled and hazy, sheer repetition guided her fingers as she hammered out the notes to a spell. This time, it worked.
A column of fire burst to life before her, shooting across the room and engulfing the cultist in dancing flames. He screamed, flailing in pain. It was a horrible, wailing sound that shocked Naomi out of her stupor. Monsters were one thing, but she'd never used 'Pyrotechnics' on another person before. He collapsed to the ground, twitching in the wretched throes of death as wisps of smoke curled from his charred body.
It's just a Labyrinth spirit. She reminded herself. The same as the monsters.
It didn't feel like it.
The pain was starting to catch up to her, spreading through her chest in growing waves. The pulsing fire in her chest and arms drew her back to the present. She could heal herself, but not with the dagger still inside her. With trembling fingers, she grasped the hilt of the weapon, grit her teeth and, trying not to think about what she was doing, yanked it free in one smooth motion.
Naomi had thought she'd known pain before, but the explosion of agony that ripped through her body in that instant proved her wrong. The bard fell to her knees, sobbing, barely able to choke out the song of her 'Hymn of Healing'. Soothing warmth accompanied her words, dulling the pain and bringing it to a more tolerable level. Clarity returned to her, and she was finally able to examine her surroundings. She was standing in the corner of a dark, featureless stone cube of a room.
The only break in the smooth floor, walls, and ceiling was the hole in the wall she had fallen through, which was opposite her and about 5 feet off the ground. A metal grate now covered the opening, which must have slammed shut following her descent.
"Great…" She muttered, moving over to examine it. She gave the burned body a wide birth, intentionally not looking at it. Naomi gave the metal cover a hard tug, but it didn't budge.
"A little help?" She called up the hole. A small amount of light filtered through it, but it wasn't angled properly for her to see all the way up. Her legs were a little unsteady, and she leaned against the grate for support.
"I'm coming!" Nythis's voice echoed down the shaft. "Hang on!"
A sudden grinding noise made Naomi spin around. She watched in growing horror as the far wall of the chamber began sliding towards her, scraping across the smooth floor.
"You've got to be kidding me!" She exclaimed, pulling against the metal bars with renewed vigor. "Shit, shit, fuck me! Hey! Can you hurry up?!"
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Nythis lowered herself into the shaft using a conjured vine. One end of it was wrapped around her forearm, and the other was anchored to the floor at the lip of the hole. It had taken the druid a couple of tries to get the nature magic to take hold, this place was filled with uncomfortably high levels of 'death' essence, which made it difficult for 'life' based magic to function as intended. Difficult, but not impossible.
She extended the vine, descending at an expeditious but controlled rate. The battle above had mostly concluded. The fight against the undead had been exciting, but the presence of humanoid Labyrinth monsters had soured the experience for Nythis. Defeating mindless monsters was fun, a thrill, even. But she took no joy in killing people, even if they were just manifestations of spirits.
Naomi's voice echoed from below, spouting a curious mixture of imperatives that the Nythis had a hard time parsing. Whatever her new companion meant, she understood that time was of the essence and accelerated her descent. A few moments later, the elf's feet clanked against the metal grate. Naomi stood on the far side of it, preparing to blast it with a spell.
"Sorry I'm late!" Nythis exclaimed, quickly taking in the situation. The far wall was closing in on her, but they still had a bit of time. She gave the bars an experimental kick, but the grating was firmly locked in place.
"I think there's a mechanism on your side." Naomi said. Her armor was streaked with blood, and her face was pale. "Can you-?"
"Nah, take too long." Nythis cut her off. She preferred the direct approach to problem solving. "Stand back!"
The druid muttered an incantation, and this time the spell took hold immediately. The stone floor beside Naomi cracked as a huge vine grew up from the tiles. The bard scrambled out of the way, keeping a wary eye on the approaching wall while Nythis directed the animated plant to wrap around the bars. She flexed her fingers, making it heave with all its tremendous strength. A few seconds later, a mighty CRACK resounded through the small chamber. The grating tore free from the wall, clattering to the floor and taking a large chunk of stone with it.
"There!" Nythis beckoned to Naomi, beaming. Getting to break things always made her happy. "Ready to go?"
"Definitely."
She took the druid’s proffered hand and, a moment later, they were off, pulled back up the shaft by Nythis's long vine.
"Why were you yelling for someone to… ah…" Nythis was almost too embarassed to ask this, but her curiosity was too great for her to stay silent. "Sleep with you?" She used the most neutral euphemism she could think of.
"Huh?" Naomi looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"You were shouting about excrement, which I take it is an expletive among your people. But then you shouted for someone to 'mate' with you, did you not? Oh!" She had a thought. "Is that some sort of human response to danger, to entice would-be-rescuers to come to your aid?"
The Labyrinth's translation magic was poorly suited to colloquialisms, and sometimes required creative interpretation. Nythis grinned, proud of herself for having figured it out in this instance.
They reached the top of the shaft, and the two of them clambered back onto solid ground. The battle was over, the undead and cultists defeated. Some of them had received wounds, but none of them severe, including the three rescued prisoners.
"What? No, it's-" Naomi began, face reddening, but Nythis’s imagination had already carried her away.
"Hmm…" She gave the bard a discerning look. Cute, at least for a human. Well, when she wasn't covered in blood. "Maybe…" She began, and then sighed and shook her head. "No… I don't think we're each other's type."
The druid lay her hand on Naomi's shoulder, cast a cleansing spell to rid her of the poison she sensed spreading through her veins, and sauntered off to rejoin the group.
Naomi just stared after her, unsure whether she should be relieved or offended.