Persepera

The 25th of Elaphebolion

The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals

“You have the worst plans.”

Lyssa and Arche stood in the mouth of the tunnel, just shy of the massive cavern. It was the first time the elven woman had seen what they were up against with her own eyes and she was not optimistic. Tess stayed behind to set off some of the traps manually. Arche didn’t like the idea of them splitting up yet again and especially didn’t like the idea of Tess being by herself in the dungeon but he didn’t need psychic powers to know that what she’d seen in the cavern had troubled her far more than she let on.

“Great, then you can plan the next one.”

“You seem to have a lot of confidence that this one will work.”

Arche shrugged, keeping an eye on the entrance.

“You agreed to it.”

“I said that it was as likely to work as Callias welcoming you back with open arms.”

Arche flashed a grin.

“So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

Lyssa rolled her eyes.

“If we die, I’ll kill you myself.”

“That…yeah, all right. That’s fair.”

Lyssa flexed her hand and her bow appeared. Arche carefully set the Tridory against the wall and pulled out his own bow. He really needed to figure out a way of carrying the spear without having to hold it in one hand all the time.

Arche shook the thought free from his head. It wasn’t the time to focus on quality-of-life, rather on sustainment of life. He and Lyssa were about to kick the hornet’s nest.

They stalked up to the ledge, as quiet as they could be. The hubbub in the cavern had died down somewhat from last time. Some of the beastmar had fallen asleep, passed out in piles around the room. Arche felt a pang of guilt as a few more prisoners were missing from the cage. He grabbed the feeling and hardened it into anger.

They would pay. They would all pay.

He met Lyssa’s gaze and saw his own anger reflected there. Without further hesitation, they nocked arrows to their strings and began raining death. Their first volley went unnoticed, felling two beastmar. Before Arche had even retrieved his next arrow from his quiver, Lyssa had shot twice more.

Each arrow found its place in some vulnerable spot, whether it was throat, eye, or heart. Arche couldn’t be sure, but she was shooting at least four times faster than he was, which spoke to the massive gap in skill and capability that stood between them. Still, he was determined not to be useless. By the time the seventh beastmar died, their efforts were noticed. A loud, angry cry rose up above the natural din and the lethargic beastmar began to stir.

Arche sent a Penetrating Shot at a particularly large beastmar before surveying their situation. They had brought down or killed about nine beastmar, but there were still fifty more rallying after them. He wished, not for the first time, that he had access to magic. What he would have given for a well-placed fireball at that moment.

Sadly, wishing wasn’t doing. With the approaching horde, they were running out of time. Arche stored his bow and quiver safely into his inventory and turned away to retrieve the Tridory. Lyssa hesitated, shooting twice more into the horde scrabbling up the incline, then followed Arche’s lead. They raced through the underground passage, slowing every so often to shoot arrows at the frontrunners of their pursuers.

Arche remembered their first encounter with beastmar and how Lyssa had so quickly outpaced him to go fight. That display of pure speed made her current pace seem like a brisk walk, despite it being as fast as Arche felt he could maintain. If she had the inclination, she could have easily left him behind. He was grateful she was on his side. Even with the incredible benefits of the Divine Body skill, he wouldn’t stand a chance against her. She was a force of nature, unstoppable in her wrath.

Passages flew past to the left and right, but Arche kept his focus on what was ahead. The sounds of beastmar stuck in his ears, drowning everything else. His heart pounded, fear and adrenaline mixed in equal measure. His muscles trembled, his breath came ragged, but still he ran. Just a bit farther, five minutes of sprinting at the max.

Something launched out of a side-passage and slammed into Arche.

A beastmar had somehow cut them off. The incredible mass of the creature knocked Arche clear off his feet, the Tridory fell from his grip and clattered away. They tumbled into another passage, this one with a steep downward incline. Arche heard Lyssa shout his name, then he was weightless.

Falling.

Flying through the black toward certain death.

The beastmar let out a howl of fear and regret. No lights lined the walls, no indication of how far he was falling or when he would hit the bottom. The air rushed by, pushing him away from the beastmar, but he grabbed hold of one of the creature’s many flailing limbs and pulled himself closer. The beastmar was fully gripped by panic, its movements erratic, but Arche strained against the thrashing and buried himself in the monster’s chest. Then, he activated Divine Body.

Crimson light spilled out of every pore, illuminating the tunnel as they fell. Strength flooded his limbs and he held tight, pressing himself as closely as he could. In the light, the beastmar was revealed. An enormous torso containing no less than five arms, each attempting to grab something, anything, to arrest its fall. Arche moved his grip to the beastmar’s shoulder and braced himself. His other hand slid up the creature’s torso, through its throat and into its head. It let out a surprised cough, twitched, and went limp. Arche withdrew his dripping hand and hugged the now-dead body.

The ground met him with a crunch.

His toughened body sank into the beastmar and, despite the softened landing and the improved resilience that Divine Body offered him, he was too dazed to focus on keeping the ability active. The light winked out and Arche was left in total darkness, his head swam as if he were still falling. With shaking limbs, he pushed himself out of the crater that was the dead beastmar’s chest, managing to roll clear of it before he threw up.

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He was covered in gore and entrails. The stench of it filled his nose, making him retch. He heaved again and more bile splattered against the ground. More than a little nervous at what he would find, he checked his vitals.

Health: 208 / 495

42%

Stamina: 355 / 355

100%

Mana: 19 / 190

10%

There was no doubt that without his Divine Body skill and the beastmar to land on, he would have died. As it was, he had no idea where he was. This tunnel was not included on his mental map.

He was on his own.

Arche reached for the Tridory and cursed when his hands found only empty air. It was either above him in the passage, or somewhere in the darkness around him. At ten percent of his total Mana, he might have enough to summon it, but it would hurt. Arche tried to call upon his bond with the weapon but was hit instead by a sudden wave of vertigo. He stumbled and fell to the ground, stomach heaving again. His Mana dipped five points, then stopped as he lost concentration.

Arche dragged himself away from the dead beastmar, trying to escape both the smell and the sticky pool of blood coalescing around the broken form. The ground was rough and uneven, huge stones and spikes jutted up at odd angles. He couldn’t see but he had the impression he was at the bottom of a massive spike trap. He found a wall to lean against and tried to take stock.

First, he looked through his inventory. He had three torches, each of which would last an hour. There was also a bit of flint and steel to light them. The beastmar were also highly flammable, so a torch would actually be useful if he ran into more of them. He would have to wait before lighting anything on fire, however. If the light attracted more creatures to him, he would need his strength back. Divine Body was his only method of outright healing himself so he was forced to wait for his Mana to recover naturally. At his current rate, it would take him about five minutes.

The quiet of the tunnel, mixed with the oppressive darkness and aching pain of his body, lulled his mind to surrender to unconsciousness. Slumped against a stone spike, Arche found it impossible to keep his eyes open.

When he woke, his Health had risen thirty-six points and his Mana was full. Doing some mental calculations, he figured he’d been asleep for about an hour and a half. That wasn’t completely trustworthy, as any number of factors could have slowed or improved it, not the least of which was the now-missing Exhaustion debuff, but it was accurate enough to go on for now.

An hour and a half stuck in a dark hole. An hour and a half that the beastmar had chased Lyssa and Tess.

With any luck, they had managed better than he had. The plan had been to use the traps they had set to slow them down, then finish off any that were left or hide somewhere. They hadn’t planned for the beastmar to head them off. If something had happened to the others…

There was little use in thinking about that now. He had to appraise his situation and find a way out of the hole. But first, he had to see what he was dealing with. He retrieved the flint and steel, which consisted of a rock and a dull knife, then crawled his way toward where he thought the beastmar was and felt around for its body.

“Normally,” he muttered to himself, “I’d be more reluctant about doing something like this, but you caught me in an uncharitable mood. And let’s face it, I was inside you. Not much more we can really do, eh?”

It took a few strikes for the sparks to catch on the beastmar’s fur but once they did, the flames spread quickly, casting a flickering, orange-yellow glow across Arche’s surroundings. It was the first opportunity he’d had to take a look at himself since the fall.

He’d certainly seen better days.

Dried blood and chunky bits stained him red and black, both the beastmar’s and his own but more the former. The hardened leathers that comprised his armor had been practically shredded in several places and one of his sleeves was hanging on by a few threads. The Emerald Ghost, the magical cloak he’d paid so much for, was also sporting its fair share of tears and rips, but Arche wasn’t worried. As long as it retained durability, it would repair itself over time. He only hoped the cleaning aspect of the repair feature worked on bloodstains.

His self-examination over, Arche turned his attention toward his immediate surroundings. He was, indeed, in some sort of spike pit, but the spikes were much larger and set much further apart than he had expected. Instead of being clustered together, ready to impale any creature unlucky enough to fall into the pit, they were more like small trees, rising above Arche’s head with enough space to walk comfortably through. The light from the burning beastmar didn’t completely illuminate the space he found himself in, but Arche could see a nearby wall. On the other side, the light faded into the darkness of a larger space. The last thing he wanted was to go exploring that darkness, but he needed to find an exit. More than that, he needed his weapon.

Arche raised a hand and focused on his connection to the Tridory, willing it to return. The Mana moved inside him, channeled along his connection to the spear but the link felt muddled, as though he was trying to pull something heavy underwater. His Mana dove steadily but he couldn’t tell if the spear was getting any closer or not. When his Mana was half-gone, the feeling gave way and the Tridory appeared, glinting in the firelight as it descended from somewhere above. Arche caught the spear at the haft, looking it over. It was covered in stone dust, which was somewhat surprising as the underground complex hadn’t had an abundance of disturbed stone or dirt. It had actually been relatively clean.

Arche looked between the spear, himself, and the burning beastmar.

“I won’t ask if you don’t.” He chuckled to himself. “Talking to a spear. All right, Arche, let’s figure our way out of this.”

He hobbled forward, bones still groaning from the impact. He rested one hand against the wall, leaning the rest of his weight against the Tridory. The flickering light of the burning beastmar didn’t reach far, but Arche moved past the limits into darkness, searching for some way out. The shadow consumed him, but he trudged forward undaunted, circling around the occasional spike that rose in his path, hoping for some organic escape.

When the gleam of fire was barely visible, he decided to turn back. He’d lost so much time already; he couldn’t afford to waste any more by getting lost again. Lyssa and Tess could have been captured by the beastmar, or even killed. Arche’s eyes narrowed. He couldn’t entertain that line of thought. He had to trust they could handle themselves. His focus was on getting out of his current predicament and getting back to them before it was too late. They had kicked the hornet’s nest and now they had to deal with the swarm.

Arche quickened his pace, feeling the resentment in his muscles and bones. He needed to find a way out. A way that preferably did not include climbing back up the walls. Not only would it take forever but if he fell then he would most likely be impaled on the spikes. Recent experiences told him that falling was not a way he ever wanted to die, no matter what he was landing on.

Those concerns were banished upon finding a depression in the wall. The depression gave way to a tunnel that disappeared into the darkness. Arche followed it as quickly as his body would allow, the Tridory hefted in one hand, ready to use, while the other held the stone wall for guidance.

A quarter of an hour passed before he heard sounds echoing off the walls. The sounds gave way to low, snarled voices as he approached.

“Curse it! They hide like rats in our walls. Vermin, scattering at the first sound of danger. Find them! Split up if you have to. Flesh is always sweeter after a hunt. Show no cowardice or you will be their replacement. The chief demands their deaths.”

Arche adjusted his grip on the spear. His heart thumped against his ribs until he was sure the beastmar would hear it. Being hunted wasn’t a feeling he was sure he’d ever get used to, but it was better to run toward the danger than away. These beastmar stood between him and his companions and the delay could be the difference between life and death.

Unacceptable.

Arche set his jaw and tried to quell his pounding heart. Fear was a luxury he could not afford. The time for running away was past. It was time to run toward something and if he couldn’t find his friends, then the enemy would have to do.