10.
The gristly trap was set. Body parts were strewn about the intersection, blood leaking into the thirsty ground. Santi had left body parts down the hallway he knew led to the second pair of warriors. The heady scent of death filled the passageways, and Santi had no choice but to hope it would work. He was smeared in offal, his maul having made a mess as he hacked apart the three dead kobolds. He had made the smart decision to leave his pack in the hall, so at least that wasn’t stained with blood.
Now, he sat here in the dark with the patience of a hunter. At least he was trying to emulate a hunter. His eyelids were drooping as he struggled to stay awake. He had been running on adrenaline, fear, and the emotional whiplash of coming back in time for three days and now, nestled in the dark, it was catching up to him. For almost two days straight he had shopped, built, and prepped for today, and now he had been in multiple fights. He was as close as possible to collapse without actually collapsing.
Santi pinched the inside of his arm as hard as he could, the pain bringing a moment of clarity to his clouded mind. He was going to need to sleep soon. Sleeping inside of a rift was inadvisable, so he was going to have to try to speedrun it if he wanted any sort of chance of finishing today. The possibility of retreating up to the upper levels and catching a nap was possible. With his luck though, the other pair of warriors would find him sleeping and disembowel him before he had an opportunity to fight back. Santi had felt like this might happen, so he had brought a few things that could keep him on his feet.
A small baggie of preworkout, the highest caffeine energy drink he could buy, and a little pharmaceutical help from another college student. He would start with the energy drink and work his way up. He wanted to avoid the pills, the last thing he needed was to be in an altered state of mind when trying to finish the rift. At least, more altered than it currently was, swimming in a sea of adrenaline. He shifted as silently as possible, his foot going numb as he crouched off to the side of the intersection. He had chosen to post up in the original hallway he had come down, just feet away from the intersection.
A road flare was next to his hand, ready to be used with a moment's notice. The light would hurt him, but he knew it would be worse for the kobolds. If they came. His patience was wearing thin, the sticky nature of his current predicament wearing down on him. The minutes trickled by and he finally heard what he had been both dreading and pleading for. The wet snuffling sounds of a kobold sniffing the air. The scuff of feet through thick dirt, the quiet whimpers and growls as they communicated.
Santi gripped the flare, ready to light it as they got closer. He strained to hear as they got closer, and he cursed himself for not putting something in the intersection to alert him when the dog faced monsters entered. He just had to hope his battle hardened instincts were correct, even if his senses were muted compared to where he had once been. The shuffling was so close, Santi thought he could reach out and touch one.
The flare burned white for a moment, blazing to life in a pyrotechnic display. Santi tossed the flare into the center of the intersection, the cries of the kobolds filling the air as they tried to cover their eyes from the harsh light. Santi rose and attacked, his own eyes bleary as he hacked down at the two helpless monsters. They didn’t last long, both of them dying without offering him a fight.
The flare continued to splutter as Santi quickly took an iron dagger from each of them and went to retrieve his bag. The daggers were tossed in while the warm energy drink was pulled out. Santi sipped on it, standing right outside of the circle of light cast by the flare. Tired eyes swept over the carnage he had created. It wasn’t the worst thing he had ever done, or even the most gross, but not something he wanted to experience again.
“I really want a shower and a nap,” Santi said to himself.
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“Look at me, I’m a fucking mess. Now I’m talking to myself. Again,” Santi huffed in exasperation and finished the can off, tossing it to the side of the tunnel before pulling his pack back on and starting down the intersection that would lead to the last of the elites. He left the hissing flare in the intersection and broke out a more gentle glowstick and started to head toward where he knew the chieftain was.
Boss monsters enjoyed the ambient increase in mana that a rift heart would generate. It’s why they built their lairs around them, slowly strengthening as the rift grew stronger. Santi was hoping that the trend of half starved monsters continued. He wasn’t in shape to fight a full strength chieftain right now. Hell, he barely had the strength to keep walking down the hall. The caffeine infusion was helping, but he didn’t think it would last long enough.
Santi started to slowly jog down the hall, throwing caution to the wind. A desperate feeling was pressing on him. The need to finish this. To get out of the dark and feel the sun on his face again. He knew he was being dumb, the small voice or reason was screaming at him in the back of his mind. He was just too tired and frustrated to care. He was going to clear the rift and he was going to do it in an expedient manner.
“Come on, Santi, you’ve got this. We’ve done it once, we can do it again. I mean, you had friends and allies with you, but you did it. I can do this,” the murmured mantra was repeated with increasing frequency as he started to pick up speed. He followed the twists and turns of the tunnels, moving more by instinct than by memory.
Santi barreled around a corner and found himself crashing into a furry form. Santi bowled it over, landing with a grunt of pain as the squirming kobold underneath him cried out in pain. Santi was moving instantly, rolling away from the fangs and claws of the monster. Santi cursed viciously as he struggled out of the straps of his pack, the only light the glowstick that he had dropped.
The hallway he had turned into was narrow, one of the walls buckled in, and the two kobolds were staring at him in shock. The one he had knocked over was trying to get on its feet, but its leg was twisted in a way that didn’t allow it to stand. The second one was holding its dagger in a paw, waving it about as it howled at him. Plucking up the heavy axe, Santi swung like it was a golf club. He simply swung, not bothering to turn the blade part around. The blunt heavy end caught the kobold under the chin. Teeth went flying as it stiffened for a moment, before sliding bonelessly to the ground.
Panting as yet another rush of adrenaline surged through him, Santi ended the injured one. The axe split its skull with a single blow. He tugged it free and repeated the process with the unconscious one. All of his fear and uncertainty about the patrolling warriors and it had ended like this. Simply running into them and ending the fight in a few blows.
“I fucking hate this shit,” Santi groaned as his hands shook. He let himself shake for a moment, feeling the weight of what he had just experienced. Controlling his breathing, he slowly reigned himself back under control.
“Willpower. Fucking willpower,” Santi promised himself as he looted the two warriors. More shitty iron daggers added to his pack. Now, it was only the chief and guardian left and then he could get out of here. He drank half of his bottle water and ate what was left of his granola bars. The chewy bars were sickly sweet, the highly processed sugar that suffused everything wasn’t common anymore.
“God, I love food. Aside from maybe saving everyone, getting to eat this junk is worth it. Stress sucks though. Fucking love sugar though. That first fountain drink I had, oh god, that almost makes it worth it. Mom, hearing her again. That was definitely worth it. Hearing them all again, it’ll make it worth it. You just have to finish this up, Santi. Clear the rift, get out. Save your friends, take a shower, and then you get to sleep. Come on, COME ON!” Santi screamed as he struggled to put the pack back on. He was fraying, holding onto his nerve with his last tendrils of will.
Axe in one hand, glowstick in the other, he pushed further into the temple. He didn’t have to go much further. The chief would be only a little ways away, probably hearing Santi screaming at himself. Santi didn’t care. He was going to carve the bastard into pieces and then do the same to the guardian. He would rip the rift heart out of its place and walk out of here. Let them try and stop him.