The two elementals and Claire watched through one of the scouts as Dean and Bastian rushed Layne back to the manor. It helped that the sky had started to lighten with the promise of sunrise. They could move much faster without fear of tripping.
“How did you know, Claire?” Rick questioned. “How did you know about Little Harry’s class, and that Bastian would have something that could save Layne?”
The master also looked on with interest. Claire did her best to convey a scowl at him. His recent callousness once again made her wonder whether he was worth keeping around. He appeared not to notice her scowl.
Then she answered, “Well, Little Harry was more of a hunch than anything. I knew a child had gained a class while playing in my clearing, but I didn’t know which one. Except, there was always something a little odd about Little Harry, so I guessed. And I got lucky. As for the potion, we all know what a ruthless scumbag Bastian was. I mean, using children to protect himself of all things! But, he also had a relatively high level plus he turned up on the beach with the dungeon compass. That meant he was able to get his hands on some highly valuable things. With the kind of life he led, surely he would have something powerful on him to save himself? Some kind of insurance? Similar to Layne carrying a healing potion with him. Thank the Creator I was right.”
“Wait,” Rick said as the two men carrying Layne reached the outskirts of the plantation. “Did he just move?”
Claire zoomed in on the scene, the master fluttering closer as well. For a moment she thought that Rick must’ve been mistaken, but then she noticed it too. There was a little twitch of his fingers. The potion was beginning to wear off.
“Oh no, not yet. They’re so close…”
“No, it’s happening,” the master commented.
Then Layne’s hand gave a little jerk, which Dean noticed.
“He’s coming too!” he called to Perez.
“Then run, we have to run like you’ve never ran before!” Perez called back, as he pushed his own pace even more.
“No, we won’t make it,” Dean gasped. “Can you call for help while we run? I’m too out of breath.”
Perez didn’t ask questions; he just started screaming for anyone to hear with the breath that he had.
“Help! The young master’s been injured! Help!” He kept repeating the call as they gained ground to the manor until the potion suddenly wore off completely just as they reached the first hedges of the outmost garden. Layne’s body, which had been secure up until now, crumbled down to the ground, taking Dean and Perez with him and jostling the sword still in him.
“Stay here with him,” Perez said as he flew up off the ground and raced towards the manor, screaming and hammering on the front door as soon as he reached it.
“What in the blazes is going on?” the Baron yelled as he opened the door.
“Your son! Healing potion! Fast!” Perez screamed. The Baron turned white as he flew around and rushed to his study, returning with a potion in just a few seconds.
“Where? Take me to him!”
<>
Claire breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the baron feed Layne the healing potion and its immediate miraculous effect. Layne was still unconscious, but even now his colour looked better and there was no longer a sword sticking into his flesh.
“They made it,” Rick echoed in relief beside her.
“I still don’t see why we should care,” the master muttered.
“Yes, yes, I know, I know,” Claire responded with a sigh. And then she switched her focus to Hillah and Stanley still huddling in her first corridor entrance.
“Speaking of not caring about adventurers, there is something we do need to take care of.”
<>
The sun was just starting to rise over the horizon as Tamrin rode up to the Canewhold mansion. She had an awful night, fighting to come to terms with what she had learned about their family’s plight.
They needed help, and she hoped to ask that of Layne. And, to do that, she was hoping to catch him alone as he returned in the early morning hours from High Plantation, which she knew he often did. She didn’t want the baron to find out. If he knew, there would be no further chance of marrying into the Canewhold family. He certainly wouldn’t allow Layne to marry a pauper.
She was not prepared for the sight of an unconscious Layne, covered in blood, being carried into the manor. Gasping, she jumped off her horse and ran over to the men.
“What happened? Is he all right?” she asked urgently.
“Oh, Tamrin,” the baron answered, “don't worry, we got him a healing potion and now he needs to rest. Please come back later,” and he pulled the door closed in her face.
For a while Tamrin just stood there in shock, not knowing what to do. And then a stablehand came round, leading her horse.
“Lady Tamrin?” he said. “I found your horse wandering the vegetable patch. Do you need me to stable him?”
“Ah, no,” she replied. “We’ll be leaving now.”
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Hillah and Stanley sat gloomily in the little cave they had discovered. They heard the chasing footsteps pass them by hours ago, but they didn’t dare leave the confines of the cave yet. Not while the village men might still be around and looking for them. If Hillah had a better fighter with her, she may still have risked it. But not with Stanley as her only backup.
She couldn’t believe what had happened. Bastian had always been a cold bastard with great cunning. How could this have gone so wrong? They were just going to retrieve the dungeon compass, then see if they could find the other dungeon for its core, and then they would’ve left the island. Just another two or three days. At the most. Now Bastian was dead, who knew what had happened to Perez, and she was stuck in a cave with Stanley. By now all the locals were probably out searching for them. How was she going to get off the island? Maybe she could use Stanley as a distraction while she disappeared to new lands unknown.
“Do you hear that,” Stanley interrupted her thoughts.
“Hear what?” she whispered.
“That,” he said, waving his hand at the interior recesses of the cavern.
At first Hillah didn’t hear anything. And then she wished she didn’t, as the chittering sounds of hundreds of thousands of insects grew louder and louder, approaching their position.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” Stanley said as he started to back up to the cave entrance. Alarmed, Hillah too started backing away, and then a literal tsunami of bugs spilled into their cavern, sweeping them both away in a tide of creepy-crawlies. Hillah wanted to scream, but she didn’t dare as she frantically ran, crawled, and rolled with the tide, before being unceremoniously dumped out on the side of the mountain.
She looked around, with her hands over her ears as Stanley screamed and screamed in terror. There was not a single insect in sight. How was that possible? She would've given it further thought, but Stanley was too distracting.
“Shush, the bugs are gone, can’t you see?” she tried to quiet him, but he was beyond reason.
“Over there!” she heard voices call. “Let’s go get them!”
Well, it was fun while it lasted, she thought, and abandoned Stanley to run for her life.
<>
In his bed, Layne drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he thought there were people in the room with him, speaking in hushed voices, other times he heard only silence. Once or twice someone dripped more potion down his throat. Healing potion, he could identify the taste to himself, but more than that was too much effort and he slipped away again.
The sunlight was dimming when he finally felt strong enough to open his eyes, and found the baron sitting in a chair beside his bed.
“Father,” he tried to say, but there was only a dry scraping sound that came from his mouth.
“Son, you must be thirsty,” his father said, and he helped Layne to sit up and take a few sips of water.
The effort was exhausting. Layne could only sip twice before he had to lay back down against the pillows. Gratefully, he closed his eyes and fell into slumber again.
<>
Much later, he woke again to the sound of quiet shuffling in his room. It was a servant placing a tray on his desk, followed by another one carrying a carafe of water. As the tray bearer left, the other one slipped back into the room, coming to stand by Layne’s bedside.
“Lily,” he said.
She had dark circles under her eyes and a demeanour so depressed that it was a wonder she could even stand.
“I’m sorry Layne,” she whispered. “You almost died, and it would’ve been my fault. I’m so, so sorry.”
Tiredly he waved her away, saying, “Later, Lily. Later.”
She gave a teary nod and slipped out of the room as Layne fell back asleep.
<>
Claire kept watch over Layne through one of her scouts deep into the night. He slept a lot, but gradually his breath became steadier and his pallor decreased. Finally, he was at a point where she thought he was coherent enough for a conversation. Because she had finally read the notification that had flared when Carlie had fed him the preservation potion. They needed to talk and she wanted to do it in person, so she prepared as he grew stronger.
The master was against it, of course, but what else was new. She was an anomalous core, and she knew what she had to do.
<>
Later that night Layne woke again. At first he didn’t know what woke him, but then he heard the silent swish of curtains. He looked over, just in time to see a woman with dark hair wearing blue pants with sandals and a pink shirt climb in through the open window.
He still felt a bit groggy, but nonetheless he managed to speak.
“You know, all these years I’ve been fantasising about beautiful women sneaking into my room at night. It’s just that in my fantasies I was in much better shape to take advantage of it.”
“Hush you,” the mystery lady smiled. “After all that’s happened, you should be more worried about me climbing in here to do you harm.”
“Oh, I don’t think my sense of self-preservation has recovered yet,” Layne said mildly. “Are you here to do me harm?”
“No, actually. But we do need to talk.”
“Who are you,” he asked. “You look a bit familiar. Like Carlie, the dungeon girl, I think.”
“You are more perceptive than I thought,” the lady replied. “Yes, I guess you could say that I’m related to Carlie. You can call me Claire.”
“And you can call me Layne. What brings you to a wounded stranger’s bedroom in the middle of the night?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call us strangers. Have you read your notifications recently?”
“No, should I?”
“Yes,” Claire said.
Layne opened his notifications, scrolling by skill increase notices and other things until something unique popped up.
New achievement: Dungeon bond
For preserving the existence of a dungeon core, and then having that dungeon intervene directly to save your life, you have both earned the achievement “dungeon bond”. This bond will develop over time as the two of you continue working together.
“You’re the dungeon core, aren’t you,” Layne made the connection even as he felt the exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him again.
“Yes,” she confirmed, patting him on the shoulder and then turning back to the window. “Come see me again when you feel better," she said as she left.
Well, this is going to get interesting, was the last thought he had as he fell back asleep.
<>
The ice core rested in his cavern as he gathered strength for the next step. It was hard; he felt so sluggish. It was because of the low levels of life-force in the cavern, the blue elemental had explained. She said he needed to break ground outside to connect with a larger supply of life-force.
Her colour was still wrong, the blue too deep. He had tried to change it, but he was too tired. Now the being wouldn’t come near him, hovering at the furthest edges of the cavern instead.
Icy blue tendrils crept over the ground, as he slowly continued digging to the outside.
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