Firstly, it looks more like a centipede than a worm. Secondly, Thermal’s automatic launch of magic rays down its oesophagus left it very cranky.

She stretches her senses. After all that travel, she has a rough layout of the area in her mind.

Elle yells as she runs, “Go middle then immediately right!” The sounds of the great worm’s skittering almost cover her voice. “Serena, can you put up some illusions?”

She hears Serena on her forward-left. “Yeah, in a sec!”

Thermal sputters, “H-have you been following us the whole time? Elle, why didn’t you say anything?!” He picks up his pace but still can’t run as fast as them. Sweat drips down his brow as the great worm’s teeth glint in the red light.

“Didn’t know until just now!” She stopped sending out pulses earlier to save energy since they don’t stretch much farther than her flashlight.

Their feet send pebbles skittering downhill as they reach the branches. The middle one goes higher than the others; it splits into sharp left and right turns hidden by tunnel walls.

Thermal and Elle veer right; two duplicate images sprint left. Their legs and lungs burn as they keep going.

They hear a loud crashing noise behind them; vibrations shake the ground; the great worm thrashes in frustration at the tight space.

They don’t dare to waste time by looking over their shoulders.

Elle guides them by pointing, not wanting to alert monsters with her voice. After an unknown length of time, she finds a satisfactorily hidden nook. “We can rest here. I don’t sense anything.”

She blinks and then sees Serena suddenly visible next to her. The half-elf crosses her arms. “Just for a few minutes, I”m pretty sure there’s more of those worms around. You know a way up, right?”

“Yeah, we should be at the surface in around half an hour. We’re about midway between Mt. Aspirash and Vinayre right now.” Ever since she’s unlocked her powers, Elle’s intuition has been good at judging distances and her relative position. She’s never been more glad about it than now.

Still exhausted by the run, Thermal pants for air quietly beside them. “Wait… Elle, would you be able to guide me to a route where I can follow my spell again? The two of you should head back to the surface, I do not wish to risk your lives any further.”

Serena hisses, “Are you insane? You can barely stand right now.” With her invisibility spell dropped, they can now clearly see her fury. “No fucking way, we’ll drag you out of here if we have to.”

“Why would you care about my fate? Your contempt for me has been written on your face since we met. What was your objective in following us when you insisted this would end in our deaths?” His tone grows suspicious towards the end.

She averts her gaze. “I thought I’d be okay with leaving my teammates behind when they were being dumbasses. Turns out that’s a lot harder to do than I thought.” The shadows from the dim lighting cling to her face, making her words more sombre than her usual energetic personality.

Seeing the rapid escalation of this conversation, Elle intervenes. “Your spell is going to run out soon anyways, right? Why don’t we regroup with Tiami first and then you can recast it at a closer location?”

Now it’s Thermal’s turn to avoid her eyes. “I cannot recast it. I do not possess the materials.”

“Then we can ask around Vinayre for them. Serena’s right; you’re just going to collapse if you try to go any farther. Besides, we’re only about halfway to the end, I think.”

He squints. “...What do you mean by that?”

“Well, given the angle and direction of the arrow, I’m pretty sure it’s pointing towards the fallen city. You’re not going to make it there even if I showed you the way.”

Thermal says nothing for a few moments, face growing progressively redder. “...And you have been sitting on this information for how long?”

“Uh…” Her stomach sinks. “I mean, I don’t know for sure or anything. It’s more like a gut feeling that I’ve been having ever since we entered the tunnels.”

“So you have been watching me run around like a fool. Very well, let us return to the surface. At least someone got amusement out of this.” He pushes himself to standing position and begins to walk out of the nook.

Elle stands up and follows him. “Wait, I wasn’t doing it to mess with you. I’m sorry. Since I had no proof, I thought it didn’t matter.”

“Is that so? You have been so quiet this entire mission; the only times you speak are to request breaks. I thought you were merely inexperienced, but it seems more like you lack the urgency required of the mission. Any relevant information — especially that which has been acquired from your powers — should be immediately shared with the group.”

Frustration wells up inside her chest. “Okay, now I know better. I’m sorry. This is my first mission with other people, and it’s not like you’ve been easy to talk to.”

Serena speaks up from behind them, guarding the rear as they head up the path. “Yeah, you don’t have to jump down her throat like that. It’s not like you told us that you can’t recast your spell.”

“I—” For a second, Thermal turns and looks ready to argue, but he presses his mouth shut in a thin line. “...My apologies too then. Neither of us were forthcoming.”

They fall back into silence. Thermal’s admonishment left a sting of embarrassment in her mind.

During the early days back on Earth, Elle had tried to help out other Awakened, but it had always been quick affairs. She never stuck around for long, finding small talk too awkward. Everyone was in the dark about aura and their powers, so nobody offered any valuable insights into hers.

Now, she wishes she tried harder to interact with them. It would’ve made talking feel more natural instead of janky like off-beat dance steps.

They walk uninterrupted for about twenty minutes, following Elle’s intuition. Nothing shakes the ground, but Elle can’t trust that. It seems like great worms stay still and wait for prey if they can sense them.

Her flashlight shines upon another worm; Elle isn’t even mad, just resigned to another chase.

They run back through the tunnels. Thermal trips but barely manages to catch himself; he can’t take much more of this; Elle needs to do something.

The worm’s mouth takes up its entire face. Serena’s knives can’t damage its thick skin. Elle has less than half of her aura left; it’s enough for one slice.

Monster flesh vapourizes after death, but do monsters have internal organs? Their food must go somewhere.

Elle reaches out with her mind. She feels the sharp edges of its teeth. She pushes beyond the worm’s outline and maps its internal cavity. Her head hurts from the effort.

A sac beats rapidly. Elle finds one of its hearts and tears it open. She hears a messy squelch as blood sprays from the wound.

The worm slams into the wall. The tunnel shakes with each of its thrashes.

Serena calls back to her, “We’ve lost our stealth! How much more?” Her voice barely cuts through the muffled haze of Elle’s mind.

“Uh…” The attack left her head feeling stuffed with cotton. “A few more minutes if we run?”

She can’t push much aura into her muscles because she needs it to navigate. Her legs burn, but the ache barely registers.

Something hits her on the shoulder. It bounces off her aura, dropping her reserves lower. Oh, it’s a rock. The worm’s thrashing sends loose rocks flying everywhere.

A hand grabs her wrist and pulls her farther along. Serena asks, “Where do we go? Are you okay?”

Elle squints, trying to focus. Nothing is processing right. “...We need to go straight then right.”

From up ahead, the ground begins to shake. Another worm might be coming. They burst into a full sprint.

She knows these tunnels. She is these tunnels? No, that’s not right.

Elle is a spectator to her own actions. She watches Serena drag her up the path.

She know she’s the one running, but every motion feels alien.

Light pours from the tunnel opening. They burst into the brisk outside air and don’t stop until they’ve reached a rocky outcropping.

Elle shuts off her spatial sense and collapses.

She feels small without her powers.

“Are you alright, Elle? Here, sip a little bit of water.” Thermal holds out a flask, concern drawn upon his face.

Elle doesn’t take the flask, staring at nothing. She knows she should take it, but she can’t move.

What are five things she can see?

Thermal lowers the flask, his brow furrowing. Serena sits down beside her. The rugged landscape covered in rocks stretches on forever. Grey clouds cover the sky. Her clothes are dirty from falling onto dirt.

She’s so far from home.

Tears well up in her eyes. Elle draws shaky breaths through her tight throat.

She could’ve died in those tunnels, far from everyone who cares about her. Jay and Mira wouldn’t have found out since there’s no way to contact them.

Elle imagines those dark and cold walls being her final resting place. She would’ve failed her ultimate mission of stopping the Corruption, her sole comfort being that others would take up the mantle.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

God, Serena was right. She shouldn’t have let her curiosity get the better of her.

Elle begins to cry, not caring if the others see her tears. No sound escapes her tight throat as her shoulders shake.

Serena asks, “Do you want some space?”

She nods. Elle doesn’t really know them.

Thermal leaves his flask next to her, and they take up watch a bit farther away.

After her parents told her to leave the house, she remembers leaning on Jay’s shoulder as she cried from the overwhelming sense of finality. She remembers helping Mira bake to give herself something to do instead of staying frozen from helplessness.

Elle wishes her best friends went with her to Sinkpoint. There’s nothing to hold onto here except for cold rocks and apathetic fog.

She’s weak. She always believed that her courage would make up for her lack of other qualities. Fortune favours the bold, but it can’t replace those missing skills.

Elle doesn’t know how long she sits there wallowing in self-pity, but the growing brightness of her surroundings gradually brings her back to awareness. Judging from the sun’s approximate location behind the clouds, she thinks it’s around midday.

“Here, you can use this.” Thermal startles her as he holds out a handkerchief. “It has been washed.”

“Oh, thank you… I’ll clean it before I return it.” To be honest, Elle’s still somewhat grossed out by the handkerchief, but she doesn’t think tissues are common or purchasable here due to supply issues. Might as well get used to it.

He nods and lets her clean up herself before speaking again. “We should start heading back to Vinayre soon. My spell has already ended, and I rather not have beasts stumble upon us. Have you recovered your aura?”

Elle considers the energy inside of her. She has no way of exactly measuring it, but she intuitively knows that her aura is slow to return. “Less than half but still manageable. I can fight.”

Serena leaps off the outcropping to land beside them. “So what did you do earlier? It looked like you lost a lot of aura at once. You were like a vegetable!”

She grimaced. “I think I tried to sense too much detail. Normally, I just look for the outline or space that a thing occupies. This time, I mapped out the internal components as well. It’s too much for my brain.”

“Hmm, guess you got to be more careful then. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like it did any permanent damage to you which is great! I didn’t want to carry you back to Vinayre.” Serena grins at her.

“Haha, yes. Pretty lucky.” She gives a hesitant smile, assuming that the half-elf is joking.

They set off in the south-east direction, hoping to reach Vinayre before evening. Unfortunately, their luck runs out after about half an hour when they must travel through a small, twisting valley. Three icekoons ambush them.

Elle stabs one with her javelin. She darts away as it tries to swipe at her. Her attack didn’t go deep but at least it connected.

On the other hand, two of Serena’s throwing knives now stick out of one’s ice armour. Instead of using ice as weapons, that icekoon preferred to use it to absorb attacks.

Thermal sends another round of magic rays at the third icekoon, but it takes the blows with little concern. It lets out a roar of freezing gale at Serena instead.

Dodging a pounce from the armoured one, Serena gasps as wind shoots ice shards across her left side. The projectiles all bounce off her aura, but the cold seeps into her leather armour.

Thermal raises his voice as he flips to a different page in his tome, “Serena, we’re outpowered! Can you fool them into thinking we ran?”

“Little busy here!” She zigzags away from the armoured icekoon, dodging blasts of wind from the third. “You deal with the screamy one first!”

Elle opens her inventory above her opponent. “I’ll distract them!” As a bowling ball crashes into the icekoon, she disengages and grabs a flare from her pocket. She pushes a bit of aura into its base and points it to the sky.

A crack of gunpowder startles the icekoons as the red coloured smoke streams into the sky. Elle hopes that they’re close enough to Vinayre for help to arrive.

Serena uses the moment of distraction to dash towards a higher ledge farthest from them.

Thermal finishes his incantation; fire erupts into a ten-metre ring that encompasses the two icekoons targeting her. Howls of pain fill the air as fire burns through their fur. Some of the ice armour melts.

The one fighting Elle shakes off the ringing in its ears with a snarl. It leaps at her, its open jaw revealing sharp fangs.

She jumps to the side, but she underestimates it.

Instead of simply biting down, the icekoon summons an icy replica of its gaping maw. Elle manages to escape its normal bite, but the icicles scrape against her aura and send it plummeting.

She staggers away from it, trying to recover from the sudden chill in her body. Elle parries a paw with her javelin and runs towards the ring of fire. The icekoon might back off from the heat.

Seeing the source of the flames, the two icekoons chasing Serena turn towards Thermal. One spits out a howling gale, and the other charges towards him.

Thermal pales and sprints away from Serena’s ledge. The first icy blast misses him, but the armoured icekoon quickly gains ground on him.

Before it can pounce on him, it stumbles with a snarl of pain.

Serena becomes visible on its back, having plunged a hatchet in between cracks of its armour. Black blood sprays as she yanks out the hatchet.

Another blast of freezing wind manages to hit Thermal. It sends him tumbling to the ground. His aura can’t absorb the full force of it.

Claws made of ice slash at Elle, pulling her attention back to her opponent. She dodges them and notices that the icekoon itself refuses to come closer to the flames.

An arrow pierces the icekoon’s right eye, and the icekoon yowls. The arrow vanishes into smoke after it impacts, leaving a bleeding wound.

Elle turns and sees a duplicate Serena nocking another arrow into her bow. The half-elf smiles and winks at her. Half a second later, the fire ring vanishes.

Thermal drags himself to his feet. “We’re running out of aura! We need to flee.”

Serena slashes at the armoured icekoon even as it tries to buck her off. “We can do this! Cast that fire spell again!”

“You’re on its back!”

Elle decides to finish off her icekoon so the they can deal with the remaining two together. Glass shards rain onto the monster from her inventory. She dashes towards the icekoon.

Half-blinded, the icekoon misses its swipes against her.

Elle plunges Pointy into its open wound, using aura to enhance her strength. It sinks several inches into its soft flesh.

Serena cries, “Watch out!”

She whips her head around to see Serena jump off the armoured icekoon as it charges off in a rampage to free itself. Elle releases her javelin and jumps back from the line of charge.

She’s not fast enough.

The armoured icekoon rams into Elle and sends her flying several metres. Her aura disappears entirely from the force of impact; she slams into the ground; all air pushed from her lungs in shock.

Warm blood trickles down her cheek. Her aura absorbed some of the damage, but she has none left now.

Elle pushes herself to her feet. She ignores the pain dulled by adrenaline. Without her aura, she can’t access her inventory. Her javelin now lies on the ground near the evaporating monster corpse.

The bloodied, armoured icekoon stares at her.

Fire bursts from it. Thermal yells, “That is the last one I can cast! Serena, finish them off before we die, please!”

“Why couldn’t you do that before it hit Elle?!” Serena dodges blasts of ice as she darts towards the howling icekoon.

Several arrow wounds on the icekoon weep blood, but the duplicate has disappeared.

“Spells require timing! You did not tell me when you were going to jump.”

“...It’s not dead,” Elle croaks through her dry throat as she stares at the armoured beast.

Although heavily burned, the icekoon still lumbers towards her.

She turns and runs towards Serena’s left, unable to go in another direction without danger. Her legs feel weak without aura flowing through them. Elle wonders if she even has energy left to climb the walls. She has to rely on her teammates to save her.

Thermal shoots magic rays at the armoured icekoon, but they don’t slow its gait. “It’s still hunting Elle!” He flips through his tome in search of another spell.

“Fuck!” Serena deals another slash to the howling icekoon. “You distract this one then!”

“No, I can help her! Well, if I have enough aura…” His brow furrows.

“Hurry up then!”

The armoured icekoon notices Elle heading towards one of the mini-valley’s walls. It starts to charge at her again.

Before it can reach her, a clone of Serena appears next to the half-elf and shoots the armoured icekoon with an arrow.

The armoured icekoon stumbles but continues to stagger towards the injured woman.

Elle scrambles to the mini-valley’s wall and finds workable footholds. Her arms burn as she starts climbing.

Thermal fires another round of magic rays at the dying icekoon; they slam into its exposed wounds.

The icekoon lurches but still drags itself towards its prey. Its single-minded desperation to feed shows in every movement.

The howling icekoon blasts an arc of frost and forces both Serenas to dodge. It disengages from them in a few quick jumps.

Elle pulls herself up onto a ridge. She pants for breath, heart racing from adrenaline.

An arrow pierces the armoured icekoon’s throat. It collapses onto the ground.

Serena throws a knife and dashes at the last icekoon.

It dodges the weapon and lets out a scream filled with icy fury.

Thermal snaps his attention towards Serena, but the attack wasn’t aimed at her.

The cold scrapes against Elle’s ribcage as the gales shove her off the ledge. She can’t do anything but gasp; the winds steal its sound.

She watches the valley wall get farther away from her. Her face burns from the ice stuck to it, the shards gouged into her skin.

Elle hits the ground with a sickening snap. Pain shoots through her body like a hammer driving in a nail. It’s mildly dulled by the numbing cold.

She hears Serena swearing somewhere in the distance but can’t focus on the words. Adrenaline buzzes through her veins, and it’s the only thing distracting her from a growing river of warm blood down her side. She’s too afraid to look.

Thermal arrives and holds a bottle filled with green liquid to her lips. “This is a health potion. Drink this.”

Elle lets him tip its contents into her mouth. She once tried whiskey at her ex’s birthday party, and the way this potion burns her throat reminds her of that. It’s also strongly minty like the creator tried to hide its unpleasantness by dumping mouthwash into it.

Thermal uses his other hand to pull gauze from his pocket and press it onto her wound. “You will be alright. Vinayre’s guards must have seen your signal. Help will arrive soon.”

His reassuring tone sounds unnatural to Elle, and she fights the urge to laugh. Her torso aches from all the bruises.

It seems like the potion can’t cure wounds immediately. How disappointing. She misses having aura and can’t wait for it to return.

The sounds of battle dwindle as she drinks. She hears Serena approach them. “You’re actually giving her a potion?”

Elle feels mildly hurt by that remark but also sheepish that she’s using up Thermal’s supply. She’ll have to repay him later. Her stomach churns.

Thermal replies dryly, “And I thought you were the one promoting the virtues of teamwork.”

“I didn’t mean that it’s a bad thing!” Serena immediately says. “I was just surprised you would do that.”

Elle twists her head away from them and vomits. Stomach acid and mint burn her throat and tongue. She reaches for her throat gagging.

Serena steps back from her. “Okay, I know it’s gross, but you need to keep it down!”

Thermal says, “Wait, look at her skin. Elle, what is happening?”

She doesn’t care what her skin looks like, because her throat is swelling up. Elle clutches at her throat, hoping they’ll get the message.

He asks in disbelief, “Are you allergic to health potions?”

Ah, of course. Her life can always get shittier.

Elle sees a shadow with wings grow on the ground. A vaguely familiar, woman’s voice speaks behind them. “I got her. More help is coming.”

She wishes it was the goddess Equinox so she could yell at her. However, this person sounds like a regular lady, but Elle can’t remember where she heard her before.

A hand touches her shoulder, and everything goes to black.