The paw that would kill Orion descended.

A blur of movement came from the side, and Shadow intercepted the paw with his great-sword. The creature bounced back from the blow, its own force and momentum used against it and causing it to stagger back. Shadow followed up with a Vicious Blow, and the light of Orion’s Time Bomb lit the attacking creature from within as the accrued damage finally hit the execution threshold. It crumbled and collapsed on itself, torn apart from within.

Shadow fell to his knees, and now that he had a moment to breathe, Orion saw Shadow’s health in the red and continuing to drop. Arika was at low health also and was still dropping, but much slower than Shadow’s.

Orion ran to Shadow’s side, pulled out one of the giant vials, and helped him drink a dose.

Looking over Shadow’s body, Orion realized what had happened. Shadow had ripped out all the sharp fragments that were lodged in his body and armor that were impeding his movement—in doing so, he’d upgraded his debilitating wounds to life-threatening ones. Orion got a glimpse at the jagged wounds through the hole in his armor, wincing at the damage that the two little-rodents had inflicted. The injuries slowly knitted themselves back together before his eyes, so he moved to help Arika.

Arika was still lying unconscious, which confused Orion considering her tentacle-hat had kicked—it should have healed her to back full health. He then noticed a small pool of blood forming beneath her head where it had collided with the wall, leaving a nasty wound and likely fracturing her skull—the cause of her slowly dropping health, he suspected.

He picked her head up softy from the ground, held it upright with one hand, and dispensed a dose of the Bountiful Potion of Miraculous Healing.

Arika’s unconscious form swallowed the potion with little effort, and she stirred as it healed the severe damage far swifter than any other potion had a right to. She tried to sit up, hands immediately going to her head, but Orion held her, telling her to rest a moment. It seemed far too early for her to be conscious, even considering the healing potion, but Orion suspected that was because of the Stim Leaf laden food they were all under the effect of.

“What happened?” she asked, then tried to jolt upright again as she remembered the armadillo.

“It’s dead, Arika.” Orion held her firm, stopping her from moving too much and causing more damage. “It hit you. Really hard. I think your skull was fractured and you were bleeding out. I made you drink a miraculous potion.”

Her tense body relaxed as she accepted his words.

“What happened to Shadow?”

“Right here,” Shadow growled from the other side of the street.

Shadow hunched over in pain as his wounds closed. His armor looked almost shredded in places, the sheer amount of damage he sustained, along with the fact he was now standing, humbling Orion.

“Jesus,” Arika said. “What the hell are you doing standing? If I need to lie down, so do you.”

Shadow grunted in acquiescence, leaning against the wall beside them and slowly sliding down it. “Just wanted to be—” He grunted as he reached the floor. “Just wanted to be sure you were okay.”

Orion felt the need to go—to rush to the aid of the western gate—but he couldn’t leave these two, incapacitated as they were. There was no helping it.

“How do you think the others are doing?” Arika asked, giving voice to Orion’s concerns.

Shadow grunted.

“Gizmo is probably having the time of his life, getting smacked around by a monster or two, and I’d wager that Honeypot is fine, but annoying the hell out of poor Fener and her party.” Humor slowly leeched into Shadow’s voice, despite his obvious discomfort.

Arika laughed quietly. “Fener definitely drew the short straw out of all of us, even considering we almost just died.”

Orion winced at Arika’s words. He hadn’t admitted to himself how close they’d come to losing their lives. If there had been even one more creature in that lineup, they could have all perished—and it was entirely due to his lack of foresight. If he had swapped Shadow out first, before he teleported himself and Arika away, the situation could have been much less dire. He’d instinctively saved Arika… no, that was a lie. He’d instinctively saved himself first, taking Arika with him, then saving Shadow as an afterthought.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Shadow…”

“Yeah?” Shadow asked as he inspected one of the larger tears in his armor.

“I’m sorry.” Orion looked at him, making a conscious effort to make eye contact. “I saved myself before you, and you got all torn up as a result. It was a selfish decision, and I made it without thinking. I—”

Arika interrupted him with a loud snort from her place prone on the street. “You’re being too hard on yourself. Again.”

“Yep,” Shadow agreed. “Definitely being too hard on yourself.”

“But if I had swapped you out first, we—”

“Bah.” Arika made a dismissive gesture. “If this, if that. You can sit and ridicule yourself, but we don’t see it that way.”

“You saved the two squishy targets first,” Shadow said. “What if you had swapped me first, and one of those mouses had det—”

“Mice,” Arika corrected.

Shadow lifted his head to glare at her. “And I thought Honeypot wasn’t here.” He turned back to Orion. “If one of those mice had exploded and hit you with this black shit…” Shadow gestured at one of the jagged shards on the ground. “You might have been dead dead. Like forever, not healing, not getting up dead.”

They had a point, but Orion said nothing, still partially blaming himself for everything that occurred.

Shadow got to his feet, appearing completely healed from the effect of the miraculous healing potion.

“We thrive when you’re doing the leading, Orion. A bit of reflection is good, sure, but beating yourself up over what may have been mistakes… that’s only going to hurt your effectiveness, right? You need to be decisive, even if it’s the wrong decision. That’s your role. Our role is to do what you say. That’s what has been working best for us.”

While he still felt guilt, Orion knew Shadow was right on that last point. Still, he sat in silence, unable to shake the feeling that he’d made a selfish and incorrect decision.

Arika sat up, testing her head by moving it around and seeing if the world spun. She accepted Shadow’s proffered hand as he helped her to her feet. Orion looked up, seeing both Arika and Shadow standing before him, each with a hand extended.

“Come on then,” Arika urged. “We’re good to go, so let’s go help that little robotic idiot of ours.”

Orion let them pull him to his feet, and he allowed the heavy weight of his thoughts to fall away.

Shadow’s right. It’s my job to be decisive.

He could worry about if he made the wrong or right decision after the fact, but for now, his friends needed him. The people of Valbrand needed him. He nodded as he let his conviction show on his face.

They took off at a run, using the growing plumes of smoke and ash to guide their way.

***

Honeypot ducked as a rabid-centipede flew over his head and crashed into the wall with an oddly wet sound. The situation in the sewers had deteriorated drastically over the last half-hour, to the point that he didn’t even have time to stop and count the centipede’s legs to settle his earlier dispute with Tallon.

Ever since they had seen the first urchin, the creature’s advance had become more-and-more aggressive, with different packs attacking from each direction. The centipede in question had snuck up on them as they focused on a rapidly pursuing, half-exploded urchin. It was the fourth such creature they had to deal with so far, and the deadly threat they posed always required the utmost attention.

By his own estimation, Honeypot and his acolyte had done a fantastic job of baiting every viable path through the winding tunnels beneath the city. There wasn’t a single path that could wrap around behind them without first passing at least five different points with the toxic-yet-enticing treats. He’d also placed them in places with the heaviest flow of liquid, allowing the smell of the treats to be pushed far downstream, and hopefully, into the path of advancing monsters.

What Honeypot had failed to account for was the fact that creatures could travel by themselves through the warren of sausages and excrement. Some of these solo creatures—either by luck or sheer will—had overcome the confusion and disorientation, eventually finding their way to the adventurers. What made this repeatedly occurring reality worse was that the creatures always seemed to attack at the worst possible time.

They would be slowly kiting a group, or madly kiting one of the damn urchins, when a centipede, or wolf, or even one of the little shooty-nymph things would attack from behind and unleash havoc.

Seren had already sustained an injury to his arm from leaping in front of a frothing-at-the-mouth Aquanine, knocking Fener out of the way and taking the attack meant for her. Luckily, the teeth of the wolf hadn’t reached his flesh, meaning the healing debuff didn’t afflict him. Seren had already consumed a dose of a Potion of Miraculous Healing, meaning he wouldn’t be able to use another to remove the debuff until the next day if he became afflicted.

Seren rushed the centipede with his shield, knocking it back against the wall as it attacked the side of a corridor in confusion. He then impaled it with his short-sword, appearing to get some sort of sneak-attack bonus on the disoriented invertebrate. The bombardiers released their three rounds at the newest urchin, launching it backwards as the section of body hit didn’t have any protective spines remaining to cushion the concussive blows.

In the time between the projectiles launching from their weapons and the explosive detonations, Honeypot heard a scuttling noise from behind. Seeing that no one else had noticed it, and not having time to explain, he tapped Fener on the shoulder, pointed down the tunnel to where he thought the sound had originated, and dipped into Stealth.

He rushed toward the source of the noise, enjoying the comfort that both the feeling of being in Stealth and the knowledge that no one could see him provided.

He stepped out wide and peered down the tunnel, seeing something that made his stomach twist.