Chapter 88: Collapse

Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):

I hit the ground with a jolt and rolled for a small distance, only stopped by an outstretched wing, which sent a spike of pain down my spine as the wing’s joint was bent too far. I only lay dazed for a moment before I, through great effort, climbed to my talons.

The first thing I did was check up on Alex. He lay a small distance away, groaning on the floor. At least he wasn’t unconscious, that was already an improvement over the last time something had gone horribly wrong. I quickly rushed over to him. While I moved I was glad to find that despite the rough tumble, I was mostly okay. A few scales were cracked, and I’d likely be sore for a while—especially my wing—but nothing too serious, thank the stars.

From a distance, Alex seemed to be mostly okay, too. That was really good, since despite his recently much higher attributes, he was still much lighter and more fragile than me. I just hoped that my body blocked most of the blast and that he actually was as okay as he looked.

Once I got to him, I rolled him over onto his back, and quickly ran my talons over his body to check for broken bones. As far as I could tell, he didn’t have any, nor did he have any cuts. His scales and clothes made it impossible to tell if he was bleeding internally, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that, anyway. After finishing my physical check, I moved back to his face. Alex blinked up at me, still a bit dazed. I fed him one of the minor healing potions I had on me—we only had minor ones as these kinds of potions were incredibly expensive. After a few seconds, his eyes cleared up a bit, and he looked at me in recognition.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, then realized what a dumb question that was. Alex understood what I meant though.

He nodded. “I feel sore all over and like I broke something, but other than that, I’m fine,” he said, then looked to the side, down the tunnel where the explosion had gone off. “What happened?”

I thought for a small moment, then decided to give him the short version. We could have a panic attack about why somebody trapped the tunnels later.

“Something exploded. If it hadn’t been for you smelling it…” I let the sentence hang, not willing to admit just how star-cursed close we’d gotten to dying. “We’ll talk about it later, alright? Just keep still, I’m sure a professor will arrive in a moment.”

Alex didn’t look entirely satisfied, but nodded anyway and rested his head back on the floor. I curled protectively around him, then decided to check on the cave while we waited on a teacher. I glanced around and immediately noticed the black scorch marks on the entrance to this side tunnel. The once gray stone had been blackened and almost resembled coal, now. Other than that, I noticed that the supports that had been burned to a crisp or just plainly blown apart and that cracks spider-webbed through the ceiling. That couldn’t be good.

Without the supports holding up the ceiling, the possibility of a cave-in was all too real. Was it even safe to stay here? Was it better to get back to the group quickly before the roof caved in? Or was it better to go further down this side tunnel?

Before I got a chance to seriously think about it, I heard voices coming from the explosion site.

“In here!” I called.

The voices stopped for a moment, then replied. “Stay where you are!” Scott yelled back. “We’ll be with you in a moment! A part of the ceiling collapsed and we need to clear out the tunnel!”

I nodded, even though no one could see me do it, then rested my head on the ground. I kept a wary eye on the tunnel entrance and ceiling, though. Ready to run at a moment’s notice. Luckily nothing happened, and I listened to the sounds of Scott talking to the other professors and of rock scraping against rock as they moved the debris. Occasionally he called out to make sure we were okay.

“Did anyone else get hurt?” I yelled the moment I thought of the question. Between all the chaos and worrying about Alex, I’d completely about everyone else.

“No, everyone is fine. There are a couple of bruises and scrapes, but that’s it. Mostly, everyone is just sca—fuck!” Scott’s voice was suddenly interrupted by a loud crash. The sound of falling rocks rang out and a cloud of dust billowed out into the side tunnel. I sat up straight and watched the entrance like a hawk.

“Felix!” Scott yelled out. “You need to—fuck, fuck, fuck—you need to move back! Now!”

Cracks spread across the ceiling like an egg that was about to hatch, but the only thing that would hatch here was crushing stone and a painful death. I stood up and threw Alex onto my back. He’d been paying attention and quickly realized what was going on. He strapped himself in even as I started to move.

Before I got far, though, I heard a yell behind me. “Wait!”

I swiveled my neck around and saw Scott standing at the entrance. He grabbed two bottled from his belt and threw them at me just as the ceiling caved in. Without even thinking about it, I jerked my head up and caught the bottles in my maw. I didn’t get a chance to scold myself about catching something in my mouth like I was a dog, however, as the ceiling was rapidly coming down behind us. Scott had already vanished beneath a torrent of stone.

For a moment, I just stood there, maw gaping, watching the approaching doom. Absently I was aware of Alex catching the potions as they rolled out of my jaws, but it was a vague distant sensation. This was literally all my fears about this place realized. I was deep underground, trapped, and couldn’t even spread my wings. And now the stone was trying to kill me. My chest tightened and my breathing sped up. Was this where I—no! I couldn’t. I didn’t want to die, and more importantly, I couldn’t let Alex die because of my fears.

With great effort, I tore my gaze away from the collapsing ceiling and sprinted down the hallway. From behind me I heard Alex sigh a sigh of relief, and I realized he’d been yelling at me to run. I’d need to apologize for that later.

I didn’t dare look back as I ran through the winding tunnels. I didn’t care where I went so long as it was away from the cave-in. We could deal with finding our way back later. Behind me, the world shook and a loud cracking rumble followed us wherever we went, accompanied by the sound of cracking wood as the supports snapped under the unprecedented load. But despite my best efforts, the rumble kept closing in.

In an attempt to flee the destruction, I skidded to a halt and turned into a side-passage. I hoped the collapsing ceiling would continue to go in a straight line, but as we made our way down the tunnel, the rumble followed regardless.

“It’s catching up!” Alex yelled into my ears, his voice cracking in fright.

This wasn’t sustainable. At this rate, the whole damned floor was going to collapse. How were we supposed to outrun something like that? But as the thunderous noise got closer and closer, it was getting clear the answer was that we couldn’t.

“Look out!” Alex yelled again, and I only barely looked up in time to see the cracks in the ceiling racing ahead of us. Stone started raining down around us and I was forced to dodge as we ran. I swerved left and right in the tight confines of the tunnel, managing to avoid the largest rocks. There was barely enough room, though, and if I smashed into the walls… it would be the end of all dragon-kind.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

As Alex held onto me with a strength that almost hurt, I pushed myself harder. To sprint just that little bit faster, to give us whatever split-second advantage we could get. For the first time in years, my chest ached as I gasped for breath.

By now, all we could do was travel in a straight line. There was no stopping to dodge into side passages. We’d be crushed before I managed to change direction, as evident by the large chunks raining down around us. Sadly, there was nothing I could do about the smaller stones, and I could only hope Alex didn’t get too badly injured.

I kept thinking of a way out, even as the rocks falling down became larger and larger, and the way ahead started looking like a waterfall of dust and debris. A particularly large chunk broke off, and I only barely managed to get underneath it before it was too late. My tail, however, didn’t make it through in time and was caught by the boulder. My momentum yanked it free almost instantly, sending a fierce bolt of pain up my spine, but worse, it made me slow down and I immediately noticed the rumbling getting louder and the ground shaking more. It was getting difficult to stay upright.

I couldn’t keep this up. We’d be crushed sooner or later, no matter what I tried. The supports that had held up this ceiling for decades were failing and the rock was crumbling, and there was nothing I could do about it. Except, maybe there was. I used my earth mana to strengthen my stone spikes, right? Why couldn’t I do the same with the tunnel?

Having no better idea to try and no other way out, I desperately searched the walls for alcoves or caves. They were few and far between, but they would be our best bet to survive—no matter how much I strengthened the tunnels, there was no stopping this collapse. But a smaller alcove? I just might be able to keep us from getting crushed in there.

Luckily, only a moment later, I noticed a side-tunnel up ahead. It would have to do. The tunnel was on the left, so I made my way over to the right so I wouldn’t have to make a sudden sharp turn. Or at least, a less sharp one. Alex, who had probably realized what I was about to do, cursed. There was no time to explain, however. Not that I had the breath remaining for it, anyway; I was running on embers now.

But just as I was about to make the turn, what I feared earlier turned into reality as a large boulder broke loose to block the entrance. There was no time to swerve away. I’d smash into the boulder and then I would die. No, this couldn’t be happening. Our only chance, blocked by bad luck? By a piece of stone? As if the dungeon caves were saying its final ‘fuck you’? Unacceptable. No way that I was going to let a boulder be my death. To be Alex’s death.

I refused.

Without realizing what I was doing, I channeled my mana through my lightning core and to my maw. There was a painful build-up in the back of my throat and I could feel something swell. For a small moment, nothing happened, but then when I opened my jaws, a bolt of lightning spat out from between my teeth with a deafening crack and shattered the boulder into tiny pebbles. I smashed my way through the cloud of debris and into the side-tunnel, which opened up into a small but sizable cavern.

I slid to a stop and planted my talons firmly on the stone, then pushed every last drop of mana I had into the floor, ceiling and walls. I struggled to reinforce them. It was like swimming upstream while weighed down by the sheer weight of an entire mountain—difficult and slow. A sharp pain wracked my head, and I felt like I was supporting the weight of the ceiling with my brain alone. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up.

But luckily—though I wasn’t sure if you could call being in this situation luck—the cavern held. Even as the entrance was buried in rocks and rubble and my headache got worse, the cavern held. Soon, the earth-shaking rumble of the cave-in faded, then stopped entirely. Slowly, I let my control of the mana go. I was about to lose it anyway, so I might as well do it slowly. I was afraid any sudden shock would collapse the ceiling here, too.

But no such thing happened. I let the mana go and flopped down on my sides, my talons wrapped around my head. I had never exerted myself like this before, and it showed. It was like fire-ants were crawling over my brain, stabbing into it with knives coated in acid. Even as I laid there, the pain got worse. I’d clearly gone too far with my magic, and now the universe was punishing me for it.

Vaguely I was aware Alex was calling to me, but I couldn’t respond. Even as the pain reached a peak and started to fade ever so slowly, it left no shred of awareness for the outside world. Not even for Alex. There was nothing to do but wait for the pain to fade, which it hopefully would. There was no telling what damage I did to myself by overextending like this. But maybe I could find out?

A small amount of mana was regenerating as I laid on the floor. I took it from my pool and circulated it around my body. It soon became clear I was injured, but not too badly. Lots of cracked scales from where stones had struck me, some bruising in the same places, a few small cuts here and there, and one joint at the tip of my tail was dislocated, but other than that I was physically fine.

So I finally turned my attention to my head and quickly noticed something very wrong. There was something new, something I recognized, but that was most certainly not supposed to be there. A new organ was rapidly growing in my throat and making new connections to my nervous system. It looked and felt eerily similar to the organ growing on my mana-pool.

It was also why I was hurting so much. Not because I went too far with my magic—though I’m sure that didn’t help—but because it was making new connections to my nervous system and my brain didn’t know what to do with that.

After some time, though I wasn’t really able to tell how much time, the pain subsided a little and I could focus on the outside world again. I found myself lying with my head in Alex’s lap. He gently stroked my snout while trying to work my jaws open. Not sure what he was doing or why, but trusting him to help me, I opened my mouth a little. Alex let out a sigh of relief and he removed his hand from my snout. He was busy doing… something, but I couldn’t see what. It was then that I realized my eyes were still closed.

It took some effort, but I managed to open them just as Alex poured something down my throat. I gagged a little, then swallowed. It tasted metallic, medicinal, and carried the vaguest undertones of blood. Oh, right, the healing potions Scott had thrown at us. Alex must have used one on me. It was sweet, but sad. It wouldn’t work on me and would’ve been better spent on himself. At least it parched my throat.

With my eyes now open, I noticed a small amount of blood lying on the floor. I wasn’t sure where it had come from, but then, it didn’t matter too much. I glanced up at Alex. He was covered in a fine layer of stone-dust except for his face, where wet streams had washed it away in trails.

I closed my eyes again for a moment, letting the increasing head-ache subside again. The light, while very faint, hurt to look at. When I opened my eyes again, my mind felt a lot clearer already. Then I frowned as I noticed Alex’s tears had dried up and he’d fallen asleep. I had thought I’d only closed my eyes for a moment, but now I wasn’t so sure anymore.

With a bit of effort, I raised my head from his lap and looked around the cavern. There wasn’t much of interest. The entrance was blocked off by a pile of rubble, though I could still feel air flowing from it, so that was good. The rest of the cave was barren or hidden away in the dark. Our only source of light, the light-sphere we’d brought with us, was running low on mana and didn’t cast much light anymore.

It was actually casting as much light as my armband, which was odd. But I’d look at it later. First, I wanted to make sure Alex was fine, then make sure he knew I was going to be fine, too.

I looked back over at him, then gently nudged him with the tip of my snout—I didn’t have the energy to lift my talons right now. “Hey,” I said softly once his eyes fluttered open. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”

Alex’s eyes shot open, but he didn’t answer my questions. Instead, he darted forward and threw his arms around my neck, hugging me tightly. I could feel the wetness of his snout as he nuzzled it against my own. Then I realized I wasn’t actually sure which of us was crying. Probably both of us.

“Thank the stars you’re okay,” he said after a full minute of us silently crying together. “I really thought you were going to die! There was so much blood! And your poor tail! And then you just collapsed, screaming about your head exploding, and I didn’t know what to do!”

I nuzzled him back, still too weak to hug him, and licked away a few of his tail. “I’m sorry for scaring you, but I’m alright now,” I told him. “Or well, I will be alright. I have a strong headache, but I won’t be dying anytime soon. There was nothing more you could’ve done, and you being here is already helping more than you know.”

He pulled away, wiped away his tears—unsuccessfully—and nodded. “A-alright,” he said, as if tasting the word. “Alright. We’ll both be okay.” He took a few deep breaths and repeated it to himself like he didn’t entirely believe his own words, then he focused back on me. “What really happened out there, Felix?”