Chapter 89: Limited resources

Alex Sandclaw’s POV:

“What really happened out there, Felix?” I asked. “I know you said we’d talk about it later, but we’re stuck down here right now anyway, so it might as well be now.”

Felix nodded and asked for a moment to think of the best way to tell me. I agreed and watched him while he thought. He still looked miserable. Dried blood stained the scales beneath his ears and just looked so weak. I wasn’t used to seeing him like this. He could barely even lift his head.

While Felix thought up an answer, I glanced at the wall of rubble and debris blocking the entrance. Most of the stones were small enough that we could probably move them, but there wasn’t any point to that. What good would it do us to strip away a single layer of the blockage? The rest of the tunnel had collapsed as well.

Despite it having been hours since it happened, I could still vividly remember the sounds of the stone cracking and breaking, the terrible snapping of the support beams failing, and the awful shaking as rocks and boulders pelted the ground. I wasn’t even sure what happened. One moment we were having a conversation about a weird smell, the next Felix had dimmed the lights, then had thrown me on his back right before the world exploded—at least, it certainly felt like it did.

“Somebody trapped the tunnel,” Felix said finally with a sigh. “The weird smell was some kind of explosive. I recognized it from one of my dad’s alchemist friends who worked with high-level mining. The bombs were jammed in behind the support beams and I counted at least four before I picked you up, but for all I know, there were dozens.”

I frowned at his words. Why would anyone try to kill the group? What did they stand to gain from doing so? We were just a bunch of students. I asked Felix as much. “But why would anyone do that?”

He shrugged, or at least tried to. Mostly it was just a sad wiggle. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said, then paused. “No, your guess is probably better. I still can’t think straight.”

“Well, yeah, you’re gay. Of course you can’t think straight,” I joked and Felix chuckled a little, but I could tell he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Honestly, neither was I, but if I took the situation seriously, it would become too real. “Maybe it has something to do with the nobles?” I guessed. “Or maybe Tiki and Alfred. They are royalty after all.”

“I want to say you’re right, as much as I hate the idea that someone would have so little regard for collateral damage,” Felix said. “But it makes no sense. These tunnels are heavily reinforced, so they wouldn’t just cave in by themselves. Though with how easily those support beams snapped, I wouldn’t be so sure now. Still, they would’ve been strong enough to keep the ceiling up. On top of that, Scott and his assistants almost certainly stopped the tunnel from collapsing on top of them. The only reason we’re stuck here now is because we were trailing behind. If they wanted to assassinate someone, they could’ve done it while we were spread out on the surface, camping and sleeping. Why go through all this trouble for something that might not work and will definitely ring alarm bells?”

I leaned back and considered his words for a moment. He was right, of course. There’s no way someone would go through so much effort when they could’ve just stabbed them in the night. So what then? I thought a little harder about what Felix said and realized that he might be wrong about one thing.

“What if us getting caught up in the cave-in wasn’t an accident, but the goal?” I asked. “Who do we know that has violent tendencies, skill in alchemy, recently got their hands on expensive supplies, and hates us?”

Felix blinked and sat up straighter. “You’re thinking Alfred was behind this? I can’t say it would surprise me if it were the case, but when would he have gotten the chance to plant the explosives? He was with the group the entire time.”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “It’s just a theory. Maybe he snuck in during the night, or hired someone else to do it. I mean, he is rich. He’d have the means.”

“Hmm, he is rich, yeah. Still, would he really go that far?” he asked, then hesitated and sighed. “No, nevermind. He probably would, yeah. Fuck.”

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a need to. Right now, who did it didn’t really matter. We were stuck several hundred meters underground, in a cave with limited air and supplies and no way out. Knowing who caused us to be here wouldn’t change that we were here.

“So, what do we do now? How much air do you think we have left?”

Felix shook his head. “Air won’t be an issue. I feet some air-flow near my tail. The real issue is going to be water. We have enough food for a few days so long as I don’t eat much, if at all, but we have water for maybe a day.”

I stood up and walked over to Felix’s tail to check, and sure enough, there was a slight gap in the rubble wall through which air flowed. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that we’d die of starvation long before we asphyxiated. Somehow, that thought wasn’t very comforting.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said, turning my focus back to him. “Air won’t be an issue. Let’s take an inventory of what we have. We don’t want to make assumptions based on resources we don’t have.”

Felix nodded. “Good idea, but I’m afraid you’ll have to do most of the work. I can still barely lift my talons.”

“Did the healing potion not help?” I asked. “It healed my broken bones and cuts almost instantly.”

He shook his head. “No System, no potions, remember?” he said, then glanced at his glowing armband. “Though I’m not sure anymore if it did entirely nothing. Did the armband glow before you fed me the potion?”

“No, it only started glowing a small bit after.”

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“Huh, alright then. Something to think about later, we have more important things to deal with now. Speaking of, shall we get started with the food?”

I moved to his saddle and took it off with some effort. He was lying on one of the straps, but luckily with my recently improved Physical attributes, I managed to get it loose. Felix looked rather guilty with not being able to help, even though I assured him it was fine. I hoped he would feel better soon. It wasn’t fun seeing him like this. After we were done inventorying what we had, I’d tell him to get some rest.

Actually… he couldn’t do much to help, anyway. He might as well sleep now.

I turned to him. “Hey Felix? Why don’t you go ahead and sleep? I can handle this by myself and you need the rest.”

“Are you sure? I can still help.”

I walked over to him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I know you can help, but I’ll feel better knowing you are getting better.”

He tried sitting up in protest but failed. He sighed, conceeding the point. “Yeah, alright. I do feel rather completely exhausted.”

I grinned. “I can imagine. I’ll join you once I’m done, okay?”

Felix nodded and yawned. He rested his head back in his talons, then ever so slowly curled up. Within a few seconds, his breathing steadied out and he was asleep. He really must have been right on the edge.

I watched him for a small moment longer before standing up and walking over to where I’d put his saddle and my bag down. They were both covered with dust, just like everything was. Felix’s saddle was perfectly fine. It was a little scuffed and the polish was ruined, but it was nothing some maintenance couldn’t fix. My backpack on the other hand… Well, I would have to get a new one when we got back. Small holes littered the fabric and one of the straps had been broken. It was a damned miracle nothing had fallen out while we fled.

I went through my bag first, taking everything out and sorting it into neatly stacked piles. Then I did the same with Felix’s saddlebags and chest pouch. I stacked food and water bottles, took out camping gear, a few books, and some other miscellaneous stuff. All in all, we had a lot more than was reasonable for a quarter-day trip, but hopelessly little for surviving in this cavern.

In total, we had about three days’ worth of food. We’d taken extra with us since we didn’t know how hungry we’d be, and just in case something went wrong. Who knew we’d actually be using it for that? It was lucky that Felix had been carrying most of our food, since Tiki’s portion was here now, too.

We also had a few potions that Tiki had made for us. They would clot a wound or let us breathe safely when the air got bad. It was too bad Felix couldn’t make use of them. Sadly, we’d already used the healing potions. I’d found I could barely walk when we first got to the cavern, so I needed to drink one before I could help Felix. I’d have to thank Scott when we got out of here. Thinking about how our situation would look like without them made me shudder.

Aside from food and potions, we also had various pieces of camping gear, like the light, a pillow I’d forgotten to take out of his bags, a picnic blanket, two books—one of which was the adult one—and some miscellaneous stuff we’d have no use for down here.

After sorting through all the items, I finally turned to the last item: water. Out of all the things we should’ve taken more with us, it was water. We had two full bottles, Felix’s canteen, and my mostly empty one. All in all, with how much we needed, we had maybe a day and a half of water. We could maybe stretch that to two if we remained still and drank less.

Another option was ‘recycling’ the water. As much as the idea disgusted me, and really, who wouldn’t be disgusted at the idea of drinking their own urine, it also wouldn’t work well. I’d done it before while traveling through the desert after I fled home, and I knew from experience you could only drink your own pee so many times before it started doing more harm than good. I’d asked the biology professor about it some time ago and he’d told me that urine was the body’s way of getting rid of waste and by drinking it again and again, you were concentrating the waste. Eventually my body would be unable to handle it, even with enhanced Attributes.

That of course didn’t consider that I could sort of ‘reset’ the process by drinking fresh water. The real issue though, was that Felix simply didn’t pee. He physically just didn’t do it, so any water that he drank was just lost. So even if I stretched my own supply, Felix would have to start taking part of my water. I did some quick and dirty math, and figured that at most, we could stretch our water to last one more day. So that was three days of water in the best-case scenario, which, given our luck, likely wouldn’t be the case.

I sighed and drank the last bit of water from my own, almost empty, bottle. I would use it later to catch my urine. I made a mental note to drink before I ate, just so I would be able to get the taste out of my mouth. This was going to be an unpleasant few days until we got rescued.

I stood up and walked back over to Felix. I considered joining him, but I didn’t feel tired yet. I’d already slept for a little while after we had arrived here. So, instead, I picked up my pencil, my notebook, and the light orb. I channeled some more mana into it and the light brightened. It hovered in place and I gave it a small push towards the center of the cavern. It was small, maybe five meters wide, but it was long. The cavern stretched out like all the other tunnels though this one curved slightly here and there. The walls were also much rougher, unlike the smooth walls of the tunnels. I was pretty sure this was a natural cavern.

I walked down the cave and drew a map of the place, noting any small thing of interest. There were a few small mushrooms littered about, but I wasn’t sure if they were edible. They probably weren’t, but I’d ask Felix later. He knew more about this kind of stuff. There was also some moss and interesting formations of stone. They were rather pretty, and I wanted to come back to them later to draw them.

To my great frustration, however, I couldn’t find any source of water. Clearly the mushrooms and moss were getting it from somewhere, and the stalactites and stalagmites didn’t just appear out of nowhere, but it was clear I couldn’t reach it. Maybe the water was only seasonal? There was no way to know.

Too soon, I reached the end of the cavern. It was about a hundred and fifty meters long in total. There was something odd about the wall at the end, though. There was a small crack in it that you could look through. The gap was too small to really see much. I could either shine a light through it, and look from a distance, or block most of the light as I pressed my snout to the gap. Maybe we could widen the hole and see where it led? For all we knew, it connected right to the larger system of tunnels.

Then again, if we moved away, how would people find us? If we were gone by the time rescuers arrived… It wasn’t something I wanted to think about. I thought it was best to just stay here and wait for now. There was also just the risk of the whole place collapsing if we removed a wall. If worse came to worst, we could always try to go through it, anyway.

In any case, I noted it down on my map for Felix, then made my way back to him, paying careful attention all the while, just in case I missed something on my first look-through.

Felix was right where I left him, breathing softly but steadily. I put my stuff away and yawned. I was getting tired again, which was good. I’d promised to join him, so I might as well do that.

I climbed over Felix and snuggled my way into his arms. Felix instinctively tightened them around me in a hug. I took that as a positive sign he was getting better. A few hours earlier, he could barely move them at all, and now he was hugging me again.

With a smile on my face despite the situation, I nuzzled into Felix, listening to his steady heart until I fell asleep, too.