Chapter 41: Nightfall

“What is that?” I say looking at the unfolding light spectacle in the darkness. The colours continue to shift in dizzying patterns, forcing me to look closer at it.

I need to see more of it, figure out what it-

Cobalt slaps me in the face, turning my head away from the thing. “Don’t look at it!” she whisper-yells. “You don’t have the strength to resist the effects. Look at where you are standing.”

I look down at my feet and see that I’ve stepped closer to the darkness. Hurriedly, I step back and turn towards Cobalt, ignoring the flashes of light in the corner of my vision. “What is that thing?”

With some difficulty, she peels her eyes off the monster and turns to me, “Something that does not belong. If one of them is up here, things are worse than we thought. On my previous delve, I encountered them 20 kilometres deeper than here.”

“Should we retreat?” The changes of colour try to steal away my attention, whispering in my mind to look at it. My eyes drift towards it against my will. The colour grows in my vision and my mind starts to ache.

My feet slide over the ground towards the monster. Before Cobalt can do it, I slap myself again, hard enough that my jaw clicks and my skin bruises. Along with it, I add four unallocated stat points to Mind, deciding that I can really use that stat right now.

“Yes. However, I still want to check if this is an outlier or if the entire Depths are like this. And the Cave crawlers, up to now, have eluded us. It worries me that we haven’t found any sign of them,” she says, ignoring the slap I gave myself.

Without looking back, we move up the speedway. The steep incline makes the muscles in my legs burn with exhaustion.

“This way,” Cobalt points to an offshoot and heads into it.

I follow her without comment. We continue on through the caves and soon enough I’m getting bored. There is only so long you can stare at cavern walls with their weird jagged edges and the Valeroal moss before it gets repetitive.

There still aren’t monsters to fight and I find myself wishing for a few Cave crawlers to tear into pieces.

We pass through the caves at a higher speed now that they are relatively even. I harvest a few more patches of mushrooms after Cobalt checked them for threats.

Finally, we enter another hub and enter a cavern that slopes down, “Is this smart? Aren’t those monsters down there?”

She rolls her shoulders in annoyance, “It is vital that we discover if it is the same everywhere. For all we know, the monster could have been lucky, finding a way up to here.”

“Okay. There should also be some good mushrooms down there for Sairal. Think about what he can do with all these spores; how many guardians he can make with them,” I say feeling the weight of the backpack on my shoulders.

Cobalt gives me a look. “From what dryad Sairal has told me, with all those mushrooms he could perhaps awaken two to three guardians. It will not be enough.”

I let the topic fall and continue behind her, watching the vapour roll off her more fervently the deeper we go. We stumble upon another patch of mushrooms that I’m allowed to harvest after she checked them.

As I gently pluck them off the wall they grow on, between the Valeroal moss, Cobalt lowers to the ground, her legs sliding apart and her hands form into fists. The present frost vapour thickens and pools around her feet, rolling over the ground.

I open my mouth but she cuts me off, holding her hand up in front of me. “Do you hear that?” she whispers, barely audible.

I shake my head.

Cobalt continues to stand still, her bug eyes giving her a wide enough field of vision to sweep over everything with a single glance. Still, the jerky motions of her antenna betray that she’s on edge.

As quiet as a cat, she moves towards me and gestures for me to continue on.

My heart is in my throat and the slightest sound, of droplets of water falling to the ground is enough for me to almost leap through the ceiling of the cave.

Each of my steps releases the tiniest bit of noise, pulling my face into winces or grimaces.

A few minutes later Cobalt mutters to herself, though, she’s still poised to lunge forwards to the nearest foe as if they could appear from thin air.

We keep gathering mushrooms, them being more abundant in the deeper caves, without finding anything else outside of the few strange but useless plants.

I round a corner and bump into Cobalt that has frozen up. Darkness lies before us again.

“It is certain, mandrake Green.”

“At least there isn’t one of those monsters there.”

A single click of mandibles travels up the tunnel to prove me wrong.

Again there is that single click, louder this time; more numerous.

It repeats, growing in the darkness, the sound bouncing off the walls, merging together into a cacophony of insectile warcries.

Cobalt doesn’t rush into the darkness like a part of me expected her to. Instead, she turns on her heels and moves back the way we came from at a higher pace.

I follow her, looking back at the darkness over my shoulder, seeing the mandibles scraping the glowing moss of the walls and spreading that awful darkness.

In record time we enter a hub of caves. “We should get back to the surface,” I say looking around. The stale air has grown worse, almost bad enough to be called sickening. I don’t know what it is, it isn’t just a scent of rotting food or insect guts. It is more than that. Like it permeates the very air and soul of this place; as if the caves are screaming out in pain.

“Indeed,” Cobalt replies and heads for a specific cave.

Twenty minutes of walking later she halts and lowers into a fighting position.

My eyes narrow and I focus on all the sounds in the background. Unlike what you might expect, the caves are never silent. Sounds of monsters far away often echo, twisted by the convoluted mess of tunnels that spread beneath the earth. It is enough for it to be a constant backdrop of haunting sounds.

But unlike before, there is something new I haven’t heard before.

It is faint, barely audible over the water that drops down and the constant backdrop. Yet as I focus on it, I hear the slightest scratching against a surface. Almost as if something is scratching against the cavern walls.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I turn to Cobalt to report and the wall explodes outwards in rubble and dust. Mandibles wrap around her and with a scream, she is pulled out of the tunnel into wherever.

The next moment I’m fighting Cave crawlers that pour out of the opening, howling her name as every skill is pushed to the limit.

I channel Mandrake Scream, feeling it build up in my throat. The air fills my lungs far too slowly, each second eternity. I push against something and pain blasts through my mind in waves.

My vision twists, the cavern walls wobbling around me as if they have lost their solidity Though, my efforts are rewarded. That something gives way and the skill activates just that tiny bit faster.

The scream bursts out from my throat and bounces off the walls in a haunting melody. I lunge forwards, conjuring bindweed while I cut through the insects towards the opening where they pulled Cobalt into.

I step into the hole and see that utter darkness again where horrors might lurk.

“Cobalt!” I yell, begging for her to respond.

The reply is immediate, “Get back!”

Fire blooms far in the distance revealing not a horror of the second layer but something akin to it. Every surface is teeming with the insects, the fire reflected softly by their compound eyes.

Most of them remain frozen as my scream still faintly echoes in the background.

In the centre of the room, Cobalt rips the mandibles off a scarlet Cave crawler and sprints out of the room, taking advantage of their stunned states.

She grabs onto my arm, pulling me forwards like a mother does with a child. My feet barely touch the ground as she speeds through the caverns back to one of the larger hubs.

Ten steps later, my scream stops echoing and the monsters pour forwards. They are everywhere, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Walls crumble away in places, revealing more dark pockets of them, faint silhouettes of nests in the background.

With her free hand, she throws blast after blast of freezing air at them, killing some and hindering others. I follow her, creating more bindweed that spins together, blocking the tunnel.

We enter the intersection. Cobalt doesn’t hesitate and makes a sharp left. She pulls harder on my arm, the bindweed stretching uncomfortably.

In front of us, another wall explodes and more Cave crawlers stream out the openings in front of us. At the front is the scarlet one Cobalt ripped the mandibles off from.

Orbs of fire blink into existence and are lobbed at us. I’m thrown to the ground. The orbs blaze above us and my bindweed writes in pain as the heat singes me.

Cobalt picks me up, sprints towards the intersection, and rolls over the ground with me when the orbs of fire explode. Sparks and tiny rocks from the ceiling rain down as we get partially surrounded.

Behind us and from the tunnel we came from, the insects pour out, chittering victorious cries. Fire blocks another exit, only leaving one choice.

She makes the same decision in less time. I can’t even plan out a path as she lifts me up, mist billowing around her. With her legs, she kicks the Cave crawlers out of the way, stepping on the backs of the stronger ones all while screaming about wanting to have four arms the next time she evolves.

Their bodies crunch and break apart as she pushes through them. She sprints through the caves, rounding corners, and passing through intersections faster than I can keep up.

The insects keep up for longer than I expected, the caves growing darker with their passing when the weak (I) grades scrape all the Valeroal moss off the walls with their mandibles to take back to their nests.

The angry clicking of mandibles grows fainter and I’m surprised that I haven’t thrown up yet. Mandrake biology is weird like that.

Another two caves later she comes to a halt and takes a deep, steady breath. And another one. “Mandrake Green, I am afraid that we have a problem.” She gasps for air after each word and yet somehow she still manages to stick to that regal tone.

She lets me down to the ground and I collapse in a heap, unable to keep my feet under me as the world continues to turn and twist around me. I hoist myself up, relying on the wall for support.

When the world doesn’t twist as much, I focus on her blurry face and give her an incredulous look, “Really? Do you mean the literal horde of Cave crawlers at our back?”

She shakes her head, gasping for air once more. “No. That is merely an inconvenience. I mean is the moss, they are removing it from the caves, plunging them into darkness.”

My heart skips a beat and my breath catches in my throat, “They are going to cut us off.”

“Indeed. We won’t be able to survive in the darkness. I don’t have the tools to face those things.”

The world finally steadies and I let go of the wall. “So? We’ll just have to get back to the surface. You always know the way in the depths. It’ll be easy.”

Cobalt shakes her head and clenches her fists, “I have a skill that lets me map the caves that I have walked in. Unfortunately due to our needed escape, we are far removed from the parts of the depths that I have explored.”

I want to sag back to the ground and lay there in defeat. “Looks like the Cave crawlers won this one. Guess we need to make it to the surface as soon as possible..”

She clicks her mandibles in affirmation, “Eight thousand, two hundred and fourteen metres to be exact.”

Cobalt and I continue to discuss our plan and we come to the conclusion that it isn’t in our hands. Trying to connect to her map, isn’t feasible when all the caves are a twisted mess. No one can know where a cave leads before having walked through it. So, it’s best for us to pick the cave that slopes upwards the most when we enter a hub or an intersection.

***

A few hours later we come across the first group of proper monsters since we entered the depths. The Segriad snails, the ones I fought in (I) grade, rush towards us from the other end of the tunnel.

Stamina flows into my claws and Cobalt’s carapace takes on a metallic sheen. She dashes forwards like an Olympian sprinter going for a world record.

The first snail is frozen solid as she passes, the thing toppling over and clonking against the floor like a block of ice. Much the same happens to the other ones she moves past. Finally, her fist slams into the shell of the largest snail at the back.

The poor monster tries to put up a fight but that quickly ends when she smashes through the shell again, grabs the innards, and…makes the innards not innards anymore. And I thought my fights are gruesome.

Out of disgust, I turn to the few snails that evaded her aura and are coming for me. One is cut apart by my claws. The remaining two flee past me, not looking back at their brethren getting slaughtered by us.

I turn back to Cobalt and meet her eyes as she awkwardly wipes the acidic mucus off her hands. I shake my head at her, suppressing a smile, “That wasn’t normal.”

She doesn’t get to reply as our attention is drawn to the far end of the cave. Like in a horror movie, the Valeroal moss is peeled off the walls, the darkness spreading at a slow or steady pace.

“Fight?” I ask, looking at the insectile feet that trample over the moss, extinguishing it.

“Not worth it. It would only keep us occupied as the darkness grows.” She turns around the way we came from, already walking back to the previous intersection. “Even back in my world, we feared it. In the darkness, they were the strongest. We were blind while they saw all.”

***

Over the next hours, we keep finding dark caves, their number steadily growing as time progresses. After the fourth dead end, Cobalt decided to switch tactics. Instead of letting the insects run loose, she now takes down any of them she sees.

When she hears noise behind the cavern walls, she punches through the rock, sweeping into the small nests. I don’t think it’s working but at least it keeps her calm.

While she takes them down, I spend my time harvesting all the mushrooms we come across. It isn’t as good as levels, however, this too will help us in the nearby future. We need all the spores we can get our hands on.

I stuff the mushrooms we came across into one of the empty jars and help her out with the Cave crawlers. In minutes the small nest has been exterminated and we move on without a word.

Our pace is fast and our strides are long, and yet it somehow feels like we haven’t made any progress. “How much is left to the surface?” I ask, hoping for the number to have lowered immensely.

“Six thousand, three hundred and eighty-two metres.”

“That’s a lot left.”

Nothing more is said and we keep walking on, my legs protesting with each step.

Not that long later we enter one of the larger hubs where the caves meet. From what I count, there are over thirty caves connected to this room. Eleven of them are dark.

Cobalt takes her time calculating which one is the most likely to lead us closer to the surface or connect us to her map of the caverns until a group of monsters pours out of a cave. New ones I haven’t seen like a small earth golem, a green monster, and a large millipede storm out. They ignore us, split up, and flee into the caves where there still is light.

“Prepare, Mandrake Green,” Cobalt says. The familiar frost vapour radiates off her and blankets the ground.

I let Stamina flow into my claws, having learned to love the stinging pain of it as it is accompanied by strength.

Seconds later, Cave crawlers burst into the room.