Chapter 43: In the darkness

My eyes drift to the dark cave we are supposed to enter while I pick the Valeroal moss off the walls; each a lifeline that might possibly allow us to find the next pocket of light somewhere in that darkness. I don’t like putting my faith into some glowing moss, but what else can we do?

As fast as I can, I put the clumps between strands of bindweed, firmly locking them in place. I turn to Cobalt who has taken it upon herself to not leave a single inch of her shell bare. With quick uses of her skills, she freezes the roots in place, glueing the moss to her shell. She turns back to me, noticeably displeased now that she looks like one of the Moss flamingos that frequent the lake.

All too soon the cavern walls have been plucked clean. The few spare clumps that were left we hold in our hands.

“I hope this plan of yours will succeed, mandrake Green,” Cobalt says while she walks to the opening of the cave.

I move over to her, looking at the inky blackness that seems to be more liquid than air. “I do too,” I reply.

We walk into the cave and the darkness swallows us. It drapes over me like a veil or a suffocating blanket. The moss on my body glows in a myriad of colours, making the walls look like a jungle-themed prom.

My footfalls are loud in the darkness, each a dim echo, telling the monsters that we are here. The rest of the world is silent. No insectile limbs clack on the cavern ground, but I’m certain that they are still around waiting for the right moment to strike.

The scent of rot grows louder the deeper we head into the darkness. It makes me think that it wasn’t the first trek screaming out in pain while being destroyed by monsters, but the air of the depths slowly rising with the darkness.

My heart beats a steady rhythm in my chest, setting the pace for my steps, each sending up a dull pain when my feet meet the ground. The strange jagged edges don’t only belong to the walls but to the floor too, as I’ve come to know.

Idly, I page through my status screen, my eyes ending up at the unallocated stat points. I saved these for when shit hits the fan, and well, isn’t this that sort of situation?

Strength: 42

Agility: 26

Perception: 15

Constitution: 45 (+15)

Endurance: 21

Mind: 25

Unallocated stat points: 28

Lots of points to spend, but what to spend them on? My first thought is to dump ten points into Mind. As excessive as it might be, it is only a matter of time before we run into those weird hypnotic monsters. The moss should keep them away…to a certain degree. However, what if it can push the thought of removing the Valeroal moss in my brain?

I shudder and throw seven points into the stat, bringing it to 32. What I’m supposed to do now leaves me a bit stumped. As much as I’d like to fight those weird shadow monsters, Cobalt barely has the stats for it, so putting a few points into a particular one won’t help.

The real threat here, outside of the Valeroal moss losing its light, is fighting Cave crawlers in the dark. My greatest tools against the pests are Mandrake Scream and Claw Infusion. Both are skills that require physical strength, so with a shrug, I throw seven points into Constitution and Endurance. The last seven points I split between Agility and Perception with the latter gaining the most.

Nodding to myself I close the window and focus on the caves again.

***

Metal is durable. It is such an obvious thing that everyone knows it. Understanding it, however, seeing how doesn’t part for reinforced arrows, strikes home what kind of an advantage it is.

Flying backwards through the air, feet slamming against the base of a tree and propelling himself into the air, Sairal shoots another arrow at the beast of metal.

The forest bursts into flames. Trees a hundred metres tall and a dozen thick, burn away like matchsticks. And yet, somehow, the golem strolls out of the inferno unscathed. Its frame blazing an incandescent red, vents on its back billowing out large plumes of steam.

With a wince on his face, Sairal pulls out his special arrows, sacrificing future potential for current gain. He leaps to one of the few trees that remain standing and aren’t fully aflame.

Below, the golem follows him tirelessly, almost flying through the air as the construct is propelled by the steam vents. It reaches the base of the tree and slams one of its large piston fists into it.

Immediately, the burning tree starts to topple over, burning branches crashing to the ground with hollow thumps. Aiming the arrow, Sairal sprints over one of the falling branches, shooting at the ground beneath the golem’s feet. He skips through the air, grabs onto a branch of a nearby tree and continues moving with his eyes on the golem.

Green goo leaks out from the arrow, spreading outwards in vines, entangling the construct. He had seen how Green tried to take care of that assassin and happily took a page from his book.

Pulling out more vials and arrows, he prepares the next batch. Two vials are smashed together making the air shudder as the magic grows unstable in the vicinity. Spores are mixed and aspects of magic are stabilised to his liking.

Dipping the arrow into the mixture he readies it to his bow and fires.

Air and magic part and in a split second the arrow bursts through the chest of the Golem, tearing into the vulnerable insides.

He doesn’t let up, even as the construct shuts down to conserve power. The runes on its surface shift and turn a pale white. The golem twitches, growing to full-body shudders and suddenly freezes.

It shifts, the eyes on its chest scanning the surroundings with a new awareness. Expertly, it removes the arrow and bends back the metal while still scanning the surroundings.

Sairal’s face scrunches up in confusion. He had heard tales about Seva that could merge their minds with the machines they made, but this? The creator clearly isn’t a Seva; the golem lacking the needed features and the standard magical signature. But how did they transfer consci-

The monster’s eyes fall on Sairal. Without a warning two red beams shoot from its eyes, cutting through anything that gets in their path. The dryad of moss and decay barely has any time to put up a shield with Green Reinforcement before the beams land.

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Sairal steps off the branch and hits the ground running while looking over his shoulder as the lasers trail over the land, leaving deep grooves of annihilation in their wake.

Hissing, he gazes over the golem, seeing the power drain from it at an accelerated pace. He only needs to outlast it, or he could finish this the difficult way, and possibly be rewarded by the system with his final level.

Calculating the risk in a split second, he goes for it. He pushes his bow into his Spatial Pocket and comes back with two swords that used to belong to a human.

Ducking under the beam, he moves towards the golem. The construct shakes its body and swings one of its large fists at him. Sairal jumps over it, twirling in the air and runs up to the shoulder. Before the monster can do anything, he stabs one of the swords deep into the body of the metal monster.

The golem twitches like a dying Cave crawler, reaching for him before it dies.

It jerks a few more times and Sairal gains the kill notification. Other chimes are brought with it, but not the one he was supposed to hear. No level was gained only skill levels.

Sighing, he looks at the damaged body of the golem he has to dismantle first. If he’s right and there is a Headspace in the thing, he should be set for quite a while.

***

I don’t count the time anymore by the passing of seconds. Instead, I count the clumps of Valeroal moss that lose their glow one by one. I pull one of them off me. Before, it was a lush green with a strong vibrant hue. Now, it’s just a withered-away grey. It even looks dried up as if it has fully run out of energy.

I shift through the moss on my arms. More and more of them are fading and the remaining ones aren’t looking great either.

“Cobalt,” I whisper, afraid that something might hear us in the darkness.

“We don’t have long left,” she confirms.

We continue on, or strides growing longer and faster as more moss loses its hue. Not long later most of it has gone out.

“I can give us more time but not much,” I say, preparing for the headache I always get when I strain skills too much.

“Please do, I think I can see light in the distance”

My head snaps towards the direction and it's true. A faint speck of oddly coloured light is far on the horizon. It doesn’t shift or twist, showing that it’s a lit cavern or hub and not one of those monsters.

She moves into a jog, knowing we don’t have the leisure to walk. I follow behind her at the same pace, counting down as more clumps go out.

When there are only two left, I cast my skill. A single vine grows out of the ground in front of me. I snatch it off the floor and push more Stamina into it, telling the skill what I want to happen.

It curls up my arm like a snake and with another push of Stamina flowers appear on it, giving off gentle light. Perhaps it is this darkness that makes it all the more beautiful, that light here becomes akin to hope or a safe harbour.

Though, it won’t last long. Stamina bleeds out of me faster than ever as I’m forced into a tug-of-war with the darkness. My limbs grow wobbly and I lag behind her as I’m unable to keep up. “Cobalt, carry me,” I demand.

A second later I’m hoisted over her shoulder as she truly takes off. Her silent footfalls grow loud when I tell her how fast my resources are vanishing.

Each step of hers might as well be thunder, in a place as silent as this. And just like that, something appears behind us.

Its ghostly shape weighs on the world and on the mind, twisting everything that lays eyes upon it. Even with those points I put into Mind, my eyes flow towards it against my will.

The monster moves from an immaterial realm to the physical one and fully appears in the darkness. It folds in over itself again and again in an endless loop. It is something that shouldn’t be.

My eyes are dragged towards the centre of the monster where a single red eye sits, glaring at the world. It is oblivion, annihilation, destruction, murder, the incarnation of evil.

It drifts closer just out of reach, not wanting to be burned by the light. Tears free themselves from my eyes while a painful groan escapes my lips as a force drills into my mind.

Cobalt pulls me into a princess carry, looking worriedly at me.

“What was that?” I gasp, feeling air flood my lungs.

“I don’t know,” she snaps while running towards the light. She looks down again at my face, “Mandrake Green, you are bleeding from your eyes.”

I blink and notice the sweet scent of blood in the air. That monster didn’t do anything outside of staring at me, and I’m bleeding? Checking my health, I see that I’ve lost over twelve points in that moment that felt like an eternity.

My body slumps, the energy draining at a too fast pace to manage.

Light flickers and we are in the still-lit hub. Cobalt lowers me to the ground and sits next to me, leaning on one of the walls.

I heave out a relieved sigh, happy that the shadow abomination is gone. I open my mouth to comment on it but right then Cave crawlers flood the hub from every dark cave.

***

*Congratulations. You have gained a level. You are now level 9.

+10 HP +15 SP +2 Strength +2 Agility +1 Perception +2 Constitution +2 Endurance +2 Mind +4 Unallocated stat points.

*Congratulations. You have gained a level. You are now level 10.

+10 HP +15 SP +2 Strength +2 Agility +1 Perception +2 Constitution +2 Endurance +2 Mind +4 Unallocated stat points.

*Mandrake Scream (Un) lvl 11/20 -> Mandrake Scream (Un) lvl 12/20.

*Identify (C) lvl 18/20 -> Identify (C) lvl 19/20.

*Claw Infusion (C) lvl 12/20 -> Claw Infusion (C) lvl 13/20.

*Hide (B) lvl 11/20 -> Hide (B) lvl 12/20.

I give the system window a salty look. From the fight, it seems like we have outrun the elites but not the weaklings. And incidentally, with most of my Stamina depleted from using my skills, I had to hide behind Cobalt while she took care of most of them.

The damned system gave me a skill level for that. I’m not sure if I should be happy or offended. Probably the latter.

“I hate Cave crawlers,” I repeat for the fifth time after the battle.

Cobalt nods again, shaking her hands in the air to clean them of insect guts. It isn’t helping a lot. “I am surprised they had the intelligence to lay such a manoeuvre. They must have been commanded to do so by a higher grade. Imagine, mandrake Green, how many monsters would flee from the insects to this place where there is still light remaining.”

I nod, looking around the room. It’s clear that Cobalt did her best to not make a mess, but as things are, guts and chipped chitin are everywhere…even on the Valeroal moss we are supposed to take with us.

“So, the moss…” I trail off.

“Sacrifices need to be made.”

I let out a dry laugh and begin plucking the glowing moss off the walls and sticking it to my body for round two in the darkness.

“How much is left to the surface?” I ask, shaking insect guts off a clump of moss

“We were lucky with that previous cave. There is only a bit less than a thousand metres between us and the surface.”

I nod and gesture for her to pick one of the tunnels. She deliberates over it for a second and picks one that is quite a bit larger than usual. We step into the darkness and I feel my heart pound in my chest, the memory of blood leaking over my cheeks still fresh in my mind.

It can’t be here, I tell myself. The monster can only travel through darkness and we left some moss behind on purpose.

While walking, I deliberate if I should throw my new 8 unallocated stat points into one stat or another, but I hold off in the end, unsure what is the best to do.

Twenty minutes later we meet with one of those colourful horrors in the darkness. We turn around, backtrack the hub, harvest a bit more moss and take off into another tunnel.

Time drones on until Cobalt stops at a dark intersection, “We are close to the cave systems I have charted,” she points to the cavern to the left, “We might be able to connect with it if we take that one.”

I shrug and follow her into it. She begins to walk faster, her antenna twitching in joy as we get closer to the mapped parts. Another intersection later, she announces that we are connected with what she has charted and that she now knows the fastest route to the surface.

Though, getting there still takes hours, another spar with the damned insects, and replenishing the moss at a few caves that were somehow still lit. It isn’t a surprise since we somehow managed to outrun the pests.

And yet, as I stare up at the rising sun, I realise how much I missed the forest.

“Marvellous isn’t it?” Cobalt says, “To think that I saw what beings call a sun only after I died. The fates can be strange like that.”

I don’t get the time to digest that statement before she waltzes on, “Let’s continue, mandrake Green. Dryad Sairal must be panicking by now.”