“No, she’s got great parents, though I only met them once or twice, I was raised by my aunt since my parents didn’t like that I had fire mana. What about you Quartz?”

I really didn’t like where this conversation was going, but there were a good group of spiders to take my attention. I didn’t have to answer, but Lefty didn’t give me a chance to anyway.

“He mentioned his uncle, right? Anyway, I only call you that because its funny, I don’t really see you that way. Why do you even care? Does it really bother you?”

“It doesn’t,” he said, but that didn’t make sense since he said it did when Brick does it, “was just curious is all. We’ve spent all this time together and all we know about each other are out fighting styles and favorite foods.”

“You, say that as if you or Sailhin has even tried talking to us about our pasts before now. Let alone really talked about your own. Don’t think I didn’t notice that Sailhin’s ears are slightly longer than yours,” he replied.

What did that have to do with anything? Paeris was generally smaller than her, what did their ear size matter.

“I’ve met enough High Elves to know their ears are different than the rest of you, if it wasn’t for her tan skin, I’d think she was a full high elf since I wouldn’t expect halfers to be allowed.”

My ears must not look like hers then. Or would Lefty say the same thing about me?

“Our ears aren’t that different, plus it isn’t for me to tell you.”

Lefty huffed and I attacked two more spiders. We really weren’t coming into contact with a lot of them. The hallway we were in was small and had a very small layer of webs. I wouldn’t complain since having to walk and cut through webs didn’t sound like a fun time.

“Your accents when you speak elvish are different, I’ve been around enough high elves to know the difference. My point is, you’re hiding stuff too, you aren’t open with us why should we do the same.”

“Well, someone has to start somewhere, so I’m trying. But Sailhin’s family situation is not something for me to talk about. She can talk about it herself. I’d gladly share mine, but it’s not all that entertaining.”

“Well neither is mine.”

This conversation was different than all the other ones they’ve had. I guess all the other times we got split up we were just with the pairs that had been climbing together from the start. Did they not get along? I mean I think they don’t based on how Lefty’s ears and tails are really stiff. But Paeris seems so nice, I don’t think he doesn’t like Lefty.

“I’m sure Quartz’s is more interesting, he’s half elf half goliath and was raised in Naredure.”

“I think it’s strange your parents would just not like you because of your mana type,” I said.

I didn’t want the conversation to turn back to me. I couldn’t even have a discussion about it, what was there to tell I barely remembered any of it.

“It's not that strange given my family’s position and trade, I just don’t want to be the only one sharing.”

“I was comfortable with the bare minimum we’ve had,” Lefty growled slightly.

They fell silent after that, which was a relief, I’m sure me saying my memory was messed up so I couldn’t be sure about my own past would’ve raised more questions.

The silence was nice, and I picked up the pace a bit so that we’d get through things quicker. As we moved from the medium sized spiders to the larger ones, the hallways, stairs and rooms we went through had more and more webs covering things.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Occasionally we’d walk past a few things wrapped up in webs, which Paeris would destroy before we kept moving. Otherwise, they left it all to me, which I didn’t mind. Just something for me to do.

My new sword was holding up pretty well. The handle though still had a slight indentation in it though but since it wasn’t so much that’d it’d really affect my grip, I didn’t mind it. Otherwise, though I seemed to just have the hang of it by now as long as I didn’t think about it too much.

But my instincts with this was weird. It felt similar to how sometimes I would just answer without thinking about it but when I tried to think about why I answered I couldn’t remember.

Was there something I should be remembering? Did I already open all of my pathways in the past? I mean that could explain why I learned things so quickly. But if that was true, why didn’t I have it for as far back as I could remember? Or why didn’t my uncle tell me?

All this thinking was just making me more and more annoyed. If I didn’t think so much, then I wouldn’t be annoyed like this.

After climbing the next flight of stairs, it seemed we finally made it to the ground floor, or at least out of the windowless bottom floors. Considering how many flights we climbed, if it was the basement, it was ridiculously deep. Moon light streamed into the room through large windows on either side of us. And in the room, in front of two large doors against the wall across from us stood a large spider.

Considering as the spiders moved up in size their abilities changed (the large spiders were able to spit acid, but I didn’t let them live long enough to know how many times they could) I’m sure this one was stronger.

“Do you want any help?” Paeris asked.

That was the first time he’d spoken since they had argued.

“Don’t bother with it, this is probably one of those oldest children or whatever the card said. I’m sure either Dodger or Mezu will get to the mother first so might as well have fun when I can.”

The spider roared and I turned to face it. It closed its mouth, rocked backwards slightly before rocking forwards opening its mouth and launching a blob of acid towards us.

I ran straight ahead, dodging the acid. Its reload was pretty quick and I dodged two more shots before I made it to the spider. If I jumped to get up to its body height, I wouldn’t be able to dodge its acid spits. So, I’d have to decide between testing my aura against the acid or the poison. The spikes on its legs were long enough that even if I hit it with my sword, I’d probably get close enough and accidentally hit one.

I dodged its leg stomp, before it started to back away. I followed it though since it didn’t seem to try and spit acid at me.

Which to pick….I shrugged, I’m sure poison was better than being covered in acid. Since even with my aura covering me, blood still gets stuck to me, maybe my aura just reinforces things and it doesn’t act like a mana shield.

I sliced through its leg and felt the slimy texture of its poison.

I shuddered and waved my arm quickly trying to throw it off. I was doused in water and turned to see Paeris’s arms in his resting bow hold.

“I’ll clean you off, just keep fighting.”

The cold air hitting my wet body was uncomfortable but much better than the slime, so I kept going. I worked through all the legs on one side of its body as quickly as I could (between getting cleaned off after the slime got on me) and the spider’s body tilted over towards me hitting the floor with a thud.

I jumped up onto it’s back and jogged to his head. Seeing all it’s eyes this big and up close just encouraged me to jump off it’s head with as much force as I needed to crush it. I threw a bit too much aura into my legs and jumped up. But my feet went straight through its outer shell, and I fell inside it.

I was halfway into its body; my feet standing on some sort of internal hard structure and froze. It was worse than the big grey thing, worse than the giant. I could feel my heart beat and I was aware of needing to breath.

I scrambled to get my hands on the sturdy outside, but I put too much force to pull myself out, so my arms fell through.

I tried again, but I crashed through the shell. I kept trying but I broke everything within reach Something inside me was telling me to curl up and lie down. There was a pressure in my head and it felt like my face was scrunching up on its own.

I just wanted out, why couldn’t I get out.

How is there no air getting to me, I was breathing a lot right? I mean it feels like I’m breathing.

“Quartz!” Paeris’s voice sounded far away, “Reach out your hand!”

I looked around and saw him even though my eyesight became fuzzy. I reached out with both hands and was pulled from the hole.

I flew through the air and then fell down and onto Paeris. He pushed me off gently before summoning more water to wash me off. I scrubbed to get it off me faster. It didn’t take too long to get it off, and as I shivered from the cold of being wet my breathing finally got under control.

“Let me dry you off,” Paeris said.

He held his staff and after a short word or two a warm air surrounded me.

“If you hate the feeling that much, maybe think of another way to do things. You have a sword; you could’ve just decapitated it.”

“Yeah… I’ll do that next time.”

I avoided looking at his eyes. Why was it being in the thing feels worse than being covered in blood? Why did it even bother me to that extent?

I’ll just do my best to avoid it from now on.