Micah’s first thought after he had calmed down a bit was that he envied Darren, his old classmate, right now. Not only was he safe in Westhill, he also knew [Identify Ingredient], which Micah wished he knew.
Two-thirds of the plant life here, he didn’t recognize. Of the ones he did, some weren’t the color or size they should be, or had different features. Were dandelions supposed to have white whiskers? Some of the patches of grass had claws instead of hands. Prickly, then?
His second thought was, We have to get the hell out of here before that giant, glowing centipede comes back.
He prioritized the second thought. The look on Ryan’s face showed he shared the sentiment. The helmet on his head was another reminder and Micah mumbled to himself, “Helmets on.”
More forceful, he thought, Always freaking put the helmet on before going into the Tower. Idiot.
He got it off his backpack and pulled the straps taut, then remembered something else. One of his hands slipped into a side-pocket to bring out a whistle for Ryan to see. Should they…?
He shook his head. “What if it comes back?”
Right. The whistle went back. At least, until they were sure they could use it without endangering themselves too much. With that in mind, Micah took a few steps forward, pressing as close to the wall—away from the chasm—as he could, when Ryan grabbed his arm again.
The memory of the guy wrenching him into a corner minutes fresh in his mind, Micah wrenched himself free then gave him a look that demanded, What?
Ryan held a hand out in a soothing gesture and hesitantly pointed ahead. He squeezed past Micah to take the lead, glancing back as if to ask, Okay?
“Are you serious?”
“I have a shield,” he said. “You don’t.”
“Then give me the shield.”
“No. I’m the [Fighter]. I’m the [Scout]. I’ll go ahead.”
“I’m also—” Micah bit his lip and spat, “Fine.”
I hate you. The words were on his mind. Without affection this time. But he bit them back along with any other remarks he would regret later on. It was hard, though, because he wasn’t sure that he would regret them later on.
Ryan pressed as close to the grey stone as he could while he crept forward. Two steps in, Micah noticed the strange plants growing from the cracks and tugged him on the arm. See how he liked that.
Ryan spun around, alarmed instead of angry. His obvious worry, about Micah, was like a knife twisting in his gut.
“Plants,” Micah said, pointing.
A frown. “Poisonous?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Neither do you?”
He didn’t know anything right now.
“Oh. Right.” At least, Ryan followed his advice and made sure not to touch any of the strange plants, including the prickly grass.
Micah still didn’t understand what had gone wrong. One minute he was talking to Ryan and life was perfect. The perfect freaking morning after all the bootcamp homework was over.
And the next—
Shadows rushed past his face like spokes in a ladder. Legs the size of branches hit the stone with the sound of pickaxes. A massive chasm just a step away. It brought wind with it, a damp earthy scent like a wet basement that pushed back the green like waves in a river, made actual waves in the water of their way.
More ripples as the rocks fell from the ceiling and railing, proving how fragile they were.
Ryan stood over him, blocking Micah in. He treated himself like a meat shield, along with his actual shield, and the only way Micah could get free was by hurting him. When he tried to squeeze free, Ryan pushed him back in the corner with force. Why wouldn’t he let him leave?
Worst of all, the Tower didn’t match any descriptions he knew. This wasn’t the Gardens. This wasn’t the Open Sewers. He didn’t know where they were.
“I swear I thought of the Open Sewers,” Micah said.
Ryan paused. “I know, Micah. This … isn’t your fault. Didn’t you notice the crowd in front of the Tower? They were pointing up.”
Micah shook his head. No, he hadn’t noticed the stupid freaking crowd. He’d just been focused on making sure Ryan was there when he dragged him into this mess. Why had he even invited him? They should have gone jogging like normal, like Saga had done ahead of them.
Which floor were they even on? Not three, if a centipede like that could run around. Seven? Ten? Higher?
Any of them and their chances were slim. They were supposed to head into the fourth and fifth floors in a year, with teams and preparations. Not the few belongings they had on hand.
“Micah?” Ryan asked, wanting verbal confirmation.
“No, I didn’t notice.”
“Okay. Okay. There’s a bend up ahead. We can take a short breather there, if it’s safe.”
“No.” Micah shook his head. “No, it’s okay.” The reason Ryan was treating him like a child was probably because he was acting like one, right now. Ryan was just trying to help, like always. He had to remind himself of that, even while Micah wanted to punch him in his stupid face.
“Really,” he insisted. “Let’s just find a portal out of here as soon as possible and … warn the Guild?”
The was a smile in Ryan’s voice when he answered. “Yeah. That sounds like a plan.”
The bend was about ten meters in, a tunnel that bent left into the chasm. They might have been able to make it if they’d sprinted. Would the centipede have been more likely to notice moving targets?
The first thing they noticed were the long gouges that cut into the stone, its frame, the ground before it; even into the tunnel itself. There was a twisted sense of validation to the sight.
The centipede had done this. Or a centipede, anyway. Though that was a horrifying thought.
The frenzy of the attacks, the the chips in the rocks around the door as if something sought purchase, the way the gouges stretched as far as they could—it all spoke of a frustration; of an intentional act. The beast had tried to reach something in this tunnel and … failed?
Micah couldn’t see any blood or residual blood essence. And the chips around the scratch marks were new … ish, so it must have failed. Eyeballing it, the gouges only went five or so meters in. After, the lack of marks represented a safety. He would have run the distance if he weren’t so on edge.
“Do you see anything?” Ryan asked, his head tilted slightly. He was listening for danger. The steady breeze from the chasm ruffled a bit of his free hair and the plants around them.
Leftover detritus—single blades of grass or chipped leaf-clovers—drifted onto the water and made tiny ripples. Things fell down the chasm every now and then and something cried in the distance. Too far away to make out clearly. Either a bobcat or a woman. Probably the former.
Either set him on edge.
There was a constant buzzing, too. Insects. Like he was out in the woods. But the Tower wasn’t supposed to have insects like that. Were they in the Gardens, then? Micah could count on one hand how many rules he knew of it and couldn’t spare the time to think of them all.
Stay on the beaten path.
“Give me a moment.”
He searched every last crevice of the tunnel for other kinds of danger, because this just screamed, Trap.
It was faintly reminiscent of the Open Sewers. Lighter, almost sun-bleached stone. More natural water at the cost of cleanliness—uncomparable to the sickening depths of the Sewers, of course.
One section of the wall was missing and showed densely-packed earth where grass and roots grew like worms. There were faint lines in the dirt, almost like a maze. The imprint of where the stones had been before?
More green grew around the entrance from crevices and mud, where the grooves hadn’t torn them apart. But they continued on for a bit. It didn’t get much darker further in. Micah glanced back. The ceiling of this walkway next to the chasm was rounded and cracked in places, overgrown with hanging plants, but it should still have cut off more light than that.
Where did the rest come from?
The tunnel lit up again near its end about fifteen meters in. Another light source? Still, what about the middle?
One pathway splitting off to the right, the main one leading further in. Both were the unknown.
Just like the unknown distortion sitting there, near the end of the second light source. It was a vague outline of a lump, but the essences around it looked too distorted to be natural. They seemed … off. They twirled and shifted slightly, glowing as if they wanted to change to a different color at any moment. Their movements were one tick out of rhythm. An imitation.
Invisibility? Or a lesser form, at least. Camouflage. Micah whispered as much to Ryan and asked, “Do you see it?”
“I think so. Now,” he said. “I don’t smell anything though, which is worrying. What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. I could try something to reveal it, though. [Colors Gaze of Doom] type thing?”
“Hold off for a moment,” Ryan said and glanced back, looking uncertain. “If this is something like sixth floor or higher, we have to be expecting traps within traps within traps, Micah.”
He gulped, but nodded. That sounded about right.
“So if that lump is a monster …” Ryan went on.
“We might not be able to handle it?”
“That’s the first possibility.” He nodded. “It’s also like a meter or two off from the bend to the right, so what if there’s backup? Or could be an invisible mushroom that shoots off poisonous spores if we disturb it.”
“Shit.”
“Do you always swear so much under pressure?”
Micah hesitated, embarrassed, but almost smiled at the feeling. It was better than panicking or being angry at Ryan, after all. “Kind of. It’s better than keeping it in, right?”
He shrugged. “I was just wondering. My brain keeps on coming up with stupid thoughts to distract me.”
“Oh. Yeah, mine too.”
Ryan did smile a little then. “Okay, so we need a plan. Do you have—” He glanced back and reiterated the question, “What do you have with you?”
“Uhm, my knife, armor, but no shield.” Micah really could have used a shield right now. “My slingshot with rocks and the school issued middle-grade healing potion. Water bottle, some sandwiches, uhm, bandages, two sacks in case we found any fully-formed, rope, and some containers.”
His face looked pained. “That’s it? No ammunition other than rocks?”
Micah shook his head. He hadn’t had a lot of time to make anything lately and he was going to get ingredients today. “You?”
“Full equipment, knife, shield, spear”—he wiggled it a little—”water and sandwiches, maybe some other clutter, but … that’s kind of it.”
“Right,” Micah said.
Ryan kept less on him since he usually scouted around. That didn’t give them a lot to work with. Micah still had his spells but … there was only really [Condense Water]. If he could get the water warm enough, he could use [Dissettle] to create some fog. He might be able to brew some potions.
That was also pretty much it, though.
“Okay, so in case it’s an area trap or danger …” Ryan said and squinted at the lump. Micah followed his look. Had it moved? “We could shoot a rock at it and then see how it reacts?”
Micah nodded. “If it’s a trap that we can’t avoid, we go that way”—he pointed—”and if it’s a monster, we either fight or still go that way?”
“Depending on how many there are. We can try to fight first if it looks winnable and retreat back here if it looks like it isn’t … but we really don’t want to retreat back here, you know?”
Micah’s heart-rate picked up at that, and he whispered, “Is it … around?” He nudged his head at the chasm.
Thankfully, the other guy shook his head. “It’s in the distance. I’m more worried about carrion-eaters.”
“Carrion?”
“Look at that beetle,” Ryan said and Micah followed his eyes to a beetle sitting on a plant. It was trimming its nails. “It’s eating that leaf. If it’s eating, there’s a high chance other monsters or animals might, too. So, carrion. And where there's carrion, there's carrion-eaters.”
“Oh.”
“Or just weaker monsters. I mean, I’m pretty sure insects eat their prey whole,” he said. “Or pick them clean. They’re tidy. But scavengers that hang around something like that might not be something we can handle.”
Micah nodded again. Everything they needed, all the information to plan ahead, was here. That reminded him. “I can try to reveal the lump before I shoot?”
Ryan hesitated. “Do that.”
“And if we retreat,” Micah said, “give me your shield. Switch positions. I’ll hold them off while you make sure the coast is clear with your hearing. Then we book it out of here however we can.”
Again, that hesitation. It was frustrating. Like he didn’t believe Micah to come up with a good or at least reasonable plan. Micah had to convince himself he was just thinking things through. Being prudent. Wherever they were, they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. But still …
“If they’re easy to hold off, you can keep it,” Micah conceded, “but …” If Ryan had to defend without knowing if the coast was clear, Micah might just run into the centipede right outside this tunnel.
“Alright, alright,” Ryan mumbled and shifted his stance. He took a slow step to the side as to not disturb the water and shifted his feet so he would be ready to run, hefting his spear.
Micah closed the distance to the corner and readied his slingshot at the lump. He stared at its fake, mimic-like essences and sought the brightest color he could find in the mess.
A dandelion.
Want something to mimic? he thought. How about this? [Yellow Gaze of Doom]!
A single yellow spot appeared on the lump and Micah panicked. That was it? But from one moment to the next, a wave of yellow petals shot over it, sheen stretching to reveal the form of a lithe frog.
It looked almost like an Archertoad, slightly larger, thinner, and almost humanoid in posture. Its sideways oval eyes blinked with two skins as it seemed to notice what had happened.
It shifted. The stone from his slingshot smacked right into its face and it croaked, throat bulging.
“We can fight it!” Ryan called as he rushed in. He must have known something Micah didn’t.
Footfalls splashed through the water. Ryan rushed in and the beast lept at him. A thrust of his spear caught it in the shoulder and its moment lurched it to a stop. He set his foot in its stomach and pushed it to the ground, adjusted his stance to something more stable to press it in.
It emitted a deep groan in pain, revealing double rows of triangular teeth, and tried to shift out and around to charge him anyway, lips trembling in a snarl, but the metal bar below the spearhead kept it from getting anywhere.
Instead, it trained its eyes on Ryan’s face.
“Spit!” Micah called as he rushed in after him, but the other guy had reacted already. And it wasn’t spit that came out of the toad’s mouth.
A barbed tongue lashed out like a whip and Ryan bashed it away with his shield at the last moment.
Micah slid by his side and grabbed the tongue out of the air before the toad could pull it back. The beast trained its eyes on him, wide, and practically screamed out as Micah set his blade against the flesh and lobbed it off.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Light like smoke poured from the wounds and a gurgling cry from the toad’s throat as it tried to escape, but Micah still had the rest of its tongue in his hand and Ryan his spear in its shoulder.
The severed part flailed around in the water for a second, barbs coming uncomfortably close, before it burst into smoke.
Out of reflex, Micah wanted to let go but couldn’t. The remaining bit of tongue stuck his glove together as surely as if he had glued it shut.
The creature’s cries were joined by others. A dozen-dozen more. And for a moment, Micah’s pulse hammered against his neck before he realized they weren’t far away. They were just tiny.
Rats. Brown. Grey. Black. Squeaks instead of cries. Rats poured out of every crevice and every corner around them and scurried toward the battle. Not Sewer Rats. Just … regular rats. What the hell?
Micah had only ever seen them running by in the streets near the gates, but these seemed large. Well-built. They were big enough to run through the water instead of having to swim.
But they did run. They swarmed. In an instant, two had already reached Ryan and crawled up his leg. More and more came. He kicked them away and the toad used the moment to slip out of his spear’s pin, more light gushing from its wound. A bruise forming from the boarspear’s bar.
Ryan tried to pin it again, but it dodged his thrusts by slipping left and right with its back in the water. It was nimble. Still, it was retreating and Micah soon saw why. The rats were targeting it, too.
Its cry had called them not for backup, but because it had revealed a chance. Cruel, like nature. But this was one floor. So why were different types of monsters targeting each other?
His moment’s hesitation bought it time to shuffle too far away—the connection pulled taut. Micah lurched two steps forward as it tugged him along by its tongue, right into the middle of the swarm.
They surged up his legs and gnawed at his clothes. A handful only tested them with a bite or two before climbing higher, looking for easier targets. The rest gnawed in unison at his ankles to get through his boots, or shin-guard straps, his pants; looking for flesh and squeaking all the while.
He had been swarmed by Teacup Salamanders five times their size before, but there were so many of them. Twenty, easily. More and more poured out from whatever crack they lived in.
He panicked. A shaking hand tried to get his knife against the tongue again, but the toad kept on yanking him forward. His clothes wouldn’t last that long. Ryan was fighting against his own wave, apparently dead set on finishing the toad off as the quickest solution.
“Do we run?” Micah called after him, shaking his legs to get the rats off. He stomped on them when they fell. They didn’t die from a simple stomp, but stupor was close enough.
Finally, he slipped his knife into a steady position in front of his fist and yanked, severing the flesh a second time. The chunk in his hand quickly burst into smoke. He flexed it. A rat on the wall next to him—Micah switched his knife over and impaled it. He sighed in relief. Freedom.
Light shone in place of blood from its soon-to-be-not-corpse. He flicked it into the swarm and it got trampled by its kin, burst into surprisingly brown smoke. Its essences had to be clean enough to allow it, like with Saplings. Where did it live that it could get that?
Ryan was forging a path. Now that the toad’s tongue was free it could run, but it was getting swarmed, too. Unlike them, it had no armor to chew through. Already, a dozen nicks trickled light from its body. In one place, the rats seemed to be digging into it and it made Micah swipe his own legs free with a fervor.
Ryan shook his head and called over his shoulder, “The centipede is too dangerous to go back. We need to kill to that toad before the rats get afraid to fight it and turn on only us.”
The toad was snapping and croaking at the rats now, making them hesitate. There was clearly a hierarchy. The rats were scavengers, it a hunter. Micah could see what Ryan meant.
It slapped a fishy hand on one rat and squeezed its claws into it, bursting it into smoke with the motion alone.
Micah took three steps back to give himself some breathing room while Ryan made way, careful not to slip or let any rats slip through his defense. Those that jumped him got struck down without mercy.
Swipes from his spear slapped away the ones on his legs.
Knife exchanged for slingshot. Micah considered throwing it, but he only had two weeks of practice and only one knife. He shot rocks instead to distract the beast until Ryan could get to it. It still had its spit after all.
Just as his friend walked past the section of bare earth, Micah could see a tremble in the lines and called out, “The wall—!”
The guy had noticed it himself and threw himself forward right as a short, but fat man made of stone armor burst out of the wall and lunged for him. Rectangular stripes and maze-like patterns covered its body and glowed in a yellow light. Its movements were slow, but heavy.
A golem.
The wall collapsed behind it, drowning a third of the rats in its wake, and Micah got a glimpse of it giving chase with heavy steps that sent the water splashing. Then the dirt filled out the tunnel and spilled to the sides, muddying the water. It only a left a triangular hole in the top left corner.
He couldn’t see Ryan. The guy was stuck with a wounded monster a few steps above an Archertoad, half a rat swarm, and an earth golem on the other side of that wall on his own.
Below, rats tried to dig their way to freedom before they suffocated.
Micah sprinted.
Three steps through splashing water, one against a crevice in the wall—brief, or he ran the risk of slipping—right foot on the earth and he tumbled through the hole, shoulders brushing dirt on the way.
Ryan looked surprised as he blocked a glob of spit from the toad and brought his spear down in an attempt to pierce it. The strike was cut off halfway as the golem hugged him and started to squeeze.
Ryan got his one arm up, but wasn’t fast enough to get his shield up. He struggled to get free.
Micah had knife and was about to fight a man made of stone. He had no idea what to do, so he jumped on its back and started trying to get his knife into the crevices of its armor, between shoulder and neck, between arm and armpit, between the slits of its eyes—nothing worked.
Meanwhile, Ryan was trying to wiggle downward to freedom before he was crushed to death, using his legs to give him leverage. It didn’t seem to be working.
“Fucking— [Condense Water],” Micah tried, desperate. He summoned the water right above its shoulder and let it fill the Golem’s body, holding his knife with half a hand. Legs wrapped around its torso to stay in place.
Water spilled off to the side, already slightly brown from running over the golem’s body. But most of its spilled in, sloshing around inside. Hopefully, damaging it.
Once the spell was in place, Micah kept it up with his left hand, pouring in more and more mana to pour in more and more water. The air was humid enough, but he didn’t know how long he would last.
He didn’t even know how much mana he had.
With his right, he plucked off rats where they scurried along the wall to jump at him and shoved them into the armor by its other shoulder, trying to do something. Anything. Maybe the rats could break something inside of it?
Muddy water began to leak out of the bottom of the golem, much slower than it went in.
He added the last thing he could do by calling, “[Infuse], [Infuse], [Infuse]!” over and over again. Golems had crystal hearts and veins. If he just cast it often enough, he might break them.
Finally, the golem seemed to hesitate and wobble for a moment. Its right arm jerked, moved forward, tightened—it fell slack, hitting Ryan’s right leg on the way down and making him wince in pain.
Micah’s joy was cut short by that.
But for a moment after the arm fell, a second, phantom arm hovered in the air where the other had been before it slipped away and disappeared. The spirit?
Ryan used the chance to duck and snatch up his spear, wobbled himself, and then right to throw it three meters into the toad that was limping away, covered in two dozen wounds.
It tried to move one last time, single arm stretching out, before it fell limp. That took care of that.
The golem did something to release all of the water—almost mud, now—and two of the three rats Micah had stuffed inside of it spilled out. It spun its upper body around while its legs remained where they were.
Micah’s legs lost their purchase on the wet surface and he scrambled to hold on with his arms. They still flew free, swinging right at Ryan as the guy came back to help. He jumped back and Micah called, “Sorry! But get your spear! We need the reach to damage its insides.”
Ryan ran off to get his spear, calling, “Get down from there! It might make me stab you.”
Oh. Right. When it started spinning again, Micah shifted his legs to its back and jumped off, toward the mound of dirt. He looked up just in time to see another distortion on the top left, a meter behind Ryan.
“TOAD CEILING BEHIND YOU!”
Ryan threw himself aside and brought his shield down, [Strike Down] reacting just in time to slap its barbed tongue away. But the pink flesh snapped by his leg instead, cutting his pants and drawing blood.
A second toad? And those rats were still scurrying around everywhere, trying to bite them.
The golem spun around lazily to stare at Micah. It only had slits for eyes, but it looked annoyed by its limp arm hanging by its side. Oh, it was annoyed? They were in freaking mortal danger!
“Fucking stupid spirits with no fucking moral compass,” he muttered under his breath and called, “You look stupid and your toy is shit! My cousin Henre could have carved something better and he’s eight!”
That was a flat-out lie because Henre couldn’t carve for shit, yet, and the golem sort of looked awesome, but if Micah couldn’t hurt it with his knife, he would hurt it with his words. Spirits had feelings, right?
How else could he harm it? Micah had never fought any golems before other than Stone Boars, which weren’t real golems, and Sap—
The golem punched at him with its left arm and Micah dodged just in time to avoid it. The stone fist of its cylinder arm still thumped into the earth as if it were clay and made the floor shake.
A wave of mud slipped down, dragging Micah lower as he stared with awe and fear. That punch could have killed him.
Oh.
Antagonize the spirit operating two hundred pounds of stone, will you?
He ran.
He headed for Ryan and the two toads. The one on the ground was leaking light like a fountain, but still hadn’t died. Stubborn thing. Micah stumbled to a halt next to it and called over, “Step back!”
Ryan did as he was told, thankfully, so Micah lifted the toad up at the same time as he sunk his dagger in its throat and flung it at its twin. They smacked together and the first burst into smoke. Something clinked against stone.
Ryan ran around the cloud of smoke to stab the other toad in the back as soon as it cleared.
Micah headed for the crystal instead, throwing himself into the muddy water to avoid a barbed tongue. Ryan should have cut it off already? He stabbed it once in the thigh for good measure, but heavy splats as the Golem stomped over through the mud put him under pressure.
He hit the crystal with the butt of his knife to make it crack. Once, twice. Just to be sure. The brittle collection of shards tight in his gloved hand, he rushed the golem again and slipped through the mud to dodge a long swing, as if he were fighting Archertoads.
Behind it, he used the wall to jump on its back rather than trust the mud and thought, Let’s do this over again, shall we?
“[Condense Water],” he cast over its head. Water spilling into its eyes slits and shoulder slits. He smacked the collection of shards in the middle of that stream and hoped this would work. “[Infuse].”
The crystal dissolved. The golem stopped moving. Micah got a splash of water in his eyes and found out why. Everything sort of … blended together. As if everything in the world was trying to mimic each other at the same time.
He hadn’t thought it would be that effective. He had just wanted to blind it a bit like he did with Saplings.
Micah immediately started wiping his eyes to get rid of the effect, even shifted his spell over his head to wash them out, and backed off.
The golem still wasn’t moving. Its limbs jerked here and there, but it wasn’t sure where to go. It would have been almost funny to watch if its fists couldn’t crush his head like a month-old pumpkin.
Ryan finished his toad and turned to look at it, one hand against his chest as he heaved, asking, “What did you do?”
That reminded Micah that he still had to breathe, too. “I blinded it. I’m not sure how long—”
The other guy cursed as a rat got on his shoulder and sunk its teeth in. He slapped the side of his head down on it and then wrenched it off, throwing it against the wall with a wet slap.
“You okay?”
He nodded with a grimace. “Just a bee sting. What the hell are we going to do with that?”
Micah took a few steps back to be safe. “Can you shove your spear inside, wiggle around a little to break its heart?”
“I can try, but if it breaks my spear shaft …”
“Shit. I can try filling it with water again. A few more—” Micah grimaced and shook his head. He was getting a headache just thinking about doing that. He didn’t have enough mana.
“We have another one of those crystals,” he said as he picked it up and handed it over, “and we have a sure-fire way to kill it.”
Micah stomped on a rat—they seemed to be running away, now; cowards—and accepted the crystal. “What?”
He nodded at the mound of dirt. “The chasm.”
An image of them hauling the golem through the hole and to the edge, tossing it over the chasm to break on the rocks. Micah was exhausted, covered scabs, scratches, and mud. He felt tired just thinking about dragging it all the way over there, but he also felt … angry. Toss it away? No.
They had one camouflage crystal and—
He looked around and searched, but he couldn’t find them. Had the rats even dropped crystals?!
If they used the other camouflage crystal to buy enough time to throw it over the edge, they wouldn’t have anything to show from this fight but wounds. He wouldn’t accept that.
Golems were valuable.
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“No. We kill it. I want its parts.”
Ryan was exasperated. “Micah—”
Too late. He already marched over and repeated the blinding combination to make sure it would stay down. He stumbled as he crouched down next to its leg, head spinning, and used two hands to drag and pull.
It was heavy. He was pretty sure he was doing something wrong because his back didn’t feel right, but finally the leg came up and the golem tilted forward to smack into the mud.
He straddled it and started hitting the butt of his dagger against the back of its neck. He was going to rip its freaking head off and pull its crystal heart out with his bare hands, if he had to.
“Help me,” he said. “Quick.”
Ryan hesitated, but joined him with his own knife. It had a larger base and Ryan was stronger. Where Micah only made cracks or broke free chips, Ryan struck whole shards from the cracking stone.
After the first ten strikes or so, they had to pause to brush away the rubble before they could keep on going. But the golem’s body trembled. It shifted its legs and left arm; tried to turn its head.
“Micah.”
“Keep going.”
He redoubled his efforts, striking with a panicked fury and finally, Ryan’s next strike broke the stone and caused it to fall into a dark and hollow interior.
“Now, pull!”
Micah widened the hole as Ryan gripped the head with two hands, placed one growing boot against its shoulder, and pulled.
The golem stood up. The lurch sent Ryan stumbling back, stone head in his hands. Something brown slipped away where it had been before and vanished, but the golem didn’t stop moving.
“Oh, hell!”
It stumbled backward with Micah still on its back and hit him against the mound of dirt, knocking the wind out of his lungs. When it stumbled forward, Micah fell with his ass into the mud and groaned.
Ryan hesitated with his spear on the other side, eyes glancing at Micah. He clearly wanted to grab him and run. But then he cursed and tossed his spear aside, surprising Micah.
He switched his shield to his other arm and ran at the golem. It brought a fist toward him and he deflected the strike with his shield, jumped to straddle its torso, and reached inside its body with his left hand while his shield kept its right left arm from getting a grip on him.
The golem spun and stumbled around in attempt to get him off—Micah crawled as close to the mound of dirt to not get trampled—and eventually, something cracked when Ryan came back for air, covered in mud, and with a glowing yellow crystal held triumphantly in his hands.
The golem froze and slumped over to a mound of rubble, splashing up even more mud. It was dead.
“Yes!”
Ryan smiled, too, as he stumbled to a stand.
That just left killing the leftover rats that were scurrying around hadn’t been trampled or suffocated to death by their fight or the mud. Micah spotted one with a glitter of something in its mouth and charged it. Thief!
Two missed stomps and he got it and slipped his dagger beneath his boot to finish it off. He picked up the glittering reward and frowned.
It was a tan marble, half-covered in mud. A little smaller than the ones he had given Lisa and probably made of flesh essence instead of glass—although, Micah wasn’t sure the others were made of glass. Its details were much more intricate. He couldn’t see the holes Lisa had spoken of, but there was an overlapping texture to its sash. Like the depictions of muscles in his textbooks, but more cloth and less raw. Almost woven.
As he watched, another tan thread squirmed up from somewhere into marble and spun itself into the weave of the others, thickening the sash.
What?
Ryan coughed, pulling him from his thoughts, and he tucked the marble away for now. First things first, he had to inspect the other guy’s wounds. But as he walked over, he couldn’t help but think of the second toad that had joined the fight.
He glanced back into the tunnel and around the bend, but couldn’t see anything there. No monster nor distortion. He still didn’t feel safe.
“Over,” he said, waving his hand in the general direction of the dirt. “Through the mound.”
Ryan nodded and started climbing through the hole, widening it a bit with his hands to make it easier to fit. He climbed up and squeezed through a moment later, shield and spear pointed ahead.
Micah followed one step behind and kept an eye on the small opening, in case anything followed him.
They stood in the middle of the tunnel, between mound of dirt and gouges in stone, as the other guy pulled his shirts off and laid it over Micah’s shoulder. They were filthy, but they still didn’t want to lay them in the mud.
Both his upper arms were bruised in a line from the golem’s hug, an angry blue and red.
Micah grimaced at that. “How does it feel?”
“Just a bad bruise. It’ll be fine,” he said. “You … don’t have anything to help with that, right?”
He shook his head and took off his gloves, added them to the pile of clothes on his shoulder. “Not with me. I can take care of the other two injuries, though.”
Cleaning first, he reminded himself and washed his hands, then tipped the bottle against the wound. He hesitated. There was something wiggly inside the wound. Micah leaned closer to squint at it.
“Micah?” Ryan asked, concerned.
Just essence, but essences he rarely saw. The essences of a sneeze or sick bedside, of doorknobs sometimes. Wiggly little lines and boxes. Disease. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely there.
He quickly washed the wound as thoroughly as he could, looking around himself to find more hints of the essence floating in the water, closer to where the rats had died. It came from them?
But if there were rats everywhere around here …
He shared his suspicions with Ryan, “The water probably isn’t clean. I mean, it isn’t clean anyway—because of the detritus and now the mud—but more than that. It isn’t safe to wash in either.”
“What?”
“There’s tiny bits of disease essence floating around in it. I’m not sure if it’s just essence or …”
He wiped the wound, made sure he couldn’t see any filth, and tipped a few drops of healing potion on it to close the skin. It was the school-issued recipe, so it should be fine. Hopefully.
He tried dripping one drop onto Ryan’s shoulder, but it did little to help with the swelling. Right. Next, he crouched to Ryan’s leg while the guy hurried to put his armor back on.
“The disease in the deep Sewers isn’t true disease,” he said.
Micah glanced up. “Huh?”
“In the Sewers. If you go too deep in, the water can make you sick, but it isn’t a true disease. It’s just an effect of the Tower,” he rambled. “Of course, it makes your body think it’s sick and it makes you weaker, so you might get a real disease as a consequence, but … It isn’t true. Nothing you can infect other people with. It goes away quickly when you leave the Tower.”
“So you think the same might be true here?”
He nodded, hesitated, shook his head. “I just hope. Maybe it’s just disease essence, tricking our bodies?”
Micah frowned, but nodded. “Yeah … yeah, that could be possible.” He couldn’t see diseases, of course, so he couldn’t know for sure, but … it surprised him a little that Ryan was speculating about essences.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“For earlier. I … I don’t like not being able to leave.”
Ryan’s face went slack. “Oh. No, I should have—” He shook his head once, and scowled. Typical of him, though Micah wouldn’t have missed it. “It won’t happen again.”
“No, just …” He didn’t want Ryan forcing himself to be different just because of his hang-ups, but—
“I just need to know that I can leave,” Micah said.
“Of course, you can.”
He sighed. “Thanks.”
He stood up and they caught their breaths for a moment, looking back at the chasm and forward at the mound of dirt and now-muddied water. Some of it spilled over the edge in sloshes.
Massive centipede behind. Golems they could barely fight ahead. Of course, you can. It was a nice lie.
Their clothes were covered in scabs and scratches. The rats had made sure of that. Ryan had two bad bruises on both arms and they’d needed to use healing already, though they only had one potion. Micah was out of mana, they were both covered in mud and exhausted. They were stuck on an unknown floor, unprepared, with unknown monsters, and disease-spotted water. All they had to show from their first fight was a dead stone golem and a marble of flesh essence.
And that was first bend.
Ryan sneezed.
They were so screwed.