The fight was over before Sentry could decide whether to intervene. Just like that, her prospect was lost.

She had watched the orc attack and hung back to watch, as she had before, to see how the thief handled himself. It had looked like he had a chance to escape, especially when his friends joined the fray. Then he had slipped and fallen into the ravine.

Now she was at a loss, unsure what to do. Nathan Sullivan had not been her best candidate. To be honest, she wasn’t sure why he fascinated her so much. But, now that he was gone, she was surprised at the sense of loss she felt. Some part of her had already decided that she would approach him soon. Now the opportunity was gone forever.

She sat in a well-concealed spot on the tree-line listening to Nathan Sutton’s companions argue. The majority of the group was certain the Rogue must be dead, an assessment that Sentry couldn’t help but agree with. They wanted to return to the city. Their case was strengthened by the fact that their guide was severely injured. She had heard them talking about suffering their own surprise attack. Something called a Barclave had ambushed the group. The guide, who looked to be a Ranger, had killed it, but had gotten himself pretty badly mauled in the process. His injuries were well beyond the ability of the party’s low-level priest to heal.

But there was one hold out insisting on a rescue mission.

“We can’t just abandon him! Nate is my friend, and I refuse to leave him alone out here!” The little mage, Christophe, stormed, his back ramrod straight as he stared down his party members.

“Don’t be an idiot!” yelled the Ikarshi with the bow. “Nate is dead! I don’t like it any more than you do. But no one could survive that fall. He’s gone.”

“But will you look!” Christophe answered, his face flushed red. “He fell into this gap. It’s like a channel, and its angled. He could have slid down a ways and just got stuck. He might be climbing back up right now. If we leave, he might get back to the top, hurt, and find himself alone outside the city at night. We have to be sure!”

“He won’t be climbing that,” their guide said through teeth clenched with pain as he leaned against the group’s priest for support, the small woman nearly buckling under the strain. “The angle is too steep, and the sides are too smooth. Even if what you’re saying is true, there’s no way he could get back up.”

“If he can’t come up, then he’ll have to keep going down.” Christophe insisted, switching tact instantly. His jaw was set in stubborn determination. “We’ll have to find some way to the bottom so we can get him.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” the giant pink warrior roared. “Get a grip, Christophe. Nate is dead. If we don’t get Clive back to the city, he’ll be dead. And if we somehow found our way to the bottom of this hole, I’d bet we’d all be dead, too. We’re all level 1. We can’t survive out here without Clive to watch our backs. I’m sorry about your friend. But we have to go!”

There was a long silence as Christophe continued to stare down the group. Sentry agreed with the others. Even if Nathan Sutton had somehow survived, attempting a rescue was suicide. There was no other choice but to leave him behind.

“Fine. The rest of you take Clive back to the city. I’ll stay here and look for a way to help Nate,” the little mage finally said.

Sentry’s draw dropped in surprise, and the rest of the group erupted into yelling and wild gestures. They argued for several minutes. But Christophe would not be persuaded.

“Fine! You want to die. Who are we to stop you.” The warrior, Olander, spat. Sentry could tell that the other two weren’t comfortable with this pronouncement. But, at that moment, their guide groaned, and sagged, nearly pulled the priest down on top of him. Olander had to step in and grab the two, keeping them upright.

“When we get back to the city, we’ll notify the guard. Maybe they can send some people out to help you,” the archer said to Christophe, though there was no hope in her eyes. It was well known that the guard never left the city. What happened in the rest of the valley was beyond their purview.

More words were exchanged. But, in surprisingly short order, Sentry was looking down on one small mage, all alone in a dangerous world, as he walked along the lip of the ravine, searching for some path to its bottom.

Sentry should have taken her leave then. Instead, she found herself following the mage, though maintaining her concealment. She was oddly moved by Christophe’s loyalty to his friend. And she had taken the opportunity to examine the shaft Nathan Sutton had fallen into after Christophe moved on. The mage was right. It was an odd irregularity in the rock wall, and almost perfectly smooth tube a few feet wide that descended away into darkness at a steep angle. It did not look even remotely like a natural rock formation. Very odd.

She followed for another quarter of an hour before she made her decision.

“Excuse me,” she said. She had approached to within a few feet of Christophe. She had made no real effort to disguise her approach, yet the young man was still completely taken by surprise when she spoke. He whirled around in terror, and for a moment she thought he might hurl himself over the ledge he was walking near. Then he steadied and stared at her, wide-eyed.

“Who…who are you!” She was sure he was trying to sound firm and commanding. The squeaking break in his voice spoiled the effect. He raised a hand menacingly at her.

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Sentry watched him cautiously, but felt no real sense of danger. He was a level 1 mage, and she doubted he had the resources or time to learn any spells beyond whatever he chose as his starter. It was probably some kind of attack magic, as that’s what most mages chose. But it would be weak, and he wouldn’t have the MP to cast it more than a couple times. Low-level, unarmed and unarmored, a mage like this was nearly helpless without a party.

“My name is Sentry. I was walking through the woods nearby, and I saw what happened to your friend,” she said, keeping her voice calm and even.

Christophe licked his lips nervously. Then his eyes widened in alarm.

“You’re…wow! You’re level 3! I haven’t seen anyone who is level 3. Everyone is either level 1 like me, or else their level is too high for me to read, like Clive. How did you get levels so fast? Has it made you stronger? How much stronger are you? Are you out here alone?”

Sentry blinked several times as the cascade of words washed over her.

“I’ve been making trips outside the walls by myself every day since we all arrived a few weeks ago. It’s dangerous, but if you are careful, you can slip out, kill some low-level monsters, then get back to the city before it gets too dangerous. That’s how I’ve leveled up.”

That made it sound a lot easier than it had been. Sentry had almost been killed several times by those low level monsters, and almost every coin she had to her name had been spent on healing her body and mending her armor. But it had been worth it.

{Sentry Warrior Level 3 HP: 30/30 MP: 5/5

Stats

Strength: 12

Constitution: 11 Free Points: 0

Dexterity: 8

Willpower: 4

Intelligence: 7

Charisma: 6}

“That’s amazing. Of course, I don’t think I could do something like that. I only have 8 hit points, and I don’t have any weapon proficiencies. I’d be dead right away if I went out by myself,” Christophe said, eyeing her appreciatively.

“That’s probably true,” Sentry said, opting not to point out that Christophe was, in fact, outside the walls by himself right now. “About your friend,” she continued before Christophe could start talking again. “I overheard you talking with the others. You are trying to find a way down into the ravine? To look for him?”

“That’s right.” Christophe said, a little of the fiery defiance he had shown earlier settling back onto his brow. “So what? You came to tell me it’s a stupid idea?”

“No, actually. I thought I might offer to help. And to tell you that you’re going the wrong way.”

Now it was Christophe’s turn to stare dumbly for a moment. Eventually, he found his voice.

“What?” he said.

“There is a path that leads down into the ravine. But it is back the other way. It’s a bit of a hike. But we should be able to get there in a couple hours. I have no idea how long it will take to make our way down, though.”

“I…oh. Well. Thank you. That’s very kind. Only…” Christophe looked closely at her, his eyes narrowed. “Why would you help me? Do you know Nate?”

Sentry considered what to say to that. She wasn’t sure how to make Christophe understand why she wanted to help. Mostly because she wasn’t sure herself. Finally, she shrugged.

“It seems like the right thing to do.”

Christophe thought about that for a moment. Then, apparently satisfied with the answer, he nodded. A huge grin split his face.

“Okay! Then let’s go save Nate.”

“There is one small problem, though,” Sentry said, even as the two of them turned and started walking.

“What is it?” Christophe asked.

“It will be incredibly dark down in the ravine. I didn’t bring any lanterns or torches with me. I suppose we could try to cut some branches and fashion them into…”

Sentry trailed off as she caught the smile on Christophe’s face growing even wider than before.

“What?” she asked, confused by the look.

“Don’t you worry about the darkness. I’ve got it covered,” he said.

Nate opened his eyes. At least, he thought he did. It made no difference in the inky darkness that surrounded him.

Everything hurt. He had slide down the nearly smooth chute of stone at breakneck speeds. Nearly smooth being the important point. There had been sharp rocks, outcroppings, and switchbacks that had pummeled his body. At some point during the fall, he had cracked the back of his head hard enough to lose consciousness.

He was awake, and he was a live. That was a start. He checked his status screen.

{Status HP: 4/15 MP: 3/3

You are suffering from the status affliction minor concussion.

You are suffering from the status affliction broken nose.

You are suffering from the status affliction bruised collar bone.

You are suffering from the status affliction sprained ankle.}

Nate groaned again and rolled so that he could look up towards the sky. The darkness above was completely unbroken. That didn’t make sense. He should be able to see daylight at the top of the ravine. Unless he had been out longer than he thought and the sun had already set. Nate didn’t want to think about that possibility.

He was lost. He was alone. He had few supplies. He was hurt. And he was outside the city walls.

Basically, he was dead.

He lay there, groaning and feeling sorry for himself, for quite a while before he noticed the change in the environment. Slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness around him eased from an absolute black to an oppressive gloom. It took a while for Nate to realize what he was seeing.

Veins in the rock wall were giving off a pale, almost imperceptible glow. The light was incredibly dim, so dim that it had taken this long for Nate’s vision to adjust enough for it to be noticeable. The color of the light was strangely familiar. It reminded Nate of the massive pillar at the heart of Dawn City.

In the dull glow, features of the ravine’s floor began to stand out. It was relatively flat, broken only by sharp spires of stone like stalagmites at irregular intervals. These, too, pulsed faintly with light, and while some wouldn’t even come up to the middle of Nate’s shins, others were easily twice as tall as him. Nate found that he was lying roughly in the middle of the ravine, with impossibly sheer walls rising up until they were lost from sight roughly 10 yards off to either side.

It was as Nate studied those walls that he noticed something else. The walls were moving.

No, not the walls themselves. Figures. Figures were moving along the walls. Nothing but dark swirls in the gloom, a flicker here, a sweeping motion there. But there was definitely something out there in the darkness. Several somethings. Creatures.

And they were getting closer.