The tunnel is angling down. There’s screeching in the distance, and things scurry away from me ahead. I don’t know if it’s best they’re mindlessly running away from anything approaching, or if there’s an intelligence behind all this and they are a warning system for the creatures I hear.

I see the widening of the tunnel into a cavern ahead, and the shifting floor. It’s three meters later, that I see it’s shifting because it’s covered with bugs. A shudder runs down my spine at the number of wingless fly things with pincers. I can just make out two openings on the other side.

Maybe it was better when I couldn’t see what I had to wade through.

At least they—

Nope, not jinxing myself.

As best as I can tell, they’re about the size of my hand. And those pincers, as big as my thumb. They can’t be that hard to kill, but it’s the number of them that’s going to be the death of me.

Time to leave then.

No. Time to get creative.

You? Creative?

Bodyguard Branch Ability: Switch

As a bodyguard, the Guardian gets to switch places with a target to protect them. For the ten seconds following the activation of the ability, your Strength, Endurance and health are doubled, plus ten percent per level, and your target heals one point per second per level for fifteen seconds. Range: 10 meters plus 10 per level. Cool down, fifteen minutes. If the target is designated as the one being guarded, the range is doubled and line of sight is not required.

Boost: Shockwave landing

What good is that going to do you?

Don’t you get tired of playing along? You already know what I’m looking into.

Switch Boost: Shockwave Landing

Your arrival at the switch location generates a shockwave pushing those around you 2 meters away. The push is resisted by endurance modified by the body mass. Each level of Switch makes it more difficult to resist the shockwave

You are the one playing with yourself. I’m just saying what you want me to say.

Somehow I doubt that.

One other thing to confirm.

Aetheric Guardian Sub Class

The Aetheric Guardian can use mana to increase the effect of various abilities

Good.

What’s the size of the cavern, four, five meters across? There’s no listing of how much mana I need to increase it that much, but the shockwave starts at two meters. It can’t be that much to increase it to six.

I prepare myself mentally and almost tell Silver to stay. Speaking is probably a bad idea right now.

I pick a bug in the center of the cavern, keeping in mind the need for the shockwave to be six meters, and… Tag, you’re it.

I’m in the middle of the cavern, ears ringing from the detonation, bar in hand, ready for something to jump at me. The walls are slick with crushed bugs. There’s a few left on the floor, running around erratically. Silver walks up to me, spits the bug at my feet and glares.

“Look, it’s one bug. I knew you’d be able to deal with it. If you’re that offended, next time you’re welcome to take on the mob.” My mana dropped by a quarter.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He pounces on one of the approaching bugs. I crush the others as I head for the tunnel on the left. There’s a click under my foot a meter from the opening and before I understand what it’s about, something slams into me and I hit the wall. My health dropped by a fifth and an orange stunned debuff appears with a five-minute timer.

A stone beam is retracting into the wall.

This thing’s cleverer than you gave it credit for.

Even Silver has a smug look as he sits before me.

I let the debuff expire. There’s nothing left here to take advantage of my state. Silver deals with the few bugs left.

I push to my feet and use my bar to test the floor ahead of me. I’m in front of the tunnel when it presses down with a click and I barely move it in time, so the stone pillar that erupts out of the wall doesn’t smack it out of my hand.

“Okay, it’s with caution from now on.”

This bodes so well for your survival.

I tap the bar of the floor before me as I walk through the tunnel, and twice it triggers a trap. One is a pillar like the one in the cavern, out the side wall, the other is the floor and ceiling smashing together. I’m spared death because I’m caught at the edge and the floor going up makes me fall back. My bar gets caught in the middle and gets slightly flattened. Its quality drops one category. It’s going to need moonlight when I leave.

I make it two meters when the silence registers.

Took you long enough.

That constant skittering is gone.

You think they left? My father’s voice asks sarcastically.

The noise of the traps, if not the tapping of my bar, alerted them.

And you win the prize.

Which is?

Hopefully, the common sense to get out of here before whatever was making it comes rushing through this tunnel.

I proceed forward at a slower pace, quietly pressing ahead of me.

You have got to be kidding me. Survival instinct talking here!

I snort, freeze and listen.

No change to the silence.

And that doesn’t worry you?

I move forward.

No, of course it doesn’t.

Stop acting surprised when you spent my childhood teaching me the dangers of listening to you.

That wasn’t me. I’m your subconscious.

Then maybe you should stop talking in his voice.

Hey, you gave me his voice, so how about you do something about that? There’s that woman’s voice in here somewhere you like to—

Do not bring my mother into this.

Not your mother, just her voice.

Making out the widening of the tunnel gives me something other than him to think about. Everything in it is still. Silver stops when we’re a meter from the cavern. He bares his teeth. I search for whatever he doesn’t like. The floor is the same rough surface as the tunnel. The cavern’s walls are smoother, not quite polished, but closer to interlocking oval-ish stones than the raw stone of the tunnel or previous ones. One exit on the other side.

Nothing else in it.

That’s not right.

Finally.

I cautiously step into the cavern.

I’m done.

It’s larger than the previous ones. Ten meters, maybe twelve. There’s a scent I didn’t notice before. Like aged paper. The air is dry. Nothing stirs. Something definitely isn’t right here. The lack of a comment from my father’s voice isn’t helping.

I take a step toward the exit and stop. I’m not getting caught in the same trap twice. I put the end of the bar on the ground before me, applying pressure. When nothing happens, I move. It slows me down, and my paranoia is high enough I imagine the walls moving a time or two. I don’t understand how the debuff isn’t showing up, but at least it means I’m rational.

My father snorts.

I’m three meters away when my head snaps to the left, trying to find the motion. I’ve convinced myself I imagined it, when there’s a rustling all around me. I turn in place and my hurry at finding what’s making it gives the impression the wall undulates.

Then it exploded and large moth-like things fly off it and at me. Each swing of my bar smashes multiple of them, but it does nothing to keep them from slashing as they fly by. I swing and swing, looking for the way out, watching my health and endurance trickle down.

I switch with one of them, triggering a shockwave and I get a second breathing room before they’re on me again. I go to do it again, but nothing happens.

Forgot about the cooldown. The icon shows fourteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds. At least I get a boost to my attribute and I lay into the moths hard and fast, doing my best to ignore the countdown on that, which started at fifteen seconds.

When it ends. I drop to a knee, my endurance all but gone. The attacks aren’t as frequent, but I can hardly raise my bar to swat them away. I still have somewhere around a fifth of my health and it isn’t dropping as fast, but without the energy to defend myself, I’m done for.

I really hate to say it.

Then please don’t. I can do without the gloating.

But you weren’t a total idiot when you befriended that fox.

Motion out the corner of my eye, a silver streak slashing and biting at those flying things. I fall on my back, crushing those there. I lose half of what I have left, managing the occasional swat as my endurance climbs up.

I spend half my mana healing myself, which barely makes a dent in the damage, but reduces the bleeding.

When Silver plops down next to me, there’s a handful of the moths left. I use what’s left of my mana to heal him, then force myself to my feet to deal with what’s left. Landing a hit’s the hard part now that there’s so few of them, but it’s easy to keep them off me. My endurance gain outpaces my exhaustion slightly, and by the time I kill the last of them, the yellow is fully visible.

The walls are now the rough stone of everywhere else, except for this one bulge that I approach cautiously. I poke it with the bar, then hit it harder, and the top falls off. I lean over from as far as I can to make out what’s in it. The Alien’s egg thing scared the shit out of me as a kid.

It’s a hollow box with a sphere at the bottom. I use the bar to test for traps. When I tap the sphere, it slides instead of rolling. Once I take it out, I see it’s a dodecagon instead of a sphere. The edges are raised slightly, and there’s a sort of glow in the center. I focus on it.

System Query: Kinetic Generator, Quality: Excellent, Type: Generator

The Kinetic Generator converts mana into kinetic motion that, when used with appropriate components, can be used to move a variety of structures

Perception skill failed to detect anything else