I was able to gather all the items on my list, including both the consumables and the scanner upgrades, for a little over twelve thousand credits. While this would have once been a massive expenditure for me, it wasn’t too bad, given my recent windfalls.
After gathering my gear, I logged out for the night, satisfied that I had prepared as much as I could.
The next morning, I traveled to Brian’s landing pad to meet up with Linnea. She looked much the same as before, though if anything, she was decked out in even more equipment. After greeting each other, we boarded the VTOL and left for the usual drop-off point.
As expected, the trip from there to the mouth of the cave was easy, the Beasts in this area simply no longer being a challenge for the both of us combined. While we gained a little experience and a number of beast cores along the way, it was still almost a waste of time compared to our trip up the mountain.
In the end, it was still early afternoon by the time we reached the crack in the cliff and I was questioning my earlier plan of camping outside. With the speed that we had managed over the day, it felt like a waste to wait till the next morning.
It wasn’t like there would really be a day/night cycle down in the cave anyway, we would only be limited by my logout restrictions and our need to rest.
Worse, I could feel myself already trying to find reasons to back out, or at least to delay going down into the cave. Even looking at the entrance made me shudder and I could feel my old habit of avoidance trying to drag me back down.
Linnea had obviously noticed something as she spoke up soon after we reached the cave mouth. “Are you OK?”
I took a deep breath before responding. “Not really, but I’ll make it. I’m not great with enclosed spaces, however, this is too good an opportunity to miss. Besides, it’s something I’ve been slowly getting better with and this is the next step.”
She nodded in response, seemingly happy to wait until I was ready. While I appreciated the sentiment, that left it up to me to force myself forward. I soon decided to just get it over with, waiting for the next morning would only build the problem up in my mind until I never entered.
Bracing myself, I strode forward into the entrance. Much like it looked from the outside, the tunnel was a jagged crack in the cliff. I knew little about geology, however, it felt like this was probably caused by an earthquake or something in the distant past.
It quickly grew dark as we ventured in and, rather than relying on the small quantity of light my watch could produce, I pulled a high-powered torch from my pack. It was one of the products I had purchased the day before and, combined with the backup batteries I had also purchased, it could run for a full week.
The light was powerful enough to illuminate the tunnel in front of us for nearly fifty feet, allowing us to see where it split up ahead. In front of us, the jagged crack we had been following faded as we hit what looked like a more natural tunnel.
Water flowed along the bottom, showing that it might have been carved from the rock by an underground stream over millennia. Focusing my Psi Sense I could feel that the power was coming from deeper in on our left.
I was reluctant to make too much noise, so I gestured to Linnea before moving down the slope to the left. We followed the little stream for nearly half an hour before coming out into an enormous cavern.
The water flowed over a small lip and down into a massive pool that stretch beyond the limits of our light. Our light glimmered off the walls of the cavern, refracting off crystals embedded in the stone.
I sighed in relief at leaving the constrained quarters of the tunnel. While it hadn’t been as bad as I’d feared, being in such a confined space still made me uncomfortable. After taking a moment to relax, I began examining our surroundings.
A small ledge extended to our left past where the water flowed into the larger pool. With few other choices, we followed it around until we reached the same level as the lake.
While water filled most of the space, there was also a small shore against the walls of the cavern where we could take our bearings.
We huddled there for a few minutes while surveying our surroundings. I was reluctant to venture into the water, still remembering the horror of the Lake Beast we had encountered just a few weeks ago.
Instead, I sent a message to Linnea asking her to keep watch and settled down into a meditative pose. Focusing on the feelings from my Psi Sense, I tried to determine a more exact location for what I was sensing.
To my relief, the signal was not coming from the depths of the pool, rather it was originating from somewhere across it. Even with my light, however, I couldn’t see anything past the water.
Turning to Linnea, I whispered. “Can you see anything across the water?” Given her class, I was confident that she had a lot more points in Perception than I did.
Stolen novel; please report.
She nodded in response. “Yes, there’s another small area of raised land that leads into another tunnel.”
Sighing in relief, I turned my attention to how we were going to get across. Past our small area of land, the lake stretched from wall to wall of the cavern and extended down to an unknown depth.
While swimming would be possible, I was still worried about what might inhabit it. Still, it didn’t look like we had a great deal of choice. I discussed the situation with Linnea, however, she didn’t have any ideas for getting around the issue either.
Eventually, we decided to just go for it. We moved to the far left wall of the cavern and slipped into the water, using the wall as a guide to ensure we didn’t get turned around in the pool. Luckily, the torch I had brought was waterproof and could be mounted on my shoulder via a strap on my pack, where it would continue providing illumination while I swam.
I tensed up as the first splashes we made echoed through the cavern, only relaxing when nothing appeared to attack us. While swimming with our packs was hard going, my high Toughness had given this body endurance well beyond anything I had experienced in the real world.
It was still exhausting work, however I would be able to make it the relatively short distance to the other side. Looking back showed me that Linnea was having an easier time of it than I was, likely due to her also having points in Brawn.
Then I felt something heavy bump against my leg. Looking down, I could see a dark shadow nearly as large as I was floating under the surface of the water. “Something’s here,” I shouted, giving up on any hope of stealth.
My voice echoed through the cavern eerily even as I continued speaking. “Get to the shore!”. While I wasn’t sure of the physics, I doubted that our plasma weapons would be of much use against something under the pool's surface.
We both rushed forward, no longer caring about how much noise we made in our desperate rush to the edge of the pool. With only a few feet left, I felt a searing pain in my leg before something dragged me backward and down.
Before I knew it, I was under the surface, having been given barely enough time to grab a breath of air. Twisting, I looked down to see that a massive fish had sunk its teeth into my left leg. Worse, it was using its grip to drag me deeper into the pool and down to my death.
I felt panic taking hold before I forced myself to concentrate. Instead, I Attuned my knife and called it to my hand. With my weapon ready I twisted in the water, pushing past the resistance toward my enemy. I sharpened the blade as I struck, forcing the highest level of sharpness on it I was capable of.
My stab dug deeply into its head and less than a second later, its jaws relaxed, releasing my leg. With the threat dealt with, I turned back to the surface, as my lungs were already burning from lack of air.
Not even bothering to hold on to my knife, I swam to the surface with both hands. Seconds later, I surfaced with a desperate gasp, taking in much needing air. Not far in front of me, Linnea was standing on the shore, pointing her long rifle toward the water.
I could feel the heat from a patch of burning plasma nearby, showing that she had at least tried to help. Much as I had surmised, however, the shot had been unable to penetrate far into the water.
She waved as she spotted me and I swam for the shore, ignoring the pain in my leg for now. It was more important to get out of this pool before any more enemies showed up. Luckily, I reached the edge before anything else untoward happened and I accepted Linnea’s help to pull myself out.
“You OK?” she asked, a concerned tone in her voice.
“Yeah,” I sighed in relief, glad to be on the relative safety of the shore. “Just a leg wound, nothing too bad.”
Groaning in pain now that I was safe, and the adrenaline was fading, I pulled off my soaking pack to search for my supplies. Even though it was mostly waterproof, the insides were wet, making me glad most of it was packed in separate containers.
I pulled out the wound sealant while Linnea kept watch, then pulled up my leg armor to treat the wound. The damage to the armor itself had already healed, and I was glad to see that the damage underneath wasn’t too bad.
It seemed the nano weave leggings had taken the brunt of the attack and stopped the fish’s teeth from piercing through my entire leg. It was far from the worst injury I’d had and I was confident that with the sealant and some painkillers, I could keep going.
Once I was treated, I called my dagger back out of the water and checked the combat report. I received forty XP for the subterranean fish, confirming that it was indeed dead. With that taken care of, I dragged myself to my feet and began surveying our surroundings.
Much like on the other side, we were on a small area of rock that had yet to be covered by the water. The wall held a perfectly smooth hole extending deeper into the mountain at a small incline. It was far different from both the jagged crack we had entered by and the more natural water tunnel we had followed after that. Examining it more closely only increased my certainty that it wasn’t natural.
“It looks almost like something burrowed through here,” I mused out loud as I ran a hand over the smooth rock. “Maybe to get to the water? Whatever the case, though, I don’t like the idea of something that can tunnel through solid rock."
Linnea nodded next to me before responding. “Some kind of super worm, perhaps? You said you were looking for something highly Psionic, right?”
That was true. While I hadn’t been sure if it would be some kind of natural phenomenon or something more sinister, this definitely pointed more toward it being some kind of beast. The energy I was sensing was flowing out of the tunnel, revealing the direction to proceed.
“Better get ready,” I sighed as I advanced into the tunnel. Given that the tunnel was at least ten feet tall an nearly as wide, I was worried about what we might find. Taking my own advice, I drew my gun and ensured that I was ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
We followed the tunnel for several hundred feet before it reached a more natural-looking cavern. To me, it felt like whatever had made the tunnel was connecting existing caves within the mountain, perhaps to form some kind of larger territory.
We crept into the cavern as I shined my light forward. While the light itself would most likely alert anything here, I held out a small hope that the Beast we were after would be blind and only react to sound.
Soon my light shone on a colossal, twisting figure before us. As Linnea had suggested, it looked to be a gargantuan worm, taller than I was and with a length that extended beyond the limit of our light.
Worse, it was moving, its form rotating around the cavern. It looked like it had spotted us and the only thing we could do was fight.