Chapter 37: Exfiltrate

Sairek remembered the first time he officially inherited the royal jewel. It was about a year or so after his mother had passed away.

“Isn’t this mother’s?” He had asked his father, while he held the stone in his small little hands.

“It was, yes. It is yours now.” His father had said. “Melina would have given it to you around this time if she were still here. That stone is very special. There’s only three others like it in the world.”

“Only three others…?” Sairek repeated in a whisper. “And… I am to be responsible for one of those four…?”

“It is a very magical stone, Sairek. Laure will teach you how to use it in time. That’s what Melina asked her to do if she couldn’t be around to teach you herself. It is meant to protect the heir to the throne. If for any reason you are in trouble, it should keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe… how?” Sairek had asked.


Over the months, he had learned just exactly how. The jewel was essentially a giant pool to call ethereal upon and was highly enchantable as well. It can be used to make powerful shields, it can be used to cast spells offensively, it could be used to carry items, it could be used to even keep tabs on where he was, though he made sure to have that enchantment removed.

This tiny little jewel, of which only three others like it were known to exist in the world, were not only versatile, but powerful weapons. This jewel which was no bigger than one of his eyes.


...And here he was, right now, standing in a room filled with possibly a dozen of them, each one possibly up to six feet or more tall and at least half that in diameter around the middle.

And they seemed to be corrupted…

Slowly, with a shaking left hand, Sairek reached up to cup his own royal jewel tightly. The rest of his body began to shake and quiver as realization was dawning on him. “W-Wh… What… What is this…?” Was all he could manage to just shakily croak out from within his throat.

“S-Sairek… i-isn’t that… isn’t all of these–?” Cyial stammered.

Sairek gulped. “I-Including mine… there… there is only supposed to be four in the world… just as small as mine… This… This cannot… be… Th-There must be some mistake…!”

Varhi for his part seemed to be confused, but seeing all of their reactions, his expression was growing gravely concerned. “Wait, you’re saying that little jewel of yours, there’s only supposed to be four of them. I remember seeing Avotash with his… and yet here in this very room, there’s… all of these crystals… are like both of yours—just a lot bigger?”

Sairek uncupped his jewel and tugged the fabric of his clothes forward in front of him so Varhi could get a good look as he held the jewel. “C-Centuries ago, entire wars were fought by the four kingdoms just to obtain these tiny things. I know you keep hammering it in, but yes, people, especially back then were greedy... So what do you think it would mean if news of what’s right in front of us got out?” Sairek asked shakily.

“There would be fallout…” Varhi growled. “All the kingdoms would go to war to obtain these. It wouldn’t matter if this is on Masirean’s territory to them. Even then, if Avotash and Aylana got their hands on these, they’d go to war themselves because who could stop them at that point?” Varhi shook his head. “Whoever wrote that diary was right… these need to be destroyed or disabled somehow—but how?”

“They’re corrupt, so they may already be unusable… right? Maybe that’s what the person who wrote the diary did...” Nayleen suggested.

Varhi shifted his posture, thinking quietly for a moment. “...Maybe. It would certainly stop the world from being able to misuse these, which is good… but that’s created an entirely new problem. They’re still spewing out ethereal that is all corrupted like nobody’s business and spawning monsters that are repopulating alarmingly fast and corrupting the environment around them. If it doesn’t stop, it’s going to eventually take over all of Masirean, perhaps more… let alone this cloud that can explode, like you say.”

“That… may be the only option left…” Sairek murmured, slowly turning to look from Varhi to the crystals in front of them. “The amount of black magic required to neutralize this is… just impossible… not without some literal divine intervention from the Underworld itself…”

“There’s got to be a better way.” Varhi protested.

“Maybe seal the mines themselves by collapsing them… The fog may dissipate over years, maybe decades eventually and the area can be excluded off, but that could still cause problems later on. The energy down here would be building up becoming denser over time. Eventually it may result in a combustion anyway…” Cyial murmured. “And, the crystals would still exist. Someone would just find them and dig them up again later. Even if they’re corrupt, that doesn’t mean they may not be permanently unusable. At the very least, I have no doubt people would try to salvage them... potentially spreading the corruption to other areas as they did so.”

"Another Karvadean situation..." Varhi growled.

“It’s not like we can move them, either. They’re way too big, there’s way too many, and if they’re spawning monsters…” Nayleen trailed off.

“Dammit!” Varhi swore, hands balled into fists and teeth clenched. “You mean I came all of this way and suffered through all of this shit, an entire village died and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to make it at least a little bit better–? What the fuck!”
Varhi slammed his fist into the stone wall next to him, the lone stone that was unfortunate to receive his anger cracked under the force of the punch, causing a bit of rubble dust to fall off of it. The other three looked away uneasily, or down at the floor. The weight of their reality was starting to settle in. Varhi slowly removed his hand from the impact zone he left into the wall, growling in frustration. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly through his nose.
“...Fine...! If it can’t be helped, then it can’t be helped… There’s still more cavern left to explore. It seems they found this and still continued to dig past this point.” Varhi pointed with his left hand past the crystals. To the back left side of the dug out room, there was another little passageway. Wordlessly, Varhi began to march past and after a brief moment of hesitation, the other three followed, eyeing the crystals the entire time. They were even giving off the faintest of hums as they got closer to them. A hum they all droned in sync.

Entering the tunnel, it turned around from north to the west, then another turn back south, leading even further downwards quite steeply. Crudely crafted stairs allowed them to walk down, until they turned back west again and there was a small dug out room with what seemed to be a giant formation of crystals all piled together, although not the same crystals as what they were fearing, these ones were glowing much more faintly, and were more a greenish blue in color. The room was furnished with a simple table, chair, bed and a chest, with some common office items lying around and…

A body.

Sairek and Cyial both took sharp inhales of breath in shock at the sight, and Nayleen flinched. Varhi however held no reaction to it, instead, he walked right up to the body and turned it over. “Please forgive my intrusion…” he muttered to the deceased in apology. It had long decomposed, more skeleton than flesh at this point. Varhi groaned in disgust as he searched the clothes. Reaching into one of the pockets, he pulled out something metallic and stepped back up, holding up his hand. Sairek could see it was a key. “I’ve got it.” Varhi announced.

Despite everything, there was a chorus of a sigh of reliefs. “We can finally get out of here…” Sairek whispered.

“Hey, they’re holding a note…” Varhi noticed, bending back down to carefully wrestle the paper from the corpse’s rigor mortis. It was coated in mostly dried blood. “I don’t want to become one of them… I guess this was the foreman. Suicide, by knife.”

“I guess the people who died too quickly didn’t turn into them… at least they got their final wish.” Nayleen noted with bitterness in her voice.

“All we have to figure out now is how to get this key into the gate.” Cyial said.

“Didn’t we already come up with a plan?” Varhi asked.

“Your plan is awful.” Cyial rejected.

“Well, I don’t hear you giving out any ideas.” Varhi scoffed, crossing his arms in challenge at Cyial.

“Okay then. How about I use my shields to slowly lift someone up to the lock?” Cyial suggested.

Varhi instinctively opened his mouth to protest and paused, blinking twice. “Oh… Okay.”

“Well that didn’t take much convincing.” Cyial frowned.

Sairek and Nayleen looked at Cyial. “You… You can do that?” Sairek asked in astonishment.

“We’re about to find out.” Cyial shrugged. “At worst, it costs nothing.”

“Oh yeah, sure. Except me potentially falling down fifteen feet.” Varhi protested.

“Who said you had to do it?” Cyial asked.

Varhi blinked twice again. “Oh... Okay.”

Cyial bent himself forward, hands on his knees as he huffed. “Varhi, honestly…”

“I was going to suggest I do it anyway.” Nayleen volunteered with a shrug. “I’m lighter than both you and Sairek and I’m not going to risk you going up there Varhi, not with how hurt you are. At least let us do some of the work.”

“Okay… so… let me take one last look around the room for anything left and then we’ll start heading back.” Varhi said. “Once we get out of Karvadean, we’ll have to… uhm…”

“We know… A lot of thinking.” Nayleen sighed. “Do what you have to do.”

Varhi nodded and walked over to the furniture in one side of the room. It was all near the crystal pile and he attempted to open the chest, only to find it was locked. He began reaching for his sword.

“Hey, hey stop!” Sairek cried out. “What if there’s something fragile in there!”

“So what? If I can’t get it open then—”

“May I…?” Nayleen asked, walking up to Varhi and forcing him off to the side. She knelt down at the chest, examining the lock, to which she held out her hand expectantly. “Key.”

“Isn’t this for the gate?” Varhi asked, but handed her the key anyway. She grabbed it, slid it into the lock, turned the key and then lifted the lid of the chest open with her other hand, giving Varhi a smirk. Varhi squinted at her, but his curiosity allowed him to pry his gaze away from her to inside the chest, to which there was… a few sheets of paper.

“That’s… it?” Nayleen frowned.

Varhi reached down to take the paper and quickly sifted through them. “Oh… there’s a lot of data here… I’ll have to sort this out later with someone much smarter about this stuff than I.” He mused.

“We have to get out first.” Sairek said while taking a glance to look around the room, then froze, his eyes widened in horror.

“What?” Varhi asked, seeing his expression shift so suddenly. With where Sairek was standing, everyone was looking at him, while Sairek was looking behind them all. Varhi turned around to where Sairek was staring and his own eyes widened. “Oh, shit–! MOVE!!”

Ushering the three of them to get out of the way, Varhi shoved them towards the center of the room and glanced back behind himself as he did so. The crystals in the corner of the room that were piled next to the chest were moving, levitating in the air to begin forming a vague humanoid-like shape. There hadn’t even been any noise.

“What’s happening!?” Nayleen demanded, glancing back as well and seeing the sight before her.

“I think that’s a golem!” Cyial shouted. “They’re like slimes except made out of stone rather than liquid! That can include crystal!”

“And a lot damn more scary when it’s made out of corrupt magical crystals so get the fuck back up those stairs! We’re leaving! Even I'm not gonna fancy a fight with that! Move, move!” Varhi ordered. “There’s no way it should reach us past the stairs!”

Leading the way with the lantern still in his hand, Sairek bounded up the stairs and the others followed after him. He glanced back down as he reached the top to look past the other three following after him just in time to see this golem made out of crystals slam into the wall behind where they had been a few seconds ago, causing the foundation of the cave to shake, and Sairek could feel small dust pebbles landed in his hair.

“That thing’s going to tear this place apart. We’re leaving, now!” Varhi yelled, shoving past Sairek and the Prince quickly followed after him, with the other two in tow.

Running past all of the floating crystals, Varhi dashed towards the gate and grunted as he struggled to pull it back up again. Nayleen reached past Sairek and bent down to help him, allowing both Sairek and Cyial to quickly crawl through. Varhi gestured to Nayleen to go next with a tilt of his head and she crawled through, then held it up for Varhi on the other side, as did Cyial who reached over to help her. Varhi let go of the gate and began crawling through when another crash sounded behind him. He glanced back to see that the golem had made it up the stairs by separating parts of its body and was now reforming back together into a humanoid shape again. He crawled the rest of the way, where Cyial and Nayleen both grunted as the gate slammed shut.

“I thought you said it couldn’t get past the stairs!” Nayleen demanded, glancing at it from behind the steel and wooden beams.

“Okay, I was wrong, but the gate should at least slow it down some! Go, go!” Varhi shouted. Sairek was already ahead of them, leading the way back. They didn’t get very far past the T intersection before there was another crash of wood and steel that sounded behind them and the sound of some stones falling somewhere.

“I don’t think the gate slowed it down!” Nayleen glared at Varhi.

“Geez–!! All I did was take some damn papers! Why is it so angry–!?” Varhi shouted with a concerned glance back behind himself.

Rounding around into a turn westward past the intersection until they reached the end of the widened room and towards the long tunnel filled with lots of crystals, they were sprinting when suddenly the wall exploded in front of them. Sairek who was in front, had to shield himself using his staff to protect himself as best as he could as they skidded to a halt. When the dust cleared, Sairek looked up and took a couple of steps backwards in fear as the floating crystals formed into a vague humanoid shape, which could have stood about a dozen feet tall if it wasn’t hunched over in the tunnel that was only about eight feet in height. Sairek felt himself abruptly pulled back as Varhi switched places with Sairek and got in front of the Prince, unsheathing his sword out and positioned himself into a combat stance.

“Varhi, you can’t fight that!” Nayleen protested.

“Run back the way we came and slip past it through the opening it just created and get out of the cave. I’ll distract and stall it then join you guys afterwards.” Varhi commanded. “And don’t you start protesting! Do it! Now!”

The other three began backing up before turning back around, sprinting the way they just came from. As if their movements urged it into action, the golem began to shift its shape some and rush forward. Varhi reacted, swinging his sword up to slash at one of the crystals leading the front of its shape that looked vaguely like a fist, which seemed to “deflect” it back some and recoil, halting its advancement.

“I don’t think so…!” Varhi growled as he rebalanced his stance. “Come on, you’re nearly three times my size, let’s see how much you can move me!”



The trio panted for breath as they turned back around the corner and began working their way back around the wall. Along the other side, they could hear Varhi let out a shout before a loud clanging sound was heard.

“Oh Lands, I hope he’s going to be okay…!” Sairek huffed.

“Less talking, more running! We’re almost there…!” Nayleen scolded him.

After another half a minute, they made it back around and they carefully yet as quickly as they could, climbed over the rubble. Over the pile, they glanced back to see Varhi quite literally clashing his sword against one of the golem’s “fists”, struggling to fight back against it with the flat of his blade as weapon and crystals were deadlocked in a struggle to overpower each other.

“Varhi–!” Sairek yelled over.

He saw Varhi give him a quick glance. The knight gritted his teeth, shouting out in both pain and effort as he fought back even harder, then with the last ounce of endurance he could muster, he tilted the force of the golems punch off to just beside him, causing the punch to slam into the wall instead. A good chunk of rubble and a bit of shaking as Varhi made his way towards the trio caused him to stumble, scrambling past the body of the golem with his feet, knees and left hand that was free.

Dragging his sword along the ground, Varhi sprinted closer, climbed two chunks of rocky rubble like they were steps and vaulted over the rest of the pile that the trio had climbed over using his free left hand to hoist his body up. The rest of the group were already moving on ahead, though taking quick glances back.

“Varhi look out!” Sairek shouted as he took his glance behind himself at Varhi.

Varhi spun himself around instinctively and had begun moving his sword into a blocking motion, but it was too late. He was practically slammed into with a wall of crystal that knocked him off of his feet and with him releasing a piercing cry of pain at the impact, caused him to go flying right down the middle of the tunnel, hurling towards the trio as he rebounded twice along the ground like a rag doll.

“Sh-Shenkalin!! Sairek heard Cyial stammer desperately. Even though he knew using magic was risky, Cyial couldn’t sit idly by. Moving his shields, he positioned himself so the back of the shields would be facing Varhi, then manueverd them to press the two flat ends together, shaping them together like an upright C and using them both like a net. Cyial crouched down to give himself as much drag as he could just in time as Varhi rebounded off the ground a third time and flew into them, causing Cyial to be dragged along the ground like he was being pushed, until eventually both Cyial and Varhi’s speed slowed to a stop, saving Varhi from crashing into them—or anything else which would have hurt him even more.

Nayleen and Sairek both ran up to Varhi only a few feet behind them and moved to grab the boy out from Cyial’s protective cup of dual shields just as they were about to disappear.

“Ungh... nnh... I—I’m… I’m...” Varhi struggled to speak, trying to lift himself up, but he couldn’t even manage to do that. His beaten and exhausted body was shuddering in pain and his face was twisted into a pained grimace with one eye squinted closed, and his teeth clenched in effort. A high pitched gasp of pain released from him as his body collapsed helplessly into the shields, twitching in seizure like motions from being in so much pain, even he couldn't endure it anymore.

“Shit…” Sairek swore. “Nayleen, grab him and don’t argue, just go! I’ll be fine!”

Nayleen looked at Sairek worriedly, but moved to pick Varhi up, carrying the boy in her arms, who cried out weakly in agony at being moved so suddenly and quickly, his form nearly limp, just only managing to keep a grip on his sword with one hand. “Ugh… he’s heavy too…” She grunted. Cyial was already running back to meet up with her to help.

Sairek turned around in time to see that the golem was making its way towards them. He placed the lantern on the ground and with his now free hand, moved it to cup the royal jewel, channeling energy out from it.


“AAAAAAGGGHHHHHHH!!!”


He screamed and released a strong torrent of wind, so strong that chunks of the cavern walls or the crystals embedded inside of it were broken off or wedged free and strong enough to even cause the crystals of the golem to struggle against it, causing the “form” of the golem to be dragged backwards several feet. Sairek continued to scream until his lungs felt like they were going to burst, but eventually, the cavern walls in front of him began to collapse. He stopped screaming and cut off the flow of energy, grimacing as he still cupped the jewel in his left and while he turned around and dashed off as fast as his legs could carry him, abandoning the lantern as more and more rubble fell around behind him, starting to collapse the structure of the cavern. He began climbing the steps to lead back outside, with Nayleen and Cyial carrying Varhi almost all of the way there, Nayleen holding him under his arms and Cyial holding his legs. Sairek helped them by supporting Varhi’s middle when he caught up to them, where they moved to set Varhi gently down on the ground outside.

“Varhi…?” Sairek asked gently, but his tone betrayed he was scared.

“Unnh...ugh…” Varhi grunted. Conscious, but he wasn’t able to articulate anything cohesive other than a strangled noise to acknowledge Sairek.

“He’s hurt really bad… we can’t stay here though. Herders definitely would have both felt and heard that.” Nayleen said through clenched teeth.

Cyial moved to grab Varhi’s sword out of the grip he had on it and moved the boy, who cried softly in protesting pain at being moved once again. Cyial pushed the sword back into its sheath. “We’re going to have to make a run for it, I don’t know if Varhi can take it though…”

“G...Go…!” Varhi managed to rasp through sharp inhales of breath.

“Sairek, I know you’re already carrying a lot, but can you do it? I need to put the key into the lock and pray to Yggdrasil this works.” Nayleen said.

“Y-Yeah, bring him here, Cyial you can use my staff for now. It’s just like the book, probably. It might help.” Sairek said.

“O-Okay.” Cyial said, taking Sairek’s staff, which the Prince exchanged for carrying Varhi.

Nayleen helped him settle the wounded boy on Sairek’s back. He felt Varhi shuddering behind him. The other boy was trying to hold on tightly, but his grip around Sairek was extremely weak and he had to do most of the work. He heard Varhi groaning softly or letting out what could only be described as whines of pain occasionally. “Sit tight, we’re going to get you out of here, Varhi…” Sairek tried to reassure him. He could hear Varhi grunt, while giving a subtle, weak nod.

Walking forwards, Nayleen and Cyial lead the way, going briskly, but not too quickly to go ahead of Sairek, who pushed himself through using as much strength and endurance he had to go as quickly as he could. Within the first thirty seconds, he was sweating and huffing from the effort, but this wasn’t like Fuyiki’s exercise regimens. He couldn’t give up here. He was more thankful than ever for the old man teaching him such discipline, because now it quite possibly was helping him save somebody’s life. No—Not just somebody. A friend.

They hugged along the wall, with Nayleen and Cyial much further ahead, though still keeping themselves within viewing distance of Sairek. Sairek himself was glancing behind himself, both to keep an eye behind, but also to constantly check Varhi’s status. The boy’s face was covered in a film of sweat, with more droplets rolling down his forehead or bangs of his hair plastered just over his eyes, which were closed as he continued to pant and groan. It looked like he was getting worse. “Just hang in there for a little longer, we’re almost there…” Sairek whispered to him.

When he glanced back, he saw Cyial positioning himself, holding the staff in his left hand and his book in his right. “Shenkalin. Cyial chanted, conjuring the shields, larger in size this time, where he then moved to lay himself on the ground, flat on his back. Then he pulled both his hands while gripping both the book and staff within them close to his chest, which caused the shields to be pulled together like he had cupped them together for Varhi, but low on the ground for Nayleen to step on them. “Okay… stand on top of them. Hurry.” Cyial urged.

Nayleen looked down, giving an uneasy look, but slowly stepped onto them both, wobbling a bit, but balancing herself against the wall with one hand. Sairek watched as Cyial’s face shifted and he closed his eyes tight for a moment, grunting, as if he was lifting weights. He slowly began pushing his arms up and he saw Nayleen beginning to be raised up along the wall, a couple inches at a time, rising higher and higher. She moved both her hands along the wall now, moving them like she was climbing, except without the usage of her feet or legs as Cyial raised her higher and higher.

“S-Sairek… I need you to guide me…” Cyial grunted. “How am I doing…?”

Sairek moved to kneel down onto one knee to rest as best as he could with Varhi on his back and glanced up to see Nayleen and her position to the key socket. “You’re doing good, Cyial. A little more to your left and a bit higher to go.” Sairek directed and continued to direct Cyial in similar fashion, until Sairek told him to hold position. By then, Cyial was huffing in exhaustion, with his face starting to be covered in a film of sweat.

From where Nayleen was, while she wasn’t afraid of heights, this was a whole new experience for her. She fished for the key in her pocket, and placed it against the lock and pushed in, giving it a turn. She let out a huge sigh of relief to see that not only did it work on the chest, but the gate as well. She turned around and gave a thumbs up to Sairek down below.

“It worked!” Sairek almost laughed with a sigh of relief.

“‘K-Kay… Bringing her... down…” Cyial huffed, slowly beginning to pull his arms back down towards himself. Nayleen saved him some trouble by volunteeringly jumping off when she was about halfway down, causing Cyial to sigh in relief and release the energy. He groaned, slowly sitting up, wiping the sweat off his face with his arms.

When Nayleen landed, she moved to help Cyial stand back up on his two feet and dust him off. “You did fantastic Cyial. Great job. Nice thinking to save Varhi earlier, too.”

Cyial blushed a little at her praises. “Th...Thanks… but I’ll feel better when we’re actually out of here. Let’s go.”

“Agreed.”

Both Cyial and Nayleen moved to the doors and shoved. With a creaking groan followed by a low whine, they began to creak open. They held the door open for Sairek and he pushed himself back up to his feet and walked on through, then they closed the gate back up behind themselves after passing through them as well.

Sairek remembered Varhi saying that past the gates was a cemetery, and as they walked forward through the fog, that was apparently true. Off to their left was a few graves… which Sairek noted that some seemed to be… uprooted. That caused him to gulp. Apparently old corpses weren’t entirely immune to being controlled as well after all...

“We need to follow the pathway this way from what I saw of Varhi’s map.” Cyial said, leading the way. “There should be another gate just over here.”

“Hopefully it’s not as stupidly large as the last one.” Nayleen grumbled.

Sairek glanced back as he heard Varhi coughing weakly, then turned his head slightly to spit off to his side. The dark red informed Sairek that there was some blood mixed in with that saliva. They had to hurry. Even though his body was protesting at him, Sairek picked up the pace. If Varhi could afford to push himself as far as he had done, then what he was doing now was nothing in comparison. “He’s getting worse, hurry,” he urged them.

Jogging on ahead, Nayleen reached the gates, which were indeed much smaller in comparison and tested it. It didn’t open, so she searched around the surface, then found another lock, this one in reach. She used the key on that one too, after which Cyial pushed it open and held it open for Sairek and Nayleen both, before closing it up and following behind them.

“Okay, we should be out of Karvadean village territory properly now… there may be more herders along the way… which way do we go now, though…?” Nayleen asked.

“F...Follow… the path… just keep going…” Varhi rasped, then coughed once weakly. He lifted his head up from Sairek’s shoulder and looked at Nayleen through half-lidded eyes. “There… There should be a… a rope bridge… further south… going eastward over the river… that leads out to the ocean…
“After the bridge… the path should head back up north… through the mountains… It’s a steep climb, just like the way you took… to find me, but… but I think you guys can… manage it…” Then seemingly out of energy, Varhi lowered his head back against Sairek’s shoulder and closed his eyes, preserving what little he had left.

They kept walking along the dirt pathway, where they looked down and their fears were true, as orange spotted mushrooms on the ground showed that the corruption reached this way too. “Let me lead.” Cyial whispered quietly. “We’re against this cliff face to our right… and a drop down to the river bank below on our left… so the only way is forwards… If there’s any herders in the way, we’ll have to take them out.”

“There’s no running by them like this.” Nayleen agreed with a nod. She reached for her bow. “I don’t suppose you know any offensive magic, do you?”

“No… b-but I could try something, with Sairek’s staff… maybe.” Cyial suggested.

“Now’s not a good time to be running experiments, Cyial.” Nayleen sighed. “Well, I guess we may not have a choice, though… Okay, let’s go.”

Cyial nodded and led the way, moving about a good fifteen feet ahead of them. Sairek huffed as he kept walking. Varhi’s weight was starting to do him in. The boy was far from light because of all of his equipment and all of it was practically dead weight, too. Sairek couldn’t keep up the brisk pace he had been trying to go at anymore. He was starting to slow down and had to take a few seconds to pause to compose himself to keep going. He felt sweat beading his forehead, but he didn’t stop. He grunted in an effort to continue walking.

“Sairek…” He heard Varhi whisper, causing the prince to turn his head to glance as best as he could behind himself at the other boy. “Why…?” Varhi spoke.

“Why what…?” Sairek whispered back.

“...This…” was all Varhi could articulate.

“I didn’t think despite your state, you were capable of asking such rhetorical questions.” Sairek grunted, taking more steps forwards.

He heard Varhi begin to weakly chuckle, which turned into a wheezing cough. “N-No… Y-You’re… hurting me… No laughing...” He slurred, good naturedly.

Sairek almost smiled at that. “Look Varhi, I’m doing this because just like you, I want to do what I believe is right, and I believe that people shouldn't need a reason to help each other in need. Not only that, but because I care. Even if you don’t think I should, I care.
“I care about people. I care about life and I even care about you. A lot of people care about you and if they don’t, eventually as people get to know you, they will. Maybe there’s plenty of people who already do and you just can’t remember them yet.”
Sairek forced himself to press forward, taking a moment to pause to catch his breath, panting, he felt a bead of sweat drop from his face onto the ground. His muscles were burning, but he still forced himself to carry the injured boy on his back and press forwards. “I can’t say I understand what it’s like to feel like you have nowhere to belong… but you don’t have to search alone, Varhi. Friends help each other… because friends care about each other. There’s no obligation… no contracts… no favors… So don’t think you owe any of us anything for this. We’re going to get you out of here because your life is worth saving. It’s worth so much more…!”

“S-Stop it…!” Varhi whispered, closing his eyes tightly and pressing his face against Sairek’s shoulder. “Stop it…” He repeated again, whatever force he had managed to muster the first time having evaporated entirely.

“The fog!” Sairek heard Cyial shout ahead of them. Sairek pushed himself forward, picking up the pace despite his body burning in protest. He moved more and more, until… he could finally see. See everything in front of him. No more green fog—he could see the night sky with the stars twinkling up above and the moon now, almost full, high in the sky on a clear night. He couldn’t help but collapse on one knee, breathing and panting in relief. They weren’t out of this yet, but they had just become so much more safe and they could freely use magic again if it really came down to it.

“Are you okay?” Nayleen asked, moving up to Sairek.

“Y-Yeah… Just give me a moment…" Sairek sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. "Actually, do you mind if you help feed us both a gulp of ethereal…?” Sairek asked.

“I’ll take Varhi and you can do it yourself, if you want.” Nayleen offered.

Sairek glanced back at Varhi for a moment, who was saying nothing. “...Varhi…?” He asked. Still no response.

Nayleen slowly grabbed Varhi off of Sairek’s back and lay him down on the ground. Cyial by now had moved back to see what was going on. Nayleen checked his pulse and listened for breathing. Her concerned expression relaxed. “He’s just unconscious. That’s actually probably a good thing. The pain may have become too much. At least like this he’s not suffering. Poor kid is probably utterly exhausted, too.” Nayleen observed Sairek who was panting for breath and crouched down onto one knee. He pinched his jewel, which Nayleen eyed and saw by now it was an amber color. “Geez… just how much energy did you use to yell at that golem?” She asked.

“Err… I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll be honest, what I did was pretty inefficient, but I couldn’t think of anything else. So I just… threw everything I had at it. It wasn't even a spell.” Sairek grumbled. He conjured a nearly empty flask of ethereal, then opened it and took a swig from it first, his face grimacing as he forced himself to gulp the terrible taste down. Catching his breath again, he handed the flask to Nayleen. “Give him the rest of this, please.”

She took it, but eyed it. “But the jewel—”

Sairek shook his head. “We’re almost out of ethereal Nayleen and Varhi may need the rest of it. I’ll manage. We’re almost out of here. I can let the jewel recover on its own when we do.”

“Okay.” She acknowledged, taking the remainder of the flask. Sairek helped her lift Varhi’s upper half a little and to tilt his head back as she poured the remainder of the flask into his mouth, which he gulped unconsciously until the flask was dry. “There. Help me get him on my back.” Nayleen said, sheathing her bow around her shoulder.

Both Cyial and Sairek lifted the boy upright and settled him onto Nayleen’s back. When that was done, Cyial handed Sairek his staff back and the Prince nodded his thanks. Both of them led the way with Nayleen trailing at the back now. “The bridge is over there, do you see it?” Cyial asked, pointing with his free hand past the tall valley they were in.

“Going to be a few minutes before we can even reach it and it doesn’t look completely stable. How are we going to get Varhi across?” Sairek questioned.

“Maybe I can air lift him across using my shields again…?” Cyial suggested.

“Can you even reach that far with them? That bridge is a good fifty feet long at least, Cyial.” Sairek said.

“If he loses this armor and sword, he’ll be much easier to carry across.” Nayleen suggested from the back.

“I… I’m not sure I can carry much more in the jewel. It’s almost out of energy, too.” Sairek stammered, glancing back.

“We don’t need to. Just use your hands. We can redress him again afterwards once we ferry him and the gear across. It would make it much safer.” She said.

“I guess that could work… I don’t see any herders to interrupt us while we’re doing that.” Cyial said, glancing around them slowly. “I hope Varhi won’t mind the intrusion of privacy…”

“Given his attitude before, I don’t think he would care.” Sairek commented dryly as he stopped walking for a moment to begin peering over the edge of the cliff face they were on. “Besides, we’re not spoiled for choice—” He froze as what he saw gave him pause. “I… I’ve found the herders and spriggans…”

Cyial peered down as well, though Nayleen stayed back, not risking losing balance with Varhi unconscious on her back. What both boys saw down below were lots of rather flattened herders that seem to have fallen off the edge from around the height they were currently standing, which was a good hundred feet drop or more, some herder corpses were even blocking bits of the river, though it didn’t seem the corruption had quite reached down there fully, some trees were looking a bit sickly. “They really don’t have any height or spatial awareness it seems, or if they do, it’s incredibly poor…” Cyial commented, pushing himself back up to his feet and leading the way once again, Sairek following behind.

“That should make this area safer. It’s practically just cliffs. I guess maybe we should be cautious of any of them falling from above on top of us, though…” Nayleen said, glancing up. The rest of the cliff they were on was about thirty to forty feet above them, give or take.

“Not for long hopefully, once we cross this bridge, we should be safe.” Sairek said as they neared the foot of the bridge. “Okay, set him down Nayleen, we’ll strip him and carry his gear from here.”

Nayleen did as ordered, slowly laying Varhi down with Cyial moving to help lay the boy gently on the ground. Varhi gave a weak groan from within his throat. “Sorry…” Cyial whispered to the unconscious boy. “This will be over soon, just hold on a bit longer...”

With all three of them working together, they removed all of Varhi’s armor, leaving him in just undergarments underneath. Cyial carried the leather armor and sword, while Sairek carried the rest, the gauntlets, boots, and cape and the satchel over his shoulder, Varhi’s helmet was put inside the satchel, while Nayleen carried Varhi himself on her back. “Yeah, that’s much easier for now.” She commented.

Sairek glanced at the bridge. “This rope bridge looks to be in pretty good condition and it’s generously wide, I think it can hold our weights like this, but it looks like it will be hard to balance on like this if the wind blows. Let’s take it one at a time, just in case.”

“I’ll go first then. The sooner we get Varhi across, the better.” Nayleen said, moving to step on the bridge. Sairek and Cyial set their items of Varhi’s down for now to watch, holding the bridge on both ends as if that would help steady it somehow. Nayleen took it slow, one step every couple of seconds, always fully recovering her balance after each step. It took a few minutes, with the middle most section with her being even slower as that’s where the bridge was wobbling the most, but eventually she managed to reach the other side.

“You next, or myself?” Cyial asked.

“I’ll go next. If something does happen, maybe you can use those shields to catch me or something.” Sairek said.

“Don’t talk like that Sairek… You really are afraid of heights, aren’t you?” Cyial frowned.

“I think I have a healthy amount of fear about the potential possibility of me being able to slip and then proceeding to plummet a hundred feet down below to my death, thank you very much.” Sairek replied sarcastically as he picked the items up. “Unmph… how does he manage to move around so fast in these, while he was injured, no less…?”

“He’s definitely special. Take it slow, Sairek.” Cyial cautioned him. Advice he knew Sairek didn’t need, but he felt compelled to say it anyway.

Like Nayleen, Sairek slowly took steps, though as heavy as the armor was, it was still lighter to carry than Varhi himself was. After carrying Varhi while dressed for a couple of miles on his back, carrying his items in his arms could almost be considered easy, even if it was on a slightly wobbly bridge.

Sairek made it towards Nayleen uneventfully, in which he bent down and put the items on the ground next to Varhi’s prone body. He glanced at the other boy. Nayleen had his upper half leaning back into her so he wasn’t lying bare on the cold ground. Even in his unconscious state, the boy was letting out a groan with almost every breath, his body covered in a thick film of sweat all over. It was also now that Sairek could get a good look at the damage on Varhi’s body. There were several bruises all over him, the old one on the left side which was looking worse, and then another one on his right arm, when he had tried to block the golem’s punch. There were also a couple of other bruises over both of his legs.

“He’s getting worse…” Nayleen muttered, concern clearly etched on her face.

Sairek pulled the satchel off from around his arm and dug into it, looking for Varhi’s map of the area. Because he was unfamiliar with the dimensional space inside of the satchel, it was hard to find, but eventually he managed to grab it and unfurled it to take a look at their position. “The path should lead right out into the northern mountains. From there we should be able to curl around them to meet back to the rendezvous point where Jimmy dropped us off at. We might be able to get there in an hour and a half… maybe an hour if we can hurry like this. Hopefully Jimmy is there and we can give him proper medical attention on the ship.”

“Can he even survive that long…?” Nayleen whispered.

Sairek thought for a moment. “I think I may have an idea that will be an easier way to carry him, but it will have to be once we get out of these mountains. For now, carrying him on our backs is probably the safest way to get him down. You heard Varhi, it’s as steep down as it was coming up.”

Nayleen glanced up and Sairek turned around as Cyial managed to step onto their side of the bridge. The little demon boy was panting from exhaustion, dropping onto his knees to set the gear down. “Are you okay?” Nayleen asked.

“This—This is a lot more physical labor and casting of magic in the past hour than I am used to…” Cyial huffed. “I’ll be fine… Varhi he’s… not doing okay, is he…?”

Sairek and Nayleen both shook their heads with the latter speaking. “We don’t have time. We have to hurry. Cyial take a minute to rest while Sairek and I get him dressed again. It’ll only get more chilly from here. If the wounds don’t kill him, the cold would.”

They began moving Varhi again, getting him dressed and when they were moving to finish putting his leather armored shirt back on, Varhi let out a weak, high-pitched cry of pain, followed by some shrill pants for air. Weakly, Varhi’s eyes opened, having returned to consciousness, looking wordlessly up at them in what looked like a pleading look.

Sairek’s heart was torn with grief. He was angry there was nothing they could do for the boy now. “We’re almost there Varhi. We’re safe now. We just need to walk the distance.” Sairek tried to reassure the other boy.
Slowly, shakily, Varhi raised his right hand a couple of inches and gave a thumbs-up, before dropping his hand on his stomach as if the rest of his energy had been expended. “I’ll carry him again this time until we’re down the mountain.” Sairek volunteered.

“Again? Aren’t you exhausted from carrying him the first time?” Cyial asked.

“I can do it—I want to do it.” Sairek answered. “Besides, I think Nayleen would be better at navigating the trail down and leading us than you and I would both could together. We're out of herder territory. I don't need to be ready to cast magic.” Sairek looked over Varhi who was watching them. “Brace yourself, Varhi, we need to move you again.”

Varhi looked at Sairek, gave a sigh like he was being gravely inconvenienced by this news, which made Sairek crack a faint smirk. Varhi then closed his eyes, breathed in deep, then held it. At that signal, the three of them began moving Varhi as Sairek turned around, having his back face Varhi while he stood crouched.

“Nnn...NNNGH…” Varhi groaned intensely through clenched teeth, followed by a sharp gasp as his weight was settled on Sairek. His arms moved in the motion to wrap around Sairek’s front, but there was no real grip to them like there had been last time, even though it had been subtle. Seemingly realizing this himself, Varhi gave a pained groan, as his arms slowly slackened and dangled loosely over Sairek’s front.

Sairek heard Varhi letting out high-pitched gasps as he tried to recover from the experience. Cyial reached down to collect Sairek’s staff again, who settled Varhi once more on his back completely. “Okay. I’ve got him.” Sairek confirmed.
They all took one last look from the side of the valley they came from, looking at the large cloud of dark green that ominously flowed in the distance, still visible in the night sky.

Varhi lifted his head from Sairek’s left shoulder, releasing a strained sigh. “...Goodbye… Karvadean…” He managed to say quietly, though they all had heard him.

“...Let’s go.” Sairek said in finality, turning away from the disaster they all had only just managed to escape from and worked their way back along the path that began descending back downwards to proper ground level.