“Just don’t look down… just don’t look down… just—”
...Sairek looked down.
He couldn’t help it. There was just… so much noise down there, groaning sounds, wailing sounds, lumbering thumps from so many of the monsters moving around or bumping into each other down into the crater...
What an absolute mess… Even if they themselves managed to get out of here alive, how in the world was anyone supposed to clean this situation up?
Regardless, at least the danger was down there and not up where he was. If they were fortunate, that… that mass of them down below could be the vast majority of these monstrosities. He couldn’t imagine what terror this would have been if all of those creatures down below were not in 'The Pits' right now; how much more dangerous and scary this all would be.
Passing over the spire of land and successfully crossing the second bridge and away from The Pits, Sairek felt his legs fail him and he fell onto his knees and his left hand with a choked exhale of relief. Cyial rushed over to pick him back up to his feet, but he was dead weight at the moment.
“Are you sure you’re not afraid of heights?” Varhi commented. “You keep collapsing every time we pass over any place with heights."
“Yeah, it’s totally the height I’m afraid of... and not the fifty or so monsters that were below me…!” Sairek shot back, annoyed, frustrated—scared.
“You both need to be quiet, please…” Cyial growled in warning, his voice tense. “Because of all of those things down there, I can’t sense anything clearly what may be up ahead, and… well, just look what’s up ahead of us now."
Sairek and Varhi did just that. It looked like there were quite a number of rocky cutouts carving multiple paths. Though they all lead to the same direction it seemed and possibly the same place, their path descended back into the fog.
"So many places they could be just out of line of sight within that... and we'll be back in foggy territory to boot..." Nayleen groaned.
“Alright, we’ll maintain verbal silence until we’re through or I say otherwise. Communicate using mostly gestures or whispering if you really have to.” Varhi sighed, reaching over to help Cyial pick Sairek back up onto his feet as well. Sairek still had to use his staff to support some of his weight.
They resumed their walking, sticking to their formation. They had been in there for only a couple of minutes where they all heard a ‘thump… thump… thump…’ on their left side, past their little rocky outcrop, causing them all to stiffen and freeze. Varhi immediately crouched low to the ground, gesturing to them with his palm to stop slowly. Varhi himself moved stealthily despite being dressed partially in both chain and plate mail, especially his steel silver sabatons across the ground with barely making any sound, as well as slowly drawing his sword from its sheath. His movements to reduce sound he made were clearly practiced. He began approaching the corner, when the thumping started again and they all choked on their bated breaths as a brown herder walked right in front of them and then turned to face them.
“Okay, forget the verbal silence! Run! Get back–!” Varhi barked in command. A useless order as Sairek and Cyial were already up and fleeing at a sprint with Nayleen already positioning to flee as well. Varhi already had his sword ready and moved to swing from right to left slicing two of the beast’s… six ‘legs’ off. It staggered, but still managed to stay upright. Varhi took that opportunity to spin himself with the momentum of his swing to have his back facing the creature and sprint off as well, gesturing to Nayleen to move. She turned around and began following behind as well.
“Run to the right! I’m going to use this ‘wall’ as cover to get hits in, keep going!” Varhi ordered Sairek and Cyial ahead of them.
The two boys up ahead moved at his command. Both Cyial and Sairek yelled out in horror as they rounded the corner to see another brown herder turning around to face them. “There’s another one!” Sairek yelled back.
“Dammit…" Varhi cursed. This was getting worse by the moment and getting out of control. They needed to reset and prevent being pincered or further ambushed by surprise like this.
"Run back out! Sairek, Cyial, I need your magic, get to the bridges and out of this fog!” Varhi ordered.
The lumbering thumps got louder and Varhi glanced back to see the herder he had hit was charging at him, but the four of them were much faster, the attack to one-third of its total ‘legs’ seeming to have done at least some impact in slowing it down. The four of them ran back onto the bridge, out of the fog. Varhi skidded along the ground as he spun around, stopping a dozen feet in front of the bridge and took position. Unlike the bridge he held out on before, there was no stream to break his fall if he happened to get slapped right off… One hit would most likely be enough to send him flying into the abyss down into the wailing mass of horrific monstrosities below. If the fall didn't end him, the monsters down there certainly would.
The other three for their part stopped some distance in the middle of the bridge behind Varhi, now well outside of the anomalous cloud. Both Sairek and Cyial raised their staff and tome respectively, readying themselves.
Varhi quickly adjusted the inside of his satchel with his left hand as the herder continued to stumble towards him. When it got closer and readied its right tendril to aim a swing at him, Varhi shifted his weight and dashed forwards two steps, then jumped forwards into a diving roll, hearing the tendril slap hard at the ground behind himself. He positioned his sword mid-roll and with a battle cry of exertion, used the momentum of his roll to swing hard onto the herder straight downwards. His sword sliced through the herder’s front, splitting the wooden parts of it, but not making a cut clean through. However, while it hissed in pain and was still alive, the damage he had done so far was beginning to add up.
“Ethirul!”
Varhi tilted his head back to take a quick glance behind himself and opted to stay crouched down, A large rock smoldering in fire launched from Sairek’s staff, arching just slightly in the air. Varhi tilted his body to the right slightly and braced his left arm in front of his face as the fireball Sairek launched slammed right where he had weakened the herder’s form. Its body buckled and then exploded into chunks of mushroom and tree in its top half. Varhi grunted in a bit of effort and lifted his sword up as additional cover from some of the heat, rocks and chunks of the herder that washed over him.
Well, he supposed that was one of them handily taken care of… Magic was useful sometimes, when it was on his side, anyway.
He unbraced himself and righted back up onto his feet. That other brown herder was approaching, but still going slowly. He wondered what provoked one to come charging and provoked the others to only shamble along slowly… it would really help if they could understand these things better. Understanding how a monster worked or behaved was vital to survival sometimes. It’s what had kept him alive and relatively unharmed against the cravenbat flock, after all, but he supposed right now, they weren’t able to afford such a luxury.
“Keep back, Sairek and I got this!” Nayleen called out to Varhi from behind him.
Varhi didn’t do any motion of acknowledgement, but he began to slowly step backwards, keeping his knees bent and his sword even at his right side, keeping it just below his waist, stepping back at the same slow pace just out of range of the herder, from what he understood how far they could reach, anyway.
He watched as an arrow whizzed over him, glowing a red-orange at the tip and sank into the herder. It let out what Varhi could only guess was a displeased hissing sound as its footsteps quickly picked up pace towards them. A few seconds later, an identical arrow with the same tip shot into the herder.
“Vulkenhai!”
Varhi might have chuckled in amusement if their situation wasn’t so serious. At Sairek's command, on the inside, the herder lit up like a jack o’ lantern before a fiery explosion made it inflate almost comically for a second before the thing just burst into an explosion of flame and raw kinetic energy. At least this time Varhi was far enough away that he didn’t get splattered by bits of it or even have to shield himself.
“Well, that’s that. It’s a shame we won’t have the same luxury of using magic in a couple of minutes, probably.” Varhi commented, looking down at the pieces of the herder's burning corpse. He hooked his head back to look at Sairek, who was breathing a bit hard. “Make sure you fill yourself back up. Like you said earlier, you don’t want to be breathing and sucking in a lot of this stuff.” Varhi cautioned him with a hook of his thumb at the green cloud in front of them.
“Y-Yes…" Sairek agreed, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out a flask. He made a small grimace as he pulled the cap up, bracing himself for the bitter taste before he took a hearty swig. “Uurrghh… pllleeehhhh…”
Satisfied, Varhi began marching forward, sheathing his sword and signalling the others with a gesture of his left hand to get back into formation out of habit. The other three didn’t quite recognize the gesture, but they went back to it soon enough.
They retraced their steps back to where they were before they began their 'tactical retreat' and pressed onward, keeping low and keeping silent for over twenty minutes. Occasionally, they would hear distant thumping in the distance and they all remained tense. Visibility was so low here, with these small rocky crops or little boulders everywhere. Any one of those things could be lurking just around any obstacle.
However, it seemed luck was still largely on their side, as they continued walking, a faded stone pathway made out of large bricks became visible in the dirt and Varhi followed it. Shortly after it lead them to the base of a mountain, with an entrance that housed a set of stairs leading downwards, much too small to fit any of the herder creatures. It looked very old, with moss covering the surface down into darkness, but Varhi graciously moved inside of it, with the others following him.
“Damn, it’s dark down here.” Varhi grumbled a moment later. “Anyone got a light?”
“I… I have my magic, but…” Sairek whispered.
“You should be safe down here, Sairek. The cloud isn’t reaching underneath here.” Cyial said. “If… If that’s okay with you, Varhi.”
“But if he has to use other magic, the light goes out, right?” Varhi asked.
“Y-Yes, it would… Unless I used Balinzer itself.” Sairek answered. "Or the jewel, I suppose."
“I'm not risking us being left in the dark and no need to risk us possibly exploding by being near the entrance, no matter how low the chances are. We’ll just stick with a lamp, at least for now. I have plenty of fuel for it.” Varhi said, digging around in his satchel. Despite being almost too big for such an item, he managed to pull one out, then fumbling with it in the dark, he turned it on and lit the nearby area around them in a yellow-orange glow.
There was nothing too remarkable though. It was just a hallway, with stone that was perhaps once white, but had aged to a pale yellow like pages in an old worn book, with lots of green moss covering the surfaces all around. Varhi swore he could hear a few drops of water dripping in the distance, but he wasn’t sure. The lamp only lit between fifteen to twenty feet around them.
“Well, I don’t think any of them are down here, but I suppose a few Spriggans could have waddled their way in. That, or the exit on the other side of this tunnel is way wider than I’m giving it credit for.” Varhi mused.
“Is this actually the right way?” Nayleen asked.
“According to the map Jimmy gave me... Let's take a look, shall we?” Varhi suggested, reaching into his satchel and rummaging within it in one hand. “Someone mind holding this for me?” He requested, holding the lamp out while searching. Cyial reached over to grab the lamp from Varhi’s hold, putting his book back into his robes for now. Varhi, now with double the searching capabilities, dug both hands into his satchel until he pulled out a rolled up parchment and unrolled it, placing the map against the stony walls so the others could crowd around and see. “If I remember correctly, this tunnel goes through a small mountain from the west side and exits out from the eastern side. This should be the halfway point. After that, we’ll exit to a quarry. Once we clear the quarry, we’ll basically be at Karvadean’s doorstep, it's just a short walk from there. Maybe five or ten minutes at most if we aren't attack along the way.”
Sairek studied the map. It was pretty much a map of the ring of mountains around them, as well as Osha in the bottom right corner. He could see the path they traveled up to until now. The dotted line drawn on the map indicating the intended pathways seemed to be more or less accurate with the hand drawn images. The mountain they were in now looked like it led straight through, leaning slightly southward.
“Well, it looks like no massive forests are nearby on the other side of this mountain, so maybe there will be less of them?” Nayleen suggested, trying to bring a little bit of hope.
“No trees, but there’s certainly people. A whole town of them. Remember what I said earlier.” Varhi cautioned her as he pulled the map away from the wall, rolled it up, and carefully placed it back into his satchel. “For all we know, up ahead can become much, much worse. Just be glad I killed so many of them earlier and led even more of them away from the area. I’ve been trying to get to this tunnel for the better part of the week. This is completely new territory for me beyond this point. I have no idea how bad it may be or what we're going to find.”
“At least the corruption isn’t down here. The air is stale but we can always fall back to rest here if needed. It also may make a good choke point.” Nayleen said.
“Yeah, but whether magic is allowed down here or not, I don’t want any explosions. Last thing we need is to die from the structure collapsing on top of us.” Varhi said, facing the stone wall again and knocking on it with the plate end of his gauntlets. “This stuff looks really old and clearly hasn’t been maintained well, but it looks sturdy as long as we don't mess with it. Regardless, let’s keep going. We still got half of daylight left or so.”
Varhi lead the march again, with Cyial directly behind him so he could provide lantern light, followed by Nayleen and Sairek at the back. The tunnels were long, almost reminding Sairek of the tunnel they walked in Lamen. It was about the same size in width. However, after about ten minutes of just walking in a straight line, there was an abrupt turn south, and it wasn’t difficult to see why as up ahead was a pile of boulders and rubble.
“Well, if I had any doubts about this place indeed being old with questionable structure integrity…” Varhi grumbled with a sigh and glanced to their right. “This part here must be newer. It certainly looks that way. Instead of digging the rocks out, they may have just built around the caved-in tunnel. The stone down here looks less aged.”
Heading south now, the tunnel here was actually double the width, allowing them a bit more breathing room, and after walking south for a solid minute, it abruptly turned eastward again. Another five minutes of walking led to a pair of doors that had been… broken off of its hinges, and the door on the other side of the room had met with a similar fate.
“That’s not a good sign.” Varhi sighed.
"Hopefully it just rusted off its hinges or something." Nayleen commented.
Cyial glanced around, looking around the room with Varhi’s lamp. It was fairly sizable, with alcoves dug in, and designed into the stonework. On these alcoves, were about half a dozen rusty pickaxes. Cyial reached over to begin picking one up for examination, then let go of it with a startled gasp when a spider crawled into view and scurried hastily along the wall and retreated into one of the cracks in the chipped brickwork. Stepping away, a bit more uncomfortable than he had already been a moment ago, Cyial took one last quick glance around the room. “What was this room for…?” He mumbled.
“Probably an area set up to let the miners or… maybe even just people in general to rest in.” Nayleen suggested, glancing around. “We could use this to camp in. It’s spacious enough for all of us. You said it’s noon, right Varhi? We've been walking, fighting and climbing non-stop, not to mention breathing that fog stuff in. Let’s take a quick break to collect ourselves and refill our bellies.”
“Hmm, okay. However, before we do that, we still need to make sure the area is secure.” Varhi said. “Sairek, you can use balinzer and take out whatever you need here. We should be deep enough that it won’t cause a problem and it seems safe enough for now. Besides, I’d hate to leave you and Nayleen in pitch black. I'm just going to borrow Cyial for a minute or two, okay?”
“O...Okay.” Sairek said, sitting down in the middle of the room. He chanted out the spell, then pinched the royal jewel to bring out a bag of food that they could begin to snack on when the others got back. “Please be careful…”
Varhi nodded, gestured to Cyial and began marching down the other hallway ahead with Cyial holding the lantern close behind Varhi. When they were basically out of view, Sairek set his staff down slowly on the ground, allowing the spell to continue to burn. Then he drew his knees towards himself, wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his face against his knees, letting out a sharp and shuddering inhale of breath, almost like a gasp, but deeper.
“Sairek…?” Nayleen questioned him slowly in response to the strange behavior and noise he emitted.
Sairek only responded with yet another sharp inhale, which she now identified as a sob. The Prince quivered a little, hugging himself even closer as Nayleen moved to sit beside him, moving to wrap an arm around his back and began to rub his shoulder reassuringly. “It’s okay to be scared, you know...” she feebly tried to console him.
“I shouldn’t have come here… what was I thinking…!?” Sairek gasped, burying his face against his knees, letting out another sharp sob. “I’m trying so hard not to show it to them… but I’m absolutely terrified, Nayleen… I knew leaving the castle could be dangerous but… this—this is too much...! This is insane–!”
“Like I just said Sairek, it’s okay to be scared. I’m terrified too. I was expecting something probably bad, but this definitely wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Keep a hold of that fear Sairek, it will help us get out of here, but you’ve got to learn to control it too and not let it overwhelm you. That's how most things in nature survive. Besides, if Varhi could deal with a bunch of these things by playing smart and last this long all on his own, then when you think about it, our chances aren’t that bad, right?”
“But Cyial and I are next to useless…”
“You’re not a liability." Nayleen reminded him. "If it weren’t for you, Varhi would have been a goner by now. Don’t forget that. It was you who decided to come to help him. Not Cyial, not myself, you did. You saved his life. Now it’s his turn to repay that and I am confident that we can do this with him.”
“She’s right, you know, as much as I don't like to admit it.” Varhi called, walking back into the room, causing Sairek to glance up from covering his face. “I can’t say acting careful is my style, but that doesn’t mean I suck at it. Either way, right now I owe the three of you a debt and it’s only right for me to repay it. I’m not going to repeat the same mistake I made on that mansion job I told you about.” Varhi grunted, reaching out with his hand behind himself to Cyial and gestured for his lantern back, which Cyial handed to him and moved over to walk towards Sairek to try and comfort and reassure him by sitting down on his knees, giving Sairek a tight hug, which he accepted graciously.
“What about you…?” Sairek managed to croak out, still holding onto Cyial for much needed comfort, as his eyes looking over at Varhi.
“What about me?” Varhi asked with a small tilt of his head.
“How are you so… fearless…? So immune to everything…?” Sairek croaked.
“I’m not immune. My first night in this place, the horrors, especially when I had to kill ‘somebody’ and not ‘something’ to end their suffering made me incredibly uncomfortable and nauseous. It wasn’t because of the cloud making me feel ill, or any of the spores I had endured being sprayed on me.” Varhi answered. “Besides that though… I’m not scared because… well, I’ve already told Cyial this, but it’s because I can’t feel much of… anything. This isn't me just acting brave or something. As far as I know, it’s just how I am, apparently.”
“Well… right now… it makes me want to do nothing more than want to go home… and you can take it from these two… home is not a place I exactly enjoy…” Sairek sniffled.
“Wouldn’t know what that’s like either. I don’t have a place I can call home.” Varhi said, placing down the now unlit lantern on the ground next to Sairek’s bag before he erected his posture again and took a couple of wandering paces around the room. “No home as far as I know of, anyway. No parents I can remember, no friends from my past— it’s like I was born into this world not even a year ago. Clearly impossible, because I’ve kept some knowledge, habits and I'm clearly not a baby, but apparently I couldn’t remember some other basic things, either.”
“It’s not amnesia…?” Sairek asked quietly.
“I mean, that’s the running theory, but amnesia is kind of a broad term anyway for memory loss in general, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not like they’re completely missing. It’s more like most of the stuff is just… blocked. Obfuscated... like, I know it should be there, but it’s just not… there, and I'm vaguely aware of the abscene. It's like writing that's been erased with a pencil; You can see the indents, the shadow that something was in fact there on the paper, but it has become illegible. It’s all fuzzy, the depth and intensity of each line are no longer present, the shape is extremely hard to see… it's something like that.” Varhi tried to explain. “Besides the memory thing though, I am apparently freakishly strong, or so my ‘reputation’ precedes me as such. I guess that’s not a bad thing, I suppose.”
“Pretty unnaturally good constitution, too…” Cyial jumped in to add quietly.
“That too, but I never give up! I've got way more things I wanna do, way more things about myself I have still yet to find out, too. So don’t go underestimating me, Prince." Varhi boasted, thumping his chest with his left fist. "You just hang back and I’ll do all of the heavy lifting. It’s kind of what my job entails of me doing anyway."
“Your job... from the employer you think is trying to get you killed.” Sairek reminded him dryly.
“... ...Meh. I had my suspicions in the first place that he was up to some ulterior motive. People don’t lie unless they have some reason that benefits them one way or another. This situation just... exceeded my suspicions, but if you never take risks, then you will never step forward, either. You of all people should know that, from what I heard. Surely you didn’t think leaving the castle was going to be a casual walk in the park?”
“No…” Sairek agreed. “I didn’t expect here to be either, but this is all…”
“Hey, you wanted to learn the truth about the world, right?” Varhi asked.
“That’s… one reason, yeah…”
Varhi expanded his arms out. “Now you know the truth. The real world is horrible and cutthroat. It's full of people lying and usurping one another to be the bigger fish in a very big pond. And within that big pond, is innocent people who are just trying to live their life. Now that you know... the question is what are you going to do about it now? I, personally, would rather live dangerously than safely in solitude. You can't have both."
Sairek was quiet, not really knowing how to respond to such a question after being told that. He wasn't totally ignorant to all of that, of course. Nayleen had pretty much basically asked him the same question when he had been trying to escape the castle; but he was apparently quite ignorant to just how bad the real horrors that could lurk in the darkest shadows could be.
Varhi continued. "Me? I hate royalty. The secrets and corruption is the grim reality about the vast majority of leaders in the past, and I don't see why it would be much different now. Not all of them of course, but the abuse to the people that they rule over, all for their own personal gain for wealth and power and they’re only in such a position only because of a stupid golden hat on their head and a title. Laws are primarily built based on their own preferences, their own biases, screwing over thousands and thousands of people, and if it isn’t the people getting screwed over by the King who leads them, then people get screwed over by those that police them. Why do you think Jimmy and I were thrown into a jail during that undercover mission and was on a one-way ticket into an electric chair or a guillotine? Most ordinary people wouldn't be able to escape from that. Many don't have the power to resist and become slaves to their circumstances.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask… if Jimmy is part of the Masirean Mercenary Association, then how did you guys do that mission in Kior?” Nayleen asked.
“Well, that’s easy. We weren’t a part of that, yet.” Varhi answered.
“...Huh? I thought Jimmy was a Masirean citizen?” Nayleen asked.
“Well, he is now, officially. Actually, it isn't the first time. He's changed his status and has moved back and forth a few times." Varhi clarified.
"I... didn't even consider that as an option." Cyial blinked. "I guess there's nothing stopping someone from doing that... so long as they have the money to keep switching citizenship."
"Mhm. Well, you can't switch citizenship unless you're going to be living in the country for at least a year, but regardless of that; he moved here into Masirean and dragged me along with him. I on the other hand have opted out of citizen status. I’m not opting into any citizenship right now until I find out what country I was even born in. Technically, my file may still be on record somewhere... Apparently it's not in Masirean.” Varhi answered.
“Anyway, the mercenary program here makes it a bit easier for me to get a good look around places, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t consider myself exactly honor-bound, though. I don’t serve a country or have any national ideals. I just get hired to do jobs and I only take the ones that are either to stop corruption in my view, hunt an actual baddie down, or any that personally interest me… like this one did. Of course, you all know that I myself had a bias in accepting his jobs. I didn't trust my employer and I wanted to know who I was really working for and what was really going on.”
“Doesn’t seem like you’re gonna be sticking around here for much longer…” Sairek replied dryly.
“Of course not. I planned to go back to Kior anyways. Just… getting back is going to be a bit of a pain, because I doubt I’m getting my five-thousand seru...” Varhi grumbled, shook his head and sighed. “Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to hitch a ride on that loud boat of his...”
“Why is it even that much of a bother to you?” Cyial asked, slowly releasing Sairek, now that the Prince seemed to have calmed down some.
“Because I want to be independent...! I don’t want him to hang around me the entire time! And because he...” Varhi exclaimed, trailed off and shook his head, his teeth clenched slightly before he spoke again. “Look. He already got you three into this mess because I'm apparently shit at my job, isn’t that a burden enough–?”
“So that’s how you think it is…” Sairek replied softly, shifting the angle of where he sat turning directly to face Varhi, “...but he doesn’t see you that way at all.”
“I know he doesn’t, but that’s not the point.” Varhi answered, folding his arms over his torso.
“You don’t understand, Varhi. You don’t owe Jimmy anything. He doesn’t want anything in return. Helping each other is… just what friends do. I know you don’t like it apparently, but you have worked with other people in jobs before. How don’t you see it?”
Varhi blinked his eyes at Sairek, still looking confused.
“You’re not just friends with Jimmy, Varhi. You two are a team. Just like Cyial and Nayleen are to me. Remember?” Sairek asked him.
A look that Sairek couldn't quite discerned dawned on Varhi’s face, but he quickly hid it and tried to cover it further with a small shake of his head and a dismissive wave of his hand. “You and your cheesy sappy talk... Yeah, you’ll make a great King one day, for sure, but again, that isn't what this is about...” Varhi huffed. “...Anyway, are we going to eat or not? We're burning dwindling daylight.”
Sairek noticed that Varhi was closing the subject and wasn't open for more about it, so he dropped it. “...You guys can go ahead, I don’t think I could stomach anything right now...” Sairek grumbled. “Help yourself.” He gestured to the bag.
“Sairek, you should at least try a little bit. We’re going to need to all be at full strength as we can be. How about I share half a chunk of bread with you at least?” Cyial suggested.
“Okay...” Sairek conceded with an exhale. He wasn't sure if even that would go down, but Cyial was right.
Cyial frowned slightly. Sairek wasn’t trying to hold back sobs anymore but it was clear that the current situation they were in was starting to dampen Sairek’s mental state. Perhaps even worse than the three demons had done to him back in Lamen.
The sooner they managed to get out of here, the better, but at least this time he was here to support him. He could do something about it this time…
Cyial pulled off his gloves and rummaged inside the bag, pulling out a ration of stale bread, and pulled at both ends, intentionally separating it unevenly just a little bit, and handing Sairek the larger half. The Prince wasn’t looking, just staring ahead mostly and took it and just began nibbling on it wordlessly, only taking small bites at a time. He felt like if he ate too much, it wouldn’t stay down for very long. All of the horrors he had seen had already made him near nauseous and he knew the worst of it was yet to come. That fact scared him.
Varhi mimicked Cyial’s gesture with the gloves and pulled out some salted meat, then he began to nibble it down. This was the kind of food he was used to eating on a daily basis. A bit harder to get back to after tasting Nayleen’s food, he had to admit.
Nayleen, surprisingly last when she was usually first when it came to the consumption of food even if it was just rations, took her own helping, aiming for both meat and bread together and made her meal into a sort of sandwich. She nearly lost one side of the sandwich though, as trembling fingers made her less dexterous than she usually was. Her face didn’t show how terrified she was, but her body was starting to struggle under the pressure and betraying the casual facade.
They ate in relative silence now and they did so wordlessly, Sairek pulled the bag of rations back into the jewel. Varhi reached for his lamp and readjusted the settings again, then gestured for Sairek to save his energy. Wordlessly again, the fire on the head of Sairek’s staff extinguished and he reached out to grab his weapon. Cyial helped Sairek back up onto his feet and when he did, he noticed how hard Sairek was squeezing his hand. He could feel the Prince trembling slightly. Seeing his now-boyfriend like this broke his heart, but it also steeled and reinforced his determination. He gave Sairek a reassuring squeeze, then he glanced at Varhi. “Is it okay if I stay by Sairek’s side for now?”
Varhi gave them an appraising look, understanding flashing on his expression. “...Sure. We checked up ahead, it looks clear enough that I feel confident that we're safe down here for now.” Varhi allowed. “However, if you’re going to do that, I’m going to have to ask you all to be as quiet as possible and keep chatter to a minimum. I’m going to need to hear, just in case. Also, let’s refill these flasks of ‘magic water’, they will probably expire soon.”
“Thank you. We’ll do that.” Cyial replied, then glanced towards Sairek, giving him one last reassuring look. “Come on, Sairek.”
Sairek gulped nervously as Cyial gently tugged him along the first few steps forward. He filled up each and every flask again with ‘waert’, as asked.
"Is that seriously the spell? Just 'water' with the a and e swapped around?" Varhi frowned with a scrutinizing expression.
"Our current language is based on the ancient language... That's why it's 'ancient', because the spells are just as old as the language." Sairek mumbled while he did his task.
"Who gives spells their names anyway?" Nayleen asked. Varhi immediately looked disinterest in the subject even though he was the one who brought it up, instead opting to make final preparations to march again.
"It can be whoever creates a spell, but usually it ends up just being like language. Sometimes people just agree upon a name and definition to something and it sticks. That's how language works in the end, isn't it?" Sairek answered to her with his own question.
"Hm, I never thought of it like that, but I guess so!" Nayleen nodded in agreement and understanding.
They soon resumed their march. They went a little bit slower to help keep the noise down and didn’t talk as was requested. They all left the room, Varhi holding his lantern now to light the way ahead.
The hallway continued east for several minutes, then another right angle turn back north for several more minutes again. Eventually, they came to a T intersection where looking west confirmed that indeed, the earlier assumption that the path they took was a tunnel to work around the collapse of the original tunnel. Eventually after going back east, there was a long flight of stairs leading back upwards and they began to climb it until it led to an open entrance which took them back outside through the mountain and back into the depths of the green fog and once more into peril. Varhi extinguished the lantern and stashed it back away into his satchel as they all stepped out and took a look at their surroundings.
It was like the mountain valley pass they had gone through not too long ago in a way, but the shapes of the formation seemed less… natural and more like these were “dug”, particularly harder chunks of stone were left alone it seemed, while the softer stuff seemed to have been mined out. However, what it looked like they were in was more or less, a giant pit devoid of trees and mostly of just dirt and rock. Undoubtedly as the map suggested and what Varhi talked about, that this was the quarry.
“We just need to get past this, then a short walk, and we’ll be in Karvadean.” Varhi reminded them. “I don’t think the quarry here is going to be particularly bothersome, there’s not much here, but after here is the part I’m really concerned about. It’s a little bit more sparse forest until it opens up into the village, which is surrounded by both mountains and trees. However… there is one thing that concerns me about the village.”
“What’s that?” Nayleen asked.
Varhi paused, then groaned a sigh. “I... probably should have talked about this earlier, but you see... the exit is on the other side. It kind of opens up into the mountains and we’re gonna have to scale down and… well, uh, anyway that’s not the point. The point is, it’s on the other side, but… Oh, let me just use the map.” Varhi dug into his satchel again and pulled out another rolled up parchment which he flattened out against a boulder. Nayleen moved to look over his shoulder, Cyial and Sairek soon joined her over Varhi's other shoulder. It was actually a different map. Varhi gestured to the others to get closer and they did. Sairek could see this was actually the map of the village itself.
“We’d be entering from the northwest side if the intel Jimmy supplied me is to be believed, which to his credit, it has been pretty accurate so far.” Varhi explained. “The mines in Karvadean are here to the northeast, then the exit down here is to the southeast. There’s a gate here, usually locked. It actually leads to the cemetery, then to another gate and then back out to the other side.
“Wait, I got two questions.” Nayleen cut in. "Why does a mining village need a cemetery?"
"...Because it's a mining village. Accidents of the fatal kind tend to happen quite often. They don't carry the bodies down the mountain. They just bury them here... if they weren't already buried in whatever they were mining in the first place." Varhi answered.
"Oookay. Then the second question; what is the actual problem?"
“Those gates that lead to the exit aren't like, y'know, waist high. They're wall gates." Varhi said, glancing over his shoulder to look at her. "There's no way we're scaling up those."
"...Ah. That... is an issue."
"Yes. The problem is if the gates are locked. If they are locked, we’re going to need a key. The front entrance also has a gate but I would assume it’s unlocked if… all of this has happened. That or they busted it down. Either way there clearly has been a way for them to get out through this way because I haven't just seen walking mushroom trees, but walking mushroom people.” Varhi gestured at all around them.
“Assuming they’re locked, where would we even get a key from?” Cyial asked. “If the village is overrun, we can’t very well just go searching all over the place…”
“There's a couple of places that come to mind. The first is that the village has a town center. I would assume there would be one in there. If not… then the other area would be within the mines.” Varhi answered, rolling the map back up and putting it away.
“T-The mines…? Why there?” Sairek stammered.
“I would assume if the people in the village would have fled into anywhere, it would be the mines, assuming the back gates were locked.” Varhi answered, cupping a gloved fist under his chin in a thoughtful gesture. “I... also suppose they could have left through the back gate too, but I doubt many would take their chances scaling down the mountain without gear and supplies in a hurry. Besides, the mines from what they were supposed to be mining would have had some magic crystals, which might have helped the situation in people defending themselves. Erm, of course, this is me just running theories in my head. I could be wrong. Still, going in with an idea of where to look in case we can’t just bolt out of there is probably better than nothing. Besides, even though at this point I probably don't have a mission to finish anymore, I really want to check the mines out anyway.”
“W-What do you mean?!” Sairek hissed at him. “We’re in serious peril as it is, and you want to put yourself at even more risk!?”
Varhi blinked at him once with his violet eyes. “Didn’t we not already discuss this? I don’t feel fear. I already accepted that I may die from one of my jobs. Don’t get me wrong, my first priority is to get you three out of here, but I still have a responsibility to find out what happened here.”
“No, you don’t have to do anything but make sure you return alive!” Sairek exclaimed. “Even if you think Avotash is up to something, I read your contract! All you have to do is find out the status of the village, we already know that without even have to visit there!”
“But we don’t know the why or how to what happened here.” Varhi said, tilting his head slightly. “I’m going to find out. I want to find out for myself. This happened for a reason, Sairek. I am going to find out why or die trying.”
Nayleen sighed. “Like it or not, Sairek, if he wants to go investigate, he has the right to do so. We’re not in Ceareste anymore. Unlike anyone else, you can't make him.”
Sairek gave her a sharp look. “Ceareste or not, I… I cannot allow that! He's not even fully healed yet! It's suicide!”
“So it’s okay to throw yourself and your friends into dangerous situations because of your own bias, but when it comes to someone else wanting to do something dangerous on their own, it’s not okay?” Varhi accused Sairek.
“That’s—That’s not what this is about! Besides, I didn't demand they go with me, they made that choice!”
"Was letting their friend go into uncertain peril really much of a choice to them?" Varhi retorted evenly. "Do you really believe they could just let you go by yourself, knowing danger would be awaiting your arrival, with a clear conscious? Geez. And all that talk about friendship not that long ago—what the heck do you think they mean to you, Prince? Unless I am vastly overestimating your guys' friendships to one another, you didn't give them much of a choice as much as an ultimatum."
A sound croaked from Sairek's throat, but no words came out. He wanted to look at Cyial and Nayleen for reassurance, but deep down he knew Varhi was right. He squeezed his eyes shut, hung his head sullenly and bit his bottom lip. The fact neither of them interjected to say that Varhi was wrong made the sting burn like salt in a wound. Even if they did, what could they even say? 'Yeah, I could have let Sairek go alone to die'?
"U-Ugh..." Was all Sairek could respond with. A sound of guilt as much as it was surrender.
Varhi exhaled out a sigh at seeing Sairek's defeated expression. “Look, Prince. It is not my intention to make you feel even worse. You flatter me with how much you seem to care about my existence, but the reality of the fact is that I am nobody important. However, all of this...” Varhi took a second to, gesture all around them with his left hand, “...is much bigger than me. If something terrible is going on here, then me going in is relatively low risk for the potential rewards of finding out that information.” Varhi explained, then narrowed his eyes at Sairek. “You on the other hand have risked the future of your entire country, just to save a little pawn—that’s me—who doesn’t even live in your country. So please forgive me for being brash, rude or blunt, but I don’t think you’re in much position right now to be criticizing anyone for doing anything right now. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh to you, but that's the reality of the situation right now."
Sairek clenched his teeth, the cogs in his mind stalling, unable to come up with a proper argument to convince Varhi otherwise.
Varhi huffed and leaned his back against a boulder. “Regardless, arguing about this is a waste of time and energy. For all we know, we may have no choice but to go into the mines, or perhaps the mines themselves have completely collapsed and even looking into it is impossible. So can we at least agree to disagree for now, see what the situation is like first and get a move on? Regardless of what each of us thinks, at the very least, the goal right now is to try and get out of here. We can argue then after we are safe... hopefully.”
“Fine…” Sairek sighed. He could agree with Varhi on that part, at least.
“Okay." Varhi nodded. "Remember to try and keep quiet, stay behind me. We should reach Karvadean in about thirty or forty minutes if nothing stops us. Let’s—”
“Everyone get down!” Nayleen abruptly shouted, dropping herself down onto the ground. Varhi didn’t even question her and dropped straight down. Cyial and Sairek were a little bit slower, but their apprehension served to work in their favor as they both dropped together just in time. Varhi glanced above them in time to see a fluorescent glob of green sail over them, landing against the mountain wall. Varhi turned his head towards the direction the projectile came from, just in time to see a spriggan quickly hopping away.
"Shit...! I, I am so sorry—! I didn't sense that one...!" Cyial swore in panicked apology.
“Oh you little prick, no you don't…!” Varhi hissed, pushing himself up from his stomach and breaking off into a sprint to chase it down before he had even stood fully upright. The spriggan moved its way behind one of the many boulders and Varhi quickly followed suit after it.
“H-Hey! Wait! What happened to keeping quiet–?!” Nayleen hissed at Varhi, to no avail. The young mercenary knight had already gone ahead by himself. She pushed herself up and quickly dusted herself off. “Oh, brother... Come on you two, before we lose sight of him!” She ordered to both Cyial and Sairek who were pushing themselves back up now as well and were dashing after him.
Varhi, despite still being wounded as well as dressed in leather armor and half plate, was anything but slow with a target in his sights. The spriggan was fast and had a good head start, but Varhi was gaining a foot of ground every second that elapsed in the pursuit. He watched as the spriggan leapt itself down a small cliff, about six or seven feet of a drop. Varhi pursued, reaching into his satchel for his pot lid with his left hand and as he reached the lip of the cliff, he pushed his feet to jump off, gaining as much height as he could, swinging his left arm out from right to left as he released the pot lid at the spriggan from the height advantage he had on it.
The metallic missile whistled through the air, its trajectory on track and moving at a fast speed. Despite this, Varhi hissed a swear as the spriggan abruptly did what he could only describe as a cartwheel off towards its left, evading the pot lid which made a loud clang as the edges of it sank a good three to four inches into the crusted soil and got stuck in an upright position.
"Tch..." Varhi sounded out in an unsatisfied noise. He landed on the lower ground into a safety roll next to his pot lid on his right. He reached out to grab it just as he was righting himself and shoved the makeshift weapon back into his satchel. He was close enough now anyway, so he reached back to draw out his greatsword just as the spriggan began rounding another boulder in an attempt to evade Varhi. An attempt that failed. With a grunt of effort, Varhi swung his sword from right to the left with both hands, clanging the blade against the boulder when it made contact, but only after the sword cleaved clean through the spriggan, separating it into two halves. After the swing, Varhi rolled sideways with the momentum of his swing, then reoriented as he rolled to push off backwards into a leap backwards away from the sprigan with haste, avoiding the abruptly combusting cloud of spores from the spriggan's body that signified its death. A good chunk of the spores harmlessly landed or splattered against the boulder Varhi had chipped with his swing.
Varhi turned back around as he heard footsteps from behind him, seeing the other three having caught up to him. “It's okay, I've got it.” He announced, swinging his sword once in a fluid motion as he pulled it behind his back into its sheath once again.
“Was chasing after it that hard really necessary…?” Nayleen muttered.
“It spat at us! I wasn’t taking any chances.” Varhi frowned. “After the first time, I know better than to let those little bastards get away too far.”
“Uh... If you say so, boss.” Nayleen replied, not entirely convinced.
“I do. Now, let’s get back to business.” Varhi said, walking by the three of them to get back on track.
"I-I'm sorry...!" Cyial apologized, biting his bottom lip as Varhi had just passed by, whom paused and glanced down at Cyial with a curious look, then quirked an eyebrow at him seeing the smaller demon boy biting his bottom lip.
"Why do you keep apologizing?" The mercenary boy asked, itching idly as the side of his head just behind his ear.
"Because I lapsed, someone nearly got hurt..." Cyial mumbled, gaze downcast.
"You're being silly. You're the first line of defense. Nayleen is the second. Everything worked out as intended." Varhi frowned in confusion. "But if you feel that strongly about it, then just don't let whatever happened happen again to the best of your ability." Varhi said, and continued walking forwards.
Cyial and Nayleen both exchanged looks at each other and Nayleen shrugged. Sairek just looked simply annoyed by Varhi’s antics, but at least less terrified. They moved to follow up behind Varhi, continuing on eastwards towards the village.
For his part, despite the rather aggressive nature Varhi had chased down the spriggan with, he was taking it rather slow now as he resumed leading, moving from boulder to boulder and getting as much of a visual on things through the fog as he could as well as constantly listening. The other three more or less mimicked him, curious why he was being so cautious in his movements now when he had dropped caution only moments before, but the knight had told them to keep noise down to a minimum, so they said nothing. There were a few instances where herders could be heard moving ahead of them, stomping about in the distance as they idly moved about. Varhi lead them more towards the middle of the quarry as they moved, so they could sneak around them when possible, which seemed to be working, even if it made getting to the village slow, they were avoiding direct confrontation, though they weren’t that many they had to avoid. As predicted, the quarry was pretty sparse of herders, and with large rocks to hide behind but much space to maneuver at the same time with the sparsity, it was tense and slow to make it through, but a gradual process they did without initiating another confrontation.
Eventually, they managed to sneak their way out of the quarry, a large ramp leading upwards several yards at a gradual, but fairly steep incline being their way out of the quarry pit. Varhi struggled to get up it due to his silver greaves not coming into contact very well with the loose coarse dirt and Nayleen had to help push him up a little bit on some of the steeper sections. Varhi occasionally muttered a curse whenever his boots slid from underneath him, finally after a ten minute climb that was more exhausting than any of them dared to admit, they were officially out of the quarry.
“Almost there… just a little bit further.” Varhi huffed, wiping a couple of beads of sweat that formed on his forehead with his left wrist. “Look, you can even see the beginnings of walls they began constructing to dissuade the animals from wandering into the place.” He pointed ahead of them with his right hand.
The ‘walls’ were more like just planks of wood which were lined and boarded up along a perimeter and held up by temporary supports or scaffolding, though Sairek supposed even that would indeed be enough dissuade most larger wildlife to stay out with some success. He supposed the wood was pretty easy to come across by here to supply such a construction with some trees spotted, and he could see the stumps of some who were even chopped up now and then as they walked. “Why did they build such a wall all the way out here if the quarry is already nearly empty, though?” Sairek questioned.
“I don't know. Why don’t we go and ask them?” Varhi hinted, moving forward once again.
“Is it just me, or is the fog getting even thicker the closer we are…?” Nayleen questioned.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, this should be in the middle of the cloud, it’s probably thickest here, especially if the source of it is coming from within the village.” Varhi answered. Then glanced back at Cyial for confirmation. "...Is that right? I'm just guessing here."
“It is.” Cyial answered with a nod. “I can kind of feel it… It’s like we are walking against a current of wind. It’s… most unpleasant.”
Sairek gulped at this. He could have sensed it too, but he really didn’t want to. He felt nauseous enough as it was from fear. He didn’t need to make that worse.
“Hey, wait. Over there. Is that a... person?” Cyial whispered, his garnet eyes narrowing slightly. Varhi glanced back to look at Cyial, who pointed and he looked back, following the direction of Cyial’s finger.
“It is…! H—” Nayleen began to shout, before Varhi quickly moved over and grabbed her face sharply, hand over her mouth to silence her. He gave a stern and sharp look of warning with his violet eyes before he turned to glance back behind his shoulder. The figure moved closer…
Cyial was only half correct. It was a person… but only because it was a person. Had been… Clearly humanoid, but the form was shuffling, much like the herders, with fungal growth appearing all over the corpse’s body. One of the limb was already replaced with a vine-like tendril in its left arm, which dragged along the ground as it shuffled. The right leg looked extremely bloated. The body let out a gurgling hiss that was breathless. Varhi couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman at this point.
“S... Sweet Lands…” Sairek whispered underneath his left gloved hand that was covering his mouth in horror. His emerald eyes were wide in shock and terror and his face went pale as if all the blood had drained from him. Varhi had warned them—but it hadn’t been enough of a warning. He could feel the acid rising from his stomach, up to his throat. He tried to swallow it back down, clutching at his chest desperately, pressing his staff and right hand to it, but it was no use. He doubled over and began to vomit off to his left side in retching gurgles.
“Shit…” Varhi groaned. He figured the Prince would have reached his breaking point soon. The fungal person heard him vomiting and with another breathless gasping groan, began to turn and shuffle its way towards them.
“Nayleen, quietly, if you could…” Varhi whispered in request.
“I… B-But that’s a person…!” She hissed in equal horror and disgust as Sairek was in.
“It was a person…!” Varhi hissed back. He couldn’t have this now. “The ‘person’ is already dead… they’re a corpse now. You’d be doing them a favor making sure their soul is at rest instead of staying trapped like… that.” He argued.
Nayleen seemed to accept this reasoning, if reluctantly. With shaky hands, she withdrew her bow and notched the arrow. Her arms were shaking, but as it stepped closer, it was pretty hard to miss. She released the arrow and the arrow pierced through the head with a quiet squelch. Apparently, little to no bone was present in the body, as the arrow sailed right through from one side of the head and stuck out almost completely out the other end. Almost soundlessly save for a quiet gurgling of a contorted death rattle, the body fell over forwards in a slump, ceasing its movements.
“At least they’re not very dangerous… or so they seem.” Varhi sighed, with a shake of his head, glancing towards Sairek who was only on his two feet right now thanks to the support of Cyial and his staff. “So much for hoping Karvadean was spared from this and somehow okay. It was a very slim hope that people would still be hiding out, but... shit...”
“There could be several dozens of people—things like that… even if they’re not dangerous by themselves, a whole crowd of them could be really bad and—and I don’t think I can stomach doing that again myself…” Nayleen trembled.
“Well, neither can he…” Varhi motioned with his head at Sairek who was only now getting himself upright. A puddle of vomit off to the side of his feet.
“N-No… I… I can’t…” Sairek admitted with a weak grunt. He reached for his flask full of water he already conjured, took a swig, swirled it in his mouth, and spat it out to rinse his mouth. He still couldn't drink it, but at least he could use it to rinse his mouth out in a pinch. "Urgh... And you still want to go to the mines even after seeing that, don't you..." Sairek groaned.
“Well, we may not have a choice.” Varhi sighed with a shake of his head. “As much as I would just like to run on through to at least get you guys out first, there could be more herders and spriggans in the village as well. The chances are pretty likely, actually. Hate to say it, but we need to be slow and methodical with this. We create too much noise, we could have a whole village or more of those things crawling over us in a swarm. I’m hoping over time they had spread out more all over the place and wandered away from the village, though.”
“Karvadean isn’t that big, right? The map didn’t show many buildings.” Cyial asked.
Varhi nodded. “It’s a pretty small mining village, yeah. Probably only forty or fifty people lived here, though there may have been more workers who were taking residence in the town hall. Kind of like workers for rent sort of thing. Still, it’s fairly spread out, so don’t go thinking we can reach from here to the gate in five minutes by walking. It’ll be a bit bigger than that. It would be five minutes at least if we ran.”
Varhi began walking forwards slowly after he finished talking, looking around, though not seeing much because of the foggy mist that lowered visibility greatly. “Let’s cut down to the south and stick near the walls there and then cut to the east to the gates once we reach the south end. Down there is a more open area, we’ll see anything there before it sees or hears us, hopefully, if there’s anything like this thing.” Varhi said, moving towards the corpse and pulling out the arrow Nayleen fired at it, which he handed over to her. She gave a disgusted look and shook her head. “Why not?” Varhi asked with a frown.
“Unless we have a way of cleaning that thing thoroughly, I’m not risking it.” She answered.
“...Ah. Good point.” Varhi conceded, tossing the arrow aside away from them. “We need to save the water just in case we ourselves get spored on. Sairek can’t make any more here. How many more arrows do you have left?”
“Around forty-five in the quiver. More in Sairek’s jewel, if it ever came down to that.” Nayleen nodded at the Prince.
“Right, that should be plenty then. Let’s get going.” Varhi announced.
Hugging the village walls to their right as they moved south from the entrance, Varhi slowly marched them forward, but after a time, he moved himself lower, almost to a crouch, sneaking across. He gestured with his hand behind himself for the others to follow suit as well, keeping them as invisible as they could be. They all followed suit. However, it was only two minutes later where Varhi was forced to stop as the back of a red herder came into view through the fog in the middle of where they were going.
“Dammit…” Varhi whispered under his breath. “Seems our fortune isn't as generous as before…”
“Now what…?” Sairek whispered, a timidness edged into his tone..
Varhi sighed. “I'll take it out as quietly as I can, I guess… you three back up a bit and wait here. The red ones are the most dangerous in my humblest opinion. I’m not risking any of you getting spored on.”
“But—” Nayleen began.
“We don’t have time to argue, Nayleen. Do it. Now.” Varhi whispered in such an… authoritative tone. It was a tone Sairek recognized. A tone he had been practiced with to use himself in his position. One that had also been used against him various times.
Normally that tone would cause him to grow angry, to grow argumentative against the one who dared order him around, but not this time. He conceded without needing to be told twice, and more than that, he grabbed Nayleen’s tunic by the shoulders and gave her a stern yank. She looked back at him, clearly distressed at letting Varhi go alone and having to carry almost all of their weight in this. Sairek discouraged her further with a silent shake of his head. She sighed, and with the other two boys, began crawling back.
Varhi looked at Sairek and gave him a nod, then turned around and slowly, with practiced movement, pulled out his sword, barely making a sound while he crept closer to the red herder. His steps halted for a second as the herder, which was looking southeast towards the village began to turn towards Varhi and the trio further back, then stopped when it faced Varhi, letting out a non-too-friendly hiss as it spotted the boy kneeling down in the withered grass.
“Right, so much for being sneaky.” Varhi sighed at the bad misfortune that it just happened to turn in their direction. He pushed himself off into a sprint, but that sprint only got off four or five steps before he got close enough to notice something was… different about this red herder than the others that he had encountered.
...Were those… red crystals embedded inside of its body?
Crystals that were now brightly glowing as he approached…?
"Shit–!!"
Varhi swore venemously as his instincts warned him that he was in grave danger. He immediately skidded himself to a hard stop against the moist grass and dirt, even embedding his sword into the ground to do so, making his skidding along the ground shorter. The crystals in the herder continued to glow as it hissed, and a cloud of spores released from underneath its cap, spreading only a few feet in front of Varhi, who uprooted his sword and held it in front of him as best as he could as a shield while he began to take steps back. He thought that the spores would almost be the end of it…
...until the cloud of spores abruptly combusted into an abrupt explosion of kinetic force and fire that felt like he'd just been hit with a sledge hammer across the front of his body with an end that had been left heated in a forge.
The power of it was enough to knock Varhi completely off balance, flying him backwards about fifteen feet, rebounding harshly off the ground and going another ten feet, finally landing on the ground in a skid with a heavy pained “Unmph–!” towards the trio. Even the herder was knocked backwards and landed flat on the ground, a few chunks on the front of its cap having been blown off from the energy.
“Varhi–!? Are you okay!?” Cyial hissed urgently, immediately rushing up to aid him and moving to help him sit upright.
“Ungh… Unnhh... What... the...?” Varhi grunted through severe pain, pushing himself up onto one side, propped up by his elbow while the other abandoned the grip on his sword to clutch at his front..
“You didn’t tell us they could do that…!” Nayleen said sharply, then looked towards Sairek. "Wasn't that—?"
“That… That was vulkenhai—!” Sairek stammered in bewilderment. “Did that thing just cast a spell—it used magic!?”
“Ugh… I noticed too late, ngh... There were damn crystals... embedded into its body… I've never seen... one like that... yet...” Varhi groaned and grunted, propping himself up onto his elbows, shaking his head left and right rapidly for a couple of seconds before sitting upright with the help of Cyial. “Nnnhh... L-Like I said... Karvadean was supposed to be a mine, for magical crystals… So if those things, have crystals, embedded into their body… th-then…”
“M...Magic herders–?” Sairek whispered in horror. “Y-You’ve got to be joking…!”
“Wait, watch out, it’s not even dead yet…!” Nayleen growled with a motion of her head towards it. It wasn’t up yet and it was slow moving, but it would be up again before too long.
“Ngh—Damn it...!” Varhi growled, righting himself up back towards his feet again, though he staggered briefly, nearly collapsing before catching himself.. “If it keeps casting spells willy-nilly... then it could cause this entire place to explode...! I guess I better handle this differently now...”
“Are you sure? Are you alright?” Cyial asked carefully.
Varhi didn’t respond verbally to Cyial. Once back onto his feet, he charged off towards the red herder while it was still, for all intents and purposes, prone on the ground. If the explosion had injured him, Varhi certainly did not let any signs show from it with how aggressively and quickly he charged forward. Sprinting with his greatsword still held evenly at his right hip, Varhi, despite being about twenty-five feet or so away from the herder, grunted in effort as his greaves sparked with energy right when he launched himself up into a jump and angled his greatsword behind his back, prepping for an overhead swing.
“Stay… DOWN!!”
Like as if he was a projectile himself, Varhi soared through the air, jumping the whole twenty-five feet distance and he had jumped up quite a considerable height as well. When he descended down, he used his momentum and angle to swing down fiercely, but rather than aim to chop the herder in half, he aimed off slightly to the side, chopping his sword down at an angle where his blade sliced through the soft spongy hide of the herder, slicing a good chunk of it off clean through, and effectively detaching the crystals that were embedded from it as well.
With a steel boot, he quickly kicked the crystals and the chunk of flesh away from the herder, readying his sword back up above his head and angling it downwards into a stabbing motion, but a large hiss coming from the herder pacified him, and quickly he leaned his weight further back, rolling backwards and planted his left hand against it while he was upside down to push him off from the herder and back onto his feet on the ground, albeit with a bit of a stumble as he tried to rebalance his weight and momentum. A cloud of spores abruptly released all around the herder as it suddenly began to deflate for a moment and then as an added ‘bonus’, abruptly exploded, sending the wave of spores and chunks of itself outwards around in a ring.
“Ugah...! Hold your breath, take cover!” Varhi shouted right before the ring of spores descended upon him. He took as much cover as he could, turning himself around so his back would face the onslaught and hiding behind the width of his sword as he stabbed it into the ground, his left hand covering his mouth and nose and he closed his eyes shut and took a final inhale of breath to hold.
The other three further back mimicked Varhi’s stance, if a bit later, however, they were sufficiently far back enough that the spores more or less lost their momentum before reaching them, leaving only Varhi to suffer the final counterattack the herder apparently had, who shortly began digging into his satchel, fumbling blindly a contorted look of disgust and like he was about to vomit on his features. He pulled out a flask and desperately popped the cap, beginning to pour the water all over his head first, then the rest of his body and clothes all over. He gasped for air, coughing and spitting a few times, but quickly he began to relax as the nauseous feeling quickly began to fade. “Lands… I’ll never get used to having that shit land on me…” he grumbled.
“Sweet Lands indeed… Are you okay–?” Sairek asked concerned, as the trio moved up to him.
Varhi nodded “I’m in one piece, I think…” he huffed, moving to stand up and then staggered, repositioning his weight instead to lean against his sword. “…N-Nevermind... I need a minute...” he admitted with a shake of his head, pulling his sword out of the ground and returning it into its sheath on his back and then he moved to flop his rear back down onto the ground again with a pained groan, clutching his front with his left hand. "M...Maybe a few minutes... ughh..."
“How... How did you manage to do a jump like that?” Nayleen asked.
“I said I hate magic... That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful sometimes… as loathed as I am to admit it.” Varhi said, then smacked his left boot with his left hand. “Don’t expect me to be able to do that again. These things don’t hold much. There’s no catalyst in them, just a silver coating.”
“Silver coating…?” Sairek repeated.
“I don’t wear these steel silver boots just to look fancy… even if they do look cool.”
Sairek looked towards Cyial, who shook his head, then they both looked at Varhi for an explanation.
“Right... Well, think of the silver on my greaves like a sticky fly trap for Ethereal. It kind of gets stuck to it, so when there’s a good coating of ethereal around my boots—I can use that ethereal to propel myself forwards for a burst of momentum. Enough momentum to make me jump like that, anyway. It’s extremely minor and takes a day or two without coating them myself for the coat to refill again, but it’s inexpensive and I don’t need to know magic or any spells to use it. I can use it for jumping, for dashing, for body slamming into something that’s in my way, but I only get a few good uses before I can use it again without getting some of the stuff myself. It's not really a 'magic' as much as it's just using the energy in the air as a propellant... Understand?”
Sairek and Cyial both nodded, then Sairek looked towards Cyial. “I had no idea something like that existed…”
“Nor would you. Jimmy and I 'legally' pilfered the stuff from Kior. They’re keeping it a secret for now.” Varhi answered.
“Really?” Nayleen frowned.
“Really. Stuff like that is extremely dangerous to banished demons. Imagine a sword like that. They already get enough flak as it is. Imagine an entire weapon line with this stuff designed to hunt them down.” Varhi said. "There might be a revolt. The slavers may stop working with such weapons designed to counter their kind. It's not actually that rare, but it's simply hoarded by Kior and not widely distributed. Yet."
Cyial shivered a little at that.
"Why keep it secret?" Nayleen questioned him.
Sairek was the one who turned to her to answer in Varhi's stead. "If you can control the supply, and make it seem much more rare and valuable than it actually is, then you can make a lot more profit off of it, especially if there's more 'demand' for it than there is an artificially created supply."
Varhi nodded in agreement.“So
for now, there's only armor with this stuff built into it. Or in my case, Jimmy just bought some of the raw material and we turned it into these. The stuff's got
more utility for armor than weapons anyway in my opinion, like performing feats just
like that." Varhi continued. "...Well, I suppose that’s not the only reason of course. They also just want to monopolize the stuff, as Sairek said. You learn a lot of secrets when you are deep into the mercenary business. In the end, no matter who you work for, it’s almost always for them to obtain long term gain of money and power in some fashion. It’s not impossible, but rarely are you hired to actually do the right thing. Sadly, actual good people in the world are pretty rare.” Varhi sighed, pushing himself back up onto his feet and dusting himself off. “Either way, the point is; don’t expect me to be able to pull a stunt like that again for a little bit... I've been using it a bit too much lately, it's about out of energy.”
“Hopefully you won’t need to…” Sairek mumbled.
“Hopefully. Also hopefully, we are almost out of here. Just a little more. Let’s reach that gate...” Varhi suggested.
“Agreed…” Nayleen mumbled.
Going back to keeping themselves low, Varhi once again led the way.
“Stop.” Cyial demanded when they didn’t even walk more than a dozen steps.
“...What.” Varhi sighed, turning back around, watching Cyial step over towards him. The demon didn’t answer him. “What are you—Hey! What the–? C-Cut it out!” Varhi began when Cyial grabbed him and with a tug, he pulled one side of Varhi’s leather armor past his belt and began pulling it up, beginning to reveal the bare skin underneath. Varhi flailed a bit in resistance. “I—I do not consent to this, incubus! Stop it!”
Cyial seemed extremely determined to lift the armor up, dropping his book onto the ground to do so, giving him both hands to work with. He got the leverage he needed and soon yanked Varhi's leather shirt was up to his chest revealing all of his midriff, which on his left side... Sairek and Nayleen winced at the sight in tandem.
“...I figured you were walking funny. That explosion—vulkenhai, did a number on that bruise, and the rest of you…” Cyial sighed. The color of the skin was black and blue and a mixture of vague green.
Varhi swatted Cyial away, readjusting his armor frantically. “Oi! You could have at least asked first...!”
“You would have said nothing’s wrong and that you’re fine when you’re clearly not.” Cyial retorted, reaching down to pick up his book.
“...I mean, yes, but you still could have asked instead of manhandling me out of the blue–!” Varhi insisted.
Sairek and Nayleen glanced at each other. If they both weren’t so terrified right now, they would have at least chuckled.
“Look, I still have some of that medicine. At least let me treat it to try and prevent it from getting worse. It’ll at least numb the pain a little.” Cyial tried to reason.
“Do we seriously have to do this now?” Varhi argued. "We don't even know how many of those things are nearby and the double explosion in the past three minutes was anything but quiet...! The whole village could be coming this way!"
“Yes, because we may not be able to do this later.” Cyial argued back. “There’s nothing close now. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise. Look, Varhi. I've seen patients trying to hide pain before. I'm good at detecting the signs. You're not hiding it from me. I can tell you're in agony right now... Stop trying to act like a tough guy. It won't impress them and it doesn't impress me.”
Varhi grumbled, gave Cyial an annoyed look and slowly pulled the leather back up, exposing his left side again as he seated himself down onto one knee. “Fine… hurry up,” he rolled his eyes, like this was a severe inconvenience to him.
Cyial reached into his robe, pulling out the all too familiar syringe.
"Ungh...!" Varhi grunted, winced and tensed when the needle poked into his side. He grimaced, then clenched his teeth... then squeezed his eyes shut tightly. His right fist grabbing a fistful of dirt into his gauntlet and his eyebrows knotted together in agony. After a few more seconds, he suddenly cried out in a gasping yelp, tossing his head back as the grimace on his face contorted heavily. It was the first sign of extreme intense pain that he had shown. Even when he had been dying before them, he didn't really show much pain, just... weariness and being sore. Sairek gulped. This was the first genuine sign of actual intense pain Varhi showed, and he knew the boy had been resisting and enduring pain this entire time. Just how badly was he truly hurting right now...? They desperately needed to get out of here. He wasn't sure how much longer Varhi could survive just on willpower and determination alone, with only the aid of a crude medicine they concocted out of desperation.
Cyial pulled the needle out shortly after, the syringe now empty. “I’m sorry...” he apologized.
Varhi took a moment to catch his breath, releasing the dirt in his right hand as his left slowly, shakily reached up to hold the bruise where he was injected, raising his head to look at the rest of them, a thin layer of sweating coating his forehead underneath his helmet visor and bangs of dark brown hair.
“Is.. Is it the wound really that bad…?” Sairek asked quietly, concern etched in his voice. He felt stupid immediately after asking that—he had just seen Varhi's reaction, and could see Varhi's weary, spent expression; how his face had become much more pale just like when they had met him the first time. The mercenary boy's stamina wasn't going to hold out for much longer.
Cyial turned to look at Sairek. “He should have been laying in a hospital bed for a couple of weeks when we found him. Instead of a couple of weeks, he spent a couple of days walking around, camping outside and... and now he’s doing all of this.” He gestured with his hand. “The only reason he’s standing, let alone moving around has got to be nothing but sheer willpower at this point.” Cyial answered, confirming Sairek's suspicions and fears as the demon looked back at Varhi with a gravely concerned expression. "I won't lie to you Sairek; his condition is nearly critical. But resting like before isn't an option here. If we don't find something to help him soon, he is going to deteroriate and that wound will become life-threatening."
“Jim always said I was stubborn…” Varhi chuckled weakly through a strained voice.
“Clearly...” Cyial responded, his voice dripping with some sarcasm, but there was still empathy in his voice. “C’mon. We need to get you out of here. The medicine should help in a few more minutes. At least let me help you until then. Let's drop the squatting act and just walk carefully.” He offered as he bent down to pick up the discarded tome he dropped.
Varhi didn’t argue as Cyial pocketed his book into his robe and reached down so Varhi had his shoulder for leverage, picking him up to his feet on his right side.
Slowly, but surely, they began to move forwards again, continuing south towards the gates to Karvadean and hopefully, out of this living nightmare...
