Sairek’s eyes blinked open in alertness, awoken by Nayleen shaking him vigorously in the very early morning hours of the day. The sky was rather dark and stars up above still twinkled, but their light was turning dimmer by the minute while the night sky was just beginning its transformation from ink black to the brilliant day blue. Currently it was dark with purple hues on one side to the east. Sairek slowly sat up from his sleeping bag, shaking the sleepiness out of his head, then looked back up the sky once more to gauge what time it was before shooting a heated glare at Nayleen in realization. “Didn’t you say we were going to share watch duty evenly? You practically stayed up the entire night!”
“Meh.” Nayleen shrugged.
“Don’t ‘meh’ me!” Sairek complained.
“Meh.” Nayleen repeated. “You have the burden of carrying everything in your jewel, plus you looked rather worn out already, especially with what you had endured the last couple of nights. You needed the rest.” She argued with him. “I can handle most of the watching duty if you are going to be carrying everything. Seems fair, right?”
Sairek groaned out a sigh. He didn’t want to argue, especially because he already understood how stubborn she was. Besides, whether he agreed or not, what was done was already done. “Your choice, but don’t complain to me later on if you want to take a nap. Not like there’s anything I can do about it now, anyways…”
Sairek pulled himself up from the sleeping bag he had been resting in and swapped spots with Nayleen. She giggled as she slid herself in. “Thanks for warming this up for me!”
He rolled his eyes at her. With the rain continuing over the night, it had gotten a bit nippy for a summer night, but with it having stopped now, the humidity had begun to catch up with him and he felt his throat feeling a bit dry. Idly he reached down at his belt for his flask of water and took a couple gulps to clear his throat. “Sleep tight, I suppose.” He replied afterwards, sealing the flask again.
He positioned himself to sit, staring out from their little alcove, bringing his knees up to his body and hugging them tightly with his arms as he sat and just… watched. Mostly looking up at the sky. Watching the sky transform slowly from ink black to blue was about as entertaining as watching paint dry perhaps to some. For Sairek right now though, it was his first time seeing the night sky like this. One by one over the course of minutes as he heard Nayleen’s breathing steady into a snore, he saw stars one by one beginning to fade out. After an hour of watching, boredom did finally catch up to him at this point and began to cloud his mind. He temporarily distracted himself by giving himself some breakfast of honey bread, a few berries and some more water to wash it all down. Then he further distracted himself for another ten minutes more by moving a few meters away from Nayleen to relieve himself and then using a careful usage of Waert to wash his face and hair for the morning. After he was done, he returned back to his ‘post’, waiting for time to further pass.
After around three hours had passed in total since Nayleen woke him up, the sky was a bright baby blue with various warm and cool hues on one side where the sun would rise from. He decided that to be more than light enough for them to travel before too long. He was apprehensive to wake up Nayleen already, but she would probably be angry at him if he didn’t, so slowly, he crawled his way over to her and as he looked down at her form, he was distracted further by his royal jewel though, and reached down to cup it in his left hand.
No longer was the jewel a brilliant, pearly white with flecks of soft blue in it, but now it was paler, and more toned towards yellow. Not quite as strong as his tabard’s color, but it was starting to match. That caused him to frown. Gems such as these tended to fade out as their energy ran lower, though he knew the royal jewel didn’t fade out, but more changed through various hues of color the closer it was to being drained before it began to fade out. Regardless, it wasn’t low enough to be concerned about immediately, but finding a well of ethereal should indeed be their priority for the day as they had planned.
It was as if fate was determining he should wake her up anyways. So he released the jewel from his grip and looked down at—
“Holy, Sweet Lands!” He yelped, crawling backwards from being startled.
Nayleen was already wide awake, sitting right up in front of him. She frowned at his reaction. “Wow, rude. Your hair didn’t look fantastic when you woke up either, you know.”
“I didn’t see you suddenly wake up…” he argued.
“Wasn’t it your job to watch over me? Sheesh. You’re not a very good watchman.”
“That’s not... I—Mmmff…” Sairek spluttered and huffed, unable to grasp at an excuse or retort. “B-But how…?”
“Eh, after being alone, I’ve gotten used to sleeping a minimal amount. You can sort of train your body to get used to it, y’know. Wake up every three hours, take a peek around, see if something's about to kill you... if not? Go back to sleep!” She commented, standing up from the sleeping bag as she stretched her body from side to side. “Yup! I’m refreshed and ready to go~!”
Sairek glared at her like she was some foreign entity. “Seriously…? Why is it that I can sleep ten hours and still feel tired, then? Does that mean I’m extremely stressed or… or just lazy?” He frowned, perplexed.
“Nah, your body is just used to sleeping for a lengthy amount of time. If you slowly work your way to less hours, you won’t feel much different when you sleep as little as I do. You’ll get sleepy later on in the day much easier though. It can be good to take a quick power nap in the middle of the day to give your body rest!”
“I swear, none of anything that you said can possibly be considered healthy.”
“Well, neither is you reading books all day good for your eyes, but that didn’t stop you, did it?”
“I did not read all the time. My father would not allow me.”
“But without him stopping you, you would have. So no excuses, mister!”
Sairek sighed, shaking his head and pushed himself up to stand on his feet with her. “Whatever. Let’s just go. We already lost way too much time last night. The jewel is already showing signs of running out.” He said, tapping it for emphasis.
“Huh, so it is. Okay then, let’s pack. I’ll eat ‘breakfy’ as we ‘walky’, then.”
“Breakfy…? Lands.” Sairek muttered. “I still cannot tell if this kind of dialect is something all commoners use, or if it’s wholly unique to just you.”
The both of them packed up their items before Sairek used the jewel to store everything up again, then summoned some food for Nayleen and a little bit more for himself to keep his stomach content as they walked. After using the jewel another time though, it became a few more shades more paler and dimmer, now almost matching Sairek’s tabard entirely at this point. As Nayleen shoved some bread into her mouth, she eyed the jewel as they walked along a faded pathway curiously.
“How long do you think that has left before it starts becoming a problem?” Nayleen asked him after she swallowed her bite of food.
“I don’t know. It was never a problem before because it wasn’t linked to me. It would just fill up over time naturally.” Sairek said, looking down at it. “It goes from white, to this, to yellow, to orange, then red, then… dims out from there.”
“Hm, I see. So that’s like… six states. So it must still be like, eighty percent full! Or something.”
“...I guess if you want to look at it like that. But we also spent most of the day with some of our stuff out, so that slowed down the natural drain.”
“Does moving things in and out cost energy too?” Nayleen asked.
“Yes. There’s an initial amount, plus an amount depending on how much mass I am carrying. There’s a lot of containers that do the same thing, and they all must be fueled in a similar way, but their drain is slower. The jewel can do the same thing, but it wasn’t designed specifically for that alone unlike those containers. They’re also made easier to use, because you can sort of stick your hand inside of them, then sort of imagine the item, and then it pops out. So even people pretty ignorant to magic can use them. This is a bit more complicated. It’s more than just imagining the item I want inside, but using my will to bring them out as well.”
“Well, if we have to find a cave today, then chances are that we won’t make it to the inn today, either.” Nayleen frowned.
“We’ll be fine. Tonight can’t be much worse than last night.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to ask you something last night.” Nayleen said.
Sairek turned his head to look at her. “Yes?”
“When’s your birthday? It should be soon, right?”
Sairek blinked in response. “That’s a bit of an odd question to ask. Why?”
“Just curious. Mine is in a couple months.”
“Well... Mine is around a couple of weeks from now. I will no doubt miss it at the castle.” Sairek answered.
“Huh? So soon. Are you sure you want to leave now? Why not wait to celebrate it then go?” Nayleen asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
“Yes I’m sure. I’m glad, even. You see, when the Prince or Princess turns twelve, they’re expected to... choose a ‘lover’ if they haven’t gotten one already.” Sairek mumbled. “What would have happened is that all of the village girls would be brought to the castle and I would just have to… pick one.”
“...You’re kidding.” Nayleen deadpanned, her voice unimpressed.
Sairek shook his head. “Nope... Like I said, Ceareste has very old traditions… Since I’m the last of the blood line, well… another heir as soon as possible is kind of important. If something happened to me and my father, well... that would be it. Bloodline over.”
“So… were your father and your mother…?” Nayleen began to ask.
“Thankfully, they were great childhood friends, so it was fairly natural to them. Well, I supposed it was kind of forced still in a way, but at least it wasn’t from something entirely like that.”
“...You’re uh, not picking me then, are you?” Nayleen asked with a hint of concern in her voice.
Sairek tripped in his steps and stumbled to regain balance. “Of course not! I’m not picking anybody…! Especially like that! I don’t care about stupid old traditions like that. It’s dumb!” He huffed. “I could never make love to somebody no matter how long we were together from such a forced relationship. All of it just to make another heir as soon as possible? It’s ridiculous…!” Sairek scoffed.
“Phew, that’s a relief. I enjoy my freedom. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the castle all day and night with you; no offense.” Nayleen commented in relief.
“I wouldn’t want you to. You’re irredeemable at times.” Sairek muttered dryly.
“It’s just part of my charm.”
“I suppose I cannot argue with that.”
“Yeah, you like it when I tease you.”
“What–? I do not…!”
“Sure you do. C’mon~ I know you’re trying to hide your emotions, but you find it funny.” She said with a grin on her face, looking at him.
“Wh–!? Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Am I?”
“Of course you are!”
“You don’t sound very mad to me, though. Go and yell at me and tell me how ridiculous I really am then. C’mon! Get furious!”
“I—You—Cut it out, Nayleen!” He said to her, his voice raised but not yelling. It sounded pathetic and futile, so much so that she laughed at him. Instead of angry, he was just feeling a bit embarrassed.
“Come on, I saw what you did with Samuel! That’s not angry!” She snickered, but moved over from his right side and jogged around to his left and grabbed his hand with her right. “Well, whatever ‘Princey’, there’s a cave right over there, come on, let’s go explore it!”
“Princey…? Sweet Lands, no. Don’t tell me that’s the nickname you’re going to give me like ‘Fancy Dude’ now.” Sairek grumbled. “Anyway, what cave and where?”
“It might be~ Also that one.” She answered, pointing with her free hand to a cliff face at their left, which sure enough, just had a hole in the side of it leading inwards.
“Oh. Uhh… Well then…” Sairek muttered.
Nayleen guided Sairek by hand to the mouth of the cavern. He tried to peer inside of it, but it was simply too dark to see much inside past whatever the sunlight leaked in. He looked back behind him to look back at the sky to see the sun’s position. They had more than ample time to explore inside, and he knew the vast majority of the caves were not so complex and large that getting lost was easy in them, according to reports anyways. “I guess we’re going inside then. Remember to be careful, if it looks really dangerous, we should run back outside of the cave. Let’s not take any chances, understood?” Sairek said, looking back from the sky at Nayleen—
...Where did she go…?
Sairek’s face twisted into a grimace as he looked into the mouth of the cave. “For the love of… NAYLEEN–!!” He called out to her.
“Hurry and get your butt in here! It’s dark!” Came her voice from inside the cave.
“But you’re the one who walked in yourself and—and—I give up…!” He groaned, storming inside the cavern with annoyed steps and raising his staff as he walked in, yelling out “Balinzer!” while he did so. A flame ignited at the head of his staff and he steadied it there, keeping it alive, slowly pouring energy into it but taming it enough to where it didn’t go anywhere. It made his staff behave very much like a torch, which illuminated a moderate space around himself as he stepped in.
The cave actually opened up to be rather hollow and only became more open the further he stepped in. Balinzer was still able to stretch a good twenty feet ahead of him as far as lighting went, though. He saw Nayleen when he stepped in a little further and marched up to her. “Don’t just storm into caves like that! What if something else was in here!?” Sairek scolded her.
Nayleen just looked at him for a moment, a frown on her face. Then she turned to have her back facing him, and she began making weird… flowing… wobbling-like motions with her body and hands.
Sairek blinked at her in disbelief. “What—Just… Just what are you doing, exactly…?” He asked, his tone dry.
“Look at my shadow! It looks really cool with the light from your staff! Look! Shadow puppets!” She giggled.
There was a mild echoing slap of Sairek’s left leather glove coming into contact with his face. Hard. Releasing a groaning sigh into his hand, he released the energy for his spell and the cave went pitch black… including Nayleen’s shadow.
A second later, he heard sad Nayleen booing noises coming from beside himself in the pitch black darness. “Aww, Saaaiiii~! Turn it back oonnn!”
“I will, if you promise to stop goofing off.” Sairek said through gritted teeth. He knew she was just trying to be funny, but this wasn’t exactly the time for that in his mind.
“Fiiiine, you party pooper. No cake for you.”
He sighed again, pulling his left hand from his face. That was probably the best he was ever going to get from her. Besides, he didn’t want to leave them in pitch blackness for very long. Once again, he called out the incantation and Balinzer caused his staff to become lit again. Sairek moved to step beside her once more, studying around themselves, though he couldn’t see much at all but just darkness all around them and the faint outlines of walls. He and her took a few tentative steps deeper into the cave.
“...Where do you think we should even begin looking?” Sairek asked, looking around cautiously. “Have you ever done stuff like this even, or has it always been wilderness stuff?”
“Well, there was Yggdrasil, but no, not really. Also watch out, there’s a puddle at your feet.” Nayleen warned him, pointing down.
Sairek hesitated and pulled his next step back behind himself instead, looking down at the floor, he twisted his face into a curious expression. “...Nayleen? Water isn’t green.”
“Well, neither is ethereal when it’s condensed.” She responded. "Not that shade of green, anyway."
“...Soooo, what kind of liquid is it, then?”
“I dunno. You wanna touch it?”
“...No. I’ll pass, thanks.”
Sairek watched her turn in his direction with a thoughtful look, glancing up at the ceiling. “Hmm… so not water, not ethereal… what other kind of liquid forms in caves in a puddle?” She pondered out loud.
“Well, I’ll tell you what it isn’t—it isn’t what we’re looking for. Let’s just forget it and move on.” Sairek suggested.
“Yeah, I guess if we want to find ethereal, it would probably be closer to the end of the cave.”
“Alright, let’s—” He began, then stopped for a moment.
“What? What is it?” Nayleen tilted his head at him.
“...Where did the puddle go?” Sairek asked her, his voice having gone a bit cold.
She looked down at the puddle, or… at least where it had been. Then she suddenly grabbed Sairek’s arm hard, moving his staff to project the light up higher and more ahead of them and then pointed with her free hand upwards at the ceiling. “That is your answer!”
Sure enough, hanging on the ceiling in front of them was a large, gelatinous blob that was the exact same color as the liquid they just had come across and it happened to be a fairly large one at that. It abruptly moved, half swinging in the ceiling towards them, making Sairek yelp and take several paces back until the light was drawn back enough that it was only just barely visible.
“Wh-What do we do?!” Sairek asked in a panicked voice. Slimes weren’t necessarily dangerous, but boy, this one was bigger than normal slimes for sure! It was bigger and wider than even both of them combined!
“You blast it with magic, of course!” Nayleen answered him.
“But if I do that, then the cave would be pitch black! How do you plan to fight it when it’s dark?!” Sairek protested.
“Use fire then! Knives don’t do very much damage to a slime, you know! Besides, it’s a BLOB, Sairek! It can’t see or hear, so how tough can it possibly—”
Before Nayleen could finish and with the two of them being too busy looking at each other, Sairek saw just from the side of his vision as a blob of goo suddenly slapped Nayleen from the ceiling with enough force to knock her off of her feet and go flying into the darkness.
Sairek yelped and moved back away again. “N-Nayleen!” He cried. “Are you oka—”
“THAT’S IT! Fine! I’ll kill it myself!!” He heard her hiss angrily from somewhere in the darkness.
“...She’s fine…” Sairek muttered dryly to himself. Though there was some relief in his voice. He turned back towards the slime which now dropped down to where they had both been standing before and was now on the ground. Sairek moved himself to his left as the slime contorted its form and reached out, swinging towards Sairek. The movement was slow so stepping out of the way was no problem, but considering how far Nayleen had gone flying, he had no desire to be smacked by that thing.
Speaking of Nayleen, he glanced to his right as she yelled out in a charge, emerging from the darkness with both of her daggers in her hands. As the slime contorted its body back into shape from having attempted to swing at Sairek, she raised both of her knives up and sank them both into the body of the slime all the way to their hilts.
...Predictably, nothing happened and the end of her attack was rather anticlimactic.
“...Alright fine, stand back…!” Sairek ordered her as he held his staff up higher and more in front of himself. The light from his staff burned a little brighter as he poured more energy into it. Nayleen yanked her daggers out and jumped back when Sairek lowered the staff, pointing it at the slime, yelling out “Balinzer!!” His voice echoed around the cavern walls as a large jet of flame spewed out from his staff, coating over the slime. Its form shuddered and wriggled as the fire glazed over it.
Sairek held out the spell for a few seconds, before his own body shuddered from the strain and he gasped and panted, bracing the butt of his staff against the floor and leaning some of his weight against it. He looked back up at the slime and yelped in surprise. No longer was it a green blob, but now it was glowing orange from the heat of his flames.
“...Well shit.” He heard Nayleen curse. “But at least we can see it in the dark, now! Hit it with something else!”
Sairek was about to do that, but out of nowhere, the giant slime abruptly just… exploded. In large chunks. Nayleen instinctively ducked down onto the floor, a couple large chunks of heated goop sailing over her. Sairek however was not so fortunate, caught off guard and winded from his spell, his reaction was too slow and a hot chunk of slime slammed into him so hard, it took his breath away. He went skidding along the floor before crashing harshly into his back against a cavern wall so hard, he only subconsciously realized he barked out in pain. His staff had left his hand at some point and had gone tumbling somewhere.
Afterwards, he just remembered waking up, as if he had just taken a short nap. He must have blacked out for a few seconds at some point. He felt a little dizzy, but he heard Nayleen desperately calling out his name.
“I’m… I’m over here…!” He gasped out, sucking in a deep breath.
Nayleen heard him and he heard her in return from her sprinting footsteps that approached closer to him. She gasped as she saw him laying rather crumpled on the ground. “Shit, are you okay–?”
“Yeah; but my back hurts… I don’t think I can get up right now… I crashed hard into the wall and my back took almost all the impact, even with the clothes…” He answered. "I, think I'm fine, otherwise... My neck aches a little from the whiplash but my head is okay."
She muttered another curse under her breath, but reached down to help pull him up off the ground to settle him more comfortably against the wall of the cave. Sairek winced uncomfortably in pain as he felt his spine shift. “O-Ow!... Easy…”
“You don’t think you’ve paralyzed your spine, don’t you…?” She began with concern in her voice.
“Well now you’re making me worried… I don’t know, it just hurts to try and move it right now…” Sairek grumbled. "If I did something that bad to it, I don't think it'd be hurting right now."
“Okay, so not paralyzed but that’s not good either way.”
“Listen, I lost my staff somewhere between my journey from over there to here.” Sairek said, pointing ahead of himself. “Do you think you can find it for me? I don’t want to be left in this darkness for long.”
“I’m gonna have to be looking pretty blindly, but I’ll do my best.” Nayleen said, her steps padding away from him as she began to look.
But as Nayleen searched and searched over the course of ten minutes, a growing anxiety was forming in Sairek’s stomach as Nayleen kept reporting that she couldn’t find it for him. He bit his bottom lip. Where could it have gone…? “Are you sure it’s not here…?” Sairek began. “Where else could it have gone...!”
“Yes! I am sure!” Nayleen began heatedly, but calmed her tone down as she continued. “My eyes are almost adjusted to this cave now. I’ve checked everywhere—twice. Can’t you just see where it is like you can with that jewel of yours?”
“No. I’m not linked to my staff like Laure did with the jewel… I should perhaps maybe have done that, though…” Sairek grumbled, then blinked, looking up past Nayleen who had returned to him. Sairek grunted as he jerked his head at her to gesture behind her and she looked and turned as well in the direction he was staring in.
A figure stood there, impossible to make out its complete shape or what it was at all; or even who, but regardless of the shape, one thing was certain; it had a pair of garnet-colored eyes which were glowing brightly in the darkness, and those two eyes were currently staring directly at the both of them...
