Underground

I woke up with my body informing me of various intensities of pain from my entire body, so I was apparently still alive. Despite the fact I couldn’t see anything.

No, wait. I could see a little… somewhere next to me there was a very faint light, fainter than any moonlight.

“Ugh,” I groaned. I could hear the sounds of running water from nearby.

“You awake, C?” asked a familiar voice.

I tried rising, but my body was in pain. I laid my head back on the hard surface I woke up on. My hands felt slimy as I groped around. “Wha… what happened?”

“Well, I think we escaped,” said Kai.

Turning my head, I finally realized the cause behind the faint glowing—it was coming from Saga. More precisely, from that pearly-white sword of hers.

Had it always been like that? I’d slept next to her in the forest, but didn’t remember it glowing back then. Then again, maybe it was only noticeable in pure darkness.

“Saga?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“Just making sure, ow… we’re all in one piece.”

“Not really, but sure. Can you heal us already?” grumbled Kai.

“I just woke up, you asshole. And the answer’s no. Not right now, anyway; I’m exhausted. How about some ‘thank you’, instead? I saved your butts!”

“We nearly died regardless… you opened a freaking hole in the ground!”

“It was the only way!”

“Couldn’t we fly away?”

“And get sniped by all those archers and magicians? I wouldn’t be able to maintain it for long anyway,” I said.

“But they can dig down here too then, right?”

“I don’t see them here, now do you?”

“…Hah, why are you being so noisy?” asked Saga. As usual, despite her words she sounded mostly detached, although there was a hint of anger, or perhaps impatience, embedded in her words.

I was getting too tired to argue anyway.

“I guess it does seem like we’re safe for now,” mumbled Kai. “But everything hurts.”

“Got any idea where this is?” I asked, trying to focus on my surroundings again. The earth was rough but grainy, and the ambient sounds hinted there was a water source… I thought I could hear it flowing somewhere nearby.

Hmm. For a moment I considered it could be the city sewers, but it wasn’t anywhere near smelly enough for that.

“Seems like some underground tunnel,” said Saga.

“Yeah, at some point during your crazy move the ground opened up and threw us down here like some incredibly dangerous water slide. Luckily not too much of a drop,” added Kai.

Was this tunnel man-made, or just so happened to be right here under the city?

I groaned and tried rising to my legs to no great success. I was technically still wearing the disguise, but the dress was probably in an awful state by now, so I started ripping and discarding it. There was no longer any need for this anyway.

“What are you doing?” asked Kai.

“We need to move,” I told him. “How much time passed since I was out?”

“Probably less than an hour.”

“Then they’ll still be looking for us,” I said. I tried casting a minor healing spell but that made me nearly black out again. Still not enough time passed for to recover. “Honestly surprised they haven’t already.”

“That’s reckless!” said Kai.

“But needed.”

Saga apparently agreed with me; she said nothing, but I could see by Tarisha’s faint light that she got to her legs as well.

A vast tunnel, only just barely tall enough to accommodate us continued ahead.

“You’d think the magicians would be able to find us easily… is it possible there’s no detection spell?” I wondered aloud.

Kai mumbled something under his breath but apparently gave up and joined us walking. He then said, “Maybe, or maybe I’m kinda blocking it? Depends on how it works.”

I frowned. “Blocking it? What do you—oh, you mean the mogage.”

“Yeah.”

This was our sort-of secret weapon against Three: a small chunk of mogage.

We’d grabbed it back in Shellkeep, taken directly from that crazy bitch called Two. Since she used weapons with blades that were either made of or coated with the stuff, and Saga cut off some of it, it became ours.

I needed to use magic and Saga got along just fine with her sword, so we entrusted the shard to Kai.

“Could have been useful in the fight just now, come to think about it,” I grumbled.

“Eh, not really,” said Kai dismissively. “I was too busy dodging arrows and whatnot anyway.”

Fair enough. It was probably better to save it for Three anyway.

“Speaking of magic—don’t you have at least enough power to create a light or something? We can’t walk like that.”

Well, he was right; our pace was much too slow in the choking darkness barely lifted by Saga’s sword. I relented and formed a small sphere of light in the palm of my hand.

It wasn’t a huge improvement, but it did make things a lot clearer. For one, the extent of our injuries. Saga in particular was covered in blood all over, though most of it must have been her enemies’.

As suspected before, we were in some underground river of some sort. Perhaps there was an entire cave system down here, although for the time being it was a straightforward route.

For now, I wanted us to gain some distance and then spend the night somewhere. Tomorrow we could think of something, like how to get out and how to evade capture.

We were lucky to still be alive, but things went terribly out there… and as strong as we were, we couldn’t hold our own against so many people. At least, not without the initiative or a plan.

I shook my head and continued walking on my aching legs. This was no time for regrets. As long as we were alive, we’d have another chance.

We walked in complete silence for quite a while. Luckily the light spell held for quite a while even without me maintaining it, so I could save my energy. I was starting to get hungry, though, and we lost all of our supplies.

Finally, we reached a dead end in a tunnel. None of us expected the nature of that dead end, however.

“…Where does that lead?” said Kai.

In front of us was a rusty metal door.