A Moment to Breathe

It had been nearly a week since entering the cavernous complex, and still there had been no sign of the witch that ruled the underground. Though it was a blessing to move freely through the darkened caves by the light of the MULE, taking time to rest when needed and relishing the lack of pursuit by golems or Kovik, Avii couldn’t shake the feeling that their free pass was nearing its end. Like a chill on the wind or the smell of smoke in the air, he knew their luck was changing.

The earthen passages that they travelled, barely wide enough for the Maldainian MULE to fit, were a pitch-black maze of ancient lava tubes. Avii recognized their composition within the first day of travel, understanding it well as the passages resembled those that naturally traversed the mines. Though, unlike the tunnels beneath the mountain, which were filled with magical wares, these passages bore different loot. As Avii led the group deeper, they would occasionally stumble upon the remains of figures that had once attempted to navigate the forbidden caves.

Bodies, long since decomposed, were now nothing more than bones. The surface of which had been marked by scratches and nibbles from the creatures of the underground. And though the remains seemed to have been shredded, Avii slowly noticed something unusual.

With each corpse the trio came across, it became apparent that only the bodies had been affected. In fact, upon closer inspection, no clothing or weapon or food of any kind appeared even slightly damaged or mouldy. It was as if only the men and women who trespassed had been ravaged by time. That only the wielders had been picked to the bone, drained of marrow, and left as grim markers of the unholy labyrinth they marched. And, while a terrible way to go, it presented an opportunity for the group as they took the food and drink and clothes for themselves.

Though ill-fitting, they were at least whole and covered their bodies. Vivat cherished the holy robe she found and the staff of a fellow Follower of the Trinity Lord. After a short prayer, she helped Ostave dress himself in the oversized, cotton blouse before lowering the chainmail shirt atop it. Pinning his pants midway down the calf so they would not tangle with Avii as he ran, the orc looked closer to a man fresh from the frontlines than one still on a mission behind them.

By the time they had found clothes for Avii, his foot had fully healed. Taking the opportunity to remove the boot and the bolt that held it in place, he was eager to exchange the hardware with something more comfortable. Unfortunately, the removal of the rod from his leg led to a chilling discovery about the reality of the caves.

While blood poured forth from his wound, he watched as Vivat prayed. When she moved her hand over his leg, whispering the final words, no holy right revealed itself. No divine healing came forth, and, in fact, her spell did little more than slow the bleeding. However, it was not just his wound. Over several days, she prayed and attempted to work her magic. But nothing. Even the spell she had cast on Ostave’s legs had slowed and stalled at the calves. The holy magic she wielded seemed to disappear the deeper they drove underground.

More than that, over the passing days Vivat complained in an increasing amount about the horrid nightmares that had begun to plague her dreams. With every passing night, she grew more anxious about their time in the caves, her psyche slowly fracturing. While he would never say it, Avii could see her faith leaving her as the days moved on. Her prayers gradually became shorter, more frantic, and, as such, did little more than further weaken her holy might.

Ostave, on the other hand, grew in spirit faster than he did in limbs. The reprieve from torture did his mind well, as he spent evenings quietly talking with Avii as he worked. Even though he had little understanding of MULEs beyond the operations of his offensive variant, he found Avii’s procedural checks of crystals and runes fascinating.

So, as Avii worked, continuing to ensure his MULE was operating at peak efficiency, and Vivat slept, Ostave watched.

“What is that there?” Ostave asked from the corner of the small offshoot cave they had picked to rest. “That crystal?”

Avii turned his attention away from the MULE to the knight. There he saw the broken man sitting with his back to the wall, his missing lower legs stretched out to the center of the room. As he watched, he firmly held a piece of dried meat in his hand as though it would disappear if he loosened his still trembling grip. Eying the orc as he anxiously fiddled with his regrown tusk with a free hand, a tick he had picked up over his time in captivity, Avii couldn’t help but feel his heart break. He knew that pain. That fear. And the power it had over the mind.

“Come, I’ll show you.” Avii welcomed Ostave over, waiting for him to crawl his way into the pale blue glow of the suit’s interior light before continuing. “This is a transistor crystal. It amplifies the arcanzcore’s magic a hundredfold. To put it simply, for every one percent your suit’s core used, you got out one percent. But, using this leystone and the runes crafted over it, for every one percent I use, I get a hundred more.”

Plucking the crystal free, Avii watched as the MULE’s glow dimmed by an order of magnitude. While still there, it was nowhere as bright as it once was, though it still gave off enough for him and Ostave to admire the stone.

“You see, the stone is covered from top to bottom in fine runes. That’s the beauty of Maldainian artisanry.”

Ostave marvelled at the object as he weakly extended his grasp to take it. Holding it in his hand, he put it before the light of the suit and watched as the runes were cast out across the cave. At this, Avii smiled, staring at the ancient text of his forebears with reverence.

Avii wished he had grown old enough in the mines to learn the secrets of the stones and how they were crafted. It had always been a long-term goal of his to transition into artisanry after he grew tired of the labour. Unfortunately, that time had since passed, and while he knew more than Ostave, his understanding was still rudimentary at best. Though he was at least happy that he still remembered how to maintain the machine that gave him his strength.

“Beautiful.” The orc remarked, lowering the stone and handing it back to Avii. “Your people were truly masters of their craft, weren’t they?”

“They were,” Avii responded, plucking the crystal and setting it back into the suit. “I have no doubt that Ragart would have learned much from them had he been given more time.”

The glow from the MULE bathed the cavern once more as Avii continued to look over the crystals. He had gone over almost every stone since they entered the cave, checking them over with each rest and ensuring they were working properly. Aside from a few that had grown too weak to operate over years of disuse, he was glad to see that the MULE remained in prime condition.

With only one more crystal to replace, Avii opened a compartment in the seat of his suit. As it swung out, it revealed a small space meant to be full of spare crystals for emergency repairs while deep in the mines. Unfortunately, the operator had needed some in the days before the detonation and, in his youthful laziness, never replaced them. And now, needing more, he had used up the remaining stock.

“What’s that?” Ostave asked again, this time his gaze not fixated on the crystal Avii had drawn to replace a shoulder arcanoservo, but instead on the items that he had long ago hidden in his seat.

“Hmm?” Avii responded, following Ostave’s eyes to the two objects he had forgotten he hid behind the crystals. “Ah! I forgot about those!”

Avii’s heart swelled as he reached in and pulled the first object out. A rare smile crept across his face.

“This,” He continued, pulling a rectangular paper pack into his hands and gently tapping it. “Sir Knight, this was my mistress. Something I had to hide from my wife and child. And, like me, they are likely the last of their kind.”

Popping the top open, Avii slipped out two of the three remaining Maldainian cigarettes in existence. He placed the first between his lips and, with a reflexive snap of his fingers, called a small flame into existence between his thumb and index finger. The end of the spliff glowed hot as it crackled gently under the flickering fire. The warm, rich smoke filled Avii’s lungs as his shoulders immediately relaxed.

“It’s been thirty years since my last ciggy,” He muttered to himself, exhaling a cloud of smoke with the words. “And it’s just as good as I remembered.”

“Y-You had a family?” Ostave asked softly, ignoring Avii’s nostalgia as the man handed over the second cigarette and lit it for the orc. “A wife and child?”

“Yes,” Avii answered, taking another drag before knocking the ash off. “Kani, my wife, was as beautiful as the summer day. Her voice was like the songs of birds in spring. Heh, but when she was mad, oh, prepare yourself, the fury of a cyclone coming to shore couldn’t compare.”

In a moment of respite, Avii almost forgot everything that had happened. As though sitting in the cave with a MULE to his back and a cigarette in hand had allowed the past to be rewritten. All the pain. The loss. The tragedy. As though his life to that point had been nothing more than a bad dream and the man before him was just another operator, sharing a break before diving deeper. And for those brief seconds, life was again perfect.

“And Jeanine…” Avii choked on his words, pulling himself from the comfort of his daydream. “Jeanie, she—she was just a youngling the day the world ended. Four years, walking and talking chaos that one was. Just like her mother. I…”

With a breath, Avii swallowed the feeling of sadness that overwhelmed him. In that moment, he quickly slipped the cigarette back between his quivering lips and inhaled. Taking another drag, he held it deep in his lungs until he couldn’t anymore. He released a plume of smoke with his trembling breath and stared down at his lap.

Avii couldn’t ignore it anymore. The feeling of missing them. Missing his wife and child. It consumed him. It was a feeling he thought he had put to rest. A feeling that, the closer he drew to home, he couldn’t ignore.

A sniffle escaped him as he tapped the ash out again and reached into his baggy shirt. Avii pulled the necklace free, staring at the pendant and crystal that hung from the mithril chain. Then, with a breath, he took one of his nails and pried the locket open.

There, within the object, were two small pictures that had been magically enchanted once upon time. No longer did they move, smiling and laughing as they looked out at him, but still they remained. The first, a beautiful woman with a smile that could light the darkest caves. And the other, a baby, her cheeks chubby and face resting as she slept.

A single tear splashed down over the image of Jeanine as Avii fought to keep his emotions hidden but slowly failed. He stifled another sniffle, exhaling a sharp breath before closing the locket and hiding it away. Looking up, Avii caught sight of Ostave and his saddened stare.

“Oi,” Avii sniffed, wiping at his face before putting the cigarette to his lips. “Sorry about that. Now—erm, eh-herm—you said you had a family, right?”

“Why didn’t you leave us?” Ostave asked suddenly.

“What?”

“Back at the camp. You’ve got your armour, and you know the land. You could have left us there and fled right then. Why?”

Avii looked to the side, casting his gaze upon the squirming form of Vivat. He stared at the way her face scrunched, and her hands twitched as she suffered with another nightmare. Then, glancing to the armour behind him, he took in the sight for a moment before finally looking back to Ostave. Taking another drag off his cigarette, he exhaled and answered.

“Because we have a job, Sire. For the future. For the children. Your children—”

“Bullshit, Avii.” Ostave snapped. “You didn’t care about the job or the future. You didn’t know I had children or that the golems would destroy it all. At least not then. So why did you come back? Why didn’t you leave us?”

With a sniff, Avii knocked ash to the ground and sighed. He didn’t know how to answer because in a way he wasn’t even sure. And then the words came to him. Something simple that he remembered thinking that day.

“Because you didn’t deserve to die in a Kovika camp, Ostave. Because—”

“AHHH!” Vivat shrieked, sitting up as though lightning had coursed through her body. “AHHH—"

“Vivat?!” Ostave turned to the priestess. “Vivat what ar—”

“She comes!” The priestess screamed as she threw her back against the wall, frantically searching for something that was not there. “She comes! She comes for us all!”

“Who? Who, Vivat?”

And then the quiet of the cave began to slowly grow louder with the sinister sound of cackles. A laugh that had haunted Avii’s dreams for a time in his youth. The evil laugh that preceded the witch of the cave.