Chương 18: Battle in the Sewer Cave

"Boss! I brought the fifth sacrifice!" Amberlin turned to the paranoid hood who'd escorted her here. He was grinning gleefully like he'd just pulled one over on her.

"You're in for it now," he gloated.

"The boss is a third-circle mage!" She turned her attention to the four hooded figures standing on the dais. At their feet was a bound man yelling for her to run. There was also a row of cages where four other people were being held captive. She smiled. It looked like she'd found the kidnappers. One of the hooded figures stepped forward.

"Earth Bind!" The floor beneath her turned soft and began pulling her down like quicksand. She couldn't easily jump out of it because in quicksand, the more you struggle, the faster you sink. Instead she pointed a finger at the mage.

"Firebolt!"

"Shield!" A shimmering barrier appeared in the way of her spell, but it was too thin to stop it completely, and the firebolt punched through with reduced effect. The mage took a hit to the face and screamed.

"Hose Down! Hose Down! Light Heal!" His lapse in concentration caused his quicksand spell to cease, and Amberlin pulled her feet free. Paranoid hood stumbled back.

"How? That's solid rock!"

"Nah, it's just mud," she replied dismissively. In her mind, it stood to reason that rock that had been temporarily turned into quicksand would be weak and soft as mud when it rehardened. It made so much sense to her that she didn't bother looking down to check on the chunks of solid granite falling off her boots or the hole she'd left behind in the stone floor. All her attention was on the mage. The other hooded robes weren't a threat, even as they moved to surround her.

She shot off another firebolt at the mage as she dashed toward him, darting in between his underlings. This time he didn't bother to block and instead jumped out of the way before returning fire.

"Force Bolt!" She ducked aside just in time, and the entire cavern shuddered when the bolt struck the wall behind her.

"Careful, boss!" one of the hoods called out. The mage fled from her approach, trying to keep the distance between them.

"Earth Bind!" It wasn't going to work on her a second time. She had too much momentum, and he didn't have enough mastery over the spell to target specifically where her feet were going to land. She easily avoided the quicksand and continued to close in on him.

"Haste!" Now he was getting away. He fled out into the tunnels. She saw through his intentions immediately. It was harder to keep up her speed in the narrow, twisting tunnels, and it would make her vulnerable to his quicksand. But little did he know, she'd wanted to take the fight out there too. In this cavern she had to hold back for fear of hurting the captives. When it was just him and her? She could unleash it all. She ran out after him, giggling in delight at the fight that was to come.

Jacob got a great view of the fight from where he lay on the dais. He squealed with delight when the mage caught the firebolt to the face. Things had become rather personal after the man tried to stab him in the heart. He was quite surprised when he got a good look at the opponent. She was a young lady, hardly in her twenties by his guess, yet she was holding her own against a third-circle mage.

Things got a little hairy when one of the mage's spells nearly brought the cave down, and now the two of them had disappeared off into the tunnels. You go, little lady. I'm rooting for you. But that left him in a little predicament. The other four cultists hadn't gone after them and were instead milling about the dais having a discussion.

"Why did you bring that outsider here?" the woman demanded.

"Are you a traitor?"

"I thought the boss could handle her!" the latest newcomer replied. Jacob guessed that he was Dusty.

"How was I supposed to know she's a platinum?" A platinum-rank adventurer would make sense, Jacob realized. That was the adventurer rank equivalent to a third-circle mage proficient in Tier 5 spells. But platinums were rare, and he hadn't heard about any coming to Lorelark. It was too safe a place to be worth their attention. Though he supposed it would make sense for a platinum to come here to take down a rogue third-circle mage who was trying to perform a demon-summoning ritual.

Seeing how ready she'd been to throw down, he had no doubt that she knew what she was walking into. People at that level were in a world of their own, and he wouldn't presume to understand the intricacies of their information networks.

"The question is, what do we do now?" one of the other cultists asked.

"We wait for the boss to return of course," the woman said.

"He's the only one who knows how the ritual works."

"I mean, should we just pack up and try again next month? The ceremonial dagger is broken."

"No, the boss may have a backup. And I really need my wish this month." She bent down and picked up the red dragon scale that their boss had tossed aside at the beginning of the fight.

"How did you bozos manage to miss this thing?" Before any of them could answer, there was the sound of a purr that set Jacob's hair on end, and all eyes turned once more to the cavern entrance. There they saw the most unexpected sight. A mountain lion.

It had taken Boots some time to find the right trail of Kitten's that led toward the water lizards. The trail stopped at a hole with a big round cover. He could tear his way through, but it would require him to transform, and he knew enough about humans to understand that they would become panicked and unreasonable if they saw his larger form roaming in their territory. So he'd waited until dark and there was no one around. Then he transformed into a mountain lion.

In this form, his claws were long and sharp enough to tear through the heavy cover with ease. Down in the hole, he picked up the trail again. This time he didn't have to follow Kitten's, as the water lizard's scent was overpowering. In fact there was two of them. It must have been his lucky day. The lizards tried to put up a fight, but if he was being honest, they were nowhere close to being dangerous. There were dangerous water lizards out there, with essence that tasted simply divine.

But he didn't get to choose the menu, and he had a craving to fill. Once he'd gorged himself on the two lizards—down to the bone! —he went roaming a bit to see what else was down here. It was a strange place, and he sensed many trails passing through. And he came across the most unexpected thing. Kitten's trail. Fresh. He decided to follow her and see what she was up to. The trail went a long way, and he could tell that she was with someone else. He didn't like the other smell.

Something about it made him feel like they would be a bad influence on her. If he found them together, he would have to warn her. Somewhere in the maze of tunnels, things got strange. Kitten had backtracked, and she was with a different person entirely. The two of them had gone down one of the other paths. There was a lot of heat in the air, the smell of burnt fabric and fur. He was almost concerned, but he caught a particular detail in Kitten's scent. It was the smell she gave off when she was happy.

She was having fun. Whatever was going on, he didn't think he had to worry about her. And the bad influence wasn't with her. On the other hand, the other path, the one she'd gone down and then backtracked from—he could sense something else down there. It was calling to him. Luring him in like the promise of a tasty treat. He would just have another quick bite while he waited for Kitten to tire herself out.

Jacob couldn't take his eyes off the mountain lion. Something about it scared him on a deeper level than any of the cultists. They only wanted to kill him. This lion, it looked like it wanted to devour his soul. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Luckily it wasn't his soul it was looking at. Its eyes were fixed on the orb at the center of the rune formation.

"Chase it away!" the woman commanded.

"Don't let it disrupt the formation!"

"I didn't sign up to fight a predator!" one of the other cultists complained.

"No, you only wanted to abduct helpless civilians," she retorted. It turned out that one of the other cultists had a sword on him, and he drew it now. The woman ran over to the pile of prisoners' belongings and grabbed Jacob's new sword. She wielded it in one hand, and held his dragon scale in the other like an awkward shield. The mountain lion eyed them all carefully and then fearlessly stepped forward. The cultists all backed away.

It was only when the woman's heels touched the edge of the dais that she found her courage.

"Get outta here!" she screamed and lashed out at the cougar. It easily swept her sword aside with its paw and then lunged for her throat. Instinctively she blocked it with the dragon scale. The cougar grabbed the scales in its powerful jaws, wrenched it out of her hands, and tossed it aside with a flick of its head. She fell to the floor and cowered, covering her face with her arms. But the creature had lost interest in her. Its eyes momentarily passed over Jacob before it flicked back to the orb.

With nothing still standing in its way, it climbed up onto the dais and made its way over to the pedestal, knocking candles aside as it went and smudging the runes. And then it reared up on its hind legs against the pedestal like it was a tree, opened its mouth, and swallowed the orb. A cold breeze passed over Jacob, which should have been impossible given where they were. All the candles were extinguished, and the entire cavern was plunged into darkness.

He realized he was holding his breath, and from the silence, the others were all frozen where they were. Everyone was straining their ears to listen to what the creature was about to do next. And that was when the purring began.

How had it come to this? Deckard fled through the rocky tunnels while the young mage followed in hot pursuit. No, it would be wrong to call her a mage. Mages didn't fight like this. But she was definitely platinum-rank. Or maybe even ruby. His plan had been flawless. Lorelark was poorly defended because it was widely considered safe. And with all the talent called over to Ygg Latten Bay for whatever was happening over there, the city didn't have the resources to uncover his plot and stop him.

It was just luck, he decided. You could do everything right and still fail. But this was only a temporary setback. As long as he got away, he could go into hiding and try again at another place, another time. The problem was that he was lost. The reason was that at first he thought he still had a chance at victory. All he had to do was kill the girl, and there was still plenty of time to complete the ritual during the darkest moon.

That's why he'd led her on a route deeper into the cave system rather than back to the surface. But he quickly had to give up on his initial plan of using [Earth Bind] to trap her. He'd thought that the narrow passageways would leave her with no way to escape the tar pit, but it turned out that having the rough walls within easy reach gave her too many handholds to lift herself free. [Air Strike] she just blocked with her arm without slowing down.

[Force Bolt] risked bringing the cave down on his head along with hers. That had left him with his last resort, [Fireball]. It was hard to tell if his spell was having any effect amid all the smoke and dust that got shaken loose from the explosions. But the crunching of her boots keep on coming and eventually he just gave up on trying. All he wanted to do now was get away. But he had been so focused on her that he hadn't paid enough attention to where he was going.

He'd gone too deep beyond what he'd previously explored, or maybe he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere, but he didn't recognize any of these tunnels. And to make matters worse, he could feel himself slowing. [Haste] was the only reason he'd managed to stay ahead of her. But the spell only made him faster, it didn't improve his stamina. Stamina wasn't something a mage was ever meant to need. Those boots were getting closer, and he was running out of breath. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

After the next corner, he stopped in his tracks, turned around, and aimed. At point-blank range there was no way she could dodge it. The moment she appeared around the corner, their eyes locked, and he let loose his most powerful spell. [Force Bolt] elevated to Tier 5. He wanted to see the fear in her eyes. He wanted to experience a moment of satisfaction, however brief, for all the trouble she'd caused him.

But that sharp and intelligent face didn't flicker for even a moment as she deftly ducked to the floor and the [Force Bolt] struck the wall behind her. Somehow she'd managed to evade a point-blank spell. But it didn't matter, for the impact of his spell made the entire tunnel shake. The rock here was less sturdy than the earlier parts of the cave system they'd come from, and the entire roof came down on top of them both.

Amberlin may have gotten carried away. She'd been having so much fun, the chase was what she'd been daydreaming about since her run-in with the gators this morning. She wanted to see where it went and was secretly hoping it would last a little longer. Now she was trapped in this pocket of tunnel. She must have gotten teleported because she didn't think she'd made it out of the way in time when everything caved in.

But it hadn't taken her very far because she could see some legs poking out from under the rocks, and she recognized the robes and boots as belonging to the boss guy she'd just been pursuing. He was also clearly dead. One of the problems with immortality was the possibility of getting stuck somewhere forever. But she could think of many ways out of her predicament. In the worst-case scenario, she could just punch her way out, even if it would take a couple of months.

She wanted something faster though because she didn't want Havlo to worry about her, and it was unfair to make him look after Boots all alone. She could just blast the rock with fireballs. A cascade of cave-ins could teleport her quickly to the surface. Heck, just filling this space with fire could be enough to make her teleport. But she didn't know what was above her, and didn't want to risk getting anyone on the surface hurt by accident.

Besides, she wanted to get back to the cavern to stop the kidnappers and save the prisoners. There was something about her special teleportation ability that had been on her mind recently. The more she thought about it, the more it stood to reason that something her body did automatically was still something that her body could do. Like those mothers who can lift a car off their children in an emergency.

While it's adrenaline that unlocks the capacity, their bodies still need to have the muscle and the strength to do it. And since this world was based on a video game, it stood to reason that teleportation was a magic that existed. Normally something that powerful would be a high-level spell. But somehow her body seemed to have developed it as an innate ability. She just had to find a way to tap into it consciously. She closed her eyes and meditated. And gave up after a few minutes.

It was unrealistic to expect herself to figure this out in the moment. She switched to plan B and filled the entire pocket with fire. Unfortunately it didn't burn her. She realized that mages had to be immune to their own fires. It was how they were able to enflame their hands or hold a fireball in their palm. But there had to be a way to turn off that feature. After all, what if a mage needed to cauterize a wound?

It occurred to her that that was a good way of thinking about it, and she fed into her spell while concentrating on her intentionality. And just like that the entire world around her shifted. She found herself back in the cavern, balanced atop the pedestal where that weird glowing orb had been. Because the teleportation process had been so abrupt, she was still exuding flames, and before she could cut them off, enough had spread out along the floor to light up all the candles.

The runes had also begun to glow, as whatever substance had been used to paint them apparently reacted to heat.

"How?" someone cried out.

"We never finished the ritual."

"And why is it her?" another voice said.

"No, it makes sense," a third voice said.

"How else can someone her age stand against the boss?"

"But she looks human."

"I've heard that the strongest demons sometimes do."

"She has no horns."

"But the ritual..." She didn't expect to be sent all the way back here, but it was convenient because this was where she'd wanted to go anyway. She looked around the cavern. The only source of light came from her light spell, but it was plenty to see by. The remaining four kidnappers were cowering on the floor. They all looked like they'd been crying. Of course anyone would be upset to have their plans ruined like this, but it was what they deserved for plotting something so evil.

And then something came up and tapped her feet. She looked down.

"Boots!" It was definitely him. He meowed at her affectionately and climbed up her legs and onto her shoulders, where he sat and glared at the kidnappers. She glared at them too.

"What did you do to my cat?" she demanded.

"That's your cat?" one of them cried.

"Nothing! I didn't do nothing! I swear!" another one wailed. One of the kidnappers went to kneel in front of her and bowed to the floor like a worshipper. When she spoke, it was with a woman's voice.

"O' great one, please grant me this wish."

"I'm not granting any wishes," Amberlin said, hopping off the pedestal.

"But you can begin redeeming yourselves by releasing the prisoners.

"But—" the hooded woman's protest was cut off by Boots's hissing and she cowered away. Amberlin couldn't believe these people. The audacity to ask a favor after everything they'd done. While the kidnappers scrambled to unlock the cages and untie the man on the dais behind her, Amberlin fit all the pieces together in her mind. It appeared that the recent crime spree in Lorelark had been perpetrated by this one group.

Not only were they the ones going around abducting people off the streets, they were also the catnappers. The people who'd chased Boots last night had been wearing hooded robes. She'd thought Boots would be safe at the inn, but clearly these people didn't give up easy. They must have tailed her back to the inn last night and returned tonight to break in and nab him while she was away. She bet that if she returned to her room, she'd find the window open or something.

Now that she thought about it, the hook that kept the shutters closed could probably be lifted from the outside by sliding something thin in between the slats. And she knew she had to be correct because this hideout was in the sewers just like she'd remembered from the game. In that quest, they'd only been animal traffickers and hadn't been involved in all this other stuff, but her brother must have changed it to spice things up.

Or it could be a spontaneous change in the transition to the real world, like with that rock troll. She would have to see more of the world to know for sure. All the prisoners had been released and assembled in a line awaiting further instructions. They all looked quite anxious, so she approached them. This only made them shrink back. Those poor things. They must have had a terrible experience to become this frightful. One of them looked vaguely familiar.

"Are you Amy?" she asked.

"Uh, yes, I'm Amy," the woman said weakly. She tilted her head.

"We've got the same-color hair. How funny is that?" Amberlin pulled the missing-persons poster from her cloak and held it up. It was a very good sketch. Seeing her face on the poster, Amy looked confused.

"Your friend Evelyn asked me to find you," she explained.

"Evelyn did?" Amy seemed at a loss.

"She seems to really care about you. You've got a good friend." Tears welled in Amy's eyes.

"I'll have to thank her." Amberlin looked around.

"Is this everyone? Let's head back to the city." She expected the kidnappers to try to escape, but everyone obediently fell into line, and there were no issues on their way out.