Chương 25: Escaping the Dungeon

As Malachi crawled forward, he thought he looked like that stereotypical footage of army recruits crawling under barbed wire. He put one arm in front of the other, dragging himself forward. At first, the obsidian beneath him was just painful, then he felt it slicing up his forearms. He held his breath as long as he could, but eventually, his burning lungs required him to take a breath.

'Poison resisted' notifications started popping up in his vision. Then the bone mites started attacking. They were the size of tarantulas, but made out of what looked like cartilage and sinew. They had four legs and nasty looking fangs on the front. One lunged for his nose. Malachi still had the lightning javelin in his hand and he swung it in front of his face, causing the bone mite to seize up. He felt something crawling on his cuisses and heard fangs scraping steel.

Then another, this one finding a gap in his leg armor on his calf. He let out a hiss of breath as the fangs sank into his flesh but kept crawling. With his other foot, he smacked his boot against the spot and felt a satisfying crunch. That was when the first phantasm sped at him. It looked like ghost from a horror movie with a fucked-up face and a mouth opened in a frozen scream. It came at him so fast he couldn't help but flinch, and as it passed through him he felt a terrible chill and knot of dread.

While he was recovering, another bone mite scurried out of one of the tiny rat tunnels and clamped onto his cheek.

"Fuck!" he shouted and cut it off with the javelin, then kicked another that had clamped onto a gap in his leg armor. He moved forward again, feeling pain all through his forearms that were getting cut to hell. It would have been nicer to crawl on sandpaper. Some of the edges of the obsidian floor were as sharp as broken glass. Obsidian is technically a glass. You learned that in your geology class. Oh, you can help with that? Another mite leapt at him.

Malachi's hand with the javelin was supporting his weight, so he was forced to snatch it out of the air with his off-hand. It bit into his palm before he was able to smash it against the side of the tunnel. Another phantasm flashed through the tunnel and Malachi jerked back from how sudden it was, smashing his head on the roof of the tunnel. Fuck! He was seized by that feeling of dread again, and it looked like the tunnel was shrinking on top of him, threatening to crush him.

Malachi crawled forward faster, smashing mites desperately. At least three of them were latched onto his legs now but he needed to move. Needed to get out of here. Above him, the ceiling was starting to drip with spikes. Those are ethereal. They're not physically there, but they can hurt you. That's illusion magic. It was terrifying. Malachi scrambled forward, burning adrenaline he didn't know he had left. His health was dipping again, and he was back up to three stacks of poison.

Then, he burst from the tunnel into a small room, breathing hard.

"Pieces of shit!" he shouted as he smashed the bone mites that had latched onto him. There was a tight feeling in his chest, and it felt like the blood in his body wasn't flowing right. Malachi steadied his breathing. They were in some sort of junction. There were three more tunnels splitting off in the other cardinal directions.

"Good," was all Arisone said.

"Two more passages. I have just enough mana to cast the retaliation curse on you which will help against the bone mites."

"Do you have any more of those 'cure poison' potions?"

"One more. Best to save it until the end."

"Yeah. Okay. Two more of those?"

"Two more of those." Malachi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Okay, another lesson in communication. What's the part that comes after that?" The gorgon hesitated.

"Arisone, I'm going to tell you something about me, and I want you to remember it." Malachi saw William's last smile before he ran off to his death flash through his mind. Felt the despair and sorrow from that moment shiver through him.

"I've already walked through fucking hell, and I came out the other side. I want to know what's coming up so I'm prepared."

"It's another narrow tunnel, except curved downward so that it goes underwater, exiting into the swamp. There will be more phantasms along the route."

"How long will I need to hold my breath for?"

"Three minutes." While swimming. In armor. Swimming with about twenty pounds of armor was a bad idea. On the other hand, it was quite possible that losing the vitality bonus and the poison resist bonuses would kill him. And he'd need them if he was going to survive what came after.

"Then it's physically possible. Okay. The longer we wait, the worse the poison is going to be. Let's go." Then he glanced back. There was a mist coming through the tunnel he'd just emerged from. The room was getting colder. Snowflakes gusted up. Arisone saw it too, and all her hair-snakes turned to look at it.

"A rime spell. That ice mage is more powerful than I thought. As fast as you can," she said. Her wand glowed, and a crimson light flashed over Malachi. She slithered into the left tunnel. Malachi dropped to his belly, breastplate clanking, then started crawling again, this time, with even less regard for his already torn-up forearms. There were more bone mites and phantasms, but as he crawled, he also felt the frost biting at his feet.

He didn't know what the hell the spell did, but if Arisone was scared of it, then he knew he didn't want it to catch him. Again, he found his heart pounding as the walls seemed to cave in around him. He burst from the narrow tunnel into another chamber.

"Right this time," Arisone called. The wisps of frost were advancing. His feet felt cold as hell. He dove down to follow the gorgon. He crawled faster, breathing heavily, arms and fingers cut to hell as he smashed and electrocuted the bone mites trying to get at him. He was still losing to the frost spell. His feet had become frigid, and he felt pain lancing through his toes. Conditions: Poison x7 (minor magical), Bleeding (slow), Frostbite (toes), Cold Vulnerability God dammit, Malachi thought.

At least the bone mites weren't chewing at his legs anymore. Between the retaliation curse and the frost spell behind him, the only ones he needed to worry about were coming from his front, and Arisone was taking care of the worst of those. He felt pain lancing up his legs, just as he emerged. Getting to his feet, he was unsteady. Arisone handed him the antidote potion and Malachi downed it in a single gulp. The gorgon looked at him, concern plain on her face, then said, "Follow."

There was another of the passages flooded with water. As she'd promised, it dipped down in a steady curve. Malachi steeled himself, took the biggest gulp of air he could, the dove after her. The water felt cold, colder than it should have been. He grabbed at the rough obsidian lining the passage and pulled his way forward. He heard the distorted sound of the breastplate lightly scraping against the stone. He heard his heart drumming in his ears.

Perhaps thanks to the water, he'd finally gotten ahead of the bullshit freezing spell that ice mage had cast, but now he was focused on getting through the tunnel as fast as he could. Swim lessons had been a long time ago, though, and he'd never actually beaten Malia when they'd had contests about who could hold their breath the longest. She'd beaten him by staying under for two minutes. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

As the passage bottomed out, Malachi's lungs were already burning. He could feel the panic building, and used that to propel himself forward. Another phantasm raced through the passage, and Malachi let out a burst of bubbles as it passed through him. It was too dark. Too deep. Jagged spikes began to close in from the ceiling. One of them sliced open his scalp, and another cut through his ear. Not gonna make it. Fuck. Fuck! His lungs hurt. He wanted to take a breath so badly. Fight, he told himself.

She's still out there. She needs you. He clawed madly at the stones in front of him, yanking himself faster and faster. Then, all of a sudden, he was grasping at nothing. A faint light shone above him. Another jolt of fear ran through Malachi. That light glimmering at the surface was so far away. He beat at the water with his arms, kicked with his legs, putting everything he had into it. He moved upward, but so slowly. He just needed to breathe. Just one breath.

A shadow moved through the water, and then he felt something wrapping under his arms. Pushing him upward. Arisone. He kicked and kicked, desperately flapping his arms. Then, his instincts overrode his control. He snorted in some of the fetid water. Then, the panic really kicked in. He was flailing about.

There were no thoughts, just animal instinct telling him he was dying, that he needed air, but he needed to inhale, needed to cough the water out, needed to— And then he was on the shore, the gorgon dragging him up. Malachi's coughing fit began immediately. Water that had been in his lungs splashed into the mud. What he wanted to do was sit there and breathe, to just lie there and bathe in the miracle of fresh air. Well, fresh-ish air. The swamp still smelled worse than the Tacoma aroma.

"That noise will have alerted the camp. We will just have to pray to Sheothalia the flying hunters aren't nearby. Can you run?" Malachi's lungs still hurt. His toes still burned. At least the cold vulnerability seemed to have faded. He wiped water away from his eyes and nodded. He heard the distant shouts from the camp a moment later. Arisone set a fast pace, and Malachi followed as best he could. His steps were unbalanced.

He needed to take a look at his feet when they rested, because they were definitely fucked up. He was still coughing occasionally. He just wanted to rest. There wasn't time. The gorgon tasted the air.

"Hounds," she said, just before growls began to echo through the trees.

"Should have known they'd employ a beastmaster." Her tongue flicked out again, and her hair-snakes looked around curiously.

"Stay back. Take a moment to recover. I will handle this." Malachi nodded and sat down hard in the muck of the swamp, checking the tree he was near carefully before leaning back on it. Hope she really can. She'd already overestimated her capabilities once, and he didn't have a lot of trust in this gorgon. At the same time, he was definitely dead without her. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again as a rank smell filled the air. It was the worst dog's breath he'd ever smelt. The growls got closer.

The cautious part of him wanted to leap to his feet so he'd be ready, just in case. The rest of him wanted to keep sitting. When Arisone had said 'hounds,' Malachi had been thinking about a beagle, maybe a German shepherd. These things were fucking nightmares. They had white patchy fur, but they were all sinew, and as they bared their teeth, he could see they were black and rotten looking. [Hadaun Hound] - They smell good, but they don't smell so good, if you catch my drift.

Fast, agile, resilient, and a nasty bite. Can employ some amount of blood magic. Used primarily by the Maatugivi Empire. Arisone's wand glowed crimson, and one of the hounds stopped snarling, then a second. Both lay down on the ground as the third one charged at her. Her hair spread out, and the snakes all hissed at once. The third hound stopped in its tracks. The first two closed their eyes. Did she put them to sleep? The gorgon pulled out one of her knives as she began to murmur to it.

Her gaze still intently focused on the third hound, she cut a tiny gash on its paw. The Hadaun hound didn't seem to notice. Malachi watched curiously, saying nothing since it might break the spells. He'd figured out she'd hypnotized the last beast, but wasn't sure what else she was doing. Then, her wand glowed with that spectral blue light, and wispy ghosts danced through the air before settling on the hounds one by one. Then another spell, both blue and crimson.

The colors correspond to magic type, I've figured that much out. But what's the effect? Arisone was still whispering to that third hound. Then she stopped, and her hair settled. The hound went running back.

"Done," she hissed.

"What did you do?" Malachi asked quietly, rising to his feet to follow her. The two hounds were still on the ground, apparently asleep and oblivious.

"The manipulated hound will return to its master. First it will lead them here, then it will lead them the wrong direction. If all goes well, my curses will either kill or incapacitate our pursuers. The tactic works best on those unsuspecting, so we will not stick around to find out." After that, they kept a fast enough pace. A few minutes later, Malachi heard screaming coming through the mists. The way the swamp played with the sound, it sounded like it came from everywhere. He shivered.

"Good. Likely, that will not work on the griffin rider or the mages. With their power they no doubt have obtained enchantments and abilities to protect themselves. We still need to get as much distance as we can." Malachi nodded. It was dark when they finally stopped to rest. Arisone led them to a den that was hidden beneath a secret door in a hollow stump. The place was cramped, but there was a wall of smooth bark grown around them, and below, thin roots woven that felt a lot like a carpet.

A shelf grew out of the bark walls for them to put their things. Malachi was pretty sure this had all been done by plant magic. Malachi still wasn't sure how it all worked. The bog demon's impaling attack went through the ground, but the stones never actually shattered. So if ethereal stuff isn't real and the effects fade, how does something become permanent like this? SERA didn't answer, and Malachi was too tired to ask the gorgon.

Arisone activated a little magical lamp that gave off enough heat that Malachi could actually start to dry off. The waterproofing enchantment on his boots hadn't been able to get rid of all the water, so he'd been trudging around in wet socks. And he still couldn't feel his toes. While the gorgon mage dug around for preserved ingredients in the jars, Malachi gently removed his armored boots. He winced at the sight.

Sure enough, four of his toes were solid black from frostbite, and his feet were blistered, the skin angry looking. Malachi took in a deep breath, then summoned his lightning javelin. When he moved it through the toes, though, it just passed through. It crackled where it hit the root floor, but didn't seem to be affecting his flesh. Huh, he thought.

"Arisone, can I borrow your knife?" She looked at him.

"Why?" He still needed to keep his regeneration hidden.

"Uh, do you shed your skin?"

"Of course."

"Humans, uh, deal with something similar. Different, obviously, but, you know. I have to trim something." The gorgon didn't raise an eyebrow at him, but the way her hair moved, she might as well have. Finally, she unsheathed her knife and offered it to Malachi hilt first.

"Thanks." He then tensed up and grit his teeth. God I hope my regeneration works on this. SERA had mentioned it 'probably' would when he'd begun to suspect what kind of damage had been done to his feet as they walked. Malachi hesitated only a moment, then started sawing through his blackened toes. The tissue was fully necrotic, and hours on the road hadn't made it any better. Hopefully, if he removed the frostbitten parts, his toes would regrow overnight.

But that meant he had to cut where the flesh was still living. It meant he had to saw through bone. Fortunately, Arisone's knife was sharp. He clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might snap. His body was shaking as he cut through his left pinky toe and moved onto the next frostbitten one. He used what was left of his tattered shirt as a rag to soak up the blood, trying to mash it up against his toe to staunch the bleeding, but it quickly was soaked through. Arisone paused rummaging.

"Are you bleeding?" Malachi tried to sound normal through clenched teeth.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it." Too late. She was worrying about it.

"Are you cutting off your toes? I was under the impression that those don't grow back." He took in a sharp breath as another bone snapped. He trusted Arisone a lot more, but not with the knowledge he had three conduits. Not when it would be so easy for her to kill him for his Core.

"Really? Maybe Hadaun toes don't. Earth humans can. Just takes a bit."

"Fascinating. So there are biological differences between you."

"I guess." Now I just need to make sure she never meets another Earth human. Well, that probably wouldn't be a problem.

"Do you cook the toes afterward? There's several delicacies made from shed gorgon scales that—""Nope. Absolutely forbidden. It's a religious violation. Very bad," Malachi said quickly. Arisone looked disappointed at that.

"Ah. Pity. Our dinner will not be very exciting then. We have dried rat livers and suloroot. I can rehydrate the mushroom sauce, but it's spicy."

"No mushroom sauce for me, then." SERA, is suloroot toxic? Hmm. I don't think so. It just tastes like a dog's asshole. Malachi stopped sawing at his last toe. How was this day still getting worse? How do you know what a dog's asshole tastes like? Chemical and neurological inferences. Malachi closed his eyes, sucked his breath, then finished hacking off the last toe. He pressed the blood rags to his feet, then waited for the regeneration to stem the flow of blood.

Arisone, who could curl up like a cat, wouldn't have any problem going to sleep. Malachi wasn't going to have enough room to lie fully down. It was going to be a rough night.