Chương 5: Only Mostly Doomed

"Let's talk about our resources," Violet says, barely giving me enough time to get through the harrowing ordeal of relieving my bladder.

"What resources?" I ask, hobbling my way back towards the Dark Corridor.

"We've got nothing."

"That's not true," she counters.

"We've got our clothes, glasses, hair clips, a knife, a cloak, and a nearly endless supply of magical candles."

"Ugh, don't remind me about the stupid friggin' candles..."

"I'm just saying, we shouldn't write anything off. Even something like the wire from a bra could be potentially useful." I groan.

"First of all, I'm not about to disassemble my underwear for its components, and second I don't have a wire because whatever mystery force stuck me here was 'kind' enough to match my off shoulder top with a strapless bra, but not give me any shoes!"

"It was just an example," Violet says, dismissing my complaint.

"The fact that we have so little to speak of is precisely why we need to take stock of everything."

"Sure, whatever," I grumble.

"I need to sit down for a second, my leg hurts." Violet sighs.

"I told you going all the way back to the Altar Room was excessive."

"Well I'm sorry I didn't want to pee in the middle of a random hallway!"

"I understand that, but you need to go easy on that leg if we're going to have any chance of surviving this." I gently ease myself down to the floor and sigh in relief as I take the weight off my injured leg. I know her heart is in the right place, but I'm already starting to get sick of Violet's nagging. It's hard to say she's wrong though.

"What do you think my chances actually are, anyway?" I ask, fiddling idly with a nearby candle.

"Honestly? Not great," she answers.

"The odds are really stacked against us. We seem to be underground, we have no leads on sources of food or water, and we've already got a serious injury impeding us. If not for the mechanism boosting us with attributes, I'd think we were completely doomed."

"Great, so we're only mostly doomed, then."

"It's not all bad," Violet consoles me.

"Thanks to this cloak and all the candles, we've mostly got shelter figured out, so I'm not too worried about the fact that it's getting colder." I pause. It's what now?

"Back up, it's getting colder?"

"I think so," she replies.

"It's pretty subtle, but I think the whole place has been slowly getting colder ever since the [Angel] showed up, and the Dark Corridor is definitely colder than these lit areas." My poor toes are gonna freeze!

"How do the candles help?" I ask.

"I checked before and they're not hot."

"No, but they are warm to the touch," Violet says.

"So if we keep enough of them with us, we should be okay."

"How are we going to carry them?" Violet is silent for a long moment before answering.

"We'd better head back so we can keep an eye on that corridor, in case something dangerous shows up." She really hates not having an answer, doesn't she? That's the second time she's deflected like that after drawing a blank. Well, lucky her, I hate pressing on that sort of thing, so I guess that's a problem for later.

"Alright," I say, groaning miserably as I fight my way back up onto my feet.

"Back to babysitting a hole in the wall..." [Level Up!] Unified Collective is now Level 2. +1 Ego. Well that's nice. * When we return to what I have just now decided to call the Entrance, Violet convinces me to try on the grody skeleton cloak. My shoulders are getting cold enough that I actually agree. The thing is actually surprisingly clean, aside from the bloodstain from when I wiped the knife off on it. It's made of a thick, heavy fabric that's somewhere between cotton and wool.

I'm extremely glad it's not actually wool—my wound is itchy enough as it is. Also, at the risk of being cliche, it has pockets! This matters a lot to me, because my skinny jeans are so form-fitting that it would be completely impossible to fit anything into its pockets. Something the manufacturers must have been well aware of, since it doesn't actually have any—just some insulting decorative stitching that stores nothing but disappointment.

The inside of the cloak actually has all sorts of little pockets to hide things in. Each one is about the size of my hand, and there's about sixteen of them ranging from convenient and easy to reach all the way down to a couple too low for me to access without lifting the thing up. Speaking of which—it's too big. The skeleton was actually pretty tall, and the cloak already concealed it head to toe. On me, the cape drags on the floor.

"This is good, actually," Violet informs me.

"We can cut it to size and keep the extra fabric if we need it."

"Isn't that bad for the fabric? Resizing it without a proper seam will make it get all ragged."

"You're worried about how it's going to look?" Violet asks incredulously. I blush.

"Not just that! You said it's going to get cold, and this thing is going to be our only blanket. It won't be any good to us if it gets all torn up."

"That's a fair point," she admits.

"Sorry. Still, it's going to get torn up either way, and leaving it too long is just going to trip us." Since I'm just sitting here doing nothing while I wait for my leg to at least scab over or something, I get to work resizing the cloak while Violet starts explaining our immediate plans for survival. I have to be careful, since the fabric is pretty sturdy and as sharp as the knife is, it's really hard to get any kind of leverage without cutting off a finger.

"Since the candle flames don't actually burn anything, we should keep as many candles as possible in our cloak," Violet explains.

"That should not only provide us with some extra warmth while we explore the Dark Corridor, but also light and hopefully a way to keep track of our progress."

"What do you mean?" I ask, as I struggle with the cloak. Gotta remember to cut away from myself...

"Have you tried breaking them? Or using them as crayons?"

"Did you just say crayons?"

"Well, yes. Crayons are made of wax, you know."

"Oh, right. One sec..." I take one of the ever-present candles and try scraping it along the smooth stone floor to no avail. Just to be sure, I try with the lit end as well, but the candles refuse to leave behind any sort of byproduct.

"Yeah, no dice," I say.

"I don't think these are even really candles."

"Hmm, okay well maybe we can just leave them behind us as a trail?" Violet suggests.

"Since they produce light, it should be easy to find our way back that way."

"Or, we could not do that, and just use my Wanderer skill," I counter, returning to the arduous task of slicing a piece of fabric—why is this so hard?

"Retraced Steps gets weaker the more ground we cover. I'm trying to think ahead to what happens when we've explored much larger areas. Knowing that we've been somewhere before doesn't really help us if we're lost in territory we've already explored."

"Sure, but wouldn't the same thing happen if we start sticking candles everywhere?" This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. I sit in silence for a moment, slowly working the knife through the fabric. I can practically feel the change in subject coming.

"In any case, we should keep as many candles with us as possible," Violet says, doing exactly as I predicted.

"They're the only resource we have in abundance, and I'm sure we'll find ways to make use of them.""'Kay," I agree.

"You know we could probably just make marks in the rocks with the knife or something." I can practically feel Violet grimacing at that.

"I don't want to destroy the edge on our only weapon like that."

"With the other side?" I ask, holding up the knife to demonstrate. The hilt isn't particularly long, but it's got a little flared bit of metal at the end to keep my hand from slipping—there's probably a name for that.

"Oh, the pommel—that makes more sense. Good idea!" Pommel, right. That's what it's called.

"How come you know things I don't?" I ask.

"It's been bothering me for a while."

"I don't know," Violet admits.

"I remember everything from when we first woke up here, but before that is just... fuzzy. I keep almost remembering things, but most of it is just blank. Maybe we've got different blank spots?" That's not really how it feels to me, but I don't have a better explanation than that, so I accept her answer for now. I finally manage to slice through the last bit of fabric and pump my arm in triumph.

"Yes! I finally got it!" I quickly stand up, only slightly regretting the act when my leg flares up painfully, and don my newly altered garment. I can't really see myself that well, but the cloak wraps nicely around my bare shoulders, and the cape drops down to just above my ankles. The cut is a little ragged and uneven, but whatever—I think it's pretty good since I did it with a knife. That leaves me with a single long strip of cloth, maybe one by four feet. I stare at it for a moment, pondering.

"Hey, Vi?" I ask.

"Do you think we could make these into a pair of socks or something?"

"Oh! Footwraps! That's a great idea, although..." she hesitates.

"What? What's the problem? My feet are freezing!" I complain.

"Well, it's just that you're going to have to cut it along the length again."

"... Frick!" *"I spy—""A candle," Violet interrupts me, exasperated.

"Wow, how'd you know?!" I exclaim.

"It's like you can see into my mind!"

"Allison..." she sighs.

"I know you're bored, but we can't explore until our leg heals more."

"This goes well past boredom, Vi!" I complain.

"We've been sitting here for hours! There's nothing to do! I can't stand it!" I don't actually know how long it's been. My poor tortured feet are now ever so slightly warmer in their crappy makeshift footwraps, and it's actually pretty cozy with a bunch of candles under the heavy cloak. I think I might have nodded off briefly at some point, but it's hard to tell when time just starts blending together. [Level Up!] Unified Collective is now Level 3. +1 Ego.

"Huh, that one just kinda goes off whenever it wants, doesn't it?" I observe.

"Seems like," Violet agrees.

"I'm not going to complain, though." I decide to take the opportunity to look at my status again, since there's nothing better to do. [Allison: Tier 0 Human] [Class Slot 1: Tier 0 [Unified Collective]* - Level 3/10 [Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Wanderer]* - Level 3/10 [Attributes] Power: 1 Resilience: 4 Awareness: 1 Ego: 4 Will: 1 [Skills] Parallel Wills (1) Retraced Steps Yup, yup. Still the same. Anything new with the Parallel Wills skill? [Parallel Wills] Additional minds operating in tandem within one body. You can currently support one (1) additional thoughtform. Nope. It too remains unchanged, as it has the last fifteen times I checked it. You'd think having someone to talk to would ease the burden of boredom, but having all the same experiences makes it pretty hard to find a good topic of conversation with Violet. For some reason she doesn't like talking about the differences between our limited memories of our old life, and there's only so many ways to say 'We need food and water or we are going to die' before it gets old. In other words, I. Am. BORED!" I can't do this," I declare." I'm gonna go exploring."" Allison, our leg still needs more time to heal," Violet protests." I don't care! I'm going to die of boredom before either blood loss or dehydration can get me at this rate."" Allison, wait!" I ignore Violet's protests and stand up. Gosh it feels good to stretch after sitting on the hard stone for so long. My joints are even more sore than my leg after all that sitting around. Knife in one hand, candle in the other, and loaded up with pockets full of spares, I venture forth once more into the Dark Corridor. Violet continues to pester me as I limp past the inert bones of our old adversary." Allison, please, if our leg reopens we might not survive it. We barely survived it the first time." I'm starting to get a headache. A dull pressure behind my eyes, similar to the way I felt after the [Angel] did its thing in my brain." My leg feels fine," I insist." I'll be careful not to put too much weight on it, but I can't stand another second of sitting around doing nothing."" Fine," she relents." I obviously can't stop you. Just... be careful, alright?"" Duh! I'm not going to go running into the arms of another skeleton—I've learned my lesson." That seems to placate her, and she doesn't bother me anymore as I slowly explore the corridor. It gets a lot less "hallway" and a lot more "cave tunnel" the further in I get. The floor gets more rough, which makes me very glad I've got these footwraps, though the protection they offer is pretty limited. It's also getting a lot colder—Violet was right about that." I wonder if it's getting colder because of air from the Dark Corridor leaking into the Candle Labyrinth," I ponder aloud." Did you just name that?" Violet asks." That would have to mean that the Dark Corridor wasn't there before, and only appeared after the [Angel]. Otherwise it would have been cold when we arrived."" Or it could have been us that appeared, along with the labyrinth."" Not that there's much of a difference, but yes." While I consider that, I finally arrive at a split in the tunnel. I can't really see too far down either of them with just a candle to light the way, but I'll call this the Crossroad. [Level Up!] Wanderer is now Level 4. +1 Resilience. Awesome! Well, time to make my first road sign! I move to the wall and use the handle of the knife to scratch at the rough stone. It's a bit tougher than I thought, but with some effort I manage to make a visible mark. After a few minutes of scratching and scraping away, I step back to admire my handiwork. <-DC Okay, not the best, but it was harder than I thought and I didn't want to spend all day writing out the entire word. All that scraping was hard work! I can practically still hear that grating noise, and it's making my headache worse—no wait, I actually can still hear it, what the heck?" Vi, do you hear that?" I ask." Yeah," she confirms. I don't know where it's coming from. You'd think with only three directions it'd be easy to tell, but everything echoes in these tunnels." You think it's just an echo?" I ask hopefully." No," Violet mercilessly crushes my dreams." That's definitely something else—stay alert." I swallow nervously. My entire body starts to shiver and I try to hold the cloak closer around me as I raise my feeble candle in an effort to illuminate more of the tunnel." W-what do I do?" I ask." Should I run?"" Try to stay calm," Violet says quietly—how is she so calm?!" We shouldn't make any sudden moves—we're holding a light source, so even if we can't see it, there's a good chance it can see us." I slowly back up the way I came, but the scraping noise is getting closer. It's a weird, rhythmic crunching noise, like rock against rock. The sound stops and I hold my breath. Then I hear a faint wet squishing noise—maybe it's because it's a softer sound, but it's unmistakably coming from the left side tunnel. My head is throbbing, but I ignore it and raise my candle, leaning forward slightly to illuminate just a tiny bit more. Then I see it. Just a silhouette at first, but then more as it comes into the light. A huge gray body as tall as I am, oozing its way out of a thick stony shell, topped by two wandering eyestalks." Is that a friggin' snail?!" I whisper incredulously." It looks like a giant snail to me, yes," Violet confirms. The eyestalks slowly wiggle in my direction, but it doesn't respond to my presence immediately. Instead, it lowers its head down to the ground and does... something. The raspy crunching noise resumes, louder than ever." Ah," Violet exclaims as if anything in the world makes sense right now." That's how it gets that shell."" What?"" It's eating the rock," she explains. Oh of course. Just a giant rock-eating snail. Perfectly normal stuff, nothing to be alarmed about. I'm getting the heck out of here! I try to slowly shuffle backwards, but my heel hits a pebble and sends it clattering away behind me. Both of the snail's eyestalks snap towards me, and my breath catches in my throat. Before I even have time to panic, something inside me snaps. Suddenly, my headache is gone. I tighten my grip on the knife and lower my stance, wincing slightly as the extra weight makes my leg flare up. Snails are supposed to be slow, but I'm not going to bet my life on that. I move back cautiously, but the eyestalks are firmly focused on me now. I need to be ready to—I pause... I'm not Allison anymore, am I? [Violet: Tier 0 Human] [Class Slot 1: Tier 0 [Unified Collective]* - Level 3/10 [Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Survivalist]* - Level 0/10 [Attributes] Power: 1 Resilience: 1 Awareness: 1 Ego: 4 Will: 1 [Skills] Parallel Wills (1) Foraging The distraction nearly costs me everything. A wet thunk is all the warning I get before something shatters on the ceiling above me, causing me to flinch. I duck under the cloak as bits of debris rain down overhead from whatever the snail just launched. I didn't even see it! The snail is moving now, and as I feared, it's faster than it looks. I might be able to outrun it normally, but on this leg? I force myself to calm my nerves and prepare to fight for my life.