Chương 143: CDM 3, Chapter 19: Workplace Incident

The fall didn't render me unconscious, but it knocked the wind out of me. Those brief moments without oxygen were disorienting, and I needed several long seconds to recover my wits. The ground beneath me was stone instead of dirt, minus the clods of soil and fragments of rotten wood that came down with us. The walls down here were masoned stone, a style more akin to a squid dungeon than to a mine shaft with goblins and kobolds.

I could see the hole in the ceiling where we fell and just barely make out the mine shaft ceiling far above that. For an archer, I was shit at judging distance. That was maybe 30 feet? This felt sort of like looking up from the floor of the underground brewery in Cincinnati, and that descent had been about that distance. Two people screamed in pain. Why was I sightseeing when my party could be injured? Maybe I had bumped my head in the fall after all.

Sitting up hurt, but nothing felt broken, and I saw no alarming amounts of blood leaking through my armor. Intern Ali wasn't so lucky. The bone of his right shin had torn through his leather greaves, adding an extra 90-degree bend to his leg. He was one of the people screaming. The other was the blonde settler. His left arm was quite obviously broken, but it looked like he had been spared the trauma of the bone bursting through skin.

Aside from the gross factor and immense pain, an injury like Ali's was ultra-prone to infection. The insides of bones didn't have to fend off germs very often, and according to the training modules I did as an intern, that sort of infection could be difficult to fight once it set.

"Archer! Hey!" the captain yelled at me. He stood over the guard. She sat up, holding her head. I didn't see any obvious injuries, so she might have just been rattled like I was.

"You hurt?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"I think I'm alright."

"The other settler is unconscious. He's got a pulse, but I don't want to move him yet. Help me with the others?"

"Yes, right." My world spun as I rolled onto my knees.

"Ali, hey, listen to me," I said, trying to get his attention.

"Deep breaths. I got you."

"It fucking hurts!"

"I know. We're going to get that taken care of. Try to breathe for me. We need to be quiet. We don't know what's down here." The captain and the guard both jerked their heads in my direction. They must not have thought of that until I mentioned it. A sudden moment of extreme chaos had us all disoriented and off our games.

"You can use my belt for a tourniquet," Ali gasped.

"No, you're not bleeding enough for that. As soon as we tie that off, you're on a countdown. They don't want us using tourniquets unless absolutely necessary. But you know that from your training modules."

"Right, yeah. Sure." I looked around for something I could use for a splint. None of the shitty boards we fell through were a good fit. One of the techniques in the module suggested using scabbards but cautioned that doing so made transporting swords far more dangerous, and leaving weapons behind was also not ideal. Arrows. I pulled 6 arrows from my quiver and broke the heads off of each. With tape from my first aid kit, I wrapped two bundles of three arrows each and set them on either side of Ali's leg.

"Sorry, man," I said, straightening his leg before wrapping the splints in place. Ali gasped and whimpered but managed to resist screaming. When I looked up, the blonde settler with the broken arm was already in a makeshift sling. The captain and the guard knelt next to the unconscious settler, debating what to do next.

"We're not climbing out," the guard said.

"No, we're not," the captain replied.

"We can wait here for help or try to find our way back up."

"Waiting will take hours." The captain looked up and down the corridor we found ourselves in.

"I don't want to sit here that long either. What the fuck kind of dungeon is this?"

"Not a D-ranked one," the guard grumbled.

"No D-ranked dungeon has pit traps." I wasn't a dungeon expert, but I considered myself an avid fan. In all of the crawls I watched and read about, I couldn't recall any gate of any rank starting in a mine shaft and transitioning to stone dungeon walls and floors partway in.

"I don't like how exposed we are," the captain said.

"We'll look for a way out or a good place to hole up, whichever we find first. Then we can hope someone comes looking for us." As I parted my lips to share the text I sent to Megan before we came in, a black shadow appeared and grabbed the captain. His body flew by me, and I threw my arms around him. We bounced a few feet down the hall and landed with me still hugging his legs. It happened so fast that I reacted purely on instinct.

"What the fuck was that?" the captain wheezed.

"Ah, shit. Shit. Shit." The captain's left shoulder was shredded by whatever grabbed him, and he had only just noticed. He touched the wound with his right hand and stared, dumbfounded, at the red coating his glove.

"Did you see it?!" the guard yelled.

"No," I answered.

"You?"

"Not a thing. Christ, it was fast." Yes, it was. Whatever attacked us, it never touched the ground. The captain was at least six inches off the floor when I lunged for him, and Ali lay flat across the hallway yet remained undisturbed. So it could have wings or the ability to levitate. I reached for a flare. Shit. This was a crawl and not a hunt.

I didn't have my full kit because it made me feel a little dorky being the only one running into E and D gates with a bandolier across my chest and a crowbar strapped to my back. With Stage 2 seeming to target me personally, I realized not treating every gate like an unknown threat was a mistake. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I shone my headlamp down the hallway, trying to put eyes on whatever grabbed the captain.

A winged silhouette flew toward us with the swiftness of an arrow.

"Down!" I managed to shout as I threw myself over the captain. The guard shrieked, and I heard her armored body bounce and slide down the hall. When my headlamp found her, she was maybe 10 yards from where I saw her last. Her panicked cursing meant she was alive, but even from here I could see the blood.

"We have to move!" I said.

"We gotta go!" I recognized the monster on that pass. If a second or third showed up, we were done for.

"Now, now, now!" I shouted, scrambling to get Ali on his feet. He wasn't walking anywhere on his own. One settler had a broken arm, so he wouldn't be any help. The captain and the guard both had gruesome torso injuries, so they weren't carrying anyone either. In a matter of seconds, I was the only person in the party left with four functioning limbs.

"Go down the hall! I got Ali and the fighter!" While the three who could walk forced themselves to their feet and down the hall, I threw Ali over my shoulder and grabbed the back collar of the unconscious settler's chestplate. My strength stat wasn't amazing, but it was better than an average level 1 human. I dragged the settler while I carried Ali, and did my best to run. With the weight, all I could manage was a hurried shuffle.

"We need cover!" I called ahead. In a blink, I was blasted off my feet and went face-first into the floor. My ears rang, and my vision swirled. Not now, Dorion. You need to move. Up. Up. Up. I got to my knees and reached to grab Ali. My heart twisted when I saw him. His left arm was missing. Any composure he had disappeared. He cried and screamed at the sight of his wound, his words nothing but panicked gibberish. I glanced ahead. The guard and the captain had been knocked off their feet as I had been.

The captain writhed on the ground, fighting to get up. The guard was still.

"Keep going!" I yelled. There wasn't time to treat Ali's new wound. I got him back over my shoulders and started dragging the unconscious settler. I was about to pause to help the guard when I saw that was pointless. Her head was gone. Like Ali's arm, it was nowhere to be seen.

"There!" I called. Four iron doors were ahead, two on either side of the hall. Running into them blind wasn't smart, but we had no choice. I pushed the nearest one open, braced for something hiding inside to rip out my throat, and charged inside. The room was barely larger than a janitor's closet and had two old wooden bookshelves on either wall. I dropped Ali and snatched the captain. He hadn't managed to stand back up but crawled toward the door. The surviving settler helped me pull him inside.

We both jerked at the sudden passing of a shadow, its speed kicking up dust and wind. I slammed the door shut, yanked the captain's legs clear, and pulled one of the bookshelves in front of the door. Ali's new wound warranted a tourniquet, and I worried that not enough of his arm was left to make that possible. He had gone stiff and quiet, his eyes locked on the gushing stump. He was in shock.

"Hang in there," I said. I reached for my first aid kit. Fuck! It was in the hallway. I did what Ali suggested before and took his belt off. It was too bulky, so I reached under my armor and ripped most of my rashguard off my chest to use instead.

"Hannah… We need to get Hannah," the captain wheezed.

"Can't leave her."

"She's gone," I said.

"Put pressure on your wounds. I'll be over to help as soon as I can." I got Ali's helmet off to help him breathe a bit better. He was pale and clammy. Shock was hitting him hard.

"What the fuck… What the fuck…" the captain muttered to himself.

"What the fuck was that?"

"I think that was a jumpscare."

"I've never heard of that," he replied, wincing.

"I saw them on an S gate stream last year."" S gate?"

"Yeah." It was a LootLootLouis stream. BiggerGinger died that run in a boss fight with a star dragon. The whole way to the boss room, the jumpscares, flying humanoid silhouettes that were silent and nearly invisible against the starry sky of the dungeon, swooped in to attack the crawlers. The boss room had been filled with them, and BiggerGinger got overwhelmed. No one even knew he was down at first.

There had been that many jumpscares and that much chaos that even an elite crawl team lost track of one of their own.

"I told someone I trust I had a bad feeling about this gate," I assured the captain.

"We can count on her to send help when we don't check in. That will be a few hours, though."

"Hours? Fuck. Not like we have a choice. How bad of shape am I in?" It looked like most of his trapezius, the muscle above the collarbone, had been torn away. That was from the first pass. The second time he got hit, a deep gash opened in his back.

"I don't know, man. It's rough. We're going to make it, though. Keep the pressure on it." I sat next to Ali and pressed a wad of fabric into his arm, hoping to slow the bleeding. There was nothing else I could do for him or any of us, really. I hoped my party mates had put points into constitution because they were going to need every advantage they could get. But hoping was all I could do at that moment. So I waited in the dark to see if help would arrive before the gate surged. A pounding came at the door.

"Anyone inside?"

"Yes!" I yelled back.

"Hang on." Lifting the bookshelf to clear the door was almost impossible for me. I was tired and weak after however long we had waited, but I got it out of the way. A man in plate and chainmail with a close-faced helmet was on the other side.

"Three wounded," I said.

"We got you," he replied, guiding me out of the room. Two crawlers in black fatigues went into the room, and I saw the glow of healing spells a moment later. Clerics or white mages. Good. In addition to the man who met me at the door and the two healers inside tending to my party, three other crawlers waited in the hallway, watching in either direction for potential threats. One was outfitted the same as the first man. One was even more heavily armored, so I guessed they were a defender.

The third was in fatigues like the healers. If he wasn't a white mage or a martial class, I guessed him for a black mage.

"We need a hand," one of the healers called. The man nearest to me sheathed his sword and slung his shield over his back. A moment later, he had the unconscious settler over his shoulder. One healer had Ali, and the other had the captain. They kept me in the middle of the pack as we traveled down the hall, made a few turns, and climbed a set of stairs that exited in the mines. Several long minutes later, we were outside. Paramedics darted forward to help get the wounded through the low gate the moment we emerged.

I stumbled off to the side and grunted when a set of strong arms wrapped me.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Megan said.

"Can't- Breathe-" She released.

"Oh, sorry. Are you hurt?"

"I'm alright." She helped me get my helmet off and offered me a bottle of water.

"Thank you for looking out for me," I added.

"You're the reason everyone is here, right?" Megan nodded. Across the way, I saw Enforcer Grensmith getting into the ambulance with Intern Ali, and Enforcer Chapman did the same for the captain.

"They were worried about you, too," Megan assured me.

"I'm sure they're just-""No, it's okay. I'm glad they're here." The crawlers who escorted me out went back into the dungeon. I assumed that meant they intended to close it.

"What the hell happened in there?" Megan asked.

"I think we ran into a jumpscare." Megan screwed up her face.

"Something like a jumpscare or an actual jumpscare?"

"Pretty sure an actual jumpscare."

"In a D gate? That's nuts."

"Yeah, it was."