The Dragon's Wrath: Shadows in the Flame

by Brent Roth

  Sticking my hand into the crack, I reached until my entire shoulder was inside with no end in reach. Turning my outstretched hand with flame still burning, I could see that the crack was rather large once you got past the extremely narrow entrance.

  The narrowest part of the crack was hardly four inches across and that was right at the start. The sounds of running water were also the loudest here, slightly more so than anywhere else I had been to on this side of the cave. One plus one was two, right?

  “Hah found you, you little bastard.”

  Pulling my arm out of the crack, I gathered lightning in my palm and shot a bolt through the crack to see how far it would travel. Illuminating the darkness for a split second, the lightning bolt flew straight out and disappeared into what appeared to be an open room. Curiosity getting the better of me, I immediately reached for my hand-axe as I looked to chip away the edges of the rock wall and expand an opening large enough for me to fit. The four inch gap gave way to about eighteen inches after only a foot, meaning I wouldn’t have to break off much.

  Then a second thought occurred to me right before I swung down. Stopping mid-swing, I brought my arms up again and began to cast another lightning bolt. A thunderous bang followed by an incredibly bright tail of electricity as my path was instantaneously illuminated for a blink of an eye.

  “Flash Step,” I mumbled.

  At the very tail end of the lightning bolt, right before the light had almost disappeared entirely, I zeroed in on a barely visible spot in the empty room and surged forth. Body dematerializing into pure electrical current as I traveled through the crack and out the other side in a literal flash only to rematerialize in an instant as I casually stood up.

  The dissipating electricity lingered on my reformed body for a second, softly illuminating the darkened room enough for me to quickly glance around. Success.

  Bringing another flame to life, I waved my hand around the room as I inspected the contents of the cold gray interior. Hoping to see something spectacular, I wasn’t entirely disappointed as a small pool of running water was visible on the far right.

  Running towards the left, towards the entrance of the cave, it disappeared under the rock in what appeared to be a relatively large channel. It was a subterranean river after all… albeit a small one.

  Glancing at the supposed source, the water was coming from above and to the right out of a few smaller holes, gathering together in this miniature pool and then continuing on through the rock tunnel or channel all the way out, presumably, to the outside world.

  Emerging out and into the daylight… hah.

  Having never been in a subterranean cave system, this was my first experience. Though the room was small, maybe thirty feet across in a rough circular shape with the pool of water taking up about a third of the room, it was still incredibly neat.

  Another experience I probably never would have had in real life.

  I was a regular explorer of the North, discovering caves and cave systems. In fact, I was kind of wondering if a title would be granted to me. Though after a minute with nothing having registered on my screen, it was probably safe to say that a title was not forthcoming. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal anyways.

  Standing at the water’s edge, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a strange feeling to the body of liquid that slightly reminded me of the time when I discovered the anvil.

  That same anvil that was hit by lightning.

  I could feel a certain power emanating from the water… a strange feeling that I would have ignored had I not felt it before. Coincidence didn’t exist in my lexicon. Pacing around the room, I carefully examined the pool as best as I could and failed to find anything of significance. The sources were far too small and despite sticking my hand into each hole, there was nothing there to grab except for the ice-cold water.

  A shiver shot through my body as goosebumps appeared on my now soaked arms, reacting to the cold as I did my best to ignore it. In the cold damp air, half soaked in icy water, I decided to sit at the water’s edge and watch the pool of water, hoping that something would reveal itself to me.

  And then it did.

  After a minute there was a strange disturbance in the lapping water, evidence of some sort of minor tidal force. The outpouring that came from above and to my right, left a tell-tale mark on the pool as water splashed outwards and slowly drained back towards the center. What caught my eye though was the sucking motion not unlike the retreating water at the edge of the beach before an oncoming wave.

  The water receded slightly, then came back.

  Tidal forces in a cave?

  I wasn’t an expert but that struck me as positively odd.

  Sitting at the edge of my figurative seat, I continued to watch as roughly ten minutes passed before the second occurrence appeared before me. Patience being one of my virtues, I waited for the third occurrence before deciding something was indeed causing the strange tidal forces.

  The waves were small, infinitesimally small in nature but they were unique and beyond the natural character of the scene. Something hardly noticeable that I had noticed yet again. My odd penchant of wanting to satiate my curiosity coupled with a hyper-attentiveness that was no longer clouded by emotion was rewarding me once more. I was on the verge of a discovery, I could feel it in my bones.

  “Ah, not so fast,” I muttered; it wouldn’t do to get ahead of oneself.

  Stripping down into my birthday suit, I stared at the body of ice-cold water as I thought about the lack of light that existed. A fire didn’t burn too well under water… especially one as weak as mine. That left my lightning as the only source of light around these parts. Well, thanks to my Relic I was immune to the effects of electricity in general, so at least there was that. The thought of electrocuting myself wasn’t a pleasant one.

  That had nearly happened in real life… I didn’t need that here too.

  Wading into the icy water, my body immediately shook intensely for a few seconds as the shock of the cold water hit my system. Tightening my chest and flexing my arms while bringing them inwards, I forced blood into my upper torso as I took another step forward.

  Feet and calves already numb, my waist soon followed as I started to tread water. As long as my chest was warm, I would be fine for a little while. A little while being the imperative phrase though… as water slightly above freezing would put me in a bout of hypothermia in short order.

  The last time I had mild hypothermia due to a long ocean swim wasn’t all that enjoyable. If I could help it, it would be nice to avoid that here.

  Gathering lightning in my palm, I waved it around as it continually discharged and dispersed in the water before I could fully utilize the light but there was an unintended consequence as the water had ever so slightly warmed where the energy had dissipated. Whether that was true to life was a question I didn’t care much about. The warmth helped and that was all that really mattered to me now.

  Taking a deep breath, I dove down to the bottom of the relatively shallow pool as I searched the smooth rock bottom for any signs of foreign matter. Running my lightning filled palms along the rock proved fruitless as nothing out of the ordinary had appeared within visible range. Returning to the surface after roughly a minute under water had left me disappointed and confused.

  Repeating the search a second time ended with the same result as I came to the surface questioning my theory.

  There was nothing here.

  And then the slight tug was felt as I was pulled slightly towards the subterranean channel that exited out through the mountain. The ten minute mark having passed at the same time, it became readily apparent as to where I needed to go next.

  Staring at the small hole that had a weak current, the opening was maybe three and a half feet across... just large enough for me to possibly swim through. The only problem there, was that I couldn’t see the other side.

  I had no clue what would happen.

  Firing off a [Lightning Bolt] proved pointle
ss as the bolt barely traveled more than a few feet before disappearing. I was left to tempt fate, or so it seemed.

  “Oh you son of a bitch,” I said to myself.

  I still had a fear of drowning… and swimming down into an underground channel that was entirely filled with water didn’t strike me as the smartest of decisions. Thoughts of being trapped in an enclosed space that was filled with water, with no way to return or to escape.

  Stuck in a torpedo tube.

  The psychological aspect had me nearly turn back as I stared at the hole in abject horror. I was scared of going down that tunnel. The icy water was already getting to me physically as I had begun to shake and coupled with the mental aspect of swimming through a dark underwater cave system with no guarantee of respite along the way… I was almost ready to back out.

  I wanted to quit.

  That was the first mistake. The moment I realized that defeat had entered my mind, that the thought of quitting had occupied a portion of my thoughts, I was disgusted.

  “I’m going for a swim,” I said angrily.

  That was the end of the discussion.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself under with a breast stroke and scissor kicked my way through the opening and into the darkness. Swimming at a reasonable pace so as not to exhaust my limited air capacity, I continued on through the dark tunnel with my hands scratching the tip of the ceiling the entire way through. Thirty seconds and I was still in darkness, still surrounded entirely by water.

  Another thirty seconds and it was the same.

  And then my remaining oxygen had started to give.

  Even my superhuman Endurance didn’t last forever. Chest convulsing as my throat tightened, I resisted the gags that made me want to open my mouth in desperation. My bodily reactions a natural occurrence but one that would only doom me. I fought them with everything I had.

  Vision clouding, I had seen this scene before.

  I was going to black out.

  Then my hand broke the surface and natural instinct kicked in as I literally kicked out against the rock wall and shot up, head smashing into the rock as my mouth opened and I gasped for air. Taking in water while attempting to breathe, I choked and gagged as my throat burned but the current and momentum carried me to a spot where my head was entirely above water.

  Continuing to cough as I regained my breath, my heart was racing as my head began to hurt. The deprivation of oxygen and the resulting suffocation was supposed to be dulled. That’s what others had said… they said it was painless.

  Struggling to regain myself, the bitter realization that the Ultra-Realism program didn’t skimp on drowning hit me hard. The others who had reported only having blurry vision must have been on the normal program.

  Their experiences weren’t similar.

  We weren’t alike.

  Shivering uncontrollably with my head throbbing, if I didn’t find the end soon I was going to die by way of drowning. Hypothermia didn’t kill most people in the open water… it was the ensuing panic and loss of strength that resulted in drowning. It was only a factor.

  I didn’t want to drown.

  Taking my time to recover while fighting the current as it took me slowly down and towards the end, I could make out that the water level was beginning to rise again. The shoulder-height water soon reached my chin and then it was up to my nose as I turned my head to the side to try and get in one last breath.

  In an instant far too fast for my liking I was back under and swimming faster than I should have been. The pace was too fast and would burn more oxygen but I wanted out. There was an end to this channel, there had to be.

  Countless seconds went by as I frantically swam through the icy water. Complete darkness surrounding me as I smashed my hands into the rock walls with no care to the pain. Kicking and pulling as quickly as I could, I swam and swam as fast as one could manage, as if my life depended on it.

  And as I was about to run out of air once again I found my last stroke free of pain as my hands didn’t scratch or hit. Another stroke and my legs didn’t scrape. My feet didn’t strike. The rock walls that had entrapped me opened up and as I swam upwards with all of my remaining might, I burst up and out of the water with a gasp and a lot of splashing.

  Swimming towards the edge of the pool I soon hit dry rock and crawled out of the chilly water, resting on my knees on the cold hard rock floor, hands spread as I held position with my face staring at the blackness.

  “Hah… ha haha,” I started to laugh maniacally. “HAH!”

  I made it.

  Rolling over onto my back, I stared into the darkness and laughed. This zero light situation… a complete absence of any light or color… was this an icy hell?

  “Scaling a mountain was difficult,” I began to confide in myself. “But this… this takes the cake… it better be worth it.”

  There was a Relic here somewhere, there had to be. That was what I believed. The designers hid these Relics in locations that were difficult to reach and made some of them time-sensitive as an added measure of difficulty. So far, I was of the opinion that this one was simply hard to access.

  What sane player would come down this way without scuba gear… or without some magic item that allowed them to breathe underwater. This entire experience… it was insanity. Still shivering uncontrollably, my hypothermia had already set in as I checked my stamina bar and saw that it was slowly depleting.

  I would eventually die unless there was a way to warm up.

  Lighting another flame on both hands, I kept them close to my chest while scanning the room for any unusual signs. This room was considerably larger than the first room and the pool was easily three times as large as the first pool as well. Walking around the empty room was rather disappointing though as there was nothing to be seen.

  Returning my gaze back to the edge of the pool, I sat down and waited for what would undoubtedly come. A few minutes later at the fifth ten-minute mark since I had started counting and the unnatural scene occurred again.

  Only this time the waves were easily discernible.

  The thought that it could be down a ways in another room was bothering me but I had every belief that it was here. The water had moved in such a way that there was a clear epicenter. Maybe epicenter wasn’t the right word but it was sort of like an underground explosion… and there was clearly a center point at the water’s surface, so it sort of worked.

  “One last swim,” I said to myself with a small lump in my throat.

  Looking at the next underwater channel, it was hardly three feet across and would barely fit a man. The thought that it would narrow gradually didn’t seem too out of place either. That only served to convince me that there was no need to swim that way.

  What I wanted was in this room.

  Diving into the water, I swam towards the center of the pool and then dove down towards the bottom to wait as I had timed out the next pulse. Having traveled nearly fifteen feet down, I adjusted my ears to relieve the pressure that had built up. The most lethal depths were between ten and twenty feet anyhow, as the pressure change was the most extreme at the start… of course on one free dive, I probably didn’t have to worry.

  Decompression sickness in this game was probably a real thing too.

  Waiting for the next pulse, I had a few seconds to kill as I let my mind wander.

  Thinking about the way water pressure worked from a diving standpoint, having a surface pressure of one bar or 14.7 pounds per square inch, at thirty-three feet down the increase to two bar or 29.4 pounds per square inch was excessive.

  Twice the pressure.

  The next marker at three bar or 44.1 pounds per square inch at roughly sixty-six feet below the water’s surface was a much smaller increase. As long as I controlled my ascent there wouldn’t be any issues. Bubbles go first, not the other way around.

  Looking around the bottom, the entire pool was covered with loose rocks that appeared to have been placed rather than being naturally occurring. Though
with so many rocks I wasn’t sure where to start.

  Thus, I waited for the pulse.

  With a tug much stronger than the one previously felt, my outstretched hand was sucked towards the center of the deepest part of the pool with a small cluster of rocks barely visible under the light of my dissipating lightning. Grasping at the rocks, I quickly lifted them and moved them to the side one after the other until I caught a glimpse of something wholly unnatural.

  A radiating dark sphere… awash with a purple glow barely visible at the bottom of a pool, hidden underneath rocks accessible only by a maddening free dive through pitch black darkness and ice-cold water… all behind a crack in the wall of a dark pathway in a cave filled with dirty rats at the base of a mountain, fifty some miles from civilization.

  How was anyone supposed to find this?

  Reaching out to grab the Relic, I was soon rebuffed and repelled as a system message appeared on my screen.

  [INTERACTION DENIED]

  [Access for the User is currently denied due to possession of conflicting {Wondrous Legendary Ancient Relic}, User is unable to interact with the following: {Legendary Ancient Relic}]

  Horse shit, I thought to myself as I sat at the bottom of the pool and tried to grab the item again. Repelled once more, the same system message appeared in front of me as I punched at the invisible wall that kept me from attaining my rightful item.

  Son of a bitch, I voiced without opening my mouth as I continued to hold my breath underwater. This entire excursion was a waste of my fucking time. Denied by the game.

  Denied without any warning when I attained the first one.

  Those asshole game designers should have put a warning in.

  Bah! I wanted to shout.

  I tried grabbing it again for a third time and a fourth before I finally gave in. Looking around, I realized that everything was for naught. There was no reason at all for me to come down here and now, now I was stuck. There was no way out of this cave as I was convinced that the outgoing channels were much too small for me to fit and would likely go on for far too long. That left either swimming up the current back to where I started… or to take the shortcut. My last coherent thought… fuck it all.