by Sarah Lin
Before he could move, he heard rocks shifting underneath him. He could tell it was some sort of natural magic, but could do nothing but retreat as another one of the monsters emerged. There were more of them, too, so it made sense to regroup.
He saw another monster emerge from behind Danniah, jaws opening to reveal sharp teeth... and a moment later she slammed her shield into its face. She hadn't even needed to look. Though she had trouble finishing off the mole, after she whacked it several times, it crawled back into the rocks.
Instead Bloodwraith focused on defending the elves. One of the monsters was starting to claw at the scholar, so he struck it from behind with a fully powered blow from his sword. That killed it, though the force bursting from the sword made all the elves flinch. Bloodwraith ignored them, focusing to intercept the next monster.
Except he didn't realize another one was bursting from the rock beside him until it was too late. The creature tore into his side, claws bruising even through his armor. It slammed him to the ground and it tried to bite at his neck.
Lifting his sword, he managed to get the edge in the way of the gnashing teeth, but the monster had its weight on top of him. If he could get more purchase on the ground, perhaps...
Before he managed it, Danniah struck the creature on the side of the head, hard enough to send it stumbling off him. It tried to retreat into the ground, but Bloodwraith stabbed it with his greatsword before it could.
He and Danniah swiftly moved back to back, though they also needed to guard against attacks from above and below. Perhaps he could rely on Danniah to notice them, though he wasn't sure how well she could predict them. Fortunately, after they killed two more of the mole creatures, the others retreated. Eventually the rumbling stopped and they were left panting for breath.
But no box appeared to announce his victory. Bloodwraith sighed and kept his sword nearby.
"Those... those beasts..." The scholar was rambling, eyes darting around the shadows. "They've perverted the sacred sanctuary..."
Tired of listening to the scholar, Bloodwraith just grabbed the mage and pulled him to his feet. "Do you know any levitation or teleportation spells?"
"No. S-sorry." The elven mage looked away. "But there should be another entrance to the pool. The records said it existed. We could never find it, but maybe from this side..."
"That's a good plan, but it's going to require exploring a lot of tunnels while under attack from those things." Bloodwraith glanced over the group, noting that the fighter seemed to have a broken leg and the scholar was in no condition to do anything. "We need to establish a safe location to serve as a base. Do you at least know defensive spells?"
"Yes, but against creatures like that..."
Danniah popped up beside them cheerfully. "They can't tunnel through all types of stone! If there are any more ruins down here, maybe one of them was built from the right type."
"Ah!" The scholar clapped her on the back, hand ringing against her armor. "Well done, dwarven lass! Lead us to the stone!"
Immediately Danniah's face fell, so Bloodwraith stepped in. "All of you shut up. We need to find a secure location as soon as possible."
They set about exploring the tunnels, Bloodwraith and Danniah going first, while the elves went after, scholar supporting the fighter. That position relied heavily on the mage to defend the elves, but Bloodwraith didn't really care. Against unpredictable opponents like these, he wanted Danniah to stay close so they could defend each other.
Before they went far, he moved closer to her and spoke in a low voice. "You recognize these monsters?"
"Yes... but it's not because my father was a dwarf or anything! I've just run into them before on a Guild request!" Danniah seemed very adamant about that, so he raised a pacifying hand.
"I just need to learn from you. When they attacked, I noticed that you were able to anticipate where they'd attack from. How?"
"Oh, that's about feeling the vibrations. I know, it feels like all the stone is vibrating, but if you listen really carefully, you can hear a scratching sort of sound." Danniah's irritation faded to puzzlement. "Though now I'm not sure why. They probably move through the stone with magic, right?"
"It's definitely not a purely physical ability. I'll have to see if I can't figure out what you mean about the sound."
"I'm sure you'll get the hang of it! Also, they're called deeplings. At least that's what the other adventurers called them last time. They were a pretty awful bunch, that's why I left when Rhil'lahan offered me a job..."
Danniah spoke cheerfully about various things, but when the next vibration went through the stone, she cut off immediately. This time Bloodwraith tried to listen to the vibrations more closely. He didn't figure it out right away, but it was a simple skill to master because he could judge based on Danniah's reactions and he got instant feedback about whether he was right or wrong in the form of bloodthirsty monsters.
As it turned out, meeting a deepling with a blade to the face as soon as it emerged was an effective strategy. They were too tough for him to kill easily, but with Danniah alongside him, they were less of a threat. The most difficult thing was defending the elves, but the mage did a decent job of keeping them at bay.
Once they killed the group of deeplings, they took a moment to recover. Danniah was moving close to him and for a moment he worried that one of her injuries was more serious than it looked. But when he examined her closer, he thought he saw a blush through the slits in her helm. "You... you actually listened to what I said. Nobody ever takes me seriously, even when I try to give advice."
"Your experience was very valuable. This would be dangerous without your help."
Danniah beamed at him, but h-
[Affection +4!
Danniah Affection: 97/100]
Ignoring the box, Bloodwraith saw that Danniah was happy to receive his praise, but troubled about something else. She winced as she pulled a potion from her cloak and tugged at the stopper. "I'm worried about this, Raigar. We fought off this group, but there will probably be a lot more, and they're pretty tough. I only have two potions left now."
"Oh, don't worry about that. I'm carrying 36." It was a large portion of what his Extra-dimensional Bag could hold, but worth it for cases just like this. Danniah's eyes widened.
"How could you afford that many?"
"I didn't. I have a... special deal with Meara."
"Oh, that's really nice of her!" Danniah breathed a sigh of relief. "I was worrying that I'd spent too much on other supplies, but now I'm glad I did."
"What do you have?"
"I bought three potions, a bunch of rations and water, some rope... uh... let's see, a flint..." She went on to list a surprising number of items she was carrying. Bloodwraith was impressed that she'd prepared that much - he'd seen plenty of adventurers get killed for want of basic supplies.
Eventually the burrowed tunnel broke into a corridor with the same architectural style as the ruins above. From there, they found a storeroom that Danniah said was made of good stone. It looked as though the deeplings had been in it, however, smashing almost everything there. So when Bloodwraith ordered the mage to begin setting wards, he also ordered them to prepare for a fight.
Sure enough, the deeplings felt the wards and converged on them. But in the narrow corridors and unable to use their burrowing ability, it was relatively easy to kill them. After three fell in the doorway, the others retreated long enough for the wards to be established. The deeplings screeched in the corridors for a while, then retreated.
"The three of you will maintain the camp here," Bloodwraith said, "and we'll search for an exit. If we-"
"No!" The scholar had sat down to recover, but now rose again. "We will not stand by while you rampage through this place, looting whatever y-"
"Blithering imbecile!" Bloodwraith's voice boomed off the walls and all three elves flinched backwards. "This isn't a matter of historical preservation, it's a matter of life and death! And if your own lives aren't mo
tive enough... I am not offering you a choice."
He pulled his sword off his back and set it down heavily against the stone. They got the picture and shut up.
After taking a short time to rest and recover, Bloodwraith left the warded room with Danniah. As they began to explore the corridors around them, he realized that Danniah was constantly smiling at him. That wasn't so strange, for her, but there was something odd in her expression. Eventually he turned toward her.
"What is it?"
"It's just funny." A giggle echoed in her helm. "You were trying to be nice at first, but now you got too annoyed with them, didn't you?"
"My patience is... not my strongest attribute."
"Oh, I don't mind! I mean, I'd be sad if you yelled at me, but it's funny to watch you yell at other people. I was kind of unhappy about them too, but I could never yell at them like that."
Bloodwraith glanced back at her as they continued. He had regretted his loss of control, but it had resolved better than he'd expected. Was Danniah more open-minded than he'd thought? Or was she willing to forgive more because of her affection for him? Either worked in his favor... unless it was the boxes manipulating her, in which case they soured the whole thing.
They worked together well, though. After clearing the nearby corridors, which had mostly been torn apart by deeplings, they headed through a smaller tunnel of pure rock. Even with limited space to fight, the two of them were able to kill off the next set of deeplings that attacked. Though they suffered a few injuries, with such a glut of potions, he didn't feel any concern as he had in the crypt.
The final deepling popped its head out of the stone, only to be immediately smashed by Danniah's shield. She turned back to him with a smile and they continued forward... until Danniah's smile faded. Taking a step forward, then back, she eventually looked to him with an odd expression.
"Does... does this corridor feel funny to you, Rai... is there something weird about it?"
"I haven't noticed anything." Bloodwraith stepped past her and couldn't sense anything, except perhaps a bit of mana. Focusing on that, he looked further and noticed a rune inscribed on a stone ahead. It marked the beginning of another elven corridor, but more importantly, it emitted a repulsing aura.
Such wards were designed to keep away monsters, but it could work on people as well. Bloodwraith didn't notice any effect, so he just walked back to Danniah. "There's a ward trying to keep you out. But focus and you can push through."
"I... okay. I'll try." Danniah screwed up her face and forced her way forward, one step at a time. Eventually they got through to the other side, reaching corridors that looked like they'd been worn down over time, but without any signs of deepling tunneling.
"Good work. Now let's see what we can find here."
Bloodwraith headed into the first room he saw. It appeared to be some sort of display chamber, with vases on ornamental stands - this group of elves really liked their vases. He spent more time looking through the supplies. While ancient elves mostly possessed the same sort of mundane things as modern people, he did find some pieces of jewelry he thought would have some value.
"Umm, Ra... are you sure you should be messing with everything? What if the elves want to look at it?" Danniah lingered by the door, looking cautiously at everything as if the vases might break if she stared at them too hard. Bloodwraith sighed and decided to just address the issue.
"Danniah, they're not being honest with us. Even if they do care about the history here, they care more about taking the majority of the treasure. Besides, they aren't going to be carrying their weight for the rest of the work. I don't think you need to care too much about their rules."
"Oh... maybe you're right." Danniah shuffled awkwardly for a while longer, then abruptly moved to one of the vases and pushed it off the stand. When it shattered, she jumped, then gave a little laugh. "That actually felt kind of nice... but I think that's enough breaking for me."
"A few broken things would let us blame any missing objects on looting, though. If you feel like breaking anything else while we look for objects of value, go ahead."
Danniah laughed a little and joined him as they looted the elven chambers. They gathered a decent amount of valuables in the end, though he cursed the elven preference for silver instead of gold.
Though the chambers didn't contain any monsters, they also didn't contain any of their main objectives. They had to venture back out into the unwarded tunnels, which meant more encounters with deeplings. The monsters showed more cunning than the wolves in the Forest had, but in the end they were still just animals.
Without being able to see any natural sources of light, Bloodwraith could only guess as to the time. He personally felt as though he could keep going, but he saw that Danniah was growing weary. Possibly even sleepy. After they fought off another group, he turned to her. "I think it's getting late."
"Oh dear... are we going to have to spend the night in here?"
"We're definitely not going to find a way out today. I was thinking we could retreat to the warded rooms and make a base there."
"That would be good... I don't want to walk all the way back to the elves, and they wouldn't be much fun anyway." Danniah turned back, shuffling forward without her usual discipline. Bloodwraith kept watch for both of them, but he saw that she was looking at him from the corner of her eyes. "I think we did a good job today."
"I agree, we worked well together."
"But I keep calling you Raigar. I guess I could just use it, but you said you didn't like it, right? Umm..." Her meaning was obvious, but the difficulty of the subject hadn't changed.
Yet... perhaps it was just because he was tired, or perhaps he trusted her more, but Bloodwraith decided to take the risk. He was tired of being called "Raigar" by people in any case. "My real name is Bloodwraith."
"Oh." He'd expected her to laugh, but she just blinked sleepily at him. "That's... kind of a scary name. Sounds familiar, too. So... Bloodwraith... were you a bad person before you became Raigar?"
He stared at her as they walked in silence for a time. Truthfully, he didn't believe in morality in that sense. Doubly so, now that the boxes insisted on adding a moral valence to every action. But he thought all of that would be a bridge too far. "Yes."
"Well, we all have things we're not proud of." To his surprise, Danniah smiled at him. "I guess I'll get over the scariness of the name, though it still feels funny to say. But if... if we keep doing things like we did today, I don't mind."
They returned in silence, Bloodwraith beginning to feel the exhaustion as well. He checked the wards while Danniah set up a fire and a trip line, just in case the deeplings overcame the repulsion ward. While they had been fighting, he hadn't noticed the temperature of the caverns, but they were rather cool.
Bloodwraith pulled a blanket from his Extra-dimensional Bag and sat down against the wall, still fully equipped. Yet as he pulled the blanket around himself, he noticed that it seemed to be one thing that Danniah hadn't thought to bring. She shivered in her armor, then wordlessly came over to sit beside him.
After only a brief pause, Bloodwraith shifted the blanket to wrap around her shoulders as well. Danniah took off her helm and then leaned against his side, her hair splaying over his chest. She was asleep almost instantly and he wondered just how hard she had pushed herself.
As he sat there with an arm around her, he wondered why the boxes hadn't shown up to announce an "Affection" change yet. Surely this moment, or telling her his real name, should be worth something. Then again, the box gods seemed to have a very limited understanding of relationships, so perhaps it was to be expected.
Thinking about it as he went to sleep, Bloodwraith decided that he preferred it this way.
Chapter 22
When Bloodwraith woke up, he found that Danniah was drooling all over his armor. Though he felt fully rested, she seemed to need a little more time, so he took a moment to consider the day.
Even if this night had passed without i
ncident, he didn't want to spend another night in the elven ruins. Though he had been able to spend time on various quests, there was still too much at stake in Cresthaven to be away from it for long.
Fortunately, he thought it was realistic for them to find a way out that day. According to his mental map of the area, the elven structure had been very reasonably laid out in a square. Exploring it was complicated by various cave-ins and deepling tunnels, but he thought they had explored a decent percentage of the entire structure.
Thinking of percentages reminded him to check his personal box, but no more EXP had been granted. Apparently a "marathon" could continue even through sleep. He wondered if this was a rule the box gods created out of a sense of fairness. Though Danniah had undoubtedly learned some tricks and trained her body in the ruins, she wouldn't be able to take advantage of it until she had time to recover fully.
At that moment she finally woke up. After blinking sleepily for a while, she realized that she was resting against him, released a squeak, and then scooted away, blushing furiously.
To give her some space, Bloodwraith got up and began preparing for the day. He was already wearing his equipment, but he checked how damaged it was and sharpened the edge of his sword. It had taken a bit of a beating, striking stone instead of deeplings.
"Okay, I'm ready!" Danniah had quickly washed her face and collected her things, and now joined him near the entrance to their room. "Do you think we can get out today? I've got a really nasty kink in my back now..."
"I think we have a reasonable chance of finding all our objectives."
Danniah blinked and followed him as they headed back into the corridors. "All our objectives? Don't we just need to find the pool?"
"That's one. We also need to find an exit, because I don't think we're getting out the same way we came in. And finally... don't mention this to the elves, but I'm here because I think there might be a particular piece of armor here."
"Ooh, really? What does it look like? I've seen some elven armor here, but it didn't look very useful."