NOVEL NEXT 29. The Cost of Courage
I pushed out my aura and washed my body with water several times. A few biters washed away, but a few still held on with their sharp jaws and wormed their way into my skin. I wanted to scream, but my mouth was somewhat buried. I washed more mana over me and then froze my core, covering my skin in frost armor that dissipated when I charged into the other side.
An ice shell froze around my exterior, breaking jaws and freezing critters. I felt relieved when the bugs digging into my arms, legs, and stomach were halted. The relief barely held together when I realized I still had the bugs inside me. I wanted to dismiss my armor and tear the bugs off of me. The constant tapping of thousands of feet on my ice skin and the clanking of pincers forbade me from doing so. Though I was protected by my layer of ice, I kept my mouth and eyes closed.
A new fear woke inside of me when I felt a slight itch in my ear. I tried to keep calm, but as the itch grew, my panic became frantic. Was it in my head? It was in my head…
I had to get out, but the more I tried, the faster I sank. I tried to enlist the quicksand strategy of spreading out. That worked to excite the crawlers further, and as they picked at my shell, my mana slowly trickled at a constant pace. My ear twitched. I screamed.
Out. Out. Out.
I forced out as much mana as I dared to spare in the direction that I hoped to be below me. Ice layered and built upwards. The bones rolled and crumbled around me, completely submerging me. I pushed mana faster and felt myself rise above the death pit. Bones fell off like water, but the critters remained persistent. The itch near my ears was definitely a crawler. Its mouth reached inside my ear canal, thumping loudly on the side with its pincers.
I needed to rip off my armor and tear the crawler out of my head. I stomped on the ice platform, creating a mush of ichor and guts. The crawlers paid no attention to the slaughter and climbed up my body. Foolishly, I thought my ice armor would freeze or slow them down. They seemed to be immune to the cold. I washed myself with a wave of water in another attempt to dispel the crawling scourge. It got rid of hundreds. Still, thousands clung on with their razor vice grips and tore into my armor. More had already climbed up my torso, and I could hear the tapping on my back between the constant scratching in my ear.
A pop rang in my head. Lancing pain in my left ear doubled me over. I bent my head and covered my ear to reduce the deep hurt. The critter continued to crawl inward. I couldn't hold back any more screams. This was worse than fire. Fire… What did I know about fire? The thought fleeted as fast as it entered my mind. This was no fire. Agony had a name, and it devoured my mind.
Between my screams of madness, I poured more water out of my body, creating a fine mist. The mist spread away from me as I reduced the temperature. A cold flash was made, and as I added more mist and lowered its structural activity, the temperature dropped tremendously. I continued to repeat the process. The buggers might be immune to cold; I was betting that they couldn't endure sub-freezing levels.
Hold on. Just a little longer.
The bugs latching onto my body fell first. It was barely a relief. My ear rang, fire filled my head, and claws dug deeper. My eyes were tightly shut, and my breaths were irregular. I dismissed my armor and clawed into my bleeding ear with my fingers. My index and thumb reached deep enough that I snatched a lingering leg of the crawler. I held onto sweet salvation with all the strength my fingers could muster. With delicate patience, I pulled on the leg. At the point of tension, I reduced my pull to the gentlest amount of force. It took all my control to keep my hand from shaking and even more to not just yank out the critter. Waves of light and pain flashed through my mind. I kept my hand still and caressed the crawler out.
The crawler stopped moving forward. It held its position in my canal. I gave its leg a soft tug, causing it to take a step. Another tug, another step. A tiny prick of another back leg tickled my fingers. I debated whether I needed to regrip the legs or continue with what was working. The courage to gamble on a better grip wasn't present. I eased another tug on the leg.
Snap.
All the resistance I had in my fingers evaporated as a new spike of pain erupted. In a last attempt to rid myself of the foul fiend, I sent a spike of ice through my ear.
In hindsight, I made a lot of mistakes on my first jungle dungeon run. The first mistake, which was a glaring one, was the head-down, leg-forward approach. I took so much time being careful and blew the execution. It was a terrible mistake that cost me my life… and probably will rob me of peaceful moments. Even now, away from the bug pit, I couldn't stop my body from shaking. There was no pain in my ear, but I couldn't stop the phantom ringing noises.
The second mistake was being too aggressive with my ice spike. Though, I'd argue that it was an all-or-nothing scenario. I didn't mean to end my life like that. But there was no way I'd be left with my sanity if I let the critter continue to crawl.
My biggest mistake, though it was impossible to know before venturing forward, was not bringing enough fire to scorch the infested dungeon. The mistake wouldn't happen again.
I ignored everything around my recursion point except for my piked body. With my frozen self in my hand, I headed straight into the bloodwoods. The path to the dungeon remained fresh in my mind. With enough luck, I could locate it in an hour or two.
It took four hours to locate the dungeon. As one who prided himself as a mapmaker and navigator, the dungeon left me humbled. True, the wolfbears led me all around the forest, crossing paths several times before heading to their home. That didn't justify a whole hour of me getting lost on my own. I was disappointed, to say the least, and grateful this didn't happen while I was on guide duty.
The tongue lashings a guide received for getting lost were cruel and cut deep. Their ratings would absolutely tank in the tourist industry. People mocked my maps for being made up; they didn't understand the genius at play. It's hard to get lost following a map if details are made on the fly. Every step forward became a step in the right direction.
Getting lost wasn't the only thing guides had to worry about. Camp maintenance rested upon their shoulders, which involved securing camp, setting it up, keeping it clean, and taking it down. Stormy night of sleep on the tour… take it up with the tour guide. Terrible food—terrible tour guide. No food? Also a tour guide problem. Tour wasn't fun? Tour guide. People dying… tour guide.
It was a toxic industry, which is why I mostly sold maps and only guided when I needed to prove my maps were legitimate or was short on money. The fact of the matter was that tour guides, like people, made mistakes.
The biggest mistake is not allowing the error to happen in the first place. Perfect people think they have it all figured out. They were lying to themselves. They played it safe and learned nothing. Faulty people coincidently were the game changers. They embraced their faults and strived to do better.
My thoughts ran a bit wild while I tied my frozen body to a tree. Tying, in this case, meant using more ice to create another ice fortress off the ground.
Mistakes ran through my mind as I gathered suitable sticks for torches and created fire. I knew I needed to be smarter, I should be smarter.
My mind was at rank nine. It was as high as it could get without reforging. The problem was that I had the capacity to be brilliant but lacked the ability to do so. I wish I was smart. I was by no means stupid, but I was nowhere near the clever wizards, bards, or scholars. I had my experiences, and sometimes, most of the time, I made the right choices. It was the few times of lousy decision-making that really weighed on me. I was missing something but couldn't place what it was.
Despite my mental fortitude, I didn't doubt my strategy. Getting stronger was the best bet for my goals, and body cultivation was the fastest path to take without putting my mind at risk of possession.
"Do better. Be better." These were the words I latched onto to pull myself out of the pit of self-deprecation. On the path of progress, it was OK not to be perfect.
I lit my torch, felt through the nexus of energy, and stepped into the other side.