An Age of Mysterious Memories

B 2 C 18: One Valkyrie Falls

The good news is that we have a limitless supply of food, though not as much drinking water. The bad news is that it would take months to tunnel out of here safely. We could maybe make a mad dash towards the exit, collapse a tunnel behind ourselves, and try to dig around the barrier from a closer position. There are no guarantees we’d all make it safely back though.

Hours pass as I set up our alcove to reenter the main chamber from, leaving a long thin hallway to a mostly buried dugout style cubby. Lil has to detransform to slip back through the hall into the cubby, but thankfully that’s an option. Hm, oddly enough, I think if viewed from above it would look like a spear. The way I’ve angled the walls of our alcove for a chokepoint that expands into a staging area would look a bit like a speartip. While the long hallway behind it would look like a haft, and the cubby would look like a grip or pommel.

I’m exceedingly worried about Lao and the family back at Shellcracker Pond, with news that they have an egg that’s going to be hatching in less than four days. Something like three and a half days at this point. Is there really a chance it could hatch into a Vampguppy? Can they handle fending it off if so? I guess for now, I can try to trust our family’s safety in the hands of Sugar, Spice, and Mata. Sugar and Spice recently came into their newest evolutionary forms, a middle stage of slightly anthropomorphic beaverness. Mata’s got some frustration or hatred to unleash, and he should have decent reflexes with his half of the danger wraps.

Hm, I wonder why Vampguppy was so much stronger, or well, had more health and offenses at least, when I fought it a few days ago. Some differences are my own abilities, I cut my hand with a magic weapon, an entire party instead of just Lil and myself were present. That might be it. I hope not though, I don’t want any spawns to count Lil, Lu, Te, or myself as being present when we’re not there.

I continue this train of thought, trying to suss out how realistically we need to work towards the exit immediately, when I’m interrupted by shouting. Te calls out to me, “Hey, get out of your own head for a bit! Some of these are hellmutts are learning to dig, we need to take them out before the newer ones catch on!”

I call back, “On it!” Thankfully the cragbeasts, similarly to Vampguppy, have extremely low defenses. They’re menacingly savage though. Dashing past Teuila out our newly carved alcove back into the main chamber, I take another bite of meat, drawing the hostility of every beast to me. For each cragbeast I struggle to slay Teuila takes advantage of the distraction I cause to appear as if out of thin air behind six of them, derezzing them nearly in an instant with thrusts from her sword or spear.

Te and I make significant progress thinning their ranks, when hundreds of new eggs pop into existence around us. Thankfully most of their timers are a matter of hours rather than seconds or minutes. Still, we’re in for a grueling haul.

Lil’s taking their turn resting, we’ve got it set up now that Lil or I can operate for an hour or two at a time, protecting our partners from flames. When most of the fire is exhausted some of the cragbeasts break off to refuel. As that’s happening, one of the three of us wades into the fray to take down as many cragbeasts as we can before any come back refueled. Lu is pushing herself to stay calm, and awake, watching over each of us that takes a turn resting. I’m a bit worried for her, I’ve never seen bags under her eyes before.

Lu telepathically whispers, “It’s okay hero, you’ve got this, you’ll protect me.” Her assurance and faith brings a smile to my face. I charge deeper into the fray, lashing out at cragbeasts with icy jabs. One thing that I didn’t have time to analyze early on is the fact that they have infinite thermal resist. That makes sense of course, like Lil, they’re immune to flames, but also to cold. My danger wraps tell me though, that my frost somehow bypasses some resistance. When I use my abilities offensively it’s like there’s a maximum threshold or percent of damage reduction that anything can have. It’s something like ninety to ninety nine percent, but still, at least I haven’t been wasting time by practicing this skill.

I sort of wish that I could increase the strength of my tendrils, snagging these beasts and swinging them around at one another for no mana cost would be really useful. I suppose eventually I’ll have to try to acquire telekinesis, and train it to be strong enough to lift massive creatures.

Maybe I won’t desperately need to research telekinesis, but it is a mild desire at the back of my mind. I’m fairly positive that some of Teuila’s weird bond with gravity is rubbing off on me, since I can uppercut these hellhounds and knock them away several feet. It’s mostly surprising, since they weigh at least half a ton each. Sadly that gravity bond seems to only work during direct skin to skin contact. My knuckles are fairly bruised, bloody, and in all around bad shape from my various attacks. The cragbeast’s bare, hairless flesh is somewhat stony after all. Telekinesis would spare my knuckles from being ground into a pulp at least.

Caught in a reverie, I barely notice that Teuila has landed from one of her leaps to pause and pant for breath. She’s positioned at the edge of a tunnel from which half a dozen cragbeasts are returning with fire in their bellies. As they round the corner of the tunnel and spot Teuila, I don’t have time to position myself to absorb the flames, or even call out for Teuila to evacuate. The flames begin leaving the mouths of the beasts as I panic, trying to find the right course of action.

In thinkspace I try to get Teuila’s attention, “Te, Teuila move!”

Te responds, panting, “Something’s wrong, can’t. Can’t move, too tired.” I check her energy to figure out why she’s so exhausted. Her mana hasn’t dropped much at all during the course of the battle, but there has to be some hidden cost to her ridiculous suite of abilities. It’s taking a toll on her body.

Okay, I don’t have time to angle myself to help Teuila out, so this is going to hurt. As I’m leaving thinkspace, I plot exactly where I’m going to have to impact myself with inventory propulsion, and it’s my darn right ribs again. I need to expel with full force at my highest velocity. As I’m being knocked towards the tunnel Teuila’s standing in front of, I’ll aim perpendicularly, through the platoon of cragbeasts. Here goes nothing.

I summon a slat of stone to slam into myself from my right side, shunting me towards the wall near Teuila, just as I’m slamming into it, I aim a line through the skulls and shoulders of all six beasts. Exhaling smoothly, I plot a five hundred energy radiant copy of Gae Buidhe to blast through them. I just hope it has a strong enough impetus to take out each one simultaneously.

The flames begin lapping at Teuila, slowly overtaking her body as Gae Buidhe launches. In an instant we’re treated to just enough time dilation to plot our next move as the six beasts derez. Te can’t operate right now. Not only is she unable to move, but the nape of her back, and half of the right side of her torso is exposed and blistered. Normally she’d be able to just rocket above the beasts and back into our alcove through the secret shelf slide that Luni had me install.

My problem in trying to personally evacuate Teuila is that I’ve eaten meat to garner the attention of every beast in the vicinity. I could risk running down a side tunnel, hoping there are no more beasts on the far side of Teuila that would be chasing me down through her. No, not an acceptable risk. Lil is resting off another wing injury, I can’t afford to interrupt that. Dare I risk throwing Teuila with the tendrils? I know they hurt when gripping someone, like a kind of shocking forceful drain of senses, some kind of toxic touch that excites pain receptors or something. Not only that, but I know that sometimes they damage a gripped creature enough to instantly derez them. Still, Teuila and her Valkyrie form are far tougher than any of the things I’ve accidentally slain with my tendrils.

Telepathically calling to Lu, “Lu, can you be prepared to catch Teuila? I’ve got an air drop mail delivery for you. Thanks for the secret shelf slot idea.”

Luni calls back, sending warmth and a smile into our bond, “Already here hero. Go for it.”

I don’t even pause to contemplate whether or not Luni’s having another prophetic moment as I grip Teuila with my tendrils, haul her backwards and launch her like a spear at the ‘mail slot.’ She seems to sail through the air simultaneously quickly, yet with almost no force. Parts of Teuila’s boots clip along the lip of our slot, and I worry that I’ll have thrown her to smash against the wall, but her heels meet her butt and she slides out of sight. Hopefully into Lu’s waiting arms, and then to safety.

If Teuila has some sort of hidden cost to her evolved form, Lil might have it as well, that means I can’t risk Lil being a solo fighter anymore. That means I no longer get breaks. Heh, three more days of having to struggle onwards in a place with labyrinthine tunnels with no breaks? Where have I done that before? I’m joking, I know, and recall in vivid detail.

Fine, I’ve made my bed, I’ll lie in it. I’m the reason we’re here, and I’m mostly at very little risk. I’ll just have to think of it as if it’s just a long, grueling training session. I think I might be able to slightly rest on autopilot if I just run around the tunnels via tendril movement. That’ll also let me get a sense of the full structure. Maybe if we’re lucky, I might find an exit or a way to open the exit as I explore.

My last resort for getting us out of here will be trying to exterminate all of the cragbeasts and eggs at once while Lil is at the exit. I’d be hoping that the barrier will go down for at least a split second if there are no hostile red souled creatures in here. Lil should be able to leave during that time, then the rest of us should have no problem leaving, hopefully.

Conserving my mental energy, I’m just going to shut my brain off and check out during the monotony of exploring barren tunnel structures for hours on end, as I’ve done once before. At least I’ve got something other than fish to eat, and I have to continue to do so on occasion to make sure the beasts don’t break off from following me.

This is different. How long have I been exploring? It does feel like several hours have passed. There’s a river of lava swirling in a circle around a new room. It looks like some sort of pacing room with a menhir at its center. Every semblance of genre savviness I possess is screaming at me to not enter this room alone. Gulping, I extend my right hand, palm first as if touching an invisible door. I see a translucent flicker in front of me. As I worried, there’s some sort of one way passage. Pulling my right hand back, I shear off my fingerprints, as they must have penetrated the barrier ever so slightly.

Argh that stings like the dickens. I shake my hand out, blowing on the fingertips to try to take the edge off the pain. The good news is I didn’t fall victim to that trap, the bad news is I’ve got hundreds of cragbeasts bearing down on me from rearwards up the tunnel I came from. How many hours have I been exploring? Did I follow the right hand wall rule while I let myself check out?

Okay, yeah, I probably was a bit stupid to have done that. Okay, I can leap over and across the back of a few cragbeasts, but they’ll wise up and start scrabbling atop one another’s backs. For a few of those ones, I’ll be able to spear drill leap between them as they try to catch me. Eventually they’ll just cram so many bodies in my way that I’ll be forced to take a few of them out. I can’t even come up with some sort of super attack to blast through a bunch of them at once, because I blew most of my energy stopping Teuila from being incinerated. Hm, wait, my mana is recovered to max. How long was I exploring?

Nuts, they’re on me. Okay, think Reggie, what’s the best use of your energy, your suite of abilities, and any items you’re carrying around, to try to rendezvous with the team? My space skill thrusting movements could help me basically pinball around the tunnels. They don’t cost much as long as I keep stocked on solid matter. I could maybe test out making a massive ice spear straight down the center of a hallway, or a radiant bolt of magic weaponry, the same way. The problem with doing those is, if the hellish hounds are in staggered groups, I won’t necessarily take them all out, and I’ll be stuck in the same position I’m in now.

For now, the opening salvo of fire breath is buying me a few seconds as it harmlessly dissipates against my cold air barrier. I pull down my blindfold, because I can’t afford to see a panic trigger in such a dangerous situation.

Let’s just take it moment by moment. I swing my Valkyrie sword diagonally upwards towards the right as a cragbeast leaps to maul me. Its derezzing buys me another precious moment for me to slow my breathing and center my thoughts.

Right, like I said, a long, grueling, solo training session. I reverse my slash to catch the claw of one trying to strike me from below and to my left. I literally disarm the creature, if forelegs could be considered arms anyway. Losing its paw doesn’t force it to derez, which confirms that for some attacks I do need to be at least slightly accurate towards vitals. Sighing, I stab its cranium on the return swing. Leaping upwards I slash down at the center cragbeast who’d been exhaling flame the entire time. The two derez as expected, buying me a moment to analyze the situation again.

They stand shoulder to shoulder, three abreast, and completely pack the hallway horizontally. If any of them get the idea to climb atop others, they’ll fill the entire hall in front of me bodily. Maybe it’s best if I give them that Idea. Hopping atop the now forefront cragbeast, I start casually walking across their backs, side-stepping and dancing around claws that appear between the beasts to try to maul me.

As expected, they do learn slightly by mimicry. At the far end of the hall I can virtually feel the mass of bodies doubling up as those beasts behind catch up. Once caught up, the second wave of cragbeasts scrabbles upwards, based on my vague proprioceptive senses of the stuffiness of the air and other cues. I’m not going to bother confirming by undoing my blindfold. I leap backwards, sword outstretched as I spin counterclockwise like a corkscrew. Whirlwinding through the air I score cut after cut across shoulders, spines, and craniums of cragbeasts as I retreat. Several derez, and I open enough space to stand at the fore of all the beasts once again. One beast tackles me as I’m recovering from my landing.

The beast that tackled me pins me to the ground and expands its four-way jaw around my helmet. I’d probably scream in terror if I could see inside this thing’s mouth. Breathe Reggie, breathe. I know it’s getting stuffy in here with all their bodies and all the fire burning up oxygen, but you have to keep breathing properly to stay calm buddy. Just pull out Gae Buidhe, and this one is no longer pinning you. There we go, me, good job. I may be slightly cracking under the pressure. Thankfully the one pinning me impaled itself on Gae Buidhe when I summoned it resting against my shoulder. Gae Buidhe was angled in the direction the chomp was coming from. I reclaim the ridiculously deadly spear, and heave a massive breath as I stand, dusting myself off.

Hm, the only space I need is a diamond about half their size. Or heck, half of that, a triangle. If I stack stones about two feet deep to the halfway point of the hallway, with a small notch at the center, yes, that might work. I carefully begin slowly placing stones behind me from my inventory, slow enough to not cost any noticeable amount of mana. When it feels like my back is to a wall, I leap backwards atop my partial barricade. I lay in a prone sniping position, and continue to expel stones to each of my sides. Eventually I’ve made myself into a sort of turret. Now lets see if I can mimic something. What’s a good analogy, a howitzer? How about I spend everything except about ten energy, and flood the tunnel with radiant copies of Gae Buidhe, large enough to nearly fill the entire hall. My helmet takes a claw swipe even in my barricaded position, as the hellmutts begin scrabbling at the stones to dislodge them. It won’t last long, so I’d better do this now.

I exhale as smoothly as I can. My mind’s eye pictures summoning several dozen radiant copies of Gae Buidhe from between the spaces inbetween the rocks in my barricade, facing the hall of hounds. When I’m certain my danger wrap senses have picked out all the best spots to summon the weapons, I pour nearly all of my energy into summoning them with as much forward velocity as I can muster.

The raucous din that I’m treated to as an entire hallway of hellhounds derezzes feels like it nearly shatters my eardrums and nearly caves in my skull. I vomit slightly and taste copper. Ugh, that rib injury acting up again. I had to shunt myself to save Teuila, which apparently punctured my lungs again. My mana must have been keeping the injury from bothering me, and now it’s no longer a buffer between me and the pain.

I let my eyes droop for a bit as my breathing slowly becomes more shallow. I’m certain I’ve only napped for a few moments when I snap to attention. I can’t let myself nap until I rendezvous with Lu, Te, and Lil, in our dugout cubby. Even then, I should probably remain fighting the entire time, in case one of them checks out in the middle of one of their shifts like Teuila did.

Yeah, blast it all. I tear off up the hallway, snagging all of the loot. I’m smiling because we’ve just acquired several more of the special ornate pouches. Ah, of course that wasn’t all of the hounds from this batch of spawns, but I’ve finally reached a tunnel offshoot on my right. I can try to circle around back to the antechamber I constructed once again. I suppose if I treat the scary one-way room as a dead end, I could still be following the right hand wall. Should I turn back and try to follow the left hand wall to backtrack? Or do I just hope that this circles around to one of the many tunnels that meet up with the central spawning chamber?

I think I’ll hope for the latter. I’m in no shape to take out another entire hallway of hellhounds if they pack in and block my way again. Hours and hours are passing as I try to find my way back to Lil, Lu, and Te. I try, and fail, to not hyperventilate. Between the stuffiness, and the mild terror settling into my soul, from being separated for so long, and lost for so long, while we’re all in a dangerous situation, I’m barely keeping it together.

Correction, you’re not keeping it together buddy. Oh screw you buddy. Wait. What.

I chance pulling up my blindfold to quickly glance around. Spying nothing, I drop the blindfold back around my eyes again. Great, I’m arguing with myself, or hallucinating voices. Neither is a great sign. You’re fine Reggie, you’ll be fine, you’ve got about three more hallways in this section to explore, based on your intuition of your sense of direction. Likely one of them will wrap around to a familiar tunnel, or the center chamber soon. Really? Yeah, trust yourself just this once. Huh, alright, I guess it’s worth the weirdness to keep up hope.

Sure enough, the third tunnel finally wraps around to a familiar tunnel, one that Teuila marked when we first entered. I’m coming in from one of the left hand offshoots that we ignored as we followed the right hand wall. Hey me, are you still there? No response. I just wanted to say thanks for keeping my hopes up.

Returning to the spawning chamber, dozens of cragbeasts are set to spawn within the next few seconds, but for this briefest of instants, I have a clear shot to my party’s antechamber. I lean forward until I’ve basically fallen on my face, brace my legs into a locked position, then thrust forward from behind my feet to launch myself as fast as possible sailing across the room. Just in case, I keep my sword pointed forward and angled slightly up.

Lu surprises me by stepping out from the corner of our alcove staging grounds. Terror grips my heart in that split second I have before my sword connects with her chest. I panic and claim all my equipment to my inventory, praying to all that is good in the world that I made it in time.