“On second thought, no. Hell no!” I said, stepping back from the precipice’s edge.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be such a child,” Aerion replied, deftly easing herself down the ravine’s wall. “You’re roped up!”
“And if I fall, I’ll fall the length of the rope. Which is like… I dunno. Several hundred feet? Pretty sure that’d hurt. Worse, it might set off the Aural Siege Bolt. That would be bad.”
We didn’t even have enough rope to get us all the way down, so we’d have to ditch it partway down and re-tie ourselves to it on the way up. We’d lugged the incredibly heavy and long rope from the subs through the forest and anchored it to a boulder. The thing was thicker than climbing rope since it was designed for mooring subs. It’d have no problem taking our weight, but that didn’t make this descent any less terrifying.
As for the Siege Bolts, those were my insurance policy, and we’d have to be idiots not to carry at least one with us. While I hadn’t Initialized it yet—I was planning on doing that right before I needed it so it didn’t eat up my buffer—it was still plenty lethal on its own. Which probably made me an idiot for diving into a ravine with one lashed onto my back.
It was funny how ordinary actions like taking a step down or stepping over a small rock, became nearly impossible when you added in a thousand-foot drop and a possible explosion.
Aerion responded by rolling her eyes and disappearing down the wall.
I edged up to it, cursing my luck.
Aerion, it seemed, bore no such ridiculous compunctions.
“Slow down, Aerion!” I shouted, taking my first steps down the wall. “I can’t climb as fast as you.”
Aerion was already far below. So far, I couldn’t see her from my current position.
She hadn’t been kidding about calling it ‘Climbable’. With how fast she descended, I swore she must’ve been a climber in a past life. Or a cat. Probably a cat. She moved with a grace that felt a bit unnatural to me.
“Need I remind you we are on a schedule?” Aerion called out from somewhere below me. “Or would you like to be here when that dragon returns? As bad as this is, it will take us far longer to climb back up.”
I grumbled. She had a point. We only had a few hours. A few hours and we’d either be out of the Trial and safe and sound... Or rotting in the belly of that monster.
Carefully testing my next foothold, I eased my body down a bit quicker than what was comfortable. This was going to be a long journey.
A half-hour later, I’d made it halfway down, while Aerion had already reached the bottom.
Steadying my breath, I worked the knot securing my waist to the rope. The damn thing was being a real pain, and I’d been struggling with it for several minutes already. Worse—my other hand was starting to shake.
“Use both hands!” Aerion called out from far below.
“Easy for you to say!” I shouted back.
“You’re at the end of the rope! Lean back and use it to hold you up!”
“Argh! Fuck you, Cosmo. This is all your fault.” I gingerly leaned away from the rock face before letting go of the anchor that kept me from falling to my death.
My stomach lurched and my butt tightened… but I didn’t fall. With both hands free, I first wrapped the rope around my right arm several times, then undid the knot—a terrifying prospect, considering it was my lifeline.
With the knot undone, my weight settled on my wrapped arm, and I clutched the thing with a death grip until my left hand reached a handhold on the rock, anchoring me again.
Slowly, with an abundance of caution, I unwrapped my right arm, despite every instinct in my body telling me not to.
Letting go of the rope, I grabbed onto a rock. I’d done it. I’d gotten through the hardest part of the climb.
“I really oughta win a medal for this!” I shouted down to Aerion, riding the high of adrenaline and fear coursing through my body.
With newfound vigor, I took the next step down.
It was the wrong step. The little protrusion gave out from under me, and my stomach lurched.
It wouldn’t have been a problem on its own, but my weight suddenly shifted to the other foot… which caused that one to give out too, and my fingers just didn’t have the strength to hold on.
I was falling. Falling to my death.
People say that your life flashes before your eyes in moments like these, but that’s not what happened. My mind went blank. Totally blank.
I heard Aerion scream from far below. My fingers moved instinctually, reaching for the wall that was blurring before my eyes.
They caught something, but I was going way too fast. I couldn’t hold on. I couldn’t hold onto anything.
This was it. I was dead. I was really going to die.
The hell? How was that alright? I’d just come to this world. I didn’t want to die! This was bullshit!
My fingers grabbed another handhold, and this time, I dug my heels in, slamming repeatedly into small protrusions on the wall.
They didn’t stop my fall. But they did slow me down. Enough that eventually, my fingers grabbed hold… and held. I felt like they normally wouldn’t have, but maybe that was my Grace stat at work.
I lurched to a stop, my fingers screaming in protest against the incredible force.
For a moment, I just hung there, unsure of what exactly had happened. Then the realization hit, and I started to hyperventilate.
One slip-up. One poor placement of my arms… and I’d be a broken corpse on the ground right now.
“Are you okay?” Aerion shouted. I nodded, unable to form words.
A minute later, I mustered up the courage to move my body. The rest of the climb passed in a daze, and soon, I found myself standing on the cracked red clay at the bottom of the ravine.
The moment my feet touched the ground, Aerion came running up and enveloped me in a tight bear hug.
“You’re safe! I’m sorry. This was my fault. I was reckless.”
I caught myself staring off into the distance and shook my head to break the daze.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I knew the risk. And we had to get down here. At least we won’t have to go through that again,” I said with a shaky voice.
Aerion nodded. “Right. Right… I, uh, I think we should go. I mean, only if you’re ready. I understand if you want to rest. I’ll—”
“I’m fine,” I repeated, feeling my senses slowly return to normal. “Let’s go.”
A bit of miracle water on my hands restored them to normal, and I took a small swig for good measure. Whatever jitters I had disappeared, and I felt as good as new. The mental trauma remained, but it was nothing I couldn’t get past.
Aerion and I made good time through the bottom of the ravine, mainly thanks to the lack of flora down here. It was mostly just cracked clay, with a few weeds here and there. This area got such little sunlight that only the hardiest of plants grew.
The ravine widened as we approached the mouth of the tunnel that led into the base of the volcano, like a gaping open maw. Welcoming us into the dragon’s lair.
The heat increased considerably, making me sweat, and while the interior of the cavern was dimmer, there seemed to be a light source on the other end, giving everything an eerie reddish hue.
The place was plenty spooky enough on its own, even without the added effect from the light. I smelled the rotting corpses before I saw them, and Aerion’s nose wrinkled as she gagged.
Bones of all shapes and sizes littered the floor. Some cracked and crushed into fine powder, others intact. I saw humanoid femurs and skulls and ribcages, though some were a bit larger than others. Giant bones, I assumed.
“Wonder if we’ll find any gold?” I quipped.
“Why would we find gold?” Aerion asked in a hushed voice, hands clutching her dagger as we walked.
“Y’know? Dragons? Gold?” I said, doing my best to keep things light. The nerves in my voice must have showed, because instead of asking further, Aerion just gave me a look full of terror.
“It’s alright,” I said. “We’ll get through this.”
“Right.”
We continued deeper, past the mounting bones and half-decayed flesh. There were so many that they covered the floor, forcing us to walk upon them.
So many people had died trying to take this thing down. Humans, elves, even giants… It was astonishing. There had to have been thousands of corpses here. People who’d been seeking power and a chance for a better life. This dragon had reaped the hopes and dreams of them all.
We knew we were getting close when the lighting became brighter, painting the whole place blood red, and when the temperature started to resemble the inside of a furnace.
Just ahead of us, the cavern gave way to an enormous ledge devoid of any bones.
The Obsidian Dragon’s lair. Walking up to the ledge, we found the source of both the heat and the lighting.
Molten magma churned hundreds of feet below, like a sea of red and black. It oozed, crackled, and popped, and it felt like I’d just stepped into a forge.
At the other end of the ledge, at the very precipice, was an oval portal-looking thing, surrounded by a frame of black fire.
“Guess that’s the exit,” I said.
“I suppose it is,” Aerion replied, wiping the sweat off her brow. “To think we actually made it. I—”
We both turned. A sudden sound in the distance. I gripped my sword and Aerion her dagger.
The portal was still some way off—the ledge was several times the size of the dragon. If we were attacked, we’d have to defend.
“Eyes peeled,” I said, scanning the pile of debris. Anything could’ve been hiding there.
The sound came again, and my worry turned to confusion.
“Was that… a cough?” I asked.
“Maybe?”
The cough came again, followed by a gasping breath.
“Help…” the voice said. It was weak. On the verge of death.
Aerion and I hesitantly approached the source of the sound… And immediately found it. Found them.
Lying nearby were a half-dozen corpses. Humans and elves, and one giant by the looks of it.
The reason we’d missed them was obvious. They’d all been horribly burned. Blackened to the point where their skin had turned to char.
Aerion gasped and ran up to the source of the voice—one of the charred bodies. I followed slowly. There was no threat here. Rather, how any of these people were alive was beyond me.
“You!” Aerion said, dropping her dagger and kneeling beside the warrior who was wheezing. He was dressed in full plate armor, but it’d been blackened just like his skin.
“You know this person?” I asked. It wasn’t pretty. I seriously hoped the rest had died, because I couldn’t begin to imagine the amount of agony this warrior must’ve been going through.
“He’s one of the delvers Emma and I followed. They cleared out most of the monsters.”
Come to think of it, Aerion had mentioned these delvers before. It sounded like they’d done her quite a service. Even if it’d been unwittingly on their part.
“H-help,” the man said again.
“I’m sorry,” Aerion said softly, reaching for her waterskin. “Here, I’ll—”
I grabbed her arm, shaking my head slightly.
“But!”
“It’s too late, Aerion,” I said. “We’d need to submerge him in a pool of that healing water to heal that much damage. With what we have on hand… it’d just be a waste.”
Aerion’s look said it all. I saw the hurt in her eyes, labeling me heartless and cruel.
“I want to help him too,” I said.
“Right,” the warrior wheezed. “He is… right. Do not… waste. On me.”
I forced myself to look at his burned-off face, resisting the urge to gag.
“You said help. If not you, then who?”
“My wife… Escaped…Hunted.”
“Hunted? By the dragon?” Aerion asked.
The warrior gave the feeblest of nods.
“Please. Help… her. Please. Take armor. Good… against… flame.”
I cleared my throat. “You have my sincerest condolences, but I—”
“I promise,” Aerion said, holding the man’s charred gauntlet. “I swear it upon the gods. I will find her and I will save her.”
“Aerion, look, I know how you feel,” I said, searching for the right words. “I don’t want her to die, either. I truly don’t. But we can’t go helping every random person we encounter. What happened here is tragic. No two ways about it. It’s just too dangerous. Do you really think they'd help us if our places were swapped?”
“They would,” Aerion replied with conviction, looking the man in the eyes. “These aren’t random people, Greg. They knew of me. They knew I was following. They lingered when they could’ve moved on. They killed more monsters than they had to. For me.”
I opened my mouth to stop her, but then I looked at the man. The look in the warrior’s eyes was so genuine. So pure… I don’t think I’ve ever seen such heartfelt gratitude and relief ever in my entire life. And if they’d helped her… They were likely the reason Aerion had survived this dungeon at all.
My words of rebuke died on the tip of my tongue.
“Thank you…” the warrior said. Those were his last words. He exhaled one last time, and his arm flopped to the ground, lifeless.
I looked at his companions, who’d all passed on. The battle had been recent, but not that recent.
“He held on,” I muttered. “On the chance someone would come. To get them to help his wife. That’s…”
It was incredible. I was never one to fall for sob stories, but even I felt myself moved by this incredible display of, well, I guess it was love.
“We have to help her,” Aerion said. “Please.”
I looked at the portal. It was right there, shimmering brightly. It was so tantalizingly close. All we had to do was step through it, and we’d be safe.
Fuck em, my father’s words rasped inside my head. Little bitch couldn’t cut it. Deserves to die, if you ask me.
He’d been talking about the neighbor’s cat we’d found lying in a ditch in the rain. That neighbor had been more of a father to me than mine ever was, giving me food and checking up on me when my dad was out late drinking.
When he died, there'd been no one to look after his cat. No family, or anything.
I’d wanted to take it home, but my dad didn’t let me. He didn’t care much. About anyone. Things like debts and helping those who did right by him never even crossed his mind.
I knew I could probably convince Aerion just how stupid this idea was. I knew I could force Aerion to follow me through that portal.
I also knew that if I did this, I’d be no better than my worthless father.
And I refused to become that person. Ever.
With a sigh, I locked eyes with Aerion. “Let’s go find this woman.”
