Andarit and Arrin were appropriately impressed as Serenity hurried them towards the creeper rot. The demonstration was worth the time and mana use, but he didn’t want to take more than that. He still didn’t know how big the patch was, after all.
As they moved, Serenity felt when they passed near strands of creeper rot. At first, they were rare, but they became common quickly. The good news was that the feedback from his spell told him that the creeper rot hadn’t yet attacked any of them. He’d gotten the spell up in plenty of time.
The walk across the fungus-infested area was slow, since they had to wait for Serenity’s spell to kill the creeper rot, but it was steady. They were only a little ways into the blasted area when Serenity realized that he was actually gaining mana instead of losing it. It took him a bit to figure out why, but eventually he realized that the culprit was a Skill he hadn’t thought about in months: Eat Death.
Eat Death
Absorb Death energy found within the Death Eater’s aura. Absorption based on Affinity. Intensity of absorption can be varied but the ability cannot be completely disabled. Absorbed Death energy may be used as if it were Death mana. Dissipates with time.
Ability damaged
Apparently, there was enough Death mana present from the death of the creeper rot to fuel the spell, allowing his natural regeneration to refill his mana. Serenity took a little time while they walked to figure out exactly how it was working and realized that while the spell itself was creating some, the reason it was enough was that so much of the creeper rot had been destroyed by the blast that scorched it.
The area of scorched creeper rot turned out to be smaller than Serenity had expected. It took quite a while to cross only because his spell was slow; in protective gear, it would probably have been a relatively simple fifteen minute stroll; the unburned areas on either side where there was only a little of the fungus were actually larger than the burned middle. Serenity didn’t think that was normal, but he’d only ever seen creeper rot that was in the process of being contained or killed. Perhaps it was normal for it to spread like that if no one managed it.
Serenity maintained the spell until they reached the next safe room; both Arrin and Andarit seemed happy when he finally released it, but neither had objected before then. Serenity was happy he’d managed to impress the danger on them; creeper rot was quite manageable, but that didn’t make it less dangerous.
There were still only two beds and two chairs in the safe room. Serenity didn’t comment on it, and he wasn’t certain the others even noticed, but it was obvious that someone wasn’t being counted. Serenity was confident he was that someone, but there was no reason to call attention to it.
There was no portal in the fourth room, and despite the late hour Andarit didn’t want to just rest for the night. Serenity considered insisting, but a glance at Arrin changed his mind. He didn’t really want to sleep with Arrin nearby; while he hadn’t tried to kill Andarit during the day, Serenity wasn’t sure he could trust the man overnight. It might be too much of a temptation.
Even though they weren’t going to stop for the night, Serenity did argue Andarit into waiting for his mana to recover. The walk from the edge of the blasted area to the exit was long enough that Serenity wasn’t happy about his remaining mana level.
Moments after Serenity admitted his mana was full enough, Andarit threw the exit door open to find a patch of rocky, hilly land covered with short shrubs and dryland grasses. Mountains were visible in the distance.
A few minutes’ search revealed a post with the words ‘Evacuation Route 3’ lying face-down on the rocky ground; the base of the post was still set in the ground, but it seemed to have been snapped by something heavy running into it recently.
Somehow, Serenity doubted it was a motor vehicle. The places they’d been traveling seemed far more modern than Zon was today; they were more modern than most places he could think of, but there was no sign of a road going near the post.
It didn’t take long to find a pair of paw prints that were each as large as his head about fifteen feet from the post. Serenity chuckled. “It looks like this area will have giant animals. Probably ones that have evolved into monsters. I’m not good enough at tracking to tell what that is. I can tell that it’s a paw with at least three claws visible, but that doesn’t tell me much. I don’t see a trail leading up to these, so maybe it reared up on its hind legs but normally walks on four?”
Arrin shrugged, but Andarit started searching the area. “There’s a trail, and yes, it was on four feet. It came in from the left and went to the right; it looks like something happened near the post, see the scuff marks?”
Serenity hadn’t noticed them until she pointed them out. He clearly needed to brush up on his basic woodsmanship; he ought to have seen them himself. Once upon a time, he’d been good at following trails. He couldn’t necessarily tell one animal or monster from another by its trail even then, but he could find a trail and follow it. It was annoying to learn that he’d forgotten some of his old skills.
Serenity had Arrin lead once more. Other than that, the trip through the hillside was similar to the trip through the jungle; they had to find evacuation route signs that were often damaged or destroyed to stay on the path and fight off monsters that found them on the way.
The first monster was a gigantic bear; it might well have been the one that destroyed the first sign. Its rear paws were about the right size. It didn’t like Andarit’s spells or Arrin’s knife, but it was Serenity’s ax that dealt the final blow. Serenity wasn’t surprised; he was the only one of the three of them that was really ready to fight large monsters.
Small weapons could work if they were used smartly, but Arrin didn’t seem to be trained for that on anything other than humans. Andarit clearly was, but her magebolt was apparently only a Tier Two Skill, so it was better for precise attacks than large amounts of damage. She still managed to blind the bear in one eye, which made it much easier to fight even though it threw the monstrous bear into a rage.
The second monster was actually several monsters, a trio of ants that were each larger than Serenity. In addition to their size, they were each coated in electricity, which they could spit periodically. Each time they spat it out, the coating faded away to almost nothing, which made them much safer to hit with weapons other than Serenity’s ax.
The ax also dissipated the electricity. It was clearly generated and probably maintained by magic rather than by specialized organs in the ant’s body; Serenity knew that either was possible. Both had advantages and disadvantages, but in this case Serenity was glad it was simply a mana effect. It wasn’t like he was going to take the time to harvest the ants anyway.
The third monster was a pair of supersized cats; Serenity thought they were probably lynxes, but for all he knew they could have been overgrown house cats. They didn’t have any obvious magical enhancements other than their size, but Serenity suspected their claws were magically sharp and reinforced. They were just barely able to pierce his armor; fortunately, the paw that did became stuck when it didn’t cleanly cut its way back out and that was enough to make the rest of the fight easy.
By the time they ran into the bus-sized silent-winged owl, it was well after dark and Serenity could tell that they weren’t going to make it out without sleep. Arrin was grabbed by the shoulders and only the fact that both Serenity and Andarit had ranged attacks allowed them to prevent the owl from running away with him. Even with that, Andarit had to loan him the healing trinket again.
Andarit and Serenity took turns napping and keeping watch; they couldn’t afford to be without someone awake and neither of them trusted Arrin enough to let him keep watch alone.
They didn’t move on until several hours past daybreak.
It was another five hours and seven fights before they managed to reach the next safe room. None of the fights were particularly interesting or difficult until the last one, which Serenity assumed was the area’s “boss”.
It was an enlarged lizard, and its scales were nearly as good as Serenity’s own scales. Arrin couldn’t penetrate at all, and Serenity had to manage a solid perpendicular hit or he would simply skid off them. Fortunately, it seemed to have little protection against magic. Serenity kept the oversized lizard busy while Andarit took care of it.
Arrin simply stayed off to the side after he discovered he couldn’t do anything to hurt it; Serenity kept an eye on him the entire time to be sure that he wouldn’t make an attempt on Andarit’s life, but he didn’t make any suspicious moves.
He knew he could probably have killed it with a single Death Magebolt, but he was saving that for when it was more important; giving Andarit the practice with hers would be far more useful than the slight amount of time he could shave off the end of the dungeon run when they were already well past the limit for when Arrin was supposed to kill Andarit.
In fact, they were already several hours past the planned beginning of the Royals’ demonstration. Andarit’s guess was that it should be over by the time they found the safe room, while Arrin refused to speculate.
When they finally did reach the safe room, it had one major difference from the previous ones: where there had previously been a blank wall was a second door. “RETURN TO BEFORE. That’s not the clearest sign I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely what we want.”
“That’s words?” Arrin’s question surprised Serenity. How had he solved the subway puzzle if he couldn’t read the language, or at least know it was words?
Serenity nodded. “Of course. It’s the Bridge alphabet, that’s all.”
“Bridge alphabet? What are you talking about?” Arrin looked at Serenity like he’d lost his mind.
“Tradetongue,” Andarit interjected. “Bridge is the formal name, but everyone calls it tradetongue. Don’t you know it?”
Arrin shook his head. “Why would I? I’m never going to leave Zon. Rarely ever leave Zenith.”
There was a short, awkward silence. Both Serenity and Andarit had been offworld and planned to leave again in the future. Serenity found it hard to conceive of someone who wouldn’t want to when they could, but he knew there were a lot of people on Earth who rarely left their home city, much less their home country. Traveling to another planet was probably similar.
“Why don’t we leave the dungeon? Arrin, you’re first.” Serenity didn’t want Arrin behind either Andarit or himself.
“They’ll see me,” Arrin protested. “Unless you let me go invisible again?”
“Tough cookies. Get moving.” Serenity knew he could see through the invisibility, but he didn’t see any reason to keep Arrin from being caught by the Palace guard. If nothing else, his presence would help reinforce Andarit’s story.
Arrin wasn’t happy about it, but he eventually opened the doorway out of the dungeon.
The hallway outside was completely empty. There was no sign of any of the guards that were there when everyone entered the dungeon.
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