Andarit opened her eyes again. They were still blurry; she was definitely seeing double with one of them. She couldn’t tell which; maybe both?
If only her blurry vision didn’t show the same thing it did the last time she opened her eyes. Her absolutely out-of-his-mind former betrothed still stood at the entrance to the cave, killing the birds, snakes, and lizards that came at him. He was probably still killing the giant insects, since they probably still attacked, but at least he wasn’t leaving them in the cave as offerings to her anymore. She’d convinced him that they wouldn’t help, even if she’d managed nothing else.
Andarit glanced over at the pile of “offerings”. It was still there; in fact, it was even higher than before. Most of the pile was birds. That was better than the separate piles, one of which had far too many legs. They’d seemed to move and creep towards her as the world spun around her, earlier.
She wished she’d managed to convince Entherys that they weren’t betrothed anymore or that she didn’t actually want to marry him. He seemed to think that she was simply playing hard to get because of her father’s commands and that he could win her over by showing how powerful he was.
Yeah, sure. Powerful enough to kill Tier Two dungeon birds as they threw themselves at him one or two at a time. How impressive. Gah.
It wasn’t even close to any of the battles she’d seen in the Dead Swamp. It didn’t even stand up to the time that turtle fell out of a tree at them; that was a surprise. These weren’t.
She felt like a total idiot, really. She’d gotten a note and headed off to find out what it was about. While she’d remembered to let her entourage know she was following the note and even left it with them, Serenity had lectured her about “keeping him informed” enough that she couldn’t forget, she hadn’t thought to bring anyone with her. If she had, maybe she wouldn’t have been surprised and knocked unconscious before she even realized Entherys was there.
She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t talked to her first. Maybe in the back of his mind he knew she didn’t actually want to marry him? She didn’t understand how a crazy man thought, and Entherys was definitely crazy.
“Oh, you’re awake again my dear!” Entherys’s presence in the cave surprised Andarit. Had she drifted off again? “I brought my last battle here to show you! It was two Tier Two eagles! They were really tough, the second one attacked me while I was busy with the first one. I think they’re extra smart.”
Andarit wanted to put her head in her hands, but was stopped by the rope that bound her wrists together behind her back. That was standard for dungeon monsters! One monster to distract the group while another moved in to take advantage a little later. Sometimes it was groups larger than two, even. It didn’t show increased intelligence or tactical planning. She’d seen it repeatedly in the Lowpeak dungeon.
“Still not impressed? What do I have to do to show you I’m powerful enough to marry you even over your father’s objections?” Entherys set his hands on his hips and glared at his prisoner.
Andarit shook her head and tried to think of something that might get her out of this mess. If no one had arrived yet, no one was going to come; it’d been hours at least. All she needed was to get out of here. “A duel? With my father?”
Entherys shook his head. “I’m not going to fall for your tricks and open up the dungeon! Your father can’t come in. I could fight you, but … no, I don’t think so. Beating up my wife-to-be isn’t something I should do.”
“Then why did you knock me out?” Andarit glared at Entherys, or at least she tried to. She was pretty sure that one of her eyes still wasn’t focusing right, because there were still two of him. She’d probably lose a duel if she actually fought, but if he just freed her from these ropes she might have a chance to run.
Entherys shrugged and gave the same answer he’d given the last three times she asked. “I had to. You weren’t going to listen if I didn’t.”
“You didn’t even try,” Andarit hissed. He was correct that she wouldn’t have listened, but this definitely didn’t help. “Just let me go. I want to go home.” Anywhere with a healer would work, too.
Entherys slumped for a moment. “Still not willing to admit your eternal longing? Fine, I’ll go kill more birds until you have to admit it!” He stepped out of the room, moving slowly and heavily. It reminded Andarit of how she’d always thought an executioner should move, infused with the gravity of the situation. Real executioners didn’t move like that, of course; to them, it was just a duty.
She wasn’t certain how much later it was when she started to see a black mist come into the shallow cave. It was almost like night came early, in streams of darkness instead of shadows. That would make sense, but night didn’t come in this dungeon; she’d been here long enough to know that. Night also didn’t look like that.
Her head injury must be worse than she realized.
Somehow, it made sense that the streamers of night gathered in a corner and became Serenity. He was long gone, but she trusted him; why wouldn’t her mind invent him as someone who would save her from her own folly?
The fact that she saw two - or was it three? - of him was just her concussion. It was funny that her hallucination still replicated her concussion. She’d have expected it not to.
“Let’s get you free.” It even spoke with Serenity’s voice!
One (or was it two? No, that was the concussion) of the hallucinatory images bent down and sliced through the ropes holding her in place with his claws. Those claws must be really sharp.
The other hallucinated Serenity seemed to watch the entrance instead of Andarit. He stood stiffly. It was strange that they moved separately, unlike the other doubles she’d seen recently and even had doubles of their own when she knew there was only one Serenity. Andarit couldn’t expect hallucinations to make sense.
Andarit tried to stand once her bonds were cut, but she only got halfway to her feet before she found herself tilting. The Serenity who freed her from the ropes caught her and kept her from landing on the floor. He even held her up while she tried to regain her balance. It didn’t seem to be coming back quickly.
She’d never ask him to do that if this were real, but right now having someone she cared about hold her was nice. She’d been scared and this was comforting. She knew she ought to be even more scared now, if she was injured enough to be hallucinating Serenity rescuing her, but somehow she wasn’t. It wouldn’t help anyway.
The other Serenity turned towards Andarit. “What should I do with Entherys? He hasn’t noticed I’m here yet.”
Andarit tried to shrug, but it just made her dizziness worse. “He’s dead no matter what. Father will kill him if he finds out what happened here.”
That was right, wasn’t it? Yeah, it had to be. He might even let Andarit do the killing. Probably not unless she was there when they caught up to Entherys, though. He’d been disowned by his family, that was the reason they’d broken off the betrothal. That meant he was unprotected; there was no one to speak for him if he was killed.
No, wait. She’d almost forgotten something important. “He’s wearing Iron Mountain clothes. They might object.” They must see something in him or they wouldn’t have taken in someone who had already been rejected by another Court. The Courts were jealous; they didn’t like people shifting their allegiance and Andarit knew Entherys once belonged to the Blue Fire Court.
The hallucination closer to the cave entrance snorted. “He killed a dungeon to lock this instance. It was Iron Mountain’s; they’re waiting outside and I doubt it’s to give him cake and ice cream. I don’t think they’ll mind too much if he happens to die in the process of getting you out. If it won’t get you in trouble with anyone else, that’s probably the thing to do.”
The hallucination paused and closed his eyes for a moment. “I suppose I should find out how he knew he could use a dead dungeon core for that. It’s a waste; worse, he killed a dungeon to do it. Zon doesn’t have enough dungeons and you all poorly manage the ones there are. Randomly killing them doesn’t help!”
Andarit closed her eyes to shut out her lying vision. She knew what was going on now. It wasn’t a hallucination; sure, it still wasn’t Serenity, but at least it meant her concussion hadn’t gotten horribly worse. She was probably even going to be rescued; Desinka said that the Lord of Dungeons was kind and helped those who didn’t disrespect his dungeons.
Entherys, on the other hand, had killed a dungeon. She didn’t know how the Lord of Dungeons knew about that, but she was sure he wasn’t happy about it.
Andarit could even guess why the Lord of Dungeons had chosen to borrow Serenity’s shape to interact with her. Serenity was clearly a devotee of the Dungeon Lord’s; just look at how upset he always got about Zon’s dungeons! He knew a lot about dungeons, too. More than she’d learned in her time on Tzintkra. He knew how they worked and insisted that they were key to a world’s prosperity.
Clearly, the Dungeon God decided to use the shape of one of His believers and picked the one that would reassure Andarit the most. Desinka would probably also have worked; she wondered why the two people present were both Serenity instead of Serenity and Desinka.
“The gods are not to be understood; they do as they will,” Andarit muttered. She’d heard that more than once; it was a common saying among Saktiin. There weren’t many Saktiin in Lowpeak, but her father had made certain that she knew something about them the same way she knew something about the other different groups that made up Lowpeak.
She wondered what gods the Saktiin worshiped or if they worshiped any at all. The saying clearly implied that they knew the gods were real but it didn’t sound very faithful, especially not the way they used it. Or maybe it was and she was looking at it wrong? The Saktiin used it about anything, especially anything negative, that they couldn’t control, saying it was in the hands of the gods.
The weather was probably the most common reason for the saying to be repeated. The fact that this time she was saying it about the literal actions of a god amused Andarit somehow. She found herself giggling uncontrollably. The fact that giggling hurt and made her even dizzier only made it more funny.
“Unh.” The loud grunt wasn’t funny.
Andarit opened her eyes and tried to catch her breath. The world swam in front of her, but she thought she saw Entherys on the floor with Serenity standing over him. Entherys looked like he’d been beaten up. Good; he deserved it after knocking her over the head and tying her up for hours and hours.
“Tell me about your entire plan here. Start at the beginning.” Serenity’s voice was the last thing Andarit heard before the world smeared around Andarit. She felt herself collapse into the arms of the Serenity holding her.
She was so tired and she didn’t have to fight anymore. She was safe; she could sleep now.
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