Spiteful Healer

Chapter 37: Darxon Hideout (5)

The broken chunks of stone and dirt that once made up the floor of the room above helped break the fall as the 4 of them crash landed into an icy cold river below. The light of their weapons was quickly extinguished, the last thing illuminated by their flames were the slimy, web covered walls around them, emerald egg sacs plastered about - Aegis could use the context of the situation to guess what they contained.

“We need to jump after them!” Lina shouted down as she heard the water splashing and saw the flames extinguish.

“Are you crazy?” Darkshot shouted, but she broke free of his grip and dove into the large hole in the floor, no light on her daggers anymore. “She’s crazy.” Darkshot shook his head in disbelief. He was about to hype himself up into jumping in behind her, but he chickened out. Heights was one thing, bottomless pits on the other hand, his legs felt like wobbling noodles and instead of jumping, clung to a low hanging stalactite near the ledge he stood on.

The collapsing stone that had initially helped Rakkan and Aegis in their fall quickly became a hindrance - the water was not stationary but rather fast flowing in a direction leading out of the circular cavern they’d landed in. Trying to swim back to the surface or against the current proved impossible not just for them, but for the small spiders that’d fallen with them, and within seconds they were pushed out of the cavern with the current down a narrow underground river. Several small chunks of stone flowed along with them, but the larger chunks got stuck in the opening to the river cavern and began to block the others, quickly piling up the pieces of the broken floor and forming a blockage to the river.

By the time Lina had landed in the water and swam up to the surface, the flow of the river had slowed to a near halt as it crashed up against the wall of stone that had formed at the narrow river tunnel where Rakkan and Aegis had been washed through - she couldn’t follow them.

“Aegis!” She shouted out for him, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of the crashing water. She made an attempt to start shifting the debris to follow behind them, but she was soon faced with her own problems - the water had no place to flow and began to swirl around the egg-filled circular chamber, forming somewhat of a whirlpool and lifting up the buoyant egg sacs as the water level began to rise.

From above, Darkshot could hear her shouting and the sound of the water, but the drop was at least 10 meters and he still couldn’t see anything.

“Lina, what’s happening?” He asked while looking at his party interface and seeing all his party was still alive. He did his best to muster the courage to release the stalactite, drawing an arrow and igniting it before firing it down to illuminate the bottom of the cavern. The arrow pierced into one of several spider eggs that were swirling around in the rising whirlpool below, which allowed him to see Lina who was struggling to stay above the water, and the dozens of other eggs rising with her, some of which began to crack open and tiny black legs began to peer out.

“Shit!” Darkshot shouted in a moment of bravery. He went into his inventory and took out a rope, tying one end to an arrow, the other end to the stalactite. “Payback for the dagger you threw at me!” He shouted to her, she looked up at him in the last seconds of his flaming arrows light before it was extinguished by the swirling water, and in that second he fired his rope-tied arrow at her.

The arrow pierced into her shoulder dealing 68 piercing damage, and she used the small window before the arrow despawned to yank it out and hold on to it. Darkshot grabbed on to his end of the rope to make sure it wouldn’t fall as Lina tried to climb up on her own, but the Spiders began to break out of their eggs and swirl around in circles alongside her. Some of them were panicking and trying to scramble up the cavern walls, others being controlled by the current alongside her. She took several attacks from them before her and Darkshot's efforts were enough to get her above the rising whirlpool, and she watched as dozen eggs in the whirlpool turned to several dozen, it was only a matter of time before the surface of the water was covered in them, and more and more were breaking out of their eggs and scrambling up the sides, turning the dark grey stone of the cavern into moving mass of black legs.

The light on the end of Darkshot’s bow was enough for him to see it coming and he began tugging Lina up with urgency. Once she’d gotten clear of the water, she glanced around to a ledge of the upper floor that still had room for her to land on.

“Shadowstep!” She shouted, coughing up bits of water as she turned to shadowy mist and shifted to the location. The two were now on opposite ends of the floorless cavern, clinging to the ledge, and watched the swarm of spiders and water rising higher. Before panic set in they both looked to the entrance of the room to see that the door had now opened once more and they rushed towards it, struggling to keep their footing without falling down into the pit. Just as they reached the threshold of the doorway, tiny black spider legs began to protrude up onto the ledge with them, forcing them to avoid stepping on the legs of the climbing spiders.

They dove through the doorway, turned and slammed the door shut while leaning up against the outside.

“You think it’s gonna hold?” Darkshot panted as they both leaned against it to hold it shut. Lina shook her head no without any hesitation. They both took a deep breath. “On three we run for it. One, two, three!” Darkshot shouted, the two jumped off the door and sprinted down the corridor from whence they came as the door behind them burst open with the force of water and tiny spider legs that crashed along with the current.

The force of the water seemed to lessen as they got further and further from the door, which only made the threat of the spiders worse as they regained their footing and were able to rush after them.

As the two reached the bottom of the stairs leading back upstairs they were cut off by two wandering Shadow Assassins, who upon spotting them, turned to mist and rushed at Darkshot and Lina. The two kept running forward into the mist, both taking two dagger attacks, but Darkshot was able to wave the flame on his bow close enough to them to cancel the mist skill, forcing them to materialize. As they did, the spiders that’d been in pursuit of Lina and Darkshot instead turned their attention to the Assassins and began attacking them, the two monsters fighting against each other viciously.

Not interested in questioning it, they both reached the stairs and clambered up to the top as fast as they could until they reached the ground level of the keep, seeing Daylight shining through the few windows in the distance once more, much to their relief.

The two grabbed their knees and gasped for air, listening for the sound of any footsteps pursuing them, but it was quiet, and in their party interface they saw both Rakkan and Aegis were both still alive and at full health, which allowed Lina to let out a sigh of relief.

“Looks like the spiders were kept against their will.” Darkshot commented as he recomposed himself.

“It's not uncommon that certain creatures fight against each other. If we wait a bit, they will kill each other off and we can go back down to find Aegis.” Lina replied as she pulled out bandages from her inventory and started wrapping it around her arms, it improved her health regeneration slightly and she paired it with an apple snack she took out as well.

“You want to go back down there?” Darkshot groaned.

“We can’t leave Aegis behind.” She spoke firmly before pressing buttons in her party interface to open party communications. “Aegis, are you guys alright?” She spoke concerned.

Pitch black, ice cold water pushing them in an unknown direction, the sound of the water crashing into the tunnel walls and the screeching spiders that flowed along with them. The only visual aid Aegis and Rakkan had was their interface indicating the location of their nearby party member with a name floating above each others head, giving them a sense of where they were moving, but they couldn’t get anything coherent out of their mouths to communicate due to the loud water forcing them under, submerging them.

Due to the blockage behind them, the water flow began to slow down, which gave Aegis hope that they might be able to swim against it soon, but that hope died when another branching tunnel of flowing water combined with theirs, ramping up the speed significantly. Rakkan made attempts to grab out at jutting rocks on the tunnel walls but to no avail. They were helpless, only able to prevent themselves from drowning with gasps of air above the surface. It continued for a good 30 seconds until suddenly the narrow river tunnel opened up into a wide cavern, illuminated by several torches.

Aegis didn’t have much time to take in the layout of the room as the water seemed to speed up its flow. To his right the cavern wall shot up and arced over them into the dome like room, to his left was a rocky flat stretch of ground that eventually hit with the opposite end of the dome room where the rocky cavern transitioned back into the stonework of the keep’s basement, a doorway built into it with two mounted torches flanking it on either side and several other torches bolted into the cavern wall at random points. There were stacks of crates and barrels lining the walls down here as well and two humanoid creatures garbed in black cloth who immediately took interest in the 4 creatures being forced along with the flow of the water.

The Shadow Assassins didn’t jump into action to attack them though, in fact it looked as though they had no intention of attacking them, which confused Aegis as he and Rakkan attempted to grab at the ledge of the ground to pull themselves out of the river, but the stone was smooth and wet, making it nearly impossible.

Looking further down the river, Aegis quickly realized why the Shadow Assassins felt no obligation to attack them, the river up ahead disappeared abruptly - Aegis’ knew enough about nature to know why that was - it was a drop. Aegis tried to turn to Rakkan to warn him, his mouth garbled with the cold water, but when he saw Rakkan’s eyes go wide, he knew he didn’t need to, Rakkan had figured out that they were heading to a Waterfall as well.

Aegis could hear the shadow assassins begin laughing mockingly, stopped only by one of the Spiders managing to grasp onto the ledge and pull itself out of the water. It shook the water off as a dog would before screeching angrily and charging at the two Shadow assassins, while the second spider attempted to follow behind it. The moment it got footing, Aegis grabbed onto the Spider’s back leg, half tugging it back into the water as it struggled to pull not just itself up out of the fast moving water, but Aegis as well.

It attempted to shake Aegis off, but Aegis was more focused on Rakkan rushing beyond him. He extended out his right arm, shield still equipped, and Rakkan narrowly managed to grab onto it. Unfortunately the weight of a second creature was too much for the Spider to bear. It lost its footing and was tugged back into the river, flowing closer and closer to the waterfall, eventually sending them off the side.

First Rakkan, then Aegis, then the Spider, but the spider extended out its wide eight legs to grab onto the last rock jutting at the top of the water wall with its front four legs. It scrambled to pull itself back up against the flow of the waterfall while Aegis desperately held on to its back leg, he felt his hand slipping through its spiky hairs, Rakkan grasping his shield.

Rakkan saw it wouldn’t hold like this, and freed one of his hands to take his longsword and thrust it into the nearby stone that sat beside the waterfall, using as much force as possible.

It worked, but the sword dropped down to 1 durability from the strike. Rakkan switched from holding on to Aegis to instead grabbing onto his Sword, dangling above the top of the waterfall and looking down but not seeing the bottom of the waterfall whatsoever. He looked up to see that Aegis was now able to climb back up the Spider’s leg, but in those few seconds, the Spider lost its hold on the slippery stone and began to free fall along with Aegis.

Rakkan reached out his free hand and yanked Aegis by his shield to the side out of the path of the free-falling spider, and they watched as it disappeared into the darkness below, the two now dangling beside the waterfall on Rakkan’s sword which began to make a distinct cracking noise.

“Sword’s gonna break!” Rakkan shouted to Aegis. Aegis desperately looked for a solution, spotting a ledge with decent footing not far from them beside the waterfall.

“Swing me!” He shouted to Rakkan. Rakkan looked to see what Aegis saw and quickly listened, using his character's strength to do a single swinging motion with his arm, flinging Aegis by his shield just far enough to land Aegis’ feet on the ledge.

“Swing quick!” Aegis shouted as the sword’s durability gave out. Rakkan lost his grip and couldn’t use the momentum of his arm, instead in a last desperate effort he kicked off the stone wall instead with his feet, extending out his arm towards the ledge. It wasn’t close enough, but Aegis reached out to meet him with his shield, letting Rakkan grab it instead. The two of them had decently high strength modifiers, so from there it wasn’t hard to get him up on the ledge with him. They could see torch light flickering through several openings in the cavern above them, giving them a way to climb back up onto the platform above without going through the waterfall. They could hear the sound of the Spider and Shadow Assassins still fighting vaguely over the sound of the rushing water.

Aegis briefly looked at his Party Interface to see Darkshot and Lina were okay, he and Rakkan were low stamina and half mana with a bit of damage taken from banging against the rocks on the way down. He pulled out two Rockjaw Steaks, nearly down to his last ones, and passed one to Rakkan.

“Enemy of my enemy.” Aegis pointed up to the way to the platform above before shoving the whole steak in his mouth. Rakkan ate his as well and nodded as they both turned and began climbing the rocky surface slowly and carefully. Rakkan equipping a new longsword along the way.

When the two of them reached the top and climbed on the platform, dripping wet and freezing cold, they saw the Spider lunging around the two Shadow Assassins in their mist form - it wasn’t able to hit them at all and was getting whittled down by their dagger attacks.

Before Aegis could rush towards the torches bolted around the room, he spotted a glistening green sparkle out of the corner of his eye flowing down the river to his left.

“The boss drops!” Aegis shouted as he pointed at them, they were still in their uncracked orbs. Shouting it drew the attention of the Assassins and one of them turned from the Spider to move in the shadows towards them.

“Forget it.” Rakkan shouted while rushing towards a torch. Aegis felt responsible for the loot of his party and ignored Rakkan, dashing to the edge of the river and extending out his shield arm to try and block the orbs. There were two green and two white orbs, he was only able to grab one of each before he felt a sharp piercing pain in his back - the Shadow Assassin had pursued him and hit him with 81 Shadow damage. Before the Assassin could get another hit in, Rakkan threw a torch from across the cavern at it. The Assassin dodged by mist-moving away and the torch flew over Aegis’ head into the water.

“Focus!” Rakkan shouted angrily at him. Aegis didn’t have time to look at what popped out of the orbs, he put them in his inventory and turned just in time to block another attack from the assassin, this time with Brace. He jumped back to get some distance from the assassin as he drew out of his inventory a dry set of rags and started furiously wrapping it around his shield while Rakkan ran to him and provided cover, taking several swings at the Assassin in its mist form to distract it rather than try to hurt it.

Aegis took a flask of oil out of his inventory and doused the newly wrapped rags in it on his shield, then charged towards one of the remaining lit torches lining the open cavern. He reached it in the last second before the Assassin caught up to him once more, spinning around with his burning shield to break the movement skill of the assassin and brace another attack from his daggers.

Now materialized, Rakkan followed through with several sword strikes in the assassins’ back, dispatching of him. In that time, the other Assassin had killed the spider and looked to see his companion had fallen. In light of Aegis’ burning shield, rather than rush at them the second assassin turned to the door leading out of the cavern. He materialized and pulled a keyring out of his pocket, fumbling it around to try and unlock the door and flee.

“Don’t let him escape!” Aegis said as they both rushed at the Assassin. Rakkan grabbed another torch from the wall nearby and flung it at the Assassin to prevent him from shifting into the shadows, then suddenly sheathed his longsword and drew out a crossbow from his inventory, firing it at the Assassin.

The assassin flinched from the hit, dropping his keyring and turning to shout angrily at them, and in that time Aegis got close enough with his flaming shield to prevent it from escaping. Rakkan shot several more bolts from his crossbow as he closed the gap.

“Switch!” Rakkan shouted, and his crossbow suddenly transformed into a large battleaxe which he swung at the Assassin, his strike dealing 410 damage and cleaved the Assassin in half, killing it instantly.

All enemies around them dead, they were left with the sound of their heavy breathing and the nearby flowing river. They both took a moment to lean against the door and wall. As they slowly recomposed themselves, they both glanced at each other to see the other’s face, and a smirk grew over both of them. Without any prompt, they both just started laughing.

“That was crazy.” Aegis finally said. “Didn’t know you could laugh.” He patted Rakkan on the shoulder. Rakkan just shook his head at Aegis and his smirk slowly faded back to his serious, brooding orc expression. “Minor Heal.” Aegis said a few times to top himself off, but before he could open his inventory to see the loot he’d retrieved, Lina spoke through the party interface.

“Aegis, are you alright?” Lina asked.

“Y-yeah, somehow, we’re okay. The river took us pretty far, but it looks like there's a way back into the dungeon here. We should be just a floor or two below you guys.” Aegis replied.

“N-not quite, we had to run out of the dungeon completely, the water overflowed with baby spiders. But now the spiders and cultists are fighting each other. What do you want us to do?”

“If you guys are out, you should stay out.” Aegis replied. “Run back to Orm and tell Priestess Clara the source of poison… if you guys hurry, she’ll be able to save the sick villagers.” Aegis replied.

“Seriously?” Darkshot replied in disbelief by this order. “They’re NPCs, you know?” As they spoke, Rakkan suddenly became very attentive to the conversation, glaring at Aegis as if judging for something unbeknownst to him.

“Yeah but if they die, they don’t come back right? If I die, I’ll just respawn.”

“You’re above level 6 now, you’ll lose the items you are holding and a lot of experience for dying.” Lina replied. Aegis sighed, looking at his inventory briefly - they’d collected quite a lot of drops since coming to the dungeon.

“It’s only a chance to drop right? And not all of it.” Aegis replied halfheartedly.

“We’re not leaving without you.” Lina spoke angrily.

“We aren’t?” Darkshot asked.

“No, so if you want to save the villagers you have to do it yourself, find a way to get back up top and we’ll look for a way to get down to you.” She spoke in a commanding tone.

“So stubborn.” Aegis mumbled to himself so that only he and Rakkan could hear. “Okay, we gotta go fast then. See you when we see you, tell us if you find stairs.” Aegis replied. “Sorry for dragging you into this, but I’m in a hurry now I guess.” Aegis stood up off the wall and picked up the keys that the Assassin had dropped.

“You seem to care about the NPCs more than yourself. That’s rare.” Rakkan replied.

“Yeah. I mean… I know it’s silly, they’re not real, but the world makes them feel real, and I don’t want them to die just because I was too weak to save them.” Aegis shrugged.

“I know how you feel.” Rakkan smiled at him again, surprising Aegis.

“So you’re down to get a little crazy with me?” Aegis smiled as he began unlocking the door leading back into the dungeon.

“I’ll follow your lead.”