Jelly took him through five chambers with increasingly more vegetation and creatures. He had three close calls with one creature the size of a cat and two that were multiple times his size. Jelly had a way out of every situation. She knew all the holes to crawl through to pass unnoticed.
How did she even figure this out!
It made perfect sense how Zuhara made it this far. She could basically avoid most of the trouble with Jelly. Of all tower climbing strategies he could imagine, he liked this one the best. But Zuhara still had to get Aura to climb higher. Confrontations were necessary. With the powers of Jelly, she could pick the perfect fight she can win.
Until she can't, I wonder what wounded her so badly.
They came to a stop at the most insane place Arcen had ever seen. It was a chamber with a glowing wall on one side. There were several streams and waterfalls, and hundreds of creatures roamed all over the place. Dragonflies the size of a hand, ant-eaters the size of cars. It was sensory overload. Arcen could only recall the most spectacular things. He only caught fleeting glimpses of the chamber because Jelly was guiding him through a string of burrows connected with a tight tunnel.
That was the downside of traveling with Jelly. The safe route was the least fun. They paused for a bit because Jelly got distracted by a small glowing ant. She caught one, twisted off the glowing part, and put it in her mouth like candy. He tried it, and sure enough, it was spicier than a dry chili. It had some sour undertones, which was good.
I've got to stop trying to eat things she does!
“Where are we, Jelly? What's that wall?” He asked as they crawled towards it. The tunnel itself was starting glow. There were veins on the ground all around him.
“Cenner!” Jelly said, mid-chew of her ant snack.
I have no idea what that word means.
“Cenner?” He repeated the sound, hoping to get more sounds out of her. “What's cenner-” It dawned on him. “Oh, like center, the stalk thing?”
“Stok!” She repeated, nodding up and down.
Arcen had thought the stalk was a dangerous place with more dangerous creatures. This was nothing like it. It was beautiful, glowing in shifting iridescent colors. The patterns looked somewhat similar to something else he'd first seen eight years ago and almost every day since, the new clouds that look like oil slicks in water. This stalk looked like one of those clouds brought down to earth.
“Here!” Jelly announced after six more chambers with no glowing wall. The chambers gradually emptied as they went along, traveling away from the stalk towards the rim. The chamber she stopped at was dark, and its floor was sandy. Arcen checked the texture with his foot. There was black sand all around him.
“Big!” Jelly pointed towards the ceiling with her eyes wide. There was a glowing red thing on it, much like the fireflies in Zuhara's chamber. But this was faint, and there were no insects around. It looked like glue, a single glowing thread reaching the ground, mixing into a small pond of similar red liquid. It was the only light in the room, and it didn't reach the far corner where he was. In the faint red glow, he saw shapes moving around the red pond. Shapes as large as boulders and as small as shoe boxes.
Some sort of snail?
They looked slow, crawling on the black sand and idling where they were.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
REVEAL
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He used reveal on one of them.
╭ ╰︶?? ERITHERIA ?? ︶╯ ╮
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ ACTIVATION SUCCESS ╰︶
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ NAME ╰︶
????
BANERLITH SLUG
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SPECIES ╰︶
????
BANERLITH
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SENTIENCE ╰︶
????
42%
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ TRAITS ╰︶
????
SENSE
??
SPEED
??
REGENERATE
??
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ AURA ╰︶
????
2,227,652
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
That's two million Aura on a medium one.
He waited exactly where he was. It was a perfect vantage point to observe the chamber. He needed to see Isadora before she saw him. Sure, she was young, but she was still Nostrum and far more experienced in climbing. It was just like Zuhara said. He wouldn't win against her if this ended up in a fight.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
FABRICATE WEAKNESS
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He activated it right there. He didn't know if Isadora could sense this far. Her range was likely less than Morgav's. But he didn't want to take the chance.
Jelly stared with him at the creatures near the pond for a while, then she yawned, lay down, and closed her eyes.
He started nodding off as well. Zuhara's meal had filled him up, and the black sand under him felt soft like a mattress.
He snapped awake when a burst of light hit his eyelids. It came from a string of light rapidly arcing towards the chamber ceiling, subdividing into several strands along the way, blooming like a flower.
Found her!
He saw her campsite in the light that revealed the whole chamber. It was a tarp stretched over a small crevice where black sands ended. The slugs went into a frenzy as her white light illuminated them.
Arcen felt numb when he realized how many there were. At least a quarter of the chamber was packed with these slugs. It looked like the ground itself started to move. Jelly woke up as the sand beneath them started vibrating. The slugs flooded towards the rocky corner where the light erupted from. They weren't slugs at all. They were cutting through the sand, weaving under and over the floor like dolphins riding waves.
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They stopped at the rock formations where the black sand met huge rocks. From there, they started spurting jets of red liquid at her camp. Their shots always landed short, and wherever they fell, the rock cracked and sizzled.
He saw Isadora slowly creep around the rocky edge until she was a few meters away from one of the smaller slugs. She peeked around the rock she was taking cover behind and pointed her hand. Something flashed, and the small slug writhed on the floor as her shot burned a wider hole through it. Their red acid spurts intensified, and she ran away back to a safe distance.
She's hunting them!
He noted a route to track towards her camp while her light illuminated the room. He saw two paths. One circled down over the rocky terrain, and one went over the black sands. He picked the rocks because he was paranoid about the slugs.
“Jelly, stay here.” He patted the ground next to her. He didn't want to take her to a possible fight. “Stay, okay?” He said again, slowly so that she would understand.
Jelly nodded.
It took him a while to make his way down there. The jagged rocks hurt the soft flesh of his feet, and he had to squeeze through some gaps he never thought he would be able to fit through.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
FABRICATE WEAKNESS
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He activated Fabricate Weakness again, making sure to keep his information hidden continuously. He didn't know what sort of detection abilities Isadora had.
There was a small campfire in a spot where the rock walls opened up. The campfire had died a while ago. There was a black piece of meat sizzling over the hot embers on a contraption put together with rocks. It smelled like burnt rubber.
Beyond the campfire was a sandy bank that descended down towards the black desert. There was a slug the size of a small car on the sandy ramp. She had dragged it up the rocks to butcher it. It looked like a beached whale. The slug had decomposed, leaving a wet fluid trail soaked into the black sand.
Slug flesh. Maybe you can't eat all of it.
The ridge to his left led upwards, circling back to the rocks. He arrived under her tarp at the end of it. It was no camp at all. She had black sand to make a bed, and had hung some of her clothes up on the ridges of the wall. There was an emptied skull of some animal she’d been using as a bowl for food. He saw dried pieces of slug meat inside it. She had almost nothing else.
“You!” He heard her from somewhere above. “What are you doing here!” Her voice echoed on the rock walls around him. He had no idea where she was.
Well, Shit. She's already here.
“I’m just here to talk. Where are you?” He raised his hands, dropping the machete. He felt a rush of air behind him as she landed behind him. She’d been up on the edge of the crevice.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He turned around quietly, preemptively activating Mirage Blade.
Isadora already had her hand pointed at his chest. She was wearing a ripped tank top with a missing strap over her bra. She looked bruised and battered, with three rolls of bandage used on her left elbow, neck, and lower leg.
“You should be dead,” she hissed.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he smiled even though he didn’t want to. He was fighting every urge to slash her in half right here.
It’s just a young girl.
Nostrum was a word that burned a hole in his brain. He wanted everyone who ever sided with Morgav dead.
“Well, what now. You’re gonna be dead if you try anything,” Isadora said through clenched teeth. “I know you’re hiding your shit, can’t fool me with that.”
“I don’t have any contracts. What can I do to you?” Arcen frowned at her. He made sure to keep his tone even. He wasn’t good at lying to someone’s face.
“Doesn’t matter. If you so much as sneeze, you’re dead, understand?”
“Alright, understood. I’m here to talk,” he gestured at her body with his eyes. “The condition you’re in, you want to get out of here, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t work. I don’t have anything that can open the shortcut.”
“What do you mean, open the shortcut?” He asked.
“Were you fucking blind? Did you even go back there?”
“No, I was busy trying to stay alive.”
“The gel in that tube, it comes out, and it plugs the hole. It’s hard like rock now. I don’t have a way to drill it. Why do you think I’m here eating these fucking slugs?”
That complicates things.
He remembered how they got out of the capillary shaft. Morgav was the one who blew things out. He had some sort of contract for it.
“We can help each other. We can climb down. You go your way, I’ll go mine from there.” He tried to maintain eye contact as he spoke. Isadora kept looking away or hiding under her messy bangs.
“You can’t drill it either, Tentie!” She hissed. “What can you do for me? Why should I go with you?!”
“I know someone who might be able to drill it. I need your bubble thing to breathe in that gel.”
“You know who?!”
“I can take you there. A nice woman. She’s got experience. She doesn’t believe my shortcut story. If we both tell her, she might listen. What do you say?”
“I don’t trust either of you!”
“You don’t need to!”
Stupid bitch can’t even think straight.
“You know you can go through that shortcut. You know I need you to do that. Why would I do anything to you?”
“Aha! You don’t need me. You need my contract!”
“What are you even talking about?” Arcen frowned. “How would I do that?”
Isadora relaxed her face. “You don’t know?”
“I’m new to these goddamn towers! I don’t want to steal anything from you. Please?”
Isadora lowered her hand, looked sideways as she ran her tongue on her teeth.
“Alright. Let’s see this friend of yours. If it’s a lie, your head’s coming off.”
“Fine by me, because it’s not a lie!” He picked up his machete off the floor.
“No weapons!” Isadora shouted.
“Seriously? What can I do to you with that?” He sighed, letting her pick it up. “Used it to whack the plants. That’s all.”
“Fine.” She said, throwing it at him. He barely dodged it and watched it clatter on the rocky ground. He tried to calm his temper.
She still thinks she’s ten times better than me!
He sighed, walked over, and picked it up. He saw a blue glow from the corner of his eye as he bent.
“Jelly?”
It was indeed her. She’d just followed him all the way here.
“What the fuck is that!” Isadora shouted as she came out of her tarp hut, zipping her pants. She jumped backwards and immediately shot at Jelly. Arcen was too late and too far away to whack her hand off target. Jelly held her breath, a blue bubble erupting from her clear skin. Isadora’s shot deflected off it into the rock wall behind, causing a huge piece to crash to the floor. Jelly squeaked as it came down on her and ran away.
“Stop!” Arcen yelled, reaching for Isadora. “That’s my friend’s baby!”
“What the hell are you-“ Isadora glared at him through her messy bangs. She looked livid.
“Jelly, come here!” He patted his shoulder. He saw a blue dash rush up his body, and Jelly sat on his shoulder. She looked at Isadora with her big eyes closed to slits, a small pout on her tiny face. “I came here with her. Don’t shoot!” Arcen said, emphasizing every word.
Isadora swore under her breath. There was no apology. This was likely how the Nostrum people always were. She wore her black dress over her tank top and quickly folded the tarp into a square. She flung it over her shoulder.
“You go first, Tentie!”
“Tetie?” Jelly mimicked curiously.
“Nope. Don’t call me that,” Arcen whispered. He didn’t like this arrangement. Isadora was keeping her options, and she was way too trigger-happy.
I have no choice.
He quietly checked Mirage Blade as he turned around. He could summon it within two seconds. That was plenty enough time for Isadora to kill him. Activating it all the time was a waste of Aura, nonetheless. In fact, he’d entirely wasted the last activation. He decided to rely on the machete.
I can always throw it at her.
That would buy him enough time to activate the contract. She wouldn’t expect him to have anything to defend himself with. He had one good shot at killing her.
Since he was at the front, he took Jelly's directions and turned to go back up the rocky path he climbed down from. Isadora followed as they walked along the ridge. He turned right at the campfire where slug meat still sizzled.
“Nope. That's not where we're going.” Isadora nudged him on the back. “I'm not climbing that. We go on the sand.”
“No, the fuck we don't,” Arcen yelled. “If you want to get eaten by slugs, your choice. I came from this way. I go back this way. That's what Jelly wants.” He could no longer tolerate that Nostrum superiority she was still trying to bank on. It reminded him too much of Morgav.
Isadora blinked a couple of times after his outburst, her lips quivering as she narrowed her eyes at him. He kept his eyes fully focused on her hands.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
She leaned forward right as he activated Mirage Blade.
She dashed at him, and he felt her brush by his shoulder. Jelly squeaked; he saw her blue blur jump off his shoulder. He managed to catch Isadora with the blade arm as she passed him. They paused for a moment, stuck in position, pulling in two different directions.
Isadora had snatched Jelly by the head.
“Let her go!” Arcen yelled. He felt his forearm flatten and lengthen. Mirage Blade was halfway there. He gripped her dress tighter by the arm and pulled her back. She wasn't hard to move. He was easily three times her weight.
“Fuck off!” She yelled and tossed Jelly into the darkness below. Jelly was holding her breath, her blue shield bubble protecting her as she bounced off the black sand.
Arcen twisted his foot and pulled Isadora over with all his strength. She lost her footing against his sheer weight, and they both toppled over the edge of the ridge into the sand below.
Arcen quickly got on his feet and found Jelly. She wasn't hard to find in the dark. She glowed inside her shield bubble like a bulb.
Isadora pushed herself off the floor, gasped, and stumbled sideways. She cast her own Radiate and exclaimed loudly. He saw it as she turned around. She was holding her right forearm with her left hand. Fresh blood was dripping from it. She glared at him with clenched teeth, her face twisted in pain.
“What happened!” he asked, quickly hiding his right arm out of view.
“You lying motherfucker!” Isadora screamed, pointing her left hand directly at him. He stopped her just in time, throwing the machete at her just as he planned. She dashed back a step to dodge it, wincing as her injured forearm bent at an angle it shouldn't.
fuck, fuck, and fuck. It’s all fucked!
“You lied!” She screamed in a bloody rage. “That’s Karla’s! I know it!”
He was only about three long steps away. He leapt off the ground towards her, twisting around before she could line up her hand towards him. He was now in arm's reach. Rotating in place, he released all the gathered momentum in a wide arc. He felt the blade sink into her flesh, cutting across her torso like a heated knife through butter.
Isadora had already started to jump backwards by the time Mirage Blade found her. As he came to a sudden stop at the end of his spin, she had her hand pointed directly at his chest.
For a split second, there was calm and silence. Then her hand glowed, and the sound of a shot rang out. Arcen felt the column of light impact directly on his sternum; it cut a hole clean through him.
Shi-
Isadora fired two more as she fell, and the second one hit him on the left side of his chest. He felt cold. The third shot grazed his side. He fell to his right, machete clattering on the floor. He knew it was over.
As his vision darkened around the corners, he saw Jelly rushing towards him, her eyes wide and her tiny hands on her head.
The ground shook. He saw sand particles dancing all around him. He saw red shapes in the darkness beyond Jelly.
The fucking slugs!
“Run-get awa-” He lost his voice at the end of his exhale. He couldn't breathe again, and his vision darkened around the corners.
Through his fading eyes, he saw Jelly dig into her little side bag. She pulled something out of it and threw it on the ground. Lines erupted from it like a firework. A slug crashed into Jelly, and she disappeared under a wave of black sand. He couldn't see her blue glow anymore.
╭ ╰︶?? ERITHERIA ?? ︶╯ ╮
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ ATTRIBUTE INCREASED ╰︶
????
LOVE + 1
[10]
DESPAIR + 1
[18]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ACCQUIRED ╰︶
????
ATTRIBUTE [LOVE] REACHED
THE FIRST THRESHOLD OF [10]
??
RELIEVE [1]
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
Next chapter on Friday.
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