The night passes peacefully without a siack, and the m they break camp early to start their trek back. Before they leave, Emily separates from the group without a word, leaving them behind as she sprints out of the cavern, following one of the paths downstream. She cuts her way through several groups of beasts as she gets further away from the ke, but even as her stamina drops and she starts to feel fatigue setting in, after running for almost twenty-four hours straight, she still finds nothing but more winding tunnels and an endlessly flowing stream.
Damn, I guess I’ll have to e back again to finish my quest. I’ll run my own expedition before I leave once I reach third circle.
Sighing in disappoi, she resets time back to the m by the ke.
Unaware of her journey further into the deeps without them, the group sets off, leaving aier cavern behind them, having collected most of the crystals and thrown all the bodies and heads into the water. The writing on the wall, they don’t touch.
They retrace their steps, heading upstream and back towards the surface with tension hanging over the group, fear of a repeat of the st horde lers present in everyone’s minds. They run into a few fire-spitting bugs and iron-cwed moles on the first day of their travel, filing into the well-lit tunnel from the dark side passageways.
The fire-spitting bugs are eviscerated by Emily’s flying lightning and a few well-pced water bdes. Their attacks harmlessly burst against the group’s water barriers. The iron-cwed moles once again prove fun for Emily, as she charges out from the rest of the group with flying lightning swinging and quickly dispatches them all. The rest of the first day marg along the water’s edge is quiet.
This patters as they get further from the ke, with ne, coorditacks. A few dog-sized aciditipedes show up on the sed day, and Emily is forced to stop using flying lightning when the first one she cuts opes the on. Instead, a few bolts and fming projectiles from Dante reap their lives.
Ohird day, they spot a patch of vothral weed, a small blue stalk imbued with strong water elemental mana, growing oher side of the ke. They cross the water to collect it, but several shimmering bdes of water shoot out from the depths below, shredding Dante and Mia to pieces. Emily resets once, and this time before letting ao the water, she shoots two bolts in, filling the water with electria and frying several piranhas, that float to the surface dead.
They tinue onwards, and it’s not until they ehe dark, waterless tunnels eg the surfad The Waters on the evening of the fifth day that they run intlers again.
When they reach the small jun room filled with luminis, a small group of ten groglers rushes them from the tunnels. They rip them to pieces with ease, and find no others nearby, assuaging the group’s fears that they might signal another coordinated offensive heading their way. Afterwards, they settle down for the evening in the flower-lit room.
As everybody sits to eat amongst the flowers, Emily chooses to sit alone by the entrao the tuo the surface, silently staring out into the darkness ahead.
“You excited to head back?” Oscar asks, approag from behind her, carrying food.
“Of course,” Emily responds with a grin as he sits beside her. “I have hings to researd toys to make. Also, I miss Jules.”
Her grin fades to a bittersweet smile.
“Haha, yes,” hs. “It’s o have something good to return to.”
Emily raises a brow in surprise, before switg to a teasing grin.
“Who do you have to return to?”
“My family,” he says with cheer. “This expedition will be a great achievement for us, thanks to you.”
“At least you know who it’s thanks to,” she responds with a smirk.
“Seriously though,” Oscar says with a solemn gaze. “Thank you for keeping my head on straight back there. I’m not sure what came over me, but I was giving up way too fast. It’s not a good mi for a leader. You’re the main reason we’ve made it this far at all, let aloh this few casualties. I know you won’t really be getting a fair cut for how much effort you’ve had to put in, but I’d like to offer you my proper thanks.”
Emily watches him in silent surprise.
“The normal procedure when a member of an expedition dies is to split their share: half to the family running the expedition, and half to be divided between the surviving members. I’d like to give you half of my family’s share.”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
“Yes. No one in my family will argue with me wheurn.”
Emily scoffs at his fidence, but thanks him with a grin.
“Thank you then. Always happy to have more funds and research material.”
“You deserve it for keeping us safe.” He rises, patting her on the shoulder, as he heads towards his sleeping bag. “Let’s hope we get back without more troubles.”
***
The night passes and they tihrough the dark tunnels away from The Waters. They run into a few bugs and moles, but Emily and Dante deal easily with them at the front of the group. They sleep again the night, simply stopping aing up camp oh, fighting off a few bugs in the night.
The day they step out through the entrao The Waters, rising through the cra the earth to meet sunlight, finally pulling free from the clutches of the oppressive darkness.
“Finally!” Dante cheers, matg the sighs of relief emanating from the rest of the group as they step into the rain.
“It’s certainly o see the sky again,” rees, while pulling up his hood to cover his head. “Let’s set up here and have lunch before we tinue. We’ll have a long fight ahead of us once we leave the retive safety of this clearing.”
Everyone nods in agreement, remembering the many fights they had i days of their jourhrough the forest. They spread across the clearing, some sitting in the open, enjoying the cooling rain on their faces, and some leaning against trees, sheltering uhe opy’s cover as they eat. Emily, Ivor, Dante, and Enzo settle at the edge of the fog wall, fag in the dire of their return.
“How did you two bee friends?” Emily asks a question that has been on her mind for a while, ign the water trig into her robes through the rips left behind by the wendigo.
“Our mums are close!” Dante says proudly, throwing his arm around Enzo’s shoulder.
“Unfortunately, they are,” Enzo grumbles with a sigh. “The Hibiscus mard Dianthus visty border each other and have friendly retions. Our mothers were in The ant at the same time and are still close. They ofte up and they used t us along, so I was forced to put up with him from a young age.”
“Haha, you love me really!”
Enzo rolls his eyes and refuses to respond, drawing chuckles from Emily and Dante.
They eat in good spirits, enjoying the sunlight dripping through the opy along with the rain. Soon, they finish eating and gather together in formation again, adopting the same formation as in the caves, except Ivor returns to the left fnk, and Erin moves to cover the right. They step out through the fog wall, re-entering the dense mist of The Gde. A few hours into their march, they run into their first enemies sihe tunnels.
Emily spots six glowing e figures darting through the trees towards them and quickly alerts the group. Before they even finish preparing barriers, an ocex leaps out of the foliage at Emily. She deftly sidesteps the attack, her left arm fshing out and slig the cat’s head off with a maa-infused Cw. A wind barrier covers her as the sed cat springs towards her and she knocks it aside with an elbow to the side of the head before finishing it with a heavy boot stomp, crushing its skull.
Emily finishes summoning flying lightning as her foot falls, and the dart quickly whips between the four remainis before they attack, ending the assault.
Weird. They were incredibly aggressive.
She puts the thought to one side as they move on swiftly. However, within the wo hours, five more sets of beasts rush them. They move quickly, beelining for the group the moment they enter range, with four of the five arriving before the group mao spot them with eartheion. After the fifth group, Emily realises what is probably the cause.
The Mensacus is still leaking some of its influence. I guess redug it to only minus oelligence wasn’t enough to keep it from affeg the nearby beasts. That’s gonna make this trip back a pain.
They push onwards, the number of beast attacks slowly ramping up as they move away from The Water’s entrance. e nightfall, the rais off for a bit and they set up tents in a small crater, with banks of earth partially cealing them on all sides.
Emily takes her food ales on one of the banks, looking out into the forest. Her groupmates sleep soon after, and she’s left alone in the faint light of the moon as it creeps through the opy above. Twenty minutes into her watch, she spots movement outside the barrier and moves to meet them.
Small, brown shards of rock fall down from above. Emily dodges them with ease, letting them drop past harmlessly while weaving hand signs to summon flying lightning. She whips the on into the darkness overhead, her precise attacks ripping through the howlers, aided by her spatial awareness and keen eyesight. As the st howler tries to flee, she sends flying lightning through its chest and turns back to the camp with a frown as its body drops to the floor.
This is going to be annoying. I wish I could just sit irees and shoot them.
Sparks go off in her mind, and she re-ehe sound barrier and approaches a tree hanging over the camp. She springs up the trunk, utilising the spikes left on one of her boots to help her, quickly approag the top edge of the barrier. Stopping before she breaches it, she settles down on a branch, overlooking the crater, that is lit by a beam of moonlight.
She perches with one leg crossed over the wide branch, and the other hanging down. Pulling out her revolver, she pces it on the leg in front of her and stares at it.
If I shoot it within the barrier, the beasts outside will only hear the sound of the bullet flying through the air. It will be enough to scare them nearby, but it won’t pull extras from far away. However, it will wake everyone ihe barrier.
She unhooks one of the green teardrop earrings from her ear and hooks it onto the trigger guard of her revolver. Toug a fio it, she carefully is mana into the mana pathways of the gem, f the mana within to flow in reverse and activating the engraved spell. A small, shimmering barrier forms around the gun, barely perceptible to the naked eye.
Emily raises the gun to point at the sky as her finger origger.
Please work.
She squeezes, releasing the hammer to drive home and fire. A hissing pop sounds from the gun, audible but quiet enough to ignore, and a bullet flies out, leaving the barrier aing lost in the clouds.
Perfect!
A satisfied smile spreads across Emily’s face, and she disables the earring before reloading the revolver and ying it down in her p to wait. Forty mier, Emily spots a group of six fog cats, weaving towards the camp through the mist fifty metres out, and sits up, alert with aed grin.
Maintaining infra-sight, she carefully activates the earring in reverse again, then raises her gun towards the first cat. She takes a deep breath, lining up the barrel with the cat’s skull. She charges the revolver with maa before slowly releasing her breath while squeezing the trigger. With a faint pop and a bright fsh, a bullet flies into the trees, ripping through one of the felialkers.
Without a moment's hesitation, Emily moves on to the arget, taking another breath and releasing it with a squeeze. With another pop, a sed cat falls. She lines up her third shot, the bullet ripping through another cat’s throat. Her fourth shot misses as the target notices its dead packmates and jumps erratically, but the fifth puts it down.
The moment the fifth shot leaves the barrel though, Emily’s instincts fre and she follows them. She flicks the gun to the side slightly and pulls the trigger without a thought. Her sixth bullet flies out, pung through the torsos of two cats jumping past each other, dropping them to the floor unmoving.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Skill learned: Basic Shooting (passive)
[Basic Shooting (passive)]
User knows how to use ranged ons and firearms.
-Grants +10% dexterity and agility when fighting with ranged ons
-Grants +10% familiarity with ranged ons
_____
A calming feeling of familiarity washes over her as she adjusts her grip on her revolver. Her slightly tensed wrist rexes, and she slides her finger out of the trigger guard to rest it on the side. She pops open the gun’s der, dropping the empty gs and quickly loading six new bullets.
She moves the leg that is crossed over the branch, drawing her foot in and raising her ko create a fortable firing ptform, as her gun against it while looking out into the forest with a smile.
I was w if I’d get a ranged version of my melee skill at some point. These earrings worked like a charm! All those shots and I didn’t wake anyone. Maybe I’ll work on a properly silent gun when I get back. It could be a useful method for assassinating a mage. I bet I could hit them with a silent bullet before they could put a barrier up, and with this, I don’t o waste as many wind crystals adding them to the bullet’s propulsion mix every time.
She silently deactivates the earring on the gun and watches her surroundings, waiting for more targets to wander inte.
The night slowly ticks by, and she tinues pig off approag beasts from the trees. Half an hour before the end of her watch, she starts to run out of bullets.
Fourteen shots left. I should probably save some for if I hem on the rest of the trip. One final test.
She spots three ps hopping cllowing a warm e ihermal sight despite being amphibians, and loads two bullets into the der while standing up. Stepping forward, she drops from her high perch, deftly boung between a few branches as she falls near silently to the floor.
She checks her stats as she rushes forward to meet the frogs outside the barrier.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Attributes:] Strength 12 (16), Dexterity 34 (36), Agility 26 (29), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)
_____
She bursts through the trees, arriving a few metres in front of the frogs. She raises her revolver to point at one and watches her stats ging
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Attributes:] Strength 12 (16), Dexterity 34 (39), Agility 26 (32), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)
_____
One muffled hiss and the first frog drops dead. She springs forward, turning the gun on another frog while extending her to the st.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Attributes:] Strength 12 (18), Dexterity 34 (39), Agility 26 (34), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)
_____
She pulls the trigger as her bde sinks into the frog’s soft head, finishing the fight aing her added strength flow out of her.
“Tsk,” she clicks her tongue as she wipes her bde and turns back to the camp. “The bonuses don’t stack for the same stats but iake the highest boost. Ah well, it was worth a shot.”
Returning to the camp, she sits on the bank of the crater again and waits out the rest of her watch. It es to an end without any more enters, and she wakes Ivor and Matteo to watch together due to the number of enters she’s had. After briefly warning them, she settles down in a tent to meditate through what’s left of the night as the rain starts to pain.
