NOVEL NEXT Ch 34: It’s not fun being in the middle of an argument when one person has a pack of explosives and the other has a lit torch.
To be honest, walking through the cave was tense after that. Kalia had to keep up with Emi to keep the torch up, but Emi herself seemed to be very intent on leading the way, leaving Kalia sulking a couple steps behind no matter how fast she tried to walk.
“Listen, I looked back at the map, and I think you were right, Emi.”
“Mmhm.”
“And it wasn’t fair for me to criticize you after the fight either, when I didn’t know the full details about your skill.”
“Mmhm.”
It was hanging in the air, the final thing that needed to be said. I always hate that moment, when everyone knows what has to happen, but no one knows if it’s actually going to happen.
“And— I’m sorry…”
“Righto!” Emi said, spinning on her heels and walking backwards again. “All’s forgiven then! But yeah, I may be clumsy, but I know what I’m doing when it comes to my own skills, memorizing things like maps or directions.”
After a couple more panic inducing steps, Emi spun back around and, blessedly, continued leading the way with her eyes. “We should be close to the cave-in soon. Not sure if we’ll see any more Gobbos.”
“We passed a lot of tunnels,” I said, throwing a glance behind my back. “They could be in any one them.”
“Hopefully we’re through the most of them,” Kalia added. “But I certainly didn’t see a Shamen in the pens we fought earlier, so there’s at least another group I’m sure.”
I still hadn’t fully reconciled what fighting these creatures meant. It was good to try and free their souls of course, but in the meantime… Did they feel pain? I mean, I know they did cause they screamed when they got hurt, but did the souls
feel pain? Were we providing relief at all, or just more suffering? Either way, we still needed to help the people trapped I guess, and if the Goblins were just going to keep trying to hurt the miners anyway…“Goldfire,” I heard Emi say from up ahead, voice dripping with desire.
I looked up and instantly saw what she meant. It was a little ways up the cave still, but there were veins of gold running through the cave, sparkles bouncing off them as the torchlight fell over them, sparse near us, but growing denser the farther down they went.
“We’re here to help the miners, not get materials,” Kalia said. For all her apologizing, she still obviously had some concerns about Emi.
“Oh, I know,” Emi replied, head turning to look at the sides of the walls as we walked through. I was pretty sure I saw a bit of drool falling from her lip. “I wouldn’t know how to harvest this stuff in the first place. Striking it with a pickaxe can easily ignite it. Oh, and make sure to not drop the torch, unless you want to test how long you can hold your breath while sprinting out the cave.”
“I’m not that much of a klutz or an idiot,” Kalia said, but she did gingerly move the torch into her dominant hand as she said it. “Is it really that dangerous though?”
“Like the lady said, mostly just smoke, but it burns quick. I use it for smoke bombs, and as an ignition source for other combustibles like the swirling flame bomb I made earlier.”
“How did you make that?” I asked. “And the lightning in a bottle too. Do things just… work like that here?”
I thought I saw a glance of suspicion come over Emi’s shoulder at me. “It’s magic, but not the kind Wizards and Witches do. It comes from nature itself, be that minerals like goldfire or plants like storm catchers.”
“But it’s not something just anyone can do,” Kalia said.
“Correct! And that’s where I come in. The magic in nature is unstable, changing. Having an Alchemist Job lets me see the patterns, what state they’re in at the time I find them or buy them, then process the materials in such a way that I stabilize those patterns. Then comes the books, years of study to figure out what the patterns mean. Course, everyone sees the patterns a
little differently, so practice and experimentation matters too. I do my best to match the patterns I see, trap them, test them, and repeat until I get a feel for the materials. And soon enough, like you said, I can stuff lightning in a bottle with a level of precision high enough that I can use them in combat. Still, stuff like the swirling flames isn’t something I can just make whenever. I need the right materials, and those materials have to be in the right stage of their life, and also kinda just have the right personality for it to make something like that.”That made sense. Kinda. I mean, I understood she needed to read books, and practice… I think. And the rocks and flowers needed to get along with each other. “So you had to practice a lot to make something like the lightning bomb?”
“Oh, no, that’s only the second one of those I ever made.”
“I thought you said you needed practice!” Kalia hissed.
“Yeah, but only for complicated stuff, not things like lightning.”
“What’s more complicated than lightning!”
“Well, this rockslide, for one,” Emi said, stopping and planting her hands on her hips.
Before us was indeed a rockslide, and one that was completely covered in streaks of goldfire.
“I honestly don’t know how it didn’t ignite already just from falling on top of each other,” Emi said. “Whatever brought these rocks down wasn’t fire though, that’s for sure.”
“Is it a problem?” Kalia asked.
“Yes. The Dwarf lady was nice and all, but I don’t think she realizes how much trouble we’d be in if I lit this stuff up. There’s no way we’d be able to make it out before we suffocated.”
“Fuck,” Kalia said, bringing the palm of her hand to the top of her head. “So we’re fucked?”
“Well, I can try and figure something out. We’ll have to go back to where there aren’t any goldfire veins so I can get my tools out and work safely.”
“Uhm, I might have an idea,” I said, cringing as soon as the words came out of my mouth. Nevertheless, I carried on. “The Goblins have someone that made the problem, right? So… maybe we could try and find them, see if they’d fix it for us?”