System Lost: My Own Best Friend

This new tunnel is markedly different from either the caverns or the Worm Tunnel. The floor is unnaturally smooth and flat—which is honestly a relief after everything our poor feet have gone through in these caves—and the walls form a perfect arch. It almost seems man-made, but I don't want to get my hopes up. Why would someone build such a neat tunnel into a random cave?

It makes me think of the Labyrinth of Candles. That place doesn't make any sense either. As far as I can tell it has no entrances or exits except for the Dark Corridor. This has a similar vibe—I could almost imagine someone building the tunnel, only to hit the cave and be forced to revise their plans.

Except it's too perfect. Smoother than concrete, and with no sign of tools or machines used to dig it out. Like the Labyrinth, it doesn't seem to serve any purpose either. It looks kind of like a train tunnel, but without any tracks.

The more I see, the less I understand. This entire place is confusing.

I put it out of my head, for now. I've got to keep my focus. The trail is a little harder to follow on account of how smooth the stone is, but it hardly matters—there's only one direction to go in.

The tunnel goes on and on for a very long time. As always, I have no real way to keep track, but it feels like a long time. Besides, there's a surefire way for me to tell that it's been a while.

"Oh my gosh, how far is this thing going to go?!" Allison whines. "We must have walked for miles already."

"I doubt that," I say. "It's been a while, but I think we'd be feeling it a lot more if we'd walked that far."

"We're being boosted by attributes, remember?"

"That's true, but I was already tired when we started, and you get bored easily."

She scoffs. "I do not!"

"Allison, you've spent the last three days playing with candles," I retort. "At one point you tried counting them manually."

"Okay, so maybe I'm getting a little stir crazy," she admits. "But can you blame me? There's nothing to do here!"

"For now," I say. "As we get stronger, we should be able to explore with more confidence and range further out from our water source."

"Whoopee," Allie deadpans. "We get to walk through even more featureless tunnels and risk our lives for gross food. How are we even going to carry it back, anyway?"

I wipe a bit of sweat from my brow. It's impressive how quickly and seamlessly Allie can change topics like that.

"We won't," I answer. "I'll have to butcher it on the spot and just bring back whatever I can."

"All this effort and we're not even keeping all the food?!"

"It's not like we'd be able to eat all of it before it went bad anyway," I explain. "Even with your weird new candle cooking, I doubt we'd be able to dry out the meat enough to make jerky."

I dab the side of my head with the cloak. I must be more tired than I thought to be getting so worn out from a simple walk.

"You don't know that!" Allie argues. "We've barely started to plumb the depths of candle power."

I snort.

"You're really starting to live up to the name of that class."

I pause and frown, wiping yet more sweat from my forehead.

"Allison, is it just me or is it getting a lot warmer?"

"Oh wow," she says. "Now that you mention it, you are dripping. What the heck?"

Yeah, it's definitely getting warmer. I'm glad I took the time to over-hydrate earlier, but if this heat keeps up for much longer it might be too dangerous to continue. At the same time...warmth is a good thing. It's not too bad in the Labyrinth, but the rest of the caves and especially the stream are really cold. Staying warm has been one of my main concerns.

Also—and I don't want to get too excited here—the warmth has to come from something. That something is typically the sun. We might just be getting closer to the surface.

I advance cautiously, being careful not to overwork myself as the tunnel continues to get warmer. Soon, I finally encounter a break in the monotony of this seemingly endless train tunnel. An opening in the side, only about four feet in diameter and with smooth, glassy edges.

Like the Dark Corridor, it doesn't seem like it was an intentional part of the construction. Rather, it's like something broke in, or maybe out. It's so weird. As though random bits of human construction were just shoved in the middle of an existing cave, and the original residents had to adapt around them.

I find one such resident on the other side of the opening. My quarry, a lone laser gecko, curled up in a small cavern next to a glassy rock. I can feel the heat radiating out through the opening, and I know it's the source of the warmth.

So much for being close to the surface.

I glance down at the glassy surface of the aperture, then at the rock the lizard is basking next to.

"Oh, I see."

"What?" Allison asks, confused. "I don't get it!"

"It melted through the rock, like those other lizards did to the rock snail. That's why it's so hot here. Our little friend has made his own personal sauna."

I hold my hand over the glassy stone at the entrance, then gingerly touch it when I don't feel any heat. It's cool to the touch, but I'm willing to bet that the one inside is burning hot.

Unlike our previous close encounters, where the laser geckos were still but clearly alert, this one is very much asleep. Its eyes are closed, and it has the tell-tale rhythmic breathing of slumber.

I quietly slip out of the cloak, glad to be rid of it in the oppressive heat, and set it aside at the entrance to the gecko's lair. Then, I pull out my knife and hold it in a reverse grip as I delicately squeeze my way through the aperture.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

The cave isn't very large, and I have to hunch over as I approach the sleeping lizard.

"Wait!" Allison says. "You're just gonna stab it in its sleep?!"

I make an incredulous face, even though I know she can't see it. What did she think I was going to do? Gently sing it a lullaby and ask it nicely to become my next meal?

"Right, sorry," she mutters. "That was dumb. Never mind."

I take a deep breath to calm myself. It's fine. She's nervous—I'm nervous too. We've never killed anything before. Well, we have, but only in self-defense. This will be our first time going out of our way to kill something on purpose. It doesn't feel good, but it needs to be done. If it's between our lives or the lizard, I'm sorry Mr. Gecko, but I choose us.

Before I know it, I'm next to the sleeping lizard. It doesn't react to my presence at all, its eyes shut and its body gently expanding and contracting in a steady rhythm. The poor thing must have thought it was safe here in its secretive little nest. Too bad.

I lift my knife with both hands, then hesitate. I'm not sure where to strike. The head? What if I'm not strong enough to penetrate the skull? The heart? I don't know where its heart is—should have paid closer attention when I was butchering them.

The neck, then. If I can sever its spinal cord near the base of the skull, that should kill it instantly. Quick and painless—the best I can do for Mr. Gecko.

Summoning every ounce of strength I have in my tiny, half-starved frame, I plunge the knife into the laser gecko's neck, aiming just below the base of the skull.

The feeling of the knife as it parts the creature's flesh is something I don't think I'll ever forget. It's both harder and softer than I expect. It's responsive in a way that dead flesh wasn't, twitching and convulsing around the blade as my assault triggers pain responses in the unsuspecting creature.

For once, I wish I didn't have my perception being enhanced by Awareness. Wait—I forgot to switch my class to—

The lizard's eyes snap open and it thrashes violently, dislodging my knife and sending me tumbling over the scalding hot rock it was napping next to. I scramble to my feet, adrenaline surging. There's no time for thought, only action.

I dive over the rock, taking the shortest path towards my quarry, already starting to skitter away. I land on the gecko's back, wrapping my legs around its torso and stabbing carelessly at any bit of flesh I can reach.

It twists and writhes in pain, snapping its jaws up at me and scrabbling with its claws in an attempt to knock me loose. There's nothing I can do but plunge my dagger into the thing over and over and pray that it succumbs before my grip fails.

My entire world becomes a wet, hazy blur of red and brown as I hold on for my life and just keep stabbing.

"Stop!"

I can't breathe. I wasn't prepared for how messy this would be. I made so many mistakes. I wasn't ready. I—

"Violet, stop! It's already dead!"

Allison's voice snaps me back to reality, and I stare down at my blood-soaked hands while I gasp for air. The lizard has long since stopped moving, but I just kept on...I feel as though I'm going to be sick.

I lean over and brace myself on the rock next to me—big mistake. I yelp in pain and pull my hand away from the hot stone. That only serves to draw my attention to all the other sources of pain. I'm covered head to toe in blood and not all of it belongs to the lizard.

I've got gashes along my arms, and one on my side from when the gecko first knocked me away. The bruises from my fall earlier have all been aggravated and with all the cuts and scrapes it feels as though there isn't a single inch of my body that isn't stinging with pain.

I slump back against a wall and hold my side as the panic and adrenaline mercilessly drain from my body. I focus on the dead lizard. I made a bit of a mess out of it, but I did it. It's dead, and I'm still alive. For now.

Assuming I don't succumb to these wounds, we have food to last us another week at least. More if we can somehow find a way to preserve it—maybe Allison can find a way with her candle nonsense.

First though, I just need to rest...

Just for a minute. My eyes are so heavy.

"No!" I shout, slapping my cheeks. "Stay awake! No sleeping now!"

"Wh-what?" Violet mutters groggily.

"We're bleeding really badly," I point out. "If we pass out here, we don't wake up. You're the one who told me that."

"R-right..." she mumbles. "When did we switch?"

"Heck if I know, but it doesn't matter. How do I fix this?"

I can already feel my mind growing foggy from the haze of pain and blood loss, but after what Vi just went through, I have to power through it. It's the least I can do.

"Oh, um...how are our arms?"

I give my arms a once over and wince at the grisly sight. Long red rakes along my forearms, slowly weeping sticky red blood.

"Not so bad then," Violet comments, her voice regaining some of its usual confidence. "If the bleeding is slowing down that much already then the cuts must be fairly shallow. What about our side?"

I pull my hands away from the wound slightly. They are completely coated in blood, but so is just about everything. I have no idea what I'm looking at, but apparently Vi does.

"Okay, let's assume no organ damage," she says clinically. "If there's internal bleeding, then we're just dead anyway and there's nothing we can do about it. Stay still, keep pressure on, and stay awake."

"That's it?" I protest.

"That's it. If our natural recovery isn't enough, then I don't think there's anything we can do. I'm so sorry Allison, this is all my fault."

I shake my head. "No it's not. You did everything you could—prepared as much as possible. Sometimes things just don't work out the way we hoped."

"No, I messed up!" she insists. "If I had aimed properly, it would have been over in an instant. There's only one way in or out of this cave—I could have set up a trap of some kind. And I forgot to change classes!"

I blink.

"Uh...no you didn't?"

"I did! I was supposed to fight with Defender so that—"

"No, look," I say, focusing on the omnipresent words in the back of my mind.

[Level up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 2.

Defender is now level 4.

+2 Resilience.

+2 Ego.

+4 [Warning: Invalid Reference].

"What?" Violet asks, confused. "But when did I...?"

"I don't know—maybe you just did it on instinct or something," I suggest. "It's controlled by thought, right?"

"I suppose..."

"Four levels, though," I say, attempting to whistle then thinking better of it when my side twinges. "Looks like you hit the nail on the head with how Defender works."

"Yeah..." she trails off. "Wait! Then I should be in front right now! I'll have twenty Resilience!"

"Mhm," I grunt, starting to become too distracted by pain to follow. "Makes sense."

"So switch with me!"

"Uh, right, switch..." I say, squinting my eyes shut and trying to focus on the feeling I get when I switch with Violet.

It's not there. No headache, no sense of release, nothing to hold on to or let go of. Either I'm too distracted, or whatever lets us swap on purpose like that is all burnt out right now. I really wish I had a better grasp on how that worked.

"Sorry, I can't."

"Oh..."

"Yeah."

We sit in silence for a while, but between the comfortable warmth of the gecko's basking rock and my extreme lack of blood, I feel my eyelids starting to droop. This is no good, I need something to keep me awake.

"Hey Vi?"

"Yes?"

"I spy with my little eye, something that is...red."

Even though she's currently just a disembodied voice in my head, I can feel her unamused glare. "Allie, that's not funny."

I snicker, then wince from the pain in my side. "Sure it is—guess!"

She sighs. "Is it blood?"

"Bzzt! Wrong!" I crow. "It's my hair!"

I might be slightly delirious, because I can't stop giggling at my own dumb antics, even as it makes my side twinge painfully. After a long silence Violet finally responds.

"Our hair is orange, stupid."

That just makes me laugh even harder. "Haha—ow!" I clutch at my side and groan in pain. "Oh, laughing was a bad idea..."