System Lost: My Own Best Friend

After adding two more notches to the marks I've been using to keep a vague and probably very inaccurate track of our time down here, I sit back on my feet and frown at the markings.

"Nine days, huh?" I sigh. "It feels like it's been a lot longer."

"It's probably actually a lot shorter," Maggie comments. "Without a way to keep proper track of time, most people will overestimate it."

"Thanks..."

On that happy note, I ponder the map and consider how to spend the day. I'll want to hear Vi's opinion before I make any firm decisions, but it can't hurt to figure out my options. It's been a busy couple of days and a lot has changed now that we've got Mags with us.

"We've got food for a few days, at least," I muse, nibbling on an unevenly charred slice of roast lizard. Alas, candle-cooking is a technology still in its infancy. "And some time to recover from our last hunt would do us some good."

"Plus, other than Unified Wanderers, none of the classes we're currently working on benefit from exploration," Maggie agrees. "I'm sure you're eager to get free of this place, but I think our best bet is to stay put and work on ourselves for a bit."

I furrow my brows at that. It feels like an easy pattern to get stuck in. Just one more level, just a few more days of rest, then weeks turn to months or years and suddenly I'm stuck living the rest of my life as a weird cave hermit. Probably not a very long life, either.

"How long can someone realistically survive trapped underground, anyway?" I ponder aloud.

"Dunno, but we probably shouldn't push it," she says with a mental shrug. "Don't worry, we'll get out of here eventually."

"I thought you said you were fine with the cave."

"I'm trying to make you feel better," she grumbles. "Don't make me regret it."

I chuckle at that. I do appreciate the effort, even if it's clearly not her forte. I feel like Mags has let her guard down a little after our conversation this morning.

"So no exploration for today, but maybe we can check on some of the paths? I'm a bit worried about Nipper's siblings roaming around out there. One of them nearly got us."

"Only because we were caught off guard," Mags retorts. "But yeah, it might be a good idea to see what they're up to."

I glance back at the gross little monster, happily snacking on its own slice of raw lizard. I'm...still not really sure how I feel about him. Maggie's pretty intent on trying to train it somehow, or at least study it, but we know absolutely nothing about him except that he's smarter than he looks and has a bottomless appetite.

"That'll only be a few hours at most, and we can fetch some more water while we're at it," I mutter. "What else?"

"I can work on figuring out how Nipper ticks, and probably make a few more messes to tidy up to train my Organizer class."

"How exciting," I drawl. "Can't you just...I dunno, start organizing all the candles scattered around?"

"Maybe, but I want to see if there's a limit to how much I can get from just knocking down and rebuilding the same tower over and over," Maggie says. "Also, you can work on your own class too."

I blink. "Huh? How? We're pretty banged up, but aside from a couple of bites that I've already bandaged, there's not much for me to practice [Medic] on."

Speaking of which, I should probably check on those wounds and wash the bandages when I get a chance.

"Like I said, we need to make our own messes."

I pause, frowning at the implication.

"No. I'm not doing that."

Maggie sighs. "Look, normally a firm stance against self-harm would be perfectly commendable, but—"

"No," I interrupt flatly, shaking my head. "And I'm not debating this. It's not worth it, and you can't convince me otherwise."

"Fine, fine," she relents. "You'll probably have your hands full cleaning up after Violet's training anyway."

I purse my lips, but let that remark slide without comment. I may have made some inroads with Maggie, but she and Violet are still like cats and dogs. Or...lizards and snails? They hate each other.

Something stirs within me, and for the first time I think I actually feel Violet waking up in response to Maggie's snark.

"You're not wrong," she sighs. "But there are other things Allie can do if she wants to keep busy. We may not know how to properly treat a hide, but it would probably be a good idea to clean up that lizard skin we've been using as a makeshift sack."

"I can do that," I nod. "It can't be much harder than the waterskin, and I did that with numb hands!"

I wish I had something better to write with than just rocks so that I could make a proper list, but as I stand up and brush myself off, I try to summarize as best I can by counting off on my fingers.

"Okay, so our todo list for today—Maggie works on raising her class and studying Nipper, Vi patrols the caves and refills our supplies, and I clean up the lizard hide and check our wounds. Sound good?"

Maggie and Violet both sound off their assent, so I crack my knuckles and get to work. Maybe I'm just getting used to it, or maybe I'm feeling more confident knowing that I have these two to help me, but despite the rocky start I'm in great shape today. I know we can do this if we work together to kick this cave's sorry butt.

[Level up!]

Organizer is now level 5.

+1 Will (Magdalena).

"Oh!" I exclaim at the notice. "That's new!"

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* * *

Over the next few days, we fall into a routine. Allie insists that each of us should have some time in front to pursue our individual tasks, and thanks to Maggie's insights we have fewer problems when it comes to switching. Not none, but we make it work.

During this time, we make some critical observations. First, Maggie is actually properly wrong about something in a way that not even she can argue against for once—you cannot level up by doing the same thing over and over again. Whatever governs leveling requires either some form of meaningful progress or novelty in the achievements that cause a class to advance. Still, the Labyrinth is such a mess that she's been able to nearly master her [Organizer] class, bringing it all the way up to level 9.

Allie also picked up another level in [Medic] from washing and rebandaging our wounds, but otherwise we haven't made much progress.

Second, Nipper is entirely blind and deaf, but extremely sensitive to touch and temperature. It can respond to vibrations, but seems to be primarily driven by fluctuations in temperature as well as...ugh, magic.

That leads to the third observation. According to Maggie, magic is a pervasive force in the world—essentially an entire extra dimension. Creatures native to this world, like Nipper, seem to have an innate awareness of it—an extra sense completely disanalogous to any human experience. Maggie now also has this sense, and even Allison has been practicing her ability to feel it but I...can't.

I don't know why. A mental block, maybe, or just a lack of talent. But one thing is clear—those magical senses are completely unique to each of us as individuals. Our physical senses are partially shared—if Allie eats something, I can remember the taste—but the magical ones are not. Whatever it is that Allison and Maggie saw when they discovered magic, I have no memory of. Likewise, I have no choice but to take their word for it when they tell me that they can sense things beyond the physical.

It's frustrating. I don't think they're lying to me, but it's hard to just accept at face value. Especially when I can't seem to tap into that same sense myself, no matter how I try.

In any case, the last observation is the most concerning. I've been making trips to refill our waterskin about twice a day, and checking on side passages each time. Aside from a few stragglers on the first day, there's been no sign of Nipper's siblings. Or anything else for that matter. No lizards, no snails, no worms—not even any new trails. I even risked climbing back up to the Webbed Tunnel and found nothing but empty eggs, cobwebs, and the empty Gecko Lair, conspicuously absent the remains we left there.

What I have seen is more of those sharp depressions in the stone. Once I knew what to look for, I started finding them almost everywhere. Near the stream, in the caverns, on walls, columns, and even the heavy snail shell that crowds the path down the Snail Corridor—but only on the far side. The only places where I haven't seen them are the Labyrinth, the Crossroad, and the Gecko Corridor—not that I checked around the Abyss too thoroughly.

There's only one conclusion that I can come to, and it's a dire one.

"I think there's something out there."

"No shit, Sherlock," Maggie quips sarcastically.

"The question is what," I continue, ignoring her as I chew slowly on a bit of dry lizard meat and stare intently down the Dark Corridor. We've only got a day or two of food left. Maybe more if we stretch it. "Because whatever it is, I think it's the apex predator down here, but it's avoiding us."

"Avoiding us?" Allison asks. "What makes you say that? This place is pretty big, maybe we just missed it."

"It's been just about everywhere we have," I point out. "Except our camp. And this place might be big, but it's sparse. Whatever it is, it's completely cleared this area out but left us alone. I don't think that's a coincidence."

"But why?"

I wish I had an answer for that. It could just be that we're unknown to it. Plenty of wild animals will ignore humans because they just aren't part of the normal ecosystem. At the same time, there are also those that are aggressively territorial. Nipper's surprising intelligence also presents a more foreboding possibility—maybe it's smart.

If I were an apex predator with a wide territory and some strange unknown creature showed up and started disturbing things, what would I do? I certainly wouldn't carelessly intrude on its lair or blindly attack it. I'd want to observe it first. Figure out what makes it tick. Only once I was sure it's not a threat would I dare to strike.

"Have you or Maggie sensed anything weird while I've patrolled the tunnels?" I ask.

"Like, magically?" Allie clarifies, continuing when I nod. "Not particularly, but I'm not very good at that. Maggie?"

"I'm still pissed off that I couldn't get anything out of the gecko eye," she gripes. "But no, I haven't felt anything out of the ordinary—unless you count feeling like we're being watched all the time."

I rub my face and sigh. "Of course I count that—why didn't you say anything?"

"I don't think it's a magic thing," she protests. "It's been like that the whole time. I just chalked it up to the dark creepy tunnels."

"And you don't feel it right now?" I ask.

"Nope," she confirms. "Only when we leave home sweet home."

Well that's alarming. If her feeling is to be trusted—and as much as I hate to admit it, Maggie's gut feelings usually are—then whatever is out there has been watching us. Maybe even stalking us from out of sight the entire time. But how have I never heard it? Those impressions in the stone look like they were caused by something sharp and heavy.

This puts me in a difficult spot.

"Okay," I mutter, voicing my thoughts for the others' benefit. "As I see it, we have three options. We can just continue as we have been and hope that whatever this thing is, it's content to keep leaving us alone."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Allison interjects hopefully.

"Unless we starve to death," Maggie points out.

"Or it changes its mind and comes after us on its own terms," I agree. "Option two is to try hunting it down. Face it on our terms—but that's risky. It obviously knows more about us than we do about it at this point."

"Which means, judging from how you're framing this, you want to take the third option," Maggie observes.

"I'm just explaining the situation as I see it," I insist. "We'll choose together. The third option is to leave. The area we've explored is almost completely empty of life, but whatever is out there hasn't left. Maybe it has a limited territory."

"So do we, though," Maggie says. "We aren't going to last long without a source of water."

"We won't last long without food, either," Allison mutters. "What are you thinking, Vi? I know you've thought of this already."

"I have, yes," I admit, scooping up Nipper and retreating back into the Labyrinth towards our map. "I'll show you."

Allison's map is actually quite detailed now. Without much else to do after cleaning the lizard hide—which is currently in limbo while we decide what to do with it now that we're down to enough food to fit in our pockets—she's been taking the time to clean it up using the trick Maggie taught us as a way to train her magic sense. It's thanks to those details that I can come up with this plan.

"This is where the stream is," I say, pointing out the spot where it's labeled on the map. "The source comes from this end of the room, then flows away underground in this direction."

I trace my finger along its projected path, through an unmarked section of the floor.

"You're not suggesting we try swimming, are you?" Maggie asks doubtfully. "Because we'll definitely die if we try that."

"No, but look," I move my finger down to the webbed tunnel, running parallel to the line I just traced. "It goes in the same direction as this tunnel. If we leave that way, we might be able to find it again. Maybe even follow it to an exit."

"That's a lot of maybes..." Allison sighs.

I shrug. "Better than the chasm, at least. We need to do something, and I'm not comfortable staying here with whatever is out there stalking us."

"Maggie?" Allison asks. "What do you think?"

"Doesn't matter to me," she comments blithely. "We were always going to have to go eventually."

"Then I say we try it," Allie decides. "I was getting stir-crazy anyway."