NOVEL NEXT 35. Sorry for Doubting
I feel a bit stupid for running all the way here after how long it's taking to get that last level.
"Come on already, how much of this are you going to make me do?" I grumble, sweeping another handful of cobwebs up into the already head-sized ball of them I've gathered.
"I mean, you've been at this a while, but you haven't actually made much of a dent," Violet comments.
I groan in frustration. I really was hoping this would go a lot more quickly, but she's right. This tunnel is pretty wide, and the cobwebs are all over the place after the worm eggs hatched. Most of them are still up on the ceiling, though, which I can't reach, so I have to just hope that sweeping these floors will be enough.
"Yeah, yeah, go ahead and make fun while you can."
"I'm not," she protests. "If you'd told me this was your plan, I would have agreed. It's a good idea. I'm just pointing out that it's probably not about how long you've spent on the task, but whether you've finished it."
"Well if that's true, we're fucked," I mutter. "Because I'm never going to get through all this."
As if to mock my pessimism, the words that I've been waiting for finally appear in my head just as I complete another left to right sweep of the tunnel.
[Level up!]
Organizer is now level 10.
Unified Wanderers is now level 8.
+2 Resilience.
+2 Ego.
+1 Will.
"Ugh, fucking finally!"
I waste no time in turning around and marching back towards the entrance. I'm loath to admit it, but I'm actually pretty worried about Nipper and our stuff. I haven't sensed whatever presence has Violet so spooked at all, which is somehow even more worrying, because until now it's been pretty much an omnipresent feeling in these caves.
As if reading my mind—or more likely my emotions—Violet interrupts my thoughts.
"Worried?"
"Pfft," I scoff. "Nipper's a good boy. I trust him to hold down the fort."
Nevertheless, I do pick up the pace to a light jog while I start adjusting my classes.
[Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Thrower]* - Level 0/10
Take an object from here, and send it over there.
Skill - Strong Arm: Increased Power when throwing.
Attribute bonus: Power.
Advancement: Throw things.
I shudder at the feeling of my attributes shifting. Switching classes fucking sucks. When attributes go up, you can feel a sort of subtle sense of empowerment—a tingly sensation of euphoria. At first I thought that was some intentional design of the you-know-what to get people hooked on it, but I think it might just be a natural consequence of whatever "Attributes" really are.
On the reverse end of that, losing attribute points is very uncomfortable. Especially since it's not just one or two points like leveling up, but ten all at once. It's hard to describe exactly, but suddenly everything feels mentally heavier. The boredom of sweeping up cobwebs, the anxiety about our mysterious watcher and our unsupervised supplies, and even just the general stress of being trapped in a fucking death-cave all feel just a bit more immediate.
I pick up the pace again.
"Think I can get a couple levels in before we get back?" I ask Violet, mostly trying to take my mind off of the renewed pressure I'm feeling.
"Maybe? It can't hurt to try."
With a shrug, I pull back and hurl the giant wad of dusty cobwebs as far as I can. It's light for its size and sticks to my hand a bit in spite of the dust, so the end result is a pitiful toss that catches the air and ends up behind me as I jog past it, forcing me to turn around to pick it back up.
[Level up!]
Thrower is now level 1.
+1 Power.
...
"This is bullshit," I gripe. "After what I just had to go through for a single level in Organizer?!"
"I think we can safely say that higher levels require more significant achievements," Violet says, failing to suppress the smile in her voice.
I try a few more times, but the dirty webs provide no more levels, and I nearly lose the candle I'm carrying after yeeting it shockingly far down the tunnel ahead of us. It nets me another level, but even Violet and I can agree that whipping our only light source around is a dumb idea, so I don't try it again. That just leaves the knife, but I think Violet would absolutely find a way to kill me if I lost or damaged it, so I tuck that idea away for later when she's not looking.
I manage to jog the rest of the way to the tunnel entrance while barely breaking a sweat. I really should have just done that in the first place instead of trying to show off.
The good news is that all our stuff is right where we left it. The bad news is that I don't see Nipper anywhere and that unsettling sense of being watched is suddenly back with a vengeance.
"Uh, Vi..." I mutter under my breath. "I can feel it again."
"So can I this time," she hisses. "You thought this was normal?!"
"It wasn't this bad before."
Not wanting to waste any time, I hop down the cliff.
"Gah!" Violet shrieks as we fall, and the force of our landing brings me down to all-fours with a wince of pain. "Why?!"
I stand, happy to note that the drop didn't leave me with any injuries beyond sore knees and some tingling in my soles and palms. "I think you're right, Vi," I admit. "I don't know what this is, but it's giving me bad vibes. I want to get the fuck out of here. Yesterday."
Grabbing the cloak, I check to make sure Nipper isn't hiding in the pockets or gorging himself on the last of our supplies, but he's not there either. I'm gonna be pretty disappointed if the little cutie is gone for good. I was looking forward to having a familiar.
"Nipper?" I call out quietly, feeling a bit stupid about it since he's deaf. "Where'd you go, buddy?"
I pull our makeshift duffel bag away from the wall where Vi left it and narrowly manage to dodge a spray of sticky thread for my trouble.
"Shit!" I curse, dropping the pack and scrambling to the side, keeping it between me and the agitated worm. "Hey buddy, it's just us, you don't have to be scared!"
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It's a bit risky, but I reach my hand out over the pack, keeping my palm open and focusing as much of my magical sense into it as I can. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any olfactory senses, but he has to recognize us somehow, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with magic.
My gambit pays off, and Nipper squirms his way over to nibble on my fingers slightly without actually breaking the skin. It's not a real bite, though his saliva makes my skin itch, just a way for him to sense my magic more clearly. Apparently satisfied, he wriggles up onto my hand.
I stand and sigh in relief. I think I was more worried about him than I realized.
"Huh," Violet remarks, mild awe creeping into her voice. "You really have tamed the thing, haven't you?"
"I told you he's a good boy," I insist, stroking what I think is the back of his head with a finger. "I wonder what's got him so spooked, though."
Even now that I've got him, the worm seems tense, somehow. Staring in the same direction no matter where I put him.
Staring...? Wait, but he's blind? I try to follow his eyeless "gaze," but I don't see anything there. I squint and try to focus, wondering if maybe it's a particularly sneaky laser gecko, but nothing is there. Something nags at the back of my mind. A question that's quietly bothered me without ever actually rising to the forefront of my thoughts. Just a weird little inconsistency that I sort of noticed, but never thought about until just now.
"Hey, Vi?" I whisper, grateful for once to have someone to bounce ideas off of. "Have you stopped to wonder why Nipper is black? Or why the laser geckos have camouflage? Hell, even the rock snails blend in with their shells..."
"There do seem to be a lot of ambush predators down here," she acknowledges.
"Are there, though?" I ask. "The one time we saw the lizards hunting a snail, they seemed to be chasing it down, didn't they?"
"I guess. What are you getting at?"
"Violet, it's pitch black down here," I explain. "And yet every living thing we've met has adapted some kind of camouflage. Why? You wouldn't normally rely on vision in an environment like this."
"Attributes, probably?" she hedges. "With enough Awareness it's probably possible to see in the dark."
I move Nipper back and forth, watching his head swivel and trying to triangulate whatever he's tracking. With some trepidation, I note that the spot seems to be gradually moving closer.
"I bet it is," I agree. "And with magic involved, I wonder what sort of evolutionary arms race that would create, hm? Ultimate stealth versus ultimate perception. Like maybe..." I gulp. "Something invisible, competing with something that doesn't need eyes to see."
Nipper rears up, his maw opening wide in what must be a threatening gesture of some kind. Whatever he's looking at is right in front of us now, and I still can't see or feel anything except for the unshakable feeling of being watched. Hunted.
I feel a sudden surge of adrenaline, and acting on instinct, I duck to the side at the same moment that Nipper twitches, firing off a string of sticky thread. I feel a strangely gentle woosh of air next to me, but see and hear absolutely nothing. Against my better judgement, I glance back at the wall behind me and immediately spot a distinctive depression in the stone. Sharp and round and definitely new.
"Oh fuck!" I cry, diving randomly to the side as several more depressions silently appear on the wall behind the spot I was just standing in.
"Violet!" I scream. "Why am I still in front?!"
"I—" she starts, but my gut tells me that I need to move, and I duck to the side once more. I can't even tell if it did anything, but I'm still alive so I'll take it. "How am I supposed to fight something invisible?!"
"How am I?!" I retort, pulling out the knife and waving it aimlessly in front of us.
Predictably, that does nothing, but I try to keep an eye on where Nipper is looking, using him as a compass. I think it might have backed off a bit?
"I don't know, magic?" she suggests lamely.
"Oh, now you want magic to solve all our problems?!" I complain, desperately trying to spot the threads Nipper hit...the thing with.
"You're the one who keeps insisting it can!" she argues. "But all you've got to show for it is chronic nosebleeds and a pet worm!"
I open my mouth to object, but Allison's voice cuts in like an angel descending from the heavens.
"Guys! Stop fighting each other and fricking run already!" she shouts.
Oh, right. Duh.
Nipper twitches again and I juke to the side. Either it's catching on to my moves or I'm too slow, because this time I'm met with a sharp pain in my side and the tell-tale warmth of blood soaking into my shirt.
"Damn it!" I groan, glancing up at the ledge above. Ten feet has never felt so far. "Sorry, little guy."
With a consoling whisper, I toss Nipper up to the ledge and fish a candle out of our cloak, ducking and weaving randomly in the hopes that I can throw off our invisible assailant. I catch another blow to the shoulder for my troubles, then whip the candle as hard as I can in the presumed direction of our foe.
I expect it to bounce off of something, or fly off into the distance, or something. Instead, the candle just vanishes several feet away, as if it never was. I haven't the slightest idea whether that actually bought us any time or not, but I don't have the luxury to think it through.
Feinting left, then reversing direction to dive for the pack of candles, I grab it with both hands, spin around once, and hurl it up towards the ledge. Between the Power I gained from my scant levels in [Thrower] and the bonus from its class skill, I manage just enough force to get the bag up to the ledge, idly hoping that I didn't just squish Nipper with it. Credit to Allie's wrapping skills—it manages to stay together despite the rough handling.
Now comes the hard part.
I jerk my head to the side, my heart pounding in my throat as I see another hole appear in the rock next to it. Fuck my life that was close. I toss out a few more spare candles from our cloak in the vain hope it will offer some kind of distraction, then turn to focus on the ledge.
This is it. Do or die. I don't have the time or space to practice like Violet did. I'm probably not lucky enough to have her muscle memory either, but who knows? What I do have is twice as much Power and a bottomless contempt for whatever stupid fucking divine entity is responsible for creating an entire world that works like a damn video game.
With adrenaline flowing through my veins, I refine my focus to a deadly point, until all that exists is me, the ledge, and [Strong Arm].
[Skill - Strong Arm: Increased Power when throwing.]
I pull on the skill with all my mental strength, while putting all my physical strength into throwing myself up onto the ledge. It resists me. Some invisible force pulls back on the magical thread in my soul, as if to tell me it doesn't work like that. I ignore the pounding in my head and chest, the roar of blood flowing through my veins, and the protests of reality itself. I tear at my connection to the skill, putting every ounce of Ego I have into reminding it that there's more than one meaning to "Strong Arm."
All at once, the moment snaps, and I explode into the air, narrowly dodging another series of attacks from my invisible enemy. It's probably my imagination, but I feel like I can sense shock and surprise from the thing. I soar through the air, wildly overshooting the ledge in a massive arc before tumbling ass over teakettle towards the ground.
I really should have put more thought into the landing.
With a bone-juddering thump, I land hard and groan, desperately rolling over to push myself back up unsteadily.
"How in the world did you just do that?!" Violet asks incredulously.
I made it halfway up to my feet before the world tips over and I collapse again, coughing up a mouthful of blood. Probably from the nosebleed. Fuck, I really hope it's from the nosebleed.
"T-Tell you later," I choke out pathetically through another mouthful of blood. "Bones hurt. Switch please?"
The all-encompassing pain and dizziness subsides slightly, and it becomes impossible to tell through the rush of adrenaline which part of our body hurts most. I force myself up onto my knees and snatch my knife from where it fell nearby, then stagger to my feet.
Nipper is on top of the pack, wildly spraying its webs over the cliffside as the thing emerges through the entrance of the tunnel, abandoning stealth. I can see it now, but my eyes don't know how to interpret what I'm looking at.
It's round? I think? With long spindly white limbs like a spider. Except not at all like a spider, because each limb extends and recedes from its body like a telescope, without any visible seams. Its entire shape warps as it moves, one moment its pale body is entirely featureless, another moment it's covered in twitching eyes, and occasionally I see an impossibly deep maw that's larger inside than its entire body.
I swallow my nerves and pick up the pack, slinging it over my good shoulder with a wince.
"Good work, Maggie," I whisper. "I'm sorry for doubting you."
"Whatever, bitch," she slurs, still somehow loopy from whatever she just did. "Jus' fuckin' run!"
She doesn't have to ask me twice. Whatever that thing is, I have no chance fighting it, even if it's visible. I turn my back and run like never before.