System Lost: My Own Best Friend

Nothing can contain my enthusiasm. Not the cold, not the lingering soreness, not the fact that we still don't know what kind of creatures are lurking in the dark up here, nothing! I'm finally, finally going to be able to clean myself.

I've been trying—really trying—not to think about it too much, but I stink. It's been almost two weeks of running around, working up a sweat, bleeding a lot more often than I'd like, and even going to the bathroom. All without a bath, a change of clothes, or—not to put too fine a point on it—toilet paper.

This is happening. It needs to happen. I need it to happen.

But Violet is right. I can't just dive in, no matter how desperately I want to. First things first—the candle test.

I approach the edge of the river, pull a candle out of one of my cloak pockets, and promptly drop it into the water. As it sinks slowly to the bottom, I'm able to confirm three things—the water is clear, the water is shallow, and the water is slow. In other words, it's perfect.

Okay, if it was warm it would be perfect, but I'm not going to quibble at this point.

"Violet, this is fine, right?" I double-check anxiously. "I don't think this will even come up to my waist."

"Could I convince you to wade across and clear the other side of the cavern first?"

"Nnngh," I groan before eventually nodding my head. "Fine! Hey Maggie, do you think you'll be able to use your new fire magic to dry our clothes?"

"I haven't even gotten the chance to try anything yet!" she protests. "But if you wanna risk setting all our clothes on fire and then suffocating from oxygen deprivation, I'm your girl."

"Uh...maybe not then."

I set down the bundle of candles, then leave Nipper on top to guard them.

"You stay there little guy. I don't know if you can swim, and I don't want to risk it." I frown for a moment, pondering that thought. "Actually, have we even seen Nipper drink water? Have we been dehydrating the poor thing?"

"Not unless you count blood and barf," Maggie says. "He seems fine, though."

"Ugh, thanks for reminding me," I sigh, wrinkling my nose in disgust. "I guess I'll try giving him some water after we're done here."

Speaking of which, before I go contaminating it with two weeks worth of personal crud, I decide to refill our waterskin and take a drink. While this cavern isn't as cold as the source of the stream was, the water itself is still frigid. Refreshing to drink, but not ideal for bathing.

It's fine. It'll be fine. It's worth it.

After another moment's consideration, I also decide to leave the cloak behind. It's got plenty of bloodstains and dust of its own—not to mention the powdery fungus spores from earlier—but it would be good to have at least one thing stay dry. Then I take the knife in one hand, mostly just to keep it out of the water, and two candles—in case I lose one—in the other, and delicately dip my toes into the freezing water.

"Oh jeez!" I gasp involuntarily at the feeling of the cold water on my skin. It's one thing on my hands and face, but the shock of the cold water sends a shiver all the way up my spine. "Dang that's cold!"

I lower myself gingerly into the water, checking my footing and being careful not to slip. As predicted, it only comes up to just below my butt at the shoreline, but there's a slight gradient to it as I slowly make my way across.

"Watch out for any sudden drops," Violet advises me. "They can be hard to see, especially in this dark. Double check every step."

I nod silently. She doesn't have to tell me twice, but I appreciate the support.

By the time I make it halfway across, the water comes up to just above my navel. Still not deep, but I remember someone telling me that you can drown in a saucer of water. That's...probably an exaggeration, but the point is that no amount of running water is entirely safe.

I do, however, make it safely to the other side, where I spend a few minutes shivering and dripping wet as I check the perimeter of the cavern.

There are three exits—and a half. First is the way I came in, second is downstream through a tunnel with no shoreline, and third is another pitch-black cave descending into the darkness—presumably where our mystery critter ran off to. The last isn't really an exit or entrance by any practical means. The source of the river is a tunnel too low to do anything but swim under. Not quite the crack in the wall that the spring originates from, but still an extreme drowning hazard.

"Alright Vi," I say, rubbing my arms for warmth. The cold has me very nearly reconsidering, but I've made up my mind. "The cavern is clear, we're alone, there's no fish in the water, and we have a warm...ish place to retreat to. It was never going to be safe, but do you think it's safe enough?"

She sighs wearily, but there's a smile in her voice as she responds. "Yes, Allie. I think it's safe enough to take a bath."

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* * *

There's a saying that hunger is the best gravy. The idea being that for someone who's starving, even plain bread can be as delicious as the sweetest cakes. From recent experience, I can say that there's a bit of a limit to that—no amount of malnutrition will ever make rock snails palatable—but it largely holds true. What I never considered was how that might apply to other luxuries. Luxuries like not being caked in your own filth.

The less said about how much crap I have to wash off of myself—figurative and literal—the better. My already wet jeans had to be practically peeled off of my legs, and I definitely don't relish the thought of trying to get those back on without letting them dry. I nearly gagged taking off my shirt, and I refuse to even think about my underwear. All of it is getting a thorough scrubbing while I'm here, but first, my body.

Words fail to describe how good it feels to submerge myself in the water. The fact that it's barely above freezing doesn't even cross my mind as I literally feel the accumulated filth being swept away by the gentle current. I run my fingers through my hair, scrubbing my scalp with my nails and picking apart what tangles remain in the messy mop I have left—a barber, Violet is not.

I spend a good few minutes just sitting there, ducking down in the water until it's up to my chin and letting the grime fall away. But then it's back to work.

The water ends up dissolving the gluey webbing that had been sealing my wounds, but I find that they've closed on their own already. That's way faster than normal, even accounting for my new attributes, so unless I slept for much longer than I thought, something happened. I wish I could remember that darn dream!

With a bit of melancholy, I note the scars decorating my pale and befreckled skin. One thick white line on my thigh, parallel to the bone, where I was stabbed by a fricking skeleton of all things—and I still think it's weird that we haven't seen any others. Another on my left side, three jagged lightning bolts of scar tissue along my ribs where the laser gecko got Vi with its claws. A circular crown of bite marks on the fleshy part of my right thumb, a welcoming gift from Nipper. Three eerily perfect circles, one on the right side of my hip, another on my waist just above it, and one on my left shoulder. There's also a bite on my foot and lots of little scrapes and cuts on my hands, knees, and feet.

Two weeks—not even. Closer to a week and a half, really. I've racked up more scars in that time than the entire previous twenty years of my life. And something tells me they won't be the last. This place is changing me. Changing all of us. A week ago I would have cried, but right now I just feel numb. Happy, for a given value of the word, but numb.

Actually, that might be the cold. I think it's time to get out.

With a heavy sigh, I reluctantly emerge from the river, shivering as I shake the water off to the best of my ability. Once mostly dry, I take the cloak and wrap it around myself to keep warm, then drag the candle bundle over to the edge of the river.

"Scoot over, Nipper, you're hogging the seat."

I carefully nudge the worm from where he was curled up for a nap, towards the side of the bundle. He snaps at my fingers grumpily, but then just curls back up when I take a seat next to him and get to work scrubbing the stains from my clothes.

Between the candles in the pack and the ones stuffed into my cloak, it's actually surprisingly cozy—even if I feel like some kind of flasher.

"Allie, you don't have to do that," Violet says. "I'm sure one of us can do a bit of the washing."

I shake my head at her offer. She and Mags have both been quiet, but I can still feel their presence. They probably enjoyed cleaning up just as much as I did, even if they aren't saying it.

"You've earned a break, both of you," I say. "Let me do this at least."

"Alright," she agrees without pressing the matter.

It's tedious and not especially productive without any soap and only my bare hands to work with, but it feels good. I mean, not physically—my fingers are a bit numb and even with the magic candles helping keep me warm, I'm still naked under this darn cloak. But it's oddly soothing to finally be able to just sit down and do a little bit of self-care, however limited.

Time passes in a bit of a blur, and before I know it me and all of my clothes are clean again. Or at least, cleaner. Even my glasses get a good cleaning, carefully wiping away all the accumulated grime and smudging from sweat and skin oil. Nothing I can do about the scratches though.

As a finishing touch, I debate trying to wash the cloak too, but think better of it and instead just empty out the pockets and shake out the dust and spores over the river. In hindsight I should have done this before my bath, but whatever. Finally, I wrap my wet clothes up into one little bundle and heft it up along with the surprisingly versatile candle-burrito.

"You know, as heavy and awkward as this thing is, it's kinda nice having a portable chair-pillow-heat-source combo," I observe, tucking the knife into one of the cloak pockets and digging out a candle for illumination.

Vi hates putting the knife in our cloak because it's awkward to retrieve and puts us in danger of stabbing ourselves, but she doesn't comment. Not like I've got anywhere else to put it right now.

"Yeah, it was a good idea to bring it," she agrees. "Though in hindsight, we probably should have just dropped it while fleeing the Stalker."

"We needed them," Maggie says simply.

I can't argue with that. As much as I hated them when I first arrived here, these weird little things have really been a lifeline for us. I still wish I knew what the place I woke up in even was, or why it has so many of these strange magical candles littered about.

The walk back to the doors is uneventful, and the well-lit cavern is as empty as I remember it when we arrive. I set our stuff down by the doors and start hanging our clothes up on the lanterns, figuring that the warmth might help them dry faster.

Once finished, I feed Nipper some water, which he does drink quite eagerly—I'll have to remember to let him drink too, next time we fill up—then take a seat on the bundle and rest my chin in my hands.

"Now what?"

I don't really want to do any more exploring while I'm basically naked, but it's going to take quite a while for my clothes to dry.

"I wanna get a feel for my new class skills," Maggie says. "I didn't say anything because you were busy being all productive or whatever, but if you're done, we've got actual real magic at our disposal and I'd like to see what it can do."

"You mean other than burn our own knuckles?" Violet replies archly.

"Fine by me," I answer, before Maggie can rise to it. "That sounds more exciting than literally sitting around watching clothes dry."

"Just...be careful with fire?" Violet pleads. "You've already demonstrated that your own fire can burn us, and oxygen depletion is a serious concern."

"Relax, I'm not gonna start a bonfire," I reassure her, stretching my arms and back and cracking my knuckles. "But it turns out that the flames on these candles actually are real fires, and I really want to know what that means, don't you?"