System Lost: My Own Best Friend

"[Allie, your feet aren't even a meter off the ground,]" Talla sighs. "[Just let go!]"

I dangle from the ledge, my eyes squinted shut as I hang on for dear life and shake my head. "I can't!"

When we came back here I failed to consider the fact that I'd never actually climbed down this ledge before. Maggie made it look so easy, but now I'm stuck. To add insult to injury, the rangers—even Talla—just casually hopped down the ten foot drop like it was nothing.

My stomach lurches with a sudden feeling of weightlessness as Draga plucks me from the ledge and sets me down. He looks down at me and shakes his head incredulously.

"[For such a fierce fighter, you can be oddly skittish at times,]" he observes.

"Hear that, Vi?" I grumble. "He likes you better."

"I don't think that's what he's saying."

Draga chuckles and turns to Talla. "[What did she say?]"

"[She's afraid of heights,]" she lies smoothly, giving me an exasperated look.

I blush and nod. I never actually told Talla that, but I guess she's got a working pair of eyes. I cough awkwardly to clear my throat and pick up the staff that I tossed down ahead of me, pointing down the path.

"The stream is this way."

The rangers are more alert as they follow behind me now that we're in the cavern proper. The winding tunnels and twisting caverns create a lot of places for dangers to hide, and it's easy to get lost. I'm used to finding my way by candlelight, and with Talla's magic I almost don't recognize this place.

Predictably, none of my candle markers are still around, but my signs are still there.

"[You drew these yourself?]" Talla asks, copying them down into her own notes.

"Yes, for navigation," I answer. "There are a lot of circular paths and dead ends. It's easy to get lost."

"[What was that about death?]"

Draga and Saban tense up and give Talla a questioning look.

I shake my head. "Sorry. Path ends. I forgot that's an idiom."

Language barriers are such a pain. There are a lot of phrases that I don't even think about which don't translate well.

It's eerily quiet. I never noticed it when I was here before, but outside there are always sounds. Water moving, drips, some animal in the distance scuttling out of sight—in the caves, it all carries such that it's never truly silent. Not here. Other than the steady rhythmic tapping of our footsteps, there's almost no sound until we start to approach the stream.

I wonder if the weirdly sterile environment is a product of convergence points, but Saban quickly dispels that notion.

"[I don't like this,]" he mutters. "[It's far too quiet. Where are the monsters?]"

"[Allie,]" Talla calls forward. "[When you described the things you ran into down here...was that a comprehensive list?]"

"Yes," I answer. "Everything alive."

"[What do you mean 'everything alive'?]" she asks.

Uh...hm. You know, we never really did figure out what was up with that skeleton.

"Moving bones," I say, trying to keep my language as simple as possible. I tug on my cloak and draw my knife to show it to them. "Had these. Stabbed me." I point out the hole in my jeans, still stained dark red from the first wound I received.

"[Oh my,]" Talla says nervously. "[Are you sure you didn't mistake it for something else? Animated bones are definitely not normal.]"

I shake my head. "It was a skeleton. Fa'aun, I think." I tap the top of my head. "Had horns."

Draga grimaces at our exchange, picking enough up from context to follow along. "[Add that to the list of anomalies, I guess. Stay sharp, I can hear the stream.]"

It takes a few minutes before I start hearing it too, though I've always remembered it by the way the ground gets so much colder as I approach. I'm really glad I've got my slippers now—they make a huge difference in keeping me warm. I'm also jealous of the rangers' fur.

[Level up!]

Pathfinder is now level 8.

+2 Awareness.

+2 Will.

The words appear in my head as we emerge into the Underground Stream. My lifeline for survival in this unforgiving depths. If this keeps up, maybe I really will master the class by the time we're done here.

Once the rangers have cleared the cave to their satisfaction, we take a moment to refill our water and quench our thirst.

"[This was a very lucky find,]" Talla remarks as she adds the landmark to her own sketches. "[I didn't even realize this convergence point had a freshwater reservoir. Most run out quickly if they have one at all, but this seems to have connected to a local aquifer.]"

I just shrug. I know less than nothing about regular geology, let alone weird extradimensional super-geology. I'll take Talla's word for it.

Next up on the docket is the Labyrinth where I first arrived, but I take a detour towards the spot where the Worm Tunnel exits into the Twisted Cavern, watching the shadows anxiously. I still don't feel the Stalker's eyes on us, and Nipper hasn't reacted either, but I'm not the only one getting nervous anyway.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"[Allie, was it always this quiet when you were alone down here?]" Draga asks.

I start to nod, but then take a moment to consider. I spent most of my time here actively avoiding other things, but right when we first arrived we ran into a bunch of stuff. The snail, then the lizard, then some lizards hunting another snail...things slowed down after that, though.

"Not at first," I answer eventually. "There were more creatures around when I arrived, I think."

It takes Talla a moment to parse and translate what I just said, but when she does, Draga's expression darkens.

"[The demon might have arrived at the same time you did, then,]" he suggests. "[They're more disruptive than normal dungeon monsters.]"

"What's the difference, anyway?" I ask.

"[Anomalous creatures like your little friend there are relatively tame,]" Talla answers. "[Aside from their odd biology, they aren't much different from regular animals. We're not sure whether they gain any support from the divine mechanism other than the ability to evolve, but if they do it's significantly reduced compared to sentient beings like us.]"

Right. The laser geckos and rock snails are big and spooky, but for the most part they're just living their best lives, eating rocks and occasionally each other. I haven't really seen what Nipper's ilk get up to other than trying to eat everything in sight. Or within...however they sense the world.

"The Stalker is different?" I suggest. "Because it's smart?"

"[That's one part,]" Talla agrees. "[But a critical difference is that demons can access the divine mechanism and turn it against the Goddess' chosen, twisting her gifts in ways they were never meant to be used.]"

"Don't say it!" Maggie interrupts before I can even open my mouth. "Not a word!"

Sorry Mags, but I have to ask. "Like chaos mages?"

To my surprise, Talla actually shakes her head. "[No, much worse than that. Chaos mages are a danger to themselves and others—demons are a threat to the entire world. They don't just misuse the Goddess' gifts, they twist them. They corrupt the divine mechanism like...like..."

"Viruses," Maggie supplies. "If Engie is a universe-sized computer program, then these demons are little packets of malicious code."

"I doubt it's that simple," Violet says. "But that does seem to be what Talla's implying."

"[They're a disease,]" Draga finishes for Talla. "[Unlike dungeon monsters, it's not enough to keep them contained. Demons must be rooted out and destroyed at any cost.]"

A horrible sinking feeling descends upon me. When I first arrived here and the [Angel] found me, didn't it act all weird? My memory of that is still a bit fuzzy, but I think there were a bunch of error messages and...a voice? Is our unified class a virus like that? Did a demon do that for us? Are we a demon?

I obviously do not ask the rangers about any of that, or even dare voice it until I'm not in front anymore. It's a very scary thought. I don't think I'm a demon. I certainly don't have any plans to twist or corrupt anything. Well, okay, Maggie might, but that doesn't count. Right?

I'm going to stop thinking about this now.

We arrive at another one of my signs, indicating that this particular unreachable hole near the ceiling is one I've been to. The Worm Tunnel—which I really should have renamed after meeting Nipper—is a smooth and almost perfectly round hole bored into the rock, which leads all the way back to the Abyssal Chasm that my compromised sense of direction is still insisting must be behind us. I named it that because it looks like a giant worm made it.

"That hole leads to the..." I hesitate, realizing that Talla doesn't have the word for it yet. "The break."

After Talla translates, Saban leaps up towards it. It's way too high for even him to get up there in one jump, but remarkably his hooves find purchase on the nearly sheer surface of the cave walls, allowing him to hop his way up in just a few bounds.

"Huh," I say, watching in awe as he lifts himself into the much-too-small tunnel. "You were right Vi, they are good at climbing."

Saban pokes his head out and grimaces. "[This tunnel is useless. Not even Allie would fit in here.]"

"I can and I did!" Though I had to hunch over awkwardly the entire time.

Draga chuckles and shakes his head. "[We'll mark it down as an emergency route, if we ever need it.]"

The sniper sighs as he awkwardly climbs back out of the hole. "[I pray to the Goddess it never comes to that,]" he gripes. "[These damn caves are tight enough as it—hurk!]"

His complaining is cut short by a pale white spike rudely impaling him through the chest from behind. I cover my mouth and gasp, barely managing to keep myself from screaming as Saban coughs up a mouthful of blood and keels over, slipping free of the Stalker's impaling limb and tumbling head over heels down the twenty foot drop.

Draga moves like lightning, dashing forward to catch Saban before he can hit the stone ground. Nipper rears up at the same time as I turn my attention to the Worm Tunnel, keeping my shield up and brandishing my staff uselessly.

"What do we do?!" I cry, the sudden violence putting me on the verge of panic.

"[Retreat!]" Draga orders, backing away with Saban still in his arms. "[Talla, keep Saban alive. Allie, take us somewhere safe!]"

Safe?! Nothing down here is safe! It's an invisible demon that not even Saban could notice when it was right next to him! I shake my head and bonk myself with the shield. No! No panicking! We survived this thing once, and we can do it again. It's not that fast.

"This way!" I shout, turning to flee down the tunnels.

I don't even need my signs. I've hiked back and forth from the stream to the labyrinth so many times that I can just let my feet guide me, ducking through each twist and turn in the cavern like it's second nature.

The rangers follow closely behind, chattering to each other, but I spare no attention for them. They have their jobs, and I have mine.

I don't know if my old campground is safe anymore—if it ever was—but I do know that it only has one entrance. We'll be cornered there, but if it tries to chase us through the maze, I'm sure that I can navigate around it and get us back out again, and the Map Room has tons of escape routes.

Soon, I see the toppled snail shell marking the corridor that leads into the Candle Labyrinth. It'll be a tight squeeze for the rangers, but the Stalker will have an even harder time getting through. Just as I'm about to dash past the stony shell, my heart is seized by an overwhelming sense of dread.

"Allie wait!"

Mags' warning, combined with Nipper constricting around my neck, gives me just enough time to duck as several sharp white limbs lance out from within the shell. I'm met with the sight of an impossibly deep maw full of teeth and eyeballs as the creature extrudes itself from the shell like some kind of horrible molting crab.

"What the frick?!" I screech in terror, falling back onto my butt and frantically trying to scramble away.

Draga surges past me, his sword flashing in a set of neat strokes that each sever one of the Stalker's spear limbs. The creature lets out a soundless warble that I feel in my bones, then folds in on itself in a way that gives me a headache and vanishes from view once again, leaving its severed limbs behind. They twitch and ooze with a thick black ichor.

The ranger leader hauls me to my feet and shoves the dropped staff back in my hands. "[Don't lose your wits. Keep moving. It'll be back.]"

I swallow hard and nod, making my way nervously past the now empty shell and into the place that was once my safe haven. Now, though, it feels like the furthest possible thing from safe.