The Grand Weave

My body smashed into the wall, and I felt some bones crack. The pain flared but was washed away with Áine's mana. I stayed still, watching the champion thrash its head against the tunnel walls. Blood pooled out like a waterfall mixed with shards of red glass. The explosion had ripped open the bottom of the goat's mouth, leaving the pseudo-flesh glossy and melting.

As much as I was transfixed by the monstrosity raging at the air, I needed to get the others up. I could feel Áine's protest as I stood up before my bones finished healing, but I ignored them and sent a mental apology.

The nearest person next to me was Ruina, and I ran to grab her off the ground. When I hooked my arms underneath her, she grabbed onto my shoulders and squeezed till my bones creaked. As she looked up, the glow from the lichen caught her eyes, revealing a set of red orbs where her pupils had been. It looked like she was ready to launch herself at me for a moment, but the red tint faded away, and her face morphed from angry to confused.

"Cyrus? Wh-what happened? What w-was that?" she stammered.

I helped her stand up and examined her body for any injuries, but she was relatively unharmed besides a scratch where she scraped her hands from falling. "Monster attack, the nagas arrived and are swarming in. We need to get everyone and go before we all die," I said.

I squirmed out of her grip and started helping the others up. Thankfully, none of them reacted the way Ruina did when I grabbed her. We huddled together and stared at the scene before us.

The champion towered over his minions as it stomped its hooves in rage. Every time blood dripped from the champion's mouth, it would turn into smoke when it touched the ground. The red vapor snaked through the air and rushed into one of the skrell's nose and mouth. The already muscular skrell's flesh would bulge and ripple as the skrell grew over a foot in height. The roided-out skrell's muscles were nearly as thick as my head, and their skin was now maroon instead of crimson. The spikes that barely jutted out of their skin were now full-sized quills similar to those of a thistlespine's.

The nagas were fanned out in a wide circle shoulder to shoulder as they fended off the mutated skrell. The crystal-tipped weapons met hardened claws equally thick. When several skrells tried to overwhelm the right side, the witch raised her staff and created a barrier that stopped the monsters in their tracks. The nagas used the barrier to time their thrusts and kill two skrells.

From an outside perspective, the skrells, while brutal and vicious, were no match to the larger and more magically inclined snake people. The biggest thing giving the skrell an advantage was the fact that their new muscular forms must have felt no pain as they willingly launched themselves into a suicidal frenzy, again and again.

The witch raised her staff high, and it started to pulse. The glowing fireball shot out, arcing over the monsters' heads, aimed at the champion. In response, it used its hoof to send the nearest skrell by his foot into the air. The screeching ball of red muscles intercepted the fireball face first. The skrell exploded upon contact and rained down a shower of gore, coating the room in a fine red mist.

The mist started to rise and condense. With a wet squelch, the vaporized blood smashed together and turned into an orb. The orb then stretched and bulged until a smaller but still muscular skrell formed and landed wetly on the ground. It looked around in confusion before it locked eyes with us and started to charge on all fours. Pink saliva frothed out the creature's mouth as it ignored the grunts from any skrell, unfortunately in its way.

"Damnit! Let's go!" I shouted as I raised my arms to fire off a cone of flames.

The creature ran into the golden flames with a maddened howl and skidded a charred, twitching corpse across the cave floor. I saw the witch look in my direction, and she raised her arm to throw a spear, but another punted skrell smacked into her shield before she could release. The champion released a loud bleating noise, and four skrell turned away from the naga and started running at me. It was time to book it the hell out of here.

I caught up to the others as they were turning down one of the side paths. I reached a hand out to Áine and reabsorbed her. It was too much of a risk to have her out where she could get too injured to be summoned. I decided to stay transformed instead of having Zharia scout ahead.

"How much further?"

"Not much. Two more turns... and then down a long hallway," Andrew explained.

When I looked back, the skrell were still chasing us, but their shorter legs couldn't keep up with our pace. Already, one of the four was starting to lag behind, its bulky chest laboring the longer we ran.

According to my system clock, what felt like an eternity was only two minutes. We reached a crossroads with five different branching tunnels, but Ruina led us to the furthest one on the right, not bothering to look at the others as we raced on by.

"The exit portal is down this tunnel. We need to head straight to the village when we get out," Andrew said.

"And make sure to stop any other parties from entering!" Aaron added.

"We'll do that if we see them. The faster we can inform the guildmaster, the safer it'll be for everyone."

Suddenly, the heavy footfalls of the monsters chasing us stopped and were replaced by the sounds of flapping wings. When Oro stopped and turned to look back, I wanted to slap the man.

"Oro! What are you doing?!" Aaron shouted angrily.

"Sssh. What's that sound?" Oro shushed.

With sparse lighting from the lichen along the cave walls, the tunnel remained shadowed and dark past a dozen feet. From the end of the tunnel, shadows started to glide and move across the walls. The flapping became louder and louder, and it wasn't until the first sheen of red flesh showed that it hit me. I didn't think of it due to their lack of presence near the end of the rift.

Out from the darkness came a swarm of over twenty bats. The blood beasts stuck close to the ceiling, echoing their squeaks across the enclosed space.

"Don't let them near you. If they get too close, they'll explode," I ordered.

"Let's keep running! There's no need to stay around and fight!" Aaron shouted over the wave of noise.

I shook my head and kept my eyes trained on the approaching monsters. They were already about to get within range of my fire. The blood beasts were flying faster than we could run. I didn't know how far the portal really was, but I couldn't see it from where we stood, and I doubted we'd make it without potentially losing someone.

Andrew clamped a hand down on Aaron's shoulder and silenced the man. "I won't be much help here. Ruina, Oro, and Cyrus, we'll be relying on you."

Oro pensively looked at his sister, but Ruina wasted no time in stepping up beside me and holding out her hands similar to mine. I didn't know Oro for long, but after Ruina got into position, he followed suit without a word of protest.

There wasn't much delay between our attacks, but Oro's skill reached the furthest and cut into two blood beasts, dissecting them down the middle. Ruina's skill was nearly impossible to see, but several of the bats started flinching and began to reel midair. When one of the monsters popped like a water balloon, I was able to pinpoint where she directed her area of effect and adjusted my aim. The halls lit up in a golden sheen as the fire licked the cave walls.

The first explosion happened, and the tunnel rumbled and shook. The rain of red droplets spattered at our feet. I wasn't sure, but I tried to spot the difference between the flying swarm. It was hard to notice, but some of the bats were larger with a darkened colouring to their bodies. When I trained my cone of flames onto that monster, it caught fire, and its body boiled before promptly exploding and knocking a few of its kin into the walls.

I heard Andrew shuffling behind me, but I ignored him as I ran as much mana through my body as possible. The siblings beside me shifted away from me as the flames spread. More explosions kept rocking the tunnel, and I had to bend my knees to maintain my balance and steady myself.

I watched Oro send out another slash of energy that made a bat explode, but a loud shout made me turn as I saw a blur of a blue slice through the air in front of the man. Oro staggered backward as blood covered the front of his shirt.

"Get back over here, Oro! I'll cover you," Andrew grunted. The man's beard was dyed red, and he offhandedly tried to wipe away the blood covering his face but succeeded in only smearing it further.

The bats were down to a few stragglers that were stuck in the back of the swarm. But the sound of flapping wings remained as loud as it did before we started attacking. Ruina popped another two, and I destroyed the remaining three in one blast. I lowered my arms and started backing up.

This time, instead of a swarm of twenty, it was a wave so thick it covered the tunnel from ceiling to floor. Even with my insane amount of mana, I wasn't ready to risk unconsciousness by bottoming it out and fighting off the monsters.

"Fuck this. Never setting foot in a dungeon again," Aaron exclaimed.

Andrew grabbed Oro and pulled his arm to get him to start running while Ruina was already outpacing me, with Aaron following behind us. I tried to send out some fire behind us blindly, but if I hit anything, the other blood beasts didn't care.

Within half a minute, the glow of a white-blue circle appeared situated in a doorway lined by two large pillars.

"That's the portal. Come on."

The screeching got louder, and the swarm was rushing at us like a red tide only a meter behind. "Go, go, go!"

The portal's glow gave way to a shimmering hue when we got closer. But I noticed the portal had streaks of dark black at the edges. They reminded me of veins you would see in someone's eye. Somehow, I doubted the portal was supposed to look like that.

The first to the portal was Ruina. With her arm outstretched, she plunged into the portal and disappeared. The portal didn't bubble or move; it was as if she had walked through a wall of hard light.

I was the next to reach, and I sucked in a breath as I closed my eyes. Entering through the portal felt like I was passing through static. The energy buzzed across my skin. As I left the dungeon, I felt my feet land on cushioned ground, and I stumbled forward. Ruina was already off to the side, staring at the portal behind me.

Before I could take a step, I had the air knocked out of me as I smashed face-first into the ground. A series of wet coughing and a groan of pain deafened my ear. I pushed with my arms, but the weight was heavy. Ruina shouted something, but I focused on rolling myself out from beneath whatever was on top of me.

When I rolled out and sat up, I saw Aaron clutching his wrist while blood soaked down from a cut above his eye. Andrew was the heavy body that must have knocked me over since he and Oro were mixed in a pile on the ground. Oro yelped in pain when Ruina tried to help him up, and I noticed his foot was turned at an odd angle.

"What happened? Ruina shouted.

Aaron groaned while Andrew slowly stood up. "Panicked. The bats were too close, and I sent out a Wind Slash. They exploded. Several of them," Oro let out between gritted teeth.

"And what about you?" she said while pointing at Aaron.

"Andrew got pushed into me, and I hit my head on his shoulder, coming out. Tried to brace my fall. Now it's broken, I think," he said.

I inwardly sighed while channeling my mana into my Verdant Healer skill and watched Áine emerge. With a few mental prompts, she was already making her way over to Aaron's face. He visibly stiffened, and I saw him flinch away when she reached her hand to his cut. Thankfully, he didn't freak out and let the little fairy heal him.

As she began to heal Oro's leg, the shadow attached to Andrew darkened. I stood up quickly and started to channel my flames. Andrew frantically looked around at my reaction and jumped when he looked down at his feet.

"What the-" was all he managed to get out before a hand wrapped its fingers around his wrist, preventing him from reaching for his axe.

The shadows condensed then faded away, revealing a man dressed in all-black leather with his spare hand holding a dagger.

"Don't make me use this. I'd rather not get any more blood on me than I have to."

Sounds of rustling came from the forest ahead of us and out stepped the elf woman with purple eyes. "Isaac, situation report."

He released his grip on Andrew's wrist and backed off while twirling his dagger. "Five people. Four humans and two spirits. Covered in blood, but only one injured. Dungeon looks off," he called out while keeping his eyes glued to Andrew's hand.

The elf woman approached casually while examining us. Her eyes roamed to the dungeon portal, and she frowned. When she looked at Aine, her face morphed into confusion, and then she turned towards me.

"Who are you, and why is there a fire and nature spirit with you? There should be no adventurers with familiars out here, let alone two. And explain why that dungeon portal over there looks corrupted," she commanded in a neutral tone.

The others exchanged looks while looking at me in a not-so-subtle way. My anger flared, and I wanted to tell the woman to shove off, but Zharia sent over thoughts of concern and worry, and I caught myself. I clenched my fist and saw Isaac shift subtly in response.

I surged mana into my chest and deactivated my Spirit Lord's Invocation. The feathers disappeared and faded away while the golden fire stopped sparking. Zharia reappeared before me, and I caught her with my hands, transferring onto my shoulder. Aine slowly drifted over and landed on the other side.

Celanae's eyes widened, and she walked up and looked me in the eyes. "Take off the mask," she said softly but calmly.

I reached up and removed it from my face. As it came off, I tucked it into my belt and matched her stare.

"Better?" I asked.

"Isaac. Rush back to Uncle Brelten. Tell him another of the expedition team is alive."

I paused at her words, and now it was my turn to stare at her in blank confusion. She said another of the expedition team. Did that mean someone else made it? There was no way. The others were turned into living sacrifices unless she meant Sam. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I wanted to know.

Isaac turned and gave her a weird look before narrowing his eyes at me. "Who should I tell him is alive?"

I spoke up before she could answer. "What do you mean another? Did Sam make it through? Did she appear somewhere near the village?!"

Celanae gave me a sad look and shook her head. "I'll explain on the way. Cyrus right? I'll need you to explain what happened."