by Phoenix Grey
The compliment caught Azure off-guard. Was he really a better archer than even Lonnell? He wasn't so sure, but he wasn't going to argue.
"My stamina is depleted," Azure said as if Uden couldn't see it. "My hip is pretty close to crushed. I'm not going to make it to the cave."
"Oh, don't be so dramatic." Uden rolled his eyes, pulling a red vial from his bag and uncorking it before coming to Azure's side, kneeling beside him, and bringing it up to his lips. "And don't fight me on this. I know it's embarrassing for both of us."
Being embarrassed was the last thing on Azure's mind as he drank down the liquid. He'd let Uden bottle-feed him in front of his entire family if it made the pain go away.
"Another," he demanded as soon as the contents of the vial were drained.
Uden didn't hesitate to oblige, feeding him four vials of the red potion in a row. While it rapidly healed Azure's wounds, it did nothing to recover his stamina. He wasn't in as much pain, but he still felt as weak as a kitten.
"You wouldn't happen to have a Potion of Minor Stamina on you, would you?" Azure asked. "Otherwise, it's still going to be a while before I can move."
"I can spare one," Uden replied, pulling a vial of yellow liquid from his bag, though he hesitated to open it. "We don't have anywhere near as many of these. I'm not sure we should waste it."
"Waste it?" His head jutted back. "If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty much a quadriplegic right now. I seriously don't know how I'm even able to stay sitting up."
Uden glanced back at the archer and then sighed. “He won't leave his post as long as we're here. We probably have time for you to regain your stamina naturally.”
"Do you know that for sure? I'm assuming they're working in shifts. Who knows when they'll change again."
The half-imp thought for a moment then nodded and uncorked the vial. “You are right. The best thing we can do is get into the cave as quickly as possible. If we give them a chance to change shifts, we'll be in trouble.”
Azure gulped down the contents of the vial, trying not to make a face. It was like egg whites and plastic had a baby. While it wasn't the worst thing he'd ever tasted, it was still strange in an unpleasant way. The potion restored 25 points of stamina. It didn't seem like enough. Though he could move, he felt as unsteady as a newborn calf, his arms and legs shaking just from the effort of getting them to work.
"Are you sure you can't spare another?" Azure gave Uden a hopeful look.
"Can you stand?" The half-imp straightened himself, offering his hand down to Azure.
Azure clasped Uden's wrist and tried pulling himself to his feet. It was like he was drunk; his muscles were jello. Somehow, though with so much stumbling that he almost pulled the half-imp down, Azure was able to make it to his feet. How he had managed to fend the goblin warrior off when his stamina had been so low was a mystery. Perhaps his adrenaline had been working better than he had thought. While Azure had been at almost zero, for some reason he still had strength. Now, he was just pathetic.
"This isn't going to work," he said as he clung to Uden's side. Now this was embarrassing.
"At times like this, I wish I was stronger." The half-imp sighed. "You and Lonnell both weigh a ton."
"Yeah. No offense, but I wouldn't expect you to be able to carry me." He glanced down at Uden's lithe frame. The half-imp was strong for his size, no doubt, but some tasks were definitely beyond him. "I know you don't want to waste it, but I'm going to need another Potion of Minor Stamina if you expect us to make it to the cave with any kind of speed. We will be easy targets if we don't move quickly. We need to zigzag towards the cave...separately so that the archer doesn't have a wide target and will have to choose between us."
"He is going to aim at you," Uden told him matter-of-factly. "I would."
"So would I," Azure admitted with an exhale. It looked like he wasn't out of danger yet. "Regardless, we'll both have a better chance of making it if we move independently."
The half-imp stared out into space for several moments, seemingly lost in thought. Then he nodded, though he didn't look pleased about his decision, and extracted another yellow vial from his bag. “Two is all you get,” the half-imp said with a hint of resentment. “To think that we haven't even made it inside the cave yet.”
It was a harrowing thought.
"Do the goblins make up any part of the first floor?" Azure asked.
The look of sarcasm on Uden's face was all the answer that he needed. “Are we inside the cave yet?”
"Yeah..." Azure drew the word out. "I suppose that was a stupid question." He drank the contents of the vial and immediately felt more steady on his feet. Running still seemed like an arduous task, but Azure was pretty sure he could at least make it to the cave entrance.
"There's no such thing as a stupid question. Just stupid people." Uden smirked at him.
"Oh please." Azure rolled his eyes.
"Just saying." The half-imp shrugged nonchalantly, taking a few steps away before stuffing the empty vial back in his pouch and turning to Azure. "So are we ready to do this?"
"Shouldn't we loot the body first?" Azure glanced over at the dead goblin.
"Do you want the halberd? It would be a cumbersome thing to carry." Uden knelt to scour the body for any valuable items but came up empty-handed.
"Let me at least check it out first." He walked over and picked up the halberd. The stats of the weapon appeared in front of him.
You have received the following item:
Iron Halberd
Attack: +9-12
Type: Two-Handed Weapon
Durability: 12/20
Item Class: Common
Quality: Average
Weight: 3.0 kg
"Hmm," Azure mused. The halberd did deal more damage than his crude goblin sword, and it still had pretty good durability. It might be worth taking. But Azure didn't have the Two-Handed Weapons skill yet, and he was concerned that a dungeon might not be the best place to start leveling it up. "I suppose I could take it now and then drop it later if I decide not to use it." He gripped it with both hands. It definitely felt weighty in comparison to his sword. Unnatural. As of now, he barely had the stamina needed to wield it.
"You know that's going to slow you down when you run, right?" Uden raised an eyebrow at him, clearly implying that taking the halberd wasn't a great idea.
"Well, it won't fit in my bag, and I don't want to leave it." Azure sighed, staring up at the archer. It smirked at him as if spotting his idiocy from a mile away.
"It's your choice." Uden gestured to him as he walked past. "Just don't make me regret using those Stamina potions on you."
"Like I said, I can always drop it if it slows me down too much." Azure wondered if he had the skill to use the halberd to block incoming arrows, but he doubted it.
"So, are we ready to go?" Uden asked.
"No, but what other choice do we have?"
"None." The half-imp smiled. "I'd say that I'll race you, but we both know I would win."
"Yeah. Because I'm going to be busy dodging arrows." Azure fought the urge to roll his eyes again.
"Maybe I won't even bother zigzagging."
Honestly, that wasn't a bad idea. “Maybe you shouldn't. That would take the attention off of me. I can only assume that that goblin is going to go for whichever one of us is the easier target.”
"Even if I zigzagged, you'd still be the easier target. You're bigger than me, slower, and more clumsy." That smile just wasn't going to go away as Uden continued to jab at Azure with his remarks.
"Whatever," he said with a sigh. "Let's just do this. Should we count before running?"
"Nope." And with that, Uden took off at a jog back towards the cave.
"Oh you asshole," Azure muttered under his breath as he gave chase.
To his surprise, Uden didn't zigzag. In fact, he was moving pretty slowly. It wasn't until they got within the archer's range that the half-imp dug his heels into the dirt and left Azure in a cloud of dust.
Good God, he was fast.
The archer raised his bow and took aim. Uden still wasn't zigzagging. He ducked as an arrow came sailing at his head but didn't stop running.
Azure was a snail by comparison, sloppily weaving left and right. There was nothing to dodge, though. The goblin was focusing entirely on Uden. Realizing that he was wasting time and the advantage of the situation, Azure followed suit, giving up the zigzagging routine to make a beeline for the cave while the half-imp was affording him the time to do so. It was no surprise that Uden reached the cave first, holding the goblin's attention until he was near the entrance. Once it became aware that pursuing the half-imp as a target was useless, it switched back to Azure, at which point Azure switched back to zigzagging. His heartbeat sped up, but he wasn't sure if it was because he was overexerting himself or from the adrenaline of seeing the goblin lining up his next shot.
An arrow came sailing in his direction, barely missing. The second one was aimed in front of him, causing Azure to stop and divert. The goblin got in two more missed shots before Azure finally made it to the mouth of the cave. He slowed down to a trudging crawl, panting and leaning on his new halberd. He was finally safe―for now―he thought with much relief.
Lonnell was a bit further in, sitting down as he waited for his two companions to return. Upon seeing them, he didn't bother getting up. Like Azure, despite all of the health potions he'd drank, he still wasn't fully recovered. They were a sad bunch, if truth be told.
"We made it!" Azure breathed out, throwing an arm up in jubilant rejoicing.
"That we did." Lonnell smiled at him.
"We're not out of the woods yet." Uden stared out of the cave as if he expected a swarm of goblins to come around the bend at any moment. "We need to proceed inside as quickly as possible. You both have about fifteen minutes to rest, then we move on." He turned away from the cave entrance and leaned against the wall opposite from Azure.
Wincing, Lonnell pulled himself to his feet. He hobbled over to his friend and brother to join them, resting next to Azure. “Do you think the goblin will stay and wait for us to come out, or do you think he'll go back to tell the others?”
"He knows we're not coming back out," Uden told him. "He knows what we're here for. More than likely, he'll go back to camp to tell the others."
"Then more will come, and they'll follow us into the cave," Azure commented with dread. They had barely escaped with their lives as it was. The thought of being trapped in the dark cave with a hoard of goblins, most of them probably warriors as strong as the two they had just faced, didn't give him much hope that they were going to survive this ordeal.
Uden shook his head. “They won't come into the cave. Their job here is done.”
"What makes you say that?" Azure knitted his brow.
"They are every bit as afraid of the demon as we are. Trust me when I say they will not venture in here."
Azure wasn't sure he believed Uden, but he quickly decided that he wanted to. “Well, that's a relief.”
"There will be more dangers up ahead." The half-imp gazed into the darkness of the cave. "Your bow will be of little use. We need to stick close together and remain vigilant."
It was strange getting a lecture on safety from Uden. This was usually Lonnell's department. Right now, though, Lonnell was busy pulling torches from his Bag of Holding. The inside of the cave was so dark that one could barely see a few feet inside. Unnaturally dark, Azure thought. The light from outside should have been able to reach much farther.
He also noticed that the inner walls weren't the gray of stone, but instead pitch black, the surface having a smooth quality, like obsidian.
"What is up with this cave?" he asked finally. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before."
Uden turned to run his hand over the stone. “This is not a cave, Azure. It's a dungeon. It is not a naturally made structure. The demon created it.
"Unlike caves that are formed by the dissolution of limestone, dungeons have a supernatural quality to them. They can form anywhere that a powerful monster deems necessary. They can look like anything. This is simply the surface. There's no telling what awaits us further inside."
"Too bad we don't have a pickaxe," he mused. "This stuff looks valuable."
"It does, but it's just an illusion. Remember that when we're further in. Everything you see besides the beasts we face is just an illusion."
"Interesting," Azure responded as he watched Lonnell lay the torches out on the ground before crouching over them, clenching one fist, and waving his other hand over his fist while whispering an incantation in a language that Azure didn't understand. When he opened his clenched fist, there was a small flame. He picked up one of the torches and lit the oil-soaked cloth with the flame, then reached out to hand the torch off to Uden before he did the same with the other two, giving one to Azure and keeping one for himself before closing his palm to extinguish the flame. It was a useful little spell, one that Azure definitely wanted to learn if he ever reached a place where he could acquire magic. Everything in The Realm seemed to take forever, but perhaps it was the path he had chosen. He could have always opted to go straight to the mainland instead of helping the brothers, but that would have just been a dick move. Besides, he had a score to settle with this asshole demon.
"Are you guys ready for this?" Lonnell asked with a sigh, clearly not looking forward to venturing deeper into the dungeon.
"Well, there's certainly no going back now." Azure mirrored his exhaustion.
Since Uden was the only one who had escaped the melee with the goblins uninjured, he took point. With his torch in one hand and his dagger in the other, he proceeded with caution. Every step seemed surprisingly careful, his eyes dancing around to cover every bit of the dungeon that was revealed by the light.
The cave was small and cramped, approximately fifteen feet wide and only nine feet to the ceiling. It made Azure feel claustrophobic. He had never liked caves. The fact that this one seemed to be made from one solid piece of stone was probably the only thing keeping him from freaking out. It wasn't so much that he had a fear of confined spaces as it was the fear of a cave in and being trapped. Suffocating sounded like a horrible way to die.
The three men kept close, almost awkwardly so. The type of closeness that people keep when they venture into a haunted house. At any other time, that would be considered invading someone's personal space. But when you're afraid, it's somehow okay and natural.
They hadn't ventured very far inside before the mouth of the cave was no longer visible. Enveloped in darkness, Azure wondered if they went back if they'd even be able to find the entrance again. There had been no twists or turns, but he had a sinking feeling that they were trapped now. Though there was an urge to ask Uden, he didn't really want to know the answer.
Light bounced off of the walls of the cave, but the smooth stone reflected nothing else. For a while, it was eerily silent. So quiet that it was almost unsettling listening to nothing but the sounds of their nervous breathing. What was worse was the fluttering of wings that could suddenly be heard up ahead.
Uden stopped dead in his tracks, and the other two followed suit. He dug his heels into the dirt, preparing for the attack.
"What is it?" Azure whispered, clutching onto his halberd with a white-knuckle grip.
"I don't know," came the disconcerting response.
"Let's form a wall," Lonnell suggested, moving to stand beside his brother.
"If they surround us, back into a circle," Uden added.
Much like they had done when they had first seen the goblin warriors after they had rounded the bend, they simply stood there and listened, preparing to be ambushed. The wings did not get closer. Azure tried his best to discern how many pairs he heard, but the sounds overlapped each other, and none were distinct from the others. It was definitely more than one creature but probably less than a dozen, he surmised, though he knew he could be grossly off.
Lonnell motioned for them to proceed forwa
rd. They took one hesitant step at a time, their weapons brandished. The goal seemed to be to approach the creatures without disturbing them, but none of them were stupid enough to think it would end well. The monsters inside the dungeon had been generated to protect it. They would attack at the first sign of intruders.
A few more steps forward and the fluttering suddenly grew louder. The few wing flaps that Azure had heard turned into hundreds. Yes, he had grossly miscalculated. Chirps and screeches came from deep within the cave, and they were quickly approaching.
"Brace yourselves!" Lonnell called, obviously no longer worried about remaining quiet.
Azure expected some hideous monster to emerge from the dungeon, but what he saw instead was a cloud of bats. Regular everyday bats. Nothing special.
He barely had time to Analyze a few of them before they were swarmed. The bats struck like razor blades raining from the sky, darting down to scratch the men with their tiny claws and bite them with their sharp teeth. It felt like Azure spent more time prying the small creatures off of him than he did swatting at the air with his halberd. The weapon was horribly cumbersome to wield, and he felt slow with it.
Congratulations! New skill learned: Two-Handed Weapons Level 1. From spears to claymores, two-handed weapons deal great damage if you have the strength to wield them. Used as both a weapon and a shield, fight strategically to smite down your enemies!
Azure didn't have time to be excited about acquiring the skill. In all honesty, he wished he was using his sword instead, but he didn't have time to switch weapons. Each bite and scratch chipped away at his health and stamina one point at a time. The bats would have just been an annoyance if not for the fact that there were so many of them.
Level 1 Bat delivers 1 damage and drains 1 point from your stamina.
The notifications in his vision popped up so frequently that he was almost blinded by them. A quick thought of his irritation made the text turn so light that he could see through it, making it less of a distraction.
