Rebirth

by Darkbringer

Too tired to argue, Mongo slowly lumbered over to settle down closer to Dino, and I helped Skeet to the same corner. “You guys should be good there, and we shouldn’t bother the girls over in their corner.”

  “An’ what ta ‘ell ya doin’?” Skeet asked, curious. Dino hadn’t warned me much about his accent or way of talk. It’s going to take me a bit to adjust for it in my head.

  “Well, Crystal,” I flourished a deep bow towards her, which I thought was quite amusing since I was still in nothing more than my underwear, “you’re up!”

  “Me?!”

  “Yep. You.”

  “What the heck am I supposed to do?”

  “Well, it’s simple really. You’re going to grab that pretty little Heartblade of yours, then you’re going to mosey over here and beat on this wall a few times with it.” I really was feeling much better this morning. I couldn’t keep the sparkle from my eyes or the smile from twitching at the corner of my lips as she simply stared back at me, unblinking.

  “Honest,” I reassured her, “that’s the plan. The sword you’re carrying has proven itself quite a bit sturdier and sharper than steel, and there’s a room right behind this one that’s only got a few inches of stone separating it from us. As we saw in the brief time I had light and was conscious in the hallway, the other doors along this wall were closed, and I can’t feel anything moving back there. It should be perfectly safe for you to hack us a hole to the next room,” I assured her.

  “If you’re certain…” Crystal shrugged, hesitantly.

  “I’m certain of one thing,” I told her; “we have nothing to lose by trying.”

  Nodding, Crystal grabbed Heartblade’s hilt and slowly walked up to the wall. “Anywhere in particular?” She asked.

  Moving back to clear out of her way, I went over to sit down beside Dino and the other guys. “A little way from the far corner, away from the door, would probably be best,” I answered. “The corner is a strong spot of support and is less likely to cave in, and it’s not likely to collapse the wall leading into the hall so the dead out there can swarm in here. We simply want to open a hole to the room beside us; it doesn’t need to be overly big or fancy.”

  I could tell she was still uncertain, but Crystal simply frowned and nodded as she walked over to the corner and slashed at the wall a few feet from the far corner. Heartblade made sparks which briefly illuminated the darkness, and cut a scrape several inches deep into the stone.

  Taking a moment to feel and examine the slice, Crystal finally nodded in satisfaction and took her blade in both hands and began to hack passionately at the wall. Sparks flew, and soon a small gap opened as she carved her way through the obstruction. I have to admit, it was truly a sight to behold watching her slice and hack at the ever growing hole, all while wearing nothing more than a pair of string panties. Mongo and Skeet stared at each other for a moment, and then both turned to look at Dino; who simply shrugged at them and then pointed to me. “Ask him. He knows her. Personally, I think they’re both crazy.”

  As they both turned their gazes over towards me, I couldn’t help but shrug and laugh lightly. “What can I say? We might be crazy, but we’re effective.”

  “Effectively destructive,” Dino muttered.

  “Maybe,” I couldn’t help but agree. “But, sometimes it’s necessary to be destructive. It’s gotten us this far, so far, hasn’t it.”

  Dino started to say something, but was interrupted by a loud crash and Crystal laughing freely as she whipped her hair back away from her face. “We’re through, My Lord,” she informed us, grinning back and covered in sweat – a large gaping hole now open, leading into the next room. She truly was a beautiful woman and a lovely sight to behold as she stood there triumphal.

  “Lady Crystal, one. Stone Wall, zero!” She bragged, and then laughed again. “Now I know how a mole must feel as it tunnels through a farmer’s garden and roots out one treasured carrot after another.” Grinning, she rubbed a hand through her hair to pull it back out of her face. “Should I open the next room as well, My Lord?” She asked.

  “Certainly,” I confirmed. “As long as you’re not too tired. We’ll be here for a few days at least it seems. We may as well move out and make some extra space for everyone. From what I can tell, you should be safe to ‘mole’ through the next four walls. There're a few boneheads moving in a couple of the rooms, but they should collapse as soon as they’re exposed to Heartblade. I don’t think there’s anything in them which should prove an issue for you.”

  Holding out a hand towards me, Crystal laughed lightly. “Then come join me, My Lord. If you shall make a light, I shall mole us some extra space so we won’t have to suffer so while we’re resting and the others are healing here.”

  “Certainly,” I agreed, getting up to walk over and accept her hand. “Allow me to light the way, My Lady.” Bowing towards her, I flexed my talent and created a small bright flame which I danced into the next room. “After you,” I motioned.

  Taking a moment to curtsy back, Crystal laughed and then climbed over the debris and into the other room. As I slowly followed behind her, I head Mongo asking something which sounded like, “Just who the hell are they?”

  “You don’t want to know,” was Dino’s half-whispered response, “but that’s our new roommate.”

  If Mongo said anything after that, I didn’t hear it. I was already in the next room, snooping around while Crystal was singing lightly to herself and hacking away at the next wall.

  The Divine Rainmaker

  The next several days were actually a peaceful time of construction and renovation underground. Jess was tending to the two girls, who were ever so slowly seeming to regain their strength under a constant flow of her healing magic. Mongo and Skeet were recovering their strength rapidly now that they were getting enough food and drink once again – though they were beginning to look a little paler as their natural tans were beginning to fade slowly from lack of exposure to the sun.

  Dino, Crystal, and I didn’t really have much to do except twiddle our thumbs while passing the time, so I decided to work on some improvements in our temporary living conditions. After a little carving and hacking through the stone, we now had six rooms that we could separate and stay in. The first room everyone cleared out of rather quickly, and it became the latrine. Truth be told, it already had been used for such purposes many times – but what else can one do when it’s the only room they have to live in? -- and no one wanted to stay in there any longer than necessary.

  The two girls were sick, and couldn’t be moved far, so they were moved into the immediately adjacent room. Jess didn’t want Dino, Crystal, or me to get around them any more than necessary since we may not have been exposed to whatever illness they had; so Skeet and Mongo were forced to move them. Even tired, weak, and ill, they did what was necessary without complaint. Unlike some other roommates of mine, they were willing to do what they needed to do and put the group’s needs first.

  Jess wanted to stay close to her patients, so she took the next chamber over as her own. Nobody really felt comfortable being alone in the overbearing darkness, with the dead scratching and clawing at the stone doors leading out; and since she didn’t mind, Dino stayed with her. The next room over somehow became the “common room”, where we all gathered, sat, and eat at. Mongo and Skeet took the room after that, and that left the last room for Crystal and me to settle into.

  The first order of business to make life a little more bearable for us all, I thought, would be the cleaning of the rooms – especially the first room which had the smell of sickness and human waste. I asked Dino to go use his fire magic to burn everything in there to a crisp, to “cleanse by fire”. He whined. He didn’t want to. What if the dead got in, and he needed his magic for protection? I wanted to strangle him, but it was Mongo who settled the issue. With on hefty THWAP against the back of Dino’s head with the flat of his hand, he simply ordered, “Go on. Do it.”

  Unbelievably, Dino listened! Why the hell do I ha
ve so much trouble getting him to listen to me?!

  While I was muttering lightly to myself about how impressive a specimen of human kind Dino was, I used the energy of the air to purify what we were breathing and to blow and push all the dust, dirt, and cobwebs into the room Dino was working his magic in -- which may have ended up accidently covering him in a layer of dusty cobwebs. Accidently!

  When he came out, coughing and hacking, he cussed and whined for an hour. Honestly, I suppose it ended up being all for the best as listening to him gripe for so long finally made me want to do something to get him to simply shut up! Since there was plenty of loss stone around from where Crystal had carved her way through the walls, I decided to try a little experiment with it. Channeling the slightest of fire magic into the rubble, I waited to see if whatever mysterious force was in this place guiding the corruption would fight me again. When the stone heated without growing cold, I slowly increased my flow of energy until I completely melted and turned the pile of rubble into a bubbling heap of molten lava.

  While everyone was abuzz, chattering back and forth to Mongo and Skeet about my work, I slowly and gently tapped out to the molten rock and manipulated it with the energy of earth. It was my first time actually trying to do anything to the earth around me since the corruption had assaulted me through my link, and I was ready to drop my connection at the first inkling of trouble – but none came and all went well. Apparently breaking the stone free from the rest of the walls of this place, freed it from whatever mysterious source was controlling and defending the corruption.

  Once I saw I could shape the melted stone as I wished, I formed it into a large square bin and then raised it near the roof on four solid supports. Once it seemed shaped more or less as I wanted, I altered the bottom of the bin and extended a small nozzle and perforated it with many tiny holes. Colling the whole thing into smooth obsidian, I took a step back and inspected my work.

  “There ya go,” I declared triumphantly to Dino.

  “There I go, what?” He asked, confused. “What use is a box up so damn high you can’t put anything in it? I guess it keeps people from tripping over the loose stone in the dark, but honestly, I think I’d rather have a chair to sit in, or a table to eat at.”

  “Fine,” I snorted. “Apparently you’re too Dinoish to understand what a gift you’ve been given. Crystal,” I turned to her and bowed slightly. “Would you be so kind as to finish stripping for us and then come stand over here?”

  “If you want,” she answered while undoing the side of the string holding her panties up. Skeet whistled as she ignored him and walked over to where I indicated. If she was the least bit embarrassed, she showed no sign of it as she strode proudly, with her head up and not trying the slightest to cover herself. “Here?” She asked.

  “That should be perfect,” I nodded. “Just a moment while I work the last touch of magic, please.”

  “Certainly.” Calmly, she stood there and watched as I gathered my magic once more, paying absolutely no attention to any of the others. Skeet was still whistling, and Dino was muttering something about “shameless rich hussies” while Mongo simply sat and enjoyed the show. In some ways, I don’t know what the big deal was – slaves are naked all the time, so everyone has to be used to seeing the naked female form.

  Just the fact that she’s “noble” or something seems to make it hard for Dino to accept that she’s a woman like all others under her clothes. If only he could meet Le’Nara someday, he’d learn more about a noble’s modesty! Truth is, I think Le’Nara would care about as much about him seeing her naked, as she would a cockroach – and in many ways, Crystal was channeling that same air of superior indifference towards the boys now.

  Using my own internal energy for a change, instead of pulling on the flows of energy around me, I created water and filled the bin above Crystal with it. A quick burst of fire magic to heat it, and by the time it started to come spraying out the nozzle, it was a nice warm mist falling over and around her.

  “My Lord!” Crystal gasped, looked up, and slowly stretched a hand towards the falling water. “You’ve made it rain indoors!”

  “It’s not raining,” I told her with a laugh. “It’s a shower. Surely you’ve seen one before?”

  “Never,” she said staring at me in wonder. “It’s like you’ve captured a warm spring’s cloud and brought it inside somehow.”

  Somehow, looking around, it appeared that everyone was staring at the water falling quite intently. I suppose in a world where it’s hard to pump water, heat water, and move water, people don’t have showers. The school has a large bathing area, but that’s a communal bath. For all I know, I may have just invented the very first shower in this world!

  “Well just don’t stand there,” I laughed, feeling rather proud of myself. If no one here knows about the things from another world, and I introduce a few items to them, that’s just me being a genius and taking advantage and implementing prior knowledge. It’s not really cheating, is it? “Hurry up and wash down. The water won’t last forever. You’ve probably got less than half a candle mark before it runs out,” I warned.

  Nodding, Crystal slowly stuck her head back under the shower and started to wash as best as she could with no soap or washcloth. Soap, I could probably do something about with a little magic. I’ve heard of soaps being made of ash or pumice. There’s even a soapstone out there I think. It shouldn’t be hard to alter the stone to make it soft, brittle, and soap-like. I’ll have to give that a try sometime later.

  “Tat’s ‘bout ta sexiest thing I tink I’ve ev’ah seen!” Skeet exclaimed.

  “She is rather attractive,” I agreed, stopping to step back so I could enjoy the show while Crystal washed and cleaned herself from top to bottom.

  “Not ‘er! Ta showar!” Skeet clarified. “I be next!” He boldly declared.

  “Now wait a minute!” Dino complained. “I was supposed to go first. I should be next.”

  “Me ‘n me two blades don’t care ‘bout ya should. We only knows we is!” Skeet pulled both his blades and twirled them to show how loudly they were arguing his point. Mongo simply slapped him and Skeet both on the back of the head. “No fighting or neither of you get one. Jess is next. The girls go first.”

  Laughing lightly, Jess wiggled out of her robe and fidgeted back and forth from foot to foot waiting her turn. Crystal had barely moved from the spot before she had taken her place and was indulging in scrubbing herself almost raw. One interesting thing I noticed different between the two girls was what seemed to be their priority. Crystal’s main concern with the bath was scrubbing and getting as much dirt and grit as possible from her hair. Jess’s obsession seemed to be her arms and hands as she scrubbed them almost enough to rub them raw under the water; her hair only got the most cursory of washings.

  After the two girls enjoyed their baths, I refilled the water in the bin and left it to Dino to keep it warm for the guys to enjoy. I figured I could always take my bath last. I certainly wasn’t going to go before Skeet or Mongo, not after they’d been trapped down here for a few weeks, and I wasn’t going to try and go before Dino either. For one thing, the complaining he’d do over it would drive me batty. Plus, I did feel slightly guilty for blowing everything from the other rooms all over him earlier. Accidently.

  While the guys bathed, I melted and reshaped some of the other debris to make a couple of thin, but sturdy small stone boxes. Dragging one of these into the room with the sick girls, I filled it with water and warmed it so Jess could help bathe both her patients down and the other one I filled with water in the corner of the common room and filled it so Crystal could do the laundry as best as possible.

  Shower, clean clothes, clean rooms, and purified air! After the first day’s work, our quality of life and spirits rose considerably. On the second day, I worked on shattering some of the stone to fine sand, heating it rapidly, and then forming it into small glass balls. With a little effort and time, I managed to fill the inside of the glass w
ith fire magic, much as I had the crystal in the center of Le’Nara’s staff, and I altered the stone to absorb the heat and not get so hot to burn anyone who touched them.

  Basically, I created mana-powered lightstones!

  Over time, they’d dim and would go out if no one fed them energy; they didn’t pull from the natural energy around them like Le’Nara’s staff; but I made recharging them Dino’s responsibility. In the morning -- or at least, what we started to call morning since we couldn’t see the sun and tell the actual time -- he would power the four stones I’d created and they’d glow brightly. As they dimmed during the ‘day’, we’d mark the passing of time by their slowly fading glow. “Morning” they were as bright as a lantern. By night, dim as a candle. By the time “morning” came around again, they were barely as bright as a jar full of fireflies.

  If it wasn’t for the constant scratching at the doors, and the endless feeling of the darkness watching us, waiting for its chance to devour us, life wouldn’t have been so bad while we waited. Jess helped create fruit, and Dino started to learn to make water. We had showers, clean clothes, warmth, good food and plenty to drink. And now we had light to live by. We went from a single-hole hell to a bearable underground shelter.

  Skeet and Mongo were starting to call me “my Lord”, just as Crystal did, and she had somehow become “my Lady”. Somehow, they treated us – and even Jess too, but to a lesser extent – as some sort of strange and glorious set of gods to watch and wonder over. Jess got the respect of a healer. Crystal got the respect of a Lady. I somehow got the respect of a divine Maker.

  And Dino? All he got was ignored. They were used to him, so they simply treated him the same as ever; which honestly I found quite amusing. At the school, he was the center of the world. Here, he was just another roommate; nothing special at all. In some ways, I almost felt sorry for him.

  But, what could I do about it? I made things; I didn’t fix people. I might be great at many things, but fixing someone like Dino was well beyond my scope of ability!