Chapter 52: No Excuses

  The chimera lay still, its broken form slumped in a shallow crater of cracked stone and scorched bodily liquids. Smoke leaked from fissures across its body with flames guttering down to embers. For a moment Alex thought it was finished.

  Then its mandibles clicked open, trembling like rusted hinges, and a voice rasped out. The sound Alex heard was not words of the Captain Chimera, but something distant, and utterly terrifying. “We are… wait-ing below, in-truder…”

  The tone was fractured and clipped, echoing with layers that didn’t sound as though it could come from one single throat. Instead, it felt a chorus of voices in unison. The beast’s eyes that were once full of fire and malice, dimmed to dull pits as the words continued. “…come… we w-ill con-sume you… br-ing you into... the hive…”

  Each syllable clawed against Alex’s mind the same way metal forks over a dinner plate screeched. He knew the words weren’t meant for him alone. They were a summons, a warning of a kind, which some foreign consciousness was sending to them. A promise for each of them all at once.

  The chimera convulsed one last time as it seemed the connection to it’s dead body was severed, before slumping into final stillness. The cavern filled with the stench of burnt chitin and tainted blood.

  Alex remained on his knees, his breath coming in short gasps. His arms trembled under the pain of his skill's backlash. His vision swirled about with blackness creeping at the edges, but his mind… his mind was racing.

  That hadn’t been the chimera captain speaking. Not of its own will, not its own mind. Something else had pushed its voice through, hijacked its throat after its death.

  The Hive? The Queen?

  The realization left his stomach churning and his blood running cold—or maybe that was just the blood loss from his arm, dripping across the stones. Either way, a chill clamped down over his body, one that not even the flickering aether flames around him could warm.

  Obby spoke hesitantly for once, “…Meatboy. I don't think you need me to tell you this but... That wasn’t the chimera captain. Something else is watching you.” So the evil little river rock knew it too, and yes, Alex didn't need Obby to tell him that.

  Alex swallowed with dry lips, unable to muster a reply. He forced himself to glance at the ruined body again, but it was truly only a corpse now, torn and smoldering.

  And yet the words still echoed in his skull, whispering through the dark corners of his thoughts:

  We are waiting below…

  The last echoes of battle finally died away as the others cleaned up the chimera soldier assault. No new beasts had came after the captian's death. It appeared the hive was content to actually wait for them. Dozens of carcasses littered the floor, soldier-chimera bodies twitching in their last spasms, tunnels behind them clogged with burning or pieced a part remains.

  The squad stood in the aftermath like ghosts, their eyes glassy, every movement slow from exhaustion. Blood dripped from dozens of wounds onto the stone floor, forming black and red stains among the rubble. Empty potion vials clinked as they rolled from tired hands, a glass trail of desperation scattered at their feet.

  Alex barely felt any of it.

  He lay on the ground, his body a screaming knot of pain. His nerves were aflame from the [Descending Demon Fist] backlash. He hadn’t just used up everything he had, he’d dipped past empty, drawing on sheer hope and soulstuff. The repercussions of which left him pale and shuddering.

  “Alex!” Holly was the first to reach him, dropping to her knees at his side.

  She slid his head into her lap, her own martial robes streaked with dirt and blood. A potion flask was already in her free hand, tilting it against his lips. “Drink. Don’t you dare spit this out, Alex.”

  He coughed and sputtered but eventually swallowed, grimacing at the bitter burn the System added to its taste for his over-use of the potions recently. Myrae and Cole hurried in next, both healers already weaving glowing sigils, their hands pressing lightly against the cracked lattice that remained of Alex’s skin.

  The healing energy sizzled the moment it touched him. His poisonous, wyrmheart-tainted blood resisted their spells, hissing a protest, and warped the delicate threads of aether they tried to weave through him.

  “Gods above…” Myrae lamented, sweat dripping down her forehead as she forced her spell deeper with a surge of aether. “His blood is fighting me.”

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  Cole grunted. “Keep going. We just gotta layer the spells on. Don’t try to mend the wounds themselves, just focus on stabilizing him. He’s a big boy, his body will handle the rest.” Cole and Allie had the most experience healing Alex’s demanding body, so he guided Myrae through the process.

  The glow around their hands deepened, creating conflicting currents of caustic and restorative energy mixing inside Alex’s arms and chest. His blood wouldn’t make it easy for them, an unfortunate side effect of the upgraded constitution.

  Holly muttered to herself as she pressed another potion flask to his lips when he tried to turn away. “Don’t you even think about quitting on me. You hear me? Drink it!”

  Alex forced down another mouthful. The potions wouldn’t even have an effect anymore, the System abuse-preventions removed almost every bit of their effectiveness at this point, and his blood took care of the rest.

  At this rate, she'll make my stomach burst from how much she forcing in me. The thought amused him enough that he tried to smirk, but it broke halfway into a pained grimace.

  “Sorry… I—ah—won’t be of much good for a while. The… Descending Fist took too much.”

  Cole’s frown deepened, but he simply focused on his work. Holly glanced at him, her eyes softening a bit even if her words still sounded angry. “Idiot. You’re not supposed to tear your whole body apart just to look cool.”

  “I wasn’t… trying to look cool,” Alex rasped, “I just… I knew we couldn’t hold otherwise…”

  Myrae snapped her fingers sharply, cutting through the tender moment. “Don’t talk. Just save your strength. Even with your resiliency imprints, the backlash damage is immense. We’ll keep you alive... but peak condition?” She shook her head grimly. “Not without days of recovery.”

  The words landed somberly. Everyone within earshot, Garret, Eric, even Ghrukk, they all stilled. The reality pressed down on them all like the grand heavens themselves: Alex wasn’t going to be at full strength when they faced the Queen.

  And they hadn’t even reached her yet.

  Allie’s voice rose as she moved through the group and passed out the last of her tinctures. “We’re not walking out of here in one piece if we keep burning everything now. Save what you can. Bandage what you can’t. Because it’s only going to get worse from here.”

  The group exchanged tired, bloody glances.

  Alex tried to push himself upright, only for Holly to press him back down. His eyes met hers, then swept across the others in the squad. They were all beaten and bloody, and yet those who could move were already looting corpses... still going. But he couldn’t even stand and help them.

  “Sorry,” he whispered. He was barely being held together, but the feeling of having let them all down cut deeper than any of his injuries.

  Eric leaned against a still standing stalagmite with a grim expression on his face. “We’re running on sheer fumes. Everyone here knows it. Potion supplies are almost gone, half of us can barely hold a weapon straight... We’ve got the dungeon teleportation tokens. If we use them, we live to fight another day.”

  Alex found it surprising that it was the Captain who had changed his mind about pressing forward. He had been adamant on trying to clear the hive and the dungeon before, but then… things change.

  “Or,” Zach cut in, “we keep pushing and see what is waiting to face us.”

  Allie wiped some sort of sticky substance off her arm with a bloody rag, glaring at the dark mage. “We don’t exactly have spare bodies to throw at this. If we’re already struggling against soldiers and these—“ She waved her hand around dramatically,” —captains, what happens when the Queen shows her face?”

  The tension was thick in the air around them all. No one wanted to say it, but it hung over all of them: retreat might be the only smart move.

  Then Ghrukk pushed himself upright from where he leaned on his weapon, his tusks glinting despite the deep crack in one of them. He planted his fist against his chest armor, the sound echoing hard through the cavern.

  “This is the path,” he rumbled.

  Doran stepped forward right after the Ork's declaration. “This is the System’s harsh crucible. You Worldstriders spoke of it, didn’t you? A trial? To struggle is to forge yourself. Pain is the hammer with the dungeon the anvil. We survive this, and we are reforged even stronger, made worthy.” Doran said melodramatically.

  Sarson lifted the two halves of his shield before sighing loudly. “We knew what we were walking into. The System’s paths to power holds no place for cowards. If we leave now, the heavens will reject us.”

  Selka, quiet until now, wrapped an arm around Sarson’s waist, “Besides… the System doesn’t hand out opportunities for growth like this twice.”

  Their conviction rang in Alex’s ears. They wanted this, wanted the struggle, wanted to gamble themselves against the edge of death. Because that’s what Worldstriders did, and its how native born Aetherians become true powerhouses.

  But Alex’s squad?

  Faces turned uneasy and uncertain. Allie’s brow furrowed, Garret gnawed his lip bloody, and Henry shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Alex's head was still propped against Holly’s lap were he was recovering as well. He raised himself slightly to look directly at the group.

  “Check your logs,” was all he said.

  There was a pause, a moment where half the squad looked at him in confusion, then holo-screens flickered alive as all of the Worldstriders glanced at their System menus.

  The lines glowed like a persistent mockery of their predicament.

  “If we walk away now, that timer will tick down to zero with nothing to show for it. We’d be telling the System, telling it, that we quit. That we weren’t willing to push. That doesn’t look good, not for any of us Worldstriders especially. We need to survive, and yes, that means risking death.” Henry laid his head back down, looking as if that short speech took more effort from him than the previous fight altogether.

  Reluctance flickered in eyes across the chamber. No one wanted to keep going. Every survival instinct screamed at them to pull the teleportation token and run. But he was right.

  One by one, heads dipped in nods of agreement. Even the strongest protests faded into bitter silence.

  Garret suddenly spoke up with determination. “Guess we’re all out of excuses then.”

  Allie scowled. “Yeah, but don’t think for one second I have to like it.”

  “Then we keep moving. Carefully.” Holly said.

  The group shifted, gathering what scraps of strength and supplies they still had. Every motion was weary, but the decision was made.

  The crucible that was the System demanded more, and they would answer.