For a moment, we stood in pitch blackness. Contrary to popular belief, half-orcs don’t always get the dark vision that orcs have, so I was as blind as the rest.

“Hasha?” I asked.

“Right. Furo.”

An orange flame illuminated the darkness. We were standing in some sort of tight tunnel. Hasha held a flame over his open hand, and was looking around carefully. Richard had a frown on his craggy face. Mountain couldn’t have been happier in contrast to us, his tongue wagging as the light played across his furry face.

“We need a better option for light,” Richard said softly. “If Katya does have people after her, this torch will only broadcast our location. In fact, I’d say it’s how they’re tracking her now.”

I thought about the helmet I’d brought for her from my shop. The last piece I had yet to finish. I reached into my satchel, then pulled away. None of us here could wear it or use its functions. And my own helmet, thanks to the time I’d spent developing Katya’s armor, had none of the visual enhancements I’d imagined.

Damn it.

Hasha frowned. “I don’t have anything that can illuminate us while hiding our presence.”

“…Mountain?” the big dog looked at Richard. “Find our girl.”

Mountain immediately stepped forward, sniffing the air. Hasha turned off the light, forcing us to follow in darkness.

It was the most unnerving experience of my life. Traveling like that, keeping silent, and listening closely for any shadows in the dark. We kept stumbling over loose stones as we followed Mountain, whose coat allowed him to mix into the shadows. He had to stop at times, growling slightly to signal his position to us. The tunnels tightened and widened at random. At one point I had to scrape through a tight section tunnel, the claustrophobic feel of the walls around me forcing me to keep from lashing out as my armor scratched against stone.

Trying to stay quiet in my massive armor, even with all its enhancements, was a chore. I was sweating from the stressful exertion of being so careful, even in coolness of the cave. Richard had experience with armor, so he was fine. Hasha wore only a shirt and pants, while Mountain was, well, a dog. But I was having trouble, especially with the claymore I was holding. While my reasoning had seemed sound outside, I was learning that it was hard to maneuver such a large weapon. Teach me to pretend I knew everything about strategy.

The whole experience solidified my plans.

“If we survive all this, I’m making the best damn armor I can for myself.”

I’d whispered it, but was surprised when Richard answered. “I’ll fund it,” I couldn’t see him in the dark. I couldn’t even see my own body. But I think he sensed my shock at such a generous offer. “It’ll make Katya happy.” That was all he said in offer of explanation.

Just then, Mountain stopped, growling. We all froze. I tightened my grip on the claymore. Mountain stepped forward, nudging something. Richard leaned down to touch it as well. We heard metal clink.

“Hasha, small light,” Richard said.

Hasha complied. When he created the tiny bit of flame we could see the body. A man, his throat slashed. He’d died with a hand at his throat right gauntlet covered in slowly drying blood. Some electrical burns could be seen along the cut, something I had experienced thanks to my own research.

“Stormcall,” I said softly. It was all I could say as I stared at the human body, horror filling me. The sight of him, the look of terror and despair on his frozen face, shocked me to my core.

“Katya,” Richard smiled. “She’s gotten to work. Trained in blind-fighting after all.”

“Is there anything you haven’t taught her?” I asked in honest curiosity as I tried to keep calm.

“...More than a few things I wish had taught her now.” He rose up. “We need to—”

Something slammed into my shoulder, skittering off my armor. I spun, panicked, lashing out with a punch. In Hasha’s flickering light, I saw a man, dressed in well-made leather armor, dodge my fist. He stabbed forward, eyes widening under black hair when his dagger pierced an inch into my armor and stuck there. I used his surprise to grab him with my left gauntlet, since he was too close to attack with the claymore.

Electricity flooded out from the gauntlet, blinding me. He screamed. My left gauntlet was made to release intense shocks, to destabilize and hurt opponents. A shock gauntlet. Out of the thirty-seven runes in my armor, five alone were dedicated to the gauntlets electric attack. One connected to my own mana to power the runes, two to protecting me from the effects of the attack backfiring on me, and two more to release the power in a safe manner.

It wouldn’t work forever, as it only had as much power as I’d put into it, but it gave me enough to make the man scream in pain. I silenced him by punching him in the stomach. He went flying, his back slamming into a wall and falling to the floor, unconscious.

Two more men came from the tunnel the first one had come from, rushing before I could make a move. One had a sword, the other an axe, and both looked pissed.

“Damn it, couldn’t you have been quieter?” Richard hissed.

Then a black rush of fur slipped around me, slamming into the one with the axe in burst of angry furry snarls. Then, in a quick move, Mountain grabbed the mans head, and twisted. The sound of bone cracking filled the air as I watched in horror.

“Gods!” The other one screamed, anger replaced with shock.

Richard stabbed that one in the chest. Blood flew onto Richard's grim visage. He removed the sword from the man's heart, reaching for a napkin with a business-like efficiency.

“Hmph,” Hasha, who'd been raising the flame in his hand to strike, lowered his arm again. “That was over quick.

“You... killed them.”

The three of them looked at me. I hadn't even realized I'd spoken. Hasha's eyes softened.

“Char. I-”

From somewhere else, the sounds of footsteps and shouts came, as well as several eerie bays and howls. Somewhere else, a person screamed before it was cut-off.

Hasha shook his head. “We'll talk about this later. As it is, we need to run. Sound acoustics in a cave are terrible,” He shut off his fire. “If we move on, they’ll have no chance of finding us.”

“Mountain, we need to hurry,” Richard said worriedly.

Mountain barked softly. The dog moved forward, leaving us to follow. I stopped for a moment to stare at the men, two dead. The man whose neck Mountain had broken stared blankly at me.

The caves, for all their creepiness, were actually fascinating, from the magical perspective. We came upon a spot of glowing stones at one point. I’d worried about it until Hasha pointed out that it was bioluminescent moss that fed on the water dripping from the stalactites above. I almost reached out to grab a sample for study until Richard grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away, annoyed with Hasha and I. Animals, plants, and other small forms of life filled the so called den of monsters. More and more, I was getting the sense we were in a place of majesty. Spiders, salamanders, centipedes, and bats, moved to avoid us. Insects so small I couldn’t identify them lived in pools made from rivers that had somehow flowed into these caves, carrying debris from outside deep in the darkest parts of the cave.

Then we saw a light. We stopped. Mountain didn’t, marching forward gamely. I raised my right gauntlet, ignoring the memory of the woman I'd killed with it to follow with the others. Slowly, we marched, the light becoming brighter and brighter. A loud noise came from it, filling the tunnel. My fists tightened, terrified of what was causing so much continuous light and sound.

We came out into a beautiful sight. A massive circular chamber, open at the top and going down for hundreds of meters, with trees, moss, and flowers growing all along the stone chambers walls. At the top, maybe twelve to fifteen meters above us, I could see more trees all around the edges of the gap, with open sky above. Water poured down from other tunnels all along the walls, the rivers pouring into the chamber and creating waterfalls that slammed down somewhere below with a melodious set of sounds. We stood in the tunnel, staring in awe.

“Somehow the cave network must have brought us from the canyon to the Decortana Woods,” Hasha said. Unlike the dark caves, Hasha had to yell to be heard here, since the waterfalls noise drowned out all other sounds.

“We’re that far north?” I asked, shocked.

Then an impact hit my arm. I looked to see an arrow lay limply against me. It had pierced my high-carbon steel armor, but was slowed enough that it didn’t pierce my steel cotton shirt, leaving it to slide out and hang in the hole it had created.

“Archers!” Richard roared.

“Seriously! They attacked me again!?” I said, shocked. Why did they keep focusing on me?

High above, across the chamber in a different tunnel, several men in leather and metal armor pointed at us, yelling. A woman was reloading her bow grimly, while a man aimed at us with his own and fired.

“Proserto!” Hasha waved his hand out, snarling the word. The arrow bounced off a bit of hardened air he'd formed into a shield. The female archer aimed, having reloaded. “Furo!” He punched outwards. I could see the water that rested on the stones around us all around us begin to freeze, Hasha borrowing the heat around him for his spell as he ignited the air in front of him. A fireball shot outwards to cross the chamber at high speed, aiming at the men above us. They retreated, but two men were sent flying when the fireball exploded. One was thrown back into the tunnel he’d been standing in. The other screamed, flailing, to the bottom of the chamber, his body still burning as he fell. His scream was cut short at the bottom. A sizzle followed as the flames on his body were put out by the water pooling at the bottom.

Richard looked around quickly as Mountain growled.

The tunnel we were standing in led to a large ledge that went around the chamber until a halfway point. Our best bet was to simply go back into the tunnel however, rather then using the ledge to get to a different tunnel. We were very exposed. I could see Richard getting ready to yell for us to do just that, when he saw what I did.

Lower down, flashes of light began to appear. It was in a section of cave that was more open than ours, almost a secondary chamber.

Another flash of light appeared. I could see people fighting, indistinct shadows. Except for a young girl glowing, carrying a sword of lightning.

“Katya!” We yelled in unison.

“We have to get to her!” Richard cried desperately.

“Proserto!” Hasha blocked another arrow, holding to spell to block two more, then wincing as a crossbow bolt managed to lodge into the invisible shield of air. The odd image of a crossbow bolt hanging in the air made me blink as Hasha cursed in elven. “I don’t know a way to her!”

I reached for a rock that rested on the ledge. It was as large as a human skull, and probably heavy, though I couldn’t tell with my strength so enhanced. Aiming, I threw the rock at the woman with the bow, trying to hit her chest.

I missed.

The rock smashed into the arm of the man beside her instead. He was wearing plate armor. It wasn’t enough. The stone, propelled by my enhanced strength, slammed into his arm like a meteor. The sound of steel bending couldn’t be heard over the crashing waterfalls, but I saw him scream.

“Nice throw,” Richard complimented.

I reminded myself to tell him the truth later. As of then, I was looking down at the cave below us, where Katya was fighting.

“In my armor I weigh… 180 kilograms. That cave looks to be fifteen meters down, it’s at an angle of…” I put together calculations, thinking carefully.

“What are you doing?” Richard asked.

I rose up, stepping away. “Mathematics.”

Mountain whined in confusion, still ducked behind Hasha’s shield.

“I… I have no idea if I should be proud or worried,” Hasha said to that.

I sighed, feeling a bit sad at the place my life had headed. “Maybe both,” I yelled over the rushing waterfall. “Time to ante up!”

Then, as fast as I could, I charged for the chamber and jumped.

------

Leaping into open air with no ground below you for hundreds of feet is one of the most exhilarating and terrifying things that can be imagined. I knew of a few places in Decortana Forest where elves and humans leaped from platforms at the tops of trees taller than the tallest buildings, with only ropes of flexible jungle vines to save them, or air spirits if they are trained in their use.

I was wearing heavy armor, carrying a large claymore, and already weighed a good amount. On the surface, I was dead the instant I jumped. But I’d done the calculations.

Granted, knowing the calculations isn’t much help when you find yourself in the air with nothing but stone below you, but I made do.

When I jumped, I made sure to get as much distance as I could, using my enhanced strength. I aimed diagonally towards the huge cave I could see bursts of light coming from. As the wind rushed past my ears, I mentally tapped into my armor. On my back, runes within the tubes on back activated and came alight. I felt a burst of heat on the back of my thighs and buttocks as they blasted outwards, propelling me further.

Jumpjets. Based off the principles of the thrust created when air was ignited by immense heat, the two tubes on my back pushed me forth. The wind rushed faster around me as the roar of intense flames came from behind me. My breathing was hard, and I tried to stay calm.

The cave I was aiming for was too low!

Damn it, I’d ignited my jumpjets too early. I tried to aim lower, for the massive hole. I straightened from the flat stance I’d taken, reaching my arms out.

My armor saved me from turning into paste on the wall. When I slammed into the rock wall, my arms were there to brace me against the sudden force. The g-forces and the simple impact were absorbed my both my runes of strength, and my natural orcish durability and muscle. As it was, I could feel a few of my runes shatter under the intense force, and knew I’d feel a lot of pain in my muscles tomorrow.

I scrambled for a hold as I fell, the claymore still in my hand, locked in a deathgrip. I managed to swing into the cave at the last moment, landing on the gravelly floor with a relieved sigh.

“I’ll be honest,” I said to one of the mercenaries that had been fighting Katya. “I did not mean to do that.”

I wasn’t trying to be pithy. But the adrenaline of the experience made me a bit giddy, so the words came out that way. The five mercenaries in front of me, one of them a dwarf riding an armored bear, didn’t seem to appreciate the comment. One spun around, firing an arrow from his already strung bow. Sped up by armor, and hopped up on adrenaline, I was able to sidestep the shot and swing my claymore. The huge sword was barely dodged, and the archer stepped back. The other archer, an elven girl, flipped back into the air and fired. The arrow bounced off my glass visor, and I sensed one more of my runes threaten to shatter, already taxed by my earlier stunt. I moved in, swinging the sword in a sideways arc like Richard had taught me. A human merc in full armor raised a shield to block.

There was a rending sound as the edge of the sword dented his shield inward. He screamed, falling back with a clearly broken arm. I grabbed his bare head in my left arm and activated the shock gauntlet, letting thousands of volts pound into his body. As he died, leaving me haunted once more by the smell of charred human meat, the dwarf on the bear came into the fray.

A bear charging towards a person is right up there with all the other terrors of the world on the list of things one does not want to have happen to them. Having a dwarven bear, bred for combat, armored, and weighing in at 80 kilograms more than their cousins, doing the same thing is even more daunting.

I rolled out of the way of the roaring beast, feeling like I was dodging a moving mountain. It’s right paw lashed out, and hardened claws stabbed into the back of my armor, slashing through my handmade steel, runes, and steel cotton to leave four lines of heat in my back. Pain seared into my mind.

I roared, slashing out with my sword again, at the elven girl. She ducked my swing, back-flipped over another, and side-stepped the next, showing incredible agility. What she didn’t dodge was the sudden lightning bolt that came from behind me, throwing the shrieking woman into a wall.

I turned to see the lightning bolt had come from Hasha. He was but a dot from where I stood, but I still nodded at him before turning to the other mercs.

Across the room, I knew Katya was still fighting. But I had to deal with these mercenaries before moving to help her.

The dwarf woman on the bear snarled at me, her face hard. The merc who’d first shot at me aimed his reloaded bow. A man with a sword as big as my own claymore prepared to challenge me.

Then we were on each other. The bear launched forward, with more speed than I could believe. I charged as well, rushing to meet the bear head on. We both roared, loud and long, our inhuman voices drowning all other noises. We slammed into each other with incredible force. The feel of that much momentum suddenly pressing into me, of that enormous pressure, was unbelievable. I screamed, roared, pushed with all my strength. The bear did the same, its claws digging at me as I awkwardly tried to stab it with the huge sword in my hand. Claws slashed into my upper arms, and blood began to slip beneath my armor. I roared, pain, fear, and anger filling me, only to explode from my lungs. My eyes seemed to burn.

The merc with the claymore of his own swung at my sword just before I would have jammed it into the leg of the bear. My sword snapped in half. I let go, and lifted up my other hand to grab the bears head. The bear roared once more. I punched it in the throat. In the full grip of my newfound battle frenzy, caught in that mix between rage and serenity, I activated my shock gauntlet. The bear roared in pain, and the dwarf girl riding it shrieked.

Unfortunately, so did I. The claws digging through my armor had destroyed the safeties I'd put in my armor. Electricity slammed into my body, leaving my muscles clenching and unclenching in pain. I kept it up, screaming.

It wasn’t enough. With a small puff, the runes for electricity failed, and the shocks faded, leaving the bear enraged, hurt, and still alive.

An arrow bounced off my right arm. Clearly the archer was still shooting at me. I maneuvered the bear around, wrestling with fingers digging into fur and muscle. Teeth scratched into my helmet. Claws tore through my armor. I aimed my right gauntlet at the bears head as more pain flooded my body.

The sound of the weapon on my right wrist erupting was louder than the roars, the black powders ignition almost blinding. Dozens of ball bearing slammed into the bears skin, digging into its head. It fought for a bit longer. Then it stopped.

I threw the bear’s body aside. The dwarf girl leaped off the bear and got to her feet, pulling out a sword/dagger, the kind usually made for the shorter races. I grabbed the longsword at my waist, the remains of my claymore left on the ground. The archer and claymore user faced me down alongside the dwarf.

I launched for them. Slashing at the archer, I forced him to block with his bow, and cleaved through the thin wood. As he staggered, I kicked out. My boot slammed into his groin, sending him flying as a metal boot smashed pelvis bones to powder. A whine left his lips as the archer flew back.

Off balance from the kick, I barely blocked the claymore user with my longsword. He forced me back, and I quickly regained my footing.

It was immediately clear he was far more skilled then I was. Until then, I'd been able to get by with my armor, tools, and a combination of their surprise and my anger. But now, as I clumsily swung, The claymore user diverted my blows, stepped aside, or parried. With a small step, he dodged an overhead blow from me, and slammed the hilt of his sword into my helmet. Pain exploded once more behind my eyes. The dwarf girl struck, her blade slamming into a section of my chest plate where the bear had chewed through. I screamed.

The dwarf girl tried to step back, but her sword got caught against my armor. The claymore user stepped forward. Terrified, I moved quickly.

When he swung his sword again, I locked mine with his, then simply grabbed his wrist. We met eyes. I roared. In the midst of my battle frenzy, I swung him around and slammed his body into the wall behind me like a doll. Then I swung again, using him as a club to bash the dwarf girl out of the air as she leaped at me. Then I let go at the apex of my swing.

Both went flying out of the cave, into the round chamber outside. They screamed pitifully as they disappeared.

Pain continued to fill me as I stared at the hole in the wall. Something within me, something animiliastic seemed to fade back. I huffed angrily, then roared, my blood dripping to the floor. Turning, I prepared to assist Katya.

The last of the mercs facing her, a man in robes whose fingers were surrounding in cold mists, fell to his knees. The cold mist around his fingers dissipated as he stared at the sword embedded in his chest. Katya pulled her sword from his chest and looked around as I stared in awe.

Men and women of every species but orcs and beastmen lay all over the place, dressed in plate, leather, and cloth. Along with them were two more of the sort of bear I’d had so much trouble with, what looked like a red scaled wyvern with wings of black, and a tiger, all of them armored. Katya sighed sadly, then turned to look at me. For a moment, her face tightened in shock, apparently thinking I was an enemy. Then she smiled.

“Char?” she frowned. “Wait. Why are you hear?”

“Uh…” I looked at the group of mages, monsters, and warriors that had been levied against her. “To rescue you.”

“Aw,” she strode over with a smile. “That’s so so sweet!”

“And unnecessary,” I said with a sigh. Damn. Prophesied Child or not, she really was one of the best fighters I’d ever seen. All my fear. Completely useless.

I coughed then. Blood filled my mouth, and a bit of red fell to the ground in a spray. I fell to my knees. Katya yelped in surprise, rushing towards me. “Char! You're hurt!”

I grimaced, looking down at myself. My armor, my pride and joy, was damaged. Claw marks trailed along my limbs, and blood poured out of wounds underneath that. Dents and scratches were dug into the surface. As for my body... well. I'd shoved magic into myself through hastily made runes, drank an unsafe number of potion, and had accidentally electrocuted myself.

“Oh, Char...” Katya placed her hands on my shoulders, and light rose from her palms. “What have you done to yourself?”

I remembered something, and reached into my satchel. “Forgot to give you this,” I took out the helmet I’d made for her. “Well, less forgot, more didn’t-have-a-chance-because-we-got-arrested. But here you go.”

She gave it a glance, then shook her head. “That doesn't matter! Just let me heal you!” She bit her lips, looking into my eyes sadly. “Char, you aren't meant for this. Why would you follow me?”

Aw… damn it. I hadn’t considered how to tell her. Damn it, explaining the whole thing took so long as well. I fought to figure out what to say as she looked at me, cocking her head to the side with a cute frown as she continued to heal me. My wounds began to knit, and she became momentarily distracted.

“We need to give you something to replace the blood you lost. I can heal simple wounds, but,” she bit her lip. “Char, your body has taken a lot of damage. Some of it is magical.”

“I know,” I sighed, holding the helmet out again. “First, put this on.”

She stared at it, then nodded her assent. I reached into my bag and pulled out a potion, one made to quickly aid in replacing lost blood. She put on the helmet as I drank.

As she did, I felt the runes I’d placed on all the armor pieces solidify and strengthen. The helmet, made with the same visor as my own, showed her face as she frowned. Then she blinked, staring at her glass visor. It was cute, the way she squinted at the clear glass bare millimeters from her face.

“What is this? The stuff appearing on the glass?”

“It’s part of the interface,” I sighed. “I thought it would be useful for you to have something to see with in the dark, considering you were entering a cave. So I carved runes of ansuz for clear vision so you couldn’t be blinded by certain effects, and kenaz to give you the ability to see thermal emissions.

ᚨ-Ansuz

ᚲ- Kenaz

“Oh,” as I watched, the clear glass turned orange, indicating the switch from clear to thermal vision, then flashing back. “Wait,” she shook her head. “I got distracted. Why are you here?”

“I...” I looked behind me. Hasha, Richard, and Mountain had disappeared. Leaving me to explain.

But should I explain? What if…

“Katya?” I said softly. “If you knew that I had information, dangerous information, about you... If I knew something that would change your life, make you rethink everything about yourself, about those around you, something that could make you different just by knowing it. If knowing what I knew would make you wish you’d never learned it… would you still want to know?”

She stared at me, eyes widening. I looked back at her, waiting.

“I think,” she bit her lip thoughtfully, “I can’t know for certain. I’ve never had something like that happen to me. But… Hasha once said that, that ignorance and knowledge are the two things that shape the world. Ignorance constrains us. Knowledge frees us,” she nodded. “I don’t want to make a mistake, or make the wrong decision, because my ignorance forced me to a certain path. I might not want to know. But… I need to. Like the word says, ‘The Light may blind, but this only leads to clarity. Let no temporary pain remove you from that which is good.’ So I think you should tell me.”

“…Okay.” I sighed. “Here it is. After you left with the Arch-Bishop, one of the guards sat down to watch me. After about an hour…”

------

I told her everything. She didn’t speak once, only listening. And, with each word, I saw her heart break. I think she wanted to call me a liar. To claim I was wrong. I could see it, in the quiver of her head, shaking it from side to side. But I stormed forward. Surrounded by the corpses of those she’d killed, I told her the truth.

There was an old tale, about a man trapped in vines of ignorance, whose wife burned him out using fires of knowledge. He'd been left with burns across his body that caused him incredible pain afterward. But he was free.

I could only hope Katya would forgive me for telling her.