Sachihiro

I follow her as closely as I can but lose her constantly none the less. I thought I had gotten good at running around in dark caves but now that I have someone else setting the pace my inadequacies are making themselves known. Still, I’m keeping up, more or less.

‘’How much further?’’ I send running straight ahead trusting that I won’t fall of another ridge with a guide that can see further than 10m in front of us.

‘’Two more days,’’ comes the response without her pace slacking in the slightest.

That’s a long time, I grumble internally, also odd that they can tell time down here but I say nothing. I’m doing my best to keep up without giving away the range of my awareness though that may already be an open secret at this point.

We’ve been going for hours having left the others behind after securing oaths from them as well. Truth be told I don’t like leaving enemies alive behind me, it’s an itch that gnaws at me making me paranoid about revenge plots but there isn’t much I can do now. The darkness is complete, I don’t know where I am going and I don’t want to find myself stumbling into a settlement of underworld dwellers.

Facing three of them was hard enough, and though strong they aren’t particularly stand out talents from what I can tell from our exchange. Inexperienced, stupid, especially for their age but also they were trying to take me alive so maybe that’s why they got close.

‘’Why were you trying to take me alive,’’ I ask mentally whilst running behind the strange being.

It stays silent a while, probably debating what lies it can get away with but I hate lies and included a ‘no deceit’ clause in the oath they made. My steps are muffled by the dirt that we’re running on which I’m grateful for, me being the one making unnecessary noises was kinda grating my pride there for a while. But the surroundings changed quickly such that I no longer think we are in a tunnel, in fact, if we weren’t underground I’d swear we’re in an open field.

The place feels huge and bare, open space for a long-distance all around. Had I been alone I’d have gone towards one of the far walls and kept close to it in my track further forward but I’ve been assured this is the safest quickest route past their settlements. Why didn’t Paulos warn me about it I wonder, the guy told me how to get out so he must have known I’d run into these people eventually.

‘’The factions are recruiting, the Dark One has rung the bells of war against the tide of invaders. You would make a great gift for the agnatha faction as a warrior slave in their pens,’’ comes the eventual response.

I shiver at the prospect of slavery, otherwise, there is a lot of interesting information that just got handed to me if I can parse through it with enough finesse.

‘’Invaders?’’ I ask, so not much finesse on my part.

‘’No one knows from whence they come but a constant tide of them has raided a number of settlements, even managing to take the glowing amber mines of Contoro from the acanthian faction and destabilized Bumnyama’s great economy.’’

I am not following all that but I get the gist loud and clear, ‘’so you and your party were hunting for slaves?’’

‘’No, but you are a human in the dark. Well-armed or not this isn’t a place for your kind, we assumed you’d be a relatively easy target. Of course, we should have known from your mere presence here that you are not simple.’’

The flattery is a bit thick there, this really is no place for a human with its constant darkness and claustrophobic nature though. That Paulos guy seems shadier and shadier the more I think about him, and that aura? What up with his aura driving me to placidity like that?

‘’How long have these raids been going on?’’

Apparently, its been something like two months since the raids started, and calling them raids is a bit of an understatement. Several settlements have fallen, mines claimed, water channels claimed and the whole underworld territory of Lys is being destabilized which is apparently a big deal. Lys as far as I can estimate is their kingdom ruled by factions made of the different races that can be found here in numbers. Factions that are constantly in conflict with each other but now considering uniting forces for the first time since establishing Lys as a united territory some 2000 years ago.

Honestly speaking I’m surprised they even have settlements let alone cities let alone ‘great economies’. I have always imagined the underworld as some dark place with weird creatures and complete lawlessness but now that I think about it all the shiny resources are mined down places like this. Makes sense they’d have great wealth and if they had established trading channels with the surface world all the better for them.

I learn as much as I can from my guide who speaks to me easily for the rest of our run through the darkness. We slow a number of times passing other people but we don’t stop, I don’t want to stop and she doesn’t complain. The pace is good, I feel like I’m covering a fair distance quickly for the first time since I found myself here, I can feel myself getting closer to the thread from which I am promised power.

I increase our pace as I gain confidence in my movements, 10m is quite a large distance and a lot can be done with 10m of warning against an oncoming obstacle. I take it as an obstacle course and find myself sprinting besides my guide who occasionally teleports to keep up with me but still she voices no complaint.

‘’Warn me if we are coming to a dead-end or ridge,’’ I say increasing my pace further.

I run letting go of my inhibitions, letting go of my fear of falling I run like I haven’t in what feels like years. Adjusting on the fly to changes in terrain or obstacles in my way moving quickly, it's easier than dodging projectiles actually.

‘’I need rest,’’ she says after no time at all.

My breath and pulse steadily slow down, my muscles warm, a sheen of perspiration on my skin. We rest for a little bit and I study this creature of the daarkarn race extensively. I can get away with staring if no one knows that I’m staring, her teleport range isn’t very impressive and she has to wait a few seconds before each jump. If I could see them coming they definitely wouldn’t have been a problem.

‘’How long have you had that teleport skill?’’ I ask after a mouthful of water. How do they eat or drink is the question that’s on my mind but I’m having more fun imagining the answer to that at the moment so I don't ask.

‘’It is a recent ability,’’ she eventually says after another moment of hesitation. So long as you keep answering you can hesitate all you want.

So apparently many people have awakened to mana abilities in the past few months in and around the Lys territory. Random things for most of them, like my guide and teleporting or the other one and the poison beams of darkness he was shooting at me. But others that were already powerful simply got more powerful and the factions have now been trying to force recruitment upon the new awakened and see what they can do in battle.

It eases my mind to hear that whatever has been happening out there similar things are happening down here and I can more easily trust the visions I’ve seen now that these phenomena are being confirmed. Likely a portal to Omega opened up somewhere and the invaders are the omegians taking what they want. The higher mana density coming through the portal is causing people to awaken left right and centre, simple enough to imagine what’s going on with all the information I have.

Soon enough we are at it again at a respectable sprint. I estimate we’ve been travelling for more than a day already so we’ve probably covered over a 100km at least but distance is not easy to predict down here. Still, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made.

Overall I don’t rightly know how long it has been since the deal with Phosphorus but I’ve been travelling down here a while. As much as my anxieties have eased with having a goal and knowing how to pull it off I’m still well aware that the direction I’m heading is taking me further from my family.

I’ll get this power whatever form it’s in and then head straight home, fuck wealth and freedom can wait. But then the gease I have to finish the quest, how much can I resist that? I currently don’t feel like I’m compelled forward, will it feel like compulsion even? With the confirmation of the phenomena happening globally I’m more worried about everyone than I previously was, information can be double-edged like that. Easing some worries and creating new ones.

‘’Duck,’’ the female daarkarn sends disappearing from my senses as I duck and roll. Something like an undulating spider web passes through my awareness.

I’m up with Honour in hand as I keep running coalescing mana through me dodging left as another epileptic web-thing comes straight at me almost dragging at the floor as it flies past. I stop abruptly as another web blooms before me stretching and spreading as it dances in mid-air like its alive.

What the actual fuck? The is something ..bad about the web that grates at my spirit.

[Glitch], I perceive something outside my awareness range but it's gone almost as soon as I try to track it. I keep moving, running forward pumping spirit energy into my body highlighting it in all my senses.

[Glitch], I dodge swiping with Honour cutting through the web as it flies past me at speed. A tendril touches my clothes and the sleeve of my tunic disintegrates immediately into dust. Okay, these guys are serious!

[Glitch], I perceive a thing appearing and disappearing in hazy grayscale static and I swing my zanpakutō casting a Water Bolt from the mana demanding to be used.

[Swish]

[Glitch] the thing appears and disappears a distance away, my water bolt swallowed by the darkness as I lose connection.

A web blooms in my path, as I turn another blooms there, as I’m about to turn another blooms behind me so I go through the one I’m facing reaping through it with decisive swings of my nodachi launching through the gap.

[Glitch], the disturbance appears behind me, I dodge before I sense anything and sure enough, a web-thing flies past my back grazing me left arm with a tendril leaving my arm numb yet screaming with pain.

I test my fingers, I can still move them but I can’t feel them. I duck into a crevice putting my back against the stone catching my breath. So far I’ve only perceived one attacker but it seems to be everywhere, and where the actual fuck is my guide in all this excitement?

Taking a breath, [puff], I send out a pulse of spirit energy. This foe I can somewhat perceive spiritually, so maybe like I was able to keep track of the mummies I can keep track of it as well.

First thing I notice are the ugly webs spreading at both openings of the crevice I’m in, locking me in. Not gonna happen, I move cutting the things to tatters with Honour but they seem to be recovering as more and more webs are added from the other side.

[Glitch], I perceive the thing coming into my awareness on the other side of the web completely ignoring my invisible cloud of spirit energy as it throws web after web adding to the trap I’ve found myself in. I guess a spiritual mist is not a detect all cheat but let's see how you do to this, Spirit Oppression!

The webs disintegrate to nothing, the floating ugly creature is stunned falling onto the floor and I’m there a moment latter delivering a beheading. [Zzwee], separating the neck in a single motion I kick the head away as the open maw of a mouth starts emitting smoke towards me. The description is accurate, floating ugly things with a gaping maw for a jawless mouth.

‘’Fucking agnatha,’’ I stab the body where the heart should be a few times just to make sure the thing is truly dead. The silence of its vibrational frequencies tell me so but it never hurts to make sure, besides, it's cathartic.

Following my spiritual mist’s detections I come across my guide lying supine on the floor twitching in apparent pain but unable to move, one of the webs pulsing and spreading like the parasite it is on the teleporters torso. I try to connect to her mind-

[Aaaarrhhh]

Flinch away from the internal scream coming from the mouthless daarkarn, that must be unpleasant then. I want to leave her like this but if she survives that’s another enemy alive at my back, if she doesn’t I’m not the one that killed her so I didn’t break my part of the oath.

I sigh, I don’t want to be someone that screws people over for no reason though. Especially knowing assholes like Phosphorus exist out there that twist oaths and bargains to their own benefit against people. No, I’m nothing like that thing.

Might as well test how my spirit oppression works against unspiritual foes, Spirit Oppression! The web disintegrates like salt in water but the daarkarn is also affected, seizing violently before going still, then shaking noticeably as it tries to get up and away from me. It stumbles, teleporting to fall elsewhere outside my range.

‘’I have been true to my word human,’’ it sends shakily. Its aura unconstrained making it easy for me to know from where its sending, an aura full of dread despair.

Huh, seems to work just fine. ‘’You have kept your word daarkarn,’’ I say, then turn around to go loot my downed foe and continue on my way.