Kaitri's vision was a blur.
The first thing he registered was a soft, blue-white light that was pulsing gently. The second was a sharp, piercing pain in his chest which was followed by a wonderful, cool, soothing sensation that washed it away.
He blinked. Sibil's face was inches from his. Her pale, Mernian-blue skin was beaded with sweat, her brow furrowed in intense concentration.
Her hands were hovering over his chest, and from her palms was glowing, purified water flowing into his wounds, sealing the flesh, and knitting his broken ribs.
Her wide, sea-green eyes, which had been closed, snapped open. They met his. They sparked, then instantly became wet with tears of relief.
"Guys!" she shouted, her voice piercing his skull and making his headache pound. "He's awake! He's awake!!"
Kaitri winced, letting out a low groan. 'Why is she crying? We've only known each other two days or so.'
"Don't shout," he rasped.
In a second, the team was there, crowding around him, their faces a mix of relief and exhaustion.
They had left their posts. All except Kanut, who Kaitri could see standing guard at the cave entrance with his shield planted and his gaze fixed on the darkness outside.
Kaitri took in the scene. Hunter was kneeling beside him, his hands and arms stained black to the elbows. He'd been carving up the Mauler's corpse for the edible, non-corrosive parts.
Paul was using one of his large, black-feathered wings to fan a newly built campfire, his expression as morose as ever. Varik was arranging firewood next to him.
"You gave us quite a good scare," Varik said, his usual sarcastic edge softened by genuine relief. "You were out for a couple of hours, man. We thought that... thing... had actually killed you."
Hunter chimed in, his accented voice gravelly. "But Sibil and I did all we could to nurse you back to health."
Kaitri looked down. He was lying on a bed of scavenged packs. The ground beneath him was glowing faintly.
He recognized the patterns. Healing-runes.
He looked at Hunter, his eyes wide with shock.
'He... he used the Resonance pool,' Kaitri thought. 'That's... a lot.'
The Resonant energy they'd brought, the "pool" Hunter drew Resonant energy from for his sorcery, wasn't theirs. As Terrans, they couldn't generate it.
It was carried in a heavy, rune-etched container, and it was limited. It was their most precious resource. Hunter had used a significant chunk of it just to stabilize him.
He'd have to make sure to be more careful. He couldn't afford to be a drain on their resources, and it was just the second day.
"Help me up," Kaitri grunted.
"Whoa, easy there, buddy," Varik said, but he looped an arm under Kaitri's, helping him sit up. The world spun for a second, but the pain in his chest had dulled to a deep, throbbing ache. Sibil's healing was potent.
He sat there for a moment, the firelight warming his face, the weight of the sequence, Lin Ye's story, pressing down on him. Sun Wukong. The First Five. The journal.
Find my body.
His mission was clear. His personal mission, anyway.
"Time is of the essence," he said, his voice stronger now.
He looked at the faces of his team. They were exhausted, but they were alive. They were his. Then he looked at Sibil with her puffy cheeks and blue lips with a hint of red, not a single flaw…
He shook his head to snap out of it. "We need to plan for tomorrow. But first... we need to go deeper into the cave."
The team gave him a collective, questioning look.
"Deeper?" Paul asked, his voice flat. "We just cleared this chamber. You want to go looking for more of those things?"
Kaitri's face was grim, but he gave them a half-smile, a flash of the old, arrogant Kaitri.
"Wouldn't hurt to gain extra points for what we find, right?"
The cave was dark and quiet. The only sound was the damp drip-drip-drip of water from the ceiling and the scuff of their own boots on the stone. The light from Hunter's rune-stick cast long, dancing shadows that made the tunnel seem alive.
Kaitri walked in front, one tanto drawn, his senses on high alert. He was followed closely by Paul, whose Corvian eyes seemed to pierce the gloom better than any of theirs, and Varik, who had his Tachi out and was nervously humming a tune.
"Do you have to do that?" Kaitri whispered back.
"It... calms me," Varik whispered, then immediately stopped.
Kaitri had picked only two to go with him. It was a tactical choice. Kanut was their best defence, so he stayed on guard at the cave entrance.
Hunter, having carved the Mauler, was now tending the fire, slowly cooking the purified meat.
Sibil had drained a lot of Soul Energy healing Kaitri. Her Mernian abilities were powerful, but taxing and she wasn't a Resonant, so she needed a lot of time to rest. He had asked her to rest and recover for when they left.
Before he left, Kaitri said to Kanut, "Stay connected to me, no matter what."
"You got it, boss," Kanut's said whispering in his ear.
The Criers were bred for long-range communication during the first Halycon wars. Their vocal range can pinpoint a single ear from five kilometres away. Five! Kaitri imagined how strong Kanut will be as a Bounded.
As they walked, Varik's nerves got the better of him. He needed to talk.
"So," Varik whispered, his voice bouncing slightly off the walls. "What's... uh... what's our plan? For when we run into another group? And, you know, they're... hostile? Like Cassian's group of frack-faces."
Kaitri didn't slow down. He just smiled, a cold, sharp expression that the darkness mostly hid. "What are their plans for when they encounter us?"
Varik scratched his head, his Tachi scraping the wall. "Que...?"
"Que et fleare nigre," Paul muttered from behind them, his voice flat and bored.
Kaitri and Varik both stopped and turned to look at him.
"What?" Varik asked.
Paul just stared at them with his unnervingly dark eyes. "It's an old saying in my hometown. It means... 'I am always prepared to flee.'"
Varik snorted. "A coward's motto."
"A survivor's motto," Paul corrected, his feathered arms crossed. "You can't get points if you're dead. You can't get revenge if you're dead. You can't... eat... if you're dead. Fleeing is just a tactical repositioning."
Kaitri shook his head. "That's a bad way to think, Paul. You run when you're beaten. But if you're always prepared to run... you'll never stand your ground when it matters. You'll just... break."
"Better to break and live than be whole and dead," Paul retorted.
"No," Kaitri said, his voice quiet but intense. "Sure, tactical retreat is good but you need to not think it's an option for when it doesn't become an option."
"Whatever you say…," Paul said losing interest in arguing.
They walked in silence for another ten minutes before Kaitri held up a fist. He stopped. "Hear that?"
A faint, low-frequency hum. The same hum he'd heard at the transport circle.
'Is that the System?' he thought.
"It's a ward," Paul said, pointing.
Ahead of them, the tunnel was blocked by a shimmering, barely visible field of blue light. It looked like heat-haze, but it smelled like ozone.
"Kanut," Kaitri whispered. "Connect to Hunter."
A few seconds passed. "Hunter is connected. What do you want to tell him?"
Kaitri described the ward to Kanut and Kanut passed the message to Hunter while Hunter's message was being tunnelled through Kanut as well.
"Da... is old," Hunter said. "First Migration tech. Not like the perimeter wards. This one is... simpler. But still dangerous. It is not powered by the Darkwood, it is powered by a battery which should be powered by a sun somehow. Find the battery. It will be a small, black-iron box, etched with Elven script. You must block the sun from touching it and... ah... percussively maintain it."
"...You want me to hit it?" Kaitri asked already blocking the hole when a single ray of sun flowed in from.
"Da. But how you hit, this is what matters. You must strike the runes in sequence. You know of energy flow?"
Kaitri nodded, though Hunter couldn't see him. "I know some. I was Jenny's Lab rat for a while."
"Lucky… uh… Find the box. I will guide you."
Paul found it and tucked into an alcove.
Kaitri, listening to Hunter's instructions ("Nyet, not that one, the one that looks like a tree! Hit it... now!"), used the hilt of his Tanto. He tapped the runes in a precise, three-beat rhythm.
The humming stopped. The blue field vanished.
"Impressive, Kaitri," Hunter's voice said. "You have good feel for runes. You should try learning sorcery sometime. It will be beneficial... for when you become Diaphanous."
"I'll think about it. First we need to survive here," Kaitri said, and cut the link.
They continued. The tunnel opened up into a massive, dry cavern. It was clear this place had been lived in. Bones of long-dead Dark-souled were piled in a corner, like a garbage heap. But there was other... junk.
Varik's eyes went wide. "No... way." He ran over to a pile of trash. He held up a bright red, cylindrical, faded... wrapper. "Is this... 'Prangyls'? 'Salty Snack-Sticks'?" He looked at Kaitri, his face a mask of awe. "This is First Migration, Kai! Pre-war! This is... this is vintage."
Kaitri just shook his head. 'Only Varik would care about antique chip wrappers.'
Then, Kaitri saw it.
In the back of the cavern, hidden from the entrance, was a small, alcove. Sitting against the wall, as if just resting, was a skeleton. It was clad in the tattered, rotted remains of an old-world, black-and-gold uniform.
"Frack..." Varik whispered, his treasure-hunt forgotten. "When did... when did he get here?"
Paul, for once, looked serious. "Why is this cave unexplored? Why isn't this on any map?"
"The Darkwood isn't a concern," Varik said, his voice hollow. "It's a prison. A dumping ground. Resonants don't come here to 'adventure.' They come here to train, kill, and get out. They stick to the known paths. They... they wouldn't just wander this deep."
Kaitri stared at the skeleton. At the man who had died alone, thirty years ago, cursed and abandoned.
'Lin Ye,' he thought, a strange sadness settling on him.
In the skeleton's gauntleted, bony hand, it was clutching a dark, leather-bound journal.
He found it.