Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 4 Days 9 Hours

Goal: Save Tarquin

Nic woke up with red dust in his mouth. He spat, coughing, and crawled free of the sand drift that had buried him. All around him were walls of rough brown stone.

“Sofia?” He asked. His whole body was a mass of aches and pains. “Please tell me that this dream shit doesn’t happen to cultivators all the time.”

“A certain amount of visions are part of a cultivator’s spiritual journey. But that was a rather unique attack on your soul. I’m glad you were able to come back from it.”

“And Tarquin?”

“I- I can’t tell you yet. I’m sorry Nic-”

“Sofia…”

“I’m really and truly sorry, but you have to visit the Tutelary Statue of the human camp or the Invader’s Totem. That’s the only way to receive messages from beyond this planet.”

“Sofia, I get it.” He ran a hand along his face. Whatever Sofia had done to intervene in the fight, the cost was clear. Sharp edges of crystal ran from the corners of his eye along his blunt, slimy head in a long ridge of glittering blue. “I trust you. I know you’d help me if you could.” He reached into his bag and dug out an Esper Fruit to slow the growth, but there was no undoing the damage already done.

The wound on his arm had mostly healed, but it was also clearly slower than his usual regeneration. The actual meridians and aura-channels around the cut had been burst open by the invading aura as it attacked his soul, leaving a kind of spiritual scarring.

Dawn had passed while he was unconscious. The ring on his finger had turned to gold, and Nic felt as if all the aura in his body had turned to a warm, comforting fire. Like a sun inside his chest. Powerful, but burning through much more of his energy with every use of his Shards.

Cutting away the finger was definitely an option. But for now… Nic would try the ring’s borrowed strength out.

He looked to his left hand. Steadfast’s shield was broken to pieces. There was no longer anything but shards left hanging from his arm. With a sigh he said goodbye to his loyal soldier and peeled the remnants away.

There was no time to slow down now. Tarquin needed him and he needed to leave this valley behind.

Advancing into the caves, Nic noted that the walls were coated in a thin layer of sparkling red crystal, smooth and hard like dried tree-sap. It felt organic as he brushed his hands across it.

Pyrewarden Phlegm. G-Class // Material. A natural form of low explosive, this hardened spittle is excreted by the Pyewarden Salamander and used to guard its nests. While stable against impact and most other stimulus, the slightest spark of fire will cause it to ignite.

“Iiiinteresting.”

Double checking the part that said it was stable against impact, Nic began to chip and scrape away at the hardened layers of red crystal - careful not to make a spark against the stone below as he filled his bag with shards of explosive spittle.

“Do you remember which direction we went? Because right now, I’m lost.” His mental map was in disarray. He knew the remaining fountain-sources were north and north-west of the tower where he’d fought the Guardian, but as for where he’d headed in his blind stumble across the desert, that was a mystery.

“No, but I can tell you that one of the fountain’s springs is close. Look at all this.” The caverns glittered and glowed. “This is all organic, which would take access to large amounts of water.”

Nic brightened up. “Say. It’s almost like you’re smart or something.”

He delved deeper, slipping from shadow to shadow as he explored the winding underground passageways. Every now and then from some distant corridor there’d be a flare of light and heat would billow out, as if the caverns were the lungs of a dragon, filling up with flame.

His skin almost blistered when one of the eruptions went off nearby, the wave of pressure rolling him across the ground as his ears popped and filled with blood.

This place was a death trap. As his skin shed away and a new layer regrew, he pulled himself up, shaking his head until the ringing stopped and sound faded back in.

Staring down the charred, ash-filled tunnel at him, was a small lizard.

It stood on its hindlegs and hissed, tongue flickering out. White-and-orange spotted crests to either side of its blunt, flat head flared outwards, looking like the wings of a butterfly. Each of its hands had a single heavy, curved claw extending from the middle finger, and it tapped them together as it stared at the invader in its home.

The beast hissed again, trying to menace him.

Pyrewarden Basiliscus. G-Class // Demi-Sentient. This small, unassuming lizard produces a spittle that hardens quickly into a crystallized explosive. Lining its nests with this flammable stuff, it produces a spark with its pronounced foreclaws to ignite the explosive when threatened. A pouch of liquid phlegm in its belly detonates shortly after death, taking predators with them.

“Awww. Look at that cutie.” Nic was not fazed for an instant.

“Nic, I regret to inform you, it essentially looks like a smaller you.”

“Bah. I’m handsome, not cute.” It felt good to laugh. What he’d been through in the dream-

Feeling that way could be a downwards spiral. Anger and regret could just collect inside like poison. They had been poisoning Nic for years. Even though the dream had nearly killed him, it had finally rattled something free in the process, and he felt like he’d spat up the venom that had accumulated in his heart.

And now he was going to chase a lizard.

Chase a lizard. Find a fountain. Escape the valley. Save Tarquin. All of that in a day’s work.

And still kill Baby Boots, if he had the time.

Nic dropped to all fours and shot forward, rotating his cultivation base and feeding energy down into his leg to burst across the ground. The lizard chirped, and ran up the walls, trying desperately to escape as Nic bounded after it.

They darted down the corridor. Nic dove, grabbing hold of it by the belly. Its arms and legs struggled at the air as it squeaked in alarm.

He looked up.

A huge, horned version of the struggling gecko in his arms stared down at him. Its stony claws were the length of scythe-blades and the bristling spikes above its eyebrows made it significantly less cute. Its rubbery lips opened and let out a menacing growl.

“Oh no. I’m not giving the cute one back.” Nic pulled the baby gecko into his arms. “This little guy is going to make me-” His scarf wrapped around the struggling creature. “Looots of explosives.”

The growl went deeper. The beast began to click its claws together, producing little showers of sparks. Nic watched them hit the floor and winced.

There were trailing veins of explosive crystal all over the floor and walls. The entire cavern was covered in the stuff. Waiting to go off like a powderkeg.

Nic scrambled backwards as the tiny lizard chirped and bleeped in the folds of his scarf. “Easy big guy.”

There was a chance he could take out the big one with a fast strike, but the death-triggered blast would still turn him into a barbecue. He just slowly, slowly retreated, edging towards the cavern’s exit. His eyes stayed fix on those stony claws as they scraped against one another, producing fluttering little sparks.

It was smart after all.

It knew it had one real shot to kill him, and that Nic was definitely something new, something scary. Angering him might not be worthwhile if he’d just go away on his own.

On the other hand…

Killing him was worth three Shards, and all the Essence it could eat from his flesh.

He saw the decision take place behind its beady eyes. Its claws lifted up ready to strike down and fill the cave with fire.

And in the instant before they descended, Nic spat a glob of adhesive and stuck one arm to the low stone ceiling. Nic didn’t wait for it to get free - and he didn’t bother going for the kill. He flipped onto his feet and ran like a devil.

Behind him the beast tore free and struck its claws together. One flame became a roaring inferno and Nic barely kept ahead as the fire rushed after him, a chain reaction that built as it ate up more and more of the flammable spit-explosive-

Until even as he slid under a ledge of stone and the flame burst by overhead, the pressure was enough to make his skin begin to boil. With a howl of pain he activated the Wintertusk Bracer and the Sun God’s Plate, a golden shield leaping up to protect him from the burning torrent of golden-white fire as his skin turned hard and resistant.

The fire passed, flickering out. In the stone tunnel there was nothing to burn - but by the same token it ate up all the air and left the oxygen thin, Nic gasping and panting, his lungs burning from the leftover heat as he tried to get enough breath to not pass out.

Rolled up in his scarf, the baby Pyrewarden peeped like a chicken.

“Yeah yeah…” Nic gasped. “You’re adorable…”

And the ability to make explosives on command was well worth the trouble. He staggered to his feet, the earth around him scarred with black burn marks as smoke drifted through the air.

Nic looked up.

A statue of a snake-headed goddess stood at the center of a vast cavern. All throughout the enormous cave, which was the size of a cathedral, shallow pools were full of dripping water and colorful metals. Shining metallic purples, blues, and greens lined the bottom of each basin, the result of the water slowly falling from above carrying down trace deposits of minerals.

The result was a lake of sulfur-smelling water divided into rainbow pools.

Huge pillars of stone that looked like melting candles lifted up from the floor, and the earth was littered with bodies. They weren’t human. Instead, they were the same kind of brown-scaled frog-person that Nic had encountered above, the assassin who’d flung the ring at him. They lay face down in the water, long dead.

A single creature stood beneath the statue. It was a huge golem made out of bismuth crystals, with twisting squared spirals running across the surface its skin as the color of its metallic body shifted through every possible color.

Nic stared at it from the balcony ledge he stood on. It was guarding a sword stuck into the base of the statue, just like the River-Drinker had been.

“Nah. You know, this time. Let’s skip the fight.”