Hump rushed to his feet before he knew what he was doing, pressing his hand against Lucile’s mouth and muffling her screams.

“Lucile, please, you need to stay calm. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re on the same side. Please, you need to listen to me for a moment.”

She fought him and he cursed. She wasn’t a threat, there was hardly any strength left in her, but she showed no hint of understanding. No sign that her mind had returned and that this was more than instinctual fear.

Hump hushed her as calmly as he could, peering past her into the cave, toward the doorway he knew was out there in the darkness. He waited for the creak of the door he’d grown so accustomed to, the gorger’s footsteps to echo through the chamber, and the red glow to light its way.

He looked back at Lucile, staring her dead in the eyes. “Please Lucile. You have to understand. You have to be in there. If you keep screaming it will come for us, and then there’s nothing I can do. The only way we can survive this is if we work together and we stay quiet.”

She stopped struggling so much, or she ran out of strength. Hump couldn’t tell which. His stomach was twisted into a knot.

“Tell me you understand,” Hump pleaded. “Tell me you’re still in there.”

For the first time, she stared back at him. Not with hollow, empty eyes, but with understanding. Tears welled in her eyes. The screams stopped and she started breathing heavily. Everything about her reminded him of a caged animal, ready to fight or flee in a wild panic. There was so much confusion. So much terror. Emirai’s mercy, how did he even start to explain what had happened to her? How did he help her? What did she understand?

“Lucile?” Hump probed.

She nodded shakily.

Hump let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I’m going to take my hand away. I know you must be terrified, but you can’t scream. There are monsters around. We can’t let them hear us.”

A tear ran down her cheek but she nodded again. Hump took his hand away and she stepped back from him, until the walls pressed up behind her. She crumbled to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest, reminding him of the terrified villagers they’d found in the kobold den.

He didn’t know what to say. He was terrible at this. Celaine had comforted the villagers before, and Bud had given them hope. Hump… he was just a hedge wizard. His master hadn’t trained him for this.

“I know what happened to you was terrible,” he said quietly. “It will only get worse if we don’t get out of here, which is why we need to escape before it realises what happened. Do you understand, Lucile?”

She was silent for a long few seconds, then, without looking up, asked, “What’s your name?” Her voice was barely a croak.

“My name?” Hump said, the suddenness of her question catching him off guard. “Hump. My name is Hump, short for Humphrey. I’m a wizard.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and took a long, quivering breath, then let it out. “Where—” She broke into a violent fit of choughs, choking and dry heaving. “Gods above,” she wheezed. “What happened to me?” She looked at her skinny body and her eyes went wide. “I look like death.”

Hump frowned, not sure how much to tell her. “Do you not remember anything?”

“I…” she trailed off, holding her head in her hands. “I don’t know what I remember.” She pressed her eyes shut. “It hurts to think.”

Hump decided to start with only what she needed to know. Now wasn’t the time to add stress to an already horrifying situation is he didn’t have to.

“We were both trapped by a creature known as a gorger,” Hump said. “You a little longer than I. From what I’ve seen of its power so far, I’d put it somewhere between Tier 5 and Tier 6 in strength.”

Her eyes were wide. “Tier 6… How? This is Sheercliff, how could there possibly be a Tier 6 creature anywhere close to it?”

“It travelled a long way to find us.”

“I… I remember being with my party,” she said. “We were searching for these spirit creatures. They’d been attacking the town. Is everyone okay?”

Hump hesitated. Perhaps it was better she didn’t remember, at least for now. It seemed his moment’s thought was enough for her to catch on that he was hiding something though.

“What is it, Hump?” she said seriously. “What happened to my party?”

“They’re fine,” he lied. “They managed to escape and reach the town. My party were called in once news of a more serious attack came out.”

He couldn’t tell her that she had caused their deaths. That she had used them as sacrifices to open a gateway to another world, and then stepped through to the very beast that now held her prisoner. Not here. Not when both their lives relied on them remaining sound of mind.

It felt wrong, but he didn’t know her. From their brief encounter, she seemed tough. She reminded him of Celaine in a way. Despite all the horror that had happened to her, she was focused. She had an adventurer’s mindset, even now. It was part of the life that bad things happen. Which only made him feel worse about not telling her.

“Good. I’m glad.” She hugged her legs, taking slow, deep breaths as she tried to calm herself. “Are we as doomed as I feel?”

“Would I have tried this hard to help you if we were?”

Hump snuck to the end of the cell, looking out into the cavern beyond, searching both directions of the darkness. Lucile had dropped her lightsource on the ground. A stick of red crystal a few inches long. This was no castle dungeon, it was more like a cave. The door Lucile always entered through was a short distance up a slope to the right, while the cave went on to the left beyond where he could see. Perhaps that’s where he’d find the townsfolk.

“How long have I been here?” Lucile asked.

“I’m not sure how long I’ve been here, let alone you,” Hump said, trying to dodge the question.

“That’s not an answer.”

Hump looked at her, only to find her studying. He suddenly felt very conscious of his nakedness.

“We’re no longer in the human realm, are we?” she said.

“No. Time passes differently here. As far as I can tell, I’ve been here about a month in this world’s time. You’ve likely been here more than twice that. I know you must have a lot of questions, but right now we need to move. Can you walk?”

She dragged herself to her feet using the wall for support. “I’m alright.”

“Then follow me. If something jogs your memory, tell me. Anything at all would be better than searching this place blind.”

He decided to go right first. The doorway the gorger and Lucile always used would likely lead further into its stronghold, but he had no idea what the right side of the chamber might hold. Hump tried not to think about the smell as he crept through the dark. He’d seen his fair share of death, and he knew its stench, even when it was only faint. He wondered how many other souls the gorger had tormented in its dungeons.

The air was still, and Hump quickly gave up hope of finding an exit here. They’d gone about a hundred paces when they found another cell. Hump’s heart hammered as Albry’s emaciated corpse stared back at him. His eyes were hollow, his flesh sunken and skin stretched across the bones until it was as pale as a ghoul.

From the looks of the body, the gorger had drained him of all the lifeforce it could, then simply left the body to die on its own. There was blood on his fingers, and the nails were chipped and broken. He’d tried to dig his way out. It was likely dehydration that finally did it—a horrible way to go. Hump wondered how he’d not heard him, but the gorger had shown what damage he had done to the priest. Perhaps there had been nothing left.

Lucile jumped at the sight, suppressing a scream with a hand over her mouth. She staggered back, catching her balance against the wall and moving out of sight.

“Gods above,” she whispered. “I didn’t think… I didn’t know there were more.”

“Seems he got lucky,” Hump said. “The gorger told me his death would be far slower than this. I guess it got hungrier than usual.”

“You know who this is?”

Hump paused. “High Priest Albry.”

Lucile touched her forehead then swept her hand in a half circle to her chest—the symbol of the Pantheon. “How?”

“We were both captured at the same time. He’d been working for the creature.”

Something must have triggered in Lucile’s mind, as she stepped back, panic in her eyes.

“No, no, no,” Hump said, gesturing with his palms as if that would somehow calm her, practically panicking himself. “Don’t get like that. We’re going to get out of this. I promise. The gorger’s gone after the town again. It’s distracted, and a long way from here. Keep it together and we can do this.”

“I’m fine,” she said quietly. “I’m together. Sorry.”

Hump sighed. “Don’t apologise. You’re already doing fantastic.” Even as he said it, Hump realised how close he was to breaking himself. Only a mixture of desperation and determination held him together. He wasn’t just doing this for himself. He’d suffered for a reason, now he had to see it through. “Come on, let’s head back that way. There’s a door.”

Hump led the way, holding the red crystal overhead. Stone steps led up to a metal doorway above. It had a large bolted lock.

“Do you have a key on you?” Hump asked.

Lucile pulled out a key around her neck without hesitation, then stared down at it, confused. “How did I know where it was?”

“You’ve used this door before,” Hump said. “You brought me food. Or, this place’s equivalent at least.” He inserted the key but struggled with the lock.

“Here, let me.” Lucile took it and adjusted the key, then turned with the same heavy click.

Hump jerked at the sound. Even now, it triggered painful anxiety. It was the sound he heard before the torment began. He gulped and forced the thought down. Lucile seemed to be struggling with thoughts of her own.

She sighed, almost seeming disappointed that she’d been right. “Seems I remembered something after all.”

“Do you think you can find your way around? I want to find my gear.”

She pulled the door open with a creak, revealing a tunnel on the other side. Hump’s heart beat faster as the sound echoed through the chamber, quieting until all that remained were whispers, fading in and out like the distant voices of the dead. Beyond the door, the walls of the gorger’s hallways were smooth. A sign that they’d been carved out with earth magic. There were only a few doors along the way, and a wall of solid stone at the end.

“I think it’s in one of these rooms,” she said.

They crept inside, slowly opening the doors to each room as they went. Freezing like rabbits at the slightest sound. It became clearer to Hump that this was no evil castle. It was more like an improvised stronghold, a mixture of natural caves and tunnels likely created by the gorger. Nothing but necessities. It was a place to survive. As inconspicuous as it could be to avoid others finding it.

What is there that makes a gorger hide? Hump wondered.

As they wandered the rooms, they encountered no resistance. Two were empty, and no bigger than his cell. One was full of old and broken bones, that reminded him of the cave. It seemed the gorger kept pets. The next opened to the largest room yet, the gorger’s treasury, if it could be called that. There were chests of stone with no visible lock, and display cabinets made of uneven glass panes.

“Quickly,” Lucile said. “I have a terrible feeling about this. We shouldn’t be here.”

Hump nodded, rushing inside. “I need to find my staff and spellbook. See if you can find yourself a weapon. Anything that we can use.”

The content of the cabinets seemed random. A few appeared to be artefacts, while most were clearly non-magical. Wooden charms, a necklace of human fingers, a vaguely human skull with fangs instead of teeth. He tried to open one of the chests, but there was no seam or lock that he could see. He guessed it was sealed by some kind of magic.

As he rounded one of the displays, he spotted a pile of clothes in one corner and hurried over. Searching the pile was an eerie feeling, like he was sifting through the belongings of those long dead. He wondered if the townsfolk had lost their clothes here too, then forced himself to think of himself. This was a time to be selfish. He found his robes and boots amongst them. The robes were torn apart and of no use anymore, but the boots weren’t any worse off than before. He considered donning the rags anyway, when he spotted a pale green robe on a peg nearby. Clearly something the gorger prized above the rest.

Hump took it and wrapped himself in it. It had grown dusty and dull with age, but it was of good wool and lined with fine linen, far better quality than his old one. While it was a bit long for him, it would do well.

“I think I found something,” Lucile called.

He hurried over to her to find a corner section with a series of weapons racks and wall mounts, stuff full of all sorts of weapons. Hump spotted a basket full of staves and spotted his own amongst them. He took it eagerly, stroking the polished wood, eyeing it for any damage and finding little but scratches in the varnish.

“This is it,” he said. He looked at the other staves. None were very impressive. He supposed only the weak wizards and Chosen would get trapped here by the gorger. He picked out one that seemed to be of decent quality and handed it to Lucile. “You’re a sorcerer right, this one might do for you.”

She took it and gripped it in both hands. He felt her essence stir and the four runes lit along the shaft, then shone white in the focus at the top. She seemed to come alive a little with the awakening of her power. She stared into the focus, her eyes reflecting the white light.

“I can use this,” she said.

“Good. Now I just need to find my spellbook.”

Hump heard a quiet thud. His gut pushed him toward it like a sixth sense. He followed it to a bookshelf nearby and heard another thud. His eye was drawn to the spellbook on the table, so unlike his own. The leather covering was worn and coming apart at the edges, and the pages were torn and crumbling in places. He walked closer, drawn to it, recognising it as his own through his bond. It was opened to a page on foundation magic, nothing a gorger would be interested in, and not a page he was familiar with. For a moment, he doubted himself, then it jerked again. Hump felt a jolt in his chest, unlike anything he had felt from it since it had first bonded him.

As he took the book, it tugged on his essence. The leather restored before his eyes—still aged, but no longer falling apart. The pages whirled, becoming whole once more, opening to a new page.

Spellbook

Compact Formations

Description: Spell formations can now directly be cast from this book up to Tier 1.

Hump stared at it. The next function of his spellbook. Another piece of proof that this hadn’t been for nothing. He’d grown stronger. His soul had grown stronger. And the book recognised that.

It also showed him that this place had truly changed him. He just wondered how much.