Well that...sucks.

The obvious implication of the lack of more footprints was that Backlebutt had fallen into the ravine, presumably to his doom. Even if he’d made it into the water’s flow unscathed, the channel was narrow. If it curved even a little, it could send him slamming against the walls. One good knock to the head, and he was a goner.

Milo’s one ray of hope for the man at this point was that maybe the water wasn’t moving as swiftly and violently as it sounded. He’d been spelunking in caves with flowing water before, and the sound it made was out of all proportion to how powerful the current had actually been, magnified by the close stone walls.

Backlebutt’s fate aside, there was something odd going on here; Milo had checked the roos’ prints again as well, and all of those had made it across the ravine, casting doubt on Milo’s prior belief that they had even been chasing the man in the first place.

Although, if they hadn’t been chasing him, then what motive would Backlebutt possibly have had for jumping in the water? It really wasn’t that far of a gap to jump; if he went in, it was almost certainly intentional. That implied that he had been chased, and dove in intentionally to shake his pursuers...who had gone on ahead, rather than retreat to their previous haunts or jumping in after him. Why? Milo had no answers.

The real question is, which way do I go now?

The obvious way was forward; no sane person jumped into treacherous waters and just hoped for the best, and Milo had always prided himself on his sanity. However, he had another option in that he could simply skim above the water’s surface on his book.

There were two problems with that idea, however. The first was that he didn’t fully trust his balance; a spill into a turbulent underground river could quickly be his end. The second was that there wasn’t any light that direction; he could fly straight into a wall or low-hanging rock he never saw coming. Who knew how long the channel had open airways above it which he could traverse?

On the other hand, Backlebutt had almost certainly gone that way, so that was a point in favor of following the water. Also, there was bound to be a large pack of skeleroos somewhere along the tunnel’s intended path, which could be trouble for Milo.

However, he had an awesome skill now. A pack of skeleroos, even a large one, would frankly be an essentially free bundle of XP at this point—assuming he didn’t make any mistakes. Knowing himself, he honestly probably would, but he had a pretty good margin for error with a guided kinetic missile on his side. He didn't take long to decide.

Forward it is. Fair winds and following seas, Backlebutt.

The saying came unbidden to his mind, dredged up from when he’d worked in US Navy intelligence. He’d hated that job. Six miserable years. Well, five. There might have been one good year total mixed in with all the bad, but honestly, fighting for his life in a dungeon on a strange planet was way better. Worse benefits, though.

At peace with his decision to follow after the roos, he took off his pack and heaved it across the ravine before jumping over himself. He could have used the book to float to the other side, but he trusted his legs here, and he was at seven mana currently. He wanted to stay pretty close to full if he was going to be fighting a large group of enemies.

He kept on, a touch slower now, willing to take the time and effort to descend some of the rougher spots manually instead of flying down now that he was being more cautious with his mana.

Perhaps twenty minutes later, Milo’s environment underwent a major transformation. To his surprise, the tunnel he was walking in abruptly let out into a vast cavern that was, if not bright, at least not nearly as dark as the tunnels had been.

He couldn’t see the whole thing, or at least not the bottom half. His immediate vicinity was surrounded by tightly spaced clusters of enormous stalagmites, rising up like the trunks of huge trees shorn of leaf and branch. Innumerable stalactites of varying size and shape clung from the ceiling far overhead. It was a spectacular sight, but something about it bothered Milo.

After several moments staring around in puzzlement, he finally realized what it was: the light. There was no obvious source. It just sort of was, defying logic. The weirdest part of it was the shadows. They certainly existed. However, when he looked in the direction where common sense suggested the light must lay based on those shadows, his eyes found only the empty air in the center of the cavern.

Weird. Must be magic.

...Okay I guess that’s not so weird, considering where I am.

Shrugging mentally, Milo walked slowly forward, stepping quietly. He was wary of this new, strange environment.

He was currently in a small clearing at the tunnel’s exit, like a delta at a river’s end. Beyond that delta was an ocean of stalagmites. In that ocean there might be sharks. Metaphorical sharks. Hopefully.

Do I really want to walk through that? There were several openings in the veritable wall of natural spires, but he couldn’t see more than a few steps in any of them before another stalagmite rose up in the way. It looked like it would be incredibly easy to get lost in there.

Or...I could fly.

That seemed like a much better option to Milo. It was hard to tell for certain from this angle, but it looked like it might be possible to land on the tops of some of these stalagmites if he needed to. There really didn’t seem to be a downside other than the mana expenditure, and he was sitting at nine and nearly at full.

He’d been making a point of having zero downtime on his mana regeneration in the hopes that spending enough of the magical resource would somehow get him a mage class like Skim had hinted. If his mana was ever at 10, that meant he wasn’t pursuing that goal as efficiently as possible. Therefore, it was time for him to spend a mana point anyway.

Air squatting on the book and gripping it with his hand reaching between his legs, Milo activated Fetch Book and slowly raised himself up off the ground.

He’d had a decent amount of practice with it by now, but it was still unnerving to know that he was supported only by a textbook and a magical skill he’d had for just a few hours—especially when he reached the tops of the stalagmites a dozen or so feet off the ground. This was the highest he’d ever gone. After making the poor decision to glance down, his hand began to sweat counterproductively.

Doing his best to ignore the unsettling distance between himself and the hard stone floor, he urged the book up and forward so he could get a better view down into the dense forest of stalagmites. What he saw made him glad that he’d chosen to fly.

There was definitely a path through, but it meandered all over the place and branched off into dead ends. Also, roaming through the entire thing were...ostriches?

I thought this was ‘down under’. Aren’t ostriches an African thing?

He flew over to the biggest stalagmite he could see that was next to one of the creatures and touched down atop it so he could study the odd bird.

Honestly, it just looked like an ostrich mixed with a nightmare. It was fully fleshed, unlike the skeleroos, and had pitch-black feathers that didn’t look quite right; they were too rigid and angular, glinting faintly in the cavern’s strange light. It also appeared to have a single ridged, mohawk-looking horn that was practically as big as the entire rest of its head. Most striking, however, were the glowing red demonic eyes above a wickedly sharp beak.

Cool.

Of course, if he were down there next to it he’d probably be crapping his pants, but he had the high ground and ostriches weren’t exactly famed for their flying abilities.

Guess I’ll kill it now.

He had a few more seconds remaining on Fetch Book; he spent another mana, which, he was pleased to note with his sense of the skill, actually added on to the duration of the previous activation rather than replacing it. That meant he wouldn’t have to be precise with activating the skill when, for instance, he wanted to fly for an extended duration efficiently and didn’t want to accidentally screw up and drop out of the sky between activations.

With no further ado, he maneuvered the book over to where he could get a straight shot at the creature’s long, vulnerable neck from behind and summarily blasted in for the kill. It promptly dropped with a fwump. However, it apparently wasn’t dead because Milo received no experience or kill notification. It wasn’t moving; he must have paralyzed it.

He lifted the book a couple meters before driving it down hard onto the creature’s skull, lying against the stone floor. That did it, finally bringing up the expected system message.

-

Congratulations! You have slain a level 4 Very Scary Cassowary. You have gained 40 experience.

-

Milo snorted at the rhyme. Cassowary. Some kind of Australian ostrich I’ve never heard of?

He drew the book back up to himself so that he could fly down and inspect the creature more closely.

It didn’t look nearly as impressive lying motionless on the ground, its neck at an awkward angle and the red glow faded from its eyes. Milo bent down to touch one of the odd feathers.

As soon as he did, he hissed and drew his hand back. Sharp. He examined his finger, a drop of blood pooling where he’d been pricked.

-

You have been poisoned.

-

Milo blanched. You have got to be kidding me. He waited hopefully for more information from the system, for some kind of indication of how bad he could expect it to be. The system remained silent.

Shit. This could be bad. This could be really really bad. He could feel his heart rate rapidly increasing as a profound panic arose within him...which was probably just spreading the poison around faster.

Oh god. What do I do here? Can I suck it out? No that doesn’t actually work, I read about that. Do I cut off my finger? No, that’s stupid, I’d need an axe or a saw and also I like my finger and it would hurt. Milo looked around wildly. What if he passed out here? He’d be easy pickings for any wandering cassowary. Around him, spires of rock loomed, casting threatening shadows that could hide more of the nightmarish birds.

I gotta get away from here! He nearly bolted before remembering he could fly, grabbing his book and rocketing up to his previous perch atop the stalagmite at a speed that was far from safe. Once there, he looked back down and nearly passed out in terror at the drop to the floor, dropping to his stomach and splaying his limbs out wide for extra balance.

He stayed in that position, mind blank with fear for at least a full minute before a niggling thought finally made it past the all-encompassing panic.

Wait a second. I’m not afraid of heights.

He had a healthy caution, to be sure, but never in his life had it inspired terror in him like it was doing now. Granted, he could potentially pass out from the poison and fall off the stalagmite while unconscious, but he hadn’t really thought that through until just now; the fear he’d felt had been instinctive and magnified beyond all reason.

And that’s when he figured it out; the cassowary’s name was more than just a stupid rhyme. Their poison literally made him terrified of everything.

The realization brought a modicum of relief, but he was still under the effects of the poison and his mind was running full-tilt down every “what-if” rabbit hole.

What if it’s more than just fear? What if it kills me, or does permanent damage to my heart or something? What if all the other cassowaries can smell my fear, and they actually can fly? Or what if it’s not just cassowaries in here? What if there are giant vampire bats on the ceiling waiting to swoop down and suck me dry now that I’m paralyzed in fear? That thought caused him to glance up in paranoia, but he saw nothing. They could be invisible. Invisible vampire bats. No, that’s ridiculous. Is it?

He remained trapped atop the stalagmite in a cage of mind-shredding panic for what felt like an eternity, but which was actually more like ten minutes before the poison ran its course.

-

You are no longer poisoned.

-

And just like that, he could think rationally again. Damp with sweat and shaking off the last tremors of fear, Milo peeled himself off the domed surface of the stalagmite and looked around wide-eyed.

Holy crap. That was a trip.