It was much harder to come to for the second time.

Rows of lines about the battle’s results and unlocked achievements unlocked blinked green against the background of reigning darkness, but I had no strength, desire, or opportunity to study that information.

Something was happening.

The sound of deafening crashes echoed throughout the hall. Something collapsed. There was chaos all around me. A large, strong body flashed before my eyes, followed by an alarming roar, and fangs sank into my forearm. The Direcat. I felt her fear and ardent desire to get out of here. As soon as I grabbed her neck, Fury rushed somewhere upward. I immediately hugged her neck harder, leaning on her with my whole body. She scaled the crumbling wall in a desperate attempt to escape from something terrible that was behind her. Tinnie hung like a beacon a step ahead, illuminating Fury’s path.

When she pulled us both out of the deathtrap into which the collapsing den had turned after the Heart’s death, my fingers slipped from the dirty, felted fur. I buried my face in the snow. Jumping to my knees, I looked back and tried to locate the exit through the blizzard that was raging around us with a frenzied howl. Despite it being night outside and the raging bad weather, I saw enough.

On the snow-covered ground was a gaping breach, about sixty feet in diameter. In the depths of the black hole thousands of black-and-red shoots stirred furiously, pulling in snow, stones and soil and slowly filling it in. Something flashed inside this giant, worm-infested cesspit — another movement. I thought I saw a waving hand and a pair of red eyes. I think I heard a groan, too. Was that the Keeper?

I probably imagined it all. No creature would be able to get out of there. Crushed by the realization of what had just happened, I swore in regret. Fury saved my life, but all of my possessions remained down there: the sword, the backpack, the pipe, the escs...

Fury grabbed my shoulder with her teeth and pulled me almost demandingly.

She was right, it was better to get away. There would be time to grieve, as well as enjoy the achievements. Trying to ignore the icy wind that was whipping my face, I examined my shin. It wasn’t clear how the fracture healed itself, the bone seemingly glued itself together and was already covered with flesh, but the wound was still fresh and I could barely stand.

Hopeful, I looked around, but besides Fury and Tinnie who was hiding in her fur, there was not a single living soul around. No one rushed to help me. It was time to bury wishful thinking. The Lowlings had long left me behind and excluded me from their group. I would have to rely on my own strength. Actually, from now on, it would be for the best to always rely on myself. This was the only way to avoid unwarranted expectations from others.

In the end, I was no one to them, as they were to me.

In the meantime, the fissure continued to grow. The process would probably stop only once the surface is completely leveled and has taken on its original appearance. I was sure that it would be hard to even find traces of it in a few hours as everything would be covered with snow.

Fury…

I looked at her stats and smiled weakly, having no strength left for brighter emotions. Level twelve. Using her newly acquired strength, she managed to pull me out of the hole. I’ll find out how it happened later. For now, I needed to find a shelter. I opened my stats window, almost indifferently invested free points into Mount, raising it to rank 3, and somehow rose to my feet, grimacing from the sharp pain in my shin. Sensing my intentions, Fury turned her head to face me and looked at me almost intimidated.

“Be patient,” I could barely be heard through the howling wind. “A bit more and we will all rest. Okay?”

She sighed sorrowfully.

I had taken hold of her nape to crawl on her back when I heard a muffled tromp. Turning around anxiously, I looked for the source of the sound. In the distance, horse figures emerged from the whirlwind. They were quickly approaching us. Guttural cries sounded; the riders had clearly noticed me. Wait, riders? Centaurs! Those things were really patient! They had been waiting for me despite the bad weather! That’s why the Lowlings left!

Something hit my thigh with terrible force, knocking me down. The sky was spinning in front of my eyes, and my face was covered in snow. Wheezing from pain, I tried to get up as quickly as possible, realizing that every second of delay could be the last for me. But something was hindering me, pulling the disobedient foot to the ground, forcing me to stay, as if paralyzed. A spear. A heavy spear with a black, seven feet long shaft and an elongated jagged tip made out of some black metal.

Roaring in rage, I yanked the spear out of my thigh.

Weapon in hand and almost losing consciousness, I struggled to mount Fury. She didn’t disappoint me. Sighing noisily, she took off and we rushed through the blizzard in abrupt jumps, trying to outrun the chase.

Few minutes of frenzied jumping turned to be grueling torture, which was interrupted when one of the leaps over a snowdrift ended in a tumble and a fall into a ravine that we hadn’t seen in time. Having fallen off the Direcat and dropped the spear, I rolled over and burrowed my head into the snow. I immediately rose to my knees, anxiously looking out for my pet through the snow gusts. Weak, I trembled like a leaf in the wind — it was a lousy feeling and made me want to howl dreary. With a growl, Fury rose on all fours and shook her head in shock. Good! Tinnie shot out of a snowdrift, squealed and, like a shooting star, landed on my shoulder. Ignoring the dirt, she hastily climbed under my jacket and pressed herself against the skin near the collarbone, and calmed down.

Hearing the sound of hooves, I collapsed into the snow again, trying not to crush Tinnie and mentally ordering Fury to copy my maneuver. We had nothing to lose; in the state we were currently in, the Dions would defeat us in direct confrontation, so it was worth a try. And it worked. I heard no less than five individuals passing by the edge of the ravine and disappearing into the blizzard. This meant that the raid party had been divided to cover as much territory as possible and not miss us.

After waiting a few more seconds, I got on my knees and cautiously looked around. The steep slopes of the deep ravine stretched in both directions, as far as the eye could see. The terrain was familiar to me. I used to hunt with the Lowlings here. The camp couldn’t be far away then; a few hundred steps maybe, and a half of this distance could be covered by walking along the bottom of the ravine, hidden from the Dions’ prying eyes. The wind wasn’t blowing as hard down here, too. With such awfully limited visibility it was surprising that we hadn’t fallen into some hole even earlier. But that fall saved us.

However, the Dions were an arrogant bunch, I had to give them that. Hanging so closely around the hunting camp... Was no one going to teach them a lesson? Thinking about it, I mechanically licked the snow off my lips; my tongue was rough like sandpaper. Snow... Water. Thirst. And then I broke. I scooped up the snow and shoved it in my mouth, stopping only when I realized that I was starting to freeze; the snow wasn’t even melting on my fingers that had turned blue from the cold. Looking at my auras, I discovered that something new had appeared. New, but not all that helpful.

Snow Sustenance

HP and energy recovery increased by 5%.

Bleeding

You lose 0.5% HP every minute.

Hypothermia

Cold resistance reduced by 30%

Exhaustion

Reaction rate, HP and energy recovery reduced by 20%.

Exhaustion had been present in the lair already, but I was too occupied with other things to notice. A quick visual inspection of the damage didn’t improve my already sour mood. The wound on my hip no longer caused tearing pain, but was in no hurry to close; blood was still oozing out of it, soaking the leather rags and diminishing my already battered HP. Torn muscles would heal for a long time in this state, not to mention the fact that the bones hadn’t stuck together completely and ached painfully with the slightest movement, I felt like a rusty nail had been screwed in my hip. I was really not going anywhere on my own. And I was certainly not running. I had to put all of my hope into Fury.

But I still had something. I hurriedly took a flask from my belt and allowed myself a tiny, refreshing sip to “fix” my frozen throat. I smeared the wound on both sides of the thigh with the remaining potion, fingers crawling through the holes in my clothes. The flask was now empty. The pain began to subside after a few seconds. I could at least stand on my own now. After the lair’s acid infested air, the fresh air of the outside invigorated almost as well as a sip of the potion.

“Fury, come here.”

The Direcat moved closer, licking snow off her muzzle; misbehavior was contagious, it seems. She had the same auras as me. I fastened the rope from the trophy bola under her front paws, tying it at the withers to make something akin to reins. I then awkwardly climbed onto her back, clutching the improvised reins with my left and the spear with my right hand, which was dragging at my arm as if it weighed a ton. There was nothing surprising about that though as the Lance of the Convert was meant to be used at level 16. Equipping it, I immediately received Imbalance, a debuff that reduced dexterity and strength by 20%. It took a lot of effort just to keep the damn spear in my hand, but one couldn’t remain completely unarmed. So I had to endure.

We trotted along the bottom of the ravine. I wasn’t worried about the achievements or the bonuses received for having cleared the lair; I was driven only by one desire – to get to safety as quickly as possible. Alive, preferably.

The next ten minutes turned into a new torture session.

Rain had eroded the bottom of the ravine, exposing sharp stones, now deceptively sprinkled with snow, which we were sometimes able to go around, and sometimes had to jump over, with the risk of breaking Fury’s legs. Although Mount was at rank 3 one could never ride without practice; it needed to be driven into the muscles and subconscious, mine as well as Fury’s. An artificially developed skill still required practice, and practice required grinding.

It was becoming more and more difficult to resist the exhaustion, but I decided not to stop, to endure until I collapse. We would soon be out of the ravine. Judging by the map, there was still about a hundred steps till the hunting camp. Once the ravine turns west, we would go east. But as soon as Fury, with a convulsive jerk, overcame ten feet of the steep slope and climbed out into the icy embrace of a blizzard, I heard the approaching tramp of hooves yet again. These things were really stubborn!

“C’mon, Fury! Full speed ahead!”

Snarling, more exhausted than I was, Fury charged forward. Her legs, adapted to this terrain, made it possible to walk across the snowy blanket without falling deeply into it. Still, the snow hindered us; devouring the already insignificant remnants of strength. Looking around, I couldn’t see our pursuers, but I had no doubt that we had been discovered. However, the mountains were getting closer. The familiar outlines of the rocky slopes emerged from the gusts of snow, and then the dark entrance of the cave appeared. Just a little more. I hoped that I would get to see the Lowlings before a Dion makes a shish-kebab out of me. After all, the camp was never left unattended...

Damn, I forgot that it was the night shift, and that I would meet the Okhtans instead! But I had no other choice. I could only hope that the Dalrokt’s influence wouldn’t allow them to finish me off. The Dions, on the contrary, had no such moral obligations.

“Come on, Fury, dear, almost there!”