The woman’s large, amber eyes widened in fear as Morgan pulled the cloth away, and she struggled to writhe away from him. He held his hands out and, keeping his voice low and calm, said, “Easy, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help you get out of those ropes.” Her eyes darted around, but she seemed to stop panicking as she nodded quickly. Morgan reached forward, “I’m going to remove the gag first. Don’t yell, ’cause I don’t know how many more of these creeps are around.” He reached up and pulled the cloth away from the woman’s mouth, letting it settle around her neck. He was startled to see that, while her facial features were similar to a human’s, her teeth were not - overly large canines descended from her top gums and most of her other visible teeth were pointy as well.

“Thank you, but you’re right - there are many more of the Yeksa in this area. You should run.” Her voice was sharp and tinged with repressed pain. Morgan could only imagine how badly her leg hurt. He was also a little surprised he could understand her. He’d been speaking soothingly, hoping for her to at least comprehend his intentions, if not his words, but he understood her perfectly, and apparently, it went the same way for her.

“I guess we’re both speaking System, eh?” Morgan said as he started to work on the bindings around her wrists.

“Ancestors damn the System!” The woman hissed.

“Yeah, I’m not much of a fan, either. By the way, my name’s Morgan. I think I’m going to have to use this rope to tourniquet that leg. Jesus, those fuckers did a number on you.”

“My name is Issa. I think you should leave me. I’ll die soon without proper healing, anyway.” She grimaced in pain as Morgan jostled her leg, trying to get at the knot of the ropes binding her ankles.

“Nah, I’m not leaving you like this. We’ll figure something out.”

“We’re far too deep in this damned Crucible to find help, and I won’t be much use to you if we meet more of the Yeksa, or worse. I damaged my Core fighting beyond my means when I was captured.” Issa winced and bit off her last words in pain as the knot finally came loose, and Morgan gingerly unwound the tightly wrapped rope.

“Look, these Yeksa are dumb assholes, and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but, yeah, we need to do something about your leg. I’m going to stop the bleeding, and it’s going to hurt like a bitch,” Morgan said as he started to slip the rope gently around Issa’s upper right thigh. He could see her eyes widening in fear, but she just gripped her lavender-colored fists and stared past him at the ceiling. Morgan grimaced as he double wrapped the rope around Issa’s thigh. She wasn’t a big person, and he didn’t doubt his ability to staunch the blood seeping out of her mutilated thigh, but he knew it was going to hurt, and it was different hurting someone in the heat of a fight and hurting someone as they lay helplessly at your feet. “Hey, I’m about to tighten this thing. You want something to bite on?” Morgan looked around for something he could give her.

“Just do it, please, Morgan. My vision grows darker by the second.” Morgan nodded and pulled the rope as tight as he could. Issa hissed in pain but didn’t make any other sound.

“All right, let’s get you on your feet. Just a second,” Morgan said as he hurried back to the door and fetched the lantern he had set down in the hallway. When he brought the lantern back to Issa, his field of vision in the rough-hewn room was much more expansive, and he could see that some objects were lying around and against the wall. Some ratty furs were piled off to one side, and Morgan thought maybe it was a bed for the Yeksa. Leaning against one wall were two more rough spears. Neither was as long or straight as his but would serve as a crutch. He fetched one for Issa to use while he supported her other side.

She was light, and Morgan easily helped her get to her feet. She couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall and was very slight. Other than her odd coloring and predatory teeth, she looked much like a human. Her features were sharp, with a slightly upturned elfen nose and yellow eyebrows framing bright amber eyes. “Sorry, I’m kinda staring - you don’t look like people from where I come from.”

“I could say the same about you, Morgan,” Issa grunted, obviously more focused on her plight than her strange-looking new companion.

“Right, sorry,” Morgan said as he tried to support as much of her weight as he could. “Which way should we go?”

“I was hoping you’d know more than I. I was unconscious when they dragged me in here. Maybe we should explore this cave a bit further,” Issa said, gesturing deeper into the darkness. Morgan nodded, and they began to slowly and carefully shuffle deeper. Morgan couldn’t hold the lantern and his spear while holding Issa, so she insisted on just holding his shoulder with one hand and the spear with the other as she hobbled along at his side.

“You’re tougher than you look, Issa,” Morgan smiled as they advanced. She just grunted in response. The lantern light slowly revealed that the carved stone walls grew ever narrower as they moved, and soon the room was more of a corridor. Bits of stone and dirt were strewn about the floor. They proceeded this way for quite a while, with the tunnel becoming rougher the whole time as it began to wind in different directions, seemingly at random. Morgan couldn’t help noticing that it seemed to have a slight downward slope. “I dunno about you, but I was kinda hoping we’d be going up rather than down.”

“Yes, but the Crucible is not so easily departed, I’m afraid,” Issa whispered hoarsely.

“Just what the fuck is the Crucible, anyway?”

“It’s funny, Morgan, I can understand most of your words, but it seems you’re also using some vestiges of your old tongue. How do you not know what the Crucible is? You’re in it.”

“Huh, I guess the System didn’t translate some of my curse words. Oddly, that makes me feel better. Well, I don’t know what the Crucible is because my people are from another world, and the System decided to throw me in here without an explanation!”

“I don’t quite understand you, Morgan. The idea that the System is testing you is no surprise, though. We are insects to it, and it loves to toy with us, offering dreams of power to keep us playing along. We should be quiet, though - I find it harder and harder to speak, and we should not alert potential enemies to our presence,” Issa’s final few words were almost a hiss as she took a pained breath.

“Right, sorry! Hang in there - you’re going to make it.”

***Quest: Don’t let Issa die within 1 week. Reward: Energy Core Cultivation Manual, Improved Relations with Ardeni faction. Penalty for failure: Diminished Will efficacy - permanent.***

***Accept? YES/NO***

So the System was making him put his money where his mouth was, eh? Morgan almost smashed the YES out of sheer stubbornness, but he suddenly had a thought, “Issa, how long is a day on this world?”

“Um, that’s a strange question. A day is as long as it takes for the sun to rise and set, but, as I’m sure you know, the System measures days in 20 standard hours.”

“Well, actually, I didn’t know that. Much like I’m new to this world, I’m new to the System. How long is a ‘standard hour’?”

“A standard hour is seventy-five minutes. I suppose you want to know that a minute is 75 seconds. If you’re new to the System, I can see why this might be confusing. My grandfather had to relearn a lot when the System came to our world.”

“Ahh, thanks for the explanation. So is a second kind of like one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi?”

“I don’t know what a missy sippy is, but yes, that’s about how long a second is.”

“Right, right, thanks.” Morgan didn’t think about it long. It sounded like a week to the System was longer than a week on Earth, but not by a huge amount. He didn’t fully understand the reward or penalty being offered, but he didn’t care. “Fuck you, System. Accept.”

“What did you just do, Morgan?” Issa hissed. Before Morgan could reply, he heard the guttural sounds of some Yeksa talking or laughing or who knows what the hell they were doing; it all sounded the same to Morgan. He held his finger to his lips and pointed into the darkness. Issa nodded, and Morgan helped her lean against the tunnel wall, setting the lantern on the ground. He gripped his spear and moved to take a step into the darkness, but Issa grabbed his arm.

“Wait,” she whispered in a barely audible breath. She scrunched up her face in a grimace of concentration, then lifted her hand, two fingers extended, the others folded. She pressed her fingers to Morgan’s forehead and a few seconds passed while she concentrated, clearly trying to do something. Morgan was about to step away, worried the Yeksa would come around the corner at any second, when he felt a tingling warmth spread from Issa’s fingers into his forehead and down into his eyes. She pulled her hand away, panting, and he blinked rapidly. The once dark tunnel was now much brighter, highlighted in bright whites and grays; the lantern looked like a blooming white nova rather than a flickering yellow flame. “Dark vision!” Issa smiled with a weary sigh, “I can’t make it last long with my Core the way it is, but it should be long enough.”

Morgan nodded, gripped his spear, and advanced into the darkness. Well, not really darkness anymore. He still needed the light from the lantern behind him, but it was like the lantern was a sun. All the rocks and rough edges of the tunnel wall stood out in stark contrast to the shadows thrown by the light. He could see at least 50 feet into the tunnel and could see that it curved slightly to the left at first and then, at the extremity of his view, sharply. He quietly padded forward to the curve, listening to the guttural sounds of the Yeksa growing steadily nearer. He saw a bit of a crevice near the corner and jammed himself into it, quieting his breaths, willing himself to be invisible. In just a few seconds, the first Yeksa stepped around the corner. It was probably five feet tall, with the same pale gray skin as the first ones Morgan had encountered. It didn’t even glance to the side where Morgan hid as it caught sight of the lantern light coming from up the hallway. It crouched and brandished a rough-looking club motioning forward and hissing something in that rough, animalistic tongue. It started to creep forward as three more Yeksa came around the corner. They were all hyper-focused on the light coming from down the tunnel and passed by Morgan’s crevice without a glance.

Of the three Yeksa that joined the first, two wielded spears, and one had a dark, heavy-looking knife. Morgan waited for them to get a few yards up the tunnel before he slithered out of the crevice, and, before he could have second thoughts, he blasted his spear into the lower back of the knife-wielding Yeksa. It screamed, mortally wounded and flailing about, impaled on the spear. Morgan stepped forward, kicking out while pulling back on the spear, and launched the wounded creature sprawling into one of the spear wielders. The next few minutes were a blur of nightmare images: red-yellow eyes, sharp fangs, spears, and claws, and above all of it, Morgan roaring in rage and pain as he accumulated wounds and dished out devastating blows to the smaller creatures. When it was over, Morgan was smeared with blood, much of it his own, but the Yeksa were dead. He’d been gored through his left bicep by the second spear wielder, he’d been bitten at least four times, and it felt like his left hand had a couple of broken bones from when he’d blocked a flurry of blows from a club.

He bent over his knees, panting and taking stock of his injuries, as the familiar rush of golden motes rose from the five dead creatures and slammed into his chest. He could feel the Energy rushing through his body, and suddenly his exhaustion was forgotten. His throbbing injuries subsided to a dull ache, and he confirmed what he’d only suspected before - his wounds actually began to close, even the horrible puncture wound on his arm scabbed over and shrank to half its size like it had been healing for a week or more.

***Congratulations! You’ve achieved level 3 base human. You have 10 attribute points to allocate. You’ve learned Spear Mastery - Basic.***

As Morgan quietly walked back to Issa and the lantern, he called up his status sheet:

Status

Name:

Morgan Hall

Race:

Human - Base 1

Class:

—

Level:

3

Energy Affinity:

9.2

Energy:

52/0

Strength:

6

Vitality:

8

Dexterity:

8

Agility:

7

Intelligence:

12

Will:

10

Points Available:

10

Titles & Feats:

Human Champion

Skills:

System Language Integration - Not Upgradeable, Spear Mastery - Basic