Death was cold. It was quiet, and it was dark. Unable to swim, Jake accepted his fate as he drowned. Unable to breathe, see, or save himself- Jake could feel the sand in his hourglass run out. As the last sips of oxygen in his lungs ran out, the boy gasped, gurgling as the thick goo of Dragon Vein essence flooded down his throat. His eyes rolled as he choked, unable to cough or scream. He felt his lungs burn and his throat scalded as his body struggled to the very last moment. However, his body had long since ceased its flailing. He sank deeper and deeper into the dark of the pool, falling far from the surface and the safety of Chul’s reach. The pressure intensified on his body and the chill of the water soaked into his bones.

“Chul…” The only thing he could think of in his last moment was his friend- the Guardian whom he had met in this dark underworld. Their time together had been painfully short and rather dull. In that short period, though, Chul had always been close by. Close enough to help Jake along and protect him from himself. A true friend, an even better Guardian, and a warrior until the last moment. Jake had never seen such an individual before. Not even his father was so gallant. And of all people, it had been an Arachkin. A monster.

The world was truly vast, wasn’t it, Chul? Large enough for someone like you to exist. Someone who was cursed from the start, abandoned by the world, and left to this foul pit. Someone cast away from their family and left to fend for themselves. How old were you, Chul? Was it scary, to be left all alone in the dark? Did it hurt when they turned on you? How did you learn your magic? Was it out of necessity? Did you have to learn it to survive down here?

As his mind rolled, Jake reached up towards the surface, extending it towards the very faint speck of light well off in the distance. Jake’s hand bled from the injury caused by Chul’s leg when the Arachkin shoved him into the water. The last image Jake saw of his companion was Chul’s silhouette before the explosion blanked out his view. By the time the light went out above the surface, Jake was too far down to see beyond the green glow. There were no vibrations after that explosion, so Jake assumed that the fighting had ended. Was the Maudrake dead? Probably not, since it was Magic Resistant…

So Chul was probably still fighting it, wasn’t he?

“...Chul…” Jake closed his eyes, his vision fading as his head felt light. The burning in his chest went numb and his body began to shut down on him. His extended hand went limp.

Even as he was surrounded by the thick glob of the Dragon Vein’s essence- he felt the edges of his eyes grow hot.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Thump. Thump.

Thump. ThumpThump. Thump! THUMP!

Jake’s eyes opened wide and he coughed- hard. The cough turned to a gag, followed by a painful wrenching as his body purged the liquid in his airways. His body was pushed over onto his side and a heavy impact struck his back, coaxing him to vomit more of the liquid. His throat burned and his body ached, shaking wildly from how cold he felt. His muscles cramped, his chest squeezing violently as his lungs struggled to empty. He continued to wheeze and hack. His throat tightened and his eyes rolled as he emptied his guts onto the cold rock floor.

“Alive.” A voice whispered behind him.

“Alive.” Another voice answered. Jake’s eyes lazily rolled to his left as he tried to see who was speaking. Before he moved much, his stomach clenched and he threw up again. More green slob emptied from his insides, adding to the pool which was gathering next to him. He felt heinous.

“Safe.” A third, lighter voice spoke up. Jake felt the hands steadying him change from large and calloused, to small and frail. After several minutes of puking, Jake groaned and shivered. There wasn’t anything left, he hoped. He was lowered onto his back and was surprised by the sight in front of him.

Three humanoid creatures, all pale-skinned with one single eye in the middle of their faces. They had small mouths and small frames, and their skin was pulled taut over their meager muscles. They looked starved. Two were bald and lacked any hair. Those two carried elongated rocks, sharpened at the tip. They looked like spears. The third was a female from her anatomy and she had long stringy white hair. Their irises were colored gray and their teeth slightly sharpened. A likely adaptation to accommodate their meat-focused diet.

They weren’t Maedra, at least that was for sure. Jake would’ve been eaten if they were.

“Where…?” Jake wheezed and felt his throat clench as he tried to speak. He winced. A pounding headache cut through the center of his skull. The pressure on his head made him feel as if he were about to pop.

“Quiet. Still.” The female creature urged him with her hands and broken words to stay still. She placed a hand on his forehead. Her touch was soft, warm. It reminded him of his Auntie. The hand began to glow faintly green as she whispered to herself. Relief washed over him and the pressure in his skull faded. Jake let out a sigh of relief as at least one of his ailments was helped. Now if only she could do that with everything else that hurt.

“Where am I…?” Jake muttered, trying again. Even as the woman tried to urge him to stay down, Jake slowly pushed his body upright and took a look around to try and get his bearings.

He was surrounded by black and stone. A river of flowing dragon essence cut through the floor off to his right and it raced off into the distance. The space around him was lit up by small Sprites, but the Sprites seemed to only hover around the other creatures. A few had wandered off but they kept a short distance away.

“Safe.” The woman said bluntly. Jake blinked and stared at her. Safe? This was safe?

He was alive, but not safe. He didn’t feel safe. These creatures may have saved him but they were foreign to him. With teeth like they had- he might just be a meal to them. While they looked different than Maedra, Chul said only Maedra survived in places such as this. Maybe he had only seen a certain kind of Maedra, and these creatures were just a smarter variation. With no knowledge of the monsters and little experience with them, he couldn’t be too trusting. This could all be a trap of some kind.

Jake looked between the female creature and the other two for a few moments, both sizing them up and looking for any sign of them being threatening. They didn’t seem aggressive nor did it look as though they had come out to hunt for food. Rather, they looked more or less like Jake was the one who had stumbled into them. That was probably more the case.

Either way, he was thankful for their help. They had pulled him from the water and he would live to see another day. If he was alive, that meant he could fight.

“Thank you for helping, but I need to go.” Jake eased over onto his knees and tried to stand. A pain shot through his right leg as he put pressure on it and he let out a yelp as he dropped back down onto his hands. It didn’t look injured but it certainly didn’t feel good. Maybe it was an internal injury?

“Wait.” The woman moved over to his right side and placed her hand on his leg. The green light returned to her hand and he could feel some of the pain recede. Not all of it but enough so that he could get to his feet. It hurt to put a lot of weight on the leg, telling him that her recovery magic wasn’t perfect but it would do. He could stand. If he could stand, he could walk. Well, sort of. He stumbled on his first step.

The two other creatures stepped forward and helped him steady himself. Once he got his balance, Jake politely nudged them away. He would need to walk on his own. He wasn’t about to drag strangers into his problems. Even though it hurt, he had to get back to Chul. Time was ticking and the Arachkin would need help to face the Maudrake. He had no idea how far he’d traveled in the water and there was no telling how much time had passed either, so Jake needed to hurry.

The boy staggered over to the wall and placed a steadying hand against its cold surface. Walking was easier when he had something to hold. If only he knew rock magic then he could have created some kind of walking stick out of the stone. Of course, rock magic was something he had put off because of how slow he had been with his training. How inconvenient.

Using the wall, Jake turned to the three creatures and smiled. He bowed his head and part of his upper body until his leg warned him to stop, and then he closed his eyes. Truly, he was thankful. They could have let him float by, could have eaten him, or they could have even used their spears just to kill him outright. Instead, they chose to help him. If only he could return the favor somehow.

But even if he could, all he was focused on was going back- Chul. Thanking them would have to wait.

“Thank you for helping me. You saved my life and I am in debt to you, but I have something to do. I will repay that debt when my job is finished.” Jake said softly. Then, without another word, he began to limp upstream, moving in the opposite direction of the river flow.

“No, stop! Unsafe!” The female creature suddenly realized where Jake was headed and she hurriedly moved in front of him to block his path. Jake clenched his teeth. He was tempted to push her out of the way but he couldn’t do that to someone who had already done this much for him. Let alone a girl.

“I have to go. My friend is back there.” He pleaded and placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to move. Yet she was determined to stay in his way. She grabbed his arm and squeezed- her grip firm. Her head rocked side to side as she held him off.

Jake didn’t mean to but the hand he used was the one cut open by Chul. The bleeding had stopped and the open wound had scabbed over already. Still, the reminder was there. Jake needed to go. The longer he waited, the more in danger his friend likely was.

“Please. I have to-”

Cutting him off, a howl echoed down the tunnel, coming from the direction Jake needed to go. The creature in front of him stiffened and quivered as fear ran through her. The noise was unforgettable. The sound was ingrained in Jake’s very soul at this point. The howl came from a Maedra, and it was close. Close enough that Jake could just barely smell the foul stench of its rotting flesh on the tip of his nose. The other two creatures were just as shaken up by the noise. They didn’t want anything to do with the Maedra it seemed. A detail Jake was glad to see.

“Unsafe. Must run.” The more sensible of the three gripped his rock spear and started to march in the opposite direction of the distant threat. The other two seemed indecisive, both looking at one another while the woman also looked at Jake.

“Hurry. Go. I’ll fight it.” Before they could change their minds, Jake grabbed the woman and pushed her back toward her two companions. He stepped away from the wall and tried to conjure up two fireballs into his hands. His mana stuttered for a moment but it was there. While he had fully expended everything in that final spell in the cavern, floating in the essence had assisted his body in regaining what was lost. His mana flow was back to full capacity and the mana within it had fully replaced his original mana. All that was left in him was Dragon’s Blood. Focusing hard and fighting the tension in his muscles, finally, the flame ignited within his fingertips. Two fireballs burned brightly at his sides.

“No! Run!” One of the creatures said, grabbing onto Jake’s shoulder in a panic. Jake shrugged off the hand and hissed at them.

Jake was scared too. He shook not just because it was cold. This would be his first bout with such a terrifying beast. More so, it would be his first fight without the safety of Chul. Even so…

“I have to go back that way. You run to safety. I’ll deal with these things.”

Jake hadn’t fought the Maedra. Chul had, but none of them ever seemed resistant to magic. While the Maudrake was capable of resisting the spells- none of the lower-ranking creatures survived any of Chul’s attacks. Whether that was because Chul was overwhelmingly more powerful or that they lacked resistance, Jake didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to let the pests get in his way.

“No, must run! Unsafe! Unsafe!” The hand returned to Jake’s shoulder, this time more tightly. Jake rotated his left arm and pointed the fireball at the creature. Getting the message, it stepped away, raising its hands and the rocky spear over its head as it backed off. Jake frowned. He didn’t want to be violent but this was for the best. Jake wasn’t retreating. He’d die first.

“Run,” he begged. After a long hesitation, the creature nodded before turning away. It clutched its spears as he hurried to catch up with its companion. Only the female remained, her expression stubborn as she stood there, her hands curled into defiant fists. She looked less afraid of him than of the Maedra- which was fair. Jake didn’t want to hurt them.

And he wouldn’t. If she wasn’t going to run off then he wasn’t going to force her. Jake could only do so much.

Ignoring her, he began to limp slowly along the wall, keeping a fireball ready in his left hand as he moved forward. Another howl echoed through the tunnel. Much closer this time, close enough that Jake could hear the heavy inhale after the howl was finished. He also heard footsteps- the slapping of feet on stone, and the feet were really, really, close.

“You’re following me. Not running.” Jake spat, not looking over his shoulder towards the sound of the small feet.

“Stupid. Unsafe.” Was she calling him stupid, or calling him wanting to fight stupid?

“My friend is back here. I can’t leave him.” Jake rumbled. He had just met her and she was already reminding him of Elana.

“Unsafe.” She repeated as if ignoring his justification entirely. He couldn’t blame her for it, honestly. How could she know he had a friend back here? Seeing him was probably enough of a surprise as is. Yet, he didn’t like how blankly she spoke to him. It was as if she were demeaning him in some way.

“I don’t care,” he spat, resisting the common sense answer itching at the back of his head. He knew she was right. The Maedra were dangerous, he had seen and experienced that first hand. He knew the chances of Chul being alive were slim. He knew fighting the Maedra in his current condition was foolish… but he still had to try. He had to believe in Chul. He had to believe in himself. If there was even the slimmest of possibilities that Chul was alive, then Jake wanted to be there with his friend.

“Unsafe or not, I’m not abandoning Chul...” He mumbled, mentally suppressing his doubts with her verbal determination. His leg limped forward and his hand dragged across the rough wall as he trudged on. The light slapping of feet began to sync with the clicking of his shoes. While he was so focused on staying upright and walking forward, he failed to notice two more pairs of feet close back in behind him.

The third howl screeched out into the tunnel and the putrid stench was undeniable now. They were close. Close enough for the Maedra likely to smell them, too. Jake pushed off the wall and balanced his weight on his good leg. He wasn’t skilled in combat in the least nor did he know how to dodge or run around as Chul did. If he could at least kill everything before it reached him, he should be fine. Should be.

Jake raised his left hand, fed more mana into the spell, and the fireball hovering by his fingers increased in size. He curled his fingertips, poured just enough mana into the fireball to trigger the spell, and then fired it into the black tunnel. He shot it parallel to the river, letting it sail over the thick essence to ensure it wouldn’t strike anything other than a sprite or two. It lit up the tunnel as it flew and Jake was quickly informed as to why the smell of flesh was so strong.

Several bodies were scattered around on the floor and a dozen Maedra were spaced out in the middle of the carnage. Corpses with mangled faces, torn open torsos, and pillaged innards, all lay at the feet of the numerous Maedra. The Maedra loomed over the bodies, engorging on the fresh buffet of meat.

“Oh no…” Jake mumbled, a chill covering his body as the fireball soared past the last Maedra, blinking out in the distance. As darkness returned, the crunching of bones and the stripping of flesh filled the tunnel, mixing with the noise of the flowing water. The mental imagery was far worse than the actual sight Jake had just seen.

“U-Unsafe…” The female creature at his left whispered, her voice shaking just as much as her knees.

Jake swallowed a heavy lump in his throat and clenched his fists. He was terrified, but Chul was waiting for him. Was he going to run here? Flee with these three strangers and just leave his friend to die? After all those days Chul spent watching over Jake as Jake ran off to the Library. After all those times Chul had saved Jake from a Dunebeast. After risking his life all because Jake wanted to come here on a whim. Running would just be Jake trampling all over Chul’s resolve.

It was at times like this that Jake’s father told him to be the strongest, but all he felt was raw fear in the face of the unknown.

Jake lifted his left arm and before he could second-guess himself any further, he fired a fireball directly into the midst of the Maedra. The ball soared over the massacre and impacted the side of a feasting enemy. The ball exploded, tearing open the weak body of the creature and causing its insides to ooze out of the wound. Though, Jake couldn’t see the result. All he heard was a terrible scream, followed by a chorus of dread.

“Run!” Jake shouted, both of his hands lifting as he began to fire his spells into the pitch black. The screams of the Maedra thundered in his direction as the beasts turned toward the new threat. His magic tore into the dark as his answer to them. The first few fireballs missed their targets, but they illuminated the space, and Jake’s follow-up spells were far more accurate. However, while the Maedra were hit and stumbled, their numbers were large. Thus, he traded quality for quantity.

Leaning into the strength of the Dragon’s Blood, Jake pushed his casting abilities and threw caution out of his mind. He reduced the preparation time and bounced his focus between his hands, generating and firing off a ball of flame just in time to replace it. As he developed a rhythm, Jake rapidly fired off enough spells to completely light up the tunnel in front of him. The fireballs scorched the flesh they hit, tearing through the large bodies of the hideous creatures. However, even as the Maedra in the front collapsed, their flesh melted and burned, there were more than just a couple.

Jake’s initial shot in the dark had only illuminated a small portion of Maedra. The illuminating fireball had only lit up a portion of the horde he was facing. There were far more beyond and they were hungry.

Still seeing the woman standing on his left, Jake grit his teeth. “Run…” Jake hissed and leaned into his hands. He needed to cast more, faster. He needed to not just fill the space, but he needed to completely overwhelm the Maedra. He needed to increase the volume of heat.

To protect himself a little bit, Jake pushed mana into his feet and mixed it into the ground around him, stretching it outwards and in front of him like a needle. When it was several feet ahead, he triggered a defensive firewall spell. The floor cracked and the flame raged forth, stretching upwards to form a barrier of heat. The fireballs Jake shot off cut through the wall, shooting into the dark at the stampede. However, the firewall was thin and not quite the most powerful of barriers- nothing like Chul’s. The intent wasn’t to make something impenetrable, though. Jake just needed time.

While the firewall stabilized and Jake solidified the connection of mana to its base point, he formed a new tail at his back and filled it with mana until it was large enough to stretch out to his side. Then, he split it down the middle, creating two long tails of mana. He extended one out to each side of his body, stretching their tips forward until they were even with his hands.

The boy took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. His stomach felt uneasy and he could feel the mana inside of him quickly draining. His mana source gorged on the essence in the air, struggling to keep his reserves up. When it came to surviving, though, how much did that matter? If he failed to keep the Mare at bay it would be all over.

“Ignarus…” He whispered, extending his senses to incorporate the mana tails. He felt the mana within them react and at their tips, small flames ignited. Jake continued to breathe, continued to focus, and corralled more mana into the flames until the balls were formed. After a few moments, Jake’s new trick was ready. He began to cast using all four endpoints, effectively doubling the number of fireballs he was sending through the shield of flame in front of him.

The Maedra on the other side collapsed as the barrage of fire slammed into their faces. As one fell, the next climbed over, only to be obliterated as Jake fed off the mana around him. Digging in, Jake began to pull mana from the air, from the floor, and from within himself. His reserves would run dry if he relied only on them so he quickly began to lean into the outside sources.

With the ability to use Dragon’s Blood slowly coming more naturally, the conversion from raw to fuel felt instinctual. He could feel the essence in the air, could sense it, and he began to draw on it further. Soon, Jake began igniting the fireballs in the air directly. His influence leaked into the cavern and Jake developed a casting bubble around himself. By gathering the mana into tight, compressed balls, Jake utilized the Words of Power to spark them. Then, he used his mana to send them flying in the direction he needed. As his efficiency increased, Jake found the temperature of the flames rose and the amount of mana he needed to utilize for the spell dropped dramatically. The flashpoint for the spell seemed to drop, and the number of spells increased rapidly, meeting the relentless Maedra with equal ferocity.

The encroaching wall of meat stalled out. They were no longer closing in on him, and their body count was rising dramatically.

He was winning.

The Maedra began to stumble over one another as the body count on the floor increased, making it difficult for those still alive to maintain their footing. A few tried to climb onto the tunnel wall but they were quickly knocked down by accurate strikes to their lower bodies.

Yet, it took more than just blowing off a limb or two for the Maedra to stop their struggle. Jake’s fireballs burned through arms and legs, fried off chunks of flesh, and even blew open a few heads. However, the creatures who lived off mana only truly died when their torsos were destroyed. After a few accurate strikes, Jake learned why.

In the chests of the Maedra, or at least in the torso region- each creature had a blue, crystal heart. It likely was what converted mana into life essence that the Maedra used to ‘live’. Those with larger bodies had larger crystals and those crystals had more of a purplish color than a blue one. A few crystals were green but those were rare. However, even the smaller Maedra sometimes had larger crystals- a few so large the crystals stuck out of their bodies. Jake aimed for these targets, blowing them to bits whenever he was able to see them.

With the crystal shattered, the Maedra would drop in a heap on the floor. The decomposition of the body at that point was quick. The flesh would melt and dissolve back into the air, leaving nothing but the broken crystal behind. An odd detail. Jake would have thought the crystal would return to its natural state as well. Still- he was thankful. Because of their hunger for mana and their recent meal, the bodies were lingering due to the residual mana trapped in the flesh. The sloppy, meaty floor didn’t provide as strong of a foundation to run on, leaving the survivors as sitting ducks for Jake’s aggression.

Jake capitalized. With the increase in his spell efficiency and the growing handicap against the Maedra, Jake switched tactics. Rather than fill the air with fire- he targeted the Maedra individually with highly accurate shots. He increased the mana density in the fire spells, causing the balls to burn hotter and change from orange to a light blue color. The flesh at the other end was no match. Each impact caused the flesh to evaporate.

With the spells impacting at a higher rate, the number of living Maedra plummeted until the noisy, echoing howling dulled. Jake removed the firewall in front of him to clear his view and instead created two pillars at his sides, generating balls from them to add to his numbers. Each Maedra was hit with two spells at a time- one in the upper left shoulder or a lower limb, and the second to blow open the chest. The third would hit the crystal or explode to further expose the innards. It was effective and repeating the process was making the fight easy.

The final Maedra emerged with an angry, high-pitched squeal of desperation. Only for Jake to blow its head off and then decimate its chest. There was no crystal left to admire as Jake unloaded a fierce barrage of spells into the last target. The impacts pushed the remaining lower half of the Maedra’s corpse into the river. It vanished beneath the surface of the green liquid with a fitting splash.

Jake stood quietly with his hands raised, his tails at the ready, and the two small pillars of flame steady at his sides. He watched the bodies dissolve slowly, leaving behind only the half-eaten corpses and a pile of mana crystals. Remaining vigilant, Jake fired off two final spells into the dark, slinging them into the distance to see if any Maedra were hiding in the distance. He made sure to feed plenty of mana into the fireballs so they would fly far off into the distance, well beyond his line of sight or until they hit a wall. He wanted to be sure this time that nothing was lurking in the dark.

There wasn’t.

Satisfied, Jake lowered his arms and canceled the pillars at his sides. His mana tails combined into a single tail and then wrapped around his waist. He let out a huff of air and felt several beads of sweat streak down his face, arms, and his back. Fatigue set in and he felt the weight of his magic pull on his body. When he looked at himself, he saw that he was soaked with sweat. His body was shaking from both the rush and fatigue. He had been frozen in that position for quite a while. His muscles were stiff. It didn’t help that he had just woken up from a drowning session.

Jake looked over his shoulder to find the three creatures standing there, staring at him in awe. One stood with its jaw half agape. Jake smirked and then lit a fireball in his left hand, though it was a far weaker variant than the blue ones he had been using towards the end.

“Safe.” He said with confidence, practically mocking the female creature as he began to walk forward again. Using the wall once again to steady himself, Jake moved slowly into the mess ahead of him.

“Strong mage. Scary.” One of the males muttered as he elbowed his companion. The companion shushed him in return as if what was said might irritate Jake.

What irritated Jake was the difficulty of it all. He was weak. Compared to Chul- that was a pitiful showing. Chul would have eliminated the entire lot in a single spell. Chul wouldn’t have struggled. Chul wouldn’t be this tired. Chul wouldn’t have hesitated at the beginning.

Chul would have laughed at such a meager foe.

“Help?” Interrupting his thoughts, a soft voice snapped Jake from his downward spiral. The female was at Jake’s side again, and she offered a hand. Jake frowned but he wasn’t going to be difficult anymore. He nodded. Carefully, he moved away from the wall and draped his arm over her shoulder. The female didn’t complain when he leaned into her a bit, but it was kind of… uncomfortable. She was a bit shorter and very scrawny.

“Thank you, and… I’m sorry.” Jake whispered. The female creature only smiled and the two began to walk. The two males followed close behind, careful of where they stepped as they moved through the feeding ground.

The smell in the air was a mixture of burned flesh, and rotting corpses. The bodies had been here for a while. While some were fresh, most were crawling with bugs. The innards were discolored, the blood dried, and the flesh leathery. The only constant was that they were all the same race. They were the same one-eyed creatures that were helping Jake walk. At first, Jake wanted to spill his guts because of the stench. Standing in the face of it had made him used to it. Though, that didn’t make it any less gruesome. He doubted he’d ever forget this smell.

“They are like you,” Jake said aloud. A light pause, then the female bobbed her head silently. Her eye avoided looking at the bodies.

“Other village. Unlucky. Unsafe. Too close.” When she wouldn’t speak, one of the males spoke up. Jake stared down at a slightly smaller frame than the others but tore his eyes away before it was imprinted on his mind. The Maedra truly were ruthless.

“You live down here?” Trying to distract himself, Jake tried to satisfy his curiosity.

“Only. Can’t above. Sun burns.” Chul had mentioned that. Maedra couldn’t exist above ground because of the sun. If these creatures were the same in that regard then it was no wonder they were so thin and pale.

“What are you?” He didn’t want to ask the odd and painful question but he had to know. Jake was new to being an adventurer. If he was going to make it his life- then learning about other races would be key. He figured this would be a perfect time to start his knowledge building.

“What?” The female peered up at him, confused.

“Huh?” Jake stopped and looked at her with the same expression. He then looked at the other two. They both shrugged.

“I. Xul. He. Tul. She. Yae.” Xul pointed to himself, and then the other two, but while it was an answer to another question- it wasn’t the right answer to the current.

“No, what are you? Your race? The name of your people?” Jake tried to reword the question but they all continued to look at him with confused expressions. It seemed they either didn’t know or they didn’t have one. Maybe they didn’t know what the word Race meant.

Ah, a language barrier.

Jake sighed and instead continued to walk. “Jake. I am Jake.”

“Jake,” Yae whispered.

“Jake?” Tul echoed.

“Jake.” Xul nodded.

Hearing his name being repeated made Jake a bit uncomfortable but he put up with it. He continued his pitiful limp along and finally, they cleared the bodies. The tunnel opened up a bit wider on the other side and the number of sprites increased, revealing a long and smooth walk ahead. Jake slowly caught his breath and the sweating eventually stopped. The fatigue didn’t fade, though. He felt tired. Exceptionally tired. Walking wasn’t easy and shifting the weight onto his good leg was beginning to take its toll the further they went.

But no matter how far away the end was, Jake would walk it. He had to.

Chul was waiting for him.