26 – I still blame you

“Let’s go.” Said Lisette.

She threw the creature core, a Tier 11 blue one she just extracted from the carcass of the slain monster to Melina. Judging by her tattered armor and appearance, one could think that the fight had been hard, and that Lisette had only managed to come out victorious thanks to her strategy and skills. One would be wrong to think that. The fight had been completely one-sided: if anything, the recent events had lit a fire inside of Lisette and she fought with renewed strength, galvanized by her burning desire to take Ishrin to safety before the invisible death timer placed on her struck zero. As for the reason behind her ragged appearance, Ishrin was laying in his makeshift stretcher made of black and brown leather, made from the armor of the two adventurers.

Melina placed the monster core in her dimensional bag and followed Lisette’s lead. She was on stretcher duty right now, while Lisette scouted ahead and dealt with any monsters she encountered. Their strategy was to engage everything up to Tier 11 and kill it, while avoiding at any cost the Tier 12 monsters that roamed the floor. The air was still hot and humid, but less so the more they ventured towards the center of the maze, a sign that they were getting somewhat closer to the exit. Lisette was mostly silent, only speaking when she needed to give information or instructions. By all means she was now the party leader, Melina having renounced her authority and her independence. She only followed behind, eyes empty, head filled with dark thoughts.

It was unclear whether Lisette was aware of this or not. Her face was a complex mask of emotionless emotions, and frozen anger could be read in the lines around her mouth where her skin would have been smooth and white but wasn’t. She explored the floor with methodical precision, mapping the entirety of the maze as she went, consulting the mental map she built and slowly progressing towards where she thought was the exit that led up to the 6^th floor.

The dungeon was a maze, its walls bare rock with a deep brown tint. Sometimes lantern and torches were hung on the walls to light the way, by some unknown keeper of the dungeon or by natural formation. Nobody knew. Philosophers and erudite people often stopped in magical places like this in an attempt at gleaming their secrets but failed, the unknowable magic that made these natural yet so unnatural structures appear was still shrouded in mystery. The maze was one of many paths, and all paths eventually led to rooms. These rooms were sometimes empty, sometimes trapped, and at other times they held enemies of various kinds. The party avoided all rooms that were hidden behind doors, for it was true that those rooms held secrets and riches beyond imagining at times, but at other times they held dangers that were best left alone. Boss rooms they were, the places of densest magic where the most powerful enemies dwelled.

They also met nobody in their travels. The labirintine dungeon had this peculiar property to present itself differently to each party that visited it, and even if the party were to come back to it soon after leaving, they would find it to be completely changed. Thus, once through the threshold to the dungeon, everyone was left to fend for themselves.

The silence stretched on, only interrupted by the occasional sounds of fighting. In one of these fights, Lisette was wounded, and Melina was forced to intervene, shaking her out of her contemplative stupor with the adrenaline of battle. She stepped in and saw Lisette going toe to toe with a gigantic toad, easily four to five meters tall. She was slashing at it relentlessly, but her attacks were ineffective: most bounced right off its skin while the ones that managed to land left a slash that didn’t bleed and that closed up in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile Lisette was accumulating wounds, the monster scratching at her through the gaps in her armor and in her defenses. Melina could see now that no matter how enraged Lisette was, her speed was slowing down with each fight, and she was becoming increasingly weak.

She took a stance, looking once behind her to see that Ishrin was safely propped against the wall. She let the energies gather around her, feeling the power of the wind and its magic. It felt strange, slow, as if a barrier had been put all around her that dampened her power. Still, she managed to gather a considerable amount of magic and let it condense into a green ethereal blade that glowed so bright it plunged the whole room into a neon green light that flattened all shadow. It flew at the monster, slicing its head clean off.

Melina didn’t have time to celebrate, for she felt the world begin to spin and found herself on one knee. The pain shot up through her leg and she tried to push herself up from the hard floor but felt weak, frail. By the time she was up and standing, panting against the wall close to Ishrin like he was a healing shrine, Lisette was done extracting the core and had joined her.

“Your wounds.” Melina said. “They are not closing.”

Lisette was indeed bleeding all over the place. She downed a healing potion, the first one Melina ever saw the girl drink ever since they met, but even with it the wounds seemed to linger, to refuse to heal. The blood spilling from them was thin and its hue pale, watered down.

“I am beginning to feel the effects of tissue degradation.” Lisette said. Then she looked at Melina, at her pale visage. “As are you.”

There was no contempt in her voice, no satisfaction at the fact the Melina too was suffering and not just her and Ishrin. There was just the clinical detachment of a philosopher mage making their observation about a test subject, and Melina didn’t know if this made her feel better of worse. Right now, her head was still swimming, and her thoughts were jumbled by the strain and effort her body was putting on her.

“It will get much worse,” Lisette said. “We need to be strong while we still can.”

Melina tried to nod.

“I will carry the stretcher now.” Lisette said.

“Thank you.”

Lisette nodded. Silence.

They walked like that for a while, and Melina felt a bit better. She explored ahead and scouted for enemies, and the task took her full attention and finally allowed her mind to relax.

“I’m sorry for what happened back at the mountain. Well, for what it’s worth at least.” She said.

Lisette shrugged. “There is no use in saying sorry over and over again, Melina. What is done is done.”

Melina sighed. “You must hate me.” she said.

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“I do not hate you. However, I do question the motives behind your decisions.” Lisette said.

“As do I…” she said. “It just… felt like the right thing to do back there. And now, now it doesn’t anymore.”

“You thought that you were doing a good deed, and that the sacrifice would have been little.” Lisette said. “You were wrong.”

Melina felt attacked. “I was but! It’s also Ishrin’s fault! He didn’t explain the dangers of his plan well enough.”

Lisette stopped dead, slowly putting the stretcher down. She then turned to face Melina.

“While your decision to destroy the cube might not have been the moment where it all went wrong, it is undeniable that it was the tipping point when things started getting out of control. Try to remember Ishrin’s face, demeanor, and tone of voice during our whole expedition. Ask yourself if and when it ever felt like he was not in control prior to your order to blow up the mountain.”

Lisette paused to gasp for breath. Even talking was becoming hard on her weak body.

“So he was only being an airhead, cracking jokes and talking about random stuff because he felt like he could afford to do so?” Melina asked.

Lisette nodded. “In fact, you may recall that he stopped being like you describe immediately after our first jump.”

“He was… scared.” Melina said.

“Indeed. I postulate that he was experiencing a lack of control over his surroundings for the first time in a very long time. Perhaps millennia.” Lisette said.

“So he’s used to playing it safe.” Melina said.

“That is why he lost his cool, and that is also why the second ritual failed. I am aware that it was technically his fault, but I still blame you for pushing him into a situation he was not used to anymore.”

***

Lisette limped ahead, pale as snow, holding herself up with her two blades sliding on the ground. The sound they made when they grated against the stone floor was unbearable, but Melina behind her paid it no mind. She dragged the stretcher as she moved like a mindless zombie, eyes staring ahead, fixated on the singular point of light that was the passageway leading to the 5^th floor.

She checked herself, from time to time, listening to the faint sensations that came from a body that didn’t feel like hers anymore. She was bruised, bleeding, and her head felt itchy. When she scratched the itch, she would find hair and blood on her hands, so she did all she could to resist the itch and ignore it. Her feet were on fire. Her chest was cold like ice. The last meal she ate hadn’t agreed with her, as did the previous one, and the previous one, and…

She needed to vomit. She collapsed to the ground on her knees, and ahead of her she could faintly make out Lisette’s shape as a shadow against the light come to her air, putting a hand on her shoulder and keeping her from falling on the ground face first.

“Are you okay?” Lisette asked her when she got up.

Melina nodded. “We can keep going.”

Lisette smiled. It was strange, seeing her smile. “We are strong.” She paused, coughing. “We will make it.”