Volume 1, Chapter 12: There Has to Be an Exit Somewhere (Patreon)

I woke first and felt as though I had not slept at all. Brigid, however, had consumed the entire stick, leaving nothing beneath her but charred remains. She had grown slightly larger in the process, and her face had regained its features, though at the moment they suggested that, just as I had been a moment earlier, she was still lost in sleep.

Her eyes were little more than reddish slits with thin lines of black at their centers, while the brows above them gently flickered with flame. Her mouth hung open, an actual tongue of fire protruding from it. I chuckled when I realized what I was looking at, and with every breath she exhaled, tiny sparks drifted from her open jaws.

I moved as close as the heat radiating from her allowed and peered into her mouth, curious about what lay inside. There was only darkness, similar to the blackness that formed her eyes, with a faint glow suggesting that something burned far in the distance.

Unfortunately, she remained the only source of light nearby. The storm was still raging just beyond the rocks sheltering us, though now the only things I experienced were the roar of the wind and the clatter of stones striking the cliff. The lightning had stopped completely.

I focused on my Daimon once again and called up information about the condition of my Psyche, hoping to determine how long I had been there.

[Psyche fully recovered.]

Which meant that at least six hours had passed since I crossed the river of sand.

I returned to the blue grass and drank as much as I could. Then I pissed into the wind, watching it tear the stream away with tremendous force, drank again just to be safe, and approached Bri. I pulled the crowbar from my bag and prodded her gently with it. When that failed, I poked her a little harder, feeling the metal pass through the outer layer of flame until it struck the solid firecore at her center—the same one she had told me about and that I had managed to grab before.

“What? Um… where? Who…” she mumbled, slowly opening her eyes.

Her eyelids parted so gradually that it looked as though she were peeling each one away from her cheeks through sheer force of will. Once she finally managed it and realized she was awake, she shot upward until she was almost level with my face, blinked three times, and with each blink, her fiery pupils contracted.

“Lex! We made it!”  She burst upward, blazing almost white-yellow. Then she saw the storm. The brightness collapsed so abruptly that the little shelter seemed darker.  “There’s no… water. We have to keep looking,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Don’t worry.”

I walked over to the wall covered in blue grass. For a moment, I stood before it with the crowbar resting across my shoulder, then turned my back to the stone and leaned against the vegetation.

Moisture immediately soaked into me, and thin streams of water began running down my body wherever the pressure released them. I reached above my head with the crowbar and shook the grass with its hooked end, freeing all the moisture gathered there in a small, handmade rain shower.

The water flowed over me in a pleasantly warm stream, washing the sand from my body, and I allowed myself to drink some of what ran down.

“There’s water here!” Bri smiled when she saw me enjoying myself. “We succeeded twice!”

“Yes, Bri. That’s the good news. I drank more than enough. Hell, I even managed to wash some of the sand off, but…” I drew out the final word for dramatic effect. “I’m not staying here.”

I looked upward, searching for a way to climb the rocks to the top of the mesa. From where we stood, it seemed impossible. The walls were too smooth.

“I want to find that Frogflower, whatever it is, and I can feel that it isn’t on top of the mesa, but somewhere inside it. Which means either this isn’t really a mesa at all, but a massive wall with something behind it, or there are caves leading deeper in. Either way, we’re looking for an entrance or something that will let us climb higher.”

I spoke while leaning against the damp wall and tapping it with the crowbar at calf height.

“But, um… the wind is still blowing, right?”

“It’s a light breeze compared with what we faced a few hours ago. We can manage if we stay close to the walls,” I replied with a smile. “We’ll move from one crevice like this to the next and check each one. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“That doesn’t sound, um… very good.”

She watched the stone fragments being thrown through the air.

I could see the difference, though. When we had barely managed to reach this place, everything carried by the wind had flown almost horizontally, parallel to the ground. Now, the debris struck downward at an angle, which meant the storm was weakening.

“This may be our only chance to get ahead of the others who might also decide to pursue the task. While they wait for the storm to pass, we’ll already be one step ahead.”

“Is it really, um… that important? I mean, completing the task?”

“Important? I have no idea, Bri. Maybe it isn’t. I simply enjoy winning.” I rested the crowbar against the wall and took hold of the ring engraved with a serpent and flames that I had taken back on the day of my abduction. I twisted it around my finger several times. “I like setting myself a goal and achieving it despite every obstacle in my way. And I figure that if we’re fighting for our lives and the fate of our entire planet, I might as well get something out of it for myself—even if I die trying.”

“I understand.” She lowered her gaze and remained silent for a moment.

“Something wrong? You don’t approve?”

“That’s not it, Lex. I just… um… don’t really know what motivates me.”

She looked up toward the sky, gray and brown with windblown dust.

“I want to help others, but I don’t really know why.”

“Then help me. For now, let finding your own purpose in life be your purpose. Live. Try different things until you decide that you truly understand what you enjoy doing, what brings you happiness, and what—and this is the most important part—you would never sacrifice for anything else.”

“And what if, um… the purpose I find is different from yours?”

“I promise I’ll do everything I can to make sure we part on good terms,” I replied with a smile.

“All right.” She nodded with her entire body. “That’s a good idea… but, um, tell me one more thing. What is it that you would never want to give up?”

“You’ll laugh, but there are two things like that in my life.” I smiled to myself, remembering all the times my passions had gotten me into trouble. “The first is fairly obvious, isn’t it?” I spread my arms wide, presenting myself in full with an exaggerated theatrical gesture. When Bri pursed her lips and raised her eyelids, making it clear that she had no idea what I meant, I hurried to explain. “Challenges, Bri! I love overcoming the challenges life puts in my way, but most of all, the ones I choose for myself.”

“Mhm.” She nodded, a smile beginning to form on her face. “And the second?”

“The second is the thing that got me beaten both in the orphanage and while living among the kind of people I naturally ended up with—art. I like creating things, Bri. Seeing the world as it truly is and transferring it onto paper, canvas, skin or a wall. The medium doesn’t matter much.

“For as long as I can remember, those two qualities have gone hand in hand. On one side, I set myself physical challenges. On the other, mental ones—how I saw people and the world, and how well I could show that through my work.”

“I understand. You probably won’t have, um… many opportunities to paint here.” Her expression darkened slightly.

“Maybe not. I’ll take whatever opportunities I can get. Painting isn’t the only thing I’m good at, Bri.”

“It isn’t?”

“Despite appearances, an artist can thrive on the path of a thief. And I hope I’ll have a chance to show you what I can do.”

“Me too!” she replied, nodding with her entire body.

“All right,” I replied, sliding the bag around to the front of my body.

I opened one side pocket, then the other, and squeezed as much water from the grass as I could into each of them. Some would soak into the fabric. Some would leak out. But perhaps enough would remain for the next time I needed it.

While making these preparations, I nodded toward the crowbar.

“Do you think you could cling to it the way you did to the wood? Hold on without letting go?”

“I can try, but, um… I didn’t really like it. While I was attached to it when we were running, every few moments I felt more and more like… ordinary fire. I only wanted to eat, consume, and devour until eventually… well. Um… it felt as though I disappeared? Like I was and wasn’t myself at the same time. It’s difficult to explain.”

“Did it pass once you consumed everything?”

“Yes. Well, I don’t know. I only woke up from that state a moment ago because of you.”

“I understand. We’ll be careful, then. We should take breaks anyway, or the metal will melt quickly. As soon as we find another crevice where we can shelter, you’ll jump off and we’ll rest.”

“Yes,” she replied, turning toward the storm. “That sounds, um… good. I can do it.” Then she turned back toward me. “Do we have to go, um… into the wind?”

“No, and we won’t. That would be pointless. The entrance could just as easily be in the other direction. At first, I did intend to head against the wind toward the waterfall we saw, but now that I’ve had something to drink, I see no reason not to try the easier route. Making life harder for yourself for no reason isn’t a challenge.”

“Um, that’s good to hear,” she said as I extended the crowbar toward her.

She stared at it for a moment as though gathering her courage, then flew closer and settled at its tip. I repeated my test, swinging it around while she clung to the metal. Once I confirmed that she could hold on without difficulty, I stepped out from behind the shelter of the rocks.

I held her in front of me to shield her from the wind and began walking along the cliffside, using her light to illuminate my path while feeling around for openings.

After covering some distance and finding nothing but shallow depressions, with stones and sand lashing my back, legs, and the rear of my head, I felt the Daimon inside my skull begin pressing against me from within.

It seemed to have something to tell me, and since I had nothing better on which to focus, I allowed it to reach me.

[Event Achievement Points earned: 2. Total Points Earned: 3. Source: “You treat the wrath of the Desert God as something worth experiencing again at the earliest opportunity. Complimentary skin exfoliation included.”]

“Lex!” Bri shouted, struggling to make herself heard over the storm. “I got, um… Achievement Points! Two of them!”

“Me too!” I called back.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a stone flying toward us. I jerked my head aside and moved Bri closer to the cliff wall.

“Wonderful!”

We continued like that for several minutes until the rocks to our right formed a longer wall, once again shielding us from the wind. We turned into it and entered a recess that appeared much deeper than the one where we had sheltered earlier.

After walking a little farther across the sandy ground, I watched the rocks narrow on both sides, forming a tight passage leading deeper into the formation. It was not a cave. A quick glance upward confirmed that the sky was still above us, no matter how gray it had become.

The passage definitely led somewhere, though, because the brown stone had been stained a dark burgundy. I approached with Bri held before me like a torch and ran one finger across the stain, then lifted it to my nose.

“Blood, I think,” I said after smelling it. “I’m no expert on scents, but the consistency seems right.”

“That’s not, um… good, is it?” Her flames tightened against her core, dimming until the bloodstain almost vanished in the gloom.

“I don’t know. Maybe an animal squeezed through here. Or an injured person. Or something else entirely.”

“Should we go back?”

“No. We keep going. Whether this is good or bad matters less than the fact that it’s interesting. Everything around us is a game, Bri, and games have to be interesting.”