[Ashborn-B1] 57. The Blade (Patreon)

LVII

The Blade

“We’ve been going in circles for hours now,” Leila snarled.

Kiaya closed her eyes and dipped her head.

Duke swallowed a sigh. He felt bad for the girl, he did. Which was why he glared Leila down. “Don’t strain the mind of our guide any further, please.” Gods knew they would’ve died at the start of this Tomb if it wasn’t for the shadowfoot.

He held up his hand when Leila opened her mouth, venom dripping from her tongue. “Don’t say anything if it’s not a solution.”

Leila’s forehead popped. Importantly, though, she didn’t speak up.

A deep intake of breath from their front. “We’re not going in circles,” Kiaya said. “We haven’t passed my mark.”

Duke shushed Leila before she got any ideas, then surveyed their surroundings. The frozen hallway may as well have been a crystal chamber or a house of mirrors. They revealed nothing but their reflection. Contained nothing but the despairing wishes of damned souls.

Crouching, Duke ran a finger over the ground and rubbed away the condense sticking to his skin. There was a slight slope to the curved hallway. But it was so gradual it may as well not exist. To be honest, he couldn’t fault Leila. The erasure of a mark—a mere cut in the walls Kiaya had attached her essence to—would be child’s play for a Tomb of this calibre. However, even if he thought so, they had to stay a cohesive unit if they wanted a shot at surviving this place.

‘We got terribly unlucky.’ They hadn’t run into anyone else since the start of the Tomb.

The trio trudged on through the desolate halls. Silence was a sound. It echoed through the atmosphere like the wail of a phantom. Hounded their steps and rang in their ears. The sensations were enough to make one believe they were headed nowhere but their end. That they’d been trapped in a mirror world with no exit, destined to slowly run out of food and energy, until they became raving lunatics, turned on themselves, and died.

Then they’d join the many other dead in this place. And even then, they may not find a way out.

Duke rubbed his chest to ease the throbbing. He didn’t know what he feared more: dying of hunger or aimlessly wandering this place as an undead for eternity.

His insides were not the only one churning in fear. Leila drew closer to him and wrapped her arms in his. Kiaya’s head swivelled this way and that, the scout’s instinct screaming at her that something was wrong on so many levels.

The quiet was too deafening. Too invasive. So Duke reached for his storage ring and pulled out his flute. Leila and Kiaya jumped as his first note exited, a low humming thing which gradually rose in volume.

“What are you doing?!” Kiaya said. “You don’t know what you’ll attract!”

But Duke kept playing. Of course, he wasn’t letting the sound echo. The first thing a musician learned was too control the direction and level of their notes. How else could their skills ever be used during stealth missions? So Duke kept his performance centred around his companions.

Kiaya protested…until the tension fled her stiffened neck without her consent. Her contracted brows relaxed. A wet towel smothered the heat in her gaze. Finally, she found herself humming along to the simple piece Duke was playing.

‘I should’ve done this sooner.’ Keeping up a song like this was no big deal on his essence reservoirs. Truly, the only reason not to do this was because certain arts could still pick up on his song despite what he was doing to hide it. But it’d take a sophisticated art to achieve that.

Their flight up—were they really going up? his hindbrain asked—was easier on the legs now, and a spring entered their steps. Duke changed up his song after they’d been going for a while and felt it was getting repetitive. He did this about four times until Kiaya spoke up.

“Duke, stop playing for a moment.”

His note cut off mid-release. The silence was quick to return. That echoing sense of absence.

Duke and Leila waited for Kiaya’s senses to decipher what was going on, as they had many times already. She stepped back and vanished between steps. Shadows cloaked Duke’s sight, becoming like a fluttering blanket. He followed the pull on the back of his robe away from the centre of the path and towards the edge.

What was happening? He wanted desperately to know, but he was wise enough not to speak. Kiaya’s cloak didn’t block sound. Only light.

But his confusion didn’t last long. Duke’s heart paused. Climbing up the path behind them was a behemoth easily thirty feet tall, with a face so grooved it was separated into blocks. Its chin that protruded so far forward you could’ve balanced a mug on it. Two long arms hung limp at the side of its torso and touched the ground. And yet, for all the of the giant’s apparent clumsiness, its steps produced not a whisper. Worse, its essence couldn’t be distinguished from the frost around it, likely because its skin was made entirely out of ice.

[Frost Golem - lvl. 35]

It stopped in the middle of the hallway.

Kiaya’s grip on their backs tightened. Duke grimaced. They weren’t making any noise, but it may be able to sense their heat—

Frozen orbs whirled on their position.

They were already bolting. No longer was the behemoth silent. The walls shook, ice crumbled and rained down.

“Split up!” Kiaya yelled.

Duke barely heard her over the piercing notes of his flute, whose energy caused their blood to circulate faster and hastened their steps. His increased speed was the sole reason he managed to vault out of the way.

A boulder big enough to cover him five times over sailed overhead and crashed to the ground. The big piece of ice bounced and slammed into the wall before shattering.

Duke cast a fearful glance back. The golem’s massive arms ripped another chunk out of the wall.

Beside him, Kiaya’s essence pulsed. With a snap, shadows converged and formed into nine perfect clones of the party.

The boulder crushed five of them in an instant. Duke almost stopped playing his tune. Had one of them been hit? Even he couldn’t tell…but a passing second in combination with the boulder bouncing past revealed no blood or crushed matter plastered to the ground.

Another flash of essence, and more clones replaced those that’d been destroyed.

“I won’t be able to keep this up!” Kiaya yelled.

It’d been only the timing of the technique which had thrown the golem off. The next time, or the one after that, it’d surely hit one of them. But they were in luck. Though the slope in the path was careful, the curves were sharp. The golem disappeared from view behind the corner.

The relief shooting through Duke softened his notes. They should be alright. A creature that big and cumbersome couldn’t possibly be fast…

Yet his chin hurled past his shoulder.

The golem spun past the corner. Rolled up into a ball, it gyrated so fast the surface was nothing but a blur. The golem smashed into wall, bounced off, and spun in place for a moment before shooting forwards again.

Straight at Leila.

“Jump!” Duke yelled.

Leila drew the spear from her back. She crouched into one of the forms of her weapon art. Flames twirled around her as she leapt, crossing half the hallway in a blink.

But the golem was too big. Its width clipped the back of her head.

So it would’ve, had the sundancer not whirled around and rammed her spearhead into the beast with all the might she could muster. It bought her an inch. Enough to safe her life.

Its momentum not killed in the slightest, the creature soared past. It expanded in the middle of a bounce and landed on its feet. Limbs didn’t pause and ripped out a chunk out of the ground before whirling around.

‘Dammit,’ Duke thought. This time, surely, one of them was going to die.

Kiaya made more clones. Some of Duke’s copies were playing, others just ran. Leila’s distractions mimicked the art she’d just used or dashed ahead without stopping. It wouldn’t be enough, Duke knew. The copies were a great visual trick but lacked essence.

‘Guess this is it.’

He didn’t close his eyes. Merely tried to mix in with his clones as best as he could. Inwardly, he sighed. He’d wanted to witness Ashe her journey.

‘Always sucks to miss the climax of a tale.’

Atmosphere displaced around the thrown boulder.

Duke looked up when the crash sounded too far away. The golem had turned around mid-throw and fired up the path ahead.

Duke frowned. What—

A column ripped through the hall. It was so fast Duke couldn’t even tell what it was a column of. The wind, he wanted to say. But his mind refused to believe wind could produce the havoc that’d just been wreaked.

A line as thin as the column that’d ripped forth darkened on the golem’s body. Then the golem split and fell in two halves. The two halves further crumbled into pieces that melt and sunk into the floor.

The tree Dawnflames blinked and held their breath as boots clinked around the corner. A tiny figure, the ends of her hair too sharp for the cuts to have been natural, stepped out, carrying a sword too broad and tall for her size.

“You’re in luck,” Caelia Vire said.

The trio, and their new saviour were sitting around a makeshift campfire in the middle of the road. Caelia removed the steaming cup hovering over the fire on the tip of her blade.

Duke feigned wiping tears from his eyes, though he wasn’t certain if he was faking. “Caelia! You’re my hero! This loyal servant will forever be in your debt!”

The blonde rolled her eyes and sipped from her mug. “I really don’t get why weaklings like yourself enter this place.”

None among them dared say anything at the blatant disrespect.

“Did you manage to figure out where the path ends, Lady Vire?” Kiaya said.

“Don’t call me by my last name.”

Duke refrained from frowning. ‘So the rumours were true.’ For some reason, the Whirling Blade despised when people used her honorary title.

“My apologies,” Kiaya said. “Is there a way out…Caelia?”

“There’s none. We’re going in circles.”

Had their company been any different, Leila would’ve surely began shouting and sticking her finger in both their faces. As it was, the girl merely played the model of modesty and humility. Though she did turn up her nose.

“No disrespect meant, but are you sure?” Kiaya said. “The path is inclining…”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Caelia said.

They waited for her to continue.

“Use your senses,” she said.

Lips pursed, Duke scanned their surroundings. The hallway wasn’t as quiet as it had been, now that they had crackling fire. Yet they still loomed. Still revealed nothing but a reflection.

“I’m not seeing anything,” Leila mumbled.

Caelia sipped from her mug.

Duke’s gaze narrowed when she didn’t speak up after ten breaths had passed. His reflection in the wall stared back, unerringly…

Then it shifted. The movement was minute. So minute he thought it a trick of his mind. But when he waited another ten breaths, his reflection shifted again.

“The hallway is changing,” he said, at a loss.

“You should thank the heavens you’re not weak and blind,” Caelia said. She put away her empty cup. “The halls are not only shifting horizontally but also laterally.”

“Laterally?” Kiaya said. “I’m sorry, Lady—”

A gaze as sharp as knives.

“Caelia,” Kiaya coughed. “But I’m not following. Can you please explain?”

The whirling blade sighed. “The following is only my theory.” She pointed up. “Think of this as a tower. There’s a single staircase, which we are traversing.” Her finger gradually moved up and down. “The halls are shifting constantly, connecting to identical passages spread out over the length of the tower.”

Duke cupped his chin. “That’s why you said we got lucky.”

Caelia nodded.

“I’m not sure I get it,” Leila said, crossing her arms.

Duke leaned back, the severity of their situation dawning on him. “If the rooms in the tower are constantly rotating that means it was pure chance that our room happened to ‘connect’ to a passage Caelia was in. We could’ve just as well ran into another empty hall.”

Leila swallowed.

Yeah. They would’ve died. All of them.

The crackling fire remained the sole source of noise for a while. Until Caelia began sharpening her blade with a whetstone.

Duke watched for a while before he spoke up. “You don’t seem worried.”

If he was being honest, her presence and calm was the sole reason he hadn’t started freaking out yet.

“Of course not. There may not be a way out, but that doesn’t mean we’re trapped.”

Now, even Duke glanced at the others for an explanation, which they lacked, of course.

The Whirling Blade inspected the result of her sharpening, turning her broad sword so the edge gleamed in the unnatural light of the Tomb. Happy with her work, she rose to her feet. Comically enough, this barely saw her poke out above Duke’s seated form.

The Dawnflames kept shooting glances at each other when Caelia strolled towards the far wall.

“You should prepare to get out of here,” she said.

“Eh,” Duke said. “What do you—”

Her hair whipped back as her blade keened. The attack happened too fast for Duke to register anything. If it wasn’t for the massive cut left in the wall in its wake, he’d doubt it’d happened at all.

The silence in the chamber paused, it as confused Duke himself about whether or not it should continue to exist. Then the ice crumbled, and pieces clattered to the floor. More cracks snapped into being around the wound in the frost, spreading over the surface like the branches of a river.

Underneath them, the ground began to tremble and the light pouring from within the ice flickered. Only then did Duke understand the meaning of Caelia’s words.

“Run!” he yelled, dragging Leila to her feet.

Kiaya was already halfway towards the far wall, where the divide in the ice was now big enough for a person.

The Whirling Blade stepped through.