A Soldier's Life

The jungle looked different when I wore the amulet of clarity. The movement of insects seemed magnified, and I was quicker to identify flora and fungi I read in the books when I focused on them. Anything unfamiliar also caught my attention as being out of place and a curiosity. My mind was more curious and introspective about everything. As Konstantin and Navek pulled us through the jungle, I didn’t have time to stop and smell the flowers though.

The two settled into a comfortable partnership as they scouted for our group. Maveith moved behind us while I walked with Raelia. A canopy shaded the packed earth road, so the only real danger was if one of the large jungle cats was hunting nearby. The black panther-like cats were no bigger than a hundred pounds, so as a group, we had little to fear.

On the first night, we camped in a small clan village that specialized in weaving vines into baskets and rope. When they learned who Maveith was, they had a large party that carried well into the night. I slept on the comfortable thatched-roof shed with Raelia, and we were slightly inebriated from fermented fruit juice. The sky was a glittering scape of stars, and the glow of Neptune’s Tear did not obscure our vision in this part of the world.

“Do you know which star is yours?” she asked, nestled under my arm. On the voyage, I had explained to the best of my ability what the stars were.

“Nothing looks familiar. The constellations from my world are nowhere to be seen,” I replied softly. I could sense her unease, so I reaffirmed my commitment to her. “I am not planning to return; I am happy here.”

She reaffirmed her happiness and commitment to me for the rest of the night.

The following day, we arrived at the base of Mount Nashota quickly. The morning sun highlighted the gray and white mountain face. Navek and Konstantin had purchased ropes, spikes, climbing pikes, and gloves for everyone. The mountain's dozens of crevices and steep faces made the climb look imposing.

Navek advised our group, “We only climb in the open at night.” As if to punctuate his speech, I could see the speck gliding along the face of the mountain high above. The tiny silhouette was clearly a manticore. “I have made it to the ice and snow section a few times, and I know some crevices where we can climb in safety. Maveith will lead, and if a section is difficult, he can make handholds for the rest of us.”

Konstantin and Navek planned this expedition considering our skills. Maveith had a spell called Shape Stone that let him turn rock into clay around his hand for a very short time. Konstantin already told me I would watch our rear. If someone fell during a climb, it was my job to save them with air shields.

We moved cautiously out of the jungle and into a nearby cave. Navek walked boldly inside, disarming an array of traps before letting us enter. A sizeable wooden barrier, speckled with holes I assumed were made by a manticore's spikes, divided the cavern in half. The cool, less humid cave smelled musty and heavy with urine.

Small crates of supplies were stored behind the barricade, as well as a rough bed made from logs. “I have a few caches like this on the island. Sometimes a manticore or cat will find them, but they are generally safe with the traps,” Navek said as he dropped his pack and sat on a boulder. “We can wait until sunset and then move up the slope to start our search.”

“Are you not afraid of the manticores telling each other about your hiding places?” Raelia asked, sitting against the wall and tilting back her canteen.

Navek grunted, unconcerned. “Manticores are solitary, territorial creatures. I have observed them fighting each other, and I hunted the injured loser afterward many times. The battles become intense during mating season due to the scarcity of females. That season is approaching in a few weeks,” Navek informed us.

He turned to Maveith. “Maveith, if you have time, could you create a few recessed stone shelves on that wall?” Navek did not use Maveith's honored title, and Maveith moved to comply with the request, always willing to help.

Konstantin remained on watch behind the wooden wall. I fingered the holes in the wooden wall before settling beside Raelia. I switched my amulet to the aether shield and made sure it was topped off with aether. When Maveith came and sat next to me, he exhaled a long, exhausted breath. “Where is your other ring, Maveith?” Maveith had a ring of sustenance, like me, and a ring of warmth from the Shimmering Labyrinth.

“I gave it to my father,” he replied contentedly. “Zorana is helping him regain his strength. When we disappeared, his health started failing, and after a few years, he couldn’t do as much work. With the ring, he is already showing signs of being his former self.” I knew Maveith still felt the weight of guilt even though he had brought Zorana home.

“How is Zorana doing?” I asked.

Maveith was slow to reply, so Raelia, on my other side, answered, “Better. She is distracting herself with caring for her father and helping with his leatherworks.”

“Myra is helping too,” Maveith’s deep voice added. “We started working on a house’s foundation near my father.”

“Oh,” I said, a little shocked. I guess I thought that Maveith would return to Gramney with me, but I guessed he wanted to be among his people and maybe start a family with the clingy Myra.

Maveith shifted to face me. “Eryk, I wanted to ask if you could help build our home. Your spatial magic could make cutting and moving large stones easy.”

“Absolutely, Maveith.” I nodded to my friend. I had improved my Hound lookout but hadn’t given much thought to building something with my dimensional space. Maveith was right, and I could create very large, perfectly cut stone. Maybe I would build a home of my own someday.

I looked at Raelia, who was cleaning her fingernails with a small knife, her legs elevated on a stone. I wondered where she would want to settle. Would she be content with living in Gramney, or perhaps return to Artiria, the capital of Esenhem? Maybe she would like to return to Bartiradia, which was still technically at war with the Telhian Empire. It was a conversation we had to have on our way back.

The light penetrating the cave entrance started to fade, and we stirred to begin our climb to search for the dungeon entrance. I chuckled to myself, and Konstantin looked at me. I explained to him, “You realize this would be the third dungeon we’ve found: the old orc dungeon outside of Formica, then the Shimmering Labyrinth, and now this one.”

Konstantin grunted, unimpressed. “This would be my fourth.” He didn’t elaborate as he turned to exit the tunnel, but he felt the need to upstage me. I wondered if perhaps he was upset that Gilda had not joined us. Maybe that was his happy grunt; with Konstantin, it was hard to tell.

We started moving up the slope under the cover of darkness. Tonight, we were blessed with a cloudy sky, and game trails wove up through the rock fields. A few hours later, we reached our first climb, a ten-foot-wide crevice. It was sloped, making the climb much more manageable. Deep in the crevice, there was a constant rush of water. Our group of five didn’t make much noise, but the crevice magnified even the slightest sound.

I had been pulsing my earth speak infrequently, and the only interesting things I had found since we started were the skeletons of creatures and humanoids, the latter with very deteriorated gear. Halfway up this climb, I sorted through some confusing feedback. Eventually, I realized that a finger-thick vein of silver and gold was running a few feet deep in the stone and extended beyond the range of my earth pulse. Mining it would be a nightmare, but I informed Maveith anyway, and we marked the area with some alchemy chalk that should last a few years. I spent some time before I was able to take a sheet of mainly gold for myself, but it was difficult to overlay such a narrow plane of the dimensional space with the earth pulses.

The top of the crevice opened onto a small plateau with minimal vegetation. Navek paused and strained to see in the dark. When he felt it was clear, we moved across the plateau, heading for the next crevice. The uneven plateau was covered in stones and gravel that crunched under our boots. A skittering of stone and clattering of hooves echoed across the plateau.

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Navek hissed, “Run to the crevice; it is one of the giant goats. If it is just one, we should be able to handle it.”

As we moved, I scanned the darkness, my aether sight trying to locate the goat. I hadn’t seen one of the giant goats yet, but I knew they were dangerous. From what I had been told, they could be as large as a horse and were very territorial. Although the mountain goats were herbivores, they attacked anyone they came across.

We reached the other crevice, with me entering last. As the thundering hooves got closer, I prepared to face the goat. Maveith and Konstantin were stringing and preparing their bows. I spotted the goat first, its head a mess of curled horns as it determinedly rushed our position. The opening was the width of a man, and the goat had no chance to enter.

“He can’t take the charge. He needs to retreat further into the crevice!” Navek shouted. The goat was just seconds away, and I agreed it would be a painful impact since its shoulder was taller than my head.

“He will be fine,” Konstantin said indifferently to my plight.

I started layering air shields before me, slightly worried that the momentum would shatter them and carry the beast into me anyway. I finished the sixth air shield as the snorting monstrous gray goat slammed into it. I had sidestepped instinctively as a thudding sound echoed in the crevice. Three of my air shields remained intact, and arrows bounced off them from Konstantin’s and Maveith’s bows.

The goat was dazed and stumbled. I thought it might have broken its neck, but it just snorted as it tried to focus on me, as it tried to puzzle out what happened. I moved around the air shield, slashing its neck with Boris’s blade. Surprisingly, the runic blade had difficulty cutting through the goat hide, so I tossed it aside and pulled the black spear out of my space.

Driving with my legs and putting my weight behind it, the black tip pierced the shoulder and entered the chest cavity. The goat was trying to understand the new pain as I torqued the spearhead and withdrew it to cause as much internal damage as possible. A few arrows had found their mark by now, but this was just a waiting game as the massive goat snorted mists of blood, unstable on its feet.

The goliath hunter appeared stunned by the dying goat. Navek was picking up clues about what I could do and was increasingly impressed. He scanned the darkness and said, “This buck was protecting its does and young—but they are unlikely to attack.”

As the goat’s lungs filled with blood, it collapsed. Maveith patted my shoulder. “Nice kill, Eryk. We should harvest it. The meat and hide are valuable.” It would be a shame to waste such a majestic creature’s life, so I nodded in agreement.

That was easier said than done, as the creature was over a thousand pounds. The gravel ground made it easier to drag, and our two goliaths worked together to pull the buck parts into the crevice while Konstantin and I remained on watch. The stones ran with warm blood as Maveith made quick work of the goat. I wasn’t trying to hide it, but when Navek’s attention was elsewhere, I used the collector to gather a major essence of power.

“Your kill, Eryk, it is your essence,” Maveith rumbled as he worked. I briefly considered offering it to Navek, but instead consumed it. The essence dissolved, tingling and burning my muscles in concert. When Maveith finished, I stored the meat, hide, and organs. Navek said it would be best if we camped in the crevice rather than continue our climb for the night.

I watched with Konstantin as the sun rose on the rocky plateau. Even at this elevation, the air was still warm. A few large goats milled about in the distance, maybe confused about where their alpha had gone. It hadn’t made a sound when I killed it. A manticore dove out of the sky, spraying its barbs at the dispersed herd. A few goats must have been struck as they wailed pitifully as they dispersed. My companions watched as the manticore glided to tackle one of the hobbled goats, its claws ripping out its flank and its jaws biting into its neck.

Navek was beside us. “Without the alpha, the flock will be whittled down until a new alpha rises.”

“Should we try to kill the manticore?” Maveith asked, his voice echoing in the crevice.

The manticore was a good half-mile out on the plateau, and I didn’t think we could reach it without alerting it. Navek echoed my thoughts, saying, “It will just fly away with its kill. There’s no point in trying without surprise.” The manticore ate messily before it flew off with the remains of its victim, another manticore pursuing it out of our sight.

I explored the crevice, finding a rushing wall of water deep inside, but nothing triggering my earth pulses as unusual. When evening set, we continued our climb. The progress up the mountain that night was slow and arduous, and when we reached an exposed slope with snow and ice above us, Navek stopped us. “It is time for warmer gear. As soon as we pass the delineation line, the temperature will drop and suck the heat from your bones.” A clear line of ice and snow was about a hundred yards up the slope. That line seemed to wrap unnaturally around the mountain.

“Are we getting close to where you stopped your search last time?” I asked. Namao said he had been close, so that is why we were exploring here. If there was a dungeon expelling manticores, then there had to be an access point.

Navek gestured to a swath of the slope. “I searched just below the snow line and up on the packed snow. There is good news. The manticores rarely fly this high as they hate the cold. We should be okay, but remain cautious when searching during the day. There is a cave below the snow where we can camp safely.”

The cave was cramped and cold for the five of us, so I used my new thermal stone to heat it. I walked alone on the rocks just below the snow and ice, pulsing earth speak. I traveled approximately a mile in one direction before returning to camp, then headed a mile in the opposite direction. I only found an ancient giant’s skeleton buried in a rock slide. When I returned, I saw Maveith working to deepen the cave by chiseling away at stone with stone shape, while Raelia was attempting to cook.

Their eyes turned to me for my findings. “Nothing. There are very few exposed rocks in the snow and ice shelf above, and it is going to make exploration difficult and slow.”

“How long are we going to stay then?” Raelia asked, pulling her Ranger’s cloak tighter.

“A week,” Konstantin offered. It had taken the better part of four days to get here, and seven days of searching seemed like a good return on investment. I nodded in agreement. I thought we might have to return to the Seer for more advice if we didn't find anything or give up on finding the dungeon. The dungeon would be appealing, as it would supply a steady group of manticores in a controlled environment without having to search for them.

The first time I climbed to the icy snow shelf, it was like walking from a tropical beach into a freezer. The cold hurt my lungs until I learned to take slower, shallower breaths and keep my mouth covered. Maveith had told me on the tallest mountain, Voleta, there was another higher zone where the air didn’t exist, even with magical means. Navek had said no such airless zone existed on Nashota, and a few brave goliaths had summited over the centuries.

Maveith was the only one with me, and his ring protected him from the cold. “Do you want my ring?” he asked for the third time as our feet crunched across the snow to an exposed rock to use earth speak. The others had remained in the camp as we were searching for an entrance, as not everyone needed to get turned into a popsicle.

My fingers were numb, and my toes ached, but I shook my head no, not bothering to unwrap the wool scarf covering my face. I had switched out my aether channeling ring for the ring of sure-footedness and didn’t want to remove my ring of sustenance. The ring was as advertised, allowing me to move confidently even on sloped ice.

When we reached the fifth exposed rock, I sent out an earth pulse, getting a clearer picture beneath us. My range was a little over twenty yards, and this was the first interesting thing I found. There was a crevice between the ice and stone, not very wide, but it extended deep into the mountain. It was not big enough for a manticore to crawl out of, but it was a promising sign.

Later in the day, I found two more voids. One was wide enough for a manticore, but access was capped by a few feet of ice and compacted snow. After a hard day's search, Maveith and I returned to camp. Konstantin would accompany me tomorrow, and we would search farther up the mountain.

Maveith loaned Konstantin his ring of warmth, to my consternation. Konstantin wanted to search higher up the mountain. It got colder and icier the higher you climbed. The ice was brittle, and Konstantin’s spikes frequently gave way on steeper climbs, causing him to use ice picks to prevent sliding down. I had no such issues with my ring and may have gloated a little.

It was also easier to find areas of exposed rock, as avalanches frequently tore away large sheets of ice and snow. By midday, my eyelashes were crusted with ice, and we had not found anything. Annoyingly, I think Konstantin could have walked naked and been unaffected by the cold.

When we were within sight of the peak, I said, “We should turn around.” The air was definitely thinner at this altitude, and we were both struggling with our breathing.

Konstantin looked disappointed and indicated we should descend on a different path. As we descended, Konstantin barked for my attention. It was a warning bark as a manticore circled below us. The manticore spent a few minutes, as if it were testing its wings or enjoying itself. I knew Konstantin was thinking the same thing I was. Maybe this manticore was new and had just crawled out of the dungeon.

We both waited until the manticore finally descended down the mountain. We moved across the mountain, staying at an altitude that gave us a clear picture. When Konstantin almost slid down the mountain, we tied a rope between us. It was much steeper and more dangerous on this face of the mountain. Soon, we were looking down from a cliff at a large, dark crevice below. It reminded us of the Endless Dark chasm we discovered in the Shimmering Labyrinth.

Konstantin muttered, “A manticore could definitely fly out of that, but it is going to be difficult getting down to it. It is not an entrance to a dungeon, though. It is an entrance to…”

“The Endless Dark.” I finished for him.

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