The flame did not erupt from the tunnel, but rather cried out- a high pitched, white-gold screech of heat that scorched the damp atmosphere dry, Kaelen felt the scars from the nodes die all together, like multitudes of tiny lights going out in the cave of his skull.
[WARNING: Aggregate Host Under Direct Attack.]
[Cluster Alpha: 100% Destroyed.] [Cluster Beta: 100% Destroyed.]
[Cluster Gamma: Evacuating — Partial Survival Probability: 61%.]
Reel back.
Reel everything back now.
Kaelen tore his senses away from the twin burning clusters with absolutely everything he had, effort that left claw marks burning into his finger nails from the inside out.
The pain that bloomed afterward was not physical in a way any medicine could understand, but the kind of pain a mother might feel if a thousand of her children had been crushed in an instant, just seconds after claiming all of them as hers.
[Ding!
Core Consciousness Successfully Withdrawn From Cluster Alpha and Beta.]
[Vessel Integrity — Primary Host (Corin): Undamaged by Direct Flame Exposure.]
Undamaged.
Kaelen forced Corin’s body to stop shaking as he stood, wrenched his jaw into the bored expression he wore the entire time since the alley, when inside his head felt like his skull had been peeled back to the bone.
Two clusters.
Two hundred scarabs.
Vaporized in an instance because I wasn’t fast enough.
“Emotional processing is inefficient.” Nix said, and for once the monotone response came across almost consoling.
“You survived.
But it was material loss, not the existential one.
Reassess and continue.”
Material.
Kaelen almost laughed, watching the last of the white-gold flame die on the stones where a nest had been moments ago.
You keep saying and keep saying that like it’s supposed to mean something to me.
Cluster Gamma escaped, the survivors huddling together in the deep of a side crevice where the blast wave hadn’t fully touched, probably no more than forty or so scarabs scattered across the floor in blind confusion as the nest leadership scrambled for new directions without their guidance.
Still alive.
Still mine.
Little blessings.
Kaelen didn’t reach out to them again.
Not with Selene still standing forty paces back, hands dropping as the last of her spell dispersed into black ash and eyes sweeping the fallen bodies in the tunnel with a proprietary happiness in their look.
“That should take care of any lingering corruption.” she said, more to Valen than anyone, her voice trailing off around the gathered group.
“Insect infestations this far underground are rarely worth the effort.”
Rare.
Not always, Kaelen kept breathing, kept Corin’s shoulders rigid, kept the muscles in his arms tied tight enough to crush the bones and his ribs, behind those his lungs, around his heart which had just beaten out a second too fast.
If you had any idea how close you just came to something worth effort…
Talia showed up at his shoulder, not saying anything in the pause after the last of the fire went out, just looking from the scorched seam where the rock wall had bled out to the blackened remains of the cluster, then back up at him- pale and tired but with beads of sweat tracing down the line of his hair.
“You just went somewhere, recently.
I don’t know where.
But you weren’t here for a second time.”
“I’m here now.”
“For how long?” her voice dropped, concern slipping through in the low places of her speech.
“Corin, whatever you are- you flinched like something has died within you.
Something that mattered to you.”
Something did.
Kaelen kept his voice tied up inside his ribs where the panic might slip out unbidden.
[Ding!
System Interface Diagnostic Required.]
Now what
[Warning: Core Interface Sustained Feedback Damage from Hive-Mind Severance.]
[Evolution Prompt Access: Compromised.]
[Estimated Restoration Time: Unknown — Dependent on Core Stability.]
Kaelen almost thought he felt something in the back of his head go quiet, if not gone.
Not the loud, bombastic presence of the System, but something back there in the folds of thought and memory, like it had been shut off behind a locked door.
“Explain that in terms I understand.”
“You attempted to sever a hive-mind connection at combat speed while under lethal external threat.” Nix said.
“Feedback from the severance has temporarily degraded your access to evolution and skill selection prompts.
You retain everything you have acquired.
But you may be unable to select or activate new abilities untle the interface stabilizes.”
If something goes wrong in the next fight-
“–you will be fighting with precisely what you have now.
No upgrades.
No new abilities.
No warnings other than whatever primitive threat detection has been installed in you.”
A wonderful surprise.
A most welcome revelation.
Kaelen didn’t have a moment to feel ill about it as Valen’s voice rang out from where he stood at the head of the column, broadcasting with the easy power of a man who was speaking orders without the slightest regard if they’d be heard or obeyed.
“Regroup.
We’ve lost enough time already to insects and superstition.”
The remaining guides- there were nine now- shuffled forward a few paces on jittering legs since running through the caves with scarab swarms in pursuit.
Kaelen fell in with them, Talia right at his side, the entire column pressing on into the narrowing corridor with an increasing chill that Kaelen didn’t realize was growing until he had it in his bones.
The obsidian door stood at the end of the tunnel twenty minutes later, and stopped the column mid-stride with or without Valen’s permission.
It rose at least three times taller than a man, made of stone dark enough to swallow the light of the fire, and scored with markings that Kaelen felt in his eyes rather than saw, his vision watering at the sight.
There was no seam along the length of it save one running from the floor nearly to the top, this one pulsing with something like the breath of the stone itself.
[Ding!
Anomalous Structure Detected.]
[Warning: Origin classification unknown.
Threat signature exceeds current scanning capability.]
Exceeds capability.
Not something I like hearing from whatever reads me every time I roll a new one hit point.
“This is it.” Valen said, and there was something in his voice that wasn’t arrogance or boredom or the flat stare of a man watching something die, but rather a sharpening hunger.
“Clear the seal.
Whatever’s behind it, the Order isn’t leaving this dungeon without it.”
He turned his gaze on the remaining guides, the same calculating look in his eyes that Kaelen had seen when he spoke the death sentence on the first pair of scouts.
“You.” Valen said, indicating Corin with a flick of his chin.
“You’re fastest on your feet.
You clear the seal first.”