Chapter 47: Escape

I rushed over to check Marci’s wounded leg. Blood soaked through the chainmail cloth. “Guys, someone hand me a first aid kit!” I pushed the armor up slowly and carefully, trying not to scrape her wound. A bright red blotch above her ankle where the calf meets bone, blood welling up out of it, another wound just like it on the other side. Damn.

“Here,” said Ave, passing me a gauze, then wrapping a tourniquet around Marci’s upper calf.

I packed gauze atop each wound, then wrapped across these and around her leg twice for good measure. Ave placed tape over the gauze to secure it.

Thick black and grey smoke continued to billow into the hallway, and no part of the lobby was visible. At least the ant-creatures had stopped attacking.

“I’m loathe to move her, but we can’t stay here. Ave, how do we go about this without a stretcher? We should have taken another chair!”

Ave put her hand on my shoulder, “I’ve got her, Boss. I’ll be gentle.” Sliding her hand under Marci’s legs, Ave hefted her up easily, then put Marci’s wounded leg atop her shoulder. Looking at us, she asked, “You guys good?”

Bent’s face had streaks of dark blood coagulated in place and fresh, lighter red stripes running down those. He said, “I need to wash and treat the cuts on my face, but yeah, I can do that later. Let’s get the hell out of here first.” We really needed to stitch his cuts or he was getting long vertical scars, but we couldn’t do that here. The smoke would soon overtake us, and who knows what toxins were in it, what it would do to open wounds.

“I got Dylan,” said Fred, moving behind his chair.

“Alright guys, let’s get the hell out of this place!”

A crashing sound as something large collapsed into the lobby, sending dust and smoke billowing toward us, and we hurried away, wounded and all.

***

It was a simple matter following the red carpet to the end of the hallway, but the cave, twisting, narrowing in places, would be a problem. I shone my flashlight into the passage. The grey rocky walls narrowed as it went along, then curved up and left.

“You think carrying her will be a problem?” I asked Ave.

“She’s as light as a housecat.”

“I mean with the narrow cave and all that.”

“You go first and if I have any troubles, I can pass her to you.”

“Uhm,” said Fred, walking up to us, “maybe I should go first in that case.”

“That . . . that’s a better plan.” I said, pushing my pride down. He was immensely stronger than I, and Marci would have less issues with both of them taking care of her. “Fred, you take lead, I’ll take rear. Oh! Dylan, how are you with walking now?”

“I’m good.” He clenched and relaxed his left hand, “Feeling better, actually. I think when we level up next I’ll put points into health. Hopefully, it speeds up recovery time in addition to making us tougher.”

I patted him on the back as he walked by, “Health, yeah. Good idea.” I was about to call for the Voice, to spend the points I hadn’t yet, when my thoughts were interrupted by Bent.

“You don’t want to be too much of a Jack of all trades. We don’t yet know this isn’t a min/max game. And most are.”

“How will we know?” I asked him.

“Not until we go up against people like us, player characters, our own level. If our min/maxers in the group can beat them, it’s a min/max game.”

“That’s not, not very helpful.”

“A double negative is a positive,” he said, not smiling. “Besides, putting points into your main stat seems to increase health, too. But you can also put points directly into health, boosting it even more.”

“What? If I put points in intelligence, which is, God, my class’s main stat, I gain in health, too? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah,” he gave me a bewildered face. “I don’t know all the details, but on my character sheet, health goes up when my int does. That’s my main stat, too, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Guys,” said Dylan, “do you feel that? The breeze?”

Ave adjusted Marci in her arms, slightly glaring at me. “We should really be moving along.”

Air was moving past us here. “Just a sec.” I walked toward the mouth of the cave, where the walls were closer together. “Yeah, it’s pushing into the cave. Holy shit! It’s the fire, pulling fresh air in. The hotel must really be burning now.”

Bent looked down the hallway, faintly saying, “Too bad.”

“Let’s get out of here. Fred,” I said, “lead the way.”

Fred nodded. “On it.” He looked back, “Our first dungeon. I hope we beat the next one.”

I flattened myself against the wall as Fred, then Ave, passed. Dylan came next, looking better than just an hour before, down in the security room. Maybe the fight did him some good. Or maybe it was the game, healing us at a faster pace than usual. Time would tell. But I hoped that was the case, then Marci would be in less danger. We didn’t have blood or plasma with us.

As Bent passed, he said to me, “I bet you wish you’d saved that healing pot, hey.”

“That . . .” I paused, wondering just what the hell he meant, “that was uncalled for.” But he didn’t stop or say anything else. I shook my head and followed. Maybe he was still bitter about me not giving the pot to Dylan. But Marci might not be here if I did that.

We walked along twisting paths, over large stones, around stalagmites in larger passageways, up slopes, curving around large boulders and then I nearly walked into Bent. Dylan was stopped before him.

“Hey. What’s up?”

Just then, Fred’s voice ring out, “You’ll have to pass her to me.”

Ave saying, “Just a moment, checking her bandages. I’ll have to pass her headfirst and that’ll put blood in her legs.”

“Hey Dylan,” I asked, “what’s up ahead?”

“It’s that place where the path goes steeply down – well, up for us right now – but it also means we’re almost out.”

Good, I thought to myself. We can set up camp and Marci can rest properly.

The familiar dinging sound rang out, then:

SURVIVING THE SWARM QUEST: PASSED. YOU HAVE GAINED ONE LEVEL. CONGRATULATIONS! UNFORTUNATELY, YOU DID NOT CLEAR THE DUNGEON AND NO EXPERIENCE POINTS WILL BE AWARDED FOR SUCH. YOU HAVE TWO MORE POINTS TO SPEND! HOWEVER, THESE MAY NOT BE SPENT UNTIL YOU SPEND THE PREVIOUS TWO POINTS YOU RECEIVED FROM YOUR LAST LEVEL.

Everyone had stopped. “Ok, Voice. Spend both points into health.”

WELL DONE! YOU NOW HAVE TWO MORE POINTS TO SPEND!

Bent turned around, rolled his eyes, and turned back. Everyone was thinking, probably going over their character sheet, looking at the options.

“Uh, I don’t know. One point into intelligence, one into sword.”

DONE. YOUR POINTS ARE NOW SPENT. YOU ARE NOW LEVEL FIVE.

“Oh!” Marci’s voice ringing out from ahead, “Isn’t that an original inhabitant of the planet?”

“What?” asked Fred. “You see something?”

“Yeah, right behind you!”

“I don’t see anything! Oh damn, she passed out again.”

Ave’s voice, “I don’t see anything either, Fred. She’s hallucinating. Loss of blood. We gotta hurry.” Lots of scraping sounds from their direction, which had to be climbing sounds.

Dylan looked back at me, over Bent’s shoulder, “They’re up. We can go now.”

I was wishing I hadn’t taken the rear. I should have stayed up front to keep my eye on Marci! Her voice sounded clear and stable, but that was worrisome, too, especially if she was seeing things. Like Ave said, losing too much blood. The original inhabitants? The Tridigits died out some five thousand years before we got here. Left plenty of tools, houses, bones, and whatnot, for us to study, but they were extinct. And all we gave them in return for their archaeology was a dumb name, based on the number of fingers they had on each hand.

Yet they were the first truly sentient species humanity had found. Had the nanotech recreated them, perhaps based on their bones? Did they survive this entire time, despite our populating their planet? But Marci was low on blood, and an elf now, whatever that meant, she could simply be hallucinating. Probably hallucinating.

I guess the nanotech had created lots of sentient species now, though. And something had to create it, and that something was either hostile or grossly indifferent. So, there was probably one more sentient species out there and it was technologically advanced, probably hostile.

I didn’t know what to do with that information, but we needed to learn more about the nanotech, and quickly. After Marci got well enough to walk. And everyone was well rested. Then, we would resume our mission.

Dylan walked ahead, then Bent, I followed. We shortly came to a steep incline, almost vertical, and Dylan had to climb using his hands. Bent did the same. I shrugged, seeing no other way and wondering how they passed Marci up.

The cave opened up here, to the larger one where we’d entered, and I hurried up to Fred. Carrying her in two arms, her head rested against his shoulder, eyes closed. The bandages on her leg were red in the center, but not soaked, which meant the wounds had clotted. Now she just needed time. Or a healing potion.

A few hundred meters ahead, the wide cave mouth poured sunlight onto stones and scattered shrubs, and the path we were on. The air freshened, smelling of wet grass and pine, welcoming us, and we all picked up our pace just a little.

“What do you think, Boss? Set her down here? Make camp inside the cave?”

“Ah, you know, that might be the way to go. Close to the exit. Probably that hotel will collapse, preventing anything from coming up behind us, but best to stay on the safe side. Let me set up a tent for Marci.”

Ave and I quickly cleared an area of stones, I put up a tent, let the mattress fill itself up with air and expand, Fred set Marci down. Her pulse was strong, breathing regular. I sat down, holding her hand, wondering how long she’d be out for. Soon, I’d have to strip off her armor, clean her wound more thoroughly, check and maybe change the bandages. It might be better to wait another day for that, though.

“River?”

“Marci!” I ran my hand over her forehead. She was very pale. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, so tired. Where are we?”

“Just at the cave mouth. We’re going to camp here until you get better.”

“Do you have some water?”

“I’m an idiot. One sec.” After fetching it from my pack, I asked, “You want to sit up to drink?”

“Yeah.” She sat up, with my hand supporting her lower back, and drank a lot, emptying the bottle. Then lay down again. “Thanks! That was the best water I’ve had in forever.”

“Straight out of the fridge from the hotel.”

“Don’t remind me of that place.”

“Too soon?”

“Way too soon. Hey,” she looked over at me, “Did you see one of the Tridigits? I vaguely remember someone saying they saw one while Fred was carrying me. But, that’s not possible, right? They’re extinct.”

“It was you. You came to for a couple seconds, and said you saw one.”

“I did? I don’t remember. I must have been pretty out of it. The System woke me up with that annoying bell.”

“Congrats on level five.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You, too.”

“I’m kind of hoping you really saw a Tridigit. If they’re still around and not playing the game, they might know something.”

“I’m not so sure they’d want to help outsiders.”

“Why not? This attack has taken over their planet, and very much transformed it.”

“From their point of view, we’re all foreign. Aliens. We don’t belong here. What if,” she sat up a little, leaning on her elbow, holding my attention with her bright blue eyes, “what if they created the nanotech? Started the attack?”

“If they did, then you probably did see one. And we should capture it.” I shook my head. “But we don’t know that they did. So, really, we should just try to talk to it. Learn from them, find out if they’ve been affected by the nanotech. That would tells us . . .” She’d fallen back asleep. I stroked her forehead while I considered what to do.

Yeah, if the original aliens – beings, I guess, since we’re the actual aliens – on this planet yet survived, contacting them was important. More so if they knew anything about the nanotech, or were affected by it, too. Though not quite as important as turning the game off.

But we were making camp here for a few days. Might as well search the area.