I landed hard. For a moment I didn't know if I'd hit solid ground until I took in a lungful of water. My chest constricted, disoriented, in total darkness, I didn't know which way was up.

Panic threatened to overwhelm me, but that little voice of determination that never left me, piped up and I knew to listen.

I let go of the shield above me first. Then I fired a weak blast of fire.

The first hint of mana fatigue hit me from the effort, but the gentle force of the blast lit the area around me as well as propelling me through the water.

From the two clues, I had a better idea of up and down and my next blast of power propelled me upward.

I broke the surface and coughed out water. Sank again, before resurfacing to hack out more water.

After much spluttering, I finally dragged in a breath of air.

"Adam!" A voice shouted and I became aware of a light behind me.

Spinning around, I saw Oro's face illuminated by a glow rod.

Enil was beside him, grinning. "Now that's what I call an escape!"

"The shield's down," I spluttered, swimming toward them. "The Xeo will be able to follow down."

"I doubt they'll be in a hurry to follow," Oro said. "Plus, we only need enough time for you to recharge." The shore's over there," he pointed. "Let's get to land and see if we can find a defensive position."

"I didn't need to agree. It was the only option open to us."

However far we'd fallen it must have been a long way. No light made it through from our water chute, meaning the cavern we now occupied was pitch black.

There were however, bats. That made me both uneasy and hopeful that there'd be route out.

"Shame we didn't keep any fire rods," Oro grumbled as we sat on the shore, dripping wet and freezing cold.

We had placed a few glow rods around us to illuminate a good area of the cavern, but they offered no warmth at all. The energy pouches helped, but Oro was right. A fire would have been welcome.

"There's nothing to burn down here, so even if I had the mana to create fire it wouldn't do us any good.

"Still, give me time to rest and regenerate and I'll see what I can do."

Oro nodded sagely. "You're not wrong. Get some rest, both of you . I will keep first watch."

I had early stages of Mana Fatigue on top of regular fatigue after our ordeal, so I didn't argue against the offer. With a quick thanks, I pulled out a storage rod and removed a thermal sleeping roll and one of the two-man tents. When I activated it and the tent sprung up, they both looked at me like I was mad.

"Are you expecting rain?" Enil asked.

Oro chuckled and slapped his friend on the back. "Good one."

"No," I replied, smiling as well. "But you may have noticed this place has bugs and bats, and I'd rather not have them nibbling at me while I sleep."

Oro shook his head disappointedly . "I thought you were tough, Squire."

I shrugged. "When I need to be." Then I patted the tent. "For this, I don't need to be."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Suit yourself. It might make you reacting to danger quickly a little more difficult though."

"Thankfully, you're on watch, Oro. And I trust you completely to give me plenty of warning. Plus, we're not exactly short on tents, so I'll just slash it open if I need to get out fast.

"Now if you don't mind, I'm borderline mana fatigue and I'm ready to collapse."

When I got inside the tent, I felt stupid and even more vulnerable, restricting my view so much. But I was so tired that as soon as I swaddled up in the blankets and lay my head down, I fell asleep.

I dreamed of Sizec running off like a cat with its tail on fire. I was glad I didn't see him getting taken down by the Xeo. I liked the stoic corporal, even if he was an Archon. I didn't need to relive that trauma.

When I woke up, I felt fresh and momentarily confused as to where I was. Reality hit before I managed to get the fasteners on the tent open.

I was in a hellhole.

When I poked my head out, almost all of the cavern was illuminated. I couldn't see the other side of the subterranean pool, but all of the shore was visible and a good thirty-feet across the ink-black waters.

Across the other side of the shore, I saw Enil scraping something off the wall and felt annoyance. If he was awake, then he should be watching while Oro and I slept.

Except Oro wasn't nearby. I eventually spotted him knee-deep in a pile of something soft, fetid and as I moved closer… moving."

"What the hell?" I said stopping a safe distance away.

"Adam!" he said with a ridiculously wide smile for someone who was trapped in an underground cavern on a hostile planet. "You're awake. That's good."

"Quieter at least," Enil shouted over. "Your snoring was keeping the bats awake."

I pointedly ignored him and replied to Oro. "I am, and I feel good. My Mana's regenerated a decent amount, so you can get some sleep now."

He snorted. "I slept earlier. Enil had around four hours, and I had around the same. We got bored waiting for you to wake up, so we decided to light this place up."

"Wait. I've been asleep for eight hours?"

"More like twelve. I was thinking I might nap in a tent tonight.

"Very funny," I said, eyeing the horrific pile he was wading in with the disgust of someone who's just woken up with no sign of coffee and nothing to look forward to.

"What is that?"

He beamed again, "Food and fire!"

"Roaches and grubs," I retorted. "And is that bat shit?"

"It is. And bat shit burns. Mix it with the cave moss, and we've got ourselves a fire.

"A stinky fire, but a fire all the same!"

I now knew what Enil was scraping off the cavern wall. "Do we need a stinky fire?"

"Of course," Oro replied, gesturing at the bugs. "I'll make you an Unalaran specialty. There's a damn buffet here. Much tastier than the rations blocks."

I stepped back. "I'm afraid we're going to have to differ on opinion with that. If we run out of rations, I'll eat whatever I need to. Otherwise, not a goddamn chance."

He shrugged and set about his work again.

While they busied themselves, I did a lap of the accessible cavern to inspect all the nooks and crannies.

I found a few places where water entered the cavern. Narrow inlets, slow and silent but steady enough over time to create this place. I checked the parts of the ceiling I could see for exits, and by the time I'd finished, I'd found nothing. No hope of escape unless we wanted to widen cracks deeper into the mountain with what water rods we had left. I definitely didn't want to go down that route.

I headed back over to where Oro was busy spreading out bat shit. I assumed his attention was to dry it from whatever fire we managed to get going.

I shook my head. "That moss is going to burn in seconds. It's not going to dry out anything."

Oro tapped his nose. "Oh ye of little faith. I've been thinking about this, and we've got the rods from the cache. There's tons of rope to burn, and those barricades…" He frowned at me and scratched his bony beard. "You can nullify the enchantments on those right? Make them wood and metal again?"

"I can try. I've never worked on a barricade before, but how hard could it be?"

"We could build a little fort down here." Enil suggested. "It could be pretty cozy."

I was about to call him crazy, but he wasn't. "You know, you might be on to something. I mean we can't stay down here as we need need to check on the others and keep an eye on the portal. Depending on how long we're here we'll need access to the rations and to be able to hunt if needs be."

I saw Oro about to speak and I thrust a finger at him. "No. We're not living on bugs."

"Alright, alright," he said hands held out defensively. "But it's not like we'd starve down here."

"No," I admitted. "We wouldn't. And this is an excellent fallback location if we can get a rope up to our entrance."

Enil clapped his hands together. "I don't want to be here, but I'll be honest, being down here feels pretty safe. The Xeo clearly can't get down or don't want to, and being able to build something sounds pretty fun."

I shook my head, unwilling to get excited about the idea until we found a way out from under the mountain. "Did either of you go into the water? Try to see over the other side?"

Oro frowned. "I've just dried out. I'm not getting wet again until we have a plan and a fire and not necessarily in that order."

"Sure," I agreed, gesturing at the black lagoon. "It's not exactly appealing, but we're close to having both, so I say we start looking?"

"Fire and food first." He said, his tone brooking no argument.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.