PreCursive

  “I…apologize for that unseemly dispy, Hart,” Kazuma lowered his head, visibly chagrined.

  Said dispy being the way he had tched onto me for comfort after being awoken here in an ancient Lich’s tomb/infirmary. To my surprise, said Lich had stepped away to ponder the sleeping form of Aveline to give us a sembnce of privacy, while I filled the Kawamaran samurai in on what was actually going on down here. I had no doubt Travers could hear every word spoken here in his domain, but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless. If not for me, than at least for Kazuma’s sake.

  I shook my head at him. “Don’t worry about it,” I said lowly, sitting on the bed next to him. Rather than turn my head, I instead stared down at my csped hands. “I get it, I really do. This pce…it has a way of getting into your head.”

  Logically, childhood fears that you had received actual, for real therapy for shouldn’t affect you so deeply. But something about the nature of Lucretia’s curse down here…

  It was like an amplification. A multiplying of old, deep-seated dread that you couldn’t escape. I’d done my best to compartmentalize the feelings my own ‘trial’ had raised in me, but…

  But.

  Well, I’d deal with that ter. Right now, Kazuma had to know what we were up against down here.

  The only other human male in my party sat quietly while I filled him in on what Travers had told me. I kept some things out of it, of course. I’m not sure just how relevant to our immediate situation my own circumstances were. However, Kazuma remained silent as I told him about Aveline, and Akhoroth, the curse upon this ancient tomb, how we needed to either rescue or find everyone else and most importantly…

  The true nature of Tatsugan.

  And how it was up to us to truly sy the Wyrm. Once, and for all.

  Kazuma stared over my head once I was finished, looking not at Travers, but at the sleeping form of Aveline. “I see,” He said quietly. To my surprise, the barest impression of a ugh escaped his lips, low and devoid of amusement. “It’s like a tale out of a storybook. We need to sy the beasts in this hole and then rescue the princess deep within, to ride triumphant out into the sunlight. All before my mad ancestor can needlessly sacrifice life, sying what turns out is little better than a puppet. This is…not what I expected, those months ago, when Shacklock approached me in a dingy dockside bar. Well. Nothing for it, I suppose,” He slid off of the bed and stood up, stretching his back and then sliding his bde back into the tattered cloth of his belt. “There’s no time to waste then, is there?”

  I joined him, rising to my full height and feeling my tired bones creak in equally exhausted muscle. It had been many long, long days of battle, marching, and stress to reach this point. But now, I could finally see what I hoped was a light at the end of this tunnel.

  Damn, but it had turned out to be an exhausting trip here to Goryuen. Not at all like the simple isnd adventure I’d been expecting.

  “No,” I said louder than his whisper, if only to gain Travers's attention once more. I thought I saw the Lich’s illusioned eyes flicker my way from where he had been standing granite still over Aveline, but I couldn’t be sure. “There isn’t.” I turned fully to face Kazuma then, and extended a hand. “Can I count on you, Kazuma Higanashi? Will you see this through to the end?”

  Kazuma turned away from Travers to bodily face me. He stared into my eyes for one long moment, almost seeming like he was looking for something. Whatever it was, he appeared to find it. He nodded firmly and reached out to grasp my outstretched forearm, cmping down with a steel grip. “You can. Let us put an end to this madness, Nathaniel Hart.”

  I returned the grasp unflinchingly, and the two of us nodded at each other.

  You know, maybe I’d been wrong about Kazuma. I’d been wary of the man ever since we’d picked him up out in the jungles, but I don’t think I needed to be any longer.

  As far as I was concerned, no matter his motives or his origins…

  He had proven himself to me.

  We turned away from each other and walked over to join Travers. He didn’t look up from his vigil as we came to stand shoulder to shoulder before him. “I’ll transit the infirmary closest to where I can sense one of your fellows. Whenever you locate them, the presence of the curse will fade enough that I can transit close enough to your position for a pick-up. Once you have located all of them, only then will I take the lot of you to where the defiled core resides,” He started without a word of greeting. “But first, we have something else to discuss.” Travers turned to face the two of us then, and I tensed at the barest impression of green fme I could see in his illusioned eyes. “The girl will not be coming with you.”

  The Lich’s tone brooked absolutely no argument. There was a steel firmness to his words that sent a shiver of caution down my spine. Well.

  Either that, or the promise of murder in that gaze.

  “I…thought we were meant to save the girl from this pce?” Kazuma voiced cautiously, tensing when that undead gaze fell on him.

  “And you will,” Travers said darkly. “But everywhere outside of my clinic is too dangerous for her. Find your companions and then deal with the Wyrm, but Aveline will not accompany you on this task. Frankly, I question your intelligence if you thought you’d drag along a helpless little girl on such matters. Once things have been resolved, I will be there with her for you to spirit away from this…moldering relic.”

  I stared his into false eyes, and nodded slowly. “That…makes sense. But at least let me tell Aveline that. I…don’t want her upset if she wakes up and finds me gone.”

  Travers snorted in disgust then. “That will not be an issue. If I so wish it, then the child will not wake until I will it. She will keep. Go. This room has already been transported as close as I can get to a life sign. This knot will not untangle itself.”

  It was already moved? I hadn’t felt a thing.

  Abruptly, the curtain that had been drawn back around Aveline’s bed lurched to life, surrounding the bed once more in a white linen wall. In contrast to most curtains I’d seen in my life, I couldn’t see a thing through it at all. The view of both the disguised Lich and the little girl I’d saved vanished from my sight.

  Clearly, Travers was done with the two of us for now. I exchanged a gnce with Kazuma and wordlessly agreed that it was time to get going. The both of us padded our way across illusioned floors, and stopped before the door, staring at the sliding fixture for a moment.

  I took the chance to check my gear, and reached for the st two energy potions I knew I had on me. Our long days on the isnd had dwindled the potion supplies down to only a scant few remaining pills. I figured that now was probably a good time for us to use them, and intended to offer the other to Kazuma.

  However, it was as I was digging through my supply pouch I discovered something that armed me.

  The gem Shurenga had given me was missing.

  I’d been careful with the small stone of frozen fire, meant as an emergency method of contacting Tarus. The Great Spirit of Veredens star had wanted me to become his ‘Envoy’ upon this pnet, to essentially act as his agent. I’d politely refused the offer via his tiger-like daughter but had been gifted that stone in case I ever changed my mind. In the few days since that meeting with Shurenga, I’d been very careful with, making sure the gem was well secured in my pack.

  But now it was gone.

  I outright removed the pack from the small of my back to search more thoroughly, ignoring Kazuma’s confused gnce as I did so. But no matter how frantically I rifled through the leather pouch, I couldn’t find it. Eventually, I had to give it up as lost. I had no idea where I’d lost the damn thing, but I wasn’t exactly happy about it. If nothing else, the mere physical presence of that offer was a good bargaining chip, if ever I found myself in great need of something in particur.

  No more, though. Damnit.

  I removed the two energy pills and handed one to Kazuma, saying not a word about my missing stone. After reattaching the stone and dry-swallowing my own pill, I joined Kazuma in staring at the door for a few moments, we were interrupted from our hesitation by the sound of a cranky voice echoing from across the room.

  “Get on with it already!”

  Ah…better get out of here before Travers lost whatever patience he had with us. Best not to test the undead.

  I reached out and touched the button next to the door, under the assumption that it was the opening mechanism. Turns out I was right.

  In opposition to its pristine appearance, the door slid open shakily as it fought against ancient mechanisms. Powered, but still dipidated.

  On the other side of the door was only darkness. Deep, impenetrable darkness. I couldn’t see a damn thing out there. It was obviously a much rger space than the narrow hallway I’d just been in, as well. There was a sense of yawning heaviness that loomed just beyond sight that was impossible to ignore. It was as if Kazuma and I stood on the precipe of a great…maw, the jaws of some impossibly massive beast bent wide to swallow us whole.

  But that wasn’t what clued me into the size of the obscured room beyond.

  It was the sound.

  Echoing out from some distant point wherever we had found ourselves was a sharp, distinct sound. A clinking, cnging, crumbling noise that reached us from somewhere beyond our sight, obscured by the darkness. It was faint, carried from somewhere far from where we were. But…

  If I didn’t know any better…

  That sounded like a pick against stone, chiseling away against some distant rock wall.

  My heart lurched in my chest. I know I was probably jumping the gun to associate the sound with someone so quickly. I might even be stereotyping a bit.

  But I immediately thought of Azarus.

  My will firmed, and I stepped out into the darkness, both Kazuma and my still active light Spell following me. The little ball of light had been hiding in the corner of the infirmary among the false fluorescent lights of the ceiling, blending in perfectly. I was thankful that these things were pretty much indefinite once they’d been sparked into being. I was really going to need it down here.

  What I wasn’t thankful for, was the immediate sensation that fell upon me.

  Pressure.

  Intense, overwhelming, pressure.

  The instant I’d fully stepped beyond the doorframe, it fell on me and Kazuma both. Both of my ears immediately popped as loudly as I’d ever heard them before, and a headache sprang into being right behind my eyes. The world swam around me as I grew incredibly dizzy, swaying on my feet and fighting to maintain bance. The very air around me felt denser somehow, harder to breathe and feeling different as it struggled to enter my lungs. It was hot down here too, wherever I was. Muggy and warm, it felt almost humid.

  But more than that was the weight.

  It felt like…

  Well, like an entire mountain was bearing down on me, intense and overbearing. I felt it in my shoulders as I fought to stay on my feet from the sensation. I swear it felt like my colrbones were only moments away from cracking.

  I lost the fight and the pressure and sank to my knees. I dimly noticed that Kazuma had done the same.

  Behind us, the light from the illusioned clinic winked out as the door closed behind us. I barely noticed, though. It’s not like I could see well, even with my light Spell hovering near us.

  I don’t know how long Kazuma and I y there on the rocky floor of…wherever the Lich had transported us. But gradually, we started to acclimate to the increased pressure around us. The air became easier to breathe, my dizziness began to fade, and the headache subsided. The weight bearing down on us persisted, but it somehow became more tolerable.

  Finally, I was able to speak. “What the hell,” I croaked out into the darkness. “Is going on?”

  My own words echoed back to me from the darkness, punctuated by the sound of a distant pick on stone.

  Hellhellhell…

  Kazuma struggled to his feet, and I accepted a hand up from the samurai. “I…might…have…an idea,” He struggled out, words growing easier for him as he spoke. “I think we’re…at the very bottom of the…mountain. The base. You said it was hollow…right? We’re feeling the weight of…Gorenzan itself bearing down…on us…”

  Ah…

  That made some sense, I guess. Expined the pressure.

  We were more than fifteen miles beneath the surface of Vereden now if Kazuma was right. No freakin’ wonder. Still, I think we could move now, even if it was difficult to fight through the pressure. All we had to do was follow the sound of the pick, and we would find one of our companions. Haltingly, Kazuma and I did so, stumbling as we struggled to fully acclimate to the pressure around us.

  Deeper into darkness.