PreCursive

  For a moment, I allowed myself to sag against my upright spear in relief. I ’t exactly say that I was expeg to be fighting giant spiders today. I don’t think I’d acquitted myself too badly, though. Hell, this was the first time I’d ever fought more than one mo a time as well.

  I was knocked out of my introspe by an enormous burst of wind blowing through the cavern. I raised my head just in time to see a veritable wall of Miasma rolling my way. Damnit, the Prime must have just gone off. I didn’t mao cover my mouth or nose in time to avoid inhaling a burst of the noxious fumes.

  My stomach roiled and I clutched my mouth, doubling over. Oh God. It was so much worse than usual. I just barely mao avoid hurling all over the stone of the caverh me. I was knocked out of my momentary misery by the feeling of someoting me on the shoulder. Looking up, I found that it was Grey, gazing down at me with an amused look on his face.

  My mentor was looking a bit roughed up, but not terribly injured. Which was a bit odd, as I remembered seeing the Abyssmother nd a shot on him. Hell, I could even see a rent in the abdomen of his clothing. He only had unblemished skin showing through it, so maybe it had just been a graze?

  Oh, whatever.

  I accepted Grey’s hand up.

  “Unfortunately, you’ll find that the iy of the Miasma will increase the higher level a monster is,” Grey told me, not unsympathetically. “Still, that isn’t the only thing that increases in power. The reward is often worth the effort.” Grey held up his other hand to show me, ched around something. He allowed his hand to open, allowing a brilliant white light to shihrough. I squinted in the darkness of the cavern, trying to get a better look.

  led in Grey’s palm was a Monster Core, but not like any I’d ever seen before. This one wasn’t the spherical crystal with swirling rainbow mist i that I’d e to expeo, this one, while still a sphere, had a pure white light swirling in its depths. It was rger as well. While most Cores I’d seen had ranged in size from that of a bead to maybe golf ball size, this o heavy in Grey’s palm. It was about the size of a baseball, I’d say.

  I fingered my neckce thoughtfully. That was much bigger than the Core of the first monster I’d ever killed that was set inside. My tiny little Bde-Rack Hart stone looked like a dull chip of quartz in parison.

  “Still,” Grey said, closing his fist back over the Core and st it in a pou his waist. “We’ve only aplished one of our objectives in these caverns. We still o find young Aurum.”

  I startled. In the chaos of the battle, I’d pletely fotten about him for a moment. Holy felt kind of bad about it. Just goes to show, that even with having multiple thought trains now, I wasn’t inhuman. I was still able to space out. “Right, right,” I said, a little chagrined. I turned around and started sing the cavern visually. I saw that while Grey and I had been speaking, the rest of our party had already started an iion of the walls.

  I started to move and join them, before pausing. Now that I wasn’t quite as focused on the damn giant spiders that wao kill and suck us dry, I could pay more attention to the cavern itself. As I’d noticed before, it was filled with stactites on the ceiling and stagmites on the floor. Idly, I let my middle ring wonder how old this cavern could possibly be, to have so many of them. However, from the various lights that had been cast throughout the cavern, I could see that there were webbed bodies oone fixtures.

  I guess that made sense. When the spiders were doh their victims, I suppose they had just webbed their now dry juice boxes onto one of them. I furrowed my brow, turning my head to look at Grey. “You don’t think,” I said slowly. “That he’s up there, do you?” I pointed above us to the roof of the cavern, where the lights from everyone’s skills didn’t quite mao pierce.

  Grey’s brow furrowed ptively at my question. Calling his silver light back to his hand from where it had been h near his shoulder, he raised it above his head. The light began to shine brighter, directed in a e at the ceiling.

  I grimaced at what the light revealed.

  I guess the stone spires were only overflow for the victims of the now-deceased monsters. Because the ceiling of the cavern was covered in the corpses of desiccated victims.

  The Abyssmother may not have been the Prime we’d e here for, but I retty gd we’d killed her anyway. If for no other reason she and her children couldn’t do this to anyone else.

  Still, the light did its job. Among the webbing above us, I mao make out a glint of gold. Almost directly above Grey and I was the webbed figure of Aurum with only his head visible. Grey’s silver light was refleg off of the gold of his pleading eyes.

  I blinked up at him, meeting them.

  Grey’s light show must have drawention of everyone else because they migrated over to our position. Venix was unphased by the sight of our healer attached to the ceiling, and just took out a cloth to begin ing his bdes of spider guts. Meanwhile, Sylvia was unphased, but Azarus seemed a bit amused.

  The dwarf cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ya alright up there, goldie!” He shouted up to the bound Sculpted. Aurum didn’t mao make any sound with the web around his mouth, but he did wiggle in pce. Azarus snorted in amusement at the sight. At my unimpressed stare, he held up his hands defensively. “What? It’s funny.”

  “Oh, sure it is,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You want to join him, then?”

  Azarus squi me. “Nah. Think I’ll pass.”

  Grey gave us a dry look and then turo sider Aurum’s bound figure for a momeually, he gestured in my dire for a moment with his left hand, causing my spear to jump in my hands. I let go of it with a yelp, as it floated away from me up to the ceiling at Grey’s apparent telekiistru.

  With the precision of a surgeon, Grey directed my spear to cut the bindings that held the ed Sculpted to the ceiling. Whe strand of spider silk was cut, Aurum's eyes visibly bulged in their metallic sockets as he plummeted to the cavern floor. Inches before he could impact the floor, Venix snapped one of his four arms out in a blur and caught him by the back of the co he was ed in without even looking. Gng up, the Antium man began to cut Aurum out of the ing with one of his free bdes.

  Meanwhile, Grey dismissed the telekiic hold he had on my on, causing it to tumble through the air groundward. I yelped, scrambling to catch it before it could hit the hard stone. When I did, I retracted the shaft and cradled the now-shortened spear to my chest. I sent Grey a wounded look. There were some delicate meisms in this thing, you know.

  Grey ignored me and approached Aurum, accepting the golden Sculpted’s staff from Sylvia as he did so. He hahe stave to Aurum, who took it with shaking hands now that he was free from the webbing. “Are you well, young Aurum?”

  Aurum gave Grey a shaky smile. “I’m-” He tried to say, before spitting out a piece of webbing. He coughed, and then tried again. “I’m fine, Headmaster. They…weren’t able to do mue. They tried to i me with something, but, well, obviously it didn’t work.” He said, leaning his o the side. Visible on it were two puncture marks akin to something a vampire would leave, puraight through his solid gold skin. Aurum sighed. “It’s going to be a nightmare getting that fixed up. Plus, I think I have dried venom on the inside now.”

  I stood up, and gave him a ptive look, tilting my head. You know, now that I thought about it…

  I decided to give him the choice. “Hey,” I said, drawing Aurum’s attention. He looked at me curiously. “I give it a shot. I might be able to fix that right here.”

  Aurum was visibly startled at my offer. I don’t think I’d ever mentioned Aetherial Melding to him, or used it in his presence. But it wasly any of his business. Still wasn’t, but I was willing to see if I could do a quick mend for him. It would probably be easier than actual surgery on another human with my Profession. “Um,” Aurum stuttered. “Sure?”

  I approached Aurum uhe ied gazes of my panions and id a hand over the bite marks on his neck. I closed my eyes and trated. These days, I could pretty much slip into the traneeded for Melding instantly. Once I was in it, I examihe puncture holes with my Aetherial senses.

  Yeah, I could do this. The metal of a Sculpted was infused with Aether in a way that was simir to hoerson's flesh was. But because it wasn’t flesh, it seemed like it would be much easier to shape and mend. I’d need a bit of material, though.

  Not a problem.

  I slipped a hand into my poud pulled out a gold . Which, iingly enough, wasn’t registering as pure gold. Maybe about only y pert gold. Good. My senses were tellihat not even Aurum was actually pure gold. Guy seemed like…maybe seventy-five pert gold, with a mixture of other metals that I couldn’t quite put a o. You know, I’d been w about that with him. Gold retty soft, so it hadn’t made sense for him to be one hundred pert pure gold.

  He, uh, did have some dried liquid on the inside of his outer metallic shell too. I guess that was the venom the dumbass spiders tried to i him with. I melded it away.

  Anyway, I astrallized the and used its material to patch the holes on his neck. When I was done, I opened my eyes to see that Aurum was looking at me in amazement. I coughed, embarrassed. “That part on your neck might be a bit weaker, so watch it. When we have more time, I reinforce it with a better mix.”

  Aurum jumped, as if woken from his own trance. “Oh, all right! Thank you!”

  Grey cleared his throat, smiling at me. “Now that that’s over with, we tih our pn,” He turo examihe far wall of the cavern before stopping. He poio the far er that the Abyssmother had been croug in, when it had colpsed the entrance of the cavern in a trap. “Over there should be the hidderao the prison proper.” He started walking in that dire, with the rest of us following along behind.

  Once we’d reached that er, the light from everyone’s skills illuminated a giant mass of webbing.

  And eggs.

  Lots and lots of spider eggs, each about the size of a volleyball. I ged at the sight of them, making a disgusted noise. Meanwhile, Grey clucked his tongue. “Well, that just won’t do.” He held up a free hand and poi at the web and eggs. His hand glowed, and from it poured a tinuous stream of bzing e fire. The webbing exploded into fme like they’d been doused in gasoline. So did the eggs.

  At the touch of the fire, some of the eggs began to prematurely hatch. From them, juvenile sea spiders tried to crawl out, only to immediately perish in the fme.

  “You know…” I said out loud, taking in the grisly se. “I thought monsters didn’t reproduce like regur animals.”

  I got an answer from an ued source. “Primes are an exception,” Venix said shortly, in a monotone voice. I turned in surprise, to see him watg the extermination and tapping the hilt of one of his sheathed bdes. “They are more akin tur beasts thaypical monster. It is one of the reasons they’re huhey quickly grow ies that overwhelm the frontier.”

  Huh. I guess that made sense.

  Venix spoke agaiing a ritual that I’d e to expect from him.

  “In icy depths, sin,

  Fme sears the Frostbrine night,

  Darkness yields to light.”

  I had to stifle a ugh at the absolutely baffled look that Aurum shot Venix at that. I guess he had missed the haiku that Venix had done, ba the road with the patrol.

  Grey finished with his fire work, revealing a rge stone door carved into the wall of the cavern. It retty roughly hewn, and I could only really tell that it was a door because it was regur. Otherwise, it had no other features on it. I sure as hell couldn’t tell how it was supposed to open.

  heless, Grey seemed satisfied. He approached the apparent door, ung about the still flickering fmes near it. He id a palm against the edifice, and spoke a word. “Aglon.” He intoned.

  Nothing happened.

  I could see Grey furrow his brow. “Aglon!” He tried again, speaking louder.

  Azarus and I exged a gnce when nothing happened again.

  Grey stepped back from the door, and turo face us. He scratched his . “Well,” He said thoughtfully. “Damn. I think the Loyalists blocked this entrance.”