“Who is it that you think you’re going to play with?” G?lge asked pointedly. “You are going to die and that’s it.”

  “Ah,” I answered with a tone of disappointment. “But where is the box I was meant to be put in? It appears to me that you lost it.”

  G?lge hovered his hand over me. From my shadow, the screeching of metal rubbing against rock could be heard. Like a submarine breaching the ocean’s surface. The metal kennel sprung from the rocks and landed with a loud thud right beside me. From my vantage point on the ground, I finally noticed that the name ‘Ishmael’ was etched into the side of the kennel.

  “For me specifically," I commented before I turned my head to face G?lge. “Go on then. If I’m going to die, then kill me now.”

  I made a show of exposing my chest to the shadow. The shadow, much to my disappointment, didn’t accept my invitation. He hung away from me, his knife brandished but clearly without any killing intent behind it. No matter how expertly someone conducts themselves, there is no hiding the feeling that you get in your stomach when someone genuinely wishes you dead.

  And I felt none of it from G?lge.

  All I felt was the wariness of a hunter confronted with a dangerous game. I could see that he felt he had something to lose by attacking me, otherwise he would have gotten it over with already. Either he had supreme confidence that his attack was a fatal one, or he lacked the confidence that he could finish the job now that I had survived the attack.

  “If you’re waiting for the poison to get me, I would recommend relaxing,” I advised. “It may take a long while before that happens. That is, if it kills me at all.”

  Seemingly understanding the true nature of my words, G?lge pulled a golden orb from his pockets and slammed it on the ground. The tunnels erupted in flashes of light. I squinted my eyes, and saw G?lge’s silhouette disappear.

  A disco ball of light spun around on the floor. The dancing lights bounced off of the rock formations to create shadows that ran circles around the room. Somewhere in here was G?lge’s blade.

  “See? We’re already playing.”

  I ended my respite and rose to my feet. I rubbed my fingers against the black wound that gashed my chest. Sticky oil-like blood clung to my fingers. I placed it close to my nose and sniffed.

  It smelled like rot.

  Assessing the injury, it seemed like a shallow cut. Even against my high defenses, I imagine the assassin believed that drawing blood was all that he needed to finish the job; that his toxins were stronger than my natural defenses. Too bad for him that my body stat increases poison resistance. It was a lesson that my clone taught me well.

  It was not the time for distracted reminiscing. My nostrils flared for lingering scents of the shadow demon, but nothing wafted against my nose. It was as though he had never been here at all.

  Hide and seek was the new game of the day. A game that didn’t interest me at all.

  But, I was not such a spoilsport that I wouldn’t play along, nor would anything else have entertained me at this time. I didn’t wish to stay here, slashing at shadows. Instead, I went to the golden ball and picked it up. It was hot, steaming in my hand and sending bright light everywhere like a nuclear night light.

  With the light held tightly in my hands, I made for the nearest tunnel. The light and shadows began to drain from the room and rush to the next corridor like a frantic crowd.

  “What are you doing?” G?lge demanded, his voice seemingly inside of my head.

  “Finding a way out. It’s up to you whether or not you decide to follow me.”

  I entered the tunnel and tried to navigate the labyrinthine passageways of the tunnel. Though I did not see or hear G?lge move to follow me, my intuition told me that there was no chance that he would not follow me. Whether or not he did anything was up to him.

  As for me, my main focus was on getting out of this place, wherever it was. All I knew was that it was another cave system. At this point, with all of my underground wanderings, I really should have had better intuition of how to get out of them. But, when you had as much time as you could ever want and an interest in finding the strong enemies at the deepest part of a cave system, my senses weren’t properly honed to find the way out of them.

  Do the opposite of what I had done in previous caves was a logical next step in my thought process, but I still faced the conclusion that I never put much thought into it in the first place. The smells, the sounds, natural cues in the formation of the rock; there were no skills that I possessed but wander aimlessly.

  I heard a small cracking sound beneath my feet. Instinctively, I leapt forwards as a small explosion ripped behind me. Shrapnel peppered my back as the blast shook the cave. A few rocks were dislodged and fell onto the floor of the tunnel, but the structure stood firm.

  On the ground, I saw a magic circle quickly fade into nothingness. I narrowed my eyes at the path that waited in front of me.

  “Tell me, how do you enjoy being Charles’ new favorite dog?”

  “If you knew my existence before I met Charles, you would understand me,” G?lge’s voice echoed through the tunnels. “What I am now is a result of his gifts, the loyalty that he gives in response to the loyalty that I offer. Without Charles, I would have been nothing. I thought that you were someone who was much the same.”

  “That couldn’t be any further from the truth,” I said with a chuckle. “Charles and my interactions were based upon a debt that I did not owe him. The end of my childhood and all of my free adult life was spent in subservience to him. There was no mutual loyalty.”

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  “But I heard that you did not reveal any information on him when you were captured. In exchange, he was going to negotiate your release,” G?lge countered. “What is that if not mutual loyalty?”

  “My own values just so happened to align with his best interests at that moment,” I said with a shrug. “I have no qualms with having respect for Charles, but such a thing is impossible as long as he views me as a tool. Just like he views you; tools that can break and be discarded.”

  G?lge was silent for a moment, giving me some semblance of self-satisfaction that I had managed to deliver a crucial argument.

  “I know that I am a tool to be used,” G?lge answered disappointingly. “But, that obedience does not come from nothingness. In life, you do not get to choose your kings. If they are cruel, if they are erratic, if they are unjust; there is little that a single person can do to change those things. Down here, you have the option of choosing your own king. If I am not strong enough to become king, then I must throw my lot in with someone who will take care of me. As opposed to you, someone who destroys and kills and does not offer anything to anyone, I would choose Charles every time.”

  “It is not the purpose of this place to provide for each other. This is a place designed to take and take and take. Charles only gives you anything so that he can take more. I am stronger than the need for loyal followers. I just need a business partner.”

  “Then continue to be alone.”

  I pressed onwards, trying to make sense of the cave system. There were collectible funguses and minerals that clung to the sides of the cave walls. Spotted slugs crawled along the ceiling, nibbling at the moss that grew near the groundwater that rested somewhere on the other side of the rocks.

  G?lge occasionally tried to make his presence known through further traps. I was willing to be caught off guard by them occasionally than to focus my efforts on dodging them and loosening my focus on his blade.

  He had an impressive arsenal of trap arrays. There were traps that made spikes of earth jut from the ground, stabbing me and blocking my way until I punched the path clear. There were traps that covered the ground in sharp wires and traps that emitted gas that made me lightheaded and traps that gave me auditory hallucinations.

  Still, he did not leave his cover and the ball of light remained in my hand.

  I started to find that much of this cave was linear; at least this stretch of cave was. There were branches, but they were short and often resulted in dead ends or squeezed down to a point that I found it unwise to continue. There was a main throughway that I had followed that slowly wound upwards, giving me confidence that I was on the right path to reach the surface again.

  As I navigated a narrow stretch of tunnel, I heard the next crack of a trap array. I had been expecting it as the opportunist, who normally tried very hard to have an irregular attack pattern, just could not resist using a chance where I would not be at my best posture.

  I had to hunch to get through this part of the tunnel and, as soon as I crouched down to move through the opening, the next trap was already waiting there.

  It was difficult to move forward quickly. I could maximize my speed, but I wouldn’t be able to accelerate far or generate any momentum before I would need to change my posture and change directions. I just had to maximize my defenses and weather the blow.

  A powerful wind pressed through the tunnel. Air rapidly vacated the section I was in, leaving my next breath to collect nothing but a gasp. A small icon for suffocation appeared and I had to move quickly. For a brief moment, I did find it interesting that the demon that removed sleep and hunger and thirst kept the need to breathe.

  But, the next gasping breath demanded all of my attention. I scrambled forward, through the tight sections of the tunnel. It moved upward vertically and squeezed further. I had to squeeze my body through the narrow chamber that I climbed through. Whatever oxygen that was still in my body was forced out like it was the last bit of toothpaste.

  I used my [Draconic Breath] coating the section in caustic gas to block the obvious knife attack. That, combined with the fact that the shadow surely had to breathe too, kept that knife from appearing.

  Soon, I wriggled my way to the next stretch of navigable tunnels. I pressed my hands into the ground to vault myself out to see another magic circle appear beneath my palm. I tried to force myself out and roll away, but I felt like my entire body was coated in glue.

  It was more than that, the roll that my mind told my body to perform seemed to happen at half speed. Worse than that, I hadn’t even begun the roll yet. My body was still vaulting out of the vertical chamber. My legs hadn’t even cleared the lip of the new tunnel.

  A purple hourglass appeared on my right hand and I realized that I was in some sort of slowing field.

  And, just as I came to that realization, I saw the knife appear out of one of the shadows on the wall. The blade carved its way through the air to come on a direct course with my neck. I started to move my body to react, but it was not being cooperative.

  Even if I were to go at maximum speed, it would only be at the same pace as the dagger. I could maximize my defenses and take another stab of the dagger to weather out the trap, but I wanted to punish him in kind and put an end to these frustrating games.

  I saw my solution in my right hand. As it was in contact with the circle, it wouldn’t be stupid to assume that it was what was slowing the rest of my body. I had already shifted my hand away slightly from the circle as I was pushing my body up, but the hourglass remained up.

  A gamble formed in my head. Detach the source of the speed, regain control of my body.

  I sprang into action, knowing that there was only going to be less than a second between slashing my wrist and G?lge’s knife.

  My left hand raised and moved down towards my right wrist. All the while, I was hyper-conscious of the blade that was still moving towards me. Adrenaline caused time to slow down. It was only a couple seconds, but it felt like a full minute

  My left hand cleaved through my right wrist. The hourglass faded, but the spell took another second to fully disappear. Before I could spring into action, the shadow’s knife pierced my neck, handing me an even more painful blow with my defenses lowered.

  But I would not be without my revenge. My hand gripped G?lge’s wrist and I closed at full power. I heard the bones crunch as G?lge’s wrist shattered beneath my grip. I yanked as hard as I could to pull the shadow from his hiding place, but he turned himself into black mist before I could finish the job. I knew that, from my own experience, a bailout move like that couldn’t be performed multiple times.

  The knife smacked the rocks before being recalled back into the shadow’s inventory. I could not hear him, but I knew that he was inside of his shadow realm cursing the pain.

  I wasn’t in any better condition myself. My right hand was regenerating and I took another, more painful stab.

  At least I could breathe again.

  I finished crawling out of the vertical step and starting to move up the tunnel again. I could do so at greater leisure now that G?lge’s injury prevented him from wanting to risk another attack.

  He did not have much time to plot an attack anyways. After another couple minutes of hiking, I felt a breeze blow by my body and a whistling sound emanating from further up.

  I rounded the corner and saw the sky through the mouth of the tunnel. The cave system terminated on the side of a cliff. Roiling waters could be seen below. Dark shadows swam in the depths, eager for someone to enter their domain.

  “Go away,” I ordered the demon that hid in my shadows. “As long as you are in hiding, I cannot harm you. You are too weak to hurt me. Go back to Charles and tell him that his gifts were not good enough to change my mind and that this can all end if he treats me as a peer.”

  I felt the presence slither away, ending our little game. No matter what I did, surviving without the ability to immediately strike back at Charles left him ample time to consider how he would bolster his defenses against me. His next effort would not nearly be as half-hearted as this one turned out to be. I would need to come up with some measures of my own.

  “Let’s see what Yoshitsune is up to.”