For the second time in as many hours, Eres awoke to stare at a stone ceiling with the taste of blood covering his tongue. His entire body was tingling painfully, like the world's worst case of pins and needles, and he had to bite onto his tongue to keep from crying out. There was a low buzzing in his ears, and as he tried to listen out for his friends, he couldn’t hear past it.

  Freya’s face appeared over him, and he could see her lips moving, but he couldn’t hear anything. Her face was pale, green eyes wide. He could even see her chest rising and falling rapidly. The slight sheen of perspiration on her face was enough that he could tell she was panicked. Myla’s face appeared from the other direction. She looked much better than when he last saw her. Although there were still bloodstains around her lips, she didn’t look to be in pain, just worried about something. Her lips moved as well, but the sound didn’t reach him.

  Freya must have healed her, Eres thought, though he found his mind moving sluggishly. I wonder why she hasn’t healed me yet? Or is she healing me? Maybe I’m too far gone. They both look like they might cry. I really hope they don’t cry over me.

  Like his rambling thoughts had popped a bubble, suddenly sound began to rush into his perception again. At first, it was just a jumble of noise, he couldn’t understand any of it. He could hear words, but it was like they were in a language he didn’t know. It faded back in slowly, in fits and starts. First the odd word, then more and then finally he could hear Freya.

  “Eres, you have to listen to me,” she pleaded, tears still in her eyes, “You need to let go of the Mana. I can’t heal you while it's inside you. Fuck, Eres, please hear me, I need-”.

  Eres closed his eyes and concentrated. Was he still holding onto the Mana? As soon as he thought about it, he could feel it. It swirled through his body, raw and unprocessed Mana. This wasn’t the ordered Mana he pulled from his Core and turned into spells, this was the chaotic force he pulled inside himself to let his Core recharge, except it wasn’t in his core. It was everywhere.

  He felt it surging throughout him, mostly in his arms, but everywhere else too. It crackled and sparked against his insides, and he felt it tearing him apart as it tried to get out, but it couldn’t escape, not without permission. He opened that mental door and felt it bleed out through his skin into the air around him, and instantly the dark of his closed eyes brightened with light.

  “Thank the Gods,” Freya muttered. Opening his eyes, Eres could see the tears rolling down her cheeks now. “You are going to be okay. It will take a while, but I can heal this. Just hold on, love, it won’t hurt much longer.”

  It took a few tries for Eres to get his throat and mouth to work well enough to croak out a response. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt right now.”

  He knew, logically speaking, that that was a bad thing. The burns to his arms hadn’t looked worse than, but if he couldn’t feel them, then it was likely they were much worse than he had thought. Freya will patch me up, though, he thought, opening his eyes and smiling up at her. She’s healed worse than this. Speaking of which-.

  He turned his head to look at Myla. She had managed to stop the tears from escaping, but her eyes were still watery. He moved his neck a little to get a better look at her, and saw that the armour on one side was all bent and torn, the chain mail links rended apart, but the flesh all seemed to be whole now. He smiled at her too, and worked his repairing throat again.

  “You alright, hon?” He rasped. His voice was stronger than a moment ago, but it still sounded foreign to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t block that swing. I didn’t see it coming and-”

  Myla shook her head violently, the tears finally making their way down her cheeks. He watched one run down her face, across her lips before it fell onto his chest. She didn’t speak, but Eres could tell that she didn’t want his apology, not now. So he waited. It wasn’t until he started to get feeling back in his hands that she finally spoke.

  “You were doing what I asked of you,” Myla said, her voice barely a whisper. She had moved her lips closer to his ear so he could hear her properly. “You did what you needed to do and then so much more. I lost focus and got hit; that was on me. Then you got hurt making up for my fuck up, so don’t apologise to me, Eres. I’m sorry you got hurt because of me.”

  Eres shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips now. He could feel his whole body now, the healing nearly done with its work. He reached a hand up and placed it against her cheek, happy to see his limb whole and healthy.

  “Okay, no apologies,” he said, thumb tracing her cheekbone. He hadn’t meant to touch her so intimately, but she pushed into his hand, resting against it with a soft exhale. “I will be fine, and so will you, and we will learn from this. I’m really glad you are okay, though. I felt like the world stopped when I heard you hit that wall and-”

  Eres’ words were stopped by pressure on his mouth. Myla leaned forward and softly pressed her lips to his, the kiss chaste and gentle. Eres’ brain didn’t resume normal functions until she retreated, breaking the kiss, and looked across him. Eres followed her gaze to see Freya grinning like the cat that got the cream.

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” she said airily, “You are both all healed up, so please, continue.”

  Myla’s blush was furious, but Eres just grinned as he slowly sat up. He still had a few scars that looked like arcing electricity where the veins on his arms were, but even those were fading. Freya wrapped her arms around his shoulders and squeezed him into a hug, kissing him on the cheek before helping him to his feet.

  Eres finally got a chance to really take in the devastation that his magic had caused; the hollow chest cavity of the Troll and the ashen remains of the Goblins. He could feel his Magic Core throbbing from the overexertion, and his entire body felt stiff from the chaotic Mana that had been trapped inside it.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Shit,” he breathed, looking at his hands, and then at the women beside him. “I’m fucking lucky to be alive after a stunt like that. Thanks for the healing, Freya. I’m going to stick to constructs and shields from here on out, I don’t want to push my luck and die on either of you. How long was I out?”

  Myla finally banished her blush enough to answer him. “Only a few minutes, even including all the healing. I haven’t heard any more movement, but we need to start trying to find a way out. No more elemental magic means we need to get out right now, I doubt these Trolls were the only ones down here.”

  “She’s right,” Freya nodded, bracing her staff against the floor as she rotated her hips until a soft cracking sound came from her back. “If we were going into a dungeon by choice, this would be enough of a reason to retreat, but that isn’t exactly an easy option. The plan stays the same, get out of here as fast as possible, but now we just have to avoid anything of that kind of size.”

  Eres nodded and slowly pulled the Mana from his Core into his hands. It moved sluggishly, and his Core ached with the effort, but it was responding. His hands went to the back of his waist and pulled out the pair of daggers he had fastened there, weighing them in his hands with a smile. He was glad he had gotten Brom to teach him combat as well as Magic in situations like this.

  “Let’s move then,” Eres said, nodding towards the far passageway. “Myla, hon, lead us out.”

  Crossing around the edge of the cavern and into another narrow tunnel, Eres managed to move enough Mana to enhance his eyes against the darkness of the underground cave system they had found themselves, but Freya used Divinity for herself and Myla. The cramped confines of the tunnel eventually led to another large room, though this one didn’t have a pool of water in it, instead just seven Goblins who were chattering and wandering around the room, poking at various rocks like they were the most interesting thing in the world.

  Myla turned back to the pair behind her with fire in her eyes. “Eres, Bow only. Freya, give me speed and power. We tear straight through the middle and out the other side, understood?”

  Eres pulled his mana together into his usual recurve bow, though it took a few seconds to form rather than being the near instant formation he was used to. He schooled his face so that they wouldn’t see the discomfort from moving the Mana, but Freya was still looking at him worriedly. He nocked the long, shimmering purple arrow on his string and nodded to Myla as Freya’s Miracles started to coalesce around her.

  Myla burst into motion like a pouncing tiger. Eres turned the corner and loosed his arrow, concentrating on creating another as soon as it had left the string. Myla reached the pack of Goblins at the same time Eres’ arrow plunged into the throat of one of the small, green monsters, and she set to her task with a grim purpose.

  Her Great-spear took the first Goblin in the lower back, severing its spine as the others started to yell about the threat. The second fell as the long blade swept across its throat while it struggled to pry its shortsword from the dirty sheath. The third managed to pick its crude spear up off the floor before her blade crashed down on its skull from above, cleaving down to its sternum before being jerked out in a spout of yellowish blood. The fourth slashed at her stomach, its blade turned aside by the overlapping rings as the butt of Myla’s polearm plunged into the creatures gut, pushing it back far enough that the next sweep caught only the flesh of it's stomach rather than it's spine, spilling its organs onto it's feet as it fell onto its back screaming. The fifth and sixth worked together, running forward with spears held out as they poked towards her throat, but Myla just snarled, sidestepping and parrying as she waited for an opportunity.

  It came a second later when a glowing purple arrow shaft flew over her shoulder and into the chest of one of the creatures. Before the other could react, she had already knocked its spear aside with her own, surging forward to grab it by the throat and slam it into the rocky floor hard enough that its skull cracked. A sharp downward stomp of her boot finished it off, its head splitting apart like an overripe fruit.

  Eres stepped up behind her, his eyes wide. Yellow, brackish blood was seeping out from under her boot, but Myla was still scanning the room for more threats, eyes sweeping back and forth across the space. He had another arrow nocked, but he wasn’t convinced he would need it. Myla had fought like a woman possessed.

  “They make it through the armour at all?” Eres asked softly. “Can stop for a second if you need Freya’s help.”

  Myla shook her head, still not looking at him. Eres’ brow creased in confusion, and he touched her shoulder gently as he managed to get her to look at him. She looked troubled, and he could see blood along her lip where she seemed to be biting it.

  “Talk to me, hon, what's wrong?”

  “I’m covered in blood, Eres. I just fucking kissed you, and now we are fighting to get out of a fucking dungeon and I’m covered in Goblin guts and-”

  Eres stopped her by gently pressing his lips to hers. It wasn’t more than a peck, but she stared at him with wide eyes as a smile slowly grew on her face.

  “I wouldn’t be much of a man if I had a problem with my Berserker doing her thing, would I?” Eres laughed, stepping back to give Myla a little space.

  “Your Berserker, huh? Does that make me your Priest too?” Freya laughed from beside him, her head popping up in his peripheral as she rested on his shoulder for a second before she stepped up to Myla and hugged her, whispering something in her ear. Judging by the blush, Eres assumed it was a dirty joke. He blushed as he realised what he had said.

  “I just meant-”

  “Nope, no take backs,” Freya crowed, poking him in the chest gently, “You said what you said, now you gotta back it up. Right, Myla?”

  Myla just shook her head with a smile and pointed at the tunnel on the other side of the cave. “Looks like an incline. Would guess that’s our way out, let's get a move on.”

  The laughter and joking stopped quickly as they started to move again, heading across the cave. The softly rising tunnel was still dark, but Eres could feel wind on his face. This was the way out, Myla was right.

  Eres didn’t know why he felt compelled to look over his shoulder. Perhaps it was one of the Gods deciding to give him a helping hand, or just his instincts screaming at him that there was more to this. He looked back at the other tunnel, the one on the side of the room they hadn’t passed, and had to bite his lip to stop the torrent of expletives that wanted to leave his mouth.

  “We need to hurry back, this is even worse than we thought,” Eres spat, pointing back at what should have been a rough stone tunnel into the caves. However, that wasn’t what he saw. Instead, a foot or two into the tunnel, the rough, natural stone shifted to polished blocks of worked stone, and the floor shifted into steps that quickly descended out of sight.

  The dungeon already had multiple floors, and somehow Eres just knew there would be more than one.