Ch. 89 - Surprise

Surprise

The last, barbed spike clattered on the ground together with a few droplets of her blood and Alice exhaled a sigh of relief as she willed the wound close with a trickle of her magic, the blood vessels tightening and the blood itself congealing within a few seconds, the last one of the dozens of scabbed-over boreholes that were already being slowly sealed from the inside by the ever-working cells of her body, a good portion of the corridor marked by a continuous trail of her life fluid, a thin red line to show her resolve.

She never stopped moving while she worked on her wounds, her pace steady despite the tiredness enveloping her mind and the pain wracking her body. The fight hadn’t been kind on her and only the copious adrenaline running through her system had prevented her from collapsing halfway through the endeavor; her brain was still gripped by the vicious headache that had bloomed after she had been forced to expend most, if not all, of her magical warmth to injure the creature and, subsequently, to heal the many wounds she had incurred in.

At first, she had believed that the worst injuries were from the thorns that the monster had embedded in her muscles, their sharp, curved barbs sinking deep and shredding her muscular tissues and blood vessels as they moved through her flesh, her reserves of blood gradually pouring out of her body from her many piercing wounds; it was only after attempting to push herself into a run that Alice had discovered that most of her internal organs had also received at least some damage from the constricting coils of the monster, only her reinforced bones having prevented her chest from caving in and her hips from shattering under such a pressure.

Still, she hadn’t been able to allow herself any kind of rest and had been forced to constantly use the slowly replenishing trickle of magical energy to patch up her body as she walked, the noise coming from behind her growing gradually closer and clearer as time went on, adding a layer of anxiousness and fear to the painful fuzziness of her migraine.

She knew that the massive eel that had ambushed her in the room with the Monolith was slowly gaining ground even in that moment and that it couldn’t be more than two minutes away, the sound of its body slithering on the ground a constant companion throughout her escape along with the memory of the way the monster’s wounds had stopped bleeding almost instantly after opening up, a grim reminder of what she was fighting against.

She couldn’t help but think of the way its muscles had clamped around her weapon and kept it in place, how its tendrils had been able to attack her like living beings, maneuvering independently as if they had had a brain; that creature had evolved to be as resilient as it could be and that was probably the worst opponent she could think of.

Just keep moving. You’ll find a way out and leave it behind, I just need a set of stairs and I’ll be golden. She continuously told herself as she moved, repeating that thought in her head like a mantra whenever her liver sent another spike of pain in her side or when the rational part of her mind reminded her that trusting a ‘tugging feeling’ coming from a piece of magical rock wasn’t the best idea she could have.

At the very least, the route she had taken seemed promising, the tunnel she was in completely identical to the one she had walked through just a few hours before, her luminescence able to create enough light to illuminate the stone walls and textured ground covered in shards of glass and crystal, remnants of the glowing ellipsoids that had been embedded in their nooks up high on the walls.

It had been a good quarter of an hour before she had reached the first pillbox in the tunnel, the new emplacement also destroyed during some kind of fight that had taken place in the area; multiple scorch marks adorned the walls and a pool of melted slag covered a large portion of the ground, making her steps ring against the solidified metal before she left that too behind.

About five minutes later, the pressure on the back of her brain started to increase and, at the same time, the noise of the creature behind her had gotten so close that she could almost feel it crawl towards her from behind the bend, the memory of its orb-like eyes empty of any emotion a constant presence in her mind.

Unable to stand against that maelstrom of pressures in her condition, Alice forced herself to ignore the pain of her body and broke into a run, sprinting down the curving corridor for many long minutes, her muscles easily able to keep up with the request but constantly asking for more oxygenated blood at the same time, forcing her heart to pump the severely diminished quantities she had available with as much strength as it could, her bruised lungs straining to keep up with the requests for good air while the hastily-patched up tears in her organs started opening back up again.

It was a panting and crying Alice that finally reached the second pillbox a few minutes later, the tugging in her mind having become a definite pressure as she moved towards the perpendicular corridor that the fortifications had once defended, towards the barricaded metal gate that would lead her to the outside, her relieved expression turning into one of complete panic when she saw the identically melted walls where there should have been symbols, the glyphs that had been etched into the stone completely destroyed by the attack like in the previous gate.

Oh no, oh no, oh no, she rushed towards the still-intact portal and started frantically searching for the indentation that would fit the signet ring on her finger between the inscribed metal, inserting it and waiting with bathed breath as a trickle of magical energy started flowing through the metal.

“Fuck!” she cried out when numerous symbols started glowing a deep red on the inscribed metal while the door remained undeniably closed, her muscles futilely straining as she failed to even make it budge.

Behind her, the sounds were gradually getting closer.

Then, just as she was starting to turn around to get away from the approaching monster, Alice suddenly felt another surge of energy come from the small shard in her hand, the trickle of magical power seeping into the door and in a single glyph on the outer edges of the metal, gradually changing its color to a deep blue before moving to the one next to it.

Seconds later, she jumped in the air in surprise when an incredibly loud and screeching sound started repeatedly blaring throughout the area like the world’s worst alarm, the noise seemingly coming from the walls themselves and interrupting itself regularly every four seconds, giving her a chance to hear the bellows of the now-rushing monster as it approached before the alarm could pound again through her skull.

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With a terrible crunching sound, the large, muscular alpha shattered the cranium of the marmot-like creature that had been weakly struggling in his grasp for the last half-an-hour, its bright red lips scrunching up to reveal a set of incredibly sharp teeth that quickly sank into the twitching rodent’s flesh, easily ripping off a chunk of warm, bloody meat that he soon gulped down without any delight, the movement made uncomfortable by the gnarly scar that ran across his face, pulling on his skin as a constant reminder of what he had lost.

What they had lost.

Again.

Anger bubbled in his brain so much that even the meat and blood lost their taste, so much that he threw the rest of the prey to the expecting lesser members of his posse, ignoring the way they immediately jumped on the unexpected feast, fighting between themselves to get the most of out of the carcass.

As he raged and hated in the small clearing in the forest; memories of his failures as an alpha appeared in his mind, nitid through his fury.

After climbing down the great tree, his troop had easily found the glowing creature hiding in a small cave between the roots at its bottom, the entrance to its lair protected by a tamed version of the luminous, hot thing that he had once seen consume an entire main branch of the great tree when he was nothing but a part of the brood, the smell of smoke it had produced surrounding their territory for weeks afterwards.

For a while he had stood there, wondering how the creature had obtained such a powerful boon before storing away those useless thoughts, instead savoring the moment he would get his hands on its body and hear it scream in pain as he exacted is payback tenfold. He could barely wait but he had done so, using the last shreds of his previous shrewdness before it was lost in that flow of almost constant rage that usually controlled the males of his species.

He had only moved when he had heard the breath slow down and become deep and regular, identical to their own when they slept.

Only once he had been sure it was unconscious had he given the signal to move.

And everything had instantly gone wrong.

They had just began trudging through the plants when the flying fruit-eaters that lived in there had suddenly been disturbed by the intruders ambling through their territory and had taken to the air, their wings frantically pushing their plump, delicious bodies in the air and shaking the leaves so loudly that their target had woken up, making them lose their perfect timing and surprise in an instant.

After that, he had been forced to retreat, the thought of attacking it by himself with only a couple of the brood carriers as support far too stupid even for his depthless anger and desire for revenge. He remembered far too well the way it had defeated the previous alpha and, to make matters worse, he wasn’t developed yet.

He needed to give his own body the time to get strong, he had decided to keep following it and get it whenever the chance presented itself.

And now he had lost it again.

He felt pure hatred as he paced through the clearing near the strange hole in the ground where the traces of their quarry had disappeared, the strange mixture of smell of its body lost under the water that covered some of the underground passages, the liquid impossible to cross for them.

It had gone where they couldn’t go.

It had tricked them again.

Again, he screamed in rage at the thought, his fist impacting the ground and causing the lesser members of his posse to cower back in fear, shrinking one behind the other in order to avoid his rage while ingesting as much food as they could.

Then, just as he was preparing to go and keep searching below, a sudden noise came from a somewhere deeper into the forest, a shrill, alien noise that he had never heard before in its life reverberated throughout the dome and the ground, even resonating from the hole they had just explored.

Where the creature had disappeared.

A rictus morphed the alpha face, his teeth glinting in the fading light of the day as he hooted loudly at the sorry remains of his posse and bounded towards the source of the noise, his perfect ears guiding him through the thick wooden pillars of the forest.

He was sure it was some kind of sign.

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No more than two minutes had passed since the horrible sound had started but two-thirds of the glowing glyphs that covered the door had changed their color, the process going quickly and proceeding from the edges and further towards the center.

Alice waited, wincing every time the sound punched through her smarting brain and shivering every time it ceased and was replaced by the slithering noises of the rapidly-approaching monster as it rushed in her direction, lured by the noise it was surely hearing and even feeling.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the pain that echoed throughout her body as she grasped the pick between her hands, slowly extending a connection to the weapon like she had done just a few days before, smoothly moving the weapon in the air and gradually starting to feel the pressure of the air against the metal, its weight and temperature and, finally, the replenished core within it, willing it to change the weapon that had been built around it, feeling the way the beautiful silvery alloy started flowing and oozing on the shaft, revealing the core for the first time as the pick suddenly turned into something she had once seen in a museum, a long spear with a crescent-shaped cross-hilt that made it look like a trident, the entire weapon probably a bit over two meters tall and made of solid metal that she hoped would be sturdy enough to stand the assault of such a creature.

She stopped only when the core was almost at its limits, finalizing the creation and quickly angling it towards the entrance, the butt of the spear against the solid door that she knew would never budge without getting unlocked first.

Just a bit more. Just a bit more.

Her silent companion suddenly raised its green scaled head and hissed lightly in her ear, making her jump and then chuckle as she turned to look at it.

“I actually forgot about you, I’m sorry. It seems like I put you in danger after all…” she whispered, “I should have given you a name too, oh well,” before she could even begin to think of something appropriate, the creature hissed again and turned towards the door, finally catching her attention.

Before her eyes, the perfect blue glow of the door illuminated her body, not a single red glyph marring the sight.

She had just pushed against the unlocked door when the eel suddenly appeared at the edge of the tunnel, its snout a mess of sagging skin, a single, partially bisected sensory tendril extending in her direction while the creature forced its mass into the passage while exuding copious slime at the same time, its pupil-less eyes staring straight into hers while the horrid teeth plates inside of its mouth snapped ever few seconds as it moved to close the distance that separated it from its trapped prey.

“Oh heck no,” she screamed as she pushed against the door with all her might, feeling her muscles ripple as the door slammed against something soft in front of it and pushed it away, giving her a perfect view of a small group of blue-lipped monkeys standing in the collapsed building that had once hidden the gate, their hateful expressions turning into ones of complete astonishment when Alice quickly wove through them while screaming incoherently at the same time, their eyes widening when they saw what was coming right behind without any intention to stop.

They never had a chance.

A crazed scream of hatred echoed behind her but Alice barely noticed as she rushed as far away as possible from that hellish place, the relief and adrenaline letting her ignore the damage to her body as she ran away and into the night, finally collapsing in the sea of grass that surrounded the forest.