Delve

When Rain opened his eyes, there was nothing to see.

The darkness was absolute. He would have thought he was using Aura Focus, if not for the uncomfortable weight pressing down on him and the smell of blood in the air. He tried to sit up, struggling with whatever was pinning him to the floor.

Disoriented, he activated Purify, the soft white light of the spell gently illuminating his surroundings. The first thing that he saw was that the object pinning him wasn't an object at all, but a person. The second thing that he realized was that the person was dead. Purify was dissolving the man's flesh before his eyes.

Rain gasped in horror, canceling the spell and heaving the body off of him. Darkness returned, but the memory remained. He shuddered, pushing himself backward until he hit what felt like a stone wall behind him.

Shit, what happened?

The last thing that he remembered was being dragged out into the hallway, then, nothing. Something had blasted him into unconsciousness. It must have been Force Ward.

Rain had activated the spell when Phoss had thrown him, then left it on as he struggled with the officers. It had still been active while the Watch bombarded the entrance to the lair, but that wouldn't have done it. Even if there were some Physical spells in that mess, Velika would have been too far away for the aura to have protected her with the settings that he had been using. It would have covered the Watch, though. At least half of them had been in range. IFF had only been set to exclude monsters, so one of the Watchers must have gotten hit. Hard.

Cautiously, he reactivated Purify, tightening the radius and boosting the power. Light returned, and he could faintly make out the form of the dead man lying in front of him. It was a Watch officer, not one that he knew. The body was lying on its back, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. Rain boosted Purify a bit more, then winced. The man's skin looked thin and dry, and he could see the muscles of his jaw. The damage was clearly the work of the aura. As for what had killed the man in the first place, it looked like it was blood loss—the man's arm was missing. Rain spotted it lying a few meters away as he looked around the room. Oh no… What did she do?

He activated Detection, searching for entities. There were none within the normal radius of the spell, so he used it as a Nova instead. He received scattered signals coming from above, plus a few from his own level. A second pulse revealed that the ones on the surface were coming from humans, the rest from monsters. Reluctantly, he tried again, setting the target as human corpses. Dozens of signals came back, perhaps as many as a hundred. Too many to count in the single-second duration of the Nova.

Rain slumped down, his back sliding against the stone wall. He felt sick. No…

It was a slaughter. Velika had won.

Rain forced himself to remain calm. He was still alive, so he should start there. His health was fine, slightly below his current cap of nine hundred. His back was killing him, still sore from the impact with the tree. That was nothing new, so he ignored it. He had more pressing issues at the moment.

He couldn't see far beyond his small pool of light, but obviously, he was still underground. He got to his feet, edging away from the dead man and tracing his hand along the wall. He cursed as the light revealed the outline of a second form lying prone on the ground. It was another officer, one of the ones that he'd been struggling with. He didn't know his name. There was no point in checking if the man was alive, not with his back bent at that angle. Detection wouldn't have lied, anyway.

Rain spun away, placing his hand against the wall and breathing heavily. Shit, Melka was in that room. The Watch is…They're all… Why would they attack like that?

He shook his head. Before he could worry about anyone else, he needed to get out. Quickly, he ran into a problem on that front. The door was blocked by rubble, leaving only a small crack near the ceiling. It looked like there'd been a cave-in. Shit, what happened? Is it stable, or…

He tried Detection, finding pockets of air above the rubble. That meant that the ceiling was still at least somewhat capable of holding itself up. He should be able to dig his way out, provided that he worked gently. He slunk back, defeated. One of the pieces blocking the door was particularly large. It wasn't the kind of thing he could move, short of a Velocity-charged body slam. It was a little bigger than a mini-fridge and was wedged into the doorway atop smaller pieces of rubble. It wasn't obvious whether he'd be able to dig under it without disturbing it. If he'd been Tallheart-strong, he could just lift the thing out of the way. As it was, a Velocity slam was just too risky. He wasn't that desperate. Yet.

Further exploration of the room revealed it to be some sort of bath chamber, probably for cleaning off after coming out of the lair. There was a shallow pool recessed into the floor with a drain that led to who-knows-where. The inlet was set high on one of the walls, but there was no water flowing now, and the pool was dry. That was pretty much it, other than the two dead officers.

Rain retreated to the corner furthest from the bodies and deactivated Purify. He needed to think. Even with the light gone, he could still feel the presence of the corpses. It was like Westbridge's attack all over again.

He shook his head. He needed to stay focused.

The grate was no good. Wherever the water drained to, it wasn't the sewers. This room was below the sewers. Even if there was a way out down there, it wasn't open to him unless he could find a way to break the heavy-looking iron bars. The inlet looked more promising, but it was too high for him to reach easily.

It looked like getting out wasn't going to be easy.

He let his head fall back against the stones, trying to grapple with the situation. The Watch attacked Velika. Velika retaliated, and now they're all dead. Melka, Lamida, Phoss, all of them, probably. Velika wouldn't have stopped. What about Kettel, Val, and the others? Did they get out? The officers had them, but…

He shook his head again.

Maybe Velika got them out, maybe not. This isn't good. This isn't good at all. If Velika won… If she's still alive…

Fuck. I just promised I'd work for her, didn't I? Great. Now I'm second-in-command to a mass-murderer.

Rain thumped his head against the wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He stopped, wincing as his back complained about the motion. Well, I can deal with that, at least.

He opened the settings for his ring and decreased his maximum health. Four hundred and nineteen points were sacrificed, converted to overhealth to heal his body. Immediately, he felt as good as new, physically, anyway. He set the ring back to the previous setting and closed the window. He was in no mood to dig through his stats right now and optimize things.

He didn't even know how long he'd been unconscious. His HUD only told him that it was 5:59 AM, not what day it was.

He considered adding a calendar display to his HUD, but quickly realized that he needn't bother. His log didn't show any new training notifications. That meant it had only been a single day. Immediately as he realized this, his alarm sounded. He'd set it for 6 AM the day before, and hadn't bothered to change it since. He pulled open the window, glanced at it briefly, then closed it.

Plenty of time to deal with all that stuff later. For now, I need to get out of here. Those two officers first, though.

He got up and walked over to the closer of the two bodies, letting Purify wash over it and start to do its work.

"May you find peace," he said simply, then boosted the spell to quicken the process. As an afterthought, he extended the range to catch the man's arm as well. The body dissolved rapidly, leaving empty clothes behind, as well as a bronze Watch plate and a few pieces of equipment. There was also a broken potion bottle, which Rain only now realized had come from his own bandoleer. Unfortunately for the officer, it had been stamina, not health.

Rain grimaced as he knelt to pick up the plate. He inspected the Watch's crenelated shield emblem, then flipped it over. There was only a number, no name.

He repeated the process for the other officer then tucked both plates into a pocket of his cloak. The second officer had been wearing a sword and a pouch of money, both of which he took. The sword wasn't magical, and there was a sketch of a smiling woman tucked into the pouch along with the Tel and copper coins. Rain felt horrible when he saw that. His fingers tightened around the sword, and he punched the wall with his gauntleted fist.

"Fuck!" he yelled, shaking his hand.

He boosted Purify to give himself more light, set the sword down, and started pacing back and forth. He glanced at the door, then up at the tiny inlet. Damn it. I was right there, and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. I need to get out of this room, and I need to get out of this ridiculous barrier. I can't fight someone like Velika, not like I am now. I can't protect anyone like this! I'm just a little bitty bug, trying to dodge people's boots. It is unacceptable!

He walked over to the door, inspecting the rubble. He pushed lightly on one of the smaller pieces, then pulled it away when nothing collapsed. He moved a few more but was forced to admit that he was never going to get out this way. There was another big piece below the first, visible now that he'd moved some of the smaller stones out of the way. There was no way he was going to be able to move either of the big ones. Unless…

He pulled up his adaptation panel.