Kaia the Argent Wing

We rushed out into a gymnasium that was half forest. Gnarled old oaks tore up out of the once shiny wooden floor. The tops of those trees had busted out through the ceiling and into open air and fog.

Everywhere that the floor was split or cracked in some way, forest underbrush was growing. Cobwebs hung from the corners of the room and somewhere in the treetops some form of bird was making unnaturally rasping calls.

On the opposite wall was an open doorway that was obscured by a familiar thick black fog. I wonder… would that be the way out?

The main action in the room was over near a door into a changing room, where several redcaps were gathered, armed with an assortment of bone weaponry. Behind them stood a tall, lanky figure with elongated arms that touched the ground and bony hips that seemed barely more than a pelvic bone draped with pale skin. The figure was very naked, but in a way that had me wanting to turn and run. Drizzled over its skin in a way you'd do with maple syrup on pancakes was copious amounts of blood, fresh and dried.

The redcaps were screeching and attacking the door like rabid animals, while the creepy figure stood almost stock still, watching. Behind the door we could hear… shouting. The firefighters were still alive!

“Let me start this,” Chloe whispered. “Then you use that aura taunt thing and we hit them as hard as we can.”

“Got it,” I agreed, balancing on the balls of my feet, ready to go.

From the bandolier across her chest, she selected two different hex bags. That reminded me, I wanted to ask her something…

“Chloe,” I murmured. “I’ve been calling those ‘hex bags’ in my head because of Supernatural. What do you call them?”

The snort of laughter she stifled almost caused her to drop them. “Dude, I loved that show so much. Yeah, I call them hex bags as well.”

She showed me both of the bags, which actually weren’t identical. They were made of what looked like bed sheets and twine, but one had red marker scribbled on it, while the other had blue.

“Blue is for crowd control spells,” she said, and wound back to throw it.

Oh shit. I bolted forward, keeping my mind on my aura spell. The little blue bag flew over my head, looking like it was going to miss, then it twisted in midair and exploded right over the hungry crowd of monsters.

Chloe’s voice followed me into the fray, “Blues are easier to make compared to red! Red are the killing ones!”

The red one smacked into the taller creepier redcap and popped, releasing that gross cloud of smoke I saw when we first entered the school. The smoke twisted and writhed as it attempted to enter the breathing holes of what I was beginning to think of as the boss redcap. It didn’t find a way in, and I felt my guts twist in revulsion when I saw that it had no face—not even a nose.

I released my aura into the wild almost as a reflex, and rushed forward to get a hit in before the rest of the redcaps could wake up. Long twig-thin limbs came up to block my first attack. My axe blade bit deep into the arm, but no blood came out.

What, why didn’t it bleed? That was— it swiped at me with its awful crooked claws and pain blazed down my side. I cried out and stepped back, narrowly avoiding a second strike that came in from the other side.

Shit, it was fast!

It came in again, swinging its hideous arms at me in a terrifying version of a hug. I dodged backwards and swept my axe up from a low position. Fingers flew off to clatter across the floor, and somehow, despite not having a mouth, it howled.

Nuh uh. Nope. No, thank you.

Raising my left hand, which still held the smaller spike-shaped squirrel tooth, I cried, “Burn!”

The air boiled as my moonbeam scorched flesh, earning another cry of pain from the awful monster. It twisted, trying to get out of the fire and in its flailing hit the handle of my axe so hard the vibrations numbed my hand. With the feeling in my fingers gone, I fumbled the axe and it slipped from my grip. Fuck. Fuck!

My axe bounced once on the varnished floor, and I dove for it. I was intercepted by a club which caught me on the bicep, and I was forced to lurch sideways to avoid more attacks. Gods damn it, how did they recover so fast? I was being rushed—encircled!

That was the moment the firefighters chose to sally forth from their bolthole. There were only three of them left, but they charged in with the shields that I made and the axes that April made, screaming incoherent battlecries.

They chopped and hacked at the backs of the redcaps, but it didn’t keep them from laying blows into me while they died. I was, unfortunately, the sole focus of the monster’s hate because of my taunt.

Knives bit into my arms as I tried to shield my face and upper body. A club cracked against my shin and I went down to one knee. All I could do was hope they wouldn’t hit anything vital—hope that I would come out of this.

I screamed when something sharp slammed up through my side… but it didn’t make it far enough to hit organs. Was I… was I actually weathering these attacks?

I opened my eyes and in a split second that felt like an eternity, I took stock of my wounds. Nothing was deep enough that it would cause problems. There was lots of blood and pain, but… I was taking this beating! My toughness was high enough!

Suddenly, I was laughing. “Oh, you motherfuckers tried to stab the wrong woman!”

I lunged for the boss cryptid thing while it was lifting its claws to slash at me again. Silver light crackled in my hands as I empowered them with energy and then I wrapped them around its neck with a scream of anger. Smoke and flesh bubbled up together as I squeezed and shook the monster.

Through bared teeth, I whispered, “Yeah, asshole. Scream all you want. You’re dying now.”

That was when I remembered my weapon recall ability. I activated it and the axe whipped back through the air from where it was laying on the ground behind the boss. I let go of the monster and stepped to the side, anxious to get my hands out of the way of my weapon.

Already weakened from my empowered strangling, its neck stood no chance when the axe hacked into it. Bone and sickly white flesh sprayed out past me, and followed quickly by my axe that was still expecting to be caught. I was not confident enough to do that, and it sailed past to bury itself in a tree root.

As for the boss, its head fell to the ground with a wet thump, making it the last monster to fall. The fight was over. The others had finished the minions while I was grappling with the tall one.

"Are you okay?" A woman asked—one of the firefighters. She had a first aid satchel on her hip, although it was looking a little empty now.

"Yes," I nodded, breathing heavily, but with zero difficulty. Nothing had pierced my lungs.

Only after replying did I actually look at myself, and— "Oh gosh."

I was covered in gashes, bruises, and small gaping stab wounds. I was bleeding quite a bit… but not as much as you'd expect. My sleeves and pants were sliced to ribbons, though. What a mess.

"I'm a combat healer," the firefighter said, and stepped towards me. "Can I close your wounds with my magic?"

I nodded, not bothering to mention I could do the same. I was too exhausted.

She placed her hands a few inches above my ragged skin and they began to glow with a soothing pastel red light. Before our eyes, my flesh wounds began to shift and knit themselves back together.

While she worked, I noticed Chloe standing off to the side with a reserved expression. Our eyes met, and her lips twitched into the barest hint of a smile.

The healing took almost a minute, and during that time I decided to feel around with my senses for loot. Holy… wow!

"There's twelve attribute orbs in these bodies!" I exclaimed. "I think there's like, three or four ability orbs too! Holy cow!"

Chloe's eyebrows shot up, and she moved towards the bodies. It didn't take her long to find the loot, but she didn't do anything with it, and instead glanced around at those of us who were still alive. "Twelve attribute orbs and twelve people who entered this place. That can't be a coincidence."

Left unsaid was the fact that only five of us were left alive from that twelve. You could see the acknowledgement of that fact in everyone's expressions.

"I'm Quinton," one of the other firefighters said. He was a fairly normal looking middle aged guy, except that he had the most outrageous porno moustache. "I've been the squad lead since… since the redcaps got our original leader. I think it would be fair to take two orbs each, and then take the others to the captain for him to give out? Does that make sense?"

"What about the ability orbs?" Chloe asked, holding up the hand she had them in.

"What do they do?" I asked. "That's the real question."

Rolling them around in her palm and staring off into space, she said, "We have one that's like, a little elemental beam of energy, low cooldown, low damage. Basically a ranged cantrip. Element is based on your overall class vibe. Second one is just a boost to the speed of a weapon swing. The third one is… super weird. It allows you to soothe someone's anxiety, but only with their permission? The fourth one makes an object glow with light."

"How long does the glow last? Is it bright?" I asked with interest.

"Uh… indefinitely? Brightness depends on the material," she explained. "Honestly, the only one that seems interesting is the first one."

"Charles will love the last one," Quinton remarked. "The psych student we have in the first aid ward should have the anxiety one."

"Chloe should get the cantrip," I said. "She's got a lot going for her in her kit, but adding some ranged damage that isn't dependent on expensive materials would round her class out nicely."

The smile she gave me was huge and so, so pretty. My stomach did a little flip on seeing it, and I had to look away. She'd really opened up during our time alone in this dungeon, and… I think I was starting to see the human side of her. I honestly think I could be friends with her, if given more one-on-one time like today. It didn't hurt that I'd always found her really gorgeous and seeing her smile like that did things to me.

"I agree," Quinton replied, nodding to Chloe who promptly slipped the orb into a pocket.

"I don't want any, just the attribute orbs," I said when everyone turned back to look at me.

Chloe walked around handing out all the attribute orbs to everyone, and as she did so we heard the tale of how the firefighter's day went. They entered cautiously and were very quickly set upon by the redcaps. Oddly, they mentioned clearing out each room just as Chloe and I had. I guess that confirmed my theory that the monsters were respawning.

They lost their squad leader in the cafeteria, and their second casualty happened during their retreat into the changing room where we found them.

Honestly, I hoped that psych student they mentioned was good because everyone was going to need a lot of therapy.

The best part about killing the boss, above even the two ability orbs, was the fact that the fog on the exit doorway cleared enough for us to see that it was indeed, a way out. We looted the bodies quickly, including the claws of the boss, and then bugged out. None of us wanted to go through that shit again.

It was only once I felt the bitter cold of the wind outside that I allowed myself to use the orbs. The first went into toughness, while the second I used for perception. My rationale behind the latter choice was that being able to sense and understand things quickly was actually a very useful skill. Hell, it might help me with my crafting, too.

When we'd all finished with our allocations, we set off back towards the high school with the wind biting at us every step of the way. With my clothing the way it was, I was freezing within minutes. I hoped the cap would spare a new pair of jeans and a jacket for me.