Terse Elements

Hilda groaned and pushed herself to hands and knees. Her skin burned from the acid water on the ground. The sideways rain dripped down her face and under her collar. Hilda cursed and stood to her feet. She was too sensitive to light to open her eyes without taking damage but she didn’t know in which direction she would find the vine. She covered her eyes and tried to squint through the space between her fingers. The light burned her eyes and her sight immediately started to dim. She turned quickly around to spot the vine on her right. Hilda closed her eyes tightly and walked to the vine. She held the vine and trembled. Which way had everyone gone? Why hadn’t they noticed she wasn’t with them?

After a deep breath, Hilda decided that they must have continued on and hadn’t yet noticed her absence. Which way is that. Left? Right? Hilda cursed herself as she remembered the sideways rain that was, even at that moment, hitting the side of her face. She turned to put the rain at her back and walked a few steps to the portal. Unknown to Hilda, a jellyfish floated right behind her head. They passed through the portal one after the other.

The first thing Hilda heard was Leta’s scream. The first thing Hilda saw was Arna on the ground, choking and feebly swinging her bronze sword above her. Baggi roared. Hilda looked up and saw the huge man with two rocks in his hands, swinging his arms wildly in a cloud of jellyfish. Jellyfish were everywhere. There were jellyfish around Arna. There was one right beside Hilda. A burning sensation hit the back of Hilda’s neck and she jumped forward and whirled around. A jellyfish had come up behind her while she stood in shock. A second jellyfish drifted through the portal. She was trapped. They were trapped. They were all dead. There were jellyfish everywhere. She was trapped.

Leta screamed again. This time, Hilda recognized her own name. She turned toward the sound. A jellyfish stung her arm, but Hilda could hardly feel it. Leta was on hands and knees, thrashing about as if blind. Hilda rushed to Leta and used her bare hands to shove jellyfish away. This time, Hilda felt the pain. She screamed. Leta fell back into the water. Where did this water come from? It pulled at Hilda’s feet, and she lost her footing and fell next to Leta. From this close to the ground, Hilda could see that Leta’s clothes were full of holes and blood leaked from every hole. The water flowed away to expose plain grey stone. Hilda grabbed Leta’s shoulder and pushed them towards the portal. The stone scraped her burned palms bloody. The portal was so close, why couldn’t they get closer? Why was each crawl so slow? Leta fell again but Hilda grabbed their hand and dragged them.

Hilda was in shock, and her mind was stretching each moment as long as possible. In reality, she had been in the stony worldlet for only a handful of breaths. During those breaths, Arna lost consciousness, and Baggi’s acid-burned hands lost their grip on the stones. Hilda dragged Leta behind her towards the portal. One pace away from the portal, the jellyfish launched the attack that had devastated Arna, Baggi, and Leta. Acid sprayed out from nearly every jellyfish. Hilda screamed as acid hit her in the eyes and threw herself forward into the portal. She kept hold of Leta’s hand and dragged them through right after. Leta’s clothes were almost completely gone. The exposed skin was melted and bleeding. Worse, they were starting to choke on inhaled acid.

Hilda couldn’t tell at the time, but she was not much better. She was completely blinded and bleeding from many places. She panted heavily as she sat up. She pulled Leta onto her lap and held them tight. Leta choked out, “Couldn’t… find you.” Hilda sobbed hysterically. “Leta! Leta!” She shouted hoarsely between sobs. They sat there together as Leta’s breathing worsened. Hilda couldn’t shed tears because of her burned eyes, but she couldn’t stop sobbing. After a few minutes, Leta raised a hand to touch Hilda’s face. A golden light, even brighter than the light in the acid rain worldlet, flashed. Hilda gasped as her wounds partially healed. Then she screamed as Leta’s body turned to grey ash.

A jellyfish drifted over Hilda’s head, unable to navigate accurately as the sideways rain pushed it inexorably on.

Hilda crawled on her elbows through the peat and acid water. She kept the vine on her left side brushed it with her shoulder every few body lengths to make sure it was still close. She had lost her bow—acid probably ate through the string, and it fell off. In one hand, Hilda held tight to a handful of ashes from Leta’s body. She had sat with the ashes on and around her for a long time, waiting for her sobs to stop. She had nearly lost everything of Leta because the sideways rain slowly washed Hilda clean. When she came back to herself and was able to think again, Hilda found some ashes in her leeward hand. Then and there, Hilda promised Leta that she would take those ashes out of the dungeon.

The acid rain worldlet was long. The other worldlets were mostly circular, but the sideways rain pushed the vine to grow in one direction only, so the worldlet expanded only in that one direction. Hilda didn’t know how long she crawled in the acid water, but she eventually found sand and acid-free water under herself. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyes had only healed enough to let a sliver of sight through. She scanned back and forth to try and find the threats she was sure must be here. She saw what she thought was a salamander running towards her. Hilda carefully got to her feet. Then she ran.

The crawl across the acidic peat water had not been kind to the skin on Hilda’s legs, but she strained to move her feet fast enough to outrun the dungeon salamanders. She had no weapons. she was injured and she could barely see; there was no reasonable way she could stand and fight. She tried desperately to keep her sight on the vine that led towards the exit.

Hilda tripped on something she couldn’t see and nearly went down. She straightened up and ran her shoulder into something stiff and hard. Feeling with her hands, she felt a tree with a few branches. Hilda yanked and twisted one of the branches, hoping to acquire the most basic of weapons. The tree and branch bent and twisted but did not break. Hilda shuffled around it and ran on. She scooped up some sand in her free hand. As she got closer to the exit, she caught glimpses of more monsters, but Hilda thought they might all be bugs. She heard a beetle’s wings buzzing towards her. Pausing for half a breath to listen, she swung her fist down and bashed the beetle to the ground. She threw the sand straight ahead in a hopeless attempt to blind whatever was in her way, then she barreled ahead and through the portal.