Alone in the Dark

New Lessons in Combat

The charging creature stumbled to a stop and let out a vicious snarl as it came within the light of the sword, hissing and slashing at the air with its claws but not moving forward. Nerini didn't stop to appreciate the apparent power of the blade. She launched into a flurry of attacks that lead with the magical, glowing sword. Every slash it made cut through the swirling darkness and reduced the size of the creature, and when she hit solid form, she could hear the metal sizzling through flesh and causing screams of rage.

Moving under a swipe of one claw, Nerini slashed at it with the sword, feeling the monster's claws dig into her arm as she drove her sword up into its head. The sword went clean through its target and buried itself in the stone wall behind, leaving her up to her elbows in shuddering monster guck.
Its body fell in a messy heap to the ground, blood splattering at her feet, and the sword flickered momentarily before resuming its humming light, getting brighter for each second it remained in the wall.

Nerini paused for a moment, watching the blade with her hand still on the hilt. She had not realized it had dimmed until the sword returned to its normal brightness. Blinking to accustom her eyes, she glanced over her shoulder.

There was Aupan, who stood behind her, nodding in approval. "Any contact with the earth, and the sword will replenish itself. Every time it counteracts the dark magic, it will lose a tiny amount of its energy. A lesson we learned far too late in our battles. You fight well. But you're bleeding."

Nerini looked down at her arm and sighed at the burning pain that was rolling over her previous aches in waves, though the blood was not coming out at an alarming rate. "It already hurt before this. Besides, you told me to ignore the claws, so I ignored the claws."

"You can't kill it by cutting at its arms but they can hurt you, is what I meant. It's better to sacrifice a cut or two, to kill the Sanyuin." Aupan shrugged disinterestedly, then glanced around the tunnels. "I don't sense any others around, I think you're safe for now. The tunnel entrance is some ways over there."

Nerini let out a breath as she pulled the sword out of the wall with her good arm. "My brother said this thing could cut through stone and metal, I figured it was a myth, or an over-exaggeration."

"Metal is harder, so don't expect to be able to slice through broad swords on first slash." Aupan said easily, walking beside her as she continued along the tunnel. "Sellexer has descendants as well?"

"Yes. King Caelur, seems like an alright guy, I don't know if he has any sort of Gift, though." Nerini offered, giving him a curious smile. "Why are the Sanyuin attacking us now?"

"The father needs a mother. Same as when they began attacking us, I fear. According to what we found out, there's a very, very rare occasion that a human will be born with a gift, that makes their blood intoxicating, almost to the point of being able to control the lesser ones. They can also breed fully with the leader, on a quite regular basis, and the Sanyuin can thus replenish their ranks fully. When that woman is born, they attack." Aupan offered a shrug, his eyes on the darkness in front of them.

"So, someone's born with the gift to be a brood mare to a host of telepathically connected monsters?" Nerini asked softly, shaking her head at the revulsion the concept raised in her. "That sounds like a short end of a terrible deal."

"Does your world have powerful fighters? Why are you alone in this tunnel?" Aupan asked suddenly, turning to look at her as they walked through the tunnel, his expression getting sad. "I had a host of warriors fighting beside me and even then, we almost lost. You can't fight this alone."

"I told you, I fell in. I wasn't alone, not really, but most of our fighters are otherwise engaged. This battle was unexpected, to be honest. I just started out to find my brother, because I wasn't sure what I was dealing with or if it was a trap, so I wanted the important people to stay safe, while I figured it out." Nerini offered weakly, watching his morose expression slowly turn to indignation. The argument she had used so effectively against everyone else seemed to fall short in front of the former leader of her country.

"The enemy wishes to separate you and draw you out. They are small numerically, so they seek to reduce your numbers accordingly. Never fight them alone, Truth Seeker. Never let them draw you out by yourself." His words were firm, like an order he knew would be followed.

"I couldn't risk taking protection away from the people who mattered. I didn't want to spread us out so thin." Nerini shrugged, ignoring his glare and falling back on her stubbornness. "I'm expendable."

He halted and moved to stand in front of her, his expression getting dark to the point of fury. "No, you are not expendable. You are a Truth Seeker. A random gift amongst a million others, a chance in the dark. You attract greatness to you as surely as you are attracted to those in need and the problems of the world that need fixing. These two parts of your gift are not coincidence. You are not meant to be alone."

Nerini took a step backwards away from him, matching his glare. For a moment she nearly argued, but finally she let out a sigh and inclined her head. "Quite frankly, I'm sick of fighting alone. As much as it pains me to have people hurt around me, I've come to enjoy the moments fighting besides my friends, sharing it as a team, not having to do it all by myself."

"Good." He smiled and moved back beside her and they continued walking. "If this Caelur is related to my brother, his gift is probably spectacular. My brother used to be called the Phoenix."

"That's the Royal sign of Sellexu, the Phoenix." Nerini whispered, offering a shrug. "You'll meet him eventually, if you're going to stay hanging around me and the sword."
"I'm stuck with you, unfortunately. I can come and go, so you can have your privacy when you want it, but I am ultimately attached to the sword." Aupan chuckled, though his expression looked wistful. "You're the only one who can talk to me, unless you pass the sword to someone else and it chooses them. You are the only one who can see or hear me."

Nerini looked at him for a moment, raising a brow. "People already think I'm crazy, talking to someone they can't see will be a bonus."

"This won't help their perceptions then." Aupan chuckled again, grinning wider to her, his eyes sparkling with the humour. Then he nodded in front of them. "Here, the passage is coming to an end."

Nerini lifted the sword and stopped, seeing only a pool of water that smelled of the sea lapping up onto the tunnel floor. Only a solid wall and this puddle seemed to greet them. "There's no way out?"

Her gut sank. Turning back the other way meant fighting more of the monsters. If one had found her, then others could surely get into the tunnel.

Aupan frowned before he pointed at the pool of water. "The sea must have reclaimed it. There's a stairway down there, with a locked gate at the bottom, it should have led out into a beach, even at high tide, it was never this deep. Your sword can cut through the gate, but I don't know how it will look on the other side, after all this time."

Nerini moved closer to edge of the water and let out a breath of relief. The water, lit by the glow of her sword, showed a set of stairs descending into the deep, just as Aupan predicted.
"Can you swim?" Nerini took a step down into the water, gasping at the frigid temperature, though she grinned up to him. She paused for a moment to take in a slow, calm breath, steadying herself for the next leg in her journey.

"I'm dead, I don't need to breathe." Aupan said drily, watching her descend into the water. His last words before she dove beneath the surface echoed in her ears. "But you do."