Aeres Academy - Chapter 9 preview

I’m not a good person. 

I hesitated about going over to check on the body before I started digging through spider corpses for my shards. It wasn’t long, but I did hesitate. Eventually, I did do the right thing, detouring only slightly to stomp on a still moving spider before crouching over the body.

It wriggled a little, letting out little groans as I drew my knife, sliced apart spider thread. It released, slowly, and I was grateful that the majority had burnt off in the flash fire. Finding their face, I peeled the last few strands of spider thread off. 

Eyes, big and brown and soulful and very much concussed and delirious stared back at me. Still alive, but the groaning – and smell of lavender perfume – told me as much. Foolish, to add a scent to their body to enter a fault. I checked their pulse, found it steady if fast.

“Well, looks like you’re alive. And free.” I grunted, rocked back. “You’re welcome. Hang around here, or maybe get yourself up to the academy; but this should be safe for a little while. I’m going to collect my shards.” Dusting my hands, I got up since I could not see any open wounds beyond a puncture in the shoulder that had already stopped bleeding. I stood up, only to find that the figure had my arm, clutched tight. 

Fast hands.

“I… You…” a cough, a splutter. They twisted their head to the side, spat out a chunk of blood and black bile, then scrabbled at their belt. Finding nothing, they pulled themselves upright using my hand and the floor. Realising they were not letting go, I helped them sit up and dragged their sorry – if rather padded – ass over to a nearby stalagmite to rest against. Then, handing them my own water bottle, I kept my lips tight as they used the precious liquid to rinse, spit and then drink from. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Niceties later. I’m on a clock.” A hesitation, then I added. “So are you, I assume?”

She nodded, a flash of fear and distress appearing in her eyes. She looked around, at the spider corpses and the blood. Grimaced and pressed her lips together in frustration and ill-concealed envy. After a moment, staring at the burns on her hands and around her neck, she asked. “Fire?”

“Yup. Now, if there’s nothing else…”

“Can you…?”

“If your next words are ‘help me’, I think saving your life counts. If you’re asking for more…” I shook my head. “Sorry.” A slight pause, glanced at the water she still held in hand. Shrugged. “Keep it. You might be able to find your pack and food around here. I won’t touch that.” Another pause. “I’m also not going to try to hunt anything that escaped. I am going to collect the shards from the bodies here though.” I chose a random spot far away from her, before continuing. “We’ve seen slimes come, for the bodies. If you can handle them…?”

A slow shake of her head.

“Then you best get ready to move.” 

“Please…?”

For a moment, her words tugged at my heart. Empathy rose, and it was an effort to push it aside. Sympathy now would just mean her death later. She already had her lucky break for the day. Letting her push her luck when she was not ready was a greater disservice than not helping her. Though I doubt she saw it that way.

I detached my ar, from hers and move to the nearest spider, cutting along its bulbous middle body, fished out the shard. By keeping my pouch open to drop shards into , cleanup was swift and efficient. Smaller bodies, central location, brighter shards. 

Even so, it takes me another good thirty minutes including checking the sides of the cavern, dealing with another busybody who tried to find out what was going on and killing a lurking spider as it tried to bite me. I noted, idly, how she never called out.

By the time I was done, she was on her feet, weaving a little. Sleeping beauty glared at me, a hand resting on the stalagmite as she asked, imperiously. “Your name.”

For a moment, I debated ignoring her demand. Only problem was, it would not take much for her to ascertain it. There were only so many people who shared my looks in this city, what with the island nation state ‘my’ people came from currently under twenty feet of water. Thankfully, Tioneth lacked racial discrimination to any major extent. If anything, it was rather refreshing to be considered the ‘exotic’ looking one, but it did mean I stood out.

“Lin.”

“I will remember this, Lin.” A long breath, the body straightening. For all her posturing, I spotted how the injured arm hung by her side trembling uncontrollably. “You would do to remember me, Jade of Fern Gully.” 

“Ma’am.” I saluted her casually with two fingers.

Heading out of the room, I mentally ran through the numbers that I had, a little happier because of how far I had come. Just over fourteen more shards, if I had my count right. I couldn’t exactly be certain what that translated to in terms of cores though, or even if my count was right. One problem with everything being teleported away immediately.

Hopefully, she returned upstairs. Hopefully, she decided she was more thankful for saving her life than refusing to help her.

You never could tell with people. Illogical creatures, in this world or the previous one.

Back to the path, moving around various groups that were in the midst of a fight. Never getting involved, re-routing as necessary. Thankfully, I only had to do that twice, catching sight of a couple of familiar faces as I ran.

One was Brand, the youngster tapping one of his blades against a stalagmite, drawing in the xael wasps from a nearby nest. A massive thing, the nest covered the entirety of a wall, a pockmarked grey-brown hive that had the creatures swarming, buzzing as they sought his presence. 

By his feet, a couple of the wasps were down, stabbed or cut, their wings shriveled and smoking. As I back off, I’m lucky enough to catch sight of the boy getting into it. A swing of his other knife sending an arc of lightning dancing outwards. It struck one, two, and then a third wasp before it stopped jumping, fading out. The creatures fell, wings burnt and bodies smoking. Leaving them targets for a quick stab afterwards.

Lightning aspected skill of some form. Dangerous. 

Surprising.

Kid must have a couple of skills – and powerful ones at that. I had expected a recovery skill, one that gave him an ability to handle the draw of the orbs. A powerful skill, and now, a second one of the same level. Made him worth watching, for sure.

“Mine, old man,” Brand said, turning his head and flashing me a grin. Possessive, but not threatening. 

“Wouldn’t think about it.” Another bend of the head, and then I’m tracing my route to the next level.

Two types of monsters of significant note here – xael wasps and taras drop spiders. The centipede and other nasty crawlies weren’t even worth mentioning. 

By the time I managed to find the exit to the fourth floor, I was sick and tired of running. Before descending, I made sure to fill up on water – sweetened with honey and a touch of barley – from a second water skin and consumed my packed lunch. Sandwiches might have been more traditional  for some but I preferred to make a bao. Kept the sweet meat contained which kept it so much neater.

In the half-hour of rest, my breathing returned to normal, my muscles stopped aching and the slight twitchiness from watching for monsters settled. It would ramp up again when I began moving, but sorting out my blood sugar and hydration levels was important.

After all, glancing over at this floor’s water clock, I had about three and a half hours left.

Not a lot of time to get this done.