Aeres Academy - Chapter 5 preview

Author Note: Preview chapters are rough/first drafts. These chapters have not been edited, expect that there may be errors - however, feel free to point out consistency issues!

Let me be clear. I do not understand - even now - how the geography and physics of Tionerth work. Not in any deep sense. I had the idiot’s level of understanding of how physics and core geography – the interactions of dungeon, Tionerth’s world core and Mana affected monsters.

It was bad enough learning about physics on Earth. Between magic and various geographic and solar oddities in this world, I just gave up. After all, it was not as though Tionerth was particularly behind in some sciences.

For example, Tionerth hosted at least three moons, one of which was the size of Earth’s and two more only marginally smaller. That created significant tidal changes, including the every eight year super tide. No surprise then that the world’s understanding of the sea and tidal forces increased massive – or that the majority of cities kept to the inner portions of the continent where tides could not reach and dungeons were bountiful. 

But I digress. 

The point was, I am not particularly adept at the physics of this world. I was even worse back then.

Which is why, when I say that I understood at that time that the deeper ones traveled towards the world's core, the stronger the monsters grow; it should be seen in that light. That delving - for both cores and resources - at the deeper levels was Earth’s equivalent of mining for oil; with all the attendant self-destructive byproducts and the necessity to fuel the society’s drive towards industrialization.

That same drive to mine, to extract as many resources possible from dungeon and fault was also the reason why the Aeres fault had split, grown wider and gained full ‘levels’ just like the dungeon itself. Mana warped the dimensions of the level of course, just like it did with any contained space.

Which meant, since I had no access to the staff entrance, I had to traverse the marvelously large, circuitous route to the second floor entrance. All the while, the clash of monster and mortal played out all around me, corpses rotted and smelled up the space and even the wad of cotton stuffed into my ears did little to dampen the noise of so many pounding feet, monster squeals and human screams.

Lighting underground in the faults was, thankfully, of no concern. Crystal deposits of Mana could be found everywhere, none of them large enough to be worth mining or sifting to acquire the crystals. These crystals acted as foodstuff for the denizens of the fault and dungeon, for the lower forms of life that needed it for sustenance. It also, due to the nature of their attraction to Mana, glowed; providing a soft yellow illumination that arose from all around that was about the same illumination level of late twilight. 

Long shadows, cast from the side, from above, from below all around as bare batches, or concentrations fought one another. Stalagmites and -tites hung and reached alike, the flash of fighting bodies and the grunts and cries of pain echoing on and on.

I ignored it all, jogging along my memorised route, content to leave the first level for others. For the ill-prepared and the desperate.

Oh, yeah. There were only a few types who tried out for Aeres academy.

The first, the desperate.

Those who needed to join the academy as a last, ill-considered attempt to put off a dire future. Most often, drug users, gamblers and other addicts who still had enough sense to know that the academy is a much better choice than directly entering the dungeon itself, joining a black guild or one of the unaffiliated academies.

After all, at least here, they tried to get you out alive.

In this group, sprinkled amongst the number were the less addicted if just as desperate. Individuals who had to escape a bad situation, who had no other options but to test themselves here. Abused spouses and teens, the broke and the formerly injured. Those given a skill that could offer no employment above, but perhaps if utilized right might carve an unlikely story.

Like Shaw of the magic water skin, a simple storage skill that became so much more. Or Quinn of the ink, a librarian without a library. Wielding an inkpot and a quill to conquer the fiftieth floor.

No surprise, the majority of the desperate never made it. Most stayed on the first floor, scrabbling over the few monsters present and never gathering enough shards to pay for their presence in the fault. Mostly, they lived and left, injured and just a little more hopeless. 

They hurt my heart, a little. I wished there was a way to help them, but I was no saint and had my own problems. Watching Brand, butting in the burgeoning murder this morning – it all cost me time. So I hurried, faster than I should have. 

Which is why when a tenebrous worm launched itself out of the earth, jaws unhinged it almost got me.

Almost.

I dropped deep, sliding on knee pads against crushed earth and rocky ground, right hand leading the way as I sweep upward in a classic rising block. It caught the worm in its jaw, swept it above my head even as my backhand followed, grabbing at the body and sliding along the dry, almost slimy, segmented skin till it latched on properly.

Right hand rotated, gripping onto the body as the rest of my body twisted, the creature's own momentum and mine tugging at my balance. The rotation helped to keep my center, as I turned and brought the body down onto the earth. 

Hard.

All that momentum and force redirected into the worm and earth, causing its rubbery body to flex and squish. I raised it up and brought it down, whipping the body like a fleshy, wet towel. Stunned, it gave me a  moment to hit it with my right hand as I gripped it with my left. I struck, not as hard as I could. The point wasn't force – too much danger of punching hard rock beneath – but speed and shock. 

Multiple quick blows followed, on the third I finally shattered the hard, ridged rings that kept its body together. Another two and I crushed whatever worked for its organs. The worm finally stopped struggling, only minor twitches remaining as its dying body writhed under my grip. A quick check for additional enemies before I gutted it with my knife, locating the shard from within and dropping the entire thing back into my pouch. 

That was how I won my first shard. 

Yay, me.

I was not impressed. 

A quick swipe of the blade on the ground got rid of the majority of the gunk before I sheathed the weapon and resumed my traversal of the floor. As I ran, I mulled over whether the worm had just not been triggered by others or had recently crawled over, drawn from its burrow.

Dungeon monsters were weird. Unusually aggressive, though not insanely so. Many saw us as prey, interlopers that made for tasty snacks filled with Mana that would aid their evolution. They sought our lives, but also did their best to avoid fights they could not win. Though we might call them monsters, in truth, most were just the natural denizens of the dungeon, the flora and fauna of the underworld.

All the hollow world crazies back home would have a field day on Tioneth. Maybe they'd mix it up with the multi-world / multiverse conspiracy theorists and really get going.

I was nearly at the exit when I heard a commotion coming down one corridor, echoing all the way through narrow passages. Most of the noise had lessened this deep into the level, the desperate yet to come this far.

The slap of metal, the shout, all that was not unusual even so. The scream, higher and shriller and more panicked, was. Before I registered it, I was bolting down the passage.

Every man has regrets. As you age, you collect them like solo socks, piled in a box to be removed once in a while to mull over. You think there’s a point to them all, but realise, mostly; you’re just holding onto them through sheer stubbornness, though their usefulness has left long ago.

Get old enough, and that sock drawer is quite deep. Some of them – like being too feeble to help when others targeted your people during COVID - it stung. Made one question the very foundation of self you might have built.

It’s for that sock box of regret that has me moving, the desire not to add to it. Not in this life. A single sock might be light, but I’ve had a lifetime of lost socks to gather. So I break that first rule of charity. I choose to help another, even when I’m beginning to drown myself. 

I ran, following the sounds of battle echoing through the hallways, the shrieks that grew progressively less shrill and weaker. Multiple splits, a narrow and abnormally tight squeeze through a pair of tall connected columns of stone that required me to suck in my stomach and exhale fully and finally, I made it.

I emerged from the passage at a speed just short of a full out sprint, breathing picking up finally. Hours on my feet every day added with training in the early morning and - sometimes - late evenings meant that my natural endurance and cardio had increased significantly. Being in Tioneth for two years had allowed the baseline body to begin soaking in Mana like the others here, such that it had further strengthened. I was still behind the curve in terms of Mana density but I no longer grew sick every few days because my body struggled with the density.

Two years of constant exercise, breathing exercises, developing the core engine within me alongside physical and Mana nutrition practices contributed to providing me a body that was the fittest I had ever been - in both lives.

Even so, I could feel my chest tighten, my breathing speed up as adrenaline spiked upon the sight that greeted me as I emerged into the cavern. I squinted a little, the shift from twilight to early morning searing themselves into my eyeballs, along with the pair of aspirants and the half-dozen still living tenebrous worms and the three, wiggling and split creatures.

The worms, if you had not gotten the idea, were a cross of the familiar - Earthen earth worms with slick skin and ringed body and a massive mouthed, razor bladed nightmares best suited for B-movies in the eighties. They bled white and pink, their bodies resistant to blunt force damage and could craw or dig through earth – or flesh – with equal ease. 

I assessed the room in moments. On the ground, four worms hooked onto a still jerking, pitifully whining body of a man. Thin, emaciated, a machete dropped uselessly by his side, eyes glassy and mind elsewhere as he was eaten alive. Blood pooled on the slick ground, soaking into thin earth and night soil as the creatures took their time.

The remaining two worms were on his companion.

One had leapt and attached itself to the boy’s forearm, biting deep. Trying to - and mostly successfully - gnawing through muscle and bone. The kid – thin, emaciated, pale – was waving a large knife around, nearly the size of a short sword. Desperately attempting to keep the last creature from leaping at him and taking him down.

I watched as the monster leapt, the kid swung and struck. A beautiful cut, such that it passed through the body barely slowing down – or diverting the worm’s mass from its target. Severed head and mouth landed, attached itself to his thigh convulsively and bit down, drawing forth a long cry of agony. The smell of fresh, spurting blood mingled with night soil and a sweet odour rising from the mangled remnants of the worm corpses.

A third, emerged from the ground, breaking free of the earth directly behind the boy. He was busy swiping at the body on his arm, attempting to cut it free. Too distracted to see.

I bounded forward, leaping across the cavern and spun at the last moment, the flying spin kick catching the damn worm as it leapt. I spiked the monster away, like a sepak takraw ball to slam into the wall. It splatted, the semi-rubbery body only able to absorb so much before competing forces made the innards out-ards. 

By the time I recovered from the jump, the boy had freed his arm of the worm and was working on the wound in his leg. He was bleeding, heavily but there was a steely eyed determination that you rarely saw among sixteen year olds on Earth. I was rather at a loss as I turned my attention to the body writhing and dying not far away, gauging that he was too far gone to save. 

Unconsciously, I backed off, giving myself space if the worms decided to change targets. To my surprise, he was calmly extracting a shard from the worm corpses below him, dropping the glittering crystal into the open pouch by his side.

"Your friend..."

"No friend of mine. The fricking trivial skill was trying to kill steal my worms." The kid’s voice was rough, strained with pain but also brusque. "Made me lose focus.” Done with the worms by his side, he added. “I got the ones in him. You keep an eye on the walls."

"Walls?" I said, turning sideways to regard them. Blinked when I noticed how many more were emerging from the walls, poking their nightmare-inducing razor mouthed maws out as dirt and rock cascaded to the ground beneath. 

Way too many to be a coindicent.

"What...?"

"We're in a nest. And I got a lure." Words, short and clipped as the creature’s dropped. The boy swiped at his face where he was sweating, eyes still glassy from the blood loss. I'm surprised that he managed to stay so focused, how he’s ignoring the wounds that are still bleeding to talk. "You keep what you kill. Deal?"

I would have offered to bandage him, help further. But the worms were coming. So I gave the only answer that made sense at that moment. 

"Deal."