Everything hurt.
She tried to sit up. A mistake, as she could feel her brains sloshing in her skull and every muscle screaming in protest.
Stamina: 44/138
Focus: 66/549
Health: 70/133
She groaned and let herself fall back to the floor.
“Salos, are you awake yet?” she asked the empty air. She knew he wasn’t. She could feel him cold and heavy against her chest.
She was alone again.
Still.
She squeezed her eyes shut and forced a deep breath. The hearth in her chest thrummed to life. Warm. Ready.
Okay. She could do this.
First, was she in immediate danger?
Atmospheric Sense quested out around her. She was in a room about the size of her old college dorm room, with even less furniture. It was just her and a pile of boxes on the far side of the room.
No one else was here.
A slight draft ran underneath the door, giving her an idea of the state of the hall outside—empty. There was no other airflow in or out of the room, suggesting that there were no other entrances or secret hatches.
For the moment, she was safe. As safe as she could expect to be.
No imminent danger. What about her body? Everything hurt. It hurt too much to be from just the state of her resources. She wasn’t missing that much Stamina or Health.
The worst pain was in her left arm, from shoulder to wrist. She reached around to poke the shoulder. The pauldron was warped, finger holes drilled through the heat-softened metal by the paladin captain’s immense Strength. The flesh beneath was little better. Her left shoulder, already injured from her adventures in the Catacombs, had been further burned by its contact with the captain’s molten armor, super-heated by her skill.
This was a reminder that just because her flames couldn’t hurt her directly, the fires they started or the things they heated could still burn her. She wasn’t fireproof, not by a long shot.
The points his fingers had dug into her shoulder still held the heat, radiating lacing pain through the shoulder, entwining with the stabbing pain of her remaining puncture wound.
And the pain continued as she worked down the arm to her hastily bandaged forearm. She’d shoved what bandages she’d had into the cut in her vambrace, wrapping the whole thing in more to hold them in place. But she could see the blood oozing through the wrappings, and every time she moved, the raw edges of the broken metal cut into the skin around the injury, adding fresh pain to the cocktail of suffering.
Her right wrist burned, too. Not nearly to the same degree as her shoulder, but there were impressions of the captain’s hand around her right vambrace and lingering heat from the lesser burns he’d left beneath.
She needed to do something about this or her Health would keep dropping.
Cass shoved herself up into a seated position, ignoring the continued sloshing of her brains. Did slyphids have brains? Or did it depend on whether she thought she had them?
She rubbed the spot between her eyebrows where a new headache was forming around the uselessly distressing thought.
She needed a campfire and tea. Better wound dressing, too, if she had them. Luckily, they hadn’t stopped to search her before they tossed her in here. Her Bag was still slung across her body.
She searched through it and built herself a small fire from her wood stores and a quick application of Elemental Manipulation. The pain in her body fell as Beacon of Hearth and Home enveloped her. Hearth hummed in approval.
She set up tea to brew beside the fire with herbs from her Bag and another ball of summoned water.
While that brewed, Cass attended to her wounds, removing her hasty bandages, carefully extracting broken armor pieces from injured flesh, cleaning the cuts and the burns with summoned water, and treating them with herb mixtures under the guidance of Herbal Concocting.
As she worked, she checked her notifications.
Atmospheric Sense has increased to level 18.
Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 17.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Stormstride Sprint has increased to level 18.
Tempest Blade has increased to level 16.
Trap Detection has increased to level 5.
Not bad. Clearly, she was going to need these if she was going to get out of here. She’d need every scrap of speed she could get her hands on, and any bonuses to her combat capabilities were welcome.
She tightened the last bandage over her shoulder, sealing the herbal poultice against the burns.
Herbal Concocting has increased to level 5.
Oh, another one. That made sense. It had been a while since she’d gotten a level in the crafting skill.
Her tea was well steeped.
Cass’s Medicinal Tea
[Although brewed by an amateur with no experience mixing their own tisanes, this combination of herbs is a potent brew with a delightfully earthy flavor.
Minor increased resistance to illness
Increased resistance to symptoms of diseases
Increased Health, Stamina, and Focus regeneration]
She sipped it and closed her eyes with a sigh, letting the earthy flavors take her away, doing her best to ignore the burnt, bitter undercurrent of the brew.
This was good for her. It would help her recover faster. There would be time to heal.
Maybe if she said that to herself enough times, she’d believe it.
Things looked bad right now. Really bad.
She was on her own. Salos was still out. Alyx was—Alyx wouldn’t be coming for her.
She would have to save herself.
How? What did she know?
She was in the basement of the city temple. The hallways looped. There was no escape. No one was coming for her.
She forced another deep breath.
What else did she know?
There were quite a few paladins and a handful of priests who were enemies. At least eight paladins and their captain? Maybe more. Probably more. And at least three priests and their high priestess. Again, probably more.
That was thirteen enemies who wanted her dead?
She grimaced. Thirteen vs one. Thirteen enemies all past the Gate vs Cass’s singular level 23.
Another deep breath.
Was that true?
They were definitely her enemies. And there were definitely at least 13. And she was definitely lower leveled than all of them.
But did they want her dead?
They thought she was a demon. They had used plenty of force in her capture.
But did they want her dead?
She was at their mercy. Yet she was alive.
Conclusion? They didn’t want her dead.
But then, what was their goal? Holding her? For what purpose? Her mind immediately went to ritual sacrifice. Images of her laid out over stone altars to eldritch gods and priests in black robes holding bone knives filled her head.
No. Well. Probably not.
Not eldritch gods, for one. The system had Identified them as the ‘Order of the Copper Crescent Paladins.’ Which was a cult, according to Alyx. But a cult dedicated to the goddess Fortitude, not some eldritch beast from beyond the stars.
And for two, if they were going to sacrifice her, why would they have taken her away from their altar? She’d been in what could only have been their center of worship. Why drag her away from it?
What did they want with her then? According to Alyx, they’d been kicked out of the city years ago. So, why did they still have a wing of the city temple?
And how did that assassin in the city before the Catacombs fit into all this?
Cass groaned.
Was her kidnapping Alyx’s fault for reasons entirely unrelated to their falling out?
Had they kidnapped Cass to harm Alyx?
But they’d called her a demon. Only Alyx should know about that.
Unless the cult had their own methods of detecting demon-ness.
But then, had they attacked her that first time for the same reason? Was none of it because of Alyx?
She sighed loudly. She didn’t know. All of this was speculation. She needed to organize her thoughts. She started with the open questions:
- Who had kidnapped her? The Order of the Copper Crescent, apparently, but who were they? A religious order? A cult? If they were a cult, why did they have rooms in the proper Temple?
- Why had she been kidnapped? Was it because they hunted demons? Because Alyx had reported her to the authorities? Because they wanted to hurt Alyx?
If it was because Alyx reported her to the authorities, why had they attacked her before Alyx knew about Salos? If it was because they hunted demons, how had they known she was one? If it was to hurt Alyx, how had they known about the demon thing?
She didn’t like it, but the simplest explanation to that tangle of questions was they had a method of detecting demons. On the other hand, it had the side benefit of suggesting Alyx hadn’t reported her to the authorities, which Cass found unreasonable comfort in.
- How screwed was she?
As she’d observed a moment ago, there were thirteen or more cultists out to get her, each with some to considerably more levels than she had. She did not know how many other allies they might have.
The captain had knocked her out of and disabled Wind Step.
Wind Step!
Was it still disabled? She pushed at the skill. It accepted the Focus but fizzled out, returning her Focus as there was no wind to step onto. That was more than it had done earlier. That must mean it was back, right?
She’d take that reassurance for now.
But that meant the captain had an anti-magic or skill-canceling ability. Was it any skill, or just movement ones like Wind Step?
No, it couldn’t be any skill, or he would have used it to disable Elemental Manipulation, too. He also wouldn’t have needed the high priestess to dispel Confounding Mists. What else could she dispel?
Cass sighed. She’d observed a lot, yet it just left her with more questions.
Like the looping. How did the looping work? Was it a skill? Who’s skill? The captain’s? The high priestess’s? The goddess’s? How did she take it down? Could she escape without disabling it?
Cass took another deep breath. This wasn’t helping. There were only two options. Either escape was possible, or it wasn’t.
She gained nothing from assuming it was impossible. Better to act like she had some chance.
What would make that chance for her?
Recovering as much of her resources as she could was a good first step.