7
Dax was still trapped at the bottom of a mysterious and badly lit lake.
Escape had seemed entirely impossible once he had been conscious enough to notice the shackles around his wrists and ankles but his attempts hadn't been for naught. Constantly wriggling around like a worm, had shaken the chains enough to unscrew one of the bolts anchoring him to the lake bed.
Now, with a hand free he could reach to pull himself along one of the chains, aiming to undo the rest himself. Just as he had started this mission though, a loud scraping noise could be heard from below him and the three remaining bolts fell. The brass poles their shackles had been attached to sinking below the rocky bottom of the lake.
'I hope they still have the receipt for those.' Dax thought to himself as the shackles still attached to him fell away, as if someone had just invisibly inserted the key. They too sank lazily through the water until he could no longer see them.
Limbs that were stiff and painful after being restrained so tightly, flapped around as Dax attempted to swim. Uncoordinated flailing was all he could manage to produce as tired and leaden as he felt, though that did not seem to matter as bubbles surrounded him.
Bubbles that propelled him upwards towards the surface.
To freedom.
Dax found himself rocketing up to the surface of the lake like a balloon full of air.
Pain the coldness of the lake water had been able to mask thus far was seeping back into his consciousness.
As his head popped out of the water and Dax sucked in several large gasps of air, he choked when his face dipped beneath the surface as he struggled to tread water. Every muscle in Dax's body was straining in an attempt to reach the relative safety of the lake shore. The dark rocky pebbles of the shore seemed miles away.
All he wanted to do was sleep, his arms and legs were cramping from his previous fight against the chains and he was beginning to feel lightheaded. Every flail of his limbs caused ripples on the surface, causing the bell suspended over it to ring continuously as each of them disturbed it.
It's sound though soft and melodic, echoed in the enclosed space of the cave, becoming louder with each toll. It had reformed itself since the explosion and now looked as if it had never cracked at all. Dax didn't really have either the time nor the energy to register this. Not drowning continued to be a greater guiding impulse right now and hopefully the sound would bring help.
The last few meters of swimming, where the water was shallow enough that he had to actually support his own body weight felt like torture. Muscles burning after being unused for such a long time.
Grey sand slowly turned into gravel and then to pebbles as he made his way up the lake shore. It crunched underneath him, disturbed by his weight causing him to slip back towards the cold water. Once Dax was absolutely sure that he wouldn't drown if he laid down and passed out, his arms gave way and he flopped down onto the ground.
The sharp points of the gravel dug into his legs and the uneven surface of the pebbles pressed uncomfortably against his ribs but he didn't care. He could only lay there gasping for air as his body was wracked with tremors and spasms.
He'd heard people talk about 'manual breathing' before and as he laid there, having to spend absolutely every ounce of concentration to breathe right now, he finally understood what that meant.
The world felt like it was moving underneath him and Dax closed his eyes in an effort to not throw up.
Then he passed out for the first time in this new world but not the last time.
~
When Dax finally regained consciousness he had gravel indented into his chin and left cheek. He had no idea how much time had passed since he fainted but his whole body was still shaking. It was less from the pain right now and more from how cold he was.
The water had been freezing cold and the temperature of the cave was not much higher.
He was so cold.
The type of cold that made it hard to breathe normally.
His breaths were rapid and shallow and he was soaking wet, hair stuck to his face as if it were seaweed.
'Got to try and breathe normally.' Dax told himself sternly. Hyperventilating would only lead to passing out again. So he pulled everything he had into slowing down his breathing rate in order to actually get enough oxygen in.
Once he was somewhat more awake and able to at least sit without losing the contents of his stomach, Dax was finally able to take a look around. The surface of the lake was flat now, no longer being agitated by his laboured attempts at swimming. It's surface reflected the towering purple mushrooms that were growing abundantly here.
They were the source of the purple light that he had seen earlier from the bottom of the lake. Light emitted from them, was the only light within the cave and gave it a somewhat spooky feeling. It felt like he could wander into a boss fight at any moment.
Ringing echoing from the crystal bell that was still tolling was the only sound Dax could hear other than his own breathing and the crunch of gravel beneath him as he shifted his weight. It was still moving despite there no longer being anything to propel it anymore.
Maybe it was an alarm of some kind.
Now that he wasn't at risk of drowning and there did not seem to be any immediate threat to his life, Dax was determined to find a way to get both warm and dry. Dying of hyperthermia was definitely something he wanted to add to his list of ways he didn't want to die the second time.
Hoping to both find a way out and warm up a little, Dax found himself crawling around the lake shore. His arms shaking and knees bruised from the stones, he didn't trust his legs to not give way beneath him if he tried to stand yet. It's always more comfortable to fall from ten centimeters off of the ground than well over a meter.
Something under one of his hands made a crackling noise and he withdrew it quickly to see the glimmer of a golden leaf beneath it. Dry leaves were better than nothing but one was certainly not going to be enough for a fire.
"Help me find some of your friends." Dax said to the leaf holding it by the thin and brittle stalk. Together they moved along the shore collecting more and more of the shiny leaves with only the dim light of the cave mushrooms to navigate. He was careful not to get them wet otherwise any hope of having a fire would go right out of the window.
Moving around had warmed him up enough to be able to have thoughts that weren't purely about immediate needs and Dax remembered something that might have answers.
"System!" He asked but there was no answer. "Hey System!" It felt rude to shout but 'The System' was the only other thing here that could maybe help. Talking to a dead leaf could only get you so far. His voice echoed in the cave, before eventually dissipating.
"System is attempting to repair connection. Please remain calm." The AI finally responded after playing it's heavily copyrighted four note greeting music. It emerged from wherever System's go when not actively being used and bobbed jauntily by his head once more.
Dax's face fell. Even this mysterious System wasn't able to help with whatever this incredibly weird situation was.
"Attempting to repair connection. Please remain calm. We value you as one of our precious customers." The four notes of the greeting tone played again and Dax could already tell that he was going to become highly irritated by them in a very short amount of time.
"When did I give you any money? Since when was I one of your customers? Why is the connection in here so bad?" He grumbled. It was one thing if all of this was something that he'd asked for but for something or someone to scoop him up and not even seem to have things organised was another.
'Can I at least be kidnapped by competent people?' Dax thought.
He walked round and round the wall of the cave looking for some sort of exit, leaving puddles of water and wet footsteps in his wake. Despite his best efforts, there didn't seem to be one. Not even the smallest crack or hole that he could take as a direction to even think to dig in.
Digging through rock with only his hands wasn't going to be a quick nor painless activity and it would be nice to be doing it in the right direction.
Just when he was starting to lose hope that there was anything other than glowing mushrooms, gravel and the lake here, Dax stumbled upon a small building.
It was a temple.
A very small and rather old looking temple but a temple all the same. He peeped his head through the doorway, around the door that was hanging open expecting the room to be dark.
In defiance of his expectations though, the small inner and outer rooms of the temple were lit by the glow of a fire. They looked like they had been empty for a very long time but they remained clean looking despite that.
Dax rushed his way over and into the outer room, his bare feet thankful to no longer be treading on gravel and uneven rock, though they were too numb with cold to fully register the pain.
There was nothing in or on the temple at a quick glance to suggest to whom or what the temple was dedicated but he made sure to thank them anyway.
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Please let me take shelter here." Dax said through chattering teeth, the warmth of the fire made him feel icy in comparison.
Getting down onto his knees, he added the golden leaves to the fire which looked on the brink of going out and it flared back into life once more.
"I'm sorry for getting water everywhere. I promise to clean it up later." He profusely apologised as he stripped off his wet clothing. It was heavy and fell with a thud to the wooden floor of the temple's outer room, leaving a not insignificant pool of water there.
After fighting with the small buttons of his clothing, his still stiff feeling fingers found the mass of wet bandages that lay beneath them. There was barely an inch of his torso, arms and upper legs that wasn't crisscrossed in sodden fabric dressings.
These too would have to come off, Dax supposed as he looked at just how wet they were. Untying them proved to be difficult as his shaking hands made the knots very hard to loosen.
"Who tied these?" He grumbled to himself as he wrestled with a particularly hard to loosen knot.
Once they were finally off Dax hung both the bandages and the clothes near the fire to dry and spent a little time standing as close as he dared to it to attempt to warm himself.
As he warmed up, the pain from the wounds that had laid beneath the bandages he had just spent so much time removing started to make it's presence known.
He had to steel himself to get a good look at them, but they were at the very least partially healed and none of them seemed to be actively bleeding.
Whatever had happened had to have been bad to say the least. His chest resembled an attempt to make mincemeat that had been abandoned half way through.
There were blankets in the inner room. Luckily they were clean and so he wrapped his body tightly in them. Slowly the uncontrollable shivering subsided.
The combination of comfort and warmth meant that he fell asleep again.
Mini Theatre
Dax: Where am I?
Author: I'll explain later.
Dax: Are you sure about that? I know it took you seven months after writing this book to do the first edit of this chapter!
Author: Pinky Promise?
Dax: *squints suspiciously*