I did approximately ten seconds of research into chemical vs. thermal burns for this chapter.
--------------------
Fighting slimes was a new experience for Ingressus. He had heard about them; the mysterious living blobs of goo that lurked in the damp swamps and deep caves, but he had never come across one. He wasn't too impressed by them either. They just splatted their way slowly but steadily towards the four with no regard to the weapons facing them. Ingressus made an experimental swipe at the first one that reached him and his sword cut cleanly through the slime, leaving a deep gash in its wake. The slime stopped moving, its goo slumping into an unmoving mound.
"How many slimeballs do you need?" Saylor asked, stabbing at the largest slime.
Matt sliced a tiny slime in half. "Twenty, to replace Mr. Duncan's. Once they stop dividing their leavings gel up and become safe to touch. Just scoop up all you can and we'll form them into slimeballs later."
Dividing?
Ingressus glanced back at the first slime he'd killed. The gash he'd left had widened, and the last of the connecting tissue split apart. The two chunks of goo quivered, molding themselves into two tiny slimes that hopped towards him again.
Right. That was good to know.
Ingressus found out what "safe to touch" meant not long later. He had just slashed open a slime as tall as he was, and was carving up its remains in the hopes that would prevent its parts from reforming. He was distracted from that endeavor, though, when something rubbery splatted against his shin. He looked down to find a tiny slime glommed onto his ankle, half wrapped around his leg like a bizarre hug. But as the slime flattened against his leg the skin began to burn beneath it, pain jolting his nerves like lava. Ingressus kicked out and the slime flew off his leg, digestive juices trailing behind it until it smacked against a stone. His leg seared with pain and he leaped in desperation for the river, landing with a splash in the shallows and promptly slipping. He scrambled up, stabbing a midsize slime in the eyespot. His leg still burned but– mercifully– he felt the frigid water washing away the slime's acid.
"Don't let them touch you!" he called, his teeth still clenched.
"Noted!" Leah called, impaling a slime. "You all right?"
The cold had numbed Ingressus's leg, but the limb still held his weight. "I'll live."
Matt stabbed another slime to the ground. "This should be enough. Can you cover me?"
Ingressus climbed out of the water, hacking at another slime and driving it back as Matt yanked fistfuls of slime gel off the ground. True to his word, the slime remains didn't seem to burn his hands, and he scooped it up and shoved the remains into his inventory.
With the loss of the cold water, the skin where the slime had been was stinging like a bad sunburn. Ingressus slashed at the slimes, holding them back from Matt alongside Leah and Saylor. The slimes may not have had the brains to avoid the swords, but they kept coming, and they didn't go down until they were shredded to tiny pieces. Individually, they were no danger. But in a swarm, they were far more formidable than anyone would guess a bunch of wobbly piles of goo should be.
"I got it, let's go!" Matt called.
The four turned and ran away from the river. The sound of splatting slimes faded away behind them, and soon there were several twists and turns of the tunnel between them and the mobs. They came to a stop at the edge of the resonance's aura, everyone catching their breath.
"Everyone okay?" Saylor asked.
"Please tell me someone has water," Leah said, wincing and holding an arm to her chest.
"Oh my gosh!" Matt said, darting over to his sister in a panic. "One of them got you? How bad is it? Will—"
Ingressus pulled him back as Saylor hurried over with a water bucket. "Breathe," he told Matt.
Matt obeyed, taking calming breaths. Leah let out a sigh of relief as she dunked her hand in the water. "Oh. Oh, that's better. Thanks."
A scratching sound echoed from near the wall. Ingressus turned, impaling the spider that was crawling towards them. The creature twitched, then fell still.
"Ooh, can you get me the eyes from that—"
"Absolutely not," Matt cut Leah off. "Unlicensed potion brewing is illegal and you know it."
"I know it's illegal, I'm not gonna do that," Leah said, pulling her hand from the bucket and inspecting the slime burn. "But think of the stink bomb potential..."
"Why the Nether would you want to make stink bombs—"
Ingressus had never had a sibling. But as he watched the Humans bickering about the usefulness of being able to use terrible odors against the people you didn't like and the dangers of collateral damage, he wondered what it would have been like. Luciren and Volerik could go from hyper-competitive to best friends and back again in a heartbeat. Galleous could only spit his brother's name, but even as Leah and Matt argued and shoved at each other they did so with laughter in their voices, and he couldn't imagine them ever becoming so far estranged. Sinaran would roll her eyes at her little brother's antics, but she and Sorays were practically inseparable, having each other's backs even to the– even to the end.
Ingressus's heart twisted and he looked away, but the memory flashed before his eyes regardless. Sorays falling to a raider's blade, his blood staining the snow in a macabre parody of his blackened markings. Sinaran letting out a cry of sorrow and pure rage and engaging her brother's killer, stabbing the raider in the throat even as his spear ran her through. She had fallen beside her brother, their blood soaking together in the snow.
Ingressus turned away, his fists clenched against the memory. He wanted this to be over. He wanted to go home, go to sleep, and to wake up in the morning with the memories back in the past where they should be.
Ha. Home. He couldn't tell when he'd started thinking of the forge as home. Nor when he'd stopped resisting that label.
"Ingressus?"
He realized that Matt was talking to him. He glanced back and saw the Humans looking at him with concern, and Saylor with suspicion.
He turned away again, heading back up the tunnel. Charcoal marks on your right, like Matt had said. "Let's go. We're wasting moonlight."
The words came out harsher than he'd intended, but he didn't wait for a response. He heard Leah whisper "did we do something wrong?" and Matt make an I-don't-know noise. He could feel Saylor's gaze on the back of his head, as though the Kaltaris thought that by staring hard enough he could dig his way into Ingressus's brain and see whatever diabolical plan he suspected Ingressus of.
Maybe it was a blessing that Ingressus had never had a brother or sister. It meant there was one less person to mourn.
The resonance was no less unpleasant on the return journey. If anything it was worse, the feeling of death and unnatural silence building off of the memories in Ingressus's mind. Again he felt his gaze drawn to where the Songs should be, his mind's eye painting the picture of the four Song orders as they would have been all those centuries before. Aggressium, Mobilium, Supporium, Protisium; red, yellow, green, and blue light shining in the dark cave, waiting for someone to discover them.
If the resonances had never died, would his clan still have been exiled? Would those Ingressus had grown up with still be alive? Or would the other clans just have found something else to blame them for, something else to justify driving them from their home and hunting them down?
Ingressus hadn't realized he was lingering until Saylor spoke from the direction of the exit. "Hey. You coming or what?"
Ingressus tore his gaze away and followed without a word, the unhappy memories still simmering in his mind.
"So what makes a resonance able to grow Songs?" Leah was asking, her voice breaking the awkward silence as they walked. "Is there a pattern to them, or do they appear randomly, or what?"
"There's a pattern," Saylor said. "There are lines of energy running across Ardonia between certain places, like volcanoes or the highest mountain in a range or unusually round lakes." He gestured with his hands as he spoke, tracing random lines in the air.
"Or a bunch of floating mountains?"
"Probably," Saylor agreed. "And where those tune lines intersected, you'd get a resonance. Each one would grow four Songs, one from each order."
"Offensive, defensive, motion, and... whatever the last one is," Matt listed. He tossed a torch down the drop-off ahead of them, illuminating an empty passageway below.
Saylor jumped down after the torch, raising his own light high as he scanned for monsters. "Supporium. Pretty much anything that isn't part of the other orders."
Leah chuckled, hopping down as Saylor gave the all-clear. "There's actually a 'none of the above' category?"
"Apparently so."
Ingressus spoke up. "The look of Supporium is the default. They all look like that until the energy of the other orders changes the color of the other three."
Saylor gave him an odd look. "Where are you getting that from?"
"The research my clan did into the Songs," Ingressus said. "We learned a lot about the magic behind it. Unfortunately most of it was lost when we were exiled. Otherwise, we might've been able to fix the resonances by now."
The words were a jab, he knew. But the memories of blood and death were too fresh in his mind to care. If Saylor could baselessly accuse him, then he could accuse Saylor, if only this once.
"You were exiled after you tried to use the Prime Songs to destroy us," Saylor retorted. "And then after you were, the resonances stopped working. Quite the coincidence, isn't it?"
Leah looked around nervously. "Guys, this isn't really the best time or place..."
"You seem to be doing fine for yourselves," Ingressus observed coldly. "Meanwhile your clans were glad to claim the excuse to massacre mine with the Primes. Don't insult me by playing the victim."
"Hey," Matt said firmly, starting towards them. "We're in the middle of an unexplored cave system with no end of— agh!"
He was cut off by the sound of shattering glass. He stumbled, pressing a hand to his back as a cackle echoed from the darkness. Matt fell to his knees, gasping from the potion and Leah ran forward with a cry.
No. No.
Ingressus darted forward, taking the next potion across his chest. He sprinted at the witch as it chanted some kind of spell, stabbing his sword through its chest in vengeance. The witch collapsed and he dropped to his knees beside the body, digging through its robes. He could hear Matt gasping for breath, choking on the very air behind him and come on there has to be something!
"This is no time to be looting the body!" Saylor shouted at him.
"What does a healing potion look like?" Ingressus yelled back.
"Bright pink!" Leah shouted. "Smells like watermelon, please hurry!"
Bright pink, this one fit the description. Ingressus yanked the top off and took a whiff, then bolted back to the others. Matt was convulsing on the floor, white foam trickling from his mouth. Ingressus shoved the potion into Leah's hand, barking an order to Saylor to see if there was any more. The Kaltaris obeyed without question and Leah held the bottle to Matt's lips, tilting the contents into his mouth even as her hand shook.
Ingressus let out a sigh of relief as Matt stilled, his breathing returning to not-quite-normal-but-not-dying. Leah let out a sob and pulled her brother into a hug, whispering words of relief in a shaky voice. Matt wrapped his arms around her, breathing heavily but the effects of poison gone from him.
Ingressus whispered a thank you to any god that was listening. Matt would live. Leah wouldn't lose her brother. There would be no body to bury, no gravestone to carve, no tears to be shed. He would still be there tomorrow, and the next day, and his family wouldn't know the loss that would shatter their world.
Saylor appeared next to them again, two more potions in his hands. "Please tell me you can walk, we have another problem."
Leah looked up, tear trails streaking her face. "What?"
"Potions don't work on Ardoni," Saylor said. "Instead witches have a spell to summon monsters to help them against us. I think she cast it. We need to move, fast."
No one needed telling twice. Matt was shaky and weakened, nearly falling over twice just standing up. Leah gave him a second dose of the healing potion, and Saylor threw Matt's arm over his shoulders. Ingressus led the way with a torch and his sword drawn, ears pricked for the witch's reinforcements. They just had to get out of the sinkhole and then they would be safe; like Saylor said, undead were too dumb to climb.
They were close, very close. But with three spider corpses twitching just behind them and two skeletons firing arrows at them, they weren't close enough. Ingressus batted the arrows out of the air, calling out to the others.
"Leah, get Matt to the minecarts! Saylor and I will stall the mobs."
"What?" Leah said, stabbing a zombie. "No, we can make it!"
Ingressus hurled his torch at the skeleton and it lodged itself in the monster's ribs. "Not like this, we can't. Get out of here!"
Matt was still too weak to fight or run. If they kept up like this, the monsters would overtake them all. But if they could keep the attention of the worst of the mobs, that would give the two Humans time to get to safety, and then he and Saylor could flee at top speed. It was a Voltaris strategy in the mountains– get the injured and the children to safety, and let the warriors fight unencumbered.
Leah still looked agonized as Saylor passed Matt over to her. "I swear, if you two don't show up at the minecarts, I'm coming after you!"
"By the void, go!"
Leah and Matt hobbled off. Saylor jammed his torch into the wall, freeing his hands for the fight ahead.
"I know you don't like or trust me, Saylor," Ingressus said. "And I don't care. But if they're going to get out safely then we need to deal with the mobs. I hope you can at least believe that I don't want them to die."
Saylor nodded, shaking a strand of hair out of his face. "I do. I believe that."
"Five minutes, you think?"
"Can't be longer than that."
Motion from above. A spider dropped from the ceiling, and Saylor's sword speared it through. He spun, his momentum flinging the arachnid at the skeletons. Ingressus summoned another torch and stabbed it at a zombie's face, causing the monster to snarl in pain.
The monsters weren't an organized force. If one trampled over another on the way to their prey, they would end up fighting each other and completely forgetting about their previous target. A creeper wouldn't know to not blow up its own allies, as was proven when Ingressus tackled Saylor to the ground behind a boulder to escape a pair of the green beasts. The blast left Ingressus's ears ringing and half the monsters dead, a chance the Ardoni didn't waste. Ingressus slashed a zombie in half and lit a spider on fire with his torch, and Saylor launched himself across the battlefield on his Mobilislide Song, taking out as many as he could before the monsters recovered.
Still, though, two against many weren't odds to gamble on for long. Ingressus's sword was lodged in a skeleton's skull when a spider leaped on him, biting down hard on his shoulder. Ingressus summoned his blade to his other hand and stabbed at the creature's body, and it let go with a screech, its mandibles red with iridescent blood. Another explosion knocked Saylor off his Mobilislide trail and he fell into a clumsy roll, barely avoiding a zombie armed with an iron shovel. Ingressus was forced to take a struggling zombie in a chokehold as a shield against another set of skeletons, even as the undead did its best to sink its teeth into his arm.
"Hey!"
Saylor shot above the mobs in his Song, a blood-streaked hand reaching down. Ingressus jumped and kicked a zombie in the face, grabbing Saylor's arm and leaping onto the Mobilium strip behind him.
"Make sure we don't get shot," Saylor pleaded.
Ingressus nodded, batting another arrow out of the air. The Mobilium Song soon left the mobs behind, twisting through the tunnels back towards the sinkhole.
All Songs had their strengths and weaknesses. Aggressium Songs could be as dangerous to your allies as your enemies. Protisium Songs were limited in the number of people they could protect. And Mobilislide was dependent on gravity and momentum. It couldn't give you extra speed or propel you upwards, but it did maintain your momentum well. It couldn't boost the Ardoni to the top of the sinkhole but it got them about a third of the way up before their momentum ran out. Leah had Matt most of the way up already, and Ingressus and Saylor scrambled after them.
In theory, Ingressus thought, the monsters probably wouldn't chase them this far. If the witch's spell worked the way Saylor had made it sound, summoning mobs in the vicinity to the witch's location but not giving them any additional directives, then the mobs would probably lose interest in them once the trail went cold. Skeletons and creepers relied on sight and hearing; they would be the first to give up. Spiders and zombies could follow their scent, but it would be slower and Saylor's Song had gotten them a large head start. But no one wanted to take the chance that they weren't safe. Ingressus slung Matt's arm across his shoulders, gingerly avoiding the spider bite, and ran for the minecarts as fast as the four could limp. They piled into the carts, and Saylor smacked the lever with his sword and sent them rolling for the surface.
The lack of sleep and the adrenaline crash had taken its toll on all of them. When the minecarts came to a stop above the ravine, there was a moment when no one moved. Saylor was slumped over the side of the minecart, breathing heavily. Leah had an arm wrapped around Matt like she never planned on letting her brother go. Ingressus was leaning against the front of the minecart, staring up at the sky as he caught his breath. Patchy clouds had rolled in while they were underground, but he could still see a faint glow of moonlight high above the horizon. They'd spent a couple of hours in the mines, running and fighting and climbing. They had every right to be worn out.
"Well, this was a lot of fun," Leah said finally. "Let's never do it again."
A chorus of tired agreement answered her.
Eventually, they did manage to force themselves up and begin the trudge back to Ataraxia. The way back seemed twice as long as the journey out, the trail steeper and more winding than last time. Matt was using Leah's spear as a walking stick, and Ingressus was leaning on his own weapon more than was a good idea with a sharp sword. But as tired as they were... they'd all made it. They had their injuries, but none that wouldn't heal. Ingressus was still worried about the potions' effects on Matt, but the Human was walking and didn't seem to be in much pain, so that was probably a good sign that he wouldn't keel over on the way back to Ataraxia.
That night was the first time in years that someone close to Ingressus had had a brush with mortality. Ataraxia was a safe place to live, leagues more hospitable than the Barrier Mountains. Critical injuries, starvation, attacks by enemy forces– they just didn't happen here. Things that were facts of life for the Voltaris clan were freak accidents at worst, unheard of at best. Ingressus realized he had gotten used to the safety and comfort of the floating islands– he'd forgotten to worry about the lives of those he cared for. Ingressus knew that that probably wasn't a bad thing, but it was strange in a way he was too tired to parse out just then.
They crested the ridgeline and Ataraxia appeared before them, gently lit by the lamps lining the streets. Goodbyes were said, and the group split up. Saylor apparently lived in the western part of the islands as well, and the two walked in silence for a while as they each made their way home.
"You fought good back there," Saylor observed.
"So did you," Ingressus said.
"Thanks."
There was a moment's quiet, and then Saylor spoke again. "I judged you too soon."
Ingressus glanced over as Saylor went on. "You could've left us to the mobs, but you didn't. You saved Matt, saved me. Nether, you risked your neck to make sure they'd get out. I assumed you were like the stories about the Voltaris, but I was wrong. So... sorry."
Ingressus hadn't expected that, but he was pretty sure he wasn't tired enough yet to be hallucinating. He wasn't sure how he felt about it: bitter, vindicated, satisfied– any of those sounded right.
"Okay," he just said.
"Okay."
Their paths split soon afterwards. Saylor took a bridge up to the next island, while Ingressus's route took him to the left. He yawned as he walked, imagining collapsing into his soft bed and sleeping until at least noon. That sounded really nice.
In the dark, he didn't see the bush until he'd already brushed against it. He flinched, grabbing at his shoulder as he remembered the spider bite.
Great. One more thing to do before he could sleep.
He took a mental catalog of what hurt. His leg, where the slime had grabbed onto him. His shoulder, where the spider bit him, and a graze from an arrow nearby. His palm and elbow, where he'd broken a fall– but those weren't bleeding, he'd checked already. His chest stung where the potion bottle had shattered against him, but he didn't think those cuts were too bad. All things told, he'd been pretty lucky. And Galleous would have the bandages he would need back at the forge.
"Ingressus? Is that you?"
Ingressus jumped at the voice. He turned, spotting Kittrian's vinelike markings outlining her where she stood leaning against her fence. Kittrian's hair was rumpled from sleep, and she rubbed an eye as she squinted at him.
"Hi," Ingressus said awkwardly. "What... what are you doing awake?"
Kittrian shook her head, giving a tired shrug. "Oh, Volerik caught a stomach bug. Hasn't been a quiet night." She cocked her head at him. "What are you doing up?"
"Just on a walk," Ingressus lied. "Couldn't sleep."
Kittrian let out a quiet laugh. "I know the– feeling– holy Songs, what happened to you?!"
Ingressus glanced down, seeing the dark blood trickling down his arm bright and clear. He looked up and silently cursed the clouds for choosing just that moment to pull away from the moon.
Kittrian had already jumped the fence, and now she skidded to a stop in front of him, staring at Ingressus as she took in his various cuts and scrapes.
She rested her hands on his shoulders, a look of fury already building on her face. "Did someone do this to you?"
If the answer had been yes, Ingressus would not have wanted to be the person responsible. Kittrian looked ready to beat whoever it was with a convenient heavy object.
He shook his head. "No, it was just... bad luck..."
"Bad luck?"
Okay. That was the most pathetic attempt at dodging the truth Ingressus had ever made.
"I went out monster hunting with some friends," he admitted. "We ran into more than we expected."
Kittrian paused, sniffing. She wrinkled her nose. "All right. I can believe that."
"I smell like rotten flesh, don't I?"
"Yes, you do." Kittrian let go, nodding in the direction of her cave. "Come on. Let's patch you up."
Kittrian told Galleous about the night's events. She hadn't denied that she would, claiming that "if he's taking care of you, it is his business if you go off risking your neck chasing monsters." Ingressus supposed he could appreciate the honesty. Still, he avoided Galleous all the next day, sneaking out of the forge when Galleous's back was turned and spending all day out and around Ataraxia. He ran into Leah, who reported that Matt was fine, and that she'd taken him to the doctor about the potions. In her words, "Meirus cares more about making sure you're healthy than getting you in trouble. So for future reference, it's totally safe to go to him if you get hurt doing something you shouldn't have been doing. He'll lecture you about not making stupid choices, but that's all." Ingressus also spotted Saylor in the orchard, some bandages wrapped around his arm and another plastered over his ribs and on his knee. The two shared a wordless nod of acknowledgement, continuing on their way again.
Ingressus had intended to avoid Galleous the next day too. But throwing up into the lava cauldron had put an end to that plan.
Ingressus was lying on his bed, an arm over his eyes and an empty bucket on the floor, when he heard Galleous come in. "How're you feeling?"
Ingressus lifted his arm from his eyes. "Been better," he admitted.
Galleous nodded in sympathy. "Kittrian says her kids got over it after a day or so. So you won't have to put up with this for long."
"That's a relief."
"Yeah. It's no fun, but it'll be over soon. But in the meantime," Galleous pulled the chair out from Ingressus's desk and sat down. "Let's talk about your little adventure the other night."
Ingressus laid his arm over his face again. "Shouldn't I be resting?"
"Nice try. You're not getting out of this."
Ingressus sighed and sat up. "Fine."
Galleous leaned forward, pressing his fingertips together. "First of all, you couldn't have at least told me you were going?"
"Would you have let me go if I had?"
"I might've! I've seen you training, I know you can handle yourself. Which begs the question, who or what did this to you?"
"We ran into more monsters than we expected," Ingressus said. "It was a freak accident, one I can easily avoid in the future."
Galleous pounced on the word. "We?"
"I'm not telling you who they are."
Galleous snorted. "If they look anything like you do, their parents will figure it out without my help. But that's beside the point. What made you think that going to look for monsters in the dead of night, without telling anyone where you were going, was a good idea?"
Ingressus sighed, meeting Galleous's gaze. "It wasn't. I admit that. It was an impulsive decision, and we encountered more danger than we were prepared for. Things could have gone very wrong, and I know we were lucky that they didn't."
Galleous studied him. "Are you just saying that to get me off your back?"
"No." Matt could've died, they all could've. Ingressus didn't take that lightly. "We underestimated the risks, and we paid the price." His hand went to his bandaged shoulder. "I got too used to the safety of this place, and I forgot that real dangers still existed."
Galleous nodded slowly, accepting Ingressus's confession. "What happened, anyway? You run into a spawner? Tick off a Guardian?"
"A witch," Ingressus said. "Apparently they can summon monsters."
Galleous nodded sagely. "They had to get creative when attacking our kind."
Ingressus wondered whether any Voltaris had ever tried to learn the spell the witch had used. Would the monsters still be hostile to the one who cast it? Being able to send strays after the raiders would be useful.
Speaking of which...
"Galleous?" he asked.
Galleous's gaze darted between Ingressus and the bucket. "Yes?"
Fortunately, nausea wasn't what was on Ingressus's mind. "Are the dead resonances the reason the clans still hate us?"
Galleous sighed, looking away. "I know the ancient Masters vowed war against the Voltaris until the resonances were restored. But after all this time... they have to have noticed it hasn't worked."
Ingressus shook his head. "We can't fix them. We've been desperate enough that we'd have done it by now if we could."
"I believe you." Galleous met Ingressus's gaze, then looked away again. "If you want the truth, I'm not sure if the dead resonances even matter by now. There's been so much bloodshed since then... people have much more personal reasons to want to fight by now."
Ingressus pulled his knees to his chest. The motive of revenge was present on both sides. His father had resisted picking unnecessary fights with the other clans, but Ingressus knew that other groups had and did venture out of the mountains to spill the blood of the four clans, all for the sake of avenging their own. Could the war ever end like this?
"What brought this up, anyway?" Galleous asked.
"We found a resonance down in the caves," Ingressus admitted. "It was... worse than I'd imagined."
"You went into the—" Galleous shook his head in disbelief. "You don't do anything by halves, do you, kid?"
"Am I in trouble for it?"
Galleous paused for a long moment, studying him. Ingressus wondered whether looking pathetic would make Galleous go easy on him.
"Yes," Galleous said finally. "You're grounded for two days, once this clears up." He gestured at Ingressus's bucket. "And I'm confiscating your sword for a week. I'm going to trust you that you won't just take another one."
Ingressus pulled the weapon from his inventory and handed it over. Galleous stood, pushing the chair under the desk again.
"Do you feel up to eating anything?"
Ingressus's stomach expressed its displeasure at the thought. He shook his head, taking deep breaths to stave off the nausea.
"Fair enough." Galleous headed for the door. "Just yell for me if you need anything."
"Thanks."
--------------------
(5105 words)
By the way, please let me know if you think something I put needs a content warning– I don't do gore or anything, but I don't know if things like flashbacks to the raid could be triggering for someone.