Chapter 77: The Carbina Paradox (P2)

She's alive. Leriva is…

And more importantly, she's conscious.

The shock I feel at this reveal is not mine alone. Anselm too finds this all too good to be true and Kaylin simply looks confused.

Above, on the edge of the deep hole with spiralling layers, lined with the bodies of the people of Carbina, we peer down into it and find Leriva, hoarse and sore for whatever else she's been through dress in a rather dirty night-gown.

How has she come to be conscious? And rather frighteningly, is any of what she says, about the Beta Warrior true?

"I'm alive, and I'm awake, I don't know how this is possible given I spent all of my mana trying to maintain my summon." Her voice carries a light nonchalance to it as she addresses us.

I suppose anyone would be sick and tired of all the bullshit that's happened to the point where it simply doesn't faze them anymore. And worse of it, she likely hasn't gotten to sleep.

Even hidden by the dark deep depths of the hole, I can clearly see the heavy eye bags that hang below. She's been through more than her share.

"I'm surprised you came back." She says, almost choking out on her own breath. 

"Was that ever in doubt?" I reply.

"Mathilda said you'd be back, but every day that passed she lost the faith in her own words and they soon became hollow. She'll be glad to be proven right."

My mood turns sour quite a bit, hearing just a piece of their suffering down here…I should have been faster.

Anselm approaches from behind, having gone to get a torch to light up the hole. With the bright light it's easy to see Leriva and the others behind and in front of her.

And then I notice something curious.

"Are the ones behind you dead? Are they awake?" I ask just as Kaylin tosses a pouch of water down, Leriva catches it, fuelled by desperation and an ungodly thirst she attempts to drown her throat in the pouch's contents.

After a moment she gives a relieved sigh, satisfied for the moment. 

"Some have died…Mathilda still hangs on though, like many of the others below."

"Why…Why just the back? Why starting from you?" It's a genuine question.

Curiously, everyone, starting from Leriva is either dead or knocking on deaths door. But not the ones in front of her, no, none of them look even mildly affected by their current predicament, each and everyone of them held a look of peace, as though they'd dived into a deep slumber and not been kidnapped by a Cultist.

"It's my mana exhaustion." She starts, her voice much clearer now that she's been given a drink. 

"I'm taking in mana externally, and even though this guy-" she taps the peaceful sleeper in front of her, "-is trying to continue the chain of Cultist mana to put us all in the same sleep he's in, he's got to first put me to sleep, and he's failing."

Kaylin gasps besides me, a eureka moment by the look of excitement on her face.

"Your mana exhaustion causes your pathways to split open and accept external to compensate for the lack of internally produced mana in your body."

"I know that but…what does that have to do with her not falling asleep?"

Kaylin turns to me, a cheeky smile on her lips, "It means she can't keep any of it in. Her pathways are damaged by external mana and only internal mana can repair it, but she doesn't have any of that. Which means no healing."

"So!" She perks up and I cringe, this isn't the best place to be loud, what with a Beta Warrior levitating above our heads, "Any mana that comes in through her is immediately lost since the pathways have been broken, there's no direction but it's all directions."

I blink at her explanation. It's not as good as she thinks it is but I think I get it.

It's like that pouch; with holes you can control you can effectively fill it up with water and empty it out as much as you wish.

But if you start stabbing more holes in it, holes you can control with a simple cover, then every bit of what you pour in will find a way to leak out. In essence, the pouch will never be full enough to pour water into other pouches.

And that's what the Cultist is trying to do. 

I never imagined that a liability, one of the main reasons for coming back for Leriva, would be the same thing that saves lives.

"Well, that's great! But if you're all free then, why haven't you moved out of the hole?" Anselm poses a good question. Why haven't they escaped already?

At least into the village and back into their homes where they can lie on a soft bed, drink and eat at last? What's stopping them.

"It's a good thing you haven't tried coming into this hole, Asher." Leriva says, solemnly. "That thing up there would eat you otherwise."

What?

"It eats people?" Again, Kaylin trembles. Well, I can't point fingers either. 

Hearing that a faceless featureless giant that's levitating above my head with dozens of people fallen asleep by it's mana, eats people if they cross into its hole…Well, that inspires a healthy bit of fear in anyone.

"Soon after they discovered they were the 'lucky' ones who could move, who were awake, a few farmers, builders and even my best cook!" She sounds more outraged at the fact that she lost her cook than the reality of her situation.

"They crawled to the top, almost taking Mathilda with them but, she wouldn't leave without me. Once they got to the top, they…well, their screams told the story."

I look around the hole and truly find no since of a struggle, not a drop of blood or some loose limb that got away either. The Beta Warrior must truly be a monster.

It freaks me out to consider or imagine what processes are involved should it choose to eat a person. It has no mouth, no orifice I can tell of, nothing. So how…

"Asher." I hear a voice call out for me from below, it's not Leriva.

"Mathilda…"

Her voice is hoarse, just like Leriva's was, "Anselm, go get some more water." I don't have to tell my ghostly companion anymore as he's long gone, already fetching some.

"I'm glad you kept your promise, you came back for us." She coughs, "But now, I think you've got to leave, before the Cultist wakes up and kills us all. There's no way out of this place alive, Asher, save yourself."

Her words…don't sound like hers at all. This surely isn't the chipper and pep Mathilda I left in charge of the village, the one glad to have even the slightest bit of responsibility. No, this is…something else. This is the Cult.

"She's right." Anselm says. Always the voice of reason. "How are we supposed to get them out? There's not way you're fighting that thing either."

He takes hold of my shoulders and forces me to look at him and not them, not Mathilda, not Leriva. 

"Remember what you told me about Beta Warriors, at least a single S-rank Mage or several A-ranks, those are the numbers you have to have before taking them on, you need to be as powerful as Kaylin's mother to take that thing on and survive."

He doesn't need to say it, but he does, because I need to hear it, "You're far from that, you're at most a B-rank, Kaylin could be an A-rank and Leriva, even if she's healthy and not knocking on Death's door, she'd still be weaker than you."

Suddenly, my hands feel wet and my mouth tastes like metal. Looking at my hand, I find it balled up in a tight fist, dripping red, and my in my mouth, my tongue tastes the familiar copper of blood.

Why am I so weak?

Why wasn't I fast enough? Why didn't we…

I should've stayed, I shouldn't have left Carbina. I could have defended them, we could have run off to…somewhere, so long as we were alive and safe and not under the jackboot of this power-based system, this wealth-based system.

If only, if only people weren't tools, weren't puppets strung up by those at the top, then the Following could've been here, they could have been here several years ago to clear the Cultist camps, they could've been here to save Leriva, they could've been here to fight this thing.

My breath hitches as I suddenly find myself crying. I laugh.

What the fuck am I crying for? I've seen this over and over. I thought I knew better; the weak fall, they weak become victims and the weak are uses and tossed aside.

Isn't this why I want to be strong?

Steadying my shaking breath with several deep ones, I resolve myself, "We can't just leave them here."

To die of thirst and of starvation? To die waiting for the maws of insanity or the maws of that thing hovering above?

No. I won't allow it.

"Leriva, Mathilda…I'll kill you."