Chapter 16: Cleanup

Chapter 16: Cleanup

“Thirty minutes,” Lavarro said, then walked to the side of the chamber and sat against a wall to wait for the others to recover. Mahria looked pale, slumped against her slowly melting wall of ice.

“You ok?” Rain asked, slightly concerned. She really didn't look good.

“Fine. Used too much mana. Stop yelling.”

Rather than replying that he wasn't, in fact, yelling, Rain left her alone, respecting that she probably had a headache from the mana use. Huh, it doesn't seem to hurt me that badly when I am empty. Maybe it hurts more if you have more mana? Well, my winter aura should help her, at least.

Seeing Carten limping over to join them, Rain hurriedly activated purify. The man was absolutely coated in the black, sticky blood of the beasts. The dark blood seemed to resist his purification aura, but slowly the mess evaporated, steam rising from the piles of corpses on the ground as they too started to dry out. His aura reached far enough now to catch the entire chamber, but progress was slow in dissolving the corpses of the dark hounds.

By the time he had run out of mana, the blood was gone and the corpses looked like they were partially mummified. They were starting to turn gray and losing their dark, matted hair. Carten had removed one of his greaves and was bandaging his leg. Jamus had taken a seat next to Mahria, also looking a bit worse for wear. He was leaning his head against the ice wall, having removed his hat. Wow, yeah, that looks like it is way worse than it gets for me. Wait, I don't have a headache right now, but my mana is empty. Huh.

Rain sat, watching the others as his mana rapidly regenerated under the combined effect of Lavarro's potion and his own natural regeneration. He had switched back to winter, but the effect for the others was probably too small for them to notice. I need to level this up pronto. I don't think I could have helped in that fight, even if I had one of those tier 1 offense auras. I feel so useless, I can't even help them recover. I wonder how much mana they used?

“Jamus,” Rain whispered, causing the man to groan and lift his head off the ice to look at him.

“How much mana you use?” he asked.

“Too much,” he replied, and let his head fall back with a wet thump.

Mahria kicked Rain lightly in the knee, causing him to look at her. She was looking a bit better than Jamus, despite seeming worse at first. “Don’t ask questions like that,” she said.

“Why?”

“It is .”The initial posting of this chapter occurred via N0v3l.B11n.

“?” Rain asked. She kicked him again by way of reply.

He saw a few picks lying around and started moving to pick them up, collecting five of them into a pile a little way up the tunnel. On a hunch, Rain pictured a miner's pick and activated his new detection aura, extending it to cover as much area as he could. In addition to the fuzzy signals coming from the pile behind him, he also felt one coming from the corner of the tunnel where the rocks were piled the deepest. He couldn't get a fix on it, so he tried applying amplify to the detection aura. It seemed to help a bit in resolving the feeling of the pick. He walked over to where he felt it to be and started digging.

Luckily, it wasn't buried very deep. Rain triumphantly held it aloft as he deactivated his detection aura. Mahria, who had been digging at the rubble on the other side of the tunnel, huffed at him. She said a word he didn't know, then straightened, brushing at her knees.

“Jamus, what is this place?” Mahria asked the man as she stepped next to Carten peering into the tunnel.

He waved her away, holding his head. “Dangerous. Let’s go back.”

The group carried the picks back up the tunnel, moving a bit more quickly now that they had explored the passage before them. Rain was panting from the grade of the tunnel and the weight of the three picks he was carrying by the time they reached the room where the battle had taken place. The ice wall was still largely unmelted and Lavarro charitably allowed him a short rest.

Looking around the room, Rain decided that the others could think what they wanted about his mana use, and let off another blast of purification. He hated to see a job left half done and it looked like one more round would take care of the remains of the dark hounds completely. As the piles dissolved, Rain noticed a glint of light shining in the wavering torchlight. Stooping, he brushed aside the last of the ash from one of the piles, inhaling sharply as he saw that there were three Tel shining at the bottom of the pile.

Excitedly, he scooped them up and started scrounging around from pile to pile, sifting through the ashes and pulling out the shining crystals. The last of the ash disappeared before he finished collecting them, so he switched to detection, using the skill to guide him to the largest concentrations of the small crystals. He found that the signals seemed to merge into a single fuzzy ball when there were a bunch of Tel together. His companions’ packs, for example, shone like the sun compared to the tiny pile of Tel he was building up in his hand.

He grabbed the last of them as his mana ran out, then looked up to see his companions watching him with amusement on their faces. Rain blushed a bit, then stood, having been crawling along the floor for the past few minutes. Lavarro walked up to him and extended her hand, palm open. Rain stepped back, closing his hand over his prize, but Lavarro stopped him with a glare.

“Give it,” she said.

Shit. She said I could come, but I wouldn't get any of the reward. I’d be fine sharing, but that’s not a sharing face she’s making. This fucking sucks.

Not willing to make an issue of it with a woman who could probably crush his spine with a thought, Rain reluctantly handed over the small pile of Tel to her. Lavarro roughly divided the pile and gave each of the others a share, not including Rain.

Asshole. I worked hard for that. Maybe I can't fight these things, but you wouldn't have even found those Tel without me. You weren’t about to go digging through all those corpses.

Carten gave him an apologetic look but didn't argue on his behalf. He picked up his shields and started towards the tunnel to the higher chamber. Lavarro cut off any further discussion by moving to follow the big man up the tunnel.

I know I agreed to not getting a share, but come on, way to make me feel like a part of the team, guys.

They made it back to the top of the mine without incident, loading up the cart with the picks and securing the door to the mine with the heavy drop bar. Though it was dark, Lavarro had them travel for a few hours down the path before calling a halt for the night. Rain didn’t offer to help set up camp. He just curled up in the cart next to the pile of picks, once again feeling very alone.