Intimancer

Sade’s face haunted him.

The look of fear and confusion twisting her perfect features burned itself into Rick’s memory forever.  His eyes stung with moisture.  He felt like his chest was being squeezed by a giant.  The roaring in his ears eliminated all conscious thought, except one.

Sade was gone.

No.  He would not accept it, refused to accept that possibility.

“...”

Rick stood up.  He glared down at the hateful abyss that devoured his woman.  The darkness within fighting back against the light emitted from the small orb of flame floating over his shoulder.

“...-ic.”

He would go after her.  Sade needed him.  The climb would be a bitch, but what was the point of climbing up and down the cliff in front of their house if not for situations exactly like this?

“Rick!”

Rick was yanked suddenly out the side of his runaway train of thought at the sound of his name.  Lilie was still beside Tyr, desperately trying to haul the elf’s mass away from the scene of the battle.

“Rick!  Help me!  This whole place is coming down!”  Lilie cried and pointed up to the ceiling.

He turned around, trying to find exactly what she was indicating.  To his side, he saw several of the wooden support beams cracked and splintered.  It seemed that the other monsters weren’t the only casualties of the tentacle bastard’s death throes.

Then he noticed that the rumbling he was hearing wasn’t just in his head.  Lilie’s warning finally sunk into his thick skull.

“Shit!”  He swore and dashed toward the other women as fast as his enhanced legs could carry him.

The first boulders started falling all around him right as he reached his companions.  Tyr was still immobilized, but thankfully most of the tentacle pieces had been removed from her body.  Rick crouched down and started to roll her onto his shoulders.

“Help me get her up.”  He ordered the healer.

“But-”

“MOVE!”  He roared.

Lilie shut her mouth and helped shift the elf’s incredible weight so that Rick held the pregnant woman in a fireman’s carry.  As he stood up, it felt like his spine was on the verge of snapping like a toothpick.  Tyr made most professional basketball players look small and as a result, was really, really heavy.  Plus, due to her amazonian physique, she was heavier than most people her size, and more than likely weighed twice as much as he did.  Rick welcomed the pain.  The complaints from his overtaxed bones and muscles gave him the focus needed to do what needed to be done.

With one last look back at the chasm behind him, he ran.

Boulders the size of construction vehicles and other bits of the ceiling rained down around them as Rick and Lilie sprinted through the mine tunnels.  The sounds of the mountain crumbling down were deafening.  They took a corner right when a choking cloud of dust rushed out and flooded the tunnel they had just vacated.  With one last earth-shattering kaboom, all was silent.

The party slowed down and took a moment to rest.  Behind them was an impenetrable wall of stone where there one was a series of carved tunnels.  There would be no going back that way.

Rick lowered Tyr to the ground as gently as he could.  “Heal her.  We don’t have much time.”  He demanded.

Lilie looked at him with wide, blood red eyes.  “W-w-wha?”

“Heal her!  We will need all three of us in prime condition if we are going to go after them.”

“Rick…”  Lilie whispered softly.  “Sade’s…”

“Don’t!”  Rick spat.  “Don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence.  She’s alive, and she needs our help.  I know it!”

“Rick.”

“NO!  You both love her just as much as I do!  We can’t leave her down here.  We have to try and find Sade, we owe her that much.”  Tears were streaming unbidden down his face.  The image of his beautiful mage scared and alone in the darkness, unable to find her way out burned in his mind's eye.  His heart tightened in his chest, it felt like the muscle was being crushed in a vice.

“And where do you propose we fucking do that?!”  Lilie snarled, her own anger at the situation finally bubbling to the surface.  She stood up and glared at Rick.  “The only entrance to wherever the fuck Sade and Daniela fell is behind that mother fucking rockslide we barely survived.  So how in the EVERLIVING FUCK are WE going to find them?!”

“The caverns.”

Both Rick and Lilie looked down to see Tyr doing her best to sit up.  “Oh shit!  Tyr, I’m so sorry!  Let me help you.”  The healer said while hurrying to the elf’s side and casting her magic.  “What was that you were saying?”

Tyr groaned as her system was purged of whatever foulness gunked it up.  She gave a mighty cough to clear her throat.  “The cavers.”  She repeated.

Rick’s eyes grew wide with understanding.  “That’s it!  The whole reason we’re down here is because there’s a bunch of natural caves underneath the mines.”

Lilie looked at the two of them dubiously.  “And how is that going to help us?”

“If the ground was hollow, then they must’a fallen into a part of those caves.”  Tyr explained.

Lilie froze.  “Y-you mean…”

“It means there’s a chance.”  Rick said with a nod, clutching his weapon tightly.

“Aye.  I’ve got ta make up fer that fuck-up back there.”  Tyr growled as she got back to her feet.

Rick rounded on the large woman.  “Don’t you dare start talking like that!  We all fucked up during that fight.  Shit happens.  Right now we have two of our own who need our help.  So instead of whining about our mistakes, let’s go out there and get them back.”

The two stood there, glaring into each other’s eyes, as if daring the other to back down.  Surprisingly, Tyr blinked first.

“Bah!  Of course I had ta fall fer the one mayfly who’s just as stubborn as an elf.”  She said with a chuckle.  Her eyes hardened once more, filling with determination.  “Yer right though… Let’s go get our friends.”

“And woe to anything that stands in our way.”  Lilie intoned.  Her voice absolutely dripping with anger and bloodlust.

“Aye!”  The other two replied in unison.  They had a job to do.

The three hunters stalked through the tunnels like people possessed.  All the despair and sorrow at seeing two of their number fall had instead been converted to raw fury and determination.  The few monsters who crossed their path were ruthlessly cut down in a storm of steel and righteous indignation.  Even while carving their way through packs of monsters, they never once stopped their relentless march towards their destination.

It came as no surprise that the group soon found themselves in front of the breach that started it all.  The hole was simple, almost unassuming in its mundanity.  But to the hunters, it represented so much more.

“So… we go left or right?”  Rick asked.  The miners had dug perpendicular to the subterranean cave tunnel, creating an odd t-junction with two options on where to go forward from there.

Tyr knelt down and examined the floor.  “Most of the tracks come from the right.  We go there, we’ll get in ta more fights.”

“I don’t give a fuck if we have to cut down an army.”  Lilie growled.  “The right heads back towards where Sade and Daniela fell, so that’s where we should go.”

“You sure?”  Rick asked the shaytoni.  He was no slouch when it came to keeping track of which direction was where.  He had played quite a few older games where all the walls shared the same low-res texture, and the concept of a map was a luxury.  But something about the gradual twists and turns of the mine tunnels had him feeling all turned around.

“Aye, it’s what me own map shows as well.”  Tyr said while brushing off her pants.

“Wait, what?  Map?  What are you…”  Rick asked before trailing off.  “Oh, son of a bitch!”  He shouted while clutching his head in frustration.

“Hold on, you never learned how to use your map?”  Lilie asked incredulously.

“I forgot about it, okay?”  Rick said in shame.  He really had forgotten that it was a thing that the people of this world could just do.

“H-how?!”

“Drop it Lilie.  We have more important things ta do.”  Tyr said with finality.  The healer immediately obeyed once she saw the look in the elf’s eye.

Rick sighed.  “Thank’s Tyr.  We can discuss my odd quirks after we find our girls.  Can you find us a path?”

The big woman glared down the right hand tunnel.  She looked down at the myriad of monster tracks leading deeper into the underground maze then stood straight and drew one of her axes.

“Aye.  I’ll find one.”

They followed her down the cave system.  Unlike the smooth and uniform walls of the mine, these series of tunnels were uneven, carved not by hand but time and other natural forces.  Well, perhaps not entirely natural.  Rick was still unsure how to classify mana and its effects on the world around them.

Every time they came upon a new path, Tyr would spend a few moments to examine the area, consult her map, and even sniff the air a few times in order to determine the best way forward.  Neither Rick nor Lilie questioned the elf’s methods.  They were not specialized in any sort of pathfinding and had complete faith that the ranger would come through in the end.

Eventually, they ended up in an open cavern the size of an amphitheater.  Tyr halted the group on a shallow ledge just a few steps from where they entered from.

“I don’t like it.  Somethings off.”  She growled.

Rick scanned the surroundings for anything unusual.  The light from his magical lantern flame couldn’t pierce the gloom around them in its entirety, but it was enough to get a general idea of what they should expect.  The area was barren of life.  In fact the group had yet to face a single monster since stepping out of the mine proper, a fact that only heightened the tension they all felt.  All that decorated the room were stalagmites and stalactites of various sizes, some even meeting up to fuse into stone columns that stretched high into the dusky ceiling above them.

“Ah… That would do it.”  Rick said as he realized what could have set off the elf’s senses.  “It seems you may be getting a rematch against a few more of those ropers.”

“Ropers?”  Tyr asked.

“Well, it’s better than calling them ‘hentai tentacle monsters’, right?”

Lilie merely shook her head.  “Sometimes I have no idea what goes on in that pretty head of yours.”

“At least you think I’m pretty.”  Rick shot back.  “Anyways.  Remember how the roper disguised itself as a pillar of rock and the little guys as stalactites?”

Tyr’s eyes practically glowed with predatory glee.  She quickly drew her bow and scanned the room with a more critical eye.  “Oh, ho!  I think I found a few of the nasty buggers.”  She said with a cackle.

“Well then, let's see if their hide can handle your big girl arrows.”  Rick said with a matching evil grin.  He mentally cycled through a short list of spell formulas he had memorized and started to channel his mana in the appropriate patterns.  “You may fire when ready.”

Tyr drew back her monstrous bow until the ballista bolt sized arrow she had nocked barely had its deadly tip resting on her finger.  With a deep thrum that Rick could feel in his gut, the bow launched the oversized missile straight towards the nearest pillar at blinding speed.  The shaft buried itself inside the stone column all the way to the fletching.

For a single heartstopping moment, Rick was worried that his guess was wrong, and that he just encouraged Tyr to waste one of her precious siege arrows.  But then the telltale split of a toothy maw opened up and the monster screamed in agony at being impaled by a giant wooden spike.

Tyr had already aimed and let loose another arrow into a different target.  Her arms were a blur as she quickly drew and released her payloads into the monster filled cavern.  In less than thirty seconds, four unlucky ropers were turned into oversized pincushions and were wailing in agony, their noodly limbs flailing around them helplessly.  It was all music to their ears.

While the hunters enjoyed the lamentations of their enemies, it seemed that there were those who preferred the silence instead.  Rick looked up to see the ceiling roiling above them.  A few seconds later, and the sound of dying ropers was drowned out by a cacophony of flapping and high pitched squeaks.  And then the swarm of bats descended upon them.

“Ah crap!  Looks like repel’s effect wore off.”  Rick groaned.  He then held out his hand and grinned madly.  “But Rick used flamethrower!”

With that, he let some of the magic he had been holding back inside release.  A river of flames erupted from his outstretched palm and bathed the oncoming swarm in incinerating heat.  He swept his arm back and forth, causing more of the flying rodents to plummet to the floor as charred husks.  Eventually, the bats got the hint and flew away as fast as their wings could carry them.

“It was super effective!”  Rick cheered as the swarm dispersed down other connecting tunnels.  Tyr gave him an appreciative clap on the back for a job well done.

“While all that was entertaining and all, did you two forget why we’re fucking down here in the first place?”

Lilie’s words snuffed out Rick and Tyr’s elation like a blanket soaked in ice water.  The reminder of their lost friends sobering them both instantly.  As if sensing that they were now focused, Lilie’s expression softened and she strode over to give them a hug.

“I know you didn’t mean to get carried away.  It’s not in either of your natures to be so serious all the time.”  She said softly and kissed Rick lightly on the nose.  Tyr was simply too tall for the shaytoni to do the same.  “But we really do need to find Sade quickly.  When she’s not here Rick, you get really weird.”  She joked.

“Yeah… I’m not going to argue with you on that one.”  Rick agreed with a small chuckle.

“Let’s go get her back!”  Tyr said with enthusiasm.

“Aye!”  The other two shouted back.