Without the need to pace themselves or the danger of being flanked by new arrivals, Alarion and Sierra made quick work of the remaining fiends. Or rather, Sierra made quick work of the remaining fiends while Alarion trailed behind her and finished her leavings. Even that was a struggle for the young man. His lungs and arms were on fire, his stamina depleted.

Your stamina has dropped below 0. New Condition! [Winded] [Survivor's Endurance] cannot take effect.

Alarion was familiar with the condition. He'd first earned it in his training scraps with ZEKE.

Winded – 50% Malus to all attributes so long as stamina remains negative. All skills that utilize stamina have been disabled so long as stamina remains negative.

The Steelborn had been very clear, repeatedly, that fighting on past the point of exhaustion was a fool's gambit, meant only for the most desperate of moments. The penalty itself was crippling in a fight, and the knock-on effects like muscle fatigue would be no better. Worse yet, the malus for dipping below zero would affect his stamina regeneration rate, which meant it would take twice as long to recover while below zero.

Unfortunately, when theory met praxis, the former rarely held up as well as one would hope.

Alarion lay on top of the final fiend, slamming his miniature greatsword repeatedly into the fiend's core. Each impact chipped away at the hardened red stone, but Alarion had so many penalties stacked that his strength might have even been below that of a baseline human.

"Alarion," Sierra said beside him as he struck again. He hit two more times before she finally caught his wrist. "Stop. It is okay. We won."

The boy stared at her in a daze, as though what she was saying was nonsensical. Then he looked around and saw what they had wrought.

It was hard to say how many fiends they'd killed. Dozens, certainly. Alarion's habit of taking limbs with his attacks had left the battlefield strewn with body parts, and enough of the fiends were piled atop or near one another that an accurate count would be difficult. He could look back through his notifications for the specifics, but the answer that mattered was enough.

Level Up! Congratulations, your Stubborn Swordsman Class has advanced to Level 4! STR +12. AGI+12. VIT +18. INT +18. PER +12. WIL +6.

Skill level increased. Imperial Greatsword Mastery is now Level 6. STR +4.

At some point during the melee, the chamber stopped moving. Above them, far above them now, the entrance of the pit had closed over, blotting out the sunlight and leaving the room bathed only in the blue-white glow of the wall's curious markings. This lent the entire scene a surreal feeling, as though they had stumbled into some enchanted slaughterhouse.

"Let me," Sierra said, releasing Alarion's wrist. She waved him off, waiting until he'd found a new seat a short distance away. Then she stabbed the fiend through the head and looked at him. "Catch your breath. When you are ready, tell me. Do not rush, we have time."

"Time for what?" He asked through heaving breaths.

"For whatever happens when I kill this fiend," Sierra replied. "The glow has been getting stronger every time we kill one of them."

"… and you think the revenant stopped sending them once there was enough to trigger... something," Alarion said, finishing her train of thought. It wasn't a certainty, but there was no reason to test their luck before they were ready.

The two sat in relative silence, with Sierra periodically stabbing the fiend's body every ten seconds or so to halt its natural regeneration. Once he was no longer wheezing for air, Alarion made a quick lap of the room. No new entrances had opened up along its exterior, nor did touching the glowing patterns on the wall elicit any response.

"How did he move the room?" Alarion asked as he returned from his circuit.

"I do not know," she answered. "Earth magic is most likely, but I do not think this revenant is all that strong, given that it kept us at a distance. Maybe an item. Or some function of the chamber itself?"

"So we can't move it back."

"No," she replied, stabbing the fiend again for good measure.

Quiet reigned once again as both Awakened descended into their thoughts, occasionally punctuated by the stab of Sierra's knife or the shriek of an abused instrument as her remaining summons dissipated. Several times, Alarion opened his mouth, as though to speak, then thought better of it as his words withered on the vine inside him.

After the fifth such attempt, Sierra had finally had enough. "Spit it out."

"We have another problem," Alarion said, eyes downcast.

"Which is?"

He said nothing.

"Alarion," she pressed.

"I wasn't watching my HP."

Sierra's frown deepened. One thing that she thought she'd beaten into him during their weeks of training was always to watch your HP. An Awakened body could endure considerable abuse without loss of function, but the System was unforgiving in one critical aspect. When your HP hit zero, you died. Newly Awakened were often so arrogant that unless a strike was immediately crippling, they might not register it at all. Deaths from simple, preventable attrition were among the most common for fledgling Awakened.

Which was why she'd had Alarion set up a critical alert to warn him if his HP dropped too low. So how had he missed it?

"How bad?" When he didn't answer, she repeated the question. "How bad?"

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"Negative seventy-two."

She'd have hit him if doing so hadn't risked killing him.

"Are you-" Sierra started to shout, before she thought better of it. Their battle had been life or death, and she had no ready alternative for what he should have done. Her own HP was perilously low. If he'd pulled back for his own safety, she'd have been overwhelmed. If he'd kept better track of his HP, or his critical HP warning had worked properly with his new skill, he might have quaffed a potion to be safe, and they could have lost.

"Drink a potion," she said at last.

"I've already had two recently," he reminded her.

"Then a third will not kill you," Sierra countered. "But as soon as I stop stabbing this fiend, you'll exit combat, and all of that damage will convert to conditions that will take far more healing than a single potion will provide. We are picking the best of the bad options here."

Reluctantly, he acknowledged her point and drew one of his new potions from his bracer. He popped the stopper and downed it in a single gulp with nary a shudder. Healing energy flooded his body, maxing out his HP and healing over the worst of his wounded arm, the revenant bits, and the torn-up calf.

Then, the aftershocks hit.

His blood was fire, his stomach turning with revulsion and agony. The pain passed swiftly, but the unwell feeling remained. He'd not been this sick in years. Since before his Awakening, no doubt. Spoiled meat had been the cause, and Alarion felt his stomach rebel at the mere thought of food.

New Condition! Potion Toxicity: Severe. Survivor's Endurance has taken effect. [Potion Toxicity – Severe] has been resisted due to user's VIT score. Condition reduced to [Potion Toxicity – Major] Potion Toxicity: Major – 55% Malus to all Attributes. Time Until Healed – ~8 hours.

There was only a single bit of good news.

Skill level increased. [Survivor's Endurance] is now Level 6. VIT +4.

"That never feels good," Sierra said sympathetically. "Let me know when you are ready."

"I will. It should be about eight hours."

Sierra snorted a quick laugh, then covered her face with one hand. "I meant your stamina. Even if it cleared your penalties, I do not think it is wise for us to sit here for eight hours stabbing this fiend over and over."

"Probably not," Alarion conceded. His sword grew to full size, and he gave the air a few practice cuts, testing his strength and speed. Even with the stiff penalties, he had grown so much in such a short period that he was nearly as powerful as when he'd fallen into the pit. "I'm ready."

Sierra's knife descended for the last time, shattering the fiend's core in a single decisive strike.

And nothing happened.

The two exchanged glances, a nervous smile creeping at the edges of Sierra's lips only to die at the sound of stone grinding against stone. A door was opening. Or rather, a staircase. One of the black marble panels in the floor had begun to retract, revealing a long, well-lit staircase leading further into the bowels of the earth. The top half of a fiend preceded them as it slid off the disappearing marble and fell into the new gap, clattering its way down a nearly endless staircase.

Alarion glanced at Sierra. "So this is a trap, yes?"

Obviously, but that was the problem with a good trap. It did not matter what you knew, so long as you had no better options.

They could not climb out. Even if they somehow reached the bottom lip of the pit, its top was sealed and possibly guarded as well. They could not dig their way out, not without tools and with several hundred yards of soil and rock between them and the surface, not at their level. Waiting was almost certainly off the table. The Vitrians hadn't found the buried chamber previously. There was no reason to think this time would be any different, even if Alarion's disappearance was a stronger motivation.

That left the waiting jaws of the trap. A far from ideal solution.

"We are going to rest first," Sierra said, ignoring his question. She'd no doubt come to a similar conclusion. "We'll set up camp on the stairs. Stay near the top so we can decide which way to go if it starts to close."

As it happened, that fear was unfounded.

After a short demonstration of her [Clean] cantrip, a spell Alarion had every intention of learning should they survive, the two settled down on opposite sides of the stairway, leaning up against the walls in an attempt to find some measure of comfort on the uneven surface.

With no fire to cook, hard tack rations were the day's meal. Or at least, they would have been had Sierra not surprised him.

"Kotone, fruit, please. Grapes, if we have them."

To his shock and delight, the bizarre creature burst into being with a 'yes, miss!' no worse for wear despite having been torn to pieces less than an hour earlier. To his even greater delight, the familiar did, indeed, have grapes.

"How?" Alarion asked, unable to formulate the real question still brewing in his head.

Fortunately, Sierra understood. "The body you see is only a temporary construction of my mana. The actual Kotone is a thought form I created. Much harder to destroy. It can take nearly a day to bring her back normally, but this place is swimming in mana."

"Thought form?" He asked. "Is that like-"

Sierra held up a hand to stop him there, then offered him one of the grape bundles as an apology. "Not right now, Alarion. I am too exhausted for any sort of lesson. Sit. Eat, get some rest. It has been a long day. I will take first watch."

"Mm," Alarion agreed.

The two ate in silence, trying to pay as little attention as possible to the pile of dismembered fiends as they filled their bellies. They exchanged no further words, and eventually, Alarion turned his attention inward, adjusting his status to display his current progress absent the temporary malus.

General Information

Name – Alarion Species – Human Sex - Male Age – Fifteen Years HP – 312/312 [+0.011/sec] MP – 202/202 [+0.028/sec] Stamina – 211/211 [+0.352/sec] Aptitude – 238% UCL – 18

Attributes

STR – 75 AGI – 49 VIT – 72 INT – 48 PER – 67 WIL – 39 LUK – 414

Classes Known

Orphan – Level 5 – Progress – 15% Survivor – Level 1 – Progress – MAX Stubborn Swordsman – Level 4 – Progress - 3%

General Skills Known

Stealth – Level 3 – Progress – 92% Detection – Level 4 – Progress – 19% Thrown Weapon Mastery – Level 5 – Progress – 83% Imperial Greatsword Mastery – Level 6 – Progress – 21%

Class Skills Known

Survivor's Endurance – Level 6 – Progress – 7% Self-Motivated – Level 3 – Progress – 19% (No Daily Use Available) Pig-Headed Resilience – Level 1 – Progress – 58%

Traits and Feats of Strength

Avian Bane – Rank I

Flaws

Unknown – Major Unknown – Moderate Single-Minded – Minor (Focus: Imperial Greatsword Mastery)

He read it thrice over, digging into the details of every facet of his growth. His progress over the course of a single day had been nothing short of meteoric, but a life-or-death struggle would do that. Even so, he wondered how fast he was expected to grow, now that he'd gained a combat class.

"Sie-" he started to ask, only to catch himself as his eyes fell upon her.

Her body was twisted to best fit upon a single stair, one knee pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around it. Her head was canted to one side, resting against the wall as her chest slowly rose and fell.

He stood carefully, relying on his [Stealth] skill as he dug into his bag, then closed the short distance between them to drape her in a blanket.

He would take first watch.

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