23. II:7: Away From Danger? (1/2)

act ii: adolescencechapter 7: away from danger?party: ryu, nina, lance, james, leah

ryu came awake slowly, as if swimming up from the depths of his consciousness. it was a great effort to open his eyes, and the strain made him moan as he shifted into a different position. his muscles protested; having been stuck in the same position for a while, they didn't want to move. when he finally did get his eyes open, he recognized that there was a clear blue sky above him. he was outdoors. a moment later, some of the light of the sky was blocked by a head. he blinked rapidly, trying to

ing the face into focus and succeeded. nina's smiling face came into clear view.

"you're awake," she stated happily. her face retreated from his view and he heard her footsteps as she walked off, leaving him relatively alone. he used the opportunity to sit up carefully, trying not to aggravate any part of his body that he didn't necessarily have to. he hadn't been sitting up for longer than a minute when all of his companions were suddenly by his side.

"welcome back to the land of the living!" lance said happily, slapping ryu on the back, who hissed in pain. lance seemed to not notice. "we were wondering how much longer you were going to be out. the priest told us not to worry about you, but we couldn't stay in the cave for much longer than we did. i hope you don't mind us carrying you out of there."

james was carrying

eakfast in his hands. "i figured you'd be hungry," was all he said, handing over the food. ryu took the opportunity to eat heartily. he was starved. as he ate, he felt his energy returning and the pain of waking fade. the more he ate, the more it was clear that all he needed was the food to feel alright again.

"so, are we ready to leave tantar yet?" leah said in a long-suffering tone. "i'm just about ready to leave this place and never come back."

"you're an agent of the wyndian crown," lance responded, "you expect to be able to not come back to the empire?"

"well, ryu?" james said, cutting off what was likely a scathing reply from leah, "where's your next destination?"

"the bleak forest," ryu replied. "i need to figure out where the lightning temple is, but they told me that it lies somewhere in the bleak forest."

"good," leah said. "since that's near auria, is there any objection to us making haste to the checkpoint now?"

"if only to get you to shut up," lance muttered quietly, but not quietly enough. he fled in the face of leah's wrath, leaving james, nina and ryu watching them go.

"i wonder if he'll ever learn," james said absently. then he turned to ryu. "as soon as you feel up to it, we're headed south and out of here. take your time."

as james walked away, intending on packing up the supplies and preparing the packs, nina remained by ryu's bedroll. "despite lance's joshing, i think we'll all feel better when we're out of tantar," she said quietly, watching james step calmly aside as the other two agents flew past him.

ryu nodded as he rose, done with his meal. "i agree. the only place i felt safe was in the temple with all of those fire monsters."

nina giggled. "you could put it that way."

a few minutes later everything was packed away and ready for travel. the party set out southwest away from the shadow of the volcano. the monsters were just as they remembered them, but they were even less trouble now than they had been when they had been traveling to and from riverine. the checkpoint was about a day's travel from the volcano, so the party reached it on the following morning, having left their camp at the volcano just before noon the day before.

the checkpoint lay at the base of a mountain range that separated the city-state of auria from the rest of the world. the tantaran empire had evidently decided that a checkpoint was sufficient for the control of the border, as opposed to a border fort. all traffic through the mountains was filtered through a cave. the checkpoint was built such that it was impossible to go through the cave and not go through the checkpoint. ryu supposed that this was the idea. the empire needed to control its borders after all.

leah had false paperwork for nina and herself, while james had the paperwork for james, lance and ryu. when challenged by the guard on duty, the agents presented the paperwork. after only a cursory glance at the paperwork, though a lingering stare at nina's face under her cloak, the guard let them through the checkpoint with no fuss. the party headed into the caves.

unlike the caves that ryu had been in beforehand, these were not tied to a particular element. there were interesting monsters there, however, just like the wind caves from his trip to wyndia or the caves through the volcano that had turned out to be the fire temple. leeches were easily the most predominant of the denizens of the caves, annoying both in their numbers and their propensity to attempt to suck the life out of party members that they latched on to.

other hazards in the caves included ameblobs, shadows and a few other menaces that could make any day bad. the ameblobs easily shrugged off physical damage, but fell very quickly to magic. shadows had an aversion to ryu's aura, so he exploited this little trait whenever they bothered the party. there were also a few monsters that were called 'midgets', but they didn't really cause all that much of a problem.

the trek through the cave was straightforward. there weren't any major turnoffs to get lost on, and the party found themselves facing the opening of the aurian side of the mountains before too much time had passed. the issue was that their path was blocked. blocked by a rather large ameblob. it did not waste any time, attacking nina with a protrusion of itself and knocking her backward and she fell to the cold floor. the next attack went straight after her too, but ryu drew his sword in a way that sliced off the protrusion, which returned to the main body.

leah, knowing (and rather disgusted by the fact that) she would be no help here directly, ran to the back to help nina, who for her own part shook off the help and rushed to the front. as she was the strongest magical fighter in the party, she was a welcome addition to the front ranks upon her arrival. leah stayed in the back, occasionally picking up a fallen comrade and administering herbs or even a vitamin in one case when ryu took a nasty fall from a sphere spell the giant ameblob had cast.

nina cast sever, the basic air spell a couple times, but it wasn't seeming to have as much of an effect as she would have liked. ryu had just been able to cast a more powerful heal spell that he had been working on called rejuvenate, so nina took this idea and ran with it. she poured power into her casts and after only two tries, had a new trick up her sleeve.

"cyclone!" she called, willing into being winds that rocked and buffeted a large area of the cave, which she quickly directed into a focused attack on the enemy. the damage was mounting, so she continued her assault with the winds. while her attacks were effective now on the monster, the other party members were having more of a hard time with their own spells. as nina found her new tactic and stuck with it, ryu decided to change his own. a

ight white light flashed, and wyvern stood where ryu had been standing.

wyvern's ability to use a mid-level fire spell was immediately used to great effect on the giant ameblob, and the fact that the winds from nina's attack were fanning the flame gave nina an idea. "why don't we try a combination?" she called over the tumult of the two-pronged attack. she got a nod in response, and wyvern prepared a fresh casting of fireball. when he was ready, he lobbed it so that it would fall on the ameblob from above and with a predictable speed. nina cast her own spell quickly to complete the combination.

"simoon!"

the air took the fire and spread it, fueled it, and struck the ameblob with it. the fireworks show was spectacular, and when the spell was done with its work, the ameblob had melted into the cave floor, dead. nina jumped up in cele

ation, leah cheered and ryu returned to his humanoid form with a satisfied look on his face. the other two agents looked impressed. "well done, ryu," lance said to him. "i'm guessing that's the form that you gained from the shrine?"

"yeah," ryu said, but he didn't elaborate. lance didn't press him, and neither did anyone else as the party left the cave on the south side of the mountains.

"we've left tantar," leah

eathed.