Chapter 9

An hour of travel the next day brought them to a large cave. The walls and ceiling were beyond Shanlai's new sight, possibly by a large distance based on the curvature of the walls near them. Shanlai was wary. She remembered what happened the first time they found a cave like this. She led the others around the left-hand wall. With luck, the tunnel they needed to take out of here would be marked again.

Fifty paces later, Shanlai was again grateful for her new eye. The pain had been awful, but it was worth its weight in platinum. Evidently, the creatures were used to prey that couldn't see them back as they crept silently but openly toward the group. Shanlai got her first look at them.

Three beastly creatures crept forward. Colour was impossible to tell, naturally, but their fur was uniform and dark. They were as tall at the shoulder as the tips of Shanlai's ears. Their fangs and claws looked sharp, and long narrow tails waved behind them. Shanlai had never seen the like. They didn't look like a dire form of any animal she was familiar with. If anything, they looked like hellbeasts.

"On the right!" Shanlai cried, and she leapt forward to engage one of the beasts. For once, the element of surprise was hers, and her blade struck true, drawing its blood. It slashed at her as she danced back out of reach. Its companions raced past to the others.

Shanlai risked a glance backwards. Joren had propped Sonya against the wall and had placed himself and his shield in front of her. Yolanda brought her blades in a kata designed to force enemies to stay back. Then Shanlai lost track as she engaged the beast once more.

The thing was cannier now, respecting the danger her blade represented. Its claws forced Shanlai on the defensive, ceding ground as she looked for an opening. Hearing the combat from the others filled her with fear. She had to end this quickly. They had managed to wound these things in the dark before, but there was too much risk when she was the only one that could see. She wound her cloak around her left arm, then stepped toward the creature when it expected her to dance back.

With her left arm, she batted the heavy paw aside. The claws tore her cloak and scratched her arm, but she ignored the pain and deftly guided her blade to its throat. As the blade sank in, blood sprayed out, spattering her face and clothes. She ducked out before it could fall on her and raced towards the others.

Joren's shield was doing its job as he engaged one beast. It looked like he had managed some glancing hits, but so had his opponent. Yolanda's foe looked bloodier as her blades whirled nonstop, but as Shanlai watched, the beast charged in and knocked Yolanda to the ground with its shoulder. It trapped her arms under its paws, and its jaw snapped towards Yolanda's throat.

Time seemed to slow for Shanlai. She was too far to get there in time. No, no no! She couldn't lose someone, not now, not after everything they had been through.

Suddenly, a rune appeared in her vision. It looked familiar, and a small part of her connected it to what her benefactor had traced onto her eye, but the rest ignored it. She had no idea what she was doing, but in desperation she traced the rune she saw with her fingers. The rune appeared in the air as she drew, white lines rimmed in blue, and as she finished the last line, a bolt of energy, blue flecked with white, lanced out to strike the creature. There was a blast as it impacted the creature's head and exploded, flecks of flesh and blood landing on Yolanda as the creature slumped onto her. She gave a cry and immediately tried to heave the thing off of her.

"Yolanda?" Joren called, worry in his voice.

"She's fine, worry about yours!" Shanlai yelled. She skidded up to the beast, but she was off-balance, and her cut missed.

The creature turned to snap at her, and Joren sensed an opening. With a grunt, he brought his longsword down, and it cut deep into the beast's shoulder. With a cry, it tried to pull away, but Joren brought the blade in a draw cut that sliced across the creature's throat. It fell to the ground, gurgled, and went still.

The moment of silence was punctuated by Yolanda's grunt as she finally managed to slide out from under the creature. "What the hell happened? Felt like its head just blew up." She wiped a hand across her brow and grimaced. "Gross."

"Shanlai?" Sonya called. "Did you see what happened?"

"See?" Shanlai sputtered.

"Don't play dumb, girl. You could obviously see since yesterday, though gods only know how."

Shanlai sighed. "That was me."

"You can make heads explode?" Shanlai felt that Yolanda's voice had far more glee than the question warranted.

Shanlai dragged a hand over her head. "Can we wait to address this until we're out of here? Please?"

"Agreed," said Sonya. "But I will have questions then."

There were two tunnels besides the one they had come through to choose from, but again one was marked with the strange pentacle. Shanlai led the way, still cautious. She hoped they had seen the last of those creatures, but with no way of knowing, it was better careful than cursing.

They had to rest frequently for Joren and Sonya. All the moving around was not hastening the healing process, but they could hardly wait. Once they were out of the caves and back into the woods, they would have time. Shanlai wondered if anyone was looking for them. They should have been at the fort days ago, after all.

After coming around a bend, Shanlai saw a small speck. At first, she couldn't make sense of it, but when the others came behind her, Sonya breathed, "Light."

The group quickened their pace, the others stumbling in the dark. Normally, Sonya would admonish such reckless behaviour, but now she only tightened her grip on her glaive, using it like a walking stick.

A couple minutes' journey brought them out of the cave beneath a thick canopy of trees, dappled sunlight filtering through to touch the grass. Shanlai fell forward into the dirt, burying her face in the grass. The words out of her mouth may have been "Pelor bless," but it was difficult to tell as they were muffled by the dirt.

Joren and Sonya sat more sedately, resting against a tree, while Yolanda sheathed her blades and skipped through the grass. "We're out, we're out! I knew we'd make it!"

Shanlai rolled over, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the open air. Yolanda's voice sounded too close, making her jump. "Your eye! Did one of those things get you?"

Shanlai opened her eyes to see to Yolanda a foot from her face. Yolanda shot back, falling onto her butt. "Gods above! What happened to your eye?!"

A pond was nearby, and Shanlai dragged herself over to it, looking into the water. A thin, straight scar went from her brow down to her cheek, and a pure blue eye with white runes looked back at her from her left socket.

With a grimace, she looked over at the others who looked back with a mixture of curiosity and alarm.

"Well," Shanlai said, "It's kind of a long story."

AN: This is it! The end of the story. It's a little more abrupt than I had originally thought, but after writing the section where Shanlai met her "benefactor," I lost steam. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's such a blast to have finally written something substantial again after *checks notes* like 7 years.

Unfortunately, I don't have another story planned right now (write now?). I was writing another fantasy story based off characters I'd made for Pathfinder, but all I currently have is a collection of unrelated snippets and no plot to join any of the scenes together. I want to take another look at that, but I expect even I start work on it right away, it will be quite a while before I start posting anything on it.

That being said, I want to keep writing enough that I made it a daily on Habitica (fantastic app to help motivate you to get stuff done, highly recommend). I'll see if I can post snippets like "Ethan's Good Day" once in a while here. And I'll see if I can come up with another longer work sometime soon.

Please leave a comment if you enjoyed Shanlai's adventure. I doubt this will be the last thing I write about her, but it'll be a while before she gets another outing. Until next time, everyone!