18. Chapter 18 The Splits #4
The descent to the next depth was right there, twenty feet ahead, a dark opening in the chamber wall.
Bjorna studied it. Then she checked her arm, healed but recently cooked.
Then she turned to the party. Sif was checking Liv for burns.
Nott was studying the lava vent pattern.
I still had blood on my stonethread from the salamander tackle and three rips in the robe.
"We scroll out," Bjorna said. "We rest. Let’s come back tomorrow."
Nobody argued. Bjorna reached into her ring and pulled out a wax-sealed tube. She cracked the seal and unrolled the scroll inside.
The portal opened. The familiar shimmer appeared, bright and clean against the red glow of the chamber, and the air that came through it was cool and smelled like wood smoke and open sky.
We stepped through.
***
The staging area was quiet under a sky full of stars. Our campfire was out. The other camps across the flat had banked their fires to coals and the only real light was the portal shimmer behind us, steady and patient.
Bjorna rebuilt the fire while Sif walked the perimeter. Nott set up the canvas shelter. Liv sat down on a bedroll and pulled her legs under her and didn't say anything for a minute.
I sat beside Bjorna and reached for her arm.
"You already healed it," she said.
"I want to check it. Burns can have deeper damage that doesn't show right away."
She held out her arm. I ran my hands along the skin from shoulder to wrist, slow, feeling for anything the gold might have missed. The fur was soft under my fingers, the brown a shade lighter where it had grown back fresh. Her arm was solid and warm and undamaged.
"You're good," I said. "All the way through."
She didn't pull her arm back right away. She sat with my hands on her forearm and the fire building in front of us and the stars above and her eyes found mine, steady and unhurried and making no effort to hide what she saw.
"Thank you, Daniel."
"Thank you for jumping in front of that vent. Liv would have been hurt badly."
"I know. That's why I jumped."
The fire caught and the warmth spread. Sif came back from her perimeter walk and dropped onto the bedroll across from us.
Nott emerged from the shelter and sat beside the fire with her cloak pulled around her shoulders.
Liv scooted closer to me and leaned against my side, her ears drooping, her body warm against my arm.
"Four depths," Sif said. "Day one. Not bad."
"Not bad?" I looked at her. "I got tackled by a fire lizard and had to vaporize it with my bare hands."
"And it was incredibly attractive," Sif said. "I stand by what I said."
"You also stood there with your mouth open for five seconds."
"I was processing." She stretched her legs toward the fire. "A girl needs a moment to process watching her party's healer turn a monster into dust. It's a lot to take in."
Bjorna's mouth twitched. "Tomorrow we go back in. Depth 5 and deeper. We know what the fire side looks like now. We adjust."
"We rest first," Nott said. "Sleep. Food. Recovery."
"That's the plan." Bjorna sat back. The breastplate gleamed in the firelight. She swept the party with the same steady assessment she'd given at the start of every fight. "Four depths. No serious injuries. One portal scroll used. Five remaining. We're in good shape."
Liv's voice came from somewhere near my shoulder, sleepy and content. "Daniel, you turned two monsters into ash and saved all of us with a magic bubble. I think that qualifies as a good first day."
"It was a good first day," I said. "I got to see Sif's new boots in action, Liv's skirt survived a dungeon, and Bjorna's shield held up against fire-breathing lizards. We're earning our forty gold."
"We're earning a lot more than forty gold," Nott said. "The salamander parts alone will fetch premium rates. The fire-aligned crystal drops from the elites are extremely valuable."
"Nott is already calculating our profit," Sif said. "We haven't even washed the ash off and she's running numbers."
"Someone has to."
Sif looked at Nott across the fire. "You're beautiful when you're making us rich."
Nott's cheeks turned pink in the firelight. "Go to sleep, Sif."
"See? That's what I mean. Adorable."
Bjorna sighed. "Everyone sleep. We wake at first light."
The fire burned down to coals. The portal shimmer was a faint glow fifty yards away, steady in the dark. Tomorrow we were going back in. Four more depths and whatever the dungeon had left to throw at us.
Liv had fallen asleep against my shoulder, her ears flat and relaxed, her breathing even. Across the dying fire, Sif was still awake, her blue eyes on me, the same look she'd had in Halsten's shop. She held my gaze and then she closed her eyes and settled into her bedroll.
The ash on my hands had dried to a gray smear. The cuts on my side were healed. The robe was torn. Four depths down, many more to go, and I'd discovered something about myself in a burning corridor with a monster on my chest.
I wasn't just a healer anymore.
I was a fighter too.