…And then I said, ‘screw you, assholes!’

  A tad vulgar… but bold! I suppose it suits you. You know, I think Tenjin was smiling down on me when you picked up this tablet. You really manage to get yourself in the craziest situations. It’s fantastic entertainment.

  Oh, you think that was crazy? After that, I was chased by the apes until I ended up in this really rocky terrain, maybe a kind of quarry or something like that. Anyway, one thing led to another, and I ended up collapsing the ground and now I’m stuck in a huge cavern with a muscular noblewoman.

  I feel like you’re leaving out some important details here. You’re still stuck there? How are you going to get out?

  I’m not sure yet. I think she wants to build a tower so we can climb back out. Don’t have any better ideas and she seems competent, so... yeah. No matter how we do it, I need to get out of here in six days at the latest. It’ll take me two days to get back and there’s somewhere I have to be.

  An important meeting?

  Super important! Have to be there. If I don’t make it in time, well… bad things will happen. Very Bad Things.

  More explosions?

  Something like that.

  Okay, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. How are your seeds coming along?

  He’d nearly forgotten about those. There were three pouches attached to his belt, each carrying a bit of dirt and a budding seed of a different type of plant.

  

  Not much seems to be happening. Should I give them some water? Oh, and some light maybe? That seemed to work well for the Wisp thing.

  Yes! Water and light are always a great idea. The important thing is to care for them, to try and get a feeling for how they grow.

  Okay, got it. I’ll keep you posted

  He followed through, feeding the tiny buds some water and a bit of light, when he saw Nika approaching again with two huge slabs of deep black stone.

  “How’s it going?” he called out to her from where he sat, going through his pack to dig out some dried trogmeat to snack on.

  “Well enough, so far. The foundation still needs work. It should be flat and solid, as stable as can be, but once that is in place it will be faster to shift to Tange’s interchanging beam method. With correct placement of the beams and abutments, gravity will help hold the structure together in absence of any lime or clay. We’ll just need to adjust the basalt to form roughly uniform pieces.”

  “Adjust it? How are we gonna do that?” he asked through a mouthful of dried meat, launching bits of it onto the ground as he spoke. Nika’s eye twitched briefly.

  “Like so,” she said, bending over and straightening her fingers as if to stab down at the rock. Dario’s jaw stopped moving mid-chew as he watched the heavy, charcoal Ki gathering in her hand. It seemed to seep out of her skin and collected together, seeming to turn almost solid in a shape that reminded him of a chisel.

  She struck and the rock cracked and broke off in a nearly perfect straight line.

  “I see,” Dario said, brows lifting. An attack like that would crack him like an egg.

  It hadn’t taken them long to figure out that Dario was better at scouting, while Nika was better at… just about everything else. Within ten minutes, she’d come up with a precise plan, calculating not only how wide the bottom needed to be to support a structure that could reach up to the ceiling, but even going so far as to judge the minimum required density of the stones they’d use for the foundation. Her sculpted body was as strong as it seemed tireless, lifting rocks that Dario would have broken his back trying to move.

  “Well, maybe when we get to the lighter rocks I can come help out. Until then, I guess I’ll go back to looking around.”

  They had apparently fallen from one basin to another. The small lake they’d landed in seemed to be the lowest point around here, rock rising from the ground in all directions into a series of jagged cliffs, though none of them reached up to the cavern ceiling. He’d explored every direction except for what they’d decided had to be east, but he’d found them all to be dead ends, having pushed through the treacherous terrain until he could go no further. He’d spotted some tunnels, but none of them large enough to fit a person.

  A tall and relatively flat wall rose in the east, but it wasn’t in one piece, formed of overlapping slats of stone. After walking around to pass by each of the slats, he found one where the shadows seemed deeper than the rest, which turned out to be a passage.

  Inside, there were more of the slats, these ones even taller, but they were far too smooth and thin to climb. Some were larger and others smaller, and the strange formations led to passages of varying sizes being formed, though most of them were dead ends.

  Dario fed Ki to his eyes as he squeezed past the sharp corners of the natural maze until he came into a broader corridor that led to a square clearing, from which more openings were visible. At least seven different paths could be taken from here, as far as he could see, so he touched the walls where he passed at regular intervals to infuse them with light Ki. The remains would still be visible to his eyes for at least an hour, so it helped him explore without getting lost.

  Most of them were just dead ends, but the first thing of interest he found was another piece of stone, though clearly different than the rest. If the color and grain weren’t enough to set it apart from the rest, its smooth structure definitely did. It was a piece of a pillar, he thought, rounded with a neat edge on the side that wasn’t cracked.

  He’d be willing to bet it hadn’t formed naturally. So then the question was, how did it get there? Fallen through a hole above, like them? But there were no people living out here in the wilds, no structures to have broken into pieces like this. At least, not anymore. Then again, there was much he didn’t know about this area. Some rich noble might well have had the dumb idea to try and build a villa out here at some point.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  The next mysterious item he found had him stopping in his tracks for a moment. It was a set of bones. Even when holding a hip bone, he was still telling himself it had to be of some cave-dwelling animal that had died down here, until he saw the skull, half-shattered and hidden underneath a pile of gravel. It had been a person. Another poor soul must have gotten stuck down here, or fallen to their deaths. People did die all the time out in the wilds.

  But for them, it should be good news. Since whoever died here had to have made their own way down, there might be a faster way out. He’d have to keep a close eye on the ceiling as well, for any openings.

  But his last finding in the endless hallways of this natural maze had him sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth. There was light. Just a pinprick of it, visible through some tiny crack in one of the many rock walls, but still, it was there.

  “Now that,” he breathed as he poked a finger around the little crack, “is a good find.”

  It had to mean another exit beyond this wall, perhaps easily reachable, so that they wouldn’t have to build an entire structure to get back out. With Nika’s ridiculous strength, they might just be able to break through here. But before he could investigate closer, a scuttling sound had him grabbing for his bow and drawing the light away from himself.

  The skittering of claws on rock drew closer until a creature rounded the corner. It looked like a beetle, six black limbs scraping on stone, only it was about the size of a dog and almost completely shrouded in a thick, brown and black smoke.

  Though it was hard to make out through the smoke, which somehow resisted his piercing sight, it looked like the creature was moving without purpose, searching for something. It couldn’t see him, then. The sound might have drawn it here.

  Since it was in between him and the way out, he had to either kill it or get past it. Better to get past it first, then, in case it didn’t work out.

  So he pocketed a few rocks and began slowly sliding up by pushing his feet against the opposite wall of the narrow corridor. The creature was still moving slowly ahead, the strange shroud moving along with it.

  When he was high enough, he tossed a rock further down the tunnel. The beast went for it immediately and Dario felt a bit of disgust as he saw how quickly its insectoid legs moved. Despite the fast movement, still the smoke never drifted off, sticking close to its carapace like a piece of loose clothing. Before it reached the stone, it again seemed to lift its head, searching for something, but Dario wasn’t about to wait around and see what it did. He let himself slide down, but as he did so, a small piece of rock came off the wall and clattered to the ground.

  By the time the beast turned, he already had an arrow at full draw and shot it straight where its head should be. At this short distance, it should have broken straight through its carapace, but to his surprise it stuck in the dark smoke for a moment, before falling harmlessly to the ground.

  “What the-”

  The beetle charged, so he ran. The jagged walls of the tunnel flashed past him, skidding around the many sharp turns as he followed the trail of light he’d left, like tiny, fading fireflies that guided him out.

  The dark passage felt endless as he was surrounded only by the sounds of his heavy breathing and feet slapping on stone, while the ominous skittering of claws came ever closer. When the passage finally opened up into the central space, he sped up, dashing into the final corridor and out into the open.

  He kept moving once he was out, leaping onto a boulder as he drew another arrow and wrapped it in light, as much to signal Nika as to get a better view of the creature.

  “Flash bolt!” he shouted as a shining arrow pierced the darkness, striking the strange beetle head on right as it exited the maze. The blinding flash that followed revealed a bit more of the beetle’s shape - long, sharp mandibles and beady eyes - but the light didn’t help the arrow pierce the smoke.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to kill this thing?” Dario cursed as he retreated to the northern side of the lake, in the direction of the light that Nika was using to work by. Not wanting to waste any more arrows on this tough beetle, he drew his dagger and put on his buckler as he backed away. The oversized insect was coming in fast, thin legs sticking out from the curling veil of smoke.

  He heard rushed footsteps quickly approaching from behind and then Nika was soaring high, bringing a Ki-fortified fist down straight onto its back. That blow would have split a boulder, Dario thought as the shroud somehow absorbed the strike so that it barely even made a sound.

  “The shroud is too strong, let’s try its stomach!” he shouted, dashing in from the right with his dagger held up. Nika handily stepped around the beast’s predictable lunge, gripping it around the sides and lifting it up. Dario struck without hesitation, but before his dagger could pierce its softer stomach, the smoke streamed down and covered it.

  It felt like trying to stab a bucket of resin, somewhat soft yet absolutely impenetrable. Nothing worked. He was all out of ideas and it was enough for a bit of despair to creep into the pit of his stomach. He frowned, then drew back as a whisper-thin tendril of black smoke seemed to seep from his hand and join its shroud. Was it stealing his Ki?

  “Tough indeed,” Nika grunted, seeming not to have noticed as she heaved the creature straight up into the air, a vicious smile on her face. “But I have yet to find a nut I could not crack.”

  He could see the Ki sweeping through her body as she inhaled, thin lines stretching into every limb while it concentrated into a heavy shape around her right fist. She twisted around and struck with surprising speed, launching the beast straight into a wall.

  Once again, there was no satisfying crack of carapace on stone, its shroud cushioning the impact without a sound. But Nika had rushed right behind it and before it could fall to the ground, she struck again, another Ki-empowered strike, this time with her left. From there, she flowed seamlessly into a roundhouse kick, her Ki racing through her seams to fortify her heel as it snapped around, bashing into the beast.

  What followed was the most impressive feat of martial arts Dario had ever seen. Nika flowed smoothly through a series of forms and all the while her Ki danced along, strengthening her limbs and concentrating over her skin to harden it right before each blow. A punch transitioned into a snapping kick, followed by an elbow, a knee and another punch, all timed perfectly so that the beast never left its position up against the wall.

  He expected her to tire quickly at this pace, but his jaw dropped as her momentum increased. Her Ki remained in sync, each motion flowing effortlessly into the next. A sequence of kicks that lashed through the air like a whip, followed by snapping punches, made it look like a well-practiced and flawlessly executed dance. The beetle had to be taking at least four massive blows each second, but still its shroud held.

  After a while, he saw that it began to diminish, though the wall was the first thing to give under the relentless onslaught. Bits of rubble fell out as a hole formed behind the beetle, which it was gradually pushed into, deeper and deeper into the wall.

  Eventually, a punch was followed by a wet squelch and ichor dripped out from the hole as Nika withdrew. Her skin was slick with sweat and her breathing was elevated, but she looked like she could go another round.

  “Quite an unusual Reijuu, but it offered a good bit of exercise,” she said, wiping her brow with a satisfied smile.

  They got cleaned up and went to sit down and sip some purified water as Dario shared what he’d found. But his usual excitement was lacking as he spoke about the strange things he’d found in the maze. He’d been standing around like an idiot while Nika bashed that beetle’s guts in.

  He’d always known that his offense was lacking, but experiencing it first hand was no fun. It had started already when dealing with the apes, but after seeing the stone beasts that Nika was fighting and now failing to even scratch the beetle, it felt like a real problem that he needed to deal with.

  Bow and arrow had been enough to deal with nearly anything the Belt could throw at him, but out here, it simply wasn’t enough. What would he have done if he had to deal with the beetle by himself? Or, Tenjin forbid, if he ever got into a fight with Nika? He wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

  The woman was giving him a concerned look.

  “Is everything alright? Did you take a wound?”

  He realized his attention had drifted and he’d stopped his story mid-sentence. Instead of waving it off and resuming the story, he looked up, meeting her eyes.

  “How did you learn to fight like that?”