He craned his neck to try and see the actual source of the water, but it came from somewhere deeper in the mountain where he couldn’t see. As there was no way to talk over the noise, Hiram grabbed his shoulder to get his attention. Hiram pointed in the direction the water was flowing and Jason spotted a tunnel on their side of the fence. The path and tunnel ran alongside the water, through which Jason could see daylight. He nodded at Hiram and they started off in that direction.
The tunnel went all the way to the outside of the mountain, where the water broke free to tumble down through the air. There was a chest-high railing to keep people from falling off. The view was breathtaking. Below them was the pool where the waterfall landed and the channel flowing into the village lake. Beyond that lay the vast expanse of the desert.
Jason was taking in the view when he noticed the noise of the water seemed to be dimming. At first, he thought it was his imagination, but then he saw Hiram looking at the water stream with a confused expression. They watched the avalanche of water rapidly diminish, as if someone was turning off a giant tap. The flow dropped down to nothing, leaving an empty tunnel carved out by the water as smooth as a machine-made pipe.
“Is that meant to happen?” Jason asked, in the sudden silence.
“No, it isn’t,” Hiram said, concern plain on his face.
“Has it ever done this before?”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“Should we tell someone?”
“It’s a waterfall, son. I’m pretty sure everyone noticed.”
Hiram returned to the interior room, ignoring the blast of warm air to rush inside, still wet. He came back out with a large key, unlocked the gate and dropped down into the curved floor of the water tunnel. Jason hesitated a moment before following. Hiram glanced at Jason, but didn’t comment.
Jason immediately spotted the aperture, some twenty metres down the pipe. It was a huge circle with a surface that shimmered with the same blue light the water had produced. Through the circle he could make out what looked like a rainforest, but the distortion of the circle made it blurry and indistinct.
“Is that sky?” Jason asked. “Is there a whole world through there?”
“Never actually been through to see,” Hiram said.
A large shape crawled into view through the aperture. It lumbered through the aperture and into the tunnel, like passing through a sheet of water. It had the body and head of a shark, but instead of skin it had a plated shell in hues of dark purple and red. Emerging from its sides were eight crab legs and a huge pair of pincers. The creature was three metres long and the pincers were bigger than Jason’s head.
“Do you see a lot of those?” Jason asked.
“No,” Hiram said. “That’s new.”
New Quest: [Waterfall Monster]
A monster has unexpectedly emerged from the local astral space. It has already entered the blind aggression stage and will attack anyone it encounters. Defeat it before it causes any harm.
Objective: Defeat the [Shab] 0/1.
Reward: Quintessence.
“I don’t suppose you know what that thing is?” Hiram asked, drawing the knife on his belt.
“I think it’s called a shab.”
Jason drew the snake-tooth dagger at his own waist.
“You any good with that?” Hiram asked.
“No,” Jason said. “No, I’m not.”
27
Water, Fall
“It’s pretty slow,” Jason said. “If we get back behind the fence, is it strong enough to hold it?”
“Not sure,” Hiram said. “It’s mostly to keep out people. The magic is just to stop the water from ruining it, not make it any stronger.”
“I guess we fight, then,” Jason said reluctantly.
“I guess so,” Hiram said, equally lacking in enthusiasm.
The creature was moving up the tunnel, but at a lethargic pace. Its crab legs were better suited to sideways movement than forwards, so it was shuffling side to side as it approached. The back and forth motion was hampered by the curved sides of the pipe-like tunnel.
“You have any essences?” Jason asked. “Is that what I’ve been feeling in your aura, there?”
“One,” Hiram said. “You’re an adventurer? I thought the people with you were the adventurers.”
“They are,” Jason said. “I have the essences, but they’re very new.”
“You can try them out here then,” Hiram said. “I guess you’re in luck.”
Jason chuckled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. How lucky I am to be here.”
The creature continued moving closer, its legs tapping on the stone as it slowly zigzagged up the tunnel.
“Any idea on how we should do it?” Jason asked.
“I have a might essence,” Hiram said. “It makes me strong. If I tie up those pincers, think you can get around them and kill it?”
Jason looked at the creature. His knife wouldn’t do much to the hard shell, but it was just right for digging into the segmented joints.
“Yeah, I think I can do that.”
Hiram looked at the knife in his hand and shoved it back into its sheath before striding down the tunnel. Jason followed behind, his own knife at the ready.
As they drew closer, one of the pincers shot out and Hiram caught it in one hand. The stocky man and the creature struggled back and forth, but Hiram didn’t employ his second hand yet. He waited for the second pincer and grabbed that one too.
Hiram stood with hands over his head, a pincer gripped in each one. His arms swayed like branches in a storm, but his body was the tree’s unmoving trunk.
Seeing Hiram and the monster in a stand-off, Jason knew it was time to act. The sides of the round tunnel curved up, wet and smooth. Closest to flat was the middle of the tunnel, which was unfortunately full of monster.
Jason had two options for getting behind it. One was trying to slip past on the outside, risking the slippery walls. The other, more terrifying option was to crawl underneath the monster’s body. Its crab legs emerged from either side of the body, leaving a large open space underneath.
He ruled out crawling under the monster because it would involve crawling under a monster. Instead he rushed forward, trying to half-slide along the side of pipe to get past the creature’s legs.
He failed immediately. His feet slipped out from under him and he slid down into the creature’s legs. It raised one of them, which Jason realised tapered into a point as it came down and stabbed into him.
Jason cried out with pain, but he still held a death-grip on his dagger. He slid the blade across the monster’s leg, skittering over the hard shell until it found a vulnerable joint. The knife slotted right in between the plates of shell and he sliced the edge across the cartilage.
As the dagger cut into flesh, he used one of his abilities. He felt power surge out from deep inside his body, electric and exhilarating. It passed through his arm and into the dagger, filling the weapon with magic.
Ability: [Leech Bite] (Blood)
Special attack (melee, drain, wounding, blood)
Cost: Low stamina.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Inflicts or refreshes the [Bleeding] condition. Drains a small amount of health and stamina when refreshing the [Bleeding] condition.
[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs and negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.
As Jason yanked the knife free, blood sprayed out of the joint. The monster raised its leg sharply, pulling it free of Jason while releasing a high-pitched, alien shriek. Along with Jason’s power, the magic of his snake-tooth dagger did its own work.