Pathway

Ju Feng awoke in the dark in ache. At first, he didn't realize how badly he was hurt. He was too surprised that a blast like that could actually injure him at this place. Even his robe should have been enough to mitigate the impact of the explosion. He was now certain this part of the underground was against his protective measures. Maybe, even against his powers as a cultivator. But he was relieved at being alive to appreciate the large, solid weight pressing down on his right arm. He tried to shift to see if he could pull himself free. A white-hot bolt of pain shot up his arm, and darkness swirled up to claim him again.

He floated between consciousness and oblivion, dreaming little half dreams that ran together in his mind. In his dreams, he crouched on the ground as a yaoguai came for him, raining blows down upon his head. The punches burned where they struck his flesh, hotter and hotter, until Ju Feng looked up and saw the creature was on fire. Its flesh melted and reshaped into Orban's bright face and red hair.

The dwarven butcher shouted at him, laughing, but Ju Feng couldn't hear what he was saying. He raised his hands imploringly, trying to tell Orban to slow down. Couldn't he see Ju Feng was hurt? Ju Feng tried to grab Orban's arm, but the butcher pulled back, and a spasm of fear twisted his face. Orban was afraid of him. He didn't want Ju Feng to touch him. Ju Feng moaned and turned away from the butcher. The scene faded, and he was in the dark again.

When he opened his eyes, he beheld a wall of moving green. His vision focused on oak tree branches stirring in the breeze. He sat up and saw that he was in a grove of the tall oaks. And he wasn't alone. Chang Chang sat with her back against one of the tree trunks. She wore the same plain linen dress he'd seen her wear in the cavern. A scroll lay open in her lap.

"It's all right. You're not broken." 

She said, speaking to him without taking her eyes off the page she was reading. 

"I …" 

Pain shuddered through his body. He was hurt, maybe dying? He doubted that, but he was certainly hurt. Why wouldn't she look at him? 

"Help me, Chang."

"I can't." 

She replied before turning the page.

"Why?" 

He crawled to her, reaching out to lay his trembling hand over hers. Heat radiated from her body, suffusing her skin with a hellish glow. Ju Feng screamed an instant before she burst into flames. He screamed, but he couldn't look away as Chang Chang burned to death in front of his eyes. The darkness came for him again.

When he awoke from the dreams, cold sweat stood out on his face, and he was shivering. Ju Feng licked his dry, cracked lips and smiled bitterly into the darkness. The expression pulled at cuts and bruises all over his face. Learned new things. He wouldn't try to move his right arm again, but his left arm was free.

Ju Feng lifted it, flexed his fingers and twisted his wrist. He reached into his spatial sac—seeking the small medicinal plant that he kept there, the healing plant he saved for the worst, most debilitating wounds in case he ran out of the pills. This one certainly qualified. His fingers closed around the herbs and dumped the plant in his mouth. The energy stirred up stone grit in his mouth. He swallowed it all, wincing. Dust burned in his eyes, so he kept them closed while he waited for the herbal plant to take effect. There was nothing to see anyway. Darkness lay over the cavern like a shroud.

The pain in his arm slowly ebbed, and the dark cloud around his thoughts receded. At least, medicine were still working. With clarity came purpose. Lying quietly and listening, Ju Feng began to make out other signs of life around him. Whimpers, coughing, cursing, and the scrape of boots on stone told him he wasn't alone. As far as he knew, he was still in the Cavern of Forgotten Souls—what was left of it. Thinking back, Ju Feng remembered the explosions, the falling stone as the cavern collapsed around him. The yaomo had planned it all, sacrificing their own warriors and slaves to decimate the dwarf forces.

But why engineer a cave-in? Why not occupy the tunnels and press forward, begin the siege of Myria in earnest? After this victory, what were the yaomo waiting for? Unless they didn't intend to take the city. Ju Feng considered the yaomo's strategy. So far, they'd struck at Myria in a series of small-scale engagements, harrying the dwarves and dwindling their numbers, never committing too large a force to any single attack. What if it was all a ruse to distract from their true objective?

Gallazza and the Arcane Script Sphere. King Laggarma was right. Somehow, they were the key, important enough that the yaomo sent their warlocks with a sacrificial army. And the whole dwarf group fell right into their trap without knowing better.

Fury brought renewed energy to Ju Feng's body. If he could use his full power here, he would have dealt a great damage to the yaomo forces. But this strange blood world wouldn't allow that. He had to get out of here, get back to Myria—and Chang Chang. First, he had to free himself. Luckily, whatever had crushed his arm initially wasn't what pinned it now. Wedged between two large boulders, his arm had healed enough from the herbs that he could move it with very little pain. He worked it carefully free from the stones' grip, tearing the sleeve of his robe and earning a dozen smaller cuts and bruises in the process.

When he was free, he sat up. Magical lights had kindled at various points around the cavern, and Ruen could begin to see the shadowy remnants of the Cavern of Forgotten Souls. Bodies lay everywhere, though there was very little left of those corpses that had been closest to the entranced yaoguai.

"Abron." 

Ju Feng spoke the name in a hoarse whisper. The runecaster had been near him when the blasts started. Ju Feng looked around but saw no sign of him. He got gingerly to his feet and moved through the dark cavern, keeping his eyes on the ground. Every few feet, he encountered a body. He knelt next to the still forms and felt for a heartbeat. None that he touched were alive. Grateful for the wavering darkness so he would not have to see the full extent of the mutilation inflicted on the dwarves, unless he switched to his spiritual sight which he wasn't inclined to do.

Ju Feng kept moving, searching for Abron. He worked his way to a wall, leaning against a pile of rubble. The medicinal herbs had mended his arm and taken away the greater share of the pain, but he was still exhausted from the fighting, the squinting and creeping in the dark, and the stench of death that blanketed the cavern.

He reached into his spatial sac and threw a piece of turtle meat into his mouth. He continued moving slowly. His leg bumped against a solid object. Ju Feng heard a soft moan then the hiss of a weapon cutting the air as a dark shape lunged at him. Ju Feng threw his hands out blindly—better to lose his fingers than his head—and got lucky. He caught a wooden axe handle, but the weight of the blow knocked him several feet backwards.

Flashing eyes and a dirty brown beard filled his vision. Ju Feng didn't recognize the dwarf at first, but the axe blade had three familiar yellow horns jutting off it.

"Obarn, It's me—Ju Feng."

It took Obarn a long time to recognize him. Ju Feng's arms ached from holding back the axe, but finally the dwarf eased back. Ju Feng expected a stream of curses in Dwarvish to follow, but Obrin did the last thing he ever expected.

He burst into tears.

Ju Feng caught the dwarf at the shoulders before he fell. It was as if he'd used the last shreds of his strength for the blow with his axe. He sobbed quietly, barely making a sound, but his shoulders trembled violently under Ju Feng's hands. Looking over his shoulder, in the dim light, Ju Feng saw the reason for Orban's tears.

Abron lay on the ground, his face swollen with bruises and gashes that made him almost unrecognizable. Ju Feng wouldn't have known him if not for the runes still faintly visible under the dirt and blood. A pile of rubble buried the right side of his body. Ju Feng was convinced the runecaster was dead, but when he guided Orban to sit next to the body, he saw Abron's chest rising and falling.

"He's alive. Orban, your father lives."