176 - Finding Allies

“Speck, are you done?” Alexandra asked as she closed the distance with her familiar.

“Done,” it whispered. “Delightful.”

“Great. Any idea why the darkness is so… thick?”

She figured that if anyone would know, it would be the darkness elemental.

“Higher. Concept.”

Alexandra frowned. “Do you think a Gold-rank darkness elemental is behind this?”

“Unlikely,” Speck said. “There are too many elementals. It would have eaten them.”

She blinked. “Speck, you can speak normally now?”

“Yes.”

It seemed that consuming darkness elementals did more for her familiar than she had expected.

“Can you sense the people in here?” she asked.

“Yes. Some.”

Alexandra looked at Speck. Looks like I shouldn’t expect it to suddenly become talkative.

“Lead me to a Paladin.”

Before doing anything else, she wanted to figure out what was happening.

Alexandra followed Speck as the elemental took her through the oppressive gloom. The darkness seemed to part slightly around her familiar, though the suffocating weight of the environment never truly eased.

“Ahead,” Speck whispered. “Three. Wounded.”

Alexandra pushed her senses until the blurred silhouettes of three figures took shape. They wore leather armor reinforced with subtle metal studs, built for agility rather than brute defense. Two held broadswords lowered in guarded stances, while the third gripped a heavy, double-headed battleaxe.

Two women, one man.

They moved in a tight, back-to-back triangle. Though clearly blinded by the darkness, they weren't entirely helpless. They were tracking the shifting air currents and the low, resonant vibrations of the cave, their senses keen enough to know they weren't alone.

The woman holding the battleaxe stood at the point of the formation, her posture radiating an air of authority.

Speck drifted a fraction too close, its dark form swirling as it darted ahead of Alexandra.

The captain’s head snapped instantly. “Elemental!” she barked, her voice cutting through the silence.

Without hesitation, the man and the second woman stepped forward in unison, swords raised to strike the shadow, while the captain brought her axe around in a sweeping arc aimed directly at Speck's source.

“Hold!” Alexandra called out, stepping into the edge of their sensory range with her hands raised away from her sword.

The captain reined in her strike. The two others weren’t able to stop, but Speck dodged without difficulty.

“Who are you?” the captain asked. “You’re not with the nutjobs.”

“I’m not,” Alexandra agreed. “I stumbled upon the scene on the pass and decided to enter the hole to see what was going on. This darkness elemental is my familiar. I would appreciate if you didn’t hurt it.”

“A civilian,” the man grunted. “Just what we needed.”

“Behave, Erik,” the captain ordered. “You caught us at an embarrassing time. The orders don’t usually clash like that.”

“I’m sure,” Alexandra said, though she knew it wasn’t entirely true. “What brings you to the basin?”

They shouldn’t be able to see her in the dark. At least, not through normal means, meaning they were unlikely to recognize her.

“Orders from above. I’m afraid I can’t share.”

“I understand. Can you at least tell me how you ended up in here?”

“Captain,” Erik said.

She didn’t acknowledge him. “Are you sure you want to get involved? Siding with us may anger the Architects.”

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“I don’t have a choice. I can’t find the exit.”

“I see,” the captain said. “We were fighting on the pass when the mountain opened. A gaping hole of darkness, which I assumed you noticed. Somehow, we all felt the urge to enter. Now we’re stuck.”

Shit.

That couldn’t be good.

“And you didn’t stop fighting?” she asked.

“We wanted to,” the other woman said. “But those zealots can’t be reasoned with. We weren’t even there to fight them in the first place.”

“Alicia,” the captain said.

“Sorry, Captain,” Alicia said with the stiffness of a subordinate caught making a mistake.

The captain sighed. “As she said. We’ve been looking for an exit for hours. I’ve only managed to find two of my warriors. Perhaps your familiar can help us gather my squad?”

“Speck?”

“Only two Architects in range.”

“Nothing for now. But if we move, we might detect more of your men.”

Silence.

Then Erik spoke. “Captain, this is too dangerous. She controls the elementals. Who says she isn’t responsible for this mess?”

“I don’t control the elementals. Only Speck is my familiar, and our relationship is that of equals.”

The captain still didn’t answer.

“I say we go with her,” Alicia said. “I’m bored. Worst-case scenario, she betrays us, and we get to fight something tangible instead of dumb elementals.”

“Dumb?” Speck cried out. Only Alexandra could hear it.

“Don’t listen to her, Speck. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Ah. Sorry, Speck. I didn’t mean it that way. I was talking about the other darkness elementals.”

“Acceptable. Forgiven.” Speck nodded wisely.

“It says it forgives you.”

The captain coughed. “We may work together. Erik is right that this is taking a risk. That said, we are not in a position to be picky.” She paused. “But if you try something, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

“Relax,” Alexandra said. “We’re going to gather your squad. I’ll be even more outnumbered. By the way, have you seen a woman on the way to the pass?”

The captain frowned. “You’re going to need to be more specific. We saw a lot of women.”

“Right.” Alexandra was glad they couldn’t see her face flush red with embarrassment. “Local to the basin, Gold-rank elemental hunter.”

“I’m afraid we haven’t. Let’s get moving.”

“Can you sense where I am?” Alexandra asked.

“Of course. Please lead the way.”

Alexandra picked a direction at random and instructed Speck to tell her if it spotted anything. Soon, the two Architects fizzled out of its sensory range. She almost regretted not dealing with them, but she was starting to worry about not being able to escape at all. The Architects could wait. It wouldn’t matter if she never made it out of the hole.

Zeynep isn’t even here. All of this for nothing.

As luck would have it, the next person they found was an architect. Surrounded by three darkness elementals, the woman was entirely relying on her armor to keep her safe. Alexandra kept silent. She may not act directly against them, but she wasn’t going out of her way to help either.

“Why are your armors less sturdy than the Architects’?” she asked. “I thought the Paladins were the most warlike of the seven orders.”

“We travel faster in lighter gear. As we told you, we didn’t come to the Gray Basin to fight. At least, not immediately.”

“Captain, I think we should tell her why we’re here,” Alicia said.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Erik snapped. “We don’t even know what she looks like.”

The captain exhaled. “Silence, you two. What we can share is that we were tasked to investigate the cult of rot. Nothing more. Understood, Alicia?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Alexandra raised an eyebrow. She remembered seeing a request for information about the Oc’s cult in Izrum.

“Could our current predicament be related?” she asked.

“To the Watchers? Unlikely. This isn’t their modus operandi. They’re a lot more… passive.”

Led by Speck’s senses, they maneuvered through the dark to collect three more Paladins. The regrouping was brief and efficient, marked only by the terse, low-voiced exchanges of soldiers locking ranks. With six Paladins now trailing Alexandra, the atmosphere didn't get better. The oppressive darkness still hung heavy, threatening to swallow them whole.

“We're still running in circles,” Erik muttered, his boot kicking a stone into the abyss. “None of us knows how to find the exit.”

“Perhaps we should gather the Architects as well,” another Paladin grunted from the rear. “They might have uncovered something we missed.”

“Yeah, I also find it weird that we haven’t found any,” Erik added. “There’s no way your familiar didn’t sense them.”

Alexandra frowned. “We did sense several. But I have no intention of putting myself between your two orders.”

The Captain dismissed the thought immediately. “And I can't be bothered with the chore of herding those zealots while blind. They'd attack us on sight anyway.”

“Then we should just kill them,” Alicia said casually, tapping the pommel of her sword. “Clear the field so they don't stab us in the back later.”

“Enough, Alicia,” she commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument. “We have bigger issues right now. Finding a way out takes priority.”

The captain turned her head toward Alexandra, her sightless gaze locked onto her general position.

“By the way, I never asked your name,” she said, extending a hand slightly, though she was too far to reach Alexandra. “You may call me Kyle.”

“Alexandra,” she replied.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Shit. I forgot.

“Alexandra?” Captain Kyle asked. “Interesting name.”

“It’s pretty common, actually.”

“Not in the basin.”

“True.”

More silence followed.

“Anyway,” Alexandra said. “Do you want to look for more people?”

“Counting the fallen outside, we’re still missing five,” Kyle said. “We should keep looking while we figure out a way to exit this trap. If we find the latter first, so be it.”

Her statement was met with grim nods. They all knew the ones who weren’t found would be left behind.

If they found the exit, that is.