Broken Lands

The new grasshopper seemed to have fixated on Sophia. It flew down at her and with her blade only just freed from the other grasshopper’s head, all she could do was try to dodge. There was enough room, if only barely, but the grasshopper followed her. It moved just a hair faster than she could and smacked full force into her side. It tried to grab her and pin her arm down, but didn’t have the leverage to do more than knock her arm painfully into her side as it scraped one of its legs along her chin and back towards her neck.

The grasshopper at her feet picked that moment to attempt to bite Sophia’s feet, but her armor stymied it for the moment.

Dav’s armor wasn’t as good as Sophia’s. When the fake grasshopper he’d temporarily knocked away grabbed him, its claws pushed through the armor and into his leg. The only good part about that was that it anchored the grasshopper; his next swing sliced into the grasshopper’s abdomen and stopped its gears. It stayed attached to Dav’s leg, locked in place, but it was no longer trying to dig in more.

They were down to one-and-a-half grasshoppers, which was far better than four, but it was still one-and-a-half too many as far as Sophia was concerned. The only good part of it was that they both seemed completely intent on attacking Sophia; she had far better armor and was higher Tier than Dav. She could handle being hit better than he could.

Sophia had a moment to decide whether she broke the half-blind mechanism or tried to take out the fully functional one first. She hadn’t hit it yet, which meant its shield should still be full and she hadn’t managed to penetrate the shield in a single blow yet.

She tried to twist out of the grip of the intact grasshopper at the same time as she bent down far enough to impale the damaged bug on her knife. The knife slipped into the grasshopper’s thorax far easier than any of her other strikes; without the shield protecting it at all, the bronze outer coating was so thin that it almost might as well not be there.

The undamaged grasshopper lost its hold on her armor and started to slide, but it twisted in midair so that its feet hit the nearby wall, then sprang off the wall directly onto Sophia’s back. It knocked the wind out of her again and it was definitely going to bruise. Worse than that, Sophia felt her right leg crumple under her. She wasn’t certain if that was from the injury or simply from the force of the impact, but she definitely wasn’t in a good position now.

Sophia saw Dav shift his stance and stab directly into the grasshopper, clearly trying to avoid hitting Sophia. He put his mass behind the stab, but the angle was a little awkward and it barely made it through the grasshopper’s shield and into the mechanical bug’s abdomen.

Sophia’s eyes lit up with fierce joy. Dav had just taken out the bug’s shield! Sophia twisted under the grasshopper enough to manage a clumsy strike into its clockwork innards.

The blow was enough; the grasshopper shuddered a few times, then stopped.

Sophia shoved the grasshopper off her body. It looked smaller now that it wasn’t a threat; it was less than two feet long from the front of its head to the rear of its abdomen. That was still longer than she was comfortable with right now; it seemed like a lot more of a threat when all she had was a backup knife. Not having her Skills was awful. Despite the shields, these didn’t feel like proper Tier Three threats; they were more like a high Tier One or low Tier Two, something a group of four Tier Ones ought to be able to handle. Even with only two people, they’d have been easy to handle if she just had her Skills!

Sophia reached for her Skills again and felt absolutely nothing. They just weren’t there.

She cautiously shifted around, then rolled onto her knees and stood. Her leg felt just as steady as before; it seemed that the grasshopper knocked her over, rather than damaging her spine. The bruise on her back was painful but apparently not disabling.

She couldn’t have done anything about it if it had disabled her. There was no healer available for her group to carry her to, either. If there was a long-term consequence, Blaze and Hearth weren’t around to make it better. That felt like more of a loss than her Skills, somehow; she’d always had people backing her up. Knowing they weren’t there was like taking a step into nothingness without a parachute.

Sophia shivered, then determinedly packed her feelings away. She couldn’t afford them right now; she would worry about them when she was somewhere safe, or at least safer than this clockwork-infested cave system.

“Are you good to move on?” Dav sounded neutral, almost uncaring. Sophia guessed he was probably going through as much as she was; he wasn’t even an experienced delver, even if he had trained with that sword. It was probably worse for him.

A glance at Dav revealed a series of scrapes on his head; when she saw them, she was reminded of the one on her chin. She’d forgotten about it with the pain in her back, but thinking of it made her notice the way it throbbed with pain. “No, we need to take care of injuries first. I’ve got some supplies in my pack; I don’t use them often, but Blaze doesn’t let any of us delve without what he considers basic first aid supplies.”

Sophia knew that many delvers didn’t carry as much as Blaze recommended, but she had the space; there was no reason not to. She dropped her pack onto the wet stone and started pulling out disinfectant, antibiotic, and bandages. Dungeon monsters were generally safe, but people carried nasty stuff on their skin and it was always better to prevent infection than deal with it later. More importantly, this wasn’t a dungeon and who knew what was in the water or where else the grasshoppers had been?

“That’s necessary?” Dav sounded surprised. “Well, you’d know better than I would, I guess.” He seemed to know what to do, at least, as he cleaned then bandaged the slice on her chin. It was a good thing it wasn’t deep, but Sophia still hoped it would heal cleanly; she didn’t have the supplies to stitch an injury closed if it needed it, and that one was long.

Dav winced a couple of times as she cleaned out the scrapes on his scalp, but he didn’t say anything. Sophia noticed that none of the black likes or purple skin extended significantly past his hairline; almost all of it seemed to be on his face.

She didn’t have the right tools to shave Dav’s hair so that she could bandage it. A razor just wasn’t in her kit. “I can either cut your hair and try to bandage over it or I can put some antibiotic on the wounds and hope it stays put,” she offered. “On a normal delve, I’d say we should antibiotic and go, but this isn’t exactly normal.”

Dav shrugged. “If you’re not sure, let’s go with the one that doesn’t put tape in my hair that has to be cut out later.”

Sophia nodded. “Okay, but once we’re out of this place, I’ll need to clean them again.” She’d really prefer if they found a town with a healer, but that didn’t seem all that likely. “Now take off enough of your armor that I can get at the punctures in your leg. I need to clean them, too.”

“Do I have to?” It was the first time Sophia had seen Dav actually not want to do something.

Sophia sighed internally and put on her best Blaze hat. He might not have been able to convince her that healing was her calling, but he certainly had managed to impress her with how to get people to do what the healer said, and she was the healer right now. She wasn’t a Skilled healer, but that didn’t mean she could let Dav get by without tending. Even if she were a Skilled healer, those Skills probably wouldn’t work right now anyway. “Do you want to have it get badly infected while we’re far from anyone who can treat it? That’s something we can prevent, but it has to be cleaned out as soon as possible.”

Dav stared at her for a moment, then muttered, “This is not how I thought I’d ever have a pretty girl ask to get in my pants…”

Sophia managed to keep her stern face on instead of laughing, but it was a struggle.

Dav turned his back on Sophia, like that would matter. She’d seen men before while delving. Armor got damaged and people got hurt; it wasn’t exactly a safe profession. Sometimes you needed to change in the field or do field medicine, like this. It was polite to not specifically look, and if you were doing just what needed to be done it usually didn’t matter.

Dav’s injury was on his outer thigh, about halfway between his hip and his knee. That was plenty far enough away for modesty; Sophia didn’t even have to move his boxers out of the way to clean or bandage the injury. It was oozing slowly, but there was no significant bleeding at the moment; that was good, though it made her worry about the chance of something stuck in the injury she didn’t see.

Dav flinched and muttered something that sounded like “dust” when she poured the antiseptic into the puncture. She’d probably misheard; swearing wasn’t unusual, but unless he was used to cleaning up his language for little kids, that wasn’t exactly a normal swear word. Sophia shrugged to herself and finished dealing with the injury; it was deep but small, which meant they’d have to keep an eye on it and probably clean it out again later.

Sophia looked up at Dav’s face as she finished with his wound. He was blushing, though she wasn’t about to call him out on it. It was kind of cute, really; it said he wasn’t quite as confident as he seemed to be pretending and there was something nice about that, something real. “I think that’s everything. I’ll pack up the first aid supplies while you get your armor back on.”

Dav’s blush spread a little, so Sophia turned away. She needed her attention on the first aid supplies anyway. It had nothing to do with the blush that was probably spreading across her face at the thought of the area of his body she’d specifically avoided glancing at; why did he have to bring it up?

Sophia grabbed the four mechanical grasshoppers and shoved them into her pack after the first aid supplies were back where they belonged. It meant her pack was essentially full, but there wasn’t any reason to leave them behind if they might be valuable; she had room. Barely.

As Sophie moved into the cavern, following Dav, she realized why the grasshoppers were as visible as they were: they were backlit from the cavern. Bluish-white light shone down from above and set the entire cavern aglow. The sound as drops of water fell from the ceiling blended with the sound of moving water she’d heard earlier.

A massive column filled the far side of the cavern and extended up into an upper chamber; below the division, it reflected the blue-white glow, almost like it was crystal instead of rock. Maybe there was something in the rock?

Somewhere in the darkness, miles from the tunnels Sophia and Dav explored, a creature woke. It hurt in a way it had never hurt before.

Something had been torn. Something important. Its home was missing, yes, but also a vital connection to that home was badly marred.

It bled.

But it could feel its home in the distance. It was not easy, but it picked itself up and ran a few steps on its aching talons, then launched itself into the air. Home called and it would find it.