Young Writers Society

Raptor gave a tiny nod.

After another moment passed, he carefully slipped out of Nikolai's embrace. He wasn't sure how long hugs were supposed to last, but he didn't want to push it. He reached down to grab his helmet. After wearing it for almost the entire time he had been like this, it felt weird not having it on.

...Was this what Darth Vader felt like without his helmet on?

Pushing aside a comparison he already regretting making, Raptor straightened and gave Nikolai his best impression of a comforting smile. Skulls couldn't really smile, but he hoped that Nikolai understood what he was trying to do.

"I'll be okay," he reassured him. "It hurt when the claws cut through my armor, but it doesn't hurt to move right now. And if it does become a problem, I can use the potion in my bag."

He glanced down. His ribs had looked mostly intact earlier, but he had to check to make sure none of them had started chipping or breaking. They looked alright.

...But the fact that he could see them was a problem in itself. If they ran into the other group by accident, they would be able to see his bones, too.

His gaze shifted to his bag.

Glad he didn't have skin to blush with anymore, he put his helmet back on and reached inside. It didn't take long for him to pull out his cloak and drape it over his shoulders. It didn't reach the ground like it did when he wasn't wearing any armor, but it easily covered the gash in his chest plate when he pulled it towards the center of his chest.

Nikolai took a step back to examine how it looked. He gave Raptor a nod, confirming that the gap would be covered as long as the cloak remained in place. "It's good," he said.

He bent down to pick up the battleaxe and hand it over to Raptor. The blade was still bloodstained and red. They could wipe it off on some piece of cloth... Nikolai's gaze landed on the robes the corpses were wearing. No, that felt really disrespectful to the dead. They'd find something else later.

Oops. He'd almost forgotten about the old man. They couldn't keep calling him that, could they?

Nikolai turned around towards him again, with a bit of an awkward smile. "Right. Sorry for the chaos." He gestured around, knowing that although his exact words wouldn't be understood, he was hoping the general message would be clear to the old man. With a little luck, he wouldn't be too afraid of Raptor.

It was time to try again.

Pointing to himself, Nikolai made direct eye contact. Hopefully it would be clear he was saying his name. "I'm Nikolai S—"

He froze.

He'd been about to say something else, but he couldn't remember what it was going to be, no matter how much he wanted to. It felt like pure instinct, nearly saying a surname along with his first. Instinct knew his last name. His memories didn't.

Nikolai blinked. He realized he'd stopped talking for at least five full seconds while he'd been spacing out. He took a deep breath as his cheeks reddened.

I want to know what I was going to say.

He kept pointing at himself, but now he was looking away. "Nikolai," he said quietly.

The old man stared at him, looking bewildered by his complete dismissal of what Raptor was. Then he shook himself slightly, seeming to make up his mind about something. He pointed tentatively at Nikolai.
"Nikolai," he said. Then he pointed a bony finger at himself. "Aeshan." His eyes flickered to Raptor, and he pointed at him. "Nachtra."

Aumrauth watched as the starving man broke his teeth just to eat Mel's food. If it were him, he'd just starve.

"I don't think this man will be able to help us. Clearly, he's not all there," Aumrauth said plainly.

"He's been alone for god knows how long, not to mention completely blind," Elias pointed out. "Even so, I expect he's an excellent navigator. He could get us where we need to go."

Aumrauth blinked.

Hold on a minute. He was blind?

"A blind navigator. Oh, that sounds just perfect."

Mel grimaced watching the man literally lose teeth eating. She felt bad that she gave him something that wasn't exactly soft, but food was food, and he seemed to enjoy it... maybe. Hard to tell with his teeth falling out.

Elias then pointed out that the man was blind, and Mel instantly started to empathize as her face softened. She couldn't imagine being blind and not seeing the world around her. That seemed so awful and terrible.

"What's your name?" she asked the man, ignoring Aumrauth's snarky comments.

The miner finished off the bar, spitting out one more tooth and some blood. He blinked as he heard Mel's question.
"I don't remember," he murmured, looking down abashedly. "But I can take you places. I know this place well."

"I will call you Morrick. I need a name to call you by," Aumrauth said. "If you know this place well, then can you navigate us away from the monsters? I'm tired of having to kill them."

"A lot of them move around," the miner said uncertainly. "If...if you're looking for the heart I can't help it if you run into some. They...they like things to be well guarded." He groped about for Ainsley. "Ainsley? Where are you?"

Raptor stared at Nikolai.

He hadn't been able to entirely register what had happened during the fight between trying to survive it and his secret being revealed, but what Nikolai had done earlier finally clicked. He had thrown one of the little glass orbs that he had on him to knock the monster unconscious. Raptor didn't know if it was desperation or instinct that made him do that.

But the knowledge of what the orb did could help him jog his memory.

And then Nikolai almost introduced himself with a last name.

Raptor wanted to comment on that, but the old man - Aeshan - spoke before he could. He called Raptor a word he didn't recognize. It probably meant skeleton or undead. Maybe, if this world was more like the D&D session May kept trying and failing to run in their shared dreams, it meant something like lich. Raptor wasn't really sure.

Raptor shook his head.

"Not Nachtra," he said. He pointed at himself. "B-Raptor."

For a moment, he had almost introduced himself by his actual name. The one that he wasn't ever supposed to share - even though he had accidentally blurted it to May before. Sharing that name with a friend felt nice. He almost would have done it now, but seeing Aeshan's face was enough to remind him that not everyone here could be trusted.

Ainsley reached out and gently placed a hand on Morrick’s shoulder. “I’m right here,” he said. The surprise of finding someone in the caves and the commotion of the events that took place afterward must have kept Ainsley from realizing the man was blind. Who would’ve thought something so important would have been so easy to overlook?

However, the miner had told Aumrauth that he was willing to help search for the heart. He had also mentioned that running into more monsters was inevitable, but Ainsley had assumed as much.

“Thank you for coming with us,” he said.

Morrick nodded certainly and turned his head in Ainsley's direction. "Thank you for helping," he said quietly. "Nobody...nobody has come down here for a long time."

Ainsley smiled softly at Morrick, even though he couldn’t see it. “I wasn’t going to abandon you down here.”

Ainsley felt a sense of pride at the thought that he found Morrick (even though it was on accident). Now they had a guide! Hopefully, with Morrick’s help, they could find the heart and be done with the whole debacle even sooner.

Ainsley’s gaze sweeped over the group. Honestly, they looked pretty ridiculous. Three out of the five were wearing the robes they had found at the start of their journey, Elias was still wearing his wet clothes from the lake, and Morrick had nothing but his threadbare trousers and the few teeth he had left. Looks aside, their personalities clashed like lightening in the sky. Ainsley didn’t know if it was chance or fate that brought them together, but he thought it funny that whatever did brought the unlikely team together. He certainly wouldn’t have met people like his companions back at home.

“So,” he sighed. They were at the next fork in the tunnel, and he hoped they could agree on which way to go this time. “Where to next?”

Aumrauth was relieved that Ainsley had earned the trust of their blind guide, but relieved maybe wasn't the right word. In any case, it looked like it was going in their favor.

"We want to find the heart to return it to the statue of the beast," Aumrauth said plainly. "So, if you have any idea where it is, that'd be peachy."