Rowan woke in a cold sweat, feeling a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. It was Aoife, and she was saying something about it being time to wake up. Groaning, he shifted until he was sitting up, feeling once again how bad the rock floors were for his back.
It was time for him to start the day, as the others were getting ready for sleep. Standing up, he sighed as he stretched, feeling the tension ease slightly as he did. Thanking Aoife for waking him, he left the base. But not before taking some jerky to keep him sated.
He closed the door behind him and meandered through the varying traps that Avery had set up to ward off any wolves. The spike collection was constantly growing, and the group found it calming to know that wolves would struggle to come in.
Leaving the base behind him as he walked, Rowan found himself looking over his shoulder with every few steps, the encounter from the night before lingering in his mind. His boots sounded heavy on the rock pathways, and he wondered if the wolf-things knew to avoid him because of it.
Regardless, the things hiding were better than them hunting, and he hadn't seen any flashes of white or black since he started his search.
He completed his first patrol with nothing to be found and settled against the base with his back against the wall. His goal was to find out how they were getting in, and he needed one to appear for that to happen.
Rowan took the time to examine his armour, checking the straps and leather pieces it was composed of, ensuring none were loose or incorrectly attached. Under the guidance of the other three, he had learnt a great deal about the basics of combat, as well as the importance of maintaining his gear.
Finding it all in good condition, he sighed. There was little to do until a beast appeared, and he couldn't patrol in case he deterred any from revealing themselves. Getting to his feet, he decided it was time for him to start his actual sword practice. He had built up barely sufficient muscle and wanted to put it to as much use as possible. Aoife had also said it would help his body grow to become that of a swordsman's, as the muscles stimulated during training would develop according to its needs.
Standing within the ring of spikes Avery had laid out, Rowan swung his sword countless times, feeling the way it moved in the air. Over the course of a painstaking hour, with countless breaks in between, he felt more confident in his swings and in chaining them together to avoid being left defenceless when his momentum stopped. Arms burning, he sat back down, gazing down the different streets he could see from his position, trying to spot anything hidden in the darkness.
He took gasping breaths of air as he started to regret volunteering for the night time patrol. After exhausting his muscles, there was little else he could do. Until the beasts revealed their entrance, he was stuck waiting for them to make the first move.
After he had regained his breath, he once again looked around and realised that with all the houses in the way, he couldn't see a damn thing.
'Maybe I should start knocking them down... Would be fewer places for the creatures to hide. I'll bring it up with the others in the morning, see what they think.'
Rowan gazed up at the ceiling and wondered if the lights seemed especially bright today. It could have been his body contrasting the feeling of night with the brightness, but it still felt off. The crystal spikes didn't seem any different, but they felt more daunting than they ever had, feeling less like lights overhead and more akin to spikes ready to pierce him.
Shivering, he averted his gaze. None of the crystals had fallen thus far, and he had no reason to fear they would, yet the feeling kept coming back, adding more to his fears.
><><><><><><><><
The rest of the night passed with little event, Rowan occasionally training his swordsmanship and patrolling in three-hour intervals, hoping to catch something. And yet he did not, the beasts remaining elusive, or having learnt their lesson of sneaking around where they weren't welcome. Nadia was the first to rise, meeting Rowan at the base before she left for the stream.
Brushing some black dust off his pants and armour, Rowan stood up and stepped inside, looking for Aoife to inform her of his idea. She was in the kitchen area, caring for her own equipment, but Rowan could see chips on the blade that she had no way of repairing. Small fragments missing that would undoubtedly add up over time, they wouldn't be a significant issue for a while yet, but they already put the blade at risk.
"I have an idea. I think we should topple all of the other houses, give the creatures less room to hide."
Aoife looked up at his entrance before returning her attention to her sword.
"We'll get started on that today, we'll move from the centre outwards."
"Thanks."
Rowan turned and left, as he returned to his room once more.
><><><><><><><><
Another week later, and problems were starting to arise. Many of the houses in the surrounding area had been toppled, and no more creatures could be seen. These were the rare moments of good fortune they had.
Aoife had forbidden them from investigating the tunnels, claiming something was happening there that had to do with the core. She kept herself busy to stop herself from thinking about it, but it was only a matter of time before she fully understood what the core was.
Rowan's training was continuing to progress at a reasonable rate, and he figured he'd be able to at least fight a couple of wolves off now. Sitting now, in the middle of the 'night', he felt again a burning desire to go and investigate the tunnels, to understand what it was that Aoife had spotted.
Sighing, he held back his curiosity, instead starting to think on the most pressing issue. Aoife hadn't been to hunt wolves in a few days, attributing the inability to whatever was occurring at the tunnels. Due to this, their reserves of jerky were starting to run low, and it was only a matter of time for them to run out.
Aoife promised she would reveal what she had been hiding well before that happened, but they only had a few days before they would run out. Gripping his sword tightly, Rowan stood up as he moved to start another patrol, keeping his eyes strictly within the town, so as to avoid a careless peek at the tunnels.
He had been patrolling for a week now, and during that time, he hadn't found another hybrid or seen anything out of the ordinary. Stopping halfway through his patrol, he knelt down at the stream to get a handful of water. Gulping down the water, he noticed specks of sediment floating throughout and grimaced.
'First our food, then our water. Just great. At least this hell might finally be coming to an end.'
Rowan stood up and decided to follow the stream to its outlet in the wall, to figure out if the sediment was coming from some loose debris in the stream or otherwise. Finding where the stream met the wall, it seemed as though there was nothing that could have been leaking into the stream.
Kneeling down, he tried to peer through under the wall, and was surprised that he could see beyond where the stream met the wall.
'There's light through there... There are crystals inside? This could be where that thing got inside from!'
The stream was about a foot deep, and Rowan wasn't confident in his ability to wiggle his way through, as he couldn't see all the way through the passage the stream was coming from. So, he grabbed a rock and began smashing it against the section above the stream, trying to clear a way through to the secret alcove.
He knelt in the stream, leaning down so as to get the best leverage he could on the rock wall in front of him, chipping at it slowly.
The sounds of rock clashing against rock rang out again and again as Rowan dug his way through, the light from inside growing stronger and stronger as time continued. After his arms had long grown tired, the last piece of rock crumbled down, revealing the bright light inside the room he had been digging for.
'Huh, turns out there weren't any crystals. It's just the light coming from the...'
In front of Rowan, a partially destroyed skeleton held a sword, which was half embedded in the ground. The skeleton's bones were cracked and fractured, dark lines covering its entire surface. The sword itself shone brilliantly and was the source of the blinding light Rowan now squinted at.
'That has to be an artefact, right?'