Garrett entered into the growing familiar darkness of the coffin and pushed the lid open, taking in that fresh breath of cavern air. The damp moisture lingering in the cave surrounded Garrett as he walked to the hallway. This time, there was only a path going to the right. Before he headed out, he quickly checked his inventory. Other than the weapons that he clearly had on, the only other thing was the pouch of 10 copper coins. The map and gloves that he had gotten from Soxart were gone, as he expected. He slung his backpack on and headed out through the hallway.
The next room had a couple of goblins, none nearly as dressed as Soxart. As they heard Garrett approach, they lunged at him, daggers ready. "You're not about to get the best of me!" Garrett swung his sword, slashing open the goblins stomachs with relative ease. They all collapsed to the ground, gurgling their final cries. A few of the dropped Helioxene orbs and one left behind a brown God chest. Garrett picked up the chest and opened it. The God Chest orb transformed in his hand into a small empty bottle no bigger than his hand.
"Not exactly useful right now, but maybe in the future." Garrett tucked the bottle away into his bag. "At least I got some early Helioxene this time." He stuck the Helioxene into the pouch and continued on.
"I wonder who is going to be the first companion I come across," Garrett said to himself as he walked through the tunnels of the Darge. So far, there seemed to be a growing trend among how he found the companions. Granted, he only had encountered them two or three times.
So far, Min-Tul has always been found fighting off enemies, and usually on the slowly losing end. Cerezie was perched up somewhere high and on a mission. Jerten was more lost in this place and on the verge of being captured. And Plex was inactive somewhere in a room. Lyman both times was also captured. Vanessa was an outlier in how he encountered her; and he only encountered Iadre, Zerat, and Xul'Gomoth once. By this trend, he estimated that he'd encounter those three. He sped up his pace to try and find the first one.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Garrett stopped in his tracks, spinning around the room he was in, looking for the source of the voice. His eyes turned and saw, leaning against the wall, a Draconian wearing flashy and gaudy clothing. The draconian approached him with a swagger in his steps. There was no mistaking that this was Lyman.
"How did you emerge from a dead end?" The draconian's eyes squinted at Garrett and looked ready to attack him at any moment.
"Uh, secret entrance?" Garrett said, lying through his teeth. Out of all his previous companions to come across, it just had to be Lyman. Though, it was surprising to see him. It would figure that Lyman, of all the companions, would be the one to immediately blow a hole in Garrett's theory.
"Ha! I've investigated that tunnel at least five times. There are no secret entrances there!" Lyman took up a battle stance and pulled out a thin rapier. "If you shall not answer willingly, then I, the one and only, illustrious draconian Lyman Ochao, shall cut the answers out of you!"
"Won't be much of a fight." Garrett drew his sword and prepared himself. He was hesitant at first to harm Cerezie when she attacked him, but Lyman? Lyman had it coming. Garrett lunged forward, swinging his sword at Lyman. The thin rapier had no chance to stand up to Garrett's sword.
"BACK WITH YOU!" Lyman opened his mouth and shouted. A powerful stream of air shot forth from Lyman's mouth, sending Garrett flying backward. "Ha! Just my mere voice is all that is required to bring fiends to their knees!"
Garrett could feel his head ringing from the attack. He was so caught up in taking out his frustration from Lyman's previous willingness to attack that he forgot that Lyman actually can attack. Garrett held his hand out and aimed the bracelet towards Lyman. Still, it didn't seem like Lyman was about to listen to reason. "Flariseo!" A burst of fire spit forth from Garrett's palm towards Lyman.
"Ha! Meager! PATHETIC!" Another burst of air came from Lyman's mouth, canceling out the flames and sending Garrett backwards even more. "Did you think such a simple trick would take down the likes of me?"
"Look, I'm not here to fight you, Lyman!" Garrett shouted as his ears began to readjust to the world. He looked around for any sort of out of this situation. There were two other exits to the room, both of which were being blocked right now by Lyman.
"Fiend! If you did not wish to fight, then why did you draw your blade?" Lyman lunged towards Garrett, rapier out and much quicker than Garrett expected. Garrett ducked, narrowly dodging the blade, and rolled to the right.
"Because you're the idiot who drew your weapon first!" Garrett shouted back, looking towards the two entrances. He was closer now towards one of them, but there was still too much of a chance that Lyman could reach him. He needed something that would-
Before Garrett could think anymore, a whistle broke his train of thought, then searing pain shot through his left shoulder. He looked down and saw a small hole in his shoulder where he was bleeding. He gripped his shoulder and cried out in pain. When did Lyman even hit him with anything?
"Ha! Such weakness!" Lyman said before curling his lips together. There was a sharp whistle and another blow of concentrated air hit Garrett in the chest, sending him flying. Garrett groaned as he landed on his back. "Yield your secrets of the Darge to me, vile fiend!"
It was clear that he wasn't about to be able to defeat Lyman right now. He had to take the chance and book it. As Lyman was preparing another whistle attack, Garrett dug his hands into the earth. He threw up rubble and stones at Lyman, stunning him temporarily enough that Garrett had time to turn around and run. Garrett ran to the left, the nearest tunnel, and kept running away from the gaudy draconian.