Donning his clothes and stowing his brilliant dagger, Lieren checked one more time to make sure, only to sigh in indignation and look down, disappointed.
'It's not here. My pendant isn't here.'
This, of course, was a surprise. At first, Lieren was elated to find his precious belongings in the storage room of Mad Hatter's dungeon. His clothes, above-average equipment handed to him at the last second by Selen Votum herself—the stern sage—just before he left for Eavesdrop all those days ago.
Now, it felt like he had been gone for a month. His sense of time and internal clock has been quite damaged recently.
There was also the stealth aspect the pendant blessed him with. That would have come real handy right about now.
His thoughts askew, Lieren glanced at Umbra, then tilted his head.
She looked disheveled, frustrated, and slightly panicked… perturbed.
"What?" She asked, frowning. Then, her face naturally fell, her expressions erased and hollowed, as if it had been carved and remade the way it was supposed to.
Deliberating after a while, Lieren asked in curiosity, "Did you lose something? I'm looking for my pendant, too, you see."
Taking a step back from the table, she shrugged indifferently. "Yeah, I did. It's fine, though.
"That valuable of mine is expensive and distinct. I've marked it, so I'll be able so find it should I enter within a few feet of it. Considering its monetary value, I doubts its kept somewhere unguarded, too. If we investigate enough, I bet we'll find it soon enough. I just know it.
"What about yours? Do you have any way of tracking that supposed pendant of yours?"
Lieren ruminated the thought for a while, stroking his chin, making weird noises. After a while, he said:
"...Ah, sorry. I don't. I just got it recently, and I'm not well-versed in identifying mana signatures and tracking like a Ranger does. At most, I'll know it when I see it. It's quite expensive, I think, so maybe it'll be with your item.
"What is that item of yours, anyway?"
She paused.
"It's an earring with a pitch black gem on it. If you see it, or anything close, please find it and take it, then hand it over to me."
'Isn't that just theft? Though, I shouldn't be one to say that… Well, whatever. It's either really expensive or magical. Or both, if it's the latter. In that case, it should be relatively easy to find. I just hope that the Hatter doesn't fancy earrings or I'll be in some real trouble…'
Even now, Lieren felt a lingering sense of danger from his confrontation with the Hatter. Accomplices, by nature, tend to be on the weaker side in terms of head-on conflicts. Their strength lies on their schemes and ploys, as well as meticulous planning. Its very rare to witness an Accomplice with a spell involving close combat. Though crowd control and spells opted for escape and diversions are rare and difficult to build, it's hardly rare for Accomplices not to have a back up plan in their back pocket.
The Hatter's spell which required the incantation "Prison!" is an example of this. It created an effective barrier in such a short span of time, though its resilience was on the low side. Just the fact that it can be deployed so quickly was a great boon for Accomplices with low close combat skills. The Hatter really may be mad, but he wasn't crazy.
One's safety should always be accounted for, especially those without the power to defend themselves.
"Is that earring of yours that valuable?" Lieren asked, curious. He was just a tad interested.
"It's an heirloom, so, yes. I guess it is." She gave him a furtive glance and said, "What about yours?"
He smiled.
"Kind of, yeah. It… it means a lot to me."
Silence lingered for a minute.
After a while, Lieren looked deliberately at the sole door in the storage room, adjusting his clothes one final time before saying to Umbra:
"There's definitely a deluge of Hatter's goons waiting for us just beyond that door," he whispered, his voice strangely low.
"Yeah," she affirmed. "But I'm not going back in that dungeon. It's cold and wet at the weirdest of places. I'd rather die than spend a moment later in that place."
Lieren sighed exaggeratedly and looked around. The room was a total mess, with the greater quantity of the items inside either strewn about, broken, or both. Most of the items had been non-magical, mundane items with almost no residual trace of mana. There was also the gaping hole in the middle of the floor where they had ascended from.
From his perspective—and surely Umbra's too—the hole looked like a pit to the deepest layer of Hel, threatening to swallow them whole like some kind of worm or monster.
Shaking his head and looking around, he found himself drawn to the door naturally, his thoughts a slur as he dragged his feet forward, gripping his brilliant dagger in one hand as he nodded to Umbra when he walked past, then took hold of the door's knob and twisted it, unleashing total havoc.
And then, all hell broke loose.
*BOOM!*
A deafening explosion suddenly resounded, as if they had not just been in a storage room filled with valuable resources.
Lieren dodged away at just the right time. He had already been prepared for sudden attacks like this. Though, he had to admit… he didn't exactly expect one so flashy and combust.
With a skip, he hid behind one of the nearby crates filled with mundane steel swords and sighed, Enhancing his physique and dashing forward, gritting his teeth.
Below and around him, the shadows seemingly came to life, wrapping around his form and reaching outward at astonishing speed, quickly solidifying into spikes.
Blood stained the walls and floor. Amidst the writhing shadows, the scene orchestrated by Umbra displayed a rather macabre painting, the canvas that was battlefield seemingly hers for the taking.
Lieren swallowed, suddenly dizzy. His mind was still taxed, but recovered.
…Ducking under a blow from a Fighter wielding a club, he moved behind the man and sunk his dagger deep into the man's back, drawing blood as he pulled the weapon back. Spinning on his heel, he blocked another blow, then strained. His body was nowhere near peak form.
With apparent difficulty, his muscles failed and his defense was broken, the precious wild mana he used to Fortify it wasted. Luckily, his lucidity and wit was still somehow kept intact, and his mind was in a still dependable state.
If it wasn't for those, then he would have long died. Taking a big leap back, he felt his muscled strain under tension, tired and battered, his lungs burning as if it was on fire.
The battle had just started, but he already knew that he couldn't keep this up long. Dashing away from the club-wielding fighter, he used his speed and agility to maneuver around him, glancing at where he suspected Umbra to be.
There was a truth they both had to realize.
As he dreaded, she, too, was under visible strain. There were over twenty mages in the connected corridor, with over half of them staying at the back, making strange gestures and chanting indecipherable arias.
Soon, another spell was bound to hit them.
His thoughts a slur, Lieren barely managed to exclaim with a desperate shout:
"Scatter!" Had he said "Escape," both of them would already be dead. The goons weren't idiots, they too had the ability to adapt.
They both had no chance here. That was the simple truth.
Suddenly, the shadows stirred. This connected corridor was much brighter than usual, with various lighting implements strewn across the walls and pillars. Umbra's abilities relied on shadows, not light. Though manageable, she had been weakened.
And her personality simply detested the idea of going down the turbid dungeon. Looking away, she called forth the shadows, her face a hollow and empty mask, and covered herself with them.
"Stop her!" exclaimed somebody, pointing sword at her. His voice was deep and conflicted—one could even say it was scared.
But it was too late. Her figure was already gone. And so was Lieren's.
The battle suddenly turned lull.
Conflicted, confused, and disappointed expressions masked their faces like a depressing banquet.
*FLASH!*
But, then, a golden light suddenly emanated, bathing the entire room in purifying light.
Amidst the casters at the back, it seemed, was somebody capable of using a relatively powerful purification spell.
…Within the boundless darkness of his own choosing, Lieren suddenly heard an annoyed click of the tongue.
"Tch, to think they had a Cleri—" But she didn't get to finish. Before he knew it, they were already emerging from a dark and secluded corner, the shadows peeling of them like the torn pages of a book.
"Dammit, sorry. They got us."
Lieren grit his teeth and looked to his side: there, in full view, was the other door at the end of the corridor…
Their way out.
The problem was that four caster were guarding the exit, and their casted spells were already nearing completion. Except for one: the suspected Cleric who had just exhausted her mana using such a wide-ranged spell. A translucent, slightly distorted dome of light enshrouded their numbers and blocked off the door.
With a seemingly tired face, Lieren grumbled, then dashed forward. Hesitation, this time, was not his.
Instead, seeing the small kid barely above a decade old, they were the ones who lingered.
It wasn't for long, though. Having been with the Mad Hatter for an unknown amount of time must have exposed them to various types of questionable acts.
Amidst the high tension, an incantation resounded.
"Invisible Abjuration: Maxima."
In the presence of the ten-year-old boy, two distorted, invisible arrows suddenly combined, streaking across space with amazing speed.
Shatter! It neared the four casters, shattering their erected barrier and disturbing—for a mere second—their concentration.
For Lieren, with his above-average agility and Augmentation, that second was all he needed.
Sliding in the middle of a gap in the four caster's formation, he made sure to Enhance his body just before, creating enough speed to bypass their flimsy platoon. With his thin and small figure, it was especially easy.
And now that the barrier had been destroyed, there was no stopping the two of them from escaping. Slipping between the ensuing chaos, Umbra used the shadows to misdirect the remaining goons and stall until Lieren destroyed the barrier and passed through the door. In passing, she erected a barrier herself—one pitch black and made completely, seemingly, out of shadows to cover the exit entirely.
The pitch black barrier made of shadows wouldn't last long under the barrage of twenty able-bodied mages, but that wasn't the point. Looking down at the ground, Umbra glanced at Lieren and muttered in a low voice:
"I'm afraid you're on your own from now on, Lieren. My deepest apologies. I can escape fine by myself, and my abilities aren't suited for anybody other than myself, so I can't continue farther with you," she sounded… sad, for some reason.
Scratching the back of his head, he spun on his heel and spoke aloud, his voice on the verge of breaking down to tears:
"Yeah, I guess. This is where we part ways." He paused for a second or two, then heard the barrier crack under the barrage of spells bombarding it from the other side. "I… I hope I can see you again, someday."
It was brief, infinitesimal, even, but his time with the young girl was one that he would remember. She had seen him at his worst and supported him when he was at the pits of despair, ready to give his life, even aiding him in his escape. To Lieren, it felt like losing somebody valuable and important—seeing Umbra prepare to leave so suddenly.
It was like he was losing a part of himself.
For the first time since meeting her, the young girl flashed him a slight smile, barely visible yet infinitely noticeable. It was… nice, and warm, seeing Umbra so bright and shining.
"Be careful, okay? If I find out you died here, then I'll see you hell and kill you again."
Pursing his lips, Lieren took a hesitant step forward and didn't see anything.
If he had, then he surely would have broke. Like this, in a roundabout way, he managed to keep the last vestiges of his fleeting dignity.