I don't know why I was starting to remember now, at first it came off as blurry images, like trying to see someone in the rain through a dirty old lense. With each passing second each face and moment became clearer. Ah yes, so this is what it's like to have my life was flashing before my eyes.
"You're filth, a stain on the holy bloodline, like oil in milk you refuse to vanish so I must scoop you out and dispose of you, lost prince." a vaguely familiar voice declared with all the condescension a man can possess.
*An hour earlier*
"I thought you said you were from the legendary Saltz clan, what kind of Saltz gets scared by a worm?" Rekab complained with disappointment in her tone.
"Though not by blood worry not milady I am indeed Saltz," I assured her. "That so called worm may as well be echidna," I whined in self pity.
I had only let down my guard for a second before the giant worm rose up from the ground directly under me with a bite. I didn't get a chance to react, Rekab immediately tackled me out of the way landing directly on top of me. We had a brief moment of unbridled eye contact which the indus worm rudely interrupted.
I screamed internally and with a bit of rage I soon forgot my fear and joined the party in the attack. Crossing into Sid's line of fire, I gave the worm a swift blow to the jaw forcing it to temporarily retreat underground, thing wasn't as dumb as it looked.
"Brace for a surprise attack." No sooner than the words escaped my lips did the indus worm make its comeback. A deafening scream came from behind us and as it turned to look, I got a blow to the cheek from, you guessed it, Sidney. Another fist landed on my face driving me to the ground.
"Had you not interfered I would have landed the finishing strike, they're blood is on your hands." Sid yelled as he pointed to the freshly dismembered corpses of Rekab's party. "Go home," he said in a grieving tone.
In this moment I was struck by guilt, I couldn't even look at the girl I had been trying to impress. It's not that I wasn't used to seeing allies die, I just didn't want Rekab to witness it so soon. Unfortunately we had neither the time nor luxury to grieve, our enemy was still on the loose and I wasn't the type to not finish the job.
"We have to move, staying stationary will get us killed," I immediately took charge.
Rekab didn't display any emotion so it was hard to tell if the deceased and her were close or not. We mobilised and I took the chance to signal for help, as humiliating as it was I had to follow protocol. The worm resurfaced and I distracted it while Rekab supported as an archer, Sid charged his final attack which was basically channeling power into his sword.
"Ready," he shouted.
I jumped out of the way and in a swift flash he decapited the giant spiked worm. We were just about to celebrate when the ground caved in and we fell into some sort of sinkhole. Of course we did, all thanks to Sid. It felt like the worst but we had no idea what danger we had placed ourselves in. Looking left and right we were surrounded by huge tunnels and the cave-like structure we were in was filled with huge egg-like sacks just transparent enough to reveal the indus larvae lying dormant within them. Panic struck us as we came to realize that we had encountered was just another hungry hatchling.
In that moment we pondered the same thought in silence. We were all thinking it, If we just fought the baby, then where was the mother?