Holding the water in his hands up, Lauri watched the light reflect through its rippling surface. It was an experience he couldn't put into words, it was just wrong.
Dropping the water Lauri stepped back as it splashed against the stone bowl. Looking around Lauri realised something he hadn't before, it wasn't just the water inside the stone that was wrong, everywhere he looked, the puddles were wrong, the soaked mud was wrong, and even the droplets of rain were wrong.
Suddenly Lauri didn't feel very thirsty.
'What is this, why, why is this? Is this that sense of foreboding? No… It feels so much worse than some puddles…'
Fear began spreading through Lauri's mind like an infection. What would have happened if he had drank from the water? What would happen if he lifted his mouth and drank the rain?
'No, no, I need to go.'
Turning away from the stone – Lauri changed his mind. Travelling to the hills could happen later.
'I need to get back to that tunnel. I didn't think this out enough, I need to-'
Lauri slipped, falling face-first into the mud as his foot skidded across an unnaturally smooth surface. He might have not slipped under other conditions, but with the ever-increasing rainfall, the already unstable mud grew more and more uneasy to stand on.
Rolling onto his back, Lauri stared up into the sky. The feeling of the mud sticking to his hair was incredibly uncomfortable.
'Huh, so this is my life until I find a gateway. Great!'
Trying to pick himself up, Lauri's eyes froze on the spot he had slipped. It was unnatural, but not because of its smoothness, but because it wasn't mud. Slowly backing away, Lauri flexed his fingers preparing to summon a weapon.
It was hard to make out quite what it was. The thing that slightly stuck out of the ground was brown, almost as brown as the mud surrounding it which allowed it to blend into its surroundings. Something dawned on Lauri as he looked at his surroundings a little more.
'This ground, this mud has all been dug up… That's got to be the Fiend I lost track of, steady, steady now. Just gotta…'
Slowly stepping backwards, Lauri's foot struck something hard. His expression dropping, Lauri had enough time to sigh before the Fiend erupted from the ground throwing him backwards.
A clumsy-looking sword of light appeared in Lauri's hand as he stared at the Fiend trying to pick itself out of the ground. What Lauri had just stepped on was one of its two large pincer claws.
The Fiend looked like some kind of crustacean, its body was flat – large enough for a boy Lauri's size to comfortably lie down on – with two cylindrical arms sprouting from the top of it connecting to its pincers and four legs poking down ending in sharp spikes that sunk into the ground.
Seeing the Fiend's other pincer was a few moments away from being pulled free from the sticky mud. Acting on impulse Lauri rushed forward wanting to use the Fiend's momentary disadvantage against it, Lauri gripped his sword in both hands. Swinging he struck the Fiend's arm, his blow slid down the Fiend's arm unable to even leave a scratch against the Fiend's carapace.
Blinking, Lauri raised his sword – into what he thought a defensive position looked like – as the Fiend freed its arm from the mud. Lauri only had time to summon the helmet of Her Aegis when the Fiend's claw slammed into Lauri's chest sending him flying into the mud. The wind was knocked out of him, but due to Her Aegis Lauri managed to escape with his life.
'Ughhh, ahh, that hurt.'
Trying to pick himself up, Lauri was exasperated as his hand sunk into the mud. Unluckily for Lauri, the Fiend was faring a lot better. Having freed both of its pincers, the Fiend began to approach Lauri. Its pincers snapping at Lauri causing him to step backwards.
Raising his sword Lauri – had no clue what he was doing. Through all the lessons he had learnt, practically everything was based around wilderness survival, neither Laurence nor Nama had taught him how to fight. The most he had learnt was when Laurence had taught him how to use his knife in self-defence, but Lauri's knife had been broken by that shadow.
Lauri let out an exasperated groan.
'Idiot.'
Dismissing his sword, a replica of Lauri's knife appeared in his hand.
'Why do I keep trying to be flashy using a sword? If I know how to use a knife, use it!'
Stepping forward, Lauri raised the knife as the crab-like Fiend lunged at him. Stepping to the side, Lauri managed to make the Fiend's pincer slide off the dagger's short blade and land in the soft mud behind him.
Using this brief opening, Lauri took a step forward, grabbing his knife with both hands. He brought it down into one of the openings in the Fiend's arm that allowed it to bend like an elbow. Sliding past the armoured chitin, Lauri felt it bite into the Fiend's soft flesh.
An inhuman screech ripped out of the Fiend's chittering jaws causing Lauri to stagger. Lauri was again sent flying as the Fiend whipped its injured arm into Lauri's chest causing him to splatter into the mud.
'Ugh, it's so damn loud. I need to work faster, this rain is becoming so heavy.'
Lauri looked up, preparing himself to make another attack when he saw something strange. The Fiend had shifted its attention away from Lauri, using its two pincers it was desperately trying to dig into the mud.
Left with a confused expression on his face, Lauri was about to take a step forward when something occurred to him.
'If that thing is more interested in hiding under the mud, what could it possibly be hiding from?'
A few moments later, Lauri broke into a sprint in the only direction he could think of. Lauri stepped, staggered, and slid across the muddy terrain, putting his all in and trying to get back to the cliff face.
All the while the downpour of rain only grew more intense, what had first been a light pattering – by the time Lauri reached the cliff – was now nothing worse than torrential downpour.
'This is just getting ridiculous…'
Grabbing onto the grooves cut into the cliff face, Lauri tried to climb up, but after getting only a few metres off the ground Lauri lost his grip, falling back down to the bottom. Luckily, Lauri's landing was softened by the mud. This might have been a moment for Lauri to take a breath, but the feeling of the rainwater that managed to find its way through his visor and the sense of impending doom that had begun to slowly seep into his bones forced Lauri back to his feet.
'Slow and steady, just, slow and steady. There's no rush.'
Trying to calm himself down, Lauri tried to climb the grooves again. Taking it slowly, one hand in, then the second, the first foot, then the second. It was an easy process to repeat, slowly Lauri climbed.
As he was a quarter of the way up the cliff face, the process of climbing became easier as a new strength coursed through Lauri's body, it was the familiar strength of Lauri's Innate Talent [Brightest Night] – or whatever remained of [Brightest Night] now that it had turned into [Last Dawn] – gave Lauri whenever the light of the sun no longer shone down onto Lauri's body.
However, this strength did not feel the same as when Lauri had been underground in Compound Thirty-Four, which could mean only one thing. The sun was only partially obscured.
'Focus, focus.'
Not wanting to take his attention away from climbing, Lauri carried on, simply grateful for the burst of strength that woke his aching body.
Ten minutes later, Lauri was almost half of the way back to the tunnel that would hopefully serve as his refuge away from the storm, Lauri heard something that sent a shiver through his body.
A rumbling, like the sound of rolling thunder, echoing from the horizon.
Stopping, Lauri took a moment to steady himself.
'What is that?'
Trying to twist his head, he was unable to turn his head enough without feeling like he would come free from his hold on the cliff. Lauri had been forced to dismiss Luminescent Helper during his climb, as the small Imprint was unable to stay in the air due to the increasing strength of the rainfall. So Lauri shifted his perception to his only other illuminated Imprint.
The vision of Lauri's left eye moved to see through the light produced by Her Aegis.
At first, it was an unnatural feeling, but it was an unnatural feeling Lauri was prepared for. A few moments later, Lauri's brain had – mostly – come to terms with the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view provided by Her Aegis.
And in the next second, Lauri's body grew cold.
The sound he had heard was not rolling thunder, it was not the sound of cannon fire – something he had come across during his research of the world he had been brought to. To Lauri's horror, it seemed as if the horizon itself was moving towards him.