My boots slipped on the wet stone, almost pitching me headlong into the darkness. I caught myself on the pitted stair rail, knuckles white, breath ragged as I peered down the spiraling descent. Somewhere, far below, the Guild’s rescue bell tolled once—a sound that hollowed out my chest with dread. I pressed my palm to my satchel, the familiar weight of salves and tourniquets a frail comfort.
We’d rushed after another rumor, half-cocked and hungry for renown, only to scramble for our lives when a cave-in sealed the westward tunnels. Dust still drifted in the lamplight, catching on the blood-soaked bandage around Kessin’s arm. The others watched me, faces haggard, eyes rimmed red with fatigue and resentment. It was my decision now—the old Captain was pinned in the collapse, gone with the rest of our original route home.
The map shook in my trembling hand. The red-marked exit—the one that should have led us back to the Guild’s daylight towers—no longer existed. Only a blank smear of stone, the passage collapsed. Someone else had marked it recently, I realized. The ink was too fresh, the paper nearly new. I remembered the rumors: rival parties, desperate enough to trap competition underground for a shot at the relics.
I felt the weight of their gazes. Kessin gripped his sword tighter, his lips drawn to a hard line. Mira muttered and traced sigils on the damp wall, eyes flicking to me between glyphs. “Well, healer,” she said, voice taut, “what’s your plan? We can’t heal this away.”
No one needed to remind me—my magic would keep their hands steady, blood inside their bodies, but it could do nothing for the way exhaustion gnawed at their bones. If I faltered, fame would turn to disaster. If I rushed, they might not even make it out.
Every decision rang with finality. I forced myself to breathe, feeling the little prickle of hope in the rescue contract slotted at my belt—the promise of fame if we returned with the lost explorers. Or nothing at all, if we vanished like so many before.
I squinted at the side passages, the half-blacked-out corners of the map, weighing trust and hunger and the brittle bonds of my authority. There would be no healing the wounds of leadership, only choices and the price each one exacted.
Somewhere below, the bell rang again, and I knew I had only moments before the party fractured under anxiety and fatigue. I steeled myself, ready to speak.