Chapter 7

Dungeon Vinea (Part 1)

When I awoke again, everything was cloaked in darkness. I opened my eyes, but they burned and I couldn't see anything, so I squeezed them shut again. I heard a faint but muffled sound...someone's voice? Ka Kobun?

I couldn't feel anything, and I opened my mouth to breathe, but I couldn't breathe...I couldn't breathe!

I started to thrash about in the weightless suspension of this void, and then a hand encircled my upper arm and tugged hard. I finally realized I was in water when I breached the surface and gasped for air, sputtering and coughing.

"Princess! Thank goodness you're alright!" Ka Kobun exclaimed as he pulled me out of the water and onto a rough surface. I continued to hack up water and rub my stinging eyes as I came to. The chill of the air against my soaked skin made me shiver.

When I recollected myself, I looked around to see where I was. The surface that Kobun had dragged me onto was a large rock made of old coral, and we were in a cavern made up of what once seemed to be a brilliant reef of corals, but was now just bleached and dried up. The cavern was flooded with murky water. Ka Kobun and I were situated near the edge of a rather large pool, with other spots of old coral poking above the surface like stepping stones, leading towards a huge door at the other end of the cavern.

Kobun was just as soaked as I was, and he had already discarded his yellow outer robes and cap. I elected to do the same and shed my heavy outer garments. Water-logged clothes would only bog down my movements.

Kobun grumbled as he wrung the water out of his clothes. "This is bad, Princess...when I woke up in that pool like you did, I lost our rations. And I think there's something big swimming around in there...I felt something brush against me and got out of there quickly. I still have some of our other supplies, but I don't have anything to start a fire with so we can dry off."

I squeezed water out of my linen under-robe and unwrapped my jian from its protective cloth, retying it onto my sash. "I guess we'll just have to press forward as much as we can then. We need to conquer this dungeon as soon as possible, if we don't have any food-"

I gasped when I felt something slimy curl around my leg.

"Look out!" Ka Kobun sprang towards me, drawing his sword and slashing at the thing around my leg. He severed the slimy appendage, and the rest of the limb retreated into the water.

The severed limb was still stuck to my leg, and I pulled it off. It had suckers like an octopus or squid tentacle.

Ka Kobun was poised for combat. "That must be what swims around in here. Prepare yourself, Princess...we probably made it angry."

Just as he said that, there were huge bubbles churning in the pool of water. I drew my sword and poised beside him. Adrenaline was already coursing through me, and my heart pounded.

A mass of huge tentacles burst forth from the water and slapped around blindly. Kobun and I slashed at them as they flailed towards us. We gashed up a few of the creature's limbs, and it withdrew into the water again. We gripped our swords, preparing for another assault.

Then a gigantic squid's head emerged from the water, with six demonic-looking eyes glaring at us angrily. It reared its tentacles out of the pool again and bore its gaping vertical maw, revealing rows and rows of sharp teeth, and screeching with a guttural, beastly roar.

Unnerved, Ka Kobun and I recoiled, but we steadied ourselves for the monster's attack.

Tentacles came flying at us with blinding speed, and we cleaved at them as hard as we could. But when we severed a tentacle, another one struck at us so fast that we couldn't react. I was knocked over, and Ka Kobun was sent crashing into the cavern wall.

The monster wrapped a tentacle around my leg again and yanked me into the water. I held my breath as it plunged me underwater and pulled me in towards its mouth. I still had a grip on my sword, so when it pulled me close enough, I shoved the blade through part of its mouth. It screeched and thrashed, releasing me from its grip. I swam back towards another rock and pulled myself out of the water.

Gasping for air, I called out to my comrade. "Ka Kobun! Are you okay?! I wounded it, so let's finish it off!"

Ka Kobun was staggering back to his feet, clutching his abdomen. The creature was still thrashing around in the depths of the pool.

"Princess! When it comes at us again, we'll attack it together!"

"Right!"

We clutched our swords, and it felt as though our battle auras flared and combined into one. As the monster breached and hurled itself at us to swallow us whole, we seemed to sync our movements flawlessly, leaping towards the creature and delivering our final strike directly to its eyes. The monster screeched in the throes of death, and then it turned into crystal and shattered. The shards of crystal glimmered in the air before fading away like magic. In the creature's place, a huge shining pearl materialized and plopped into the pool of water.

Ka Kobun and I doubled over and panted heavily. I'd cleared my first challenge of the dungeon, but my heart was still pounding and I was trembling from head to toe.

"Your highness," Kobun huffed, "you're not injured are you?"

"No," I said between breaths, "thanks to you. But are you okay?"

"Nothing serious. It dropped something when we destroyed it. I'll go retrieve it."

Ka Kobun set his sword down and waded into the water before diving in. I dropped to my knees to try and ease my shaking legs and calm my breathing. Moments later, Kobun returned to the surface with the huge pearl in his hand, pulling himself up onto the rock beside me and panting heavily.

I let him catch his breath and wring his clothes out, and then I smiled at him. "Hey...we're really here, aren't we Ka Kobun? We're in a dungeon."

"...Princess?"

I hugged my knees to my chest. "It's...it's not a dream is it? This is what I've been preparing for all my life. It's finally happening. And if I hesitate, even for just a moment, I might not return home."

"Princess Kougyoku..."

Ka Kobun took my hand and placed the pearl in it. It was so comically large, about the size of a grapefruit, and yet it glistened beautifully just like a normal sized pearl.

"It's okay to be afraid, you know," Kobun said. "Even the strongest and bravest warriors still fear for their lives when faced with overwhelming challenges. I'm sure if you asked even his highness Prince Kouen, he would tell you the same thing. If you think being brave means being without fear, you're mistaken. Someone who tries to be brave without acknowledging their fear is an arrogant fool that ends up dying too soon."

He picked up his sword and was wiping the blade clean as he spoke. "And I'll tell you something else. Most of my life, I've been driven to make the choices I've made because of cowardice. Having been born into unfortunate circumstances for the first part of your life yourself, you might sympathize. But I've lied, cheated, stolen, and backstabbed my way up the social food-chain. All because I didn't want to be afraid of where I would have to sleep, or where my next meal would come from anymore. And after that, it was just because I thought to myself: 'why stop there when I might be able to reach the top?'"

He put his sword back in its sheath, his lurid yellow eyes meeting mine with intensity.

"I am here beside you because of fear. We defeated that monster just now because of fear. And I'm sure it was fear that also drove you to take up the sword in the first place...a fear of being unable to protect those you love, perhaps. I remember the way you spoke about not wanting to feel helpless anymore when I began teaching you."

I stared into the iridescence of the pearl, unsure of how to respond to any of this. Suddenly he stood up, hooking my arm with his and pulling me to my feet to stand beside him. He put his hands on my shoulders.

"So you see Princess Kougyoku, it's perfectly alright to be afraid. It just shows that you're human and you want to be alive. And I'm just as afraid as you are. But the only difference between someone who's just afraid, and someone who is a coward, is giving up. And I know you won't give up...you're so tenacious sometimes it gives me ulcers."

I was beginning to well up, and I rubbed my eyes. Ka Kobun took a step back and cupped his fist in a passionate Kou salute.

"I wouldn't have clawed my way to being your vassal and raised you up all these years if I was just going to let anything happen to you in this dungeon, my Princess. We'll make it through this as long as we stick together. Now lead the way, your highness. I am yours to command."

I took a deep breath and I returned his salute, clutching the pearl in my hands. "Alright, my faithful vassal. Let's conquer this dungeon!"

We made our way across the stepping stone patches of dried coral towards the door. I placed the pearl in a spherical depression, and a golden light spread across the door as it slowly swung open.

What greeted us on the other side of the door was a sight I could have never imagined.

The inside of a vast and glorious temple sprawled before our eyes: unlike the drab surroundings of the room we entered into, this place was brimming with color and opulence. Columns of sea-blue stone that seemed to shimmer like water towered to a domed ceiling, waterfalls cascading from the walls into pools, lively pink and red corals blooming in every corner, rainbows of fish and drifting jellies swimming through the air, and beams of light filtering in from some indeterminable source. There were glimmering alabaster tiled walkways winding across the water through the room, gradually rising and spiraling up to another door.

"Magnificent!" Ka Kobun exclaimed, practically reading my mind.

We strolled across the walkway, soaking in the sights of the mysterious flora and fauna. It was like the ocean itself had come to greet us with its enchantment. I found myself wishing the court painters had accompanied me to capture the scenery forever.

When we reached the door however, it would not open. There was another depression for a key, this one shaped like a spiraled shell.

"Princess, look at this. There's an inscription."

Kobun directed my attention to a carving in the column near the door, written in a strange language that I'd seen somewhere before.

"Hey, that's the Torran language! Brother Koumei showed me a scroll with that writing once. I can't read it though, can you?"

"No, but luckily I have something that can help us."

Kobun produced a small leather case from his sash and unfurled a scroll from it.

"His highness Prince Kouen entrusted me with this translation key. He said we would likely encounter this language within the dungeon. I'll need a few minutes to decipher this inscription. Keep your guard up, princess."

I clutched my sword and turned my back to Kobun while he examined the strange markings and muttered to himself.

I found myself watching the schools of flying fish and the forest of jellies, mesmerized once again by the beauty of the sight. It was so deceptively peaceful that I nearly forgot about the mortal peril we were embroiled in, and I was reminded of this when I saw little murky shapes emerging from the pools of water below.

"Uh, Ka Kobun? How much longer do you need?"

"I'm doing my best princess, but this will still take me awhile."

I unsheathed my sword. "I suggest you pick up the pace, we're not alone anymore!"

Dozens of small fish-like creatures that had arms and legs were now climbing out of the water and swarming up the walkway.

Ka Kobun glanced over his shoulder and gasped. "J-just try to hold them off and buy us some time!"

As the fish creatures closed in, I saw their ugly piranha faces with bulbous eyes, and their jagged bone weapons of swords and spears and crab-shell shields. They made garbled vocalizations. I swallowed hard but steadied myself, willing my muscles to remember the times I drilled for group combat with Hakuryuu.

The little fish-men launched themselves toward me and I sprang into action, My sword dancing in my hands as I parried their crude armaments and cut them down. Some tried to bite at me and I would twirl my feet and kick them away in kind. It was honestly like fighting a large gaggle of children with how small they were. I almost pitied the nasty things.

I had cut through a swath of them, but it seemed more and more of them kept emerging from the water to take their place. The bodies were piling up on the walkway, but the next wave of them would jump over them to get to us. I was holding my ground, but I knew I couldn't keep this up forever, and I couldn't let them overwhelm me and get to Ka Kobun.

"Are you done yet?!" I yelled.

"Almost there!" Kobun yelled back.

One of the fish-men leapt at me and bashed me in the torso with its shield, knocking the wind out of me. I staggered back but stayed on my feet, but this one slip up was enough to leave more of them an opening to swarm in on me. I poised in a guarded stance, but I was about to get bitten and jabbed from several angles at once.

"Get back you slimy fiends!"

Ka Kobun charged into the fray and slashed several creatures apart with a masterful strike. He clutched his parchment scribbled with charcoal in his off hand as he sliced through the fish-men one after another. I regained myself and matched his vigor until finally we had slain every last one of them, the mosaic walkways now soaked in blood and fish guts.

We stared at each other and breathed heavily for a moment. Ka Kobun had beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, and I could feel my own sweat collected in my hairline and running down my back. My blood was still roaring in my ears.

"This place is no joke..." Kobun huffed.

"Well...what did that inscription say?" I panted.

"Oh right," Kobun unfurled the paper in his hands and studied it for a moment before reading it aloud.

Long ago, the jellyfish was just like any other fish, with many bones.

But it also had a yearning for the sea-king's precious stones.

For its crime of theft, the sea-king took the fish's bones away,

And yet the jellyfish remains an eager crook to this day.

"Cute little riddle, but what does it mean?" Ka Kobun said when he finished reading.

I stared up at the forest of floating jellyfish once again. "It has to mean that one of these jellyfish has the key to that door."

We examined the swirling shoals of fish and mass of jellies for several minutes, our eyes trailing all the way up to the ceiling. The arrays of colors was dizzying, but I trained my eyes to pick out a very specific shape.

"Up there!" I finally pointed out a singular white jellyfish that had a gold spiral shell tangled in its frond of stingers. It was floating in the heart of the swarm towards the ceiling.

"How in the hell are we supposed to get at it?" Kobun griped.

I looked around in thought momentarily before my eyes fixed on one of the fish-men's spears.

"Have you got a good arm?"

Kobun gave me a puzzled look.

I went over and collected a handful of the fish-men's spears and javelins. "We can use these!"

"Aha! Excellent thinking princess!"

With a clutch of spears in each of our hands, we began lobbing them at the white jellyfish. Since we were not practiced with throwing weapons however, most of them missed.

Then Ka Kobun managed to spear a different jellyfish than our target, and something alarming happened.

All at once, the whole swarm of sea creatures began to surge violently.

"WHAT?!" we both yelped, flinching and gripping our swords.

The swarm began to transform into globs of jelly, swirling and coalescing together into one giant mass until it took on the form of a colossal jellyfish. Just like the squid monster in the entryway, it gazed at us with a set of six angry looking eyes. It glistened with a rainbow of hues, and I could still see the spiral shell key embedded within its translucent body.

There was no time to think before it whipped its numerous stingers towards us. There were too many of them to cut away with our swords and not get hit, so we ran like hell down the walkway as it floated after us and lashed its tendrils. The blood and guts from the dead fish-men made the walkway slick, and we slid off the edge and plunged into one of the pools of water.

The jellyfish monster still pursued us, but it merely hovered above the surface of the water and allowed its tentacles to dangle into the pool. Luckily this made them much easier to avoid, and we swam down into the depths just out of the grasp of the creature. We found an arch beneath the walkways that connected the pools together and swam through, resurfacing on the other side just beyond the creature. It might've been big and imposing, but it certainly wasn't very smart, because it was still looking for us in the depths of the other pool.

We clung to the edge of the walkway and stayed in the water to hide from it.

"Princess," Ka Kobun whispered, "I have something we might be able to use on this thing. I wanted to save it, but I don't think we have the luxury of choice right now."

"Well? Go on then!"

"The only problem is, I have to get close enough to it to touch it."

"...don't tell me to distract it."

"Well...I was going to suggest that, but now that I think about it, the object here is to keep you alive. So I'm going to give you this little trump card of ours, and then when I have it distracted, you're going to use it."

Ka Kobun unfastened a belt with pouches and lifted it out of the water onto the platform, and then dug into one of them and produced an ornate slip of paper. It showed the yin-yang symbol surrounded by I Ching hexagrams, and writing in ancient Tenka seal script.

"This is called an Eight Trigrams Talisman. Lord Koumei gave them to me to use, but he said to only use them in dire circumstances. I only have a few of them, and they can each only be used one time."

"And you think we need to use one now?"

"After our scuffles with those other monsters, we need to try and conserve our energy, and this monster could prove to be an even tougher and deadlier opponent, don't you think? Jellyfish stingers contain neurotoxins that at best, are excruciatingly painful upon the body and at worst, fatal."

I swallowed hard. "So what's your plan to deal with this thing and get that key?"

"Listen carefully," Kobun said, "this paper talisman contains a lightning spell. Our enemy may be imposing, but luckily its gelatinous body is made up of mostly water. So we can use this lightning magic to stun and fry it! But in order to work, the talisman has to be in direct contact with the target. I'll distract it and get it to focus on me, while you sneak up and slap this lightning spell on it."

"Alright, let's do it!"

Ka Kobun handed me the slip of paper before slowly and carefully emerging from the water as quietly as he could. He re-fastened his belt, wrung excess water out of his clothes, and slowly withdrew his sword from its sheath.

The jellyfish monster was still dumbly hovering above where it had last seen us. It didn't surprise me that it used the same hunting tactics that a regular jellyfish would use in the wild; the creatures literally had no brains. But with the addition of those six devilish eyes, it probably had excellent sight as well.

I was about to follow Ka Kobun and climb out of the pool, but he gestured and held me back. "Wait for my signal," he whispered, "and keep that talisman dry."

I nodded, and he began to tiptoe across the platform, cautiously approaching the creature from the rear. I used my free hand to pull myself along the edge of the walkway, keeping my other hand raised to hold the talisman above the water. I found a spot where the walkway inclined into a slope to conceal myself while still being able to see Ka Kobun and the monster.

Ka Kobun had drawn in close to the beast. He gave me one final look back, his face sporting a mix of apprehension and determination. We exchanged nods. My pulse quickened.

He reached down beside one of the dead fish-men and collected its crab-shell shield, which wasn't big enough to provide Ka Kobun with substantial cover, but could be used as a small buckler. He brandished the shield in his off hand, and poised for the attack.

"COME AND GET ME YOU OVERSIZED BLOB OF GOO!" He shouted, driving his blade into the creature with a rapid flurry of stabs.

The monster shrieked in pain and whirled around, flailing its tendrils out of the water in an attack like a spinning dervish. Ka Kobun leapt back from the strike, but the creature bore down upon him, flapping its bell and lashing its stinging tendrils. Kobun became a blur of swift attacks, dodges and blocks, matching the speed of the whipping stingers and slicing through as many of them as he could with a level of agility I'd never had the opportunity to witness.

"NOW PRINCESS!" He yelled.

With the creature's aggression concentrated on Kobun, I hurled myself out of the water and scrambled to my feet. My linen robe was heavy with dripping water that made my footing upon the tiled platform slippery, but I charged towards the creature and drew my sword, gripping the paper talisman between my fingers in my off hand.

But just as I was about to close in, one of the creature's eyes shifted towards me with its menacing gaze. A wave of intense fear came over me and I slid to a halt.

The giant jellyfish once again spun and whirled its tendrils straight at me. I failed to react in time. I threw up my sword arm in front of me just as the monster's strike connected and I was lashed with its stingers. All at once stinging pain shot throughout my forearm and hand. I screamed and lost my grip on my sword, and my weapon went clattering across the tiled floor.

"NOOOO!" Ka Kobun howled like a mad man, and his attacks became even more ferocious. The creatures tendrils were growing back just as rapidly as he cut them, but he became so enraged and violent upon my wounding that he was beginning to overwhelm the creature and land strikes on its body. It couldn't divide its attention between both of us, so it continued to fend off Kobun's assault.

My arm was seizing with so much pain that I could barely concentrate, but I still had a hold of the paper talisman in my other hand. I was no longer confident enough to attempt to touch it, lest I get lashed head to toe by those stingers. I clutched my arm, squeezed my eyes shut and staggered, wailing and trying not to faint from the nauseating, shooting pain.

My foot kicked something on the floor and I opened my eyes again. It was one of the fish-men's javelins we had been throwing earlier.

An idea came to me. I put the talisman between my teeth, grabbed the javelin, and speared the paper on it. I breathed deeply and pushed through the searing pain. I took aim at the creature, edging as close as I could without it noticing me. I only had one shot and I needed it to be perfect.

Ka Kobun was still unleashing hell upon the jellyfish monster, and it looked like it was starting to get desperate. It lunged its body forward and was about to engulf him into its gelatinous bell to swallow him whole.

"HAAAAAAAHHH!" I let out a fierce kiai and put every ounce of strength I had into the throw, releasing the javelin from my hand and letting it fly.

The javelin struck the monster.

The talisman speared on the shaft of the javelin lit up at once with a brilliant yellow flash of light, and then erupted into a burst of lightning.

Ka Kobun shuffled backwards towards me to avoid the lightning storm, stumbling to the floor next to me.

The giant jellyfish emitted a deafening shriek as the lightning arced and jolted into its gelatinous body. It even began to give off smoke as it was violently electrocuted to death. Then finally, the gooey monster exploded. Blobs of jelly flew everywhere before turning into light and dissipating, just as the giant squid monster had done once it was defeated. The golden shell within its body dropped to the floor and skidded towards us.

Ka Kobun was panting heavily. "We...we did it. We beat it." He breathed, almost in disbelief.

My attention was pulled back to my injured arm that was still spasming and wracking me with pain beyond anything I'd ever felt before. I groaned and dropped to my knees. I could see the inflamed reddish purple marks left by the tendrils all over my forearm.

"Princess!" Kobun clambered over to me.

"Ka-Ka Kobun! It hurts!" I cried.

"Let me see..." He said as he took me arm as gently as possible to examine it. He studied the wound carefully for a moment, and then he patted my head.

"Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up. Just sit tight for a moment while I get that door open. Breathe deeply and try to stay calm."

"Wh-what about you? Are y-you ok-k-kay?" I stammered through tears.

"My whole body is heavy and sore from how hard I just exerted myself, but I'm alright."

He stood up and went over to pick up the golden shell key, in addition to my misplaced sword. I was too busy rocking back and forth and trying to breathe deeply and weather the spasms of pain to watch him make his way to the door, but moments later I could hear the sound of stone scraping upon stone as it slid open. And a few moments after that, Ka Kobun reappeared at my side.

"Let's go your highness, we need to keep moving forward." He clutched my good arm and pulled me to my feet, wrapping me in a tight embrace to stabilize me. We headed back up the winding walkway. I couldn't help but think about how ugly this once marvelous room had become with the gory remains of battle everywhere. As we entered into the next chamber, the door slid shut behind us.

We found ourselves in a vast circular room that looked like the inside of a grand Mosque temple. All the walls, floors and columns were tiled with polished stone in a brilliant and vivid shade of royal blue, bluer even than the ocean itself. On the opposite side of the great room was yet another doorway, but this time we didn't see an insert for a key, and instead the door was emblazoned with a golden eight pointed star. In the very center of the room was a large circular pool of water that gave off a faint glow and made light dance and shimmer around the room in that brilliant coalescence that always happens when light and water touch. Just beyond the pool in front of the door was a pedestal that held a statue fashioned from Larimar in the shape of a fearsome looking dragon, its body coiled in S shapes and its claws outstretched as though something belonged in its hands. Surrounding the pool of water were stone statues of humanoid figures with shark heads, kneeling and holding large pitchers upon their shoulders.

It was another beautiful and awe-inspiring sight, but I was suffering too much from my injury to admire any of it. Once we had come into the room a ways, I stumbled over to the nearest wall and slid against it down to the floor. Ka Kobun was right there with me and crouched down next to me.

"Bear with me just a bit longer, Princess Kougyoku."

He scanned our surroundings momentarily for anything that appeared to be dangerous. He brandished his sword and crept over to the pool of water, studying it and watching for anything that might come out of it. After a few minutes, he put his sword back in its sheath and returned to my side.

"Alright, I think we're safe here for the time being." He said. "Let's get you patched up."

Ka Kobun reached down at his belt again and unfastened a small knife in its sheath. He pulled the leather strap off of the sheath that was holding it to the belt and handed it to me.

"You'll want to put this in your mouth and bite it. This part is gonna hurt even worse than you're hurting now, and there's no avoiding that. I'll beg your forgiveness, but it must be done."

I stared at him shell-shocked for a moment, eyeing the knife in his hand. "Wh...what are you gonna do?"

"I have to remove the little barbs embedded in your arm that are injecting venom before I can heal your injury. Close your eyes, bite that piece of leather, and I'll tell you a story to distract you."

My lip quivered, but I did as he commanded and put the leather strip between my teeth. I squeezed my eyes shut and presented my injured arm to him.

Ka Kobun began his anecdote. "Once when I was a young boy, I took a trip to the beach with my elder brother. Like most young boys we were rowdy and careless as we played in the ocean, and I ended up stepping right on a jellyfish and getting a nasty sting on my foot."

I concentrated on the sound of his voice, but then I felt the first white-hot sting of pain as the tip of the knife dug into my skin. My feet skidded against the floor as I writhed in agony and a muffled wail escaped my lips. Ka Kobun pressed himself against me and held me in place.

"Breathe." He reminded me. I listened and drew long breaths through my nose.

There came another searing sting, and another, but Kobun continued his story in a low, calming tone, and I did my best to concentrate on him and listen through the pain, even though I felt on the verge of throwing up.

"My brother and I knew nothing about how to treat jellyfish stings of course, and he was afraid that if our parents found out I had gotten hurt so grievously, he would get into serious trouble, as he was supposed to be the responsible one. So before I could say anything about it, he had drank a bunch of sea water and started to pee on my foot!"

I think a bit of shock was starting to set in, because as the jabs from the knife continued, I was feeling them less and less, and my head suddenly felt light and swimmy. It became easier to listen to Ka Kobun's story, and I even laughed weakly through my tears.

"However, the idea that peeing on a jellyfish sting helps to cure it is a complete myth, and did nothing to help. After a lot of yelling at him, my brother finally picked me up piggyback and carried me a few miles to the doctor's hut in our village. Come to find out, salty sea water is actually what helps a jellyfish sting, along with a lot of potent medicinal herbs. It still took a few weeks before I was healed and could walk again. Almost there."

My face was tingling and my consciousness was beginning to fade as I felt the last few jabs from the knife. I could feel saliva dribbling from my mouth and taste the spittle-soaked strip of leather.

"Done." Ka Kobun finally said. "Lucky for you, the size of that jellyfish monster made it so that the barbs were big enough to be seen and I could extract them. Normally they are so tiny that you can't even see them with the naked eye, and you have to wait for your body to rid itself of them on its own."

I heard the sound of a bottle being uncorked, and then I felt a soothing, cooling sensation as Ka Kobun poured a liquid over my arm. All at once the pain subsided completely, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. The strip of leather fell out of my mouth.

"Also luckily for you," Ka Kobun continued, "we have skilled alchemist magicians at our disposal who make amazingly fast acting healing potions."

I opened my eyes and saw the miraculous potion at work, the angry red marks fading away as he emptied the bottle of lavender hued liquid onto my wound. Once finished, he produced another phial filled with an herbal powder of some sort, and tapped some out onto where the marks had been. Finally, he cut a strip of cloth from the bottom of his robe and wrapped and tied it all the way around my forearm and hand.

"That potion should have done the trick, but I put that herbal poultice on just to make sure any remaining impurities could be drawn out." He explained.

"Thank you...so much..." I groaned.

Delirious and exhausted, my eyelids began to droop and flutter.

Ka Kobun set his supplies aside and gathered me into his arms. We both slumped against the wall, curled against each other. I welcomed the warmth of his body heat against my cold, soaked skin.

"Let's try and get some rest and regain our strength, Princess Kougyoku." He said with a heavy sigh. "We don't know how many more challenges are ahead of us, and we need to be ready if we're going to make it out of here alive."

I didn't even have to say anything to agree with him, my body had done it for me. I drifted off into sleep.