Stumbling Up: A Loser's Guide to Progression - Chapter 70: Bruised

The water hit hard.

It was a nightmare as the hot water rubbed us against the slot canyon walls like a washboard from hell.

I felt Richard glue himself to my shoulders. I wasn’t afraid of drowning. My [Gills] loved the hot water after days in the desert air. I could breathe, but not much else. My stamina bar was draining dramatically as I tried to fight the current.

I shot through narrow slots in the canyon. My shoulder slammed into a wall. Friction scraped the skin off my knee.

I desperately tried to keep Tandy, Meredeath, and Ash in view.

A knuckle of the canyon bent to the left. Suction pulled me into an errant eddy. I found myself trapped in a whirlpool vortex. It outstripped the tidemaw’s death throes in violence as I spun around like a rag doll.

Do something! I'm going to be sick!

My body twisted, the pressure pulling at my [Gelatinous] nature, but suction prevented me from breaking free. The only counterforce was my hammer at my hip. Its weight dragged me down.

I caught a flash of black in the chaos. Meredeath was trapped too. Her brilliant green eyes flared with magic. She flailed, losing the same fight with our watery foe.

She didn't have gills to survive. Several seconds passed. As my body tossed, I watched Meredeath in the chaos.

[Guardian’s Promise] pinned me to the floor as water and debris tore at my body. Helpless, I watched Meredeath’s desperate struggle.

Ash and Tandy bumped into our hell, but the current stripped them away immediately. Apparently, this vortex was full.

An iron tree guard slammed into the wall next to us. Limbs flailing, the current took it downstream too. I didn't bother trying to break free. All I could think about was Meredeath.

I saw the moment she gave up. She looked down, her green eyes flaring one last time as she slowly closed them. She mouthed the words Sorry, Cole as though she owed it to me to survive.

I unclipped [Guardian's Promise]. Leaving it, I kicked off from the floor. My shoulder hit Meredeath hard. Richard took the brunt of the impact.

Oof, you could warn a slug.

The vortex flung us sideways. I twisted, trying to get an arm around her.

Oddly, my body resisted. I felt weighed down as awkward as a misshapen snail.

I've got her. Get us out of here!

I loved that gods-be-damned slug. He’d glued us together!

I spun slower in the vortex with the increased mass. Aiming my feet, I kicked against the wall. I could see a break in the funnel keeping us in place.

My hand passed through. The suction pulled us back.

A golden light grew in my vision. Silver snaked through it. Tandy and Ash.

A rope passed through my hand. I grabbed on with all my strength.

Immediately the rope snapped taut. We were yanked out of the whirlpool.

I'd been so focused on freeing us, I hadn't prepared for re-entry into the current. We slammed into a wall. Sandstone scraped at my back as water grated us against the side of the canyon.

My hands, raw, clenched on the rope. I held on, unable to protect my body.

It pulled us in like a fishing line. To what? Safety? Would it be in time for Meredeath? Could Richard’s [Glue] hold?

The flash flood slowed as the canyon opened up.

Meredeath and Richard broke the surface of the river. My head was still under water. My [Gills] worked overtime. I kicked in the direction we were being pulled. Anything to help.

This was it.

Something grabbed my foot.

The immediate tension threatened to rip me in two. Something in my abdomen ripped. [Gelatinous] was great when getting stabbed, but not so much under torque.

Looking down, I saw a leafy, fibrous hand latched onto my foot.

An iron tree guard gave me a barky, demonic smile. The tree pulled at my leg. My calf muscle stretched unnaturally.

Could I hold on, or would I be ripped in two? Letting go would doom Meredeath. She couldn’t survive the soup unconscious. Even if [Cheat Death] triggered, I was pretty sure I’d lose my grip on our lifeline.

I kicked at the tree appendage. The boot slapped ineffectually against the bark.

My stamina was dropping dramatically. Every muscle was tensed just to hold my body together.

The rope went slack. Our anchor had given way.

I was in the middle of the iron tree guard. It had won the tug-of-war match.

The maw of the beast was close. Fuck this. I hoped it choked on me.

It tried to snake an arm around my waist. I kicked out, surprising us both as my boot went into its maw. I stomped down. My heel connected on the back of the beast's throat.

The monster, shocked, gagged and let go of us.

The current whipped it away. The rope I desperately clung to went tight again.

When my head breached the surface, I saw Tandy and Ash at the other end of the rope. I saw safety.

They'd pulled themselves into an oversized alcove just barely big enough for the four of us. Ash had braced himself against a ledge that looked human-made. He was using his magic to bolster Tandy's. They’d reeled us in like a legendary catch.

Ash immediately took Meredeath. He worked on clearing her lungs while Tandy took charge of me.

“I’m fine. Really,” I said as she inspected me. My health and stamina were almost nothing. My abs and calf ached. I was raw and bruised, but the only thing broken was my heart.

She bought the lie, giving me an awkward hug before turning her attention to Meredeath.

The water was still rising. It was only a foot away from our cubby. We weren't out of it yet. But as I breathed in genuine air, I couldn’t bring myself to think. To move. I was safe.

Be glad one of us has a brain.

Richard was still problem-solving. He started running a line of slime across the front of the alcove. It’d built up two inches already. A slimy barrier to the encroaching water. Would that even work?

I sagged against the wall, unable to bring myself to ask.

[Skill Acquired: You have gained the [Dead Wrong] skill, [Not Today]. Death may be a constant companion, but not when you need to live to save your friends. Gain [+25%] Stamina, Health, and Mana for [5 minutes] when trying to save another's life.]

Considering all the losses, the [System] notification seemed like a cruel joke.

[Gelatinous Regeneration] kicked in. My body pulled uncomfortably as it glued me back together.

Meredeath coughed, a gush of water coming from her mouth.

Good.

I laid my head back against the sandstone. I could let go.

Darkness took me.

The flood lasted for hours, but eventually it receded. We soggily trod back to the campsite.

Tandy was worried about Leo. I probably would have been too if I hadn’t been so tired.

Darkness had fallen, and each step grated at the raw blisters on the bottom of my feet. My damaged calf made me limp. Step after slow step.

Richard huddled close. His slime barrier had saved us. The flood crested a good foot higher than the floor of our cavern. His sticky barricade had worked.

Even Ash was quiet, which I didn't think possible.

Meredeath leaned on him. She was still in shock from the near drowning.

I haven't looked forward to a bedroll more in my entire life. Even during harvest season. I’d never hurt this much.

The lights of the Ceaparean Drift Hunt staging ground were a sweet balm to my weary soul. The flood hadn’t affected them. Most of the water just fed the Tigra. A few teams gave us sympathetic looks as we staggered past their campgrounds.

Tandy stopped to ask a few times if anyone had seen a tall, blond-haired new [Paladin]. She got only shrugs in reply. Her description matched a third of the Hunt participants.

We figured out Leo's fate when we made it to our site.

Tandy's hammock swung in the night breeze. My bedroll lay next to our cooking pots. Meredeath's charcoal pack was tied neatly to a tree.

But Leo's laundry that had been drying on a line was gone, along with his pack and bedroll. The only evidence that he'd been there was a neatly folded pink sweater left on Tandy's pillow.

I fell asleep to Tandy's sniffles that night.

I only saw Leo once in the ensuing days.

The Hunt included multiple days and objectives. [Your Mom's Party] didn't bother taking part in anything else.

We were just biding our time waiting for everything to end. Tandy had made a deal with a merchant. We'd be guards for them as they made their way back to the Eastern frontier.

I'd been buying sweetmeats from a kebab vendor when I saw him.

He stood tall, straw hair tousled waving in the breeze. He had new armor on, with even bigger shoulder pads. It gleamed in the sun. Leo looked like a full [Paladin]. He'd been walking with two friends, decked out in slightly less impressive armor. They looked to be some sort of nobles with noses in the air as they scanned the vendors.

His ‘friends’ commented about how the Hunt had gone downhill, all the country bumpkins had come in to watch this year.

Leo's eyes met mine. I stood frozen, kebab in one hand, juices dripping down my arm. Bruised and scraped, I looked a mess. I did not belong here, just as his sneering companions suggested.

I smiled with a polite nod, trying to bridge the gap between us. He frowned.

Leo hesitated for a fraction of a second before dismissing me with cold eyes as they bounced to the next stranger in the crowd.

He may be a [Paladin] now, but I was an [Adventurer]. I stood a little straighter. A country boy, sure, but one that’d fight a dungeon for a missing girl, feed a house full of orphans, help a [Lich] hold the line, and cut the line to let the [King of the River] go.

I was Cole Moldboard Thornsfield. No one was going to write a story about me, but that was okay. What I was doing was still worthwhile.

I watched as his broad back receded.

He didn't look back once.

I didn’t either.