Chapter Text
“Adaine! Watch out!” Riz screams at the top of his lungs to make his words apparent over the clash of swords, whistling of arrows, roaring of fire, and screeches of lightning.
Adaine barely raises a hand in time to cast Shield, the flurry of arrows splintering into scraps to the snowy ground. Grimacing at the motion of stretching her body, the slashes torn on her ribcage, legs, back, chest, and stomach make moving even more painful. Archers, she fucking hated them in combat especially when they were hiding, their clothing of white fur made it even harder to spot them in the snow.
There’s little to no cover in the snowy landscape of the Mountains of Chaos. Barren branches on trees, if it weren’t for the blood staining a pristine blanket of snow should have been covering the land, the looming mountains ahead of them almost taunting them as their original objective was there.
Stupid Arthur, he can never make their school year easy. Retrieving the chronomagic artifact wasn’t supposed to have this many people hunting for it as well. Spring break already had a nasty part in Adaine’s memory, being arrested during freshman year and fighting Nightmare King, now Cassandra in sophomore.
Fabian sprints past her, battle sheet acting as a distraction before his rapier lunges into the bandit’s right lung. Within seconds, he pulls out the blade before another swift slash across his chest causes the human fighter to drop to his knees, his blood pouring out, contrasting the pure white snow.
“Spring break, Adaine!” Fabian yells with a smile. Pointing at her with a trembling hand from the blood spewing on the side of his head, “I believe in you!”
“Are spring breaks always horrible?!” Kristen complains. Her Spirit Guardians burned the two bandits surrounding her with the radiance of Cassandra’s divine magic.
“Maybe it’s just us!” Adaine yells back.
“Blame Arthur!” Gorgug screams.
Another man rushes to the middle of the fray, his staff glowing with divine light at the top. A wave of healing was sent to six of his teammates, reversing the teen's progress in taking them down. He had cast a Bless on his partners by the looks of it, faint light surrounding the fighters and barbarians.
Gorgug didn’t let it stand for long. Just like the previous three-four? Adaine can’t recall; his heavy metal axe swings high in the air. The gravitational force of the axe slams down onto the cleric’s head, eyes rolling up to the back of his head with the thump of his staff dropping. Gorgug easily takes the blade back before grabbing his handaxe, swinging it towards the bandit near Fig, an elven fighter, but narrowly misses its target.
Adaine winces from a slash in her calf but presses on. Running past the ongoing fight between Riz and the hiding rogues slash rangers, towards Fig. The Sword of Sight guided her way with a cast True Strike, impaling straight through his lower back. He stumbles to one knee, barely hanging on by a thread.
“Thanks, girl!” Fig screams, swinging her bass guitar straight to his face with a Radiant Smite reverberating Ankarna’s holy radiance. He doesn’t make a sound before he collapses to the snowy ground. She plays a softer tune right after, and Adaine feels a small wave of healing, her skin connecting, and blood stops pouring outside of her body.
Adaine weakly smiles back, readying for another fight with her sword in hand, another spell preparing in the other. The sudden shadow covering her from above should’ve been the first sign something was wrong.
No amount of strength she had could stop the body slamming her into the ground, sword knocked out of her hand, flying before piercing the snowy ground upright. The wind is knocked out of her lungs. She gasps for air and scrambles to get back up when someone grabs her right arm.
She tries to pull away, someone screams her name, she’s too focused trying to get out of the person’s grasp to know who. They grab her right wrist and stand up with a foot pressing on her back keeping her down. Her arm backwards in the air, Adaine turns her head, one side pressed into the snow as the other looks above. A human man, a sadistic smile on his face.
She barely registers the axe in his hand before it hacks into her elbow.
Adaine screams louder than ever, her vocal cords burn even more when he pulls the axe out. There isn’t supposed to be that much blood, right? It trails down her arm underneath her sleeve and onto the denim; a few droplets splatter onto her face. Tears prick her eyes before streaking down her face.
Her arm is not supposed to be bending that way, either. It’s at an awkward angle. The axe didn’t fully cut off her arm at the elbow but deep enough into bone and muscle to where her arm was bent inwards slightly. Adaine couldn’t even feel the spell at her hand; it dispersed the moment the axe hit.
She spoke too soon as well.
He lifts the axe higher, and Adaine begs for mercy in her eyes as her voice is too occupied screaming in pain and for help. Maybe it’s a twist of fate, or the bloody mess of her arm makes the landing of the blade not on her elbow but her bicep. It is by no means better on the pain scale, tearing through flesh deeper than the first cut. Her arm isn’t cut off, she’ll take what she can get.
Someone tackles him, the axe thudding into the snow right next to her. Adaine shifts to her side, cradling her injured arm, the shock being the only thing keeping her from passing out. The two figures are writhing in each other's grasp, fighting for control of one another.
“Adaine?!” Fig yells from…somewhere. Adaine couldn’t quite tell anymore with the gasping of her breath overlapping the yells of screams.
She tries standing up, an arrow shoots her more specifically in the shin. Collapsing again to the snow, she can barely keep her eyes open. In the corner of her eye, she can see the human man and Kristen grappling with each other in the snow.
A spell is fired by the wizard of the bandits. Something fire or at least she thinks it is, it pricks her skin like a fire, but by the blinding white with blue it must’ve been ice. She’s too tired to raise a hand for Counterspell. An Ice Storm, icicles shatter, and the continued streak of bad luck strikes Adaine in her shoulder and thigh.
Hot tears fall to her freezing face. Gods, she hated spring break.
Only because she is so pressed against the ground does she hear the cracking underneath. The mountains were always unstable, but she never knew to this expense. The Ice Storm’s force must’ve been enough for the ground to finally give in. People scramble, mostly the bandits, but she hears someone rapidly approach her.
Fig and Kristen, the only people near her. Kristen grabs her by the uninjured arm, yelling something Adaine can’t quite hear nor understand. Fig lifts her by the legs, bass guitar swung over her back, the Sword of Sight at her hip. Adaine doesn’t try to complain, her body is limp from the amount of pain, the arrows, swords, burns, and now almost chopped-off arm.
She’s by no means dying, not now. Adaine’s head turns to the ground beneath them only to be met with cracks in the ground as in an earthquake level crack, stretching over a mile from Adaine’s perspective. They carry her for a mere two or three seconds before a large ground fissure breaks beneath them, right below Adaine.
The ground shakes from the tremors, they all fall prone, and Adaine yelps out of pain. She can’t even move before the snow beneath her is suddenly above her. A sickening crack that isn’t her bone but the reveal of an icy trench forming beneath them.
The sun is the only light forming in the trench, and Adaine swears there are monster tracks down there, left in the snow. She can still calculate the fall. Over one hundred, maybe one fifty, or reaching to over two hundred feet. Icicles on the sides of the bottom would prove fatal if anyone landed on them.
The only feeling that isn't cold is the warm hand on her ankle. She weakly lifts her head to look.
Fig, also hanging upside down with the only stopper from causing the both of them falling is Kristen holding her by her ankles with both hands. Struggling to hold both, Kristen is slipping bit by bit to the edge of the trench.
“Adaine?!” Fig screams. “Just, hold on, okay?! We’re getting you out of here!”
“Fabian?! Gorgug?! Anyone goddamnit?!” Kristen yells, her arms straining to pull both.
Adaine is too weak to hold her head up. Her gaze falls back onto the bottom of the trench, it almost taunts her. Slowly, she is lowered into the trench, inch by inch. Kristen can’t hang onto the both of them for long. Fig was low on spells from the fight, and Kristen was running low on healing.
The ground shakes even more, Fig lets go only for a split second before grabbing her foot. “Adaine?!” she screams. “Come on, grab your sword!”
Adaine barely turned her head up to see the handle of the Sword of Sight right in front of her face. Fig holding the tip of the blade, “Cast Dimension Door! Misty Step! Teleport- something to get you out of here!”
Kristen is being supported by Fabian, each grabbing Fig by one ankle. “Adaine! Come on!” Fabian yells over the screaming of Fig.
One arm is broken and, at this point, useless. Adaine tries to grab the handle with her other hand. She only manages to get a few fingertips on the handle before a pinging that rings her ears sounds out. An arrow knocked the sword off down into the freezing trench. Looking in the corner of her eye, a bandit ranger was at the other side of the trench, knocking another arrow.
“Come on!” Kristen groans.
“Hey man?! Fuck you!” Fabian insults.
“Okay, new plan, girl! Grab my hand, okay?!” Fig desperately yells.
Adaine is too weak to protest for anything else. Using what's left of her strength, she tries to use her core strength to reach for Fig. It’s not enough; their fingertips brush, but not enough for a proper grasp on each other. Adaine can see the desperation growing in all three of them.
The sound of an explosion is the only thing Adaine hears; her friends- her loved ones screams and pleas are covered by the ringing in her ears. Someone slips, someone isn’t strong enough because Adaine is suddenly falling.
It’s quick, faster with each passing second. A blur of white and blue when she falls. Adaine wants to blame someone- blame Arthur for assigning them this mission, those bandits for causing the trench to crack. She can’t, not with the mind-shattering pain reverberating through her body when she crashes to the bottom near the icicles before her mind goes blank.
…
It’s cold.
The warm blood staining her doesn’t provide anything.
…
Where was she?
Oh, right.
The bottom of an icy trench in the Mountains of Chaos.
…
Where’s Aelwyn?
Or Boggy?
Jawbone? SandraLynn? Lydia? Fig? Kristen? Fabian? Gorgug? Riz? Ayda? Zayn? Ragh? Tracker?
She wants to go home.
…
Something is in her arm. More importantly going through her arm.
…
Someone is yelling, but by the tones and different ranges of voices, it is multiple people.
…
She should get up…well, maybe in a bit. Adaine closes her eyes again, the pain once reverberating in her body is gone, from shock or an adrenaline she can’t tell.
…
Someone is calling her, it isn't one of the previous voices. She’s heard the voice once before, at a library during the night of prom, the ghost of her spirit is supposed to be long gone. It beckons her like a mother calling her daughter.
Adaine isn’t in her body anymore, no pain, no arrow in her shin, no awkwardly bent arm. A hand is lowered to her, she wants to reach for it. She does, their fingertips barely brush.
It’s…many voices now that the ringing in her ears isn’t so apparent. Her ears strain trying to count. They speak in old languages, a few dead ones if she is recalling correctly.
Adaine and the woman's hands intertwine; the woman's hand isn’t entirely solid and is freezing. She is slowly and gently lifted. Multiple hands touch her back from below, supporting her lift by pushing her gently up.
She’s leaving her body behind, her home, her life–
Adaine pulls her hand away faster than she can blink. The multiple hands pushing her up suddenly leave, but the woman’s hand is still outstretched to her.
She can’t leave, not like this, not leave while her body is ruined and bloody at the bottom of an icy trench in the middle of nowhere.
Not with Aelwyn is still waiting for her back at Mordred with the cats. SandraLynn and she planned to plant new flowers at the front to give the place a splash of color. Lydia still hasn’t taught her how to handle a halberd properly. Jawbone was going to take her to a new movie with the other Bad Kids as a treat.
Adaine wants to live. To go home alive and live longer before it's her time.
The hand hesitates before it retracts.
…
The throbbing pain that shoots from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet is the first sign of life. A raspy gasp escaped her bloody mouth before her broken sobs of pain began. There is a blinding light above her, the sun. The cold and the lack of, well, anything is a clear sign that she’s still stuck at the bottom of the trench.
Her head was throbbing even worse, and the ground beneath her was solid ice, making her fall worse. There is something in her hair, most definitely blood or snow. She heaves for air, lungs once again moving with her racing heart pumping blood.
Moving is no easy feat, not when she looks to the side and meets with an icicle. Going straight through her previously injured arm.
Adaine moves, but the arm doesn’t. Missing from the elbow and down, her right forearm and hand are completely gone. She weakly shifts to her side off her back, and in this angle, she can see her wound more clearly.
Bone, muscle, and flesh torn cleanly in one part from the axe chop with the rest being slashed and ripped from the icicle. Mixed with snow, the fabric of her denim jacket and the cotton is overall just an absolute mess.
Groaning, the pain isn’t as bad as it should be. The shock of most definitely dying and coming back to life is still running through her and keeps the pain at bay. The priority, finding something to fix her up. Adaine sits up, blood slowly drips down her back from her head as a result of the fall. Hells, it’s a miracle she is even awake or alive, let alone with no permanent brain damage.
A shaky hand reaches into her jacket, equally ruined with the sleeve of her missing arm ripped away. Bandages, medical tape, and a clear bottle of water.
After a grueling ten minutes or so, the clean water provides a clearer view and washes the pouring blood coming from her arm. The bandages are even harder to apply with one hand; it’s messy, all over the place, and poorly tied together. Medical tape is the only thing keeping it from falling apart.
Tears flow freely down her face, broken sobs as Adaine collapses back to the ground. That was simply her missing arm, she could still feel the arrow in her shin, the wounds from the fight that possibly worsened from the fall.
She wants to sleep, close her eyes and pray that this is some fucked up dream or vision that she’s having. As she lies there, snow begins to fall, but with the sun clear in the sky above her, it's not just snowfall.
Squinting she can see a figure at the edges of the trench above her. Whoever they were, they kicked up snow while walking here. Their sobs echo into the trench, the sun blocks her vision from getting a clearer view of the person but whoever they are, they’re crying their heart out.
Adaine weakly raises her hand as if she were trying to reach for them. Whoever they were, they noticed her signs of movement. It's enough of a sign for a flare of hope to burn inside Adaine. The sobs stop abruptly. They lean over the edge, hands gripping the icy edge of the trench. They peer at her. Adaine waves her hand.
“A-Adaine?! Is that- are you?!” Gorgug screams into the deep trench, his voice indistinguishable even with the cracking from when he was crying.
“Gorgug?” Adaine’s voice is too weak to sound out to him directly but the words echo through the trench enough for him to hear.
“Wait, just h-hold on I’ll-Adaine! It’s Adaine!” Gorgug disappears from the edge of the trench.
Adaine reaches into the air more as if it would stop him from leaving. A pang of loneliness filled her only for a few seconds before five more figures appeared near the edge.
Someone comes to a skidding stop, almost tripping before being grabbed by someone else. It must’ve been Kristen.
“Is she supposed to be bleeding that much?” Fabian questions.
“Fabian!” Fig elbows him.
“Fig I’m trying to be in the loop she’s-”
“Why is her arm like that?” Gorgug asks.
“Gorgug I just said-oh shit!”
“Just stop! Adaine?! Come on, girlie, can you move?! Anything?!” Kristen yells.
Adaine weakly waves her only arm, a tired smile that they probably can’t see comes to her face. For once tears well in her eyes not in pain or despair but hope.
There is a roar of cheering, they’re all grabbing and shaking each other. Even with the burn in her lungs, Adaine manages a few chuckles while a few tears roll down her face.
“Adaine, I’m so sorry!” Fig cries over the yelling. “I should’ve held on tighter o-or come up with a better plan to save you!”
“I promise I’ll actually start studying with you whenever you ask me!” Kristen promises, though Adaine is most sure she’ll keep it only for a few days before falling into her usual routine of messing around with Fig.
“I’ll buy you whatever wizarding supplies you need or something like that, Adaine!” Fabian sounds like he was crying.
“Okay, okay!” Riz yells over everyone else, the voice of reason. “Adaine? Can you hear us, correct?!”
Another weak wave of her arm.
“O-Okay! Adaine, there were more bandits, we ran out of spells, Kristen barely has any heals, w-we need to…we can’t get down to you yet.”
Adaine’s heart shatters into a million pieces yet she can bring herself to blame anyone. She doesn’t tire herself out to speak, her voice too weak to even make any sound either way.
“We can set up camp nearby, we’ll keep an eye on you w-we can send down some food and a blanket okay?” Riz asks, his voice growing more desperate with each word. “We can try to set something up like a pulley system when we can, the grounds are too unstable for any heavy stuff.”
Night falls faster than Adaine realizes.
Just as promised, a small box of food was sent down, stolen supplies from the bandits no less. Adaine scarfed it down either way, and Kristen yelled at her over the edge of the trench on how to bandage the wound more properly over her arm. In the meantime, she pulled out the arrow in her shin and wrapped the rest of her wounds.
It’s freezing during the night in the Mountains of Chaos. It’s even worse in the trench, she managed to start a small bonfire with the extra supplies let down. Kristen advised that she didn’t fall asleep just yet; with no one down there, nobody could keep an eye on her if her wounds got the better of her in her trance.
Boggy croaks next to her, now resummoned and cuddling Adaine while she lays down. The stars are much brighter, she has to admit to that, no light pollution in the mountains makes the normal view from her window at night weak.
Adaine stares into the fire trying to ignore the cold (and her ripped off right arm still near the small pack of icicles, she can’t bring herself to grab it). Boggy nuzzled her cheek and she couldn't help the smile that came to her face.
Her eyes droop, and Boggy licks her ear. Her eyes remain on the fire. Boggy croaks. Adaine just raises a hand to pat him on the head, he croaks this time much louder and the croaking doesn’t stop. Adaine grabs him off her shoulder, assuming he’s just hungry. She placed him in her lap before grabbing a scrap of the cooked meat, bringing it to his mouth.
Boggy writhes in her grasp and hops away.
“Boggy?” Adaine mumbles. Standing weakly up, she tries keeping up with Boggy, hopping faster than she can walk on her one good leg.
He stops right in front of a small ice build-up. Adaine peers closer when she arrives; something is a wrong shade of blue. As a matter of a fact, not blue at all, but gold.
Adaine rushes forward, avoiding the icicles at her steps. Reaching down to the pile, a few tips break from her hand, she carefully pats around near the ice before grabbing something metal-no golden.
Raising the Sword of Sight high in the air, Adaine lets out a cheer. That ranger who knocked it out of her hand earlier be damned, albeit she doesn’t have any spells for any type of transportation or healing it’s a win for her either way. Boggy gives her the equivalent of a smile in his eyes and croaks.
Adaine is too busy cheering to notice something moving in the snow. Boggy hops onto her shoulder with a satisfied look, and Adaine holds the sword with a new profound confidence.
Screeches coming from the icicles behind knocks the wizard out of her celebration. The frost breath hitting her is worse than the freezing cold air down here but the targeted attacks makes it even worse. Boggy barely dodges the ice hitting him, Adaine isn't so fortunate.
A scream rips her throat as she scrambles to attack, a spell at her hand–well, only hand with the sword starts. Turning around, ice mephits. Six of them, the little tricksters blending within the ice easily before Adaine even knew they were here.
Adaine weakly raises the Sword of Sight, the tip of the blade glowing with that familiar blue arcane energy. The future helps guide her uneven strike, slashing through one of the mephitis cleanly. It stumbled back with a scream before a swing of her sword cut its head clean off.
She can’t react in time to the burst of ice and frost. The cold pricks her face and she feels her skin turn cold like a corpse. They rush her faster than Adaine can comprehend, claws tear at her chest and one claws her cheek. Adaine tries to swing her sword but being previously right handed, makes using her only hand, the left hand a disaster.
Her slashes and swings are uneven and unbalanced, out of control. One point the sword almost falls out of her hands trying to cut off one of their heads.
“Adaine!” Riz yells from above.
Adaine lets out a breath of relief. Saved by her friends again, she can hear their voices overlapping each other and swings her sword with new confidence. Snow kicks up at the firing of bullets and the throwing of an axe. Gorgug’s returning axe is an artificer thing nonetheless.
Two more bursts of frost and cold, but Adaine covers herself just in time not to take the full effect.
The Sword of Sight lands straight into the chest of one of the mephitis. Another burst of ice and only two of them remain standing. Riz shoots one of their wings clean off, making it fall to the ground in a writhing mess of snow kicking up. The returning axe throws itself to the other one, cutting its head clean off.
Adaine ignored the burst of ice pricking at her and raised her sword. The mephit has a final scream before the Sword of Sight plunges into its chest, going as far as into the icy ground itself. A small explosion of cold makes Adaine wince, but either way, a smile comes to her face.
Looking up, Gorgug and Riz give her wide smiles. The axe returns to Gorgug easily as Adaine pulls the sword out of the ground. Or she tries to. Her hand jerks away from the handle, almost stumbling backwards onto the ground trying to pull. The sword, stuck in the ice from how deep she plunged into. Adaine groans. Boggy gave her a reassuring croak when she stepped up to the golden weapon again.
She tries again, using only one hand proves to be harder than she originally thought. Adaine lets out an exasperated groan with no progress.
“You good there, Adaine?” Riz yells into the trench.
“Yeah! I’m just- ugh, getting my sword out of the ground,” Adaine sighs.
“Be careful! The grounds still-”
Gorgug is interrupted by the loud, ear-piercing crack. Starting straight from the point of her sword, it stretches possibly farther than the trench, maybe deeper into the ground. Adaine freezes; the shouts of her friends stop. Slowly and calculatingly, she steps back from her sword, and the cracks still appear.
Small ones originating from the first one. Thin and barely visible but still forming. Adaine stops in her tracks when the small ones reach her feet, right below her. She opens her mouth to say something- a warning, a comment, a plea under her breath for the situation not to get even worse.
The sickening crack below her feet is a fuck you to her by the world. Tremors start beneath Adaine, even shaking Riz and Gorgug above. She could hear the shouting coming from the others, possibly interrupting their sleep. The tremor causes the split in the ground to widen. Her sword is going to fall, and Adaine rushes forward just in time to catch the Sword of Sight by the handle.
The crevice deepens, much farther than the initial drop of the trench. There’s no light reaching the new gap, and she’s sure there's an even rougher fall. Adaine scrambles backward, but the side of the fissure she is on starts to tilt.
Another rupture makes her jump, and the ice beneath her tilts in such a way that it faces into the deeper part of the trench revealed. Adaine tried to run to the walls of the trench, to grab or to cling onto something, maybe stab the Sword of Sight into the walls for a hold.
It’s too late for her either way.
A fracture in the ground causes the ground to slope at a forty-degree angle. Too uneven for Adaine to make a run, slipping downwards, her sword plunges into the ice as she holds onto the handle for dear life. Boggy clings onto her, the bonfire, her original supplies fall into the deep and darker trench.
She can hear everyone's voices. Screaming her name, begging for her to hold on, that they’ll find something. She can’t; their desperate pleas pushing her to live can’t stop the ice her sword is stabbed in from cracking.
Adaine begs the world, begs Ruvina, the goddess of Winter, to spare her. She’s in her part of the world, the Mountains of Chaos, after all. She begs Cassandra in her moment of doubt, begs to Ankarna that killing her now would mean ruining an innocent life, an injustice (she was never innocent, killing Angwyn with a triumphant smile, Doreen with tears, and so many others).
The world answers her.
In the form of rupturing the ice she was clinging for life to. The sword breaks free from her grasp, she’s plunged into darkness before she can relish in the final light of the stars gleaming above her.
It’s a short fall down, wind blowing past her hair covered in snow and dried bits of blood. The Sword of Sight is once more lost. Boggy clings onto her by his tongue wrapped around her one arm. Adaine doesn't finish her plea for mercy before the shatter of her bones ripple through her body.
She promptly passes out in the cold, lonely darkness of whatever cavern or trench she fell into this time. Either way, it can’t get worse after this.