Moving through the portal was a terrible feeling. It was worse than using one of those hop pads in Chrenai. He doubled over, wheezing, and that worsened the pain from his abdomen where he'd been shot.

  The injured combatant was breathing a little heavily. Guinevere was faring better, though of course, Zeris was completely fine. Spatial magic practicians were acclimatized to moving through space, and everyone else had a Spatial magic affinity.

  Still sweating and trying to recover his breath, Caen looked around the new chamber. It was empty and small like the one they'd just left. Tree roots lined the walls and ceiling.

  “See anything?” Zeris asked.

  “Empty,” Caen forced out through ragged breathing. She must have shared his sentiment that using a light here was probably not for the best. The two members of the Delver team who had been attacked by ants had been the only ones there holding light sources.

  “Must be nice having enchanted goggles,” Guinevere noted.

  "We need light," the injured combatant said, holding his arm.

  "Might draw ants," Guinevere replied.

  “How will we see then?”

  “I’ll… take a look around first,” Caen said, only starting to bring his breathing under control. “Make sure there… aren't any ants nearby.”

  “Weren't you shot at?” Guinevere asked, squinting at him in the dark. “You don't sound so good. Come on. Give me your goggles. I'm not injured, and I'm probably better in a fight.”

  Zeris chuckled.

  “Well…" Caen began.

  “What? It's not an heirloom, is it?”

  “It's not enchanted,” Caen confessed. “But I have a high Gleam affinity; lets me see in the dark.”

  Guinevere raised a dubious eyebrow. “Then why do you wear the goggles? You know what? Look, it's fine if you don't want to share your artifact, man. You could just have said no.”

  “Right. Then, no.”

  Zeris moved away from the portal. She certainly couldn't see in the dark, but the passive augmentations from her high Spatial magic affinity allowed her to tell when something was in the way. “It might be best if we stay away from that portal for now. I didn't see them come through, but I'm pretty sure the ants entered our cavern using one. I think this was what Ladia was here to investigate.”

  The injured combatant scrabbled away from the root portal.

  “Alright,” Caen said. “Let me take a look outside. Tak,” he swore under his breath. “I left my breastplate back there.”

  “No, you didn't. Packed it for you.” Zeris pulled out his breastplate from her bag of holding, which was strapped to her back. It was much larger than the one she'd lent him.

  “Thank you,” he said, truly feeling grateful.

  “I literally saved your life twice, and now you thank me. Unbelievable.”

  He shook his head as he put on the breastplate. “Oh, that's right. Zeris, this is Guinevere. Guinevere, Zeris.” He turned towards the injured man. "I'm Caen. What's your name?"

  "Uh, Bwedel," he said with a strained voice, looking in the wrong direction.

  Caen walked out through one of three entrances.

  The tunnel was quiet, and he could hear nothing further down. He returned to the small chamber and checked the other two entrances, walking a short distance down the tunnel. Nothing.

  Ancestors, I hope this tunnel has been cleared.

  If it were, they could just climb out and leave undisturbed. He'd need to heal his wounds properly, though. Every single carefully placed step he took was pure agony.

  When he got back to the tunnel, Bwedel, Guinevere, and Zeris were as quiet as when he'd left. Guinevere was leaning against a wall.

  “I didn't find anything, though I can't tell if it's truly empty; I didn't look far.”

  “Not much of a scout, are you?” Guinevere said with a smile.

  "Certainly not," Caen replied.

  Zeris took out a small lamp of placid reshent. “Well, we'll just have to risk it.” She placed the lamp in front of the portal.

  Caen walked over to the stout man. "I need to take out this bullet, but, Bwedel, let me have a look at your injuries."

  "Th-thank you," the man said from where he sat in the middle of the chamber.

  There were lacerations on the man's arms and legs. He'd tightened a jacket around the worst injury on his left arm, which had also been dislocated. The jacket was almost soaked through. Caen peeked at the wound and pursed his lips. This was definitely more than he could handle.

  A little emergency care might help, but Caen was in pain from his own injuries and wouldn't be able to keep a steady hand for long enough to stitch that gash. An artery most likely hadn't been nicked, or the man would be dead already.

  "I need five minutes," Caen said to the man. "Just hold on. Need to top up my mana just enough for this."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "Well, I'll keep an eye on the entrances," Guinevere said.

  Zeris was using her spatial acuity to inspect the root portal.

  Caen sat across from the man and began isolating the Blood-healing affinity cluster of a tree whose roots were on the ceiling above them. He'd cut his time to just under five minutes and had been well on his way to bringing it further down.

  He began casting a Body-enhancement muscle-tensing spell. It usually took him several minutes to cast. While he carefully performed the spell components, he began to imitate the tree's Blood-healing thread cluster. He could see the visual elements of its soul structure up, up above. He couldn't tell how far away this was from the front zone or if it even had been cut into, but it was curious that every single awakened tree he'd connected to in this plane had an active Blood-healing affinity cluster: even the ones he'd seen when escorting the Delver team. Most of those hadn't even been cut into yet.

  The muscle tensing spell failed only once, and it took well under two minutes. His muscles grew rigid, for a moment, then relaxed. With this, he would not need to worry about trembling hands for a while. He focused the rest of his attention on Mimicking the tree's affinity.

  "Ready," he told Bwedel, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. He cast diagnostic spells to determine the severity of the injuries. The hand was fairly mangled and by far the worst injury. Numb-root was… illegal, and Caen didn't want to reveal his possession of the herbs, so he cast a few soothe spells on the man. After asking the man to brace himself, Caen set the shoulder.

  Using a spell chain and a stack of modifiers, Caen stopped the bleeding. He took off the jacket and disinfected the wound with a few newly adapted spells. The man put a hand to his mouth to suppress his groans and whimpering.

  Then Caen cast another spell chain with modifiers to slowly mend the deepest gashes. It was a terribly rushed job, but the ongoing spell chain would help boost Bwedel's passive regeneration by just a fraction. It would be enough to keep the man alive till they got out of here, and a more skilled healer could take a look at him. That had used up a not insignificant fraction of Caen's reserves.

  “That's as much as I can do for now,” he said as he splashed disinfectant on the man's lighter wounds.

  "Fuck!" the man cursed, looking at his arm with a queasy expression. “It doesn't look great. But thank you.”

  "It won't bleed out as long as you don't do anything strenuous with the arm." He began wrapping the wounds in clean gauze. “Once I've sorted myself out, I'll take another look at it. You have rations on you?"

  "N-no," the man stammered.

  Caen gave him a very small portion of his own stash.

  Caen moved a few feet away from the man as he ate. He sat directly beneath the root of the tree he was connected to and began taking off his breastplate.

  Ancestors. This bullet's killing me.

  Zeris was watching him. “Oh dear. I hope you don't need my help with that. I've touched more blood than I care for today.”

  He pulled out a dagger from his utility belt. “That’s fine. I just need you to heat this up for me.”

  As she did, he chewed on some more numb-root. And cast that muscle-tensing spell again.

  He took the now-warm dagger from Zeris and handed her a pair of specialized tweezers to heat up as well.

  He cast a Blood-healing soothe spell on himself one more time, chewed on some herbs to help slow blood from flowing out, and took out his leather belt to bite down on it. He unbuttoned his shirt all the way and cast a disinfectant spell.

  A few diagnostic spells stacked with several modifiers allowed him to avoid any major blood vessels or organs. From the age of seven till he was twelve, the only Blood-healing spells Caen had been able to cast were diagnostic ones, and he'd practiced them profusely.

  He made a deep incision in his abdomen at the site of the bullet wound. His eyes watered from the pain, but he bit down firmly into the belt. He needed to work fast.

  Zeris handed him the tweezers and moved away quickly. She was very squeamish around blood. When they were younger, their grandfather used to take them with him to a few healing houses to participate in basic emergency care exercises, and Zeris had hated going.

  Caen extracted the bullet cleanly, but then came the real work. He disinfected the wound with another modifier-assisted spell, after which he began mending his skin. Scar tissue would limit his mobility and physical growth, so he worked very carefully. The boosted affinity made his work seamless. He was done before he knew it. The area looked painfully pink and still felt sore, but it didn't hurt as badly as it had before this procedure. He cast a spell to ease sore muscles. Then he cast it again, followed by the soothe spell. He let out a shaky breath.

  Guinevere whistled. “Damn. That was quite the show. Disturbing, sure, but still entertaining.”

  “Of course. I got shot just for your amusement,” Caen said, buttoning his shirt.

  “I can't activate the portal,” Zeris said from where she sat across from the root portal. She’d moved the light source away to avoid any tragedies. She sighed and stood up.

  “Are you a Spatial practician?” Guinevere asked.

  “Weren't you paying attention when I saved our lives?” Zeris replied.

  “I thought you just… saw it.”

  “‘Saw it. ’ We moved through stone. How did you miss that part? Yes. Yes, I'm a Spatial practician. Anyway, the portal is inactive."

  “We should search for an exit, then,” Guinevere said. “This tunnel might have been cleared already, for all we know.”

  “Actually,” Caen said. “I was thinking we should pass word on to someone. Let them know that we might be trapped down here.”

  “It would take you nearly two hours to get on Grat,” Guinevere said. “Checking for an exit would be much faster.”

  “I can project to the Deep Astral in less than ten minutes.” Caen abandoned the tree's soul structure and connected to Zeris. She'd already begun using a Dream-guarding spell.

  Guinevere looked like she was going to object, but didn't.

  Caen crossed his legs on the floor as he isolated the elements of Zeris's thread cluster. Once he'd Mimicked her affinity, he projected himself into the Deep Astral. It was so much harder than when he'd done it the first time. Zeris's rating in Dream-guarding was a 4. Vai's was, at the very least, nearly triple that number.

  Look at me with my meager 0.38 being choosy about higher affinity ratings.

  The dark purple of Astral space crept into the edges of his speculon. He fell inwards and backwards, and then he was whisked into Astral space completely. His connection to Zeris began to fray.

  Caen could still see his soul structure here, though, as he held Vai's Astral locus in his mind. He felt a strong resistance. Vai was clearly unavailable at the moment. But this was urgent. Caen pushed through the resistance and was suddenly jerked into Vai's domain, landing heavily on the floor outside the mansion. His connection to Zeris was completely gone. And even here, he could feel that his affinity had reverted completely.

  Hshnol, Vai's personal assistant, opened the large double doors quickly. He wore thick glasses and a deep red suit. Black tattoos in High Vedulan aesthetic covered his completely bald head.

  “Ar’Caen Ereshta'al. Master Vai is busy right—” he blinked at Caen. “What happened to you? Are you alright?”

  “Hshnol, we might be in trouble,” Caen said hurriedly. He briefly detailed where they were and how they'd gotten there.

  “I'll tell Master Vai immediately.”

  “I need him to send me back.”

  “No need for that,” Hshnol said.

  The next moment, Caen found himself in the Material Realm. “I've passed it on to Uncle Vai. He'll tell Uncle Teiro and everyone else.”

  “Hopefully, they can get to us soon,” Zeris said. “Because if this tunnel exits miles away from the front zone, we're fucked.”

  “Great,” Guinevere said, picking up Zeris's lamp and tossing it to her. “Let's move.”