Slow waters run deep

The terrain inside the barrier was markedly different from the last time John had created one. Before, his home and the area around it had been recreated perfectly; here, everything looked run down and deserted as if humans had abandoned the town. Or if not abandoned, allowed to fall into decay, John concluded, looking up at where the bridge had been reinforced and barricaded with twisted plates of rusty metal.

“Not that different to the junkyard,” Matilda mused as she bent to inspect the yellowing grass and thin weeds that had replaced the carefully landscaped green along the river walk. “Okay, Rebecca, you’re the monster-fighting expert. What do we need to watch out for in here?”

The novice frowned, having gotten over her concerns about the skill-up chime. Inspecting the metalwork and the degraded state of both greenery and the path, she shrugged. “Could be almost anything. The environment can give you hints when you enter a new Barrier for the first time, but not always. Protocol says we take the high ground if possible and move from there.” Her voice was far more unsure and nervous than it had been in the junkyard Barrier, uncertainty creeping in as they turned to scramble up the embankment.

Reaching the top, the group paused and looked back the way they had come. Now they had the height, the extent of the barrier was easier to see; rather than being a perfect circle as John had expected, it was elongated. Due to the elliptical shape, barely any of the buildings on either side of the river were fully enclosed with them despite the Barrier running quite some way along the banks in either direction.

Also running in both directions were more barricades, similar to the ones on the bridge. Rebecca and John both frowned when they saw them. “That’s… odd,” John began, gesturing to the crude wood and metal constructions. “Why are they all facing towards the river?”

Rebecca shrugged. “Not everything in a Barrier needs to make sense. Even so… let’s walk a little way along the road just to be on the safe side. If there is any reason for them, we’ll be in the right place to make use of the shelter.”

The party picked their way delicately along the cracked and twisted asphalt. It seemed the universe had decided to answer John’s repeated wish for more stable footing for a fight by giving him a surface that was indeed stable, but broken at such angles that every footfall had to be carefully chosen to avoid the risk of a twisted ankle. Of the three, oddly Rebecca seemed to be having the worst of it; John’s Agility was high enough that he could manage the micro-adjustments needed to keep his balance, Matilda was long practiced at walking over roots and rocks from her hobby of foraging, so it was only the novice that struggled.

They’d just paused to let the blue-eyed woman catch her breath when the first signs of an enemy arose. As Rebecca leaned against one of the barricades, grimacing and drinking a bottle of water she’d taken from her bag, John’s eyes drifted down to the water and froze. In the swirling murk close to the bank, two sets of unblinking black eyes stared back at him. Quietly, trying not to draw any attention to himself he nudged the two women and gestured with the base of his walking stick in the direction of whatever was lurking below. Once he was sure the others had spotted the creatures, John risked an Observe. There was a chance the scrying magic would alert the things that they’d been seen, but he thought it worth the risk.

John grimaced. “Looks like an ambush hunter, though the fact there’s two might make them more likely to try and jump us if we get close. Thoughts?” he said softly, wanting to take advantage of Rebecca’s hopefully greater knowledge of the threats of the Abyss.

The novice’s response didn’t put him at ease. “I’ve never heard of any kind of river monsters around here, and I’ve not been trained on water-based enemies yet. Umm… if they are ambushers, we should be able to at least walk to the other end of the Barrier to get out, right? Given those things are an unknown foe, that might be the best option.”

Taking into account the fact that only Matilda was higher level than the two shadowy creatures in the water below, John had to agree. Besides, given he could now control the level range when he created a Barrier, exiting now and moving back in on another day sounded like the most sensible way to deal with the situation.

Picking their way back along the road took some time, but eventually they’d made it back to the bridge. With a sigh of relief, John took Matilda’s hand, nodded to Rebecca, and tried to leave the Barrier. The novice jumped as an error tone echoed in their ears, an unwelcome red box appearing in John’s vision. They were still too close to an enemy to leave.

With a sinking feeling, the trio continued further along in the same direction they’d been travelling, moving until they were pressed up against the edge of the Barrier and as far from the water as they could get. With a deep breath, John tried once more to get them out… and once more, the error sound and a failure to leave. “We’re stuck,” he muttered, eyes locked onto the dark water. “Unless those two followed us… there’s something else, or some more of them in there.”

Once they realized they weren’t going to be able to leave, the group moved so that they had as many barricades as possible between them and the river before holding a council of war. John shared what he’d been able to glean from Observe in more detail, after a moment faking out a prayer. While he trusted Rebecca, he wasn’t entirely sure that letting the Order know all his skills would be a good idea. Having gained ‘divine guidance’ that the monsters were definitely ambush hunters, the face of the novice grew grim.

“If it is as you say, we’ve got two potential options,” she said, sketching quickly in the back of one of her Ashcroft notebooks. “Option one - there are a lot more of them than we’ve seen, and that’s why we can’t leave. If that’s the case, if they get to a critical mass in any one spot on the river, the odds of them coming out and rushing us go way up. Monsters don’t lie in wait forever if they think they can get an easy meal.”

Pausing, Rebecca glanced down at the water and shivered before she continued, “Option two - there’s more than one type of monster in here with us. Not impossible in a Barrier this size from what I’ve read.” Grimacing, she glanced between John and Matilda before dropping her gaze back to the notebook. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

John blinked. “Your fault? What do you mean, your fault?”

The novice looked up again, and he realised she was far less composed than he’d thought. “I shouldn’t have agreed to us going into an artificial Barrier. My mentor is always stressing how dangerous it can be to explore an unknown space, but you both handled the junkyard well and I’ve wanted to try Barrier diving for ages and the Warden told me to offer you what support I could, and now we’re trapped here and it’s all my fault!”

Matilda moved before John, the brunette leaning forward and pulling the younger woman into a hug. “It’s not all your fault. John and I wanted to train more, I’m the one who suggested he train by fighting monsters, and we all agreed to diving in here. Let’s just focus on getting back alive, okay?” His girlfriend’s voice seemed steady, but John could pick out the slight pitch change that suggested the druid-chef was trying to reassure herself as much as their teammate.

Truth be told, John himself felt like he could do with some reassurance right now, but given the circumstances he guessed he needed to take the lead. Idly wondering if that was his high Wisdom kicking in to let him focus on what needed to be done rather than surrender to his rising panic, he carefully took the pen and notebook from Rebecca. “Alright. So, two options, that just means we need two plans. We’ve not been rushed yet, it’s not getting dark any time soon… let’s figure this out.”