Everything came flooding back: the Grotto, the forest, the Marsh Zolom, the mountain, the disastrous river crossing.
Something large moved behind Ket, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I recognized Ris’kin. My avatar was alive and well, though she was focused on some task and barely spared me a glance.
With Ket sending warmth and encouragement through our bond, I managed to muster my energy, focusing it through the remains of the ark beneath me and assuming my god’s-eye form. I rose into the air.
We were crowded upon a shelf of rock in some kind of flooded cave. Though ‘cave’ was a generous word; the wet, mossy ceiling was barely high enough for my avatar to stand upright. She was crouched over my gem, which I now saw had been placed amongst the sad remains of the ark. Ris’kin was attempting to reassemble it as best she could, but she was no carpenter, and the wooden box was damaged seemingly beyond repair. It was a miracle it still functioned.
Sitting nearby was Longshank. He’d finally managed to pry the fangfin’s jaws from his peg leg, but they’d bitten deep, and there was a wide crack running up the length of the wood. The hunter had unwound the bindings that attached the leg to his stump to better assess the damage. He was squinting, as though struggling to see, and I realized the area wasn’t as bright as I’d first believed it to be, lit only by the faint light of a single illumishroom—one of the small hand-held ones carried by the scouts.
There were no other gnomes in sight.
“We got separated,” I realized. “Does that mean… we failed?”
No; the sight of numbers winking in the corner of my vision left me weak with relief. The timer was still counting. That meant Exodus hadn’t failed.
Yet.
Time remaining for Exodus: 5 hours, 9 minutes
“That can’t be right.” Fear iced through me as I stared at the timer.
“You were out for a while,” said Ket. “But there’s still time!”
“Do you think the others are all right?”
“Most were safely on the far bank when the water hit,” she replied. “Coll knows the way to the summit. And if anyone can lead the gnomes the rest of the way, it’s Gneil.”
She was right. In particular, the incident with the dire badgers—where Gneil had somehow received the warning I’d intended for Ket, and prepared the tribe to defend against an attack—gave me hope that my high cleric would rise to the task again, this time to lead them home. Coll would have made sure their path was clear, and I trusted that he and Benin would remain with the tribe and help with the ascent.
Assuming the mage was still alive.
The last I’d seen of him, the pyromancer had lost control of his magic. I hoped he’d survived; I owed him more than a few strong words about his reckless actions during the river crossing. His initial refusal to enter the water had cost the life of one of my carpenters, and though his use of the portals had allowed Gneil and the rest to finally cross safely, Benin’s loss of control was what had put us in our present situation, and may ultimately have cost us the exodus.
He was a volatile ally for sure, though I had to admit he’d grown more useful—not to mention more personable—since he’d been hanging out with Bekkit. Speaking of whom…
“He got pulled underneath the water when your Sphere was carried away,” said Ket quietly when I asked about the sprite. “I think he used Terrestrial Body to escape.”
I hope he used it to escape, the uncertainty in her tone implied. Despite her lingering animosity toward her friend-turned-betrayer, she still couldn’t bring herself to wish him dead.
A quick check of my Augmentary map confirmed Bekkit was nowhere within my Sphere, which meant either he had managed to activate Terrestrial Body before drowning, or…
“You’re probably right. I’m sure he’s fine,” I said. “And at least the tribe has the badgers. And…”
And Binky, I’d been about to say. Until I caught sight of the row of boxes at the top of my Augmentary. Every one of them was grayed out; empty.
Binky had taken up just one Creation slot, and been able to somewhat resist the pull of my Sphere thanks to his near-complete transition to a fully terrestrial being. It was possible that he’d completed that transition without me realizing, which would explain the empty Creation slots. But my pantheon—the record of species I currently had in existence, up to a maximum of five different kinds—was empty as well.
I closed the Augmentary and then opened it again, but the slots remained empty. I felt bereft. For the first time ever since the day I’d gained the Creation ability, there was no familiar spider symbol gazing reassuringly back at me.
“He was on the verge of reaching terrestrial,” Ket said, though she sounded uncertain. “He’s probably fine. I’m sure.”
Or maybe he got dragged through the water by my Sphere and drowned.
The only person I could have asked about whether terrestrial creatures still showed in the pantheon was Bekkit, and he was gone too, perhaps the same way as Binky.
I tried to focus on the positives, though they were few and far between. “At least we’ve still got Ris’kin. And Longshank,” I added as an afterthought.
The hunter had tossed the wooden leg to one side. Drawing a knife from his boot, he turned his attention upon the dead fangfin instead. From the viciousness with which he began to butcher the sharp-toothed fish, I deduced that the prognosis for the limb it had damaged was probably not good.
He stabbed his blade into the fish’s flank, but grunted when it met resistance. When he pulled his knife back out, impaled on the pointed tip was a seed. It was winged like a sycamore, making it look vaguely like a fish’s tail. Its wrinkled surface
