The Gargoyles Den 2

Free falling was like a sudden release of gravity, where your not moving at all. It was a weird feeling, I don't even know why people sky dive?

I guess it's for the adrenaline? Or rush of excitement? I've had enough of those already and I'm currently fighting for my life so...

Where we would land was still a mystery. The 7 of us were still free falling and still scared of the unknown time of our probable death.

Then I saw it. It was a rippling reflection of water. WATER!

It came frighteningly fast towards us and we plunged right in.

[Health: 301/400] -99

[+1 Constitution]

Oof. You know when you rip off a bandaid really quickly? Imagine that sudden pain and then the after effect of dealing with it. Now then imagine it like your body is slamming into concrete from a 3 story building.

What do you feel? Is that pain I hear? I think so...

IT FREAKIN HURT!!!

Our bodies slammed into the dark depths of the water and we floated around until the pain subsided to a point where we could move.

Emerging from the dark water I could see that everyone was alright despite wearing a pained expression on their faces. We dragged ourselves out of the deep pool of water that stretched the entire ravine. All of us collapsed as we got out.

I still felt energised and found that I still had my essence stat with I evolved from vitality. Then I observed other people. I found out that they all had a negative number in front of their vitality, equal to how much they had ungraded it to.

I specifically looked at Yua, she had the least amount of constitution. I used 'Observe' on her and found that she has gained 2 more constitution points. I breathed a sigh of relief, hopefully would be useful.

What I mean is that we have to work together and survive. We obviously can't survive this by ourselves and we can't fight those gargoyles. So that only leaves us with an escape route or to survive.

I honestly would like to just survive, to escape is much more risky and dangerous. But my plan does have a flaw. We only have 2 rabbits so we can at least have two more meals before we're out of food.

I eventually decided that we should escape as soon as we can. There's no point delaying the inevitable and there's no possibility we would escape if we simply just survive. Escaping does have a possibility of surviving, but's that's a very little possibly.

I'm realistic not a optimistic person. I looked at Haruka, he was the most problematic person of the group so far. I can already see him accidentally setting off a trap of some kind and then us just plummeting to our doom.

I've just gotta put him on a leash. I turned to his sister, Handa Rai. What should I do to make her cling to him more?

"HARUKA!!!" Handa jumped to her brother and climbed onto his stomach winding him out. I guess I don't have to do anything.

"It's alright, it's alright, I'm here, Handa" Haruka started patting his older sisters head and heavily sighed. Miss Prim hugged her pale legs and stifled a groan. Yua was laying down and looked like the one that was hurt the most.

I summoned my inventory and reached my hand into the rippling screen. I felt my hand grab a hold of a glass bottle. Pulling my hand back, there was a potion bottle in my hands. It was filled with a red glow, I gave it to Yua.

She gratefully grasped the bottle with shaky hands. Looking at Haruka who was bothered with someone, I grabbed the bottle from her hands and opened it for her. Carefully, I put the bottle lid to her lips.

She parted her cherry lips and I slowly dripped the potion solution into her. Within 5 minutes she had finished the bottle and looked much better. I checked her health and it was back to 100.

"Thank you..." Her voice was quiet, but in the silent environment at the bottom of the ravine, I could faintly hear it. I smiled at her before releasing the tenseness of my body.

I was tense from the beginning we had fallen here.

But now that someone else was in top health, even though not the strongest person, I relaxed and let myself groan in pain.

I stared up at the far away sky. The rocky ravine was very cramped and thin. I guess this wasn't the part where they housed the gargoyles.

Where we were, there was a lot of holes and crevices in the walls. Some could fit rats, rabbits and insects and some others could fit a maximum of three people.

Was there anyone here besides us? Were they friendly? What type of people would they be?

My thoughts were interrupted my Haruka.

"Do you guys think we made a right decision?" I rose my eyebrow, what did he mean by that?

"I mean about jumping off, did we just seal our fate? Did we just kill ourselves?" The girls shuddered and the other boy trembled. I stayed unmoving, there was also a possibility that we had just killed ourselves.

"Maybe..." I was realistic, I hope Haruka knew that. I don't want him wanting me to do something completely ridiculous in the future.

"Then...do we kill ourselves?" It was the boy who said that. I simply ignored him, I already know that there was a parasite in him which is probably influencing how he acts.

"Why should we? I'd rather die valiantly and in battle"

"PFFT" Handa who was clinging to Haruka started laughing.

"What? What did I say?"

"Nothing, it's just really cringe. Just think about what you are about to say before you talk" Haruka blushed and looked away.

"And...don't talk about dying, no one is going to die" Her voice turned sad and everyone listened carefully at her words. The girls were going to breakdown if this mood keeps up.

"What someone dies? What then?" The boy had talked again. What a killjoy, your not helping here buddy.

"So what? You think one life means that the whole group dies? Your ridiculous. I know your not thinking right. It's obvious. You can stop pretending" The boy halted and stared up at my eyes. I had gotten up from laying down and was currently intimidatingly standing over him.

"What are you talking about?" I chuckle. I guess monsters don't know that we have these systems. Or anyone in fact.

"The fact that your not from our class"

"Class!? You mean your from a school!?" I guess these schools or what ever are, really powerful.

"Yes, you didn't know?" The parasite started stuttering and shaking. His plan had failed.

His eyes went blood shot.

[Parasitic Mind Crawler is in a 'Frenzy']

He quickly lunged at me and I quickly defended with a slash from my sword.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING QUINN!?" I turned around at the girls and Haruka, then back to the injured boy.

"He's a parasite, it's taken control of the his body. We need to kill him before he kills us" I could guess they weren't believing a word I was saying.

"Use 'Observe' on him!" I could hear grasps and then grumbles from behind me as I looked at the frenzied parasite.

The frenzied parasite started scratching at himself and tearing skin off. His face was mangled and an eye had popped out. I could see his moving organs in his broken ribcage. An expanding pool of blood was pouring out of him, yet he stood in front of me.

He lunged at me and I activated 'Bloody Sword' and swung back at his hands.

[Mana: 185/300] -115

[Health: 286/410] -15

"Quinn, it says that my observe isn't high levelled enough" The parasite kept lunging and clawing at me as I just blocked his attacks. He was pushing me back and I couldn't be bothered answering Haruka's question.

I was only holding back on the parasite and not killing him because it looked like a human. But now that his face, chest and hand no longer looked like a humans I swung with the intention of be heading him.

I guess I got a better result as I just split the head in two.

[Level Up!!!]

The gruesome scene was visible to the girls and the all cuddled up to Haruka in fear. I would too, looking at me I was covered with the kid's organs and blood.

I upgraded strength 5 times making my total strength 20. My stats looked like this.

==========

Name: Quinn EbonBlade

Level 4 : (31/800)

Title: Adjudicator from Earth

Bloodline: EbonBlade's Absorbing Blood (Influence: 13.0273/100)

Health: (286/410)

Mana: (185/300)

STR: 19 (+1)

AGL: 13 (+1)

CON: 14 (+1)

ESS: 25 (+1)

INT: 14 (+1)

Bloodline Skills: Mana-Absorbing Blood lvl 1

Skills: Observe lvl 2, Bloody Sword lvl 2

==========

Even though I felt accomplished. I felt horrible like I had betrayed someone. I leaned on a crevice at the side of the wall and vomited.

*Step* *Step* *Step*

The stone ravine echoed three pairs of feet. They came from one of the holes in the wall. Hmm?

Dwarves?