(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 4)

[DracoOmega]

>Sit in the water and let our hand soak. Whether or not it may eventually numb, it's got to help.
>Try to ride things out without screaming too much. She's not going to get the pleasure of hearing it.

>You let your hand sit in the water and soak. You really don't know if this is helping at all, but you're not at all eager to test whether it would be worse without it.
>You keep taking focused breaths and try to wait for the pain to pass. You dimly feel your fingers contort and spasm in the water, though it is hard to perceive anything about your hand beyond how much it hurts; were it not attached to your arm, you probably wouldn't even realize it was in the river. It feels like someone is driving needles through your nerves. You take some grim satisfaction in keeping your silence though this, though it is an act of sheer will. After all the things which have gone wrong today, you're not about to let this faze you any more than your body forces you to.
>Time passes. Perhaps not even a minute, though each second is drawn out beyond all reason, as if the world had slowed down just to let you savor the experience. Eventually the pain starts to wane. You let out a ragged breath and slump. You feel... exhausted and your fingers are clumsy and half-numb to touch. But you can move them and think about things beyond how much they hurt. At this point, you'll take it.

[Hello Purvis]

>Lay down, preferably at a place where we can keep our hand soaked and our everything else dry. Take a bit of time to rest up.

[DracoOmega]

>Lay down, preferably at a place where we can keep our hand soaked and our everything else dry. Take a bit of time to rest up.

>You find a spot where you can keep your hand in the water, while keeping at least most of the rest of you dry and lie down. You hand settles into a dull ache punctuated by occasional twinge of pain, almost like something pinched you. It is a surprisingly extreme contrast to how it was so briefly ago, though a welcome one.
>Even on this cold and hard ground, rest is a wonderful thing, although with the pain passed, you quickly become aware again of how chilled you are. You find yourself shivering.

[Hello Purvis]

>See what we can do to work our other arm free of the webbing now.
>If our pain-wracked arm feels steady enough, apply the blade to it.

[DracoOmega]

>See what we can do to work our other arm free of the webbing now.
>If our pain-wracked arm feels steady enough, apply the blade to it.

>Your right hand still feels clumsy, but you think you can manage this if you're careful. The most awkward part proves to simply be taking hold of the sword by feel, with such diminished sensation in your fingers. Using the fingers of your left hand to guide your right's, you slowly wrap your fingers around the hilt and bring the blade around. Gingerly, you line it against the webbing binding your left arm, taking care not to cut your own skin, and press. The webbing parts beneath the blade as though it were little more solid than air and your arm comes free. While it still isn't fully limber, you can move it around once more.

[Hello Purvis]

>Take some time to work our hitherto trapped arm.
>"I can only wonder what kind of silly bugger left a rustproof thing like you laying around..."
>No it's not the first sign of going crazy, shut up!
>Do we have any other restrictive webbings?

[DracoOmega]

>Take some time to work our hitherto trapped arm.
>"I can only wonder what kind of silly bugger left a rustproof thing like you laying around..."
>No it's not the first sign of going crazy, shut up!
>Do we have any other restrictive webbings?

>You take a moment to work your left arm. You're fairly certain most of its stiffness is due to the remaining venom in that arm and not the constriction, but this does seem to help a little, just the same.
>You ponder what a weapon like this was doing in the middle of a pile of rocks in an underground river. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately?), no one shows up to answer your question.
>The sword continues to shut up
>You still have quite a bit stuck to you in various places, including your across your face, but it's mostly not constricting your movements. The patch running up the side of your neck does restrict how far you can turn your head, a little.

[Hello Purvis]

>Cut the webbing on our neck; try to slide the blade under it and cut away rather than slicing it toward us.

[DracoOmega]

>Cut the webbing on our neck; try to slide the blade under it and cut away rather than slicing it toward us.

>You carefully maneuver the blade to the webbing at your neck and try to slide the blade beneath it and pull. The webbing splits along its path with barely any resistance at all. There's still more patches of it stuck to your skin above and below the incision, but you feel like you have your normal range of movement again.

[Hello Purvis]

>Try to cut away a bit more, so it won't run the risk of sticking anew.

[DracoOmega]

>Try to cut away a bit more, so it won't run the risk of sticking anew.

>You start shaving some more of the webbing away from your neck when you hear faint sounds of movement from somewhere off to your side, still a decent distance away.

[Hello Purvis]

>Which side, as near as we can tell direction down here?
>Pause and listen to it.
>Do we have any skill at swording things up?

[DracoOmega]

>Which side, as near as we can tell direction down here?
>Pause and listen to it.
>Do we have any skill at swording things up?

>It seems to be vaguely perpendicular to the river's flow, on the same side of it that you are, and further upstream as well as inward.
>You pause and listen. Soon enough, the sounds resolve into footsteps, moving quickly, and roughly approaching the river from a short ways upstream.
>You have practiced with them a little, though you've generally favored throwing weapons and daggers and trained foremost with these. That being said, you're sure you could be reasonably competent with this weapon, provided you weren't squaring off against another swordsman.

[Hello Purvis]

>How distant do those footsteps sound?

[DracoOmega]

>How distant do those footsteps sound?

>It hard to tell exactly. Judging from the sound, you think they're coming from a tunnel or some sort of space connected with your location, but not directly part of it. You estimate they're probably at least 100 feet away, but you're not certain how circuitous the connection is; it's possible they could be nearer or farther.

[Hello Purvis]

>Time to make for the water. Don't run, unless those footsteps start moving faster. If at all possible, try to keep our steps light and trust our ears would be better than a spider's.

[DracoOmega]

>Time to make for the water. Don't run, unless those footsteps start moving faster. If at all possible, try to keep our steps light and trust our ears would be better than a spider's.

>You creep lightly back to the river's edge, only a few short feet away. The footsteps continue to grow louder, though you note no change in their pace.

[Hello Purvis]

>Head into the water, if we can do it with a minimum of splashing, and head for the deeper parts. Earlier than would be preferable, but nothing can be done about that...
>If the oncomer's pace picks up, pick up our own.

[DracoOmega]

>Head into the water, if we can do it with a minimum of splashing, and head for the deeper parts. Earlier than would be preferable, but nothing can be done about that...
>If the oncomer's pace picks up, pick up our own.

>You step into the water as silently as you can and head downstream again.
>The oncomer's pace remains more or less the same, but they're clearly gaining on you, given how slowly you need to move to avoid splashing.

[Hello Purvis]

>Once we're in deep enough that we can properly swim, do so. Take a good breath, dive underwater, and swim underneath the surface until we need to come up for breath
>How long do we estimate it will take us to get to the web?

[DracoOmega]

>Once we're in deep enough that we can properly swim, do so. Take a good breath, dive underwater, and swim underneath the surface until we need to come up for breath
>How long do we estimate it will take us to get to the web?

>You wade a little further in and then switch to swimming as soon as it grows deep enough to do so. You take a deep breath and cover as much distance as you can beneath the water's surface. Your hearing is muted and unreliable while underwater, though you continue tracking the footstep's advance when you surface for breath. By now, you think they're close to where you were resting a few moments earlier, though you have no idea how visible your current position is from there.
>You can only estimate roughly, but you'd say it's anywhere between 15 and 40 feet away at the moment.

[Hello Purvis]

>Surface, take a very deep breath, submerging, and swim with the current as long and steadily as we can, in hopes of swimming under it. If we do not get caught, repeat this process a few times.
>Stay aware of the possibility of underwater obstacles, so they don't catch us totally by surprise.

[DracoOmega]

>Surface, take a very deep breath, submerging, and swim with the current as long and steadily as we can, in hopes of swimming under it. If we do not get caught, repeat this process a few times.
>Stay aware of the possibility of underwater obstacles, so they don't catch us totally by surprise.

>You surface and take a very deep breath, then dive again and try to cover as much distance in one go as possible. When your feel your lungs start to gasp for air again, you surface. No spider web in the face! You're probably past the web now. You take another deep breath and repeat the maneuver anyway.
>You try to be cautious about underwater obstacles, and indeed do run into a few rocks, though fortunately not in the collision sense. You feel about with your hands and the sword as you swim, keeping a slow enough pace that you have time to shift around obstructions as you encounter them.
>The second time you surface, you note that the footsteps seem to have stopped.

[Hello Purvis]

>Pause, float a bit to give our poor lungs a rest, and listen to see if we can hear anything.
>How are our arms and hands doing?

[DracoOmega]

>Pause, float a bit to give our poor lungs a rest, and listen to see if we can hear anything.
>How are our arms and hands doing?

>You pause for a moment and give your lungs a rest. The cavern sounds silent, save for the flow of water.
>Neither arm is much changed from when you were resting on land a few moments ago. Your left shoulder still doesn't move quite right, although it is progress that you can move it at all. Your lower arm is a bit stiff, but largely functional and that hand is fine. Your right hand is still partially numb to sensation and feels clumsy as a result. The pain in it is reduced to a dull ache with the occasional sharper twinge, though frankly the memory alone is more unpleasant than what's left of the venom.

[Hello Purvis]

>Some improvement is better than none. We need something else to be optimistic about...
>Continue on down the river, take a relaxed float.

[DracoOmega]

>Some improvement is better than none. We need something else to be optimistic about...
>Continue on down the river, take a relaxed float.

>Well, you did find a magical sword of some sort. Surely that's at least a little bright spot among the rest of this sorry expedition?
>You let yourself float down the river for a bit. After a few more moments, you hear faint skittering somewhere off to your left, fairly distant.

[Hello Purvis]

>That would be the else part.
>Pay attention to the skittering, but continue to float on. Stay ready to submerge.
>Do we have an estimate how deep this river is?

[DracoOmega]

>That would be the else part.
>Pay attention to the skittering, but continue to float on. Stay ready to submerge.
>Do we have an estimate how deep this river is?

>Fair enough.
>You keep an ear on the skittering, but it doesn't seem to rapidly approaching you, or giving off any other sign that it's aware of your presence. You suspect wherever it's going probably has nothing to do with you. You drift past and the sound starts to fade away.
>You made no effort to dive very far below the surface on your previous attempts, so you could barely hazard a guess beyond 'over your head'. You could always attempt to find out, if you wished.
>You hear another sound from somewhere upstream, like something faintly brushing against rock.

[Hello Purvis]

>Does it sound like the noise that preceded the footsteps before?