The Insider System

Chapter 238: Five Potions

Lake had been digging for a few hours and he had to say taking the time to get a bigger sword had been a great idea. With every swing a boulder would roll down the tunnel into the elevator shaft. He needed a break though so he put his new sword on his back and flew back to the 10th tier.

He had told them he would come see how they were doing and he had meant it at the time but he had had an idea while digging that made him want to go back even more. Setting Detector to look for health potions, Lake ignored the ones he owned that started to glow and looked at the streets below.

He assumed most bodies had already been checked but there was no way they got to them all already. Plus this was a giant town so there was bound to be some hidden in the buildings. Back in his world people kept medicine in their homes so he was sure it was true here as well. After gathering five from various places Lake headed towards the base.

They had guards posted around the base so Lake appeared in front of them and called out. "Hey I'm back." Lake held up the potions he had brought and said. "I found these." Seeing one of the guards run inside Lake knew they were going to get their leader and patiently waited. In times like these just because you looked like 'you' didn't mean anything. and he wasn't going to just push his way inside.

He didn't want to put any stress on the guards because he didn't want to have to defend himself if they tried to stop him. Less than a minute passed before the leader came out and Lake held up the potions he had brought again. "Come in." Nodding Lake walked forward and handed the five potions over right away.

Walking into the base Lake saw there were less people laying around than the last time he was here but there were still more than five health potions would be able to fully heal. If they spread the potions thin they would be able to get a lot more of the people moving again so they weren't laying around doing nothing.

You really only needed one arm to swing a sword and none to cast a spell so healing their legs first made a lot of sense. A lot of them probably also had pretty serious internal injuries that took priority so he was sure they would be feeding the potions to people instead of pouring it on wounds.

"I'll try to find more for the next time I come to rest." The leader didn't thank him like he was expecting and instead asked. "How's your tunnel coming?" Lake was happy to talk about this because he had put so much work into it already so he said. "Just a little over a day and I feel I'll get out. Of course I have no way of actually knowing so that might be wishful thinking."

"So do you plan to bring us enough potions for us all to go with you or are you going to leave as soon as you get out."

"Do you want to go? There's no way to know if it will be safe outside, for all I know there will be a massive army of Demon Worshipers out there waiting to invade."

"That's true but you don't have to bring us right away. If you leave and you find it is safe you could always come back and get us." Lake guessed that was true and said. "I will if I can, also I'll bring as many potions as I can before I leave so either way you all will be in a better situation."

"Oh, I never introduced myself last time, I'm Wezz." Wezz held out their hand for a handshake as they said this so Lake shook it while thinking he needed to get better at introductions. He never really asked for anyone's name because he tended to remember people based off of their faces.

"I think I told everyone earlier but I'm Lake. I'm a member of the Fighters guild who's trying to get to the surface to help in the fight that is most likely going on up there." With this no one would think he was running away to save his life when there were still so many enemies down here that he could be fighting.

He had been kind of worried about this line of questions coming up once this all ended but with him saying his plan was to help they should give him the benefit of believing he had good intentions if anyone brought this up when payday came. He was sure there would be people that tried to nitpick to keep from having to pay what he had probably earned.

They would be right to do so because he was trying to run away from the fight that was why spreading the lie this early was so important. "Ok here's a room you can use to rest if you want. If you don't plan to sleep just yet you can come with me as I make my rounds." Lake thought about it and knew he wasn't tired enough to actually sleep yet so he said. "I'll follow you for now."

...

Tiff had originally planned to talk to Dawn a little during the trip but for whatever reason that hadn't happened. It most likely had something to do with the atmosphere feeling too serious with the Temple Head being here for any small talk to take place. It made sense because if the temple head felt she needed to be here to keep them alive they were probably in some actual danger.

This made it hard for any of them to say anything at all with the chance that someone might be close enough to hear them. They had made good progress in their trip though so she was starting to think they had been too cautious and nothing was going to get in their way.

They really only had about an hour left before they would cross over into the Light Domain and they should be safe there even if the Demon Worshipers had been after them. Tiff wanted to share her thoughts with the others but the vibe was still bad so she kept it to herself and just looked at Dawn.

They had silently been casting looks at each other for the whole trip so Dawn was already ready with a bored look on her face. Tiff stifled a laugh and looked back forward just in time to stop herself from running into the Temple Head. Dawn came to a stop right next to her and asked. "Why are we stopping?"

"It's about to happen. Just stay close, none of them are strong enough to get past me." Hearing this Tiff got as far behind the Temple Head as she could and when she saw Dawn not moving behind the Temple Head she grabbed her and pulled her into cover. "Stay close so the Temple head doesn't have to work hard to keep us safe."

They had gone through all sorts of training and some of that training had to do with fighting while protecting others. It was always harder to win a fight if you had lots of people to protect so one of the best things you could do was to have them get close to each other so you didn't have to worry about your enemy launching attacks at the same time towards two different people and making you choose who to save.

Of course there was always the chance you lost everyone if you failed to block even a single attack but they didn't have to worry about that since it was the Temple Head protecting them. If she was the one protecting two people she would have probably told them to run. She wasn't very good at protecting people so they would be better off trying to get away while she held them off.

"Get ready." Almost as soon as the Temple Head said this spells came out of the surrounding fields straight towards the two of them. A giant white wall appeared in front of them to stop the spells and watching the shield not react at all even after all the spells struck it Tiff knew this shield wasn't going to budge.

Usually light magic had a problem against Unholy magic but the Temple Head's spells were high tier at the least so these small fry Demon Worshipers weren't enough to overpower a shield spell like this. After a second round of spells Tiff looked back at the Temple Head to see her holding a ball of light in her hand.

"Tiff you should close your eyes." Tiff felt Dawn's hand going over her eyes and listened to the suggestion. There was no reason not to cover your eyes when you knew what the Temple Head was about to do. Seeing the flash even with Dawn's hand over her eyes Tiff knew whoever was attacking them was about to be dead.