Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 38: Alone

Alex woke up dizzy, sore, and without a clue what was going on. It was something that happened enough times that Alex was beginning to worry it was becoming a habit of sorts. He got knocked unconscious as often as he got normal sleep since the day he arrived in this world. He very much did not think the former was an acceptable substitute for the latter.

"Fucking hell," Alex groaned and rolled onto his back.

He looked around, finding that he was alone. The stone altar he had been kneeling on during Doudra's little ritual was broken into many pieces on the ground next to him. The surrounding glyphs looked burnt out and destroyed. His eyes searched the cages along the wall, and even in the low light of the torches around the cavern, he could see that they were empty.

All of them. All of his friends were now gone.

He looked at where Doudra had been standing. There was no body, but a pool of partially dried blood was left behind. It was smeared to one side, so Alex assumed the other kobolds hauled her away, the same way he assumed they had hauled away his friends.

What happened?

He tried getting up, but found his head still pounded and had to sit back down. It felt like Doudra still had a grip inside of him and was squeezing on his mind. There was no one he could ask what happened, but there was still a way he could learn a general idea.

Alex brought up his most recent system notifications and began to read. He started from his last skill progress notification and went from there.