Chapter 20: Siphon

I didn’t have a stone with the correct shape to create a Siphon—not yet. The next day, when I left camp with the others on our watchtower report chore, I instead scoured the riverbed for any sign of a large rock I could turn into a siphon. Something preferably long and skinny, and with a few flat faces.

I didn’t exactly know what the runes did, which was probably why my Skill wasn’t ‘rune carving’ and instead just [Carving (Novice)]. But since all eight sides of the octagonal pillar had the same chain of runes up and down them, I figured I could get away without a perfect eight sides as long as I had enough room for all the runes in a single chain. It would just create a weaker siphon.

Once I found the rock I wanted, I carried it with me into the Labyrinth. There was no sense in working on a siphon outside the Labyrinth if I could bring it in and also help myself condense a Skill while I was at it. I used my usual strategy—straying close to distracted ruin-hounds, enough to feel the danger and risk them attacking me.

Not all of them were distracted, of course, but they often fought each other, even when there was no meat. And when they were fighting each other, they didn’t notice me.

It certainly wasn’t as effective as a proper battle in the Labyrinth, and I could feel the effectiveness wearing off over time as I grew more confident in the ruin-hounds’ presence. But today was different. I needed to split my new rock and shear off a few more flat surfaces on the sides—I hoped I could get five. I’d be making a lot more noise, and the chances of the ruin-hounds seeing and attacking me was high.

So, using a few other wedge-shaped rocks I’d gathered, I began shearing off the lumpy, rounded surface of one of my rock’s sides, splitting it along a vein of some kind of crystal. It was probably salt or quartz or something, something not very valuable. After all, it had just been laying on the banks of the Thelea River.

But as soon as I drove the wedge down, creating a crack-boom that echoed through the halls of the Labyrinth, both the ruin-hounds turned their attention toward me.

I gulped. “Hey, guys…”

They snarled, and I had to think fast. There was no meat to distract them with, nothing to make them fight themselves over, so I jumped onto an old statue at the center of the room. Wet moss made my hands and boots slip, but I scrambled to the top, then pointed my now-blunt spear at the ruin-hounds.

They growled, and one of them scrambled on the sides of the statue, its claws clicking on the stone, but it couldn’t get to me.

The second had better luck. It circled around, backed up, then pounced, leaping toward me, jaw wide.

I jabbed it in the mouth with the blunt end of my spear, holding it back and sending it skittering across the floor.

I almost decided to bite the bullet and jump down there, to kill both of them and make my life easy, but that was a massive waste of an opportunity. I perched atop the statue’s head, balancing as best I could. The statue reminded me of a Roman emperor bust, with curly hair and a laurel circlet that I could wedge my feet into and keep myself balanced.

If I fell, I’d be food for the ruin-hounds. If I wasn’t vigilant, they’d leap up and haul me down. It was the perfect combination of risk and reward.

I began chiselling and smashing my rock, shearing off a flat surface on the side and smoothing it down as much as I could. I had no way of telling the time, but by my best estimate, it took about an hour—between smashing the stone, desperately shifting to maintain my balance, and fending off the ruin-hounds.

My calves were doing the worst. It was a cramp, like I used to get when I was just starting to learn moguls. This body wasn’t used to movements like this yet. I wasn’t sweating as much as I thought I would, but my arms ached from constantly pushing back the ruin-hounds between smashing rocks.

When I finally had something I was happy with, a pentagonal rock column about a foot long, but only a few inches across, I began carving the runes.

I’d copied the runes from Shave’s siphon onto a corner of parchment, but only in ink. In the previous days, I’d practiced carving them.

But with the enhanced danger of the ruin-hounds, and with my slowly crumbling balance, I couldn’t help making a few errors.

An hour later, my legs were trembling like I’d been doing a wall-sit the entire time, and I couldn’t stop myself from swaying. But I’d finished the runes.

Now it was time to test it.

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Clenching my gut, I launched off the statue with a leap, flinging myself as far away from the ruin-hounds as I could. I landed behind them, spear in hand, and turned back to face them. They whirled to meet me as well, and they showed no hesitation, so I responded in kind.

With a lunge, I turned my spear over and rammed its tip through a ruin-hound’s snout. The beast wasn’t dead, but it did fall backward, whining.

The second jumped toward me, latching onto my forearm. My chainmail hauberk protected me from the worst of it, but one of the ruin-hound’s snaggled teeth slipped between the links of the chain and scratched me. The pressure its jaw exerted alone would leave a bruise.

Bashing the ruin-hound on the head with one of my bracers, I struck it until its jaw released, then stabbed it in the eye with my stolen orc spear.