Chapter 75: The Collapsed Tunnel
POV: Geralt
Two weeks transformed Adam from talented amateur to something approaching mastery.
Geralt observed from the training chamber's edge, watching the boy manipulate stone with fluid precision that defied his brief experience. Pillars rose and fell. Walls formed and dissolved. The earth responded to intent now, not just effort—a distinction that separated competent earthbenders from dangerous ones.
Too fast. Growing too fast.
The concern wasn't jealousy. Geralt had long since accepted that Adam's abilities operated by rules he didn't understand. But velocity of development meant either shortcuts with hidden costs or something feeding that growth from outside.
Neither option comforted him.
"You're brooding." Lambert dropped onto the adjacent bench, flask in hand. "That's my job."
"Someone has to do it while you're drinking."
"Multi-tasking." Lambert took a pull, grimaced appreciatively. "Dwarven rotgut. Burns like drowner acid, kicks like a wyvern." He offered the flask. "The kid's getting scary strong."
"Noticed."
"You worried?"
Geralt considered the question. Adam finished his practice set, bent to catch his breath, then immediately began another sequence. No rest. No celebration. Just constant, driven improvement.
"He's got good instincts," Geralt finally said. "Knows when to push and when to hold back. Doesn't let power go to his head."
"That's not a no."
"No, it's not." He watched Adam raise a stone wall, dissolve it, raise it again with slight modifications. Testing. Refining. "Power changes people, Lambert. Even good people. Especially good people, sometimes. They start thinking they can fix everything if they're just strong enough."
"And then?"
"Then they learn they can't. Usually the hard way."
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The earthquake hit without warning.
One moment I was practicing fine manipulation—carving detailed patterns into stone surfaces. The next, the entire mountain shifted. Tremor sense exploded with conflicting signals: stress fractures propagating through multiple tunnels, support structures failing in cascade, and somewhere deep below, the sickening sensation of massive collapse.
[ ALERT: Seismic Event Detected ]
[ Multiple Life Signs in Danger Zone ]
I was running before the alert finished forming. Geralt and Lambert fell in behind me, witcher reflexes engaging without need for explanation.
"Where?" Geralt demanded.
"Deep shaft. Section twelve." Tremor sense painted a picture in my mind: twelve heartbeats clustered in a pocket surrounded by tons of debris. "They have maybe an hour of air."
"You barely survived the last rescue."
"Then I'll barely survive this one too."
Yarpen met us at the shaft entrance. His face told the story before words could—this was bad. Worse than bad.
"Main support collapsed. Took half the connecting tunnels with it." He pointed to the dust-choked opening. "My people are down there, Stone-Sense. All our senior miners. Forty years of experience trapped behind a mountain's worth of rock."
"I can reach them."
"You'll kill yourself trying."
"Maybe." I pressed my palm to the debris field, mapping the collapse. Two hundred feet of destruction, multiple fault lines, secondary collapses waiting to happen. This wasn't like the last rescue—three people in a stable pocket. This was twelve miners in a compromised chamber with unstable rubble on all sides.
"You can do this. You have to do this."
"I need a path." The words came out steady despite my racing heart. "Get me rope, lights, and anyone who can carry injured. I'm going down."
POV: Lambert
The descent took two hours.
Lambert watched from the surface as Adam carved through solid rock with determination that bordered on mania. Every fifteen minutes, a messenger would climb back up with status reports: progress steady, stability holding, heartbeats still detectable.
The witcher found himself pacing despite his usual contempt for nervous habits.
"You actually care about the kid." Ciri appeared beside him—she'd been maintaining cover until the emergency rendered such concerns irrelevant. "Don't deny it. I've seen how you watch him."
"I don't care about anyone." The automatic response felt hollow even to his own ears. "He's useful. Useful people are worth keeping alive."
"Keep telling yourself that."
Lambert didn't answer. Couldn't answer, really, because the girl was right. Somewhere in the past months of shared danger and sarcastic exchanges, Adam had become... what? A friend? A brother-in-arms? Something equally uncomfortable to acknowledge?
"Damn kids. Damn witcher life that makes us pretend we don't feel."
A runner emerged from the tunnel mouth. "He's through! Found the pocket!"
Lambert was moving before the words finished echoing.
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
Twelve miners stared at me like I was a ghost made flesh.
The chamber was larger than expected—an old excavation that had become their refuge when collapse sealed the exits. Air quality had degraded but remained breathable. Minor injuries scattered among the group, but everyone was alive.
"By the fucking Forge." Korgan—the same dwarf I'd rescued two weeks ago—rose from where he'd been organizing rationed water. "You actually came."
"Told you I would." My legs trembled. MP reserves hovered at fifteen percent, barely enough to maintain the tunnel I'd carved. "Can everyone walk?"
"Most of us. Borik's got a broken leg, Terna's unconscious from head wound."
"Then we carry them." I turned to assess my escape route. Stable. Barely. But stable enough if we moved quickly. "Single file. Stay exactly in the center. Touch the walls and you might trigger secondary collapse."
The evacuation proceeded with agonizing slowness. Twelve miners plus two stretchers through a tunnel barely wide enough for single passage. Every step required concentration to maintain structural integrity. Every minute drained reserves I couldn't spare.
[ MP: 108/720 → 72/720 ]
Fifty feet from surface. I could hear voices above now, feel the vibrations of waiting rescue teams.
[ MP: 72/720 → 43/720 ]
Twenty feet. Sunlight—or the dwarven equivalent, magma-glow reflected through crystal—filtered down. Almost there. Almost—
[ WARNING: MP Critical ]
[ MP: 43/720 → 15/720 ]
The tunnel groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed across ceiling stones I'd been holding through sheer will.
"RUN!" I screamed.
Dwarves surged upward. Strong hands grabbed stretchers, hauled injured toward safety. Lambert appeared at the tunnel mouth, reaching down, grabbing the last miner's arm and pulling with witcher strength.
I released the earthbending.
Stone fell.
Something hit my shoulder—glancing blow that nonetheless sent me sprawling. Darkness swallowed everything for one eternal instant.
Then Geralt's hands were under my arms, dragging me the final ten feet as the tunnel I'd carved collapsed completely behind us.
[ QUEST COMPLETE: Major Rescue Operation ]
[ XP Gained: 500 ]
[ LEVEL UP! 32 → 33 ]
[ Twelve Lives Saved ]
[ Reputation: Dwarven Community - MAXIMUM ]
"Don't," I managed, "don't ever let me do that again."
"You'd do it tomorrow if someone needed you." Geralt's voice was gruff, but his hands were gentle as he checked me for injuries. "That's either your greatest strength or your fatal flaw."
"Why can't it be both?"
He almost smiled. Almost.
—Scene Break—
The feast lasted until dawn.
Dwarves celebrated survival with the same intensity they applied to mining—thoroughly, loudly, and with staggering quantities of alcohol. I sat at the honor position, still trembling from magical exhaustion, accepting toast after toast until Ciri physically removed the mug from my hands.
"You need rest, not rotgut."
"But they keep giving me—"
"Geralt." She didn't even have to finish the sentence.
The witcher materialized, lifted me bodily from the bench, and carried me toward guest quarters while protesting dwarves shouted good-natured objections.
"I can walk," I muttered.
"You can barely breathe." But his grip was careful, almost brotherly. "Sleep. Tomorrow, Thorek wants to teach you something. Said it's reward for saving his apprentice."
"What kind of reward?"
"Something about metal's song." Geralt deposited me on my bed with surprising gentleness. "Rest now. Tomorrow, you learn."
Sleep claimed me before I could ask what he meant.
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
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