by Sean Oswald
The walk down to the tunnel provided Emily the opportunity to slow down and pull Dave with her so the others would walk ahead of them. She wasn’t sure that they wouldn’t hear, but it was the best she could do. “So spill it, what's bothering you honey?”
Just like Emily could perceive Dave’s attitude, He had known to expect this but hadn’t really worked out a script in his mind since they had been busy dividing the loot. “Well … I, uh … got offered the Sword Binder class.”
She placed her hands on his arm and let out a little squeal, “That’s so great. I know how much you have wanted to get a class. So tell me all about it. What perks did you get?”
Emily knew that it might be old fashioned but she genuinely was excited for Dave. In her mind her husband’s achievements were a direct reflection on her and she wanted him to be successful in everything that he did. It wasn’t that she didn’t have her own dreams, of course she did, from family to charity work to professional goals. Besides, Dave always supported her in all of those things, so old fashioned or not, it was who she was. Yet, the glum look on his face told her there was more to the story.
“I didn’t accept it yet.”
“What, why not?”
“I’m not sure it’s who I want to be. The last requirement was that I dual wield swords in battle. If I go down this path, that is all I will ever be, a sword wielding soldier.” Emily could hear the angst in his voice as he spoke but wisely just listened, waiting for him to open up to her more.
“I want to be more than that. I mean back home, I did my duty in the corps, and you know I’m not against fighting when it is justified. But, dammit, I want to be more than just a soldier.” The very fact that he was using profanity spoke to how emotional Dave was. It wasn’t that profanity shocked her sensibilities. More so just that Dave usually kept himself so under control and valued precision in his words.
“Now, I find myself in Eloria, a world with magic that I could only dream of before. I know I used to frustrate you when I sank so much time into my games. It was just always that no matter how important being a father or my work could be, there was never the sense that what I was doing was really changing the world. I’m sure it sounds silly to you, but I wanted to be slaying dragons not winning motions in court.”
Emily leaned in as they were walking and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek. “I have never considered you to be a silly man. I trust you. You should do what will make you happy.”
“But do I deserve your trust if I throw away a potentially powerful rare class on the wild hope that I will find a way to earn something better? Especially, when the power of that class could help keep you, our children, and now all the people dependent upon us safer.”
“It is the man that you are who keeps us safe. He is the one who is going to forge a better world for our children. That is just who you are as natural as breathing.”
Dave smiled at her, but it didn’t hit his eyes. She knew that she was saying the things that he wanted to hear, but maybe she needed to say what he needed to hear. “There is one thing that you never were able to learn in the time we spent in couple’s therapy.”
The groan he didn’t make upon hearing those words was visible in his body all the same, but she couldn’t stop. Emily knew she needed to drive this point home. “You could never really understand what it was that so often made me unhappy. I’m not going to remind you about all the things in my life that I love, even here. Nor am I trying to say that I was ever unhappy with our life, but there was a certain depth that was missing. You know this, we spent hours and multiple sessions talking about it. First so that I could understand what it was and then in a vain attempt to help you to understand.”
“You know I would do anything for you …” Dave began but Emily but him off.
“No honey, it’s your turn to listen,” she said as she squeezed his arm. “In order for me to be happy, I have to be able to give to you as much as you give to me. It has to be a reciprocal relationship. If this is only about you doing for me, you figuring out what you think I need, then I will never have the fulfillment that I crave.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense, it sounds like you are saying that I need to be selfish to make you happy.”
“Maybe, sorta. You have to be honest with yourself and with me about what you want. You have to be willing to acknowledge that your needs are as important as mine. Yes, you have a duty to take care of us, but we also have a duty to take care of you. You steal that joy from me when you won’t let me take care of you.”
“You know I love you …”
“Shhh … I have never for one second doubted that you love me. This is about if you love yourself enough to be loved. To think just for one minute that maybe we would function better if you were actually pursuing what you love. I didn’t hate your video games because they took you away from me. I hated them because you hid them from me. You hid your true needs and took solace in a game. I would have supported you in anything you wanted to do. Anyway you wanted to find meaning, and it still would have been fine for you to play games for relaxation. Just not to give meaning to your life.”
“I’m not sure that I fully understand. I know it’s staring me in the face, but I need time.” He paused in thought before saying, “I love you and don’t deserve you. You push so hard to get through to me.”
“Darn right, but maybe I’m the lucky one too. Maybe we can only be the best us if we both realize that in this relationship each of us is the lucky one.”
Daichi’s voice then broke into their conversation, “Not to interrupt, but we are here.” Sure enough, they had talked all the way down to the cavern floor. Emily didn’t feel sure that any breakthroughs had been made, but she at least felt that Dave had listened to her. Now though it was time for putting that away and figuring out how to get out of this dungeon. It might have only been less than an hour since they left those outside, but she was missing Sara.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Having been in some tight spots in life, I can say that it’s never a good feeling when there is no escape.” — Maladin Brelsoe, Knight Interrogator for the Church of Mishpat.
“Okay, so we discussed the plan. Daichi and I are going in. Jaselm you will stay out here and be prepared to tank any incoming while Mira, you are going to be ready to blast any swarms that come through that tunnel. Just try not to hit us too.” For Dave in many ways taking tactical charge was a welcome respite to the introspection his conversation with Emily had forced upon him.
“Very funny dad,” Mira’s tone conveyed that she considered the joke to be anything but funny.
“One last thing, let me cast Minor Blessing before you go in,” Emily added and then began casting without waiting for any response. Not for the first time she noticed Daichi shudder a bit as the magic of this particular spell settled on him.
Then Dave and the monk started to move into the tunnel. It was too short for them to stand up as they walked so they had to crouch. It made for slow movement and would mean that using a sword would be impossible. Dave had a dagger in hand and was prepared to cast a binding on anything that came at them with the hope that would allow them enough time to back track.
The tunnel went on for about one hundred yards and their anxiety increased with each step. Finally, it opened up into another cavern. This one likewise extended up and there were small vents where air and light filtered in. In the center of the room there was a column of rock jutting up at least forty feet which was ribboned with veins of a dark gray ore. The cavern was at least 100 yards in diameter. There was stone in every direction, but covering the stone was a fine layer of green vegetation consisting of moss and vines which flowed up and down the sides of the cavern. Huge swaths of the vegetation seem to be moving. He assumed it must be a trick of the light, then as he stared closer, Dave realized it really was moving. There were hundreds of little bodies crawling slowly, deliberately along the vegetation. It was almost mesmerizing. The tiny bodies sparkled with f
lashes of color. Stepping into the cavern, Dave realized they were all tiny snails ranging in size anywhere from a couple of inches to a foot long. Their sparkling shells were almost translucent and reminded him of something he just couldn’t place his finger on it.
Daichi said, “The shells of those mollusks must be the same glittery substance that we found in the bones of the other cavern.”
‘Duh,’ Dave thought berating himself for not making the connection sooner. The mystery of how the centipede survived inside the mine now made more sense. The snails were their food source. The little bits of meat transported out to the queen had undoubtedly been little bits of snails killed by the hunting centipedes and foraged for their mother. The snails themselves must live on this vegetation in the back cavern. Content that he had solved this mystery, now he turned to the monk and asked, “Do you think that metal in the central column is the mithril?”
Daichi nodded his head in the affirmative before he took a step with his usual grace towards the column. As he did so, no matter how lightly he stepped, his feet disturbed the moss which covered the stone floor. Immediately in reaction, the vegetation against the wall began to shake even more than before. Then crawling out from multiple alcoves which had been hidden behind curtains of vines were six snails. At least they were snails if that term applied to something fully the size of a brown bear.
The new large defenders moved slowly, deliberately as all snails are wont to do, but as they got closer, streams of mucus like slime shot off of the first two and nearly entangled Dave before he activated his Dodge skill. Daichi made avoiding the glutinous attacks seem almost pathetically easy. In unison, the two of them began to back up slowly, not feeling any need to rush due to the speed of their attackers. This gave them time to observe the creatures a little more closely. Each beast was your prototypical snail but with radiant shells made of swirling colors. Beyond the prismatic shells, there was another difference. Each of them had five stalks across the crown of their heads behind their eye stalks. The flexible appendages were perhaps three feet long constantly in motion, waving back and forth and at the end of each was a bulbous fleshy knot.
He cast Assess Enemy while backing up in a crouch into the tunnel.
XIALKNE SLKJJRE LKJERl
It was nothing but gibberish, like the spell couldn’t read these creatures. Dave reported the results to Daichi, and they quickly discussed if they could take them without going out to where the others were. While their physical capabilities didn’t appear very significant, the monk pointed out that often creatures with less physical power had special abilities that made up for it. The failure of his spell certainly would lend support to that idea. Dave realized of course that the monk was right, and so they should play it safe.
Once they had made it out to the rest of the party, they filled everyone in on their observations and then everyone took aim and waited for the first mollusk to stick its ugly little head out of the tunnel. Half an hour of waiting grated on their nerves and even at their slow speed one of the snails should have exited the tunnel by now.
“Maybe they never come out of the tunnel for fear of the centipedes,” Mira posited.
“That could make sense especially given the way you said the big ones were hidden behind the vegetation,” Jaselm added in concurrence.
“Hmm, so what now, Dave?” Emily asked as all eyes turned towards him. Funny how often being the leader was no fun at all. What were they supposed to do? They could all go back in, but if they did and things went sideways then they’d be trapped fighting on enemy turf. With no obvious solution that Dave liked presenting itself to him, he took to pacing as per usual when he was stressed.
For probably two or three minutes, the rest of the party just kept watching him, till finally Emily cleared her throat, signaling that he needed to say something. Still, he didn’t say anything. He kept running over the options in his head.
Eventually, he said, “So the way I see it, the snails were the prey of the centipedes, at least the smaller ones were. If that is the case, then it is tempting to assume that they are weaker than the centipedes, but that isn’t necessarily true. It could just be that they were susceptible to some attack of the centipedes. That would mean either to their physical might or to their venom. Does everyone follow me so far?”
People were nodding back at him. “Don’t think you can’t add something. If you think of something that could help this decision then speak up. It is all of us who are stuck in here and all of our lives on the line if I make a bad decision about how to attack the snails.”
“I say you just let me go in there and blast them with magic. Nothing in this mine has stood up to my magic so far and if there is a bunch of vegetation then perhaps I can just burn them without us ever having to risk ourselves,” Mira declared boldly.
“That thought crossed my mind first, but then there are other questions to ask.”
“You don’t think I’m strong enough? Or what is it, girls don’t get to do dangerous things?” For all of her Intelligence, in that moment, Mira never sounded more like a headstrong teenager.
“If you stop and use those brains you are always bragging about, then you would realize that isn’t the case. Why are your senses unable to penetrate down into that tunnel? Why did my spell send back screwy information? What if they have some kind of resistance to magic?”
“Could it just be that they are warded against divination?” Jaselm asked trying to intervene between the father-daughter dispute, only to receive a cold-eyed stare from each of them. “Well errr … I don’t really know that much about magic.”
Neither of the Nelsons bothered to respond to him, and finally Mira said, “Fine. What then?”
“Well you know the scientific method right?” Dave asked happy to have avoided a further fight.
“Yes, of course, I’m not a child, and you don’t need to patronize me. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Scientific what? Oh never mind, it’s another term from your homeland right?” Daichi added and the sarcastic tone in his voice was hard to miss.
“For Jaselm and Daichi, the scientific process simply means that I state a hypothesis and then conduct tests or experiments. I then observe and measure the results of those tests and use the results to either modify the hypothesis or draw conclusions.” He waited to make sure they were understanding what he was saying. One of the oddities of Eloria was that many of the people, especially the elves, were very intellectually sophisticated, but Dave had yet to see any evidence of advancing technology. The probable reason for that, at least in his mind, was their reliance on magic as a substitute. In contrast to science, he had heard several discussions about researching or improving magical effects.
Once no questions popped up he said, “So my hypothesis is simple. I believe that the snail’s shells reflect magic.”
“That is an easy one to test,” Mira snapped, “Just let me blast one of them and then we will see.”
“Just calm down, Mira. That way of testing could also get you killed. I assume that you have a safer way to test it that you want to suggest?” Emily said as she looked from Mira to Dave.
“Of course, if someone wasn’t so impatient. We can simply gather as many of these shell fragments from the bones and then test them. That should give us some viable information.”
Mira groaned, but Emily cut her off with a hand gesture. “Okay, hun, let’s try that.”
Over the next hour they gathered together enough of the fragments to make a pile about the size of a basketball. Dave then prepared to cast a spell at it, but Mira pointed out that it would be better if someone other than he was testing the hypothesis, so with a nod she took his place and stepped up to blast the pile of shells.
“Try not to scatter them too much if you can help it.”
Mira frowned but shrugged her shoulders. Clearly, whatever she had been planning to cast had the potential to do exactly that. Whatever she cast first was invisible and had no effect other
than to irritate Mira. The same for her second spell. The third spell must have been Minor Electric Shock because they saw a flash of current from her finger to the pile. When it hit the pile, it sizzled and bounced around, and then smaller electrical arcs were sent out in multiple directions. Not content, Mira kept casting as daggers of ice flew off her fingers and hit the pile. They seemed to disintegrate just before making contact but disturb and partially spread out the pile while at the same time causing whitish blue blasts of cold to shoot out in different directions. Her next spell didn’t so much as disturb the pile which absorbed all of the magic missiles which she shot at it but for one which was sent ricocheting off against the cavern wall, fortunately in the opposite direction of where they were standing. Her final spell was Minor Webbing which conjured the normal glob of white sticky matter which then shot off towards the pile. The web expanded and covered the pile, but every part of the webbing that was touching the shells fragments seemed to first shrivel up and then little streamers of webbing were projected out randomly until all of the original web had seemingly evaporated.
Mira panted from the exertion of casting six spells back to back, but quickly regained her composure. “So, there is obviously something to that, but I don’t think that they reflect spells or at least that they are supposed to.”
They then discussed how the shell fragments had reacted and came to the conclusion that the shells absorb magic, but the jagged edges of the shell sometimes reflected out fragments of the magic energy that was absorbed. They also noted that the shells seemed more adept at absorbing magic in a raw form like a divination spell or even the magic missiles spell, but had the most trouble dealing with the conjured web which at least for a time maintained its cohesion.
