Origins
Page 10
The last part of the journey was up steep rocky hills, with many grey dark outcrops of rock sticking out of the side of the hill as if they had been exposed by erosion of the topsoil. The team of adventures had to slowly clamber through the rough terrain, all the time looking for any monster in the area with weapons dawn. Holding the weapons in hand made it more difficult to travel quickly, and several time one of the adventures will fall and stumble, requiring help from Symania to heal them.
Finally, it was early afternoon before they arrived before the entrance to the mine, all tired and exhausted from traveling up the uneven terrain. As Ceras was catching his breath, he looked around the entrance to the mine, littering the ground was equipment for a mine: carts, block and tacks, pick-axes, and other equipment; all damaged as if something had gone on a rampage of smashing items like a mad whirlwind.
Any of the building that the miners had used had been torn down and the debris was now scattered across the rocky landscape. At this elevation, Ceras felt the wind chill factor, as the wind whipped through his clothes and was ready to get into the cover of the mine tunnel. The tunnel itself looks to be structurally sound as the supports that were holding up were magically enhance to prevent decay or slight damage.
As everybody was standing around trying to hide from the cutting wind, that was starting to freeze them to the bone, in the entrance to the mine Ceras, "How about this as a tactic, Rinaldo and me first clearing the monster with the rest of you giving support following use."
Everybody nodded in acknowledgment of the general plana and Rhef said, "I'll do the mapping, of the mine as we go through it, as I've developed a skill for it."
Starting forward, Symania created a white light that hovered just above their head as they entered the rocky mine. On the floor were tracked for mine carts and wooden supports on the side. Ceras felt the sand underneath his feet as he avoided the stone rocks on the floor. Just past the entrance as the front two were a few feet ahead of the other, they ran into thick cobwebs blocking the entrances. The strands of the cobwebs were not the usual thickness one would expect of the spired web, but about as thick as a string. The network of white string like material covered the whole tunnel from top to bottom with finer strands in between. Ceras reached forward and touched the cobwebs blocking his path, and felt his hand stick to it. As he pulled away from the web, vibrated causing all the webbing insight to move slightly as if some signal was being sent by the interconnecting cords.
Ceras stopped the group and said with a low voice, "Let me try something with fire magic."
Lifting his staff and pushing it through the web until it was fully in the martial with only his hands just out of the web, he released a fire spell. This lit up the surrounding white web with a yellow flame that traveled along the strands, as if they had been soaked in oil, burning all the webbing for about ten meters. Clearing the tunnel of the web and only left behind some ash on the floor.
Ceras turned his head back to the rest of the group and with a smile said, "Well, at least we'll have a clear path to explore now."
This process of clearing the mine tunnel of, white strand, continued for about one hundred meters into the mine, as the tunnel gently sloped downwards with no sign of any monster activity. As the tunnel opened into a large cave, Ceras and Rinaldo could see movement in the corner of the dark cave.
Rinaldo said to the healer at the back of the group, "Could you please send some light into the large cave to let us see what is waiting for us."
A large white floating light ball lit up the whole cave as if it was noonday, revealing white webs with spiders clinging to it all around the cave. The spiders were ranged from the size of dinner plates to about half a meter.
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Cave fanged spiders
5
3
20 to 40
-
Poison fangs
Rinaldo gasped as he saw the body of black spiders, with a red stripe running down their backs and large fangs with multiple eyes on their head. All of the spiders started to move at once, toward the entrance of the cave, as they crawled across the walls and ceilings, navigating the web with their many legs. Ceras quickly pushed his staff into the web at the entrance to the tunnel and sent several fires spells one after another through his staff. This sent a hemispherical flame front deep into the cave from the tunnel entrance as the web was burning with bright yellow fame the small spider burnt with the inferno withering and falling to the ground.
The burning bodies gave of oily black smoke that reached the ceiling and blackened it as if it was oil. The larger spider fell to the ground, amongst the ash and black oily melted burning bodies of the other spider. Part of their bodies was burning, but they were still moving toward the entrance of the cave with menaces. As the wave of spiders reached the entrance, Rinaldo and Ceras started to swing their weapons.
With a swift movement of Ceras staff, he is pushing it out into the many eyes of a spider. This caused the end of the staff to entered its head, ripping apart its head, that sprayed back blood over the rest of the staff. Ceras shock the staff as he throwing the spider across the room, where it bounced against the wall. Beside him Rinaldo hit the first crawling spider in range of his swinging mace, managing to smash it in the head, catapulting the spider to the side. The next spider in his reach he hit in the same manner, but this time he smashed the head into the ground. The spider behind did not stop but just climbed over their fallen comrade, to be met by another swing of the mace.
Beside Rinaldo, Ceras was hitting everything he could with his staff, catapulting spider parts in all direction with their back blood spraying the white spider webbing. Ceras glanced at Rinaldo, seeing that his stamina was low, as he had been hitting cautiously, for a few minutes, and shouted, “Change with Grikius and recharge your stamina by resting.”
As the two switched over, several arrows covered the two boys, killing the spider about to attack them. Once Grikius was in place, he started to swing, like Rinaldo, smashing every head and bodies of spiders within reach.
As the battle continued, Rinaldo and Grikius took turns standing next to Ceras who seemed to have endless stamina, which allowed him to keep hitting with his staff. The two defenders blocking the tunnel kept the spiders at bay as the narrowness of the tunnel preventing the spider from attacking from all sides. The waves of spiders kept coming for what seemed forever until from an entrance opposite a large spider appeared that was about the size of a man. With large fangs that dripped with poison as it opened its black mouth in a challenge to the adventures.
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Queen Cave fanged spiders
7
3
100
-
Poison fangs
The queen spider rushed forward pushing the smaller spiders out of the way, and even crushing one under its large body as it lowered to the ground and pounced at Ceras.
Ceras flicked up to his staff into the air to meet the queen spider and used the immobilization spell to lock it in place. The spider was frozen in midair as everybody rushed into the cave and finished off the rest of the smaller spider with daggers and a sword, while Ceras hit the queen. Using a flame spell, he was able to send waves yellow and black flames across her hairy black body, that was oozing oil setting the surrounding area on fire as the flaming oil drip on the floor. When the other had finished off the other smaller spider, they all join Ceras in hitting the queen spider until she died with some many hits.
The only sounds that Ceras could hear, in the cave, were the heavy breathing of the adventures and the cracking of the spider bodies that were burning with an oily black smoke that was gathering at the top of the cave.
Everybody looked around at the scene around them, and Rhef said
in a quiet voice, "Did I ever tell you that I'm not a big fan of spider, and after this, I think that I'll have some nightmare about what just happen."
Grikius nodded in acceptance of what she had just said but said in an even voice, "My guess is that the fangs and poison sacks will be worth something. Let's take the eyes as well as eyes are normally used in some potion."
Grikius pulled out his dagger and started to cut the closes spider to him, with a few incisions he had managed to extract the fangs and the gland with the poison. Symania looked away as Grikius cut out the multiple eyes and place them on the ground. Everybody except Symania quickly started to dissect the spider producing several large oil piles of spider parts. By the time they had finish, Ceras had estimated that they had to kill well over two hundred spiders.
Last of all the queen was cut apart by excited Grikius, with Rinaldo sword, with joyful glee he found a large sack of eggs in the spider's belly that has little spider moving inside the transparent spherical eggs. Looking at them, he said to the shocked team, "This should be worth a lot of money as a live monster are away in high demand."
Ceras bag of holding came in to use now as they were able to sore all the items from the spider's grim harvest. In his mind appear a list of what was in the bag.
Bag of holding
Item
Number
Spiders fangs
324
Spiders poison sacks
664
Cave fanged spiders' eggs
200
Once out of the large cave that was home to the spiders the mining tunnel started to switch back and forth as it descended to the next level, everybody was relieved as the spider web ended leaving a clear path to the rest of the mine.
The team had to navigate several smaller tunnels that had fallen rock blocking some of the pathways until they found themselves standing at the entrance to a large cavern. Ceras looked into the cavern, only seeing blackness beyond a ten-meter hemispherical-volume of light that Symania magical light provided.
Looking back at Symania, Ceras said, "Could you create another light and send it up into the cavern's roof to see what is there."
A meter above Symania head a light ball form, as she nodded her head in acknowledgment, the ball them shot out of the existing hemispherical-volume of light and them started to dim as if it was surrounded by dust and blackness.
It then disappeared completely as Symania said, in a quiet voice that still carried in the stillness of the cavern, "I lose control of the ball of light as soon as it went out of the existing light. I don't know what is causing this?"
"Let me try something?" said Rhef picked up a rock from the cavern floor.
Rhef threw the stone, as hard as she could, as it passed out of the edge of the light, strangely the light and darkness swiveled around, in intermix strands of shadow and light, as if it was interfacing with the darkness that had substance rather than just being the absences of light. The whole team watches with wonder, as Rhef threw several more stones, each producing the same effect on the area of darkness surrounding the team.
Ceras said as he voices had a tone of curiosity at this unknown effect, "Does anybody have any clue about what we're seeing?"
In the silence of the cavern, all the adventures answered no, and Apollo head appears from Grikius clothing and whimpered slightly.
"Let move forward as a group staying in the light, and keep an eye out for anything," Ceras said.
As the adventures stepped, into the cave with great trepidation into the dark cavern, that they could still only see about five-meter around them, as they moved forward. Ceras decided to follow the sides of the wall getting the frightened team to follow him, thinking that at least they would have protection from the back, from whatever attack monster was lurking in the darkness.
After a few minutes of very slow travel, around the side of the cavern, undulations in the wall of darkness started to form. At first, they were small wave as if on the surface of a pond, which Ceras watched and wondering what was going on, then penetrations into the light by the darkness started to take shape. The shapes of pure black darkness moving quickly in and out of the light were of a humanoid figure as if they were stretching from the darkness trying to conquering the light surrounding the team. To Ceras, it looked like the membrane of the interface between the darkness and the light was being stretched and pressed by ghostly deformed human bodies, be flung into the light and them retreating quickly.
"What is happing?" Rinaldo said with a tremble in his voice.
As he said the words, in a fearful voice, the figure of darkness started to move forward towards him, stretching the darkness to try and reach him as if sensing his fear. The dark hands were trying to grasp his leg, as it dived forward from the edge of the light. Rinaldo swung his mace at the pure blackness that was reaching toward him only of the mace to pass straight through the black hand, reaching towards him. Rinaldo looked at the mace that had no effect on the shadowy black figure reaching for him again and trembled in fear.
Rhef seeing that her brother was about to panic as the darkness was grasping for him said in a whisper, "Stay calm as the darkness seem to be feeding on your fear, and don't make a run for it into the darkness."
Before Rinaldo could relax, a dark groping hand shot forward from the undulating bodies shapes moving into the light and grabbed Rinaldo leg. The dark fingers locked around the leg as Rinaldo screamed in agony, and darkness spread up his leg causing the skin to take on a pale grey color as if the light was being sucked out of it. Symania reacted with speed and shot a blue ray of healing on to Rinaldo's leg, causing the color to return and the dark hand to retreat with a withering scream that echoed around the cavern.
"Shot a healing ray into the darkness that is trying to grab Rinaldo," Rhef shouted to her friend.
Symania said as if trying to gain some courage with bravo, "Let hope the healing beat back the darkness."
A blue ray of healing power shot from her hand hitting the darkness that was still penetrating the light barrier; it spread across the darkness, that was a cacophony of human shapes, like a wave of light on a dark pond. As the blue light spread across the surface of the darkness, another withering scream howled through the cavern. The darkness retreated, and the hemispherical volume of light return to normal.
Symania shot another ray of blue light in the direction of the retreating darkness, producing another scream as she said with a smile, "We have a weapon to fight the darkness with now."
Rinaldo was looking at his leg as it was fully healed and back to the normal color and said to Symania, "Thanks," with a relieved look on his face.
Ceras walked over to the edge of the circle of light, curious to see if an idea he had would work, he placed the end of his staff into the darkness. The staff end disappeared as if it had been sliced off by the membrane of darkness surrounding the adventures. Ceras reach down into where he felt his magical powers and pushed his healing spell magical energy from his hands through his staff into the darkness, pulsating the magical energy as fast as he could. The volume of light around them started to increase as the darkness retreated, causing Ceras to have to move forward to keep his staff in the retreating darkness.
"Will you help pore some healing power, through my staff into the darkness surrounding us," Ceras said to Symania.
Symania walked over with a serious expression on her face and place a hand on the staff, and then blue energy of healing ran down it into the darkness. A blue light flashed on the inner surface of the volume of light surrounding the team and started to push back the darkness, accompanied by screams of agony in the dark void beyond the team.
Several more pulse of blue light on the surface kept pushing back the dark void until Symania said, "I need to rest for a few minutes and recharge my magic."
Symania sat down in a trance, to increase the rate of magical recharge but Ceras continued to pore his own magical healing energy into the darkness. For the next half hour, the two repeat
ed this process of pushing back the darkness. Slowly more and more of the cavern became visible to the team as if the air was being cleared of a veil of thick dust. Symania produced several lights to, allow the details of the cavern to be seen.
When it seemed to Ceras that over half the cavern was visible now, Symania had just sent a pulse of healing blue light into the edge of the darkness, and suddenly the dark void disappeared, and the full gigantic cavern appears with the light of Symania magical power. Ceras and the rest of the team could now see a vast dome of rock surrounding them, hundreds of meters in diameter, and fifty meters tall, with rocky walks that had been chipped away by many miners. The floor was littered with white powdery bones of the creature as if they had been sucked clean of all flesh and color. In one corner of the cavern, as far away from the team as possible, was a mas of oily blackness that seemed to be many humans body shapes trying to escape the blob of blackness.
"What is it?" Rinaldo said in a quiet voice.
Nobody had an answer as they watched the black oily human bodies move in and out of the blackness, as the shapes of the figures of people were constantly churned in the oily blob. Emerging slow from the black goo faces appeared in the center of the monster, and let out a howling scream as their mouths opened in terror with a strained tortured expression. The faces then moved from the surface of the oily blob, and was replaced by more faces again full of fear and screaming.
Symania shot out a ray of healing power directly at one of the faces as she walked forward, and the magical blue energy splashed over the monster causing it to shrink back. The waves of blue light seem to fight against the power of the darkness in a battle of light and darkness. Ceras ran as fast as he could, as the ray of blue healing light hit the monster, and pushed forward his staff into the black blob, as Ceras staff hit he pulsed a healing spell into the horrific monster. The area around where his staff had entered disappear, as a stream of oil oozed to the floor of the cavern.