Chapter 60 – The Crystal Waters

Chapter 60 – The Crystal Waters

After claiming all of the groglers’ eyes, they continue delving further into the cave system. With fog swirling around their ankles and darkness encroaching on all sides, their journey continues its winding descent. They encounter a few more groups of groglers, and dealing with them becomes a well-practiced routine as they head deeper into the earth.

A few times, they run into dead ends - rooms with no other paths out and, often, grogler sleeping holes scratched into the rocky walls. At around 1 pm, they halt their march to eat lunch, gathering in one of the dead-end rooms with only one exit to watch.

After sating their hunger, they continue on, retracing their steps to the last branch and choosing another route. They fight through more monsters, running into a few creatures they were expecting from their training. A few small groups of fire-spitting bugs attack them, but they are hard countered by their water barrier mages, making them easy to defeat.

The enemy that Emily finds most interesting though, are half a dozen moles. They prove to be a pain to fight, thanks to their black iron claws that tear through most immaterial spells, giving her a small challenge in a hand-to-hand fight.

Unfortunately, the majority of their fights still come in the form of groglers, and by the time evening has come, everyone shares the sentiment of never wanting to see one again.

“I swear if I see another one of those fuckers, I’m blowing up the entire cave system!” Dante angrily comments as he and Emily finish off the last inhabitants of a dead-end cavern.

“If you could, you’d have done it already,” Emily comments with a chuckle.

The rest of the group files into the room, grabbing the bodies and helping move them into the empty tunnel they just left, to form a macabre barricade.

“Think of it like this: every grogler you kill, without damaging their heads, will earn you a few points.”

Dante grumbles his reluctant agreement as they separate: Emily moves to sit in front of the cavern’s entrance; and Dante joins the rest of the group as they arrange sleeping bags. Enzo and Ivor join Emily, the three of them happily enjoying their scouts' privilege of not having to help set up camp.

“Is it safe to start that in here?” Ivor asks Emily after a few minutes, glancing back at the campfire Dante is building in the centre of the room.

“Safe enough,” Enzo answers for her, having picked up enough sign language in their time together to understand Ivor. “It’s just like with all the fire spells we used in our fights. These may be caves, but the dense mana makes it almost impossible to choke ourselves in here.”

“I’d be more worried about it spreading the smell of cooked meat than it choking us,” Emily adds quietly, watching a hunched figure approaching quickly through the long, straight tunnel.

She stands up as Enzo and Ivor both frown, exchanging glances before shutting their eyes and quickly scanning the tunnel. As they notice the foe too, they stand up to help, but Emily waves them off and walks forward alone.

“It’s fine, it looks like a lone grogler. I can deal with it.”

She steps out into the darkness, leaving the camp’s barrier and raising an arm before her. A glowing cerulean magic circle quickly spins to life, crackling with power and releasing a bolt of lightning the moment the grogler steps within twenty metres of it.

The small monster’s head is roasted on the spot.

“Whoops,” Emily mutters as she turns back. “This is going to be a long night.”

***

The night passes slowly, with bodies gradually building up in the tunnel. After Emily wakes Ivor and Fionn for their watch, she moves to sit in the corner of the cavern on a sleeping bag to meditate, and successfully increases her intelligence by one an hour before everyone starts to wake up.

Camp is broken quickly, everyone eager to escape the slowly building stench from the nearby pile of corpses. They continue their descent, weaving through the tunnel system with purpose, only stopping to collect monster parts or a few herbs growing along the edge of their path and in the dead-end caverns.

At lunch time, Emily and Ivor sit together at the front of the tunnel where they’ve halted, Oscar having made the decision to simply stop moving, since they haven’t seen a split in their path for the last hour. Enzo and Dante are covering the back together.

“This sucks,” Ivor signs dejectedly while chewing on a bite of his pasty. “If I’d known The Waters was just a dark tunnel full of Goddess forsaken monsters, I wouldn’t have been so excited to see it!”

Emily chuckles quietly before signing back to him.

“It has been kind of disappointing so far. O said that we’ll see why it’s called-“ Emily stops abruptly, her head jolting to look down the tunnel ahead.

An uncomfortable chill runs down her spine as she activates infra-sight and quickly checks for life. The tunnel is as empty as it was when they sat down, so Emily silently switches to earthen detection to see further. Finding nothing with the scan, she frowns and turns to Ivor.

“Did you just feel something?” she signs quickly.

After Ivor shakes his head, Emily stands up.

“One second,” she mutters, turning and walking through everyone towards the rear-guard.

“Hey,” she calls out lightly as Enzo and Dante turn to watch her approach. “Have you guys noticed anything odd over here?”

“No?” Enzo answers unsurely, shutting his eyes and running another scan just in case.

A few moments later he opens his eyes again and shakes his head with more certainty.

“Whoa!”

She reaches out, dipping her hand in and disturbing the flow, watching as the fog rises to the surface, reaching out of the water before falling back in and settling as she removes her hand. Her attention is quickly stolen by a system notification.

̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄

Chain-Quest generated: The Abyss: Everything Flows To

[The Abyss: Everything Flows To]

[Rank:] D

[Description:] You’ve reached the magical underbelly of The Glade, The Crystal Waters. Now discover where The Waters end.

Requirements:

-Find the destination of The Crystal Waters' flow (Not Complete)

Rewards:

-Skill: Flow (passive)

_____

Emily’s eyes widen slightly as she reads the quest.

The abyss? How ominous. Not sure Oscar and the others would be up for adding this quest to this expedition. Maybe I’ll sneak off alone for a day to see if I can reach The Waters’ end before resetting.

She stands up, drying her hand with a quick cast of cleanse, before turning to take in the rest of the tunnel. The crystals in the ceiling are all various tones of blue, white, and gold. As she looks closer, she becomes sure they are mana crystals.

They feel weak though. Not even enough mana to qualify as lesser.

Her gaze falls on the cave walls and the unsettling way the shadows cling to them, refusing to be banished by the ethereal light filling the space. She shivers slightly, the shadows reminding her of the uncomfortable feeling still present in the back of her mind. With an irritated sigh, she turns her attention back to her group mates and frowns slightly as she sees several of them drinking from the river.

“Is it safe to drink this water?” she calls to Oscar.

He glances over from his current task filling a few large containers with fog filled water - to casually dismiss her concerns.

“Yeah. It’s actually very good for you, due to the mana content. Drink as much as you want.”

She turns away as he continues his work. and glances at the several dark gaping holes in the walls. Emily walks along the water’s edge, careful not to go far enough to lose sight of the group, and counts the holes in the wall. She counts five on this side of the water, and three on the other.

Why is nothing attacking us? Surely there are creatures in this bright tunnel somewhere.

She shakes her head and walks back towards the group. She stops suddenly in her tracks, as her instincts scream and the uncomfortable feeling in her gut grows, at the entrance to one of the side tunnels. She fixes the tunnel with a glare, casting infra-sight and earthen detection to penetrate the intense magical darkness.

She finds nothing and clicks her tongue. Casting a glance back towards the group, she spots Ivor staring at her inquisitively.

“Felt something odd, checking just in case,” she signs to him quickly.

“Be careful,” he signs back before she turns away and dashes into the darkness.

She maintains her two spells as she runs, watching the path closely for any signs of danger. Half way through the tunnel, she finds a small group of four groglers that attack her the moment she gets near. Dispatching them quickly with flying lighting, she leaves their corpses behind and continues on.

The tunnel ends when it opens up to reveal the cavern filled with luminis again.

“Weird. Is there something wrong with this room?”

She surveys the room again, looking closely for any discrepancies. She drops infra-sight, casting a light spell and filling the orb of light with mana, illuminating the entire room clearly. Slowly, she walks around the perimeter, checking for anything on the walls. Finding nothing, she makes her way through the flowers, checking for any monster tracks.

She’s about to give up when a flash of crimson catches her eye amongst the sea of blue. Stepping closer, she leans down and inspects a luminis flower, its glowing petals spotted with half dried blood.

“None of us were bleeding!”