The group watches the grey rain pour down from the mouth of the cave, it’s roof just tall enough to accommodate Poole astride his horse, with a passageway at the back sized just to where no one larger than Thigi could walk into it comfortably. The cave is cold and dimly lit by the small amount of light being emitted by the weak sunlight streaming through the gloomy clouds. The constant dripping of water from the mouth of the tunnel only adds to the gloominess. The cave floor is covered in green lichens at the front of the cave, which slowly taper off towards the tunnel at the back, leaving the cold hard rock open to be stepped on by any who go back far enough. The passageway has oddly smoothed sides, like a door that has been passed through many times with things rubbing against it until its rough edges have curved where they no longer scratch anymore.
Gole curls up in the back of the cave, not too close to the tunnel, but carefully far from any water drops, with the others clustered around her in silence.
“So, who’s up for some cave exploration? Maybe we can find an exit where it’s not raining.” Poole suggests, as he wraps a Providence Cloth blanket around Erve to keep the horse warm.
“I’ll go.” Thigi volunteers as she watches Gole bemusedly while the alterna glares at the rain as if she could scare it away.
“Great. Seehea, do you still have that crystal light thing?” Poole asks, and Seehea nods,
“Yes, but I have something better for caves.”
At this, the tucker pulls a slender bronze bar out of his bag on Erve’s back that’s no bigger than his thumb and hands it to Poole.
“Put the bar in your hair.” He commands, and Poole unsurely slips the bar into his hair.
Immediately, the bar brightens up to a beautiful golden color, emitting an excellent light.
“Good. You will lead. I am coming as well.” Seehea says as he steps in line behind Thigi, who’s standing behind Poole, ready for him to lead into the grey caves.
“Okay, that’s probably best since I know plants and rocks very well, even inside caves. Anyone else?” Poole asks, a slight nervous edge to his voice.
“No thank you. We’ll wait for you out here.” Trouse says as he snuggles against the feisty large feline of the group, and Poole exhales shakily before he enters through the tunnel.
The tunnels have very smooth walls, with many ledges and gaps for creatures to hide in scattered about randomly, both big and small. Poole directs Thigi and Seehea behind him, his light illuminating the caves like daylight. The tunnels gradually grow colder and colder the further in the three venture, and every sound echoes through the halls like thunder. The tunnels are empty of all plants, and only a few bugs, such as centipedes and millipedes slither about across the floor, giving Poole something else to think about other than the eerie silence gripping the caves. Finally, as the air begins to thin, Poole stops and prepares to turn back, just as a raspy voice chants overhead in a coarse and heavy language, shattering the silence.
The three freeze, before Poole’s eyes brighten,
“That’s Dwarfish! He’s telling the story of Co’s Razor.”
The rem boy then begins to translate the Dwarfish for the other two as they stand unmoving in fear,
“Co’s razor was sharp and strong,
No mortal could withstand,
In battle he was feared,
By all except his friends.”
Poole stops as the voice halts, and he pinches his lips together,
“The dwarf is testing us. I have to continue where he left off, or something bad will happen to us.”
Poole begins chanting the reply, speaking in the rough language of Dwarfish, and the dwarf continues after Poole finishes his chanting,
“Co’s Razor was used one day,
“When foolish Massac hurt his wizard friends,
And many fell to him that day,
As he rescued his wizard friends.”
Poole translates under his breath as he looks around for the dwarf speaker, trying to remember the next part of the song, while Thigi keeps her hand on her sword, not unsheathing it, but not removing her hand from its handle. As the dwarf stops, Poole replies the next verse in Dwarfish while Seehea anxiously fiddles with a pair of wires attached to small black stones that he produces from his pocket. Poole calls out the last lines of the song, and a heavy silence sits over the cave for a long moment. The dwarf’s voice shifts in front of the group, even though the dwarf isn’t standing there, and whispers in Dwarfish to the three.
The voice cuts off suddenly, and only a slight shushing sound reverberates through the caves as Poole processes the dwarf’s whisper. Thigi and Seehea stand behind Poole rigidly, not daring to move yet, and Poole mutters the dwarf’s words, trying to sort them into sense.
“It is coming? The cure for which he sought is to take a bonny lily. What is coming? And the cure to what? Do what with the bonny lily?” Poole murmurs, before he calls out in Dwarfish into the caves for the dwarf once more.
A hissing sound that causes the hair on his neck to stand sounds out from beneath the group, and Poole slowly looks down at the cave floor. The hissing gradually grows louder, rising from the ground, and Thigi quickly grabs Poole’s arm, dragging him along as Seehea takes off in a sprint. Seehea leads through the tunnels, swiftly ducking and dodging around bends in the hall or dips in the rock ceiling as the hissing gets louder and closer. Their feet and hearts pound frantically as they run the fastest any of them have ever run in their lives, still seeming unable to outrun the hissing as it’s menacing sizzle seems to be almost directly behind them, rapidly gaining ground.
Finally, just as the hissing becomes unbearably loud and terrifying, Seehea turns down a tunnel where dim light from the outside is trickling in. The three give their last bit of strength to charge down the hallway and through the tunnel entrance into the cave’s mouth where the rest of the group are waiting for them. Seehea, Thigi, and Poole land in a pile as Seehea yanks Thigi and Poole out of the cave behind him, the force of their landing so strong that Poole is launched out of the cave mouth into the rain outside.
“Poole!” Thigi exclaims as she hurriedly scrambles to her feet, and the whole group rushes to the edge of the cave’s mouth in horror.
Poole slowly sits up, the rain streaming off him, and looks at his friends before he stands to his feet, sopping wet. The rem gradually makes his way over to the group, wading in and out of puddles, and climbs into the cave once more.
“Well, it doesn’t appear to affect you if you only touch it.” He remarks dryly as he shakes the water out of his hair, and the others dance away from the drops.
“Maybe it takes a long time to affect you.” Gole says, and Seehea shakes his head,
“No. The water poisoned the other tuckers as soon as they drank it. It must be harmless otherwise,” he states, and Thigi hugs Poole tightly,
“I thought we were going to lose a member of our little family!” She exclaims as she pulls away from the hug after a moment, and Poole laughs,
“I thought I was doomed too.” He agrees good-naturedly, and Seehea holds up his hands,
“Wait a second. What was all that in the cave about? How can you speak Dwarfish, and what did that dwarf say?” He demands, and the rest of the group turns curiously to look at Poole,
“This sounds interesting.” Gole remarks as she settles down, resting on the stone floor of the cave while she watches Poole expectantly.
Poole quickly catches the rest of the party up on what had occurred in the cave with the Dwarf and the hissing, translating the dwarf’s words into English, and a silence sits over them as they digest the information. Finally, Trouse inquires,
“How did you know it was a dwarf if you couldn’t see it?”
“Well Trouse, dwarfs tend to live in caves, and they can project their voices.” Poole explains, sitting down on the green lichens near the front of the cave mouth as he waits for the flurry of questions to bombard him.
“So, what be this cure the dwarf is talking of?” Onewe asks curiously, wrapped in Erve’s Providence Cloth blanket and shivering.
“The bonny lily? That’s a flower that only shows itself in short glimpses, vanishing and reappearing spontaneously.”
“Do you think that could be the cure?” Thigi asks brightly, and Poole shrugs,
“We could try it. The dwarf didn’t exactly specify what the cure was for or what to do with it.”
“Wait, you’re seriously going to try what a weird dwarf in a cave suggested as a cure? You just had to run for your life from that cave!” Gole scoffs, and Poole chuckles bitterly,
“You always shoot everything down. Do you have any suggestions? Because this is the closest thing to a lead we’ve had since we left Thigi’s town to try and save the tuckers, which, by the way, didn’t go so great, in case you forgot. Anyways, that wasn’t the dwarf that chased us out of the caves, because the dwarf was stopped mid-sentence. I imagine whatever that was didn’t want us to hear the tip. It didn’t even smell like a dwarf,” he says scathingly, and Thigi quickly shies away from the group, hurt etched onto her face at the mention of the tuckers.
“Well that was great Poole. Very well put. Gutu, go smell by the cave and see if it smells like dwarf.” Gole commands the dog, as she glances at Thigi before giving Poole a withering glare.
“Sure!” Gutu barks cheerfully, the bay echoing in the cave with painful loudness as the dog prances over to the tunnel entrance and sniffs the cave.
“Yup! Smells like dwarf.” He woofs, and Seehea raises his eyebrows,
“Have you ever smelt dwarf before?” He inquires, and the dog wags his tail as he grins at the tucker,
“Nope! But it smells unfamiliar, so it must be dwarf.”
“Exactly my point. Whatever was chasing us was not the behavior of a dwarf- it was something dark and menacing.” Poole jumps in, and Gole bows mockingly before Poole,
“Is there anything you don’t know, oh wise Poole? You’re a dwarf expert now too?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I do know a lot about dwarfs, since I was raised by one for eighteen of my fifty-four sunhighs!” Poole shoots back heatedly, leaving Gole at a loss for words.
“This is our first lead we have had in a long time, alterna. Either we follow the lead, or we return back to our homes.” Seehea says firmly, and Gole stiffens,
“What homes? If we can’t stop this poison, and quickly at that, there will be no life left in these lands. I won’t be the only one without a home then, tucker.” The feline retorts sharply, and Onewe softly speaks up,
“That be all more reasons for we to looks for that bonny lily. Even it not work, it be a cures for somethings.”
“Fine! We’ll start our search tomorrow to try to find these ‘bonny lilies’! Now leave me alone and let me sleep, since I’m apparently only a means of transportation and not the leader anymore.” Gole snaps as she furiously pads over to her own isolated corner of the cave mouth, leaving her companions to eat a silent and uncomfortable meal from their supplies.
