I can’t see a damn thing. I breathe a little heavier, cautiously feeling for each rung as I descend.
Finally,
Shen Po casts some silvery light from his gauntlet as we get near the bottom. The only way forward seems to be a constructed passageway; we are immediately suspicious of it.
Zyon begins checking the unnatural hallway for traps. He manages to point out a poisoned wall, a pitfall, and a stack of rocks precariously perched and ready to tumble. As I follow his instructions to get through all these hazards, I hear a
click from down the hall.
“Gah!” Zyon gasps as an arrow comes flying and pierces his shoulder. Shen Po tries to hurry to Zyon’s side. I notice
Wen crawling behind Shen Po, following him like a lost puppy.
“Let’s see if I remember how to do this,” Shen Po mutters as his gauntlet begins to glow, but then immediately flickers out. He lets out an exasperated breath. “Let me try that again.” This time his gauntlet stays lit and Zyon’s wound seals up. Shen looks at Wen, still on the ground staying low. “Kid, stick with him.”
Wen helps Zyon up while Shen Po joins
Feng Da at the end of the passageway, who's straining to open a wooden door. Shen Po takes a turn at it, giving a good effort, but the door doesn’t budge. So Feng Da kicks it down, putting his muscle behind the kick. Shen Po scrambles out of the way as the frame shatters. Feng Da gives a quick nod of satisfaction and steps through the open doorway.
I follow through the splintered door frame and wrinkle my nose at the repugnant smell wafting through the small room. In front of me is a ledge, forcing me to take the stairs to my right. Down in the center of the room is a pot, bubbling with foul-looking green liquid. As each bubble pops, the stench of wet dog and tanning leather assaults my nose further. Feng Da declares he heard footsteps running away when he kicked the door down. Great. We’re not alone. I cover my face with my arm and move to the other side of the room with Feng Da, who's striding into another hallway.
Feng Da enters the hallway and not even five steps in there’s another
click. He takes a step back as two blades come out of the walls on either side. His chainmail catches one, but the other—being slightly higher—cuts at his clavicle. I rush to him and help him back into the small, noxious room.
Shen Po looks annoyed as he works to heal Feng Da’s deep cut, and lets out another curse as Feng Da tosses his axe down the hall. The blades don’t come out again, but the axe gets snapped up by a bear trap.
Undeterred, Feng Da begins to—carefully—proceed down the tunnel once again. I and the rest shuffle behind him. At the corner of the hall,
Arslan manifests an illusion, and immediately a flask thrown from around the corner explodes into a gout of flame. We catch a shout coming from the next room.
Feng Da leads the charge, rounding the corner and bursting into a rectangular room. A large central platform makes up most of the room, kobolds decorating the slightly raised stone slab. Lots of kobolds. I draw my saber, the weight familiar in my left hand, and with my right I grab my dagger. The kobolds unfurl wings as Feng Da pulls out a warpick, not even slowing at the sight of so many foes.
I miss whatever else Feng Da pulls out to eviscerate his targets. As I ready myself to move forward, a door opens behind me. I spin around, only to catch a slash across my front. A Kobold had been waiting behind a hidden door. Wen yelps and flails his arms in messy gestures. I’m surprised that magic actually shoots out from the young man’s hands. The kobold that cut me goes up in screams and flames.
I turn my attention back to the rest of the fighting. While Shen Po is in the middle of drawing an airborne glyph, Arslan swings his sword and dark energy cuts through the air to another kobold. I rush forward to help.
Spark lands a dazing blow with her fist on a foe and I slice it with a quick twirl as I pass. My sights are set on a kobold circling in on
Fwip from the air. It dives. I intercept, crouching down and saber held up. It shrieks as it impales itself on my blade. I let the weight of the kobold pull my arm down and then yank my saber from its corpse. One down, several to go.
The melee is quick and brutal. At the end of it, Zyon took the worst hit. Shen Po and Wen work to bandage him up. The rest of us head through a stone door.
The door opens to a large domed room. In the center is a smooth glass tube on a stone pedestal. The architecture is very nice. Close to some dwarven works I’ve seen, but not quite. Unfortunately, without any runes or other writings, there’s no more for me to be able to tell. I glance at the others who seem to be arguing over some riddle. I don’t have the patience for puzzles, so I walk back out to the other room.
To the left of the large raised platform are massive stone doors with an image embossed on them. On the right is some monstrosity, almost all teeth. The carving is a bit worn, so I can’t be sure of what the monster is. On the left, there appears to be a man wielding a sword, locked in battle with the monster. As I study the doors, Arslan attempts to open them. They don’t budge. I give an amused snort. For all his strength and size, he can’t open a set of doors.
“Ah!” Wen says. “What if...” he trails off and approaches the door. He then begins to throw small balls of flames from his hands. I back up quickly. After throwing about a dozen small fireballs at the door, he grabs the handles and gives a hard tug. The doors open immediately and Wen falls straight on his back.
Everyone files into the room that the open doors reveal. I can’t see much from the back, but I can vaguely hear shouting. No. More like cheering. Like a stadium crowd.
Zyon shouts out that the crowd isn’t real. He says he tossed a dagger and it passed right through the illusionary person. I balk a little at his lack of caution to just throw daggers at people.
“What’s going on?” I shout towards the front of the group.
“It appears to be a fighting pit,” Feng Da replies. “It looks like there’s some…metal rings out the outer edges.”
“Metal how?” I ask. “Like copper? Silver?”
“Definitely not copper. It’s a silvery color.”
“Damnare!” I exclaim. I immediately turn around and begin to back out of the chamber. “I am not here to do pit fights with summoned monsters,” I make sure I raise my voice so the others can hear me.
The others exclaim and back out as well. Fwip points out that there is another way out. A staircase heading down. We descend carefully, Shen Po providing a silver light with his gauntlet. The end of the staircase leads to a tall ledge. Shen Po uncoils some of his rope and we begin a quick descent. All except for Arslan. He gets a running start and jumps straight down into a pool of water. Fortunately, it's deep enough for the large goliath.
The pool of water rests within a larger cavern. Shen Po helps to light the way through the cave until we are too tired to go any further. I take the last watch shift with Fwip.
The next…morning I guess, we take off again. After some time, we approach yellow fungus. We’re all fairly certain we can’t breathe it in, but it blocks the entire width of the cave. Wen readies his hand and ignites the fungus on fire. The heat is intense and almost unbearable from where I’m standing. This young half-elf has some serious power.
It's not long thereafter when we reach the exit of the cave. As the sunlight begins to brighten and engulf us, I feel some lingering fear dissipate. The view before us is breathtaking. A valley of golden grass stretches to the horizon from atop the ledge we emerge onto. It almost reminds me of where I came from; a sea of gold, stretching on as far as the eye can see. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, feeling what’s missing. The smell of dust isn’t as prominent. The sun isn’t as punishing. And as I open my eyes, I miss the familiar sight of sandstone towers scraping the sky, and the ships flying higher than the birds. Yet still, the sun rising on the horizon over the tall golden grass is enough to steal my breath. I take a moment before beginning the descent into East with everyone else.
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