Jack's heart is racing as his eyes can only see darkness, he reaches up to feel what's wrapped around his foot.
It feels like a thin rope; he tries to tug at it, but Xueli yells in his mind.
'Don't touch it, you don't want to know how lucky you are right now'
Jack stops what he's doing and flops against the cliff face, his heart is thumping as the blood rushes to his head, "Well I can't just stay here until I'm rescued"
Feeling some movement by the vine wrapped around his foot, it's starting to wrap around the rest of his leg and travel down his body.
'You have other problems to worry about before being rescued...'
Another vine wraps around his other leg repeating the same action as on the other leg, Jack attempts to stop the vine from travelling down his body but finding that it's just trying to wrap around his hands he takes his hand back and lets the vine do as it wants.
"Are you going to help?"
The vines stop after it wraps his entire body from his chest downward, 'I could try to burn the veins away but I don't think you'll like what's under us any better that is if you survive the fall'
"Well, could you do something other than being wrapped around my neck?"
The vines tug at his body as it's slowly lifted upward, like its being dragged somewhere by the vines, like a predator taking a prey back to its den.
'No'
The young man with a snake wrapped around his neck is dragged upward by the vine slowly, it doesn't move from being wrapped around his chest downward, when they are dragged into some opening on the cliff face, the opening is filled with countless vines but a soft white glow disturbs the pure darkness of the opening.
Another type of vine touches Jack and he can feel his energy being sapped by this unfamiliar vine, he calls upon his reserve of Phoenix Qi and launches a fireball to burn it away before burning away the rest of the vines wrapped around his body.
The vines are retreating towards the softly glowing tunnel while Jack sits up against the wall of the narrow tunnel taking some deep breaths, his heart is still thumping heavily from the precarious situation of almost falling down a cliff of known height.
Xueli slithers from his neck back to his forehead, "So what now? How far did we fall?" Jack asks.
'Around 30 seconds, so several kilometres'
"Ahh," Jack sighs in frustration, "what's closer the top or the bottom?"
'The top... You don't want to know what's down the bottom'
"Is there any way to get to the top other than climbing up the side of the cliff?"
'How would I know? Do you think I'm some sort of a magical dragon that knows everything?'
Jack slumps his head in frustration, "No, but I thought you might have seen some other route since you could see the bottom"
'Well, I can't but aren't you curious about why this tunnel is glowing or why we ended up here?'
"True" Jack looks down the tunnel, it's a narrow opening on the cliff face that seems to have been dug out over the years by the various vines that have now retreated into the distance, it's not large enough to stand so crawling Jack makes his way further down the tunnel when a voice resounds in his mind that he hasn't heard for some time as a strange sound fills the tunnel.
*CH CH CH*
'ser... tected... 100m...' the voice filled with static resounds in his mind as Jack's body is given a jolt of lightning.
'OW, stop calling upon that lightning, IT HURTS!' Xueli yells in his mind.
"I can't help it but it has detected treasure close by"
'What do you mean detected treasure? Does it think it's some sort of dragon?' Xueli lifts her head up as Jack continues to crawl down the tunnel, her forked tongue flickers in the air a few times, they crawl for a minute before coming to a large hollowed out area.
Jack pauses at the very edge of this hollowed out area, a glowing orb is emitting a bright white light but it's covered by countless vines in the centre of the entirely spherical hollowed out there that looks unnatural.
The various vines are coming out of countless holes tiny holes in the wall while 10 black vines specifically contact the glowing white orb, *CH CH CH* the strange cry resounds through the tunnel again causing all the vines to wrap up the orb more tightly.
'It smells like... treasure'
Jack inwardly chuckles as he crawls forward entering the spherical area, unknowingly passing through an invisible barrier that was blocking the energies from the orb spread around. A wave of strange heat assaults his body while he can feel a familiar yet unfamiliar Phoenix Qi type, a much stronger Phoenix Qi.
Jack stumbles after this heat assaults his body while standing up, a black vine wraps around his wrist that is blocking the heat coming from the orb. Jack reaches for the spear and pours some Phoenix Qi within it, some of which leaks out of the cracked shaft, using it to cut off the vine easily.
The vine retreats but a change occurs within the room, a small illusory bird appears over the orb, a tiny little white bird with several long tail feathers pointed up as it waves it back and forward like a little dance. It looks like a little 'fairy wren' from the real world.
The little bird looks at Jack while his body suddenly throbs, he feels a connection with this bird but that's not all, it's like a connection elsewhere has become stronger as almost endless Phoenix Qi pours into his body via this connection.
Back at the dwarven village, Jessica is still trying to work out if the Phoenix Statue and Shrine is anything special.
Her heart suddenly thumps, the little chick that is usually sleeping in her bosom lets out an ugly screech before the two are covered with a white fire glow, a glow just like Jessica will usually have while cultivating but it's not the same as if the glow is throbbing, getting smaller and larger like the energy is being siphoned off elsewhere.
Jack looks at the illusory bird strangely, he feels a strange familiarity with the bird, holding out his open palm the little bird flies toward it while almost dancing in the air as it makes flips and strange angled yet agile turns, it's dancing within his palm as its tail feathers wiggle back and forth as it runs up and down his arm.
Various black vines rise into the air, almost acting like snakes looking for their prey ready to strike, but Jack's attention is held by the little bird running around his arm.
"What are you?" he asks the bird, but it doesn't stop moving as it makes its strange *ch ch ch* noise.
The almost endless phoenix qi entering his body flows down his arm veins and straight into the illusory little bird causing it to tweet a pleasant-sounding song, the little bird becomes less illusory as it glows brighter but always white, the white glow of Phoenix Qi.
One of the vines lashes out like a whip travelling toward Jack but before he can react, the little illusory bird turns into a glowing orb of qi and flies out of his palm with incredible speed intercepting the vine and burning it away almost instantly before the glowing orb turns around and flies back into his palm turning back into the illusory bird.
The little bird is back dancing in his palm but Jack is almost stunned into silence as the qi freely flows between them.
The black vines surrounding the little orb gather tighter, the little bird seems like it's struggling as its form turns slightly more transparent, Jack feels like he needs to do something about this as there's a definite connection between them and he can't shake the feeling of familiarity.
'This is uhh, umm, a... special weapon' Xueli speaks out.
"I can tell that it's special but is it really a weapon, it seems more like a group of qi"
'It's both, umm I think they're called umm, soul weapon?' Xueli speaks with little confidence, 'it's a soul that has given a portion of qi through a special method, it's able to act like a spiritual weapon but much more powerful as it can attack the soul'
The tiny illusory bird stops on Jack's palm and tilts its head at him as if it's waiting for him, "Attack?" Jack points at the several vines that are still hovering in the air behaving strangely.
The little bird dances up and down Jack's arm while absorbing the Phoenix Qi entering his body, it feels nearly endless, but it's familiar as though it's the same chain he felt while cultivating the other day but much stronger than before.
The fireball shoots out of his palm as it contacts the first vine that's waving about threateningly, it then suddenly turns and contacts the other vines filling the spherical room with the smell of burning plant matter, a weird cry is heard from deep within the tunnel systems but the little fireball doesn't stop as the rest of the vines on the ground surrounding the orb are burnt up.
The room gets brighter and brighter as the orb is revealed, an orb about the size of an orange emitting a dazzling white light while a symbol of a bird just like the illusory bird is clearly engraved on it.
The burnt remains of the vine retreat into their holes while Jack walks forward to look at the information of the orb,
'Artifact - 0033 - PEA1, Grade: Unknown, Description: Orb containing the soul of a Fairy Wren that has been combined via unknown means with Phoenix Race Qi, reward series #00XX'
Jack touches the orb, it doesn't feel hot as though the raging qi within the orb has settled down with the retreat of the vines; he isn't sure what to do with the orb as the little bird dances on top of it and up and down his arms.
'You can't store the orb away, it contains the genuine soul of this bird, disconnecting from whatever is keeping it alive will kill it, you can only store these weapons away by either binding with it or... umm... putting it in your pocket?'
Jack looks at the little bird, he feels very tempted to bind with the little bird but something is telling him that there's much more to this little bird than just being a weapon, Jack stores the orb away in his tattered clothing, the strong connection to the source of Phoenix Qi weakens while Jack investigates this spherical room.
Back at the dwarven village, the white surrounding Jessica's body disappears as she looks over the statue of the Phoenix, there's 5 different little birds engraved on the wings of the Phoenix, the smallest one is a little Fairy Wren while the rest progressively get bigger... Meh.
Jessica looks around the darkened village before walking back to where Drakon is looking over Mai, the dwarves are still quietly talking amongst themselves keeping the newcomers under guard.
"Ma'am, do you know what's going on?"
"Loosely, the dwarves said something about power problems and resupply issues but they wont speak to us nor speak in a language we can understand" Jessica replies to Drakon before asking, "how is Mai?"
"Little missy, she seemed to be having some nightmares a few minutes ago like she was struggling with something but she's back to normal now but we can't keep waiting here for much longer, Lord will come after us soon and if we're still within this village while he's outside taking on all those insects..."
"I know... I could feel that he's close by so we have to leave"
Mai suddenly moves around in the bed, the machine suddenly loudly beeps and causing her to wake up.
"BIG BROTHER, ELDER SISTER!" she yells sitting up in a daze.
Jessica rushes forward to cradle her back, "They're not here, we're in an underground village, are you ok?".
Mai looks at Jessica with confusion, "I saw Elder Brother, he was fighting something evil and needs my help"
"We're just about to leave so you woke up in good time, are you sure you're ok?"
"I'll go prepare the soldiers and speak with Glomor to find out what's going on" Drakon leaves Jessica and Mai as they speak in circles, they're both worried about Jack and aren't able to articulate how they could sense or feel him close by. They get ready to leave while Jessica helps Mai whose foot is still sore from where the vine touched it.
Drakon has walked over to the soldiers who are getting annoyed that they're under guard by all the dwarves, they outnumber them easily 2 to 1 but the armour the dwarves wear seems much more advanced than anything any of them have seen.
The old dwarf walks up to Drakon flanked by a squad of dwarves wearing larger power armour, similar to the armour that Jack fought outside the doorway.
"Sir Dragon, we have decided that we need to open the gateway to inspect what has happened to the tomb outside, this lack of power will cause a large issue for us before too long, would you be willing to join us as we do not know what's outside"
Drakon readily agrees to this, he feels more pressure from the dwarves in their strange armour than the creatures outside that were killed with a single hit. Jessica and Mai quietly rejoins the group and watch the proceedings.
The sizeable group walks over to the entrance gateway, a few dwarves manually open the doorway revealing what's hidden behind it.
A tightly packed wall of dead insects, a thick layer of red blood is at the bottom that rushes into the dwarven village filling the entrance area with a foul smell.
Drakon steps forward but a dwarf signals for him to step back, the dwarf in armour steps forward spreading his legs apart, holding out both of his arm several metal prongs extend outward and some sort of energy is gathering in the middle, a bright light pulses into existence getting larger and then shoots forward blasting a hole through the countless dead insects, a few crystals eject out from the rear of the dwarven armour as everyone is stunned by what they saw.
"What was that?" Drakon asks.
"Dwarven technology" the old dwarf laughs as all the other dwarves have smiles on their faces.
"Don't just standing around gawking at it, move out!" Drakon yells out, the front group of soldiers move out while a dwarf with armour joins them.
The tunnel filled with the countless insect dead bodies and blood giving it a squishy feeling as each footstep causes a squelching sound.
"Uhh young Ma'ams, it's going to get messy I hope you don't mind"
"General Laoshe, I wouldn't have come down into this unexplored cave if I was afraid of getting messy" Jessica replies with confidence but she looks at the ground with disgust secretly.
The first squad of soldiers are through, they all enter the tunnel squad by squad with no reports of anything coming back indicating that it's safe finally Jessica and Mai exit the dwarven tunnel, Mai stops to sniff the blood on the ground but scrunches up her nose.
"What's wrong with the blood?" Jessica curiously asks Mai.
"It smells tainted... these creatures are like some my elder sister has dealt with before but blood shouldn't fill them because it's not their food but how they breed so it's weird"
Drakon and Jessica both frown at these words but don't reply, they've walked through the tunnel and are at the dome area that has the doorway across the chasm, the black endless pit.
Drakon sniffs the air while Jessica quietly uses her senses to feel around the area, Mai is looking around for vines but they've all retreated.
"It smells like Lord was fighting here not too long ago, his qi is still in the air"
"Where is he?" Jessica asks while her eyes dart around.
The couple of dwarves in their armour walk toward the door across the chasm, but it has no reaction from what they're doing, they're speaking in their own language between themselves.
"Everyone, the Lord was here not too long ago, spread out and search for him, Squad 4 head back toward the surface and send word, perhaps the kobolds left behind can tell us more"
The soldiers break down into their squads and search the somewhat extensive dome area, while a few more go up the tunnel they came from.
"Sir Dragon and Miss Phoenix, does the person you are searching for have a combination of your qi types?" one dwarf finally speaks in a language that can be understood.
"Umm, kind of, why? Did you find him?" Jessica speaks out first.
"Not exactly, we can detect that someone was here recently but their qi disappears down the chasm, a qi similar to the types that you two have"
The group walk over and peer over the side down into the endless dark abyss, they can't see anything except black.
"Wait, a moment please" the dwarf in the armour says as he points one of his hands downward.
A glowing orb launches from his arm and flies down the abyss lighting it up like a flare, revealing the side of the cliff as it travels further down, the countless vines on the cliff face are revealed but luckily no more insects.
Jack is sitting by the opening entrance as he works out his next course of action, he has two options:
- Attempt to climb up using the vines but chance getting wrapped up in them again.
- Work out a way to dig into the incredibly hard rock.
When he notices a sudden light coming from the darkness outside, sticking his head and looking around he can only see a glowing orb but the little illusory bird gets excited and flies away, it quickly flies up the side of the cliff crossing the several kilometres almost instantly causing a panic but before anyone can seriously react it flies before Jessica singing a song.
Jessica feels a connection to the little bird and holds out her hand, it flies into her hand and dances along her palm, her arm before dancing all over her arms, shoulders and head.
Yes, they're coming but it takes 2 weeks to travel and this current arc takes place in about 1 week.
I have at least 2 russian girls planned,
Inspiration for one shall be Tina Sprout from Black Bullet.
and they'll around soon(ish).
@Zeeksi wooow great idea¡¡¡¡