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.

“Nothing. Why, what’s up?”

“I guess it was nothing, I just got an uncomfortable feeling like something was wrong. I can’t find anything out of the ordinary at the front though.”

“Weird. We’ll keep an eye out,” Dante says with a frown. “Your instincts have proved unnervingly accurate up to now. These tunnels give me the creeps.”

“Why are you taking my bad feeling so seriously?”

“Well, you’ve detected a lot of attacks before Enzo and Ivor, so surely your instincts for danger are good, right? I don’t want to be caught unawares in these tunnels, they give me the creeps.”

Emily nods, turning to head back to Ivor.

The rest of their lunch break is quiet. Too quiet. As they prepare to leave, Emily notes that there hasn’t been a single grogler attack since they stopped.

“Odd, we normally would have seen one or two of them, if not a group in that time,” Oscar responds to her concerns. “This may be a good sign. Maybe we’ve cleared out most of them now?”

“Hmmm, maybe,” Emily responds with a frown, the uncomfortable feeling still churning in her gut.

They continue down the tunnel, and after twenty minutes of walking, they come across a small cavern. It’s is filled with small flowers, their petals dimly glowing in a cerulean hue, holding back the darkness and revealing six different paths branching off ahead. The fog swirling between the glowing petals draws Emily in, but as she stops to inspect the plants, Oscar cries out behind her.

“I was told about this!”

Everyone turns to look at him, awaiting an explanation for his outburst.

“These flowers are luminis. They grow in caverns in the final layer before the real Waters begin. We’re close!”

Excited mutterings quickly spread through the group. Oscar lets them relax for a few minutes before spurring everyone on to collect some luminis. As the group packs their dimensional storage with the flowers, Emily, Ivor, and Enzo survey the paths they can choose from.

They move between each entrance, running earthen detection and letting Emily look around with her thermal vision. After checking each tunnel and finding nothing out of the ordinary, they gather with Oscar to debate their choice.

“Does it make a difference?” Enzo asks Oscar.

“I don’t think so. Since we’re so close to The Waters themselves, all the tunnels should reach a river,” he responds with a relieved smile.

“Okay, so just pick randomly again?” Emily questions.

“Yep. How about we enter the second from the left?”

“Sure.”

They all agree to Oscar’s suggestion, having no reason not to, and everyone slowly gathers together before the entrance. Once the last carriers have slung their freshly herb-stuffed packs onto their backs, Emily sets off down the dark slope.

“How deep do you think we are?” Dante asks after thirty minutes of walking, the group’s concerns about travelling sound long since lost in the winding tunnel system.

“I don’t know. We’ve got to be at least a kilometre down, right?” Emily responds, considering the multiple ups and downs they’ve done through the tunnels.

“Two I think,” Oscar joins in from behind. “A third circle earth mage reported after an expe-“ he halts his speech as the sound of running water reaches them, a wide grin spreading across his face. “We’ve arrived!”

Emily nods, speeding up their march to see their goal a little sooner. Their hurried footsteps carry them through a few twists in the tunnel and a couple of minutes later, the tunnel opens up into a stunning sight.

Before them is a wide, open cave. The walls are lined with shadows, but in the centre is a five metre wide glistening river. The water is a beautifully vibrant pale blue that emits a faint light, just like the luminis. Fog drifts in from the connecting tunnels, flowing along the ground to meet to water, blurring the river’s banks and creating he illusion of a cloudy sky. Along the ceiling above the water, Emily sees several glittering crystals pouring out magical light.

Emily lets out a sigh of admiration as she marvels at the enchanting scene.

“The Crystal Waters,” she mutters quietly, breaking the collective stunned silence. “It’s certainly a fitting name.”

Taking Emily’s words as their cue, the group separates, spreading out to explore. Emily turns to Ivor before moving, throwing out a teasing question.

“So, big guy, does this live up to your expectations?”

He grins at her and nods, and Emily smiles in response as they walk closer to the water. Emily watches the dense fog swirling around her ankles as she approaches the river’s bank, being careful not to overstep and fall in.

She stops at the water’s edge, bending down to look, mesmerised by the enchanting movement within. The water itself appears to be crystal clear with a light blue tint, but a couple of inches below the surface, the fog holds together, flowing downstream.

“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 Water’s 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!”