In the exact opposite direction of the cave system Albella was in, hundreds of kilometers away, Madame Dembe’s group was emerging from a tunnel into a new cavern.
This new rock formation, didn’t have the same vegetation of the caves through which they had passed. What they found was varied and different red fungi indicating how deep this biome was located.
“Stop!” Warned a quinoid with moth characteristics.
“What are you listening to?” Madame Dembe asked knowing that the hearing sense of the moths was the most developed.
“A fight” he answered without sounding very convinced. He bent down and laying his head on his side on the ground he concentrated on the sounds his ears were picking up.
Madame Dembe with a wave of her hand ordered everyone to remain silent.
The quinoid with moth characteristics began to breathe more and more slowly. The sound waves came softly indicating that the source that emitted it was far. But how far? He took a deep breath and held it trying to stop any of the sounds his own body made. Then, he began to form a mental image of the caves with the sound stimuli that he managed to capture.
<I should have brought someone with bat characteristics> Madame Dembe wailed as she waited in silence. An individual capable of seeing in the dark using sound waves would have been the most helpful person in this situation. But there was nothing she could do now, a journey from Baron Beura’s island to Lhimkio in a technomagic ship took a week and the costs of using a teleportation formation were so high that the baron would not waste them on commoners.
<Who would have said the object was underground? > she thought without taking her eyes off her subordinate. She was not concerned that the battle sounds were from creatures or monsters. What she feared was that two of the groups may be facing each other in the place where the object they were looking for was located.
“It is a battle” the moth quinoid assured raising its head, dirty with mud and pieces of mushrooms and crystals.
“In addition to the tunnel we are going to enter, the cavern that follows has two other paths. The one on the right continues to descend while the one on the left seems to ascend.
“Where do the sounds come from?” Madame Dembe asked annoyed, the directions of the future tunnels did not matter to her, at the time she would decide where to continue, at this moment the most important thing was to determine where the combat was taking place and determine the best way to react to what was happening.
“The one on the left” replied the quinoid with moth characteristics.
“Let’s continue in silence, we should not reveal our position until we know if the fighting parties are hostile or friendly with us” Madame Dembe ordered starting to walk again.
The quinoids nodded and resumed scanning the place with their respective partners.
Meanwhile, in another of the tunnels that linked the tangled system of caverns, the group of Darthañan descended by a path full of curves and undulations. The passage they had entered was darker than the places the other parties where located. Although it had vegetation and crystals, the plants were not luminescent, and the crystals were too small to channel enough energy to emit light.
After leaving the tunnel Frigglene stopped Darthañan by placing her hand on his chest.
“Turn off your lights” warned Frigglene.
Her face was so serious that Darthañan was unable to read the situation in the low light that illuminated his wife’s expression.
The accompanying lepiots turned to see Darthañan. They were told that Frigglene was the human’s bodyguard. Some were even beginning to suspect that the two were lovers because of the way they interacted.
“Do what she says” Darthañan ordered, turning off the light of his helmet.
The lepiots obeyed the order of the human and turned off the lights of their helmets. At that moment darkness embraced everything, they could not see even their own hands.
“What happened?” Darthañan whispered trying to make as little noise as possible.
“There is a second magnitude creature sleeping in this cavern, ” Frigglene replied seriously.
She was only one that could see in the deep darkness, so she knew that the decision to confront or evade the powerful creature may lay with her.
The power levels in both Almawarth and Tellurus were divided into five magnitudes. Each one divided into its subsequent levels and sublevels. Where the fifth magnitude corresponded to astronomical amounts of internal energy. A god would be part of this magnitude. And the first magnitude represented the amount of energy with which any living being was born, except for the gods and the titans.
At Almawarth the maximum magnitude allowed by the environment was the second, and the object they were looking for was at the third magnitude.
The levels and sublevels into which the magnitudes were divided needed various devices and resources to be determined, making it possible for a living being to only evaluate the amount of internal energy in levels of magnitude that another living being had.
This was quite a complex problem as the power difference between levels was overwhelming, making the magnitude comparison quite dangerous and reckless.
This was the problem Frigglene was dealing with, although she knew that everyone present also had second magnitude power, none of them was at the highest level of it. If the creature surpassed her by sublevels, they could beat it thanks to their numbers, but she could not guarantee that they would not have sacrifices. And, if the creature surpassed her by at least one level, everyone present would be condemned if they were to face it in battle.
“Can we get around without it detecting us?” Darthañan whispered.
Frigglene closed her eyes for a moment, she needed to calm down and think cold headed. When she opened them again she began to look around the cavern. She hadn’t noticed that this specific cave was gigantic, the presence of the second magnitude creature had caught her full attention making her ignore everything else.
From what she could feel of the energy emanating from the creature, its nest was in the center of the cavern. The cave was large enough to traverse its edges and go unnoticed. But when she was going to suggest that they should carefully surround the cavern, the images of Theodor and Elizabeth came to her mind, their laughter and crying, at that moment she realized that her life was no longer just hers, she had to go back alive to where her children were.
“Darth, I think we can surround the creature if we walk along the edge of the cavern. But I’m not sure we should risk it.” Frigglene bit her lip, she felt that what she was saying would only be said by a coward.
“What worries you?” Darthañan asked trying to caress his wife’s cheek, but due to the darkness he started touching the nape of her neck.
“Elizabeth and Theodor are waiting for us at home” Frigglene replied placing one of her hands on her husband’s hand and turning a little to kiss it.
That was the only thing she could say, no other word came out of her throat. All her life she had been very independent and not very sociable, she only agreed to go out with Darthañan because of how insistent he was and ended up falling in love with him because of how respectful, fun, understanding and powerful he was. She was attracted by power and skill in combat. In addition, unlike her acquaintances and relatives, Darthañan gave her space and allowed her to act independently. It was only until several years of dating that they began to share practically everything they did.
And now, after one of the greatest tragedies in their life, so great that the last few nights had been filling her with nightmares, was that the great blessing of Elizabeth and Theodor appeared. She could no longer think only of her and Darthañan, but not in a negative way, within the deepest part of her being she wanted to give all the best to her children, now everything she did she did it thinking of her children, not because it was her obligation but because she wanted to.
“Haaaa! How I wish my gloves hadn’t disintegrated when I teleported” Darthañan said with a big sigh.
Unlike warriors, mages needed items to help channel internal and ambient energy to perform spells efficiently and effectively, boosting spell results multiple times.
Darthañan bent down, removing the backpack he was carrying from his back and began to search inside it, feeling, because the darkness did not let him see anything, and he did not want to risk giving his position by turning on the light of his helmet.
“Here it is” he said out loud before repenting and shutting up immediately.
In his hands he had a rope made of magic acacia fibers, unlike weapons, this rope had been made at the last moment to allow Darthañan to channel his magic because in Vorpiax almost nobody used the common methods to perform magic, here the people were more dependent on guiding energy in nature with their will.
The first thing he did was to grant himself night vision. He had not done it before because this constantly drained his internal energy and having the headlights of the helmets there was no reason to spend energy it was better to save it for a battle. The same was true for lepiots who could imbue their weapons with the element of fire to illuminate the caverns. Only someone with a bad head would waste their energy as a light source.
Darthañan immediately gave Frigglene one end of the rope and passed by the lepiots asking them to grab it. When everyone was holding the rope, he performed a sound nullification spell and night vision.
“Ready, we can move now,” said Darthañan from the other end of the rope.
Now everyone who had contact with the rope could see in the dark, and all the sounds they made were absorbed by the it, making them pass almost invisible around the edges of the cavern. Even better, they could talk to each other by transmitting the sound over the rope.
