Chapter 150: Following A Sli
I slithered close behind the gelatinous creature as it led
eastwards, which was good. If it led
towards the north or south, I might have followed it, but not west, I didn’t want to lose all of my progress. Besides, I fell that it would’ve found
sooner if that was the case.
As I followed the creature, days passed and the trees dispersed, giving way to a beautiful field of bright and dazzling flowers. Off in the distance, I could see the signs of civilization.
The sli however, after reaching the field, did not go through it, and instead headed up north along the edge of the field, where I could see nurous mountains lining the horizon. I wasn’t sure if that was where we were headed but I continued to follow the sli anyways.
It took us another couple of days to reach the base of the mountain and when we arrived there seed to be a path that went partway up the mountain and led into a cave of so sort.
The sli started to head up the path without a care in the world, but I was a bit more hesitant, as this path seed to be man-made. Would there be people up there at the entrance? If so, who would they be, and what would they be like.
It’d been so long since I talked to soone that I was nervous at the re prospect of having to talk to soone.
Still, I followed the pink sli up the path anyways, my curiosity overpowering my nervousness as I wanted to see what it had in store for . Even if it was a trap I’m confident that I can escape with my strength, and even in the event that my strength isn’t enough and I die, I’ll be fine embracing death.
I continued to follow the sli up the winding stone pathway until we were about a third of the way up the mountain when we stumbled upon a plateau that had so small stalls here and there, all filled with various bits of equipnt, and up against the wall of the mountain, there seed to be the entrance to a mine, but it was seemingly blocked off by so guards.
As soon as I crested the path onto the plateau, everyone looked towards
instinctively, causing
to flinch in response. They all eyed my naked body, so with intrigue, so with disgust and so with desire. But after a few seconds they ignored
and went back to whatever they were doing seemingly used to naked people just wondering around.
There were a lot of humans here, and I an A LOT of humans. If not for the occasional set of cat ears and tail that I saw on so people, then I would’ve thought that this was a human establishnt.
I was scared as my father always told
to be wary of humans and their cunning nature that rivalled that of demons.
The pink sli however, didn’t care about that as it slid its way over towards the hole in the wall, leaving a trail of mucus behind it. No one batted an eye at the slis actions and continued to carry out their business. I followed the sli, getting the odd side eye here and there but otherwise not much else happened.
At least until the sli passed through into the mine entrance and I tried to follow through. They blocked my passage through by crossing their spears together.
Taking another look at them, they were two human n wearing full, shining plate armour with a blue cape hanging from behind them. On their arms was a yellow sigil of a strange creature standing on its hind legs with a thin tail that had a small fluffy end plastered over a sun.
"You cannot enter this area without the proper registrations." One of them inford .
"And wha-" *Cough* *Cough* I started to cough as soon as I tried speaking.
"You okay?" The other man asked.
I nodded in response as I rubbed my throat.
"Would you like so water? Your voice sounded real rough." The first guard offered
a flask of water, which I gratefully accepted.
I took a few sips before returning the flask and trying to speak once more.
"What registrations?" I asked in a raspy voice, trying not to strain it too much.
The two guards looked at
with worry.
"Are you good? Your voice doesn’t sound like it is." The first guard asked.
"I’m fine. Lost my voice and recovered only recently." I spoke using the fewest number of words possible while still conveying what I wanted to say.
"Oof. Hope you have a swift recovery, but, I’m afraid we can’t let you pass. Not like we don’t want you to, but we’re just following procedure." The second guard explained.
That was when we heard the sound of sothing wobbly begin to ripple. The three of us looked into the cave entrance and saw that the sli was either agitated or annoyed.
The guards looked at one another, then back at the sli, then at .
"Are... Are you, with, the sli?" The first guard questioned
"I guess? I followed it from the forest as it seed to want
here." I answered, my voice still extrely rough not just from being broken, but also lack of use.
"Well, we don’t want to anger that thing, but... We at least need to know if you’re strong enough to survive in there." The second guard said to .
"Why?" I asked, then it hit . I turned to look back at everyone else and found the people bartering at the stalls seed to be adventurer’s and the people behind the stalls were selling them supplies. "Is there..."
"Yeah, popped up a few months ago when so miners accidentally broke the wall keeping it in. Sure, they can keep mining, but they don’t feel safe with a dungeon nearby, even if adventurer’s go in and out. Can’t bla ’em honestly, I’d feel the sa." The first guard explained.
"Still, we can’t willingly let you in if you can’t protect yourself, and you don’t look like you could afford an escort to go with you." The second one chid in.
"How strong then?" I asked.
"Uhh... You familiar with the adventurer ranking system?" The second guard asked.
"No, but simple, yes?" I said keeping my words short to let my voice adjust to being used again. I sounded like a silent banshee to be honest, and I wanted to get away from that as soon as possible.
"Pretty simple, start off at copper, then bronze, iron, silver, gold and so one. If we are to let you in, I’d sayyyyy about iron level?" The second guard said, a little unsure of himself. "At least to guaruntee you can stay safe and alive."
"How can I prove strength then?" I asked once more.
"Just a simple demonstration of your skills, preferably sothing like so high damage magic or a strong punch will do." The first guard explained patiently.
"Where?" I asked, not wanting to be annoying or annoy anyone.
"Just fire whatever into the air, they won’t mind." The first guard said.
I turned around and looked up at the sky. There were a few clouds here and there, not too cloudy but still enough of them that the sun would be blocked out for a bit.
It took
a mont on what to demonstrate, but I ended up with a good old-fashioned [Fireball]. I wasn’t going to throw a regular fireball, no, I was going to at least throw one empowered by runes. I created one roughly the half the size of my head and added a few simple runes onto it such as ’burst’ and ’velocity’ which would allow it to have a bigger blast and go a lot faster.
I hurled it into the air and waited a few seconds before setting it off so as to not let it affect anything or anyone.
*BOOOOOOM!!!*
It exploded with a thunderous bang and a bright flash, a shockwave soon reaching everyone but doing nothing more than blow against people like the wind on a decently windy day. Then the heat ca shortly after. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, just a fair bit hotter than a camp fire.
The explosion soon resided and I turned back to see the two guards looking up at the place the explosion happened with awe.
I coughed to get their attention and they shook their heads to get out of their stupor before looking at
with astonishnt and wonder. I could also see a little bit of fear behind those eyes, not much but it was there, though it was more the kind of fear that said ’I wasn’t expecting that’ which isn’t really fear but it seed to be sothing along those lines.
"What... What was that?" the first guard stuttered.
"Fire magic?" I replied a bit confused.
"That wasn’t normal fire magic!" The second one scread at .
"Well, I did enhance it a bit." I explained.
"With what?" He asked back.
"Runes." I replied calmly.
"You have access to rune magic?" The first guard asked sceptically.
"Yes?" I responded in confusion once more. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, or maybe it is to humans and I just don’t know.
"Sothing’s not adding up here." The second guard said. "Rune magic can make spells more powerful, but that seed too powerful, even for a standard enhancent."
"How would you that?" The first guard asked him in bewildernt.
"I saw one of the rlin wizards use rune magic once, and they did the sa thing." The second guard replied.
Before they could start an argunt or sothing I coughed once more to get their attention.
They turned their head to
and I asked, "Can I go in now?"
"Oh yeah, yeah of course, go right ahead." The first guard said, going back to the side to guard the entrance to the mine while his buddy did the sa.
Finally I was able to go in and follow the sli further.
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