Half an hour later...
The group finally arrived at the cave. The tribals got to ’feeling’ the dungeon while the heroes prepared their gear, double-checking everything.
Since Adrian had nothing to do with either of them, he got to scan the surroundings to see if he could deduce so information about the dungeon from outside.
While the surrounding landscape was lush with greenery, the area around the cave was eerily devoid of life. Dead roots littered the ground, and giant boulders partially obscured the entrance, which almost felt like soone had intentionally covered the entrance.
Even the wolves were getting restless just by being around the cave. While the other wolves refused to get any closer to the cave, Fenris managed to go and sit near the dungeon, but she refused to enter the cave despite Adrian’s insistence.
Seeing her behave as such made many questions pop into Adrian’s mind. He asked Sula about it, who shrugged and walked away.
’So much for being my fiancee,’ Adrian thought.
Her reaction was all he needed to know that the other two had to have planned sothing and signalled Alia and Sophia to be careful.
anwhile, the heroes were done with their preparations as they looked at the cave a final ti. It was going to be a hell of a trip, but not in a good sense. Going blindly inside a dungeon was never fun or easy. The tribals might not know it, but the heroes did.
Still, it wasn’t like they had much choice and, without much hesitation, walked inside.
The group went deeper into the murky cave. Beyond the entrance was a scanty, damp passageway. It was even bigger than the enclosures the tribe had made for their beasts.
It seed impossible for sothing so big to fit inside a small cave. But its size wasn’t the only thing noticeable about the place.
As Adrian and the others walked through the passage, they were greeted by a dim, bluish light that had infused the semi-spherical chamber. They quickly found the source of light, as it was apparent at a glance.
The chamber was laden with blue-glowing lichen and violet-glowing moss, which clung to the ceiling and spread across the floor. It even crept up and down the walls as if the colonies on the floor and ceiling were growing to et each other.
However, all the moss on the ground ca from the luminescent pond filled with silvery liquid. It felt like the liquid was actually responsible for making the moss glow.
The room felt different as if they had entered a new world. The air was cool and crisp, a welco change from the slly tunnel they had just left.
They could even feel a gentle breeze brushing against their skin, though there were no openings for it to co from. It was as if the cave had its own little world hidden inside, complete with its own weather system.
"It’s weird..." Vincent mumbled everyone’s thoughts. "This is the first ti I have seen anything like this."
Adrian nodded. The dungeon felt strange, no doubt about it. His only explanation for the dungeon’s weirdness was that the dungeon’s interior differed from place to place.
"Oh, I forgot it’s your first ti, so you won’t know. But for all we know, caves are just an entrance to an outworldly place," Sula mumbled from behind. "You could say that, in a way, the caves are a gateway to so other world. But this one is exceptionally... quiet."
But not everything was beautiful inside the chamber. In addition to the moss and lichen, the room was covered in large bones of dead but abnormally sized insects and ash.
"Looks like quite a few beasts entered the cave before us..." Taheton mumbled as he squatted down to analyse the bones. "It hasn’t been too long since they were devoured, I guess? They still have so at and tendons attached to the bone and look kind of moist."
"So it’s definitely not a normal cave," Clara mumbled, taking out a pad and writing everything down. "The bones would also explain why there are no beasts inside the cave when usually they all enjoy being inside the cave. Sothing must have happened, or they must have-"
"Beco soone else’s dinner," Sophia said, completing what Clara wanted to say.
While the group was busy discussing their findings, Marcus decided to scope out the rest of the place and went to the pond. Once he was there, he did what most of the people would do.
He grabbed a pebble and threw it into the pond. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, either. But then sothing unexpected happened.
Marcus thought the stone would skip on the surface, but that didn’t happen. A loud sizzling noise echoed throughout the hall as soon as the stone touched the water. A similar noise was made while frying sothing in hot oil.
Everyone left what they were doing and rushed to check what happened.
"What did you do?" Taheton asked while looking at the bubbles in the lake. "What was that noise?"
"I-I don’t know! I just threw a pebble in the pool, and the noise-" Marcus stuttered but got cut off.
"Is it a pool of acid or sothing?" Alia was the first to regain her composure. "If it is, we must back away from the pool right now!"
Suddenly, Adrian felt sothing fall next to his feet. He looked there and found the ground lting right before his eyes. His gaze shot up, and there it was... a creature he had never seen before.
It looked like a black insect and had eight hairy but pointed legs. Its body was divided into two parts: one consisting of its heavy bottom, which resembled a plum berry, and the other consisting of its head, which had innurable eyes bunched together.
The legs were attached to the upper half of its body, but since they were large enough, they easily supported the beast’s body. But the creature wasn’t alone... as soon as it appeared, four others followed it. But they were considerably smaller than the 11-foot-tall arachnid.
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