Chapter 28 - Minefield

1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Mississippi, 6 Mississippi ...

There was a huge splash and Ryan felt am extremely cold liquid around him. He started trying to swim however he had no idea where he was going, everything was pitch black. After swimming for a few minutes he finally felt his paws touch land.

Ryan quickly slumped down and began regaining his breath, he looked around but he wasn't able to see anything except for the starry sky from the entrance of the hole above. He sighed and shook his body to get rid of some of the water that had accumulated in his pelt.

"Dammit looks like I really should have gotten the Night Vision skill that was on the skill list."

He began walking in the dark and after walking for a short bit he ran into a stone wall. He brushed the left side of his body as he began walking around trying to find a way out. Ryan had no idea how long it took but he finally managed to find some sort of entrance.

He walked in and began feeling his way through it, it seemed to be a tunnel-like structure that was about 5 ft wide. 'Please let this tunnels be naturally made and not created by some burrowing creature.'

Ryan began walking further inside the cave/tunnel not long after he started he felt that he had bumped into something hard. That very second he felt a strong impact push him into the wall. He stood up as fast as possible and prepared to be pounced on by anything but after a long minute, nothing happened.

He began to relax and think about what happened carefully, 'That push couldn't possibly be from tablet could it?'

Ryan hesitated but after a while, he slowly tried finding where he had been before he was pushed. Once again after the feeling of something he was pushed away only this time it wasn't as severe as last time since he barely touched it.

He stretched his sore body and laughed "Ouch, yep that's a freakin tablet alright. Now not only do I have to move in the dark but I also have to watch out for those damn things."

After walking inside for an unknown amount of time and being blown away 7 times he finally saw a dim blue light in at the end of the tunnel that had many turns. He quickened his pace and reached the light which turned out to be produced by blue stones sticking out of the walls.

Ryan let out a relieved sigh, "Never thought that I would miss light this much, I really need to get something so that never occurs again. I felt like I was in some kind of horror movie where something would jump out of nowhere at any time."

He looked around the huge "Room" that he was in and found many tablets popping up from the ground in random spots. "Damn good thing there is light otherwise this place would have been a minefield."

He began walking and looking around to see if he could find any he could use to get out, otherwise, he would be in trouble since the room he was in was where the tunnel ended.

Ryan looked at all the drawings with interest since he might end up meeting these creatures someday. He froze when he walked in front of one of the tablets, "Oh shit".

On the tablet there was a lizard-like creature with wings, it had its mouth opened and looked like it was spitting snowflakes. "Ugh, just what I needed, this world has undead, demons, and dragons!!! What's going to happen next? Am I going to meet Cerberus or Nessie?"

He sighed, shook his head, and continued scanning tablets. After looking through them he finally found an evolution that might allow him to leave the Advancing Relm. The tablet had the image of a horned wolf, above it was a pair of clouds that released lighting bolts that hit the wolf.

"Nice, looks interesting. So far I haven't seen any two tablets that look the same so I doubt that it's a common evolution among the horned wolves. I mean the chances that someone else jumps down and enters the cave are pretty slim. At the moment it's the only tablet that might actually allow me to get out of this mess."

Just to make sure that it was true he looked at the rest of the tablets but there wasn't anything else that he would be able to use unless he wanted to become some kind of zombie wolf, which he didn't.

Ryan stood in front of the image of the wolf struck by lightning once more and slowly walked towards it. He raised a paw, closed his eyes, and touched the tablet. As soon as Ryan came in contact with the cold surface of the tablet his whole body gave out a tingly sensation and the top of his head began to get itchy and heavy.

He opened his eyes and was blinded by the white light that was surrounding him, slowly the light began dissipating and what was left was a small blue pup with two small budding horns.

Ryan looked at his body and sighed "The heck? Other than a heavier head I don't feel any different."

He stared at one of the walls and raised a paw "Lighting Strike". The only thing that followed was an awkward silence, he looked around and noticed that there was a faint dark halo surrounding the tablets. The one that he had touched had a small white halo.

"That's new, still though I guess there's one way to see what I got from this evolution."

[status]

Name: Viper Pup

Health: 80/80

Stamina: 53

Strength: 34

Agility: 46

Mana : 100

- - - - - - - - -

Magic:

Lightning - ??? MP

Evil Projection - 150 MP

Power Full Legs - 0 MP

Low-Level Demon Summoning - 0 MP

"Been a while since I've paid close attention to my stats compared to the beginning the numbers have really improved. The only problem is that I don't really know what my capabilities are compared to others since theirs isn't numbered. Sadly, it looks like I'm still unable to summon any evil projections, I have to find a way to increase my stats."

Ryan closed his eyes and began walking to the tablet like he had seen the skeletons do. He was relieved that he didn't feel the stone, instead, he felt a strong breeze and smelled a rich scent of grass.

He slowly opened his eyes and was greeted by a pair of blue eyes, "Shit, why? I thought I was finally out of this place."

Ryan was about to roll away and escape but he was able to slightly process what was in front of him when he saw the white pelt. "Mother is that you?"

She smiled and nodded "Looks like you have been through a lot Viper Pup. Just stay laying down and get some rest, you don't have to worry I'll stay by your side."

He relaxed and was about to thank her until he felt something pat his back. He quickly turned around with bared fangs but regained his composure when he saw that the one who patted his back was Fang Pup who was followed by the other pups.

"You finally woke up Viper Pup, you had me worried no matter what I tired you didn't wake up. She said that you would wake up when you felt better but we were all still afraid you wouldn't. Don't worry though we have made sure to do the things that you taught us so that we can become strong like you."

Ryan smiled and nodded, he walked towards them but he felt his whole body ache more than it did in the advancement realm. All the pups noticed that something was wrong so they ran up to him and used their bodies to support him.

"Are you okay Viper Pup? Did someone hurt you when you were asleep?"

Fang Pup stared down the other pups with a serious expression "Was it any of you? No one else could have hurt him because we were the only ones that were near him. Come on who was it, don't worry we won't punish you that bad just some more running."

Ryan couldn't help but burst in laughter and he shook his head "It wasn't them, but thanks for worrying about me. I just had a bad dream and might have hurt myself in my sleep."

The silver pup nodded but then he tilted his head and gave a confused expression "Oh okay. Viper Pup can I ask you a question?"

Ryan stretched his body since it felt stiff "Sure what is it?"

"Who is shit? You yelled it out loud when you woke up, is it someone from your bad dream?"

He looked at the young pup and laughed nervously "Umm….. no that's not actually a word, since I woke up I accidentally said something dumb. Don't worry about that word and try not to ever use it since others will look at you funny."

"Oh, I think it sounds cool but if you said not to use it then I won't. Oh yeah, I forgot we moved to a new home, there are lots of rocks so we have been playing around by jumping from rock to rock. I can jump higher now, though it's not as high as the others since I'm too small. Wow looks like your growing horns like the others, hopefully, I'll start growing some soon"

Ryan looked around and saw that they were in a sort of rock mountain that was surrounded by trees and grass. He nodded "Makes sense, we couldn't stay in our old camp since the others knew where we were. Looks like Sun Blaze and Dust Thorn chose a good spot."

Suddenly he remembered something and he began to painfully walk away from the rest of the pups. "Do any of you know where I can find Dust Thorn or Sun Blaze?"

Fand Pup nodded and pointed below at one of the trees "Sun Blaze is on top of that branch making sure that the bad wolves stay away. Dust Thorn left with some of the others saying that he was going to get some meat so that every one that is hurt can get strong again."

Ryan sighed and nodded, he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs how much he hated them for not telling him beforehand about the Advancement Realm but it seemed like they were doing the best they could to keep the clan going.

He began walking out of the den that they were in when he heard Star Light "Viper Pup get some sleep, I'm sure that you need it after what's happened."

Ryan turned around and smiled "I have something to ask Sun Blaze, I'll come back and get some sleep after I get my answer."

He then turned around and began walking towards the tree. The red wolf must have smelled him because before he had arrived the Sun Blaze turned around and jumped from the tree. His tail was wagging and he ran towards him.

"You made it Viper Pup, that's amazing!! I'm sorry if we didn't tell you about that place, it's just that at the time we were thinking about so many things. Also usually we have to kill several preys so we didn't expect that you would advance after killing the two wolves."

Ryan shook his head and smiled 'You idiots because of your carelessness I almost died several times'.

"Don't worry about all that. Just tell me have the Swamp Clan brought back my father?"

Sun Blaze's ears and tail dropped as he shook his head "The body of Moon Heart was dropped in the river and it was pushed back to our old camp. There was a large bite at the back of his nick and his wings were cut off along with his horns."

Ryan felt his body shake in anger "Then we must kill that Swamp Clan warrior and gut him in their border."

The red wolf growled and clawed the ground "We have already done that. We made sure that the enemy suffered as much as possible."

"Then we better watch out, they might try to attack us as soon as they find the body. How many hours has it been since we left the body at the border? I don't think that Dust Thorn should be hunting, the Swamp Clan might have followed your trail here. We should wait for a few days."

Sun Blaze nodded "That's what we did but there still hasn't been any movement from them. They have taken over some of our territories but there's not much that we can do about that at the moment."

Ryan was confused and he tilted his head "What do you mean? You have already waited for days?"

The red wolf gave him a nervous smile and nodded "You see when what happened to you occurs some things are different than what they feel. In reality, you were asleep for about half a moon."

Ryan looked at Sun Blaze in total shock "I've been knocked out for 15 days??"