-The Gods, 11 Kisine, The Goddess of the Sea. This Goddess is hard to find on land. She was a human who lived by the ocean. She spent her whole life living in or near water. And as such, she swam and understood it better than most humans. She was the first sailor to cross the seas, and a diver capable of pulling amazing treasure off the bottom. When she ascended she almost disappeared from history. Today she is worshipped almost exclusively by sailors and fishermen. There are legends that Merfolk revere her as their creator. Seeing as Merfolk are rare, this has not been confirmed by the church and is considered heretical.-
Rennish rearranged himself in the branch he was standing on until he felt more secure. He wiggled his body around until he could put his hand down at his waistband and used his free hand to feel for the bag of instruments.
This idea was madness, especially in an enclosed cave, but he thought it might be the only way to get a good bearing out of here. He pulled the bag up to eye level and inspected it to make sure that there were no cuts or tears in the bag from the sharp edges of the crystal leaves in the trees.
When he was sure that it was complete and undamaged he smiled and nodded to himself. He took in one large deep breath to calm himself and then pictured it in his mind as clear as he could. "Instrument of destruction!" he declared as loud as he could.
The room shook a little with the force of words and an echo came across the room from the other side. The bag wiggled a little as the magic in it activated more than once. Rennish put the bag in his teeth as he used his other hand to hold onto the limb. He then reached in and pulled out the first item that was in the bag.
Inside the palm of his hand, he held a small round metal ball the size of a good lemon. The magic in the bag gave the holder the ability to generally understand the usage of anything that came from it. This was how Rennish was able to pull out nearly any musical instrument and play it with some level of proficiency. The same feature worked for other instruments as well.
He knew that in his hand he had some kind of bomb. A pin sat in the top and it was designed to be tossed. Rennish was large and relatively muscular but he never excelled in sports and his divine power was already being restricted due to Ysennia and her mayhem.
He sighed and felt the weight of the object. It couldn't have been more than a few pounds. He knew instinctively he needed to duck after it went off but he didn't want to get below the tree line in case he lost his line of sight to the edge of the cave.
He put the item in his pocket and using two fingers removed the bag from his teeth and used his other hand to hold onto it while he rearranged himself and muttered a prayer to himself. He enjoyed the gag in that. He was mostly mortal now and prayer seemed like a good thing, and to be honest the only divine being he trusted was himself.
He put the pin between his teeth and used his hand to force the pin from its hole. He heard a mechanism drop inside as the pin came out. The magical knowledge instilled in him the need to throw it as hard as he could. Normally he was a lousy toss but unknowingly he was being gifted the knowledge from the bag to help safeguard its owner. He instinctively put the grenade in his hand in a fastball pitch and then tossed it with all the might he could get while being over a dozen feet in the air clinging to a fragile glass tree.
The grenade soared through the air and landed nearly 80 feet from him inside the trees. He knew that the fuse had a 10-second delay on it. He was counting to himself but he made it to 12 when suddenly the trees shattered around the explosion. Smoke and light filed the cave and he felt shards of tree fly past his face. Small cuts showed up on exposed skin. He had ducked but the force in the enclosed space had been enough to force the shards all the way to him.
Rennish laughed out loud and screamed at the top of his lungs in excitement. "Oh hell yes!"
The sight had made him giddy. Dust was still falling from the roof, and the walls were creaking ever so slightly. The cave was enclosed in granite and old volcanic rocks. The rocks were shifting as they had been momentarily pressed outwards and were now trying to resettle after being crushed by the force. They wanted to resettle in their same old spots and small chunks were falling from the roof shattering trees below them.
Still giddy from the excitement he reached into the bag and felt two more of the grenades. He smiled so hard his face hurt and started to work his way down. The crater wasn't more than a few feet wide in the center of where the explosion went off but the trees for a nearly 60-foot diameter were shattered and littering the ground. The closer you got to the center the less debris you had to fight with.
When Rennish got to the ground he looked up at the blue ball of light and carefully walked towards the crater. When he got to the first downed tree he carefully climbed over the trunk and made his way through the debris trying to avoid sharp edges and shards. He would stop every so often and look up to make sure that the blue orb was still at his back.
When he got to the center he looked up at the blue orb and faced directly forward until he could see his soft shadow from the light pointing directly away from him. He smiled and pulled out another grenade. He contemplated his options and tried to guess how far the wall was from where he stood. He figured it had to be another 150 to 200 feet. He sighed and said another prayer to himself.
"Dear divine being Rennish, god that keeps me safe. Save me from myself, let this badass little destruction ball find a good place over there away from me. And may I keep all my limbs intact. P.s. save my face, it's too beautiful for scars..." He sighed when he finished and smiled.
"Alright, time to do it again!" He said with a smile. He was like a child with a wild crazy toy right. Giddy from the fun of its sheer destruction.
Instinct kicked in this time and he got the ball in his hands and pulled the pin with his other hand this time. He got a small wind up and threw the grenade again. This time he threw it a little farther, it rolled after it landed and traveled about 150 feet this time. He ducked to the ground and threw his jacket over his head. He was pleased with this result. He knew that the average human could throw an apple more than 200 feet. He was pleased with himself right now.
The explosion went off and he resisted the urge to look at it but he did giggle as he felt the pressure change when the small bomb went off. He counted to 3 and then got up. Little shards of crystal were all floating down from the sky and looked like tiny stars as they caught the light from the blue ball in the roof.
Rennish turned around and noticed that it was shaking from side to side this time. Rennish didn't know science or he would have realized this was a sign he was getting close to the edge. The force of the blast has sent a shockwave of air up the edge of the wall and up towards the center following the curve of the cave. The crater edge wasn't visible from his current position.
Rennish looked to make sure his shadow was still pointing directly in front of him. It was swaying softly as the blue ball of light moved but was slowing down. He walked to the edge of the crater and stepped carefully between the tree line.
He looked over his shoulder to keep an eye on the ball of light. He wanted to maintain a straight line. He moved slowly and with purpose, take two steps, stop, look over his shoulder, recenter, and move forward again. After a few minutes of this, he finally came across the first felled tree. He walked around it and stepped up across the fallen stump and then got his first eye on the devastation. This blast was a bit more oblong because the air had blown out and then back over.
To his delight, he could see the edge of the cave. When he looked back over his shoulder the light was slightly over his shoulder, not behind him now. He figured that the magic was tied to the trees, like an enchanted forest farther to the west where the Fay folk lived. With the trees knocked from the ground, they lacked the area of effect they had otherwise.
Rennish carefully worked his way to the edge of the cave and smiled. He put his hand on the wall and smiled. The smile lasted only for a few minutes though. Across the cave he heard a crack, the blue ball of light dropped a few feet. The roots of the plants that emitted the light had been knocked free by the blast and they were losing their grip on the roof.
Rennish sighed and cursed himself for not praying again. He looked both ways down the wall. He knew that it was mostly round so if he was going to find any kind of hole in the wall he was going to have to hurry before he lost all his light.
He sighed and picked right. Right had always worked for him and it was a play on words. He hoped he had picked the right direction. He put one hand on the wall so he didn't lose it to the tree's magic and rushed as quickly as he could. The sound of snapping roots and dropping rocks was increasing as the time passed on. What felt like hours was only a few minutes as he ran forward along the wall.
With a huge snapping noise, he heard the last root gave way. He looked over his shoulder for just one second as he saw the light sway to the left and then drop. In slow motion, he ran as fast as he could. The sound of the crash into the tree's below sounded windows blowing out from a whole city block. The sound of crystal shattering was interrupted by the momentary shaking of the ground as the huge mass caused a wave in the soil at the bottom of the cave.
As the room suddenly got dimmer Rennish stumbled just moments before his hand fell into space in the wall. He tripped, trying to catch himself and he stumbled a few steps before he started to tumble into a hole in the wall.
He felt the air suddenly become cooler as he rolled a few times before coming to a halt with this butt up in the air against the edge of a lava tube. He cursed and tried to get himself upright again in the dark. He rolled himself over and got his hands under him. His right hand was on firm ground but his left was on something soft and squishy. It felt like an animal. Sheer terror from the thought of waking up some predator made his brain immediately go into fight or flight.
He got his feet under him and ran the opposite direction from where he had come. He put his hands out and felt for the walls as he ran down the shaft, not stopping to think he should be paying attention to where he was going.
Behind him, Hatsheput was lying unconscious and crumpled in a pile on the floor. She had passed out after she fell into the lava tube. It was only a coincidence that she managed to get the exact tube that Rennish had found. It was the only tube in or out of that cave. What only Hatsheput knew was that the light from the blue plants in the roof was magical and would obscure any escape from the room.
They were the reason that the room seemed to bend, and why the one exit was never clearly visible. The crystal trees had been her own creation. She thought it was like a beautiful glowing garden. With the light removed from the room, you would have seen this exit clearly
Had she been awake at this point she would have been angry at knowing that a man had laid hands on her body again. The last man to do so had died staring at a pile of his own intestines and reproductive organs. Thankfully for Rennish that prayer for protection had covered him in this instance, and not when he was still inside the cave.