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An unknown traveller
The great road, as it is called by many, is the road that connects the City of Silver, the residence of light through the grat forest with the bay of tears. I think that the forest is uninteresting. There are no greater monsters, and the trees are only as small as a house. In the east of the continent, grow trees ten times as big. But what is truly worth visiting are the catacombs and caves, that are enormous and wide reaching. Sadly the remains of the empire is fighting gurrilla wars down there right now, so it could get a little tricky.
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After deciding to take the child in, we first had to do something about his beastly nature. Even now his muscles were tense and he looked at us with distrust. And honestly, that was a problem I had no idea how to resolve.
„Great now I have two people I have to babysit, and you still have no idea how to disguise him, do you?"
I scratched my head.
"well its not easy but there are a few possibility's, but let us talk about that later we still have to explore the rest."
Giving me a dubious look Leonard reluctantly turned around. Although not willing to admit he was probably just as eager to explore the rest as I was.
It turned out that aside from what we already found there wasn't that much to see.
Well aside from the wall decorations. All over the cave inside which the statue was placed were murals. They were carved into the stone and hidden unless you either feel the wall with your hand, or light up the whole cave.
Depicted on them was a stories about a small snake crawling out of a cave, devouring beasts and growing to be the same snake that was depicted on the statue.
What was truly peculiar however, was the last panel depicting the same snake surrounded by various animals that were kneeling and worshipping it. The apes were one of them. The snake itself was reaching towards the sky and aurora, as if it tried to grasp it.
I am unsure what it means, but let us record it for later.
Packing away my scanner, it could record things in much more detail than I could remember, I threw Leonard a questioning look, but he just shook his head. Looks like he too knew nothing.
The way down Leonard first helped me with a rope he took with him, before climbing down himself. The boy was a surprisingly good climber and quit cooperative, apparently he knew that we were his only chance. Now we only had a single cave at the bottom of the rock left that seems to lead down quit a bit.
Leonard reignited his lantern and readied his weapon, no need to be caught unprepared.
The tunnel went on for quit a bit, until it too opened up inside a huge cave. In fact, it was big enough that the light could not reach the other walls.
It was a bit unsettling but still beautiful as a myriad of stalagmite pierced the space with their sharp forms protruding out of the floor and celling.
"crack"
While walking forward I stepped onto a bone that broke under my weight.
Almost instantly both me and Leonard readied our weapons, noticing that not only below us, but in fact everywhere lied bones of various creatures and age. It almost looked chaotic and desperat. The child too looked tense, ready to run at any moment.
Especially after finding an almost rust consumed plate armour further in the cave, impaled by a long spear. What happened at this place.
I moved closer, maybe I could find something to identify the man. Just as I was about to reach out, something rushed out of the bones and bit my arm.
Damn it hurt like hell. Seeing the one meter long serpent made complicity out of bones scared and surprised me so much, that I took a moment to do anything. Yet before my problem got worse, a dagger cut trough the spine of the creature.
The modern weapon was even able to cut through steel, much less bones.
Taking the opportunity I grabbed the now itself startled snake and tossed it away from me. The curse should do the rest.
But contrary to what I thought the snake just let the curse infected rotting parts behind, and reassembled its body with the bones lying around. Then it looked at us with its green softly glowing eyes and disappeared into the darkness.
"That is problematic, I thought I killed it." He shook his head "Now it knows where we are, and what we can do. It wont make the same mistake twice, it seemed intelligent. by the way," he looked at my torn clock, I could see why his was made out of worn out patches,"Hows you arm?"
"Its okay, he only pierced the surface, my military gear saved me. Although I think It almost broke my bone, we must be careful. Who knows what age old disease such a creature could carry."
I was not concerned about myself. My body would heal sooner or later, and now that I was prepared, I could at least avoid a fatal hit.
Much more concerning was the child. he could die at any moment.
Positioning myself so that he was between me and Leonard, I looked around the place trying to find anything suspicious within our limited circle of light.
"I think we can kill it if we crack open his skull, There must be a part of it that cannot be replaced, where its will resides."
Leonard nodded, well it was kind of obvious that the head would be its weak spot.
But what could we do, why should he attack us now? If it were not so dark, we could search for it. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
"Extinguish the light, now."
My friend looked at me confused, there was not much time to explain, who knew when the beast would strike again.
"It can see in the dark, when we be at a disadvantage if we cant see any more."
He still seemed to lack an understanding.
"I can see in the dark, well not see in your typical sense, well I will spare you the technical jargon, and you remember, my cloths are not easy to penetrate, and you have a gamberson. We will should not be afraid of injury."
Finally Leonard seemed to understand. Extinguishing the flame with his gloves, the cave fell into absolute darkness, our own berating and heartbeat the only sounds we could hear.
Grabbing into my bag I took out a black golden trimmed monocle which I put onto my right eye.
Instantly half my vision was filled with blue lines that slowly pulsed to a rhythm. That was the result of decades of research and work. A device capable of seeing mana.
Besides me was the outline of a human that looked like a nerve system which stood out from the rest due to its order and rhythm. It beat faster, and more noticeable than the mana floating around elsewhere.
Sadly the range of the device was limited to my immediate vicinity, the power consumption grew exponentially with the range. My vision was allot smaller than the sours of light we had previously. The device was not that useful outside a special few occasions, especially since it was rather eye catching.
After waiting for another few minuets in absolute silence, I could see a construct of mana moving towards us. It looked different than our own mana, only the head was a network like normally, the rest of the mana was moving around like strings probably controlling the body.
Its overconfidence in us not being able too see it lead to this situation. As previously expected, was the aim of the snake the child in our midst. And as it was only a meter away ready to pounce I made my move.
As fast as I could, did I stomp onto its mid section to pin it down.
I could hear my boots grinding away on its bones.
The monster tried to let go of its parts like it did previously, but the grinding of magic against magic made it impossible. Interesting, so magic had that effect on itself.
Noticing its predicament the snake turned its head around and bite into my leg.
It was painful.
But instead of backing of I grabbed the head with my uninjured right arm.
While we were struggling my partner already reignited the lantern and held the dagger in his hands.
Fast but precise, he stuck down onto the head.
With what sounded like glass shattering the ball of mana inside its head was extinguished.
I collapsed onto the floor. it was not that I had a heavy injury, but this was just the first time this ever happened during a fight, and it costed me all my nerves to stay vigilant.
Who knew what else would await us in the endless darkness. But If I am honest, I kind of grew to like this lack of light, it was many times better than the sunlight I saw previously. At least the darkness did not discriminate against humans.