Four hours had passed since Alatheiin went to 'sleep'.
"Morning sunshine." Liggie said
"Hey Liggie," mumbled Alatheiin. "Where are the others?"
"Oh y'know... Here and there."
Alatheiin raises an eyebrow. "You don't know, do you?"
"Yeah, I just woke up too…"
"Alright-" Alatheiin gets up and extends his hand towards the sitting Dwarf, "-let's go find them."
The two adventurers found Athelarius sitting on the riverbank watching Chernika and Neriah arguing fiercely over something.
"So how long have they been going at it?" Alatheiin asked.
Athelarius looked up at Alatheiin with a deadpan expression. "About an hour or so. Might have even been two hours."
"Two hours? Arguing about what?"
"About this type of show called 'anime' and something about their feelings for the characters being real or not?"
"I think I've heard of that before. Pretty sure it came from a faraway land called Higashi," Alatheiin remembered. "People I've met who've watched them always seem to argue about the same thing too."
"Must be a touchy subject," Athelarius gets up. "I guess we're ready to go now?"
"Yeah, just help me break them up."
After separating the two people arguing, they went back to the camp and discussed the argument that almost led to the death of the Elf. To enter the cave, or to return to their original quest. The conclusion was decided when Liggie just rushed into the cave.
Unwittingly led by Liggie, the Gang enters the cave. Though they completely forgot their original reason for this detour, they press on anyway.
Liggie enters the cave and examines his surroundings.
A few uneven stone steps lead up to a small, dank chamber on the east side of the passage. The cave narrowed to a steep fissure at the far end, filled with the stench of animals. Savage snarls and the sounds of rattling chains greeted his ears.
With his darkvision, Liggie spotted what seemed to be 'monkeys' chained to an iron rod driven into the base of a stalagmite.
"Oi! Alatheiin! There's monkeys over 'ere!" Liggie called out to Alatheiin.
"Monkeys? In a cave?" Questioned the Elf. "You sure you didn't go through my drinks while I was gone?"
Alatheiin walks to Liggie's side and looks inside. The 'monkeys' turned out to be three wolves chained to the other side of the room.
"Gods, he's an actual idiot, isn't he," thought Alatheiin.
Alatheiin begins the encounter with an arrow to the head of a wolf, severely injuring it. Liggie, surprised at the resilience of the wolf, attempts to throw a javelin at it but only succeeding at hitting the ceiling of the cave, injuring none of the wolves.
A second wolf further back rushed up to Liggie, almost reaching him if not for the tight chain restraining any further movement.
Chernika walks behind Liggie while contemplating over 5 different timelines over what can and can't be catapulted.
"Liggie, how fat are you?" asks Chernika.
"200 pounds," answered Liggie.
Learning that Liggie was 40 times fatter than what he could catapult, Chernika decides to just give up and shoot a firebolt. As he stepped forth, readying his spell, he slipped on the water stream, redirecting the firebolt to the ceiling.
Liggie angered by the apparent failure of the wizard to not only hit the wolf, but nearly hitting him too, walked up to the second wolf and punched it square in the face.
The first wolf with the arrow in it's head rushes for the High Elf ranger but also gets restrained by the chain.
Athelarius charges into the fray, slipping past the wizard and leaping over the Dwarf, gaining momentum to do an overhead swing, bringing his greataxe down onto the wolf's head with enough might that shook the chamber.
Alatheiin, in awe of the awesome move by the Dragonborne, misses his shot attempt at the third wolf in the back.
That same wolf then rushed upwards, attempting to bite the Dragonborne but didn't quite pierce his scaly skin.
The second wolf, enraged by the punch to the face, gnawed at Liggie, finally making him realise;
"These things aren't monkeys, are they?" he thinks to himself.
Alatheiin sees the Dwarf's face and says mockingly, "Figured it out, Grungni?"
Neriah decides to sneak around the third wolf to investigate the room, but alas, trying to sneak around a goddamn wolf through a narrow opening, he obviously failed and stepped on the wolf's tail.
Said wolf attempts to bite the rogue. Luckily, this rogue proved to be quite acrobatic as he was able to dodge the attack successfully before fading into the shadows once more.
Liggie then pulls out his warhammer, bringing it down on the wolf in front of him, splitting its skull and neck down the middle.
The final wolf bites into Athelarius' leg, ripping off a chunk of his leg, crippling his movement.
Enraged, Athelarius attempted to bite back at the wolf's leg, but was unsuccessful as he was hindered by his hideous wound.
"Did you really just…" Alatheiin pulls back on his bow. "Oh for Asuryan's sake."
Alatheiin plunged the arrow into the final wolf's chest, stopping it from finishing Athelarius off, injuring it greatly, but still not enough to kill it.
The wolf would have killed off the Dragonborne if not for the ranger interfering, making it take only a small chunk out of Athelarius' leg again, crippling him further.
Neriah went and checked the room for anything else but upon finding nothing, decided to go and attack the final wolf Ezio Auditore style, plunging two shortswords into it, finally leaving it to rest for eternity.
It was after all this that Alatheiin realizes that Chernika had been sulking in the corner for 'not being able to do anything right'.
Alatheiin was about to console him but Chernika suddenly got mad, shouting "This would have never happened if we went back on the trail!" which would have led to an argument if they weren't more concerned with their friend almost missing an entire leg.
Athelarius goes to a nearby rock in the room to try and stabilize his wound while Neriah, feeling done with this situation, decides to go deeper into the cave, noticing a cavern on the other side of the shallow river.
Meanwhile, Alatheiin and Chernika both investigate the cave with Alatheiin only finding dust in his eyes. Chernika however finds a sort of vent at the back of the room.
Neriah continued to walk deeper in before noticing a wooden bridge hanging above him, with a green silhouette popping up for a second. With all the curiosity of an edgy rogue, he decides to go in deeper leaving the rest of his party behind.
Alatheiin and Liggie were about to catch up with Neriah when all of a sudden the cave started to shake, with the sound of water fast approaching. With the agility of true Elven blood in them, Neriah and Alatheiin jumped out of the way of the sudden gush of water. While Liggie clumsily jumped out of the way, barely managing to avoid it.
Neriah jumped gracefully into the cavern with Liggie barely managing to reach the edge of the cavern. But Neriah, being the chaotically evil being that he is, pushed Liggie off the edge, causing him to float away out of the cave with the flood.
Alatheiin ran into the room earlier, slightly wet and breathing rapidly. Chernika was about to ask if he was okay when he suddenly saw an orange silhouette floating away outside.
"Did you… see that?" asked Chernika.
"Yup."
"What do you think that was?"
Alatheiin smiled and replied, "Well if I had to bet, that was probably a very pissed off Dwarf floating away."
Sure enough, Liggie passed by them absolutely pissed. He walked up to Neriah and sucker punched his baby making machine, sending him into a near death, shocked state.
Alatheiin and Chernika were theorising about what happened to the Dwarf when they suddenly heard the highest pitched, painful squeal that could've only come out of a person with all the exaggerated swagger of an edgy rogue.
"What was that!?" Chernika yelped.
"Was probably nothing. Come on, help me out with this," replied Alatheiin, gesturing towards the Dragonborn with the crippled leg.
The depressed magical student started to fall into self-deprecating despair again, doubting even his basic skills of helping,
"B-but what if I screw u-up? What if it gets worse? What if-"
"Oh shut it!" Alatheiin snapped at him. He tightened a large piece of cloth around the gaping wound. "Now would you be so nice as to get me the bottle of alcohol in my bag?"
Alatheiin started to help with Athelarius' leg, but with no actual healing equipment, he could only stop the bleeding and somewhat numb the pain. Alas, they could only rely on the Dragonborne's regenerative properties to replace the chunks of meat missing.
Liggie, surprised at the strength of his punch, tries to help the near-dead Half-Elf, but only gets slapped away due to his reflexes. Neriah eventually snapped out of his painful trance, and started cursing the Dwarf into oblivion using otherworldly languages, before running deeper into the cavern, clutching his obliterated balls.
Neriah took a short rest in a nearby cavern, letting his annihilated balls heal. Chernika, done with helping Alatheiin, called out to Liggie. And Alatheiin continued to help Athelarius with his crippled leg.
As the tension was fading, everyone could finally take a breather, no matter how painful it may be.