Everyone gathered near the stairs and the experienced members looked down it before one reached into her robes and took out an inscription or talisman.
'Hey, that looks familiar. Oh wait is that the light one?'
She raised it up above her shoulder before the paper slowly brightened to a low yellow light like the one I made before. The light of the talisman just barely reached the back of the group, so everyone was still in the light.
There was a difference between this one and the one I made though- this one was a middle-grade one. I don't know what would change between the two grades though so far it seems the exact same.
The girl who held up the light talisman spoke before descending the stairs, "Everyone the area ahead looks like it's shrouded in darkness, so unless you have a light source of your own than you better stick together with a group that has one."
Once the group shuffled forward enough I was able to take a look ahead of us.
I could only barely see ten meters ahead of the light talisman, any farther was pitch black. We couldn't even see the bottom of the stairs or where they led.
Everyone seemed a little tense as we climbed down the stairs a step at a time. No one spoke a word so the only noise heard was the taps of our shoes against the stone steps as twenty people walked down at the same time.
There wasn't a single interval of silence as no one had synced up with one another. We had a stead speed of two steps per second going down.
Around two minutes passed before flat ground was seen once again. I turned to look at the top of the steps to see a small section of sunlight shining through brightening up the top. As I was about to turn back I spotted more blood along side of the stairs, I only glanced at it for a moment before turning back.
At some point when I had turned my back on them three more of the experienced people had taken out light talismans and lit them. People started to separate into different groups as well. I simply looked at them in slight confusion before Yao Ya pulled me into a group.
It was only at this time that I realized that we were in a large open room. The four groups had spread out enough from each other and we still haven't seem any other side of the room besides the one we came from.
Each team had five members and the leader of each team had a talisman, the leader of my team happened to be the girl who first lit a talisman up the stairs. Coincidently Chen Huang also seemed to be in the same group as me.
'Wait, why are we splitting up? Wouldn't it be safer to stay as a single large group? We have a whole month to explore the realm is it necessary to search the area faster? What about whoever or whatever killed that guy outside? Alright then whatever, I guess I'll just follow them for now.'
Our group was the one on the rightmost side. We hugged the right wall taking slow and steady steps forward. At least our speed was faster than the crawl like speed from before on the stairs and since we weren't grouped up together in the light everyone had quite a bit of room to themselves.
That is at least for the other three members of our group, Yao Ya hadn't let me go since we saw that body slumped up against that barricade.
'Is she scared? *Gasp* Maybe I can finally do something for her! Wait, in movies the guy usually puts his arm around the girl. But she is always attached to my arm! There goes that idea. Wait! I I just remembered I have another arm, how about head pats?'
Raising me left hand I reached it across my body before lightly patting the top of her head for a few moments.
"𝘔𝘮𝘮𝘮.."
Well she seems to enjoy it at least. I kept patting for a full ten seconds before stopping.
A second passed before she responded, "𝘔𝘮.. 𝘦𝘩?" She looked up at me begging for more, her eyes looked teary and threatened to burst unless I relented.
'Well I guess doing it a little longer wouldn't hurt me.'
..
After only maybe half a minute of walking we finally reached the corner There was nothing out of the ordinary with it. Once we reached it we just turned left and kept following the wall.
I looked back to see the progress of the other teams and the team directly opposite us had reached a corner as well.
The other two teams were walking around the middle of the room. From what they had lit up around them I saw more splatters of blood around their feet and a variety of weapons scattered about as well.
Tens of swords, spears, axes, and shields were by their feet. Most of them were broken, but of the ones still intact dark red liquid was seen by the edges of the blades. The only thing missing were the owners of said weapons.
After a few moments more the wall curved inwards. We had found another path, one which was also pitch black.
Before we could think more about the tunnel we heard a yell, "Hey, we found a tunnel over here! Why don't we go into it?"
It was the group opposite us, and from the light emitted from them I could make out a path similar to the one we found.
"We found one too!" our team leader spoke out.
Silence reigned for a moment before someone from the middle two groups said, "Why don't we explore the entirety of this room first before we decide which to go in?"
"Alright." both groups agreed passing the tunnels to hug the walls once again.
As we kept going we eventually met up at a third passage the four teams regrouped once again. This one had a set of double wooden doors still attached to it's hinges and closed at that. We pushed the doors open and everyone peered down the tunnel.
At the very end we all saw a large flame burning some object. So far as we've explored the stronghold it's been nothing but darkness except for the sunlight that shined in from the entrance way.
We looked for a while more before someone started walking towards it. Seeing the first one move up several more started to join them. Although we moved together our teams from before didn't completely go away with it.
We still walked with our little teams except for a few who just walked any where they wanted.
"Hey, so uh.. what do you think this place was build for?" The voice of the only other man I knew in the group appeared beside me.
I glanced at him with the corners of my eyes before resting my gaze back onto the fire ahead. "Why are you asking me? It's not like I would know anything about these structures."
"Do you think there will be any good treasure down here? This place seems pretty big after all."
"Well it's not like the size of the structure dictates how many treasures are inside, but there's probably at least something in here whether it's good or not."
"I hope there's something I could use. I could really go for a good saber to replace this one. This one has been nice and all, but it's slowly being worn out over the years.
I've taken good care of it though, it looks as if it's brand new. Ah, wait you haven't seen my saber yet right? I'll show you when we meet an enemy!"
"You really love that saber, huh?"
"What? Isn't this just normal maintenance? That reminds me why is your sword in such bad shape?"
'Well it used to belong to a poor bandit and...'
"...Uh I don't have any of the tools to maintain it that's all."
"Oh! Is that it? I always carry a spare, I can give it to you if you need it!"
"Is that okay? I mean will you be okay without it?"
"Yeah, it's only a spare after all so don't worry about it."
"Well thanks. I'll take it later when we stop somewhere."
"Alright then, I'll hold onto it for now."
At this time the light talisman of our team's leader finally dissipated and we were shrouded in darkness. She didn't attempt to take another out, only following along with the others.
We eventually got close enough that we could discern the shapes of the objects fueling the fire. It seemed to be a large pile of something. It wasn't wood that was for sure. The flames were high around two meters in height and the base was around two meters wide as well.