"Brother, what about the treasure? We are very very close, I can feel it! We just have to keep moving forward just a bit" Fellipe said with an unwilling look in his eyes.
Hearing this, Daniel got up and began to yell at him but no sound was coming out of his mouth since he had already lost his voice from screaming.
Mathew looked at Dan then at Fellipe and frowned. "Even if you are correct we don't even know if we will be able to make it out of here alive. Looking for the treasure will just cost us time we don't have and energy which we have very little of. What's the point of finding the treasure if we die along with it?"
Hearing this, Fellipe held his head down in disappointment. He knew his older brother was right and he couldn't even argue.
As the three got up and started to come up with a plan on how to get up to the surface they heard a strange sound coming from behind them. When they turned around they saw the large mole scratching at the wall while making some snorting sounds with its long nose.
"Make it stop, we don't have time for this" Daniel said with a raspy voice.
Fellipe then looked at his older brother Mathew and seeing as he stayed quiet he sighed before getting up and walking towards his little buddy. The place was pretty small so he didn't have to go far to reach the little mole that was scratching the wall. He then kneeled down next to it and padded its back.
"Come on little guy we can come back and look for the treasure next time. We need to get out of here and we need your help so I need you to rest a bit, ok?" He said softly to the little mole.
The little mole turned around and looked at him for a few seconds before holding his head down and left the wall it was scratching walking defectively back to the group.
Fellipe let out a long sigh before also getting up. He padded his pants and was about to turn around when he noticed something strange where the mole was scratching from the corner of his eyes. The wall that the little guy was scratching was a different shade of brown! He quickly turned towards it and using his hand he felt the texture and quickly realized that this wasn't dirt at all but the bark of a plant! His face lit up in excitement.
"Brothers we found it! The treasure, look! didn't I tell you to have faith! Hahahah!" Fellipe shouted happily.
Dan was about to tell him to shut up when he heard what he said and ran to the wall along with his older brother. They both looked at the bark wall curiously and also put their hands on it feeling the plant.
The older brother sighed then spoke calmly. "If this is part of the same plant from the root we found before then it is extremely large. When treasures are born they are always surrounded by something like stone, ice, crystals etc. I've never heard of one being surrounded by a plant before. Even still the evidence is all there. The large anomaly that happened right above, this strange plant deep underground. There is a large chance the treasure is right on the other side but there is a small problem. How are we going to get to the other side? If it was stone your mole could help but we will have to cut through this manually and we don't even know how thick it is so even if we know where the treasure is are we going to have the energy to break through to the other side? and even if it did would we be able to go make it back to the surface afterwards?"
The other two looked disappointed. They were so close to reaching their objective but not only would they not be able to reach it but they might not even be able to make it back.
Seeing the two dejected brothers, the older one thought for a second before speaking out once again.
"Ok look, if we try to go for the treasure we won't have enough energy to go back to the surface so we would be betting on it either being something that will help recover our strength or something else entirely….. We do need this treasure for the village so I'll leave it up to a vote. Do you guys want to go all in and bet on the treasure or do you want to try and make it back to the surface before we run out of supplies?" Mathew calmly laid out their choices and allowed them to choose.
Both the brothers thought calmly for a few seconds before Fellipe was the first one to speak out.
"Brother, I want to go for the treasure! It's definitely something amazing, don't you remember what happened when it was born? It completely changed the geography! Those huge plains became a giant plateau in an instant when it rose out of the ground. The earth was shaking for miles and for days. Also even if we want to go back, what are the chances we will succeed? Everyone is tired and we are so deep underground I think we don't have a choice but to take a gamble." He said making his case.
Mathew nodded then turned to Daniel.
Dan then looked up at Matthew and started to speak in a quiet raspy voice. "Brother, I choose to go back. Even if the chances are low I think as long as we rest we have a chance to make it back. Then we can come back another day, more prepared and with more people…"
Mathew nodded and thought for a few seconds before also making his choice. The two brothers looked at him curiously as he started to speak.
"Well then I choose ….. I choose, to go all in. Even if we make it back we don't know when the lord will be coming to our village to demand payment that we don't have, and if he does he will conscript all the men forcibly to fight a war that has nothing to do with us. If they take all the men I don't know how long our small village will last. Also I have some faith in the little guy as well" He said while putting his hand on top of the large mole and scratching his head. Completely ignoring the fact that Dan's eye started to twitch as he heard him.
The other two brothers let out a laugh while Daniel sighed before they all turned towards the wall and took out small daggers to get started. The chances of them making it out was small anyways so they might as well go for broke.
The big mole started to dig into the plant using his claws at a much slower pace while the three brothers cut into the hard plant using their daggers. For a whole hour they did this until they felt the air had started thinning as they all started to take deeper and deeper breaths to get the oxygen they needed.
The big mole also noticed that it was running out of time so it used its strength to dig as fast as possible even though it was tiring itself out. For another 10 min they worked but was quickly reaching their limit. Dan was the first to sit down on the ground trying his hardest to breath.
As they were reaching their limits the little mole was finally able to break through the plant to the other side. Everyone was a little happy but they quickly found that there was still earth on the other side. Without even having enough time to be disappointed they started to dig once again using their last bit of energy and oxygen. Now that they had to dig through earth, the mole was able to dig much faster without even taking time to reinforce the walls.
By this time the other two brothers were also lying on the ground weakly and even the bird and moth were sprawled on the ground unmoving. Only the mole kept on digging without even turning around. It dug using everything it had and just as it was also starting to feel sleepy, his claws finally broke through to the other side. When it pulled its large claws back a powerful light shined through completely blinding the poor creature as it rolled on the ground in pain. A weak gust of wind started to blow through the hole and as it did the people and animals that were unconscious started breathing slowly, automatically filling their lungs with air.