As we flew into the cave below, I made sure to light the way by sending a few occasional fireballs into the dark pit. As the fireballs flew through the dark, they momentarily illuminated the surrounding area and brought a bright orange shine to some of the nearby jewels.
As we flew, I expected to see the bottom of the massive pit. However, as we traveled further down the pit only got larger. Eventually, once I did manage to reach the bottom, a large cavern surrounded us. The cavern was easily three times the size of the first room and had several dozen caves branching off like the roots of a tree.
'Wow,' I thought to myself as I looked at the caves surrounding us. As my head turned, more caves appeared in my vision. We were completely surrounded, as if in the center of a maze. There were no enemies near us, but the stench of living creatures was strong here. Back in the mine, the smell of musty wood and minerals filled our noses.
Down here, however, blood and rotten corpses were the replacement. I couldn't even smell the minerals anymore, as they were all gathered above us. All of the caves were similar, but a few stood out from the rest. There were five of them that caught my attention. All of them were large enough for our dragon bodies. This made it easier to choose which path to go down, but also made me nervous.
If I went down one path and ignored another, then there was a chance of an ambush taking us by surprise. Another thing that caught my attention was what looked like decorations at the entrance to two of the caves. The decorations were simply bones erected upon a wooden stick. The stick wasn't nearly as healthy as one would find above ground. It was rotting near the middle and the bottom had a small splinter sticking out from its bark. Unlike the stick's condition, however, the skull on top of it looked fresh.
'That looks like a human skull, but it's too small,' I thought to myself as I stepped forward and inspected the small totem at a different angle. Below the skull were several small animal bones that surrounded the stick like petals on a sunflower.
I looked to the other cave that had the decorations, then saw that it shared a similar totem. Both of these caves happened to be the largest out of all of our choices, so I knew there were bound to be creatures within.
As I looked back to the first totem I moved my nose closer, then memorized the scent. My nose in my dragon form was a lot stronger than my human form's, but I had yet to test how useful it could be. Once I registered the scent in my mind I looked back to the cave, then slowly walked inside. Hazel and Icarus walked behind me, though Hazel made sure to keep an eye on the caves behind us.
As soon as we entered the cave, the rotten smell of flesh got stronger, almost to the point where I couldn't concentrate on anything else. However, as we pushed through the smell and continued through the cave, I began to notice a few differences with this cave compared to the others I had seen.
First, the cave was much more predictable. The walls were rough, but they didn't dent into the wall or leave a large bump that curved the path as we walked. The ceiling wasn't riding up and down like the waves of the sea but was instead at a constant height. It was almost like this cave was mined, though by amateur miners.
Eventually, after about four minutes of walking, we began to hear a noise in front of us. The noise was still faint, as it was a few dozen meters away from us, but it was much more fierce than I was expecting.
It sounded like a wild animal was in a rage. The sounds of flesh ripping and the growling of a family of creatures followed quickly behind. Then, after a moment of silence, we heard footsteps run away from us. By now the smell had gotten bad enough to almost blind me, as the tears in my eyes were involuntarily making my vision blurry.
Even the harpies didn't sound as feral. Once the sounds were gone we continued forward and soon reached the place where the sounds originated. Once we walked in, I quickly noticed the cave finally led into a large room. The room was still symmetrical like the cave, but it was also carved to fit a larger crowd.
In the center of the room was what looked to be a burnt-out fireplace, but the embers had long since disappeared. Next to the fireplace were a few dozen small logs, probably seats, that were scattered across the small camp like the leaves of a tree in the autumn season. As we walked closer to the camp, I noticed four similar camps placed evenly throughout the room. They, too, had their small logs scattered without any care. As I looked around the room, I noticed the lack of an exit.
As we explored the room, I began to follow my nose as I tracked the smell of rotten flesh. The smell was especially strong in this room, so I knew one of the sources of the smell was nearby. Then, after only five seconds of looking around, I found it. On the other end of the room was what looked to be a small corpse. It was the size of a dwarf, almost identical in body shape, but the skin was dark grey. The dwarf's hair was white, almost shining despite the lack of light.
The dwarf was dead, that much was obvious. His body contained freshly made wounds, each one making a crater deep enough to show the blue color of his guts. The man's torso was practically gone, with only the back of his ribcage remaining. His organs were all gone, probably eaten. His arms were broken and one of his legs was missing as well. Below him was the growing puddle of blood that had leaked from his body as he died.
As I walked closer, I tried my best to ignore the smell as I focused on the dwarf's face. His eyelids were open in a permanent state of fear, revealing his eyes of pure blue crystal. As I looked closer at his eyes, I noticed his eyes weren't even spherical. Instead, they were like one of those multi-sided dice that had almost twenty sides.
After I had a look at him, I quickly inspected him.
﹃
Deep Dwarf
Race: Monstrosity
Deceased
Rank: D
﹄
'Jesus,' I thought as I looked at his wounds again. After I looked at the deep dwarf for a moment longer I turned back around and focused again on Hazel and Icarus. Both of them had separated as they walked around the room.
Hazel moved to one of the other campsites and was tossing the logs aside as she attempted to find anything interesting. Icarus, on the other hand, had approached one of the walls. As he traveled along the wall, he kept his nose close to the stone, sniffing it as he walked. Not long after I started paying attention to him, Icarus suddenly stopped and stood up straight.
Then, once he stood up, he opened his mouth and fired a short bolt of flames toward the walls. Once the fire hit the wall, the stone wall suddenly began to catch fire. I looked at the wall, confused before I realized what was happening.
'It's a fake wall,' I thought to myself as I walked toward Icarus. As I made my way closer, Hazel also noticed Icarus's discovery and made her way over to him. The wall continued to burn, revealing a second cave behind the fake wall, 'Good job, Icarus!'
Once the fire disappeared, revealing the entire cave, we walked through. I made sure to take another look at the way we came, just to make sure there weren't any monsters following us. Once I made sure it was clear, I turned back to the newly discovered cave and walked through. The cave here was a lot like the other's, symmetrical and carved out of stone, but it was a lot smaller. Eventually, after about twenty seconds of walking through, we were forced to turn back into our human form.
Once we did, the rotten smell got a lot weaker.
"This place stinks," Hazel said as she covered her nose. I looked at her, nodded, then turned my gaze forward. We continued walking for a few more seconds until we eventually came across a small room. This room wasn't symmetrical but rather formed similar to a spiral staircase.
The staircase, which was no more than a steep slope, wasn't that tall. We easily reached the top of the staircase after a few moments of walking, though we were then met with three forks in the road. Near the middle path, the corpse of a long-dead dwarf rested against the stone. As I looked at the dwarf's corpse, I noticed his armor was similar to the armor from the statue on the floor above.
At his side was a broken sword, its shards probably embedded in a far away enemy. I found it strange that he wasn't holding his weapon, but had appeared to have thrown it to the side before he died. Then, once I turned my gaze toward his hands, I realized why.