We decided to walk around the forest near the riverside, we had already explored most of the area nearby further inland, with hunting or gathering, so there was a chance we would see something new on the coast.
The river itself has to be around 3 miles wide, as we can barely see the land mass on the other bank. It's too deep to swim across, and the water is salty, so it's basically a long gulf, but we think it might lead to a river further downstream due to the current, so we've kept calling it a river.
To be honest, nothing much happened while on the walk, we just made small talk for most of the trek. About an hour into the walk we saw a large fish jump out of the water and eat a dragonfly out of the air, which Conner thought was impressive, and just as the sun was starting to set I said, "Hey guys, we should head back to town."
"Yeah, once it gets dark, we could get separated." Maddie said.
"Not only that, but" I pointed into the woods, "a small group of grey wolves have been following us through the woods for a while now."
Everyone looked towards the forest as I continued, "They feel hungry, they might use the darkness to make an ambush, so we should leave sooner rather than later."
I could tell the wolves were still following us until the town was in sight, and then they stopped pursuing us and turned back into the forest.
"Ok, it's all good now. They've left."
"Good, I can finally relax. I've been tense the entire walk back." Troy said, "It's unnerving knowing something's there when you can't see it."
"Yeah, but it's better than getting attacked by something when you can't see it" Conner said.
As we headed over to where we could smell roasted fish, most likely from dinner, Mr. Smith was headed away from the smell and saw our merry group.
"Ah there y'all are. Been meaning to ask Prestin here about somethin'."
"Sure." I said, "You guys can go on ahead, I'll catch up later."
Troy nodded and I turned to Mr. Smith and asked, "So what's up?"
"It's about the ring, could you come with me?"
I nodded and followed Mr. Smith back to the forge, where I could see the green glow of the amber get brighter as I got closer.
"You see, the ring itself took less time than expected, so it's pretty much done, with the exception of the gemstone getting added. The problem lies in that nothing works to change it's shape so it'll sit in the socket."
"Why didn't you just make the ring to fit the shape?" I was speculative, and a bit shocked that he would try to cut the amber.
"Because it's shape would make it off balance and difficult to wear while doing anything." Mr. Smith said, "I know you'd probably want to have it on ya all the time, so I wanted to make it sleek for ya."
"I see," I pondered, "Let me see what I can do."
I went over and grabbed the silver ring and put it on. It was a perfect fit on my left pinky finger, and I could see the shape that Mr. Smith was trying to fit the amber into. I picked up the amber and held it above the socket and envisioned it changing shape to fit into it because that's how everything with the amber seemed to work, and this was no exception.
The stone changed shape and fell perfectly into place. I shook it around to see if the amber would fall out or shift around, and it didn't.
I turned to Mr. Smith and him a thumbs up as he stood dumbfounded at the amber's abilities. I then gave him my thanks and joined the others for dinner.
"So," Maddie asked, "the ring was finished?"
"Yeah, he wanted me to try it on just in case he needed to reforge it."
"Looks great!"
"Thanks."
We continued dinner talking about the underground exploration tomorrow. It wasn't quite a mining trip, more like a surveying trip, so we needed to pack less than we would normally.
The next morning, we woke up early and headed down the cave. We each brought backpacks, a piece of gold ore for the drafii, and a water skin, and as a group we brought one pickaxe just in case.
We made it to the shaft entrance, and our rope was still there, so I climbed down to the bottom of the rope and used the amber to extend it. It took a while for it to get long enough to reach the checkpoint cave a good ways down. Even all this way down the bottom of the shaft is only barely visible. It would take hours to extend the rope that far down. I brought some extra, but it might not be enough.
"Hey guys," I shouted up, "you can come down the rope now."
"Okay!" I could hear from someone, probably Troy, shouting down.
After a few seconds I could see the rope sway as Troy and Conner slowly climbed down. They used the knot I tied at the bottom to stop and step across to the cavern where I sat while growing the rope downwards. Then after a short bit, Conner shouted up to Maddie to come down, and we could here laughter coming from the shaft as she slid all the way down the rope, landing on the knot and jumping across to where the rest of us were standing.
"Heya guys!" she said, after Troy jumped back and fell on his ass at the surprise.
Conner struggled to contain his chuckle and helped him up while Maddie continued on, walking into the cavern, "So is this where we're gonna wait while Prez grows the rope?"
"That's sort of the plan." I said, "I brought some with me and tied it to the bottom of the first rope, but it doesn't reach the bottom, so I'll be growing it for a while."
"How long's that gonna take?"
"Not sure. It's been slowly getting quicker, but it's still a lot of distance to cover. I'd say around an hour, two at the most." Looking over at Troy and Conner, I continued, "You all don't need to wait on me, just look around a bit. I'll be here."
"What if we get lost?" Troy asked, speculatively.
"Then I'll come and find you when I finish with the rope. I'll also leave a torch here so it's easy to see."
"Alright, so long as you have a plan." Troy said as he and Conner started looking around.
I knew it was safe as I couldn't feel anything nearby, but I could feel some things coming from the bottom of the shaft. There are two of them. One seems nervous and the other is on edge. 'What's going on down there? Something must be up.'
I couldn't do anything yet. I didn't want to leave in case they came back, but I was getting anxious because of what I could feel down below.
About half an hour after the others left, I felt a jolt of excitement come from below. 'What? The two nervous creatures are still there, did they find something?'
I decided to go down the rope to see how far it had grown, and it was only a few dozen yards from the ground.
"Maybe they found another way down. That could've been what I felt." I said out loud to myself as I went from the rope and started descending the walls of the shaft, keeping my concentration on growing the rope.
By the time I got to the bottom, I had grown the rope to a point where I could almost touch it if I jumped. 'Guess the learning curve is less than I thought with this thing' I thought, looking at the amber as I walked in the direction of the excitement.
After about a minute I heard the voices of Troy, Maddie and Conner talking, "This is amazing." I heard Troy say.
"Yeah, but it's really hot down here." Conner added.
"We should get Prez." Maddie said, "It'll save time with the rope if there's another way down. It's probably a lot easier than climbing down the rope"
"You do have a point." I said, "The stair-like incline does seem easier than the sheer drop down the rope."
"Then let's not waste any time, let's..." she trailed off, looking at me blankly. "Why wouldn't you just let us know you were here why'd you need to be like this?"
I just smiled, "So, what were you all looking at?"
"This." Troy said gesturing around the corner, where a red light was glowing.
Looking around it, I saw lakes of lava and puddles of water in a massive cavern, and in the corner, were two drafii, one of which was the one from a few days back, and the other was sitting in a water puddle near a lava lake, with four silver and grey splotched eggs wrapped between their tail.