by J. J. Pavlov
We use the time to gather wood to prepare torches, forage for food in the surroundings in case there's nothing to be found in the bowels of the mountain, and in general just rest before descending into Rathgolim, the remnants of the dwarven kingdom.
If undead do appear down there, I can just use Libera Animar or Hasta de Lumin. Furthermore, Luna taught me about magic theory, even if she doesn't seem to want to teach me actual spells. Through her explanations, I came to learn that this half-elf girl must be an exceptional prodigy.
She takes a long time to chant her spells because they're all creations of her own, rather than ones she learned from books or a teacher. While she does have some basic knowledge of lower level spells like the obligatory fireball and wind cutter, all the higher level ones I've seen her use so far come from her own imagination. If that isn't considered incredible, I'll have to reevaluate the war potential of humanity.
But if that's the normal way to go about using magic, then doesn't that mean I can create spells by imagining their effects, too?
Of course, I can't just test that out in front of everyone here, since for now, I'm still a novice mage who can only use a few spells from the book Arcelia gave me. I already did enough with the magic I've used so far; I don't need to give people more reason to be suspicious of me.
I guess when it comes down to it, I can just use the shielding spell I found in the holy scriptures. If it's light magic, they won't question me about it. Apparently, this particular spell 'protects the devout and innocent', which is quite vague, but makes me think of some kind of barrier. I hope that it won't kick out corrupted beings, but I'm sure that if I can use it in the first place, the two dark elves and I won't be excluded from its effect.
According to the bard, the ancient name of this passage through the depths of the mountains, Tvahogan Jattern, can be translated to 'Two-Headed Titan'. In the age of the gods, two titanic beasts fought here and ravaged the lands. They killed each other, and their remains turned into the mountain range that runs across the entire kingdom. The bigger one had two heads, which turned into the northern range, while the smaller one fell towards the south and is supposedly half-submerged in the ocean. Both of their carcasses put together are now called the Kongensgrad. The space between these two titans became the King's Pass.
We're camping in front of one of the Two-Headed Titan's supposed heads, on the side called The Whisper. The bard tells me that the other side is called The Maw because the opening is massive and looks like a titanic beast's open jaws.
I'm a sucker for such lore! Tell me more!
"Rathgolim used to be where almost all the dwarves of Blereath lived, up until two centuries ago." As we sit around the campfire, the bard relates the history of the mountain to me. "They kept to themselves and rarely, if ever, traded with humans. But one day, when one of the few human merchants that did conduct trade with them came to visit, it was empty. There were signs of battle, but not a single body could be found."
That's really eerie...
"There are only a few communes of dwarves left now, and they make their homes far away from the Kongenssoevn. None of them speak of what happened here." The bard concludes the history lesson.
It really sounds like something cataclysmic occurred, which might even have been their own fault. I would be really interested in learning more about the history of this place - and this world in general - but for that, I might have to tickle it out of a dwarf someday.
The next morning, we broke camp at dawn and made our way into The Whisper. It has been a few hours since we started our descent and the cave so far has looked completely natural. I'm beginning to wonder where the dwarven kingdom actually starts.
We're taking a narrow path that continues into the depths of the mountain in an almost straight line, with few smaller tunnels branching off to the sides. There are markings on the walls to denote that those lead nowhere.
By now, Gram has switched to the rear guard, while Rolan and the bard are leading the way, just like they did in the catacombs during the Annual Cemetery Clearing quest. Each of them is carrying a torch, while Luna is using her staff to illuminate the center where us girls are walking.
The bard seems to be keeping track of time somehow since he calls for breaks periodically. At one point we've gone so deep underground that little fresh air circulates inside, and it's becoming increasingly harder to breathe. While the three men and I are fine, the less sporty types - Luna and Daica - are having a hard time. Unexpectedly, Kamii seems to be holding up really well, too.
"If keeping your staff raised all the time tires you, I can take over." I suggest to Luna but receive a strange look.
"Mages do not lend their catalysts to others." She says with a frown. Is that a tradition or a rule? Maybe each staff is soul-bonded to its wielder, like in online games, so that they can't be traded?
That would be absurd.
"I don't need a staff to cast magic, though...?" Tilting my head, I'm unsure whether to make a statement or ask a question.
"That is because light magic can be cast as long as there is light, even if the source is only the moon, the stars, or even a small candle's flame." Luna shows me her staff and the three small crystals embedded in its gnarled tip. "This garnet is for invoking fire, the blue beryl is for channeling water, and the almost transparent quartz is to control wind. You need a medium for every type of element you wish to cast."
I see, that kind of makes sense, although I feel that wind is everywhere and shouldn't require a catalyst. And I don't remember seeing Halfdan wielding a staff or a wand when he cast his earth magic, either.
"Ignis." I speak, and a small flame appears above my palm, quickly growing larger and beginning to illuminate the surroundings. Luna's eyes open wide, and she gasps in surprise.
"H-how did you do that?" She raises her voice, and the others turn to see what's going on.
"I don't know." I try to look surprised myself and let the flame in my palm fizzle out, acting as if I let my concentration slip. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea, to let them know that I can cast magic without a catalyst?
"You surprise us at every turn, Chloe." Rolan comments and gives me a wide grin. "With your talents in our group, I think the demon queen won't be a problem at all."
I don't think I'm strong enough to face Maou-mama, especially since we both have the same type of body, and she had much more time to experiment and become familiar with hers. Even if I happen to be more talented, experience isn't something overcome so easily. Also, I'm sure she knows far more magic than I do.
And I'll be standing against you anyway - if you ever get to face my mother in the first place.
In either case, with this, I'm designated a torch-bearer as well. Thus, I'm condemned to hold up my hand with the flame in it, to illuminate the center of our small procession, while Luna rests and uses her staff as a walking stick.
Ugh, I shouldn't have proposed this...
Soon, we enter an area that looks clearly manmade. I didn't notice it at first, because I wasn't using night vision, but the flickering torch lights reveal angles and shapes that can't be natural. There are cracked pillars, archways and other structures carved directly from the rock. But as expected, there are no signs of life down here.
This way, the first day passes without any incident, and the bard signals us that it has become pretty late already. We find an alcove in the tunnels, which can be used for camping, and Gram piles up the firewood he and Rolan have been carrying to make a fire. If they hadn't brought wood from the outside, we wouldn't have found anything to burn in here.
Magic could solve that problem - and many others - but apparently nobody thinks of it.
After dinner, we settle on the night watch, before everybody quickly goes to sleep. While it wasn't as tiring as climbing the snowy mountain, everybody's nerves are on edge in this all-enveloping darkness and the silence only interrupted by the echoes of our footsteps. The two dark elves and I can see in the dark, but it doesn't ch
ange the fact that confined spaces can turn flickering shadows into monsters that nibble at the edge of one's vision as well as sanity.
I don't seem that affected by it though, which must be because of this body of mine.
On the second day, we finally see more signs of the dwarven kingdom. The winding tunnels have stairs that lead up or down into rooms dug out of the mountain itself. There are many forks in the road, but due to the colored runes on the walls, left behind by previous travelers, it's easy to tell which way to go.
I spot rusted metal tools from time to time, which travelers who went through here didn't choose to pick up and take along due to their apparent lack of value. Their presence tells me that the dwarves ran away with all they got, going so far as to discard their belongings in their hasty escape. I'm getting more and more interested in learning what really happened here.
Still no sign of any living things, not even rats.
During our journey through the dark, everybody's perception of time becomes more and more muddled. Without the bard calling for breaks, the meals, or nighttime, nobody would be able to tell when to do anything. I have to wonder whether he has some means to determine the time or just has a good internal clock.
"This silence is mind-numbing..." I mutter, but my voice comes out much louder than I intended it to. Kamii looks up at me in surprise, and Luna turns around as well.
"We should find a place to spend the night." The bard concedes, understanding that everybody's nerves must be stretched thin by the seemingly endless darkness.
"How long will it take before we get out on the other side?" I don't think anyone has mentioned that, yet.
"Judging by our pace, it will take six more days to get to The Maw." He responds almost immediately, apparently having done the math in his head beforehand. But six more days in this darkness will be quite taxing on everybody's psychological state.
"Let's rest up well and continue on faster tomorrow." Rolan encourages everyone with a smile, acting as a proper leader should.
We soon find a set of doors that lead into a room filled with broken shelves and crumbling wood. This may have been a storage room for firewood, but there isn't much of it left now.
"Oh, there is water here." The bard suddenly calls out to us and points his torch into a corner of the room. From a crack in the wall, a small trickle is flowing into a puddle at the bottom, which looks clear enough for drinking.
"Let me check if it's potable." Gram dunks a finger into the water and licks it, before nodding. "Yes, this is fresh water."
While we still have some animal skins filled with water, I feel like they wouldn't have lasted us through the entire journey down here. It's fortunate that we found this spring, and I hope we'll be able to find more such water sources throughout Rathgolim.
With newfound vigor, the party makes camp and has a dinner that tastes ever so slightly better than usual.
Chapter 23 - Escape Through The Dark
I wake up to Luna shaking me lightly. Apparently, it's time for us to move on, rather than an emergency. I sit up and look around sleepily, remembering that I'm not a morning person when woken up unnaturally. For the past weeks I got up on my own before anyone had to shake me, but today it seems I was just a little bit off.
It's the sixth day of our descent into the kingdom under the mountain, and according to the bard today we will finally see the actual city of Rathgolim. So far, we have only been moving through tunnels used by the dwarven miners.
Looking down at my side, I find Kamii lying next to me as she always does. I stroke her hair before bending down to her ear and whispering 'wake up'. Her eyes flutter open sleepily, and she looks up at me, before smiling. If we were alone, I would cuddle her right now - and potentially do some more.
Turning around to my other side, I wake up Daica in the same manner. Unlike her older sister's graceful reaction, she jerks up into a sitting position in surprise and looks around in confusion, before realizing where she is.
"Can't we skip today?" She lies back down on her blanket, muttering in a sullen tone. In the past few days, she had gotten quite used to talking back like that every now and then, since the journey isn't as exhausting as it was when we were ascending the mountain. At that time, she didn't even want to waste a breath on saying something she knows is pointless.
"I wish. But look on the bright side: Tomorrow we'll be out of here." Patting her shoulder, I stand up myself and help with the preparations for breakfast.
"Let's go." Rolan nods when we're all packed up and ready to depart. Leading the way with a torch, he pushes open the door to the hallway outside, revealing endless darkness rather than a wall on the other side.
The scenery has changed by quite a bit recently. While we used to be walking through only tunnels, for the latter half of yesterday we've been moving alongside a chasm that seems to disappear into unfathomable depths. There are crumbled wooden frameworks above and below us, suggesting that this area was under development up until the dwarves left.
"This is the fastest way, according to the markers. There are others, which are wider and have more secure footholds for carts and carriages to pass through." The bard explains as we pass a section where the ledge is just barely wide enough for the big man to walk straight on.
"W-w-why didn't we choose those w-wider paths?" Daica complains, her legs shaking as she leans on me. It seems she has a fear of heights, as she tries her best not to look down into the abyss.
I can't fault her for that; while my aversion to it isn't so extreme that I can barely stand on my own, my knees still feel weak when I stand right on the precipice.
"Because it would take us almost a whole day longer." With a look of sympathy, the bard responds to Daica's rhetorical question. She knows that we can't afford to take detours, and it's not like this route is that dangerous.
Shortly after our lunch break we finally walk out into a vast hallway. It's wider than anything we saw before, and to our right, there's a giant archway leading into impenetrable darkness.
"Just beyond here is the great city of the dwarves." With the pride of a guide showing foreigners a place of interest in their home country, the bard gestures forward past the archway. When we pass through it, he turns to Luna. "I think we can go for a little more light here. If you would please, Runa?"
She does as she's asked and wordlessly turns the flame atop her staff up. It illuminates our surroundings and reveals a seemingly impossibly tall cave, held up by titanic pillars cut from the very mountain itself. Inside those pillars are windows, beyond which only blackness lurks.
I assume that these are like multi-story apartment buildings, in which the dwarves used to live. I can't even begin to imagine what this place must have looked like when it was illuminated by thousands of lights, the streets bustling with life as the dwarves went on their daily businesses.
"Welcome to the city of Rathgolim." Stretching his arms out in an all-encompassing gesture, as if presenting a landscape, the bard states with meaningful gravity.
We walk out into the halls, slowing down our march to take in the sights that come into view under Luna's light. The wooden doors to the houses around us are all broken down and crumbling from old age. They're at a height barely enough for me to stand upright in, but that's plenty of space for dwarves; the ones I saw in Hovsgaerden were only about as tall as Senka.
Suddenly, a familiar rattling sound comes from all around us. Our wonder at the view of this magnificent city is blown away and instantly replaced by alarm.
"Undead?" Rolan draws his sword and looks around. I turn to the closest source of the noise and find that from an alleyway between the stone houses a few skeletons are slowly moving towards us. They're taller than any dwarf, so they must be human remains.
"Libera-" I begin to chant the spell that will turn them to dust and free their souls.
"Wait!" The bard shouts, but it's already too late.
"-Animar!" As I finish the incantation, a nova of light expands with
me as the center and travels outwards. It hits the skeletons and burns them away, just like it did during the cemetery clearing quest. "Huh?"
"That was-" Before the bard can explain his reason for trying to stop me, a high-pitched, nerve-grating scream echoes through the stagnant underground air.
"What was that?" Gram looks around in surprise and turns his shield in every which direction, readying himself to defend against this potential threat. The acoustics of this place makes it hard to pinpoint where it came from, so everybody's on high alert.
We soon realize that it's no longer the first scream echoing off the walls. It's being answered by many others, and it soon settles into a chatter that seems to expand in all directions. From the depths of the halls, a deeper voice bellows something in a strangely guttural and foreign language, before the noise of metal armor pieces clattering against each other rises all around us.
"I have a bad feeling about this..." I mutter.
"Run!" The bard shouts, and we spring into action at the same time as all around us strange creatures appear on top of buildings and emerge from alleyways. They come at us from all directions, and the entire mountain seems to come alive.
With my night-vision, I can see what they are. The best way to describe them would be bipedal naked mole rats. They have tiny beady eyes, giant incisors that are exposed, and wrinkly pale skin with few bristly hairs sticking out all over their bodies. Their heights are mostly around the same as those of the dwarves I've seen, some being smaller and some bigger.
This fact seems to have allowed these creatures to scavenge dwarven armor pieces and tools for their own use. Many are wearing rusted chainmail or dented armor pieces, wielding all kinds of tools as weapons, even if they were not intended as such.
As we run through the streets of the ruined dwarf city, the trampling of countless feet grows louder by the minute. When I look up, I see that mole rats are pouring out of the windows in the pillars as well as cracks in the buildings, climbing down the walls adeptly.