Chương 60: 1.3.16 - Annie, Are You Ok?

Waldo's orb of light floated beside us as we climbed down the side of the hole. It was a slanted path down but it was too steep to just walk regularly. We needed to hold on to the sides and the floor as we made our way down.

"Is this why most of the local hunters just stick to the first floor?" I asked while we slowly made our way down.

"Yes, Bags of Holding are expensive and rare. Most adventurers will not be able to afford them, and those that can won't bother with dungeons of this level." Randell said as he made his way down. He manipulated the earth to have little ledges and holes to put our hands in, making it easier for the rest of us.

"Young lord Falden probably already knew about this when he loaned us the Bag of Holding." Waldo said above me. Bits of small rock and soil rolled down past me as Waldo and Annie climbed down. I kept my eyes downwards as Randell climbed ahead. I would normally be in the lead as the scout but he had offered to go down first to help make it easier for the rest of us to climb down.

The moment Randell's boots touched solid ground, he raised a few Earth Walls to create a safety zone for the rest of us as we climbed down. Waldo unrolled the map for level 2 from his belt pouch. We needed to refer to the map and check for any new tunnels that might have been dug by these ants.

"Hmmm, we need to check the edges of this floor but let's go right first then go around. The entrance to level 3 is closer to the left so we can mark it on the way back in case we don't find the tunnel on this floor" Waldo suggested.

"Let's do that, usual formation. Your lead Damian" Randell gestured for me to take the front spot. The first thing I noticed through my Electrolocation was the ground. Unlike the first floor, the ground here was a lot rougher and uneven, signs that the local adventurers rarely ventured down here. I was busy paying attention to the ground when I suddenly had a sinking feeling that I should look up. Right above us, there were close to a dozen beasts clustered together.

I held a hand up to halt everyone in their tracks. I just pointed upwards and gestured for the team to back up. I had been so focused on the ground that I had completely forgotten about the ceiling. Unfortunately, someone behind me accidentally kicked a rock. CLACK — TOCK Shit! I immediately heard the screeching come from the ceiling. Waldo immediately sent the orb of light higher towards them to light up the place. I saw the cluster of beasts flap their wings and start flying around.

They looked like oversized bats with comically huge heads and pig noses. While their wings were large, their bodies were smaller than their heads. Waldo tried to fire a few Focused Beams towards their eyes but they didn't seem to do anything, not even annoy them. Randell conjured a few walls for us to take cover.

"They don't hunt with sight especially in this darkness! They hunt with sound!" I was not sure but if these were anything like the bats I knew, they hunted using echolocation. CRAK I unleashed a Lightning Bolt at one of the bats that flew within my own Electrolocation, which allowed me to locate it precisely. The other bats that were further out were flying about, sometimes behind stalactites which obscured my vision.

The sound from my spell though did manage to disorient the others, which gave Annie the opportunity to take another one down with her ice shards. This encounter reminded me why it was so important to have ranged spells in your repertoire, and I thanked the Weave for accepting my bastardized version of a Tier 2 lightning spell. All Waldo could do was hide behind one of the walls Randell built, and Randell summoned more Earth Walls every time one of them was shattered by the bats' sonic attacks.

It took us a few minutes but we eventually got most of them. We were partially deaf at this point and if we took any longer we might actually turn deaf. I managed to take out the last one with a well-timed Lightning Bolt but the bat managed to let out one last shriek which went off course as it fell. This was one of those situations where Murphy's favorite law always took place. The sonic attack hit one of the stalactites over our heads, and due to our impaired hearing, we did not hear it breaking off the ceiling.

I did however manage to spot it when it entered my Electrolocation range. The stalactite was heading straight for where Annie was standing. I could tell by her relaxed posture that she did not know she might be impaled in a few seconds. I activated Lightning Infusion, and rushed towards her. I tackled her out of the way and rolled with her. Though we were about the same size, I had a lot more bulk from my mutations and I was worried I might have accidentally injured her.

I held her in my arms, trying to stir her awake, and I swore that what came out next from my mouth was due to my bad habit of cracking a joke when I was stressed.

"Annie, are you okay? So, Annie, are you okay? Are you okay, Annie?"

"What?" I could see Annie mouth the word but it was only a muffled sound in my ears. Her face flushed a little, probably from all the adrenaline. She gestured for me to put her down when she realized she was cradled in my arms. Seeing that she was alright, I quickly placed her down. When I looked up I saw Waldo give me a thumbs up sign, probably complimenting me for saving her. Randell came up to us with a bottle of healing potion, and indicated for us to tilt our heads so he could pour a few drops into our ears.

"Good work you two. Those bats are nasty creatures. Ugly to boot too" Randell said after our hearing recovered.

"Sorry, that was my fault. I should have caught them earlier. I was not used to looking up for monsters" I apologized. The team would have been better prepared if I had alerted them to the presence of the bats earlier. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"You're right. But I was partially at fault too. I hadn't thought of the bats hiding on the ceilings when I went through the notes yesterday. Let's get a move on" Randell said. We continued in our systematic outer-wall sweep, periodically stopping to let Waldo cross check against the map. We had a few more encounters with Orange cored monsters and one Yellow cored monster. Luckily for us, the Yellow cored monster was a lone hunter rather than the type that hunted in packs.

The monsters on the second level were not as well documented as the local adventurers rarely travelled down here. The Yellow cored monster was only recorded with a nickname and a brief description. It was called the Pale Reaper as it was a centipede with a bone white carapace. It usually hung from the ceiling and stayed motionless until creatures passed by. It would then attack with its venom fangs, putting an end to whichever unfortunate creature wandered close.

In a way, the team having the run-in with the bats first alerted us to the presence of monsters lurking on the ceiling. I managed to spot the Pale Reaper from far enough that I could knock it from the ceiling with a single Lightning Bolt, after which finishing it off was relatively quick.

"Randell you alright?" Waldo asked as he inspected Randell's arm. He immediately cast his Infuse Light to get rid of any potential venom. Some of the monster's blood had landed on Randell's hand when he landed the killing blow, burning his skin slightly. No one expected the creature's blood to be acidic. Waldo was about to uncork a bottle of healing potion when Randell stopped him.

"Save it, it's only a minor wound. We don't know what else we'll encounter down here." It took us what felt like more than a day to complete the circuit. Annie was fighting off a yawn by the time we circled back to the entrance leading to the first floor. We had to map out the place in a single pass, as getting back to where we stopped might take just as much time due to the presence of monsters. Randell had considered camping on level 2 but it was too risky with the higher concentration of Yellow cored monsters.

"That's unlucky, but the area we have to cover on level 3 is smaller as only part of it is mapped out. We should be able to finish it in a single day. Let's hope we find the tunnel if there's one" Randell said as we made our way up to the camp site on the first level. We were all exhausted but Annie had insisted she did not mind conjuring water for us to rinse off. We briefly cleaned ourselves and had our supper, or maybe breakfast, as we lost track of time without the sun.

"Were you singing earlier?" Annie suddenly asked.

"Huh? Sorry?" I said in surprise, caught out by her question.

"Oh, uhmmm. When you saved me earlier, I was wondering if you were singing. My hearing was damaged so I couldn't hear it properly but it almost sounded like a tune.... Could just be me, I was just curious.... Don't mind me...." Annie started to get flustered again, perhaps being disappointed in herself for needing to be saved.

"Oh yea I was singing" I admitted, deciding again to go with half-truths.

"Where I come from, people have a habit of singing before doing something important. I just don't do it all the time." My thoughts went to all the different musicals and Disney movies I watched.

"Ahh I see, that's an interesting tradition" Annie nodded in contemplation.

"Do people sing on their nuptial night?" Waldo asked.

"You — you — Waldo! You can't ask that!" Annie stammered. Hmmm, nuptial means wedding right? I guess some people did sing in churches when they got married.

"I guess some did." I nodded. Even in the faint camp fire light I could see Annie's face turn red. Waldo just had a smirk as he finished the rest of his stew.

"Alright Wallie, we should cut her some slack. Let's get some rest and do the usual rotation." Randell said as he got up. He created a small hole in the floor to bury the leftovers. Since we could not tell day from night, we decided to do a longer watch rotation so everyone could get more rest after covering the second level of the dungeon yesterday. We already had the path to the third level scouted and marked so we could reach the third level quite quickly.

The path down to the third level was not as treacherous — you could almost think of it as a series of giant steps we had to climb down. The risk of slipping and falling all the way to the bottom was a lot less.

"Which way first?" I asked while I looked around with Electrolocation activated, fully sweeping the area near the exit including the ceiling.

"Hmmm, the area indicated on the map does not seem big. We have to backtrack either way as we have no idea how big level 3 is. Let's do the right side as that seems smaller, then we backtrack and do the left." Waldo suggested. I looked to Randell and he gave me a nod.

"Sounds good" I said and started moving. Surprisingly at level 3, the monster encounters were fewer but they were all Yellow cored. The monsters who survived down here were likely those that adapted to being lone hunters — or, if the ant tunnel was here, the weaker ones had all likely already been eaten by the ants. There were no signs of a tunnel on the right, though the tunnel could be further down beyond the explored area. As agreed, we turned back around and headed in the other direction.

When we reached the end of the explored area, we stopped by an open area to plan our next steps.

"It seems that we're out of luck. Even if we explore beyond the marked area, there is no way to confirm if a tunnel or a path is a recent addition or one that's been there for a while. Though I'm not against the idea of exploring a bit further down this area just to see if we might stumble on these ants. What do you think Waldo?" Randell pointed at the map as we spoke. We all looked up from the map when there was no response from Waldo. He was looking somewhere behind Randell.

"Wallie? What are you looking at?" Randell followed Waldo's line of sight to somewhere behind him.

"I'm not sure, but something looked off there. Do you mind if we move over there?" Waldo asked. We headed towards the area Waldo pointed at. He brought his light closer and looked at the ground.

"The ground here is a different shade compared to the rest of the dungeon." Waldo got on his knees and touched the ground.

"Hmmm, doesn't mean it is a new tunnel though. But I wouldn't mind exploring a bit further. We just need to decide when to cut our losses" Randell said. I picked up one of the slightly different colored rocks nearby and tried to look at my hand through it. With normal earth or soil, unless it was thick enough, I could normally still see through it with Electrolocation. This piece of rock, however, completely obstructed the image of my hand behind it.

"No, I think Waldo is on to something here. I've dealt with Geomyre ants before and the materials they made their nest out of completely obstruct my sensing spell. This rock right here is behaving the same way. If these giant ants are mutated from Geomyre ants then there is a good chance this leads to their nest." I said.

"In that case I think it is worthwhile to explore deeper." Randell agreed eventually.

"I can't see through the walls here though, so if there's something approaching from around the bend I would not know." I told Randell so he could account for this change in our formation.

"Got it, I'll take the front then. You take up the rear with Annie." Randell summoned his Stone Skin armor and moved to the front. As we moved towards the part of the dungeon where the ground had a different color, the ceiling and walls gradually closed in, eventually forming a tunnel that was wide enough for two Stonehide Plodders to pass side by side. I did not need to explore further to know in my gut that this was the giant ant nest we were looking for.

However, we still needed to collect evidence as part of our mission. Randell suddenly stopped, and before any of us could ask why, we heard a distinct clicking sound coming from down the tunnel. It seemed that even without my sensing spell, we could tell when an enemy was approaching.

"Get ready" Randell said in a low voice and summoned three Earth Walls as cover for us as he got into a fighting stance.