Here we are…the next chapter. Took me a while to write this one for reasons I'm not even sure of. I'm working on a few things at once, so this chapter got a bit buried, I suppose. I don't know…this isn't my favorite chapter, but one of those necessary transitions. I added this scene to help the following battle become a bit more interesting . One more chapter and I promise we'll be out of these dreaded caves…
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Thunder and Lightning
Rydia cracked open one eye and saw that the fire had died down to embers. She was stiff from sleeping on the cave floor, but she wasn't tired like she had been the day before. She pushed herself up and rolled up her sleeping mat, packed her bag, and sat down waiting for Tellah and Cecil to wake up.
The cave had gone dark with the fire out and the torches expended, but there was a faint bit of light that came from the crack in the ceiling Tellah had been talking about. It was a thin crack, and only one stray shaft of light came through, but it was enough for Rydia to faintly see by.
Cecil eventually stirred and sat up. He saw Rydia already awake across from him and sighed.
"You're up already?"
She nodded.
"I wonder what time it is…" Cecil mumbled.
"There's light coming in from the crack up there. It must be day then, shouldn't it?" Rydia asked.
Cecil craned his head upwards. "Sure enough…"
"Should we wake him?" she asked, pointing at Tellah's sleeping form.
Cecil paused for a moment. "I'd rather not, but I suppose we should."
Rydia stood up and walked towards Tellah, leaning forward curiously to see if he was in any way awake. He had a unique way of breathing, not quite snoring, but a strange wheezing sound that moved his long mustache every time he exhaled. Rydia made a puzzled expression and looked back at Cecil.
"Do all old people sleep like this?" she asked.
Cecil laughed quietly. "Must be a thing among sages," he answered.
She smiled and bent down to poke Tellah's shoulder.
"Mister Tellah, sir," she said, "we need to keep going. You need to wake up."
Tellah mumbled something and turned on his side.
Rydia tried again.
"Mister Tellah? Mister Tellah, wake up!"
Tellah frowned in his sleep and batted out with one arm. "Quiet! Can't remember them if you keep yelling in my ear," he muttered.
Finally Cecil had had enough. He picked up one of their packs and dropped it right by Tellah's head. The clanging of its contents was enough to bring the man awake with a start.
"What in the hell-fire! What's attacking us? Did I miss something?"
"We need to keep moving," Cecil swiftly informed him.
Tellah squinted. "Oh. It's you. Alright, alright, I'm up. Though I am absolutely convinced you two are out to kill me!" he barked.
Cecil re-collected the pack, slinging it over his shoulder, and Rydia did the same with her own pack. Then they both waited for Tellah to stand up and complain about his bones, before they headed for the door to the chamber.
"No, not that way!" Tellah instructed, irritated. "The door at the other end! That door leads to the exit, not the way we came from. Unless you want to spend days backtracking."
"Are there more torches we can use?" Cecil asked, ignoring his remarks. "The ones we first carried are out."
"Now that you can leave to me," Tellah insisted, picking up his staff and striking the cave floor with its bottom. There was a stone set into the top of the staff and it started to glow once the staff hit the ground. The light it gave off was enough to see by, and Tellah once again took the lead. "What would you do without me down here," he muttered as he walked past them.
"Come on, Rydia," Cecil said darkly.
Rydia followed, but was all too amused by this, and tried not to let Cecil know it. Tellah was such an unusual old man…
They covered quite a bit of distance that day; crossing bridges over twisting cavern streams far below, finding chests filled with ancient armor, and keeping the cavern residents at bay.
Rydia had taken to following Tellah very closely, watching his every movement. Every time he moved his hands, she tried to memorize the way he bent and curved his fingers, hoping to learn something from him. She even mimicked his footsteps that came slow and deliberate.
Cecil kept a curious yet concerned eye in her direction, but said nothing about this odd new behavior. He had decided some time back to just let it be.
Rydia did have a motive for this though; she was determined to devise the lightning spell. If she could find out how the old man did it, maybe she too could cast it. Then she wouldn't be limited to her ice and feeble cure spells, and would be a more useful part of the group, she'd thought.
As they continued on, the monsters began to change. They were more powerful, and some very pesky when it came to enchantments. It was when they started to ascend to higher areas of the cavern that they encountered an enemy they had not previously fought.
Rydia jumped back when she saw them; their pathetic human forms, their vacant eyes…
"Oh wonderful. Zombies," Tellah chimed in.
Cecil drew his sword and advanced, determined to remove the six attackers out of their path. He swung at the nearest, but his sword merely glanced off.
"Your sword is a shadow blade. Shadows cannot pierce through evil like this. Only fire can burn these lost souls," Tellah explained.
He began to chant the fire spell, and Rydia, for the first time that day didn't watch the old man's movements, but tightly shut her eyes.
Tellah released a fire spell that burned through three of the forms. He grunted when he saw three others had resisted the attack, not what he had expected. "Resilient buggers…" he grumbled.
One of the undead, provoked by the attack, charged and came towards Rydia. She opened her eyes just in time to see him lurch towards her, and out of instinct she held out her hands and shouted a phrase of warning she remembered from Mist.
At her call, a swift bolt of lightning erupted through the cavern roof and burned straight through the zombie, leaving it in ashes.
Tellah released another fire spell and destroyed the remaining two attackers, before turning swiftly on Rydia.
"What was that? How did you do that?" he insisted.
Rydia was too awestruck to respond. She was still staring straight ahead at where the zombie had been.
"Child, did you hear me?" Tellah repeated. "I've never seen anyone perform a lightning spell like that, where did you learn it?"
"I—I have no idea," she answered.
"Rydia," Cecil interrupted, "do you remember how you did it?"
"I think so..."
Tellah clicked his tongue and walked away from the two of them. "The summoners, what secrets they must have possessed," he said more to himself than anyone else.
"This should help us up ahead, then," Cecil added. "Now the two of you can cast lightning."
"Yes, this is advantageous," Tellah admitted. "Strange, but advantageous. However, we can't spend much more time on it. Let's move on, there's a little ways yet to go."
They climbed a set of stone steps that had been carved into the cave floor and walked towards a light. A light that after so many hours of blundering around in the dark, was blinding.
"What is this?" Cecil asked.
"A valley within the mountains," Tellah told him. "On the other side is the last of the water caverns, and our long awaited friend."
"Come along now. We're almost there," Tellah said again, looking back at them once, and then picking up his pace through a sea of vibrant green grass.
