Chapter 12
The Cave of the Unknown
We left the Keep and went south along the road to the Main Road. Once we reached there, we traveled for an hour. We came to a place inbetween the marsh and the forest.
"I think the map says we go in here. See. This is the only place where the forest and the marshes are that close." I suggested.
Thoros, Cynwyd and Adamis compared the two maps and agreed that perhaps this was where we entered the forest.
Adamis took out his sword and said, "If that old man comes near me, I am going to kill him. At a single sound, I will turned around and prepare to attack."
"Okay," Thoros said. "You're not going first in line."
So Thoros went first, Cynwyd second, myself third and Adamis in the back so that he didn't cut our heads off if he swung his sword.
As we entered the forest, the forest seemed full of mud. The ground was soggy and wet and our feet went down a few inches into the mud. After several hundred feet of walking we saw a beaver house. It was five feet tall and ten feet long. I checked the Alchemist's map and saw that the word I had mistaken for 'fire' and the others 'grass', was actually 'beaver'.
Thoros was the first to voice this realization. Adamis got in front saying, "I'll count."
I shook my head and said, "No, you are far too tall and your gate too big. By deduction I can guess that the Alchemist was average height. SO, since Thoros is a human of average height, I suggest he goes first, so that he can properly measure the distance."
So Thoros went first, Cynwyd second, myself third and Adamis last. As we traversed several hundred feet, the ground began to harden; it became less saturated and muddy.
At 823 steps we were still in the forest. We looked around for any buildings, but saw none. I walked ahead a hundred feet until I came to a clearing. It was a large clearing, about half a mile across, and three quarters of a mile long. In the clearing were two, grassy hills; one was steep, the other sloped slowly upwards. On the one hill on the opposite side of the clearing was an old, abandoned watch tower, and on the side to my right and closest to me, was a hill which sloped steeply upwards. Near the middle of the hill was cave mouth.
I went back to the other and said, "I found a cave and a clearing up ahead."
Everyone followed me into the clearing. We made our way to the cave. We stood outside the cave, torches lit, and we entered.
The cave reached forty feet, into the ground before we came to a wooden door in the wall.
"Well, this is it." I said.
Adamis checked for any signs of evil, and he replied, "There is evil behind this door."
I drew my sword, and the others drew their weapons.
I checked for traps along the door and checked to see if the door was locked. The door was unlocked, and so, I opened it.
It opened into a chamber which was 35 feet square and 20 feet high, on the north side of the room (left side), was a door, on the south side was another door, and in the upper right corner was another door. In the center of the room was a circle, roughly twenty feet in diameter. In front of us were two orcs.
The Orcs, the opposites of the elves. Created by the evil god Gruumsh, for eons we have been locked in a constant state of battle against the orcs. It is not a matter of race or ideology, no. The conflict between orcs and elves goes far beyond any of that, the hatred is within our blood, it exists within our souls. It is a hatred forged even before our races were created.
The orcs saw us, and ran forward. I refused the sudden urge to charge, yelling in their faces. The sudden want of bloodlust surprised me. I decided to hide and wait in the shadows, wait until I could strike a blow. Adamis ran in, as if he teleported right in front of me. The orc, with his crude sword, hit Adamis, Adamis parried, and slashed. Somehow the orc got Adamis near the edge of the pit. Now was the time, I charged forward, sword flashing, I ran forward screaming at the orc. And then I stabbed the orc in the back. I then pulled my sword out, and kicked the orc into the pit.
Across the room, Thoros had the other orc engaged in an epic battle. Thoros swung down with his hammer, and hit the orc in the head. The orc recovered, and slashed at his knees. Thoros leaped backwards, jumped forwards and struck a blow to the side, but the orc blocked, and struck Thoros in the leg with his short little sword, but the strike was merely a cut.
Cynwyd cast the same spell she had cats on the kobolds in the cave yesterday. The orc Thoros was battling was covered in a layer of frost. Thoros took advantage of the distraction and hit the orc with his hammer into the pit.
I yelled into the pit, "Serest volum Orcus eta Gruumsh enduin volumt aftenshen retra! Unde-vam garjn oudin esteris!" Which translates to, "I curse you orcs and your god Gruumsh, for we have won again! Now you lie dead in a hole." The translation is not perfect, by the way, and likely can't be; as there are certain parts of elvish which cannot be heard by any ear besides Elf, as our hearing can hear the noises beneath normal human ears. I then made the Elven equivalent of spitting at someone's dead body. I made a motion with three of my finger, my index finger, my middle finger and my pinky. I then made a downward motion and walked away.
I walked away from the hole and smiled. I was happy to kill and orc anytime of die. In fact, I loved it, it was as if I wanted to do it all the time. I brushed the thoughts aside as best I could. "I say we go t the right. But I really don't care where we go."
Thoros and Adamis said upper right, and Cynwyd didn't care either. I looked into Cynwyd's eyes and saw how much the battle had given her the same rush I had gotten from slaying them. Her eyes sparkled with newfound joy. I knew that feeling, for I too had just experienced it and likely had the same look in my eyes as well.
We walked up to the upper right door, which was on the south-east side of the room. Adamis was about to open the door, when I grabbed his arm and said, "Let me." I checked if there were any traps on the door. There were none, and so I proceeded to check if it was locked, and it was not. I nodded, and Adamis made a go for the knob again, but I then slapped his hand, and opened the door myself. If I had the blood of the Malgoreal Vlacus on my hands because I let him go through the trapped door first, I would be filled with guilt.
There were no traps on the other side. The door led to a hallway ten feet wide and forty feet long. There was nothing along the walls, and far as I could tell, no hidden doors. At the end of the hallway was another wooden door. We walked down the hallway and once again Adamis tried to open the door. This time I said, "No." And I pushed him aside. I checked for the non-existent traps. Then I checked if it was unlocked, which it was. I opened the door, this time Adamis made no attempt, but he did check for any evil before I opened the door.
On the other side were racks full of crudely made swords, shields, maces, arrows, bows, spears, pikes and many other weapons of choice. All over the rest of the room were raised circles with red and brown stains on them. In other portions were dummies of varying heights with many holes in them. Over all, the size of the room was forty feet by fifty feet. The room was filled with a nasty stench of orc's blood, which made me smile.
The only way I can describe the smell of Orc Blood is it has an intoxicating affect on me. I am not certain if other elves are like this, but I am sure they.
It soon became obvious there was nothing of interest in this room, and so we left. Walked down the hallway and opened the door into the main room. We then decided to proceed to the north door. Once there, I checked for traps, checked if it was unlocked, which it was, and so I opened the door.
The door entered into the middle of the hallway, twenty feet to our east and thirty feet to our west. The light from the torch seemed to go unusually far in these caves compared to the kobold cave.
We decided to go to east. This time Adamis tried to open the door. I knocked him aside and he said, "I am tired of this." He was ready to take out his hammer.
Thoros said, "Stop it. It seems Irigorn is simply concerned for our safety. Let him go first."
Adamis shifted his hand away from his hammer, and stepped back. He welcomed me to move forward. I was pleased with this change of behavior, and proceeded with the cycle of trap and lock checking. When it became obvious there were no traps on this side of the door, I checked to see if it was unlocked. It was locked. So I took out my thief's tools and succeeded in unlocking it with some trouble. Then Adamis checked for any evil, which there was none.
I opened the door into a fifty feet by fifty feet room. The room stank worse than the training room, and it was not filled that intoxicating smell, but rather a horrid smell, which seemed to destroy my sinus like acid would my body. The torch lit up a pretty good portion of the room, revealing bed-like and sized groups of furs strewn all over the room. "These are the barracks. We should leave this room alone." I walked out, followed by everyone else, and I closed the door.
"I say we go back out into the Main Room and try the southern door." Cynwyd said.
"No. Why would the hallway extend down west if there wasn't another door? It's probably hidden." The four of us walked down the west side. We all checked for hidden doors. As my hands and eyes scanned the rock wall. Cynwyd said, "Here's one." She pointed to a dip in the wall which looked like the handle of a sliding door.
I checked for traps. While checking I knew the others were beginning to question whether or not I was a wizard. I didn't seem to cast any spells, I didn't fight like a wizard, and I was searching for traps on every door. They would have to catch on eventually. There weren't any traps. Adamis then checked for evil. He said, "There is evil behind this door."
Thoros held his hammer ready, Cynwyd took out her bow and knocked an arrow. Adamis took out his long sword and shield. I had my long sword out, and my sheath attached to my backpack. I pulled the door open. Everyone ran inside expecting a fight.
The room was ten feet by ten feet, and on the northern edge was statue of an ugly, demon-like half-humanoid and half-animal, one eyed horror Gruumsh. I was suddenly terrified. Few things terrified me, but the sight of the god Gruumsh, and the possibility that he was looking right at me scared me.
"Gruumsh." Suddenly, anger flared within me. I had an urge to destroy the statue. The statue looked as though it was no longer used anyways. Perhaps it was better I destroyed it anyways. Then it suddenly hit me, the god Gruumsh might be displeased with his shrine falling into disrepair, and maybe he wants me to do him a favor. I switched opinions and immediately decided to destroy it. Any shrine of Gruumsh was worthy of destruction, whether the god wanted it or not.
I was about to ask if I could borrow someone's hammer, but then Malgoreal Vlacus touched the statue. The moment he touched it, every hair on his body turned white, his skin turned pale. I leaped backwards and yelped. He cradled his the hand with which he touched the statue.
We all stared at Adamis. He just asked, "What?"
Thoros said, "Your hair is white. I mean ghostly white."
I was about to ask for a hammer to destroy the statue, again, but then Cynwyd said, "Let's get out of here." Everyone agreed with her, and we left the room and closed the door behind us.
Adamis said, "Well, there is only one door left."
"The southern door," I agreed. I sighed, wondering what new horror would be found behind that door. Perhaps the Alchemist's Laboratory, I began to wonder what kind of deal he had struck with the orcs to allow him to make his laboratory in their caves. Then again, by the looks of things, it seemed as though the Orc Base was abandoned, or perhaps they were out hunting. Perhaps the orcs were even visiting their brethren in the Caves of Chaos. Who knew?
We reached the door and I checked for traps, finding none, I checked to see if the door was locked. The door was not locked, and so I opened it into a staircase which spiraled downwards into eternal darkness. I sighed and suddenly my head began to throb, as if I had already done the hours of trap checking I was about to do. One thought made me happy, it was the possibility that the staircase wasn't really that deep, perhaps consisting of only thirty or forty steps at most.
We began our slow, tiresome journey down each step. After thirty steps or so steps, I triggered a trap. The stairs disappeared out from under my feet. The transformation was so abrupt I fell a few inches, and then fell onto my butt, and slid down the slide which had been the stairs. As we traveled downwards, we were pushed against the outer wall of the slide. The feeling was uncomfortable, and so I spun around, only to come flying into a dark, mud filled room face first.
The torch had gone out, and it was completely dark. I quickly recovered and stood up in the three feet thick mud.
"Everyone okay?" Cynwyd asked.
"Yep."
"Yes."
"I am okay."
My infra-vision then kicked in and I could roughly see what was going on. The room was about twenty feet square and the ceiling was ten feet high. We were in the middle of a mud pit which took up a large portion of the room. There was a bit of solid ground around the door, and that was all.
Just then, a dozen objects glided swiftly downwards at us. They were bats. I swatted at them, and they squeaked an ticked all around me. One landed on me, I brushed it aside, but not before it could inject a needle into my arm and drew blood. "What?" I felt light headed, and my vision faltered.
I saw that Cynwyd had activated her magic armor, because there was a haze around her, making her a little blurrier. As the creatures headed towards her they hit the magic armor and fell into the middle. Cynwyd swatted at a bat creature on Adamis' neck. She then headed to the door.
Thoros was swatting at the air randomly, acting as if he couldn't see. Then it hit me, they couldn't see! "Thoros! Adamis!" I yelled. "Follow my voice."
As we slowly made progress across the mud pit, the two obediently followed my voice. Cynwyd was the first on the solid ground, she climbed up, and sat on the floor awhile. As I got on, followed by Thoros and Adamis, I climbed up, and stood up on the ground.
There were no bat creatures following us. I looked back out into the pit, and saw that they were clustered around the center of the room.
"How are we going to see? How are you able to see?" Adamis asked.
"Elf sight," I replied. "Really comes in handy."
"It allows us to see heat in the darkness. It is like a better version of night vision." Cynwyd explained. Her body was still shrouded in the armor's haze.
"Are the torches still wet?" Thoros asked. "Wait." Thoros scrambled around in his bag and took out a torch. I wasn't sure if it was wet or dry, but he whispered a silent prayer, and the torch lit.
The bat-mosquitoes were attracted to the light, like moths. So we exited the room and ran down the tunnel. We headed deeper and deeper into the Cave of the Unknown. With each step, the further from the world above was. I began to remember the stories of Drows, the cursed Dark Elves who lived beneath the earth as they were cursed by Corellon Larethian when they turned evil. I remembered the stories of slimes which were nearly invincible, orcs as tall as giants, monsters and creatures of the night.
We continued to walk silently, our footsteps echoing off of the dark walls, we came across a forking in the path.
"I say the right." Adamis said. We really didn't care at this point. We all knew the chances of encountering monsters were equal no matter where we went.
We walked down the path, and thirty feet in, we began to notice the walls were glowing green, not glowing, but reflecting green from an unknown source. I looked further down and it was like the rock was shaded in different shades of green. All variations ranging from pine needle green, to a sickening shade, to a yellow-green. Thirty feet later we entered a thirty feet wide, room with a green substance clinging to the walls. It was hard to tell if the green glow was caused by a moss, mold, fungus, or even if it was caused by a highly viscous liquid.
Whatever the cause, before anyone decided to touch it I strongly suggested, "I say we go back down the left path. I don't know what this stuff is, and I don't want to find out if it's alive, and if so, if it eats."
We left the room and went down the other path. This led us to a large room, roughly seventy feet across and circular. The ceiling was forty feet high and there were stalagmites and stalactites on the top and bottom, sometimes the two meeting in columns all over the room. Also in the room were nine vats or tubs six feet across and three feet high. In them were liquids of various colors. On one side of the room was a pile of rocks.
We walked over to a vat which was filled with a clear, water-like substance. Adamis was about to touch it. "Stop!" I said.
"Why don't I stick my staff in?" Cynwyd suggested.
"Sure." Thoros said.
She plunged her staff in, the liquid bubbled and droplets jumped up several feet in the air. Cynwyd pulled her staff out and the bottom was wet, rough and seemed to be eaten away. The staff was a few inches shorter in fact, and a piece of it fell into the acid.
We silently moved on to a similar substance, bearing a resemblance to water. I doubted it was water. "I am just going to touch it." I said. I put on my leather glove and plunged my hand in. I pulled it out, the liquid seeped into the inside of my glove. The substance was not acid. I sniffed it, and it had no smell. I decided not to taste it, afraid it could be poison.
"It might be water," I suggested.
"How do you know?" Thoros asked. "The first substance was acid, now there are pools of liquid of varying colors. Each might have a different property. This place is an alchemist's heaven. No wonder he came down here." He said what we were all thinking.
So we moved on to a silver colored pool on the other side of the room. Adamis took out an arrow and put it in the silver substance. As he pulled it out, the substance just came off with the same viscosity was water.
"May I see the arrow?" I asked Adamis.
"Sure."
He handed it to me and I sniffed it. It smelled nice, almost like pine needles. I refused the urge to taste it, as I figured it might strange, unwanted affect on me. I took out my glass vial and dipped it in, filling it up with the substance.
We moved to a black pool. I immediately said, "Oil."
Adamis stuck his arrow in, but before he did, I noticed that the silver substance which once wet the arrow head was now a silver color, dusty film over the head. The head then dipped into the black substance, and as soon as he pulled it out, I knew it wasn't oil. It was the same viscosity was water and when I smelled it, it was a pungent, pleasant smell.
We moved on to a blue pool, and instead of sticking an arrow in it, I just stuck my gloved hand in it. It was like water, it smelled as pungent as the black liquid, but it had a different smell to it, a single whiff made me feel a little stronger and in better shape as I was now. So I took my empty water skin, breaking and cracking the crusting mu on my sleeve. I filled the water skin full of the substance and then put the cap on it.
Adamis moved on to a pool of red water. The color was remarkably similar to the red powder found on the floor of the Alchemy Shop in town and of the red substance leaking into the fountain.
"Come on." Cynwyd said. "Let's go."
"Maybe there is a hidden door." I suggested. "I mean, the alchemist would want to be near these pools to research their affects."
"Agreed." Thoros said.
Cynwyd, Thoros and I searched for hidden doors, while Adamis traveled around the room, investigating each pool.
Cynwyd searched in the rock pile. When she said, "Found a passage!" She then disappeared, crawling into the rock pile. I jogged over and went in after her, and Thoros came in after me, I hoped Adamis was coming as well.
