“Are we almost there?” Raina asked as Aelisra cut another branch aside. “I thought this was supposed to be a sacred place, not a jungle.”

“It’s a sacred place to the Goddess of Heroes,” answered the paladin. “If it was easy to get to, it would be a disgrace to Valencia’s name.”

Shaleheart Spring was not as nearby as Ser Riven had made it out to be. For four days, we’d been cutting our way through denser and denser forest in search of the water nexus.

The nexus was a natural wonder of Aldar, or so everyone told me. As a font of incredibly dense water mana, it created an endless spring which bubbled over into streams, brooks, and rivers all over the forest. That water allowed the forest to thrive, even if people couldn’t safely drink it. Thanks to the concentration of water mana in the rivers nearby, drinking it came with a risk of sickness and potential corruption. Plants, however, had no such qualms, as many plants were infused with their own mana which filtered and counter balanced that which was in the water.

That said, you would think a nexus of life-giving water mana would be easy to find. There should have been streams and rivers all over the place, carrying life and magic to the entire forest. It should have been as easy as finding one such river, then travelling upstream. Find river, go towards the source. Survival 101.

And yet, we’d found none of the ten small streams we should have crossed days ago, according to the map provided by the temple. It was like they’d just completely disappeared.

“It’s got to be here somewhere. I know it,” Aelisra muttered as we searched for the biggest river on our path. “I visited it once when I was an acolyte.”

“I hear nothing,” Cithrael answered. “There is no running water near.”

“It has to be here.” Aelisra’s blade swiped through another branch, then another. We followed in single file.

Raina looked up to the sky. “Odd that we haven’t come across any monsters, either. Didn’t Ser Riven say that monsters would be attracted to the nexus?”

A thunderous CRACK interrupted Aelisra’s response. Immediately, the adventurers drew their weapons. Eyes whipped around, searching for the danger, only to find none.

“What was that?” Raina asked softly.

Terrowin shook his head. “A falling tree maybe? But what made it fall?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out. Let’s keep going.”

Aelisra continued cutting through the trees. We followed, until Raina ran into Terrowin’s back.

“Oh, sorry,” she muttered before seeing that he’d stopped because Aelisra had stopped in front of him. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I found the river,” she said. We filtered out of the trees onto what was clearly once a riverbank. However, now it was filled only with cracked mud and dry stones. Plants near the edge of the bank withered.

“This could not have happened more than a week or two ago,” Cithrael said, kneeling at the edge of where the water once flowed. He dug into the dry soil, rubbing it between his fingers and dabbing it on his tongue before spitting it out. “Metallic…” he muttered.

“We should move,” Aelisra insisted, already walking upstream with a pace that couldn’t quite be called running but was certainly with a greater urgency than our previous walking pace. Her shoulders had become tense, something I could easily see without the shell of armor that she usually wore.

From my perch on Raina’s shoulders, I watched and listened as the party followed Aelisra with the same urgency in their steps. Something was…wrong…here. It made my fur prickle, and I couldn’t put my paw on why.

Gingerly, I sniffed the air. It was thick with humidity, and the acrid smell of ozone slipped between the smells of the forest. It would rain later.

Wait…humidity? It was wet in the air…and yet the soil had been dry when Cithrael pulled it from the riverbed…

Another CRACK echoed through the trees. I pricked my ears, listening very carefully to the loud noise. There was no thunderous collapse, nor the snapping of wood fibers that would have come from a falling tree. Instead, it was simply a CRACK, more akin to a nearby lightning crack than anything else.

The forest filled with the sound of three more earsplitting cracks. Birds cawed as they fled the area in terror. I hunched down over Raina’s shoulders, wrapping my tail protectively around her throat.

“That would be an awful lot of trees falling,” Terrowin muttered.

Three more, this time getting louder and louder with each passing CRACK! Panic filled my muscles, and I leapt from Raina’s shoulders. Taking my queue, the rest of the party took off at a sprint, running with all the speed they had upstream and away from whatever was chasing us.

It gave chase, increasing the frequency of the ear-splitting sounds until even our frantic footsteps had been drowned out by the thunder that chased us. Eventually, the sound of terrible wingbeats reached my poor ears through the storm of noise. I turned to see an enormous moth, easily as tall as Terrowin and with twice its height in wingspan.

It bore down on us, wind whipping through violet wings which crackled with deadly lightning. It flapped those vibrant wings and released a screech that made me want to paw at my ears. It hurt so badly!

But it was about to hurt even more. Crackling energy surged from the creature’s wingtips up its body to fill the long antennae on its head. I yowled a warning, but it was drowned out amidst the thunder.

Lightning blasted towards us in a deadly line. It slammed into the ground, the shockwave knocking every member of the party to the ground. I tumbled twice before gripping the ground with trembling claws. The antennae crackled again, as its wings began charging again.

“Raina! What is that thing?!” Terrowin shouted. She turned to me, terror clear in her eyes. Time to prove my worth as an inspector…

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Inspecting hostile creature: Level 15 Static Dungeon Moth

Air moving across the Moth’s wings can be converted into powerful lightning attacks.

A dungeon monster? Here? That was strange to say the least. I relayed the full description to Raina, having to repeat it twice for her to hear it over the rushing wind and cracks of lightning. She, in turn, relayed it to the rest of the party.

“Cithrael! Can you bring it to ground?” Terrowin shouted. The archer nodded. “Aelisra, help me draw its attacks!”

The party scattered, and just in time, too. Another blast of lightning slammed into the ground right where the archer had just been standing. He rolled forward before yanking an arrow from his quiver and fitting it to his bowstring with practiced ease. Aelisra slammed her borrowed axe into her shield, sending a CLANG across the riverbed that rivaled the volume of the moth’s great wingbeats. It turned towards her.

The instant its attention was drawn, Cithrael fired. The arrow streaked through the air, slamming into the joint where the moth’s wing met its chitinous body. It screeched in pain as it dipped slightly. Another arrow was already on the string. He released it, and it sailed to the creature, slamming into its side.

The moth cried out, unleashing another blast of lightning upon its attacker. Cithrael darted away as best he could, but the blast clipped his foot, sending him careening to the ground in a curled, twitching state.

“Raina! Help Cithrael!” Terrowin shouted.

He took several steps back as the moth turned its attention back to Aelisra. Once he had enough room to run, he sprinted forward. Mana lent speed to his muscles as he ran faster than I could see. Before I knew it, he’d leapt high in the air, and hurled his glaive straight into the static moth’s uninjured wing.

The insect fell, slamming into the ground just as I reached Cithrael’s still twitching form. Raina was right behind me, but as soon as she saw the moth had landed, she turned.

“Take care of him!” she instructed, already running to help with the fight. I stayed by Cithrael, unsure of what she expected me to do. Wasn’t she the one with a cleansing spell? Not that I knew if that would even help the paralyzed archer, but it was more than I could do.

Aelisra rushed forward, crying out in battle hardened fury. The moth beat its wings, sending blood, wind, and lightning in every direction. Aelisra raised her shield, protecting both her and Terrowin from its terrible attacks.

Meanwhile, Raina rushed in behind the giant insect. She reached out a hand and stroked the tip of its fulminous wings. I felt her draw on our mana, and the moth tensed. The lightning on its wings crackled and reversed direction, moving towards Raina, not the feelers atop its head.

The static moth writhed as Raina used Drain on the creature. Her skill with Enervation had only improved from our encounters with the fire sprites and the levels we earned from the fight with Qelona.

The moth’s lightning dissipated as the spell drained the very life force from it. Stunned as it was, Aelisra took the opportunity to rush in and slam her axe into the insect’s forehead. It died swiftly.

Congratulations. Level 15 Static Dungeon Moth defeated. Experience gained.

Level up to Level 12

One Attribute Point available

I studied Cithrael. He was still twitching as lightning mana coursed through his body. As the chaos died down, so too did the spasms. He’d be fine in time.

“Does anyone want to explain what a dungeon monster is doing roaming a forest like this?” Aelisra asked.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Raina admitted. “I don’t think we’re going to like what we find at the water nexus.”

“If there’s even a water nexus left,” Terrowin countered. “I think it’s infinitely more likely that it was consumed by the dungeon that spawned that thing.”

No one argued. To do so would be to take the losing side of the argument.

I purred, doing what I could to quicken Cithrael’s recovery. He was burned in several places where the lightning had passed through flesh, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In time, his muscles finally relaxed.

“I can stand,” he said, forcing himself back to his feet. He stumbled once as he approached the moth to retrieve his arrows. It was clear that he wasn’t nearly as well as he claimed to be, but he was far too proud to admit otherwise. That was fine, he could mostly walk, and the rest could be rectified with time.

After collecting his arrows, Cithrael turned to find me directly in his path. He stared at me, and I stared back at him. He blinked slowly, and I returned the formality. Then he frowned, seemingly unsure of what I wanted. I crooked my tail and rubbed against his shin, trying to indicate to him that he needed to do something.

The others were already moving ahead, but I stayed with the injured elf, stubbornly weaving between his feet. If he couldn’t understand exactly what I wanted, then I would be an irritant until he had no choice but to comply.

“Raina,” he called, but she didn’t hear him. He tried to step over me, but I just rushed back between his feet. Finally, he gave up and lifted me gently off the ground.

I purred, bestowing my favor upon the archer for finally figuring out what I required. It would have been all too easy to ask Raina to relay my wishes, but that…well, it didn’t feel good. I was already tired of having to go through Raina for everything, and it had only been a few weeks since we’d met.

Cithrael was the one most likely to understand the cues I could give him as a cat, and so he was the one I would train first. It would be long and difficult, I had no doubt, and it would likely never allow me to communicate complex ideas to the elf, but it would have to be a start.

As we travelled further and further upstream, Cithrael’s footing grew surer. His burns healed, and I was confident he could hold his own in a fight once more.

“What would be the point of sending out a creature like that?” Terrowin wondered.

“Raina, you’ve dealt with a dungeon before, why do you think it would send out a monster?” asked the paladin.

Raina began to stammer. “Oh, um. I’m n-not really…not really sure.”

I pondered it. What had Amsiii told me about dungeons back when I’d fallen into the first one? Amsiii had said that dungeons were locations of dense mana manipulated by a central core, right? They create monsters and operate under the rules of Forced Fairness…

But, what was the goal of a dungeon? The obvious answer was that a dungeon existed to become stronger and better defend its core. It was like any other creature in that way. The strong live while the weak are consumed.

How did a dungeon get stronger? Probably by consuming mana. And with that in mind, the reason for the static moth’s attack also became clear. It was a lure.

This dungeon was trying to lure in beings of power so that it could consume their mana and grow stronger. We were walking towards a trap.

However, I didn’t share that insight with the others. Knowing them, it wouldn’t stop them from going further. Aelisra needed this rite, and the others would stand at her side until it was done, dungeon or no. Telling them of the obvious trap we were walking into would only distract them at a critical moment and lessen their odds of survival. Better they learn it for themselves.

The dry riverbed gave way to a lake…or what would have been described as a lake if it were actually filled with water. Now, only a tiny puddle rested at the bottom. Aelisra collapsed to her knees.

“This…this can’t be it…” she whispered. “What about the rite?”

Raina knelt next to the heartbroken paladin, putting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Aelisra. We’ll find a way to finish the rite. I’m sure of it.”

“It’s not just the rite.” The paladin clenched her fist before slamming it into the ground. “Without the water from the spring, the forest might die.”

“Look, over there,” Terrowin pointed to the far side of the lake where a cliff soared high over the treetops. In the face of the cliff, was a cracked cavern leading further in. “I’d wager anything that’s our dungeon.”

“If we defeat it, maybe the water will return,” Raina offered.

“Then ready your spells, friends,” Aelisra said, hatred in her words. “We’re going dungeon hunting.”