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Today: [Road to Purgatory] - Crawling

“Can anyone explain just what is going on here?” a wolfman asks, his head swiveling around to look at his companions while he is slumped against a rocky wall. The light around him is dim, shed by just a few crystals in the wall in addition to a greenish glow coming from the staff of one of his friends. None of them answer for a moment, before the one with the glowing staff responds.

“That, out there, is a wild magic field.” she replies, wiping a bit of sweat off her brow. “Essentially, the magic in the environment got thrown out of whack, think of it a bit like a stone tossed into a pond, disturbing the water, splashing some of it around but also throwing up muck from the bottom of the pond.”

“What can cause those? And, more to the point, do you have an idea what caused the one out there?” one of the others, a centaur, asks, looking deeper into the tunnel, his spear at the ready, just in case something comes at them.

“They can happen naturally, but for that, something big needs to happen, you know, catastrophically big, think major landslides, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, those kinds of things. But I don’t think that was the case out there, it’s too small for that.” the druid responds, frowning as she increases the amount of light given off by her staff.

“It’s more likely that the one out there was caused by a magical accident of some kind, or a battle, with things going out of hand and creating unforeseen backlash. That the area is so close to a dungeon lends itself to the idea.” she continues, only to be interrupted by Arjuk, the wolf, who starts to softly growl in warning.

“Shit, we might have incoming.” the wolfman warns the others, getting up and readying a spear on his own. Curiously, the wolf doesn’t focus on the tunnel that leads deeper into the mountain, or the way out, instead staring at the nearby wall. Following his partner’s line of sight, the wolfman keep an eye on it as well, only to let out a vile curse that turns into a bleep after the first few letters.

The creature that bursts out of the wall can mostly be described with a single word, teeth, and a lot of them. Forewarned, the wolfman manages to skewer it on his spear, pinning the writhing form that resembles a sleeve filled with many rows of razor sharp teeth to the wall, giving his allies an easy way to strike, quickly dispatching the nightmarish creature.

“What in all the hells was that?!”the wolfman asks, still shaken from the many teeth that came flying towards him just moments before.

“A earth-larvae, they feed on flesh and magic, these seem to feed on the glacier. Nasty buggers, able to swiftly move through solid terrain thanks to their magic, making them a pain in the behind, far beyond their levels.” the orcish fighter, their most experienced team-member replies, his eyes flickering from wall to wall.

“Feed on magic, you say?” the druid asks, unhappy with that idea, before explaining, “I have a feeling we should dig a little deeper, it might give us an idea what happened out there. Or, if not, finding a dungeon in the wild can be counted as a lucky chance that we should exploit, what do you guys think?” she asks, looking at her companions.

“We were sent to find out what changed the wind raptors. I’m pretty sure the valley outside is one of their breeding grounds, which is now an area of wild magic. Unless you tell me otherwise, I’d think that they changed due to that.” the orc fighter explains, his main focus still on the environment. “With that, we have completed our quest and can get our rewards. Why risk our lives even further and storm into an unknown dungeon. Sure, that larvae was weak but who knows what lingers in the deeper areas.”

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The two travellers exchange a look, before nodding. Neither of them speaks up, aware that what is a matter of life and death for their companions is merely a question of temporary inconvenience, coupled with a minor permanent disadvantage for them.

“Let’s go deeper.” the small snowbold agrees with the druid, before continuing, “These caves, they feel a little like home, not like the scary place outside.”

“So be it.” the orc finally gives in, agreeing with the rest of his group. He might not like it, but at times, following along with the group is a necessary sacrifice.

In a tight formation, the group starts moving forward and the screen fades to black, a voice speaking from the off.

“Cold tunnels, filled with monsters.” it says, the screen flashing an image of two more teeth-monsters coming out of the walls, with a strange, ice-monster a little further back. It’s quite obvious that the group is fighting hard, each of them guarding their companions back to make sure they aren’t surprised by a burrowing larvae.

“The small monsters, they were dangerous.” the voice continues, fading a little before returning stronger than before.

“But compared to their masters, they were merely small-fry.” the voice finishes and short videos flash on the screen.

In the first video, the orc fighter is blocking a blow from a massive creature, a vaguely humanoid form made from rock, gravel and ice, the blow strong enough to stagger him back. The block staggers the monster for a moment, an opening instantly exploited by the centaur, who barrels into it with crushing momentum, spear fist. As the creature tries to recover from the blow, an arrow and a beam of radiant energy strike it, staggering it further while the orc fighter is enveloped by a healthy, green glow that invigorates him.

Moments later, the orc fighter surges forward, making sure that the creature doesn’t try to go after his companions.

In the second video, the whole group stands in a large, empty room, their heads swivelling around, obviously searching for something. Suddenly, the wolfman leaps aside, rolling as he lands, barely avoiding the massive mouth that burrows from underground. But while the wolfman is recovering from the hasty dodge, the rest of the group has no such trouble, instead focusing their attacks on the massive bulk that is moving through the room, as the monster is returning to the ground.

Bloody wounds appear on its body, as radiant power burns it, a mace cracks the bony plates protecting its body and a spear slips between those very plates. But, as quick as the monster has appeared, it disappears again, leaving the group above ground, waiting for its next emergence, hoping that they will be able to dodge the lethal mouth.

And finally, in the third video, the group is fighting a creature similar to the crab-spiders they have seen outside, only that its size is dialed up to eleven. Instead of a creature that can be battered aside with a mace-strike, the monster is big enough to force the orc-fighter to carefully brace, while the others move in and out, preventing it from fully focusing.

However, just as the orc blocks one strike, another leg comes from the side, getting past the shield and brutally bashing the orc aside. As he desperately tries to get up, the centaur charges in, the momentum of his equine bulk barely enough to push the icy monstrosity back. That, in turn, gives the druid enough time to invigorate the orc again, who manages to re-join the fight before the monster is able to smash the centaur into bloody salsa.

The screen fades to black again, the voice returns.

“But those fights, they were just the beginning. The true master of the dungeon, the final boss, was waiting for us.” With these words, images return to the screen, the group standing on a small platform, with two stairs leading downward, one on each side. But there is no way to move down the stairs, as endless swarms of hungry larvae crawl up the stairs, trying to overwhelm the centaur on one side and the orc on the other.

While the two of them, with help from the druid, hold the line, the snowbold and the wolfman stand protected between them, one shooting arrow after arrow into a distant, writhing form, the other burning said form with lances of radiant energy.

“The battle lasted for hours, each of us driven to exhaustion and beyond. Finally, after we had almost given up on hope, the monstrous boss finally perished, leaving us with the frenzied larvae, who had lost the force that guided them. With them purely driven by hunger, they turned on each other, giving us room to breathe until finally, the battle was over.”

“We had won.”

The screen fades to black again, the globe covered in blue flames appearing, beneath it, the words.

“Join us, on our Road to Purgatory.”