They left the lake cavern with a trail of tanks floating behind them and headed back into the dark tunnels to head towards the next area. Kit glanced down at Snowball to see that he still looked like he was taking a nice stroll.

Kit took a cue from Snowball and relaxed his vigilance of his surroundings. The next cavern was deeper into the hill and took longer to arrive at the cavern entrance. Grandpa halted the group at the entrance instructing, “put away your lights before we go inside.” Kit complied with Grandpa’s request and quickly tucked the stone into his pocket.

Kit took a moment to adjust his eyes to the darker environment, when he could finally see properly once again his jaw dropped. Hundreds of thousands of twinkling tiny lights filled the cavern walls and ceiling. Large stalagmites protruded from the cave floor emitting a soft green light. Stalactites descended from the roof looking like icicles ready to drop at any moment.

The room looked like it was from another world. Kit couldn’t help becoming mesmerised by the magical glittering lights. He took a tentative step further into the cavern, the tiny blinking lights from the ceiling and walls piqued his curiosity. He couldn’t help heading towards the closest wall so he could understand what they were.

Small blue glowing worms covered the walls in front of him, Glow worms! He had always wanted to see these marvels in real life. Kit pinched a worm between his fingers and pulled it off the wall so he could inspect it properly.

The Glow worm started to wiggle frantically with his touch. The worm started to blink itself on and off in a frantic manner as if communicating with morse code.

As if affected by the worm in his hands the glow worms closest to Kit started to mimic the frantic flashing behaviour. Kit let out a groan when the flashing started to spread further into the room, he watched the ripple of blinks spread rapidly across the ceiling and walls.

An ominous feeling descended on Kit as he watched the glow worm’s behaviour. All eyes of his companions turned towards him. “Sorry!” Before Kit could throw out more apologies loud screeches started to fill the air. Kit turned his head to locate the origin of the noise.

Black shapes separated from the cavern roof and dived towards their group.

“Watch out!” Mars rolled to the side to avoid a collision with one of the black shapes. He pulled out his swords as he rolled, he came to his feet slashing at the dropping black masses. Kit dropped the worm and prepared for the onslaught.

As soon as his sword was in hand, he was frantically swinging the weapon to combat the black diving shapes. Kit was soon pushed against the wall behind him from the force of the attacks. Each time he landed a strike a jolt caused him to slide backwards.

Kit felt like his arms were going to break from the force of the blows. He wedged his foot against the wall to help steady himself and push his upper body forward so that he would still have room to swing.

Each time one of the creatures attacked his back was slammed into the wall, Kit could feel bruises forming with each hit. He quickly checked his stats, his health had already dropped by 500! This made Kit realise he had forgotten his usual preparations before a fight. They hadn’t drunk any of the Spiritual moon juice magic!

Panic started to flare inside his chest. He had already lost close to half his health! Those crazy dive bombers didn’t look like they were stopping anytime soon. “We need to get out of this room!” Kit tried to manoeuvre back toward the opening of the entrance. It wasn’t that far, but he could only move and inch at a time.

Two midnight guardians came to his rescue, Kit watches as they leapt into the air to grab a darting black creature each. This gave him enough respite to run back into the tunnel entrance without being attacked.

Mars and Peaches followed hot on his heals, Twix and Grandpa came next and the midnight guardians followed up at the rear. Grandpa quickly swung his staff and raised the ground to block the entrance of the cavern with earth. Now that he was out of harm’s way Kit slumped against the wall and took in some deep breaths.

“That was unexpected, why did we need to leave though Kit? They weren’t out of your fighting ability range.” Mars raised an inquiring brow.

A blush crept across Kit’s cheeks. “My health was almost half gone. I forgot to do my usual preparations before entering.”

Mars started to chuckle, “then let’s drink up, we’re wasting precious time!’ Kit didn’t think Mars was worried about the amount of time they had already spent inside, he was positive Mars just wanted to get back to fighting the creatures.

A bottle of glowing liquid soon appeared in everyone’s hand, twisted expression appeared on each of their faces. No one liked the side effects of the Spiritual moon juice magic. Kit squeezed his eyes shut and started to chug at the bottle, soon the familiar ripping in his stomach caused him to curl into a ball.

Sweat beaded his brow as he finally felt the side effects wain. Kit got to his feet then waited at the closed entrance for the others to recover. Once they were all standing next to him Kit turned towards Grandpa.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t want to die when I could prevent it. I’m ready to head back in.” Kit blew out a breath readying himself to head back inside.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“No problem lad. We don’t want any accidents to happen to you. Is everyone ready?” Grandpa swung his head around the group and received a nod of affirmation from everyone. “Then let’s head back in!” With that Grandpa tore down the earthen wall.

As soon as the wall came down screeches filled the air, Kit gritted his teeth against the sound and moved forwards into the cavern.

The swarms of creatures headed straight for them again. Kit got lost in the fight, he somehow got separated from the group with out his knowledge. He found himself standing in between a group of stalagmites that formed a large circle around a patch of shallow water.

The creatures had stopped attacking him, so he had a chance to look around. Inside the water was a cluster of small bushes coming to Kit’s waist. Nestled amongst the dark leaves were glowing red balls.

Kit walked over to the bush and plucked one of the balls. On closer inspection he found that the glowing red ball was actually a fruit or vegetable. He lightly squeezed the ball and it moved out of shape. When he released the pressure from his fingers the ball returned to its normal state.

A glitter appeared in Kit’s eyes, and he started to harvest the red fruits. Once the bush was picked clean, he moved onto the next one. Once all the bushes were bare in the circle of stalagmites, Kit looked around his surroundings.

To Kit’s delight he noticed that there were numerous stalagmites circles covering the cavern floor. If he picked each bush by hand, it would take a large amount of time. Kit remembered that he had someone who could harvest large numbers of plants fast amongst the group.

“Can you guys hear me?” Kit called out, he wanted to get Grandpa to do a mass harvest so they wouldn’t have to waste time in this cavern.

“Yes.” Mars familiar voice called back and soon his head poked around one of the stalagmites. “That’s where you got to.” Mars grinned at him and stepped into the circle of the protruding rocks.

Mars ran his eyes over him, Kit assumed he was checking for injuries. “I think all the black creatures have been finished off now, the midnight guardians are gathering up all of the fallen corpses and placing them in a pile for you. Grandpa thinks you might be able to use their meat in a recipe.”

A smile broke out on Kit’s face at the thoughtfulness of the old man. “Where is Grandpa?”

“This way.” Mars turned and headed back towards the entrance of the cavern. Kit soon caught sight of Grandpa ordering the midnight guardians around.

Grandpa saw them approaching and a grin formed on his face. “Kit these cats are very useful, can I borrow them some time?” Kit watched as the panthers darted off in different directions then returned with a black shape and spat them onto a pile.

He became curious about what had been attacking them. He had been too busy defending himself earlier to pay attention to what they were. He approached the closest pile of black shapes, black leather and fur entered his vision.

He reached down and plucked a creature from the pile. On closer inspection it looked like a possum, the black fur was soft and thick. In between its wrist and ankle was a leathery type of membrane, Kit guessed this was how they could steer their decent to their targets.

Protruding from it’s paw were long sharp claws. Between the claws and the impact from the dive from the roof, Kit figured this was how the possums dealt damage.

He quickly used identify on the creature before tucking it into his pouch.

[Twisted tunnel of Spatlicann wilderness gliding possum]

A rare creature only found in the Twisted tunnels of Spatlicaan wilderness.

It really was a possum! Kit had missed the initial information from killing the creatures due to the frenzied attacks, he had been too focused on surviving at the time. He had thought that the creatures would be bats, so finding out it was a possum was a big surprise.

Thinking about the possum left him clueless on what he would make with this meat. This didn’t stop him from chucking them into his pouch. He could come up with a recipe later. As he worked, he answered Grandpa’s earlier question. “If you can get them to follow you then you can borrow them.”

Grandpa pursed his lips. “Ok I’ll work on how to coax them.” Grandpa started nodding to himself.

“Grandpa I found some bushes covered with red fruits between the stalagmites. Could you please harvest them for me?” Kit threw another black possum into his bag as he spoke.

“Do you just want those fruits? There are plenty of other plants in this cavern.” Grandpa inquired.

Kit raised an eyebrow at Grandpa’s words. “Everything then?”

Grandpa nodded in understanding then pulled out his staff a familiar glow started to twine around the wooden stick. Kit felt a slight vibration from his feet and the lose stones on the cavern floor started to tremble. His heart rate picked up with the rumbling, he couldn’t wait to see what he could scavenge from this cavern.

Soon plants started to fly through the air towards Grandpa, he steered them into neat pile separating them into different groups.

By the time Kit was done placing the possums in his pouch. Grandpa had placed all the flora in the room in piles. Kit thanked the old man, then watched as he went and started to chat to the midnight guardians.

Kit got to work on filling his pouch with plants. When he was finished, he turned to see his friends having a snack with a delighted Snowball gnawing on a rock. Next to him was a large pile of precious stones.

Excitement coursed through him at the sight of the glittering rocks. He hadn’t even thought to look for anything beside things he could use in recipes. This was a grave oversight! He was currently in a hidden map! He quickly headed over to his companion, “Snowball can you help me find some of those treasures?”

Snowball let out a snort, then walked over to Kit and started to cough. It looked like Snowball was hacking up a fur ball, Kit started to worry about the little dog. Before he could get to flustered Snowball spat something out of his mouth.

Kit watched the round object rolled towards his foot, it hit his boot then stopped. He bent down and picked up a damp ring, it glowed with the same green that was produced by the stalagmites. He wiped the drool off the metal, then used identify.

[Ring of winking glow worms]

Ring forged from the excrement of the winking glow worms.

Ability: Produces a soft light surrounding the wearer.

Kit’s nose wrinkled in disgust as he read the description of the ring. This was made from worm poop! A soft yip from Snowball tore Kit’s gaze from the ring he looked down at the small dog to see his little tail waging and a look of wanting to be praised on his face.

He eased the disgusted look from his face and forced a smile to his lips. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Snowball he didn’t want the gift. “Thank you Snowball, I love it!” with the lie leaving his lips he had no choice but to equip the worm poop ring.

He slid the ring onto his finger and felt the cool object glide over his knuckle to the base of his finger. As soon as the ring settled it started to glow, a warm light started to filter out of the ring lighting the space around him.

It had a similar effect to the stones Grandpa had given them. The difference between the stone and the ring was that the ring sat passively on his hand, the rock he had to hold. He instantly became happy with the new addition, if they had to fight in the tunnels he would have both hands free!