We stood on a high hill, surrounded by tall grass from all sides but one - a great monolith loomed over us, with a swirling Gate etched into its side.
I felt like two days before, when I stood before the Gate in the middle of the guards' outpost, in a same-looking monolith, which if not for human interference would also be surrounded by the sea of green.
Opposite to what I expected, all of us went here, even the wounded. But it turned out there was a good reason - someone had to take care of the horses and Parces, who was the only non-horse animal we brought along.
At first, that role was supposed to belong to me, but with the recent happenings, there were ones better suited for the job. Or rather, less suitable for any other.
Marvin, and two of our close-range advanced warriors; Arthur and Damien, were the ones to remain. Their wounds would hinder them in battle, and they may be endangered furthermore because of that, even more than me - a mere beginner mage, with a small collection of spells and nearly no combat experience.
And here I was, before the Gate, Algier, Fenfallal and Stellmo standing in front of me, Gravis and Tensen next to me.
I was leaving Parcas and Los behind, despite my feline companion's complaints and defiance, no one needed to explain to me that keeping them with me would only endanger them.
"Here we go. Focus and remember; we keep together. No wandering, no acting as an individual. We are a team, nothing more, nothing less." Here, Fenfallal took charge. Even though Algier was the group's official leader, even he respected the Royal Swordmaster's experience and offered no remarks when he took hold of the leading position before entering the Gate above the stream's source.
Right after, he stepped forward with his sabre already unsheathed. Just like him, Tensyn, Stellmo and Gravis had all prepared their weapons. The only ones who didn't were Algier and me, as the magic would be disrupted when we stepped in.
And here I was, walking into a Gate once again, the horrifying feeling soon enveloped me, pushing at me from all sides, even from within. Soon, I started to suffocate in the blank darkness, just before the world materialized before me once more.
Immediately, a stench of stale water and rotten flesh assaulted my nose, even before my eyes regained vision and were able to see what was before me. I stood behind my companions, in a dark corridor illuminated only by a bit of green light floating above Algier's palm. The ground was damp, sustaining vegetation that slowly climbed up the stone brick walls and hung from the ceiling.
"Dungeon... crap." Fengfallal cursed, moving a torch that hung from his hip to a more comfortable position, which didn't grant him access as easily as on the hip. "Algier, Adam, be our light. Fire is too dangerous here. Coat your mouth and nose with aura or mana."
I accepted the orders immediately, as I could imagine the whole corridor exploding at the lightest touch of flame. I heard there were many gasses in underground chambers, most of them either poisonous or explosive.
After creating a small shield around my face, meant to filter out dangerous gasses, I condensed mana on my palm, as green as Algier's, as I didn't want to distract anyone by different colours of lighting. It was a simple way of creating some light, outside of using Light attributed mana, but it rendered me useless at the same time - I had no focus to work with after all of it went towards the mask and magical torch.
Afterwards, I found time to look around once more, before we had to depart. I looked behind, where a Gate dimly shone. Behind it a solid wall. Among the puddles scattered across the floor, a few rats' corpses littered the ground, especially green under the Wind mana's glow. Far before us, a wall of black stood, unnerving and making me question what was beyond.
"Stellmo, take the rearguard. I will lead. Mages in the middle, Gravis with me, Tensyn with Stellmo." Fenfallal ordered, then started to walk forward, through the corridor dimly illuminated in faint green light.
----
We stalked between the stone brick walls, under the ceiling grass and moss that hung from above, for many unnerving minutes. Slowly, I became accustomed to the faint green lighting, and the absolute darkness that surrounded us became less unbearable.
"Shhh." Fenfalllal shhhhhh'ed.
We stopped immediately, letting the eerie silence grow.
In the distance, a quiet croaking broke the silence.
"A frog," Fenfallal commented.
Indeed, I thought so too.
"Can you light up the corridor in the distance?" Once again, the royal swordmaster said something, this time only towards Algier.
"No, but I can check if it's near." The mage answered.
"Go on, but be careful not to damage the ceiling."
Alhier stepped forward, before the swordmaster, and the pulsing green orb in his hand grew a bit - only to explode forward in a huge gust of wind that I am sure would have pushed me a few metres in the air if it hit me - judging by the looks of it.
A high-pitched squeak followed, supposedly let out by the same creature that croaked before.
"It seems it is indeed nearby. Probably within the next fifty metres." Algier said, after debating with himself for a moment.
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"Stand back and return to the lamp duty," Fenfallal ordered, breaking the standstill and moving forward, towards the noises.
The swordmaster picked up the pace, forcing us to move faster if we wanted to stay close to the ones in front.
As we went, the corridor widened slightly, before unfolding into a full-size room. It was similar to the dark, stone corridor but had a higher ceiling and some fluorescent fungus in the corners. While it gave out some light, it wasn't enough to make my and Algier's magical torches useless, rather - it was more of a distraction than a benefit.
On the opposite side, three doorframes hid in the shadows, behind the backs of four creatures staring at us with their big, slimey eyes.
Reptile legs, with reflective skin and unnecessary swimming membranes between toes granted height to the creatures, lifting the grotesque torso hidden behind a thick hide armour and long, slippery arms with four fingers - two on each side - connected like toes with thin skin.
The beasts croaked at us once more, swiping away any shock and doubt that formed in my head after seeing their forms, especially heads. Which resembling those of frogs or toads, were way too big for their bodies.
A staredown ensued, between me, Algier and Fenfallal on one side, and the four Frog-men on the other. Six human-proportion eyes against eight big googly marbles, wet and slimy - as seen even a few metres away.
"Do we fight?" I asked, after noticing a set of spears and small shields, each resting between the fingers of one of the creatures - beast they may be not, but I doubt they were anyhow near being men.
"We do not. I, however, do." Fenfallal answered.
And he did.
The green shine enveloping the chamber momentarily disappeared, overtaken by a golden light emitted by the speeding figure of the Golden warrior, charging with his sabre unleashed at the creatures before us.
Despite the light, lightning did not manifest. Fenfallal crashed on the nearest of the opponents, spinning around - cutting off the spearhead and sliding the blade of his sabre under the shield, between where the ribs should be, in one fluid motion.
Ripping the razor-sharp weapon out, the swordmaster threw a volley of fresh, cold blood in the face of his next opponent, in a clever twist of the sabre's flat side.
The Frog-men around finally reacted, shocked by the sudden attack but not enough to freeze and let themself be slaughtered. None of the Frog-men would have agreed to such humiliation.
Three spears shifted back, and three shields raised - the green warriors prepared themself to fight, perfectly smooth and without a hiccup as if trained for countless hours.
Another one fell, as Fenfallal knocked the spearhead out of the way and slashed across Frog-man's head - cutting right through in a flash or radiance befitting of his golden lightning, yet with no thunder.
Quick pirouette, as if he was a nimble dancer, and the Swordmaster was once again face to face with another opponent - this time holding the shaft right behind the pointy end, pulling abruptly and ripping his foe out of balance. Right in the way of the golden sabre, falling from above without mercy, splitting the skull, and coming out in a macabre shower of blood.
One of the Frog-men remained, his eyes showed terrible fear, and his hands shook. I could hear his breath quicken in a matter of seconds - betraying his adrenaline-pumped emotions, and how terrifying the royal swordmaster could be, while not even trying.
Second or two later, the room fell once again in the faint green light - much darker than before, as my eyes were no longer accustomed to the half-darkness. Fenfallal massacred the creatures, giving them no opportunity to retaliate, no moment to even prove their skill. They were unfortunate enough to face a Master, but fortunate enough not to encounter someone like Algier, who in his sadism would probably rip them apart from within, like those poor wolves back in the valley between Fire Mountains.
Rearguard, consisting of Tensyn and Stellmo, pushed me further into the chamber - Saring at the sight of the battle, I stood in the middle of the corridor, blocking it unknowingly.
"Big frogs. There must be some underground lake somewhere near." Stellmo had stated seeing the dead Frog-men.
"Maybe, maybe not - It's a dungeon, crypt in the forest. we have to keep that in our minds." Fenfallal countered, stepping out of the pool of blood that had fallen off his golden aura armour after its disappearance.
"Anyway, what I wanted to say is - you should let Tensyn, Gravis and Adam do the light work. There is no reason for us three to tire ourselves out on things like this." Stellmo said, ticking the gutted Frog-man with his foot.
"Right, maybe next time. But now, which way do we go?" Fenfallal asked us all.
Before us, on the other end of the chamber, three corridors went out of the room. In each, the same darkness rested.
Here, I finally had something to say.
"How about the rightmost? Then when we find another crossroads if they are still all the same, we can also choose the corridor most to the right - giving us a sense of where we already went if we need to go back." I proposed.
"Good idea, but even then, we should mark the walls," Tensyn added.
Fenfallal thought for a moment, then went to the rightmost entrance and slashed the ceiling above it in a quick, yet painfully bright slash of his sabre.
"Rightmost it is. earlier formation." He ordered, stepping into the darkness before Algier caught up with him and lighted it up in the familiar green hue.
---
We didn't travel long before stepping into another large chamber - this time much larger, yet as empty as a sock without a foot in it.
Eerie darkness hid the corners away, as the green hue came out of me, and Algier didn't reach that far. Just as before, fluorescent fungus covered much of the stone surface, it started to appear in the corridor between the first and the second room, but the amount found in the hallways was much more scarce than what the chambers contained.
"No frog creatures this time. No fun." Algier opened his mouth for the first time after encountering the Frog-men.
"Also, no rest." Added Fenfallal, not stopping for a second while heading towards the rightmost corridor coming out of the chamber.
We followed along, into the green-lit darkness and walked steadily behind him, until a third chamber appeared.
Its appearance was foretold by a red hue coming from far in the corridor, bathing the stone in a bloody light - enough to change the colours, yet not light enough to give any visibility.
Along with the ominous hue, low croaks could be heard, much more numerous than before, judging by the noise.
"Gravis, Tensyn, come forward, you will take care of the frogs while I will kill whatever may be dangerous for you - if there are any," Fenfallal ordered quietly.
The two warriors nodded, and then, Tensyn passed by me to join Gravis at the forefront.
Soon, they arrived in the chamber and immediately rushed into battle. When the room was finally unveiled to me, two Frog-men were already down. The two advanced warriors faced off another two, while Fenfallal walked slowly towards the thing each and every one of us became immediately aware of after stepping into the chamber.
A huge, floating aye. White all over, with numerous red veins emitting the eerie light rooting out of the pupil all over the orb.
Its gaze felt heavy, domineering or even horrifying as it started right into my eyes. As if it saw my soul, or even beyond.
Another three Frog-men had fallen when The Eye shone in an ominous red light - which neared me so quickly and suddenly, that I didn't even manage to close my eyes before I was flung back with massive force.
My back hurt all over, blood flowed down my eyes as I raised my gaze, still leaning against the wall in the same place I crashed.
Before me, a bloody figure blocked my view of the monster, Fenfallal's figure was riddled with holes all over - each and every one see-through. A red pool gathered below his still-standing husk.
Before it fell, unveiling The Eye in all its gory glory, lighting the chamber in red, bloody light.