Taking a moment to truly think. I’ve been ignoring a lot of my concerns about this whole magically transported to another world thing. I have no idea where my family is and if the casualty rate is as high as I think it is there’s a good chance they’re dead already. I may not like it but it’s a pretty likely occurrence. Then there’s this… self-inflicted wound I gave myself when I was paralysed and used up all my mana. It’s possible I’ve already killed myself and I just don’t know it yet, meaning I’m running on borrowed time. I don’t know what to think about that, it’s hard to truly comprehend your own mortality when you can’t even see the threat.
If I’m dying what do I even do differently other than just keep on moving, I can’t really see any other options. If my family are dead, what can I do besides keep on living? I could give up and end it but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet while there’s still hope. Both of these problems are purely hypothetical as well, I have no way of knowing if my family is alive or dead and this burn on my chest could be just that, a burn.
Actually there might be a way to check. With a mental command I summon the shop menu and think medical category.
Name: Tommie dolph Gore
Points: 84
Sorry the medical section of the store is locked to you until you acquire the required amount of achievement points.
Required points remaining: 49094
Well crap that seems like a lot. I may be new to this whole fantasy world thing but I can’t imagine getting 50,000 points is something you can do in an afternoon. I suppose killing a dragon might do it but I don’t rate my chances too high on that front. Assuming dragons are even real.
Ok like I said earlier, doesn’t really matter I still only have two options; keep moving or give up and die. Time to start moving.
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The underbrush is growing thicker and the clearance between trees shrinks as I make my way to the campfire I saw from the hill. It seems like this part of the forest is particularly thick, which suggests it’s older. Hopefully means there are no tree destroying, people eating monsters around here. Haha who am I kidding everything here would probably eat a human if it was given half a chance. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up to monsters nibbling on my sleep while I slept by my campfire, magic circle or not.
A few rabbits jump out of the bush I’m pushing aside and scatter into the distance as I force my way through. Damn if I was paying attention I could have caught myself some lunch.
A yell interrupts my thoughts “YOU THERE STOP AND IDENTIFY YOURSELF”. Instantly I come to a stop and start looking around trying to find the source of the voice. Damn that was stupid; I should have been paying attention to my surroundings. Where is he though I still don’t see anyone, as I start to look up into the trees the voice yells at again, “I SAID IDENTIFY YOURSELF NOW”!
“Calm down captain I mean you no harm, my names Tommie and I come in peace”. I reply back into the empty forest while giving the Vulcan salute in the general directions of the voice. “You think you’re funny boy? What’s to stop me shooting you right now”? Shoot me? He has a gun? “You have a gun? All I came here with was some clothes”. So unfair. “No I don’t have a gun boy; I’ve got the next best thing in this new world”. The man says menacingly as he drops down from a tree about 20 meters in front of me. If I hadn’t seen him drop down I wouldn’t have been able to see him through the thick foliage.
Now’s my chance I could run while his view of me is blocked or I could hope that he’s friendly. Both options stink something truly but I can’t assume he’s alone if he’s dropping down now maybe that means he’s got friends who have moved to surround me.
A tall man with a thick handle bar moustache and a recently shaved head steps through the bush. He’s carrying a large bow pointed in my direction with an arrow notched at the string but not pulled back. It’s only the third day in this new world and someone’s already worked out how to make their own weapons unless of course he simply bought it from the store.
“So Tom, what are you doing out here and why are you all alone”? Inquires the bowman with a carefully controlled tone. “I was looking for people and saw the smoke from your fire. As for why I’m alone … well my group all died. Eaten by some sort of monster.” After a pause and the man makes no move to continue the conversation other than drawing the string on his bow back ever so slightly I continue my story. “I never saw it, but it was big enough to make the ground shake and in the mad rush to get away, one of the others pushed me to the ground. It ended up being what saved me as I spotted a small opening in the ground and managed to squeeze myself into the hole and wait it out”. I purposefully omit my encounter with Mr Little; the hungry, hungry spider and the big fluffy rabbit.
“After that I tried finding everyone again but all I found was some bloody remains. I spent two nights out in the open with nothing but a campfire for protection and now I’m here”. I finish at last. “So you’re the only survivor from your group?”, “How many people were in your group?” He Probes. “Eight including myself.” I reply back without hesitation.
With a sigh the man finally lowers his bow, “Fine I guess we can trust you for now, I can’t imagine you can do much damage by yourself anyways; follow me then”. He starts moving through the forest back in the direction he came from and I quickly fall in behind him.
“So how many people are in your group”? I prod. “No idea at least a few hundred” replies my ex-interrogator. Hundreds? That’s a bit different to what I woke up to.
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After emerging through the last of the trees I find myself faced with utter chaos. People everywhere with rubbish just throw about the place without any apparent care. Looks like a few people tried making leant-tos using nothing but sticks and branches. Some of the lean-tos aren’t half bad but most of them look like they’ll collapse if you looked at them too hard. There are several fires dotted around the clearing and judging by the efforts in the background the clearing wasn’t entirely natural. A group of men are busy bashing and pulling at a tree in the distance and a few trees lay nearby on their side. A testimony to the workers abilities.
“Yeah it’s not much but it’s all we have right now, just don’t cause any trouble ok” Says my guide before fading back the way we came before I can thank him. Well that was strange; now what do I do, I know no one here. I guess first thing first I should do is try and fix that, let’s see if there are any familiar faces here.
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After almost an hour of wondering around and trying to spot anyone I knew from earth in the crowd I decide to admit defeat and look for somewhere to set down. Moving to the edge of the forest and hiding behind a tree so no one can see what I’m doing, I open my crate and pull out my first lunch from the magical crate. I know I can make my supplies last longer if I keep to two meals a day but, considering I may be dying I think I’ll take the time to enjoy some luxury. Pulling out the plate of food from the crate I find myself face to face with a truly Australian meal, minus the greenery of course.
A pair of fish deep fried fish battered to perfection, a small salad with assorted vegetables a roll of bread and a small serving of hot chips. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I finish all the food in this crate. I must be one of the few people with enough luck to be eating earth food in our new reality. Considering what I went through to get it though I think I deserve it. There’s no water bottle with my lunch though which seems strange considering how salty the meal is but I make do finishing off two of the three bottles I filled up earlier from the creek.
The creek continued for a while and is probably only a half hour walk from this camp, so I should be fine for water. Now I suppose this camp is the closest I’ll come to a safe harbour the question is do I reveal the fact that I can do magic or try and keep it a secret. I have no idea if it’s common knowledge here or not. That is until I see a woman juggling three balls of fire without touching them as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Ok so they know magic is real and damn is that so much more impressive than my lights.
What’s strange though is I can’t feel anything from them, whenever I create my little lights I can feel in my head exactly where they are. Is that because I’m the one controlling them or is it something else? I decide to move closer to the fire juggling woman; I’m not quite willing to ask for help with magic assuming she would even want to help me, but I can probably learn a thing or too if I can just see what she’s doing.
I approach the group with the fire mage as if I’m meant to be here, internally though I’m worried out of my mind; how will she react if she senses that I can do magic? Will she alert the other’s and force me to reveal everything I know about magic, turn me into a magical battery to help others cast spells? I haven’t seen anything to suggest these people are aggressive to others but she’s the only person I’ve seen actively using magic, I can’t imagine it’s very common.
Finding myself standing before the group staring at the girl twirling fireballs around I realise I’ve been standing there staring at her for a while now. She just gives me a look and raises an eyebrow but otherwise ignores me without any comment. Quckly looking away I take a look at the rest of people in the mages group, a few of them are looking at me with half smiles while the rest just seem to be sitting down with closed eyes as if they’re concentrating. Maybe they’re all mages and are practicing their mana control?
Reaching into my core where my mana is I pull a thin thread out and lay it out around the area like fishing net and suddenly I can feel what’s going on in the mystical realm. I can see the fire mage’s mana streaming out from her core to the balls of the fire at a truly prodigious rate; in a few seconds she’s used enough mana to run my core dry several times over. Damn I may not be as capable a mage as I first thought if that’s the kind of power this woman has. She’s being maintaining those fireballs for at least a few minutes since I noticed. How much mana does the woman have? She seems to notice my mana net and looks over at me giving me a knowing smile but otherwise keeps her silence.
Looking at what the others in the group are doing I see a few of the others are moving their mana around their body but none have brought it outside themselves. I don’t know what they’re doing but it’s nowhere near as interesting as the fire lady. Deciding to be a little bold I take a seat by the group and focus on what the woman is doing making my mana thicker around where she works. I can really feel her mana now it has a slimy feel to it, almost alien. Mana is pouring out from her core and tracing a simple shape in the air. It’s a closed loop and looks like a 2d version of a fire if a child was given the task of drawing fire. Most of the mana is actually just floating away from the formation rather than following the pattern, but with her reservoirs I guess it doesn’t matter.
Compressing my detection net even further around the powerful woman I can begin to see what’s happening down in the second layer. She’s got a circle of mana around each of the balls preventing any of Vortel lines from touching the area where she’s keeping her fire spell. If there are no Vortel lines touching her spell to determine its direction of effect, does that mean she has complete control over its action or does that just keep spell effects contained in her ball of mana? Moving my hand a little closer to the fire balls I can feel the heat radiating off of them.
Pulling the mana from my detection net back into myself I try replicating the fire mages spell, I start moving my mana in the same shape as the woman. The mana doesn’t resist like when I create my light balls, finishing the pattern I circulate the mana several times waiting for something to happen. But nothing happens it’s just a fancy shape with no meaning, argh doesn’t matter anyways I don’t have mana supplies as large as that that woman does for a spell like that to be useful. Instead I try to replicate her method of manipulating the second layer, I should give the layer itself a name, ‘Control Layer’ sounds alright.
Pushing all the Vortel lines away I create a clear bubble of space containing nothing but my mana. Then I form my light spell ending inside the clear bubble and wait and see what happens. Instead of a ball of light forming the mana just floods into the control layer and start collecting inside the bubble I made, unable to escape the container of mana. This mana however is not like my normal mana and it seems to take a lot of effort to impart any sort of change on it. Trying to get a feel for it I realise it’s not pure anymore; it has an elemental feel attached to it. Light! Mana can take the aspect of different elements, which means the fire lady must be creating fire mana somehow. At least that’s what I think is happening.
Forcing my will upon the light mana I try moving it around my little bubble and after getting it swirling around a little bit I finally try pushing it back to the first layer where my pure mana comes from. There’s a moment of resistance and then with a surge and a flash of light the mana is gone. Interesting so when I forced the attuned mana to jump back up a layer it released its stored element into the physical world.
“Woah who made that flash of light”? Asks a startled man, who until this point looked like he had been dozing
“The new guy over there did it, he was trying to copy my little trick with fire I think” Replies the fire mage. She’s finally stopped juggling her balls of fire and is just looking at me now. “Yeah sorry… I was just wondering what would happen”. I reply
“It’s a good trick, could make a decent flashbang if you put some more power into it” says another man.
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen you before did you just join our little magic circus?” Asks another man, as the whole group starts to come back to the physical world and looks my way. “No I only just found this place and saw that lady”, I point to the fire mage “Juggling fireballs. So I decided to come over and see how she was doing it.”
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“Haha good luck with that one, so far she’s the only person able to create and manipulate fire like that. I mean a few of us have had some minor success making things hot enough, that they start to burn but no one can conjure fireballs.” Replies the same man who made the flashbang comment.
Another man steps forward and introduces himself “Come on guys let’s at least introduce ourselves to this young lad and potential recruit. I’m Corey my speciality is telekinesis” He says while offering his hand. Grasping his hand I reply “Tommie or just Tom and what do you mean by speciality?”
“Well that’s a long story but it seems like everyone can do at least one thing with magic without really trying. It’s normally something simple like making your footsteps quieter or being able to repel insects. ” Explains Corey.
“Yeah, it’s a bit more complicated than that, you need to have at least some basic control of your magical energy and some of the more complicated abilities requires some idea of what you’re doing.” Interrupts another man, “Anyways I’m Mason and my talent lies in strengthening my body, at the moment all I can do is make myself a bit stronger but I think I’m close to working out how to make my body more durable too.”
A woman steps forward this time “Hi I’m Hannah and my special talents lies in physical senses. Yes I know that’s a bit vague but basically means I can feel my surroundings using magic, I know anyone can do that but it’s the same story for all of our abilities I’m just a bit better at it then everyone else.” Hannah was gorgeous; there was no other way of explaining it. She had red hair, a stunning physique with curves in all the right places and a cute button nose. Everything about her screamed sex appeal.
“Rey, that’s my name that is. As for my ability I can make my energy form physical items, useful for forming impromptu weapons.” Says a skinny man with long black hair reaching halfway down his back. He looks like he would fit in perfectly at a Goth convention back on earth.
“Saving the best for last I see” Says another man with a wink “I’m Max, I can project my thoughts into people’s mind! Pretty cool ha?” Says a short man who looks to be about five foot four and ready to burst with all the energy he has bottled up.
“Yeah wow all you guys can do pretty cool stuff, I uhh… I can make well … I can make light” I stammer out. “It sounds pretty lame now compared to what you guys can do.”
“Non-sense we can all learn what comes natural to others if we study it enough, the most important thing seems to be mastering control of your magical energies and that’s what you’ve done. Besides I wouldn’t exactly call manipulating light a lame ability, you could blind your enemies and provide illumination where others can’t.” Says Corey. “Maybe even create laser beam or something ha?” He says while raising his eyebrow with a small grin on his face.
“Yeah you’re right just would have been pretty cool if my natural ability had been something a bit cooler. What about her though what’s her name and ability?” I say while pointing at the fire lady. Looking at her she didn’t look like much; a short woman who could be anywhere between the age of 14 and 30 but after seeing what she could do with her magic I doubt she’s someone you can take lightly.
“HER! Name is Kensley and if you haven’t already realised by now I can manipulate fire. Any other questions of great importance you want to ask me? I suppose you want me to teach you to create fire like I do, well I don’t know how and I frankly don’t care.” The words are flying out of her mouth full of contempt and scorn. After she’s certain she made her point she lets out a “Humph” and starts juggling balls of fire again.
Wow that seemed like a total reversal, where did that anger come from.
“Yeah she’s a bit like, her mood changes at the drop of a pin, its best just to ignore that” Says an emotionless and toneless voice. Looking around for the source of the voice I spot Max smiling at me. With a quiet whisper I respond “Did you just talk to me”. With a growing smile he just nods and winks at me.
“Alright well welcome to the group Tom but I guess we should all keep practicing our magic, we really have no idea when we might need to fight off some monsters. I don’t know if you’ve heard but a few of the groups that arrived here have come bearing stories of creatures big enough to topple trees with ease”. Says Corey who at this point I’ve come to think of as the impromptu leader of this small group of mages just based on the way he acts.
“Yeah I heard.” I reply as everyone gets back into their spots and continues doing whatever it was they were doing. “At the moment we’re all practicing our general control of mana but later we’ll be doing some more practical magic, you’re more than welcome to watch us as we work and see if you can work out how to replicate what we do”. With that they all settle down and their mana starts to fill the air again.
Well this isn’t so bad if I can learn a few of these peoples abilities I’ll be able to finally expand my reservoir of spells. Why does it feel like something is wrong though, this is exactly what I was after. With the support of these people I can become strong enough to look for my family or if I’m lucky I might hear news of other groups similar to this one. Well enough of that I should do what Corey said and start practicing my magic.
First thing I want to try is replicating that beam of light I created last night but I don’t think it would be a good idea to try that here around other people. I could blind someone by accident if I hit their eye or maybe even something worse. With a sigh I pick up my crate and head back to the tree I was eating behind earlier. Grabbing a stick lying on the ground nearby, I start to create a clear space in the control layer using my mana again, this time instead of creating a solid bubble of mana I leave a small opening roughly facing the stick in my hand. It’s a lot harder to work out where something is located in the control layer than it is in the first layer so I can only hope it works. Once I’m comfortable with my setup I start pumping light mana into the thing and watch as some escapes through the opening but instead of turning into light the mana simply travels until it hits a Vortel line. Resulting in a lacklustre light show as it seems to flicker in and out of existence.
Well that was pretty disappointing but I suppose it made sense, there was nothing forcing the light mana to take on a physical form just because it left the bubble I had made with my mana. At the same time it does make something a bit more obvious about what exactly the Vortel lines are. They must be tears, or holes in the control layer that allow mana to directly enter the physical world. So if these opening occur naturally maybe I can create an artificial opening into the physical realm and control which direction the light goes.
It takes almost an hour of experimentation to create what I want but eventually I’m left with a pin prick tear in the control layer placed just outside a bubble of my own mana containing as much light mana as I can create without losing control of the whole thing. Slowly I open a hole in my bubble and push my light mana down to the tear as fast as I can, hoping that the direction my mana is traveling when it enters the physical world will determine which way the light it produces travels. With an audible pop the stick I’m using as a target starts sizzling and a small burn mark appears exactly where I was aiming. It worked!
“YESSSSSSS” I yell.
“Are you alright?” Inquires a voice from behind me.
“Yeah sorry I’m fine it’s just I’ve been trying to do something for quite a while now and have only just gotten it working.” I reply as I turn around to face the man. It’s him the man with the bow, who found me while I was trying to get close to this place.
“Ha figured it might be you, so I hear you can do magic then. Wonder why you never told me that when I first found you hmm?” He asks. I just stare blankly in response.
“Relax you’re not in any trouble I don’t blame you for keeping it a secret I just came here because I heard you can make light, is this correct?” he continues. “ Ahhh well yes, it’s a bit uhhh you know, doesn’t last that long” I mumble out.
He just stares blankly at me and shakes his head and sighs. “Look I never properly introduced myself before but my names Mayson, I suppose you’ve been hearing a lot of names lately so I don’t blame you if you forget it. I know this whole other world thing is a lot to take in but we all need to work together if we’re going to survive here, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, of course that’s why I was looking for other people. I’m not an idiot I knew my chances of surviving by myself were close to zilch; especially after what happened to my group.”
“Good, look I came here looking for someone possessing some talent with this magic stuff. I know it might seem like a lot to ask but eventually we’re going to have to incorporate some magic users with our hunters and I was hoping someone from that group back there would be willing to join us. Problem is they all want to sit around and practice their craft, but they’re more than happy to take advantage of the food we bring in. Bunch of useless fools if you ask me but I can see how people might be warry to put themselves in danger with nothing but a few tricks they’ve learnt in the few days we’ve been here.”
“Oh I see, you know all I can do is create light right”? Producing a ball of light to show him, rather than a disappointed look like I expected, a small grin starts creeping across his face. “That’s actually a lot more useful then you might think. Yesterday we found the entrance to a cave but it was too dark to explore any further so we came back. We did however manage to kill one of the monsters at the entrance. It’s some sort of spider-scorpion hybrid its venom won’t kill you but it’ll put you to sleep right fast and leave you paralysed for a while after waking up.” I have no words, I can’t believe it he wants me to help hunt Mr Little’s family. He seems to take my silence as consideration and continues on.
“Yeah you might think why don’t we just create some makeshift torches from branches and use that to the light the way and we have thought about it. The problem is they don’t produce as much light as you would expect and seem to create shadows everywhere which these crafty buggers black bodies are perfect at hiding in. You don’t have to fight but if you could just provide some light for us to fight in, it would make all the difference.”
“Why do you even want to kill them anyways? Are you planning on eating them?” I ask.
“No, no, no, you can’t eat them! Their meat is disgusting and probably poisonous in large enough quantities. No we want to hunt them because they’re worth five points each, enough to buy a week’s worth of rations for a single person from the store that voice in the void told us about. The rations aren’t very tasty and you need access to hot water to cook them but they’re filling and our best source of food at the moment.” What? Five points buys a weeks’ worth of rations? I spent 100 points but mine didn’t require any hot water to cook, it was already prepared. Did I waste my points on the luxury version of rations…? GOD damn it. Oh well I can’t say I was disappointed at the very least, a little bit of luxury isn’t the worst thing.
As for going with this man to hunt those bugs, what am I going to do? I can’t say the idea fills me with joy but it could be useful to get some more experience fighting the monsters from this world. Besides I’ll be in a group and if we’re only fighting those bugs it should be easy.
“Alright I’ll help.” I mumble.
He seems a bit shocked; I don’t think he actually expected me to go with him. I would feel a little insulted but if I hadn’t already fought one of these guys before and known how weak they were without the element of surprise I probably would have said no. So I can’t really blame him for being surprised.
“That’s great! Come on then let’s go I’ll introduce you to the rest of the group”.
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Twenty minutes after agreeing to come along I have a spear or more like a sharpened stick to be honest, shoved in my hands and we’re off running through the forest. I barely had time to give my stuff to the group of mages to look after. There are ten of us and apart from Mayson who was the first person I had the displeasure of meeting in this place I don’t know any of the others. Everyone’s carrying the same weapon except for two of the bigger looking guys who are carrying wooden clubs with rocks attached to the end for added weight. Then of course there’s Mayson with his bow and arrow.
I doubt anyone in this group is a stranger to the gym and they have no trouble keeping up a pace that leaves me breathless. I don’t know why they’re in such a rush there’s still at least 4 or 5 hours left in the day before darkness hits and the cave is meant to be nearby.
It takes nearly 10 minutes of physical torture before we finally reach the cave and I almost collapse when we finally stop. I think I’ve made the mistake of assuming my best tool in this new world is my new found magical powers. My body needs just as much love and attention as my magic does if I’m going to survive here. Running away from things that are stronger than you is a particular favourite of most people that like living.
“Ok everyone start preparing your torches, Samuel start collecting some tinder so we can start a fire” Says Mayson with a commanding voice. “I can start a fire for you if you want” I point out as everyone starts pulling out makeshifts torches they were carrying slung over their back.
Everyone turns and looks at me who until this point had probably thought I was just the useless idiot who can’t run nearly two kilometres without making a fool of themselves. “Really? I thought you could only make light?” Inquires Mayson.
“Yeah but what happens if you focus a magnifying glass under the sun on something flammable.” I point out. “See this is why I wanted a mage in our group, we won’t know what they’re capable of unless we work together!” Mayson seems excited by this and is trying to make the rest of the group see it. They all mumble something in response but otherwise do nothing.
One of the others passes me his torch and says “Here do your thing”. I can’t say I like the way I’m being treated but taking the offered torch I start the process of creating my little laser beam. Actually I suppose it’s just a beam of light, seeing that there’s no amplification involved. It takes almost two minutes before I’m finally done and the others look like they’re about ready to give up when I finally finish as a small fire on the torch starts up and quickly spreads over the whole thing.
“Good work I was hoping for something a little more impressive but it will do. Why did it take so long?” Asks Mayson. “Well I only just managed to do it for the first time using this method when you came up to me, it was why I was yelling”. I reply.
“Hmm”, is the only thing he gives in response.
I hand back the torch to the man who gave it to me and watch as they all use it to light their torches. “You’re probably going to want to wait a bit before we go in; I can only produce my light for a few minutes and I just used about a third of my mana then”.
“Your mana?” asks one of the others.
“It’s what I call my magical energies” I reply.
This seems to surprise Mayson more than anything. “Really I’ve seen some of the things the others can do and just assumed your magic would work the same as theirs. From what I’ve heard it takes almost an entire day for their reservoirs to refill. How long exactly are you expecting us to wait?”
“Oh wow no, it should only take me 10 minutes at most; I guess that’s one advantage to having a small mana capacity.”
“Good, good, that’s doable our torches here will only last about 30 minutes I don’t want to wait too long. We’ll wait for 10 minutes or when you’re ready and then head in.” States Mayson before motioning for the others to follow him. They setup a perimeter around the small cave opening and wait.
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The moment I feel my mana capacity reach its maximum we start heading in. “Don’t do any magic until I tell you to, we’ll keep it in reserve considering your limited ability.” Mayson commands. I really need to train more, I’m not certain but I’m pretty sure my mana capacity has been growing the more I use it and right now I can’t do much. I’m going to have to start using my magic whenever it’s fully charged so I can get stronger faster. I could always purchase some upgrades from the store if I got enough points but the increase was multiplicative meaning, that using it on a small mana base is just a waste.
Passing the entrance the mood of the group instantly changes, everyone stiffens up and become alert. Eyes start darting in every direction for hidden danger. There’s barely enough room for two people to walk side by side, so there aren’t too many spaces to hide in the cave. A Short while later we encounter our first unsuspecting victim. “There” Yells one of the men as he waves his torch towards the roof. With a sound of creaking wood Mayson draws his bow and releases. With a thunk and a screech the thing falls to the ground where one of the giants walks forward and puts an end to it with a casual swing of his club.
This pattern continues for about 10 more minutes with 5 more kills before the cave opens up into a wider area and I’m finally given my first real task. “Ok now’s your time to shine Tom, create some light” With an ease born of almost three days’ worth of practice with the simple spell, I summon a ball of light. The cave lights up.
Silence, no one makes a noise. In front of us is a wide cavern that stretches at least 20 meters to the left and right with a 15 meter high ceiling. Our view of the end of the cave is blocked by what appears to be a giant spider; there are no scorpion elements to this particular monster. The thing takes up almost the entire width of the cave and just barely avoids scraping the roof by a few meters. Dotted throughout the room are more scorpion-spider hybrids lying in wait for anyone stupid enough to challenge them. Without any verbal communication we all start backing out the way we came, while the thing just sits there staring at us.
Once the room is no longer in sight it becomes a mad rush to get out the way we entered. There are a few injuries as people stumble but everyone manages to keep their feet under them. “Haha well that went well didn’t it!” Yells Mayson. “Thirty points that’ll help round out our food supply along with the wild game we caught today.” What that’s considered a good outcome? I suppose no one was hurt but that’s because there was no way that thing could have come after us through the tight tunnels.
“Not to mention we now have a monster hunt to plan!”
The others just laugh and shake their heads before snuffing out their torches and walking in the direction of camp.