There are almost thirty Marms around a hill in the forest. They have run away from an attack on their home and walk for the best part of the night.
The lack of sleep and the amount of fear make them quite irritable. especially counting the fact that ten of them are children crying for their parents. Among the nineteen other there are fourteen elder, they have a long experience of life and are trying to calm the children. If they make too much noise, they’ll attract the raiders to their position. Fortunately, there is no real monster that could hear the cries on the island.
The rest of them are adults that could not fight and have decided to help take care of the children.
All these people are currently resting near the hill, oblivious to the changes under their feet.
“What’s that? Is someone feeling this?” a young man asks.
“What are you talking about?” responds another.
“There’s a vibration.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“No, I feel it too.” intervenes a third Marm. This one’s a forty-something years old woman.
As times pass, more and more of the Marms feel the vibration. It gains in puissance and as the Marms start thinking about leaving the place to seek shelter elsewhere something none of them were expecting happens.
The top of the hill crumbles on itself and reveals a hole. When the dust settles it is possible to see a staircase in the hole, and a faint light coming from the bottom.
The Marms look at it and a young one, the first who spoke, approaches the entrance.
“Don’t go in.” his friend calls for him.
“I’m not stupid, I’m not going in. I’m just looking.”
Another Marm walks to the hole, an old woman, the one who led the group to the hill. She looks down and puts the tip of her walking stick on the first step. She grabs a pendant at her neck and, against the voices behind her, puts her foot in the hole. She climbs down a few steps, turns around and walks out of it.
“There is nothing to fear. The Goddess has heard our prayers and is offering us shelter. If we go down there, she will hide and protect us against the pirates.”
“How can you be so sure?” some of the Marms ask her.
“I have faith. And I don’t have a lot of other choices.”
The Marms mumble together.
“You’ve trusted me and followed me here. You can change your minds or follow me further. You have to have faith in the Goddess and trust Her.”
On those words, the old woman grabs the hand of her granddaughter and walks in the hole.
“I’m going to fetch the others!” cry the most courageous young man as he starts running in the wood. His friend runs after him.
---
The hikers took their time before entering, they’re cautious, that’s good for them, but not so for me. Fortunately, the old woman who led them here led them further in. But two of the hikers didn’t come in, they are running in direction of the clearing. Did they change their mind or did they went to alert the others of my actions? I don’t know and it will not change my plans.
Anyway, I’m starting to understand why dungeons want sapient beings in their domain. They’re emanating a different kind of mana than monsters. Their mana is tasting good, really good, too good maybe. I’ve never felt something like this before. I want to claim them, but I can’t.
There is like a bubble around each one of them that prevents me from using my mana too close from them. The bubbles are bigger around the elder and the healthy. The children and the injured have more small bubbles. The old woman has the biggest bubble. Inside the bubbles, I can still perceive what’s happening, but I can’t use my mana as I want.
The bubbles remind me of the barriers I put down in the mountain. Maybe I’ll use the tactic to pass through it. However, I’ll have to be careful about that and wait for the best opportunities.
In the meantime, I can still enjoy the taste of their mana.
Once the last hiker is inside and the group’s walking in direction of the cave I’ve prepared for them, I resume tunneling. Since the other group of hikers could come this way, I decided to prepare a nasty surprise for the raiders that would still follow them. This time I dig corridors in a maze and design them to be hard to walk inside. They are narrow and the walls and floor are uneven and wet, I also place some low rocks on the roof. I want for the people walking inside to have a hard time progressing, they’ll slip on every rock and hit their heads on the rocks, they won’t be able to use their weapons either.
I make those corridors leading further down below the earth and slowly progressing in waterways. I prepare an underground cave under some of the corridors and another at the same level. I start to fill each reservoir with water, crabs, and fishes.
The entrance of the maze is at the foot of the staircase, where the tunnel leading to the hikers’ cave is, but the maze is not lighted by little stars.
During my preparations, I’ve received reports from my creatures on the activity on the island floor.
The two hikers have reached the clearing and are currently talking with the hikers there. They have consolidated the fence, but I don’t think they’ll be able to last more than 5 minutes against the raiders.
The raiders are closing on the hikers’ groups. They have separated themselves in several groups too. One stay at the village’s ruins, guarding the prisoners. Another is wandering through the forest, gathering supplies and tracking the lonely hikers. A third group is tracking the clearing group and the last group is tracking the hill group.
Back to my hikers. I’m already considering them mine, even if I can’t claim them yet.
They’ve just arrived at the cave I’ve prepared for them.
---
“See? I’ve told you to have faith.”
“It’s incredible.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“That’s amazing.”
“How could something like this be under the island for so long?”
“Nobody knew of this.”
“Yes, we knew.”
“What?”
“How?”
“Come again?”
“Please, calm down. I’ll explain.” The old woman, the leader of this group of Marms sits down on the moss near the lake. “It’s part of the stories my grandmother told me when I was young. Long ago we used to come to a cave under the mountain to pray to the Goddess, and she would offer us blessings and take care of us and the forest. But the path crumbled and was closed when my grandmother was a little girl. Since then we slowly lost our faith in the Goddess. But not me, I never stopped praying to her, and others too. That’s why I’ve lead us to the hill, in hope for the Goddess to open the way again and to shelter us under the mountain. And I was right, the Goddess heard our prayers, and she still cares for us. We must pray to her, come.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Then the woman walks and kneels in front of the statue, she holds her hands together and prays. The other hikers marvel in front of the cave. One by one they regain their sense and kneel behind their leader, praying with her. Praying to someone long gone.
---
“Chief! Chief!”
“What?”
“We found something!”
“I hope so. If you’re crying so loud for nothing I will kill you. We don’t want the Marms to hear us coming. Idiot.” Hruin sighs.
She’s one of the nine women in the pirates’ crew. Each one of them is a strong warrior, or else they would be playthings for the men. And each one of them is smart, smarter than the average crew members at least, which is easy to be.
Actually, Hruin is leading one of the two group that’s tracking the Marms in the forest. And her scouts just reported an interesting discovery. A hill with a staircase in it. There is no light in the hole, only darkness.
“The Marms must have gone down, they’re hoping we’re not going to follow them inside, or they’re preparing some ambushes for us. Prepare lights, we’re going after them. Klop, Dram, you have night visions, you’re going first.”
“Hrmph.”
With some grumbles the men are obeying their chief, they would rather not, but she could kill them all. Plus some of them have some respect for that woman.
---
The first group of raiders is inside, and they’re starting to wander through the maze. Good. I don’t know what they’re doing, kneeling in front of the statue, but I can feel that the mana emanating from them growing. I can absorb more of their mana, maybe I’ll find a way to encourage them to do more of this activity.
I’ve finished the maze just in time and while the water reservoirs are filling themselves I keep infusing mana in my creatures, hoping to make some of them evolve. And I’m glad to see that the first two crabs I ever claimed are ready to evolve. I pour more mana in them and push them over the edge.
When they're glowing, I focus on the strength of their muscles and their shell. I want to make them as strong and sturdy as possible. When the light settles down I admire them, they’re twice as big as before, their previous evolution wasn’t as impressive, now they’re just a bit bigger than the adult foxes in the forest. One of them still has one of its pincer bigger than the other, it’s a really big pincer, as big as itself, its right pincer is just as big as the left before the evolution. I would love to consider those crabs as Second, but it doesn’t felt right, I don’t know why yet.
While I was focusing on evolving the crabs, the group of hikers at the clearing as moved to the hill.
---
Forty Marms are circling the hill.
They’re the group that was ready to make a last stance at the clearing. Now they’re ready to make a run for the tunnels beneath the hill. But the hilltop, where the entrance is, is guarded by some raiders.
Unfortunately for the raiders, the Marms holds the numerical advantage. There are more than forty Marms and only five raiders.
A Marm walks out of the woods and advances in front of the sentinels.
“I am Klopri, shaman and Second of the Marms. Surrender and you’ll have a quick and painless death.”
“Ha! As if you could anything against us.” responds one of the raiders. He reaches for an arrow in his quiver and aims his bow at the Marm.
The Marm waits, ready to move and when the pirate shots his arrow he ducks on the ground. Unfortunately, the arrow still touches him, but only in his arms. Seeing this all the Marms hidden in the woods run for the hilltop, screaming and waving clubs, sticks, shovels and other improvised weapons.
The fight is bloody and short. and five Marms are lying dead while three more are being taken care of by their friends.
“You say they’re down there?”
“Yes shaman, they went in the hole.”
“Then, we need to go down too and save them. Be wary, there will be some pirates too.”
The Marms grab there dead and wounded and walk down the stairs. At the bottom of those, they have a choice to make. Going in the tunnel with light, where they can walk together and carry the weaks, or the dark and narrow one.
The choice is easy to make and one-hour latter they are reunited with the other members of their village.
“I don’t get it, where are the pirates?” asks Klopri.
“They never reach here.” answers the old woman.
“But they entered the tunnels too.”
“The Goddess protects us, She must have dealt with them.”
“And what is this place? The Goddess’ cave from the old legends?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Amazing, I sense the same pure mana everywhere than in the fountain’s water. Maybe you are right, maybe the Goddess is real.”
“She is, have faith.”
“Faith or not, I won’t let this place undefended, I’m going to stand guard with others in front of the tunnel.”
“That is your right.”
---
The hikers are standing guard in the cave. They’re expecting the raiders to follow them there, but it’s useless. I’ve closed the path leading there.
All the raiders going down are lured in the maze, there are two groups now. The first, which came in between the two groups of hikers, is pretty deep now and walking with water up to their knees. And a second group that just entered.
There are still some raiders roaming the forest or guarding the hilltop. But most of them are either in the maze or at the village.
I close the access to the maze and open the reservoir, letting it flood the tunnels.
---
A grumbling sound resonates in the corridors.
All the pirates in Coslo’s group look behind them. They have entered the hill to search for the Marms that killed their comrades at the hilltop. They followed them from a clearing with a beautiful fountain and were surprised to find that the other group had entered an underground maze and were probably hunted by Marms, pitiful. Probably the fault of this female that thinks herself able to lead men.
The sound is growing bigger and the air is flowing in their face.
“Waaateeeeeer!”
The men forming the rearguards arrive more stumbling than running and screaming. They stumble on their comrades, unable to cross pass them as the corridors are too narrow.
All the pirates are trying to run away from the water flooding the tunnels behind them, but the configuration of the maze slow them so much that the water reaches and blows them away. Crushing the unwelcom intruders against the walls, the floor and the roof of the tunnels.
The crabs and fishes in the water arrive closely after the wave and start to finish the pirates that are not already dead.
---
“What’s that sound?”
“John, go back with Clid and see what's this about.”
“Yes Hruin.”
The two Humans leave the group and go back in the maze.
While the rest of the group is waiting for them, they can’t miss the fact that the level of the water is slowly rising. The cold water is now at their hips.
“What’s that!” screams a pirate.
“Something touched me!” screams another.
“There's something in the water!”
“Shut up guys! You’re pirates and you’re afraid of some fishes?” screams Hruin, louder than her men.
“But chief, what if there is a monster in this tunnels?”
“And the Marms would have come here? Wouldn’t they have know?”
“Maybe there is a secret path they took and we missed.”
“We’ll just have to search for them.”
CRRRCK!
“What’s that sound?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn't hear it?”
“No.”
CRRRCK!
“What’s that sound?”
“Don’t you know another way of asking that?”
“Fuck off!”
“Arg! Something's pinching my foot!”
CRRRCK!
“What’s thaaaaaa…”
With the third cracking sound the floor beneath the pirates breaks under their weight combined with the rising one of the water. The pirates fall in an underground lake and fishes and crabs start to attack them under the water while bats and bugs harass them from above.
All their lights turn off in the water and the only source of light comes from deep under the water. The most observing pirates are flabbergasted to see three colored crabs dancing in the changing lights emitted from different crystals near them.