Surprisingly, it took little effort to see the door opened, its weight more akin to a paper weight than a barricade, something they’d seen a lot of recently. In fact, the whole place was rather odd. The crack in the earth had led them down this far, but as soon as they descended through the ceiling, it stopped, not even a scratch on either of the walls. It almost looked purposeful, like whatever had split the earth purposefully stopped just here, just before this new path. It wasn’t like this could’ve found this area any other way. This room was completely sealed off from the rest of the cave. Why there was a door there at all was beyond perplexing.
Kiva, much like she had to Leo, while Trenton and Karfice waded forward through the great door, wrapped Garrote in a comfortable wreath of plants, some of which even had minor healing properties. It wouldn’t cure him by any means, but it would soothe him in his uneven rest, the least she could do for him. She picked Garrote up, wielding the two boys in either arm. If they got into a fight as she thought very likely, she wouldn’t be much of a help regardless. Her exhaustion and barely tended wounds were liable to drag her back down if she was so bold as to fight again. And the last thing she needed was for her wounds to reopen.
Kiva hustled behind the boys, everyone creating a small huddle for both protection and a faux sense of safety. Someone or something wanted them to be there, not exactly a comforting thought given everything the cave had so generously provided them with up to this point. Karfice carefully crept forward across the perfectly leveled stone ground, handlight hoisted high into the air. Trenton, however, simply walked forward without the slightest care, his handlight held limp at his side.
“Trenton, what are you doing? Don’t wander off,” Kiva said.
“Life…breathing…monsters? No…they’re plants,” Trenton muttered, ignoring Kiva’s comment.
“Listen, I know you said you’d explain it later, but you’re really not acting like yourself. At the very least could you pretend to stay here and help me?” Karfice said, putting down his own light and walking over to Trenton, who was now kneeling close to the ground, inspecting something with his hands.
It was difficult to make out from a distance, the low light levels doing little to aid her weak human eyes, but as she got closer, she realized Trenton was exactly right. In his hands was a little green sprout basted in a fresh coat of water. It was nestled into a thick layer of topsoil running parallel with the wall in a long wooden trough, plants of identical sorts lining the whole of the container. And that was just the first layer. Beyond that Kiva could vaguely make out a handful of similar troughs lined together, each one with its own assortment of plants and sprinklers to keep the soil moist. A little farm so far under the earth, and it was mostly edible plants from what she could tell. Was someone-
Suddenly, brazen against the cloud of darkness that had seeped far back into their retinas, the room was ablaze with bright lights, a small artificial sun hovering in the middle with rows of bright industrial lights. Kiva reeled backwards, stumbling quickly to her feet and taking a weak defensive stance. Sure enough, they were standing in the midst of a rather impressive farm, another perfectly carved stone room with ample space for dozens of rows of plants, each easily 100 feet or longer. And at the far end, squinting at them with the most honest and sincere approximation of befuddlement, leaning around a doorway to flick on the room's lights, looked to be a little boy in some…peculiar clothing.
The boy was pretty average in height, standing no taller than Karfice, who himself wasn’t particularly vertically gifted. He had a thinner frame so far as Kiva could tell, but it was hard to say with the loose black traveler's cloak he wore, its hood drawn up to obscure the boy's hair. It looked quite similar to the cloak the strange man that’d given Trenton the letter wore, only this one had a unique pendant holding it together at the collar. It looked to be a small silver crescent moon flipped to be upside down with a third spike extending straight down, a symbol Kiva vaguely recognized, but she couldn’t remember from where.
On his face the boy wore a simple white masquerade mask resembling a small bird, its beak extending just over his nose. His whole outfit kind of reminded Kiva of Karfice, the excess of cloth veiling the boy from the outside world, only with some skin showing rather than none, and with a very different approach. She’d say that it would make him hard to recognize, but really no one else in the world would rightly walk around in such an absurd outfit, making him stand out like a sore thumb more than anything. Maybe he just liked the way it looked, or maybe it was just the distance getting to her. He was still very far away, and approaching no closer.
“That’s my back door…you just…how did…it doesn’t even lead anywhere! Were you trying to steal my…plants? They won’t be in bloom for weeks at least. I hate to disappoint you, but if that truly was your intention it was a horribly thought out heist. You really…ah, whatever. We can go talk in the main room, unless you assume my cucumbers to be apt scenery. And you can ditch the fishbowls. The whole house is thoroughly ventilated,” the boy said, dismissively waving his right hand and turning his head further into the complex.
A moment prior that boy’s arms had been hidden within the folds of his cloak, so she couldn’t see it properly before, but the moment he lifted his right arm, it slipped out into the open, easily visible to all assembled. She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, some twisted metal contraption, absolutely coated in runes strong enough she could feel them from even where she stood, mimicking the shape of an arm. Was it a prosthetic? If so, it was of a make unlike any she’d ever even heard conceived.
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Trenton stepped forward, pressing his hand into either side of his bubble until it popped, bursting out in every direction until he was fully exposed to the outside air once again, “Long way from the surface. Do you live down here?” He asked, jogging to catch up to the boy, who led them through an assortment of different rooms, storages, arenas, workshops, until finally stopping in a large domed room filled with stone workbenches covered with various papers and tools, alcoves in the walls stuffed with various scrolls and books, and a staircase leading upwards dug into the far wall. It seems the boy was something of a tinkerer, down here away from the rest of the world.
In this room there was another artificial sun, this one surrounded by a large circular table. Unlike the rest of the tables, this one was well organized. It only had a handful of contraptions, each one with its own separate space for a blueprint and components, all of the tools he’d need stacked and hanging from the edge of the table. Notably, the artificial sun was neither agonizing to look at nor particularly scorching. It felt and looked more like a cozy campfire hanging in the air than a sun, but almost assuredly it wasn’t one. If the place wasn’t made out of stone, she’d almost consider it a pleasant domicile.
The boy grabbed a rolling chair from the center table, spinning around a couple times as he rolled towards them, slowly coming to a stop a couple feet or so in front of them. At first, it was a simple unnerving sensation, an idea that something was wrong without really understanding what. Then, it was true fear, a sweat gathering on her brow, a quiver strengthening in her legs.
The boy’s eyes, visible to her now up close, were the deepest black with impatient strands of deep crimson constantly shifting and fading, their subtle glow barely perceptible in the bright light of the room. And for whatever reason, when looking into the boy’s eyes, the only thing she could think of was death, absolute and agonizing. It was unnerving, terrifying, and made it hard to focus on anything else.
Around her, everyone else started to shift uncomfortably, some of the dwarves grabbing each other and pulling away from the strange kid, levying their pickaxes between the boy and themselves, others standing stock still, frozen with fear. Trenton seemed to hold himself together pretty well, enough to continue their conversion at least, but even he looked on edge at the unusual sight. Oh, and Karfice had all but lost focus, gazing into the artificial sun absentmindedly. Guess it was only a temporary measure while they faced danger.
“To answer your question, yes, I do live here. It’s much preferable to the bustle and noise of the city, much quieter,” the boy answered. “I’m most curious what it is you lot are doing down here. Monsters, dwarves, and two barely conscious corpses,” he nodded at Kiva. “I can’t imagine you’re looking for sagely medical advice here of all places.”
“No, we’re not. We’re here looking for the source of the scourge consuming the miners on Wheel’s behalf.”
“Figures, but you won’t find what you’re looking for here, nor anywhere really. The monsters are simply a holdover from an older time, the remnants of an old guest to these caverns. You’re friends here,” the boy gestured to the dwarves, “went where they weren’t welcome, simple as.”
Kiva steeled herself, dismissing her own air bubble and stepping forward, “Do you mean to say you know the source of the monstrosities?”
“I do, and it’s already long gone. Some time ago, the Collector used this cave to perform some morally questionable human experiments. He made a whole smattering of creatures, but he took the worst of them with him when I…persuaded him to leave. Now there’s only a couple failures left roaming around. I’d really meant to cull them at some point, but,” the boy shrugged, “guess I kind of forgot about it. Easy to lose track of time 14 miles under the surface of the earth in the middle of nowhere.”
“Which means if we’re to uphold our oath, we’d have to hunt down the remaining creatures,” Trenton muttered to himself, shaking his head. “The cave system is massive, we’d never find them all.”
“Weeellllllllll,” the boy cocked his head to the side, pursing his lips and looking up at the ceiling, “I could help you, make it quicker. It technically would be my responsibility…hmm. And anyway it’d be far more efficient than watching you stumble around the dark for the next couple of weeks. The cave system is large but mostly empty, and an all out mole war is not how I imagine you’d like to be spending your weekend.”
“It’s Tuesday,” Karfice called out, never taking his eyes from the sun.
“I…don’t think that’s true. I am fairly confident today is a Sunday. I mean I guess I was being a little facetious with the weekend bit, but I really don’t think that’s the part that you should be focusing on,” the boy said, scratching his head.
“Do you know what monsters are left in the cavern approximately?” Trenton asked, reasserting the focus of the conversation.
“Moles, mole king, they’re both together, and that should be about it. That carvomisc you killed earlier has been going around hunting most of the other monsters in the cave, adding them to itself bit by bit, so all that really was left was the mushroom gourd and the moles, the only ones the carvomisc wasn’t strong enough to take out. And with the mushroom out of the way, all that’s left is the mole tribe. They’re a little south of here, but not far,” the boy said.
“Carvomisc?” Kiva asked.
“The fleshy abomination that took your eye,” the boy replied, pointing at Trenton.
“Who are you?” Trenton asked, closing the last of the distance between himself and the boy.
“Oh, right. How rude of me. Congratulations! You found me! ” The boy threw his arms out wide, a cheeky grin stretching across his face. “I’m Wimbleton, the one you’ve been looking for. I must say you’re rather bad at hide and seek, but who am I to judge. I am quite the hider.”