They realized they’d made a mistake when the first of Calis’s warriors began screaming.
They were moving cautiously through the narrow passage, its walls covered in a thick carpet of luma moss, gleaming with that faint, silvery glow. The moss was soft underfoot, thicker here than it had been before, creeping up the walls like a lush, verdant tapestry. Every now and then, Jax noticed small spores drifting down, catching the dim light and giving the air an eerie shimmer.
But as they walked further, Jax began to feel an uncomfortable tingling across his skin. The moss seemed to respond to their movement, its pale glow intensifying, almost pulsing in time with their footsteps. The walls shimmered strangely, and then… the shadows started to shift. Jax blinked hard, squinting, but his enchanted vision only twisted the dark shapes further, making the edges of the cave flicker in and out like waves.
“Do… you see that?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
The moss seemed to move now, rippling in ways that defied logic, as though alive and breathing. Then he noticed something that made his blood chill: his reflection, caught in the faint shine of a nearby wall. But his face—it wasn’t his face. The skin appeared to sag and distort, like melted wax, his features sliding into an unrecognizable form. The same effect appeared on Calis’s face as she glanced over her shoulder, her sharp, steady gaze momentarily melting into something nightmarish and hollow.
Jax staggered back, tripping on a lump of moss underfoot, barely keeping himself upright. He caught his breath as the images began to flash around him—faces he recognized, but morphed into monstrous, twisted shapes. His mind felt heavy, as though something was trying to invade his thoughts, turning every sense against him. He saw Calis stumble and swat at shadows that weren’t there, her hands clawing at the air. Another warrior, barely visible in the dim light, pressed himself against the wall, muttering to himself in a panicked voice.
“Keep… moving,” Calis ordered, but her voice sounded sluggish, as if muffled by the air itself.
They pushed forward, driven as much by fear as by determination, their boots slipping on the moss that seemed to coil and shift beneath them like a living carpet. The shadows deepened, faces flickered in and out of the darkness, and they could hear whispers that might have come from their own minds—or something else, lurking just beyond sight.
Finally, as though guided by some unseen force, they stumbled into a wider cavern. There, ancient stone pillars rose around them, covered in moss and cracked by time. The remnants of an old ruin—dark and desolate—stood before them, its walls barely intact, with stone benches and a crumbling archway leading deeper into unknown darkness.
They collapsed where they could, exhausted, the eerie glow of the moss beginning to fade as they finally lost their strength to push on. Jax sank to the ground, the overwhelming strangeness in his mind fading, leaving only a deep, dreamless darkness as he drifted into sleep.
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A faint murmuring broke the silence. Jax’s mind felt clouded, his thoughts slow to come together as he began to stir. Blinking through the dim haze of his enchanted grayscale vision, he realized he was still in the ruin, lying on the cold stone floor. The others were nearby, scattered in various positions, still asleep. But the voices—low, unfamiliar, and drawing nearer—cut through the haze. Jax strained to listen, trying to make sense of the disjointed sounds.
Then, he caught a single word. It was strange, a muddled blend of Gong and something else, perhaps one of the languages from the Underdark. The word echoed in his mind, "Harvest."
A chill ran down his spine. He nudged Calis awake, his fingers brushing her shoulder gently. She shot up in an instant, her face sharp with alertness, but she made no sound. Jax motioned toward the dark doorway, his lips mouthing the words “Mushroom farmers,” followed by a quick, silent gesture, “Out on a harvest.” He then pointed to their companions, miming the action of waking them up. His heart raced with a sense of urgency but he made himself move slowly and calmly.
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Together, the two managed to stir the group from their uneasy slumber, each one groggily sitting up, rubbing their eyes, or squinting against the dim, eerily still surroundings. But Jax’s gaze fell upon the space where the woman with three eyes should have been. She was gone. The absence of her presence felt wrong, and Calis's fleeting glance over the group told Jax that she, too, noticed. However, she said nothing, her expression unreadable. Her silence unsettled him, but he couldn’t afford to dwell on it now.
"Stay sharp," Calis whispered once everyone was on their feet. "We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet."
They readied themselves. With a mix of silent movements and grim determination, they laid an ambush in the shadows of the ruin, hidden behind the thick stone columns that had once supported a grander structure. The cavern around them opened up like a vast, sprawling city, its enormity impossible to comprehend. Jax could barely make out the farthest edges of the cavern; the ceiling was too high to see, swallowed by the blackness above. The stone beneath their feet was warm to the touch, as if the entire cavern itself absorbed heat and stored it in some ancient, magical way. The material was foreign to Jax, not like anything he'd ever encountered. He flipped through his notes, finding a sketch of the substance: a magic-infused material that could store heat for long periods, though it had no name in his texts.
"Interesting," Jax muttered, his thoughts racing. "If we can find iron here, it’ll fetch a high price."
He shook his head and refocused. Their task was clear—whatever these farmers were harvesting, it wasn’t good, and the woman with the third eye wasn’t the first to disappear. They had to find answers.
Minutes later, the sound of voices grew louder, followed by the unmistakable scuffle of boots against stone they were returning. Ten of them in total, small, green-skinned creatures with beady eyes and twisted expressions. They were far less intimidating than the figures that had haunted Jax` fears. These creatures were squat, with hunched backs and dirty rags for clothing, carrying crude bundles of what seemed to be mushrooms, their harvest. But at the back of the group, a larger figure emerged an imposing hobgoblin, the one likely in charge. He had a long sinister blade in his hands, it had a widcked edge to it. Jax looked at his indicator and read [Hobgoblin: Level 6]
As the goblinoids filed into view, Jax’s stomach sank. Draped over the shoulders of one of the goblins was the body of the woman with three eyes. She had clearly been killed, her body stiff and cold, but the way they treated her made it clear that she was not a mere casualty. The goblins moved her like an object, and Jax could see the dried blood caked around her neck, the telltale marks of strangulation.
Calis gave the signal, and the ambush sprang into action. With swift, precise strikes, they took down the goblins one by one. The creatures struggled, but they were not prepared for a fight of this magnitude. Jax, still shaken by the discovery of the woman’s body, fought with cold efficiency. His newly acquired daggers sliced through the air, cutting down the goblinoids before they even knew what hit them.
As the party finished off the goblins Calis danced with the Hobgoblin, she cast Jax a glance and he heard in his Mind "The kill is yours, take it" He snuck up behind the goblin as he over extended his swing and used Sneak attack To take his head off cleanly with his seax. Jax turned, and quickly claimed the soul from the hobgoblin. That made three, the spider earlier and now this hobgoblin. Yet this one felt... more. He instinctively knew he would be able to form a blade using the hobgoblins soul.
The largest gain however was the experience. Jax bar now read 3214 points.
When the dust settled, the only goblin left standing was a small, trembling one, its eyes wide with fear. It whimpered as Jax approached, his heart heavy at the thought of the woman’s death.
"Please," the goblin begged in a broken tone, its voice high-pitched. "Spare Drell! Drell will tell you everything! Drell no want to die!"
Jax exchanged a glance with Calis, who gave a subtle nod. Jax approached the goblin, his fingers brushing against the cold, metal collar at his waist.
Durg’s voice rumbled from behind him. "Better to keep it alive. Could be useful."
Jax hesitated, feeling the weight of the decision. He was not comfortable with the idea of enslaving the creature, but Durg’s words held truth. The goblin could provide valuable information, and the alternative was death. He reached for the collar, the cold metal biting into his palm.
With a grimace, Jax placed the collar around the goblin’s neck, the faint click echoing in the cavern.
"Don’t make us regret this," Jax said softly, his voice strained. "Tell us everything."
The goblin, now a slave to the collar, nodded shakily, its eyes wide with terror. "The camp... it’s not far... maybe an hour... over the ridge. There’s... there’s three hundred of us. We... we farm the mushrooms. But... but we don’t control everything. There are others... much worse... Drell listens, others do not. The bad ones hurt Drells friends, so we go into the mushrooms with their champions"
Jax’s stomach churned as he listened, the weight of the collar on the goblin’s neck a harsh reminder of the world they were now in.