Yleen returned to the game at the appointed time. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later. He summoned everyone to sit side by side and talk. For an hour, the scouting team discussed the problem of everyone fighting as if they were alone during the battle. They came up with a plan in case of a new attack and agreed to stick together.
“Where do we go next?” Latludious asked at the end of the conversation.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you forgotten already? There are two paths from here on,” the mage said, pointing to a small tunnel.
“We'll stick to the main path,” Yleen said and made a note on the map and set up a new self-deploying scanner.
The group set off. The terrifying area filled with bones and obsidian pillars was left far behind them. They walked in darkness, surrounded by silence. A sphere illuminated their path. The road was becoming more difficult. Great cracks appeared in the ground, and the mage nearly fell into one of them. Slightly further narrow burrows appeared into the walls. Worries and fear for their own lives clutched at their hearts.
They passed underground wells, strange places filled with unnatural purple dwarf trees, stalactites hanging like a hundred spears over their heads, and stalagmites. Faolandan noticed a strange worm with bright white skin color with two front legs and a long tail, which at the sight of the uninvited guests grabbed a stone with its long tongue and pulled it into its mouth and swallowed it, then burst into a crack and disappeared. There, too, the group watched the little Mornazhars, harmless bats that moved and flew like dragons and looked like a scaled-down copy of them.
The road led the travelers in winding arcs and narrowing and widening corridors. The floor was smooth and flattened in places, but as soon as they walked half a mile further in, everything changed in the opposite direction. At the fifth hour of their journey, in the depths of darkness, Vvy was able to see a strange curved band of purple light oozing from the wall. As he approached, it appeared to be an entrance, flanked by statues of two three-meter-tall men dressed in tattered robes, from beneath which he could see armor made of something resembling dragon scales. Their helmets covered their heads from top to nose with steel jagged teeth, exposing only the lower third of their faces: Their noses were missing, their lips were missing, but their fangs were inhumanly long. In their right hand they held two-handed swords, touching the floor with their blades, Illyseh checked them, sharp.
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“Strange,” said the healer. “Usually, when they make statues of warriors or kings or ancient gods, the sculptors embellish the beauty of the original, sometimes even bring it to an extreme. These are the ugliest I've ever seen. It's an interesting choice.”
“Shall we take the swords from them?” Vvy asked.
Yleen shrugged his shoulders and said, “Give it a try.” The group's tank tried with all his might to pull one out, but it didn’t work.” Latludious helped him with a spell, but that did not help either.
“They're protected by magic,” he said.
“That's sad. They could be very expensive,” Vvy replied.
“Can't you open the entrance either?” Yleen asked.
Latludious checked the amount of mana in through his HUD, sniffed his nose, and tried to open the gate, but to no avail. He had to scan the place, put another marker on the map, and move on. Maybe they would find a key up ahead. So, they walked, without talking or looking at each other, for about an hour. The tunnel had no end in sight. A long labyrinth with secret passages and dangerous monsters. Then the rough rocky ceiling was replaced by arches of fine art. And the rough, wet stone ground was followed by smooth, geometrically shaped cobblestone floors. But the darkness did not recede. It was everywhere. There was no source of light. Between the tall columns were a great number of doors, but when they were opened it was clear that this was a sham, for behind them was nothing but a wall.
The next room looked to be in the same style, but on the ceiling and on the walls, someone had hung planets and stars on chains, as well as a map of the solar system. The second planet reminded Ronnie of Talak. Two more were gas giants, and the one closest to the sun looked something like Mercury. The pillars were ruined. There was dust and sand everywhere.
They walked on and found themselves in a tunnel again. Fear enveloped everyone. No one admitted to the feeling or understood where it came from until a creature appeared from the passage ahead. Its face was missing its eyes and nose. No neck was visible either. Its head was part of its rib cage. There was a huge hump on its back, and its entire body was covered in stone scales. It made a few strange sounds, like the muffled chirping of birds, and then headed in their direction. The group prepared for another battle.
Vvy stood in the vanguard and put huge shield with a small slit for eyes in front of him, after killing the dark creature he felt confident, his adrenaline was pumping. Latludious was in the middle of the formation next to Faolandan and Yaleen and prepared to use the Arcane spell. Ronnie and Illyseh waited at the rear and did nothing. Bullets from the DP and Scar-L machine gun flew at the monster. They ricocheted off of its scales and crashed into the walls and ceiling.
“Not even a scratch,” Faolandan frowned. “Again, this machine gun is useless.”