Since it is heading in the right direction I decide to follow the river, I will leave finding its source for next time. Because I am expecting it to change direction at some point since I didn't see it on my way in I am only slightly surprised at what I find. About halfway to the end of the cavern the river disappears, it drops down into a large hole.
Leaning out over the hole I can see light down below and faintly hear the sound of the river hitting more water. But since I am above the source of light I cannot see past it to see what is down below. Judging from what I can see and hear there is another cavern below and either a pond or lake that the water falls into.
At a rough guess the light below me is around a thousand feet away, and is the same color as the light from the crystals. Which makes me wonder if one of the many tunnels leading out of this cavern might connect with it. As much as I would like to satisfy my curiosity I cannot afford to spend a month down here exploring.
It would be nice to just be an adventurer and explorer and not have the fate of the world hanging over my head. But the reality is I don't have time to explore this place, I only came because helping the guild masters is good for me in the long run. Just as I am about to stand up something big goes down the waterfall and I jump back with a scream of surprise.
As I pull myself to my feet I notice Bones is laughing at me, and all I can think is that I am glad he can't tell stories. Drog could but currently I don't plan on letting him out anytime soon, his attitude is a problem. Since Krenocia is knowledgeable about demons I plan to talk to her about Drog soon.
After dusting myself off I turn and look at the cavern wall until I find a decent spot to climb up. The climb up is easy, it is holding on while breaking off a chunk of crystal that is the hard part. Once I have the crystal in hand I drop back down to the floor, it is time to leave.
To make room in the pouch for the crystal I pull out one of the bird-thing's bones and toss it to Bones. As we walk we are both munching, me on the heart and Bones on his bone. We make it back to the tunnel and all the way up to the mine shaft without encountering anything else.
Once we are back in the mine I stop to think, when I widened the opening to get the shell out I squared it off fairly well. Now though I am trying to think of a way to prevent anything else from coming up into the mines. Since there is no way to be sure all the bird-things are dead, the next best option is to stop them from coming up to hunt.
Devour activated! +20 Strength +10 Bite Damage!
'Well the strength is nice, but the bite damage is practically useless since I don't run around biting things.'
At least now I can stop eating the heart, when I get back up top I will give the rest to Lizzy. For now I start walking slowly up the mine shaft looking for a flat section of wall that is big enough for what I have in mind. Once I find a decent spot I take out the pickaxe and start scraping the outline of a rectangle slightly bigger than the opening down into the tunnel.
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The best idea I could come up with is to basically make a plug that is too heavy for the bird-things to move. If I do it right nothing that will fit in the tunnel will be strong enough to move it, and I didn't see any signs of anything tunneling through rock. It isn't perfect but it is the best I can come up with right now, and it also depends on what Scott wants to do with the place.
If they don't plan to try mining down there then they can always improve the seal with magic. However if they do try going down there then they can move the plug easily enough. I plan to recommend that they seal it up nice and tight, I doubt any of the adventurers could handle things down there.
However, it is not my call to make, whatever they decide I will offer my advice and leave it to them. Once I have reported everything I plan to head for the temple of wind, I have put my quests off for long enough. After scraping the outline a dozen times it is a couple of inches deep and I figure that is enough to start mining away the surrounding rock.
Once I get the basic shape of it free from the wall I can always modify it a bit so it fits. I am not looking for perfection or anything, just a temporary measure. The plug is heavy enough that I have to remove the manacles to move it into place, that should block the bird-things for sure.
With that done I move quickly back up to the central area of the mine to find Lizzy. When I spot her she is crouched defensively in front of two bird-thing bodies, she relaxes instantly when she spots me. The bodies are fresh enough that they must have come up ahead of me and Bones.
While Lizzy is finishing her meal I try to figure out how we are going to drag the shell back to the city. In the end I simply end up using rope to connect it to the back of Lizzy's saddle. Once she is done eating I call her over and put her saddle on her, then I check to make sure I used enough rope that the shell won't be too close to her tail.
As I am doing that I notice Bones is pulling the bones out of what Lizzy left behind and eating them. Since Lizzy doesn't seem to care I don't worry about it, but if she cared I would have to order Bones to leave it alone. The last thing I want is these two fighting each other, I'm pretty sure Lizzy would win but I don't know what would happen to Bones.
From what I remember from the skill book he should just disappear for a while and then I could resummon him. But since he hasn't been defeated yet I don't know how long he would be gone and I am not all that interested in testing it out. After I have Lizzy walk around a bit to make sure the shell isn't going to hamper her I dismiss Bones and mount up.
When we ride out of the mine I realize it is the middle of the day, from the position of the sun it should be an hour or two after noon. That means we can take it slow going back and still make it in plenty of time for dinner. Since I have to explain things to the guild masters I may as well do it over dinner.
Dragging the shell doesn't really slow Lizzy down, but since she just finished eating she moves at a slower pace than usual. I don't mind at all and let her set the pace however she wants. When we arrive in Illium we create quite the stir, as usual, but maybe a bit more so because of the shell.