Despite the magical expenses, Timothy pierced through the boulders faster than one-hundred men would. He aimed at the boulders on top of the entrance’s blockage, because they were cheaper for him to bash through, and they were less likely to cause a rock slide!
Timothy was right to carry out his plan in that manner, because he did make an entrance at the very top, and nothing bad happened either. Then, they climbed up the boulders, and had the dragons stay behind because they could block the way, quite unnecessarily.
“The torches, light them up. You can't see shit after about five meters, so this is gonna be tough.” He explained, and he knew better because he had already been up here.
The group did as they were told, and then hopped into the new entrance. The tunnel he had made was six feet wide, so they as tiny goblins had plenty of space to move around within it. The dragons were left last in line as mentioned, because amongst other reasons, Georgie had to squeeze through the new entrance, as he was a nine-foot tall beast, after all.
Anyway, Timothy led the way. He didn’t have any torches on his immediate disposal, because he needed the free hands, as he was both their guide, and main line of defense throughout this little journey.
While they trotted forward, he explained. “You’re going to have to stop when I tell you to, because I didn’t manage to dig all the way through. I couldn't see shit past five meters, and things started getting expensive too, so I'm going to have to pick it up again.”
It was best to be direct, as he couldn’t have them distracting him. It wasn't that he didn’t enjoy their chatter, but he spent about five-thousand mana points already, just to dig this tunnel, and he'd rather spend a couple of thousand more to finish the job, rather than another five thousand. He didn’t need any distractions.
They reached the tunnel’s end, and had to stop there. Timmy summoned the Bone Multiplier ability, and then called out for the tens of daggers that he had carved from the bones of dead animals earlier on. The daggers flew towards him in a blink, and so, he started digging again!
This part of the blockage had less stones and more dirt on it, so at first he figured that it would be easier to pierce through it. However, he was also smart enough to understand that a dirt ceiling could collapse a lot easier because of the soft dirt, and he didn't want to accidentally crush his friends. In order to avoid anything horrible like that, he had to dig downwards, which took all of the savvy fun out of digging through plain dirt. He was annoyed, but this was the best way to push forward, there was no other way around it.
Tim dug down through the blockage, and a while later, they finally found a wide, accessible opening to jump in! He didn't have to dig anymore from the looks of it, which was good, because he spent another three-thousand mana points digging down. This job was really expensive!
“Weapons up,” He said, before he stepped in. “We don't know why this place was sealed.”
Afterwards, they jumped in. The group was extra cautious, so they made it their priority to illuminate the place, and have a look at its contents. Once they did so, they were relieved that they didn't have to fight anything right here on the spot, as it would appear that they weren't in any immediate danger.
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The group fully expected to run into a monster. It wasn’t that they were scared about fighting one, Timothy even looked forward to it, but in any situation, it was best to avoid conflict all together. Avoiding conflict with something utterly unknown and sealed off, was not a cowardly thing to do.
Anyway, the cave they leaped in was huge, it would've even been considered a cavern if it was about ten meters wider. With that said, they now understood how iron ores were extracted out of here before, because if one cave alone was twenty-five meters wide, then they guessed that a collection of such caves had something good to offer!
The team found another pathway afterwards, and followed it. They didn’t care to explore every inch of the cave they were already in, but rather, they wanted to eliminate any potential threat that strode the caves, so they just kept going.
Arvena was on the front with Timothy, on account of her firepower, and the dragons had already squeezed in the cave, and were guarding the team's behind. This was a battle formation that everyone felt comfortable with.
The tunnel they followed was about thirty meters long, and it was secured by these old support beams. The support beams were mostly made of metal, so it wasn’t surprising how they survived the passing of time.
These beams signified that miners had dug down this way before, so they expected to find a series of elaborate tunnels next. At the very least, they expected to run into a lot of dead ends.
The first dead end that they ran into, helped the group understand why this priest wanted these caves so bad. They found traces of sulfur there, well, they smelled it before they saw it.
At first glance this deposit didn't look like anything important, however, it could be sold at a high price, if one of the cities or countries were in the middle of a war, for example. Tim picked that hint right away, and although he didn't know just how technologically advanced this universe was, he still understood that sulfur was a key component when it came to making important things, such as explosives!
At the very least, this sulfur could aid the process of creating gunpowder, which later could be used on cannons! It wasn't too difficult to make a cannon, a country could create one with little trial and error if they wanted to.
Tim couldn't help but add some comments to such a find, he said. “The priest either knows about this smelly stuff, or he doesn't, there seems to be a lot of it around here either way. Everyone, keep your torches away from the sulfur please, that is, if you want to keep your arms.”
They didn't fight him on the matter. One didn't have to be a miner in order to know that it was stupid to swing a torch around at all times, a torch was an open source of fire, after all.
Anyway, as they progressed through the tunnels, their path kept twisting in various directions. They may even be lost right now, but Tim didn't care about that, because he could turn into an entity, and find his way back by floating through the walls. He wasn’t worried about that, however, moments later they did hear something that tied everyone's guts into knots!
“The hell was that?” Tim asked, and looked at Skendus for an answer.
Various low-pitched screeches sounded out around them, it was terrifying! As much as Skendus would want to have an answer to what was making that horrid sound, the answer eluded him, he was clueless.
“Maybe it's a goat?” Skendus felt pressured into making a joke, as he referred to Tim's old adventures, the ones he had when he was a spider. “No? Not a goat, then.”