The caves that the team entered were very cave-like. In other words, there was nothing interesting about them, not in the beginning at least. The team had to walk about twenty whole minutes before they ran into what could be considered a ruin, or simply a fraction of the Gubus ruins, which itself was a bit more interesting in comparison to blank caves or tunnels. They ran into a place of worship, or more like, cave of worship!
This place was tidy, which hinted that goblins still came here to pray. Of course, most of this place was made of stone, so it didn’t require much maintenance to begin with, but it was still refreshing to see that some goblins stuck to their roots this way, in the means of worship. The greater things were out there, in the city, so it took quite some willpower to come here and walk through these dull caves and tunnels!
Anyway, this place of worship consisted of long slabs of stone where visitors could sit on, an altar, and a human-sized statue. These three things were the basic requirements if one wished to have a whole, respected place of worship!
Regarding details ~ The altar, for example, was a flat, white table which was likely carved out of a single, big rock! Its purpose was easy to understand, this was where visitors could place their offerings at.
Judging from the contents of the table, someone had prayed here this morning, because there were fresh tomatoes on the altar. Someone had offered tomatoes to the god they worshiped, and this seemed like a good gesture, because tomatoes were expensive in any universe!
Regarding the god, one could have a single peek at the statue here, and figure out that these goblins were worshiping a human! Now it was hard to tell if this said human was divine, but they were worshiping it nonetheless.
Arvena noticed that her guests were curious, so she introduced. “Some goblins worship Rempegan Lus, well, most of our ancestors did, so there are still a few families who uphold this tradition of worshiping him. This statue is a depiction of him, and our ancestors were very capable of making this statue as detailed as possible, because it was easy for them to sculpt a god that they had seen! They didn’t have to use their imagination.”
Furthermore, she added. “Legends encourage that Rempegan Lus taught magic to the goblins, which isn’t too hard to believe, but plenty of scholars argue that magic was already present in this universe back then, prior to Lus, but goblins couldn’t have been arsed to learn it. Nevertheless, plenty of my people see Rempegan Lus as the father of magic, and this statue stood firm for well over two-thousand years to honor his memory! The rust had destroyed some features of the statue over time, but that didn’t stop worshipers from coming here. I could say that a thousand people still worship him, they see him as a god.”
“Do they get anything out of it? Like extra mana or something?” Tim asked.
“No,” She answered, honestly.
After that short introduction, they continued their journey within the tunnels. What followed along was not a surprise, well, they didn’t get attacked or anything like that, but the visitors did discover that these tunnels were really lengthy!
There were tens of caves in between the tunnels, and even though these caves had served their purpose in the past, they were mostly empty now, which made the team’s journey ever so boring! They had to go through these caves nonetheless, for whatever reason Arvena believed in, as she was their guide, after all.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Nonetheless, Tim couldn’t help complaining along the way, he complained a lot. They were walking through tunnels for an hour now, without much rest, so the irritation he felt was reasonable. He also didn’t like tunnels very much due to past experiences, they made him uncomfortable.
“So many statues…” He later remarked.
The statues were the main thing that survived the passing of time around here, and these ruins seem to be characteristic for having so many of them. There were several statues of Rempegan Lus spread across the vicinity, which was reasonable because Lus had been the god that the goblins had worshiped, but there were also a lot of statues of mere goblins, far more in comparison to those of Lus!
These latter statues were not worshiped, no, but they were idolized and respected instead. There had been plenty of heroic war-heroes and or war-lords in the past, which explained why the team counted over thirty statues of goblins so far! These creatures had tried their best to preserve their rich history, if not their culture.
Anyway, even though most of the place was truly ruined, the team managed to reach a spot that actually mattered. They reached a spot that seemed more preserved in comparison to the rest of the ruins, and it was better preserved solely because it was deep underground, about two hundred meters deep, to be precise!
It was another cave, technically. It took Tim and the team a moment to figure out just why this place was labeled as more important, but they caught up right away, once they heard their own voices echo into the darkness! This cave was huge, it was a cavern, technically, and it was filled with plenty of respective carvings, and or important, ancient statues that had been preserved really well over the passing of time!
The latter part stamped this place with the mark of utter importance, without a doubt! This was not a place of worship, it was perhaps greater than that, as it served an ongoing purpose, a purpose that guaranteed peace! There also was a certain detail about the statues, that was difficult to ignore.
“I know what you might ask,” Arvena sighed, and then she added. “You want to ask why the goblin statues here have such big eyes, right?”
“Yeah,” Tim admitted, “It feels like they’re staring down my soul… So yeah, why are they all eyes?”
This cavern was illuminated only slightly, it wasn’t too radiant, and yet the team still managed to discover the statues on their own! They had torches on their hands, so it was only inevitable for them to run into weird stuff, but now they had a bunch of burning questions to ask.
When the team suddenly stepped in knee-deep water, citing the discovery of something really important, Arvena then had an answer for Timothy’s prior question. She had an answer that might satisfy all of their curiosity, even!
“That’s why the statues are all eyes!” She exclaimed, “There are weird creatures in these waters, horrible creatures! Legend has it that the statues keep them at bay, that is, whenever a monster tries to escape from these waters, the statues stare them down, and scare them back into the waters! This is a tale as old as time, I remember my grandma telling me about this pool.”
“And that really works? All the staring?” Tim asked, he was a bit skeptical.
“Well, there are no records of it not working, our ancestors haven’t been attacked as much by whatever roams these waters. Plus, look at those scriptures on the wall, over there, those are spells which demand help from the gods, all the gods, and I’m guessing that these spells were the most effective. They’re everywhere!” She added.
Then, after that short history lesson, she said. “Okay, let’s start shifting. We’re gonna fight the horrible monsters in the waters, whatever monsters that the gods have been banishing for over two-thousand years! This should be fun, and it’ll serve as training for you guys.”