Chapter 102
M'redith didn't wait but led the group down the southern tunnel. It felt odd, the way that they moved. Instead of running as they had for the past few days they were instead creeping along steadily and taking their time.
Jay had remembered something and spoke up a little hesitantly, “Um. I hate to say this, but we are on kind of a ticking clock here.”
“Ticking clock? Huh?” Aiden asked as the group slowly moved down the tunnel. It had begun to slope gently downwards the further along they went. The tunnel air began to feel a bit cooler than it had when they had originally entered it.
“Well, remember the nightly cleansing fires?” Jay said carefully, not wanting to upset anyone.
“Oh no!” Norri said. “How much time do we have?” She looked quickly up at the ceiling and then behind them as if the cleansing fires were already on their way.
“I've no idea. Hours probably? We just can't afford to get caught outside of a room. I suppose we could just spend the night in a random room though, right?” Jay replied.
The tunnel continued on, nothing but darkness visible past their lantern's meager illuminations. The ground was cobbled over in stones and their shapes had clearly been worn down over time. Whether that was from running water or just monsters traveling over their surfaces, the group couldn't tell.
“Do you see any rooms around here?” M'redith hissed back as she continued leading the group further in to the tunnel at a walking pace. They could run but it seemed safer to be careful even with the approaching time limit.
Aiden grunted, “Well that's not good.”
They walked on but for how long none of them could say. It was difficult to gauge time. The group was fairly sure it was getting close to dinner time which left them a few hours at least. They might be ok if they could just find a way back up and out of the tunnels they were currently trapped in.
M'redith carefully stepped over a pile of stones that had fallen out of the ceiling. “Careful here,” she called back to the group. “We can go for a little ways further but this tunnel is still sloping downwards and I'm starting to think we should have gone the other way.” she finally stated without looking back at the group.
“Why go further then? Let's just turn around.” Aiden remarked as he carefully stepped over the fallen stones.
“We've already come this far, might as well see what is down here, right?” Norri said, speaking quieter than she had to. Something about the encroaching darkness made everyone want to whisper.
“Not if it ends with us being covered in cleansing flames,” Aiden mumbled under his breath to himself. Norri didn't hear him.
In all of the other areas they had been so far light had not been too much of an issue. There had been indirect lighting that lit up every room and corridor. Maybe not brightly lit, but still, there was enough to see by. Not in the tunnel however. The tunnel was pitch black and the only light the group had came from their lanterns.
They continued walking for a few more minutes before M'redith spoke again. “That's it. I'm calling it. This tunnel is still going downwards and we want to go up. If we had more time I would honestly love to see where this leads but right now I just want to find someplace where we won't die in a fiery inferno.”
Norri nodded, “Not dying sounds good to me. Lead on.”
No one else argued and M'redith turned the group around and they walked back to the room with the ladder they had used to enter the tunnel. M'redith didn't pause but continued through the northern most door and was happy to find that the tunnel didn't slope at all but stayed level.
“Much better,” M'redith called back to the group. They walked for what seemed like an hour but was probably far less than that before they reached their first door. It was made out of stone and the group inspected it closely.
“No door knob.” Aiden remarked after his first glance at it.
Norri pushed on it and the door didn't even budge a little bit. “It's pretty solid, I'm not going to be able to open this thing.”
“Does it open out? Or in? Or maybe it slides in to the wall?” Jay said as he tried to fiddle with the door. The problem was there was nothing to fiddle with. It was a featureless slab of stone blocking the doorway but without any visible means of movement.
Glenda stepped up to the door without comment and everyone instinctively took a step backwards and away from her. Glenda grinned as they did so.
She pushed at the door with both hands and then her shoulders, her muscles bulging and straining at her armor. Using her hands she tried to slide the stone to the side but with no luck. The stone just refused to move.
“Magic?” Glenda said with a shrug. Glenda just meant that the door probably opened with magic – magic the rest of them did not possess. There would be no opening the stone door.
“I hate it when we can't get in to a room or open something. Drives me nuts not knowing what was inside.” Aiden grumbled.
M'redith grinned and shrugged, “Don't worry. We'll just keep walking until we find another room or exit. The tunnel must lead somewhere right?”
The group all nodded and got back in to their positions in line. Once everyone was set M'redith led them down the tunnel once again.
“Here's one!” M'redith said excitedly after they had been walking for a time. There was a single room off to the left side of the corridor with a wooden door left ajar. No light came out of the room. M'redith used her sword to push the door open while she used her other hand to bring her lantern across the room's threshold, lighting it up a bit.
She searched the inside wall a bit before finding a switch and the room burst in to view as lights in the ceiling began to magically glow. It appeared that light was the least of a person's problems on Eden as there were a number of different magical lighting systems that worked quite similarly to what Jay was used to back on Earth.
The group slowly filed in to the room, following M'redith. It was a rather spacious eighteen feet by twelve feet and the floors were dark polished wood. At the back of the room stood a number of wooden easels, some with old tattered canvases, long ago rotted, whereas others stood barren and empty.
Shelves lined the wall to the left of the entrance and cabinets lined the wall to the right of the entrance. In the center of the room lay a large six foot in diameter round platform. It was low to the ground and only six inches in height. It was made out of polished stone and looked perfectly smooth.
“What is this place?” Aiden asked.
M'redith grinned and ran her fingers through her hair, “Those are easels. I saw one at a woman's house I once visited. The woman painted a lot and had an easel in her home. This must be an art studio. Models would stand on the platform while the artists painted or drew them on their easels.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Norri grinned, “I love drawing! I'm not very good, but I think it's fun to do anyway.”
Aiden shrugged, “Never really been much for art.”
“Really?” asked M'redith in a deadpan voice, teasing him. Aiden made a mocking face before the two of them broke in to laughter.
Glenda grinned. “Search?”
M'redith looked torn, “Did you already forget about us needing to get out of here before the cleansing fires kick on?”
Glenda shrugged, “Room safe?”
M'redith looked around. Technically they were in a room and not in the corridors. Would the wooden door be enough to keep out the flames? M'redith tried to remember what material their bedroom doors were made out of but couldn't dredge up the memory no matter how hard she tried.
“Let's look quick. We have five minutes, then we head back out. Fair?” M'redith finally decided.
Everyone nodded and immediately began searching. Norri went directly to the cabinets and began riffling through them in search of art supplies or treasure, either would have made Norri happy. She continually would pick up a container excitedly before becoming disappointed once she discovered that whatever it was she held had gone bad a long time ago.
Glenda walked back to the easels and was inspecting them. She picked one up and set it to the side before rearranging some of the other easels.
Aiden and M'redith took the shelves and started to go through them one at a time. Some were bare, some held rotten stacks of paper, and others held spoiled art supplies.
Jay turned on his Treasure Sense and paused for a long moment. “Hear that?” he asked.
M'redith looked back at him from the side of the room, “Hear what? I don't hear anything.”
“Right! Every other time I've used my Class Ability we get monsters banging at the door within a few seconds. Yet here I am with my ability on and there's nothing but silence.” Jay explained.
The group didn't know what to do with that information. Were they safer down there? Or was there something worse down there with them? Something that kept the other monsters away?
“Three minutes left,” M'redith called out and everyone hurried up with what they were doing.
Jay felt.. nothing. No tingles, no goosebumps, nothing. Sometimes there was no hidden treasure. He turned off his ability.
“I found something!” Norri called out. Not all treasure was hidden.
“Set it aside and keep looking! We only have two minutes left!” M'redith replied as she continued pawing through shelves.
The room was by no means empty but that did not mean that it was full of valuable items. The group wasn't looking for just anything but were mainly focused on items of value. Rotten papers, dried up art supplies, cracked jars of paint that had gone bad decades ago, if not longer, were all strewn about the room. None of those items were what the group was looking for though.
“Time's up!” M'redith called and the group gathered back in the center of the room near the raised platform.
Jay made a confused face, “Hey, how are you timing us anyway? Do you have a stopwatch or something?”
M'redith laughed, “Do I look like I could afford a stopwatch? No, I'm just counting in my head. 1 K'tharkle, 2 K'tharkle, 3 K'tharkle, etc. Once I hit 60 I start over. Five of those and we're done. See? Easy. Just have to count in your head.”
Jay nodded, “Simple. Thanks,” he added appreciatively.
Norri grinned and after the two had stopped talking displayed a small flat box, shaped like a miniature suitcase. It was four inches square and one inch deep. The box was made out of a light color wood with swirling grain and had not been treated, painted, or stained. A small latch held the box closed.
“What is it?” Aiden asked excitedly.
Norri couldn't contain her excitement any longer, “It's a tiny art kit!! I've heard of them but never seen one. They're really expensive and are more of a novelty item, something fun for artists to play with. I've always wanted one of these!”
“Well, open it up!” M'redith said with a grin.
Norri thumbed the catch open and opened the lid. It lifted open on two hinges set at the back of the kit. The inside of the lid was taken up by a square block of white paper. The block appeared attached to the inside of the lid and did not move about. It would make a stable platform for drawing.
“That looks just like post-it notes.” Jay said after staring at the block of white paper for a moment.
“What is a.. wait, is that some Earth thing?” Aiden asked with a raised eyebrow.
Jay nodded and Aiden sighed. Jay explained further, “Post it notes were just a stack of paper but each piece of paper was stuck to the one below it using a weak adhesive. You could tear a sheet off and stick it to a wall or door or whatever.”
Norri pulled off a page and stuck it to Aiden. It stuck to his chest and stayed there. Glenda laughed and Aiden snatched the paper off of his chest and gave it back to Norri. Carefully of course.
They looked in to the base of the kit and found a row of four mini charcoal pencils. Two black, one gray, and one light gray. Next to the four tiny pencils was a rectangular eraser. They all fit in to slots in the base and were secured from shifting when the lid was closed.
Jay peered at the kit intently for ten seconds and was rewarded with a notification which he shared with his friends.
Scribbles' Tiny Art Kit – Uncommon
This art kit is mundane in all ways save for one – the paper will not run out. After any sheet of paper is removed from the lid another is magically generated at the bottom of the stack. Only one sheet of paper may be removed every thirty seconds.
Norri grinned and clapped excitedly before calming down and smoothing the front of her armor – armor which was not in need of any smoothing whatsoever.
“Well, treasure is treasure. Who wants to roll on the Tiny Art Kit?” Jay asked kindly.
Norri immediately raised her hand high. She was standing almost on her toes. “Me!” she said a little too loudly.
Glenda shrugged before shaking her head, “No.” She took a step up on to the platform while the others talked over their rolls and stood in the center. Raising her arms she posed and flexed, her muscles looking thick and solid. Glenda would make an excellent model for an artist, Jay thought to himself.
“I'm no artist, you can have it Norri.” Aiden said with a lopsided grin. He had thought about teasing her, rolling against her and then giving it to her if he won. After some thought he decided doing so might be seen as more upsetting than amusing. Thankfully he had finally decided against it and turned down a chance to roll for the kit.
M'redith shook her head as well, “I think you should have this one Norri.” She stood next to Jay with a hand on his back. They weren't cuddling or engaging in any extreme public displays of affection. She just enjoyed having physical contact with him. As long as she didn't go overboard the rest of the group seemed ok with it.
Jay smiled widely, “Well, it looks like no roll is needed. The tiny art kit is all yours!” Although Jay would have liked to own the kit and perhaps start drawing he was not going to roll against Norri. She was far too excited about the kit for him to do so. Had it been something he really needed that would have been a different story but as things stood he didn't mind just letting her have the kit.
Norri jumped once in the air before she calmed down and gave everyone a serious look as she took the tiny kit in the palm of one hand and closed it with the other. She fastened the clasp to keep it closed and stowed it away in her backpack. “Thanks everyone!” she finally said with a big wide smile.
“Anyone else find anything?” M'redith asked. No one had. “Right. Then back in to the tunnel. We need to get out of here sooner rather than later!”
The group stacked up at the wooden door and M'redith did her standard two kicks and a peek before opening the door and carefully leading the group out in to the tunnel with her lantern held high.