“Cosh!” Krinn cussed which was unlike him. “Wen always does stuff like this!”

“At least we know how to get down,” Nellie tried to comfort Krinn in her mousy voice.

“That’s right, I think she stomped on the ground and then she fell through,” Ellie said.  “I’m next, just let me tie this rope-“

“Wait a minute!  Why are you next?” Krinn asked.

“Because I want to be,” Ellie answer like it was the only reasonable solution.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you made one of those tripod winch systems that lower people and buckets down?  Then you can operate it to lower each of us up and down.” Krinn asked.

Ellie was surprised at Krinn’s answer.  He was far more intelligent than he used to be.  Perhaps the recent leadership role in Longdale was a good thing for him.  But….

“We don’t have the wood for the structure or bearings for the wheels to make that possible,” Ellie replied.  She could probably figure something out, but she still wanted to be next.

“I’m pretty sure you can figure something out.  I’ve seen you do it a thousand times.”

Geh!  She was already found out!  But the best strategy in this situation was to feign ignorance!

“Yeah, I’m not sure what I can do in this situation.  I’m not a miracle worker after all.”

“What if you used stone for the support instead of wood and that quick craft skill that expends mana to create the bearings?”

Krinn actually did get smarter!  He must have raised his Spi stat significantly!  This argument was going to take a little while.

***

Jude and Wen stood up and surveyed the surroundings.  Jude noticed that Wen seemed to be in an unusually good mood.  Considering the kind of girl she was he assumed it was because they were in a potentially dangerous place.  That or the fact that they were very dirty from going through all that gravel.  The dust was so thick on them they looked gray!

Wen was not the typical girl.  She was overbearing, but he saw that as a front for who she really was.  It was true that she had a strong personality, but a lot of her mannerisms were to cover for her insecurities.  She loved adventure, but the world was a dangerous place but even more so for women.  Things like thieves and bandits were much worse towards women than men.  Not to mention that the Warrior class was dominated by men.  Jude had found out in his time leading Longdale that most women warriors choose to become NPC’s as the Warrior lifestyle did not appeal to most of them.

What Jude liked about Wen was that despite her insecurities, she was still a strong person that pursued her dreams.  It also helped that she was good at it.  Even covered in dust, her rugged beauty still showed through.  Another girl, like some prim and proper princess, would look like a hag in this condition, but for Wen, it only amplified her underlying charm and emphasized the character underneath which was the real beauty of any person.

He apparently had been staring at her, because she blushed and walked forward toward the dying forest.  However, Jude couldn’t see the blush under the dust and felt a little embarrassed himself for getting lost looking at her face.

“Look over there,” Wen said, she had followed the path through the tall grass but had stopped short of entering the trees. “Is that a mummy underneath that tree?”

Jude walked to where she was standing and looked over at the nearby tree.  It was an odd scene seeing a dried up mummy of a person with a thick root piercing its chest.

“That’s strange, look at the clothes, they don’t look to be old enough to be on a mummy,” Jude commented.

“Over there,” Wen pointed out, “There is another one!”

This one was in the grass.  It was like the grass had grown out of the corpse, it gave off an eerie feeling.

“And over there,” Wen’s voice started to get worried, “And over there,” and quieter, “And over there.”

Soon they realized that they were surrounded by a field of dried up and mummified corpses.  

“If Guudnash and the Bandits came through here and brought all their with them… Do you think something could have happened which after they entered?” Wen whispered.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Jude whispered back.  He grabbed Wen’s arm and slowly backed up.

The grass rustled like the wind blew through it, but there was no wind.  Goosebumps sprang up on both Jude and the strong-willed Wen.  They stopped moving and stayed absolutely still, even to the point of holding their breath.

The wind like motion moved through the grass and hit the trees.  Their leafless branches creaked back and forth, yet there was still no breeze in the underground cavern.  The oddest thing of all was that not all the trees and grass moved as the motion continued to build.  It was like more and more wind was blowing, but the deadness of the air betrayed their movement.

“I think we need to run,” Jude said in a quiet voice.

“Run where?” Wen asked.

It was a valid question.  Forward was the forest of swaying grass and trees, behind them were the rock wall and gravel slope.

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“At least back to the solid ground, where there is no soil,” Jude said.  It was the best idea he could come up with.

Neither of them had to courage to move, so Jude sternly whispered, “Now! Run!”

Wen and Jude bolted back towards the rocky ground as the grass and trees reached a crescendo with their wind like movement.  As soon as they reached the stone ground that contained no dirt, the plants stilled.

The silence was deafening.   Jude felt like it was now worse than when everything moved and his ears practically hurt from it being so quiet.  Again the two of them held their breath as they waited for any reaction from the plants.  Finally, when it had been long enough, they let out a sigh and smiled at each other knowing that whatever happened was now over.  But…

Jude was about to make a funny comment when his eye caught the grass slowly disappearing.  Wen noticed it too and even with her bold character she audibly inhaled a quick breath in anxiety.

The corpses could now be seen throughout the grassy area.  A chill ran down Jude’s back, he hated the undead more than anything.  It was his childhood fear, and even though he had dealt with a lot of undead in the Grimwar Caves, for some reason it didn’t affect him as badly since they were all spawned creatures.  These dried up corpses, however, were much worse, their expressions solidified in a horrifying scream of a painful death.  Their eyes were gone, sunken in and abandoned with a soul-wrenching terror emanating out of them.

Jude expected that any moment they would stand up and release their moans of death.

What he didn’t expect was that the grass rustled once again like some unknown group of creatures were moving through it.  Perhaps it was something even worse than mummies. Perhaps it was something that turned them into soulless dead!  Something so vicious that it could drain the bodies of humans so fast that it mummified them!  Something that… looked like little men made out of grass.

Jude wanted to laugh because the result of his terror ended up being these tiny people.  Wen really did laugh as the first one appeared.  They ranged from about a foot to two feet tall and looked to be made of many blades of grass woven together to form a body.  Their eyes were like green flames which sparkled with a look of curiosity. 

Wen’s laughter slowly died down as more and more of these little creatures called appeared.  There were at least twenty corpses now visible in the grass and Jude guessed that each corpse had two or three of these sprites living on it.  Their numbers were quickly made evident once they were all gathered, then the cute and curious creatures turned sinister.

“Cosh’ing little critters, if you attack I will use you for kindling,” Wen stated.  Then under her breath, she said, “Such bad luck!”

“We knew that taking this route wasn’t going to be easy.  Although I am a little surprised at how this turned out.” Jude replied.

Jude didn’t realize that Wen’s ‘bad luck’ was that they got interrupted in their alone time.  But she quickly turned on the Warrior inside of her as a serious expression crossed her face.

“They are so tiny they shouldn’t be too much of a problem.  Arkess desert is only a level 20 area after all.”

“Yeah about that,” Jude said, “They are level 25.”

“What the COSH!?”

The rushed out and charged the duo.  Wen quickly changed her stance, taking up the role of tank and taunting all the nearby sprites.

Jude began unleashing .  Under the effects of Jude's magic the ground distorted and sharp spikes suddenly sprang out of the stone some areas and other it turned soft like water.  Only a few spikes were able to penetrate the sprites, but much more were able to flow through the spikes unhindered.  The softened stone proved even less of a barrier for the sprites as their plant like bodies naturally allowed them to take root and uproot with no problem at all.

Jude, however, wasn’t bothered by his failure and instead took a scroll out of his .  At the snap of his finger, the scroll unrolled by itself and hung in the air like it was plastered on an invisible wall. 

The were successfully taunted by Wen, but there were so many she was getting overrun.  Each time she struck out with she killed one, but each one that died was replaced by two behind it.  Eventually, they became so much that they broke through her defense and closed in on her.  Once they closed in, they clung to her body and then began to unravel to tie her up with their own bodies.

Jude slammed his hand on the paper and activated it with his mana.  A wave of fire spewed out and rushed over the stony ground.  These were made up of dry, dead grass.  The fire instantly consumed them.  He controlled the fire so that it would avoid Wen so it would not burn her.  But it also left her entangled in the vine like grasp of a few sprites.

Seeing that most of the where either dead or burning, Jude put away his staff and took out his sword.  He has lost his Warrior skills, but the knowledge that he learned from them remained.  Jude accurately started slicing off the sprites.  They might have been level 25, but they were also really weak.

“Ugh,” Wen groaned in anguish, “I can’t believe that I’m the damsel in distress!”

“Don't be like that,” Jude encouraged with a smile, “We are a team if you hadn’t taunted them like that we would have both been bound up and sucked dry by these things.  In a way, you saved me just as much as I saved you.”

“Don’t sweet talk me, pretty boy.  You're just like Krinn aren’t you?”  Wen sounded displeased, but she was euphoric in her heart.

“Oh, I finally got level 25 in Spell Analyst,” Jude said pleased.

“And I just got 26,” Wen smirked, “I’m still winning.”

“Then let’s kill those treants and see who is still ahead then!”

“Treants? What treants?” Wen turned her head and saw the tree’s start to uproot themselves, “Oh those treants.  You know, if you get too far ahead of Ellie she might get upset.”

The leafless opened their ghastly eyes sockets that looked like empty pits.  Then the eyes flickered to life with a burning green flame.  Their roots unraveled like pythons and accompanied with the sound of crackling wood.

They were moving towards Jude and Wen.

***

“You have to stay behind and go last!” Ellie shouted at Krinn.  “It only makes sense that you go last.  If we are attacked, you need to be here to tank; Nellie needs to be here to heal you, and I am the only one free to go first.”

“But she’s my sister!” Krinn shouted back, his argument devolving into pure emotions.

After listening for so long, Nellie had enough.  She wanted to side with Krinn simply because she liked him.  But she found Ellie’s argument much more convincing.  However, their shouting match was getting so loud that they would eventually draw in monsters on them.  And without Jude and Wen, things would be more difficult, especially if they were to get the others back here or try and join them.

She had been trying to get their attention, but her quiet voice could not make it into their awareness.

Out of desperation she finally shouted herself, “ENOUGH! Stop arguing!”

The two immediately quieted in shock.  But her pent up emotions continued to rage so she spoke out, “You guys have been arguing, but not resolving anything.  You are insisting on your own way without acknowledging the others opinion or emotions.  Krinn, we know you love your sister, but your arguing has only delayed any help getting to her.  Ellie, we are aware you like Jude, but don’t let your own emotions cloud your thinking and ignore the feelings of others.”

“I don’t know-“ Ellie tried to say.

“Stop!” Nellie interrupted. “As far as the plan goes, this is what we are going to do.  Ellie goes first.  When she is down, she will signal us with the rope.  Two tugs to pull her back up and four tugs for us to come down.  No crazy contraptions that will take time to build and no more arguing!”