The tension in the air was palpable for the first two days after the caravan left the camp. I could tell the scouts were still on edge about a possible attack even if, by all accounts, the Nimble Shadows had turned tail and ran.
After two days of peaceful travel, people started to relax. There was still the occasional group of monsters that came and sniffed around the defensive perimeter but I had a feeling they could sense the tension and didn't dare poke at the defenses.
On the fourth day, the caravan came across the first bridge of the trip. The river it crossed was twice as wide and much deeper than the one Vel and I had crossed on the way to the fort during our trial. The dark blue water flowed slowly with very little in the way of rocks or islands in the way. The bridge itself was primarily made of wood which was anchored to massive stone pillars in the water and had obviously been built with magic, the support structure looked to be made of a single piece either grown in place of fused from several smaller components.
Despite appearances, Ottar ordered a full contingent of scouts to patrol ahead and secure the bridge. There was obviously the threat of large aquatic predators, like a crocolisk for example, but it was also a perfect choke point to ambush. If the Shadows were waiting for us anywhere, it would be here.
Nothing of note happened.
As we crossed, I got a nice view of the water below with my sphere. The ecosystem that had developed on the stones that supported the bridge was incredibly vibrant. The builder had created an intricate network of tunnels and chambers inside the stones where small animals could take refuge from the larger predators. Dozens of tiny fish and krill species called the area their home and breeding ground.
It was an interesting distraction.
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On the last day before the next camp, the caravan passed through a tunnel that led to another cavern. For a few days, the ceiling had been getting steadily closer as we approached the edge of the cavern. The density of mana crystals on the cavern wall diminished as the cavern wall became steeper and reversed to slope inwards to meet the ground. However, we were headed towards an archway that connected to Foroth, the adjacent jungle cavern, a hole in the stone wall some five hundred meters across where the two spheres that made up the spaces met.
A large body of water around three hundred meters wide ran along the edge of both caverns and met at the opening. I had known it was there but the scale of the map had made it feel smaller than in person. Some enterprising engineers had built a bridge across. It was wider than the streets of the guild's headquarter and made of solid stone. There were watch towers at regular intervals along the sides of the bridge, each hosted a large mana crystal that illuminated not only the bridge itself but the water as well. The arches near the middle looked large enough to let a boat through.
This time, Ottar didn't send any scouts ahead. Instead, he ordered everyone to pull back and stick close to the caravan. The atmosphere was a little creepy as we crossed. Unlike with the previous bridge, the water was almost completely still. There was very little life in the water, no fish swimming through the columns or kelp growing at the bottom.
As I watched through my sphere, I knew why. The water was saturated with so much mana that nothing could survive inside. I could see streams of energy lift off towards the ceiling as the mana itself evaporated into the air. I had never seen anything like this.
"This place gives me the creeps," Sarah said.
"Feels like a spell gone wrong," Jack added.
Maybe it was. The jungle was old, likely several millennia at least. The fort near Niu had been there for generations, I'd taken a look in the village archives, and nobody knew who had built it. From what Vel and I had found in the abandoned temple, it was likely Dark Elves but from a civilization that was long past, long enough to have been completely forgotten.
I tried no to think about the scale of the ritual needed to have effects visible after so long.
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When our segment of the caravan reached the other bank, I could see the tension ease out of everyone's shoulders. The ambient mana saturation dropped rapidly and the eerie atmosphere with it. Instead the familiar sounds of the jungle filled the air. I recognized some of them by ear but not all, the ecosystems of the different caverns were all subtly different.
From the bestiary Breknir had given me what felt like an eternity ago, Foroth hosted more varied reptilian species than our home, Kanarq. It was also host to several extremely dangerous species of monstrous termites, including the Stone Termites that build literal mountains hundreds of meters tall as their mounds. The large population of Taratect of Kanarq kept other eusocial species out due to their high aggression and superior tactics.
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Thankfully, we did not encounter a massive swarm of deadly termites and reached the next campsite undisturbed. The wagons parked in a large circle and the various mages, rogues, and scouts placed defenses around. It was the third time we all went through the dance and everyone knew what they were doing. I built the same bed as during the first stop, a shallow pit with the sides covered in vines and web and filled with a large amount of pillows.
In the meantime, some of the merchants had brought some of their supplies to prepare the food and Vel had dragged the large pot of soup she had been nursing in Tinkwire's cart for the last week. In addition to being a healer, she had been designated de-facto head chef for our group. The gnome and his wife had been happy to volunteer their cart for the job since it had a small hearth. Technically, it was a forge but the difference was mostly academic to a cooking pot.
It was impressive the effect good food had on morale.
Combined with the very low number of monster attacks on the caravan, everyone was in good spirits. Most of the adventurers also knew that they were still on a mission and only indulged in a pint or two of beer. Ottar assigned the watch shift, I had the second and Vel the third, and everyone did their part. Nothing much of note happened during the night. A few Shadow Hounds, a cousin of the Stalker Hound, came to sniff at our defensive perimeter during my shift but they retreated without fuss.
When morning arrived, Vel woke me up and the caravan departed.
The way down to the seventh layer was in the village of Saril, around three days of travel away. After that, the next stop was, Bellfair Harbor, the staging point for the guild to transfer onto ships bound for the Grand Bank Harbor, the main guild headquarters for the seventh layer.
Vel and I planned to take a week of downtime there to get used to the climate and think our next move through.
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The mother tree for the village started to peek over the canopy half-way through the second day. It was a different kind than the one that had towered over Niu and Nis, the bark shifted between various shades of earthen brown, and the leaves were a darker shade of green. They looked to be wide and circular rather than blade shaped. It wasn't surprising, a mother tree was not a specific genus but created with a powerful ritual. The capital was said to have seven, one for each district, and none looked alike.
Next, Alan and the scouts noticed the influence of the village barrier. The frequency of monsters dropped sharply at the end of the second day and completely subsided six hours later when the caravan encountered the barrier's boundary. To my senses, it felt subtly different than the ones I had encountered before. The magic had an oddly flexible quality to it, like a branch, rather than the unyielding nature of the barriers around Niu and Asril.
Several groups of village scouts joined the escort from that point. We crossed paths with a group of young elves as well, ones that had not yet unlocked their class, and their instructor. I assumed they were headed towards one of the training grounds inside the barrier.
"It feels almost nostalgic," Vel whispered to me, "we were in their place not that long ago."
"It feels like it was ages ago," I sighed.
I hoped those kids left their village on their own terms.
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Saril was an interesting place. The layout of the village was familiar, built around the mother tree with workshops closer to the center and houses further away. I spotted the clinic and greenhouses as Alan flew overhead. Clusters of fruit trees grew in the gardens between houses, small fields were built on roofs, and several pens were situated near the wall to raise domesticated animals and monsters. The guild district was a smaller circular area to one side where the large rocky structure that led to the seventh layer poked out of the ground, it made the village look like a stylized crescent moon. A moon with a pimple.
While there was a wall around the guild district, the scouts explained it was mostly in case something dangerous crawled up from the layer below and to warn the younger kids away from places where they shouldn’t be.
The caravan stopped on a large plaza similar to the one we had departed from. The rest of the district was composed of shops, inns, and stables. Most of the employees were likely villagers but a good third were of various other races. I hadn't seen non-elven residents in a village before, likely because what we considered a laid back lifestyle was anything but to someone with attributes below forty, Saril seemed to make it work.
The friendly competition between the various establishments was interesting. I assumed it was friendly because the over-the-top advertising, almost to the point of parody, seemed more like banter than anything else, a strange form of live performance art.