After walking for several hours in the woods, Herran suddenly stopped.
"A can smell something strong suddenly; it is my soldiers, but there is one more unusual smell," Herran said.
I moved to the front and saw something small with four legs circulating on the ground before an entrance. It looked like a cave from the height, but I am unsure. Caves usually don't have perfectly shaped squared entrances if it is not a tourist attraction from what I know. The four-legged dog or cat-looking thing circulating on the ground noticed me and hissed toward me. I need to look closer at what it is; it seems like a dog with a cat-like body.
I closed in and noticed a cute red panda I had seen live for the first time. Unbelievably, I have only seen TV documentaries. They are very flexible animals and look damn adorable.
"I heard the hissing sound; there is something at the entrance to the cave, Right Trash?"
"Yeah, it is a red panda!"
I wonder if I should try to grab it or throw something so it disappears into the woods.
"What is a red panda?" Herran asked.
I forgot that we call them Red Panda back at home; what the Hell do they call it here?
"Eh, I mean, it is some creature with four legs. It is pretty small, has a couple of white dots on its head, and has red and light brown colours on the body, with the four legs covered in black. It is hissing at us but doesn't attack."
"Aw...It's a Pinta! It is a creature that, if you are lucky, you can become its master. Still, they usually live far away from citizens in Valiant. They were used in the Great War 20 years ago but disappeared afterwards; they are rarely seen, and meeting one is rare. My grandfather taught me their language, and I always played with his Pinta as a child. Their disappearance was because they could enter the dreams and memories of the citizens in Valiant. There was an incident where the translation from a Pinta and the soldiers was misunderstood, and it caused innocent lives to be murdered. An uproar happened in Valiant, and the Pintas ran for their lives, except those dedicated to their masters. Some were murdered, and some managed to get protection. That was a long time ago; I wish my eyes would let me see one, but maybe I can ask what it is doing here."
She still calls a red panda Pinta. I give up.
"Sure, it is only a couple of meters away, so ask it from where you are standing if it decides to attack."
"They are not dangerous creatures...Ts Mbak Raff Tuh Ki Meh Satu Fan", She said, and the eyes of the Pinta lit up.
I thought she was kidding when you told me she could ask it something, but the little panda seems to understand from the expression. I turned around, looking at Herran because the mumbling words she just spoke were weird. She started to do signs with her hands, and I noticed she was using sign language. The panda, or I will call it Pinta, ran into the bushes and returned with a stick in its mouth. It started to scribble some strange signs on the ground, and I had just given up trying to understand what the two of them were doing. When it seemed finished, it made a weird sound like a bird and then switched to a more cat sound. Herran passed me, went down to the ground, and put her hands over the scribble. The Pinta made some weird noises, and Herran approached the noise with open arms. The little creature entered her arms, and the odd noise got louder. I just thought for myself that everything would probably get more crazier.
"So... What did the Pinta scribble on the ground?" I asked.
"He told me his whole family got ambushed outside looking for food; the dungeon dwellers grabbed 20 Pintas to eat them. His name is Rukk, and he wants us to help him get his family back before they become dinner."
I looked at the entrance with several initials on the left side.
"Maybe we should try to find the cave; you know where your friends are." I tried to speak up so we could try to find the cave instead of hanging around the creepy entrance that was pitch black inside.
"We are already here; they are inside the entrance; I can smell them. If we take Rukk, he can probably smell his family's direction."
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"Well, can you check the initials to see if you recognize them or if they have any meaning?" I asked, worried that maybe it was some trap.
"Sure!" Herran responded, and I guided her to the side of the entrance so she could feel the signs.
She mumbled while touching the initials and froze when her hand reached the bottom of all the initials. Every idiot from miles away could see that it was not good news.
"Okay! Herran, be honest now. What did you read from the initials?"
She turned around, smiling. I knew this instant she was going to lie about it so we could enter it.
"Well, I can say it is a safe Dungeon. I was wrong; it was not a cave. It says to be aware that you can meet creatures from all over Valiant as welcomed guests to the Dungeon."
What a lie, god damn it!
"And...What did it say more than that?"
"Nothing more; that was everything." She responded.
I looked down at Rukk, who was staring at me with his head tilted to the left.
"Rukk, if I die, I want you to go with your stick to Rattin Town and describe what I look like and tell them to send a letter to my sister so she knows I am dead."
Rukk just moved to the side and sat down on the ground beside Herran. I suppose Rukk meant I have no comment on your request.
"Let's go!" Herran said, and they moved in through the entrance together, with Rukk walking beside her.
Should I leave her, but she is a blind person? She is strong, though, and can probably defend herself. There are also Tanaga Gun creatures that took her friends. Rukk said something about dungeon dwellers also. I won't survive that if it is too dangerous; at the same time, I don't know what the Enemy looks like. I can't let someone risk dying except for the Pinta; that is quite annoying. I followed them into the darkness and accidentally bumped into Herran because it was pitch black inside, and I was as blind as her. Something went up on my shoulder, and I stood still momentarily, getting ready to hit it.
"Relax Funfickle! Rukk switched over to your shoulder because I can't see, and he doesn't want to keep me distracted," Herran said.
"No kidding...I noticed because his claws were going quite deep into my skin."
I saw some light after a while and grabbed Herran's hand so she could put it on my other shoulder when I started to move a little bit faster.
When we reached the light, I knew we were so screwed. A torch lit up the circle room, and there were five entries, all of which were black.
"There are five choices, Herran; in which direction does your smell point us?
"The smell is in every direction in this room. The scent of my soldiers comes from everywhere."
Rukk jumped down, started to smell around, and sat for a couple of seconds for each entry. It looks like the Pinta doesn't know where everyone is. He circled all the entries again and stopped on the fourth entry from the left.
"Well, Rukk has stopped at the fourth entry. Should we go in?" I asked.
"He must have smelled something from that entry. Let's go through it,"
I don't have a choice now because I don't have a freaking smell power, and there are zero clues here that can be useful. They should have used at least some arrow pointing in which direction to move towards. It was as little information as this whole assignment all together.
We walked through the entry, and just after a few steps, I heard a cracking sound underneath the ground. When I tried to grasp the situation, a hole opened up, and we fell through it into a slide going down. I flew out of a hole and landed on the left side of a big square, while Herran and Rukk landed on the other side. A black bird sitting in the upper left corner of the room with a weird skeleton head made a gawking sound, and on the right side, a sandglass turned upside down, and I knew that we were now on borrowed time. I went up quickly and noticed the square moving around. I tried to take one step towards Herran, but the big square started leaning toward her direction. Oh, we are so screwed, square and two people meaning one has to sacrifice and move towards the other one, and this whole square will fall. I looked down behind me, and it was pitch black. I grabbed a small rock, dropped it, and waited for it to land, but the sounds came after ten seconds, so falling was not an option. Herran got up from the ground, and I yelled directly:
"HERRAN! DO NOT MOVE!"
She was still and didn't move an inch. Rukk, though, got scared of me yelling and played dead on the ground and didn't even get up.
"We are on a square moving toward where there is more weight. We are stuck in a trap. Didn't you say this was a good dungeon or something like that?" I asked because we were moments from dying.
"Ah, Yes! I think it said Danger Dungeon's deathly creatures. It welcomes death."
I made a disappointed expression towards her, but it was useless. What can be worse than this? An enormous roar was heard from the exit of the room that was above us. Some put the whole entry spitting fire into our room, and my gut feeling told me it was worse than the trap situation we were in. I looked down on Rukk, who knew what he had done but kept playing dead, when Herran commented:
“I think that roar is from a three-headed dragon, but I am unsure. Maybe it is only one-headed red dragon.”
Did she compare if it was a three-headed dragon and maybe a red dragon and didn’t make any note about it being a freaking dragon?
I noticed Rukk open one of his eyes with his tongue out, looking at me for a moment before playing dead. Raising my hand towards Rukk to yell at him, I noticed my hand was on fire. I looked down at my other hand, and it was the same. Why did my powers activate like that without me knowing?
Rukk got up quickly from the ground and opened his mouth like a rat before I put my finger over my mouth to tell him to shut up. Rukk didn’t make a sound, but Herran's sword lit up in red light and started to slowly shake a little bit, with Herran noticing something was wrong. Rukk and I stared at each other because we knew the situation would worsen.