Under the mountains in the forbidden forest, a strange group walked down a dim-lit tunnel. Two humans, one robbed and the other in poor armor, a foxkin wearing a worn green tunic, and a dozen ratlings. Challenging their language differences, the robbed human tried to communicate with a ratling through mimics and sounds. Every time the blond woman made the slashing and thrusting movements accompanied by her sound representation of sword attacks the ratlings shivered.

“Fight, fight.” Iris repeated.

“Fy, fie…” The ratling tried to copy her.

Allegedly, the ratlings should be taking them to the valley that Rick saw last time, or at least that’s what their attempt at communication indicated. And the mage was using the time to teach their guides a few common tongue words. Fortunately, the rat-like beings seemed genuinely interested in learning everything she could teach.

“Urgh, Urgh… Beasts, beasts.” She mimicked the grinning expression and clawing beasts before saying the common tongue word used to name them.

“Fie… bes?” The ratling asked after thinking for a while.

“Yes! Fight beasts.” She confirmed excitedly with a word that her guides already knew.

“Yiss, yiss. Fie bess!” The small being jumped around in celebration before explaining the words to the others.

“Fie bess, fie bess.” They shouted several times.

Iris smiled and looked smugly at Cyrus, who responded with an annoyed snarl. The trio was shocked by how fast the ratlings learned, which made them wonder why such an intelligent race was so primitive.

Suddenly, the ratling’s excitement was replaced by silence and visible apprehension. Then, the adventurers realized that the end of the tunnel was already in sight. They might look silly, but the ratlings knew very well how to behave in the face of potential danger. And soon, the tunnel came to an end revealing a beautiful and untamed underground valley.

The first thoughts that came to their minds were: ‘How did such a lifeful scene appear underground?’, and ‘How can the life here survive without sunlight?’ However, the answer came faster than they expected. Their eyes tracked the clarity of the valley, which was levels higher than the dim light of the tunnel, all the way to the ceiling. Nested in the tangles of roots were countless shining… objects. The trio couldn’t identify if they were crystals, stones, or another material because they were lit too bright, like tiny suns.

Either way, it was obvious that they kept the valley ‘alive’. There was pure air, a river for abundant water, and its own little suns for light. Even if the valley didn’t offer a passage to the other side of the mountains, it would be worth exploring.

While Cyrus was lost in admiring the wilderness beauty, Iris and Hakon didn’t forget the potential lurking dangers. They quickly scanned the place around them, noting the beasts on sight and landmarks that could hide ambushers.

The ratlings, on the other hand, didn’t seem interested in moving out of the tunnel. Which was, in fact, a relief for the trio who didn’t want amateurs around during a fight. A quick discussion resulted in a hurried but solid plan; they would avoid moving deeper into the valley and focus on targeting the weakest close beasts.

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They had decided on two potential targets, a yellow spider that was hanging a dozen meters above them and an armadillo, which they hadn’t seen but hoped would be residing inside of a nearby hole, just like Rick’s information. Both weren’t within their reach, so they would have to count on attracting the beasts through special means. The spider could be targeted by throwing stones, while the armadillo would need to be smoked out of its lair, if the beast was really living in that hole.

By the rule of the easiest target, the trio picked the spider first. While Iris started placing the flammable grass in a strategic arrangement, the boys gathered suitable stones. Less than ten minutes later, they were ready to try the attack. As the strongest, Cyrus was tasked with hitting the spider at distance. Hakon would, as usual, stay in support behind the two with his own stock of small stones for emergencies, while Iris would stand just a few meters ahead, ready to ignite the traps.

The plan was pretty simple, the spider could either flee or attack them, or maybe just ignore the attack if it didn’t hurt it, though that didn’t seem very possible. Cyrus picked the first stone, aimed it, and threw it without much preparation. The attack hit a few meters left and caused the spider to stir slightly. The warrior picked another one and aimed while using the first throw as a reference. This time, the stone was much closer but lower, and the beast started moving.

Cyrus threw the next one immediately knowing the beast would definitely change positions. The attack hit above the spider, seemingly scratching its body and destroying some threads, which made the beast hiss and swing to the side. The warrior didn’t wait for it to settle down and threw two other stones in succession. He got better at aiming, but only one stone hit the target. The spider continued hissing as it fell a couple of meters.

Multiple attacks continued raining, hitting more around than the target, until one took down the hissing spider. The angry beast, now on the ground, clicked its jaws in a sign of threat to the trio. Cyrus unsheathed his sword and started swinging around to match the beast’s threat. It hissed again, this time louder and more threatening, before running towards the warrior.

The warrior stood in a daze for a moment, shocked by the odd appearance of the beast that was now close enough to be seen clearly. The spider wasn’t exactly yellow. The color was actually light that was passing through its almost transparent hide. They had never seen or expected such a thing since most spiders are attuned to dark essence.

“Ignite!”

Fortunately, Iris reacted in time to light the fire around the beast and make it halt its attack, or else Cyrus would have been caught unprepared. The warrior then moved forward and tried to slash the beast through the fire. The attack almost fell through but was stopped last moment by a glowing yellow thread.

The spider shot two threads in succession, one to block the attack and then another to tie Cyrus, which made the young man stumble back struggling to untangle himself. The beast started probing the fire, launching bursts of thread into it, and ended up hitting some grass and scattering the fire. With a path of retreat, the spider hurried to escape.

“Flare!”

The mage poured wind essence into her fire cantrip while matching it with a half-made visualization. As a copper mage, Iris wasn’t ready to cast a proper spell, but after Anne’s guidance, she started studying double essence casting, and now, she was halfway through learning her first spell. The wind essence, in a rough attempt of merging, made the fire burst. And Iris just had to draw the bursting into her target to make the failed spell into a violent attack.

The spider hissed in agony, desperately trying to weave the fire away. Because it was attuned to light, the burst wasn’t enough to finish the beast. But before it could escape, the now freed Cyrus delivered a killing strike in the creature’s back.

In their first fight with a bronze beast, the trio realized how outpowered they were. Yet, they didn’t feel discouraged. On the contrary, they were now much more eager to learn from the bookstore.