Ril ducked into the tunnel. The narrow corridor familiar from his time navigating the upper Warrens. Like all the tunnels of the Warrens it was populated by a plethora of fungal life. The shrooms gave off a soft glow that allowed the rest of the tunnel to be seen with relative clarity given Ril’s Darkvision ability.
Unlike the other tunnels of the Warrens which tended to curve often but stayed relatively level most of the time, this particular tunnel almost immediately curved downwards. After a couple steps into the tunnel, RIl paused, peering over the edge of the shaft.
It would be a vertical descent.
Ril glanced behind him as Zed sidled up to him. Neither of them made a smidgen of noise, both keeping Muffle active more out of habit then necessity. Over the last few weeks Siorraid had drilled that habit into them.
“Should we go get ropes?” Zed asked, peering down into the abyss.
“No,” Ril said, “I think we can climb down. We should be able to prop our back up against the tunnel walls to make the climb easier.”
Indeed the pit was narrow enough that falling all the way down would actually be difficult. If they did slip they would probably jam up against the sides of the tunnel, which would be painful, but not life threatening.
Ril jumped in, carelessly speed climbing down. The practice bouts with Saddie had made him almost fearless in regards to pain, and besides it was only his clone that would get injured if something unexpected happened.
“What do you see?” Zed asked, both of them waited patiently at the top of the well for Ril’’s clone to finish scouting.
“It's deep at least,” Ril said, focusing on his clone. As he had descended the flora of the tunnel had changed. Were before the walls were lined by the mycelium of the glowing blue mushrooms, as he descended different plant life flourished. Soon the blue mushrooms were sharing the walls with lichen and mosses that seemed to flourish as the environment grew more damp.
“Alright, I hit the bottom, so far so good,” Ril said, “you can go now.”
Zed began to descend down the well. Instead of following him, Ril dismissed himself and resummoned his clone down in the bottom of the well. The well hadn’t so much as ended as curved, changing from a sheer cliff to a steep incline before tightly wrapping around itself as if some giant had taken the tunnel and tied it in a knot.
The deeper they went the more life they found. Snails crawled slowly along the lichen, while insects that looked vaguely like grasshoppers chirped. Swarms of small flying insects flew in dense unmoving clouds. In silent agreement, both of them crouched down and crawled underneath these clouds. Neither wanted an early appetizer for dinner.
“It’s beautiful,” Zed murmured as he caught up. Ril slapped a bug as it landed on him. He agreed, this place was a sight to behold. Somehow more full of life than the chaos that existed less than a dozen paces above them.
Talking had become an interesting and challenging prospect ever since Siorraid had forced them to use Muffle everywhere they went. At first Ril had disabled the ability and said his peace, but after getting annoyed and complaining, Zed had taught him how to manipulate the bounds of the ability not to include his mouth.
When only his mouth wasn’t covered by the ability, Ril’s voice sounded strange. None of the deep vibrations that originated from his throat managed to make it out, so he sounded like he was several years younger than he actually was. In fact, Zed also sounded this way, and it led to a lot of amused giggling at the beginning.
They could make it so that Muffle didn’t cover their throats, but the modified voices had a strange property of not resonating loudly, but still being able to be discerned at close range. As such they decided to keep this method of communication even if it sounded a little strange.
By now they were used to the modified high pitched voices, anyways.
They skulked down the tunnel, following its chaotic twists and turns, until they reached an intersection of sorts.
It wasn’t a proper cavern, and more a collision of several tunnels. Several pillars of stone extended from the floor and supported the ceiling. Several stalactites were distributed across the room. Moisture condensed everywhere. Dripping from the stalactites in the ceiling and pooling in small pools on the floor.
All along the stone walls lichen grew richly, seemingly enjoying the humid environment. It pulsed with a blue green light and illuminated the rest of the room. Instead of being comforted by the light, Ril was reminded of the glowing orange veins that were characteristic of dungeons.
“Hey, Ril! Look over there.” Zed said, pointing excitedly over to the far side of the room.
Ril followed his finger and saw that there were three black rabbits daintily sipping water from a shallow pool. The rabbits had the typical black powdery skin that was common to all powder beasts, and the orange veins that pulsed in time with their heartbeat. Due to the rabbit’s fast heartbeat, the orange veins pulsed extremely fast across their skin, looking more like flashing lights than the gentle laborious breathing that larger powder beasts exhibited.
“Nice, let’s try awakening your Blood.” Ril said, stepping carefully across the wet room, navigating across the rocky floor with precision.
As he approached, the rabbits looked up in unison, pinning Ril with three sets of blood red orbs. He froze, a deep instinctual fear welled up in him at the near motionless creatures, the only movement was the rapid twitching of their noses.
The three rabbits looked unblinking at Ril. Their red eyes staring deep into his soul. No emotion appearing on their fuzzy faces.
One of the rabbits opened its mouth briefly, a flash of razor sharp needle like teeth appeared, before they were covered again.
Ril gulped. These rabbits were not prey.
“Aww, look how cute they are!” Zed said, carefully stepping around Ril and his clone to approach the bloodthirsty fluff balls. “So what do I have to do? Just command them?”
“Uh, yeah,” Ril said slowly, wary of the strange rabbits, “I also got my blood on the powder beast when I awakened my power.”
“Alright,” Zed said, drawing a small knife from his belt. At the sight of the gleaming metal, all three rabbits bolted, disappearing down one of the tunnels.
“Hey, wait!” Zed shouted, charging after the feisty buggers.
Ril stood there for a moment as he watched his companion disappear down a tunnel.
He cursed, then charged after them.
He vaulted over a small stalagmite, landing on his feet before rounding a bend in the tunnel. Ahead of him he watched Zed lunge forward, flinging his arm out, small droplets of silver blood flying towards the fleeing rabbits.
“Stop!” Zed commanded, as his blood fell well short of the powder beasts. The rabbits twitched, but continued their mad dash through the glowing tunnels. Within moments, they disappeared around a bend.
Zed stopped, nursing the ragged cut that he had inflicted on himself in order to throw his blood at the creatures. Ril jogged up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s alright, I’m sure we will find another beast for you to command soon.” Just as Ril said this, a bug flew right into his ear. On instinct he slammed an open palm to his temple. Whether he killed the offensive invader was a mystery, but it sure left a ringing in his ear. “What, just...why?” he said disgruntled.
“Yeah, ow. Note to self, don’t cut yourself while running.” Zed said, as he pulled out a bandage from his bag, and wrapped it around his ragged cut. As he was wrapping the bandage a bug landed on it and got smeared into the white fabric to Zed’s disgust.
“What the hell.” Zed muttered, a disgusted expression on his face as he carefully unwrapped the bandage and fished out the suidical bug.
“It’s like they want to die.” Ril chuckled, as he held the bandage for Zed. “Come on, finish this up, and we can follow the tunnel that the rabbits ran down. We can try sneaking up on them the second time around.”
Zed finished wrapping the bandage, but while he was tying off the fabric more bugs started landing on the two. At first it wasn’t terrible, just a bug or two landing inoffensively on their clothes. But soon, one of the bug swarms found them and chaotically swirled around their faces.
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“Blearghhh,” Ril sputtered, “These bugs are eating us alive. Run!”
“Why are they spluh...” Zed spit out a particularly large bug from his mouth, “swarming us?” he finished.
“Dunno, you blood maybe? Whatever the reason. Run!”
Without further prompting they both burst into a crouched run, desperately waving their arms around their heads to discourage the flying insects from swarming.
It didn’t help much.
As they ran, Ril turned around with his clone. Squinting his eyes until they were but narrow slits, he summoned a stream of Flame at the bugs. They burst with soft popping sounds as the fire smoldered over the bugs. An acrid smoke that was vaguely sweet welled up from the fried insects.
“Victory!” Ril shouted, summoning another three flames in his remaining hands in preparation for the coming slaughter.
While the fire was effective, the smoke that came off of the corpses seemed to only attract more bugs from deep within the tunnels. Waves of insects hissed and chittered, angry over their fallen comrades. The insects lifted up their abdomens to reveal glistening iridescent wings, only to start buzzing the wings with wild abandon, filling the cavern with the sound of thousands of wingbeats.
“Abort!” Ril screamed, “Run for your life!”
Zed hadn’t even stopped when Ril had fried a couple of bugs, and was already rounding the bend in the far tunnel. Without further hesitation or deliberation, Ril ran.
Ril ran with everything he had, moving faster than he ever had before. Not even during his chase with Siorraid had he moved this fast.
He ran and tumbled. Vaulting over loose boulders and skidding around bends. The full might of Telekinesis was harnessed to further propel him down the damp tunnels. Shadows reared their heads and pulled Ril along, guiding him around the more treacherous obstacles in the narrow tunnel.
It was not long before Ril caught up to Zed, with horrified eyes he pushed at the other disciple to move faster.
A shifting tide of living carapaces flooded down the tunnel. Wing beats shattered the silence. Angry clicks, hisses and chirps echoed.
Then, salvation.
Ahead, where the tunnel dipped particularly low a pool of water gathered. Unlike the previous pools that they had come across this pool looked particularly deep, its depths not visible from the surface.
“In!” Ril screamed. Without a hint of hesitation, they dived into the pool submerging themselves completely under the cold murky water.
The insect swarm passed overhead. Those that could fly at least. Those that couldn’t remained at the shore, angrily clicking but refusing to enter the pond.
Ril stole a panicked glance at Zed. He was spasmodically pushing himself deeper under the water, his cheeks distended from the massive breath of air he had inhaled prior to the submersion. The water itself was murky, their sudden intrusion having caused a plume of silt to ascend from the floor.
Ril’s clothes became waterlogged, slowly dragging him down to the depths. He helped them along with decisive strokes of course. Shifting shadows caused by the swarm, well, swarming above them was more than enough of an incentive to descend deeper.
Surprisingly fast, his feet hit ground. Looking down, Ril realized that the pond, while deep, was no more than three meters deep. Certainly not the endless sinkhole that he had expected from his brief glance from the surface. As he did so, he realized something else. This body of water was more than just murky, at the bottom where he was standing he couldn’t see more than half a meter in front of him. His hands were just almost invisible, while Zed’s form was just a vague outline.
Ril’s lungs complained softly at the lack of new air. A silent pressure manifested itself in his chest as he craved for more air.
Quickly Ril unsheathed his dagger, then used it to chop the thin strips of leather that bound the sheath to his belt. Unceremoniously he started hacking at the tip of the sheath, removing the small stud of bronze and around a centimeter of hardened leather.
Ril resheathed the dagger in the mutilated sheath and placed it in his mouth. Grasping tight, he swam over to Zed, tapping on his shoulder to get his attention. Once he had done so, He desperately gestured above them.
Zed gave one look above them where the insect horde still swarmed, and shook his head emphatically. Ril shook his head, unable to communicate his intentions without speech. Instead he poked Zed again and gestured with two fingers in the tried and true “I’m watching you” gesture. Then after another poke, and a gesture toward himself, he swam up to the surface.
Before he broke the surface, he unsheathed his dagger, holding the sheathe in one hand and tucking the dagger away into his belt. Then he placed the hollow sheath into his mouth and extended it above the water. A forceful breath out expelled the water that collected in the sheath-turned-snorkel.
It tasted like oil and metal, but oh sweet breath.
After sucking in a massive lungful he quickly resubmerged the tube, careful not to let any of the critters climb down its length and enter his mouth.
Ril looked down at Zed. Luckily, Zed had watched him, and had already swam up to the surface. Ril handed him the sheath and Zed took a massive breath, mimicking Ril’s technique.
And so for the next twenty minutes, Ril and Zed shared the dagger sheath as above them a swarm raged. After a couple minutes the horror had worn off, and was replaced by the numbing cold of the water. Ril kept resummoning his clone as sharing the tube with two bodies was already a difficult task.
Eventually the bugs dispersed. The cacophony of wings, chirps and clicks faded. With utmost care, Ril poked his head out of the water, prepared to duck down under the surface should he get attacked. Or sacrifice the clone if the bugs somehow managed to drag him out.
When no overt threat made itself visible Ril poked Zed and swam leisurely towards the side of the pool, his muscles stiff and cold from the long submersion.
He stumbled out of the pool, falling to his knees as his leg cramped. Behind him Zed had similar trouble moving after the experience.
“Note,” Zed muttered stiffly, “to, self. Don’t bleed. In. The deep Warrens.”
“Your hand’s covered, yeah?” Ril asked, panting.
“Tight as Saddie’s tits.” Zed panted, lying on his back on the edge of the pool, his ankles still in the murky water.
Ril snorted, then burst out into a full belly laugh. Zed smiled, then joined in. Relieved laughter reverberated through the tunnels. Tears rose to their eyes as the pent up stress and fear from the last half hour melted away.
“What just happened, Zed?” Ril asked incredulously, as the laughter petered out to chuckles and then faded away entirely.
“I don’t know, Ril. I really don’t know.”
“Insects...from hell.”
“Indeed.”
“Why attack us though, we have the Blood don't we?”
“Didn’t look like powder beasts. Just normal bugs.”
“Terrifying, evil, murderous, terrifying bugs.”
“The most terrifying.”
They lay there for a minute, trying to recover.
“You know we should have tried to command them. Even if they aren’t powder beasts it would be interesting to know if it works on normal animals.” Ril said softly.
“You want to go back there and cut your palm, be my guest. Just give me an hour to leave the city first. Anduin seems like a nice place from what you told me. Do you think they have bugs like that in Anduin?”
Ril snorted, “How’re we gonna awaken your blood if we can’t find any powder beasts here and even if we did we can’t cover them in blood because then we get swarmed.”
“Technically, we don’t know that it was my blood that caused the bugs to swarm. Maybe it was your flames that did it in the end.”
Ril looked doubtfully at Zed. “Let’s get warmed up. It would be bad if we had to jump back into the pool if the bugs come back.”
With a groan he lifted his torso, and began to rub at his forearm, trying to get some blood flow to the area. After the pool, he was freezing, fingers numb and his muscles cramping. Zed followed suit, with a groan of his own.
“Don’t jinx it man. They’re not coming back are they?” Zed asked, jerking his head around and scanning up and down the tunnel for any sign of more insects. Finding none, he relaxed, turning towards Ril, before he froze.
“Uhm, Ril?” Zed asked, a hint of fear in his voice. “What’s that on your elbow?”
“Wha--” Ril started, as he twisted to glance at his elbow. His words were lost as he saw that attached to the back of his elbow was a massive leach.
At nearly 20 centimeters long it was nearly as long as Ril’s forearm and twice as thick. Swollen as its entire body undulated, hanging off of Ril’s elbow. Strangely, Ril felt nothing. Not where the slug was attached to his elbow, nor the weight of the disgusting creature.
Perhaps it was the utter lack of sensation coupled with the growing cold that was spreading through his limbs that caused Ril not to panic completely.
In a daze, Ril reached over and grasped the leach at the base where its mouth was greedily clamped on his elbow.
“There is one on me too.” Zed said from the side, but Ril didn’t really pay attention.
Ril pulled on the leach, trying to rip it out of his arm.
A bolt of lighting arced up his arm, originating from his elbow, spreading from the tips of his fingers all the way up to his nose. The pain ricocheted off the tip of his nose and caused tears to burst from his eyes. They buzzed. A strange and entirely unwelcome sensation.
Only Agony Attunement prevented Ril from screaming out. Still, he convulsed, spasmodically releasing his grip on the slimy creature.
A pressure descended on Ril mind.
A smug laugh filled the space around Ril. Seeming to originate from the exact center of his skull and spreading out from there.
[I wouldn’t do that if I were you], a smug voice pealed out.
“What...hmmmm.” Zed squeaked, twitching as he recovered from his own scalding experience with pulling out his own leach.
Ril looked horrified at the slug on his elbow. Did it just talk?
A sigh resonated through Ril’s skull.
[Above you], the voice sighed.
Ril tore his gaze from the disgusting slug that was draining him of his life blood. The cold had spread up his arm and was reaching his shoulder.
He looked up, following the cave wall until his eyes locked onto a shape hiding in an alcove, hiding among the phosphorescent lichen that covered the walls.
However, unlike the lichen which emitted a dull blue green light. This being emitted bright orange light. It pulsed steadily, in time with a heartbeat. The same orange light that all powder beasts shared.
Ril looked over to Zed, and confirmed that he too had heard the voice and was staring dumbfounded at the alcove.
Within the alcove surrounded by three very dead rabbits was a black cat.
[You two are not particularly bright specimens, are you?] the cat said. Its voice pushing deep into their minds.