The room behind the doors looked just the same, a giant fountain in the middle of the cave, 3 corridors and many stalactites. What was different was that this time it wasn't empty as two groups of ten people sat in corners and talked or trained. The only sign of the massacre that took place here were many new graves near the entrance and the dirt, despite many hours of washing, painted dark red by the blood. Arath took out his Light Crystal and looked around at his new companions. They had stern faces and looked ready for a fight to break out. And they were partially right.
"Hey look it's the two cowards!" One of the girls laughted at Arath's group.
"They even work under an NPC! That's the next level of being a loser." Said another.
The group ignored the mocking comments and entered the left corridor again, climbed the stairs and started to explore.
"What did that girl mean saying that you work for an 'NPC'?" Arath asked curiously.
"Well, she was just being rude. Some of us decided to call you 'NPCs' because this whole situation looked like a video game at first and this is how you would be called if that was the case." Carl explained.
"Is it a negative or positive thing?" Clara looked confused.
"It depends honestly. In their mouths it was definetely an insult."
"I see. It might sound dumb but we need a name for them. They, sure as hell, don't deserve to be called 'Heroes'. Any ideas?" Arath proposed.
"The summoned bitches" Ben exclaimed out of the blue.
They all agreed for it to be a temporary name until they woudl come up with something else. The original citizens of this world didn't get the reference to a certain video game but seemed enthusiastic nonetheles. With that out of their minds they ventured deep into the dungeon looking for enemies. The enormous size of the Tower allowed over hundred people to be inside of it and not even once run into each other.
"I can see a few traces of humanoid creatures." Beniamin announced when they arrived at their first fork in the road that day.
"Where? How many?" Arath approached the spot pointed by the other man. Indeed there were very faint traces of human-like feet. "It's blind ghouls. We should hunt them down, they like to collect valuable stones because they are very sensitive towards fluncuations of magical energy. Also some of them have very precious crystalised brains. We could collect their venom while we are at it." Arath decided.
"I think there were seven of them. They were headed left." Earth elementalist explained.
"By the way how did you notice that? Even I couldn't see anything until you showed me the exact location."
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"My special ability. I can't explain it, but I seem to have a sort of connection with the earth. It gave me a weird feeling that I should look exactly there. Strange, isn't it?" Clara and Arath looked confused and they could not get what he was talking about but didn't dig deeper.
They took the left turn and followed the trails left behind by the ghouls. The corridor was becoming more and more tight forcing the group to walk behind each other. Ben in the front, looking for the path enemies took, Arath second, making sure no surprise was prepared for them, next Carl, ready to vanish into thin air at any moment, and last but not least Clara, protecting the rear, were supposed to guarantee the safety of the team. The search didn't take long, in fifteen minutes they noticed a dim light of magical crystals on the horizon and the silence of the cave was occasionally interrupted by low growls.
"We are almost there, Ben can you harden your body?" Arath started preparations for the fight.
"A little bit, I'm no Body Elementalist but I can cover myself with a layer of hardened dirt."
"Great. Ben and me will tank them and engage in close-quaters fight. Clara and Carl look for openings and attack when you see a good opportunity."
"Why don't I sneak past them and attack from behind?" Carl was eager to show of his capabilities.
"Are you deaf or stupid?" Clara asked. "Unless you haven't heard that properly let me repeat it for you. They are blind ghouls. Blind. You can hide in the shadows as much as you want, they wouldn't see you anyway."
"Oh." He was a little taken aback by agressivenes of the girl. "Sorry."
"Think twice before getting us killed." She just said and turned around.
The room was ten meters wide and five meters long, it's walls were fully covered by shining crystals and a giant stalagmite in the middle of the cavern had piles of other vauluale stones around it. About twenty pale white creatures were standing idly or walking around not aware of the impending danger. They were meter and a half tall with a huge hunchbacks restricting their movements.
Arath picked up a stone, threw it to the other side of the room and slowly approached the herd of enemies. The creatures, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, jumped on their feet and rushed towards the place the stone had landed. Using this opportunity the man stabbed one of the monsters in it's back and slashed another. Meanwhile, Ben took out his mace and attacked the biggest one, giving Clara and Carl an opportunity to finish it with two strikes. Surprised ghouls needed a while two come to their senses but once they understood what was going on, they attacked back fiercely. Arath thanks to his experience danced between their claws and teeth and avoided getting hit, while Ben did his best to hold the horde back and not get crushed by the numbers. One piece of hardened clay fell after another making him more vulnerable with every second. Arath warned the team to be careful and try to not allow enemies to hurt them even once as the ghouls' poison was deadly in bigger doses, but it was just impossible for the inexperienced Hero. Clara tried to help the teammate but there was little she could do. Enemies lost their heads or bleeded out on the ground rapidly but the fight was only getting tougher. Weakened and hurt Earth Elementalist started to back away but at that moment Arath arrived and surprised their enemies from behind. He wanted to fight as many enemies at once in order to experience what had happened during the fights with Clara and that Body Elementalist.
Finally Ben was given a second to breathe and repair his armor. Once done with that he jumped back to the fight and killed another monster. Clara and Carl helped him with the rest which left only twelve more ghouls alive. All of them were focused on the humans' leader who had the time of his life. He succeeded. Thanks to this fight he gained partial control of his weird new ability.