Rodney tips his noise in the air sniffing about Ownlog stands beside him growling “What do you smell.” She ask.
“dead fish, cinnamon and butter, maybe a hint of garlic with a splash of vinegar, and black magic, what about you Ownlog?” Rodney explains.
She pulls her hooked swords from her back “battle, blood old and sour staining this place with evil. Souls where lost here, and the dead come back looking for what they left behind. Rodney steady your blade and ready your magic Hades awaits.” Ownlog bares he fangs lusting for the fight.
As the team dives into the crevasse at the pick of Elec quickly they find the cold heat of the mountain has locked in the scent of death. Corn grips her gut with one hand and her muzzle with the other struggling to hold herself up after tacking the first whiff of unsanctified air. Rodney bite his tongue swallowing hard. Ownlog growls and breaths deeply of the stale earth Ownlog mumbles “just like home.”
Corn and Rodney spend a moment nearly carrying each other, Rodney hacks “what is down here again?”
“A stone of healing. It will be protected by those who failed to find it in the past” Corn recaps
“we have nearly died three times so far, maybe the stone was never meant to be found.”
“I am ready for death, if you are not I understand. Go with Warwing.”
“you have a family waiting for you.”
“and they will be protected. If I do not find the stone, you will go to Graywall and tell them I fought bravely, I have many daughters also: Salt, Butter, Garlic, Cream, Mint, maybe if I don’t come back one of them will make you happy and you them.”
“I fight by your side. Your children deserve a mother. Draw your bow.”
“Thank you Grate and Powerful Rodney.” Corn set her hand on his noise then touches her muzzle to his.
Much of the inside of Elec seems to be coated and smooth steel, strange inscriptions adorn the walls and phrases mostly worn written in Huma mark the passages. Corn tries reading some of it but has little luck understanding the meanings “Hi, Volt.” She points out one passage “In, Fire, Star.” She points to another as the find a vertical shaft leading down the caverns. “In, Ploy, Own, Lee, Main, Ice.” She points at the next phrase she can see.
“when we get back to Graywall Keep, you and I should go to the school, I’ll help you study, become a real Weaver.” Rodney encourages Corn.
Corn points at one last sign “three triangles. That is the symbol of the healing stone.” Corn moves to the door.
Rodney sniffs about then call “Stop! Red powder.”
Ownlog looks to him as does Corn “Red Powder?”
“Corn, shoot your bow at that door.” Corn nods walking backwards, she lifts her bow and fires in arrow. The arrow burst into flames and fire spills form the door momentarily after being struck. Corn hides under her Cap and Rodney pulls his arms over his face “my sister and I use red powder in a number of our spells, a small amount of it flashes in struck, a lot of it on the other hand makes that happen.”
Once the smoke clears the room starts to fill with eyeless winged Koblolts. Ownlog barks and runs at them she, slashes and stabs her way into the fray. The monsters scatter dazed and confused that the blast didn’t kill and cook there food all at once. with the loss of only a hand full one monster finds a stone in his pocket that flashes with a blinding white lite and the lot flee form the Darkling knight.
Ownlog slashes and claw fiercely at the air for some time still looking for the monsters. Corn knees on one of the fallen monsters looking at it. She looks back to the others “this isn’t a ghost.”
Rodney joins her “well it is no Koblot.”
“I think this used to be an Unpine.” Corn strip the monster looking it over more closely: long ears that it can flatten along its back, a fuzzy prehensile tail, a pouch on its belly, and mostly flat teeth.
Ownlog ask “Unpine”
“Tree Koblolts, they were like us years and years ago. They left to upper world some hundred generations ago. They grow wing, and carry their young in these pouches on their stomachs. The only thing wrong is the eyes. The eye are big and round, on the sides of the head, they only eat tree nut.”
Rodney looks to her “I think these ones have a different delicacy in mind.”
Corn nods “we are lucky to have Ownlog here or that might have gone most unfortunately.”
The team walks into the collapsed room on past the door. There they find a thin platform leading across a large and hallow room with pillars seemingly a hundred feet tall made of steel and water growing from the floor. Ownlog looks at Rodney after removing her mask understand they are far enough underground that she can see again “this place was built by the Huma, what was it for do you think?”
Rodney shrugs, “some holy place I think, why else have all the divine writing.” He then turns to Corn “Where would the healing stone be?”
Corn looks over the side of the walk way down into the pits of the room. “Down there I think.”