Keron
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Chapter 59 - Cave Diving
🕑 Added 2024-04-04 20:44:01 +0000 UTCAs the realisation falls into place in her mind, so does a new flood of knowledge. Information flows in, filling holes of awareness in her mind and reinforcing her fundamental understanding of physics.
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Mechanic Knowledge learned: Basic Fields
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Quest completed: The Four Fundamental Forces
[The Four Fundamental Forces]
[Rank:] C
[Description:] Learn and understand the four fundamental forces of physics.
Requirements:
-Learn 4/4 Forces (Complete)
Rewards:
-Blueprint: Universal Transmitter
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As the new knowledge settles into place, a fresh blueprint appears in Emily’s mind. Her jaw drops open in disbelief as she feels the information filling her cortex, and she quickly pulls up her system blueprints to confirm.
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[Blueprints]
Tier 1:
{Please focus here to expand}
Tier 4:
-Universal Transmitter
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[Universal Transmitter]
[Type:] Ultra Long-Distance Broadcasting Array
[Tier:] 4
[Rank:] C
[Description:] A high power data transmitter designed to broadcast information across dozens of light-years.
[Effect:] When activated sends a programmed message across all open transmission bands.
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“Tier four,” she mutters quietly as she stares at the window.
Reaching up, Emily massages her brow as she processes the unexpectedly dense information.
Capacitors, resistors, actuators, circuit boards. There’s so many ways to use electricity I never even considered! I can see why steam is the lowest tier possible. Hmm, I’ll need more space and infrastructure to make most of this. I can’t make anything this small without better tools.
Sighing, Emily stands up and heads back into camp.
“I can think about this later. I can’t make anything here anyway.”
She returns to watch with Enzo and Ivor, excitedly showing off her new space magic by casting switch a few times. The clearing is attacked twice by a few small groups of beasts as the sun starts to fade, but they are easily dealt with, and Emily is soon left alone on watch as the others turn in. She settles into the now instinctual pattern of earthen detection and infra-sight.
However, after only half an hour, she feels movement heading towards them from within the crack. Slightly nervous, she moves towards it, dropping down onto the slope and walking forwards into the abyss below, leaving the last rays of the moon above. The movement grows close enough for her to make out the approaching enemies’ shapes in her stark thermal vision.
Emily sees three small humanoid creatures, with hunched backs and long arms scraping along the floor behind them, making their way up the slope towards her.
Ugh, groglers.
Her brow falls into a scowl at the sight of the grim monsters, a word far more befitting than beast. Emily clearly remembers reading about them in preparation for alchemy. Their eyes are a semi-valuable magical catalyst, but they themselves are known for their brutal killing methods, choosing to rip their prey’s limbs apart before feasting on their entrails.
I just have to make sure they can’t get close.
Calmly, Emily weaves a spell in her mind, and flying lightning appears from a dazzling magic circle curled around her right arm. With a practised motion, she whips the dart forward, her eyes tracking the motion of her target in the dim light of the flickering weapon, and her spatial awareness faintly alerting her to their position. The dart punctures the throat of the first grogler. The other two glance at their fallen brethren, before hissing and scrambling forwards on their small yet surprisingly nimble legs.
Before they cross half the distance to her, Emily has already pulled back the dart, curving its wires around her body as she redirects it and sends it sailing back into another foe. As the final grogler charges onwards, Emily doesn’t bother retrieving the dart: instead, she simply tosses the wire off her arm and takes a step back. Though she doesn’t see it clearly, her spatial awareness flares and lets her feel as the grogler swipes for her, missing entirely and grabbing the loose wire.
Instantly, a spark of lightning tears out of the wire, lighting up and immobilising the monster. Emily shivers at the sight as she quickly moves forward to drive a Claw through its throat before it can recover. Glancing down into the cave, she pulses earthen detection just in case. Certain nothing else is close, Emily quickly moves through the grogler corpses, choosing to use the fast-fading heat from their bodies instead of a light spell to save herself from the sight of them.
She decapitates all of them, before kicking their corpses back down the slope into the unknown and climbing back up to the camp. By the time her watch is over, the collection of grogler heads next to her has grown to ten, each head housing six to ten grotesque glassy white eyes with no eyelids to hide them. She leaves the heads behind at the entrance to The Waters and moves to Ivor’s tent to wake him.
He climbs out to greet her as Emily casts a small light spell, floating a wisp of light above her hands to communicate with.
“The cave has groglers.”
“Shit,” Ivor signs back with a disgruntled look on his face. “So, night attacks now?”
“Yep,” Emily confirms with a sad nod.
We got lucky that there aren’t many nocturnal beasts on the outskirts of The Glade. These caves are going to be a nightmare for watches. We may have to switch our system.
“Good luck. I left heads outside the crack. Wake people if you need help. Watch your mana closely.”
After he agrees to her advice, they part ways and Emily heads to her tent to rest. She spends the rest of the night breaking apart the universal transmitter blueprint into its small components, slowly solidifying her understanding of them and gaining ideas to implement in her own designs.
As dawn breaks and the camp slowly comes to life, Emily leaves her tent, feeling refreshed, with both her cores ready for action. She heads to the centre of the camp, where everyone is gathered around a small fire Dante is tending, and sits down next to Oscar.
“You want to switch how watches are done, don’t you?” he asks the moment she sits down, before she even has a chance to speak.
“Yep. You talked to Enzo and Ivor already?”
“I didn’t need to: I saw the heads,” he responds with a grim look.
Emily raises a brow at his unexpectedly strong reaction.
“Were you not expecting groglers?”
“Nope. This is a bad sign.” Oscar pauses speaking as the carriers bring around some freshly cooked ocelax, only continuing after they leave. “The Salvia family haven’t sent an expedition to this entrance in around five years now. But, two years ago, we did sell a Guide Pose to one of our allied families, the Poinsettias. Their expedition never made it back. Not a single survivor. We were hoping it was just incompetence that got them killed, but seeing groglers here when the last successful expedition here never saw them? Not a good sign at all.”
“Oh well, I guess things just got a little more interesting,” Emily shrugs. “It’s not like we can’t kill them.”
She fixes Oscar with a grin which he returns after a few moments.
“Let’s start with better night watches from now on. How about switching to two people at a time: one with the ability to scout; and one who can create light?”
“Sure. I don’t need anyone else on my watch though.”
Oscar frowns at her and opens his mouth to argue, but she raises a hand to stop him.
“I talked to Callum yesterday and finally made a breakthrough.” She closes her eyes and manifests space. Opening her eyes again and looking at Oscar through the distorted reality between them, she continues. “One of the benefits of finally understanding space is an increased spatial awareness. I can basically see anything close to me with my eyes shut. Fighting in the dark is easier than ever.”
She drops the manifestation and waits for Oscar’s shock to fade so he can respond.
“Okay, as long as you’re certain you’ll be safe. I already feel like we’re making you do too much.”
Emily shrugs off his concerns and they continue discussing the best options for night watch as they finish eating. After everyone finishes, they begin breaking camp, and Emily joins Enzo and Ivor as they wait at the entrance to The Waters, with Callum and Cian nearby, removing eyes from the disgusting grey grogler heads.
They wait in silence, all staring into the darkness below with varying emotions. Soon, the entire group is packed up and waiting behind them once again, ready to brave the depths of the unknown in the pursuit of knowledge.
“Right, everybody, today we finally enter The Crystal Waters,” Oscar says just loud enough to be heard, but not shouting now that the sound barrier has been taken down. “As you’ve already seen, we’ll probably be running into groglers quite quickly, so keep your guards up and be prepared for anything as usual. This is our target, so we will start taking breaks to gather materials. Please alert everyone if you spot anything worth gathering. Let’s go!”
He nods to Emily, and she turns with a grin, hopping down the small ledge and stepping into the pooling darkness below. They slowly move down the solid stone slope, uncomfortably placing each foot forward into the unknown, since the ground is obscured by fog. They quickly find themselves in darkness as the light fades unnaturally quickly. Only a hundred metres in, Emily can no longer see the fog swirling around her ankles.
She raises a hand to signal for light before realising it can’t be seen and lowering it, glad for the cover of darkness to disguise her blunder.
“Light!” she calls back quietly.
She hears a muttered chant from the centre of the group before a spark of golden glamour floats to sit above their heads, illuminating the group along with a couple of metres ahead and behind them. Emily frowns slightly at the cut-off.
Thought so. Just like the fog from outside is a magical phenomenon that’s hard to clear, the darkness in here is too.
Nonetheless, she starts moving forward again. Their steps echo out into the cave, returning with the faint sound of dripping water and mixing with the hiss of their quiet breaths. Emily’s steps fall calmly in rhythm, fully confident in the footing before her due to her spatial awareness, but her teammates’ footfall is irregular: most nervous about not being able to see the ground, and a few even tripping occasionally on imperfections in the rock below.
After ten minutes of walking, they come across a split in the path, with one tunnel continuing straight, and the other branching off to the right.
“Which way?” Emily asks Oscar as they halt at the impasse.
“I don’t know,” he answers to her surprise.
She turns away from the front to glare at him. He raises his hands placatingly with a helpless expression on his face.
“I told you the last successful expedition here was five years ago, right? Well, the tunnels down here move over time, so I have no clue if the path they took last time will take us anywhere.”
“Of course they do,” Emily says with a tired sigh, turning back to the front. “Then we just pick one and run with it, right?”
“Yep. They both continue down.”
“Straight ahead it is then.”
They continue in a straight line, ignoring the branching path and walking for just over ten more minutes before they run into a three-path split. Seeing another choice so soon, Emily shrugs and chooses a random path, confident that her perfect memory will allow her to retrace their steps whenever she chooses.
Unfortunately, just as she goes to step on the path, Oscar taps her on the shoulder and gestures towards Ivor. He’s standing with a hand up, asking to pause, with his eyes shut and a dull brown magic circle glowing around his feet. After a few moments, he opens his eyes and starts signing a message frantically.
“Six groglers on the left, four ahead, three on the right, and five behind.”
“Shit, why are they coordinated?” Oscar complains while directing everyone to battle stations.
The whole group moves back slightly, setting up in the tunnel before the paths in front of them split. Emily and Dante confidently stand at the front, bracing themselves and preparing for the incoming foes.
“If only this cave was narrower, we could wipe them out in one go,” Dante laments quietly after finishing his preparations, a large red glowing circle floating before him.
“Clearly, you need more explosive spells,” Emily comments dryly as the groglers step into her infra-sight.
“Of cou-“ Dante is cut off as Emily releases the magic circle she prepared, sending a bolt tearing through three of their oncoming assailants.
Dante looks to the front as well, frowning as he can’t see the monsters yet. Trusting in Emily’s judgement, he releases his spell anyway, a flurry of flaming petals shooting forward and bombarding the darkness before him. The bursts of red light up the tunnel, giving the group glimpses of hunched grey forms, staring through glassy white eyes as they scurry towards them.
Two of the monsters at the front of their charge collapse, overwhelmed by fire. The remaining eight attack on, but a wave of dark glitter bursts from Cormac, standing behind Emily, making them stumble as their energy quickly fades.
Emily wastes no time, finishing a conjuring of flying lightning as her teammates hold the groglers back. She quickly begins cutting down enemies from the safety of Oscar’s barrier, and the monsters soon fall to the flashing electric blade, a flurry of flaming petals, and a few orbs of water that burst their skulls.
After the front calms down, Emily glances to the back of the group and sees five dead groglers sticking out of the fog, half-submerged in the ground by a spell from Enzo, either scorched or cut to pieces.
“I didn’t think we’d have to deal with more groglers this morning,” Oscar mutters quietly as they take a moment to rest and harvest the spoils of their fight.
“Why not?” Emily asks curiously, watching Cian popping out another eye.
“Well, after you killed some last night, Ivor only had two more attacks, and Enzo one. I thought that’d cleared out those near the surface.”
“Fair play. I’m not complaining though. These things are easy enough to deal with as long as you don’t let them get close.” She kicks an eyeless corpse aside, walking back to the front of the group. “I’d be happy to wipe out the lot of them.”
