10 Chapter Ten: Trapped

Zak slowly walked over to the collapsed tunnel, he poked at it absently, "We'll have to find another way out" he said disgusted, "If we tried to dig this away it would take a few days and there's the risk of causing more collapses."

The man then proceeded to pick over the corpses, he pulled a few small dirty pouches from the remains and emptied their contents into his hand, he sifted through the junk that poured out and revealed three dirty silver coins.

"These things aren't usually worth killing unless someone is paying you for it, but they do have some valuables " he lectured, Dayn looked at the other junk now in a pile on the floor. "Why would they keep rat tails, or old teeth?" he asked perplexed, "Trophies most like, they'd probably eat the rat tails, these creatures are clever builders but that's where it ends" Zak replied with a shrug.

Having no way to backtrack they headed into the tunnel ahead, it widened as they moved through it and became less of a crawl more of a steady walk, the floor smoothed out and could see work where it looked like stalagmites had been chipped away by tools. Dayn was thinking there must be a civilized race up ahead that could show them the way out, Zak put a hand on his shoulder.

"We should move more slowly, not all civilized races are friendly" he said ominously, they came to a cavern with four diverging paths, the northbound tunnel looked more wild, the east and south both looked regularly worked.

Zak considered for a moment, "We should head south it might wrap around and lead back out the way we came," Dayn wasn't one for directions underground so he agreed. The tunnel was easy travel for a while, Dayn couldn't shake the feeling they were going further down though, after several hours they came to another fork, they could continue south or head west. Both choices weren't ideal both paths were wild, the worked path ending at the divergence.

"We could backtrack.." Dayn said perplexed, "That would be hours of travel with no guarantee there wouldn't be something nasty waiting for us" Zak replied.

They continued down the southerly path which opened up to a large cavern, Zak wasn't taking any chances this time, he thoroughly searched the tunnel for any traps before he allowed them to advance into the cave.

"We should consider setting up camp, there's no concept of time down here but we've been travelling for hours it must be late evening by now" Zak reasoned, Dayn had no arguments he was mentally and physically exhausted.

The chamber was large, natural rock pillars held up a stalactite covered ceiling, moss and luminescent fungus grew aside and up the massive columns, the constant flow of water could be heard in the distance. Dayn went to explore looking for a good site to set up camp, he traveled towards the sound of rushing water and came to a fair sized river.

The water side was illuminated by more of the magical crystal formation they had encountered earlier, grass grew alongside the formation along with some edible plants Dayn recognized. He called out to Zak without raising his voice to much for fear they might not be alone, water sources were well used on the surface and he feared the same may be true underground.

Zak considered the site chosen by Dayn for a moment, it could be dangerous, creatures often traveled to water sources, the presence of the crystals could prevent anything overly dangerous from approaching however. Magical beasts wouldn't go near the stuff so if a fight did come to them they wouldn't have to worry about any mystical powers, the grass would be nice too, better then sleeping on hard rock.

"Good eye, this should make for a decent camp" Zak praised, there was a spot in between the crystal and the solid rock wall that would keep their camp hidden from anything passing by. They found a shallow area and crossed the river keeping their packs above their heads, the current was strong but they made the opposite shore with only a minor mishap.

Dayn almost lost his footing when an unknown force collided into his leg, "I think there are fish in this river" he said perplexed, "How do they survive so deep underground?" "There's a fish called a Quipper that can survive in any aquatic environment" Zak replied. "They're a predatory fish so I doubt it was that, probably some loose stone or debris" He instructed, Dayn rolled his eyes.

"Listen carefully this could be a profitable profession for you someday, good adventurers make a lot of coin and if famous enough can be hired by nobles as weapon masters" Zak said.

It didn't take long for Zakary to set up camp, it was pretty well concealed behind the lucent formation, "We'll have to make do with only small fires while here, to much light and it'll give us away." Dayn understood, as long as the keep the light low enough that it doesn't glow more brightly then the rock around them they could remain unnoticed, "Should be enough for a warm meal at least" he said mostly to himself.

Zak decided he'd take first watch since he only needed around four hours of sleep to restore himself, whereas Dayn was still young and unaccustomed to long treks. He set himself up on the edge of the crystal hoping it would hide his body heat with the own faint traces of heat it gave off, most underground predators hunted with infrared vision so hiding your temperature was important while camping.

A few hours had passed and Zak was starting to doze off when he heard noise, it was voices but they weren't speaking in the common tongue, he thought for a moment then recognized it as goblinoid. He was able to roughly translate the conversation goblin was more brutish then common and had over a dozen words for cruelty.

"Boss getting soft, hunting fish" the first spat in annoyance. "We should be killin!" another said, "Find some rough dwarf or sweet elf to carve into fleshy bits" "None of that!" spat a third, "Only elves we be findin down here are those dark ones, you'd be gettin their blades afore you even got close."

A voice boomed out behind them and Zak noticed an orc step into the light, this wasn't your typical brutish orc, they were a new breed that had only been around for a hundred years or so. "You questioning the Warchief!" it yelled kicking one of the goblins to the cave floor, "I hear this kind of talk again and I'll drown you little wretches in the river!"