What Lives In The Mountains.

Weiyuans foot stomped right near the end of their ledge. The stomp echoed through the cave around him. If he did not cancel out his momentum he would have ran off into the ravine. When he looked up he could not see Xiaoyi at all. She never screamed and it didn't sound like she hit anything either.

He grabbed the torch and held it over the ravine. He looked down frantically. Did he throw her straight down so she didn't even have a chance to notice what was happening before she hit the bottom? No she would have hit the ledge first.

"Why are you looking down there?"

Xiaoyi's figure came out from the tunnel on the other side. She had a bad scrape on her arm, but she made it to the other side.

Weiyuan got up quickly and dusted off his hands and legs.

"Wow, how far did I throw you? I couldn't even see you with the torch."

"You didn't throw me too far in the tunnel. I used my arm to push off the ground so I wouldn't get so hurt and the momentum made me keep going for a bit."

Xiaoyi started to untie the rope that was around her waist. Once she was done she looked around for a ground stalactite that she could wrap it around. There were a couple small ones near the ledge but a big sturdy one a little bit farther.

"Tie it on the big one. Wait can't you put the bag loop over it and tie the rope around the other bag loop?"

"Yes I can. That was smart thinking."

She then did as Weiyuan asked and it allowed the rope to extend by another 5 feet. The rope went about 25 feet down the ravine.

"This rope is not strong so if you do manage to grip it try gripping a part of the wall before it snaps."

Xiaoyi then went next to the rope and layed on her stomach with her hand downward in case he barely didn't make it.

"I'm ready." She called out.

Weiyuan grabbed the torch and threw it over, away from the rope. He then started walking back so he could get a good running start. While he was walking back he left as if his legs were shaking a little.

'Hmmm did I land that hard on it?'

Soon he realized it was not his legs but the cave. That means that monster that tore through the ground is probably coming back. He quickly turned around and started running to the ledge.

"Hurry hurry it's coming back I can feel the cave shaking!" Xiaoyi yelled out. She couldn't see Weiyuan as he went too far away from the torch. Only the part near the ledge was visible.

Soon she saw his figure appear. As soon as it did he jumped. Behind him even without light Xiaoyi could see sparks coming off of the monster behind him as it slid through the ground as if it was a knife cutting warm butter.

Weiyuan did not make it to the ledge. He did not make it to Xiaoyis extended arm. He was about 1 foot below her with his arm extended upwards. His foot was the first thing to touch the wall and he kicked off with it. His other hand slammed into the rock wall as he grabbed onto the rope to pull himself a little closer to Xiaoyi.

Xiaoyi watched as Weiyuan jumped through the air barely being out of reach.

The monster that was behind also dared to make the jump. About 2 feet under the tip of the spike was a worm with about 50 sharp looking appendages in front of it. Once it was in the air all the appendages moved showing a mouth with rows of teeth that rotated opposite to those next to it. It was faster than Weiyuan but had no way to push off of the ground and started to plummet to the depths of the ravine.

Weiyuan managed to get a hold of Xiaoyis hand from his push off and luckily the rope did not tear.

Once Weiyuan's hand is in her hand she starts to pull him up. It wasn't that hard to do. He's just lucky they connected hands.

Once Weiyuan is up the ground shakes as the monstrous worm hits the floor.

"Wow, that must be deep. Let's get out of here in case there are more."

Weiyuan nodded in response and picked up the bag while Xiaoyi got the rope and torch. They ran to the light and they were finally out of the cave.

When they get out they realize they are not far from the forest that they saw from a distance. They were more on the right of where they were so it appears that Xiaoyi won the coin toss.

"You should have just listened to me and we would have made it here without all that mess."

"Well we did get here a lot faster because we didn't have to climb mountains. I would say risking it was worth it. We probably saved a day just to get here." Weiyuan said optimistically as he started walking.

The two of them continued walking across the mountain range hoping to see the end eventually.

"Will we be able to rest in the forest? We should be near the middle of it when it becomes night. Or if we cross through the forest we might move faster."

Xiaoyi did not want to sleep on rocks and hoped that the forest ground would be a little more squishy.

"You mean the place where the dragon could be?"

Weiyuan did not want to save a day of travel at the cost of risking their life. If they could control it.

"Pleaseeee! I was right last time. Who says I can't be right this time too?"

She fluttered her eyes and made a puppy dog face at him hoping to help persuade him.

"Fine but at the sight of anything dangerous we leave."

"Yay!"

Xiaoyi started to skip over to the forest.

After a couple of hours they had entered the front of the forest and started to make their way to the back.

As they walked past trees they noticed there were some metal rods in the trees with buckets collecting sap from the trees.

"I don't think a dragon would be able to place those. Do you think there are people here?"

Xiaoyi was a little nervous. With how strong the worm was, anything that lives in this area must also be strong.

"Yeah, I think people live here. Guess it is time for us to go back to the mountains."

Weiyuan did not know if there were traps, but knew the people were often unpredictable and did not want to risk his life for the second time today or the 3rd time this week.

"We don't know if they are bad."

"Too bad we are leaving."

"We are not bad. Who are you though? We don't have many visiting us from the surface."

A hearty voice with a low tone spoke from behind them. It was a man about 4 feet tall with a big brown rough looking beard and pointy ears.

They both looked at him with a questionable look.

"Are you a dwarf?" Xiaoyi asked hesitantly.

"Have you never seen a dwarf before? Oh wait, I heard something about new people joining the world. Wait, if you are new how do you know of dwarfs?"

He asked while stroking his beard to enhance the look of intelligence.

"We had stories of them in our world. Except most of the time you didn't have pointy ears. You live in the mountains and are good at blacksmithing."

"Having stories of something that doesn't exist in such detail. Are you sure the human that made these stories did not first come from here?"

He started to stroke his beard more aggressively while the questions got deeper.

"Uhhh I don't know. I wasn't alive back then."

Suddenly the system opened up on its own for all of them, making them jump a bit.

'Intelligent lifeforms on the new planet Habbeon have reached 30 billion.

System update under way.

System will have down time for the next 24 hours.'