Chapter 13 What lies in the darkness?

Ursatanti isn't that Far from Dhumpus and only takes about half an hour of walking to reach. The main problem with it is it is located on top of a big hill and that makes it difficult to reach.

Some legends say Ursatanti was built on top of a mountain that was cut flat by one of the mighty gods, but those are just myths. It is, at most, 100 meters higher off the ground than most cities. It is a good strategic point and a great place to sit down at and build a fort, which some wise merchants have already done.

You walk for half an hour along the road and finally arrive at the place where Ursatanti is located. The pathway upwards is quite steep and takes you a good 10 minutes to get up and reach the town's gates.

You look around and see no guards are at the gates and there is a ❌ Mark on the 5 meter tall wall. You have learned of warning signs, but you have never heard your master mention anything about a red X.

You decide to investigate and enter the village quickly and then move on. You enter Ursatanti and go into the streets.

As you walk around the streets, you notice a distinct lack of people and noise. Almost everyone is extremely quiet and there are only a couple of people around you. They all have bags under their eyes and are distinctively pale. They are mostly brown skinned, but they have a pale texture to their face.

Their bodies are shaking and there are even some residents collapsed near the street and the gate. "What is going on here? Has someone cursed this place?" You walk up to a resident and decide to ask him a few questions. You manage to get a good look at his face and your heart almost stopped beating.

He has small green spots on his skin with a little bit of mucus near his mouth. You couldn't see it from afar, but now you notice that everyone has this same appearance. You hear distant coughs and groans of pain and quickly rush out of the village.

"This village is riddled with plague! How did a new outbreak occur? That last plague was 50 years ago and it killed off a lot of middle Shamutanti's residents. Another outbreak can't be allowed to happen! I need to quickly fix this idiotic sign and go find a medical professional to cure them and make sure I don't get infected as well!"

You luckily didn't come into contact with any of the citizens and haven't become a carrier of the plague. If you had gotten a bit close, you might have contracted the disease and become a carrier of it.

You need to find a medical professional to inform about the potential plague outbreak. Such an important task shouldn't be sidelined. What's the point of getting the Staff Of Kings back if there is no King to wield the staff? You quickly rush down the slope of Ursatanti and follow the road to the mountain side near it.

You run until you feel tired and then slow your pace. You don't want to exhaust yourself before you even reach the next major town. Dhumpus might be close, but it doesn't have any medical professional, as it is a small farming town with some smalltime physicians. You need to find a big town or a small city right now and the closest one is Direitanti.

It will take you a couple of hours to reach that place, but you can probably make it. The sight of the poor people of Ursatanti laying half-dead is good enough motivation for you to push yourself and reach it faster. You run for half an hour and collapse near a small river. You have lost 2 stamina from the continuous strain. You have 14/16 stamina left.

"I need to keep going, but I am too tired. I need to stop and allow my self to rest. Wasting my energy like this will only result in me getting killed when I come under attack." You need some rest from the huge strain you have put your body through. Pushing yourself this much will only end up harming you.

You sit on a rock to rest a bit and notice a weird metal tower-like item sticking out of the ground. You are resting, but your curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to investigate.

You look up the metal contraption and notice it has come with a spiral staircase like teeth in top of it and a wind up box's key on to of it. You remember this contraption is called a drill and is used in mining operations to dig up holes and dig deeper into the ground.

The key on top of it is used by 2 strong people to rotate the drill and the spiral teeth dig up the ground. You observe it carefully and wonder what such a contraption is doing here. You haven't heard of any new mines opening, other than the goblin mine you visited before.

A rusty orange color dominates over the entire drill, as if it has been left out here to be corroded by the wind and rain for months. "Could there be a mine in this mountainside? You look around and become stunned when you walk a little bit more towards the river.

You see a small, 1.5 meter tall, cave entrance on the mountainside. It looks to be a special place meant for some kind of short creature. It doesn't take you long to realize who exactly it is meant for. "Goblins! What are those goblin up to this time? Last time they were mining and looking for iron and gold emeralds. What were they digging in this mine?" You slowly make your way across the river and get closer to the mine's entrance.

This was the shallower part of Simsosa, so you managed to cross it without much difficulty and didn't even get you pants wet. You cross the river and approach the entrance.

The mine's entrance is a little small for a man of your stature, but you can squeeze in if you try hard enough, but there are no lights in the mine. The last goblin mine had lines of lanterns on it that made sure you could see better. Goblins might have eyesight better than a cat in the dark, but light is still a major necessity for sight.

The fact that there are no sources of light indicate it is empty. You look at it and decide to check the stars and see if there Are any spells that can help you out with the exploration of this mine. You look up into the stars and see the constellations FLM, HOW, CHK and SUS.

You decide to first check out if there are any living creatures inside the cave and cast CHK. You weave the stellar energy of the CHK constellation into the CHK spell and a sphere of stellar energy rushes away from you and spreads in all directions. The sphere bounces off all things around you and the stellar energy return to you.

You feel 4 different objects around you. Three of them are inside the Simsosa River while the last one came from the mine. You are stunned. You expected for the mine to have either hundreds of goblins or none at all. What would 1 creature be doing there?

You wonder if this is a trap or if it is a creature that needs your help and decide to cast SUS and check the danger around you.

Your breathing suddenly intensifies. You clutch your heart, as if waiting for a heart attack and fall to your knees. A genderless voice tells you in a voice, which cannot be mistaken for anything other than absolute horror and fear. "RUN!"

Primal fear spread through your body as you begin to sweat and can barely breath. It feels as if a heavy weight has been placed directly on your lungs and is forcing them to compress, never to extend again.

You clutch your chest in an attempt to stabilize yourself and barely manage to calm yourself after a few seconds. You return to normal and wipe away the sweat on your forehead. "What exactly is inside of this place? I could feel its size and it is gigantic. It should be 7 meters tall minimum and 5 meters wide. I have only ever heard of such Giant creature in old Mythology."

The fear you felt is still inside of your heart and you wish to run away this instant, but you can't. This beast is a threat to all of Shamutanti Hills and Analand. Your master has told you tales of legendary beasts that can destroy entire cities by themselves, but you never believed them. What if this is such a creatures? What if it can destroy all of Shamutanti on its own? You need to investigate this and find out what is going on.

You need a light source and luckily FLM is available. FLM is quite powerful and can provide a lot of light and can even be used as an emergency attack measure. But before you use FLM, you collect the three other things your CHK spell showed you. You go to the river and pick up 3 magical pebbles.

Pebbles and rock that have Stellar energy in general are blessed and cursed by the POP constellation. A rock having stellar energy in general means it is resistant to the wears of time, but it can also absorb more of it. Too much stellar energy with no where to put it completely overloads the rock and causes a massive explosion. This is the POP spell.

Casting a spell like that on a magical rock can cause an explosion 5 times bigger than the pebble/rock used. Sorcerers in the old times of war used to catapult such boulders over to enemy fortresses and then detonate them. This is one of the easiest and most commonly known spells to use, but its destructive force stands near the top of all spells.

You quickly store those 3 magical pebbles away and return back to the entrance of the mine. You quickly cast FLM and a small flame appeared in your right hand. You have lost 7 stamina from casting spells. You have 7/16 stamina left.

You crouch down and get close to the mine with your fire lighting up the way in and you advance slowly. You squeeze yourself into the mine and can finally stand at your full height.

Your flame flickers for a second and you see the light from your flame reflect off of some kind of surface to your right. You bring your flame closer and your mind almost went blank from horror.

Rows of teeth as big as your fingers and a mouth long and wide enough to completely swallow you in one single bite is to your right and it is about to bite off your body's entire top half.

Panic feels you as the dread you felt from earlier rushes towards you and you stare at the giant mouth about to swallow you in panic. You are about to be swallowed, but you manage to regain control over your body and extend your right hand towards the beast's mouth. "Eat burning stellar energy, vile creature!"

The fire of FLM rushes towards the beast and you hear a pained roar. The beast jumped back and you quickly rush out of the cave. You forget all dignity you have and crawl out of the mine rather than walk out. What's your dignity worth when such a colossal creature is about to kill you?

You crawl out and start running before you trip over and fall down face first into Simsosa. You pull yourself up and sit down to calm down. "W-what was that! What was that creature?!" You try calm calm yourself, but you can still hear the pained roars coming from the mine. The creature was clearly hurt by your spell, but those blood curdling roars don't sound like a beast crying out for help. They sound more like a wild demon screaming from anger and wishing for revenge.

A second passes and you see the mountain physically shake and hear a loud sound similar to the one you heard when the troll you killed fell onto the ground. a couple of seconds pass and you think it is over, but you hear another such sound and dirt begins to fall from the mountainside.

Five more such huge collisions came afterwards, each making the mountain shake harder than the last. The shakes only lasted a minute in total, but it felt like an eternity to you.

The creature must have calmed down and decided to stop. Your heart is beating at an abnormal rate and even you can't calm yourself. Tears come down from your eyes and you feel as if you are dying. You quickly pray to your guardian constellation and you feel your heart steady itself and your body relax.

Your body calms down and your muscles soothe themselves. You even feel a bit stronger than you were before. You look up into the stars and notice your guardian constellation has changed. Your current guardian constellation is the tiny mouse constellation.

The feeling of fear you felt before has finally disappeared and you are at ease. You try to remember that creature, but your heart begins to speed up again and your breathing becomes heavy once more. "Forget it! Thinking about that vile creature will only cause me more pain. At least I can rest easy knowing it isn't a dragon, as my fire attack managed to harm it, and that it can't escape the mine."

You calm your heart and quickly get back on your way to Dirritanti. You have more urgent matters to deal with than a beast locked up inside a mountain.

A.T. Yup, I just gave Analander PTSD. SUS spells and HOW spell are similar, but they work differently. HOW gives you an answer to the question on your mind ATM. SUS is like you do what you are suspicious about and then send your thoughts and feelings back in time to before you did it. It is like rewinding time in the original game. Just a quick explanation to make things more clear on why there are two nearly identical looking spells.