A Soldier's Life

Chapter 338: Yeah, I Am Not Eating That

The chamber was covered in fine web carpets, and it appeared the spiders were trying to cocoon the entire chamber. The ceiling gave off a soft blue-gray light, like twilight. There was no way to cross the chamber without disturbing the webbing.

“The webbing isn’t from spiders,” Navek’s deep voice declared. “Though it’s out of season, that’s a blood moth nest.” We all turned our attention to Navek, wanting him to explain further. “The caterpillars construct these nests high in the jungle canopy. They ensnare birds and snakes in the tangle before swarming them and feasting on their blood. Engorged, they cocoon themselves and molt into blood moths.”

“They taste good grilled,” Maveith added with too much eagerness. Yeah, I wasn’t going to be eating caterpillars.

I stared into the room. “Are they flammable?” I asked, indicating the webs.

“I am not certain. The jungle is humid and has frequent rains…” he trailed off, as this room looked extremely dry. All eyes slowly turned to Raelia.

“If I get swarmed by caterpillars, I will be very upset.” She turned to Baldo, giving the command to stay. Raelia huffed and walked into the room, her boots quickly becoming covered in the webbing. It was an elastic web, and though she had barely entered, long shadows began moving along the carpeted webs. Raelia’s fireball formed swiftly with a sense of urgency.

When I saw the first caterpillar, I was revolted. It was as long as my arm and just as thick. The carapace was moss-green with jagged hairs undulating as its body moved quickly along the webs.

Navek hissed, “Those are massive. Blood caterpillars shouldn’t be larger than my finger.” I didn’t comment that his goliath fingers were much larger than mine. “Be careful,” Navek yelled unnecessarily as Raelia was just five feet away from us. “Those spines are poisonous!”

At that, Raelia released her fireball without waiting to charge it to its maximum. As it flashed forward, I instantly recognized our mistake. Time seemed to slow for me as I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around Raelia. The webbing on my boots made it difficult for me to move, but I reached her and shielded the elf’s body as all the webbing ignited in a burst of flame. I had just enough time to set an air shield in front of us.

The fireball erupted in the center of the room, instantly igniting all the webbing. While the fireball’s explosive effect would have been manageable, the sudden ignition of all the webs quickly expanded the air.

The resulting explosion was many times more intense than the original fireball spell. I shielded Raelia as we were blown back like a bullet out of a gun into the goliaths and griffin, my air shield only mildly protecting us before it was destroyed. My head slammed into one of the goliaths, and then the wall—or maybe floor or ceiling—I couldn’t tell as we tumbled down the corridor. Disoriented, I took a few deep breaths to find oxygenated air.

I slowly released Raelia from my bear hug, and she coughed. She immediately stood, looking mostly unharmed. “Baldo!” she rasped worriedly and continued coughing for air. I focused back on the room to ensure we wouldn’t be overrun with caterpillars. The room was burning, and dozens of the worm insects writhing on the floor as they burned. The smoke was being drawn up, at least, and not filling the corridor.

Maveith was helping Konstantin to his feet, and I reached for my head, my helmet gone and my hand bloodied. I was still in shock, waiting for the pain. Foggily, I channeled aether through my healing spell form. I had a severe concussion that was immediately washed away, and my mind became focused. Baldo was in worse shape, his wing at an unnatural angle, while Navek, who had been in the back, looked mostly unscathed.

I picked up my helm. “Injury check?” I yelled. The ringing in my ears had cleared, but I guessed the others were not so lucky.

Maveith’s voice replied first, “Just got knocked around a bit. Konstantin has a cut on his neck, and we are applying the healing paste.” Concerned, I marched over to the pair to see a long diagonal cut they covered with the paste. It wasn’t very deep, so he had been lucky.

“Cut myself with my blade,” he growled bitterly. “Having a goliath flying at me made it hard not to injure both of us.”

I leaned in to inspect the wound. “Well, I can see why you hate shaving,” I said. He didn’t seem to like my joke, so I left him to check on Baldo. Raelia was kneeling beside the griffin, who was chirping softly, disoriented.

“Fractured wing,” Raelia said, concerned while stroking him. “You should send him away until we have extra healing potions for him.” Baldo was gaining lucidity, and his chirps were getting louder and more pained as the shock wore off and the pain ratcheted up.

I stroked his feathers reassuringly and had Raelia move away. I reassured the confused griffin, “It is going to be okay. Next time I see you, you can have all the raw meat you want.” Just as his attention drifted to me, Baldo vanished.

I looked to Navek, who sat with his back against the wall, waving me off to indicate he was fine. The webs had burned away by now, and only the bodies of the caterpillars smoldered in the room. I walked in and saw the reward chest at the center of the roughly fifty-foot square space. I counted twenty-three smoldering sausages—and I call them sausages because that’s what the smell reminded me of—grilling meat. The collector was in my hand, and I was testing it on the first charred worm.

Light wispy aetheric essence pulled into the collector, forming a minor nature essence. The optical leaves turned inside the small sphere as I rotated it. Any magical essence was valuable, and I moved to each body as the others entered the room, looking a little worse for wear. Konstantin made for the chest with Raelia, and I collected twenty more minor nature essences. My two unsuccessful attempts might have been due to the caterpillars being burned too much.

Both Maveith and Konstantin had the nature affinity. Maveith, unsurprisingly, refused the essences, but Konstantin took half of them appreciatively. He would receive a very minor benefit from them, and I don’t think it would improve his spell form much. I wrapped the remaining essences together and sent them to my space. With these ten minor essences and the apex nature essence, I could eventually unlock the nature affinity and learn a spell form once my core sufficiently healed.

Navek was cutting open one of the smaller worms, and yellow goo oozed out. He mostly spoke to himself, but loud enough for all of us to hear. “It needs to be cooked a little longer.” I think the hunter was trying to be funny, but his ever-serious nature made the delivery fall flat.

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I guessed Maveith had been serious when he said they were edible as they worked together. Maveith and Navek set up a grilling station for the bugs with my thermal stone. Navek explained how they were normally prepared: you removed the head with your knife and then grilled the husk, burning away the poisonous spines. When it was finished, you cracked open the husk and devoured the flesh hot. It did smell good once they started grilling, but there was no way I was eating one.

When they finished cooking the worm, my companions sampled the flesh, each spooning steaming morsels from the cracked carapace as if they were at a family restaurant. I noticed that Raelia still felt guilty about Baldo. Once we acquired a few additional healing potions, we would be able to heal him, and I reassured her as much. Maveith handed me a chunk of caterpillar flesh. “Try it, Eryk, you’ll like it. It has a pleasant nutty taste.” I still passed on eating the worm.

The chest had contained twelve large silver coins and a large gray cloak made from caterpillar silk, according to Navek. The cloak was passed around, and I didn’t feel it react to my aether, so I doubted it was an artifact.

Raelia commented after thoroughly inspecting it. “It appears to be just a heavy cloak. Probably durable and waterproof. This is a more typical dungeon reward.”

“Probably not fireproof,” Konstantin muttered in a rare attempt at humor.

Ultimately, it was decided that Konstantin would receive the cloak. I had three cloaks, one of which was the manticore cloak that Maveith crafted for me. Raelia possessed her Ranger’s cloak, and both Maveith and Navek also owned manticore cloaks.

I surveyed the room using my earth speak before we followed the only other exit. I found it intriguing that the ceiling of this chamber featured long vents that extended beyond my range. They were too small for the large caterpillars, but perhaps that was how the dungeon fed or repopulated the room. I shook my head no at the group to indicate that I hadn’t found the dungeon core.

We walked down the well-lit corridor to the next room, which I suspected would be a safe room. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we had indeed reached a safe room, featuring an archway covered in a flat, oily surface. The group exhaled in relief upon discovering the exit from the dungeon. The entry room was small, and the first thing I noticed was the lack of writing on the walls. Typically, delvers would leave messages on the walls indicating what to expect during the delve. Was this a virgin dungeon? Was that why it was acting unusual and not following the rules?

There were no benches to rest on, so we made ourselves comfortable on the floor. “How long till the goat maze resets?” I asked Maveith.

“Half a day,” he replied immediately.

Once everyone had rested for a time, I asked, “Who wants to try the exit?”

“It should be two of us,” Konstantin announced. I nodded as we thought the dungeon had a limit of four. “I will be willing to volunteer.”

Maveith volunteered next. “I will go as well.”

Konstantin nodded to the goliath. “We will explore and return in five minutes. If we don’t come back, only send one person after us. If that person doesn’t return, exit the way you came in.” The calm and rational way he spoke unnerved me somewhat. He was casually mentioning that they could be killed after exiting the dungeon.

I chewed nervously on my cheek as they prepared to leave. If we were going to destroy the dungeon, would we even need to test this exit? But then again, we actually didn’t know how to destroy it once we found it.

When Maveith and Konstantin stood side by side and walked out together, I got butterflies in my stomach. My best friend in this world and my harsh mentor disappeared into the surface. Navek dropped all his gear, holding only his spear, prepared to be the third to exit. Only a minute had passed, but he turned to me. “If I don’t return, promise you will do everything you can to fulfill my wishes.”

I nodded, but it was unnecessary. A moment later, Maveith walked through the oily portal. He coughed a little and was covered in dirt. “There is a small cave beyond. Konstantin thinks a rock side blocked the entrance. We moved a single stone, and it partially collapsed.”

“Where is Konstantin?” I asked worriedly.

“He should be right behind me,” Maveith said, turning.

I didn’t wait and exited the dungeon. I ran into Konstantin on the other side. A thick dust cloud hung in the air, lit by his glowstone. He was coughing as he talked. “Only four can enter,” he confirmed. The passage was maybe six feet deep, ending in a wall of stone rubble. I sent out my earth speak and took a moment to examine the feedback.

“It looks like the tunnel clears in about forty feet,” I told Konstantin. “I don’t know how far it is to the surface or if we are even near the surface or just deeper in the Endless Dark.”

He coughed a little more before replying, “We tried to move a stone, and that wall collapsed.”

“Can the dungeon hear us out here?” I asked as I covered my mouth and used my purify spell to clear the dust from my lungs.

“I don’t think so, but I do not know for certain,” he rasped uncertainly.

I nodded and carefully selected my words. “I think our plan may be flawed. Navek doesn’t understand the advantages that the dungeon can offer his people. I don’t think he will understand they can clear the manticore room repeatedly to prevent the releases.”

Konstantin covered his mouth with a cloth and thought for a moment before replying. “My thoughts on him parallel yours.” We were both carefully examining the unstable chamber. “Perhaps Navek would want to take a bit of a rest,” Konstantin offered. I knew what he meant. Navek was set on destroying this dungeon, and I was getting the sense he would be uncooperative if we decided not to take that step when we found the core.

“I do need to store someone, or someone will be trapped here. Do you think I should ask him or just do it?” I questioned.

“I will talk to him,” he replied gruffly. “It is best if he chooses willingly. I am certainly not going to volunteer.” I rolled my eyes at the old scout’s reluctance to enter my space.

“Okay, send him out here if you can convince him. I’m going to try to clean this up a bit.” I pointed to the collapsed section of the chamber. Konstantin left me his glowstone, and I carefully moved all the large, loose stones on the floor to my available storage. It was quickly getting crowded in my space again.

I placed my hand on the oily surface and tried to enter the dungeon. It felt smooth, cold, and unrelenting. It was my first time being rejected by a dungeon, and I could imagine a group of five trying to enter, with the fifth walking into the unyielding wall.

When no one emerged after fifteen minutes, I started to feel anxious. I wondered if Konstantin was having trouble persuading Navek. What would I do if he didn’t come out? My worries were unfounded, as Navek finally appeared beside me, looking tense. I was curious about what Konstantin had told him to convince him. I was sure Maveith or Raelia would have been the first to volunteer.

“What now?” the hunter asked stoically.

I delayed answering, thinking some hard work would get him into a better mental state. I pointed to the collapsed passage and said, “We will need to eventually clear the passage. I will be moving the stones into the dungeon with my dimensional space. It’ll take a few trips, but working with someone here will be safer. Move those stones into a pile, and I’ll collect them.” I gestured toward three sizable boulders he would need to roll. We worked for fifteen minutes, working up a sweat, and our breathing got strained before I announced we were done. The oxygen was getting thinner. “Are you ready?”

“How long will I be…” he began to ask, but then he vanished, and my aether bottomed out. I waited until I could reactivate my slow aging and mind fortress before cautiously touching the dungeon entrance, the glossy onyx surface inviting me back.

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