?Taking the first step into the verdant tunnel that Satanya and Jahi had wanted us to scout out, Leraie and I raised our weapons and began to head deeper into the luscious tunnel, walking silently over the gravel ground that was gnarled with roots and flowers.
Glow Flis were the most abundant by far, and they illuminated the path with their soft, pale light, allowing us to see deeper into the tunnel and take note of the bend that went deeper into the earth.
Leraie focused on the path in front of us whilst I scanned the walls, floor and ceiling for anything of interest, be it ores or herbs; but, the only thing I could see was the dark grey rock that composed most of the grottos, which were then covered in moss and vines that had no significance whatsoever.
By our fiftieth step - which Leraie let know by softly tapping my shoulder once - we had begun to walk down on the slope that the tunnel had ford, which started gradual before becoming slightly perilous as it got steeper and steeper... only to head straight down for a dozen feet, causing Leraie and I to exchange a glance.
Already, we were using mana infused into the bottom of our boots to hold ourselves in place, forming spikes on the soles that dug into the rock and kept us here, so seeing a straight drop was a bit... annoying, but it was manageable.
So, we nodded and began to descend to the ground, doing so as quietly as we could manage until we were on flat ground once more, causing us to blink in surprise at what we found.
Another cavern - not as large as the grotto?- sprawled out in front of us, filled with stalagmites laden with ores and sotis glittering with gems, and to our surprise we didn't find any monsters roaming around, though we needed to verify that as quickly as we could.
Taking another step into the cavern, we looked around its periter and noticed that there were two other tunnels that connected to this one cavern, and after nodding to one another again, we split and walked around the periter towards those entrances, going to scout them out whilst also surveying the middle of this cavern.
Like we had first seen, the ground was free from most vegetation and covered in various stalagmites that were rich with materials of all kind, be it bluish silver tal, coppery tals, silvers and russet irons, and even a deep green near the middle; there was all kinds of tal waiting to be mined up, and atop so of those stalagmites were chunks of gemstones and crystals that shone with the mana inside of them.
An entire cavern of tal ore and gemstones... Anput would have a field day in here, and I wouldn't be surprised if she complained about her tail aching after walking through this field of stalagmites!
There was nothing slinking around between the rocky pillars, nothing nesting nearby or above, nothing crawling around on the walls or ceiling... it was eerily quiet, but as I reached my assigned tunnel, I realized why.
Peering into the darkness of this new tunnel, I held my breath as I saw a large amount of monsters hanging from the ceiling, their leathery wings and jagged, rough and rocky claws drawing my attention first, whilst the sight of their large blue bodies that were approximately four feet long was worrying enough.
After a good glance into the short, yet occupied tunnel, I took a step back and nodded to myself, before looking towards Leraie and shaking my head, placing a finger to my lips and pointing back towards the way we ca, getting a nod from the Demoness.
Slowly, silently, we circled around the stalagmite filled, smaller grotto and began to scale the rock wall swiftly, returning to the larger grotto and breathing a sigh of relief.
"A large amount of bat monsters were nesting in my tunnel; what about you?"
"The sa... I also got a better look at the interior, and it looked excavated out already, like these bats had drilled their way into the side of the grotto to claim it for themselves?"
I nodded, letting out a sad sigh as I sheathed my Khopesh and walked beside Leraie back into the base, many other Demons walking in pairs nearby heading to and from the various tunnels.
"Looks like Satanya and Jahi have organized everything nicely. Hopefully we'll find a path that takes us sowhere with a good fight..."
My companion just chuckled as she nodded in agreent, the two of us yearning for a strong opponent for completely different reasons; I wanted to make sothing bleed and yowl in pain for hours on end, and Leraie wanted a challenge to push her body to the limits.
We were not the sa.
Though, I feel like people would make the argunt that it was better that way; that most of the people in this group wanted to have a challenge and learn instead of tornting so unfortunate monster until it dies...
When we returned to the command table, we found that it had been expanded with a far better model that was updated properly, and many Demons were standing around listening to the orders coming from the Beliali woman and the Asmodia Heir.
Settling into the line that was leading to the table, Leraie and I listened in before stepping up to give our own report, earning a nod from the two and moving off to the side to let the next group speak, slowly getting more and more of an idea on what was around just this one grotto.
We knew it was a gigantic array of grottos going into this expedition, but hearing all the various pathways that might lead deeper into the mountains from each group was enough to give us a headache.
Trying to keep that all in mind and organize this host of Demons must have been a significant undertaking, and whilst I didn't really like her as a person, I had to admire the acun that Satanya was putting on display as she managed to do just that; organize the reports and make more and more changes to that model after each report.
By the ti the last group returned with their report, we were staring at a complex model that had so many different branching paths soone could easily mistake it for a piece of art... albeit a confusing one that 'would make you think, therefore it is art' or sothing like that...
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