What Is Done

Chapter 10 - In The Dark

Essaerae and I switched a glance. We approached the hole slowly. Within the hole, Sellion lay in a broken bone stance where his limbs had been all jumbled up. He had fallen twenty feet down. The blackness surrounded him and we could barely see him. I could see the different shades of blue of his shirt with light from the sun shed on it. His spear reflected light, too. It had stabbed the space between his split legs.

Sellion opened his eyes slowly. He grumbled, "The earth must hate me or something." When all he could see was inky blackness, he freaked out for a moment. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and we saw his crystal-like violet eyes begin to glow. Sellion hadn't noticed where his weapon had landed.

"Who would have guessed there'd be a massive sinkhole under Cärrish?" He stood up and brushed his shirt off. "Mystery solved."

"Are you alright, Sellion?" I called down.

Sellion looked up to us. I stood in his line of sight, in the line of the sun. "I'll live, Märeē Laverne."

"Is the relic down there, perhaps?" Essaerae recommended he look until we figured a way out of the hole for him.

I saw his violet eyes flicker, reflecting light. "Nope. There is a tunnel leading out, though." Sellion went over to it. "This passageway leads somewhere else."

"Then it is a mine and not a sinkhole?" I questioned under my breath. Sellion still managed to hear.

"There was no mention of mines underneath Cärrish in the scripts I read in the weeks of preparation." Sellion spoke loud enough for us to hear as he disappeared from their line of sight. "Well, this is clearly a Dwarven mine."

"How can you tell? Essaerae made sure to be loud for Sellion to hear her.

"Because I can't stand in this tunnel unless I want to scrape the flesh off my back." A part of me thinks he would enjoy it. Sellion inched further down the tunnel in a crouching position.

"A Dwarven mine underneath an Elven town? How odd." I contemplated the things I knew before jumping into the hole as well. "I would be willing to bet there is more to the picture that we are seeing." My eyes adjusted to the dark. I could see Sellion getting farther down the tunnel. The small area Sellion fell into was a cavern room with one exit, other than the one Sellion had just created. It looked like it had been mined clean of all precious ore. I picked up Sellion's spear. "You forgot something."

"I got my fists, don't I?"

"Come on, Essaerae! We are going exploring!" I called out like a child who was about to play pretend with their friends. An old piece of me reappeared. A pure want for adventure. I had often spoken of traversing with excitement in my personality when I was a princeling.

"It's dark down there..." Essaerae hesitated.

"What do you think our darkvision is for?" Sellion shouted to her. "It's not like any other race has it! Put it to good use."

Essaerae reluctantly jumped into the hole after us. The elves of Cärrish took no notice to the creepy visitors disappearing into an even creepier hole in the ground. Essaerae's gold eyes lit up. She followed us into the tunnel. I held onto Sellion's spear as I knew he loved the thing more than he was willing to admit.

We crawled for a long time. I accidentally kept jabbing Sellion in the behind with his own spear. He wasn't too happy about it. Eventually he grabbed it from me and tucked it into his belt, resting it against his back. We came to a cave chamber large enough to stand in again. We could hear the chittering of bats on the ceiling. At our feet, there was a mining cart track. A dislodged cart was a few meters away. Sellion demanded we help him move the dislodged cart back onto the track. Then we could use it to explore without having to walk.