WtR~ Adventures in Another Realm

Part Four: A Nest of Horrors

It had been a week, nothing of interest had happened. We hunted, ate, traveled, slept and then repeated as needed.

"Ug, what kind of quest is this?! We haven't run into one mage or wise wizard or oracle, or anything like that!" Nox huffed, clearly annoyed that this adventure seemed to be on a strike and was refusing to adventure, leaving us with boring old and frustrating traveling. Which included to perks of much bushwhacking!

"I'm sure it'll get interesting soon." Pan soothed the sparrow in the palm of his hand that had been startled by Nox.

"I'm tempted to summon up illusions of horror monsters just to make this slightly more interesting..." Nox mumbled under their breath.

"Please don't..." I myself was a little bored, but that was better then scared senseless in my opinion. I was sure things would get spiced up soon enough anyways.

Dragon had long since taken to being quiet, and rarely ever said a peep. It was amazingly easy to forget that the solid shadow was there, but Iris seemed to have taken to keeping them company.

The relic loomed closer as the sun set on our dull day, it's long shadow stretching out over the field of trees that we were traversing through.

For some reason, I hadn't spotted it before when I was in the talons of Pan's falcon, Iris said it was magic, but it was huge!

It inspired awe inside of me as I gazed up at it once again. A tower piercing the clouds, twin three eyed dragons carved from stone twisting around it and three rings rising up around the entire thing. I was sure I could see runes carved into the stone, even from so far away, even though it was all crumbling and the plants had taken up residence. Who wouldn't be in awe?

That's when adventure chose to come back from strike, bringing along a friend known as horror.

Before we could even react, the ground had split open underneath us and we were plunged into an abyss with little more than a few yelps of surprise.

It then occurred to us, or at least to me, that I was falling to my doom. I choose to deal with that fact by screaming.

My arms windmilled about in a useless fashion and the wind whistled in my ear as the abyss yawned wide before me, rushing closer and closer. Fine, it was darkness, but it sure seemed like it was getting closer!

After I had screamed my lungs out was when Iris chose to save me from my date with death in the dark with her purple magic spell casting powers. I said thanks anyways, better late then never, as they always say.

As I floated alongside my companions on Iris's circular platforms, I became acutely aware of skittering noises and the image of thousands of large spiders with somewhat human faces came to mind. Some one told me of them one time, but I was too busy having a mini panic attack in the dark to remember who.

As my heart fluttered and my hands began to sweat, everyone shared a look. The way we came was closed, meaning down was the only way to go. Down into the nest of horrors.

And no. Iris couldn't have floated us along; we didn't know how far it was and if she ran out of juice, we'd be toast without our most powerful party member.

So down we went, my heart rate increasing as the scuttles got closer.

Luck seemed to be favoring Nox, much to our dismay, as things got much more 'exciting' when we landed and a spider that was a near perfect match to what I'd been imagining lunged out of the shadows.

I yowled and summoned my sword, slashing off one of it's fangs. Acid sprayed outward around us. Iris summoned a shield to keep it from burning us into puddles of goo. I silently thanked the gods for such a powerful comrade.

The monster, now fully enraged, screeched. All the scuttles paused. Then they started towards us in mass.

I wanted to blame Nox for such bad luck, but I doubted they would hear or even care if I grouched at them as they whooped and took down the first monster. They loved being scared. I remembered that much from a chat with them a while back. I guess that was a good thing at the moment?

"This way!" Dragon yelled, taking off down a dimly lit pathway.

It was a bit difficult following a shadow in the dark, very difficult in fact, but we made do. I had good eyesight and so did Nox, Iris had her magic and Pan seemed to be faring fine as well somehow. Dragon's glowing eyes helped a little too.

As we chased after the shadow, monsters converged around us. Spiders, scorpions, dark blobs with claws shifting around with seemingly no form, all of them in sizes they really should've not grown to.

Webs and bones littered the ground, squishing and snapping as our feet pounded on the cold stone. We were in a labyrinth, I didn't know how Dragon was finding a way, but I hoped it was the right way.

Masked demons peered at us from high above, riding the monsters as if they were some kind of pet. They laughed. It was chilling, and it spurred us to move faster.

I could hear my companions' labored breathing around me. I hoped for their sake and mine, that we would find a way out soon. Nox was still somewhat excited, but even they realized that we were going to die if we didn't make it out.

I heard Pan trip. For a moment, I thought he was going to die. I had to go back for him! Then Nox was there, carrying Pan bridal style, chuckling breathlessly. I felt guilty that I hadn't been the one to save Pan, but I had no time to dwell.

More and more bones seemed to be gathering underneath us, held together by the webbing of spiders and monster spit. Dragon was just up ahead. Though the rushing of blood in my ears, I vaguely heard them say we were almost out.

Then we were stumbling up cracked steps. Something crashed behind us. No one looked back, there was light ahead. We tumbled out the mouth of a cave, back into the light.

"Mother is near..." Dragon peered over us with worry. "We will be facing her soon. I just hope we can get your memories in time..."