Policeman and the cat

45 - Aether harvest

Silence, slowly swaying giant fir trees, fog, even if it was summer and the clock should show barely past 12, it was dark like in the cloudy days just before the winter solstice. The place had an unpleasant humid, cold air to it, everything was overgrown with moss, including the cave opening nearby.

Ian took out his phone, but-- no reception. "Where are we?" he asked.

"Ireland," Adrian replied.

So it wasn't past 12, but near-evening or evening.

"Do you know anything about dungeons?" Jayden asked to Ian.

"No," Ian said. 

Ian knew there were dungeon explorers and that dungeons were a source of income, but about the insides or any rules - nothing.

"The thing with dungeons is that almost all things in them attack you," Jayden said. "Regardless if you cross eyes or not, or if they are weaker or stronger than you - they will attack. It's not like being in the city with most astrals outright ignoring you."

"Dungeons are also full of traps, but the first three floors of this tomb should be cleared out of those, so at first we just walk behind and you two go eat the place empty," Aubrey said as she started walking towards the cave opening, like in the library, there was a shimmering gray film over the entrance, but it let them all through.

Brielle sighed. "I never expected we'd use Ian as a vacuum cleaner on our first dungeon raid together."

"Newbs are always fighting all the stuff on the first floors," Adrian said.

"I think the choice of the dungeon is more of an issue," Aubrey said.

The cave seemed empty at first, the walls were overgrown with moss and the air seemed even colder and more humid. As requested, Ian and Nelly moved to walk in front as they headed deeper in. The four behind them didn't converse anymore, for now, the mood was ripe for a jumpscare, but-- uhh--

It just didn't feel very scary to be here.

Rather, it started scenting delicious and Ian and Nelly both noticed, starting to follow the scent, and soon after - chomp, they bit into the sides of a huge black centipede astral.

"We forgot to--" Ian and Nelly both got out a honey flask each starting to infuse aether in it, thanks to forgetting to empty out their reserves they now overdosed. This astral was a lot like Clestromantis, but rather than being neutrally aligned it was dark aligned - making it more delicious.

There were more trails of the delicious scent so the two happily searched all corners and ate them all up. The light was dim, but enough to see well with their eyes.

"Why are we keeping silent?" Jayden asked, in the background and Aubrey reminded him that Grunmantis react to sound. Not that they needed to worry about that now.

"So, normally, you keep quiet and go to another floor?" Ian asked, as Nelly was sniffing for the next one.

"Yep," Brielle replied. And then as Ian and Nelly were 'vacuum cleaning' the first floor, they told that usually, before going to dungeons, people studied up the floors and got through the explored places as quickly as possible. In this dungeon, the first three floors were like that. The first floor was infested by Grunmantis, even if all got wiped out, one always popped up in a few days and if it wasn't killed, then it would nest and new ones would hatch.

Ian asked what they ate because this floor was empty except for the Grunmantis themselves. And turned out there were white fist-sized caterpillars in the moss on the walls that let out light - this floor was so dim because Grunmantis ate them up.