Chapter 6: Chapter 6: The Edge

Resisting the urge to head straight for the gurgling water I could hear in the distance, I instead turned left and followed the wall of the cave. The water was running, which meant it had to run to and from somewhere. If I stuck to the walls of the cavern, I would hopefully come across it, and would have the advantage of more light and one direction that enemies couldn't sneak up on me from. I already knew there was at least one fanged wolf still alive nearby, so no reason to give it any unnecessary opportunities.

The brook hadn't been all that far from the entrance last time; I'd simply been moving very slowly due to the darkness. At least on the way. On the way back I was faster, and I'd cleared the distance in around half a minute. That led me to hope that the cavern wasn't as big as it looked from only the distant light sources. Alas, despite my hopes, the wall continued for a very long way, and I followed it for a full ten minutes before the floor suddenly ran out.

I peered gingerly over the edge. Yup, that was a long way down, and it was a completely vertical cliff. No way could I climb down there. I couldn't see the ground at the bottom, given the darkness and the depth, but there were light sources of various colours stretching off into the distance. This cavern was apparently huge, and the bit that I'd walked into was just a small plateau. Some of the light sources I could see were moving, too; there was stuff down there that wasn't plant life.

A particularly large cluster of lights caught my eye when they started blinking out, starting from one edge, but as more lights vanished, it twigged that they weren't switching off, but being blocked. Something was flying between me and them, and as it eclipsed more of the light cluster, I could make out the silhouette of a finned creature, presumably flying unless the lights were under water. I wasn't sure which option would be weirder; anything that could fly would normally have wings rather than fins, but anything that far underwater shouldn't be visible from here.

In the near darkness, with only points of light visible, it was difficult to get a proper sense of scale, but at minimum I was looking out over kilometres worth of landscape. Which would in turn imply that the flying creature was a couple of hundred metres... Would that make the light cluster a settlement of some sort? From their arrangement, I could bring myself to believe I was looking at structures and streets. Was there civilization down there? I thought I'd wished away all people, so if that was a town of some sort, what was living in it?

It was a mystery that I was unable to solve for now; there was no way I'd be able to build myself a ladder with the materials I had. It was possible there was already a way of getting down further along the cliff, but I didn't want to walk along it, lest the next pouncing wolf push me over the edge.

I walked back the other way instead, passing by the crevice that led back to my safe little cave, and continuing onwards. This direction didn't extend so far, and I soon hit a corner, which I dutifully followed. This time I had much more luck, and soon found the inlet of the brook in the form of a waterfall cascading down the wall. I couldn't see the source. Perhaps this wasn't a wall, but another cliff, and the waterfall was falling from an even higher plateau.

Putting my exploration aside for the moment, I stopped to drink, sucking down the refreshing, cool water and greatly appreciating the lack of poison tolerance level-ups. So, now what? The wolves had turned out to be pretty wimpy now that I had some equipment, and I'd come out on top even dealing with three at once, but there was still at least one of them out there.

I didn't need to go anywhere for food; the walls here were covered with beetles, so I could just stab one whenever I was peckish. Perhaps I could eat the wolves too? I might even be able to cook them; this cavern was so large that I'd have no qualms about lighting a fire. Again, my lack of any sort of survival training reared its head. The plant matter in the tree room was probably enough to burn, but how I was supposed to get it started, I had no idea. No, it was best to forget cooked food for now, and stick to the beetles. I doubted they were nutritiously balanced, but I was likely to be hitting the reset button often enough for that not to matter.

What I was missing most right now was a method of carrying the water with me. Without that, I wouldn't be able to stray too far from this brook. My shell scoop was okay for small amounts of liquid, but not for a supply of drinking water, especially since I'd have to constantly be careful not to spill it. None of the materials available in the tree room would help me either, unless I suddenly got a lot better at weaving.

I decided to continue following the wall, tracing out the remainder of the cavern's shape, or at least the accessible part of it. The three walls and the drop that made up this area formed a rough rectangle, a fifteen-minute walk along the long sides, and five minutes along the third edge. My walking speed was slower than normal thanks to the uneven ground and my lack of proper footwear, but that still must have made it almost a kilometre in length. And that was only this upper section; adding in what was at the base of the cliff, this one room was humongous! This was a lot of area that I was going to need to search for my missing wolf.

I was pretty sure that the wolf was on the inside; just like the horned beetles in the tree room, I'd found no plausible method by which wolves could have entered this cavern. There was another crevice opposite the one that led back home, but it was every bit as narrow, and wouldn't have fitted them. There might be another entrance away from the walls, or they somehow climbed the cliff, but I was considering the possibility that the whole cave system was made just for me, and the monsters had been created in their assigned places. That would also explain the circular and rectangular rooms, which would be unlikely if they were natural.

I applied a new layer of moss to my shield, then spent the next few hours criss-crossing the cavern, hunting for anything of significance. For such a large space, it was remarkably uninteresting. Unlike the murder tree's room, there was no ground vegetation here, which in turn meant no beetles. I did find the wolves' lair, which was essentially just an outcrop of rock in the middle of an otherwise featureless space. The only way I could tell the wolves were using it was all the muncher remains strewn about, their shells showing obvious fang damage.

Also the fourth wolf, who attacked me immediately when I set foot in the area, apparently willing to defend its home to its death. Despite the lack of a wall to brace against, with my earlier experience fighting them and their uncreative attack pattern, I was able to easily skewer it when it leapt, bringing an anticl...

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No, don't even think it! I spun around, thankful to find the area remained silent, and a complete lack of another pack of wolves standing behind me.

I found nothing else of interest while exploring the room. It was literally just a large, empty space. Seemed a bit pointless, but from my broken health bar, I already knew whoever or whatever had built this place didn't really know what they were doing. At least the far off starry ceiling looked pretty. I could come back here if ever I started getting claustrophobic and wanted to pretend I was laying under a starlit night sky or something.

With no threat of an attack, I walked the edge of the cliff face. It was sheer along the entire length, with no way of getting down there. Even if I had materials, and managed to put together a long enough ladder or rope to cover the distance, I doubted my arms would hold up for long enough to climb it. The base of this cavern remained inaccessible for now.

That left the other crevice, which must be my way forward in this adventure. I crept along it, finding that it soon opened out a little, wide enough for me to walk down comfortably without having to walk sideways or scrape against the walls. And that was when the cobwebs started. Great. After beetles, wolves and a carnivorous tree, now I had to deal with spiders?

From the size of the cobwebs and thickness of the strands, it was obvious that their manufacturers must be every bit as oversized as the beetles. I couldn't see any of them, but I could see the occasional mummified muncher caught in the webs, one of which was still struggling, so it was obvious they were around somewhere. These webs were not mere decoration, and the lack of spiders must be because they were somewhere out of sight.

Keeping my eyes as much on the ceiling as the ground to avoid any chance of me missing whatever was making these webs, I continued to creep forwards, poking at the webs with my spear occasionally when I needed to clear space to pass. Even with my spear, they were tough to snap. Actually, given their strength and flexibility, these webs might be good material for improving my equipment. Some of them were sticky, too. I could use them to make a grip for my spear, and maybe better cord than I'd made from bushes. But that needed to wait until I'd found the actual spiders. No way was I going to risk one of them sneaking up on me while I was collecting a web.

It was slow progress. Most of the webbing was on the ceiling in one giant construct stretching the full length of the corridor, but that was comfortably above my head, and the threads were sparse enough that there couldn't be anything hiding up there, so I could ignore it. What I couldn't ignore were the denser webs that stretched the full width and height of the corridor, which I needed to painstakingly poke holes in before I could pass. Given the size of the webs, I had no intention of attempting to simply walk through them; I'd just end up getting stuck myself.

After far too much time working my way along the corridor, I reached a junction of sorts, my tunnel entering a small hexagonal chamber from which five other passages branched off. Each of the six arched entrances were covered by thick webs. That was unpleasant; getting in would be fine, but as soon as I entered the chamber and started dismantling a web to get back out, I risked spiders being able to sneak up behind me. I did not want giant spiders behind me. I didn't want them in front of me!

The chamber itself was very interesting; it was the first room I'd seen that looked unnatural in ways beyond the shape, with the walls constructed from large white blocks and the domed ceiling a bronze-coloured, metallic-looking material. In the centre stood a cracked and worn winged statue, looking like some sort of angel, with arms outstretched, palms facing upwards. Its head tilted slightly back, causing it to gaze upwards. There was no moss within the room, but a bright white light shone down from a crystal embedded in the centre of the high ceiling.

The whole area looked neglected and run down. Not just the eroded statue, but the bricks that made up the walls looked weathered and crumbling. The ceiling was tarnished and dull. There was light cobweb covering the walls, much like the sparsely threaded ceiling web, but for some reason there was nothing on the ceiling of this chamber.

Crack

I spun around at the sudden noise, finding myself centimetres away from a huge, grotesque, many-eyed face. Responding like any perfectly normal human, I screamed like a little girl and jumped backwards.

Straight into the web.

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