Chapter 29: Chapter 29 – I’ll have a fried warg, with just a side of blood

Leaving the forest behind and making her way through the bush and down the small tunnel hidden in it was both awkward and uncomfortable for her, but Scarlett managed it without taking too much time and soon found herself crawling into a small cave of dirt with roots jutting out from the walls. Kat stood in the middle of it, holding the lantern up as she looked towards a part of the cave that narrowed down and led further in. To Scarlett's eyes, it almost looked like that passage had been widened by human hands.

As she stood up, taking out a cloth from her [Pouch of Holding] to wipe off some of the dirt, Kat turned to her and nodded towards the passage. "Looks like it'll get pretty tight. We don't really know how many of those wargs we'll encounter at once on the other side either. But I'm guessing that I can't convince you to stay here?"

Scarlett paused, looking between the passageway and the Shielder. This time there wasn't anything particularly dangerous that Kat couldn't handle, and as far as Scarlett remembered there weren't any traps in this dungeon. As such, she didn't actually have to come with. She'd probably be more in the way than anything else, and she wasn't sure how effective her own magic would be against these wargs. They weren't the highest level, so she could probably handle a couple of them, but there were a lot of them. Although Kat would be able to handle them all on her own, so she could just tell Kat what they were looking for and have the Shielder get it.

...But that didn't sit well with Scarlett. She didn't like the idea of just leaving the whole matter—which was directly connected to her current needs—in someone else's hands while she just waited for the results. She wasn't sure if that was something from her, from Amy, or if it was a consequence of her traits. Nevertheless, she didn't want to do it like that.

"Hello? You hearing me?" Kat's voice returned Scarlett's mind to the present and she met the woman's gaze. The Shielder had found a piece of white cloth from somewhere in the village which she was now using as a headband to keep her golden hair locks away from her eyes.

"What you said is true," Scarlett said. "But you are also correct in assuming that you will not be able to persuade me into staying here. If necessary, I trust in your capabilities to keep me safe in any unforeseen situation." A snap of her fingers conjured three small spheres of fire in the air above them. "And I believe I can be of some help, at the very least by relieving you of some of your encumbrances." It wasn't quite as bright as the lantern, but it did leave Kat free to worry about other things.

Kat just gave a small smile as she shrugged and put the lantern out. "You won't hear me complaining," she said, handing Scarlett the lantern to put in the pouch of holding. "Just be careful, as usual. If I tell you to get back it's probably a wise idea to get back."

With that Kat began moving towards the small passage and squeezed into it. Scarlett followed closely behind, keeping the fires slightly in front of them as they moved. Before long they reached a point where the passageway opened up into the side of a stone corridor. It almost looked like the passageway had originally formed from a crack in the wall, and later been widened artificially — probably by animals at first, but then by humans. If Scarlett were to guess it was the villagers of Whistlecreek, back when they first discovered this place. It was never mentioned in the game specifically how they found this place though.

The floor of the corridor they now found themselves in was covered with dirt. Scarlett scrunched her nose at what she was pretty certain was animal droppings. Too small to be from the wargs, but it wasn't too unusual for bats to be found in places like this in the game.

The rather decrepit appearance of the corridor brought attention away from the walls, which were covered with different murals and depictions of several large wolf heads with fangs around them like wreaths. Kat let out a low whistle at the sight. "I keep on running into the most interesting places when I'm with you," she whispered and leaned close to Scarlett.

This was barely anything compared to some of the other places one visited later in the game, but Scarlett had to admit that some of these illustrations were impressive. She wouldn't say they were quite on the level of some of what they'd seen in the Zuverian ruins, but the wolves did have a flair to them that old statues of a mostly extinct race didn't.

Scarlett glanced to the right, where there seemed to have been a cave-in of sorts that blocked most of the passage, and to the left where the corridor continued on into the darkness outside her fire sphere's range. Kat had already started moving further down that path and Scarlett followed. Soon they reached a set of stairs that went down. Scarlett touched Kat on the shoulder, gesturing down the steps. Kat seemed to understand what she meant as she gave her a nod and cautiously began moving down. Scarlett waited for a moment before following.

The area at the bottom opened up into a larger chamber, but how large was impossible to see as almost the entirety of it was covered in darkness. Scarlett could only see a few meters ahead, though she knew this was the place she was looking for. Almost as soon as Kat reached the end of the stairs, several low growls echoed throughout their surroundings. The growls grew in number and strength, and soon the two of them were flooded by a cacophony of snarls and gnarls from the shadows.

The wargs weren't happy about them being here. None had attacked yet, though. Scarlett saw Kat move her hands and suddenly two walls of stone taller than them both rose on either side of them, blocking anything from approaching from anywhere but the front. Scarlett created two more spheres of light above Kat to give the woman even more light, as well as a basketball-sized sphere of fire high up in the air a few meters ahead of them. The extra light illuminated even more of the chamber, revealing dozens of the man-sized wolves—spread around the center of the chamber,—that growled at the sudden appearance of the miniature sun. Keeping it was a little expensive mana-wise, but they were at too much of a disadvantage otherwise so it was necessary in this case. She was pretty sure most wolf species in the game had at least [Greater Darkvision].

Several of the wargs were approaching Kat by now, their silvery fur reflecting some of the fires' flames as they stepped closer to the lights. Scarlett wasn't quite sure why they hadn't attacked yet. The entire pack was here, so could it be that they were afraid of Kat?

A warg that was closer to the Shielder than the rest let out a low snarl and jumped towards the Shielder, but was immediately met by a boulder that slammed into their snout and knocked them back into the shadows with a loud whine. The growling in the chamber around them intensified but there was no other attempt at attacking Kat. Then a new warg appeared, stepping in under the light of Scarlett's larger fire. It was the size of a full-grown horse with bright, almost white, fur that sat upon a muscled frame. Both its eyes were a dark red and a long scar ran down one of them, ending just above its mouth that was opened to reveal rows of glistening sharp teeth.

The pack leader.

Its eyes seemed to meet Kat's, and for a moment the chamber was engulfed in silence. The pack leader let out a loud snarl — and the wargs moved.

Spikes ruptured up from the ground and speared some of them as a couple fireballs soon followed, but several of the beasts made it past and lunged towards Kat. She quickly created another set of stone walls, narrowing the opening between her and the wargs even further and knocking some of them away in the process. Only one made it through the gap and charged at her, its teeth catching around the Shielder's arm. While it did seem to affect her balance somewhat, Kat didn't seem to panic, and with a quick movement of her other hand a single spike rose up and pierced through the warg's heavy body. Kat quickly yanked her arm loose and cast a bolt of fire towards another warg that tried to make it through the gap.

Scarlett threw a quick glance at the woman's arm, noticing a light shimmering but without any blood, before looking towards the temporary barriers that protected their sides. She heard some of the wargs slam into them on the other side and cracks were already beginning to form. Kat seemed to know what she was doing, so she doubted it'd become a problem. But just to be safe she got ready to conjure some of her Aqua Mines if necessary.

A loud howl drew Scarlett's attention to the center of the chamber. She couldn't see the pack leader now because of the walls and wargs blocking it, but she was pretty certain it was the origin of the sound. It grew in strength, and soon it was so loud that she was forced to cover her ears. She felt her pulse quicken as an inkling sense of dread began to fill her. She shook her head and the feeling quickly disappeared. She'd forgotten they had an ability like that. Not that it felt particularly strong to her. She looked towards Kat, but she didn't seem to have minded the noise much other than protecting her ears for a second. The Shielder had already slain a good number of wargs and taken to reinforcing the barricades that surrounded them.

The wargs kept charging at Kat, but the woman had no issue dealing with them as they came, even when a couple of them succeded in clambering over the walls and jumping her at once. She did sustain some injuries, one of them a bite to the shoulder that her mana barrier apparently hadn't been enough to fully block, but in general these wargs weren't a real threat to her. Scarlett had once estimated that Kat had probably been somewhere close to the equivalent of a level 50 character in the game, and seeing how the woman handled this pack of creatures that were in the high-twenties range in the game, that estimate didn't seem far off.

Kat had lessened the wargs' number considerably by the time that the pack leader finally moved. Even through the mess of bodies and stone that was in front of her, Scarlett could feel the ground move as the leader charged towards them. It climbed over the bodies of its fellow wargs and shattered the edges of the walls Kat had set up as it moved for the Shielder, but Kat didn't give it the opportunity to land an attack. [Earth Spikes] shot up from between the dead bodies and forced the pack leader to move back as one of its paws was pierced. Kat didn't give it even a second of reprieve now that she didn't have to pay the other wargs as much attention and shot off spell after spell at it, forcing the pack leader further back into the chamber where the darkness was thicker. When given the opportunity, Scarlett saw how stones started gathering in the air before Kat as the woman moved her hands, creating a spherical cluster of rocks that soon started glowing as molten stone emerged from the cracks. Scarlett took several steps back just as the Shielder pushed forwards and released the spell. The pack leader barely managed to move aside as the flaming boulder slammed into the ground next to it and exploded into a mess of rock and lava that lit up the entire chamber and all of the remaining wargs with it. The place shook with the blast as slabs rained down from the ceiling.

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It took several seconds for the dirt and ash that was knocked into the air from the attack to settle, and soon any glowing remnants of the spell itself disintegrated into thin air, leaving the chamber completely dark. Scarlett had lost her concentration on her fires from the explosion so she conjured another set close to where Kat had been as well as a larger one higher up in the air. It revealed the large crater that now lay at the center of the chamber, along with the burned bodies of the pack leader and several of the other wargs.

"I sure hope whatever you're looking for around here wasn't something fragile," Kat said in front of her, the woman moving some hair over her shoulder and wiping sweat from her face as she turned back to Scarlett. "I think I might have overdone it a little there, but it was better than using living burial at least."

Scarlett looked over the devastation the Shielder had caused. Calling this a massacre really wouldn't be exaggerating it. She frowned. And the smell wasn't particularly pleasant either. She had to fight back a gag. She didn't want to stay down in this stale dungeon for any longer than necessary. Stepping forward and walking past Kat, who let the remainder of her stone walls disappear now that the fight was over, Scarlett created another large fire ahead of her as she moved further into the chamber. "Though I am loath to stand in the way of what I am starting to suspect is your own, rather unique way of managing your inhibitions," she said as she carefully side-stepped the smoldering body of a once silver-furred warg. "I do ask that you give me a word of warning henceforward. It is of no real consequence this time, but it is always best to be cautious."

Kat quickly caught up to her, not seeming to care as much about avoiding some of the gore on the ground. Well, it was her clothes.

"That's, ehm...duly noted?" she said as they reached the crater that her last spell had created. "Just so you know, I was exaggerating there. I had a decent idea of how much damage that'd do. I don't, uh...get off on blowing things up, if that's what you think."

Scarlett turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "No. That is not what I meant to imply either."

"Oh. Well, never mind then." Kat quickly looked away and pointed towards the other end of the chamber that was now partly lit up by Scarlett's other sphere of fire. "Now that's pretty interesting, don't you think?"

Scarlett's eyes stayed on Kat for a moment before shifting to where she was pointing, urging her fire further ahead to give even more light.

At the end of the chamber was an elevated bed of white stone that held a small podium. It was surrounded on both sides by large statues of wolves of the same hue and that were even larger than the pack leader had been. Not far from the right statue, tucked into the corner at the back of the chamber, were piles of stalks that Scarlett assumed were the crops the wargs had raided from the village. Most of it looked wet and soggy, with the stalks themselves not being in the best shape, but there was a fair amount of it nonetheless.

Kat also seemed to have noticed the wheat. "So that's what they took from the village? Why would they just take some produce? It has barely even been touched."

Scarlett eyed it for a moment longer until she reached the stone bed that was the centerpiece of the chamber. There was a small set of stairs at its front that led up the bed itself. "They did not take it for the sustenance," she said as she began climbing the steps. "But rather for the mana."

"Mana?" Kat asked, the Shielder following her onto the stairs.

"That is what I said, yes."

"I meant that as a question."

"And I took it as such."

Scarlett's lips curled upwards slightly as Kat let out a sigh beside her. When she then reached the top of the stairs and had the podium before her, Scarlett stopped. On the podium lay a single white ring, almost looking like it was made out of bone with odd carvings on the inside. "To be more precise then," she said, grabbing the ring and holding it in front of her. "The mana belonging to this."

[Mark of the Gale (Unique)]
{This ring has an odd air to it, causing the wearer to be filled with a sense of frigidness and vigor}

"That's it?" Kat asked, staring at the ring. "No cache of gold, artifacts, or weapons, but just that ring? That's what we came here for?"

Scarlett smiled and put the ring away in the pouch at her side. It wasn't for her to wear. "That is indeed correct. And I would argue that it is a more than sufficient prize." The possibilities having this ring would unlock for her in the future were definitely more than worth the discomfort she'd had to suffer on this little trip. "Of course," she continued. "In the process, we also saved a village plagued by monsters. I believe some would argue that alone would be enough of a reason for all this."

Kat narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, but most people also wouldn't have known this was here to begin with." Then she let out another sigh and scanned around the chamber. There wasn't much else to see. "I really was expecting something a bit more interesting from this place."

Scarlett merely turned around and began walking down the stairs. "How fortunate that I do not pay you to enjoy yourself, then," she said and gestured for Kat to follow. "There will be many more opportunities for discovering fascinating locations in the future, if you continue working with me. For now, I think it best if we leave this place."

The smell really was starting to get to her.

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