Chapter 25: Delve (Patreon)

The lake was easy to find, although it was more pond than lake. A placid, green-blue surface was broken only by the moss-covered remains of old trees jutting up to the sky like clutching fingers. There was a steady chirping coming from something hidden in the mud, and a thin, white bird stalked through the shallows.

His destination was obvious. A craggy granite rise sat squarely at the edge of the water, a black cave-mouth yawning at its base. He crossed over and peered down into the sloping darkness. It was hard to make out anything past a few feet, and he shivered. This seemed like heaven for an ambush predator.

Breka better know what she’s doing.

He moved forward, cautiously.

The stone walls were jagged, slick with moisture and barely wide enough to allow his passage. It was nearly pitch black, and he was quickly forced to pull out the covered lantern Breka had included in his pack, tying it to his belt so his hands were free.

He almost missed the first vine. Black-flecked gray like the wall it hugged and at least a dozen feet long, it sported hundreds of small curled leaves and a stem the thickness of a garden hose. His foot brushed one of its loops that was twisted on the floor and he narrowed his eyes, targeting it for appraisal.

The information that flooded his mind from [Detailed Appraisal] came simultaneously with the loop of vine snapping closed around his ankle and yanking him from his feet. His leather cuirass broke the worst of the impact, but his head still hit the stone floor with a crack.

It was called a cavern writher, common in the weakest warrens of the Gerrwood. They were rooted in place, but with branching and prehensile tendrils they could easily trap the unwary and lock down narrow spaces. Elliot hissed as he fumbled for his knife. Narrow spaces like caves.

Even with his thick leather trousers, the steadily increasing pressure of the vine on his leg had begun to cause a deep throbbing. It was cutting off his bloodflow, and soon he’d lose mobility completely. He had to work fast.

Gripping the handle of the broad-bladed knife, he pulled it out and swiped at the stalk about a foot above where it connected to his leg. It felt tough, like cutting through thick canvas, but by his second strike the vine started to twitch and some of its pressure released.

Concurrently, two separate branches of the vine that had been clinging to the wall began to twist and writhe in his direction. He scooted back frantically toward the cavern’s entrance, taking advantage of the loosening coil and cutting repeatedly above where it still gripped his ankle. It finally released, and he rolled to his knees, crawling away as fast as he could go.

The vine stopped chasing him once he’d shuffled about ten feet off, pulling back slowly to its initial position with one tendril still looped innocently across the passage floor. Elliot let out a shaky breath, wiping sweat from his forehead. His heart was racing. Images of a slow death from the vine corkscrewing its way up his body filled his mind. Clenching and unclenching his hands, he forced himself to look back at the vine and appraise it again, this time spinning the vortex and pulling as hard as he could. There had to be something helpful he could learn.

Cavern writhers were semi-intelligent, creatures of instinct rather than cunning. They were ambush predators, and often fed on a kill for days after trapping it. That was a potential approach—find something else to feed it. But that would take time, and he didn’t have a lot of that with the wagon steadily approaching the lifts to Tular. They were sensitive to flame and harsh light, had a valuable sap that could be distilled and used in a variety of potions, and were limited to perceiving the world through physical contact.

That could do it. Elliot retreated to the cave mouth where shards of shale and granite pebbles littered the ground, collecting as many as he could grab in a minute. He eased back down the corridor, moving slowly in case the vine could pick up the vibration of his footfalls. Nearing the creature again, he pulled out a small shard of stone and tossed it at the stem that was clinging to the rocky wall.

When it struck, the vine contorted around the area of impact. Elliot took a deep breath, then sprinted past, only stopping when he was several dozen feet beyond the writher. Looking back, he saw the tendrils still undulating near where he’d thrown the stone as if confused.

Distraction worked well. Not a super safe approach, though. Especially if he ended up finding two or more close together. It would be easy to assume they’d always continue being single minded, until the one time they didn’t.

He continued much more slowly after that, scanning every surface intently before advancing in short spurts. As he went, he considered what it meant for him to be able to appraise the cavern writher. It was a living thing, and large, but the skill worked fine. That meant intelligence was a more likely limiting factor than size, although something else—like etheric density, or whatever the term was—might still be the real answer. 

The next bend in the passage brought the first major change to his surroundings. Granite walls unfurled, stretching to encompass a wide open space with stalactites and stalagmites criss-crossing each other like teeth in a giant maw. Looking around, his chest tightened. There were vines everywhere. Twisted around the conical rock formations, hanging independently from the ceiling, and draped across the cavern floor.

Veins of crystal ran through the ground as well, branching and alight with a faint white glow that allowed him to make out the farther reaches of the space. Elliot eased himself along the edge of the cavern, pausing to appraise a bit of quartz he was about to step over. He froze. Almost nothing came through, just the name—overcharged conduit—and nothing more. What was an overcharged conduit?

He considered his next steps, trying to remain calm. The quartz-like rock was everywhere, spreading through the floor like a massive lightning scar with veins every few feet. The writhers were barely less common, tendrils stretching in every direction and covering almost every square yard of floorspace. He would have to move slowly, and plan his route with incredible care.

At the distant-most tip of the room, raised on what looked like a natural shelf in the granite wall, something glowed faintly purple. It was barely enough to catch his eye across the several hundred feet which separated the two sides of the space, but the light was obvious now that he’d seen it.

It looked impossible to reach. He pursed his lips, trying to plot a course through the vines, but it was a struggle. There wasn’t much free space even if he managed to avoid them waking up and striking out, and that wasn’t taking into account the overcharged conduits, whatever they were. He glanced down at the glowing vein closest to his feet and tried to appraise it again, pulling as hard as he could. It was like sucking tree sap through a straw, not one single iota of knowledge wanting to yield itself to his inquiry. He narrowed his eyes, and doubled down.

Finally, after his eighth attempt, he drew out a single extra qualifying term for the glowing crystal: quiescent. He frowned. What was it, overcharged or quiescent? The two didn’t go together. 

Sighing, he looked to the next vein and repeated the process. It was slightly easier that time, but gave him the exact same term—a quiescent overcharged conduit. 

He was wasting time. The cavern seemed to have no additional exits, just the single passage he’d entered through, and unless a hunk of gold fell from the ceiling he had to assume the glowing purple thing was his target. Somehow he doubted Breka would accept the massive number of carnivorous plants as an excuse for bringing nothing back, so the only way out was through.

The writher closest to him was curled around a twenty-foot-tall stalagmite erupting from the floor to his left. It was extremely long and thicker than the first with leaves the size of small plates, but if he managed to slip by he could see a path through the next twenty feet or so without having to get too close to any of the others. 

Keeping his steps as smooth and soft as possible, Elliot inched toward the pillar of rock. The vine was curled tightly around the stone, but it extended several tendrils out over the nearby floor as well, and he kept his eyes glued to those resting loops. Just as he was about to try taking a wide step over the first coil he saw a spark in the closest vein of crystal, and he paused.

Activating [Detailed Appraisal] he put as much of his will into the ability as he could, pushing at the vortex. The name that came back this time was unstable overcharged conduit. Elliot felt a flicker of uncertainty. There was still no deeper explanation, no sudden understanding. There was something though, some very slight instinct behind the name. This line of crystal, unlike any of the others, felt dangerous.

He took several slow steps backwards, pausing when he hit the wall again. Reaching a hand into his pack, he fished out a relatively large piece of shale, eyed it, then glanced back at the tunnel entrance a few feet away. Well, it’ll either work or it won’t. Here’s hoping Breka didn’t send me into a catastrophe because she thinks it’ll get me some kind of cheat death skill.

Hefting the stone, he tried to gauge the force he’d need. Then he looked back at the unstable conduit, gathered himself, and used a slow underhand toss to fling the rock toward the glowing crystal. As soon as it left his hand, he whirled and sprinted for the tunnel.

The impact was thunderous, a sharp crack followed by a heavy boom he could feel in the air even as he hurled himself around the edge of the passage. That had been a serious explosion. His jaw tightened. When he got out of here, he was going to have a very pointed talk with Breka about what constituted a worthwhile risk for a training experience. There was a rush of vitae toward his core, and he winced. Hopefully killing one vine wouldn’t throw off the plan too much. It certainly wasn’t enough to get him another step, and now that he had some experience, he could estimate the amount that had just flowed in as around a fourth to a fifth of what he would need to move up.

Nothing else changed, and after waiting for a full minute he peeked back around the edge of the tunnel mouth. The stalagmite, and the vine that had curled around it, were spread out in pieces on the floor. Several of the nearby vines had been struck by shrapnel, and were either hanging loosely or still twitching and wriggling in distress.

He briefly considered giving up and going back. A cave full of carnivorous plants was one thing, but what basically amounted to landmines in the floor—that he had only barely been able to identify as concerning—was considerably beyond what seemed reasonable without fair warning, regardless of how fantastic his starting abilities would be. But, now that he had identified the danger, it seemed relatively manageable. In fact, as he eyed the free space created by the explosion he realized it might provide him with a simple way to pass through the danger of the vines.

It was easy to move across the cleared space, any nearby writhers already either dead or pulled in tightly around their injuries. As he went, Elliot made sure to scan every single foot of the overcharged conduit around him, verifying that anything he was getting even remotely close to was labelled as quiescent.

He made it through a good stretch before reaching another region completely draped in vines. Squatting down, he began to appraise every bit of conduit in sight. The difficulty of each individual appraisal made it frustrating work, but eventually it paid off. Ten feet away, near the base of another large stalagmite, he found the next spot marked as unstable.

This time he started farther away, as he didn’t have the tunnel as close at hand. He chose a vantage point behind the surviving chunk of stalagmite from the first blast, and placed his pack nearby so he could use it to shield his face. Then, he started tossing rocks. It took longer than the first time—the distance being considerably greater—but after a few minutes he managed to send a chunk of granite arcing right towards the unstable conduit. He grabbed his pack and ducked behind his chosen bulwark, tensing.

This explosion was as powerful as the first, a few small rock shards hitting the pack he held before his face despite the remains of the stalagmite blocking most of the pressure wave. Glancing around, he saw a similar zone of damage to last time. Another ten to fifteen feet of vineless space had opened up, and this time there had been no deaths, only injuries.

Moving deliberately, he pushed his way deeper into the cavern. It was sometimes a challenge to find an unstable conduit near enough to the most dangerous clusters of writhers, but a combination of triggered explosions and old-fashioned sneaking proved sufficient, and he carved forward.

By the time he’d reached the other end there had been two more deaths, and his core was feeling dangerously close to full. It really was easy to move up the first few steps, although presumably a child wouldn’t be exposed to anywhere near this level of danger. The purple glow was stronger now.

With one final leap he cleared the last loop of vine, darting forward to safety. A few moments later, after a brief pause to let his muscles unclench, he approached the purple light.