Chapter 65: Delving into the Ruins
Rhodes's gaze fell upon Somme. According to Dural, the stone door could only be opened by a dwarf. Although Somme was a beardless, alcohol-intolerant dwarf, he was still a dwarf by blood, and therefore had the key to open the door.
Somme took a deep breath and stood before the stone door. He placed his hand on a small indentation, and a magic circle appeared. Then, the door slowly began to open.
"I thought only a member of the dwarven royal family would be able to open this door. I didn't think any old dwarf could do it," Eirik said, a little confused.
"The dwarves respect strength above all else. Anyone who is strong enough can become their king. Besides, this is just one of many back doors; of course, it wouldn't have too many restrictions," Norne explained. After two years of adventuring, he had learned much about the different races. During their stay in the dwarven city, he had spent every day talking to the dwarves and had learned a great deal about their first kingdom.
"And it's precisely because the opening conditions aren't too difficult that so many dwarves were able to escape. Otherwise, there wouldn't be an 'eight major clans'," Rhodes added.
The fall of the first Dwarven Kingdom was shrouded in mystery. Even if they had been hit by a surprise attack, it seemed impossible that the entire royal family could have been wiped out overnight. Could it be that all the demons of the continent were involved? It was the only plausible explanation.
And now, the Great Elven Forest was facing the same situation. As was the Elven Kingdom that had branched off from it; after all, they were one and the same. Without the forest, there would be no kingdom. The only fortunate thing was that the elves were not alone; they had the help of the dwarves and the Sky-Winged.
They should be fine, right?
The bad feeling from before returned, as if he had perceived something just beyond the veil of his consciousness. He didn't know what it was.
"Are you spacing out again?"
Serie had noticed his lapse in attention and turned to look at him.
"Oh, just a little tired. Let's go," he said, and she didn't press the matter. She just cast a small 'Light' spell, and with Somme leading the way, they entered.
Beyond the stone door was a long, deep corridor. The walls were inlaid with a special kind of ore that resembled a night pearl, which emitted a faint blue glow in the darkness. Even after centuries of neglect, they were still faintly glowing.
In the dim light, a complex network of branching paths was revealed.
"Why did these dwarves build so many paths? Can they even tell them apart?"
Eirik's head was already spinning, looking at all the identical passages.
"Yeah, it's like a prairie dog's burrow," Rhodes added.
"What's that? I've never heard of such a creature."
Serie was finding that Rhodes was a constant source of new and unfamiliar things. With her centuries of experience, and all the knowledge she had gleaned from the elven elders, she had thought she knew this world quite well. But Rhodes's appearance had shown her that there was still much she didn't know. She was incredibly curious about his homeland on the other side of the sea.
"It's nothing. Just me talking nonsense again," he said. He had decided not to elaborate, not with a real-life dwarf standing right there. Though this particular dwarf wasn't very dwarf-like at all.
Fortunately, Somme didn't seem to care about Rhodes's strange analogy. He was busy examining the corridor. He finally stopped in front of a passage that had a special mark carved on the wall.
"This should be it," he said, running his hand over the mark. "This is a dwarven miner's mark. We have them in our village. It usually means that the central area is up ahead."
"Nice one!" Eirik gave him a thumbs up.
It was a good thing they had Somme with them. Otherwise, they would have spent who-knows-how-much time and effort just exploring the labyrinthine passages. The praise made Somme a little embarrassed.
"Let's go," Rhodes urged. He couldn't wait to see what secrets these ruins held.
They continued down the passage, but as soon as they rounded a corner, they all stopped in their tracks. In the cavern ahead, a massive web was teeming with spiders, the smallest of which was the size of a hound.
"There are so many of them," Eirik gasped. Even Serie frowned. She had a psychological aversion to such ugly, disgusting creatures.
"Can I kill them?" she asked, raising her hand, a magic circle already appearing.
"Let's not. If we alert any more of them, things could get ugly." Rhodes quickly placated her. He didn't want her to get carried away and draw the attention of every monster in the ruins.
"Damnit..." Somme said in a low voice. "Not only do they spit venom, but their webs are also incredibly tough. They're some of the most difficult monsters to deal with." He had fought these spiders before, back in his village. Fortunately, there had only been a few of them then, a manageable number. But even so, several dwarves had been injured. Now, facing so many of them, he was very nervous.
Rhodes also frowned. The number of monsters here should have been much smaller. They hadn't even reached the core of the ruins yet, and they had already encountered so many. It would be a major problem if there were even more in the core.
"Shall we use a detection spell?" he suggested to Serie.
She shook her head. "We don't know if there's a demon in here that's sensitive to mana. If we use a detection spell, it's like announcing our arrival." They were still in stealth mode. With the presence-concealing spell Rhodes had created, they should be able to go undetected as long as they didn't attack. A detection spell worked by sending out a wave of mana and reading the information that came back, just like radar. And that created a problem. If there was a demon with a keen sense for mana, the spell would just give them away. That was the main reason they hadn't been using it.
"Shall we go around them?"
"Yes."
Seeing that her mind was made up, Rhodes and Serie both began to cast a spell.
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