The Newt and Demon-7.54 - Exploring Underground

The underground section of the city had been a place Theo long-neglected. The resources weren’t as bountiful as he had first expected, and the dangers were many. Before heading down into the underground caverns, Theo first met with the miners to see how their work was going. Without the aligned nuggets for them to mine, they were left to go deep in search of the mythril. For once, there wasn't some weird underground threat prepared to attack the mines and eat all the miners. That was an improvement in the alchemist’s book.

After receiving a brief tour of the new mining complex, Theo made his way down to the caverns with Tresk. They passed by the spot where they had first found Alex and descended to get his first look at Bal’gon in a long time. As expected, little had changed in terms of the size or complexity of the small town itself. From what he understood, it had no residents other than the adventurers staying there to battle whatever monsters would rise from the deep. However, the most significant difference to notice was the endless sprawl of magically powered towers on the wall. They bristled with energy. Lightning, ice, and fire towers all mingled together to create a wall of death.

"What do you think about my town?" Rowan asked, emerging from the shadows behind Theo and releasing an ear-splitting laugh that seemed uncharacteristic.

“Did Throk work his magic here?” Theo asked as they approached the town.

Between each tower upon the wall was a tube made of copper. It was connected to every mote port on each weapon, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what they did. They would feed a constant supply of power to each tower, ensuring that they would never stop firing.

"Just a few things," Rowan said with a shrug. They passed under an open gate, finding the empty town before them. Theo always paused when he looked upon the plinth where the dragon once sat. He couldn't help but think about what had happened to that dragon, where it had gone, or why it had been there. These were questions beyond his answering, and Khahar didn't seem willing to share this part of his plan.

Rowan explained how things had been going down here. It truly wasn't a full-time job for the man, barely taking up any of his time during the day. The underground town instead stood as a passive defense against whatever lurked in the deep places of the world, and those things weren't willing to attack since they were always killed. The sapient creatures that called this place home had learned long ago to stop attacking, and even the monsters grew wise. Now, Bal’gon stood as a silent sentinel, rarely visited and rarely attacked.

"The good news is," Rowan said, cutting himself off to kick in the door of the local tavern, "we have a lot of booze down here. Most of it is left over from the rock guys."

Theo had never seen alcohol in the hands of a half-ogre. This was a good thing, but whatever made Rowan happy was fine with him. This project had been shunted off to Rowan because the alchemist simply didn't want to deal with it; one town was enough for him. However, after ensuring everything looked in order, he was satisfied with the progress of the town.

Although the underground town was in a wide cavern with access to several off-shooting passageways, it still looked quite defensible. Whenever the defenders attempted to collapse one of those adjoining paths, they were inevitably cleared by the underground locals, so they had stopped trying. Instead, the uneasy truce that settled into the air brought peace to the caves. Theo didn't care for the haunting howl of the wind that swept through the caverns, but there was a kind of peaceful stillness he enjoyed while standing upon those walls.

“Could you help me look for something?” Theo asked, turning to Tresk and placing a hand on her shoulder. “The Dragon Talon Mushroom is an excellent source of the suffuse property, and we can never have enough of that.”

“Is that the one that looks like a dragon's talon?” Tress asked with a wink. “Yeah, I think I can manage that. Where do they normally grow?”

“Literally everywhere,” Theo said with a shrug, “but look for anything else that’s alchemically significant. Assume that any mushroom you encounter has some sort of properties and alert me when you find it.”

The small contingent of adventurers that had been stationed in the town fanned out, securing the area, although Theo was certain he wouldn't need their help. As long as he wasn't defending someone else, he could take care of himself, especially with the arsenal of potions resting in his inventory. They got to work, easily finding the mushrooms they were looking for, along with a few others he hadn’t expected. The alchemist was primarily there to collect those mushrooms, but it was a good chance to inspect the adjoining passageways.

"I'll have to experiment with this one later," Theo said, holding up a floppy mushroom as he approached the mouth of one passageway. He stuck his head inside, breathing in the deep scent of earth and rotting vegetation. “What’s down this path?”

Tresk hopped over, jumped into the entrance, and took a deep breath. She coughed, hacked, and almost vomited. "I don't know, but it's stinky. The defenders rarely push into the passageways. They prefer letting the monsters come out this way so they can take advantage of the towers.”

“Does Rowan really run this place by himself?” Theo asked.

"I don't really know if you could call it running a town, though. He kind of just comes down here every few days and yells at people."

Rowan was weird like that, but at least the town was defended. Theo could spot no damage on the walls, and all the weapons were functioning perfectly. He was standing right at the mouth of a cavern that had once been flooded with monsters and denizens who called the deep places of the world home. So the fact that they were gone was a good thing to him, and he thought Rowan deserved a gold star.

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“Anything else you need to do down here?” Tresk asked, smacking Theo on the butt.

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Theo peered down the passageway, thinking about what he wanted to do with his day. He had found a few reagent mushrooms he hadn’t worked with before, but the lab would be busy for now. Perhaps Tresk would get the adventure she so craved. The alchemist was interested in training his new danger sense, and the best way to do that was to get into danger. Since Alex had begun growing larger, she couldn't fit down in the caverns. That meant she was stuck in the mines above, which gave both Theo and Tresk an easy way out if they got into too much trouble.

"How about we go on a little adventure?" Theo said, smiling to himself. He didn't need to look over to see that the marshling was grinning widely.

“Are you sure?” Tresk asked. “You might hurt your dainty little self.”

"Come on before I change my mind," Theo said, leading the way into the cavern. Tresk followed closely behind, keeping pace as they delved into the stinky passage. The alchemist didn't want to use a foresight potion, instead favoring the effects of his newest ability. It simply wouldn't grow if he didn't use it. He had his enchanted throwing daggers at the ready, should the need arise.

"Funny thing about these caves is we don't really know how far they go," Tresk said, leading the way down the passage. She held a lantern high, scanning around to search for monsters.

"You know what's funny?" Theo asked. "I don't have a potion that gives us night vision. We really need a night vision potion."

"Well, if you were going to find a reagent that gave night vision anywhere, it would be down in the dark, right?" Tresk asked.

"Sometimes the properties on reagents don’t make sense,” Theo said. He paused, stopping and turning to narrow his eyes at the shadows. “Rowan, you really should stay behind.”

Both Rowan and Sarisa appeared. “What?” he asked. “We’re your body guards.”

Theo stifled a laugh. He had formed the plan in his mind and gained the mental approval of Tresk. However, he hadn't bothered to ask those who couldn't use a psychic form of communication if the plan was a good idea. After chuckling about it for a bit, he sent both Rowan and Sarisa back to the small underground town. He would meet them on the surface.

When the duo continued their trek through the caves, Theo couldn't help but think about how that connection had grown stronger in recent times. It wasn't just the different abilities the bond unlocked. In fact, their newest ability was just a bunch of question marks that had given them no explanation. After hitting level 40, the ability had appeared and done absolutely nothing after that. He felt no closer to revealing what it did, and yet he sensed the connection grow stronger.

The line between newt and demon blurred with each passing day, and Theo couldn't tell if it was a good thing or not.

Theo blinked as they moved beyond an intersection. The path split into four sloping tunnels. A sense of danger flashed through his mind. Focusing on that flash of insight, he watched as the stones to his left burst free from the wall. His body moved with the impossible speed afforded by his Dexterity. Moving in a wide arc, his arm chopped through the air.

The worm-like monster fumbled its attack completely. Theo’s strike hit it in the body, sending it slamming hard against the ground. Tresk’s daggers were out, but the threat was already gone.

“Worm monsters,” Theo said with a grunt.

“Ew. Look at the teeth,” Tresk said, gagging. “Why does it stink so bad?”

Inspecting the monster, the alchemist couldn’t find anything alchemically significant. “Have you seen these things before?” he asked, looking up at Tresk.

“Maybe. All worms look the same.”

Theo grunted a response. It really did just look like a two-foot-long worm with some weird teeth at the front. The monster seemed designed to chew through rock. If it was a natural creature or something that came from a dungeon was beyond him. But the alchemist wouldn’t enjoy running into these things without his predictive powers. Turning back to his companion, he gestured to the various tunnels. “Which one?”

“We’ll pick at random… That one,” Tresk said, pointing at a tunnel.

Theo and Tresk headed down ‘that one’ right away. As expected, the monsters were waiting just outside of Bal’gon’s range. They might have feared the cavern and the town itself, but held no such reservations about the tunnels. Good thing both members of the party were strong enough to dispatch whatever worms wanted to come calling. But it wasn’t the worms they were worried about.

Tresk crouched, falling into the shadows as she approached a corner. Theo scampered behind her, poking his head around the wall of stone. She had heard something and was currently sneaking around like a goblin. The alchemist did his best to sneak, but he wasn’t as good at it as her.

The threat wasn’t as close as Theo had expected. Tresk led the way for about an hour, moving through the caves as though she knew where the enemy was. It took the alchemist a while to remember she had a lot of experience using a Tracker’s Core.

“What are those?” Theo asked as he settled in behind a rock. Before him stretched a large open area covered with an unfamiliar glowing moss-like fungus. Creatures lurked around the far side of the wide-open room but he couldn’t make them out.

“Kobolds,” Tresk said. “Nasty little things. They smell like crap.”

Instead of getting closer, Theo looked at the monsters through Tresk’s eyes. He gained some knowledge of them in doing so, leeching the information from her mind. They were diminutive lizard-rat things with patchy skin mottled between scales and fur. They had rat tails, tattered clothes, and rusted weapons. Most importantly, they were technically monsters, not sapient creatures. Tresk didn’t know if there were sapient versions of the creatures.

“You think there’s a dungeon nearby?” Theo asked.

“Dunno. Might just be monsters created with ambient mana,” Tresk said. “Or migrants from afar. We don’t know how far these tunnels go.”

Stirring the hornet’s nest wasn’t something Theo was interested in on paper. But clearing the tunnels out wasn’t a bad idea. There was nothing wrong with a small adventure.