Chapter 3: Mystic Caverns

Mystic Caverns

“Have you seen Hulken this morning--dear,” Arial asked with a concerning facial expression.

“no-- I have not, I am pretty sure he is already working with the plow,” Dale said. When Lacky did not appear back home last night, Lacky’s parents assumed that he had just stayed over at Hulken’s house. Lacky’s parents were still going over to Hulken’s house to tell them what had happened last night; however, they were not going to approach them until later on in the afternoon. Right when Dale was about to exit his house to work, a knocking sound began to come from the front door. When Dale opened the door the same red caped man Hulken had talked about was at their front door step. “What do you want here stranger” Dale said. “I am sorry to bother you, my name is Viola and I am looking to see if I could hire your son out for his labor” Viola said. “I am sorry sir, I do not know you well and Hulken is not that great of a farmer, his services are required by his family first,” Dale replied. “Well I am just trying to find an extra hand with my belongings, I had to move here because of the drought in my country, I have just acquired an old relative’s land and it needs much work, I overheard from the townsfolk that you have a son that is exceptional at the sword and knows how to farm well. I need someone like that because of the coyotes that are on my land, if he is as good as they say I would like to acquire his services” Viola said.

“Well if he is done with his chores then I do not see why not” Dale exclaimed. “Have a good day sir, I will come back later in the evening to see about the boy” Viola said.

I woke up with a sore back and a huge head ache. I was tied up with a rough rope that was tangled up in my feet and hands. I was certain that I was in a cavern because of it smelt salty and the air was course. I looked at my left and saw a stain glass window that stood above the wall. It had light coming out of it. I looked over to my left and saw Lacky tied up just the same way I was. I whispered, “hey, Lacky, Lacky, Wake up! Where are we? What happened?”

“Huh, what? Oh gods! Who is that?”

“It’s me Hulken, do you know how we got here”

“No, oh-- I remember last night and how we were walking to your house, then all of the sudden I blacked out. What is going on?”

“I do not know, I just woke up myself, let’s get out of these ropes” I said. I tried to reach down into my pocket to see if my knife was there but it was useless because our attackers seemed to rob us. When I looked in front of me there were metal prison bars. It seemed to be a colorful prison somewhere underground. I looked around to see if I could find anything that I could use to cut these ropes. When I looked down at my feet, there was nothing but dusty rocks that were part of the chipped floor. After waiting around for like an hour pondering and quarrying with Lacky about possible escape planes, it dawned on me to take a stone and throw it at the window and see if I could break it and use the glass to cut the rope. Because I was tied up, when I tried to throw the stone my shoulder got injured. “I think I just threw out my shoulder.” I said. Because I could only use about 30 percent of my arm I handed the stone to Lacky who had a better advantage of breaking the glass. Lacky was closer to the window and had longer arms than me. The first 5 throws were unsuccessful and when we were about to give up on the plan Lacky threw a lucky one. It shattered. Most of the bigger sharper glass fell over on the other side of the wall. We were forced to use a small piece of glass for cutting the rope. My hand was bleeding from griping the glass too tightly and I cursed at the air. “Shit, if your dad would have just believed me we would have never got into this stupid situation.” After we cut the rope, it dawned on us that we were still locked in the prison cell. I thought that it was possible for us to climb up and get through the busted window into the next room; however, it was very tall and the bars in the room seemed old. I decided that I should try and reach out behind the bars to see what the wall was made of. If the wall was made with Surpin stone, I knew a technique that could easily break it. Since my father was a former frilliest, I knew that Surpin stone becomes easily malleable when pissed on. I was thinking that if I pissed on the one side of the wall that it would collapse if me and Lacky pushed on our side of the wall. This was a foiled plan and idea because when I reached outside of the bars to see what the surface felt like on the other wall; I felt the same textured stone. When I retracted my hand, I felt a piece of cloth rub across my elbow. The cloth fell as I fully brought my arm inside of the cell and a metal banging sound was made. “Hey look I think I found something” I said. “What it is” Lacky answered. I picked up the cloth and wrapped inside was the piece of metal that I had originally brought to Lacky’s house. “At least I still have you” I said. Lacky said, “Ah man, you had my hopes up like you found a key or something, they probably kept it so they could beat us with it.”

“Sorry, well at least I don’t have to buy another piece of metal when I get out of this mess” I said. I tried banging on the bars of the cell with my metal rod to see if I could dent them or break them. My several attempts were not successful and all it did was create noise that our kidnappers could possibly use so we had to go with plan B. I told Lacky that he should stand there while I climb onto his shoulders so I could reach the window. We tried this and surprisingly it was a lot easier than trying to break the bars of the cell. When I reached the window I said, “Get back I am going to bust the rest of the glass so we will not get hurt.” I shattered the rest of the glass and left only the stone molding where the window used to be. I reached down as low as I could while Lacky ran and jumped on to the wall so that he could jump off the wall and get the extra vertical needed to get to the window. When I grabbed his hand I almost fell over because of the shear force; however, I put my metal rod on the other side of the window and used it as a handle to reel Lacky in. Because the window was so small, I jumped down to the other side. Lacky followed my foot steps shortly after I jumped. When we arrived in the next room things were a lot lighter because we had reached a mirror room. The mirror rooms are where light from the surface comes in; it creates an array of light that can be easily manipulated. Because the mirror room is built for light use only, it is not very wide and we had to squat everywhere we went. We were walking in the same direction for about 50 meters until we heard some voices. “Hey Hulken, I think it is important to see what is going on, lets listen quietly” Lacky whispered.

“Hey, did you check on those supplies for the granary. We are not on schedule. Operation tango resumes in a week and a half. We need those supplies pronto gf2, get your ass into gear and finish your duties” the voice said. “Yes sir,” a voice answered.

“Hey lets forget about these guys and follow the light, maybe we can find a way out of here.” I whispered. At the time we did not care to investigate the voices coming from a room. While in the mirror chamber room, we crawled further and further towards the brightest light. When we got out of the chamber room we saw a giant cave with a huge beam of light that was coming down from the surface window. The light was magnified by some sort of crystal, making it possible to use the sun light so much without making the light weaker. Lacky and I sat at the edge of the stalagmite where the corridor ended and gazed at the beautiful light. We knew that the light must have been coming from the surface; however, we did not know how to climb the rocky cave without some sort of gear. “I got an Idea, how about we climb down, off of this stalagmite, and see if there is a path to the surface from the opposite side of the cave.” Lacky said. I simply nodded my head; I was still stunned by the caves aura.

While climbing down the stalagmite, I noticed that the lower we climbed the more hot it seemed. “Why do you think it is so hot underground?” I asked.

“Hulken, you don’t know that Fleace is basically a huge volcano” Lacky stated, as if he was the smarter of the both of us.

“Well I know that, but why wouldn’t there be any sort of volcanic activity on the surface?” I retorted.

“Because of the will of the gods,” Lacky said. Knowing that Lacky did not have the answer, he and I both accepted that it had to be a supernatural reason that we never had volcanic activity on the surface. We just left it at that.

After the first descent, we climbed down a very dark path. “Hey don’t go so far ahead,” Lacky said. “What’s there to worry about-- ‘CLINK’” I fell through some weak rocks into a structured area. “Shit, are you alright Hulken?” Lacky yelled. “Yea, that will leave a mark,” reassuring myself while answering Lacky. What was peculiar about where I fell was that the area was not all jagged and natural like the rest of the cave. This section was old but there were stones in this room and light coming from the ground. “Hey Lacky, you have to come down here and see this.” I said.

“Ole, alright, how should I get down there Mr. wise guy,” Lacky said. “Well try and find some rigid stones to climb on,” I replied. While climbing down to the room I fell into, Lacky did not pay attention to what I had noticed after I fell down, the room was obviously man made. When Lacky finally got down to where I was, I said, “where do you think the light is coming from?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Lacky answered. The red-ish light shun threw the whole room. “It must be in a little further up this way.” I said while I walked a little forward. When I walked up some, I saw a small rectangular table with a light source coming out of it. I went over to the table and saw that it was heated rock like a furnace inside of the table. “This must be a forgery,” I said. “This place must have been were the warriors of Lith made their swords” Lacky exclaimed. “Looks like I don’t need your furnace after all,” I said. My persistent visions of adventure gave me the motivation to make a sword; I had the determination to stay here even without food or water to make this weapon.

After two hours of heating my metal rod, my soon to be sword was ready to be beaten with the hammer. I took my rod out of the magma and placed it on the anvil and started banging on it. Because Lacky had a furnace at home and made certain things with his father before, he told me the best way to make strong metal. He told me that I should fold the metal numerous times until it can no longer be folded. With this knowledge at hand, I put the rod into the furnace until it got red, and then I flattened the metal out with a hammer and bent it over and folded the metal. It felt like I did this process 30 times; however, I lost count after 5 folds because it was such a long process and the heat was unbearable. After the metal got so strong to where it would no longer budge, I started to shape it so that it would be long and skinny. I put the extremely hot metal rod into the bucket of water that was somehow still full. “It looks like water cannot evaporate from underground because there is no sun, also this bucket has an interesting lid” Lacky said. I was not interested in why the water was still underground, I was just excited that I had made my first sword using the same magma that the warriors of Lith used. When the sword was cooled down, I took it over to the grinding wheel to sharpen it. This room was so surprisingly untouched and made so well that if it was not caved in I would have guessed it was updated addition to the cavern. Lacky and I had to both get on the grinding wheel because it was operated by two people. One person would be cycling the wheel, while the other person would be putting pressure against the sword and the wheel. After about 35 minutes of tedious grinding, the sword looked almost finished, except for the hilt and handle. I had no clue how to make the handle; it was something that Lacky had never thought about when he was telling me about how metal plows were made. Because I did not know how to make the hilt, we had no food, and spent already too much time underground, we both decided that it was better if we climbed back to the surface and see what was is going on. Meanwhile back underground, Nosil and his men prepare for something sinister…