My New Life in TBATE

Dive Begins

We chatted with the Mahpurs for a couple hours longer before we all bedded down for the night. We learned their names are Ben, Ken, and Len. They don't have any way to distinguish between the 3, so I've just decided to not refer to them by name. They each had a solid red core, and they were all Earth mages, even their auras were the same.

I just tried to ignore it and focused on the dungeon dive ahead, it was recently found by a group of adventurers who immediately reported it to the guild without entering. So we are going in completely blind as to what might be inside. We had a small breakfast before extinguishing the fire and prepping our gear, like most dungeons it was a rocky outcropping in the forest and lead downwards. Except this one went down in a spiral and the walls were smooth, making them deceptively close. We use shadows and other things to help measure distance, but with nothing to cast shadow on the surface of the wall they seemed farther away than they were.

I would have used my brighter blue flame, but since we were letting Arthur lead and he hadn't asked me to, I didn't use it. The spiral continued for a few minutes until it leveled out and we met our first opponent, a nightmare fox. The same mana beast that mine and Arthur's cloaks are made of, they specialize in sound based illusions and their fur makes it hard to notice them. This flared it's fur and released an almost chittering sound that reverberated in the cavern.

The Mahpurs' brothers seemed instantly effected and looked around the room in confusion.

"Pops?" Came one of them and he walked to a wall, I dashed towards him when I saw the wall open up to reveal a trap door. He was already falling in as I got to him and the wall closed off behind as we slid down the slippery, winding, slide like trap. I wrapped some mana strings around the Mahpur as we slid and I could feel a familiar pull inside the cave, so I let it take us wherever this path leads.

I steered us to where the pull felt strongest, avoiding off shoots that had the stench of death surrounding them. Eventually the Mahpur came out of the illusion and looked around in confusion before seeing me.

"Mr. Rez, where are we?" I look around and shrug.

"No clue, we slid down a slope with many twists and turns before arriving here. I estimate we are about 50 feet below the surface right now." I said as i conjured a bright blue flame to illuminate the cave. Now the cave had a rocky texture to the walls and was leaking a liquid, the man almost touched it before I pulled him back with a mana string.

"Don't touch it." He looked slightly abashed, but I ignored it and approached the wall myself. After looking at it and touching it with mana strings I deemed it not dangerous, just some kind of 'sweat' the cave walls were giving off.

"Which one are you? I could never get your names straight." I ask as I turn to the man watching me while I tested the wall.

"Ken." I nod to that and look forward to the obvious exit and then back to him.

"Alright Ken, his good is your Earth magic?" He seemed confused, but answered nonetheless.

"Er well it's as good as Ben and Len's, but not good enough to be a fighter." I nod again and being a hand to my chin.

"So you can't sense things through the ground yet?" He shakes his head, and I hold in a sigh as to not shame the guy.

"Very well, it's not too difficult, just will mana from your core to your feet and feel the ground beneath. If using your hands is easier than use them, but spread your mana as thinly as possible through the earth. Do this every time we stop for a break and try to do it while we walk, eventually you'll be able to sense vibrations and all sorts of things. I've even heard of some being able to sense metals deep inside the ground." He looked at me in shock and immediately began to try what I said, but his red core showed his amateur abilities.