Age of Dragons Online

Chapter 23: Spelunking

Chapter 23

Spelunking

"Spe-wha?" Korath asked as they walked into the cave.

"Wait, you don't know what spelunking is?" Nadran asked in surprise. "Really, this is some pretty basic English, how do you not know that?"

"Who uses such big words in casual conversation?" Korath replied. "People will have no clue what you're talking about."

"Actually," Aledro began hesitantly, "I know what spelunking is."

"And so do I," said Lunalia, annoyed. "You really don't know about it? How little do you know about life?"

"Well, I'm only interested in learning about fun things," Korath said in response, "so if it doesn't seem like it would be fun, I don't bother learning it."

That's an... interesting perspective on life, Nadran thought in surprise. Seems a little idiotic, though.

"Well," Lunalia growled, "that certainly didn't stop you from learning about blackmail, now, did it, huh?"

"But blackmail helps me get to do fun things, like coming along with you guys to fight a dragon!" Korath explained as though it were a perfectly normal thing to do.

"This... level of idiocy cannot be expressed in words," Lunalia said in disbelief, looking at Korath as though he was the source of all insanity in the world.

"Um, anyways, spelunking is basically exploring caves, which is what we're doing now," Nadran explained, trying to move on before an argument broke out. "I just was commenting about how we were going into a cave, there's really no need to focus so much on one thing that was said."

"Fine," said Lunalia, irritated, but accepting the end to the conversation. She sighed loudly, then suddenly fell silent and cocked her head. "Quiet, guys, I think I hear something."

They all stopped walking and listened. Other than the wind whistling through the entrance, they heard distant sounds from farther ahead. They were the sounds of steel clashing against steel and war cries of what sounded like some sort of goblins. The companions looked at each other for a second, then they all started running toward the sound of the noise.

After about a minute, they reached the entrance to a larger cavern that was about 100 feet in diameter, and looked toward the center of the space to see the conflict that was occurring.

A group of five creatures that looked sort of like humanoid lizards, called kobolds, were advancing on two players. One was a girl who used her bow to attack, sending arrows flying toward the kobolds, and already, the bodies of many kobolds lay on the ground, black-feathered arrows protruding from their chest. Originally, there looked to have been at least twenty of the monsters, but when the companions arrived, only five were left standing, and one fell almost immediately to a well-placed arrow.

The other player was a boy who did not appear to be holding any weapons. He raised his hand, and chunks of rock the size of baseballs were pulled out of the ground by an invisible force and launched toward the kobolds. They were knocked to the ground, and the boy raised his hand again, causing a large chunk of rock to fall from the ceiling. It crushed one, but the others recovered and charged again. Once more his hand came up, and a large spear of stone formed in his hand from the surrounding rocks. He then motioned at a kobold, which was lifted helplessly into the air, then drove his spear through it.