The most exciting part of my watch was noticing a slowly moving light in the distance. When I carefully investigated, wary of the light being some kind of lure, I found a tiny creature, a finger sized snail with a cone-shaped shell. Or so I thought until I realized it had countless tiny legs instead of the underside of a slug. It was happily munching on the little mosses and lichens that grow around the nail sized crystals, and two of those were embedded on its carapace, a blue and a green one. Both the little critter and its meal came up poisonous to my detection, although I have no idea whether that means I’d be risking indigestion or instant death.

“My guess is that they are forced to hunt me down, but they are too scared to actually show up and attack. It’s part of the hunted curse overriding whatever instinct they have. The curse says they hunt me down to get my light manipulation power, maybe it's some kind of loophole, they know they shouldn't fight, so they pretend to be hunting really slowly. ”

In all fairness, terror is definitely the proper reaction when exposed to someone who can pull off light manipulation.

“Or they are up to something. But it would be kind of funny if everything smart enough to not fight started just following you and doing nothing.” I say while picking up my pack. It’s actually rather light on my shoulders now, I’m down to only three days of food, and Alix has only two.

Still, we dive deeper into the bowels of the mountain, with the hope that we’ll find something down below. I personally hope that if the snails are toxic, it means something wants to eat them, and that something is hopefully not toxic. If it is we'll just have to climb up the foodchain till we find something edible.

As we advance, we pass through several damp areas where water filters through the rock, shaping massive stalactites and stalagmites slowly inching forward into a kiss that will last for eons. And as we go, the mana density slowly increases, the current becoming a bit more obvious, coming from further down. The luminescent crystals are now thumb sized, fighting better against the still omnipresent shadows. I break off a few from the rock with our hatchet and I'm soon holding five at once to provide a small halo of light to my feet. This feels like I’m back home trying to use a cellphone to watch my step.

Finally, we reach the rumble I’d been hearing from the very beginning. An underground river with a powerful current, relentlessly grinding at rocks as it rushes alongside us in the tunnel, occupying most of it. Wherever a crystal is nearby to provide some light, it is surrounded by stalks of plants that look like clusters of thin rods and numerous species of mushrooms that seem to greatly enjoy the place. There’s thin ones, short ones, some with a ring on their foot, others with honeycomb like caps...

Hey Marc, you’re not going to like it but I’ve got an idea for the food situation.

I’m not going to eat random mushrooms.

Yeah, but, poison detection works best with your taste sense. And we so happen to have a way to taste stuff outside our mouth.

You were right, I don’t like that idea at all.

- - -

“I’m honestly surprised we managed to pull off some almost decent mushroom soup.” I say satisfied.

The trick is not having high hopes.

“I’m not a big fan of how those shells taste, but at least they make decent spoons. Hopefully we won’t get sick.” It’s really funny to see that Alix is more worried about the sanitary implications of cooking weird crustaceans and mushrooms in a hole in the ground than actual monsters on his tail.

Humans can get used to anything.

“Well, you spent ‘Unreasonable amounts of mana’ to bring the water to a boil, and I’m quite confident the stuff wasn’t poisonous.”

Unless odds of poison detection firing off an alarm doesn’t improve from repeated exposure. Then maybe we’ll have a bad time down the line.

We didn’t drop dead yet.

- - -

We kept going steadily down for two more days in an increasingly lively environment as the crystals providing their colorful lights went to hand, then melon sized. The carpet of moss got thicker underfoot as the light neared what felt like daylight level (but was actually still really far from it according to Alix). Various mosses and mushrooms stayed as the dominant presences, but other species were also there, everything appearing shades of black as they fought to drink as much of the available light as possible. All the plants were devoid of any flowers I could see, but there were some edible seeds, some kind of distant cousin of oats or wheat, with the tiniest grains. Overall we managed to eat our fill without touching our supplies, pretty good news in my book.

The snails-that-aren’t-snails-at-all got a fair bit bigger too. They have an uncanny ability to pretend to be pieces of floor or walls, hidden under their thick shells. Interestingly, they seem to grow much faster than their nutritious needs, and when we upturned one of the bigger ones, as large as a dog but heavy like a cow, we saw that they have a lot of crystals embedded in their underside. Enough to be like mini greenhouses.

Those things are actually farmers. It’s so damn weird.

Well, their goal in life is to shut off everything and never move. Quite understandable really.

There’s also insects, grasshoppers, flies, things not unlike ants, and everything in between. There’s some birds not unlike bats that hunt all of those, and Alix swears he saw an almost transparent snake, like it was made of glass. A full and unexpected ecosystem.

I’m going through my usual training routine during my turn of guard duty, alternating various physical trainings with a hint of mana manipulation, when a low rumbling sound fills the air. Like the sound of something digging. Something big.

It doesn’t take much to wake Alix up, the noise is hard to miss, and I feel the sturdy rock tremble under my feet.

That is not a good sign.

“Is this your damn curse acting up again?” We’d been having it too easy I guess.

“No, I only have the two same old signals. We’ve shaken off the last lesser invasions easily, this is something else.”

His eyes are sharp in spite of the brutally cut rest.

“Well pack up, we might have to run.”

His signature constructs blossom around him like flowers of void as he does just that. Meanwhile, the rumbling steadily increases. I’m surprised to see that no loose rocks are falling down.

“Shit, this sounds like we’re about to meet whatever makes these tunnels.”

We don’t have good lines of sights down here, the pathways are rarely wider than twenty meters, and they are winding enough we can’t see much beyond fifty meters.

So it’s entirely too close for comfort when a hulking creature at least five meters tall breaks through the tunnel walls at the limit of my vision, pushing through the rocks like they are cardboard.

Its body is heavily armored, covered as it is in thick overlapping scales of what looks just like stone, strong limbs end in sharp claws designed for digging and it has a long snout surrounded by a quartet of tiny black eyes, which instantly lock on me.

I freeze but the beast has clearly spotted us, it turns, and long steps has it moving towards us far too fast.

“ALIX! Fight it off!”

Perhaps not my manliest moment, but I’m just proud to still be the lord and master of my bladder right now.

Alix moves forward and immediately stop, his voice somewhat shaky.

“DUDE, IT’S MADE OF STONE!”

“RUN THEN!” And I follow my own advice with no hesitation.

There’s a bright flash behind me that illuminates the whole cavern, making the pale light of the crystals seem all too dark for a moment, and we’re both making haste as the creature hisses like a really angry teapot.

Barely ten seconds pass before a very sharp whistle tears through the air, followed by the sound of an explosion, and the creature’s hiss becomes full of pain.

“What was that !?” I ask.

“Not me!” a beat “It just died!”

“What?”

We stop and look back, the monster is slumped down, pierced through by a long and thin rod.

Some kind of spear?

And of all things, a woman walks out of the tunnel the beast left behind. A very human one, carrying a large tube that could pass for a rocket launcher if it wasn’t covered in still glowing engraved patterns.

Well, we need to know if we start running faster or if it’s safe.

“Hey! Are you from Earth?” I call in her direction.

A cheerful voice answers.

“Oh, hi Marc! And Alix of course. Fancy meeting you guys up here.”