Chapter Three: Close Encounters of the Subterranean Kind.

Finally getting restless after being sat on a cold, hard floor for God knows how long, Rory decided to get up and examine the cave in more detail. Upon getting to his feet, He was surprised just how easy it was to stand up. He was not only more flexible but more coordinated and stronger while trying to stand. That was not the only change Rory noticed. His mind was clearer than it ever was, though he wasn’t sure this was a good thing at the moment as it kept returning to thinking about the horrors of the induction room. While his attributes had all nearly doubled from when he first viewed them, his physique hadn’t improved, he was still overweight.

Doing a quick lap around the cave didn’t highlight anything that he hadn’t already seen earlier. The walls were still covered in luminous moss and there was still only one exit, no hidden doors or pools of water presented themselves.

Curious at the luminous moss, Rory walked right up to a thick patch that was roughly at eye level. Concentrating on a specific piece triggered what he know knew was his analyse skill, causing a description to appear in his vision.

Luminous moss (name unknown) (common)

Description – moss that gives off a weak blue light. Description is limited due to lack of relevant skills and/or class.

Properties – unknown

The lack of information puzzled Rory, as the other times he had used the skill, all the information had been revealed, even on items much rarer. The only explanation he could think of was that it was purposely limited to give people that specialised in the use of alchemy or herbology or whatever it was under this crazy system.

Reaching his hand out, Rory gingerly touched the moss. It felt spongy and slightly damp. Wondering if it would be good as a portable light source, Rory grabbed a chunk and pulled it away from the wall. A fist sized piece broke away easily, but to Rory's dismay, it immediately stopped glowing, instead it turned hard and dry.

Now that Rory had ripped the moss from the wall it failed to analyse as anything and with nothing better to do with it Rory tried to place the handful into his pouch, as soon as he thought of storing the moss it disappeared and at the same time a miniscule symbol of the moss appeared in his mental image of his pouches storage. After much more experimenting with clumps of moss Rory discovered that he could store items in a two meter radius from himself, he did not need to touch the item but it would only store the moss when it was no longer glowing. The moss did not stack with each other, but after storing several kilograms of moss, it still only took up a tiny fraction of the storages space.

“Fuck!” Rory almost jumped out of his skin when he felt something touch his shoulder.

With his heart thundering in his chest, Rory turned around and noticed that in his distraction a man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair in a sharp business suit had approached him and was the owner of the hand that had tapped him on the shoulder.

“Sorry didn’t mean to scare the living daylights out of ya, not that I can blame ya for jumping. Considering what just happened...” the man apologised.

“it’s fine. I just zoned out there for a little while, that’s all,” Rory replied.

“Right then! My name is Peter and me and a couple of others are thinking about trying to get out of this cave and since you seem to have items falling out of thin air, we thought you might know something. "

Sighing, Rory dejectedly replied, “Hi I’m Rory and I wish I did. This system we all seem to have now thinks I somehow killed one of the monsters in the induction room and rewarded me for it. Honestly, I’m just as lost as everyone else...”

Peter just shrugged in response before Turner away from Rory and wandering over to a group of six other people who were quietly talking to each other.

With nothing else to do, Rory decided to follow after Peter and listen to what the others were discussing. As he approached, several members of the group glanced his way, giving him a cursory inspection before they resumed talking. The group, excluding Peter, were made up of four males and two females. A black man, wearing a full cricket outfit including bat, leg pads and helmet, towered over everyone else, easily 6 ‘6”.

Two scrawny teenage boys that seemed far too excited about the whole situation they were practically vibrating. One was short with sandy hair and blue eyes, while the other was lanky with soft grey eyes and elbow-length, fine, blond hair.

The fourth was an overweight man with long grease filled hair that fell past his shoulders.

The two women were complete opposites of each other. The first was a plumb teenager with fiery red hair and spectacles, while the other was a woman in her mid-forties with an athletic build and buzz cut hair.

The group were sharing their opinions on what was going on and what they should do about it.

“I’m telling you, everyone else is dead weight. We should just leave them here and try to save ourselves!” argued the overweight man.

Snorting the women with the buzz cut replied, “yeah that’s not going to happen. Some freak show happens and we all end up in a bloody cave and the first thing we are going to do is split up. "

Going red in the face he replied, “you read the announcement same as I did. We are in a tutorial called fucking nightmare, so what are we supposed to do? Play happy families with everyone while we all get murdered?”

“ENOUGH!” Peter shouted causing his voice to echo eerily around the cave, “whether we like it or not we are stuck here and we have been put in a group for a reason, we need to stick together and look out for each other, atleast until we start to understand things more clearly.”

Mollified, the rest of the group calmed down, several members looking embarrassed.

Quickly after that, Peter had taken control of the small group and mobilised them into convincing the other members in the cave to get themselves up so that everyone could start exploring their surroundings.

Somehow Rory found himself in the front of the group that had formed up. Everyone had been convinced it was in everyone’s best interest to stick together. Setting a steady pace, the group left the cave and entered into the tunnel. The tunnel was still illuminated by the glowing moss but it was sparser here, casting ominous shadows from the various stalactites and stalagmites that littered the tunnel.

The tunnel bent, narrowed and then widened periodically over the next several hours as the group proceeded. however it did not branch off or meet any other tunnels during this time, causing pockets of people to start muttering about being trapped underground. Rory was oblivious to most of this as he was currently occupied with one of the blessings he had received.

Child of flame - You have become more intimate with fire than most people would find reasonable and in doing so have been gifted with its power. 25% reduction in fire and heat damage received. You will learn to control fire and heat more efficiently; they cost 25% less mana to influence and does 25% more damage. 10% increase to intelligence and wisdom. Ability to generate the fire element without the aid of Orbs of Power.

The blessing implied that he had gained the ability to make and control fire however, he had no idea how to do this. The blessing had not given him any understanding over the power. He felt no connection to fire. Waving his hands about and imagining fire blossoming from them did nothing, neither did saying fireball or any fire related thing he could think of. The only thing he accomplished was some very concerned looks from the others.

He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he didn’t notice when he entered into a large chamber. Instead, he continued to shuffle along while the rest of the group came to a stop many of them gasping. They had entered into a spacious cavern so large that the gloom obscured both the ceiling and the far end. Crunching under his feet finally got Rory to stop, looking down at what he had stepped on revealed bones, hundreds and thousands of bones and bone fragments covered the cavern floor, most were of small animals but here and there were skeletons of much bigger animals. All the bones were stripped clean, not a scrap of meat left on them. Just as he was about to cry out in fright a deafening flapping noise sounded from the ceiling.

Bats! Hundreds of bats started to descend from the ceiling, rapidly flying towards the massed group. Luckily Rory was far enough away that the bats ignored him, the others not so much... chaos soon ensued as the bats swarmed everyone else, some of the bats neared six foot in wingspan with bodies as big as a medium-sized dog while others no bigger than a rat, while they varied in size, they all had jet black fur with dull milky eyes and large razor-sharp canines.

Without much conscious thought, Rory analysed the biggest bat he could see

Subterranean Spectral Bat – lvl 17

Description – stealthy and silent ambush predators, nearly impossible to see when stalking its prey or remaining stationary. They are highly territorial creatures and will not permit other beings encroaching on their nesting grounds, resulting in them swarming and either killing or driving off any intruders.

While nowhere near as terrifying as the monsters in the induction room the bats were still way out of everyone's league the lowest level one Rory could see were lvl 8 far higher than everyone else who were on level 1 and had very little to defend themselves with. Gashes and cuts soon appeared on the majority of the group as the bats sharp wings easily cut peoples soft skin as they flew past, a few unlucky ones had bats land directly on them, their wings folding around their prey trapping them while the bats fangs punctured their victims' bodies. The suddenness of the attack caused most people to panic and start to scatter, leaving only four people actually trying to help the trapped victims.

Enraged by the unprovoked and violent attack, Rory roared in frustration as he rushed in to try to help as many people as he could, determined to be more successful at helping than last time around. Luckily, due to people scattering, groups of bats also broke from their swarm following after individual targets.

Arriving at the closest person, Rory grabbed hold of the leathery wing of the bat and tried to unwrap it from around its victim, however it was much to strong and the only thing he managed was to earn a low warning hiss from the bat. Just as he was about to give into despair something darted into his line of sight, a knife plunging down and into the soft flesh of the bats wing tearing a wide gash in the delicate membrane, as quickly as it had come the knife wielder was gone, moving onto the next person to help. With a screech, the Subterranean Spectral Bat released its prey and shot wobbly into the air due to the large wound it had received, deciding to hunt for an easier foe.

A shaky hand latched onto the front of Rory’s onesie, causing him to focus on the poor soul in front of him. The man in front of him was as white as a ghost, with two large open wounds in his chest.

“You're okay mate, the bats gone, but you need to get out of here!” Rory stated while he gently pushed the guy in the general direction of the other side of the cave.

The man opened his mouth to speak but suddenly froze. Whatever he was about to say died in his throat as fear overtook him. Before Rory could process the man’s reaction, something crashed into his back, sending him stumbling to the floor. Tight, leathery wings pinned his arms to his side as they enveloped him. Try as he might, Rory had neither the strength nor leverage to free himself. Rory screamed out in pain as the bat's fangs punctured his shoulder. The fabric of his onesie offering no resistance, almost immediately dizziness and weakness came over, him radiating out from his wound.

Panic and despair overtook Rory. He kicked and strained fruitlessly, only managing to flop around and wriggle on the floor, each attempt getting weaker and weaker as he was drained. His eyelids grew heavy, and it was an effort just to stay awake, just as he was about to give in and go to sleep a burning sensation erupted in his chest, pain nearly unimaginable flooded his body and then exploded out of him in a fiery inferno. The bat in fright tried to escape but was quickly overcome by the flames. Its body resisted for a second before turning to Ash. The explosion of light and fire was blinding and deafening in the gloomy, echoing cavern, causing everyone to freeze in fright.

A moment passed and then as one, the swarm of bats stopped harassing their victims and they all surged into the air towards the opposite end of the cavern that the group had entered from, their wings beating fiercely as they escaped in a panic. Leaving the group bloodied but alive.

A chime resounded in Rory’s head, snapping him out of the fatigue the drain from the bat had left him in. With a grunt he sat up and glanced around him. In a two-meter radius around him were scorch marks and of the bat itself only ashes remained, ashes that clung to his dirty but otherwise intact onesie. Miraculously, Rory was unharmed from the fiery outburst but he was shaking like a leaf. He was completely drained of energy and just wanted to go to sleep. Giving in to the temptation, Rory let the darkness take him.