The cave in front of us was actually kind of inviting. The subtle blue glow that emanated from the hole in the rock made it seem like it had been designed just for us. The dark rock was worn mostly smooth by the splashback of water, or possibly by something else. Regardless, I could see small spikes of crystalline material the same shade and luminosity as the water from the river lighting our way down the tunnel. Focusing on what was important, I shook Callie slightly. "Hey, Cal, you alright?"

She groaned and rolled over. "Ow." I nodded sympathetically. She had much less coverage than I did from armor. I knew it was partly for mobility, but I was also pretty sure she just liked her style. Fashion hurts I guess. She sat up slowly, reaching up to wring out her soaking hair, which was dripping with luminous water. "Shit. This isn't good. My hair is glowing, which means I can't use it as a vessel. My coat should still work because of the material."

I reached up to touch a bruise on her forehead with a scowl, and she yelped a bit and pulled back. "Damn it." I snapped. "What the hell is Abel playing at? This is too far, even for him. We could have died. The others might have been injured, I saw at least one of them hit the pool. Lament should be fine, but if that was Wren, Sloane, Sydney or Megan things could be bad."

Wren had ended up going with Beric while Croll had partnered up with Sloane, since there were only three of the Spear Legion here. I hadn't seen him near us though. I was seriously pissed we'd been sent here. To my surprise, Callie just sighed, shaking her head. "I don't think so." When I cocked my head she just sighed. "We turned during our trip down the rapids. I barely even noticed it, but right after we started to descend. I think we might have gone off track."

That...was a good point. Fuck. I hadn't considered this might not be within Abel's calculation. Thinking about it though, if he'd been aiming for us to come to a place like this he'd have tagged along. I heard noises off behind us and whirled, putting myself in front of Callie. Lament stepped forward, followed by Sloane, Croll, Lestri, Beric, and Wren. "Oh good. You all survived." She said sunnily, in a better mood than I'd ever seen her.

Sloane sighed. "Ignore the lunatic with the pointy stick. Have you two seen Megan and Sydney? Also where the actual fuck are we? I don't know anything about Doomtown, but I feel like they should mention to people that there's a big fuck off waterfall when they rent canoes. Maybe put up a sign."

I just shrugged. "I mean...could we have even read it in that mist and splashback? Hell, maybe there actually WAS a sign, and we just missed it." She seemed flummoxed by that thought for a second, but before I could continue, we heard another sound off to the side of where we were standing. I turned to check and noted with relief that it was Sydney and Megan, both of whom looked a bit bedraggled but still fine.

The others all noticed as I did, and we hurried over to meet them. "Hey, glad you guys are ok!" Said Callie. "We were worried there for a second. Pretty sure we took a wrong turn there. Though I'm surprised we all ended up going the same way."

Megan snickered at that. "You guys were out front at one point, we followed you. If everybody's fine it's no big deal though. I guess we need to climb back up then?"

"We could..." Said Lament slowly. "But don't you kind of want to know what's in that cave? My Fantasy sense is pushing me toward that thing. Plus it's a secret CAVE behind a waterfall. What kind of Ascendants would we be if we didn't at least check it out?"

I sighed internally as I saw Callie's eyes snap to the entrance. My girlfriend was a rational and logical person most of the time, but when she got even the slightest hint of loot she essentially turned into a ravenous beast. Not that I didn't love loot. But Callie took the same sort of primal joy in finding treasure that I did in finding a good fight. I was pretty sure there was absolutely zero chance of getting out of here without exploring now that it had been phrased that way.

On second thought though, Lament was right. This was a pretty limited place. G-ranked and low F-ranked Ascendants were the only ones allowed. No way the WCP hadn't swept this whole place for anything over the threshold. There might be some monsters down there, sure, but we were a pretty badass group. We should be able to handle anything we came across.

Still, I put a hand on Callie's shoulder as she started forward. "Wait." She stopped, turning to me in confusion and I slipped off a glove, spinning up my scan ring. A few seconds and Abel's face appeared on a screen above my open hand. "Oh, hey!" He said cheerfully. "We were waiting down where the rapids calm, but you guys never showed. What's the deal?"

I panned the call around, showing off where we were. "We're...somewhere? We took a turn off the main rapids and went over a waterfall. There's some kind of cave down here we were going to check out. Figured I'd see if you guys wanted to come check it out." Whatever was down here I'd feel better with Abel onboard. Our mentor was a Master Candidate like Lament, and we knew him a lot better.

To my surprise, he perked up. "Wait really? That's awesome! I didn't even know that was there. I've only done this a few times. Maybe your Fantasy senses pushed you to turn? Either way, I'd love to come, but I have no clue where you are. I'll try to figure out where the waterfall is, you guys go ahead and we'll catch up if we can." He sounded ecstatic about the possibility, and I smiled ruefully under my mask as I hung up. Fucking Ascendants man.

"Ok." I said, turning back to the others. "Apollyon and Starbreaker are going to catch up, they said to go ahead. I guess...let's check this place out." I doubted we were the first to find it. Even if it had been a Fantasy thing I couldn't have a Fantasy that much higher than everyone else. My stats were always lower. The only possibility I could think of was that only Might focused people had tried the rapids, but even so, there was no way SOMEONE hadn't been down here.

Callie squealed with joy, bouncing up and down before grabbing my hand and dragging me toward the cave. I snorted at that and eased out my cane, getting ready to deal with anything we came across. The others trailed behind as we stepped inside. The crystallized lake water (I assumed) cast a glow that let us see but still left patches of shadows along the walls. As we stepped inside, our feet echoed across the eerily smooth surface of the tunnel.

Small rocks and gravel appeared as we stepped inside though, crunching underfoot, the density of the fragments increasing as we followed the tunnel further in. We all tried our best to be quiet, Callie and I shifting into stealth, but Lament seemed to be unworried, strolling through the cave tunnel with her spear over a shoulder, looking around with interest.

The small spider that dropped from the ceiling was dead almost before I noticed it. Her spear lancing out lazily to perforate it multiple times before she stepped smoothly out of the way and let it smack wetly into the floor. I jumped. "Huh." Said the Spear user. "That's interesting. I wonder if there are any more?"

Sloane stepped forward, kneeling down next to the corpse. "Rockjacker. Nasty variant. Venom turns body parts to stone." She poked it a few times. "This one seems to be a baby. So...yes, probably a few more." She slipped out a knife and jammed it into the things mouth, levering it open before cursing. "Shit. You nicked the venom sack. They're actually worth some money. Still, let me..." She cut into the body casually, with no hesitation at all, until she shouted. "Jackpot!"

Reaching into the wound she yanked out a small lump of red that I realized was a half digested ruby. "Rockjackers refine their venom by eating precious stones, usually ones with some kind of stats." She held up the ruby, looking closely at it. "Damn. I think this had a naturally occurring fire rune, looks like the stomach acid ruined it though. Still... should be a decent few points of Might left."

Reaching out for the stone, I weighed it in my hand. It DID have Might in it. Not a lot, but enough that it could be used in crafting. She was right, I could see part of a corroded rune. Still, this thing would be worth a decent chunk of cash. "So...why did the spider attack Lament? I thought they eat rocks?"

She shrugged. "Bones are rock like. Plus they have a ton of stats when you're talking people our level. Still, it's surprising that it jumped out at a group of us. Rockjackers are usually pretty timid. Granted, it's just a little thing, but that should make it more wary not less." She frowned pensively. "Who knows though. We'll have to take a closer look. It'll be valuable though. Breeding Rockjackers collect a ton of stones for their young to feast on when they hatch so they can grow to adulthood and strike out on their own. As young as this thing is, there's no way they've finished the stockpile yet."

Callie's head snapped around. "Are you telling me." She said slowly. "That somewhere in this cave there is a giant spider web containing a huge pile of valuable Ascendant gems that we can just FIND and take?" She was starting to breathe heavier, and I could swear I saw her hands twitch.

"A spider web." I reminded her. "Presumably containing a spider. Which considering how big this thing is as a baby, is probably fucking HUGE and might be F-rank." Not that I expected that to stop her. Besides, we were all approaching peak G. We could take some stupid spider, especially with Lament here helping with her cheat level Spear Skill.

Callie had the same thought apparently because she turned to the Spear wielder. "Can you kill a beginner F-rank spider? Not alone or anything, we'll be right there helping, but we need to make sure we have a finishing blow that can put it down. You're the best shot at that."

Lament looked positively gleeful. "Hell yes I can! I've killed worse. Especially if you can pin it down for me, I'll pincushion the eight legged bastard." She whirled her staff around, spinning it dexterously between her hands as she struck out a few times to demonstrate her point, the air cracking from the speed and force of the stabs. I could see everyone was getting into this idea already.

I didn't mind doing it, but I wasn't going to let Callie get killed because she was treasure hungry. I could see her head wasn't in this. "Ok." I said hesitatingly. "But if we do this we aren't doing it with just us. We need to wait for Apollyon and Starbreaker. They'll want to be involved anyway. You know how much Apollyon loves money." Callie looked a bit impatient, but at my intense stare she nodded and I sighed in relief. I was obviously going to support her in this, but doing it without Abel was an unnecessary risk. Once our teacher got here we would be almost guaranteed to be able to handle this. But hey, at least Callie was making dumb decisions for her own happiness. Oddly, this one didn't make me feel better.