Runeblade-Chapter 203B2 : Infiltration, pt. 3

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After deciding to wait for nightfall, Kaius had returned to his watch upon the ridge. Seated quietly in the shadow of the boulder, he kept his eyes on the valley. As the early autumn sun had tracked its way down towards the horizon, more boggarts had appeared.

Raiding parties—more than one returning with the carcasses of their hunts.

Each and every one had a bugbear or two in their midst, directing their lesser siblings with disturbing intelligence.

By the time the amber cloak of the setting sun draped his back, the valley drenched in shadow, the incoming boggarts had slowed. When night finally fell, he’d made a count of seventy individuals, with an unknown quantity already inside the caves.

The moon had risen high in the sky by the time he had decided it was time for them to strike. With the fall of night, his darkvision came into play—the vibrant colours of the day washing out into a clear monochrome. Returning to the clustered boulders, Kaius nodded to his team, and they busied themselves with securing the supplies they would need for their assault.

Light was unneeded—they could all see in the dark to varying degrees. Ianmus was the worst off, his amulet only brightening complete darkness to a level where a normal man would be hard pressed to see more than indistinct shadows in the dark. Thankfully, his elven heritage and high mental stats had left him with sharp enough eyes that it was only a minor hindrance.

Their packs would be left behind. They’d stash them in their tent—which they’d pitched in a corner of the space in the middle of the piled stones. Hopefully, even if they were discovered, it would be passed over as just another pile of rocks.

The lighter they could travel, the quicker they would move if they had to. Potions were gathered and sorted—four mana potions, four health, and a couple of general purpose antidotes. Ianmus had them secured at his belt, though he’d taken a pair of health potions for himself and Porkchop.

They’d also bring a few rations. Not much, just a days worth of jerky and a single mundane waterskin—they could be down there for hours, and keeping their strength up would be important.

Kaius donned his cloak and pulled its draping hood over his helmet. No doubt there would be watchers in the cave, relying on firelight to see. A poorly timed glint of metal would give them away if he didn’t cover himself. Thankfully, it wasn’t the only protection they had against that eventuality.

Knowing they’d most likely be venturing underground, Kaius had been storing ash from their nightly fires for weeks. Every scrap of metal—artifacts, buckles, armour, and more—was rubbed down, obscuring their sheen as much as possible.

In silent unison, they left their packs and advanced. Hiking a good quarter league along the ridge, they moved to a relatively gentle slope that was absent of scree that Kaius had spotted earlier. It would have been far too risky to scramble down right outside the cave—if there were watches that he had missed, they would be spotted immediately.

Each step was still nerve wracking. Kaius took every stride with care, experience and Skill guiding his footsteps as he crept around brittle grasses and stray twigs. Even Porkchop, with all his impressive bulk, was like a ghost. The hunt was well known to him, and he moved with a silent grace that made his strength all the more terrifying.

Entering the treeline, Kaius kept his eyes constantly moving. Totally focused on their surroundings, his Glass Mind raced, working with Explorer’s Toolkit to catalogue every shrouded bough, pool of shadow, and shifting shape.

Potential points of ambush were highlighted, focused on, analysed, and discarded in moments as he guided them through the valley.

Soon, his vigilance was rewarded. Leaf litter—spread a little too consistently to be natural.

Holding up a hand for his team to halt, Kaius crept forwards, eying the disturbance. Toolkit had thoroughly looked onto it now, baying in his mind like a bloodhound on the scent of game.

Lowering himself into a crouch, he peered closely at the leaves. A dense mat of woven twigs was beneath them. Finding a lack of tripwires or branches held under tension in the surroundings, Kaius moved to a nearby tree and scooped a long stick off the ground.

Returning to the suspicious pile, he hooked his stick under the lip of the woven twigs, lifting them upwards.

It revealed a hole—as deep as he was, with stone-tipped spears lining the bottom. A pit-fall.

The boggarts had been building traps.

**Ding! Explorer’s Toolkit has reached level 45!**

“Traps. Pretty simplistic though—if this is exemplary of their work I should be able to get us to the cave without issues.” Kaius whispered.

His team nodded, and they set off once more with redoubled caution.

Kaius spotted four more pitfalls on their journey through the widespread trees—one of which had already been triggered. They’d approached that one, eager to see what the boggarts had been setting them for.

They didn’t seem like they were being used for hunting—not with the size of them, or the way they had been set at convenient routes through the trees. Unfortunately, the pit had been empty—though broken spears and the dried remnants of blood still lined the base of the pit. Whatever had fallen through had obviously been carted off as lunch.

As they drew close to the cave, the short trees that lined the valley floor grew even thinner. Artificially so—roughly hacked at stumps had taken their place. Kaius only hoped that the wood had been used for cooking fires, rather than fortifications deeper in the cave.

Despite going through the effort to create clear sight lines around the cave's mouth, the boggarts seemed to have grown complacent in the safety of their new home.

The lone tree beside the cave entrance was empty, and he spotted no sign of fire inside the cave. Even if some of the boggarts had skills that let them see in the dark, none of them had been posted either.

He could see the cave's interior just fine, and between Truesight and his Toolkit he had full confidence in spotting watchers if they had existed.

Approaching the cliff's edge, they pressed themselves close to the stone. Kaius took the lead, with Porkchop taking the rear.

Shuffling right up to the edge, Kaius craned his neck to peer into the cave. His lips pursed into a frown—the cave was just as extensive as he’d feared. There’d been a thin hope that it would stretch back a handful of dozen long-strides before widening into an enclosed cavern.

It was not to be.

Instead, the fifteen stride wide opening expanded almost immediately to double that. The natural tunnel punched deep into the hillside, before it slowly curved down—into the belly of the world—obscuring him from seeing any deeper.

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Even with his vision occluded, he still saw hints of smaller side passage winding off from the main cave. Cracks and fissures that could hold watching boggarts, traps, or grisly trophies.

Kaius pulled himself back, relaying his findings to his team. Getting a nod in return, they entered.

Taking his position at the front of the group, Kaius left his blade in its sheath. Even covered in ash, there was still the chance it could give them away, and he was more than confident he’d be able to draw it in time.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was defenceless. He had a full complement of spells already inscribed—Stormlash and Slip Step both, though he’d only taken a handful of the latter. If the entire plague did descend on their heads, he wanted as many casts of crackling lightning as he could get.

Step by step they crept into the darkness. Now that they were fully in the cave, the signs of boggart habitation were everywhere. Soot stains, claw scratched stones, bones, and more.

He could even smell smoke, wafting up towards them from deep within the underground passage.

The jagged fissures in the cave walls drew close. Some were visible as little more than large cracks in the rock, while through others he could see openings. Only a few looked wide enough to be usable, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Not when his Glass Mind was happily focused on the many ways such a space could be used to obscure an ambush or trap.

Kaius waved for his team to move closer to the wall as they approached the first of the fissures. Leaving them where they were, he dropped into a deep crouch and snuck forward.

A quick approach and swift look let him know that the fissure was empty. He rushed forwards, checking the others as quickly as he could while still remaining silent.

Some had been used as impromptu dumping grounds, but none housed any boggarts.

Kaius drew back, moving swiftly as he returned.

“Nothing,” he whispered. “we continue.”

Porkchop and Ianmus nodded, following after him.

If he’d had an inkling that the cave system was large, after a quarter hour of slowly creeping through the darkness it had proven itself massive. It almost reminded him of being in the depths. The endless crawl through twisting tunnels and passages in search of the next cavern full of beasties.

There were still differences. The mana was more wild, the surroundings more natural. A surface level similarity only. Still, it was enough that he quickly fell back into old habits—constantly looking for threats, always looking over his shoulder, and pulling more heavily on his bond so that he would know immediately if Porkchop spotted something.

Advancing onwards, through cold blackness and hardened stone, Kaius’s tension rose. He would have expected that they would have run into something by now. The evidence that the boggarts had made their home here existed, but the absence of their presence grated further with every step.

If the cave got any deeper, he was worried that their foes had found an entrance to the underworld—the sprawling network of caves and caverns that were home to strange and dangerous monsters. Though, that said, he was pretty sure they’d need to descend half a league or more before that happened, and the boggarts themselves would likely be little more than a snack to the denizens of that umbral place.

It was the monotony that was the worst. The unknown. He had no problem fighting the boggarts, but all this creeping and skulking was doing his head in.

Finally, after rounding yet another gentle bend in the cave, his wish came true.

A deep hiss broke the silence, bouncing clean off the hardened rock walls to reach his ears from deeper down the passage. Kaius froze at once, feeling Porkchop do the same behind him.

His heart thumped in his chest, jaw muscles tense as he prayed that they hadn’t been caught.

A moment later another hiss crossed the space, this one a little raspier—quickly followed by the sound of clattering rocks and heaving grunts.

Kaius shared a look with his team, tilting his head questionably. Ianmus nodded.

Investigation it was.

Rounding the bend, they came across the first major divergence from their path since they had entered the cave.

A cross road, one branch continuing straight and downwards, and one that split off to the right, quickly leveling out.

The dual clamour of anger and clattering blows was coming from the right. Close.

Rushing forwards, Kaius peered down the quiet tunnel. It seemed to end quickly—a champer that had definitely been used at some point, judging by the burnt out fire pits and scraps of bone that were strewn around the place. Currently though, it lay abandoned.

He returned, checking down the tunnel where the ongoing feral calls were coming from.

Inching forwards down the tunnel, Kaius strained his ears. There were definitely two of them, and they were fighting alright.

The tunnel started to curve off to the right. Rounding the bend, Kaius saw the faintest hint of rising light shimmering on the far cave wall. He poked his head around the corner, finding little but a brighter glow reflecting off another turn.

That was one problem with his darkvision, it was sensitive enough that even the slightest hint of light was noticeable in pitch-blackness.

He gestured to his team to stay put, pushing on ahead alone. While he was no match for a proper sneak, Toolkit did at least bring some benefit to his stealth.

Faint hisses and deep whacks resolved themselves into snarls, scraps, and yipping bleats as they drew closer, each bend revealing more and more light.

Whatever confrontation was occurring ahead, it sounded vicious.

Finally, the light Kaius could see was visibly flickering, revealing the nature of its flaming source. He crept ahead of his team, cloak pulled tight around him as the recognisable sound of fists hitting flesh droned.

He poked his eyes around the corner, pressed tight to the cave wall to hide his presence—though he was careful not to let his armour clink on the stone.

A small cavern, perhaps twice as wide as the cave—thrown in stark relief by a small fire that burned at its centre.

Standing before the fire were two boggarts, desperately wailing on each other with fist and stone as they fought over a mostly striped leg bone. If it was just the two of them, Kaius would have already rushed in to silence them. With the infernal racket they were making, their cries of alarm would have been no different.

Unfortunately, they weren’t alone. Half a dozen more boggarts looked on from the side of the cavern, nestled around another passage leading deeper into the cave. A bugbear loomed over his lessers, amusement visible on their face as they stared at the brawl.

It was the passage behind them that drew his eye. Crude torches were mounted on its side, lighting it up. Moreover, the stone had been crudely hacked at, shattered edges and jagged walls revealing it had been widened.

The start of the nest.

….

Crouched at the edge of the cliff face, Drorome watched the three idiots enter the cave with a sigh.

Her Mirage Skein broke up her image, hiding her completely from their sight. Not that the overconfident fools had been watching.

I mean, really, they went through all the trouble of taking an account of the raiding parties, only to rush in head first? She knew that they were bound to fail—it was the entire point of this exercise, after all—but she’d hoped they would at least do it well.

On the gods, if they went down there—aware that there were unknowns like the bugbears—and went straight to a frontal assault, she’d beat some sense into them herself.

It was always the same with prodigies—they thought themselves invincible. That raw power meant everything, and forgot to account for simple things like raw numbers and the power of attrition. These ones might be once-in-a-millenia, but from everything she had seen, it only made the problems worse.

Shaking her head in disappointment, she stepped forwards, falling soundlessly through the air.