The crack in the cliff went surprisingly deep, enough so that they didn’t get to anything like the end of it in the minute or so of running they were willing to do. It turned out that none of them had anything like night sight, which meant they relied completely on Clayton’s ability to sense big threats to decide which directions seemed safe. They used their hands to track the walls and turned down whatever alcoves they could, trying to put some distance between them and the Chronales.
At some point, Clayton’s sense began to warn of danger in equal amounts both before and behind them, and they stopped. In the dark, he did his best to estimate what the system was up to with the delayed experience and loot, but his system screen wasn’t much help.
That wasn’t a lot of information to go off. He had high hopes for what he’d eventually get from the combat, given that he absolutely led the kill count. The experience you got from the far places was supposed to be superior, kill for kill. The few people who made it back were invariably so strong that the region had become known as the ultimate in training grounds.
Clayton knew enough about survivorship bias to doubt that it was really as powerful an effect as people thought. Of course, people who survived would come back strong. They had to, if they wanted to survive at all. Even so, he hoped he was wrong, and that the experience the system was holding would mean a couple levels.
He was told things started really getting interesting with classes around level ten. He was praying that was true, and that he’d survive long enough to see it.
“She’s coming around.” Alvin spoke out of the dark. “Finally.”
“Where are we?” Grace moaned as Clayton heard her shift to a sitting position. “Did we make it to the cracks, after all?”
“Yes. And you absolutely destroyed several of the Chronales. That should pay off if we can get out of this zone.”
“Well, good.” Clayton stood and leaned against the wall. “I hate to ask, since your magic must be low, but can you do anything about the dark? I figured since you were a light mage, you might be able to.”
“Of course. It’s not even a skill to do it,” Grace said. A rock on the ground started to glow brighter and brighter. “It’s good it really doesn’t take much to make this happen. I’m at rock bottom.”
“How much do you have in wisdom?”
“Five points.” Grace picked up the rock and stood as the cave slowly lit up from her power. “Most of the rest is in intelligence. My next points were supposed to go into wisdom. Now that has to wait, I guess. It’s seriously holding out on us?”
“Looks like.” Clayton looked left and right. “Still no change on the danger. It’s bad enough that I can feel it on both sides.”
“How does that work, anyway? How bad are we talking?” Tom stood and brushed himself off. Everyone seemed to be getting ready to go, even if a path wasn’t chosen yet. Clayton couldn’t blame them. The cave was not a comfortable place. “More Chronales, or what?”
“It’s not like that. Or maybe it is. This skill has never leveled. I think what I’m getting is the most basic information possible. I can feel really big danger, or really immediate dangers. After that, it all sort of feels the same,” Clayton explained with a sigh.
“So we don’t know.”
“Except that it’s not safe anywhere in either direction, yes. Could be something we could handle, or it could be worse.”
“What about…” Alvin was suddenly on his feet and feeling the wall. “What about this way? Do you get any sense of anything there?”
“Through the wall? No. But that’s probably because it’s solid rock. Are you worried it will cave in?”
“No, not exactly. It’s more like… everyone stand back. Let me try something.” Alvin hefted his hammer. “I mean this.”
Alvin’s hammer flashed towards the wall faster and harder than Clayton believed it could have, knocking a chunk of rock about the size of his head into gravel and scattering it across the ground.
Alvin took a step back to examine his handiwork before explaining his idea. “It’s a mining skill. Lots of blacksmith classes have them. I never had much use for mine, so it’s not strong. But we could go this way, if you want. It wouldn’t be fast and I’m not sure how long it would work for. But we could.”
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“Does anyone have any better ideas? Grace?” Clayton looked around at the rest of his party.
“I’m not going to be in fighting shape for a while. I have debuffs that won’t leave for another hour, and I have to recharge after that. I’m just getting a trickle, as is.”
Clayton looked at Tom, who thought for a moment then nodded slightly.
“I’m fine with whatever the group wants to do. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get out of this damn zone and level.”
“I hear that.” Clayton nodded towards Alvin, who hefted his hammer. “I’d say keep it down, but I guess there’s not much chance of that.”
There wasn’t. Every hit of the hammer made Clayton’s ears hurt and echoed down the hallways loudly. He wasn’t sure that meant that things would absolutely find them, given how dark and branching the paths in this fissure seemed to be. Even so, he didn’t take any chances. He set Tom at the other end of the tunnel from him, and they both guarded one approach while Alvin mined and their mage set rock after rock glowing in pace with her limited mana regeneration.
“I’m starting to get a pretty good tunnel here. Do you guys want to come into it?” Alvin called out after a few minutes.
“Probably not.” Clayton didn’t get any danger sense from the new pathway, but he still had common sense. “I don’t want to be cornered in there until it has an escape. Have you found anything in there?”
“Low quality ores. But they’ve been getting better in one direction. Could you come down here and take a look real quick? Just for a second,” Alvin called back.
Clayton put his spear on his back and jogged the thirty or forty feet of new path until he was near Alvin. Once he was close enough to see by Alvin’s light, he took a look at the ore the blacksmith indicated.
“I don’t get anything from this yet, dangerwise. Maybe I even feel good about it?” Clayton said with a bit of hesitation.
“Is that a thing? With your skill?”
“It’s supposed to be. I’ve never had the opportunity to check.”
Alvin nodded in understanding at the idea of never having had a good prospect in this world. It was the way of things for Reborns, at least where they had the bad luck to land. Clayton avoided the awkwardness of talking about it any more by turning and trying not to rush too fast back to his post.
In the darkness, the clanging kept on as everyone’s nerves were set more and more on edge. Clayton almost jumped out of his skin when there was finally some variation to the noise. He calmed down a little when it turned out to be Alvin yelling, but not much.
“Hey Clayton? Could you come take a look at this?” Alvin called. “Something is up.”
Clayton moved down the tunnel again, this time in much more light and higher visibility than he had before. In the wall, next to his new friend, was a glowing blue vein of ore.
“The ore? I don’t know anything about that kind of thing,” Clayton said.
“Not the ore. That’s nice, but nothing we would need to store or take with us. I mean this. Listen.”
Alvin hit with his hammer, not particularly hard but dead center on the ore. It didn’t ring like normal. It was more hollow than that.
“There’s something on the other side of this wall. A space,” Alvin said. “And one more hit will open it up. I haven’t been very stealthy, so I wanted to get you guys in on the decision before I did anything rash.”
“Good call. Not something I can decide myself, but I’ll find out.”
Clayton poked his head back out into the passage and shared the news with the others. After making sure he wasn’t getting a vibe from either hallway, they all withdrew back to Alvin, who was waiting patiently for his answer.
“Do it, I say,” Tom said. “At the least, we get another option. At the most, there’s something hidden in there.”
“You think? This place seems pretty random to me. The real world doesn’t have treasure chests buried in secret chambers behind solid rock walls,” Clayton said.
Alvin nodded in agreement, while Grace and Tom gave each other a look of confusion.
“Reborns. That’s the problem. Listen carefully, you two.” Grace made hard eye contact with both of them. “I kind of understand how boring your worlds were. No magic. No direction to anything. I need you both to forget that right now. If you see something that seems like it should be a certain way, it might be. It’s worth checking, at least.”
“Especially if it’s a waterfall.” Tom nodded. “There’s always something behind a new waterfall, they say.”
“Why aren’t people just checking in every waterfall all the time, then?” Clayton asked.
“Because those have already been emptied out for centuries. Most of the loot people found there are important national treasures in the nations they were found. I’m serious. If you see a waterfall, you say something. Immediately.”
“So we should go into this secret room?”
“Probably. It’s either going to have treasure, or something we don’t really want to fight. Or both. But if you aren’t getting anything off your skill, it’s worth a shot.”
“Okay, then. I’m opening it up. Get ready. Tom, can you go first?” Alvin waited for a nod from the shielder, then pulled his hammer far behind him. “Great. Here we go.”
The wall didn’t break into gravel in the same way every other part of the tunnel had. Instead, it shattered, filling the cave with the echoes of breaking glass as the team’s shielder sprung through the newly created door. Clayton followed after, then Grace, then Alvin. As Clayton made it through, he saw that Tom was already throwing light rocks deeper into the space. He hardly needed to. As soon the first one left his hand, the light coming from it got caught up in the blue crystal every wall of the large room seemed to be coated in, amplifying and bathing the room in almost too-bright light.
Clayton relaxed slightly when no immediate threats came springing out at them. “That’s a lot of crystal. You said this stuff isn’t worth much, Alvin?”
“It is and it isn’t. This much is worth enough to buy a good sized building. Here, it’s useful. I’ll take a bit once we’ve cleared this. It amplifies magic, kind of. If I take some, I can make a fire that burn hotter.”
“That’s useful?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Grace interrupted, taking a few steps forward and looking around. “That can’t be all of what’s in here. It’s too interesting a room. Spread out. Look for chests, interesting rocks, armed skeletons. Anything.”
The group moved through the room, which was wide enough that they were able to all be several steps from each other. Clayton looked through every crystal he passed, hoping there would be a legendary spear glowing behind one of them. He had no luck.
“Is this normal? I’m finding nothing,” Clayton called out while his Fate Sense skill felt like it was starting to snag on something. “Nothing but more crystal. But something’s wrong.”
“Um. About that.” Alvin’s voice was shaking. “Remember how they said it was treasure or something we really wouldn’t want to fight?”
Clayton whipped around. In a corner none of them had made it to, rocks were shifting.
“What the hell Clayton? I thought you’d sense things like this,” Grace yelled. “What gives?”
“It doesn’t work on everything!”
“I guess it couldn’t.” Tom hefted his shield into a blocking positing and maneuvered in front of the group. “You feeling charged, Grace?”
“As good as I’ll get. Let's do it.”
Tom charged forward, Clayton and Alvin in tow. Before they could get there, the monster was already mostly formed. It was a four-legged thing, with each of its appendages attached to a different corner of a large, cubic gem. In the center of the gem, protected by the crystal but still able to dart around looking at objects and attackers, was a huge eye.
The system’s description kicked in just as it started scuttling towards them. Clayton glanced at it and realized why his Fate Sense skill was yelling louder than ever before.
