Limitless Path

The splits here turned out to be much shorter tunnels, each leading to a stone room with slightly more in them than the previous ones. The first room had a small table in it upon which the little lamp for the room was placed, making it cast a bit of a shadow on the ground once Beth had lit it. She examined the place afterwards, noting a small stool on the other side of the table that she hadn't seen before, as well as a small box in the back right corner.

This box was not a crate so much as an actual box, meant less for bulk shipping and more to store personal goods. She found that it had a simple latch and didn't appear to radiate any kind of mana or have anything else unusual about it, so she flipped it open with a finger flick. Inside the box was more old rope, a small piece of mana copper ore, and what looked like a pack of rations. She picked up the ore piece and examined it closely, finding that the purity was quite high as compared to the other pieces from the crate earlier. She decided to toss the piece in her pack before inspecting the pack of rations.

It was a fairly large pack, about two feet by one-and-a-half feet by a foot, and had writing on the top, front, and bottom. Luckily it was all in universal standard and described the contents of the ration pack. If Beth was reading it correctly, it looked like it contained a bunch of individually wrapped bars that were something like a dense nutrient bar with a specific type of fruit that she had never heard of as the flavor. Shrugging, she tossed the large package of bars in her pack, still having a decent bit of free space to work with. She figured if this was some kind of mine, she and Blood could do some work gathering up any ore they found in a few boxes and crates before taking it back. In the worst case, she could make a few trips with her bag and belt pouch empty at first and just load them down with ore or less valuable materials.

Finding nothing else of use, either in the box or the room, the two moved back down into the central side tunnel and made their way to the next room. Beth once again lit the lantern in the room when they entered, finding the room only slightly different than the prior one. The difference was not a positive one, as there was the frame of a bed in this room in the back corner. That wouldn't be terrible if it weren't for the fact that this seemingly replaced the box, as there was no container of any kind in this room.

Beth frowned but shrugged, happy to keep exploring and finding any other interesting tidbits the Path may have dropped around randomly. She checked again as they made their way onward to the next room in the side area, but there was still no indication that they were in a dungeon. She supposed this might be some kind of ruin or leftover, though she was even more suspicious that it had been generated since the integration started out of whole cloth and not teleported from some forgotten realm.

They examined another three rooms, only finding a little rope and one more piece of copper ore in them. The sixth room of the side passage was clearly the last, as the passage ended by going directly into that room instead of branching again. Beth had thought they had struck out yet again after lighting the lamp, seeing only a table and two stools as well as a bed frame in the room. She was a little surprised when Blood, who usually stayed outside and let her look around, entered the room with her large nose twitching.

It didn't take more than thirty seconds for the great lupine's powerful nose to sniff out something unusual on the left side of the room. Blood looked at Beth and reached up her right forelegs, pawing at a spot high on the wall and slightly off centered, more towards the back of the room. Beth strode over and examined the spot, the combination of her lightstone and the lamp in the room providing a good amount of light to work with.

At first, she didn't really notice a difference, but upon brushing the area off with her gauntlets with a little bit of a scraping sound, she was just able to determine that a section of wall about a foot square was a little bit off. The color was wrong compared to the stone the rest of the wall had been made of, a darker green tint present than anything they had seen to this point. It was also suspiciously smooth, which was a little difficult to tell with the naked eye, but Beth twisted her left gauntlet a little and popped it off to use her hand directly. The wall was definitely smoother than it should be under her fingers, and she could feel the difference at the edges where the rough room met the smooth hidden door.

For hidden door was all it could really be. Beth slid her gauntlet back on, turning to give Blood a look, who simply tilted her head in response. Beth reached out and scratched her friend and bond on the neck, ruffling her fur as she did so. She then returned to examining the section of wall, noting a problem after another moment of inspection.

"As with any good hidden door," she said to Blood, "it appears that the latch or switch is also hidden."

Blood chuffed in response and turned to the table, only having to spin around as the space was so little in the room her head was now hovering over the lamp after just turning in place. She lowered her head and carefully sniffed the lamp before looking at Beth and barking quietly.

"You think the lamp is a switch?" Beth asked her, turning to step over to the table and examine the lamp. It was nothing more than a square bottom, square top, and four panes of glass. The top and the bottom looked to be made of brass or something similar, and the light came from a little cube of dark stone in the middle that had a few runes engraved into it, the golden light shining evenly from this stone after Beth fed the lamp mana.

Reaching down with her left hand, she attempted to simply pick the lamp up. With a sharp tug, the top of the lamp made a little *eee* sound, but she actually failed to pick it up. She gave Blood a knowing glance, the wolf just blinking at her in return, before she tried twisting the lamp. This also produced no results, and she frowned at the object before leaning down to look closer. She saw what appeared to be a small groove cut around the very base of the lamp and, having a bit of a strange thought, pressed her palm down firmly on the top of the lamp. With a slight clicking sound, the lamp sank an inch into the table and stopped. Still frowning, she gently grasped the lamp with the claw tips of her gauntlet and twisted. Clockwise was a no go, but counterclockwise worked, and she twisted the lamp an entire rotation before that was another *click*.

Turning, she saw the hidden door had popped open a bare half-inch, and she quickly let go of the lamp and stepped back over to the hidden compartment. She grabbed the little door with the tips of the fingers of her left glove, trying to be cautious not to trigger any traps or grab anything that might turn out to be harmful. It seemed there wasn't any such thing in or around this hidden door, and it easily swung open on a silent hinge. Inside, Beth found what looked like a small pouch as well as a little ring.

Grabbing the ring first, she carefully lifted it out of the little compartment and turned to the light of the lamp, examining her find. It was a loop of some silver material, Beth thought mana silver, and it had fine little runes carved onto the inside. She was still rather unconversant with runes and so could not really tell what it was supposed to do, and thus decided to toss it in her pack rather than try it on. Getting a cursed item as the first jewelry-type item she found would be just her luck, and she'd rather wait to run items by Jaq or Lyrissa or even Baelvyr than get herself some kind of curse.

She turned back under Blood's attentive gaze and grabbed the pouch, carefully lifting it out of the safe before turning back to the light to see what her new prize contained. The little bag was sealed by a drawstring, and she carefully held it in her left hand as she undid the fastening with her right. With the string loosened, she opened the pouch to find an assortment of rather small, uncut gems inside. They were the size of her pinky nail or smaller and still rough from the ground, but she imagined they might fetch another gold from Jaq, even if he would complain about their current state.

She tossed the bag in her backpack before turning and giving Blood a hug, scratching the wolf's neck as she leaned against her. After a few moments of this, she disengaged before leading the way out of the room and back all the way to the main tunnel. They turned once again down the tunnel, heading further into the damp.

Striding down the tunnel for some time, the warm glow of the lightstone pushing back the chilling and heavy, damp darkness, the next tunnel emerged from the gloom like an old, yawning maw. There was a difference with this side branch, however, as even Beth could hear a noise echoing down the stone corridors as they approached. It was not at all a pleasant noise, a shuffling, clanking, wheezing sound reverberating down the narrow corridors.

Beth gave Blood a look, the wolf returning it with a nod, before turning down the new passage and heading towards the source of the noise. What had sounded close turned out to be far, the noises echoing and warping strangely in the chill darkness of the old mine. The steady glow of Beth's lightstone eventually revealed a hunched figure ahead of them, scrabbling with its paws on the rough ground.

The creature was hunched over, wearing some kind of rough clothes, and had a shaggy head of hair with what looked like a ruff of fur around its neck. It straightened in the light, standing only a little over four feet in height, and Beth noted the coarse fur covering patches on its exposed arms and legs. She also noted the nails like claws on the hands and feet as she used Identify on the beast.

Kobold Miner Level 14

And beast it clearly was, as it screamed a hoarse, rattling cry of anger and pain as soon as it saw Beth and Blood before mindlessly charging them. Much like the goblins of the day before, the creature was truly brainless, controlled only by a desire to tear flesh and devour it. Beth didn't bother with her sword as the beast leapt at her, simply sliding to the side slightly in the narrow tunnel and punching out with her left gauntlet. The hardened metal covering the front of her fist met the kobold's face and continued forward, pulping not just the ugly mug of the creature but also much of its head.

"Fucking gross," Beth complained, shaking kobold brain from her fist.

Upon closer inspection, she noted the fur covering the walnut brown skin of the creature was grey and splotchy. Likely that this creature was supposed to be either old or ill, or perhaps even both. How that affected beasts she wasn't really sure, but if the levels of the creatures down here were only in the teens, then she and Blood wouldn't have any difficulty. Even assuming they eventually had to face a mob, the tunnels were just too narrow for them to really be overwhelmed.

With a quick check to confirm the beast didn't give her a coin or have anything valuable on it, they moved on. Blood wrinkled her nose as she passed the body, clearly not happy with the rank smell of the creature, made no better with its death. Beth didn't hear anything else down this side branch, but they were careful to check each room and passage for any other threats.

It seemed as if the kobold she had smashed was the only one in this side passage, as they didn't find any others lurking in the gloom. They didn't find much of anything, in fact, as they returned to the main tunnel empty-handed. With nothing to show for the effort except the knowledge there were definitely enemies around, they continued in the direction they had been wondering so far.

The next thing they stumbled upon was not one, but two tunnels dug across from each other in a crude intersection. Beth suspected the whole thing was supposed to have the feel of being kobold made, as the tunnels at the intersection didn't line up or quite match. It seemed they were much the same as the last few cross tunnels and, with a look at Blood, Beth picked the closer right-hand tunnel first to explore.

They were met with their first surprise when they made their way into the first room, finding a kobold quietly sitting in the corner of the room. Luckily, Beth's lightstone was easily able to illuminate the whole room, so it was no great shock when the creature leapt up and hissed before charging them. Beth had firmly ingrained the habit of using Identify on anything new at this point and had done so as soon as the light hit the beast.

Kobold Miner Level 13

Beth scoffed as the creature leapt at her face, maybe trying to claw her eyes, or maybe just driven by its very simplistic instincts to attack a perceived vulnerable area. Whatever it was, she would never know, as the kobold died with a nice meaty crunch of her left fist into its dirty face the same as the last one. She grumbled as the kill notification dinged in her mind and she shook the fresh brains off her left glove before looking around the room. There didn't appear to be anything of value, no boxes or crates or containers present, and Blood gave no indication of wanting to enter for any reason.