Donare Donum: The Gift Giver's Chronicle

Orange flames poured into the subterranean hollow right behind them and rose up towards the swarm of avian creatures on the ceiling, sending them into a frenzy. I was deafened by the sheer noise of the angry yelling cries from them, but I shielded my face against the heat and waited for our quarry.

Soon enough, a stark white figured emerged into our cavern, and I immediately drove both of my blades into its’ side. Quickly realizing what it was, I immediately extracted both swords and dodged a retaliatory bite, the crocodilian jaws snapping closed on empty air.

I quickly looked behind it and saw that two of its’ fellows were hot on its’ heels, and I knew we were in for a fight.

That was before the mob of black killers descended on the Neidyr interloper and started to tear it to pieces. Its’ peers hissed angrily and started biting and slicing at the Falwyr, apparently incapable of using their fire breath again immediately.

I quickly stooped down and helped both Isaiah and Ann to their feet. I noticed that both looked like they had been thrown into a furnace. Poor Ann had had her hair thoroughly singed, her scalp a mass of angry red skin and irregular patches of black hair that clung stubbornly to life. Isaiah was in an even worse condition.

I forced two berries into each of their mouths to keep them on their feet, and we all ran back in the direction of the main entrance, barely saying a word as we left the free-for-all melee behind us. We traced the winding path back to safety for what must have been hours, before gathering up our firewood and going to the surface. I took the time to get the lucky duo to eat another two berries each as we ascended. It might seem wasteful, but they were in terrible condition, and I wanted everyone in fighting shape. It spoke volumes that even Isaiah gratefully accepted the healing.

That put us down to a total of nine, enough for around one final serious encounter.

Reunited at last, we chose to rest on the surface due to all the chaos down below. It would take time for that to die down, and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t being followed. The surface was freezing, however, and totally dark, as night had fallen in our absence. Isaiah and Ann wore nearly ruined clothes, and they were shivering in the biting evening air. Julia and I looked away and stripped off our outer layers to give them something to cover themselves with. I had told everyone to bring extra layers ahead of time, foresight I was happy about. Now, though, we were suffering from not being even more prepared. I started up a campfire with the wood that we had retrieved earlier to ward off the night’s chill.

I was tempted to start trading stories to satisfy my curiosity, but both Isaiah and Ann were asleep before I could say anything, Isaiah borrowing my sleeping mat. That elected me as the first night watchman, but the other two were rather tired, so it was just as well. I was the only one who had had a long and uninterrupted rest since we had gone into the mines, and we had all been through a lot. Isaiah and Ann especially.

I stoked the fire all night, staring into the embers and thinking about our prospects. We had managed to find each other faster than I had dared hope but that still left the problem of finding Glasrock. I almost wanted to rifle through Ann’s pack, my curiosity burning hotter than the blaze I stoked. Had they found any of the legendary blue gem? How much? What had happened to Isaiah’s pack? I stewed on these questions and chowed down on our Domilope rations as the first rays of dawn tentatively peeked above the hills and the sky was tinted with orange and yellow.

Julia and Al were the first to wake, about two hours after sunrise, and they were nibbling on breakfast as we quietly speculated on what had happened to our friends. I was tempted to wake those two up as the sun rose higher in the sky, given our time situation, but I let them sleep. They needed to recover, and we still had nearly two days left before we needed to seriously think about going back.

When they finally woke up, they started wolfing down food as we extracted their tale with a barrage of questions. In between bites, they gave us the entire story, even showing us the bundle of Glasrock that they had managed to collect. It was far from a great haul, but it would be enough to act as a proof of concept.

That put all eyes on me immediately. We could theoretically go home early with this, time crunch forgotten. If it worked, we had made a remarkable discovery. However, based on Victor’s theory about the consumable nature of this stuff, this particular batch would be a little small to make a large, practical difference. Until the next Hunt, when we could gather more Glasrock, we wouldn’t exactly be feasting on much additional bounty from the lowlands.

I wanted more. I wanted more to make this not just a discovery but an immediate benefit. But we had already taken a lot of risks. I couldn’t ask more out of my team in good conscience, certainly not to save my skin.

Just as I open my mouth to say exactly that, Al pipes up:

“Much as I would looove to go home and feast on the bounty gained by the hard work of others, I still think we need more of these stupid, too-expensive-to-eat rocks before we do.”

Ann was nodding sagely at that, “Yep. We do have to earn our keep, after all. Fame and glory and all that. Plus, we get to save the skin of my goofy looking baby brother as an added side bonus.”

“We made it this far! What are a couple of homicidal lizard people in the face of our team?” Julia beamed in my direction. Isaiah just sat quietly and smiled.

I surreptitiously brush away a few grateful tears and smile right back at all of them.

“Why even make me de facto leader if you guys make all of the decisions anyways?”

“To give you a taste of what it’s like to be Patriarch!” Al declared, dramatically. “Everyone knows Grandma makes all the real decisions, anyways.”

That got a few chuckles out of all of us, though he was only half kidding. Old Lady Corona really did have an unusual amount of sway in the village, even for a chief Councilor. That didn’t mean she had enough pull to bail me out of my problems, though. Thus, we would have to take further chances.

We packed up camp quickly, and at around noon, descended back into the mine for the last time this Hunt. When we reached the foyer of the mine, Ann gestured at the tunnel we had recently run from and said:

“Technically, there is definitely more Glasrock that way, but…”

Before she even finished that sentence, we were already going down the right-middle path, the one to the left of the spider colony path and the only one that we hadn’t yet explored. Taking our chances here was better than risking a run in with more Neidyr, regardless of Ann’s playful bravado.

I was starting to regret that decision after several hours of walking and nothing of interest in sight. This pathway, at least, had the decency to be slightly more interesting than the others. Rather than simply winding left and right on a gentle downward slope, this consistently curved to the right and sloped downward at a steeper angle. We ambled further and further down the spiraling tunnel, deeper into the earth than we had ever gone before.

It was the most burdensome walk that we had gone on so far, but we were used to the underground to the point that we simply pressed on in a grim and determined silence. Eventually, the path began to level out and we exited the passageway and into a massive open space.

A short distance to our left was a large vertical wall of rock that stretched up to a ceiling high above and to our right was a wide-open area that contained an enormous subterranean lake. When we lifted our lanterns, we could not see the end of the lake nor the cavernous space above us. The size of the underground chamber took our breaths away for a moment before we turned our attention back to our front.

Directly before us was a large and winding path that followed the curves of the wall, right along the shore of the lake. On the wall, to my delight, was a steady smattering of a dark gemstone.

Relief coursed through me, and I head cheers from behind me as the others peered over my shoulder and spotted what I had.

Right there, in a huge quantity, was our elusive goal.

Glasrock.

We walked along the shore and over to the vein of jewels and set down our packs. I drew our last pickaxe, grateful that I had had the prudence to bring a second one, and handed it to Isaiah. He was the most physically powerful of us and thus the best at mining. He went to work, with Al listening carefully for any sign of a cave-in. I felt bad having Isaiah do all the work, especially because my outer layer of clothes didn’t fit him very well. But we only had one pickaxe, so it couldn’t be helped. Even with the clothing handicap, he was still swift and powerful in his digging, steadily extracting precious pieces of the rare earth.

After keeping watch with nothing to do for a long time, I felt my eyelids start to grow heavy. Since it was probably night on the surface, I had been up for more than thirty hours straight. Without physical activity to keep me awake, I was longing to get some rest. Noticing my exhaustion, Julia nudged me.

“We really don’t need three people to keep watch. Get some rest. We’ll wake you soon.”

I couldn’t find it within myself to argue with her, so I laid out my mat on the shore of the lake and slipped off to dreamland as I listened to the rhythmic sound of Isaiah’s mining.