Spirit Taming

"That’s the last passageway?" Clark looked at Isa calmly. He didn’t show any signs that he had just cleaned up four of the passageways himself without any help from his beasts. Instead, it looked like he had just taken a brisk walk to stay active on a boring day.

"Of course, and I didn’t see anything that looked like a staircase or opening to a second floor. It’s ridiculous, how could something be hidden so well?"

"If that’s what you found, it means that the stairs are in one of the four that I dealt with. But we can wait for the dark imps to make their way back up to this floor and go down the tunnel that they show up in. Or, we can check each of the four passageways I went down again." Since Clark had been the only one that could not see or perfectly search the passageways in the dark, it was likely that this was the place that the stairway was.

From what Isa looked like, she had used a decent amount of energy so far. But her flame sprite was enjoying the attention very much. It had been showing Isa the way without any issues. It had felt a little ignored since the ice maiden had been the focus of growth lately. Then the crystal golem had arrived taking up even more attention that it had not gotten. This was the perfect place for it to show off its skills.

"Then let’s keep going. But you are taking point with my partner here." Isa needed to save a little energy. She knew that the second floor would be much tougher opponents. Clark wasn’t saying it but the dark imps here were definitely the weakest that could be in this dungeon.

Retracing Clark’s steps through the shadows helped them gather the last of the dark imp bodies, but it slowly became clear that Clark had not missed anything. The first two tunnels were the same passageways with dead ends as before. But the third seemed like it was also identical.

"Alright, if this fourth tunnel is- " Clark whipped his head around to see Devi opening his mouth and biting down on to the arm of a dark imp. It had somehow managed to get in to the central chamber where they entered the dungeon. "How is that there? It shouldn’t have been missed by Crim or the crystal golem entering from another passageway."

"Wait, that means that the stairs are somewhere in the main room?" Isa gave the mental order to her flame sprite to make the biggest fire ball it could to light up the entire first passageways properly.

"Devi, finish that one and come back. Isa is going to help her flame sprite show us the way." Another harsh chilling bite and the dark imp fell to the ground done for just like the others as the flame spite moved to the top of the cave and created a large ring of fire that slowly spread through the entire ceiling of the cave.

The entire dungeon showed itself clearly to them. The stalagmites that cast shadows were here and there but one spot, in particular, was surrounded by them yet had a large broken stalagmite. It was easy for Clark to peek over the side of the smaller stalagmites and find exactly what he was looking for.

"The floor is broken here and there are rough stairs leading down. It was hidden by the way the cave grows naturally, or should I say the dungeon grew this way to hide the second floor..." Clark pondered this while hearing the scratching and random hissing from lower in the dungeon. "And it sounds like we will have an interesting battle down there." Crim backed away and charged forward, breaking the smaller stalagmites so that Clark and Isa could go down the rough stairs. The crystal golem backing him up.

The sound of breaking stone drew another dark imp on to the stairs which was easily slashed with Crim’s claws. But in response to this, there was a deathly silence that overtook the area. The dark imps were no longer coming after them, they were waiting for them. It was almost as if they were being ordered by something. "Isa, stay close to me. I think we will have an elder dark imp up ahead..."

Clark prepared his spear. He could tell that Crim knew there was a new scent around them. Even the crystal golem was acting a little odd because it could sense another being around them. However, the flame sprite had yet to illuminate an enemy which struck Clark as off. It should have been able to show them where the shadows were thickets and hiding an enemy.

The crystal golem pushed forward a little more with Ia’s encouragement. The second floor was similar to the first but it had large holes in the wall where the dark imps clearly went to live and rest. But mainly, the second floor was the same as the others. It was open but for a lot of stalagmites and stalactites. They grew everywhere even thicker, casting larger shadows. There were also only two passageways. One that a terrible odor drifted from and another where only darkness could be seen.

The clang of something sharp hitting the crystal golem revealed the sharp tail that stretched out from behind a larger stalagmite. The longer arms that followed as the elder dark imp revealed itself to slash at the crystal golem while hissing with fury spurred Crim to charge forward.

The poison in the tail of the elder dark imp was nothing that could harm the crystal golem. That left it perfectly available to hold the elder dark imp in place while Crim slashed down with both claws.

The skin on the elder dark imp was tougher but still broke away with Crim’s sharp claws. Its bones were too long and weak to maintain much strength. The only thing that it boosted was the agility to escape the crystal golem’s grip. It had been just lithe enough to sneak out as Crim slashed it once more to fully defeat it.

"This is definitely more valuable for a material than the dark imps. There is poison in the tail, actually, I bet it can be made in to a whip of sorts if we gave it to the right blacksmith or weapon maker." Clark mumbled to himself as he stored away the body. "I thought there would be more imps down here but maybe more of them hid when we came down."

"I think we should be more worried about that passageway. It smells like rotting meat." Isa had been wary of the passageway that smelled. It looked the same as the other on the second floor but it was much more terrifying because of what might be causing the scent.

"Let’s check it out. I have a feeling I know what it is but we will see first." Clark pulled out to cloths and dampened them. The pair put them over their nose and mouth to help protect them from anything that might be in the air. It wasn’t foolproof but it was a good trick.

The more they moved down the passageway the more they noticed the drag marks on the stone. Many things had been dragged here. "It’s definitely not populated here. There are no dark imp hiding places. It’s almost as if they broke away things to make sure that it was easier to drag more things this way." Clark wanted to prove himself wrong but as they got toward the end of the passageway, the flame sprite lit up what was there.

In a large open space, a pile of rotting bones, flesh, and lost items were pulled. Some were tamers that had come to hunt while others were animals that had clearly wandered in to the dungeon. Even other monsters seemed to have been victims when they came in to the dungeon in search of easy prey.

"So they aren’t eating the things they kill...why not?" Clark was a little perturbed. He didn’t have any answers for why beasts might do this. The system had not said this was a normal behavior. It was also not giving him any information about why this pile of remains was here.

"Clark...what do we do?" Isa wanted to say that they could bury all these remains but it was such a disgusting and terrible thing that it might be impossible.

"We take the items we can and then burn them. It will be the last thing we do as we leave. Let’s go deal with the other passageway. At the end of that cave should be the answer to why the imps and elder imps are dragging things here. They aren’t eating so that also explains why they are weaker. I’m sure this dungeon would have had an outbreak if they were eating properly. They haven’t been breeding." Clark worried as well since this could be the bigger issue that the system had challenged him to fix. There was certainly more danger than he expected before.