Cayzle's Wemic Site
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The Mines II -- New Gnome Friend
The tunnel goes down for about fifteen feet and then makes a turn to the right and goes on for another thirty feet. It takes them to another mining area, much like the one they were at a few minutes ago, although much larger, being 45 feet wide and going a long way ahead, vanishing into the darkness. Again, with no other way to go, they just move ahead, thankful that at least there are no remains of dead miners on the ground.
But just as they walk for about twenty yards, they notices a passage in the right wall that they were not able to see before. The sounds of running water comes from it and it obviously attracts them towards it. Urameshi goes ahead to check if it's safe and motions the others to follow him after his inspection. The short passage leads them to a wide area with a thin shallow stream of crystal clear water coming from a dark hole in one of the walls and going down another hole in the opposite wall.
Cosmos walks together with Urameshi, his unsheathed sword serving as a torch since the one Cosmos was carrying has burnt out. The other torches being carried by the others are also about to extinguish soon, in about five minutes or so. The ninja and the eye patched mage reach close to the little stream and rest their backs against the rocky wall as they sit down and rest for a while.
"Let's rest a little!!" Cosmos says a little loud so the other could hear him, since he couldn't see where most of them were.
Sitting next to him, his sword lying ahead on the ground, the ninja rests his arms over his knees and let his head naturally go down, his chin almost touching his chest.
The minutes pass by as the party rests from the previous fight and watches as the flames of the torches engage in their own battle against a sure destiny, slowly dying, one by one, till the last sparkle of life rises up in the air and dissolves into darkness. The same darkness that now covers them, finding resistance only in the ninja's holy sword, still glowing on the ground and illuminating both Cosmos and Urameshi with its blue light.
The cold rocky ground, which at first felt good to rest their bodies, sweated and tired from battle, now feels like biting off their skins, as if its temperature went down with the coming of darkness.
Silence is also dominant, and they feel their senses sharpening as their minds becoming more and more aware of the surroundings.
The sound of the running water feels louder than before and they can even hear each others breathing and feel their own heartbeats. For a minute or two it feels like nothing could interrupt this uniformity, but then, an unfamiliar sound is heard, coming from the tunnel on the opposite side. It's not very clear but it sounds like someone chanting. . .
[Condensation: Solana scouted up ahead and discovered that the chanter was a gnome. ]
The gnome bold facial traces of a gnome. Both his hair and full beard are of a beige color, long and curled and so dirty that it doesn't seem like he has washed them for months! The stench coming from him is also the most unpleasant, and even though he hangs a couple of dead animals around his waist, the elf is quite sure that most of it is due to a great lack of hygiene. His face is also a little dirty, specially over his long and bold nose, typical of gnomes and below his small brown eyes.
Scratching his forehead and brushy eyebrows, he turns his head around and asks, to apparently no one in particular. . . . .
He carries five objects tied by leather strings to the cord around his waist. A rock, an empty flask, a flask filled with water, a dead bird and a dead rat.
The gnome waits for all of them to come sit around the fire before he continues.
"As I was telling your friend Solana here, my name is Gweenersteed. I'm a Guardian of Rock Knowledge and a faithful servant of the great, powerful and wise god Garanamarock, the Great Guardian of Rock Knowledge!!" he turns to Solana once more and raises his finger. "Guardian of Rock Knowledge!" he emphasizes the last word.
"That means I can talk with rocks as much as I can talk with any of you!!" he waves his arm around at them, "Now, your friend here asked me to ask the rocks about the shadow and the curse. The rocks already answered me. The answer to those questions is 'evil'. Both the shadow and the curse comes from evil. Sounds pretty vague to me but that's what they answered. . . " he interrupts himself and leans to the right a bit, as if to listen to something.
"Oh! Janiffer just told me that this evil comes from the green hole! So, there you go! It probably comes from there!" he nods.
Cosmos, who has been listening to everything very quietly now decides to break his silence, and by the sound of his voice, he doesn't sound very pleased with the gnome's explanations.
"Ok, I don't know what you guys think, but to me, little guy here is nuts! He makes no sense! Do you actually believe he can talk to rocks? Yeah right!"
The little gnome doesn't sound insulted in anyway. Instead, he smiles at the eyepatched mage and says. "I'm not nuts Cosmos!"
Not seeing that coming, Cosmos remains silent, wondering how come the gnome knows his name.
[The party asks for information and help with the "green hole" from which the curse originally derived. The gnome offers to take us there, but knows little or nothing about it. He says it is very dangerous. He makes us stone soup and we stay with him all day, except for Solana, who goes off scouting and returns with nothing unusual to report. We stay through the night. ]
The gnome's soup is not that bad and, although it's very watery, they all feel satisfied. The sleep comes easy as they sit and relax, the rocky ground proving to be more comfortable than expected.
They wake up hours later, not knowing if it's still dark or already morning outside. But that doesn't really matter. The important thing is that they feel recovered, just as good as new.
There's no breakfast and they leave as soon as they're ready.