I estimated that it would be about 3 days time before we arrived. As we were walking through the forest I heard Xathor and Alrik talking about there choice of weapons.
"Why the battle axe? Doesn't that weapon have a lot of weight? Not to mention it could slow you down in close combat if not properly trained with the axe" Xathor explained as he was twirling his quarter staff.
"Well, I liked the idea of a battle axe so I am going with it. Besides, this is one of the lighter axes. How will a quarter staff help you in combat though? That looks like you will dish bruises on a silver platter." Alrik huffed a little.
"Bruises on a silver plater? You look like you would only serve air by time you could swing that axe." Xathor referenced the height of Alrik with his hand. "You could be my personal fan to cool me off on the hot days."
"Why, you scaly lizard brat!"
Alrik picked up his axe and swung it at his head. It almost made contact, but Xathor was super fast with his quarter staff and easily deflected it with the end of his staff. Then he did some type of arm locking motion with the staff and flung the axe out of Alriks hands, catching the axe in his other hand.
I stood there amazed.
"See what I mean?" as Xathor gave Alriks axe back. Alriks anger cooled off in seconds.
"I am not saying this axe can deal some serious damage, I am saying without proper training, you wont be able to affectively use it. On the other hand, we can do some sparring to help you with your performance in a battle if you want?"
Alrik was thinking about it for what looked like an eternity before it actually clicked for him.
'I just realized something, he cooled his anger down in seconds?' as I realized that his anger was virtually extinguished.
"We can do that. Training could actually help me with performance now that I think about it. Hey Mark, we good to take a break?"
I looked up at the sun and noticed that it was about to set.
"Sure. We can make camp here for the night."
All of us found a clearing and set up camp. I noticed Branwen go off in the distance after setting up.
'Hm. I wonder where she is going.'
I got up and followed her quietly behind. After awhile, she found a water fall, and sat at the end of a fallen tree. She took out what looked like to be a semi curved sword to sharpen it and practice with it.
I stood there in awe. Her movements where so precise that it all flowed in one smooth movement. Her forehand and backhand slashes following a step back with a quick overhead slash seemed all to connect at the same spot.
'Damn, she is beautiful' I thought quietly watching.
'I should probably head back'.
As turned around I turned around, ~Snap~.
'Crap!'.
She turned around then vanished. I started to panic. I decided to make a run for it and then SLAM. One second I was running, the next my face was in the ground with my arms pinned behind me.
"Why are you following me Mark?!" Branwen said angrily. "If you were someone else, I would have slit your throat.".
"Whoa-whoa-whoa! No need for that please!" I said as I tried to get up, but to no avail. She made a loud sigh and let me up.
"Stay away from me. And don't follow me again!". She then vanished into the woods.
'phew'.
I returned to camp to see Xathor and Alrik sparring together. As I entered, they both noticed me and paused.
"Where did you run off to?" Alrik asked.
"Just went to do some walking into the woods" I said, not wanting to mention the fact I got my butt handed to me.
"I am going to call it a night. We will have to rotate night shifts. Every two to three hours, we will rotate to watch out for wolves."
"Sounds good with me. I will take first watch." Xathor got up and prepared his gear for the night.
"I will go next" I said.
"I can take the third shift. Where is Branwen?" as Alrik sat down.
"I am right here" Branwen appeared behind Alrik with a deer carcass behind her.
"Holy Crap!" Alrik literally jumped out of his skin and into a pile of logs
"Warn me next time would ya? And where did you find the time to hunt?"
"We need food don't we?" She sat down and started preparing the carcass into batches and made a food bag to hold the food, doing all of this in her own area.
"Well, food doesn't hurt" Alrik said as he rubbed his stomach.
"You just ate a full rabbit, how are you still hungry? Got a blackhole in there" as I poked his stomach.
"I will also take the fourth shift" Branwen stated as she got up and finished the prepping.
"Cool" I said, my forehead sweating a little, remembering our conversation in the woods.
I decided to head straight to bed afterwords.
As the night went by, Xathor woke me up for the next shift.
"I saw nothing out of the normal. All is clear so far". I nodded and Xathor went to sleep.
I patrolled around the area in a 5 meter radius, looking for anything suspicious. After seeing nothing out of the normal, I turned around and went back to camp.
"These next two hours are going to be long".
After two hours went by, I woke up Alrik for his shift and went to bed.
Morning finally came and I was not looking forward to the journey, but had no choice. After we ate breakfast, we cleaned up, smothered out the fire, and headed north to the ruins. The walk felt the same as yesterdays. Alrik talking to Xathor with Branwen at the rear and me at the front. It felt lonely being in the front, but I also am the only person who can navigate ahead to the ruins at the same time. At least, navigate well anyways.
Eventually, I noticed the path and forest starting to clear out and noticed a big crumbled mountain formation take shape.
'Looks like we have arrived'.
All of us paused at the clearing and took in our surroundings. Looking around, I saw no earth golems and noticed it was very calm and quiet. Too quiet.
"Well, I guess we wont have to worry about the so called golems at least. Let's figure out a plan. Alrik and Xathor. I notice that there is an opening to the ruins, you two take the lead to fend off any oncoming beasts or insectoids."
Both Alrik and Xathor nodded.
"Branwen, are you able to scout ahead to try to find the room to the crystal?" I asked with nervousness.
"Whatever.".
She then left and went on ahead to scout the area up ahead.
"I will take the rear to place down markers so we can follow our tracks back".
With everything set in motion, we went ahead to find the crystal. Venturing forward, It was like a maze. Everything seemed to be a dead end. We kept running into hidden corridors and random walls every now and again.
Alrik, as clueless as he is, kept walking us in circles over and over again. He also somehow tripped over a tiny rock in the ground.
'Sucks to be short I guess' I thought.
"Heard that!" as a rock came flying at my head.
I barely managed to dodge. "What was that for?!" I said panting heavily.
"You called me short back there, I just know it!"
'How the turkey legs did he manage to hear my thoughts?! I call bull crap on that!'
Later, I hear a brawl let loose. I caught up and notice Alrik deal the delivering blow to an insectoid.
'And that is why I have him dishing out the damage ahead of the group'.
Branwen did eventually find us and left us notes on where to go and then went ahead again. It has been what felt like forever on progress.
I eventually started to notice random evidence of debris and holes around me. I never took thought to it though because it looked like it was abandoned.
Eventually, I started to worry. It has been around five hours and still no luck
I was about to lose hope when Branwen with a positive attitude attached, come back.
"I found a room with what looks like a crystal" she said exasperated.
"Really?! This is great! I never thought there would be an actual crystal!" I said, with excitement and a sigh of relief.
Branwen lead us to the room, going through what seemed like was narrow hallways, sharp turns, under rocks and over stumps until we finally arrived.
'That is definitely weird' I thought.
'Why would there be debris and giant hole like structures be in these ruins this far in?'
I eventually discarded the thought when I saw what looked like a circular, jagged crystal on a pedestal up ahead.
I stopped and thought for a second. The room was open with the ceiling cleared out, revealing the open sky and trees above. A lot of moss and vines definitely took over this room. After thinking a little bit longer, I noticed pressure plates and then came up with a plan.
"Okay guys, here is the plan" I said, grabbing the bag for the crystal.
"We have to be very careful as there are traps set around this place. I noticed a few pressure plates here and there that look like they might trigger something."
All of us nodded and went off carefully. I was panicking for my life because I notice Alrik being very clumsy and very close to narrowly dodging those pressure plates.
'Did you not hear a single word that I said?!'.
I turned around and found myself standing right next to the pedestal, the crystal object semi floating above it. I carefully grabbed the object and put it into the bag.
"I got it!" I stammered as a carefully traced my tracks back.
Then I hear a loud click noise. All us froze and turned around to look at each other. I noticed Alrik stepped on a pressure plate. My heart dropped. "Alrik, you idiot! I told you to be careful!"
"What! I thought you said we could be carefree?!" Alrik yelled back.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE
The ground beneath us started to shake heavily. Then, the ceiling started to cave in and the walls caved in, everything being swallowed up by the crumbling walls and debris.
Luckily, we all decided to run for the center, with Alrik barely making it.
CRASH
After everything settled down, I noticed that we where caved inside an arena looking area with the entire room collapsed around us, with no way to exit. That is when I realized that things have officially turned south with no way to escape.
"We are officially trapped. GREAT!" I said bitterly.