Ariel collapsed to the ground and he gasped for air. The wounds from the battle were, indeed, heavy. Looking at the starry night, the moon was close to the top. He needed to hurry up and not make his friends worry about him. But he needed to more. He watched as the beasts blood got sucked up by the ground. He ignored the smell since smelling the scent of blood wasn't something he was unfamiliar with.
A second later the green leaves of the trees lit up red, as if cheering him on his win.
That's why it's called the crimson forest huh...
He managed to get back to the camp after a while. Amy used her herbal knowledge to quicken the healing process and stop the bleeding. After all, she wasn't a healer.
"I'll take the watch tonight, you two rest." said Peter, taking no arguments.
The three of them snacked on their fruits. There was not much time for cooking and they needed to be rested for the next encounter. After the snacks were finished Amy and Ariel went to their tents.
Alone in the darkness Peter sat on a makeshift, timber chair. And he looked deep into the forest. Listened to the rather calming sounds of the forest and zoning out, before he realized an hour had already passed. He searched for water in his backpack.
The leaves around the camp started to flicker with red lights. At first Peter gave no attention to the lights but then the lights flickered, faster each second.
He screamed at the top of his lungs: "Something is wrong here get up!". But it was futile. The ground beneath the camp opened like cotton. The camp began its unconsented descent to the depths.
At the time Amy and Ariel opened their eyes, they were going down in a incredible speed. Ariel put his hands on the walls and used his and pulled the surrounding earth, soften it and pulled the semi-soft dirt beneath them. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but it was better than crashing down at this speed.
At the same time Amy used her power to pull a strong wind upward to slow them down even more. Even after they drained every bit of magic running through them, it wasn't enough.
A cold jolt of panic shot through them. They had to do something and do it now. Without doubt Peter stomped his foot on the surrounding earth and lunged forward to grab both Amy and Ariel. At the same time he grabbed anything, beds, tents literally anything soft and threw it under them, to cushion the fall.
Their painful bawling echoed through a giant cave, Like a choir of agony. The fall was heavy but their bones were fine.
Peter was the first to get up, he grabbed his head, trying to anchor it back in. He looked at his surroundings. The place was, surprisingly, well illuminated. At the top of the cavern, there was a sphere, the producer of sun-like light. It was unclear from here whether this was man-made or not. He looked at this sphere in awe. Even his wildest findings weren't this magnificent.
Ariel was the second to get up, his mind felt like mush. First thing he saw, was the ruins up ahead. That were too destroyed to be made sense of from here. He immediately stood up, ready for another battle. However, nothing was coming. The place was dead silent only breathing noises and water dripping. A shiver ran down his spine.
Lastly, Amy got up. her eyes searching for the orb. She found it few meters away from her. The usual lights of the orb was gone, she sighed and put it back in her backpack.
Ariel lowered his voice, "Don't make a noise, there still might be something here." The group packed up few usable stuff from the pile and started to walk to the point of interest.
Up close the ruins looked like a city. A lot of stone bricks were arranged to form rectangles of different sizes, with streets that led to a central place. The group walked on the streets. The houses' paint was decayed many years ago, torn down to a unrecognizable degree. They weren't able to make out what color it was supposed to be anymore, their lungs filled with dust and rot.
Peter was still in awe; he was a man of exploration after all. Pulling out his notebook from the backpack. He recording what he was seeing. Amy looked at around. She felt less magic than she was used to. By focusing the magic particles on her eye she saw that the big sphere on the top of the cave was sucking nearly all of the magic. And converting them from magic to light.
Ariel used his halberd as a cane to walk and he frantically looked around
The danger wasn't over for him.
They walked deeper into the ruined city, to where the main road was leading. After half an hour, they reached a great plaza. in the center there was a pool made by marble and on the top of it there was a sculpture.
The sculpture itself was flawlessly made. It was a fox with two heads pointing at opposite directions and each one of the heads had two antlers near its ears and one horn near its nose.
"The Great Fox..." Ariel gritted his teeth and griped his cane harder. "What is that beast's statue doing here?"
"Maybe worship." Amy answered. "The survivors said that it looked divine."
"The better question is, what happened here." Peter added, barely able to contain his excitement. "But questions won't get us anywhere let's explore!"
"It's better to rest here." Ariel countered, He stared deeply at the sculpture with a piercing gaze, "Nearly all of our provisions went to waste, and the fall got us good."
Peter sighed. He couldn't find any flaw in the Ariel's reasoning. Reluctantly he started to set up the camp, to the near of the statue. Ariel and Amy went off to get some edible plants. While looking for the plants Ariel found another road leading to a perfectly carved narrow passage. But he returned without going further. He was still wounded after all.
After an hour they came back with mushrooms and edible flowers. Amy set up the fire and Ariel used his cooking skills. They sat down on a few stone bricks that they had found earlier. It looked like they were going to be stuck here for a long time, might as well be comfortable.