Day 489
"Are you ready for your last lesson?" Solizzar asked Alanna, who was busy packing all her equipment into a rugged leather backpack. Excitement was written all over her face. There was still a torch slowly burning away in her room, but she hadn't needed it since taking the goblin extract. It just made her room feel cozier.
"I sure am!" she said confidently. "I can't believe you prepared an entire obstacle course."
"It was a lot of work, but you should have a final test for your graduation," Solizzar stated. The hint of pride in his voice made Alanna giddy. "Just return with the treasure at the end of the course and you'll be wilderness-worthy!"
She strapped the backpack to her back. It had a few items in there that no decent adventurer or explorer would do without: ropes, torches, a flint and steel set, two regeneration exilers just in case, and a few other things. Her sword was sheathed by her side. Solizzar insisted she'd need it before the end, but wouldn't tell her why, just that it wouldn't be dangerous. He inspected the contents of her backpack for her before giving her an approving thumbs up... Or well, a worm up.
"Five stars, you have everything you need except for this." He took a scroll out of his robes and handed it to her. It was an intricately detailed map of the caves beneath their home, one that could have easily been the product of an expert cartographer's hand. She knew it was all Solizzar's work, his handwriting was quite distinctive in its elegance. "Just follow the map. If you get lost, come back here and we'll try again later."
"I won't need a second chance," Alanna responded, which made Solizzar chuckle.
He led her to the entrance of the deeper caves. Everyone with a lick of knowledge about the outside world knew that beneath all the great mountain ranges of the world lay vast networks of caverns known as the Underworld. The first mile down was usually unimpressive and barren, but once you got deep enough you'd start finding forests of fungi and fauna not found anywhere else. This included monsters, of course, as well as a few humanoid races that dared delve in the deep.
However, she wasn't supposed to go quite that far down. Just an hour down, an hour back, and as long as she followed the map she shouldn't run into anything dangerous.
"If anything happens, don't be afraid to run," Solizzar said. "A lot of people forget that running is an option." There was a hint of trepidation in his voice.
"Don't worry so much," Alanna reassured him. "You personally cleared the entire route yesterday. I'll be fine! We haven't been training all this time just for me to slip and crack my head open on a rock on the last day!"
Solizzar tried to smile, but failed to make it look convincing.She probably shouldn't have planted that mental image in his head.
She started to walk, figuring that if he was going to hesitate she should take the initiative today. "I'll be back before you know it!" she yelled loud enough to make it echo. That seemed to startle him out of his train of thoughts and he waved at her.
She noticed he was leaning on his staff. Normally he would use his magic as a crutch, not his staff, and she wondered what that could mean. However, she resolved to finish this final test first. She had to concentrate, so she waved back at Solizzar and bounded off towards the Underworld.
The first few minutes going down were easy. The cave was wide enough for three people to walk abreast and tall enough that a fully grown orc could stand upright in it, and the descent was little more than a shallow slope. It didn't take long for that to change. The width and height of the cave started to vary more, forcing Alanna to squeeze through a few narrow gaps or crawl through places where the ceiling came too low. It was a good warm up, but not more than that.
She started seeing light up ahead. She knew what it was, but she couldn't help herself and ran forward, eager to finally see a sight she had only seen before in illustrations.
The tunnel opened into a much wider cavern, filled with glowing fungi in all colors of the rainbow. Tall stalks capped with broad blue mushrooms rained a gentle dusting of spores down into the cave, while fleshy orange fronds made their home beneath. The floor was a carpet of blues, yellows and reds, squishing beneath Alanna's boots as she walked into the cave.
It was beautiful. Alanna thought back on her time in the orphanage, when she'd often spend whole days imagining herself as one of the adventurers in her children's books, going to places no humanoid had seen before. Walking into this cavern felt like stepping into one of those stories. She didn't think the hurt of living through those hopeless days would ever go away, but in this moment, she felt some of that pain slip.
She found her first obstacle. Before her was a pit, clearly artificial considering its perfectly square walls, with several tall platforms in the middle. She looked at her map. A note was attached to this area.
"Follow the stepping stones, but do not stray from them!" it said. She looked down into the pit. It was a short fall, just enough to bruise her but not cause any serious harm, but the entire floor of the pit was covered in a thick purple mushroom. She recognized it immediately. Plump helmets. They were completely harmless, and in fact were one of the few things down here that were edible without any amount of cooking, but she figured that if she fell down there she'd be covered in purple goop that'd be impossible to wash off with just the water in her waterskin.
She laughed inwardly. It was a simple challenge with an easy lose condition. If she came back with the treasure but covered in purple goo, she loses! Alanna made quick work of the stepping stones, jumping from one to the other with little effort until she made it to the other side.
She made her way further down. The forest of mushrooms did not go far past the larger cave once she left it, save for a spattering of glowcaps here and there. The descent was becoming steeper as well, she found herself frequently relying on handholds as she moved down the steeper slopes.
Eventually she found another artificial obstacle. Another pit full of plump helmets, but this time it curved around the corner, and the only way around was a thin edge. A climbing test this time, Alanna figured.
She pressed herself up against the wall and began to scoot along the protruding edge. This was more a test of patience and technique than a test of agility. She had to carefully place her feet to avoid tripping or slipping, keep her eyes open for handholds to help her balance and not exhaust herself as she made her way around the bend.
The glow of the plump helmets gave everything a violet hue, but she admitted that without her newfound darkvision she would never have been able to do this without a torch. Those extracts are really amazing, she thought, though Solizzar hadn't told her what he'd plan to do with them. Sell them? Hand them out for free to give average folk everywhere a chance at a better life? She wasn't sure. He had evaded the question every time, saying "I'll figure that out in due time."
Old man and his secrets, she thought. There were some things he just refused to talk about, and Alanna stopped trying to nudge him into opening up.
It took about half an hour, but she finally made it around the bend and continued on her way.
The air was getting hotter and more humid, and mushrooms started to become more prevalent even outside those hollows that held enough moisture for them to grow. She was getting close to the Underworld proper, which meant she was near the end of her test.
A featureless wall, about 15 feet high, rose up to block her path. It was perfectly smooth, so undoubtedly another product of Solizzar's magic. A test of endurance and strength, she guessed.
She took out her grappling hook and a length of rope, attached one to the other, and threw with all her might, barely getting the hook over the wall. Her strength had increased only one point since her training started to a measly nine, which showed just how difficult getting ability scores through regular exercise was. It wasn't impossible, but leveling up got you results much quicker, and both the body and the mind had limits on how far training alone could push them.
She pulled the ripe and felt the hook snag on the other side of the wall. Then she started the climb, using her arms for leverage as she pushed herself up the wall with her legs. It was hard, slow work, but she managed, bit by bit, using the technique Solizzar had taught her. When she crested the wall, she straddled it, reversing the grip of the hook, then rappled down the other side.
By the time she was done she was breathing hard and had worked up quite a sweat. She uncorked her waterskin and took a few deep gulps, relishing in the soothing cool of the water radiating through her body, then sat down to check her map.
"Last stop," she said aloud as she followed her route with her finger. There was a picture drawn on the map of a crude monster face, maybe a goblin or an orc, with a little skull-and-crossbones sign to indicate danger, followed immediately by a treasure chest. She wasn't sure what Solizzar had prepared as her final challenge, but she drew her sword and approached carefully.
Only a few minutes after the wall did she run into the final room. It was a great circular hollow. There was a humidity to the cave she hadn't felt anywhere else, the ground feeling actually soggy as she stepped forward. A few glowcaps illuminated the walls, while a few other hardy fungi managed to grow in patches along the floor. On the far side she saw the treasure chest, and between her and it stood... The training dummy from Solizzar's home.
She covered her face with her hand and suppressed a chuckle. Of course Solizzar wasn't going to have her fight another monster after what happened last time. She had improved greatly since then, but he clearly didn't want to risk her getting severely injured so far from any help. She saw a note attached to the dummy.
She strode across the mushrooms towards it. The fungi patches here gave off a musty, acrid smell, though they didn't look any different from the ones she had seen before. She simply avoided the mushrooms where possible and took the note, reading it.
"Dear Alanna,
Congratulations on making it this far! I had no doubt you could do it. To finish your final test, perform thirty strikes, thirty thrusts, thirty sidesteps, and thirty parries against your opponent here. I will have no way to check if you did or not, but I'll believe you if you said you did. Once you're done, collect your treasure and return home.
Again, congratulations! You've earned this.
Solizzar."
Alanna felt herself tearing up reading the note. She had worked so hard to get here. More than anything, she felt pride, this time not in knowing Solizzar believed in her, but in herself. It had been well over a year since she was exiled, and now she felt like she was actually becoming a person rather than someone's burden or accessory.
A rhythmic clicking noise grew in intensity behind her. She turned just in time to see a massive insect barreling towards her. Her body moved before her mind, throwing herself out of the way as it barreled over the training dummy, filling the air with splinters.
It hissed angrily. Alanna got to her feet as quickly as she could, picking up her fallen sword and facing the creature. It was a massive centipede, easily as tall as a warhorse and thrice as long. Alanna recognized immediately this wasn't an ordinary monster, this was a mutant. Mutants were either animals that had turned into monsters, or monsters that had turned into a new variant of themselves. Some mutants were unique, others would go on to become their own species.
She didn't recognize this thing, which meant it was likely a unique creature. That did little to diminish her fear. There was no thrill of discovery here, as this thing could easily bite her head off, crush her beneath its weight, and its mandibles dripped with reeking venom.
