The hurried footsteps of Balin and his squad of knights and mages came too late as they were welcomed by nothing more than a faint fleeting figure and the harrowing sight of blood tainted floors and walls.
"Wh- Where are the bodies?!" Someone asked fearfully.
Balin didn't address this question, he only briefly looked at the blood-soaked walls and floor before taking off and hurrying over. The squad captains were the first to react and follow Balin onto the ugly red path.
The sound of the blood coalescing at their feet and the bloody footsteps they left as they followed after the faint now gone figure was unsettling.
"Hurry up!" Balin said picking up the pace. The faint figure was obviously the culprit but they had disappeared, Balin knew he was going too slow to catch up as things stood so he wanted them to pick up the pace.
As he continued to run along the winding tunnel Balin suddenly noticed a faint shimmer on the rock wall His first thought was a naturally grown ice crystal caused by the cold environment, but this possibility was tossed out the window. It had a red hue.
"Huddle up!" Balin said as a precautionary measure before jogging over to the crystal. The fire crystal burned softly on Balin's palm but he could feel nothing thanks to his armor. But his eyes did not fail him. He seemed to be enamored as he stared at the fire inside the crystal jump around lively inside its contained area.
"This thing's volatile…" Fire was destructive but after turning into a crystal through natural means there was no way for it to revert itself to its free state.
"Damn it!" Balin yelled out angrily not able to hold it in any longer.
"Di- Dig a hole in the wall!" He roared a command in apprehension. The mages and knights were confused but heed his words and a hole was promptly created. Balin then gripped the crystal and threw an accurate fastball1.
The crystal flew straight into the hole dug by an earthen mage and without Balin saying anything the hole was sealed by that same mage.
A soft rumble was all that followed.
"It laid down traps!" Someone cried before angrily gnashing their teeth. How dare it toy with them so?
A second soft rumble then thundered beneath their feet. The person paused, was there another fire crystal nearby? But they were forced to reconsider this stance too. The freezing cold cavern suddenly felt much more bearable much to the surprise of all involved parties.
"F*ck!" Balin cursed before throwing out all sorts of seeds at once. He poured in all of his mana and…!!!!
The cavern shook wildly while the roots latched onto the earth under Balin's mana. The dark cavern was not just hotter now… it was also brighter!!
This light was short-lived however as all sorts of plants started to grow crazily. The light which grew brighter and ever closer now seeped past spots and soon everything turned dark as the cavern caved in and the fire that had spread across it was snuffed out by this occurrence.
This all happened under the gaze of Ed who had been looking over into the cavern entrance all along. He only looked away once the vibrations below his feet stopped completely.
He only turned around solemnly and looked up at the set of steps kindly crafted by the earthen mages. This was also where most of the orcs stood also watching things. These orcs however were watching Ed more than anything. Doing this allowed them to feel rather thankful that they weren't humans at that moment.
""ED!!!"" """EEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD!!!!""" "EDDDD" Chants then rang out from the mouths of the excited orcs. Precisely because they weren't humans they could celebrate like this, how great!
Their chants pierced Ed's eardrum making him afraid he might suffer from hearing loss.
'Wait come to think of it not many of these guys seem to suffer from hearing loss…" The only one had been Durgash who Ed now speculated always screamed, only that once the side effects of all this screaming kicked in he was given a valid excuse to continue doing so.
Ed then shook away the idle thoughts. They were preventing him from addressing his concerns. Under the sound of cheering, Ed walked up the earthen steps until he came near Sharog, Shel, and Dakgu's body which Shel carried.
"I- Is he alive?" Ed asked doubtfully. Both Shel and Sharog nodded causing Ed to feel some relief. Nothing had gone wrong then… Except…
"Where is Vorgarag?" Ed asked looking around carefully and catching of him no sight. He was worried that he might act up in his absence but he didn't think he would run from battle
Sharog looked at Shel who looked back at her wordlessly.
"...He is dead" Shel said ultimately answering the question. Ed who heard this froze for a second before backtracking and trying to hear it again. But no matter how many times he did it the answer to the question did not change.
So if he didn't mishear it… did Shel say it wrong? No. She didn't. He knew that.
"So he is dead…" Ed muttered trying to get used to the thought. It hadn't been long since they last met and shared some witty banter. Sharog nodded and Shel maintained her silence not moving at all.
"Sigh…" Ed felt empty. His resolve to bring his friend back to life which he thought had paid up was nothing in the end. Was it possible that one couldn't change fate? Or was Vorgarag simply twice unlucky?
"Ho- How did he die then?" Ed asked to receive some form of closure. He was unfortunately too busy for long term mourning.
"I killed him" Sharog said without even looking back at Shel for confirmation this time, she wanted to own up to this. The words she had uttered had been said with great conviction.
"....you killed him?" Ed wasn't trying to suggest Sharog was lying but he simply couldn't fathom why she would kill Vorgarag. Fortunately for her, Ed realized the root of the issue on his own.
"I, it was more than a headache then" This could only mean that things were actually his fault, Sharog didn't need to own up to anything.
"Yeah…." Sharog responded briefly. The atmosphere turned weird and the other orcs noticed, their chanting finally slowing down in magnitude. It didn't take long for true silence to take the reign of things.
"I was too rash…" He jumped the gun. His testing period had been very small and his test subjects did not live past a single day in most cases. Did he believe there would be no long term side effects?
If he were to do the same thing again he would need to perform a more extensive test, he would have to make sure there were no real side effects. Not once did it cross Ed's mind to not attempt such a thing again.
That was because he felt it was completely possible. The system was pointing him in that direction and his skeletons were alive and well even after changing bodies. But perhaps that had been his first mistake. He had trusted his experience with the dead would work on the living.
"Sigh… Let's hurry out of here" The steps they had to climb were many and they couldn't just idle around.
"Ok but... What are you carrying with you?" Sharog asked. Ed had strapped behind him a human-sized lump, but why would he carry a human with him and carry them in such a bizarre way?
"Ummm… It doesn't matter, the goblins are waiting for us at the top of the steps" Ed dismissed the question not wanting to cause panic among the orcs who were now attentively waiting for instruction. Scavenger who was the only anti-skeleton currently out was doing the same.
"Let's climb up and return home triumphantly!" Ed yelled with celebratory energy.
"""YEAAHHH!!!""" The orcs screamed back not considering that they technically hadn't left home.
As they climbed back up the steps, Sharog who was walking next to Shel pensively suddenly tripped up prompting Ed to raise an eyebrow in concern.
"...Ah, nothing. Why are the goblins waiting for us?" Sharog said while snapping out of her daze. Ed decided not to pursue the matter and answered her question instead.
"I ran into them on the way here, I don't know why though…" Ed found it strange that the goblins followed his instructions to get to Sanctuary but what he found much odder was how the elder seemed to have recognized him and catch him coming from Blurak's cavern.
With the goblin elder recognizing him as the emissary of God Ed had no choice but to continue playing out his lie and spout some more nonsense. Thus, the goblins were now waiting for him.
"I see" Sharog said choosing not to ask how he knew about the goblins. She had suspected he had pointed them there after all. Though that meant she and the others had incarcerated goblins which Ed had treated kindly.
".Oh! You are talking about the goblins we threw in prison right?" Shel said suddenly pitching in. Her nonchalance as she said those words nearly caused Sharog to stumble and fall.
"Incarcerated?" Ed asked back deeply confused.
"Wait… If they were incarcerated how did they get out?" Ed asked following up his question. It wasn't just that, how did they survive the humans? Perhaps Ed had to reassess the extent of the goblins' usefulness.