Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

With a large amount of documents regarding this pestilence that ravaged this underground kingdom of dwarves, Arthur decided that it was about time to leave and return to the surface with their findings despite the fact that they found nothing regarding the murders down here. Everyone was ready to have a proper bed to sleep on tonight and Arthur had no intention of keeping watch for another hour tonight.

But as the group was retracing their steps back to the entrance they encountered something different from before. A group of at least twenty was blocking their path on the road and they were armed with proper spears. At first Arthur thought they were more sick dwarves given their height was around five feet, but a closer inspection showed they were both a bit taller than that at around five and a half feet and their body shapes were more like that of an elf than a dwarf in both height and shape.

When these new arrivals stepped forward into the light the group saw that these were humanoid ants, ant people. Their red exoskeleton shone in the light and their eyes were dark like the night sky. They wore little clothing compared to other civilized races that Arthur had seen including the few animal peoples he saw on the surface, the leader of this group stepped forward distinguished by the higher quality and more covering clothing it wore. In its right hand was a spear made from an unknown type of wood, its left hand it raised up to about its head in a gesture of peace.

The guardsmen looked at this ant person with district and worry but did not show their feelings, Arthur stepped forward expecting this ant person to have something important to say. When they were only a few meters from each other the ant person began speaking with a series of clicking and clacking with its tongue, the guardsmen did not understand a word of what was said, but Arthur did with his Comprehend Language amulet. “Welcome to the undercity surface dweller. May I ask what brings you down to this sick land?”

“We found an entrance leading down here in the basement of a temple, all the priests of said temple were killed several days ago and we came to see if anything relating to the crime was down here. We didn’t know about this place until we reached it and began looking around.” The ant person leader was a little surprised upon hearing the surface dweller before him speaking their language flawlessly, but she soon realized that his mouth did not line up with the words he was speaking. She quickly concluded that this surface dweller was blessed by one of the gods and with it given magic like their own High Paladin Zoe, her tone and behavior quickly changed accordingly.

“Of course great one, long ago when the others were driven out by the black death they likely did not wish for the sickness to escape up into the surface world. You are also not the first from the surface to arrive down here recently, another arrived down here like you did, but they did not understand us or know who we are and we had to restrain them to stop them from hurting themself.” The ant person pointed his open left hand to his right and continued. “We have kept them safe in our home, we have given them food and water for several days now. Would you like to speak with them? We would be happy to return them to you and escort you back to the surface tunnel.”

“Yes, that would be wonderful. I have several questions I would like to ask this individual about how they got down here.” Arthur smiled as he answered, perhaps this person these ant people found was a witness of the crime or was one of the perpetrators. Either way he would have all the answers he would need. “Follow me, we are following these ant people to their home. They have someone from the surface that came down through the tunnel we did.” Arthur called out to the guardsmen under his command. They looked a little confused but they did follow Arthur who in turn followed the ant people.

The journey took around half an hour to reach the home of the ant people, they lived in a town that from his quick estimations housed around two hundred to about three hundred people. The buildings were made up of the mushrooms that made up the forest surrounding the town, the walls were made up of the stalk and the roofs were made from the caps. Each house looked to house three adults and their children, the more children each ‘family’ had the larger the house tended to be.

The ant person that led the group brought Arthur to a small building with the same design as the normal houses except it was about half the size as the ones with just three adults. Inside was a young human that looked to be sixteen or seventeen years old sitting in a corner praying with a piece of glowing crystal in the center of the room to illuminate it.

Upon hearing the door open the young man turned to look at who it was, he personally was expecting it was his lunch from the ant people even though it felt a little early for it. He had become comfortable around the ant people in the past few days, they kept him safe and well fed even though they did not understand each other. When he saw Arthur along with the ant person he quickly stood up and questioned if he was awake.

“Are you alright kid?” Arthur asked as the young man simply stared at him, clearly he was in shock at another human down here. The young man quickly snapped out of it at the sound of a human language.

“Um, yes I am. These ant people were kind enough to keep me safe and well fed while I was down here hiding from the attackers. I assume you are with the city guard about the attack.” The young man nervously fiddled with his hands as he spoke, he was clearly still nervous about the situation and was worried about the outcome.

“Yes I am, I was the one to discover the crime scene after there was an attack from a werebeast in the southern district. Since smuggling one through the city gates was deemed impossible we started to investigate any location where one might have been created inside the city. We eventually found the temple of Velerin and you fellow priests dead inside of it.” The young man was silent at this statement, deep down he hoped that at least one of them might have escaped and gotten help, but the attackers were well prepared and did not let that happen.

The young man simply stood there in silence as thought about what he had just been told. By this time the ant person had left and returned with some edible mushrooms for the two humans to eat. She knew that it was something a proper host would do for their guests, their occasional interactions with fay had taught them that.

“What is the date today?” The young man asked without even looking at the food he was offered. Arthur on the other hand took two of the brown mushrooms and began chewing on one while placing the other in his bag.

“Today is the tenth day of Limestone, the attack of the werebeast happened on the eighth. A good portion of the ninth was spent searching for the source of the werebeast and coming down here and the rest of today has been spent looking around. I assume you know of the disease that is running amuck down here that has kept the dwarves that lived down here in a terrible state for years.”

“Yes I did encounter a small group of those, that was how I was discovered by the ant people here. I used up all my mana casting divine spells at those abominations when they arrived and finished them up, by then I was exhausted and was easily taken by them to this building they keep for visitors.”

The two continued their conversation for another ten minutes before the topic of leaving this underground cavern came up, the young man who’s name is Decius was more than happy to leave as soon as possible as the mushrooms he was given as food won't exactly tasty and the ant people apparently didn’t know anything about alcohol, Decius was dying for a glass of some.

But before the group of twelve could leave the town of ant people they were stopped by the ant that led the group of twenty they encountered on the road. She wasn’t forcing them to stay, she was instead asking. “We are going to have a wonderful lunch before you leave. Would you like to join us? We have more than enough food to feed you all without going hungry.”

The ant people were not at all forcing them to stay but they seemed to really want them to stay for lunch, they hadn't had any bad intentions so far so Arthur agreed that the group would stay for it but would need to leave soon after as they needed to bring Decius to the surface.

When the ant people left to finish up with the lunch Decius asked Arthur while keeping his voice down. “Why do you think they want us to stay for lunch? There isn’t much reason for us to do so, even though I am grateful they kept me safe it would be best if we leave as soon as possible.”

“It would be, but the ant people probably want some sort of diplomacy between us and them. Things like trade agreements and such, don’t think they haven’t noticed the armor that the guardsmen I brought with me are wearing. They probably think that if they are nice enough to us the city will be a bit more willing to trade some armor and other knowledge with them.” Arthur answered in a hushed tone while looking around to be certain that none of the ant people were paying them any attention.

“Wait, you're telling me they're just doing it so they can get some armor of their own?” Decius asked, sounding a little distraught at the idea of basically being traded for goodwill.

“Pretty much, I don’t exactly blame them all that much though. You haven’t been to that city that is around twenty minutes north of here, that place is filled with dwarves that were infected by something they called the pestilence. It has kept them around as husks of what they used to be.”

Decius was quiet for a while thinking about what Arthur said before piping up again. “So it made them into zombies?”

Arthur paused at that word. It sounded so foreign, yet so right at the same time for what they dealt with. “Yeah, I guess that is the correct term for what happened to them.”

While Arthur and Decius were talking, the ant people were quickly setting up several tables that could easily fit Arthur’s group and the group of ant people they first encountered on the road. The food they carried out and placed onto the table was inside wooden bowls that were the same color as the buildings. The food itself mostly consisted of different types of mushrooms that were various shades of brown and prepared in different ways, the few exceptions were for something that reminded Arthur of flower and something that looked like nuts, both of which were in their own bowls.

When everything was ready the group of thirty sat down at the table and began to eat, the mushrooms that made up a majority of the meal were for the most part quite bland. To remedy this however the ant people took some of the flower-like powder and sprinkled it onto their food like seasoning. Arthur went to do the same but found it was actually literal flower, the flower that you use to bake bread and other pastries. Arthur had to resist the urge to shout out in surprise.

“I have one quick question, how exactly did you learn to make this?” Arthur asked as he pointed towards the bowl of flower. The ant person who sat across from Arthur and was the one leading the group on the road smiled, or did the next closest thing an ant person can do before answering.

“We learned that from the ruins of the old surface dweller cities, when they had all died off and became sick we looked through their old things and found the machines they used to create it. We found out how to create smaller hand powered versions after many years of study and experimentation, we understand why they created so much, it makes the food taste so much better.”

Arthur had to force himself not to say anything as he listened to the end of her explanation. Clearly they only found the method of creating flower and not its actual uses, he also did not want to be the one to break the news to them that they had been using flower wrong for who knows how many years now. Someone else can be the one to cross that bridge.

Around halfway through the lunch someone else, another ant person, joined the table. They wore a white cloak and what looked to be a shirt and plants under it, in its arm it held a spear far too complex and metallic to be created by themselves or any ant person with the technology they had shown. This ant person took a seat at the head of the table and took a plate of their own before taking food and eating alongside everyone else.

Arthur was a little confused by this as this ant person looked to be very important compared to the other, the spear alone singled them out as it looked to be a masterpiece made from steel and inscribed with powerful divine enchantments of some sort. This was evident by the pulsing white glow from the inscriptions that snaked across the shaft and tip.

Yet this important and impressive ant person said nothing until the very end of the lunch when Arthur and his group were getting ready to leave.