"We greet you, Havon," the warriors said after.
Lucius, however, was too out of breath to give a reply and instead lifted his hand in kind gesture.
"Warriors, please take this into the den," Avankor ordered after, pointing towards the cart.
The chief jumped off it, and exchange pleasantries with the warriors before all of them grabbed onto it and pushed it into the river. Its weight along with the push Avankor was giving it from behind was enough to push it under.
Luckily there wasn't much air inside it, so its buoyancy was near non-existent.
Whilst the others moved towards the blue portal, Lucius stayed behind for a moment, pondering why the necromancer's decay hadn't affected the river or the river banks.
The decay zone stopped just inches away from the embankments, making him think it had something to do with the water. Though even after he threw water on the decayed soil, the black layer on top of it did not peel back.
~More and more questions keep arising,~ he thought to himself with a deep breath, before jumping into the river.
Even with his high-strength stat, he had to put in a lot of effort to overcome his fatigue. Fortunately, he managed to get through the 'portal' right before it disappeared.
*
"Place it in my quarters, and if Trel is there, inform her that she's not allowed to play around with it," Avankor said to the warriors, before turning to Lucius -who was still inspecting the passage they had just passed through.
"What exactly is this? It isn't magic, is it?" Lucius asked. At first, he had thought that the portal opened in response to something related to Avankor's mystic mantle. But now that he had a look at it from the inside, it was actually just a hole covered by what looked like blue rocks.
"We do not know what it is. It was here from even before the first king. All we know is that it reacts to our nature's blessing," Avankor replied, before showing Lucius the white fluid his species was capable of secreting.
Just as Lucius was about to touch it, Avankor moved his hand back.
"This is like poison to those who are not Zeldrave. It causes grievous wounds upon touch," Avankor warned, before reabsorbing the fluid.
Lucius could remember hearing something about salamanders being able to excrete poisonous fluid back on Earth, he supposed that this was something similar.
But still, there were a lot of questions about the 'portal' left unanswered. How come the water hadn't passed through with them? What were these blue rocks? And if this wasn't a magic spell, how had they suddenly become ethereal?
~More questions,~ Lucius thought to himself in exasperation. But still, the properties of this blue rock were interesting enough to make up for the headache of their mystery. It was another possible material he could use to create weapons and gear.
But experimentation would have to wait until after he had taken a rest.
Avankor led the group down the tunnel, taking a series of lefts and rights at the multiple intersections that seemed common within this underground system. The tunnel walls were very similar to that of the Chames, apart from a few spaces where the walls were unnaturally polished.
Lucius assumed that the Zeldraves had probably used the properties of their fluid to smooth out these areas.
As they went deeper into the camp, they found more of the glowing blue rocks lighting the path. Upon closer inspection, Lucius realized that they were nearly identical to the rocks that lit up the Chames' den, the only difference was that these rocks seemed more dense.
Different colored gems were embedded within the doorways to a few of these tunnels. However, unlike the Chames', they did not seem to depict anything of historical value and instead were indicators of what sort of corridors they were entering.
He had picked up the pattern rather quickly; blue gems meant intersection, green gems meant a dead end, and red gems meant living area -or at least areas where large numbers of Zeldraves lounged around.
Of course the appearance of strangers in the den drew a lot of attention as Lucius could hear the Zeldraves whispering to each other as Avankor led them down the corridors.
Soon a small group had begun following them from behind. And regardless of how many times Avankor asked them to stop following, their curiosity seemed to get the best of them.
"We've been walking for some time. I thought you would be taking us to meet the rest of your people, but it seems that's not the case," Lucius commented.
To which Avankor nodded his head hesitantly, before letting out a sigh.
"Havon, you have to understand, when you first woke up, you were not stable. There were things, I could not reveal to you yet," Avankor whispered grimly.
"Your child... there was not a lot we could do. However, we kept him alive. Perhaps your healing techniques will be able to replace what he has lost," Avankor continued rather quickly, perhaps sensing that Lucius was about to react.
However, to his surprise, Lucius was unnaturally calm. The fatigue that had scrunched his expression was now gone, and instead replaced by one of detachment.
The rest of the walk went on in silence before the group came to a doorway with purple gems on on top of it.
"This is my sister's room, I put her in charge of treating him," Avankor explained, before drawing the leather curtain to the side.
Lucius slowly entered the room. It was a simple space, with its only piece of furniture being a makeshift earth bath in the center.
A purple-skinned Zeldrave was currently pouring white fluid from a worm sac into the bath.
"So that's what all that noise was about. You took your time coming back... brother," the purple-skinned Zeldrave commented, not lifting her head from what she was doing.
"Trel, I've brought Havon... he's here to see his child," Avankor said stiffly, prompting the female Zeldrave to quickly raise her head.
She looked at Lucius with a scrutinizing gaze, almost as if she saw him as more like a science study than anything else.
However, Lucius paid her no mind and went straight to the earthen bath.
"Alpha..." he whispered in anguish.
