Healing Mishap -5-
byLanzaq

They eventually reached a clearing, A mine cart junction. It was essentially a cavern that had been carved even larger by hands other than goblins. A single shaft of light filtered down from a single opening in the roof of the room. In the center of this light was a small chest, it was boring was all Verris said to describe the chest. It was nothing more than an ornate wooden crate with a hinge. Ash took the honours of stepping forward to try and pick it's lock.

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The Four stood their ground as the mutants walked or more like hobbled through the sand of the trapdoor pit towards them, they all looked about as intelligent as the fruit Arric had refused to purchase at the beginning of the pass. One of the mutants hobbled faster than the others, and it seemed a little more intelligent, maybe it had a less rotten apple for a brain.

"We ready?" Arric asked knocking an arrow back. "I am."

Cael nodded followed by Verris pulling his book over his shoulder and opening the page. "Ready."

"I'm good to go." Ash said drawing her blades.

The semi-intelligent mutant leaped forwards grabbing for the arrow head of Arrics arrow, with a quick release and a whistling of the feather fletchings the arrow found its mark, however it didn't hit the mark the mutant was holding the arrow by the shaft and looking at the arrow head. Smiling, it put the arrow in the pocket on its loincloth, it stuck out of the shallow pocket and looked rather odd, but the mutant didn't care, it had its shiny and it hobbled off down the other way of the pass laughing to its self. "I gots a shiny!"

The other mutants seeing this all looked toward Arric, like their leader they wanted a shiny for themselves and they weren't about to be stopped.

"I don't think regular arrows will work." Cael said launching a Magician's arrow at the mutant this a sizzle as it traveled through the air. It hit the mutant mid-leap which did nothing except to stop the mutant from continuing its jump towards Arric. It paused looked over at Cael and laughed as a third eye opened up on its forehead. The eye blinked slowly at Cael.

"Well, now we know. They like shiny things and they can snag my arrows mid-air and Cael's magic just causes them to mutate more." Verris said. "I think I can try though." he said whipping through an incantation for wizard's fire. As he finished the incantation the mutants all stared at the ball of fire that continued to grow in the apprentice's hands from a small match sized ember to a blaze as big as a barrel is round. "Pyros Ignus." Verris screamed causing the fire to whirl around the edge of the room in a tightening circle. Leaving the walls of the cavern they were in a blackened colour. The mutants upon seeing this display of magical prowess did the equivalent of a full grown man emitting a girly scream and running for his mother. They all headed the same direction as their mutant leader down the right passage

Arric stood stunned. Ash just raised a single eyebrow and Cael smiled at this apprentice. "That was impressive." He said before taking a quick whiff. "I smell sulphur." Cael said looking down the left passage. "We could risk another encounter with those things or we could head down to what smells like hell, or rotten eggs. Or both."

"I prefer the rotten eggs." Arric said smiling. "Rotten eggs don't involve a lake of continuously burning oil." he said shrugging the bow back over his shoulder. "Besides. We haven't meet up with Kate or that dragon Taf was mentioning."

"Y'all ain't looking fer a dragon. I thought Y'all were looking fer a way out." Taf said looking at the four. "I mean Y'all came in here, let me out of a box, and then fought a crazy. I thought at least y'all would be looking for some rest but I come to learn y'all have no intention of slowing down." He said before mumbling more about how he doesn't like over-active dungeon-crawlers.

"Looking for a dragon is not something we are doing. We are looking for our friend Kate. And I know for a fact the faster we find that dragon the faster we find Kate." Arric said looking down at the two foot tall green goblin who was supposedly their 'guide'.

"Crazies. Y'all are Crazies." Was all Taf said to them before letting them head down the left passage.

They walked slowly over what appeared to be bent and twisted mine cart ties. The sandstone walls of the earlier passages were now giving way to charred blackened rock and chunks of mineral that was foreign to all of the crawlers, Taf however was more than willing to talk In one ear and out the other describing to them just what was layered over the walls of the passageway.

They eventually reached a clearing, A mine cart junction. It was essentially a cavern that had been carved even larger by hands other than goblins. A single shaft of light filtered down from a single opening in the roof of the room. In the center of this light was a small chest, it was boring was all Verris said to describe the chest. It was nothing more than an ornate wooden crate with a hinge. Ash took the honours of stepping forward to try and pick it's lock.

"You were able to help our little friend here out of his box, we believe you are capable of opening such a plain box." Arric said stashing the coins he had looted off the dead mutants into his coin bag.

"Okay." Ash said getting down on her knees to inspect the box closer. After a few minutes of just looking around the box she picked it up and looked at it from the bottom. She set it back down and retrieved her belt knife and slowly wedged it into the gap of the chest and proceeded to slowly work it open.

When she finally got it open she smiled. A small smile, but still a smile of success. However it was cut short as a quick cloud of gas was released from the chest and covered Ash's face. When it dissipated Ash was left looking like she was half-awake. "It was trapped." She said slowly before trying to nod off before Cael shook her back awake.

"Good job Arric, you just caused Ash to spring a Drowsy Chest on herself." Verris said pointing to the markings of the chest. "I wasn't paying attention. But if you had just waited for me to look it up in my book I could have warned you."

"Listen, I have been doing this for years. In fact I have been doing this long before your father had decided to pick your mother out a crowd at a local yokel dance." Arric said. "I know what I can and can't trust. If it were an explosive chest I would have told her to avoid it, but its just mild drowsiness. I should have bought a potion..." He said reaching to the empty space in his backpack. "That's right...Kate threw my potions out." he said sighing.

"There is something still in the chest." Cael pointed out pulling the bundle of cloth out of the chest. As he continued to pull it out it unfolded revealing a 'robe' of sorts. If it was truly a magician's robe it was definitely on the women's spell caster end of the spectrum. It was a shimmery purple that when shifted became a bright neon pink, around the sleeves and around the waist special glyphs were embroidered on. "Know what they mean?" Cael asked looking at Verris.

"Yeah. They apparently create light magical barrier against projectiles." Verris said looking at the robe. "I already have a set of Glyph-robes." he said gesturing to the red symbols around the cuff of his arms and the ankles of his robe. "Besides it looks like it is just your size." He said

Arric just laughed. "He is right you know, those robes are too small for Kate, let alone him" Arric gestured to the now flustered Verris. "I think someone or something out there wants you into something a little more...fitting." He said laughing loud enough for it to echo in the spacious area.

Cael glared at him before finally sighing. "Fine, but you need to turn around while I change." He said removing his non-glyph robe and shoving it into his backpack. He wormed his way into the robe just to find that it fit perfectly. "well I was complaining earlier that I ever got from dungeon-crawls were average robes, I guess its about time I got something a bit out of the ordinary."

Arric turned around just the be greeted by Cael in a purple-pink robe. Overall this just set a spring off mentally in his mind. Cael stood their, long white-blond hair, Pink eyes and in a robe that when it wasn't purple was a matching pink colour. He struggled long and hard however the urge to laugh over came him. He dropped to the blacked ground and rolled, laughing harder than he had laughed in a long time.

"Its not funny!" Cael said putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward.

At seeing this Arric paused just to watch Cael do this before he started laughing harder. "Oh this is great, perfect just..ah oh my." He said struggling to get back up he wiped a single tear from the corner of his eye. "Cael I must say, the robe pulls everything together."

"And what do you mean by that?" Cael said straightening up and crossing his arms.

"Turn around." Arric said to Cael

Cael followed the orders and spun around to see Ash standing their a large grin on her normally straight face. "Cute." Is all she said retrieving a hand mirror out of her backpack and handing it to Cael in a half-sleepy stupor.

Verris although he understood he didn't understand what exactly was going on. Suddenly the words Lanzer had yelled at him sunk in. "Wait...YOU are a GUY!"

At this outburst Arric just dropped back down to the ground and started laughing again. Cael dropped the hand mirror out of shock and Ash giggled a little before bending down to pick up the mirror pieces and collapsing to take a nap.

Suddenly they heard exactly what they were looking for. The semi-rhythmic stomping of clawed beast foot against rock. A shuddering roar was heard and they saw it. The scaly Snout poked its way through a large opening. However what followed the snout wasn't what they were expecting. Out crawled a War-dragon. It stood at a terrifying three feet tall and wings barely able to lift its body off the ground. It looked about as ferocious as a de-clawed kitten at this point.

Taf just screamed and hid behind the sleeping Ash. Cael looked interested at the small dragon. Verris was still trying to piece together just who he had been following for the past day and a half. Arric stopped to look at the dragon momentarily before returning to his laughter fit. "This tops it all. In all my years I have fought trolls, ogres. Bandits and Rock-dogs. But never have I seen such a fine specimen of dragon health." He roared.

The small dragon looked over at Arric before sneezing, that's when Arric realized that dragons, no matter how small can be dangerous. The fire released from the maw of the diminutive dragon was hot enough that it was a pure red. It melted the mine cart ties that were even in close proximity to the fire.

"Not so funny any more." Arric said jumping up and staring at the dragon.

This was the moment that Kate decided to appear. In her arms was a replacement mirror for Ash, and a large parcel of meat. It looked like pork. "Drea. I thought I told you before that even though they deserve it, its not nice to scare poor travelers." She looked over at the mine cart ties. "And cover your mouth when you sneeze." She scolded. "Three hundred years old and you still have a hard time with that."

"Nice to see you join us." Arric said dusting himself off. "Well, Like I thought. We meet the dragon and Kate appears from nowhere to give the thing something, I was half expecting her to be bringing a small child in tow."

"That silly." Kate said smiling. "Drea doesn't eat children. They are much to small and they supposedly don't taste that good compared to old men." she said smoothing her healers robe out.

Arric paled at this. "Not funny Kate I know he wouldn't eat people he seems like a nice dragon." Arric said walking unsteadily toward Kate and 'Drea'.

"Who said I was joking?" Kate asked tilting her head to one side as Drea ran his forked tongue over his scaly lips.

"Well. Aside from the man-eating dragon, Where were you Kate?" Cael asked.

She smiled and handed Cael a small stone with a symbol of some kind into it. "I was talking with the Goblin elder, It wasn't the same one I remember from before. This one was much younger and was a little green behind the ears."

"Ah I get it, he was a goblin so he was green!" Arric said letting out a quick laugh.

"That was Rude." was all Kate said. "No really, he was inexperienced as a Leader so the goblins have been running expeditions down into the abandoned mine under the pass and running into elvish artifacts causing them to mutate." Kate said twirling her staff absentmindedly.

"Well, its great to see you again." Cael said. "Because we need a way to wake Ash up." He said pointing to the pile of human and steel that was Ash. "She sprung a trapped chest that got me this robe." Cael said showing his new 'robe' to Kate.

"I can wake Ash up really quickly!" Kate said before looking at Cael and becoming distracted. "How pretty!" She said grabbing Cael into a quick hug. "You look so cuuuute!" She said lifting him off his feet and shaking him side to side.

"Let me down." He gasped "Ash needs to be awoken."

"Oh yeah!" She said setting Cael down and turning to Ash. She rolled up her sleeve and made a quick incantation and launched a blue bolt of magical energy at Ash. However no matter what one uses as an offensive or defensive thing. One must consider rebound.