~~~
“Where did they go!?” A voice shouted from the other side of the door.
Veronica, Gloriosa, and Bixxy had dived into a nearby room when Gloriosa had felt people coming from multiple directions. They were still stuck somewhere underground, the first staircase having been crowded with different races moving around and guarding it by sheer weight of numbers.
With the main way up blocked off, they had been forced to flee down a different corridor. Based on the many boxes surrounding them, this was likely an old storage room of some sort.
“They can’t have gone much farther!”
“We’ll stay and search around here! You go ahead and make sure there isn’t another way out of the underground!”
The sound of many feet running off could be heard through the doorway. After about a minute, a loud sigh could be heard.
“Finally, we got a moment away from that dictator.” A man said.
“Hey now, you know that he’s just worried about the kidnapped younglings.” A female voice chided.
“I am too! But how is he expecting us to be able to fight properly if we never get any proper rest? I’d say it’s been about three days since I got proper sleep, but I’ve honestly completely lost track of time for a while now.” The man groaned.
“Well, I can’t say you're entirely wrong there.” The female admitted, her own tiredness coming through in her tone. “Look, let’s just… search a couple of these rooms and if we don’t find anything, we can try to sneakily sleep in shifts.”
Another earthquake shook the ground under all of them, making Bixxy fall over with a soft “oof.” Gloriosa and Veronica were fine since they were fluttering in the air still and Wyrmwood was already laying on the ground like a snake right now, so he had no way to fall over.
“… Did you hear that?” The female guard asked.
“All I heard was this place considering if it would collapse on top of us.” The male guard replied.
“No, that shouldn’t happen, the nascent dungeon core here keeps these walls system protected, you’d need a world destroying event to even make a dent.”
“Ugh, please no dungeon trivia right now. I know you want to be a dungeon master and all, but I’m just way too tired to care right now.”
The female humphed loud enough for it to be heard through the door before answering.
“Well then hurry up and go check the rooms. I’ll guard the hallway in case they try to sneak away. Assuming they really are here.”
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“Lord, I hope not.” Muttered the male before a door nearby could be heard opening with a loud creak.
The three looked to each other as they worriedly considered what to do next. Wyrmwood was still invisible so they couldn’t ’look to’ him, but he was also considering their options.
Curious. Got any more plans? Worried. They will find us soon enough. Gloriosa said, turning to Veronica.
“Well, not exactly.” Veronica admitted quietly. “I’d kind of just thought that we’d be able to get away easily once we got out of the dome.”
Despite their mental maturity, they were still just inexperienced hatchlings after all.
“We could try to kill those guards and escape?” Veronica suggested. “It’d be dangerous since we don’t know how strong they are, but we’d be able to get away a lot more easily if it works.”
Bixxy’s gnomish face went pale white at the suggestion. “W-what…”
Reluctance. Gloriosa’s pixie face grimaced. They are relatively innocent though.
“They are hunting us right now.” Veronica hissed. “If they manage to catch us again, there will be no other escape opportunities. Once this magic on us is dispelled, we’ll be trapped again. Forced to do whatever our captors want. A life of servitude with no real choice or way out.” She spat those words like they were made of venom.
“B-but killing is wrong. A-and I can make sure that you’ll be super happy if you stay!” Bixxy pleaded, now realizing just how serious their situation was. “Daddy said I-if you kill someone, you’re a bad guy.”
Veronica turned her glare towards the now trembling Bixxy. “Well, then do you know any other way out?”
Bixxy wilted under her glare and began tearing up. “N-no,” she sniffed.
“We could try to dig our way out.” The invisible and forgotten Wyrmwood suggested, suddenly.
They all glanced at the dirt floor beneath them, considering. The whole underground had been fully brick and stone when they’d first fled, but it seemed that in the distant storage area they’d left only the ground as soft dirt.
“But didn’t they say it was ‘system protected’?” Bixxy asked in confusion. “My teacher said that makes things ‘indesluctable’.”
Fondness. ‘Indestructible’, you mean. Consternation. So we are still trapped?!
The invisible Wyrmwood let out an angry scoff.
“I don’t even know what a ‘system’ is.” He said snidely as deep grooves in the dirt rapidly began to appear near where his voice had been.
He’d been abandoned by his original mother for being ‘systemless’ so it was a bitter irony that it was now his best hope for regaining his freedom.
Veronica was momentarily surprised by just how big the hole quickly being dug was; she'd been too distracted arguing about escape plans before to realize that Wyrmwood’s re-growth to his original size had been exponential instead of linear! When she focused through the blockage she realized that he’d already become about half as big as the room!
“Block the doors while he digs!” Veronica quickly snapped out after re-gaining focus.
The shocked pair quickly scrambled to do just that after a moment of hesitation. Well, Bixxy did at least. She was just barely able to push some of the closest boxes in front of the door. Gloriosa tried to help, but pixies were a magic focused race, and there wasn’t any living plant life nearby to control.
The stronghold was apparently very serious about keeping their storage area sterile. Not that it mattered now as the once still air quickly filled with dirt and bits of stone. All the extra noise ended up attracting the guards that had been searching for them. Loud banging on the door could be heard as they tried to push and then bash open the now barricaded door!
Bixxy and Gloriosa were huddled up in a corner together, nervously shaking. Seeing them like that, Veronica ushered them closer to the hole being quite quickly excavated.
“Come closer! We need to be right behind him when he-!” And to the two girls’ shock, Veronica was seemingly pulled in by an invisible force while letting out a last, “Eep!”
They looked between each other and the hole in dubious concern for a moment, before they heard Veronica continue from inside the hole.
“Come on! We’ll be burying the tunnel behind us so it will be harder to be followed!”
Looking at each other one final time, Gloriosa held Bixxy’s hand and gave her a confident look.
Confidence. We can do this. Comfort. I’ll make sure to protect you.
Looking at the confident dragon-that-was-currently-just-a-pixie, Bixxy blushed a little at being told she’d be protected, but nodded firmly. Turning to the hole still spewing dirt and stone, it actually ended up being Bixxy that led Gloriosa in. Turns out gnomes can take earthen detritus to the face without it affecting them much.
~~~
Be honest with me, who here thought that detritus was a commonly used word? Cause I totally did until recently.
