The cavern was wide, with grey rocky walls, lined to the brim with jagged red crystals, all of which glowed brilliantly, stronger than even my torch light itself. My jaw dropped at the sight of these crystals; some of them were moving! They were red Masara! Corrupted or infected or just hostile gembeasts, apparently attaching themselves to the wall for some purpose.
I quickly doused my torch and ducked under the water, letting only my eyes peek above, watching as a few of these jagged gembeasts walked about, perhaps patrolling the area. They were auping as usual, making their strange noises perhaps to communicate with those in the distance (I could hear a great deal of rustling deeper into the cavern, but I couldn’t see that far.)
Yet, what surprised and confused me most of all was the fact that I could sense the location of my arrows, the ones I had fired straight into the Titan’s core. They were a mere 200 feet away from me. They were inside this cavern!
I was quick to grab my telepathy charm, to put it on and call Trig down here, but realized that doing so might be a mistake. These Masara were unknowns to me. They had been able to fool even the Overseer so long ago with their presence, tricking him into an ambush. Was it possible they could tune into telepathic communication? If so, my attempts to contact Trig would clearly tip them off. Besides, I doubt Trig could hold his breath that long anyway. It’d be better to retrieve him and share the L’Gara charm until we reached this area. I’d just have to fill him in on the way.
As I swam back to my companion, I ran the scenario through my head. There were really only two reasons my arrows would be located in this cavern. The first was that the Shadow Titan had simply ordered these Masara to take the arrows, knowing that I would follow them. But that required such an advanced understanding of my own abilities. And if the Titan could understand this, why wouldn’t it have anticipated our surprise attack earlier?
The second option was far more exciting and nerve-wracking. The Titan’s core was inside of the cavern. For what reason, I had no idea. Was it trying to heal somewhere private? Was the entire shadowy essence within the cavern, waiting to consume us? Or were the red Masara somehow involved with controlling or taking care of it? I guess we’d find the answer to these questions soon enough. Because as soon as I grabbed Trig, we’d be heading right back to the crystal caverns. Armed with sonic weapons, of course…
Chapter 41
Eventually we came to recognize the random movements of the red Masara gems as being part of some kind of patrol, though not in a way we would ever organize our own. They would sporadically move from place to place, without rhyme or reason. Sometimes a crystal from the wall would grow out and make a strange bleating sound, prompting the guards to strike that crystal, silencing it. From the outside, it seemed like pure madness. Maybe it was.
But my arrow senses were dead on. 200 feet away from where we hid in the water, deeper into the cavern, was the core. Or just my arrows. Yet…I doubted that these tall Masara with jagged arms, the soldier types I had encountered many times before, were guarding nothing.
Trig glanced at me, mouthing the words “electricity” as carefully as he could, reminding me that they had used electrical attacks in every encounter we had with them. And we were sitting in a pool of water, something that did not mix well with electricity. We’d be sopping wet upon emerging, making a single bolt of lightning deadlier than usual. We’d have to strike fast and mercilessly if we did indeed decide on fighting.
But I couldn’t really see any other choices here. There were four guards within view; the rest of the Masara were either attached to the walls or were shuffling back and forth. These shorter Masara lacked the jagged edges of their warrior kin, reminding me more of Brain and his ilk. Harmless, or at least, so I assumed. It didn’t much matter though. Unless they groveled or showed some sign of surrender, we’d destroy them all the same.
Time passed as we observed our enemy. Nothing fundamental seemed to change. The guards continued to erratically patrol in short bursts, covering only a small amount of ground at a time. The regular reds continued moving in and out of view, busy with some important task. I glanced at Trig, who shot me a look that said, “now or never.” And I could see him partly hoping that I picked “never.”
I drew my sonic bow and strung four arrows on it at once, shaking my head at Trig’s hope that we would just pack up and leave. We had come this far. And there was clearly something inside the other side of this cavern. Whatever it was, I wanted to find out.
Trig primed a grenade of unknown origin and shrugged, looking a bit displeased with my decision. But he was dutiful as always. He threw the spherical explosive straight into the center of the patrol, causing all four gembeasts to swing their heads towards the grenade at once. At the same time, I leapt out and began firing as fast as I could, striking the distracted beasts in the dead center of their torsos.
They tried to react to both things at once, simultaneously attempting to fire electrical bursts at me, while scattering out of range of the weapon they recognized.
