YOLO

All that was there were empty minecarts, the tracks were slightly rusted as well, but asides from that there was nothing else of significance.

"Hey, where do you think these tracks lead to?" asked Edgar.

"Probably further into the mines," Ken replied. "I mean where else?"

"So we have 2 options right now," Eidiri said, "We could back out now and explore what was outside of the caverns, or we could take these minecarts to who knows where they lead to."

Immediately, Edgar replies, "Yolo."

"Screw it, let's do dumb stuff together, yay!" Ken says with the little excitement he can muster.

They then gather around the carts, kneeling down together before grabbing it and lifting it onto another track that already had a minecart on it.

They repeated this process for another one of the minecarts, after that they each got into one of the minecarts before realizing that they were being stupid.

The minecarts wouldn't drive themselves.

Therefore, they each got back out of their carts, moving behind the said carts, and gave them a powerful shove before running forward and jumping back in.

The speed picked up fast, the wind whipping through their air as they held on for dear life.

There were no safety mechanisms in the carts, if they were launched off, then they died.

The carts dipped down, again and again, they rose abruptly often coming to sudden jerks and halts.

The minecarts rolled past already mined deposits, yet-to-mined geodes, sparkling crystals, dripping stalactites, etc. However, they weren't necessarily in the condition to enjoy such scenery.

They quickly became nauseous, feeling a great urge to hurl up their insides.

The rusted squealing of the tracks there were riding on didn't do any favors to their nerves either, causing them to develop slight feelings of anxiety as well.

When the arduous, nerve-wracking journey finally came to an end the minecarts had slowly ground to a halt, little sparks flying off the rails.

They had ended up in this dark cave, the visibility being quite terrible.

Regardless, they continued onwards, it's not like they had any real choice of heading backward now.

As they continued walking through the cave system, they became increasingly confused, largely due to the winding tunnels and all that.

Often times they would path down a particular tunnel only to wind up in a different tunnel that led them back to where they had started.

As time passed, the group made little to no progress and frustrations started to rise.

"Hear me out guys, but what if all these tunnels just lead back to this main chamber," Ken proposed.

"We've gone through most of these tunnels here and they all led us back here. Therefore, I think i's rational to assume that these other tunnels are going to be duds at this point."

"Rather than continue on wasting our time in these tunnels, we should be exploring this chamber for anything that's like hidden or something. Like some sort of secret lever that'll open something," Ken said.

"You right. You right," EIdiri said.

And just like that, their target shifted, the 3 of them scurrying about as they examined this main chamber from floor to ceiling.

Eventually, after Eidiri had fruitlessly examined a particular crystal that looked promising, he noticed an unusual group of stalactites hanging overhead.

While stalactites and their counterparts, stalagmites, were a pretty common site in these caverns, there was just something about this particular group, or rather one of them that stood out to him.

You see, the stalagmites are typically formed by dripping water carrying calcium salts, but this stalagmite, in particular, stood out due to it possessing a form 'carved' look.

It was almost as if someone had taken a chisel to the rock and carved it out of the stone.

Walking around it several times, he took a good look at it before calling Edgar and Ken over.

"Hey guys! I think I found something!" he called.

"What's up? Doesn't look like much here," said Edgar.

"Just give me a boost," Eidiri then said.

With that the 2 of them knelt down before picking him up on their shoulders, lifting upwards so that he could reach the low-hanging stalactite.

With a sharp grab and twist, the stalactite shifted, and a large grinding sound came from behind them.

Leaping down, Eidiri turned to look at the source of the sound.

As he turned around he was instantly gobsmacked, not producing any noise.

"Hey Eidiri, what was that all about," Edgar said as he and Ken turned around.

Then he too was instantly stunned, much like how Eidiri was.

The plain, ordinary rock wall that they had glanced over before was now sliding to the side, revealing a dense gathering of spiders, their webs filling the room.

"Well damn," Ken said before the spiders started charging towards them.

"So what's the plan here?" Edgar asked nervously.

To that, Eidiri curtly replied, "Extreme violence," before charging forwards.

Swinging Steel Song around he butchered the first spiderlings that had taken the initial charge against them.

However, such a large number of spiderlings was no easy match for anyone. Their numbers would swarm and drown out their enemy as they wasted their energy dispatching some insignificant members of the brood.

The spiderlings gnawed away at Eidiri's leggings, greatly reducing the durability of the equipment as well as leaving slight indents where their fangs had tried to pierce through the metal.

Eidiri in response to this increasingly worse situation did a combat roll backward, falling back into the temporary safety of Edgar and Ken, kicking the spiderlings off of his legs as he did so.

They then charged forwards together, brandishing their weapons with vigor, meeting the spiderlings' charge head-on, rapidly brutalizing their vanguard.

But as each spiderling fell, another quickly scurried forward to take its fallen comrades' place, and slowly but surely the group of 3 were being pushed back.

"What do we do man?" asked Edgar. "We're kinda in a bad situation that's only getting worse," he said.

"Why are you asking me? It's not like I'm some sort of leader now am I? I don't have any real experience leading people in battle!" snarked Eidiri irritably as he blocked a glob of webbing that had been spit at him.

He then flicked off his sword before thrusting forwards and impaling yet another spiderling.