Darkness (1)

Blank paused and held up his hand.

"Okay anti social chill out." He muttered. The flame in his hand flickered. Wait flame?

I stared at it and muttered "fire magic?"

"Oh yeah cool right! Seems some of our in game abilities are starting to somehow translate into the real world." Blank replied.

"So you went to fire mage from a warrior huh?" I eyed him suspiciously.

"No actually, I got some weird skill called Flamesoul although I'm still getting use to it." He replied.

Wow he really did not try to keep any of his abilities secret did he? I instantly felt like trying out my ice magic but I didn't want him to see it. Or actually, if I was going to use it a lot he'd hear about it anyway.

"How'd you get your magic to appear here?" I asked.

If he was going to go telling me his secrets I might as well ask about all of them.

"Not all that sure, I just kind of picture its warmth and friendship. Like I fell in here and it was cold and dark then it appeared." He looked at the little flame in his hands lovingly.

I looked at my own hand and smirked my talent fit me well. I pictured needing to make things cold and wanting everyone to stay away from me. The air temperature dropped several degrees and frost started to form on my finger tips.

The whole how is magic appearing in reality aside, this was super cool!

"No way! You're ice! Here I thought I was special with two talents." Blank looked a little disappointed.

"Speak for yourself" muttered Deck "at least you both have talents for magic."

"Target point!" I growled throwing a dagger at the wall.

"Um whatcha doing? I don't think the underground wall will jus break." Said Deck staring at me.

"Dagger skills don't activate" I replied. The auto target skill had missed. "It's just the magic."

"Let's find and exit." I muttered getting up and starting to walk down a random tunnel leading to the right.

"How do you know that's the right way?" Blank asked.

"I don't. Do you have a better option." I said it as more of a statement.

"Your reputation as anti social is nicer than you are in person." Blank commented and I shot him a glare.

"And you can stay behind if you want." I muttered back as Deck started to follow me then hesitated looking between us.

Deck looked at Blank "Don't mind him he's actually a lot nicer than he looks he just…"

I cut him off "zip it Deck."

"You sure he's your friend?" Blank asked Deck as he nodded. I ignored them and continued walking.

Shoot its dark and I don't want to have to ask Blank of all people for help. I remembered the glowing of the ice wolf and its crystals. Did my magic have that ability if I had gotten it from him? What emotion would I even need to activate it? Let's see, an emotion strong to me that reflects a light attribute. Hmm maybe happy?

What makes me happy. Being alone does it. I pictured the two idiots behind me getting left behind a bit more and my hand started to faintly glow. Hmm what if I picture them being left behind completely. A medium glow. Perfect, I just have to imagine how happy I will be, once I am alone in my room when this is over.

Hehe using this is easier than I thought. All of it revolved around picturing things that made me happy. I can do this easily.

The tunnel had several pillars of wood and planks. An old mineshaft maybe? Behind me the two loud mouthed idiots were chatting away about magic in the real world.

"Well we could always still be in the game or something." Commented Blank "you know like all those sci-fi movies."

I froze for a second then continued walking what if this was still the game?

Sure I couldn't open my inventory or anything game like but the magic was here. How much programming would it take for an AI to just make us think we woke back up?

I groaned. I had one way to test it. Fantastic, I had germ-x with me still right? I checked my pocket. The little bottle had somehow survived. Then I spun and walked over to Deck.

"Huh? Royal what's wrong?" he asked.

I reached over and touched his hand and instantly felt my skin crawl like a hundred ants were inside of it. Nope! I immediately turned away putting germ-x on.

"Um that was weird." I heard Blank comment, "You going to explain?"

"Nope" I replied and walked away again.

"Uh it's the real world." Said Deck.

"How do you suddenly know that for sure?" asked Blank.

"I have my ways." Deck replied secretively.

I felt like rolling my eyes. It wasn't his way but he made a good test subject if nothing else.

I paused as the tunnel widened in front of us. In the middle was another large sink hole with a small layered path of dirt alone the edge. Totally looked like a trap. The other two caught up with me and looked down. Deck even tossed a pebble over to see if he could hear it land.

The thin little path wove upwards which was the direction I wanted to go. Safety though, did not appear to be the path's priority.

"We going up or not?" asked Deck after I had looked around for a solid minute.

"I don't trust it" I grumbled.

"You don't seem to trust anything" Blanks reply was curt as he took the lead up the sketchy path.

"Don't blame me if you die, but please by all means test the path's strength for us." I said. Good if I kept up the snide replies his possible crush on me was sure to die.

Blank seemed cautious enough, he tested the ground before putting his whole weight forward. We slowly made our way upward. How far even was the surface. The tunnel had sloped up and down at times and I had lost track.

He got more confident as he started moving faster and I wanted to hiss at him to slow down. I held Deck back. We needed to move slower. I still felt like this entire structure could easily crumbled away.

"Hey Blank slow down a bit would you?" Deck called out.

Black looked back at us, "Okay." He waited for the two of us to catch up.

I looked around the entire place felt too quiet. Shouldn't there be bats and mice and other creepy things in these tunnels? I felt a shiver run down by back that had nothing to do with my new ice magic.

The path had gotten even narrower to the point of being only an arm span wide. I hugged the wall not trusting the edge. How much further?

A small clicking noise started slowly getting louder and I froze. Why did it sound so familiar?

Rik click click, rik click click…..

A few seconds later and it was clearly audible.

"RUN!" I whisper yelled and shoved Deck forward.

Blank had also noticed what it was and started running forward. The rickety path was now the least of our problems.

We tore up the path sending the dirt scattering around us. A few parts of the edges crumbled away as we hurried forward.

Rik, Rik click click, rik click click.

I could see an opening up ahead where the path widened and led into another tunnel.

RIK CLICK CLICK CLICK

Shoot, it had arrived and we were still too far from the small tunnel entrance.

I grabbed Deck and covered his mouth holding him as close to the wall as I could get. He was newer to NewLegacy and I doubted he had run across these upper level monsters yet. They were not something we could handle in our current skill level.

I held my breath as it appeared. Please don't notice us. They didn't have good eyesight but their hearing was insane. Their presence also explained the lack of other creatures perfectly.

NewLegacy's biggest underground monster type. The Sawoped Worm.

Its long body covered in metal plating and its mouth a whirling saw blade. A monster that could carve up tunnels underground like they were water. They could go through steel like it was dirt.

It slowed as it approached our area then paused for a moment.

I could feel saliva dripping down my throat but I didn't dare gulp. Deck had frozen behind me and Blank was a statue ahead of us.

Rik click...click...…click...…click....rik...click

It slowly slithered by us its little legs crawling up the tunnel wall like it was nothing. I silently took a step to the left avoiding a foot as it waddled past.

It wasn't even completely by us when it suddenly burst back to full speed.

RIK CLICK CLICK.....

It disappeared above us and started chomping its way to the side making a new tunnel. I released Deck and pulled out my hand sanitizer.

I was about to squeeze some on then the worm must have hit a particularly hard rock, the whole place started shaking and the ground path below us crumbled to pieces. A patch I was on held stable but both Blank's and Deck's crumbled below them.