Chapter 228 - Always Has Been Here, Summon Gem
Fireden was right, and I didn\'t want to waste too much time with this. I still had the demons that were still gathering to deal with, and I wanted to get home to see my girls.
"Okay, let\'s go check it out; I am not sure if we will even find anything. I had just found it very suspicious that the Gnolls didn\'t try to attack me when I found them all heading down here. If I had had more time, I would have checked it out then, but it is probably better now that we are all together," I explained to everyone and then waved Fireden ahead.
I let the others go ahead and offered Beeno a hand, but she only looked at me strangely. I resisted an eye roll and reached down, taking Beeno\'s thin hands in mine.
"Are you sure you want to hold my hands?" Beeno asked me shyly, and I looked down at the hands that were in mine.
They were thin, long fingers and a bit rough, but there was nothing wrong with them.
"Yeah, let\'s get going.. Who said your drawings were stupid or bad?" I asked as I pulled Beeno after the Elementals.
The tunnel we walked into was round, spacious, and unrestricted, almost stretching twenty feet from side to side. I could see many footprints that look like strange padded human prints but thinner and shallow claw marks.
She was silent at first, but I was okay with the silence; I was looking around the tube I was in.
Something was strange about this place because the tunnel was completely round. A patch of dirt was put down, but the tunnel itself was drilled through stone.
"Gorgvel, what do you think of this? What caused this perfect tunnel? Is there a monster that could do this?" I called up, and Gorgvel slowed down, dropping back to walk with us.
"There are a few things that could have caused this, but this was always here. It is part of the island and has been here since the world started to churn. It is just like the path that you came up into this world on; it was just part of the world," Grogvel explained, and I shrugged.
"What do you think is going to be down here? I find it strange that I can\'t feel them down here or hear anything from us, right?" I asked Grogvel but then called up to Fireden, "Hey, can you feel anything?"
"Same as the Challenger Gem, I could feel it up above, but you were yapping! This is why I wanted to get down here! The walking hyenas are all gone, so it must have something to do with whatever is down there!" Fireden shouted back, and he and the others picked up their speed, but Grovel stayed with us.
"That will be the Summon Gem, but what kind is the question?" Grogvel said, and then Hero spoke up in my head.
[There are multiple types of Summon Gems, but they all spawn monsters from different sections of a strange structure. There are many different types of monsters, and some are more alien than others. The other part of the gem is that they can act as Artifacts and are able to grant certain buffs to the controller and party within an area.]
\'That was good then, but I wonder why the creatures returned?\'
[Your power level increased over them enough that they were forced back into the gem. This is not the first time that I have seen all the Gnolls retreat from the island. Now I understand what was happening, and I am glad that I never figured it out. I might have inadvertently given the advantage away.]
"Everything has its place in time, and I guess that this one was put here for me if it was set here when the world was created. Let\'s pick up our pace, or Fireden will try spamming the chat," I said, but then turned to look at Beeno and then waved for Grogvel to keep moving forward, "I will catch up!"
I stopped, and Beeno stopped with me but looked up at me with an inquisitive look. It was clear that even with having the legs her entire life, she was far from comfortable with moving fast with them.
"Look, I know that coming to a new place must be hard for you, and the place is very different from the one you are from. I want you to feel at home with the other girls and me, and I don\'t want you to feel left out. So, I would like to make you a part of our group," I said, but I had not made the conscious decision on my own.
I wanted to ask her a few things, and the other four could go down and piss around with the rock. So, I made sure that even if she decided to, it wouldn\'t activate on its own and improve her.
"What do you mean? What are you… going to do… to me?" Beeno said with a blush and then looked down as her face got hotter.
I grinned and then said, "I have an ability to change you and improve things that you are already naturally talented at."
Beeno looked up at me quickly, the blush fading faster than it appeared.
"What do you mean? Like I could become a better fighter?" Beeno asked, and that made me chuckle.
"That is something that would naturally happen with the change, but I mean more of your skills. Things that you are good at doing or maybe enjoy. Remember, this isn\'t about what I like or any of the other Nafa might like. None of them matter, only what you like," I explained as I looked into Beeno\'s solid Jade eyes that were faceted like a gem.
Beeno paused, and I let her take her time to think. I really wanted her to bring up the drawing, but I also could see that it was uncomfortable for her, so I waited.