Chapter 203

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Chapter 203: The Cellar of Shadra

The two friends decided to leave quickly. Greed took out a knife from his waist, held a small round shield, and went around the wall. Jesse packed up and followed him.

They followed a faint sound drifting with the wind and moved forward towards the depths of the troll ruins. Jesse looked at the collapsed green walls with ancient totems on them and whispered, "Be careful, there might be trolls ambushing…"

"I know," Greed said ahead, "But the trolls who built these buildings might not even consider the Forest Trolls from the east as their kind. When Forest Trolls come here, they are also scared of elves ambushing inside. They have to be cautious just like us!"

"This place feels eerie," Jesse said.

"A human who faced Teron Gorefiend is afraid of trolls?" Greed turned around. "Let me tell you, Jesse. After Zul’jin allied with the Horde, many trolls found that their comrades were ghosts possessing human corpses. And the dark warriors who could resurrect the dead with a spell shocked them more than you. The idea of dead people being resurrected in Forest Trolls’ minds is like a mythical legend, and not a positive one at that."

"Well, I just haven’t seen trolls before. It’s normal to be worried about unknown enemies, right?" Jesse said.

The dwarf said, "More important than trolls right now is to beware of spider ambushes, especially those small spiders." Hearing this, Jesse immediately checked his arms and legs to see if any spiders were crawling on him.

"The spiders in the Hinterlands are not like Stormwind’s spiders," Greed watched Jesse’s movements and said, "Even the smallest spiders here are as big as a dog. If they ambush you, you will definitely know. Don’t worry."

Jesse twitched at the corner of his eye, wondering what there was to be reassured about…

The ruins looked like an ancient small altar because it was not very big and had a square shape. Now they were groping towards the middle of the square.

After going around a wall, Jesse found some white spiderwebs sticking to the wall, which basically confirmed their worries that this was the spider’s home.

He touched it with his hand and felt it was extremely sticky and strong. After struggling to pull off a piece, it was his first encounter with such a huge spider web, leaving a deep impression on him.

As they went around another wall towards the center, there were more and more spider webs. Despite walking cautiously, Greed almost tripped several times.

Near a wall in the middle, they found a hole. The fact they were both unwilling to accept was that the buzzing sound was coming from inside.

Here, they were almost certain it was muffled sobbing, with occasional sharp whistles. It was Jesse who first noticed it because of the whistle.

"I don’t remember there being a hole here," Greed scratched his head and said. "Although I’ve been to this ruins twice, but… never noticed there was an opening here."

"What do you think, Greed?" Jesse asked. "Could these spiders be like the leopard on the ship, using sounds to lure us in and then hunt us?"

"So what?" Greed said. "Congratulations to it then, and I wish it a pleasant journey in the Land of Shadows."

After speaking, Greed walked down the stairs, Jesse raised an eyebrow and followed.

As they entered the dark tunnel, a faint smell drifted by. Jesse summoned a light spell to lead the way. Greed glanced at the light and muttered, "Finally feeling the benefits of having a mage around."

"How many times have I saved you with magic before?" Jesse asked.

"That’s not how I see magic," Greed replied. "Every time you save me with those strange spells, I feel a strange sense of guilt, like I have to kill someone to save someone else."

Jesse snorted, saying, "If I didn’t use magic, you wouldn’t even be alive to feel that guilt."

"So what," Greed said, "I’m not complaining! As a friend, as long as you’re okay and not hurting others, I have nothing to say. But I’ve lived for sixty or seventy years after all, Jesse, the process of changing thoughts is slower for us old folks than you young ones with no brains."

"Watch your back…" Jesse reminded him.

According to Greed, this dungeon should be quite ancient. Jesse thought it resembled the Atal’Hakkar dungeon underwater in The Black Morass, except the wall paintings were not snakes but various multi-legged creatures, not all spiders.

Perhaps this place was once a small temple of the spider goddess Shadra, built by the ancient Amani trolls. It was abandoned with the inevitable decline of the Amani Empire, buried under dust for years, transforming from a temple to a dungeon, with the original tower top becoming a ruined courtyard.

Right now, the crying sound stopped.

Two people stopped at a junction and listened carefully. Greed looked up at the tunnel ceiling and said, "Did you hear those clicking sounds, Jesse? Some of them are the sound of spiders crawling on their webs. We’ve been noticed."

"Look at all these spider webs on the ground," Jesse said. "They must have spotted us when we came in. Where could that person be?"

It was harder to distinguish sounds here, with noise and echoes everywhere. Just as the two hesitated, a weak crying sound came again, feeling very close. They both looked towards the passage where the sound was coming from.

"Let’s go!"

They walked down to a larger room filled with broken statues and slabs, the whole room reeking of an unbearable stench.

If Jesse hadn’t experienced the stench of shadows and corpses a few times, he might have thrown up on the spot. Greed also pinched his nose, feeling nauseous.

"It stirs up some bad memories, Greed," Jesse said.

"I want my payment," Greed said, looking at the cracked spider silk cocoons on the ground. "I must be paid, even Dwarf Wildhammer knows that. This trip is worth at least 10 silver coins. If they can’t pay, they will regret it."

"Okay," Jesse said.

He held up the Light Spell and shone it on the wall and floor for a while, finally seeing the trembling cocoon.

The cocoon was tightly wrapped with no gaps, yet the person inside somehow managed to stay alive for so long without suffocating.

But compared to a Dwarf Wildhammer, this cocoon seemed a bit long.