Delving into the wolf's den.

They were standing in front of a far more dangerous structure than they had been to before. A cave, stretching deep beneath the ground. The scratches on the walls and floors and the various pieces of foliage which were dragged in warned them of the inhabitants. John was sure that the Dire Wolves he had encountered almost a week and a half ago now had made a den here, and they were soon informed of that as well.

The group of trainees were led there as part of their exercise for the day, a combo lesson of Stealth and Exploration, or so they were told. Whether or not their goal of killing the pack leader of the wolves would actually require those skills, John wasn’t sure. Yesterday had been a long day, but he had learned a lot, and he was eager to put it into practice. The rest were just as eager. Even Charlotte seemed less reserved than usual.

"Are we going in?" she asked firmly, the two teachers having left a few minutes prior.

“Let’s go,” John responded decisively. They had nothing to do but enter. He didn’t feel like making plans beforehand, too much was at the back of his mind. All the same things that had troubled him the previous morning still did so now. Instead, he walked into the dark cave, quickly using Orb of Light to show them the way forward. The first thing they entered was a large empty space. On all sides various tunnels split off from the open cave.

Unsure of where exactly to go, John suggested they split up to cover more ground. There were only wolves in here after all, and he was sure all of them could handle those. Plus, it was unlikely that the cave would be big enough that they would lose the ability to see each other through the party feature. He and Matthew began exploring the western tunnels, Yan and Bass took the northern ones and Charlotte went east.

The caves were extremely dark, but luckily Charlotte, along with Matthew and Yan, who had no way of making their own light or seeing in the dark, were given magical torches that would allow them to have light while exploring the caves. Even with its light, however, the place wasn’t any less creepy. The walls were covered with various small flowers, grasses and mosses, and marred by many scratches and stains left by the kills of the wolves. The whole place was built like a giant anthill, full of turns and labyrinthine structures, and from every direction terrible noises could be heard. Wolves barking and snarling, the crunching of bones, bone scratching against stone, it all unsettled the healer. Nonetheless, she pressed on, unwilling to give up before anything had even happened.

She soon left the tight corridors of the caves that stretched out from the entrance and entered another large open space. The whole thing was incredible, the walls were all made of various shining gemstones that seemed to occur naturally, and it was absolutely impossible to see the other end of the room, even with various strange new and glowing mushrooms, flowers and gems on the ceiling and floor. In the distance, Charlotte could see wolves running around, some of them moving corpses of strange looking rabbits, bats, and other small critters to somewhere she could not see and smaller wolves were eating.

She slowly advanced, but she had no idea how many wolves there were. As she stepped forward, she quickly took off her gloves and tucked them into a pocket space in her dress. Her hands had black lines on them, intertwining with each other and all seemingly flowing towards the middle of her palm. Slowly, those lines began pulsing, expanding and contracting as if they were veins. She held her hand up, ready for one of the wolves to lunge at her without warning. Her cover soon ran out as she went deeper into the cave, carefully walking through the parts not illuminated by the gemstones so she would not be discovered. Little by little, she drew closer to the noises coming from the group of wolves, she saw piles of small animals scattered around, their prey, she supposed, and smaller wolves being fed or feeding on the corpses. It was a nursery of some sort. Luckily, the larger wolves she had seen earlier had already disappeared back into the tunnels, but there was still some danger. The threat of more wolves incoming was always present, and she discovered one more threat. As a gigantic creature, barely resembling a wolf at all, came into her eyesight on the other side of the room. It appeared to be a female of some type, though why she was there Charlotte didn’t know, it definitely didn’t fit with the behaviour of any wolves she knew about.

She began slowly examining it from afar, it appeared to be a massive wolf with an even more massive pregnant belly that was laying on its back. Around it were even more corpses than she had seen in the rest of the cave. Behind her another sound was heard, a sharp and loud howl, as various wolves entered from the direction she had come from and closed on her location.

'I wish I didn’t have to use it,' she thought, raising her right hand yet further. The black veins only grew more erratic in their movements. They pulsed like veins of blood, and shadows seemed to streak across the light of her torch.

The noise was the first thing one would notice upon entering the tunnel Bass and Yan had gone down. At first they walked silently but that swiftly morphed to quiet chatter, which turned quite quickly into a loud conversation.

"You can't be serious. you finally managed it?" Bass was surprised, but nonetheless happy for her friend.

"Yeah, I am. I can finally do it. Just a wolf's paw for now though," Yan was quite proud of herself. It had taken far too long to break through this barrier, but she had.

Bass quickly raised her hand, as if to give Yan a high-five, and Yan reciprocated after some hesitation.

"I'm happy for you, that's a big step," Bass said, loudly. Before long, they returned to walking in silence through the caves. Their feet grinding against the rough stone floors. Another sound was present now, however. Something else was slowly walking up behind them.

They didn't see the figure, but Bass could hear it. She quickly removed her halo and took it into her hand, splitting it in two. Yan soon caught on as well, and her fingers were replaced with razor sharp claws. A shadow was cast on the wall by the torch Bass now put down. It was in the shape of a wolf, a large one. Yan still held her own torch in hand, the shadows of two wolves seemed to intertwine on the wall.

Bass slowly breathed in and out as the figure approached. She concentrated on her halo as Mana flowed to it through her body, encasing it. The Mana moved and vibrated softly, almost like a wave. To her, it almost looked like a ring of pink floating around and covering her weapons.

The beast pounced as soon as it entered the light. Lunging for Bass’s throat, it wasn’t long before it was subdued. A single yelp was heard before a halo severed it’s head almost clean off.

Moments later, more howls joined it, as the sound of hundreds of rushed steps could be heard from all around them. Further into the cave, they could hear human shouts from a distance. Bass quickly turned to Yan.

“We gotta run, now!”

“Couldn’t agree more! Sounds like someone’s further in there,” she quickly pointed in the direction of the shouting. They both quickly sprinted down the caves towards that direction. Bass’ torch was left behind, and in their trail came a wake of sound blast after sound blast.

“Do you feel that?” something bothered John. An incessant noise of sorts in the tunnel, almost like something was pressing against the back of his head.

“For the last time, no, I do not,” Matthew was getting increasingly annoyed with him, but the Gamer could swear there was something there. Like somebody was watching him from just around the corner.

“It’s there, I swear!” John was also frustrated, the feeling was not pleasant, and he was worried about what it might mean. Soon enough, however, he had greater things to worry about. As he heard rapid footsteps approaching them from all directions, “whatever’s making those, it’s probably bad, we need to get out of here,” he quickly said to Matthew.

“What are you talking about?” the ice mage immediately retorted, before the shadow of several wolves appeared at the edge of their visions, “Damn it, run!” he shouted. That was the last thing either of them said before bolting off in the opposite direction. Running as quickly as they could, while the wolves encroached behind them, they heard shouting from somewhere nearby. Luckily, it sounded familiar to John, and was seemingly getting closer.

The wolves were soon right behind them, almost snapping at their heels. There were far too many for Matthew and John to handle alone. One went down to ice, the next to an Arcane Bolt, the third already latched onto John’s calf before falling over dead.

Damage taken: 7 HP lost

That **** him to turn back, only to see Yan and Bass in the distance, cutting through the wolves in a straight line to them. Shockwaves of sound dazed the wolves, as razor sharp claws and talons ripped through their skin. The blood was splattering everywhere, but there was no end to them. The Gamer and the ice mage increased their own efforts, and soon the four stood back to back, the corpses of wolves gathering around them as more continued to swarm.

All they took was one hit to kill, but it was slowly draining the small team. Yan’s claws were battered and bloody, and she herself was in no better shape. Bass’ own weapons were in worse shape, but she was mostly uninjured. Matthew was the most composed of all of them, but even he was visibly sweating from exhaustion. John was in the worst shape of all, his legs were covered with scratches and bites, and they were healing quite slowly. Two thirds of his health were gone and his Mana was mostly depleted.

“We can’t keep standing here! There’s no end to them!” he quickly shouted to the others over the noise of their various abilities.

“Where can we go?” Yan fired back quickly.

“There! Not nearly as many are coming from that direction!” Bass pointed south, if John’s map was still accurate. It was towards an unexplored tunnel, but it was their best and only hope.

Bass and Matthew immediately began moving, running ahead and clearing what wolves there were. The corpses hit the walls and floors with horrendous sounds, and the smell was immense, and utterly putrid. Days ago, it would have made John vomit, but the situation at hand **** him to deal with it the best he could. Yan and John ran moments later, protecting the other’s backs.

’I don’t know how much longer we can hold here…’ John shot an arcane bolt back, killing yet another wolf. At this point he had killed about 50, but the XP gains were minimal. It seemed he had outleveled them as a source. He’d only gained about 300 XP from all of them, and that came at a serious cost, ’We need to get somewhere safe and fast.’ He looked around, trying to find somewhere they could hide. Running through the endless tunnels as more wolves fell behind him to various attacks from the others. He smelt blood and the sick metallic taste spread through his tongue. He spotted a small alcove in the right wall, where many bodies of wolves and wolf-like creatures laid. He wasn’t even sure some of them were even the same species, but there was no time to wonder about that.

“There’s someone in there!” John shouted at the others, and broke off quickly to the right. Yan broke off almost immediately after he did. The other two screeched to a halt before following them soon after. The wolves were now right behind them all as they ducked into the alcove, having only been barely held off before.

The first thing John saw inside was an extremely tired and battered Charlotte, whose gloves were nowhere to be seen. John quickly spotted black dots in the middle of her hands, before she swiftly covered them.

“Be careful,” she quickly warned, her voice clearly pained. An army of wolves rushed on behind them, and one of them jumped on John before he had regained his bearings.

He was hit against the stone floor, and the world spun around him. He closed his eyes, and the wolf was a few centimeters from his throat, he closed them again and it was gone. His ears were ringing and he felt his mind slipping away.

’No!’ he got up violently. There was no time. He did the only thing he could think of, what Ingrid had taught him. Not looking around, he erected an Arcane Wall at the entrance to the alcove. With every fiber of his being telling it to stay steady, to hold. The sound of wolves starting to gather around the wall was clear, they started scratching at it furiously and even with John’s hesitation,