Beacon from Beyond

After the entire [Tremor Sense] fiasco, Dei had noticed that he received another notification.

[Stat Gained: 1 Mental]

This was great news, as it told him his issue with his racial ability wasn’t necessarily permanent. If he had to guess, it stemmed from the fact that he had overstimulated himself instantly, and was paralyzed from all the new sensations entering his mind. Ever since he woke up, it was also easier to collect his consciousness and focus it into tasks that needed to be done.

If he could stretch his mind by using [Tremor Sense] more often in order to gain more stats, he might be able to use it perpetually, or even make out the smaller details that eluded him. While it was interesting to get a general idea of the area around him, he should be able to do things like hear what someone is saying through the vibrations of their vocal cords and movement of their diaphragm.

He would have to be careful to not get caught in the same trap as before though. Perhaps only using a single foot, for a moment at a time, until he knew that he could handle it for longer.

After his family did a morning routine of cleaning themselves off, eating breakfast, and visiting for a bit, all of them left the house. This time his mother pulled out some sort of leather harness from a closet, and strapped Dei to her chest.

With her arms free, she also pulled out a sword, dagger, bow, quiver, and studded leather armor. The armor had adjustable straps that she used to fit snugly to him, and she put on all her other gear as well.

After getting all of her gear on, she pulled on an empty satchel that hung diagonally from her top right shoulder, over Dei, and held the bag on her left hip. After that, she pulled out a leather belt with sectioned pouches on the right hip.

When all her gear was on her, she pulled out a few small objects such as dried food, a waterskin, a small chisel-like tool, some sort of mini knife wrapped in cloth, and some trinkets he couldn’t figure out the use for. She wrapped them all tightly in an incredibly large yet very thin piece of square fabric. When she was done, the bundle itself was only about the size of her forearm, and she stored it in the bottom of her satchel, still leaving a significant portion of room.

‘Holy hell, theres a fucking lot of stuff that she needs to get ready, isnt there?’ Which made him even more curious as to where they were going today. The more stuff she pulled out, the more shocked he became.

Over all of it, she put a dark red cloak that hid everything else, but didnt button up the middle fully so that Dei could see out. It was weird to Dei, as the cloak clearly had some sort of pattern to help break up her shape and potentially camouflage her, but he had yet to see anything matching its color.

When she was ready, she turned to face his father, Dei saw the same cloak over his fathers equipment, and wondered if all of his family members prepared the same type of equipment.

When everybody had gotten ready with their respective preparations, they set out as a group. His father on the right and mother on the left, with the two kids in the middle. As they moved through the little town, their family chatted while Dei looked at everything. The two kids also seemed to be excited that their mom was coming with them today.

Rather than move towards the market, Dei noticed that they moved towards an area where there were less people wandering about. Those that he did see wore equipment like his parents though, and they moved in the same direction.

As the minutes ticked by, the gemstones in the walls became less and less frequent, until eventually we arrived at a nondescript wall surrounded by a small crowd of people. Next to the wall was the old lady that his mother had talked to the previous day, this time with a tall wooden staff, decorated with gemstones, rings, gold inlays and multiple smaller orbiting projectiles. ‘Holy shit!’ he thought ‘that's the most wizardly thing I've ever seen! It looks like she’s about to start sending out magic missiles!’

His inner child squealed at the thought of getting a closer look to it, and he leaned forward slightly while staring at the staff. His mother noticed, and let out a quiet giggle when she realized what he was looking at, shaking him slightly.

As more people gathered around the wall, Dei became more and more curious. There were a good hundred or so people here, all quietly waiting or whispering occasionally, but never being too loud.

When people stopped showing up, the old lady gently tapped her staff to the ground. While it made almost no sound, Dei found his eyes immediately on the woman and felt a request for ‘attention’ echoed through his soul.

The crowd silenced and became much more serious, each person looking at the smooth wall ahead rather than the woman to the side. His mother made an odd chittering noise in his ear that he didn't know humans could make, and Dei felt an urge to become as quiet as possible. It wasn't a magical compulsion, but something more akin to an instinct built into his new body. It interested him, but he didn't fight it, and let himself still.

After exactly four seconds, the smooth cave wall ahead of the crowd disappeared, and the entire crowd moved at once to go into the new, more wild-looking cave system that opened up before him.

He felt sort of like a passive observer when not concentrating on controlling his actions, so he let everything wash over him as he watched everything that happened.

The people moved significantly faster than he thought possible as some ran across the walls to get ahead of the pack, while others walked peacefully. Through it all though, despite the speed at which people were running, he noticed that nobody made any sound at all. It was incredibly creepy as he could still hear the wind rushing past his ears and a faint dripping sound coming from further in the caverns, but there was no sound of footsteps or breathing. His family was somewhere in the middle of the group, moving as quickly as they could but still having two younger kids to slow down for.

As the crowd moved forward, it slowly shrank as some moved off into branching tunnels or systems. He also occasionally saw a few dim lights as the gemstones in the walls became even more sparse, but he never had any trouble seeing.

As the last of the light disappeared and Dei’s natural vision started to dim, his father brought out a fist sized, orange gemstone from a pouch on his belt. Rather than being like the ones in the walls around the cave system, Dei noticed that it was shaped like the flame of a tiny fire. Its color and shape reminded him of the fire-shaped gemstones around the house that released light and heat. This one released very little light, but it was more than enough for a group of people with darkvision. While he knew his father probably didn’t have darkvision because he was not a [Gem Dweller] variant human, if he lived underground, Dei could probably guess that he had some sort of skill for seeing in dim lighting.

The people around them thinned more as each single person or group split off from the rest, until eventually his family stopped in front of one of the side passages. His father made a few hand motions using his unoccupied right hand, and both kids fell in line behind him, with Dei and his mother at the very back.

Not a single word was shared between any of them as they became creeping forward and vigilantly scanning the cave. Dei had an incredibly clear image ahead of him because of his [Darkvision], but he knew his had been upgraded at least once, and the cave still grew darker far ahead of him. His family definitely saw even less than him, but they still did not brighten the light they had on them.

While he couldn’t be sure, Dei had to guess that it was probably because the light would attract predators to them, and his parents had other detection skills to rely on.

Just to test it out, Dei decided to try activating his infrared vision granted to him by his upgraded eyes.

It took him a moment to figure it out, but it was fairly easy to send a small amount of mana into his eyes. Immediately, the cave far ahead of them cleared up even further. The more mana he poured into his eyes, the more it cleared up, until he could see until even the next bend.

He quickly turned it off though, not because of mana cost, but because he knew some predators hunted by using infrared vision. ‘If I'm not careful, I could become a beacon leading directly to my family’s location.’

His father led them down a predetermined path, clearly knowing exactly where they were at any given time. Occasionally at forks in the road, he would bend down to examine something Dei couldn't see. At one point, it was something Dei could see, and it looked like some sort of track unlike any animal that he had ever known of. It didn't have hoof prints or toes, it was just a set of equally spaced holes in the ground. There were also either multiple of the creature, or the creature had far more than two legs.

The prints also went up the walls in certain areas or, in one instance, all the way across the ceiling.

They followed the same predetermined path his family was too, seeming to go towards our future location, until they went down a branching side-path that we didn’t follow. He suddenly noticed that both his parents slowly relaxed their muscles when that happened too, when he hadn’t realized they’d been tense before. ‘Damn, I'm really hoping I never have to meet what the hell they think it is’ Dei foreshadowed.

The trek was a bit boring for him, so he tried passing the time by studying his surroundings a bit closer. He was still iffy about fully taking control of his body, as it naturally knew more about being quiet as a baby, but he found that he could passively turn his head here or there with a thought.

The caves they were passing through definitely had much more life than he would have expected, with some smaller plants forming around puddles or moss along the walls. He saw a few insects, lizards, and flat rodent-like animals skittering about between the patches of vegetation, and they all looked incredibly interesting.

After looking at them for a few seconds, he noticed that he was actually able to see their souls slightly, kind of like what he tried to do with his mother. He could see if they were healthy or happy.

There were also a few instances where Dei noticed a blue glow coming from deeper in the passage ahead of them, but his father slowed down at the entrance to that one and squinted ahead for a few seconds.

He made a motion to the rest of his family, and they quietly turned back and moved through a side passage.

Here and there, his father would bring attention to a type of plant and signal to his two siblings. Each would respond using simple gestures as well, before getting a response from their father. Every stop only took thirty or so seconds, but it was interesting to Dei that there was a silent communication about certain things. It looked to him like their father was taking the time to teach his siblings, but he couldn't be sure, and he didn’t know how detailed their sign language was.

After two or three hours of quick but careful jogging, Dei started to notice that the plants and small critters were becoming more common. The patches of life merging into larger ecosystems. At some point he realized that he could see a light further into the darkness that they were moving towards ‘are we going to the surface? It feels like we have stayed level this entire time, maybe even moved further down into the earth.’

But despite his thoughts, the cave rapidly began to brighten. He saw far ahead how his family moved towards a blinding light, and as they crossed the threshold, he had to squint as his sensitive eyes adjusted to the light. His family was probably the same, as he felt his mom pause at the mouth of the cave.

When he was finally able to see, a sprawling untamed blood red forest lay before him with wild animal calls and sounds of rushing water.