She frowned at the spear as it looked unwieldy and difficult to bring, and the claws seemed like they would have been reduced to dust if she touched them. Sighing, she picked up the sword and fastened it to her right shoulder.
She bounced in her spot a bit, testing the tightness of the scabbard on her armour. After being satisfied that it didn't fall off, she took a deep breath and walked up to the wall-mounted torch, taking it in her mouth. The wood tasted foul against her lips, and the flames were largely untamed, threatening to burn too close. Although it felt uncomfortable, her fangs ensured the torch wouldn't fall out at a bad time.
The flames probably wouldn't last forever, but she would rather have it than traverse in pitch-black tunnels. She had keen echolocation, better than most other recruits, but she didn't entirely trust it in a place like this.
Eventually, she found herself in front of the entrance to the dark tunnel. As if for some sort of reassurance, she lightly nodded to herself and gave off a loud breath before stepping towards the unknown.
As she moved, the bright, orange light from her torch immediately pushed back the darkness. Uneven, rocky walls moved past her, and despite their orange hue, the cold air still made its way underneath her armour. Thankfully, the stony floor was fairly even, despite having the odd puddle she would step over.
Several minutes had passed into her walk, until she was sure she had been worming her way through the tunnels for an hour. There was no sound to greet her ears aside from her light footsteps, the rattling of her rusty armour, the burning torch, and water droplets falling in the distance. But her thoughts remained clear, just as she was trained to be. Only the best got to become Luna's elite.
After what seemed like another hour of walking, her eyes began to feel tired. Staring at an unending, bright orange rocky hallway tended to bring in tunnel vision. But before she decided to give up and rest for a bit, the walls finally fanned out into what seemed like another room.
Immediately, her torch lit up the space and she was presented with a room that looked similar to the one she started in. A wall mount for a torch was to her right, and she didn't hesitate to place her torch onto it. She sighed and sat down, grateful to rest after that long walk.
The bright wood of a chest captured her attention. Feeling a sense of excitement, she got up and approached it, but stopped when she noticed movement to the right of a chest.
What she assumed was a rock unfurled eight ugly legs, and she let out an audible gasp. The creature faced her and made a loud, watery hiss.
It's a rock spider!
Quickly, she unsheathed her sword with her mouth and pointed it towards the monstrosity. She fumbled before beginning to slowly sidestep, keeping her distance from the spider that was half the size of her body. Its sharp fangs glinted in the light, soaked from what she assumed was venom, and it put her on edge. Her neck was largely unprotected.
With a gurgling hiss, the spider made the first move, jumping towards her with its fangs flared out. She dodged to the left and swung her sword, hopeful to catch it in its path. She felt her sword connect, slicing off half of one of its back legs. The rock spider hissed in pain, but did not relent.
It landed on the wall behind her, pouncing off and towards her with its legs spread. Quick to react, she dodged to the left and sliced again, but missed.
Just as quickly as the spider had jumped from the wall, it bounced off of the floor and onto her chest. It forced her backward, the spider overwhelming her with its seven-and-a-half legs. Without thinking, she sliced madly in its direction, only taking out another one of its legs. However, the spider only got angrier, and it increased its assault in a mad rage.
The spider knocked her onto her back and crawled on top of her, its fangs ready to sink into her flesh. Desperately, she tried to pry it off with her hooves, but it knocked her legs away with its own. The fangs, dripping with venom, neared her unprotected neck.
With a loud grunt, she swung her sword downwards and it hit the spider across its face, but the spider's rocky hide deflected the blow. She sliced again, but to the same effect.
Seeing her efforts futile, she stilled herself, taking a deep breath to focus while she shoved against the spider with her hooves. In between the spider's fangs—its mouth—was unprotected.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself, returning her focus.
“Graah!” she cried, thrusting her sword forward. It penetrated cleanly, gouging itself deep into the spider's mouth She continued to scream through her sword's hilt as she thrust deeper, feeling her blade sever the spider's insides.
Finally, the spider relented, wobbling backwards as it tried to hiss through the blade in its mouth. She got up and pounced on top of the spider, beating it with her armoured hooves. Repeatedly, she hammered the hilt of the blade deeper into the spider until it twitched one, final time, slumping to the floor afterwards. She collapsed onto the rocky floor, heaving breaths while staring at the dead monster in front of her.
The once active space became silent again with no sound but her own heavy breathing. The room dimmed and she glanced to the torch on the wall, its light much less strong than when she had first picked it up. Silently, she prayed she would find another source of light soon.
A sigh escaped her lips as she picked herself up and walked up to the corpse of her first victory. Smelly, green blood oozed out of the wound, and when she pulled her sword out of the carcass, it seemed that the entire contents of its innards spilled out. Thankfully, there was a puddle nearby and she used it to wash the blood off of her blade. After sheathing her sword, she turned to the unopened wooden chest in the room.
With much less grace than the last chest, she kicked open the lid to behold its contents. Inside was a small leather box, another sword just like hers, and what looked to be a carved, wooden triangular prism.
She picked up the prism and examined it; carved onto each of its triangle faces was what looked to be a crude face, smiling.
No, it was not smiling... it looked more like it was cringing. Cringing in pain.
She shivered, but decided to stuff the object into her right saddlebag. She picked up the leather box next, turning it around in her hooves to find out how it opened. It seemed to be sealed tight, but she found the clip that bound the lid to its body and unfastened it. As she opened the box, however, she was blasted with a bright light.
There, sitting comfortably in a velvet-cushioned mould was a shard of crystal. It glowed a pale white and gave off a fairly strong white light, and was only warm to the touch. She prodded it a bit, and its light continued to bathe her.
It looked like she found a reliable light source.
She took it out of the box and tucked it into a spare knife strap on her left shoulder. The shard peaked out just enough to give off enough light for her to see her surroundings clearly. After exhaling a deep sigh, she stuffed the leather box in her right saddlebag as well.
After taking a few minutes to rest, the torch light finally died out, allowing her light shard to shine by itself. She was getting sick of the orange hue; the white light was a nice change.
To the left of the chest was an exit to the room—another dark tunnel for her to traverse. Seeing no other options left to her, she continued her trek.
After several minutes of walking through the cave, however, the tunnel split into a fork. While there were no visible, distinguishable features for either path, however, she could hear different things waiting her on each side. On the left path was what sounded like the steady cracking of a torch, or a campfire. On the right path was what sounded like a gentle rush of water.