Chapter 105: A Hidden Room
Chapter 105: A Hidden Room
Then there was Morwenna.
The pirate queen was covered in grime with her dark hair sticking to her sweaty neck, her chest heaving as she ripped a chunk of rock from the wall.
’A simple masterpiece,’ the dwarf noted happily. ’She looks like she bites... I think Lord Silas will like a woman who bites.’
Even Eluned, who was currently whining about a broken fingernail while wiping mud off her pristine cheeks, drew Thora’s degenerate gaze.
’The waist on this woman is ridiculous... Oh my... She’s high-class alright. Breaking that ego would be a full-time job for Lord Silas...’
Finally, Thora’s eyes drifted over to Silas.
The Lord of the Blessed Land was working just as hard as his girls.
His dark canvas undershirt was clinging tight to his chest and stomach, highlighting the thick muscle of his back and shoulders every time he swung his tool.
His dark hair fell into his golden-ringed eyes, and the raw masculinity of a Lord doing manual labor sent a shiver straight down Thora’s spine.
’I should have made his suspenders tighter,’ she concluded happily. ’Actually, I just need to forge a bed back at the Keep that’s big enough to hold all six of us. A solid deep-earth alloy frame, reinforced suspension springs... yeah. That’s the next project.’
Despite Thora’s unhinged thoughts, the vibe in the cavern was surprisingly wholesome.
They weren’t just soldiers waiting for the next bloody raid... they were a crew building a future together.
Tasmin and Elara joked about how much wolf meat they were going to eat once they got back.
Fenna complained about her wrists hurting, and Brida walked over to show her how to loosen her grip.
Even Morwenna and Eluned stopped throwing insults long enough to team up on a massive stubborn pillar of obsidian, timing their pickaxe swings together to bring the whole thing down in a shower of glittering gems.
Three hours passed in a blur of swinging metal, shattering stone, and heavy breathing.
The five massive ironwood carts were groaning under the weight of the haul.
Piles of glowing blue star-iron, deep-purple void-amethysts, fiery orange topaz, and dense crimson blood-crystals spilled over the wooden edges.
The cavern looked like a dragon’s hoard had been dumped into wooden boxes.
Silas struck the wall one last time, pulling a fist-sized gem from the rubble.
His arms felt like lead, and his back ached from the repetitive motion.
He tossed the gem into the nearest overflowing cart and leaned his pickaxe against the wheel.
"Alright, take five!" Silas called out, his deep voice carrying over the ringing metal. "Drop the tools... It’s Break time."
A collective groan of relief echoed through the cavern.
The girls dropped their pickaxes, rolling their sore shoulders and stretching their stiff backs.
Brida wiped her face with the hem of her shirt, while Tasmin collapsed against a cart, panting softly.
Silas wiped his own face with a towel and tapped the glowing blue interface in his vision.
He opened his Lord Inventory.
With a flash of golden pixels, a massive wooden keg materialized on the smooth stone floor, accompanied by a stack of wooden cups.
"Kaelia packed this before we left," Silas announced, popping the heavy cork off the top of the keg.
The sweet refreshing scent of crushed berries and ice-cold spring water filled the dusty air.
"Cold juice. Drink up, you earned it."
The girls swarmed the keg like a pack of thirsty wolves. Tasmin poured cups and handed them out, while Brida practically downed her first glass in a single gulp, letting the cold purple juice spill down her chin and onto her leather top.
Eluned took a cup delicately, taking a sip and letting out a long happy sigh.
Silas grabbed a cup for himself, walked over to a smooth, flat slab of obsidian near the back wall, and sat down.
He stretched his long legs out over the dusty floor, resting his back against the cool stone as he closed his eyes, taking a long drink of the minty juice while enjoying the silence of the break.
’What a day... I never knew Mining could be so much fun.’
He didn’t get to sit alone for long.
A heavy weight slumped down directly against his right side. Silas opened one eye.
Morwenna let out a long dramatic groan, leaning her body weight against him.
She rested her head on his right shoulder with her dark damp hair sticking to his neck.
"My arms are going to fall off, Captain," Morwenna complained, taking a slow sip from her cup. "Mining is worse than fighting krakens... Krakens squish when you hit them but rocks just hurt."
Before Silas could respond, a second weight dropped onto his left side.
Eluned sat down next to him, delicately resting her silver head against his other shoulder.
She wrapped both of her hands around his left bicep, hugging it tight against her chest.
She closed her glowing green eyes, nuzzling her face into his shirt.
"I am exhausted, My Lord," Eluned murmured, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "My divine hands are blistered so I need you to kiss them better later."
Silas just sighed, shaking his head.
He had an SSS-rank pirate queen pressing into his right ribs and an SSS-rank goddess clinging to his left arm.
It was familiar territory by now but the dogpile wasn’t finished.
Tasmin walked over, holding her cup.
The woman didn’t even ask for permission. She simply dropped to her knees, spun around, and slumped back, sliding right between Silas’s outstretched legs.
She rested her sweaty back against his chest, throwing her arms over his thighs and making herself completely comfortable in his lap.
"I hope you don’t mind, my Lord," Tasmin said tiredly, tilting her head back to look at him upside down. "I did the most precision work today so I need the best seat."
Silas chuckled, shifting his legs slightly to give her room. "Make yourself at home, Tas."
Heavy footsteps approached the slab. Brida walked over, carrying two cups of juice.
The commander looked at the tangled pile of women covering her Warlord and just laughed.
"You guys left the best spot open..." Brida said.
Instead of sitting in front of him, Brida walked behind the obsidian slab. She sat down heavily in the dirt right behind Silas’s back.
She spread her thick legs out and wrapped her massive, muscular arms loosely around his waist from behind, pulling him back so he could use her broad chest and stomach as a recliner.
"Good back support, Boss," Brida grinned, resting her chin on the top of his dark hair. "Lean back. I’ve got you."
Silas let his weight settle back against the amazon. She was built like a brick wall, but she was warm and it actually did wonders for his aching spine.
"I guess I’m just a piece of furniture today," Silas said dryly, taking another sip of his juice.
"Hey! Don’t start the cuddle puddle without me!" a loud voice yelled from the carts.
Thora sprinted across the cavern. The dwarf didn’t care about personal space.
She scrambled right up Brida’s broad back like she was climbing a ladder and threw herself over Silas’s shoulders. She wrapped her thick arms around his neck from behind, resting her goggles on his forehead and dangling her legs over Brida’s shoulders.
Silas was now officially buried.
He had Morwenna on the right, Eluned on the left, Tasmin in his lap, Brida supporting his back, and Thora hanging off his neck.
He was trapped under five sweaty, gorgeous, deadly women, covered in rock dust and smelling like mint juice.
Elara on the other hand remained where she was shyly.
He didn’t push them away and he didn’t give them a lecture about military professionalism or decorum.
He just sighed, a genuine relaxed smile touching his lips as he let his head rest back against Thora’s arms and closed his eyes.
"You guys are heavy..." Silas muttered.
"Shut up and enjoy the perks of leadership, Boss," Thora laughed right in his ear, stealing a sip of juice from his cup.
They stayed like that for twenty minutes.
The cold air of the cavern cooled their sweat.
They didn’t talk about the looming threats of the Sovereign Realm.
The girls talked about a lot of other stuff and Silas just listened.
This was why he fought... This was why he stressed about base defenses.
It wasn’t just to survive a twisted system... it was to give these girls a place where they could just sit on the floor and drink juice without worrying about dying.
"Alright," Silas finally announced, gently tapping Tasmin’s shoulder so she would sit up. "Fun’s over. My legs are going numb, and we still have half a cart to fill."
A chorus of groans echoed from the pile.
"Five more minutes, My Lord." Eluned whined, clinging tighter to his bicep.
"Get up, weed," Morwenna grunted, shoving the goddess off and rolling to her feet. "The Captain wants to get work done so let’s go."
Reluctantly, the girls untangled themselves from the massive Warlord pile.
They stretched, grabbed their pickaxes, and headed back to the walls.
Silas stood up, rolling his shoulders. The break had done him good.
He grabbed his own tool and walked over to the far end of the cavern, deep in the shadows where Thora’s floating lantern barely reached.
The bedrock here looked different.
It wasn’t the smooth glassy black obsidian they had been mining all morning. It was jagged, brittle and covered in a thick layer of dry gray ash that flaked off when he touched it.
He spotted a massive thick bleed-line running straight down the center of the ashen wall.
’This looks fragile,’ Silas thought, adjusting his grip on the leather-wrapped handle. ’I shouldn’t need a heavy swing for this.’
He stepped up to the line, planting his boots shoulder-width apart.
He took a deep breath, channeling a tiny, focused pulse of water mana into his hips, exactly like he had done with the boar outside.
He didn’t want a massive shockwave... Silas just wanted that fluid snappy release of force.
He snapped his wrists forward, tapping the blunt alloy point exactly six inches to the right of the gray track.
CRACK.
The impact didn’t ring like a bell, rather it sounded like a cannon going off underground.
Silas stepped back instantly as a massive spiderweb of deep fractures violently ripped across the entire back wall of the cavern.
The stone didn’t just crumble into a neat pile of gravel.
The entire twenty-foot section of the wall groaned, buckled, and collapsed completely inward, falling into an empty void.
A massive cloud of thick gray dust billowed out, blinding him for a second as a rush of stale freezing cold air hit Silas straight in the face.
He waved the dust away, coughing into his elbow and then he looked up.
The wall was gone. In its place was a massive, yawning, pitch-black tunnel leading straight down into the roots of the mountain.
It didn’t look like a natural cave formation or a jagged tectonic fault... The edges of the tunnel were perfectly smooth, almost like they had been melted into a perfect circle by intense heat or dark magic.
[Ding!]
A bright blue holographic screen popped up right in front of his face, illuminating the dark dust.
[New area has been discovered!]
Silas blinked.
The 3D wireframe map hovering in the corner of his vision aggressively expanded.
The neat, self-contained layout of the mining node suddenly sprouted a long narrow winding corridor that led deep into an unmapped restricted zone of the Umbral Basin grid.
The new section of the map was shrouded in red warning markers.
"Boss?" Thora called out, jogging over with her pickaxe resting on her shoulder.
The rest of the girls heard the crash and gathered behind her, peering into the dark void.
"What did you hit?" Brida asked, narrowing her eyes at the gloom.
"I don’t know," Silas muttered, swiping his hand to dismiss the screen.
He stared into the pitch-black tunnel. The air blowing out of the depths smelled very old.
Morwenna stepped up beside him with her hand instinctively dropping away from her pickaxe and resting on the hilt of the Astral Corsair she had left propped against a nearby crate.
Her stormy gray eyes narrowed as the pirate was instantly replaced by a hardened veteran scanning for threats.
"That isn’t a mining shaft," Morwenna said. "The walls are too smooth and the floor is leveled. Something carved this out a long time ago from my guess..."