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With a sizzling sound, everyone's falling speed suddenly slowed down.
Only then did they have time to look around.
Flint gasped, "Oh no! We're in the Underdark."
Elizabeth looked around curiously as she floated. "It doesn't look as dark as I imagined. What are those dots?"
Dwarf: "Mushrooms, all kinds of mushrooms, and of course the eyes of the evil inhabitants of the underground. Be careful, almost all the inhabitants here are not good people."
Chapter 280: The Builder of the Underground World
The team landed on a piece of ground covered with mushrooms that looked like small grapes. The largest dragon's butt crushed a small mushroom, and unexpectedly, the thing exploded with a green smoke.
The dragon turned around and sniffed the green mist, reporting, "This mushroom will spray acid when it is broken. This green mist is acid mist."
Elizabeth: "We seem to be surrounded by these sour fruits. Isn't the situation very dangerous now?"
Wang: "It's nothing. The acid isn't strong. At most, it will dissolve clothes that aren't woven with magic. Nini's maid outfit that can resist physical attacks will probably be fine."
Elizabeth looked down at her robes.
Wang: "If you're scared, you can ride on me. It seems that even though we are underground, the space is still quite large. I don't have to cancel the dragon form in a hurry."
Marika: "Let's go to a place that's not in danger of being drowned by acid mist, and then I'll check out the situation."
The dwarf pointed to a patch of mushrooms emitting a bluish-purple glow and said, "Go there. Those fluorescent mushrooms are harmless and are the most common fungi in the Underdark. Anything that emits this glow is basically a variant of this stuff."
The king used his short claws to pick up Elizabeth and Flint, who had no mobility, and strode towards the ground where the blue-purple mushrooms were.
Nini nimbly jumped onto the king's back, while the barbarian leaped directly towards the blue-purple color.
As he landed, something leaped out of the mushrooms and darted into the surrounding shadows.
Elizabeth screamed, "Spider!"
Dwarf: "Don't panic. This is a rock spider that hunts small creatures underground. It has no interest in large creatures like us - large creatures like you."
Xiaobai hung around Wang's neck and squinted at the dwarf in Wang's hand: "You mean you are a small creature?"
"You are also small compared to Kailin's horns." The dwarf retorted rudely.
Xiaobai: "I can grow bigger."
Flint: “I…”
Wang: "You can, too, in part."
Elizabeth looked at the dwarf in shock: "You still have this ability?"
Her Royal Highness the Princess only has knowledge about it and has never seen the real thing, so she couldn't react immediately and didn't get the point of this dirty joke.
After finally leaving the territory of the Acid Mist Mushroom, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
At this moment, the talking stone in Elizabeth's arms rang.
Elizabeth patted the king's paw and said, "You are pressing down on the sound stone in my arms. I can't get it out."
The king then lifted one finger, while the other fingers were still tightly holding Elizabeth.
"Hey?"
As soon as Elizabeth spoke, Rosalie's voice came anxiously from the sound stone: "Are you all right? We first observed the black dragon returning to its nest, and then not long after the black dragon entered the nest, all the birds in the forest below suddenly flew up.
"And then I kept calling the King's Voice Stone but there was no response!"
Elizabeth glanced at the king and said, "He is in dragon form now, and he can't take out the props on his body. You know, when he turns into a dragon, everything on his body will automatically adapt to this transformation, and he can't take out anything."
Wang: "This is some kind of protection mechanism. Otherwise, everything on your body would fall out if you don't transform into a dragon. That would be hilarious. The creator of this magic of dragon shape must have thought it through carefully."
"Don't worry about whether he has thought it through or not. Where are you? How long will it take for you to get out?" Rosalie's tone sounded very anxious.
Wang: “What happened?”
"Not really. Everything is fine on the floating island. Can't I worry about you guys?"
Wang: “Yes, yes, you can!”
"So how are you doing? How's the black dragon? If the king is in dragon form, then he must have transformed into a dragon and fought with it, right?"
Elizabeth looked at the king's dragon face and raised the speaking stone in her hand with an expression that said "you say it".
The king looked around and said, "The good news is that we are all fine, even the unlucky Flint is fine. The bad news is that we were sent into the Underdark by the collapse of the cave. Damn, this stupid black dragon built his nest on the passage to the Underdark."
Flint was amazed and said, "There are many such vertical shaft entrances in the Underdark that lead directly to the ground. These entrances are usually hard to find, but you always encounter them inexplicably during your adventures. To be honest, when we were in the Fetal Movement Hall before, I thought we were going directly to the Underdark."
Rosalie asked anxiously in the sound stone: "How long will it take for you to come up?"
The king raised the dwarf in his hand a little higher, meaning "You are an expert in the underground, you speak", but Marika, who was also familiar with the underground situation, spoke first: "This is the Underdark. You can get down by just finding a hole and jumping down, but it is difficult to get up.
"Even experts like me and Shorty who are very familiar with the underground don't know when we can climb up, let alone how far the climbed location will be from our current location."
Rosalie in the sound stone was silent for a long time before she spoke again: "Then we will float here and wait for you. Anyway, without the king and Elizabeth, there is no way to control the floating island. I will protect this island together with Master Li Guang, Ms. Atoli of the church, and Knight Theresa."
Wang: "Don't forget Gaines."
Rosalie: "Oh yeah, there's also a Gaines."
At this time, Gaines's wail could be heard faintly from the sound transmission stone: "Oh my God, does that mean there will be no free liquor supply before Kailin's emissary returns?"
Flint: "Kaelin's horns, as if I'm a brewer and there's nothing I can do except brewing!"
Wang: "Anyway, this is the situation. It's up to you, Rosalie."
Rosalie was silent for a second, then replied, "Leave it to me. I will do my best to protect your floating city."
"Yeah." Wang responded.
Then the light of the magic emblem on the sound stone dimmed, and it was obvious that Rosalie had cut off the communication. Elizabeth withdrew her hand holding the sound stone and rubbed her numb muscles with her free hand.
Wang: "Let's set off quickly!"
Marika: "Wait a minute. The Underdark is very dangerous. I suggest you camp here first. I will use a day to scout. From now on, try to camp for half a day and advance for half a day."
Wang: "Wouldn't that be too much of a burden on you? You'd be scouting while we're resting, and you'd be the vanguard when we're advancing."
Marika smiled. "This is the Underdark, and I'm a drow. I feel like I'm home here."
Flint added: "She's got good advice."
Marika turned to the surface elf Nini and said, "From the ground, let me confirm, is your vision here as good as it is on the ground?"
Nini replied: "It's OK. The light here is not too dark. I can see most places clearly."
Elizabeth added: "I am a human being, and I have a passable view here."
"No, Princess!" Marika glared at Elizabeth sternly. "In the Underdark, human vision is unreliable. You must have darkvision, or someone like Nini who has such sharp vision that you can see clearly with just a little bit of light."
Elizabeth pulled her neck back a little: "Okay."
Xiao Bai: "Let me make it clear first, I am not familiar with the creatures underground, so I can't transform. I can only transform into a bear to fight. If you want me to transform into an underground creature, you have to let me eat one."
Wang: "Can you also transform into a creature with external skeletons? Many underground creatures are like this."
As soon as he finished speaking, the ground suddenly shook.
It's a very slight tremor, but just noticeable.
Flint looked up at the dust that kept falling from the ceiling and said in amazement, "Everyone, I think you will soon see the builders of the Underdark, the creators of these huge underground caverns."
As soon as he finished speaking, the fluorescence emitted by a patch of underground fungi in the distance suddenly disappeared, and the tremor just now turned into an obvious shaking.
Elizabeth was shocked: "What happened? Why did the light disappear?"
Dwarf: "Because it was swallowed by a giant. Princess, can't you see the thing that is passing in front of us?"
Elizabeth: “What?”
Wang described what he saw: "A giant earthworm, its body nested in sections, was constantly wriggling."
Dwarf: "That thing is a distant relative of the dwarf worm cavalry. It uses its mouthparts to crush rocks and swallow them into its stomach, absorbing the organic matter and minerals in them. The good news is that as long as we follow this thing, we will definitely find a water source in the Underdark, and we don't have to worry about replenishing water."
Marika: "I'll go scout first, you guys set up camp."
Chapter 281 The ground is behind us and adventure is just around the corner!
The campsite was built quickly and the bonfire was lit.
The fuel for the bonfire was the black grease that Flint found near the camp. The dwarf put the grease in his helmet and ignited the surface of the grease. Then he dug a hole in the ground and put the helmet with the opening facing up into the hole, and the bonfire was ready.
The king looked at the bonfire and asked Flint worriedly, "Will this fire attract uninvited guests?"
"Don't worry. Underground creatures without intelligence are basically afraid of open flames. Those with intelligence will assess the threat and generally don't dare to attack the adventurer team easily. As for the cavemen, we are already very familiar with them. They basically have no vision."
As the dwarf spoke, he took out an iron bracket from his dimension bag and began to build a roasting bracket on his helmet and hang an iron pot on it.
Elizabeth: “What are you going to cook?”
Dwarf: "Mushrooms. The Underdark is a paradise for mushrooms. There are many delicious mushrooms that cannot be eaten on the surface. We don't know when we can return to the surface, so we have to save food."
Wang: "I have freshly harvested beans here, lots of beans."
Xiao Bai immediately spat a few times: "Let me live on those beans, you might as well kill me. But eating mushrooms is also quite disgusting, aren't there any delicious animals underground?"
Flint: "Yes, there is a kind of insect called the nest sow, which is delicious to eat. But most humans can't accept the appearance of that thing."
Xiaobai: "I am a werewolf. I am much stronger than humans."
"Then I can get some to roast and eat when we encounter nesters," the dwarf shrugged. "But we either don't encounter nesters at all, or we encounter a large group of them. It's still unclear whether we can survive the attack of a group of nesters. In addition, nester eggs are delicious, almost like salmon roe."
Wang suddenly snapped his fingers at this time: "Does this nester you are talking about look like an insect?"
"Yes, it looks very much like a cockroach," Flint nodded.
Elizabeth frowned and wailed, "Ah! You want to eat cockroaches?"
Flint: "No, it's much bigger than a cockroach. If you cut off its hind legs and roast them, they look like giant crab legs, and the texture and taste of the meat are similar."
Elizabeth shrank her neck and shook her head: "I would rather eat beans all the time."
Wang: “Is there anything else to eat?”
Dwarf: "To be honest, there are quite a lot of them. The giant tunnel worm we just passed can be eaten. There is a lot of meat in each section. After these worms die of old age, they will become nutrients for the underground world. The stone we are standing on now may be the corpse of a tunnel worm."
Wang: “No wonder you found crude oil nearby.”