The plan he’d come up with wasn’t really foolproof like the others, but it was the best he could cobble together so far. The ceiling was quite low, Sage had guessed this path had been clogged with rocks and mud from the cave in long ago which then let these flatworms in, yet it was still more than tall enough. Sending the Mantis ahead, Sage had her attach a line of silk to a rocky outcropping on the ceiling and then fly it back to the entrance, having the Mantis secure the other end to another rock to put the line at head height in the tunnel.

Taking hold of the spider silk, Sage used it as a guideline to help hold him above the mud. He ducked his upper body forward and nearly pressed it against the ceiling, his feet bracing on either wall for traction and to keep him out of the mud. Pulling the rope with his arms and shimmying up the steep mud tunnel. In the meanwhile he had the Mantis fly up ahead and continue the process, extending the web rope further and further down the tunnel. He’d already confirmed that the other end of the tunnel was safe by sending the Mantis up, but he didn’t wish to send her further for fear of alerting anything that might live up there.

A scuffing sound echoed down the tunnel breaking the calm rhythm of Sage’s breathing as his foot slid down the wall and splashed into the mud. The sudden mistake causing him to tense up in worry. Calling the Mantis back quickly to spread webbing onto the spot he’d splashed onto. Pulling up his foot and watching as a Bloodsucking Flatworm burst out from the mud and wriggled towards his leg. The Mantis saved the day, a glob of sticky silk splattered onto the mud and bound up the worm. Moving quickly away from the disturbed mud, Sage continued quickly down the path.

The only problem now was that his muddy boot was far too slippery and he had a much harder time keeping away from the mud. Making use of the Mantises web again he had her quickly weave a non-sticky cocoon around his boot, covering up the wet mud and leaving a sticky outer layer to give him some traction. Testing it out, he was pleased and had her cover his other boot as well. The progress in the tunnel went much faster with the bit of practice and the sticky boots to protect him. There was a couple more close calls, but the Bloodsucqing Flatworms weren’t actually all that fast so he was able to knock them away before they could wriggle across the web and bite his skin.

Success! Further than I’ve ever gone!

It wasn’t really a mystery what was here at the top of the chute, since he’s sent the Mantis up and felt her visions of the area. Instead he walked around and started examining the area. In the meanwhile he set the Mantis to work securing the route. The thing that gave him the most trouble was foot traction so he’d have the Mantis weave a shelf of webbing along the walls. He’d already grown used to this life of slow progress. Exploring just a little further and then making the path easy for himself in the future. Such a methodology was something he’d learned in programming. It’s the same methodology used for optimization. The most important thing was to get the program working! Once it did what you wanted it to do, then you analyze the performance and optimize the slowest performing parts.

It was just like this climb. You analyze the performance and fix the worst part of it. He could have had the Mantis simply cover the whole tunnel in webbing but that would probably take at least a week, or even just build a single layer of webbing over the floor but there was no telling if that would keep the flatworms out. The key to proper optimization, don’t spend all your time trying to make things perfect before you’ve even finished the task. You also shouldn’t spend too much time on solutions you aren’t sure of. It was important to balance speed as well as efficiency, and the best way to do that was to optimize after you’ve found a solution to a problem.

The area at the top of the mud slope was a small room, somewhat circular in shape. It had a diameter of about twenty feet with three tunnel entrances opposite from the mud slope he’d arrived through. The center and right were places he’d wish to explore later but for now the main goal was to the left. Sage advanced slowly, letting the Mantis continue to ensure his escape route. The right and center tunnel seemed pretty dry but to the left there was a small crack in the ground carrying water. That tiny creek dispersed onto the ground in this small room, giving the room about a half inch of standing water on the floor.

Must be too wet for the worms in here but somehow trickles into that downward slope keeping it muddy but flowing too slowly to wash it all away.

The upward slope of the left tunnel was far more gradual than the mud path, a light gradient that was just enough to make him more tired walking up it. This section of the tunnel seemed to teem with life, though it was mostly focused upon small creatures in the water and other bugs that both fed upon and were food for, the things in the water. Small fish, insects, flies, and lizards. Examining the tiny ecosystem with his glow-torch, every creature he saw was merely a normal insect, not a spirit insect in the bunch. Sage turned a corner and finally found the place he was looking for.

The tunnel ended in rocks that piled to the ceiling. Like someone had found a huge mound of rocks and pushed it over to cover up the path. There was a small pond here, the source of that small creek. Water trickled out from between the many large rocks and dribbled down the boulders to form the little pond. A few larger fish were swimming in the pond, ones that probably spent their whole lives there, feeding on the tiny bugs in the cave. Calling the Mantis over from her work, Sage set about examining this big pile of rocks. There were no larger creatures in here, so the chance of their being a big path was small, but there was quite a bit of water flowing in. That would make this pile of rocks much easier to move and give him a chance to clear a path.

It took two weeks. Two whole weeks. The other two paths were basically dead ends, Sage found another colony of Spirit Jade Beetles down one and the other stopped after just a dozen feet. The map showing the tunnel ended just there as it must have been the most recently opened path before the mine closed. After that, Sage set about moving rocks. It was dirty work, moving those muddy rocks and being ever wary of the rocks collapsing atop him. In the beginning he would move a few rocks and then the others would shift and fall into the gap he’d just created. Other rocks from above shifting and spilling down onto him. The work making more of a mess and causing mud and water to splash out.

Sage certainly wasn’t a structural engineer, a mason, a miner, or any other sort of professional excavator, but he did figure out a method after a bit of trial and error. He found one of the largest rocks, wide enough to pass under and started moving the rocks out from underneath it. The rocks to either side could keep holding up the big rock and he’d be able to make a tunnel underneath. It was a good theory, but after he passed under the single huge rock, there wasn’t another right behind it. Thinking back to how he’d seen mines constructed in movies, he remembered seeing a ceiling support beam and then pillars to hold up the beam. Not really sure how he was supposed to go about building that, and not having any of the materials, he made due with the next best thing.

Sage had the Mantis put that ever so handy spider silk to use again. Webbing up the whole wall of rocks to keep it from slipping and sliding around, he’d pull a few rocks out then have the Mantis web up the ones along the top edge so they couldn’t slide around or fall down. Stacking up the rocks on the sides into a rough wall and then webbing those together too. It was slow going and the Mantis wasted a lot of webbing. It was a sort of brute force approach, since he had no clue about proper hole or mine digging techniques he just put webbing everywhere and forced the way through bit by bit.

The web tunnel was definitely not pretty starting out large enough to stand in and getting shorter and shorter as it went deeper. Each time they webbed up the ceiling it was harder to keep the tunnel as tall as before. When he finally broke through, the tunnel had extended nearly thirty feet and was only three feet tall. He could have spent more time making it larger and taller, but it was more than large enough to crawl through and Sage was more anxious to see the other side! He pulled out the last few rocks in order to enlarge the exit to the three foot height of the tunnel and then sent the Mantis in to web around the exit to keep the route from collapsing.

Sage climbed through after the Mantis and took a good look around, blinking a few times before he pushed the glow-torch into his pack. The light dimmed… but he could still see! There was light here!

Light! Is it just a little crack or…

Feeling trepidation in his heart, he sent the Mantis forward to check for danger. The tunnel took a sharp turn to the right and he saw light emanating around it. The Mantis took off and flew rapidly around the corner, stopping in front of a pool of water. There was a large crack on the ceiling and the source of the light, a small waterfall cascading into the cavern from that gap up above. Sage took a minute to check the pool for danger and then sent the Mantis up to investigate. It was the first time he saw the Red Jade carapace of the Fire Weaver Mantis in true sunlight. The office had been lit, but it was lit by spirit jades. The arrays gathering power and causing the jade to glow brightly, it gave the rooms a green hue which was quite relaxing but nothing like the pure light of sunshine.

The Fire Weaver Mantis seemed to glow with an inner light like clear warm red jade, buzzing up towards the exit and slashing its forelimbs across the weeds and bushes clogging up the area around the waterfall. Clearing the path and causing even more light to shine into the cavern.

Daylight! I’m free! Finally Free!