Potatoes were one of the most important crops in all of human history. Their introduction to the Old World provided nutritional diversity, leading to healthier and better fed people.
Not only that, but the tubers were a crop that could be grown in all kinds of different soil, and once harvested could be cooked and eaten easily.
But the most extraordinary thing about potatoes was their versatility in cooking. The starchy vegetable could be cooked and eaten plain or with all sorts of toppings and spices. It could be mashed up, fried, boiled, roasted, made into chips, made into hash browns, made into soup, and so much more.
And they were high calorie, nutrient-dense, delicious, and simple to cook with.
While Tharon might not have been yelling-from-the-treetops excited like Calyx was, he was nearly as awestruck by the discovery.
"Are you sure they're potatoes?" Tharon asked, coming over as quickly as he could.
"Not a doubt in my mind." Calyx said as he picked one up and split it open to be sure.
"What's a potato?" Lania rushed over, concerned.
"Only one of the most important plants ever!" Calyx began shoveling them into his bag.
"He's not wrong." Tharon reassured her, knowing full well she probably took whatever his brother said with a grain of salt.
"I don't get it, but I'll trust you." Lania said as she watched him try to cram more potatoes into his bag than it could carry.
"If there are potatoes here, we can bring them out there." Calyx said feverishly. "Then we'll have an agricultural revolution on our hands!"
Calyx may have been exaggerating a little bit, but Tharon wasn't going to ruin the moment.
A few minutes later, the brothers had settled down. After further inspection, they managed to identify the potatoes as russets, and gathered a decent amount of them.
"I'm sure the potatoes are cool and all, but we need to get going." Lania looked at Calyx's bandaged leg. Tharon wouldn't be surprised if Calyx had forgotten about the injury in the heat of the moment, but she was right. They couldn't stay forever.
Tharon was getting a bad feeling in his stomach telling him that something bad was coming. He felt as if he could hear footsteps approaching in the back of his mind, but couldn't hear anything out loud.
"Does anyone else's head hurt?" Calyx asked after a moment, and Tharon noticed it too.
It was almost as if it was pulsing to the beat of a heartbeat, and he could feel his own heartbeat well enough to know it wasn't his.
"C'mon." Calyx started moving toward the tunnel they came from, seeming almost a bit nervous for the first time since coming here. Tharon didn't blame him. After all, the feeling of dread in the air almost felt like it was being forced onto him rather than being induced.
They hurried over and ducked behind the slope of the tunnel, taking a breather as they felt the sudden feeling get worse.
"So unfair."
A deep, whispery voice echoed across the cavern, but the cavern wasn't what made it echo. It was almost as if the voice itself was coming from multiple voices in unison.
"Nullivore will never let this one go if I let him know about it."
Tharon peeked just barely above the rocks in front of him, and saw it.
If it was anywhere else, he might have mistaken it for a dead tree. It was about as tall as a small skyscraper and even had to bend to keep from hitting the ceiling, but looked thin enough that he could wrap his arms around it if he was close enough. The fact that it was even keeping balance made no sense.
It had a burnt-grey robe that was wrapped neatly around the thin 'trunk', and its head was a cone of shadows coming out of the top.
"I wonder who could have done this. Who would do this to me? Why would you hurt me like this?"
Its head slithered around the cavern, looking around for the perpetrator. Tharon ducked as it got close to the tunnel entrance, but it only inspected below the entrance.
Calyx looked down and saw the exposed segment of its body as it went to search elsewhere. His cleaver glowed as it began to charge Ardai in the blade.
Tharon lunged out to stop Calyx from doing what he was about to do, but Calyx was faster. Before he could stop him, Calyx jumped out and tried to cleave the trunk of the demon in half.
Tharon didn't think it would work, but he was at least expecting it to make contact.
Instead, Calyx's attack missed the demon entirely, and he was instead thrown across the cavern by some invisible force the moment before he would have hit.
He hit a wall in the distance, too far away for Tharon to see what happened.
"Don't be too harsh on him. It's not like I didn't already know where you were."
The demon's head jerked towards where Tharon and Lania were, staring at them. Tharon could see the face much better now, and saw it watching back with six dull eyes.
The center of its face had a vertical human mouth that looked unnaturally attached to the face.
Both Tharon and Lania were lifted into the air as it got a better look at them, and were promptly thrown into the same wall as Calyx. Thankfully, they were more prepared for the impact than he was and managed to brace for the worst of it.
When they fell to the ground, they saw Calyx lying next to them on the floor. Tharon hurried to check his breathing, and fortunately he was just unconscious.
Lania hurried to do something to Calyx with her spirit thorn, but Tharon didn't have time to worry about what it was.
"Hmhmhm." The demon had already moved its head to their location. "We don't get many of your kind around here."
Lania shot at it, only to have the light promptly caught midair by its power. The Ardai hovered in place for a second before the demon opened its mouth and swallowed it.
"You're not fun to kill."
Several rocks broke loose from the cave surface and were sent flying towards them, with Tharon only barely managing to pick up Calyx and dodge in time.
He set Calyx down and moved toward the demon as Lania distracted it with a long, purple tentacle that came out of her weapon. It tossed it aside, but the distraction gave Tharon just enough time to land a hit.
As expected, it didn't cut deep. It still was enough to cause bleeding, however.
Tharon felt himself be lifted into the air again, before suddenly being dropped back to the ground. He looked up at the demon, who shook violently and began grunting.
"Ughglughglhshgh" It stopped shaking for a second to slam its head into the ceiling. "Fine."
It lowered itself towards the group, looking angrier than it was before.
"Unfortunately, we'll have to cut our game short here. It seems I have business that needs tending to."
Moments after that it slithered away, the part of it that was attached to the ground leaving a slime trail as it dragged across the floor.
"What was that?" Tharon gasped as he felt a rush of pain from the adrenaline wearing off.
"I don't know, but we need to run." Lania said. "Calyx got hit pretty bad, and my chrona magic can only slow so much."
Tharon picked up Calyx and felt a sharp pain in his leg while doing so. Apparently the fall hit him harder than he thought.
"Here." Lania took Calyx off his hands. "You seem to have fractured something in there."
Both of them went as fast as they could toward the exit gate. It was about a thirty-minute walk away, but they were going at a pace between a fast walk and a run.
"Hey." Lania's voice went softer as she stopped for a second. Confused, Tharon halted as well.
"Do you think we're being followed?"
Tharon stopped to consider it. It was odd that the demon kept them alive, seeing as it could have killed them pretty quickly with the telekinetic ability it had. The gateway was also hidden to prevent the demons from breaching it, so it wasn't impossible that they were spared so they could be followed back to the gate.
They couldn't shake it easily if that was the case, since it seemed incredibly fast at whipping its weird head around.
Tharon went quiet, and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. He also didn't feel the same disturbing feeling that he felt when he was around the beast before, but he knew that wasn't enough to be sure of anything.
"We have to keep going." Lania said after a beat of hesitation. "The main thing we need to worry about is if it follows us in. That thing could do massive amounts of damage if it gets out in the middle of the fort. But I don't think it would go straight in, which means we might have time to sever the portal's connection."
"All right."
Tharon didn't like the plan, but he didn't see any alternative. He followed her as she began to pick up the pace again.
~=~=~=~=~=~
Calyx getting rushed to a hospital in a stretcher was something Tharon had always expected he would see at some point in his life, but never expected it to feel more reassuring than anxiety-inducing.
They had made it out. The portal was sealed, which meant that the army would have to spend time repositioning the gate's location in hell, but that was preferable to letting something that powerful out into the open.
When he got a better look at Calyx's wounds, he noticed that he looked like he had broken a few bones. He was scratched up badly all over and had some bad bruises from getting thrown into the cavern wall, and he also had his leg shredded up from the three-eyed demon's attack.
Lania didn't seem too worried about Calyx's condition and told Tharon he would be fine, which Tharon hoped was true. Healing magic seemed pretty advanced, from what he had been told before.
When they exited the portal they immediately got medics for Calyx and mages to seal the gate, but after both were done Tharon found himself standing in the room with the closed gate without any instructions on what to do.
"Quite the mess you found yourself in." Anaphora said as she assessed the situation, looking at the deactivated portal. "I suppose it isn't your fault you ran into one of the harvesters."
Tharon's head cocked to the side at the name, asking for an explanation.
"The six-eyed demons we've encountered have all been distinct, seemingly being high-ranked individuals." Anaphora explained. "We call them harvesters, since they seem to collect energy for the King."
"Do you know anything about the one we encountered today?" Tharon asked her.
"We managed to get names and descriptions of some of the harvesters out of a five-eyed demon we interrogated." Anaphora paced back and forth across the room. "We believe the one you fought was called Siphon, but we didn't get much information out of the demon before he melted his own mind."
"I see." Tharon said as he took in the information.
Anaphora cut her pacing and walked over towards him, and Tharon's mind snapped right back into the present when she grabbed his arm tightly.
"You're coming with me." Anaphora pulled him forward and he felt flabbergasted by the sudden action. "As your commander, I need every single detail of the mission. It's vital you leave nothing out of your report."
"Alright." He picked up the pace and followed her closely. "But wouldn't it be better to go to Lania for it?"
"I don't dislike the woman, but I don't like the way she handles things. Besides, she's helping the healers with Calyx right now."
"Calyx…" Tharon's thoughts filled with worry as the realization of what happened sank deeper.
"He'll be fine." She said, "Those doctors could save a severed head if it was brought in time. You should relax."
Tharon bit his lip. "Even so, Calyx isn't the type of guy who'd do well with bed rest. I don't think he's physically able to stop moving for a second."
"I've seen enough to know that's the case." Anaphora said sympathetically. "It's not a problem. If worst comes to worst, we can always just tie him up."
Tharon sighed, knowing full well they might actually have to do that.