The Descent into the Abyss

Only one could rise; the rest must fall.

From the forty squadras that entered the tournament, only four now remained.

In that battle above the waters, Lucian and his followers were the first to emerge at the pinnacle; Khan and his team raced second, Robert and his followers the third, and Elwin and his kismets the fourth. With just a day's rest to recover their injuries, they found themselves upon the foothold of the ultimate challenge, their grandest one yet.

Each champion-to-be hoisted their carry-sacks onto their shoulders, and stood square upon a garden in the basement of the ziggurat, recessed in a cloister of many colonnades. Despite the thousands of tons of metal, wood, and concrete above it, strategically placed sunvents that ran to the exterior gave ample light to the ferns and flowers that grew, and it almost felt as if the afternoon sun shone directly on the hair of the awaiting Artens. Statues of the two sibling FOUNDERS, TERA and SERA, graced their presence with solemn silence, their eyes closed. 

This was the first time Elwin and the others set foot upon the ceremonial garden; it was normally off limits to those without the requisite authority. 

Despite the climax of the tournament, no audience from the outside world was invited into the chamber; the rest of the Fradihta, and almost all the upperclassmen, awaited elsewhere. The only witnesses within were the champions of the previous year, including Maximus, Sandora, Leonardo, and Hina, and the respective House consuls in their Tunen and Senen, who stood tall and reticent. The professors and the headmaster atop near the altar surveyed the expressions of the final four squadras; there was courage aplenty, but no dearth of concerned anticipation.

The Master of Ceremonies announced the rules of the challenge.

"The ziggurat above us was originally built as a monument to honor the fallen of war. But it was also built with another intention in mind – to conceal the entrance to an ancient city that stretches below the earth. Its halls are vast and passages numerous, hewn from bedrock itself by the order of Consul Astinel to serve as a place of refuge for the peoples of Mythrise in the event of an invasion or natural catastrophe. It could house nearly a million souls at the height of its expansion, but a thousand years since, had fallen to disrepair. Now, only shadow and dust roam its forgotten halls, its passages perhaps prowled by creatures unknown."

"At the deepest part of the city, its very heart, rests the staff that Consul Astinel once carried into battle. We the professors have made the journey to place it there in person, far removed from its customary repose at the Armory of Aeternitas. It currently remains embedded in stone at the foot of the altar, in that deepest temple-chamber."

"The challenge is as follows: descend upon this ancient city, and navigate to its greatest depth using the tools at your disposal. Pull Consul Astinel's staff from its place, and return to the surface with it intact. The first squadra to accomplish this feat – the first squadra with all its members to emerge with Astinel's staff and set foot again together in this very place – shall become the champions of this tournament."

Everyone looked to their team to muster strength. An ancient city below the depths, they mused; it must be buried so deep underground as none of them had the remotest idea of its existence until now.

"This place below the ziggurat is the northernmost entrance to the ancient city; most of its halls and levels stretch south to Aienwater, and farther beyond. Returning with the staff is only one aspect of this challenge; to inure yourself against the endless dark, to bravely march its labyrinthine passages with only shadows as company for hours, perhaps days, will test your endurance and mettle beyond the challenges of previous rounds. Throughout your time here, you have been equipped with the knowledge of navigation and the tools to exercise it, in addition to the foundations of the Four Mahamastra; now is the time to use them. Use them and return unscathed; return with the staff, and glory of the tournament shall be yours, your names forever sung by your fellow Artens at Aeternitas."

Elwin adjusted the large carry-sack on his shoulders. Pots and pans dangled out of it, with at least three days' worth of supplies. This challenge was going to go on longer than all the previous ones combined, and they possessed very little knowledge as to its arena, not even a map to go by. It was not all about combat as it was about braving the unknown. Elwin furled several rolls of paper and stuffed it to the side, along with his compass and barometric altimeter, hoping a piece of his father's adventurous wisdom rubbed off on them.

The upperclassmen, groaning with effort, slid open the titanic boulders that guarded the gates of the entrance, revealing beyond it a series of wide-reaching stairs extending without end to the depths of the world. A whiff of mossy stone and ancient soil rose out of it, and every shuffle of step outside produced an echo in the dark.

"To our brave Artens," assured Professor Aionia, her golden staff in hand, "I give you the blessing of TERA and SERA. May they protect your journey there and back." 

Professor Helen, Thales, William, and Irina gave the marks of their protection; Headmaster Abraxas did the same.

The four final squadras marched their way to the entrance, and into the deep, deep abyss they plunged.

***

All around them the air was saturated with moisture, damp with every breath. It smelled distinctly of tepid groundwater and of accumulating fungus; there was also a distinct acrid sharpness amidst the scent which reminded the kismets of Professor Aionia's Kana-Mizu. For many of them used to the fresh breeze on the surface, just the atmosphere alone was very great a change, and it tuned their heads to brace for the trials ahead.

The four teams descended one after the other for a good quarter of an hour, and what began as loose, brown stairs of packed earth gave way to regular, hexagonal staircases of basalt, embedded in them soft runes of green that glowed faintly in the dark. Even then, the light of the earth was too dim for any eye to grasp, so they each had to light a small tendril of fire by dancing the tips of their fingers. So far, the sixteen of them moved together, but they soon came out to a wide, octagonal passage with several open gates, each with staircases of their own device.

The kismets nodded in agreement and took the southeastern path; Lucian and his esteemed squadra opted for the southwestern passageway, Khan and his followers the western road, and Robert and his followers the basalt highway to the east. Since no map was provided, they had to draw their own; the challenge was as much a battle of speed as it was intelligence and endurance, to not lose their sanity among the maze-like halls of this vast subterranean city.

"I've been counting our steps," remarked Katherine, her voice a suppressed whisper, "3,089 steps as we speak. Considering we've had to descend at an angle of about 30 degrees from the start, only leveling out in our fifteen-hundredth step..." she paused, dancing her fingers in the imagined movements of an abacus, "we should be nearly a mile and a half south from the entrance by now."

"And where does that put us?"

"A little bit north of the skydock where we first arrived."

Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew, thank the FOUNDERS for your trigonometry. Good to have a familiar point of reference. Thank you for the cartography, Katherine."

Katherine saw Isaac's trembling hand and grasped it. It was cold. 

Of course, Isaac's Maht was Air, and he felt most comfortable above the earth and in the sky; in this cold, damp labyrinth of stone he was less than enthused, very much less enthused indeed. Mirai, on the other axis, appeared perfectly content, humming herself a quiet melody to which no one knew, expectant of sights she read in bedtime stories before her family was trialed.

"We're going to be alright, Isaac. We have each other!" Katherine assured, pushing the fiery warmth of her hand into his.

As they walked, the roof over their heads which were once rough outcrops of cave-rock began to flatten, and by the five-thousandth step, had become polished in smooth glittering basalt like the road below it. They were no longer at the forgotten rim of the ancient city; they were about to enter its former boundaries.

And as if to affirm their thoughts, when they turned a sharp corner south, their eyes caught glimpse of a glittering light at the end of the long tunnel. Cautiously the kismets quickened their pace, their pots and frying pans clanging in the dark.

Elwin shielded his eye with a good hand as they crossed the threshold into a small, diamond-shaped plaza, connecting to numerous other passageways like the one they once saw; but what greeted them this time was a mesmerizing sight to behold. All around them the ceiling hung as high as the dome in the Hall of Eternity, and spiked crystals of pale turquoise green several stories tall hung from the tops, as if they were seeing roots of trees from below. A faint ray of light somewhere from above reached into the crystal lattices and scattered into dim, wide beams; though it was nowhere as bright as a lit room, they were still bathed in the gentle, undulating ambience of dimly-lit jade-green, and the kismets could extinguish their guiding flames for the first time. A stream trickled by the sides of the hexagon-tiled causeway, carrying away with it the stagnant air and introducing breeze afresh.

"Are those – are those gemstones?" exclaimed Isaac, craning his head to the subterranean sky. "We could take those and sell them for a lot of money!"

"No... they are, they are Kazan-no-Nami, or Tears of the Volcanoes," whispered Mirai, her eyes beholden to its unexpected hiding place. "It isn't a real gemstone, more like glass... but unlike glass, it doesn't shatter, nor can we wield it easily like the earth. Once thick, viscous magma cools, it drips from it like honeyed tears over a thousand years."

"Sounds like it'll sell as a jewel, if its origin story is as cool as that," remarked Katherine. "Why doesn't it fetch a good price?"

"It's really bad at carrying light the way jewelers want. Though it doesn't look like it, it's choke full of impurities that scatter the light unevenly no matter the precision of the cut."

"What're they used for? If they're not sold as gemstones?"

"Though it doesn't refract light the way we want, it does scatter it quite well, so we use it for crafts like low-end chandeliers and regular ornaments. There are many lightbulbs made out of them, because they don't break easily. I once got my hands on a tiny block of it in a dumping pile – I crafted it into a little figurine, and sold it for a price better than wood."

They stood there for a good minute or two, appreciating the wondrous sight so far removed from their daily lives. But time was against them, and as the kismets unglued their eyes from the vista above, they heard echoes of thudding footsteps coming from the darkly-lit passage of the west; the kismets had arrived from the eastern one.

Before they could muster a defense, a blade of frost flew past Elwin's hair, missing by a mere inch.

"There you are, you fraud!" jeered Lucian, emerging with Rayo, Cassius, and Claudia.