- The Caves Below

The space beyond the door was illuminated thanks to the smouldering embers of burning elemental fires long extinguished.

The space behind the door was like the entrance to a cave, a wide space of rock covered with mildew and moisture. Stepping through the doorway revealed the source of the overwhelming stench that had been revealed.

To the right of the door, hidden by the oversized frame, piled a stack of rotting corpses, each one at a different stage of its decomposition.

Just ahead of them, three identical tunnels had been carved out of the rock by hand, each taking a separate path deeper into the space below the tomb. The pained screams, sending shivers down everyone's spines, seemed to rush from every tunnel.

"I take it we split up here?" Roxy asked no one in particular, sending a glance towards Tess.

"I guess so," she responded. "Anyone have any preferences?"

Receiving silence as her answer, she took it upon herself to decide who went where.

She would go right, Roxy would go left, and Marcus and Elanor would take the central tunnel. After telling them, she immediately disappeared into her tunnel, with a cold, determined expression on her face. Roxy also swiftly headed into her tunnel, leaving Marcus and Elanor alone.

The two shared a quick glance with each other, before heading into the tunnel.

The tunnel was very narrow, with those who had dug it only digging wide enough to walk through with little room to manoeuvre. As they walked, little rocks, hidden by the darkness of the tunnel, proved to be the bane of their journey, their existence causing the two to trip multiple times. Light through the tunnel was scarce, provided only by the occasional glowing crystal that had been unearthed by the efforts of the miners, casting a yellow hue through the tunnel.

The two journeyed in silence for a while. Marcus walked with his mind still in the building back in the village.

"Strength is the only thing that matters, and strength is a quality that can only be forged through pain, through blood shed in the fires of danger," he muttered to himself. "So why, then, did I care..."

"You know, there are more things that matter than strength, and there is more to strength than how physically strong you are," Elanor interjected. "Caring can be a sign of strength, for example."

"It's hardly a useful thing, though. The only person who suffers from caring is the person who cared, and it's a pain that doesn't grow them."

"No, but caring can have surprising effects."

"Name one that doesn't end in a bad outcome for the person who cared," Marcus challenged her.

"You cared," she responded, immediately causing him to stop.

"You cared enough about me when we were younger, before all of this chaos stopped you from doing so. And where am I now? In this place, standing by your side. Compassion breeds loyalty, Marcus."

"That's different."

"How?" she challenged.

"Because it's you. Compassion breeds loyalty, does it? So tell me where the fuck Bran is? He left us, to go to that... that.... to his death. He was a nuisance at the orphanage, and everyone turned their back on him for it. Everyone but me. You wonder why it was only the three of us?"

"She's right, you know she's right," spoke a voice.

Marcus looked around, but couldn't see who it belonged to.

"Marcus?" Elanor asked. "What is it?"

"Can't you hear that voice?" he asked her.

"She cannot hear me. I was assigned to you, and you alone. Don't you remember all those years ago?" Angelina asked him.

War approaches you. A calamitous war approaches you, rushing in like a vile tide from the West. You need whatever strength you can get."

"The West?" Marcus repeated. "Do you mean the civil war of Merthin?"

"No. I mean the war between man and spirit, man and demon. The war that the noble prince wages alone. The war that consumes the lands to the west, and that threatens to consume this continent."

"The war that consumes the west and threatens to consume the world, but it isn't the civil war..."

"Marcus, who are you talking to?" Elanor asked him.

"I, uh, I'll explain later," he quickly replied.

"A war in the West that isn't the civil war," Elanor repeated. "Could it be that the civil war is a screen for the actual war?"

"Possibly. Is she right?" Marcus asked the voice in his head.

"She is."

"Okay, so the civil war is a screen for an actual, world destroying war?"

"Continent destroying," she corrected. "The Beast Houses of Mond will be able to survive, given the damage that will be done to the Usurper's forces by the people of this continent."

'Mond?' Marcus thought, unfamiliar with the name.

"You must prevent this destruction from happening, to prevent both your destruction and ours.

Become strong, through any means necessary. You are now our last hope."

Her words stuck in his mind as he nodded to Elanor, signalling that they should continue down the tunnel. Being told he must do things and that he is their last hope left a bitter feeling inside, after all, wasn't this the very thing that he was so desperate to struggle against?

As they continued further into the tunnel, more signs of human life became apparent.

Crates of empty space, formerly housed by supplies of mining tools, lay scattered throughout the tunnel. The crates, and the lids that accompanied them, were carelessly thrown to the side by the people who had created the tunnel, forming yet another obstacle to navigate in the unsatisfactory light.

A little further ahead, discarded pieces of mining gear became added to the mess strewn around the tunnel.

"I guess this is where they decided to start beating them," Elanor murmured to herself as she approached a large bloodstain on one of the walls.

Slowly reaching out with her hand, she placed her palm onto the wall. Underneath, she felt the blood, not quite dry, not fresh enough to be liquid. She felt the cold surface of the rock that surrounded them. She felt the soft vibration of the illuminating crystals, hidden away from view by the surface of the rock.

"These crystals... I can feel them, their vibrations," she said with a glance to Marcus.

'Such ferocity...' she thought to herself.

"If we can, we should take some with us."

"Why?" he asked her.

"They might be useful," she responded. "I don't think I've ever heard of crystals like this. Who knows what other properties they might have."

They continued through the tunnel as the path began to lead down a slight incline. As they progressed further, more signs of the violent nature of the syndicate became apparent. The amount of blood that could be found increased, as did the freshness of the blood.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a wide labyrinthian room, the countless walls making vision impossible. Seemingly originating from behind the walls, the tortured sounds that accompanied their journey were now extremely loud. Elanor stopped Marcus as he was about to walk straight into the room, Tess's latest lesson fresh in her mind.

"Send a Golem in first," she told him. "It doesn't have to be big, it just needs to check for traps for us."

Marcus protested at first, claiming that he was still too fatigued from his actions in the village, and so was therefore unable to summon one. But, Elanor persisted, and eventually a tiny, stone creature waddled out of the tunnel into the room. It moved out into the room slowly with an unshakeable purpose, it's only goal to travel through without issue.

Dark blades of shadow lashed out from the right side of the room, carving the Golem into many smaller chunks of rock, devoid of any semblance of life. Emerging moments later from the same direction as the blades, Tess tentatively checked around the corner, another volley of attacks ready to be unleashed at the sight of an enemy.

She relaxed once she saw that the people there were Marcus and Elanor. Confident they were safe, she turned away and walked towards the nearest wall running a hand over the surface as she looked at it.

The surface was oddly textured, neither completely smooth nor patterned, with odd bumps and grooves lining the wall at random locations. As she analysed more of the wall, which stretched for most of of the large room, she began to detect some similarities in the placements of the bumps.

"Is this a pattern?" she murmured to herself as she slowly walked along the wall, her hand slowly caressing its surface.

Following her example, Elanor began studying a wall that stood at a right angle to the wall Tess studied, entering the gap between the two walls. Taking the same approach, she used her hand to trace outlines of the various grooves as she moved along the length of the wall. Soon enough, she, too, noticed some repeating shapes and placements.

"I think it's words," she called out, her hand still running over the surface of the wall. "It's like some sort of...something."

Marcus stood at the back of the room, his eyes slowly sweeping across the room.

Unlike the other areas they had found inside the mountain, the interior surfaces of this particular room seemed to be created by human hands. The rocky surfaces that began beneath their feet, rose up alongside them, and towered over them from above all looked unnaturally smooth. There were no loose stones, ones that could cause someone to trip over. There were no rocks that jutted out of the walls or the ceiling, only sculpted rock formations that radiated with light that emitted from the crystals found in the rock. From behind the arrangement of walls, a bright, green light emitted from the ground, illuminating the entirety of the room and dimming the effects of the crystals.

"Elanor, found anything?" Tess asked her with a shout.

"Kind of," she responded, walking back towards the others. "I don't think the patterns are random. I think it's a language, maybe a..."

Her voice trailed off as she approached the gap between the two walls. As she got closer, she felt a huge presence in front of her that seemed like there was a huge wall in the way. Cautiously extending her arm, she found an invisible, physical barrier that prevented her from leaving.

"I... I'm trapped!"