The ice cold water numbed his senses. He opened his eyes, looking around, floating just beneath the temple. There was an ethereal light near the surface of the water, but looking at the depths, all he could see was darkness.
With the corner of his eye he noticed movement. Black threads of what looked like ink swirled in the water, just at the edge of his view.
He desperately looked around for something, anything that looked like a way out. Moments passed, and his burning lungs forced him to swim back up to the surface. Holding onto the edge of the pool, he allowed himself a few moments to breathe.
He couldn’t just stay right below the pool – nothing was visible, and the walls of the cavern were simply too far away to see at all. He needed to swim closer to the walls. He glanced at the flower in his hand with some worry. While he had put the sword-spear into the holding gem, he couldn’t do the same with the flower. It would likely wilt and die immediately, without ever disclosing what secrets it held.
There was little to be done. Since he needed his hands free to swim, he bit the stem of the flower after taking a deep breath and dove down again.
He waded through the water, towards the back of the temple. His heart raced as his lungs began to alarm him that they needed air. He ignored their cries and swam. He could feel water tugging at his hair and clothes – there was a mild underwater current.
A fire of hope lit in his heart. He swam towards the flow of the water. Soon the cavern wall entered his vision, illuminated by the blooming flowers blue and crimson glow. Sea moss and algae covered the cavern wall.
He had to pause a moment to try and find where the water was coming from – it was a tunnel a little farther down, covered by algae. He glanced up, only to see the floor of the temple above him. There was no place to breathe.
He could only hope the tunnel was short.
Summoning the remainder of his strength, he swam down, past the curtain of algae and moss, into the tunnel. His lungs screamed for air, they burned as if they had been set on fire. His chest hurt, and his vision began to blur. He could feel his strength slowly fading from his body.
The tunnel bent upwards as he made his way through it. Each second that passed felt like hours. His movements became sluggish as he swam up. His vision began to distort. The area ahead of him seemed rather odd – something big, round, and white was clearly visible.
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A second passed before his mind caught up with his eyes. The moon! He was seeing the moon!
He kicked the water with the last bit of his strength, swimming up and breaking the surface of the water.
He grabbed the first thing that he could as he pulled himself up and gasped for air. His vision darkened, and the world spun around him as he rolled on his back. He hadn’t the strength to pull his legs out of the water.
The moon glowed brightly in the night sky, surrounded by a canopy of leaves.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the dull pain in his left eye, and simply breathed. The burning feeling in his lungs slowly subsided as he took deep, slow breaths. Only when his mind began to clear up and a part of his strength returned did he open his eyes once more.
He sat up, pulling himself out of the water, and leaned his back against a tree with a thick trunk, and roots protruding from the earth. The flower he had carried with was laying on the ground next to the water. It was glowing just as brightly as before, illuminating his surroundings.
He raised his gaze from the flower, and for the first time since he emerged from the water, looked around. The hope that had lit in his heart dimmed, and dread replaced it as soon as he realised where he was.
The ground was covered in moss-laden roots, with the earth only being visible in some places. Vibrant blue life was visible above the first few branches even from below.
“You’ve got to be joking…” he whispered in disbelief as he realised he was in the Old Growth. Behind him was the dense forest that was simply too dark to navigate at nighttime, and before him was the small pond he emerged from – and beyond that, a chalk-coloured monument to the Old Gods.
While the monument they chased the terrorists to was large, majestic, and surreal, this one was the exact opposite. It was simply a large, roughly cut chalk-coloured rock, with some symbols etched on its surfaces. Chalk roots covered the ground near it, but not to the degree they did near the other one.
The more he looked at the monument, the stronger the pain in his eye grew. He pressed his palm against his eyelid. He needed to get closer to it. Those symbols etched into the stone were disturbingly familiar.
Summoning his strength, he pushed himself up, took the flower off the ground and approached the monument. A chilly breeze blew against him as he walked over the chalk-roots covering most of the open area around the monument.
He shivered as the breeze froze him to his core. He needed warm and dry himself as soon as possible.
The monument was about a head taller than him – much smaller than the one he had seen in Lohssa, though it was quite similar to it in its shape and cut.
“That one didn’t have these though…” he whispered to himself as he leaned in closer to look at the symbols etched upon it. They were foreign symbols probably belonging to language long lost – or one that was never used in the tribes that inhabited these lands before Eldoria was founded.
He reached for his earring and caught the sword-spear in the air as reality twisted. He held the weapon next to the monument.
Some of the symbols were the same. It was the same language.