The black went on for miles in either direction, as if the world had ended at this line.
Claude only knew that wasn't true because he could see a few specks - that might have been mountains - peering over the horizon on the other side.
There was no way to reach those mountains though, as Claude wouldn't trust any flier - even if they were a dragon - to ferry him across these depths.
So why, why? was he being strung up with a harness - made from fishing line, to be dangled into the chasm, as bait.
Albert spoke up from behind him, directing his statement toward Razor. "You have the best ideas, mate."
Razor merely peered into the distant dark, as if trying to penetrate the gloom and reveal the secrets within.
"This is the worst idea I've ever heard of!" Claude flailed his arms in protest. "You can't be about to let them do this, right Alex?"
Alex tapped his finger on his elbow in thought, standing with his arms crossed closer to the rest of the team. He had, however, gotten most of his contemplation out of the way earlier in the day. "It's good training." He glanced at Razor, but shrugged, abandoning Claude to his fate.
Nearby, Hayden had gotten a small campfire going, though they wouldn't be eating for a while yet. It's only purpose was to provide comfort to the team, serving as a hearth for their impromptu campsite. His bald head shone in the light above, while his eyes reflected the flames before him. He smiled at what he interpreted as good-natured bickering.
Around the fire sat the others. Cynthia lounged on a recently-fallen log, watching Claude's predicament with amusement. Her hair draped over the seat behind her, where Zuri played with the locks.
Zuri's own hair was done up in several braids. She raised an arm, and a small shimmer in the air formed a funnel between her hand and her pack - left on the ground across the fire from her position. The bag seemed to traverse the shimmer in almost an instant, appearing in her hands, where she then rummaged through it to find a brush.
Johan, meanwhile, sat opposite Hayden, and had piled a set of twigs to his left. He would pick one up and break off little pieces, tossing them into the fire one by one. Johan hoped the embers sent floating by their collision would manage to reach Hayden, and finally provoke him into a proper fight.
From what little Claude knew of Hayden, Johan's efforts were unlikely to work, even if he managed to set Hayden's favorite tabard aflame.
Claude turned his pleading gaze the final member of the group, who approached him with a smile. Phink brought him a feather, handing it off to the despondent Claude. Before he turned away, he made sure Claude had it firmly grasped in his hand.
Once he had turned, Claude tucked it into a pocket, knowing that would work just as well, while Phink handed a rock to Albert, who took it with a solemn nod and thanks.
Razor spoke up, his hand splayed in exasperation at Claude's continued protests, while the other held his elbow. "You didn't seem to have a problem making noise in the Citadel of Leaves..."
Claude turned sharply in his direction. "Wha- that was your fault!" Razor's eyebrows raised at Claude's exclamation. Claude continued his tirade, "Why didn't you tell us the centurion was coming that day?" He scrambled to find further protests. "Or let us stay and leave with you? Zuri could've gotten us here way faster!"
Razor easily dismantled the childish arguments, willing to humor the boy given his role in the upcoming operation. "If I recall correctly, it was Alexander who had provoked the centurion, forcing you to flee. And, it was Alexander who was so quick to leave our base that day, to meet up with Albert."
Albert finished securing the line around Claude's torso, doing some final checks. "Mmmm, and a good meal that was. They have some fantastic fruit up there. Do we still have some left?" He turned toward the fire.
"No, you ate it all this morning." Johan's deep voice crushed Albert's dreams, without any mercy.
While Claude frantically tried to think up any more reasons he shouldn't go down there, Razor took his turn at shattering dreams. "Are you ready, then?"
Claude resigned himself, slumping as he asked, "Do I really just have to yell?"
He tried to think of a way to phrase things that wouldn't get him kicked off the ledge. "That really just seems... well, stupid." He failed.
Thankfully for him, Razor didn't seem to mind. "Aspects are flexible."
Several members of the team subtly perked up, eager to hear another piece of Razor's unique perspective on Aspects. "They can do many things. Far more than even the wielder generally expects, and usually with broader consequences." He shook his head. "As you use and develop the power, it can also change you, influencing your thoughts and actions.
"We think of people fitting their Aspects, which is why they must born with them, but the Aspect also warps the person to fit the mantle, growing and changing with use."
He pointed to the bald man, still tending the fire. "Hayden, for instance, prefers to provide warmth to those around him; he never starts fights if he can help it, and breaks them up whenever he can. This reflects his use of the Aspect of the Hearth, primarily offering healing and recuperation. A home to return to, so to speak."
He turned to the child. "You like to be loud, Claude, and make yourself heard. It's understandable. That's also how you generally use your Aspect, projecting sound out from your body, which also makes you particularly suitable for this role.
"Cynthia couldn't do the same, for instance, as her Resonance requires something to latch onto in order to propagate." He then gestured to the vast expanse of nothing beneath them.
While the crew took a moment to process that, Albert hoisted Claude up by his harness from behind, surprising him.
He flailed in the air momentarily, before he ultimately crossed his arms and sighed. "Hmph. Fine. I'll do it or whatever."
Claude tensed once more, though, when he looked down and saw nothing but darkness below him. He dangled over the edge of the chasm, secured only by the thin line above him, leading to Albert's fishing rod.
When he gave one last look at the others, Alexander gave him a thumbs up and a tight smirk.
Razor gave him a single nod, while Cynthia waved cheekily in the distance.
Albert began to gently unspool the line.
Claude lowered into the dark, sinking below the ground until his eyes were level with the gray, then the black.
He noticed that even the cliff - extending out from the ground where he just stood - shortly faded away, only plunging downward a few feet before it faded into the same emptiness he saw all around him.
The blue line, representing the sky above, shrank in his view. He lost sight of the sun, and could no longer see the faces of Razor or his teacher peering over the edge.
He gently twirled on the line, trying not to move and aggravate the twisting. Ending up dizzy as well would be a nightmare.
When the sky was naught but a speck above his head, Claude decided to try raising his hands, held inches apart, and incite some sparks between them. He pictured the sharpness of lightning, allowing the crack of its inception to manifest between his hands.
While he succeeded, the sound felt muted in front of him, as was the light. The sparks and crackles of lightning barely illuminated his forearms.
Questioning if the rest of him was still there, he brought his hands closer to his body, relieved to find his torso still attached to the rest of him.
He wiggled his toes, noticing a chill had soaked through them at some point.
Deciding this was plenty deep to begin his actual mission, Claude prepared a deeper use of his Aspect.
He also kept the small lightning cycling between his hands, finding comfort in the little light it provided. He didn't notice that it was already providing less than before.
Claude inhaled, allowing the faint embarrassment to warm him as he called out, thunder echoing through his lungs:
"HELLOOO??? IS ANYONE THERE? WE'RE HERE TO RESCUE YOUUUUU!!!"
His head swiveled back and forth, hoping to spot anything moving in the black, though it was a futile action, as nothing could be seen.
He repeated the process several times, still being lowered at a uniform pace.
When no response was heard for the fourth time, Claude wondered what Razor was hoping to find down here.
The darkness felt smothering, growing more oppressive as he sank. He realized that was likely due to how the sparks dancing between his palms barely illuminated his fingers now, despite him projecting them at the same intensity as before.
He rallied in a panic, redoubling the intensity of the sparks, but even as their number increased, the light grew dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer.
Claude sucked in deeper gulps of breath, one after the other.
The dark tingled across his skin. He lost feeling across his body as it seemed to squeeze.
His chest tightened and he lost sensation in his face - his brain hung up on that detail in the panic.
When it felt like he only had a wisp of air in his lungs - regardless of his rapid breathing - his Aspect kicked in.
The rumbling began slowly, deep in his torso, and rose in volume as each beat of his heart augmented the sound.
It shook his body until he cast off the weakness that had infested his muscles.
As it built and built, he vented the feeling out through his mouth, allowing his vocal cords to echo with the same vibrations.
He yelled in defiance and desperation both: "aaaaAAAAAAAAA..."
The sound flew out into the dark, lost in the distance, seemingly unheard by any but Claude himself.
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When he had finally gotten the conflicting feelings out of his system, and took in more lungfuls of air to recover, Claude realized he might've felt something - besides his own body, that is - at the tail end of his cry.
Though he couldn't see anything now, having stopped casting the useless sparks from his hands, he was slightly less uncomfortable in the dark.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He decided to repeat his previous noise-making efforts. Instead of further straining his vocal cords, he gave a great clap to start, and paid close attention to the way the sound traveled.
Nothing appeared to change in the black, still as fathomless as it had been since he lost sight of the sky above.
However, just before he decided to try again, he realized there was something there, on the edge of his senses, though he had no hope of seeing it.
He was initially confused at what he felt. The only way he could describe the sensation was that were edges of nothing slithering through the empty void in the distance.
He clapped again, his eyes only catching black shifting against black. Though, rather than in one direction, he realized he could feel the same edges almost all around him, and some of them weren't in the same position as before.
Claude caught further glimpses as he clapped again and again. For as much as they bent and writhed in the dark, he could detect no end to the giant tubes of nothing.
It, for the creature appeared to be a singular being, seemed to be one contiguous line, as broad around as a tower, and longer than he could imagine.
His eyes may have been more helpful closed, for all that they could catch in the dark, but-
He'd have to amend his previous statement, as between his claps, he did feel an end to the nothing.
A patch of deeper black floated through the dark. It stung his eyes to look at, while it whisked away any noise that approached.
It grew, whether from the distance shrinking or a mouth opening wider, Claude wasn't sure.
The yawning void of emptiness sent out its own signal, cast through the black around them.
Its growl didn't make noise, instead sapping the world of sound as it echoed out. The absence being emitted stung far more than anything Claude had felt before, like it was tearing away at his soul.
The void continued to grow larger in his view - his eyes unable to tear themselves away from the nothingness, while his extremities lost feeling once again.
Hanging there in the dark, Claude realized this was not a place for any mortal.
His hand reached above him, and began rapidly tugging on the line.
"Pull me up pull me up pull me up PULL ME UP..." he muttered, the volume rising as the void extended all the way to the edges of his sight.
Claude's lifeline briefly slackened above him, sending him into a greater panic, convinced he was truly about to die, before it rapidly tightened, yanking him straight up and out of the jaws of whatever monstrosity made the chasm its home.
The void thankfully shrank beneath him, until he was finally able to close his eyes once again. He squeezed them tightly, hoping to scrub the negative imprint on the world from his mind.
----------------------------------------
Albert pulled him up, Claude pale and shivering from the experience.
"What happened?" Razor immediately petitioned for a sitrep.
Claude crouched, gripping the ground below him. He stared down at the grass beneath him like a blind man gaining sight - but feverish, as if convinced it would be taken away as soon as he blinked.
"I- I... think, it was a dragon? Or - or a snake. It was... it was nothing." Sweat dripped from his face.
"Nothing?" Razor archly asked, intent on gathering more information.
"NOTHING! It took the world away! I- I can't..." Claude trailed off, as Razor leaned in.
"What did it do? You saw it?" Razor demanded.
Claude took a moment to think, re-focusing on the present. "It... slithered, and sucked in the sound." He shook his head in denial. "There was no light... I couldn't see..."
Claude clenched his hand into a fist on the ground. His arm jerked up, pulling up a handful of grass to his face so he could stare at it more closely.
Razor stood up, speaking so everyone could hear. "Alright. Sounds like we might be dealing with a leviathan. Probably an Aspect, maybe of Nothing, Emptiness, or Hunger, given the location and Claude's experience."
He turned, seeing the others with solemn expressions. They had stood up and partially approached the two of them, wanting to help, but were reluctant to crowd the boy, or interrupt Razor.
Razor pinched his chin in thought, while the others processed his announcement. "Let's try it again. I'll come with you this time. I probably should have gone down the first time, to be honest." He ran a hand down his face.
Cynthia's brows drew together, while the others expressed varying degrees of concern and disbelief. "Erm, Razor-"
"I don't think that's a good idea." Alex began stomping over.
Razor's eyes locked onto the approaching Alex, glaring daggers his way. Something in the gaze brought the latter man to a sharp pause, and caused him to pale in place. "Your input was not requested." Razor hissed.
Claude was too busy to notice the interaction.
Razor spoke louder, "Hayden! Come help the boy warm up, before we head back in."
Hayden closed the rest of the distance to Claude, gently tugging the boy up and bringing him over to the fire. Alex joined them, deeply displeased with the situation.
While Hayden and Alex made efforts to calm Claude, Phink approached the group as well, digging through his own large pack. The others watched on with varying degrees of concern - Johan was indifferent, while Cynthia and Zuri were unsure what to do.
Albert, meanwhile, had remained silent, his perpetual smile dimmed by recent events, while he began adding Razor to the harness just above Claude.
----------------------------------------
Phink had given Claude several potions, and switched out his feather for a tuft of lion's fur.
Hayden helped bring Claude to a better place, patching over the mental scars left by his close encounter with the void. The flame of the Hearth was particularly useful for counteracting such effects.
Once Claude had mostly recovered, Hayden then took a scoop of flame from the fire, and pressed it to Claude's chest. It infused the boy with a glow, that would hopefully be maintained even in the void, and act as a beacon should it be necessary.
Alexander was deeply regretful over bringing the boy into Razor's schemes, but confirmed that Claude was willing to return, even if it was under the influence of Phink's concoctions.
Albert unfurled his line once again, lowering Razor and the artificially-emboldened Claude into the black below.
As they sunk, Razor questioned Claude further, distracting the boy from the emptiness around them.
"How did you detect anything, if there was nothing to see?"
Razor hoped to guide Claude to more conscious realizations of his power's use. Better-developed Aspects among mortals could only help his cause.
"I... made noise? And I could tell where it was going."
"Right. You've done that before, haven't you? You control the direction of your sound all the time."
"Yes..." Claude contemplated his previous uses of his Aspect.
He had projected the sounds he made into the distance, back in the Citadel of Leaves, making them seem louder at a distant point, before they faded outward. To control the sound at a distance, and pick a place for it to project from, he must've been aware of its presence somehow. Thinking further, he realized he was somewhat aware of the things his Aspect touched.
After giving the boy some time to think, Razor continued, "What you do is similar to echolocation, but you probably don't need the sound to bounce back to you, after you've cast it out. The noise is under your authority, meaning you can likely sense anything it interacts with."
Claude nodded hesitantly, but switched to a denial upon remembering, "Except for this snake. It's mouth..."
"Don't worry." Razor squeezed the boy's shoulder. "I have a plan for that. We don't need to kill it, only deter - which shouldn't be too difficult, as it likely hasn't had any competition down here in a long time."
They continued their slow descent, losing sight of the sky once more, but this time, Claude retained his glow from the Hearth's fire. His body remained faintly visible through the gloom, with Razor's silhouette just above him.
Claude began sending probing claps, hoping to get advanced warning for when the leviathan approached.
He aimed the sound downward, allowing it to fan out in a cone, but nothing appeared in his 'sight' as time passed.
Deciding to try a stronger pulse, Claude mustered more of his authority, concentrating the thunderous vibrations into his hands.
The anticipation of distant lightning. The feeling of static in the air. The silence before the storm... and BOOM.
His hands crashed together, sending out an omnidirectional wall of noise.
Razor allowed it to wash over him to little effect; his own authority negated the worst of the noise.
Claude paid close attention to the wave as it expanded through the ocean of dark. It was a good thing he was still running high from the efforts of Phink and Hayden, given what he discovered.
"Huh, it's actually above us."
Razor's head shot up.
He spotted the zone of deeper blackness in the void, already angled toward them.
"Ready another one of those, and hold it until my mark."
Razor prepared to cast his own authority outward, while Claude began rumbling again.
He extended his arm in the mouth's direction, waiting a moment for Claude's power to build.
When the gaping void had grown taller than themselves in their view, Razor pointed his finger, aiming down its throat.
To overturn the leviathan's non-existence, Razor chose a simple chant:
"We can see you, you damned wyrm."
His authority blasted out, propelled toward the creature's head.
The void faded into the same blackness surrounding the rest of them, indicating that the leviathan's authority over the emptiness had been inverted by Razor's Aspect of Revolution.
With its head fully in existence, Razor tapped Claude beneath him.
Claude played his role in turn, casting out a thunderclap once more. But this time, the sound was fully in the direction he last saw the void.
The sound waves rippled through the leviathan's head, causing it injury for the first time in centuries.
It screeched in pain, thrashing about in the dark.
Thankfully, the noise was no longer soul-grating, with its power over nothing negated, for the moment.
When it had recovered enough to think, it turned and fled from the source of its injuries.
"That was definitely the Aspect of Nothing." Razor sighed, having understood the creature's authority during his initial casting. "Probably beaten down by Battle and Artifice until it learned not to leave the chasm..."
Claude found the experience quite cathartic, having gotten revenge on the creature that terrified him the first go around.
Razor allowed him his moment of triumph, before patting his shoulder again. "Good lad. With that taken care of, I think you can go ahead and call for secrets."
"'Secrets?' Are you sure? That... sounds even more stupid than what I shouted before."
Razor huffed. "Just do it." He grabbed each of Claude's shoulders, concentrating on layering his own authority with the boy's.
Claude's expression pinched. "Okay..."
He inhaled, joining more air with the thunder in his lungs. "HELLOOO??? WE'RE HERE FOR SECRETS!" He hesitated a moment more, "PLEASE COME OUT?"
He waited for the sound to travel, having felt Razor overlay his own authority into the action.
Unfortunately, Claude didn't feel anything through the gloom, except for the tail of the retreating wyrm.
Despite that, a young woman's face suddenly appeared mere feet from Claude's own, with a blindfold wrapped around her eyes.
Though he'd normally have been scared, Claude merely blinked - while another piece of the lion's mane in his pocket faded away.
He reached up to tug Razor's shirt. "Is this who we're looking for?" He pointed toward the lady.
While Razor looked down at the woman, she spoke first. "I think I might be. But I'm curious as to how you found me..." Her head slowly turned to look around them, as if searching for an answer.
The movements caused her hair to come into sight, entering the limited glow of Claude's body. She stepped closer through the air and dark, revealing more of her platinum blonde mane and a simple dress.
She leaned in, whispering to the boy. "It was meant to be a secret, you see."
Once she had stood up again, she turned upward, peering at Razor. "Still, to bring a dragon here, after they buried me down here with that thing." She gestured to where the leviathan had fled.
She continued, mockingly. "Someone might take offense!"
"Umm, a dragon?" Claude asked.
Razor ignored the latter question. "Well, if you already know that much, you might as well get the rest of the story before judging, miss Aspect of Secrets." He extended his arm for her to grasp.
The young woman gave his arm a long look, but chose to reach out and clasp his hand. "Very well. Share your secrets with me, mister dragon."
Their hands touched. The woman's authority flared, encompassing them both, while Claude watched on. He could feel something travel between the two above him through their connected hands. But most of the transfer seemed to be happening from Razor to the woman.
After a small eternity, which may have been only seconds, she spoke once more. "Alright. I think I can work with you, Razor. My secrets will be yours for as long as our goals align."
Razor smiled, genuinely happy for the first time in months. "Excellent, that will be plenty." His grip tightened on her hand. "Now, hold on tight." His other arm reached above his head to tug on the line.
The three of them then ascended out of the chasm, leaving the nothing behind.