Chapter Nine

He stood at the mouth of an enormous, oval-shaped cavern that seemed to swallow up all sound. The air was musty and heavy, with a hint of dampness that clung to his skin. A single ray of light shone down from an opening high above, casting the cavern in an ethereal glow. The light landed on a gigantic, white tower that stood tall in the center of the cavern.

The tower was a marvel to behold. It seemed to scatter the light around the cavern like a multi-level lighthouse, reflecting the beams in every direction. Diegen could almost feel the warmth emanating from the tower, even from this far away. The tower was clearly erected artificially, and Diegen could see a spiral staircase that wrapped around the outer circumference of the monolith from the bottom all the way to the very top.

However, the tower was incomplete or damaged, as the top of the tower looked like it had been sliced in half. From where Diegen stood, he could tell that the tower was hollow, allowing light to shine through multiple windows spread throughout its length. Diegen assumed that the tower must be made of or coated with something reflective to achieve that kind of effect.

As Diegen gazed upon the tower, his eyes slowly traced down from the base of the tower and towards several stone structures that reminded him of the makeshift homes he’d seen before near the lake. These structures were better preserved, perhaps due to the noticeable lack of moisture in the cavern. There certainly wasn’t any moss growing on any of these homes, and he doubted there was much vegetation here at all.

For a brief moment, Diegen was mesmerized by the sight of the stone village with the white tower, and completely forgot the fact that he was still trapped underground in the middle of nowhere. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, taking in the unique smell of the cavern. It was a mix of damp earth and mineral-rich stones, with a faint hint of something sweet that he couldn't quite identify.

He snapped out of his trance when he noticed movement in the village. He hadn’t noticed earlier because they were moving so slowly, but there were definitely a few figures that resembled Sa’nasi in the village. ‘There are people still living here? Wait, no…’

Upon closer inspection, he realized that they weren’t Sa’nasi at all, and he hid behind a nearby boulder and extinguished his fire.

Down in the stone village, there appeared to be four-legged skeletons walking with slow, jerking movements. From what he could see, they were moving randomly without a clear destination. One of the skeletons bumped head-first into a wall and merely turned the other way.

Diegen didn’t know if they were monsters, but he couldn’t imagine what else they could be. He did sense a faint shimmer emitting from the village, but it was too far away to be sure. For that, he would have to get closer.

He mulled his two choices over. Either he could proceed down into the village and see if he could find anything that could show him how to get out of the tunnels, or he could backtrack and head the other way, past the lake and in the direction of the portal.

It wasn’t much of a contest. Even if they were a bunch of monsters that could rip his face off, Diegen didn’t want to go back empty handed. Besides, he had his stealth ring, which would help to save him in a pinch.

Decision made, Diegen found a secure place to hide his remaining food reserves and cautiously moved towards the village, keeping to the shadows for the most part. There was a rough road with the same grooves from the quarry that led down to the village, but that road was also illuminated by the tower. Diegen took the more difficult path that involved climbing down rocks in the dark, all the while staying as quiet as possible.

It was easier said than done, but he eventually made it to the outer perimeter of the village. This was how he knew that the skeletons did contain shimmer, but rather than emitting shimmer themselves, it was as if they were being injected with a steady stream of shimmer from an external source. He couldn’t tell where that source was, but it gave him more confidence knowing that he wasn’t entering territory with a bunch of powerful monsters around.

The stone house closest to him had an open backdoor, which made it an easy choice. The light that shone through the windows of the house was dim, but it made the inside navigable, and more importantly, allowed Diegen to confirm that the house was empty.

The house consisted of two rooms, divided by a single wall with a door in the middle. One room had a door leading out to the back, and the other room had a door leading out to the front. It was a simple setting, with the first room having a low, stone table, and the other one having a small stone sculpture of a Sa’nasi in the corner and nothing else. He found several stone tablets below the table, which contained a bunch of writing that he didn’t understand.

He wished that one of his unknown abilities would’ve been some sort of translation ability, because it would’ve been really handy right about now. Perhaps one of these tablets contained the information he needed to get back to the outside world.

He heard a sudden clicking sound from the doorway and almost dropped the tablet he was holding. Swearing under his breath, he set the tablets down gently and hid under the table.

Not long after, a skeleton appeared and waltzed into the house using its weird, jerk-like movements. It was definitely a Sa’nasi skeleton on account of the shape of its skull, and it had two red pinpoints at the center of each eye socket that glowed ominously. The skeleton clicked and clacked as it moved, getting closer to Diegen as it moved past the table towards the other room.

The shimmer it gave off made Diegen feel like he was being watched. Even though the skeleton hadn’t given him any reason to suspect that it had detected him, Diegen couldn’t shake the feeling that there may have been a second skeleton at his back, moving to attack him while he wasn’t even looking.

Diegen held his breath and kept his dagger at the ready. He hoped that the skeleton would successfully manage to get through the door in the middle of the room, instead of bouncing off it and getting stuck doing some sort of infinite loop. It clicked and clacked slowly towards the doorway… and bumped into the wall right beside the door.

Unfortunately, Diegen’s fears came to pass, and the skeleton reoriented itself to walk towards the back of the room.

Grimacing, Diegen figured that he could try sneaking out and attacking it before it could notice him, but another clicking sound drew his attention to the door again. A second skeleton entered the room.

‘Uh oh. This is bad,’ he thought. He was stuck under a very heavy stone table in a small room with a skeleton on either side of him. He didn’t know how it could get any worse.

Clack.

It was then that the second skeleton bumped into the table and caused some of the stone tablets Diegen had placed on the table to clatter to the ground.

The skeletons lunged at the source of the sound.

‘Shit, I gotta get out,’ Diegen thought.

He rolled out the other side of the table and ducked into the other room, hoping that the skeletons hadn’t noticed him. Through the doorway, he watched as one of them lifted a stone tablet in its jaws and, to Diegen’s horror, crushed it like it was made of chalk.

The other skeleton turned its head towards Diegen and leaped into the room he was in a single bound, the red dots in its sockets trained on him like precision lasers. It studied Diegen as it paced around the room. Before he knew it, Diegen’s back was touching the corner of the room.

He had no choice but to fight.

The skeleton lunged at him with its jaws wide open, which Diegen dashed out of the way of, just in the nick of time. It snapped at the air, and Diegen slashed at it with his dagger, not really sure where to target. The dagger bounced off its shoulder blade and left a small groove in the bone.

Diegen was surprised by how hard it was as he ducked a claw that the skeleton swiped at his head. He thrusted his dagger into its chest, but the blade deflected to the side upon contact with the bone and became lodged in the ribs. He cursed, and was forced to let go of his dagger when the skeleton raised itself on its hind legs and tried to bite him from above.

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Diegen rolled to the side and had a second to steady himself before he saw the second skeleton lunging for him.

‘As if one wasn’t enough!’

He also lunged towards the incoming skeleton, and ducked underneath it. It soared overhead and smashed into the other one with a loud crash. He cringed at the noise, knowing that it was going to draw others to his location.

Diegen activated the stealth ability in his ring the maximum amount of times and ran as he possibly could out the back door. Not long after, multiple skeletons smashed into the stone house, apparently not caring if they went through a door or not, capsizing it and reducing it to rubble. Only once he was hidden behind a boulder at a safe distance away from the enemies, did he look back to observe the aftermath of his first attempt to infiltrate the village.

It didn’t appear that any of the skeletons noticed him giving them the slip, but he counted at least 20 skeletons emerging from the rubble. He couldn’t tell if any of them were hurt by smashing their skulls into the stone house, but frowned when most of them seemed to be waltzing away just fine. If there was any silver lining, it was that they seemed no more alert than they had before. It was almost as if nothing had happened, minus the pile of rubble that the house once had been.

He didn’t, however, see his dagger anywhere, meaning that the skeleton that had it lodged in its ribs must still be trapped under the rubble, or better yet, dead.

He pondered that for a moment. Since they were skeletons, they were technically already dead. Could they even die a second time?

The question hurt his head, and he sighed in annoyance. He had used all three charges in his ring, meaning that he would have to wait an entire day before they recharged again. However, there was no world in which he would risk going back down there without those charges.

Instead, he snuck back to the place where he had hidden his food, bit into a fish, and planned his next moves as he chewed his first uncooked meal in a while. The raw fish was slimy and not at all appetizing.

He missed his dagger already.

✾✾✾

When the charges of his ring finally filled back up, Diegen made his way back to the collapsed house and used his senses to find where the skeleton was. It wasn’t long before he detected it. Luckily, it was on the side facing away from the rest of the village, which was what he had predicted given where it had been before the house was destroyed.

Diegen began to lift the rocks above the skeleton. This would’ve been a challenge if he had attempted it when he had just become an Astral, but since then his strength stat had advanced to the Discovery (Limit) stage, which was more than enough to lift rocks that were several times heavier than he was.

He was careful to pay attention to any movements, because if the skeleton was still able to move and attack him, his plan was busted. However, it seemed like his assumptions had been right, because he was able to unearth the skeleton without it rising from the rubble like some sort of reaper.

The skeleton was clearly still ‘alive’, because Diegen could feel the shimmer that was being injected into it. Even underneath the rubble, the skeleton’s shimmer still made him feel like he was being watched. However, like he thought, the skeleton was crushed with enough force that most of its body was destroyed.

The red dots in its eye sockets stared menacingly as its broken jaw tried to bite at him. Its limbs were dislocated, its ribs were crushed, and even its canines were chipped. Diegen extracted his dagger, careful not to get caught off guard by a sudden movement. However, the skeleton just stared hatefully, unable to move and unable to make a sound.

“Hey, you were the one that attacked me,” Diegen said defensively. “I wasn’t even the one who did this to you. It was the guy who crashed into you and the rest of the guys who made this building collapse.”

He didn’t know if the skeleton could hear or understand what he was saying, but the jaws clicked and clacked even faster.

“Well, luckily for you, you won’t stay like this forever.”

The jaws stopped clicking, and the red dots in its eye sockets seemed to tremble slightly as an incredibly terrifying grin was painted onto Diegen’s face.

The single most important thing Diegen thought he’d been lacking during the fight was information. Striking areas such as the shoulder and rib cage were a definite no-no, but he didn’t know where he should attack, even if he could.

And so, Diegen spent the next several hours experimenting on the skeleton. He tested the sturdiness of the various bones in its body, the ease to which he could dislocate the joints, and whether there were any vital areas he could attack. He discovered that the spine was not only the most fragile part of the skeleton, but it was possible to kill all function of the lower body by severing the middle of the spine, and kill all function in the upper body by severing the spine at the base of the neck.

Of course, this information was only useful if he was able to strike the enemy from behind. Fortunately, he had a ring that gave him absolute stealth for up to three seconds a day.

The last piece he worked with was the skull, which he had already dislocated the jaw entirely from to prevent the skeleton from snapping at him as he worked. The skeleton continued to stare at him hatefully with those red eyes, even after this long time. Diegen even felt a little bad as he tested sticking his dagger in its eye sockets, but found that they were just empty holes.

Only when he used considerable force to push the dagger inside the center of the skull did the red dots fade, and Diegen knew that the skeleton had ‘died’. The shimmer dissipated, and the feeling of being watched receded. He breathed a sigh of relief, tired from the long hours of experimentation while trying his best to stay vigilant of his surroundings.

As difficult as it had been, Diegen felt that it had been worth it. Now, all he had to do was take out these skeletons one by one.

✾✾✾

The strategy wasn’t all that complicated, though it was tedious. Diegen would wait in hiding in one of the abandoned houses until a lone skeleton walked in or he could lure one in by throwing a small rock at it. Once it was inside, Diegen activated the stealth ring, jumped onto its back, and stuck his dagger into the base of the skeleton’s neck.

Each and every time, the skeleton would lose all motor control in its body except for its head, which Diegen quickly dispatched with a heavy stab to the forehead.

The biggest limiting factor in this strategy was the cooldown on the stealth ring’s skill, because it meant that he could only take down one skeleton each day. He had plenty of food, but it wasn’t an inexhaustible supply. If possible, he wanted to avoid having to spend a few days to go all the way back to the lake to replenish his supply and then trek all the way back here again.

Slowly but steadily, the number of skeletons in the village diminished, and his stealth stat increased to Discovery (Advanced). He grew increasingly better at sneaking up on the skeletons, eventually getting to the point that he only needed one charge to actually dispatch each skeleton. This sped up his pace considerably, and soon Diegen was able to explore the village more freely.

He didn’t find any artifacts or treasures in any of the houses, but he did find some interesting things as he explored.

The first was a stone key, which was about the size of his hand. It was stored beside a tablet that had a drawing of a tower, which gave him the sneaking suspicion that it was either a key to the tower or a key to a room inside it.

The second was a tablet that had a map drawn on it, with a magnificent tower drawn in the middle. A flower decorated the base of the tower, and the hovering above the top of the tower was an eye. What these symbolized, he had no idea, but it was clear that the tower was held in the highest regard by whomever had drawn this map.

According to the map, the village had a total of 260 structures, most of which were houses but some of which were larger complexes. Using the placement of these structures as a guide, he was able to position the map in the orientation of the mental map he had of the cavern, and saw that there was one path leading to where he knew the quarry to be.

It didn’t appear that the map maker knew of the glowing lake beyond the quarry, or perhaps it didn’t exist at the time of drawing, because the map stopped at the quarry, and there was nothing beyond it. There were two other tunnels leading out of the cavern, one of which led to a circular chamber and the other of which led to some sort of cliff. Both were labeled in ancient writing, and Diegen once again wished that he had some sort of translation ability, like the ones that appeared in all of the fantasy and science fiction stories he knew of. It was a shame that this was reality, and no such ability was available to him.

The third and final object was one that he found very confusing. If it wasn’t placed in such an obviously important place, he might’ve just ignored it altogether. It was a bone, or at least it was a piece of one.

During one of his many skeleton takedowns, the skeleton had accidentally nudged a piece of the wall in one of the fancier stone houses, but instead of breaking or collapsing, the entire wall slid to the right. Recognizing this sort of pattern before, Diegen looked around until he found a paw-shaped indentation in the ground underneath the table. Inside the hidden wall compartment was this very bone fragment, placed on a stone bowl in front of five small Sa’nasi sculptures.

On the foreheads of all five sculptures was a symbol of a bull.

The bone fragment was too black to be of Sa’nasi origin. If he hadn’t tried to rub the black off and failed to do so, he would’ve thought it was covered in soot or paint. He didn’t sense anything special from it, but he took it with him to be safe rather than sorry.

As time passed, Diegen's dwindling food supply became a problem he had hoped to avoid. He had only seven fish left, and even though the cavern was cold, they were starting to emit a foul odor. He had to char them before he could even consider eating them.

If he didn't make any progress today or tomorrow, he would have to return to the lake for more fish.

Examining his map, Diegen considered his options. He had been methodically exploring the buildings around the tower, but he was worried about missing something important. However, he knew he stood the best chance of finding answers if he either went to the tower or explored the other two paths leading out of the cavern.

Since time was running out and he didn't know how long the other paths would take him, Diegen decided the tower was his best bet. He still had three charges left on his ring, and he had already cleared most of the way to the tower. With any luck, he could avoid any remaining skeletons and reach the tower without using any more charges.

Diegen made up his mind and set off towards the white tower.