Chapter 3 - Chasm Crawling

The terrain of the Rift Valleys was steep and unforgiving, brimming with tripping hazards that could send one hurtling down a very painful fall. Ignis had told her the perils of coming here, but his confident gait and decisive nature had made Gwen feel secure about her choice. With him by her side, the fear could be quelled and she could say that her desires were not a mistake.

However, none of it prepared her for what it would be like under his protection.

As soon as they stepped off the beaten path that Ignis guided them down, the creatures of the valley bared down on them with malicious intent.

Long spindly insects large enough to crush their necks burrowed out from the ground.

Animal bones from those long dead clattered together to form twisted amalgamations, rising from their graves to stare them down with hollow eye sockets.

There was no time to think. No time to react.

But without missing a beat, Ignis drew his sword and–

CRACK!

“Ignis!” Gwen cried, a vicious alarm blasting through her veins as he slammed the pommel of his sword into an undead’s head.

“Stay back!” He shouted. “I can handle this!”

And as if in response to that statement, every monster in the area charged.

Before this, Gwen had never been a witness to violence. To her, it was an abstract concept; an affair that brought harm and pain. Though she was taken in by someone who wielded implements of battle, the girl could not picture the altercation that lay between provocation and the defeated lying still on the ground.

She could not expect anything, but that didn’t belie her awe for how Ignis danced.

His sword whistled through the air, cutting through the gathered ranks of insects first. He ducked and weaved in between their lunges and bites, taking quick swipes at the long bodies exposed to him. They were little, but Ignis was fast, and in the seconds that passed, he took down one, two, four, five…

The insects retreated underground, making way for the skeletons, who pounced at him from all sides. With a grunt of exertion, Ignis two-handed his sword, the steel now glowing an iridescent scarlet.

Just as they were about to pile on him, Ignis spun.

SLASH!

Gwen gasped as a red-hot circle of flames erupted along the path of his swing, the heat blazing through the air and expanding as it went, slicing clean through some skeletons and knocking others back.

Now freed from the threat of immediate death, Ignis leaped high off the ground, dodging the sudden reappearance of the insects, who snapped their mandibles where his legs once were. With the grace of an acrobat, Ignis curled his body and back-flipped, sending out a stream of flame that scarred the ground and split the insects in two.

The boy smirked as he touched back down, but that confidence was quickly torn down when he realized that he had landed horrifically close to the edge of a chasm. In a burst of sudden anxiety, he prioritized fleeing away from the cliff. In his panic, however, he realized too late that he had thrown himself directly at a charging undead.

Without any other choice, he braced for impact…

“IGNIS!”

BAM!

Only for the monster to be knocked away by a scowling Gwen wielding her staff like a bat.

“Oof!”

Crisis averted, Ignis attempted to halt his forward run but was only capable of falling to his knees. He winced as the rocks jabbed through his pants. ‘That’s gonna bruise later,’ he thought but swiftly got to his feet anyway. There were more pressing matters to handle.

Like the non-combatant in the battle!

“I thought I told you to stay back?!” He half-screamed at Gwen, rushing forward to slash one of the few remaining skeletons. The superheated blade melted right through the brittle bone.

“I did!” Replied Gwen, looking frazzled. “But I couldn’t let you get hurt!”

For a moment, Ignis couldn’t help but feel touched. Then he realized that the person he had offered a protective escort to had to bail him out and felt ashamed instead.

“Well, thank you!” He still yelled, stomping on a half-melted undead and crushing its skull. “But I don’t want you to get hurt either!”

“Please calm down!” Gwen pleaded.

“You calm down!” Ignis pleaded back.

And in a typical teenage reaction, Ignis carved the head off the last undead remaining.

The two panted, breathing hard amidst the cremating corpses. After taking a deep breath, Ignis flicked the blood off his sword and then made it shine red, burning off the rest of the vital substance.

“That,” he stated, sheathing his sword. “Was chaotic. Are you alright?”

Having screamed out her feelings for the first time since she could remember, Gwen’s composure was extraordinarily put together. “Yes. Are you?”

“Somehow.” Ignis laughed sheepishly. “I need to stop pulling fancy maneuvers in this place. The terrain is awful for it.”

“You were very cool though.” Gwen smiled softly. “Is that how magic arts are performed? The fire thing?”

“Not specifically?” Ignis dusted the dirt off his pants and stretched, gearing up for another explanation. “Magic is powered by will, but will can only manifest through imagination. And everyone’s imagination works differently. You’ve got Reason types that base their magic on processes and Intuition types that use inexplicable feelings to cast. It’s not really a one-size-fits-all thing.”

Once again, something niggled in the back of her mind. Was that the inexplicable feeling he was talking about? Or was she going crazy?

“What type are you then?” That was what she asked instead.

“Intuition,” Ignis replied promptly. “Fire works best with me for… reasons I don’t know, actually. It’s simple and effective, but it’s not too flexible. Not like Reason types. I know someone who's a dedicated Reasoner, and believe me when I say they’re insane when they get going.”

“Mhm…” Gwen looked down at her staff. If this was an Instrument, then she had obviously been one of those two types, but which one? Was she a Reasoner whose principles had vanished into mist? Or an Intuiter who could not recall the feeling of her unique spark?

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Ignis said a bit awkwardly, looking toward the White Tower. “The journey only gets rougher from here. Is there anything around here that rings any bells?”

At his question, Gwen began to take in her surroundings. The monsters’ ashes had long since scattered in the wind, leaving behind a cliffside covered in scorch marks. Now curious about their progress, she cast that warbling cry in her heart outward, like a chick chirping for its mother.

The melody she had been following does not stem from the Tower like she expected. Instead, it went deeper and darker, pulsing through her hooves rather than her head.

It was… beneath them?

“Uh… Gwen?” Ignis called as the girl traced the origin of her trance, watching her lean over the edge of the chasm with some warranted caution. “Please don’t tell me that the ‘bell ringing’ is in the chasms.”

“Hypothetically speaking,” Gwen said quietly. “If I did say that my calling was in the trenches of darkness, would you let me go down there?”

Ignis looked visibly pained at her constant shenanigans, and Gwen couldn’t blame him. This entire adventure had always been a little ridiculous and very self-indulgent, no matter its personal importance. He was kind and compassionate and patient and caring, but humans had their limits, and those limits were often tested when put face-to-face with the prospect of plunging into hellish unknowns.

Gwen half-expected him to tell her ‘no’. It was a denial she could have accepted at this point because she was also fed up with her own instincts.

But then he sighed in exasperation, wrung his hands, and marched over to her with a determined gait.

“You know what? We’re in this deep already. Let’s give it a try.”

Gwen blinked. Was what she heard real?

Out of nowhere, a downpour of guilt doused her soul. “No, please, I can do it on my own. I appreciate you coming with me all this way, but you don’t have to get more involved with my personal mysteries.”

“Bold of you to assume what I can and cannot get involved in,” Ignis argued. “I’m here to both prove a point and do what I want, which is being nice to you. I’m also pretty sure that I knew more about what I was getting into than you were, Gwen.”

He had her on that, she could admit after some future introspection.

“Come on. We’re heading back to the safe path.” He grabbed her by the hand, his grip loose yet firm. “There’s a bend that can take us into the chasms, but before we go anywhere near there, we’re going to try something a little far-fetched.”

“Huh?” Gwen uttered, so very lost as to how she was supposed to handle this friend of hers.

Ignis decided to take her confusion for curiosity and quickly elaborated. “There aren’t a lot of monsters down in the chasms, but those that are there are solitary predators. Drawing their attention would be dangerous. However, since they’re unlikely to gang up on us, we won’t get overwhelmed and we can turn our numbers into an advantage.

“But to do that effectively, you’ll need to know how to fight.” The boy’s gaze held a frightening intensity. “And the best way for you to fight right now is figuring out how to use your Instrument properly.”

At this point, Gwen was beginning to pick up what he was putting down. Though she was still stumped on how Ignis was planning to accomplish this idea. “What are you proposing precisely?” She asked.

A part of her expected him to say something out-of-this-world, like somehow teach her to access the depths of her soul or the inner sanctum of her mind to find the missing pieces that would help defend her life. It was a simple, well-laid-out guess, borne of the constant flow of information he had directed her way.

Then Ignis dauntlessly said, “I’m going to show you how to beat up things with a stick!”

…In a completely unrelated event, Gwen tripped on a rock and nearly face-planted into the dirt.

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Whack! Whack!

“A bit more power behind those strikes! Come on!”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“That’s it! There you go!”

Ignis laughed as he parried Gwen’s hits and jabs, the boy practically glowing with happiness. Compared to the feeble and barely-a-gust-of-wind attacks that she had been trying to land before, the heavily telegraphed but powerful onset she was building up was a rapid improvement. It also helped that she was a creative thinker with some very unique assets on her hands, and when she thought it was sneaky, she would try to whip him with her tail.

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Considering that they had only been practicing for a few minutes, such refinement was a credit to her. Though Ignis felt it would be easier to celebrate if she didn’t look ready to deck him in the face with a fist covered in diamond-hard scales.

‘That’s an avenue to explore later,’ he realized as he smoothly parried another blow. ‘Remember the random idea: See how much destruction Gwen can usher with a punch.’

And maybe see what she could do with her feet– her hooves too. She had been walking on rocky terrain shoeless and didn’t seem to feel any pain, so Ignis had complete confidence she could stomp something to death with them.

All that comes later though.

WHACK!

“Whoa!” The boy cried in surprise, feeling his arm strain for the first time. Instead of hitting and disengaging, Gwen had thrown herself into a weapon lock, putting every ounce of her meager body strength to try and break his guard.

She almost had him too, but after taking a second to regain his balance, Ignis pushed her back.

“Ah!” Gwen stumbled, but ultimately kept her footing by using her staff as a crutch. For a moment, she glared at him, before sighing and massaging her aching hands.

Ignis sheathed his sword. “That was good!” He praised her wholeheartedly. “With moves like that, I don’t think we’ll need to worry about you being sidelined.”

“I suppose that’s a boon for us.” Gwen glanced behind her. “But… are you truly certain I won’t hold us back in there?”

Looking at where her gaze landed, her trepidation was understandable. The canyon behind them was a shadow-cast and desolate place, the fissures left behind by the rise of the White Tower even more dead than the surface above. Despite that, however, life found a way to thrive in the darkness, feeding on each other and the dews that fell from the cracks.

Ignis placed a hand on her shoulder, causing Gwen to face him. “You won’t,” he said with unbending faith. “You wouldn’t let yourself.”

“...You might be right about that.” That was all Gwen could respond with.

And with exceeding gentleness, Ignis took her hand again and guided them forward.

Gwen’s nostrils were immediately hit with an acrid stench, borne of the wastes left unexposed to the sun and the spores that thrived on their filth. It was uncomfortably wet she found, and quietly regretted not wearing anything that at least had some sleeve.

But the thrum of the song was more clear than ever, a beating heart through the crevice of the depths. It, and the constant reminder that someone was by her side, kept her going.

Hand in hand and in mutual silence, they plumbed down into the darkness.

Time was a nebulous thing the further they got from the sun, and eventually, they had to rely on the orange glow of Ignis’ sword to light the way. It amazed her, she would think to herself later. The wounds of the earth went deeper than Gwen had imagined, with only a part of it breaching the surface, misleading so many about the damage within.

As the walls closed in and old water perspired on her skin, something hidden hissed.

Seething. Raging. Desiring with the primal instinct to kill.

A sword was fully drawn. A shape pounced from the walls.

But in the end, it was Gwen that reacted first.

Crack! Went her staff as she caught the flying lizard mid-lunge, striking it under the chin. It gave a pained hiss, flailing across the ground before scuttling back to its feet.

The frills on its head unfurled and glowed a bright blue, a shrill cry ringing through the air before blue energy pulsed beneath its feet. Gwen shrieked as it propelled itself at them at frightening speeds, then shouted in pain when it slammed into her dead center.

The girl kissed the ground and the lizard flung itself back into the walls, energy gathering around it once again. With a single lunge, it would have been able to dig its teeth into her back and drag her away, crunching down on her spine.

However, it made one fatal mistake.

It forgot about Ignis.

Heated metal cleaved through the lizard, tearing it in half and sending the two pieces flying off into the darkness. Ignis did not let out a relieved sign like he clearly wanted to, his hackles rising instead as the sound of hissing reached his ears. He hastily helped Gwen up, rubbing the dirt off her cheek before raising his sword in the direction behind them.

The light of his flame could not reach all the way to the end, but it didn’t need to. Gwen and Ignis could see just fine the glowing outline of the lizards, undulating with their greens and reds and blues, twisting and snarling around each other as they dove out of their nests, falling into a cascade of predatory violence in an attempt to have the freshly carved carcass all to themselves.

Breaths stilled as the screaming peaked, the ripping of flesh causing them to back-step away. The two friends shared a look, exchanging a whole conversation in the span of a second.

And in a unanimous decision, they turned tail and ran.

Panic chased their escape, pumping adrenaline through their legs and lessening the exertion upon their hearts. In most cases, the raw terror would have blinded them into a tunnel, but with nowhere else to go but a straight line, the two could book it without consequence. Behind them, the sound of rapid scuttling followed the monsters now more than aware of the presence of meaty prey.

In the face of what may have been a ghastly demise, Gwen tried to pull herself together. They were down here because of what she wanted, because of what she was trying to find. Ignis may have been guilty of enabling this entire situation, but it only got this far because Gwen couldn’t make herself refuse his kindness. Didn’t have the guts not to take advantage of his stubbornness.

Ignis yelled in pain as he shoulder-checked some rock that was sticking out of the wall. He clutched his shoulder, gritting his teeth to keep their only source of light aloft.

‘He has to live,’ Some distant part of her mind screamed into the void. ‘At the very least, he has to live.’

But if they were going to survive this, Gwen had to stop begging, had to stop hoping that something, anything, would give her the answers for her.

So like the first time she walked upon the sun-kissed streets, and the first time she smelled the kind scent of a daffodil, Gwen snatched Ignis’ wrist…

…And led the way.

“Gwen?!” The boy squawked, taken aback by her sudden burst of speed. “Where are you going?!”

An apt question, for the girl threw herself forward like she was possessed. Instinct rattled through her frame as she led them down a sharp right, down a tunnel she couldn’t possibly have seen. Their footsteps echoed down the path as the lizards behind them tumbled over each other, unable to make the same clean break the two teenagers did.

Gwen didn’t let anything distract her, taking a left through a narrow gap. It opened up to an even larger space, with the sun shining through the cracks of this new canyon. Ignis gasped when he saw the fallen trees acting as bridges up above, just now realizing how far they had strayed down the chasms.

“I think we lost them!” He tried to say. “You can stop!”

But Gwen didn’t slow down. If anything, she seemed to speed up, blind desperation pushing her forward. Trapped in her iron grip, Ignis had no choice but to keep up with her, watching the world blur into colors as they moved closer and closer towards–

An abyss.

A wide, gaping maw of an abyss surrounded by an alabaster arch for teeth stood before them, hidden from a top-side view by the cluster of trees that warped above it. There was no light within it, no light at all. But despite that, Gwen was hurtling towards that maw with all her strength.

Self-preservation took over, and Ignis dug his heels into the dirt, trying to make her stop and think. But when he tried, he found his soles meeting nothing but air, and when he looked down he saw himself floating above the ground like a balloon attached to a string.

His breath hitched. The abyss neared.

And before Ignis could even blink, Gwen reached the boundary drawn by its teeth and, without hesitation, jumped.

A leap of pure faith into the unknown.

“Gweeeeennnnn!!!” Ignis screamed futilely as he was dragged up with her.

Screaming that echoed all the way down, down, down…

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Beds of moss caught them when they finally reached the end of their jump, softening their fall more than should have been physically possible. The two friends lay on their fronts, gasping heavily to try and regain their composure, eyes were blown wide from leftover stress. Together, they stayed there, shaking from exertion in the darkness.

But then a speck of light appeared. After that, a pair of specks.

Quartets. Sextuplets. Octuplets.

A circle of sconces lining the confines of a massive room came to life pair by pair, bathing their surroundings in a gentle blue light. The two were suddenly aware of the raised platform beneath them, a section of a cross that connected four lowered stone floors in an almost emblematic pattern.

In the dying throes of their energy, Ignis and Gwen slowly brought themselves to their feet, each being supported by their Instrument of choice. They realized that there were stairs of seats cordoning them off in a structure similar to an area, and that at the opposite end of the cross from them was a staircase that led even farther up to an unseeable territory.

There was a staircase behind them too. One that neither of them had touched in their descent, Gwen’s great leap having missed it entirely.

Consternation, bewilderment, and most of all, astonishment flitted across Ignis’ face. He turned to Gwen, whose own expression had been struck blank, careful emptiness scrawled across her face as she took in the scene before them.

“Where the fuck–” He started strongly before clearing his throat, forcing the unexpected extremes of his emotions down. “Sorry. But… Gwen, what in the world is this place?”

Slowly, haltingly, Gwen spun in a full circle, taking in everything. The song in her mind had reached a crescendo, peaking the layers of harmony in ways that made her head want to burst. Despite that, however… She was smiling.

Smiling wide with sparkling eyes.

“I know where we are,” she said breathlessly, pure wonderment in her tone. “I remember this. Not everything, but I know what this is a part of!”

“Ignis, this is the White Tower. We’re in the White Tower.”

And with every last bit of her remaining strength, Gwen embraced her friend, her savior, the best thing that ever happened to her, and laughed.