Kal thought about which way to go for a while. He really only had two directions to choose from other than walking around aimlessly. He could either go against the flow of the energy or with it. Neither seemed particularly wiser than the other. Kal thought it was possible the cause for the flow was that something was siphoning the power much like he was during his recovery but it was just as likely that something was expelling the energy as well. It could even be both.

“I really need to look more into all this mana physics,” he sighed. He decided he would go with the flow and see where it took him. At first, he thought that going against it would lead him towards an exit but the energy seemed to move regardless of wherever he felt a breeze so ultimately he didn’t think it mattered.

As Kal walked through the pitch-black passages beneath the plateau he couldn’t help but think back to that dream over and over. He knew it was just a dream but the hungrier he got the harder it was to forget.

His only real morale boost was that he was definitely moving faster and in better condition than he was in that dream. His new perception was tenuous at best but it was incredibly useful in these cramped passages. Kal had been walking for the better part of another day and he was getting more and more tired. He wasn’t overly keen on falling asleep again so he would push on a bit further at least until he thought it was too risky not to sleep.

His new attributes were definitely helping him remain alert at least compared to before his ascension but he knew he wasn’t even close to being able to completely function without sleep. Nevertheless, he trudged forward following the flow of the hostile mana. Another six or so hours passed and finally, Kal was starting to truly struggle. His grasp of his new mana sight loosened and eventually, he could barely maintain it for more than a step.

“Damn it, I need to sleep. Let’s just hope nothing tries to mess with my mind…” Kal muttered as he dropped where he stood and tried his best to get in a comfortable position. He fell asleep almost immediately.

The flow of hostile mana rushed around him as a pair of feral glowing eyes appeared in front of him in the darkness. Kal panicked, raising his arms as the beast raised its monstrous claws and swiped Kal into the nearest wall. He felt most of his bones snap and he screamed a horrible pained scream. He tried to bring his arms back up to protect himself again but only one listened to his command. The other was nothing more than a stump, pumping his lifeblood into the dark passages. The beast seemed to laugh at his misery as he simply stared at him through the darkness. Its eyes mocking. The moment he moved the beast struck again goring him ferociously. Suddenly Kal couldn’t even see the beast's eyes as he felt his own eyes burst as one of the beast’s claws mutilated his face. Soon Kal felt his life fade away. It almost felt like a mercy in the end...

Kal screamed as a sword-sized claw cleaved his legs off at the knees and he tumbled to the ground before the beast casually went about mutilating his still-living body. He wished for death when it finally en-

Kal suddenly vision twisted and rolled several times before falling back to where he was standing. His mana sight failed as he saw the outline of a headless body, then it en-

He wished for an en-

He cried for an en-

Kal awakened screaming once again. His body drenched in sweat and his heart beating hard. He turned to run away from whatever lurked in the darkness that drew in the dark energies. He was foolish to think it was a good idea to go in that direction. It would mean his end. The beast could be here any moment it- Suddenly his frantic heart changed rhythm and his thought pattern changed just as rapidly.

His mind was overridden by a sudden anger. He stood posed to fight whatever was coming, his breathing hard, as he prepared himself to kill whatever was in the darkness. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there but his adrenaline never faltered. He would not let himself be taken like that again. Eventually, he realized nothing was coming and he yelled in frustration taking a seat on the ground again.

“Another gods damned nightmare, or whatever the fuck it was,” Kal’s adrenaline was still up and his chest still pounded. The nightmare was still vividly imprinted into his mind. He was useless! Not once did he fight back! How many times was he killed by that beast? Too many. Flashes of gruesome death went through his mind making him flinch and then his anger responded in kind. His mind was all over the place, jumping from horrible anguish to vengeful anger every second. More time passed as Kal sat struggling with his emotions but eventually, he began to stabilize.

The memory of the nightmare not fading in the least but the reality of its falsehood slowly came to the forefront of his thoughts. Why was this happening? Was it this damned wasteland or those fate binders that the voice spoke of? Who didn’t matter right now but the motive did. Were the nightmares just to torture him or were they trying to manipulate him? They were definitely getting worse and much longer. This time the voice never came to break him out of the nightmare so maybe they were always supposed to go for that long. He shivered. He was going to do everything he could to prevent himself from sleeping. How he wasn’t sure, but he knew his mind would break if he had to go through many more experiences like that. He got to his feet activated his mana sight again and began following the flow once more. His mind was still not in the best place but he couldn’t waste any more time moping around in these passages if every time he slept he risked going insane.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Another day passed as Kal wandered through the passages. He had begun to almost wish something would attack if for no other reason but the distraction from his hunger and thirst. Kal had thought about attempting to climb back up to the plateau but the walls were just too sheer and strangely angled for him to feel confident in the attempt. He was starting to feel that he was getting close to wherever this mana was flowing to though, as the flow had begun to speed up significantly. So Kal kept moving, ignoring his fatigue, and hoping there was something at the end of this. Kal exited a particularly long passage and his perception suddenly flared out in multiple directions as the space around him opened up. The flow of mana still rapidly moved past him to a location somewhere in front of him but then it suddenly darted downwards towards the stone floor. Kal cautiously walked through the area trying to take in every sound and distortion in his mana sight but the area around the sudden drop was completely empty.

It seemed to Kal with his limited vision that he was standing in some kind of large dome, even the walls around him were much smoother and felt more like cutstone than crack rock. He moved over to the drop-off point and tried to inspect it as best he could. Unfortunately to his mana-restricted sight, it simply looked like there was a huge solid black pillar in the center of the dome. Just in case it was just some pillar Kal took one of his boots off and lightly tossed it at the pillar. To his sight, the boot vanished as it passed through into the darkness of the pillar before Kal heard the boot hit the ground. Weird. Well Kal, which arm do you want to keep? He shrugged and stuck his left arm out in front of him and into the black pillar. Nothing happened, “Well here it goes,” Kal stepped through the pillar to utter darkness. He was about to curse but then an intense light flashed to life above him and immediately blinded him with the sudden light after days of walking around in the dark.

“Finally, light! Would have been nice if it didn’t burn my eyes out though.”

It took a minute for Kal’s eyes to readjust but once they did he looked around the dome. Directly in the center of the room was a spiral staircase made from incredibly smooth white stone bricks. The landing where Kal now stood was also made of the same bricks but they ended at the exact spot Kal could see the mana sucked down into the ground. The light that shone above him glowed light blue now and was hovering above the staircase, almost like a welcome light. Kal didn’t trust it but it was the first sign of man-made construction he had seen since being stuck in this place so he made his way down the stairs carefully inspecting every inch of the way down. The walls were almost disturbingly plain, Kal kind of expected there to be some kind of markings on the walls but they were all simply the same smooth white stone. The stairs went down for longer than he expected.

It took him nearly half an hour by his count to reach the first landing. The stairwell opened up to a large hallway and on either side were several large doors. The moment he stepped out of the stairwell, the entire hallway came to life with a series of glowing runes lighting up in a variety of colors along each side of the hallway. There were still no signs of any kind of decoration or comfort items like furniture or rugs, but the place still had a feeling of ancient prestige. “What is this place?” Kal hadn’t seen anything like it before and couldn’t help but feel a bit giddy with the excitement urging him to explore the place. However, he couldn’t be stupid and just charge headlong into the place. So he decided to activate his mana sight and see if anything was different here. To say it was different was an understatement. The place was a buzz with various colors of light all around him. It made him flinch and lose his mana sight. He reactivated it, this time ready for the onslaught. Each of the glowing runes in the hallway were like infernos to his mana sight, what they actually did was beyond him. The rest of the hall didn’t seem to have anything going on mana-wise. Most of the mana seemed to be coming from those runes.

Kal shrugged. There really wasn’t much else he could do to be cautious other than to take things slowly. So he stepped into the hallway expecting something nasty to happen but the runes simply hummed for a moment and then quieted. It seemed like they detected him somehow which made him a little nervous, but he wasn’t attacked so he continued through the place until he reached the first door. Above the door, one of the rooms hummed more loudly as he approached but didn’t seem to do anything he should be worried about so he tried opening the door. It had no handles so he just pushed on it. It didn’t move in the slightest. Kal double-checked to make sure he didn’t miss anything on the door but came up with nothing, “How am I supposed to open these?”

“Unrecognized mortal detected. Please wait while site security is notified.”

“What!” Kal spun expecting something to dash out of one of the other doors but after a few moments, the voice came again.

“Site Security has failed to report. Please identify yourself.”

Kal was looking all over the hallway for the source of the voice and it seemed like it was coming from the rune above the door, “Uh, I’m Kalum Lesta.”

The runes' calm blue darkened into a crimson red.