As I walked down the stairs. The light emitting from the flame I had conjured seemed to be oppressed. Once again the darkness that I had noticed within the city had come creeping back. This time with far more intensity.

With its greater power, I was able to recognize the feeling of the darkness. When a creature whether human or beast casts magic it has a flavor. It did not have the same kind of flavor as when Mana was trapped in a solid object for a long time, but it was similar enough so that I could feel it.

With the darkness's greater strength, I was able to tell it was not from a living being, instead it was from some sort of array. With a flare of my intent, my flame devoured the black fog.

As I continued to walk while fending off the black fog, my danger sense honed over decades of combat screamed. I stopped and looked around. The step in front of me looked ordinary but my sense told me it was a trap. I conjured a dense flame onto the stairs. The solidification of the flame was a trick I picked up around 15 years ago, after studying the sword savants technique. To my chagrin, nothing happened.

Unfortunately, I didn't have anything else on me that could physically trigger the trap. Looking around I couldn't find a loose stone anywhere. I tried to think laterally. I coated my hands with flames. The flames that I conjured around my hands, let out a warm orange glow. As I pushed more Mana into them to increase their temperature. I stopped adding more Mana when they had turned white as snow. I pushed my hand to the wall to scoop out some Stone so I could safely trigger the trap.

To my surprise, my hand stopped at the wall. It seemed there wasn't just a cloaking array for the city but a strengthening one as well. I assume by the fact that I was able to demolish the boulder it did not extend far. That meant it was localized either to only this passageway or potentially the temple as a whole. That also meant there was likely something valuable here. That would confirm my suspicion, after all, it was underneath a massive cathedral.

That left me with two options. I could either return to my farm. Or continue down the stairs. The problem with the second option is I didn’t know what the trap would do. I came to a simple solution. I'll just jump the gap. So far throughout the city, there had been almost no defenses. The only one’s were the boulders which were easy enough for me to bypass. I prepared myself by pushing Mana into my legs. As I jumped I felt pressure. Not that of an intent, or an aura but that of raw Mana.

As I flew into the air the black smoke that proliferated the stairwell gathered and pushed me downward. I tried to counter it with my flames but this time the Mana was resistant, enough to hold on for the briefest of moments. It pushed me downwards. With the speed I was going, I didn't have time to correct my fall.

When I was about to touch the ground the trap triggered. The trap did not utilize raw force such as the boulder. Nor did it use any magic like the mist. Instead, the trap was mechanical in nature. It did one thing and one thing only. It retracted the stairs. As I was about 3 Inches above the stairs they snapped Into the wall. I fell.

I looked down to see the stairs below me had also retracted leaving me a straight shot downwards. As I was looking down the walls enclose and making a tube. Through the mist, I couldn't see the bottom of the shot. This worried me. Considering the scale of the city the bottom of the drop could be dozens of miles below. If that was the case no matter how I tried I would get squished, like a bug.

All of these thoughts had only taken place within a second. I took a breath and concentrated. I pushed Mana into my fingertips and toes. Pushing flames out of them. this had the nasty byproduct of eviscerating the souls of my boots. But that was a problem for me in the future. As I began to slow I noticed I wasn't speeding up as fast as I should.

Due to the mist and the lack of upward momentum, I was unable to reverse my course. However, I was slowly able to slow myself. Eventually, I reached a state where I would be safe. The problem with that was how long the drop was.

The worst situation would be if it was long. If it was, I couldn't do anything about it. It would simply be a contest of endurance. I would eventually run out of mana, then I would fall. If I did I would likely die. But if the drop was short enough For me to make it to the bottom with Mana to spare I would be fine. Or I'd get far enough down that I would survive the ensuing fall.

I thought about how truly stupid I was. I was potentially a bit overconfident in my abilities. Considering the average cultivation level of the beasts in the region I had, some right to be. But pure cultivation doesn't make up for common sense. It seemed in my time alone I'd lost some of my basic human survival Instinct.

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As I chuckled to myself I felt the walls shrinking in on me. They were already close with the width being about two or three feet longer than my wingspan. A few moments later I could easily reach out my hands and touch both walls.

Well, that's a good thing. I guess I can prolong my death for a bit longer. Before I could think of more gruesome thoughts I felt my feet hit a solid object. I looked down to see stoney ground.

I smiled and, kissed it. No one was watching after all. I told myself not to party too much. Instead, I looked around. The dark mist that had accompanied my fall had vanished. I was at the bottom of the stairwell. As I looked up I couldn't see the top of the stairs.

Considering how long I had already walked and fallen for ment, they were at least a few miles above me. In front of me was a door. It was ornately carved, large and Grand like those of the cathedral above. The door was sealed and I doubted I could open it. I looked for a lever switch or button of some kind but nothing happened. I began to search the door for some sort of secret entrance but found nothing.

As a last resort, I pushed the door. The door crumbled. Not like when you crush a pebble between your hands and it turns into rubble. It was more like crushing a piece of charcoal. The moment I put the slightest bit of legitimate pressure onto it turned into ash.

When the door crumbled it made me feel sad. I hadn't meant to destroy the beautiful door. Considering its level of detail it was likely some sort of important, object or monument. Destroying it felt like I was violating the very beliefs of the people who built it. It made me feel slimy. It felt as if I was punched in the gut by remorse.

It made me remember the consequences of destruction.

I decided I likely needed some help. I realized internally I had been running for my problems for a long time. If I was being truthful with myself I had always run from my problems. But when I tried to dissect my emotions it felt like, I asked a blind man to describe a masterpiece of art, utterly impossible. Instead, I decided to push myself forward.

Behind the door was a cavern, like the city above it was dark. In its long neglect, it appeared as if water had found its way downwards. As I walked in and took in a breath I smelled mold. I pushed Mana into my lungs to ensure that none of the bacteria got into my system. I doubted, with the level of ambient Mana being so low. That the bacteria that resided down here could cause me any lasting damage. But my hubris had already gotten me into a sticky situation today, so I played it safe.

As I walked through the empty cavern I couldn't help but feel morose. It was lifeless, I wondered why such an impressive stairway led to such a barren place. The stone within the walls was unremarkably bland. As I stepped around a puddle my left foot hit something. I looked down and saw bone. It was a long bone, If it stood upright It would measure from my chest to the ground. The bone was almost perfectly straight. That of course meant it came from something massive.

I looked around to see if I could spot any more of the bones. It was hard as they had been decayed in their white luster had long left them. I found a large pile, and as I picked one up it crumbled into dust. Instead of touching them, I tried to scan them with my Mana. When I tried the bone I scanned also crumbled.

I tried to learn something by just looking at them, but failed after all I was no paleontologist. Instead, I left them. They may be deeply saddening but it's not like I could do anything. My hopes were dashed that there would be some treasure hidden here. As I was walking away a glimmer of red, flickered at the corner of my vision.

I turned and underneath what I thought was a skull there was something. Curious I picked up the skull and it crumbled to dust. As the dust fell it covered what I was looking for. With a large intake of air and a blowout, I scattered it to the corners of the cavern. My breath revealed five gemstones.

The first was that of a ruby. It was cut in the shape of an egg and was almost the size of my head. The second was similar in size to the first and aquamarine blue. The third was a rich green—the final two resembled a beautiful glimmering white pearl, and the darkest of onyx.

I debated if I wanted to touch them. I feared that I would break the stones but I decided to do so anyway. It was not like anyone would come back for them. After all, they had likely been sitting there since the city had been abandoned. Just leaving them there would be a waste. I couldn't quantify why didn't feel bad about taking them, unlike those within the throne.

As I reached out I realized I was wrong. As I felt them they felt alive. I realized that in the darkness I had mistaken the eggs for gemstones. That of course led to the question. Whose eggs were they?

As far as I could sense there had been no living creature that had entered the cavern for well over 10,000 years. But there was no way the eggs hadn't hatched within such a long time frame. Additionally, the doors were closed and crumbled when I moved them, so the mother wasn't moving in and out of the area.

There was also the question of why the mother hid the eggs underneath an unidentifiable corpse. Realizing that fretting in the dark would get me nowhere I scooped up the eggs. As I did I felt a small tendril of Mana emerge from the red egg.

Although the Mana lacked intent I was able to tell that there was something behind it, something alive. The being within the eggs' presence bolstered my decision to take them out of there. If it was a living being my conscious wouldn't let me leave it to rot down here. I had no idea what the eggs would turn into but maybe under the light of the sun I could tell. I walked out of the cavern my thoughts on the mysteries of it, the eggs, and the city above.