It was finally time.
This would be the day that the doors of their home opened and their people returned to the world above. Op’skith bubbled with impatience as they waited for the elders to unseal the wards on The Doors. They had delayed for months in deciding to open The Doors at all and now some of them seemed determined to drag their feet in the very process of unsealing them. He wanted to run over to them and demand to know what was taking them so long-
“See here, it says priming the seventh axial line along the second partition will rupture the fire-flow in the ward! Are you trying to get us killed?”
“No, that word… where is it… Ah! Look at this, that phrase is under the contextual indicator of ‘safety’. The correct translation should be ‘restrain’ here, You’re thinking of this section, the one on defense activation, where they use that word but under the indicator for ‘protection’!”
“Fine, so long as I don’t need to be within a hundred feet while you incinerate yourself and-”
-But maybe it wasn’t them. Perhaps it really was that complicated a process and he would just be butting in where he had no business being. He didn’t understand anything about the wards. None in their kaer had the talent for weaving the threads of magic so all they had to go on were centuries old documents, from the time that the kaer had been sealed, written in a language only a few of them could read at all. Knowledge lost to time.
The Doors themselves looked the part of creations out of time. Where the walls of the kaer were grey or brown, natural stone carved out and polished into a place to live. The doors were something else entirely. The milky-white stone looked unnatural. It was so smooth as to be slick, and it reflected light like a mirror. More than that, it was overlaid with thin lines of bright gold and dark blue in elaborate patterns. The entire construction spoke of wisdom and power beyond anything else he knew. He had spent many hours tracing the intricacies of those patterns with his eyes. The curling and overlapping lines seemed to draw the eye in deeper to their pattern, beyond the reach of sight. He sometimes felt as if he could glimpse the world beyond in their weaving, but they were quite impassable. These were the unbreakable barrier that had kept them safe for six hundred years. These were the gateway that would return them to the surface and the world above. All they had to do was figure out how to open them.
He sighed, and turned back to the rest of the Vanguard. They had all been up early and eager for the opening but eagerness was drifting into impatience as the hours passed. Well, they had waited their whole lives for this, what was a few more hours? There was a whole world out there, just out of reach. Just waiting for it to be safe enough for them to return. …Or rather for it to be too dangerous to wait any longer. With yet another thriving stone failing their food supply would no longer be sustainable in a matter of months and so, like it or not, it was time to open the Doors. The choice between unknown danger or a slow starvation was no choice at all. Some were suspicious that the stone had been sabotaged. Some had even accused him of doing so. He could almost understand why they would think that. He was outspoken in favor of opening the doors. And known to act with more passion than reason. And thought to be overly violent by some. But he would never have done something so evil as putting their food supply at risk, no matter the reason. He could understand why they might have thought that. Now. In retrospect. In the moment, he had been angrier than he ever had been in his entire life. He very well might have beaten the old man to a bloody pulp for his accusation, if his chaida hadn’t been there to calm him. And to tear into that idiotic coward filth of the deepest pit of- …Tear into him with words of course. His chaida always seemed to know just what to say to get people on his side or to put people in their place. Op’tan seemed to hold half the circle of elders in the palm of his hand while pulling the strings of the other half.
By contrast, Op’skith had never been much good at solving his problems with words. He was too full of passion that seemed to push others away rather than draw them in. Ready to start a fight rather than get someone on his side. Op’tan always seemed to be a bit disappointed in him for that. Of course, Op’tan was proud that Op’skith had emerged as an adept, there were few enough among their people. But he couldn’t help thinking that his chaida would have preferred the talents that manifested to be more productive or impressive like Jata or Saij rather than those of a blade-wielding maniac. He had never said anything like that, but Op’skith could sense it. Few approved of the warriors, adepts or not, for wasting their time swinging ancient blades around rather than finding something productive to do, but they accepted them as both an ancient tradition in preparation for the emergence and as a necessary outlet for youthful bravado. Of course, that would be different from now on.
Rull sat back beside him, leaning on an arm. “So, should we go for lunch? Looks like this is going to be a while.”
Op’skith turned to him, smirking slightly. “What, and leave our charges unprotected while we eat soup?”
“Charges? Are we supposed to be defenders now? I thought the plan was to head up the river and start a pirate gang!”
The pair chuckled, but drifted back into silence as Saij joined them and settled nearby. He was a troll, like Rull. Saij was the smaller of the pair by a fair margin, but was still a head above Op'skith. T'skrang were not renowned for their bulk. Even if you were to include his long tail and the scaled frills on his head, and also ignore the curling horns of the trolls, Op'skith could barely match the height of even a short troll. And he was large, as t'skrang went. He was nearly six feet tall and was covered in heavy muscle under scarred scales, both earned from years of training. And he *still* had to use tricks to match the raw force his comrades had as their birthright. The three nodded to one another in greeting as Saij settled beside them. He waited a moment before speaking. “So, what do you want to find out there?” It was a familiar topic, worn smooth from long use, but now imparted with new significance. Op’skith was the first to respond. “I want to see the Serpent River and the great lakes. Or perhaps the great plains. And the Twilight Peaks.” He drifted off. He felt a little silly. Why not plan to find the Heart of the Wyrmwood or sail over the Sea of Fire while he was at it? But the other two didn’t show any sign of amusement or mockery as they nodded in response.
A moment later Rull answered as well. “I hope there are people out there. Tasin and Sorit should be nearby. I want to know what a city with a thousand people could be like. Or just what buildings look like out there. They must be so different. I hope they’re not…” He left the last part of it unsaid. The trio drifted into silence for a long moment. It was Saij’s turn, but he seemed completely content to wait. The awkwardness grew as the silence drew out but it never seemed to touch him. Rull fidgeted, and then spoke again, his voice lowered. “Do you think they’re still out there? Will we have to fight them?” He left the unspoken question hanging in the air. The question that had been hanging over them since the decision had been made to go out. The question of whether they could fight the things that might be out there. The Horrors were supposed to be gone after all this time, but so was magic itself and if that hadn’t happened then how wrong were they about the Horrors? Their ancestors had buried themselves to hide. The legendary heroes of ages past had run and hidden from these things and they might still be out there.
Saij remained quiet a moment longer, letting the thought hang in the air between them. Op’skith got the odd impression of a swordsman holding their strike, waiting for the perfect moment to land a clean victory. Then he spoke.
“There might be some. The most powerful should be gone, but there might be some. It’s a whole new world out there, and there will be dangers as surely as there will be wonders. Mountains and forests and cities waiting for us to find them somewhere out there. A grand adventure!” He clapped each of them on the shoulder before continuing in a more subdued tone. “Just remember, adventures are dangerous, but we’ll have every strong arm in the kaer behind us out there. We’re in this together.” He gave a winning smile and made sure to meet each of their eyes before rising… and moving to the next cluster of the vanguard.
Saij wasn’t being particularly subtle today, but from the nervousness Op’skith could hear in the hubbub he supposed that Saij had a lot to get done. No one was sure what they might find out there and they were worried about it. The best they could determine from the maps, they should come out just in the foothills of the Stormfall Mountains, near the River of Seeds, which they could follow to where several other settlements would emerge. But would those settlements be ready to help them yet? Would there be wild animals or even lesser horrors on the way? It would be much safer to wait until they had some sure sign, or someone came to open their doors from the outside. The kaer hadn’t so much agreed to go out as much as they had agreed that they couldn’t wait any longer. Some thought they should prepare for a world still overrun by horrors. Others thought they should prepare to deal with the cities and kingdoms of the world before. If they’d needed to agree on exactly what to be ready for then it would have taken another decade to open the doors. In the end, they’d agreed that someone needed to go out and see what there was, and that task was for the vanguard.
For all the days they’d lived down here, the vanguard had been the dissatisfied youth or the unrealistic dreamers. Fools who spent their time thinking about the surface before they, inevitably, settled themselves to the real life they could make in the kaer. They were tolerated as an outlet for youthful bravado, and out of tradition naturally. Of course, many more than they few had trained themselves to fight or explore with the Vanguard in the past, but those were older now and settled. Their skills were rusty and their families meant they had more to lose. So it came down to the Vanguard. A handful of trolls and obsidimen armed with weapons and armor older than they were… and one t’skrang. The imbalance wasn’t out of any deliberate exclusion, of course, but learning to fight hand to hand is a painful enough experience when your opponent doesn’t have three hundred pounds of weight, two feet of height and hide like leather on their side. Not to think of the madness of breaking your hands against the rock-like body of an obsidiman. One would need to be exceptionally stubborn to ignore that. Or have reasons to keep going that couldn’t be beaten out of them so easily.
The anticipation of the opening felt like it was chewing a hole out of Op’skith from the inside. An open 'sky' instead of a stone ceiling, a place without walls, space to run, fresh air and a world that stretched beyond vision. He could hardly imagine half of what he had been told was out there, but he still loved to try. All his life, it had been just beyond those Doors. Sometimes, he almost thought that he could feel the faintest breeze coming from them carrying the scent of new life. But there was danger as well. They had been safe down here for centuries, but as soon as the Doors opened that time of safety would come to an end. It was exciting. It was terrifying. Everyone could feel it. It was in the air. Some were more hopeful, some were more fearful, but everyone was a little of each.
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As it happened, they did wait through lunch. And longer still, into the bottom of the cycle. They spent the time in idle chatter about what they might find or about the simple business of the kaer, but without much substance to any of it. The anticipation was too great to do otherwise.
The moment came without warning. One moment the elders were chattering and poking at The Doors as they had been for hours, the next moment The Doors seemed to shudder as a wave of pressure and sound rippled outward from them. Every light crystal in the kaer flickered as the wave passed by, reaching to every corner of the kaer. A long moment passed as they all stared. The brilliant white sheen of the doors seemed dull now. The glittering lines were faded. And then the blank shock turned to surprise and fear all at once as it seemed every person in the kaer burst into action at once. It was chaos as people scrambled away or tried to draw weapons and clean up their possessions all at once. At least three different elders tried to take charge of the situation before Saij's bellow cut through the noise. "The Vanguard will form ranks and stand ready! All others will clear the area before the door!" It was still a mess, but no one spoke against the command and eventually got around to obeying it. A large semicircle formed around The Doors and within it stood the Vanguard in two ranks, some with blades drawn and some with weapons stowed. There was a great deal of uncertainty and nervous glances. No one quite knew what to do from here. Saij walked out in front of them, eyes on the Doors. He was one of the ones who had drawn his blade in the confusion but now, after a moment of consideration, he sheathed it and the rest of the Vanguard followed suit. Op'skith could tell he was as uncertain as everyone else, but he saw that at this moment, they all needed a leader who was confident and so that was what he would be. Just as Op'skith could pick up any weapon and know how to fight with it, Saij could walk into any scenario and know how he ought to act. And right now, it seemed he needed to act like he somehow had authority over those many years his senior. He drew himself up and stepped out from in front of the Vanguard before continuing his orders. "First rank, advance and open the Doors! Second rank, stand vigilant!" Op'skith was all too pleased to obey that order and lined himself up shoulder to shoulder with the others gripping the huge white handles of the Doors. They started to pull tentatively at first, then with more force, then digging in heels to pit their weight against the task. It felt like he was pulling on a wall. Op'skith strained, the muscles in his arms and legs bunching as he pitted his full force against his implacable opponent. He couldn't stop now. Not when he was so close. But when Saij shouted to stop he could only slump and pant. Around him, trolls and obsidimen did the same. They had been straining as hard, to as much effect, it seemed. Saij shouted again "That's it, catch your breath, then set your feet and get ready. All together on three, for the sky! One! Two! Three!" With a shout, Op'skith heaved for all he was worth for a moment, then another, then he felt something and- Suddenly instead of straining against the Door it was slamming into him and driving him backwards with unstoppable force as thunder filled his ears. The impact left him disoriented and it was all he could do to scramble out of the way.
It was several long moments lying on the ground before he could begin to think again. He tried to open his eyes, but began blinking rapidly as he found them clogged by dust. He tried to rise but fell back as his head spun and... was it too quiet? He tried to listen for any sound of movement- and a spike of pain from his ears told him that the thunderous noise before had been louder than he thought. He couldn't hear a thing right now. After a short time, hands pulled him to his feet and water rinsed the dust from his eyes. Some time after that, his head stopped spinning and he was able to blearily make out just what had happened. The Doors were thrown wide and between them, in the void of the Doorway was... stone. Boulders, slabs and gravel were piled as high as the Doorway and spilled into the kaer. Op'skith's eyes searched the darkness, looking for any sign of light or air among the shadows, but there was nothing. Stone upon stone upon stone confronted him. He could only stare.
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Hours later, Op'skith heaved. He and a troll rolled the rock another few paces before stopping to catch their breath again. Those others were still arguing about what to do, as if this changed anything. Nothing had changed. The decision had already been made to leave. This only meant that it would take longer. But of course, the opportunity was taken to reconsider every facet of the decision. What difference did it make if it took a day or a week to reach the surface? It had to be done. It HAD to be done. Op'skith heaved a final time with the troll and with a last turn the rock sank into the dirt of the field. With the thriving stone broken it wasn't as if they would be growing anything here so the field wasn't good for anything else anymore. With that done, he turned back to the Doorway and moved back towards the bustle of work there. A steady stream of people moved across it, gathering, lifting, dragging and moving the stone out of the way however they could. His eyes probed the darkness again by habit, searching for any sign of light beyond the void of stone. But there was no change, of course. As if anything could have changed in the last few minutes. He shuddered. He had been wrong. Something HAD changed.
All his life he had been told that there was a world out there. He had been told there was a world where wind flew free and light reigned over darkness. He had been told that there was a world without the confines of walls and ceilings, where he could move and breathe. He had been told and he had believed. But those stories had been wrong. Beyond the Doors it was just the same as any other wall: stone without end. He shuddered again. It was like he had lived his entire life in a closet. It had been cramped. It had been stuffy. But he had known all along that escape was right there. A moment away from freedom he could hardly feel the pressure. But that escape had been a lie. There had never been any freedom waiting. It wasn't a moment away. It was a month away. Or a year. Or it had never been there at all. People spoke of the world above but they only repeated what they had been told by those who repeated what they had been told in turn. No one had actually seen it. And even if they had, after all these centuries, with those *things* out there... They knew the world outside might have changed in their long absence, but how much? Could all that they recorded be gone? Could there be nothing left but stone? Endless stone?
A third shudder ran through him. It rolled down from his neck along his arms and back, leaving his tail twitching and his knees weak. He was suddenly aware of the walls around him and the ceiling above him, all made of that same grim stone. He was aware of the air in his lungs, the same air that had been breathed a thousand times before. It all seemed to press in on the edges of his awareness, as unrelenting and inevitable as the force of the Door driving him backwards has been. What was he in the face of something so vast?
He took a hold of himself. This was a waste of thought. He disdained others for wasting time on pointless considerations when there was only one path forward and yet here he was, letting himself spin in circles when there was only one thing that could be done. They would move the rocks. However long it would take, whatever might be out there, it didn't matter right now. They had to dig. That was all there was to it. He squared his shoulders and got back to work.
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It was... later. It was near the end of the cycle he supposed. The light crystals were dimmed now and everyone had gone off to sleep or to eat, probably. Op’skith sat, leaning against a wall. His body slumped like a pile of rotting logs. Every limb ached with bone-deep exhaustion and his mind wasn’t far behind. The doorway was crowded with broken stone and the dust of boulders. Some were cracked open so the fragments could be hauled away. Trails of chips and dust lead away to a mound in a fallow crop field. The work had gone on for hours, but everyone was gone now, promising an early start tomorrow. Everyone but Op’skith. He lay, staring with dull eyes at the endless wall of stone. Some detached part of his mind repeated to him that these were the same walls he had lived in all his life. He had grown up here, as generations before him had and they had been well. There was no reason for what was or was not behind those Doors to change that. But that part of him was wrong.
Before he had seen what was behind the Doors he had hope, and that hope had been a certainty. But now that hope, the hope of a better world outside, was a desperate one. It felt like the hope of a child or a fool who could not accept the truth staring them in the face. How could ancient legends of forgotten horizons challenge the solid reality of lifetimes lived within stone? Why should there be anything more than this fragile bubble of air and light in a world of endless gray stone? Their ancient ancestors had abandoned the Sun and the Sky to the Horrors to do with as they pleased, and so those things were lost. Perhaps they should have died fighting instead.
As he lay, the room seemed to press in on him. The ceiling was bowing under the weight of endless stone, the walls were being crushed inward by that unstoppable force. The floor was nothing but a mortar, waiting implacably for him to be ground to powder against it. He needed to get out. He couldn’t breathe. He needed to get out. That panicked thought drew him from his stupor, but no urgency could speed the leaden movement of his exhausted body. Step by step, he walked to The Door. He picked up a piece of stone. His muscles screamed in agony but he couldn’t hear them as he lifted it, carried it to the others and set it down. He walked back and reached out to grasp another piece of stone. He prized it from the others, carried it to the mound and set it down. He continued. His arms stretched and he felt a tearing sensation in his right arm as it gave way beneath another huge chunk of stone. He stared at the dropped stone, then at his limp arm, then bent down, adjusted to a different grip and lifted it again, avoiding tension on the failing muscle this time. His back felt like brittle straw and his legs like sacks of rot held up by wires. He just kept moving. His entire attention was absorbed in the pressure crushing him from every side, stealing the breath from his lungs, threatening to drown him in an endless gray abyss. He had to get out. He heard someone speaking to him gently as he moved, then shouting orders. He had to get out. The voice moved into his path. He couldn’t recognize it through bleary vision. He had to get out. He stepped around the obstacle and bent to pry out another large stone. He heaved. It stayed put. He heaved. It stayed put. He had to get out. He heaved. It budged a tiny amount. Then there was a different voice. Another… someone. Jata. Jata would help. He always did. Op'skith croaked out a request, or perhaps a plea. His mind didn't quite make sense of the words he had said. But regardless, the voice that was Jata grasped the rock from the other side and they heaved together. The rock moved. They carried it between them carefully and set it down with the others. He blinked as he stood. He could see Jata now. His face was made of a smooth, greenish stone-flesh, quite different from the rough gray stone they had been hauling. He blinked again. Jata had said something else. He sounded disappointed, or perhaps sad. Op'skith didn't respond. He looked back towards the Doorway. They had more stone to move. They had to get out. Then Jata was swinging one arm in a slow arc with a fist. A clumsy punch. Op’skith had beaten better. Just duck to the right, drive his knee into the obsidiman’s shin to throw off his balance then slip behind him to ride him to the ground and catch him in a chokehold. It was all about using their weight against them with obsidimen. Op'skith realized that he hadn’t actually started the maneuver yet. Jata’s fist was getting closer. He informed his body that it was time to start moving. His body decided to take this as a suggestion and soundly rejected it on several counts. And then there was darkness.