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Embercore [Cultivation | Psychic Magic | Underdog ]
Chapter 20: Into the Labyrinth [Volume 2]

Chapter 20: Into the Labyrinth [Volume 2]

Pirin kept his core veiled for as long as he could. He and Myraden ran through the tunnels while only breathing shallow breaths—which wasn’t as fast as Pirin would have liked. After a few turns, the tunnels started to get darker and darker. Pirin stopped for a second to grab a torch, which had been left hanging on the wall by the Saltsprays. It had nearly burned all the way down, and it would go out any minute, but it was better than nothing.

The hallways were twice the height of a man, and wide enough to fit two horse-drawn carriages side-to-side in them. Plenty of room for the Familiars.

There was no time to look at the map. The tunnel branched and sloped down into the earth—sometimes at a near forty-five degree incline. With each step, the air grew stuffier and more stale.

When the torch finally did go out, they were in complete darkness. They had descended maybe a hundred feet, and the Saltspray camp had to be nearly a mile behind them.

But without light, they wouldn’t make it any further.

Pirin dropped the torch, then said, “Myraden? Do you have any techniques that…uh, glow? Make light? I can, but it’s not very bright. And I need to look at someone’s eyes to do it—which doesn’t work in the pitch dark.”

Myraden’s boots shifted—she must have been widening her stance—and she inhaled audibly.

Lines of scarlet Essence traced down her fist. They started at her fingernails, beading underneath like blood, then slithered along her hand through her channels, until they crawled all the way up to her shoulder.

It gave off enough light to illuminate the corridor for a few yards in front of them.

Pirin let go of his lungs and took a deep breath. He breathed a cycle of Essence to help catch his breath, then he looked at Myraden and raised his eyebrows. “Is that a bloodhorn technique?”

“It is one of the few I have learned. It uses Essence to strengthen my muscles.” She picked up the torch from the ground with two fingers and pinched. It barely looked like she exerted any effort, but the shaft of the torch snapped into splinters halfway through the center. When her fingers collided, they let out a snap-boom, followed by sparks of Essence. “My family had two Paths which we combined with our bloodline talent: Path of the Falcon and Path of the Bloodhorn. I think you can guess which Path this is.”

“What’s the technique called?” Pirin asked, tilting his head. The Essence swirling in her arm drew his eyes in and didn’t let go. The pattern was beautiful.

“Strengthening techniques like this are commonly called fortification. It has the added benefit of making your body stronger, though most wizards still bleed thin blood before Flare.” She held her arm out further in front of her, casting the light ahead. “My family called this technique the Tundra’s Veins. Eventually, I’ll be able to extend the technique to my entire body.”

Pirin nodded. “I could really use a fortification technique.” He patted his haversack, feeling for the Path manual. Maybe there was something in the sparrow Path manual that he could adapt to Gnatsnapper Essence.

“Most bird Paths do not have a dedicated fortification technique,” Myraden said. She began to walk again, leading the way down the tunnel. Kythen trotted behind her, and Pirin could tell if his horns were glowing as well, or if it was just the red light refracting through the crystal. “At least, not in the way I described it. Your equivalent technique should grant you speed and agility, even greater than what a base enhanced body would grant.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Pirin muttered.

“The faint bits of…dragon, wraith Essence tinging Gray’s soul might be able to twist your techniques away from pure bird techniques,” Myraden suggested. “If you are terribly desperate.”

He gulped. “I’ll admit…your Tundra Veins looked cool, and I wanted something like it.”

“All in time.”

They broke into a run again, but this time, Pirin’s lungs didn’t feel like they were going to fall out at a moment’s notice. He breathed rhythmically, cycling his own Essence in a pattern best-suited to absorbing and purifying the Eane.

“We need to figure out where we are and come up with a plan,” Pirin said. “Otherwise we’ll just get ourselves lost.” Instead of pulling the Path manual from his haversack, he drew out the map of the tunnels.

“We need to get as far away from Lady Clase as we can,” Myraden said. “And then we can worry about where we are.”

So they ran. Pirin didn’t know how much longer; there were no moons or stars to judge by. In his exhaustion, it all blended into one blur, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on for without sleeping.

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But he still made a mental note of how far they had come.

After maybe a half hour or maybe two hours, they stopped. They were still in a hallway, and it was the exact same shape as when they had entered. When Myraden turned around, she looked just as exhausted as Pirin felt—from what he could see, at least. She had deep bags under her eyes, and she was panting.

And she had done that all while maintaining a technique.

“We’ve made it far enough,” Pirin said. “Sleep. I’ll take the first watch, and I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

She opened her mouth, as if she was ready to argue, but Kythen bleated and stared at her intensely. After a few seconds, she said something in Íshkaben—and in an exasperated tone. But finally, she crossed her arms and said, “Fine. But if you let anything slip past, you will never take the first watch again.”

Before she dispelled her technique, Pirin formed his Reyad with Gray again, then used the Whisper Hitch to generate a small misty orb in the palm of his hand. It didn’t glow as vibrantly as Myraden’s Tundra Veins, but it was better than nothing.

She settled down on the floor, armour clattering. The wall sloped outwards slightly, and she rested her head back on it. Kythen settled beside her. He dropped down on his stomach and forced his nose under her head—a pillow, whether she wanted one or not.

While she fell asleep, Pirin sat in place, wondering exactly what Kythen’s voice sounded like and what Myraden was saying to him.

Supposedly, she had taught Pirin a bit of her language before. How well exactly did she know him? He wanted to ask, but it never felt right.

Once Kythen’s flanks and her chest began to rise and fall rhythmically, and she didn’t stir when Pirin stood up, Pirin was certain she was asleep.

For the first few hours, he did his best to plot their course on the map—where they had come from, and where they were currently. By his best estimates, they were nearly halfway down the mountain, and nearly at sea level, but he’d need a landmark to make sure.

That meant there was a long way to go yet.

For the next few hour, he waited. He did anything to pass the time. He examined the walls of the tunnels nearby. They were made from large beige sandstone bricks—each was nearly half his height. Angular lines traced down them, but Pirin couldn’t make out any purpose.

Until he came across a rune-line. It started well above his head and ran all the way down to his feet. It was hundreds of runes long. Each individual rune was the size of his fingernail, and it had been painstakingly carved. The precision was unquestionably the result of a master runesmith.

More frustratingly, he couldn’t decipher what such a long chain of runes would even do. He tried fueling it with his Essence, starting at the top, but he could barely push his Essence out through the first fifty runes before it lost momentum.

Fueling unknown runes might not have been a great idea, but unless it was umberstone (and it wasn’t) there was no way it would ever harm him directly. The rock might explode, sure, but it wouldn’t unleash a spiritual attack.

For the last hour of his watch, he read through the sparrow Path manual, trying to uncover any hidden knowledge of fortification techniques. Instead, the little book dumped knowledge of Timbers on him.

He didn’t want to reject that knowledge either, though, so he read through, practicing the cycling techniques it described.

Worse, it laid out a plain truth: he couldn’t linger too long trying to form perfect Timbers. Eventually, as he accumulated more and more Essence at the Spark stage, the Timbers would start forming—with him willing or not. And these would be weak Timbers. Eventually, he would be forced to advance with a substandard foundation.

Before he could try to utilize any of the techniques, Myraden woke up and practically forced him to sleep.

He nestled down beside Gray, intending only to use her back as a pillow, but she rolled over and laid one of her wings over him like a blanket. He muttered his thanks to her, then took off his mask to sleep.

He woke up to Myraden shaking his shoulder, pushing him back and forth urgently. In the dark caverns, he had no way of judging the time, but it couldn’t have been terribly long—his eyes still felt heavy.

After a second of confusion, he bolted upright. “What is it?” he whispered.

“I heard voices,” she said. “Saltspray warriors are nearby. They turned down the other tunnel at the last branch, but if we do not move, they will find us.”

With a groan, Pirin pushed himself to his feet. He untied his scabbard from his belt, keeping his sword sheathed but ready. Behind him, Gray hopped up to her feet.

They ran down the hallway, trying to put as much distance between them and the last junction as they could. When they arrived at the next intersection, Myraden led them further away from the Saltsprays.

“Do you think the sect will work for the Red Hand?” Pirin asked.

“I do not think he will give them a choice,” she said bitterly, holding her glowing red arm out in front of her. They turned twice more before she added, “Even Lady Clase will not be able to do much against him.”

“He’s…not that strong, is he? He’s not even a wizard!”

“There is something about him. Skill, determination, they account for much, but he would not have become the Emperor’s enforcer if it was just…that. He is not the only skilled warrior in the North. There is something more to him.”

“I was kinda hoping Lady Clase might flatten him and be done…” Pirin said as they rounded a corner. “But—”

He cut himself off. Cast in glimmering red light, an enormous ape-shaped creature faced them. It stood ten paces down the hallway, and bellowed with a breathy roar.

Pirin squinted. That wasn’t just a creature. Shards of stone whirled about, giving its body shape and volume. It was wide enough to fill the hallway, and though the light was dim, Pirin couldn’t see any eyes.

It was a stone wraith.

“I would’ve rather dealt with the Saltspray warriors,” he muttered.

The wraith let out a breathy bellow, then charged towards them.