Muffled footsteps pierced the silence, echoing through the dark tunnels as a shadowed figure darted across the damp stone. Nimbly weaving through stalagmites and vaulting over any rocks that jutted out into its path, the figure smoothly crossed the rough ground. Reaching a sharp bend in the tunnel, the shadow simply darted forward even faster, a burst of wind seemingly carrying it along as it stepped upon the wall to take the corner at its breakneck pace. Three steps later, the shadow was aback on the ground, using a smooth, straight portion of the tunnel to build up even more speed as the burst of wind it had used to jump across the wall intensified into a steady gale.

Suddenly, the shadow came to a crossroads, where a larger tunnel met the one it was currently running down. Redirecting the wind that was pushing it, the shadow comes to a sudden, silent halt in the middle of the crossroads. Kneeling, it reached out an arm to touch the cool, damp stone, and listened. Through the air, it heard nothing, but the earth was much more revealing. The shadow felt hundreds of footsteps, scritching and scrambling at a mere moment’s distance behind it. It hadn’t managed to lose them. 

Displeased, the shadow, pushed down upon the rock for a moment more, leaving behind a glowing, red group of marks. The shadow quickly covered these in a layer of shadow, hoping that its work had not been seen and stood up to make good on its escape. However, a sudden disturbance in the air around it prompted the shadow to drop back to the ground, its instincts screaming. Its action was just in time too, as a creature sailed through the air above it, dozens of powerful legs writhing in an attempt to latch on to the prey it had sensed. Thankfully, the shadow had been fast enough, managing to avoid any contact with the creature and darting off into the tunnel before the creature could even manage to land and orient itself. Unfortunately, the creature had the shadow’s scent: it wouldn’t be so easily deterred. Landing without a sound, the insect-like monster whipped around and darted after the shadow, one of its legs inadvertently stepping upon the concealed red marks.

A fiery explosion came into being at the crossroads, and the depths came alive to greet it. Thousands of creatures crawled, leaped, or flew their way out of their hiding places, seeking the source of the unexpected sound. For its part, the shadow was the only figure that ran away from the blaze, cursing its luck as it desperately tried to avoid the creatures moving in the opposite direction. Even with its acrobatic dexterity and well timed bursts of wind, the shadow could only dodge so much. Eventually, it slammed into a particularly large creature similar to the one that had attacked it at the crossroads and fell to the ground.

Pinned by the weight of the centipede, the figure felt its mandibles latch on to his shadow cloak as its legs scrambled for leverage against the rock. Frustrated, the figure took in a deep breath before unleashing a burst of fire far more potent than the one its rune had released earlier. The fire shot outward in every direction, reducing every other creature within the tunnel to ash. Unfortunately for the figure, there was no time to celebrate as hundreds more rushed to fill their place.

Darting forward, the figure seemed to disappear for a moment, reforming on the other side of the mass of hungry creatures moving at a dead sprint. Although the teleport had allowed it to dodge past the vast majority of the creatures, moving dozens of meters in a second’s time, it had also stripped the figure of its shadow cloak. With his steps no longer muffled, the sprinting young man no longer made any attempt at stealth, using jets of flame and spikes of stone to obliterate any creatures blocking his path.

The further he moved down the tunnel, the fewer creatures rose to meet him until, eventually, he was moving forward unabated once again. Soon enough, the reason for this lack of opposition was made clear: the tunnel was a dead end! Even though he could see the stone rushing to meet him, the young man didn’t stop or even slow down. If anything he actually moved faster, using bursts of wind to propel himself forward towards the wall. Mere heartbeats from crashing into the wall, he raised his right arm. A brown light filled the air and the wall in front of him lifted up, exposing a small gap, barely a meter high, for him to pass through. Dropping to the ground without hesitation, he slid through the gap before releasing the Earth magic that was holding the massive stone up, thus allowing it to collapse back into its normal position, a few dull thuds marking the arrival of the chasing beasts.

For a few moments, the young man just sat there panting in the dark as his heart continued to race. Once he had managed to settle down, he moved to stand, wincing as he felt a stabbing pain in his side.

“Erenth? Is that you lad?” A voice called out from the shadows surrounding him.

“Yeah,” Erenth grunted, holding his side with one hand as he ran the other down the wall beside him. Finding the runes he was looking for, Erenth closed his eyes and pressed down, pouring pure mana into the simple carving.

Lights flickered into existence, revealing a large, simple room. A faint ghostly figure flickered into existence, a worried expression evident on his bearded features.

“What happened? I could feel your magic from here!” the phantom exclaimed as Erenth slowly slid back down the wall, returning to a sitting position.

“Hit a herd of rutharn. Picked off two, but the whole damn herd followed me. I put down a fire rune, but a Centik jumped on it.” Erenth replied curtly, grimacing as he closed his hand around the ridged bone spike sticking out of his side. In his adrenaline fueled rush to his hideout, he hadn’t even noticed it hit him. 

“Bloody hells Erenth! What were you thinking?! Laying down a fire rune? Of course a...” The ghostly figure began to rant, but Erenth tuned him out completely. Gritting his teeth, Erenth tensed and tore the spike out of his side, bringing gobs of flesh along with it.

“URGH” Erenth screamed through his clenched jaw, the pain threatening to cause him to black out. Fortunately for his sanity, the pain slowly declined as the healing runes carved onto his chest neutralized the poison the spike had injected into him and began to regrow the gaping hole in his side. When he had mentally recovered enough to concentrate on something other than the pain, he sped the process along with a simple healing spell. A few heartbeats later, his abdomen was healed, with only a particularly pale patch of skin remaining as a reminder of the potentially lethal injury.

“Erenth, is that…?” The phantom asked, leaving its question unfinished as it simply gestured toward the spine lying beside Erenth, droplets of blood and venom still dripping from its serrations.

“Yeah,” Erenth replied simply, standing up and stretching while continuing. “A Stinger must have set up shop in the tunnel. Probably got me while I was burning up the Centiks and Hoppers.” Finishing his long stretch, Erenth moved deeper into the room, his right hand still absently massaging his side.

“Bloody hells lad…” The ghost mumbled, floating along beside Erenth. “ You can’t keep doing this. One of these days you’ll finally manage to get yourself killed…”

“ And then you’ll float around here like an old fart in a carriage for the rest of eternity?” Erenth offered cheekily, as he used Earth Magic to lift the stone door to his cold room. 

“Hmph. Who are you calling an old fart? I’m not even fifty!” The ghost replied grumpily, glaring at Erenth as he followed him, yet allowing the change of topic, knowing full and well that Erenth would continue to be evasive if he tried to push it. For his part,  Erenth merely smiled back as he gingerly stepped into the cold room, allowing the stone door to slide back into its resting position.

A blast of cold air met him, as the fire runes carved into the walls did their very best to extract all the heat from his body. With a single thought, Erenth activated the fire runes he had engraved on his chest, warming himself and negating the room’s effects. Tapping a jet black rune engraved into his left hand, he casually pulled two massive rodent like creatures out of thin air, each about half his size. Slamming them down onto a slab of bare stone, Erenth immediately began tearing the carcasses apart, skinning and gutting the rodents with small blades of air.

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“Your control is improving,” The ghost praised, eyeing Erenth’s work critically.

“Thanks, Master Artorian,” Erenth replied absently, focused completely on his task. The blades sang, dozens of them working in unison to prepare the rutharn carcasses. However, Erenth wasn’t perfect. A moment’s lapse in concentration sent a clump of viscera flying into the air. Landing on his pale skin, it was brushed away almost instantly, just barely missing his closely trimmed brown hair.

The two stood in silence for a few moments more, Artorian merely observing as Erenth added the finishing touches to the carcasses. Once he’d finished, Erenth simply placed one of the carcasses on a clean stone platform and condensed a jet of water to clean away the blood and inedible remains into a trough leading to his cesspit. With his workstation reasonably clean, Erenth walked towards the back of his cold room, where he kept the mushrooms.

“You still have to keep working on your efficiency. Even you’ll run out of mana eventually if you cast your spells like that.” Artorian spoke up once again, his analysis of his apprentice’s quick work complete.

“I know,” Erenth replied over his shoulder, reaching into the stone basket of mushrooms, “ It’s still tricky for me to keep control when I'm not… shit.” Erenth swore as his hands felt a sliminess to the mushrooms. 

“What is it?” Artorian replied, floating over.

Looking in at the mushrooms, it was easy to tell that they had gone bad. Slimy, and darkened in color, they somehow appeared even less appetizing than they usually did. 

“Well, I guess I’m going to get more tomorrow…” Erenth grumbled, sighing as he casually flicked his hand and incinerated the offending fungi. Turning, Erenth absentmindedly cleaned their container with water and air magic and picked up the remaining carcass on his way out of the cold room.

Crossing the main room to get to his kitchen, Erenth lit the fire pit from afar, a single thought causing the red runes embedded in the floor to blaze with power.

“Try to not burn the meat this time, would you?” Artorian grumbled, seeing that Erenth intended to try and cook.

“At least you’re not the one who has to eat it every day…” Erenth grumbled, fully aware of his cooking skills, or lack thereof.

“No, but I can remember trying it… once,” Artorian shuddered as if the pain of that memory had crossed space and time to strike at his undead form.

“Hmph” Erenth snorted once, and then set about cooking.

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Thankfully, this time he managed to avoid charring the meat into oblivion. While still unpleasant by any normal tastes, Erenth managed to choke down the meat, storing the leftovers away in the cold room. 

Weary, Erenth trudged to his bath. With a gesture he lifted a stone barricade and watched as the large tub he had carved for himself rapidly filled with the water from an underground lake. Another gesture slammed the barricade shut, and a thought activated the fire runes carved into the tub to start heating the water to the perfect temperature.

Erenth undressed, laying his torn clothes in a neat pile far enough away from the water to avoid getting them wet. He would mend the hole in his shirt later, for now, he was simply too tired to bother.

Dipping a toe into the water, Erenth grimaced at its coldness. Nonetheless, he steeled himself and slid into the water. Lying back against the coarse stone, he submersed himself up to his neck in the clean, cool water. Thankfully, the water soon reached the scorching temperature Erenth prefered, changing the bath into a sauna of sorts. For a moment, Erenth allowed himself to relax, merely soaking in the steaming water.

When did I give up on getting out of here… the thought came out of nowhere as Erenth looked around at his bath. The room was silent, but brought back memories nonetheless. The weeks he’d spent carving out the stone to form it and the barricade, the painstaking work he’d done on each rune, making certain that the water would be the perfect temperature each time, and Artorian’s ribbing about how soft he’d gotten, taking so much time to build such a thing. 

Erenth shook his head and slowly raised himself out of the water, wincing at the soreness that his healing couldn’t quite dissipate. Nonetheless, he quietly shuffled across the room, absentmindedly drawing the water away from his skin with water magic. Grabbing his clothes, he took them back to his tub and washed them out, doing his best to get the newest bloodstain out. Without soap, he couldn’t do much, but it was still better than nothing. Once he felt he’d gotten everything he could, Erenth silently dried his clothes and got dressed.

Pulling out the stone plug with a thought, Erenth let the tub drain on its own as he stiffly walked out into the main room. Looking around, he saw Artorian staring at a table by the stone bookshelves, and quietly moved behind him.

“Find any new leads out there?” Artorian asked, looking at the crude map laid out in front of him.

“Two dead ends, and a new way to the Crystal caves,” Erenth replied grimly, grabbing a tiny piece of charcoal, to mark them on the map.

“The Crystal caves?! I thought I told you to stay in the upper caverns!” Artorian exclaimed, glaring at Erenth.

“There weren’t any Rutharn in the upper caverns, I had to go all the way down to the blue forest to find them” Erenth replied with a shrug.

“There weren’t any?”

“Not even scat.” 

“Damn. I wonder what’s scared them” Artorian said pensively, scratching his ghostly chin.

Erenth shrugged again. His markings done, he turned towards his bed, too tired to think of anything but sleep.

“Forgetting something?” Artorian asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Erenth.

Pausing mid-step Erenth tried to think of what he hadn’t done. Nothing came to mind, so he looked back quizzically at the ghostly mage.

“Your runic lessons,” Artorian clarified, pointing to the unopened textbook by the map.

Erenth winced, then looked pleadingly at Artorian.

“Can I do them tomorrow? Please?”

Artorian held his gaze for a moment, and then simply sighed, shaking his head.

“Alright. I suppose they wouldn’t do you much good now anyway, tired as you are.”

“Thanks Master…” Erenth replied with a yawn.

“Hmph” Artorian grunted, turning back towards the map.

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Erenth’s bed, in contrast to the cozy bath and carefully enchanted cold room, was quite simple. Technically speaking, it wasn’t even a bed. He had just laid a bedroll on a stone platform beneath an alcove, leaving something reminiscent of a real bed, but much to Erenth’s nightly dismay, far less comfortable.

Pausing at the edge of the bed, Erenth grabbed a small glowing light crystal from the stone nightstand right beside him and carefully drew a line on the curved wall in front of him. Then, setting the stone aside, he crawled onto the bedroll while pulling the thin blanket up to his chest.

“Goodnight Master Artorian” Erenth yelled, unpowering the light runes carved into the ceiling from a sigil by his bed.

“Goodnight Erenth…” Artorian replied after a moment’s pause, finally giving up on the map and allowing his ghostly form to be drawn back into a ring resting on a shelf, dimly lit by the thousands of starry lines above Erenth’s bed.