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Chapter 8: UnHuckable
My limbs shook uncontrollably as the unseeing creature sniffed along the cavern floors hunting for me. I had managed to wedge myself into an undersized crevice, beseeching the mildewed cave atmosphere would mask my fragrance. My legs began to cramp from the awkward position of the jagged grotto pit I was sat in yet I didn't dare to even breathe in the musky cave air.
The brief flashing moments when the beast stamped near my hiding spot allowed me to study its hulking frame. Matted dirty fur covered sinewy muscles that ended in black dagger-like claws. Tough scars of old wounds highlighted a coat faded to albino whiteness like it hadn't possibly seen the sun in years. Most bizarre was the radiant cyan tattoo decorating its back. The marketing resembled an Old Buriti shaman tattoo, tendrils of cool liquid seemingly dripping down the beast's fur. Yet no moisture touched the floor.
The symbol almost appeared...alive, rippling with a hidden energy. My mind raced with questions as I finally let out some short bursts of air into my lungs. This creature couldn't be natural, not with that mystical scar. Why would such a monsterous animal share the same marks our the simple native shamans? Water had to be imported or extracted from plants for centuries...Yet with my own shuddering eyes, I watched it cascade down this thing's backside
The Mega-Monkey-esque monster let out another bone-chilling wail that reverberated through the endless tunnels. It was answered by silence. It seemed almost saddened as it waited for another's call. Its painfully ripped and rehealed ears twitched beckoningly into the darkness.
Perhaps the glowing brand had prolonged its life unnaturally. Now it wandered these forsaken caves, alone, confused, and likely in pain from old battle injuries. I did not see any way to approach this with some sort of simple logic but my mind screamed there had to be a tangible answer to its mystifying dim glow.
I felt a surprising pang of sympathy for the once-proud fighter. In its primal screams, I heard the anguish of the last survivor unable to accept extinction. It reminded me of the Vascan dynasty's own struggle against the erosion of time. Both our fates seemed intertwined as if destiny caused us to be here together...Was I to become this beast, wandering the shambled ruins of my own people? The natives were sure to kill my children after my reign--I was to be the only thing that stood between the choking darkness of my genealogy just like this massive yet simple blind cave animal.
The creature suddenly pivoted, fixing its hauntingly white-blinded gaze in my direction. Absolute terror jolted through me anew as the symbol's glow intensified as if detecting a presence. I held my breath, praying the shadows would shield me. My chest and spine earthquake with anxiety as the idea of being ripped apart racked my psyche.
The hulking form began to lumber away seeking its unknown purpose. Once safe, I tried calming my frantic unstable heart. These illuminating caves surely hid more arcane clues about ancient magics now lost to Buriti...what had I fucking stumbled into? Where was this place so vast yet so unexplored, no mention of any lands or beasts beneath the dunes...I must be dreaming.
I knew then my trials here weren't a mere coincidence but the first step on a destined path. Suppose I was lucky enough to survive. In my haste to pursue the enigmatic beast, my billowing robes caught on the rocky outcroppings, sending me sprawling noisily to the ground. My knees painfully fell into rocks that tore into them like broken glass shards.
The creature whipped around at the sudden noise, blank eyes ablaze with horrifying fury. It unleashed an earth-shaking bellow then barreled towards me. I scrambled to my feet and fled into the dark branching tunnels. The thunder of the monster's fists and hand feet at my adrenaline-fueled steps propelled me ever deeper into the oppressive twilight. The gaps between gnarled roots and stone teeth narrowed, forcing me into jaggedly cramped, unknown passageways.
The tunnels tightened ever further till I was squeezing through suffocating spaces, stone heavily pressing my chest and back simultaneously. I struggled to calm my hyperventilating as my lungs compressed bitterly. The creature's snarls amplified, reverberating all around, claws raking the granite cave walls.
Progress slowed to an agonizing crawl on my scraped belly, every movement triggering small stone avalanches. Blood trickled from reopened wounds as I shredded myself wriggling through the unforgiving crevices. Still, the catacombs constricted, warping into nightmarish contortions. I had gone into the pitch black and could not see forward...the space was so tight I was unable to turn my head nor bend an elbow.
Panic set in. I was trapped, utterly ensnared with no way forward or back. The beast's screams took on a sadistic frenzy, smelling my blood. I whimpered shallowly, clawing vainly at the indifferent rock as the legendary demon's burning breath singed the soles of my boots.
This would be my tomb. The Vascan lineage dying unknown in anomaly-riddled tunnels far below his people. "FUCK YOU!" I spat a small amount of blood into the darkness...My sight left me as I lost consciousness deep Under the burning sands of my home country.
In my brief terror-fueled respite I heard a faint call...a woman's voice I'd never heard, it was enrapturing--everything in my mind screamed to wake up, and my lungs gasped air back into them as I snapped my eyes open. The beast had cracked nearly clean through the small crevice, Inches os space separated me from muscular pale fingers meant for destruction. Its roars shook my skull, yet my arms were pinned to my sides due to the earthen sarcophagus. I began to hyperventilate before an even louder thunderous noise nearly left my bowels voided
Just as the infuriated beast cornered me for the killing blow, the cave floor fractured. I plunged down through cascading granite rock, vainly grasping at the crumbling petty stones. Suddenly, an upward water geyser broke my fall, the frigid liquid wrapping around me with abnormal sapience. Suspended safely in the air, I observed as the torrent restricted my drop and then receded underground.
Smooth tendrils of water gripped my clothes yet they stayed dry. I attempted to move but the grip was all-consuming. Each passing moment somehow felt safe as i descended, my hearth rate returning to normal. I couldn't help but wonder the true nature of this world after such strange encounters...Folklore had nothing to do with this, If it had, my mind's soul focus would have been Buriti's secrets my whole life!
I disembarked gracefully on a smooth obsidian surface, the cold reflection reminded me of the palace my clan once called home. As my vision adjusted to the dim teal glow, I gaped in awe at the fucking outlandish sight before me. I had plunged into an enormous glimmering dilapidated unknown castle with soaring vaulted ceilings, intricately etched from brilliant emerald gemstone.
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Towering calcified columns supported archways engraved with swirling cyan enigmatic insignia. Phosphorescent rock capsules were embedded seamlessly into black obsidian walls, bathing the dark maze of halls and chambers in an eldritch glow. Thick webs of bio-luminescent fungi blanketed the ceilings, draping over fossilized furnishings. The furniture was ancient yet gleaming bronze stood the test of time--no corrosion had even blemished the strange furnishings of the chateau.
In the center of the grand hall, a weathered sculpture depicted a robed figure parting a magnificently ivory-carved sea with broken arms raised to the heavens from small piles of rubble. Only the lower half remained fully intact. Had this sculpted sorcerer once called forth refreshing geysers and violent storms with a mere gesture of the hand? The entire subterranean palace seemed to thrum with this primordial magic. What ancient forces had invoked this spectacle beneath the white sands?
I began cautiously wandering the endless black rooms, small cave muskrats skittered away from my echoing footsteps. My anxious heart raced, sensing the whispered possibilities in this lost metropolis. What forbidden knowledge had they barred away before bright shifting dunes swallowed their civilization? Soft sounds of babbling water soothed my senses as my knees ached from the wounds I had sustained.
I made my way forward past the statue wanting to put distance between me and the hole I had come from. I delved deeper through glittering black halls, maybe untouched for eons, drawn by a longing to unveil their enigmas. In chamber after chamber, towering reliefs depicted the same robed figure wielding incredible power. The native Buriti people seemed to have hailed this man as their first king...though he seemed to share more features of old Vascan royalty himself.
In one scene, painted in jewels and mesmerizing paint. The mysterious figure stood atop a chalky red mesa, strong arms raised as black clouds gathered and rust-colored lightning crackled at his every command. My eyes fell on the next massive painting, it showed fresh produce bursting with bizarre abundance after a delicate rainfall he had seemingly hailed. In the most extravagant passageway, he parted the very sea itself for crowds to cross in much more detail. Everywhere the otherworldly gentleman brought prosperity and merciful destruction.
Most stunning was a glistening golden mosaic of the sorcerer levitating an entire raft mega city above whirling flood waters, its smiling citizens laden with overflowing baskets of fish, scaled water beasts, and island bounty. I had found no name recorded for this man--due to the nature of the pictured story...it almost seemed as if this was a tribute, not a truthful retelling. who were these all-powerful magi able to usher in a gilded age of Buriti light, yet all paid loving homage at his feet like he was not a being beyond mortal comprehension?
Was he the true leader who had unified the scattered native tribal folk into the earliest days of Buriti's empire? The sublime artistry spoke of people truly believing this mythic figure walked among them as a living god. But had he been real at all or simply a way to describe a movement of our dark-skinned people, hidden by our oppressors?
The remnants of aberrant magic I had witnessed here confirmed some mystical truths lingered in the extravagant iconography. I traced my fingers over the colorful tiles before me, from the floating utopia down to the burnt, blackened ruins at its base. Beneath the soot, tiny dissonantly etched words remained in the mobile Vascan old tongue: "The power passed peacefully on..." Had this God-ruler endowed his awe-inspiring capabilities to a successor before some violent cataclysm?
My ears were met with small soft rumblings of the forgotten horror that was chasing me before my descent here. The small mammals ran in terror as if they knew I was the target of the monster's ire. I felt the soft cling of the overly long maroon robe on my skin. Sweat-stricken attire was my only tangible stability in this wonderland of mystical revelation. Mushrooms clung almost too conveniently at the edges of the murals, logic dictated that I couldn't believe my eyes yet the proof was billowing spores into my lungs with each shaky breath.
As I anxiously pondered the perplexing quandaries that plagued me, inspiration slapped my swirling sanity - if some distant descendant had inherited even waining fractures of his talents, then conduits of ancient hex might yet flow in Buriti's heritage. After all this time, who could trace their ancestry back to such a mythical ancient wellspring?
In an isolated junction of the vast ornate walls, a disconcerting scene was carved into the obsidian glass tile showing towering, pale interlopers parading out of chilly snow-capped mountains. Their angular gray armor and javelins were unmistakably archaic Svetlan in origin. Rapacious drooling men seemed to cascade into the violent scene depicted.
At the destructive army's boots recoiled a youthful red-eyed girl, garbed in the aforementioned mage-king's dark robes, golden flecked rust-colored eyes wide with trepidation. Far behind her lurked a familiar hulking monkey-like silhouette. This could only depict the successor the mosaic had foretold but with a minor twist - the peacefully passed power incarnate in a fragile child among the soft red clay.
The next frame showed the paled invaders forcing the girl's brown palms against the chained creature's head in some arcane ritual unknown to science and reason. Stolen magic flowed between the destined vessels against nature's order. The depictions seemed to lose some of their lavish wonders. Harsh hieroglyphs stained the black walls as if they were hurriedly painted over the tiles instead of being a part of the people's planned propaganda.
With true dawning awe, I realized the raging beast that had hunted me was no simple chance creation or lingering demon guardian. It had been a common wild animal malformed into an artificial recipient by the intimately understood Transferrence Ritual our history books routinized vehemently. The Svetlans had fucking perverted Buriti's magics not through study but by dominating vulnerable inheritors during their cruel expansion centuries ago. My hands felt over the chipping paint as it broke to smithereens falling to the floor.
This violation had left the force fractured, and broken...driving its unwilling creature host to delirium isolated in lightless caverns. No surprise its markings emulated shamans' sacred tattoos - the rituals I witnessed here long ago now had turned an innocent into an undying conduit of stolen magic--I felt my limbs shudder with the idea of me being used in some game against a whole nation of innocent simple-minded people.
My heart now burned with boisterous purpose. This miserable being did not deserve such sorrow for the corruptions of our shared forebears. Was I, Huckleberry Vasca, fated to remedy these scars of dominion long maltreated? If I could attain the confidence of the wounded animal, perhaps our genealogies need not end in twilight after all.
I yanked my gaze from the troubling carvings as a remote rumble resonated through the glowing corridors - the beast was bombarding through the caved-in tunnels, searching relentlessly for the prey--ME-- had lost. My window to explore these archives peacefully was rapidly closing. No small rodent nor varment could now be found as the beast made its way ever nearer.
I silently limped into what looked to be a bygone armory, clutching my tattered right knee wounded in the earlier chase. Rust-eaten weapons of every brutal shape and size were racked along the walls, awaiting long-dead Buriti warriors. My red eyes caught on an exquisitely carved iron knife on a central weapon holder--undoubtedly a ceremonial royal blade as it seemed to be seated the wrong way. This assumed it would serve my purposes far better than cumbersome polearms but truly had no idea about armed combat. It was identical to the one I had dropped in the cave earlier.
As I secured the glassy black knife through makeshift hand bindings I had sliced from my once-regal robes, something heavy clattered at my feet obnoxiously. I lifted a shining plain tungsten knife longer than my ashy forearm, its edges honed razor-sharp by the skill of master smiths. Crude yet perfectly balanced in every way--this was not a vapid ornament but a lethally serious weapon forged for a singularly brutal intention I understood all too well.
With robes wrapped tightly to staunch my bleeding and two primal old-world knives - one ornamented, one ruthlessly functional - I steeled effortlessly myself. The castle wall exploded into debris, an earthy battle roar announcing my new nemesis' feverish arrival. Now there could be no more maneuvering. This ancient arena would stage our final reckoning once and for all.
As the glowing white beast bounded toward me, our weapons and tattoos shimmering with otherworldly cyan light, I whispered a simple native prayer to anyone's ancestors who would hear me from the other side. Then I charged to meet my fate noisily.