Chapter 79 - The Cyan Bud & Imprisoned Smoke

He opened the pack and placed the shard inside, but Suta quickly realised something was off. He dipped his hand back inside the pack only to realise the moon shard wasn’t the only thing inside.

“What in the world is all of this.”

Suta took out a small book covered in worn-out dark leather. It carried a strange musk to it, similar to burning wood. He quickly opened the hardened pages, and incoherent scribbles danced wildly across the wine-skin pages. Suta could’ve been looking at nonsense, as far as he was concerned, but suddenly, a moment of clarity washed over his mind.

He remembered the first time something similar had happened before.

‘When I was sitting in that carriage.’ He remembered seeing words visibly unjumbling themselves, and simultaneously, the same experience was occurring.

He narrowed his gaze over the first page. The words had pieced together to form sentences he could finally understand.

Day 56

“ We abandoned our homes for it, for the glory of promise,

I remember the first day we arrived, five of us with uniquely gifted minds. They all doubted his attention, scared about the idea of a God, someone like him, descending to fix us,

I fell in love when I heard his voice, soft and confirmed, a divine song. I held no doubt that I would follow him until the very end. He was arrayed in golden light and unblemished skin and walked with peace and serenity. And his dream resonated with me. A dream of a utopia, a place for the forgotten ones. A place as sweet as candy…

Suta felt a mechanical rumble beneath his feet. His thoughts were disturbed as he shifted his gaze towards the glaring opening on the other side. A shadow of blue cast against the ground, he narrowed his gaze and walked towards it.

Suta moved steadily into the arch-shaped entryway and stared at a giant-sized cocoon hanging upside down. The shell was a luminous blue with a smooth velveteen lustre. The slightly less beautiful thing about it was the pile of bones piled into little hills beneath it. Four large crimson crystallised sacks surrounded the cocoon. The more Suta observed them, the more assured he was that the entire sacks were pulsing like giant hearts.

Tiny tube-like vines were feeding into the gargantuan blue cocoon. Shaped into the likeness of a closed flower bud, ready to bloom.

Suta shut his eyelids together and exhaled a calm breath.

[Bright Eyes]

The world turned grey, and many colours danced across his view.

Suta didn’t waste any time and scanned the giant cocoon. A soft gasp quickly broke free from his partially opened mouth. His eyes couldn’t quite believe it.

A dark shadow curled inside the cocoon like a baby in a womb.

He felt a terrible premonition in his gut when he tried to piece together all these weird things. And now he would start planning his escape if something terrible crawled out of that cocoon.

‘I don’t need anything else to tell me this place is bad vibes.’

Suta removed his gaze from the main attraction and scanned the rest of this strange, large clearing in the cave. The walls were less earthy here and a little more temple-like, man-made. He’d go as far as to call it like an old civilisation that had just discovered metals.

He moved towards the west way, where a footpath fashioned out of iron appeared beneath his feet. Suta walked steadily across, noticing a sea of red layered through the gaps beneath his footing. He crossed over to the other side and noticed rows of iron bars aligned against the walls. The cages were cast in a shroud of darkness-like mini pockets without a fixed light. His first thought was that these were cages. There were no two ways about that. Suta swallowed harshly whilst he approached the first caged hole, dreading what manner of atrocities were kept in there.

He judged this place must’ve been quite some years old, so he hoped most things here were dead or past their shelf date. This means that they are close enough to death not to be considered a threat. He drew himself close enough to venture his hands through the bars. His attention instead found the outer layer around the cage intriguing. A set of strange white symbols covered the rim of the cage. Suta brushed his fingertips slightly and beheld a chalk substance against his skin. His brow arched, remembering exactly where he saw something similar not so long ago.

“The moon shard? But…why?” The cogs in his mind began whirring again. The shape of the symbols and the style also felt familiar. No doubt, Granny's notes had possibly explained what they were, but he held no recounted memory of such.

‘If I had to take a wild guess, some kind of seal?’ The placement of the symbols was the sole reason he thought that. Suta continued forward with a little more purpose and peered into the dark hole. He couldn’t see anything past the iron bars, which he quickly discovered were thick enough to keep him out.

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[Bright Eyes]

He invoked the method for reading Arcane texts again. There were hardly any particles within the darkness. Nothing was inside. Suta attempted to hold that state and proceed further along. He took a few steps and felt the same pain throbbing between his brows as usual. But he persisted. The second cage sat on his left side. He peered through the iron bars just like before, but again.

‘Empty.’

A sharp pain rested against his temples and forced Suta to dispel bright eyes. He moved towards the third cage, not really expecting anything different. The only difference was a small rag he noticed wrapped around the middle of the iron bar. He moved closer and lightly caressed the knot. Suddenly, a guttural snarl breathed through the other side. Suta's eyes flashed open, and he dove away from the cage without thinking.

A loud clink sneered across the air, followed by a loud clash against the bars. Suta rolled onto his backside and tossed his gaze towards the disturbance. A skeletal figure covered in black sores and blueish fur clawed at the iron bars.

“S-s-sav-save meee-“ its cries were painfully raspy; the head was practically a thin skull with dark circles around its hollow eye sockets.

Suta could only stare wordlessly at the thing. Its jaw set, and its skin practically melted beneath the weight of its falling jaw.

“Save me- k-kill mee.”

Suta snatched his gaze away and scurried to his feet. He no longer dared to wait around. He passed through more than four cages, eager to get past them all. Not daring to observe whatever lay in these strange cages.

Along the way, Suta heard the snarling sounds of several more creatures crying between the iron bars. Most of which looked exactly like that ghoulish monstrosity he first saw. Suddenly, a voice broke through the ugly chaos and compelled Suta’s heels to a standstill.

He stood almost still as a log, staring into one of the cloudy entrances gated with rusted bars.

“Did I hear that correctly?” He asked himself, motioning slowly towards the silent cage. He held his footsteps a few feet away and brought his face closer. A deep voice crawled through the iron bars. Startling him into tracing his steps back a few places.

“Kukuku- I was right. A mortal? How unsightly. Kukuku.” a voice said. A creepy, dark cackle broke into the air.

“Come here, mortal, come closer.”

The deep voice sounded harrowing, but Suta couldn’t deny this otherworldly compulsion to obey. His feet almost moved mechanically like a moth drawn to a firelight. He lightly pressed his palms against the iron bars and carefully peered into the smokey darkness.

“Who- who is there?” His voice betrayed just how scared he was.

“Kukuku, who am I? The single most important question is who you are. Your kind should not be here, child of that accursed lineage.”

Suta narrowed his gaze waveringly, but his brows quickly flattened, and his eyes slightly trembled upon the thing he saw emerging from the cluster of shadows.

He could only describe it as a wisp of dark smoke, covered with several round balls of smoke with swirling tomoe in their centre. They almost looked like pupils, which was a harrowing sight to behold.

The willow wisp floated gently towards the iron bars before it stopped a few feet away. Suta had the urge to lower his head to one side, to make sure he was seeing things correctly and there wasn’t someone else behind this thing.

“You can call me Zoroth.” The wisp spoke darkly. The voice sent chills running down his spine.

‘Zoroth?’ The mysterious name matched the being in truth. Which subtly sprang a wave of caution through his thoughts.

“You’re probably wondering what a strange ghostly essence is doing all the way down here. And I suppose without clear context, one might be assuming the worst. Kukuku. It’s as simple as what you see yet much more profound than you would ever know. “

The talking wisp hovered towards one side of the cave in particular.

“You see that, that pesky grey seal to the side. It’s a six-pointed Boar Seal. A dreadful enchantment that binds me to this prison. Would you be so kind as to release me? Oh, of course, I’ll reward you for your troubles. I am a being of honour, after all.”

Suta stared at the palm-sized grey carving, no larger than a disc with an intricately woven pattern of spirals and triangles marked into a grey ring. He hesitatingly took a step towards it but held his hand in place.

‘Looking at things objectively, a mysterious talking ball of smoke, imprisoned in a cage marked with an enchantment, is rarely a good look. ‘ Suta wasn’t trying to release some natural disaster; secondly, he was far from confident in dealing with whatever this was.

‘Sigh, but what choice do I have here.’ Suta needed a companion, not any more enemies. And he needed a way out of here.

“Hey, listen, if I release you, I need two things confirmed.”

“Kukuku- a bargaining mortal? How very on-brand. But sure,” said Zoroth

Suta cleared his throat, trying to mask the apparent nerves gathered in his gut.

“Okay, so first of all, I need to find the way out of this place. Something tells me that is within your capabilities, I imagine. And secondly… tell me everything you know about this place.”

Suta was happy with that, although something told him he was missing an important aspect about all of this—one that perhaps was as vital as his escaping from this underground place.

“Kukuku! Excellent! Such a request! Of course- of course. As a measure of goodwill, I’ll give you a backstory about myself. I have been stuck here for almost 100 years. Once upon a time, I was formed in an actual body, my flesh filled with vigorous power. My limbs boisterous and firm like steel. My armour was pieced together using the minerals gathered from the pits of the Taarnash volcanoes. All in all, mortal. I was a being who was revered by many.”

Hearing that drew a dark frown against Suta. Now, he was almost certain this being was supposed to be where he found him. But between it and the ghoulish white-skinned creatures. He felt his best bet was the former.

He exhaled a short breath and steadied his walk towards the seal. Suta laid his palms against it, almost already knowing what was required of him. There wasn’t an immediate reaction to his touch, and he quickly remembered that time he spent inside that cathedral with the golden talking heads.

‘Ok, let’s try to channel mana. Focus, think about the little silver; it's good. Now, let me try to remove the thin webs of mana from it. Slowly…slowly…tsk! It’s hurting my body already.’

Suta felt a strain against his arms. His veins were beginning to bulge, and a cool sensation trickled beneath his skin. He squeezed his brows together and continued to focus. Slowly, very slowly, he was beginning to feel a thick layer of warmth gather beneath his hand.

He flattened his palms over the seal and spread his fingers apart. Thankfully, the tiny wisps of mana he could form were trickling into the seal. Forty breaths later, he heard a mechanical whirring sound buzzing into his ears. The iron bars began to pull away from one another, leaving a gaping hole.

Suta took a few steps back and observed the floating wisp of smoke floating out from its cage. He couldn’t refuse the growing distrust in his heart. All his natural instincts were screaming at him. But, there seemed to be no other options right now.

“Auahh! Freedom at last! kukuku- well done! Mortal- well done! Now then, to honour our new accord. Let us set out on our escape. I do hope you’re prepared for what that entails kukukuku”

The hairs along Suta’s neck stiffened. Perhaps this choice might turn out to be the worst of them all. Only time will tell.