One good thing about descending into the black nothingness of an underground temple in a world they knew nothing about, was that the stone steps at least didn’t creak like the wooden floor on the surface. Furthermore, with each step downward the temperature fell, making the humidity more tolerable.

By the time the light from above faded completely, a faint sliver of firelight became visible further down as the staircase began to bend softly. Gradually, one flickering light became two, then three, four, the number increasing as they neared. The stairway was so narrow that even at the snail’s pace they were moving, Heath managed to scrape the metallic edge of his shield loudly against the stone wall several times.

When they made it to the first torch, at least a dozen more were visible in the darkness below, as well as another, less welcome sight.

“The path is splitting,” Heath whispered with a wave of his hand, indicating a branch to the right. The main path continued further down unaltered, but an arched hole in the wall led away to somewhere unknown.

“Let’s check the main path first,” Sonja said to shrugs and nods from the others.

The team only made it past a few more torches, however, before voices flowed up from the winding stairway. Eik grabbed Heath by the shoulder to stop him and whispered for him to turn around, his lips centimeters from the man’s ear so whoever was ascending wouldn’t be able to hear. With awkward, waddling movements, the round-cheeked tank began to turn his massive body around in the narrow tunnel as he clutched the shield as close to his torso as he could, lest the metal edges scrape against the wall again. Sonja led them back up and into the side passage they had decided to skip.

The passageway was no wider than the main path, this one also dotted with torches along the walls in regular intervals, their passing casting eerie, stretching shadows on the floor and walls, playing tricks on their minds.

As they walked, the path widened to the point where three men might have been able to walk side by side with a bit of shoulder-rubbing, the torches replaced by larger braziers. Whoever these people were went to great lengths to keep these fires lit.

“How the hell did they build this place?” Heath wondered in a hushed voice. “It’s absolutely massive.”

They turned a corner and finally saw an end to the corridor in the form of a large open space, lit up extensively from below. A guardrail ran along the edge of a balcony-like protrusion, creating a gallery from which one could view anything going on below.

Peeking over the edge, they could see the bottom of what they realized was an expansive, circular chamber with numerous balconies similar to the one they were standing on extending from the rounded walls, all the way down to the floor. There appeared to be another four levels below them with four platforms per level, their’s being one of four on the highest floor.

Voices flowed up from the bottom, Eik’s team now laying eyes on the first people since coming to this world, with the exception of Pollarak, the boy they managed to rescue and bring into the Alliance’s custody. A dozen flaming braziers lining the stone walls cast flickering light on the people down below. Hanging at a height of the third highest floor, a single, much larger brazier had been left unlit.

A cauldron even larger than the one with the heinous stench from the kitchen above stood as the centerpiece of the chamber, the massive fire roiling underneath emitting enough heat to be felt even on the highest of the balconies.

Around the cauldron stood dozens of people, dressed in long, flowing robes with deep hoods to shroud their faces in shadow. One was stirring the stew with a large ladle, while the others spoke among themselves or wrote furiously on long sheets of parchment, several stacks of the rolled up scrolls arranged neatly next to a large table off to the side.

On the stone wall of the cylindrical chamber, lit up generously by the large braziers, was yet another engraving of a crescent moon containing a sun within its arch. An altar, slightly smaller than the one in the worship room upstairs, stood directly below the wall carving, dozens of candles adorning this one as well.

Eik kept glancing back toward the tunnel they’d come from, expecting the owners of the voices that had been climbing the stairs to suddenly manifest in the light of the fires, but they never came. They were at a loss for a way to proceed, the chamber swarming with the followers of this strange moon and sun cult, and the whereabouts of the F-rank Alliance team a complete mystery as well.

Stolen story; please report.

Who knew how extensive the underground complex truly was with its winding paths, multiple floors, and poorly lit interior, not to mention the potential number of cultist. The number of people they had seen thus far did not remotely correspond to what the population of the town outside must have been.

For minutes they discussed the best course of action from here, taking turns to propose ideas of varying quality, arguing for or against, and eventually rejecting every single one of them. There were simply too many unknown factors to just sneak in and hope for the best—a necessary aspect of most of the propositions.

Heath was in the middle of persuading the less than impressed Eik and Sonja to get on board with his idea to sneak back up to town, find something they could use to paint their clothes the color of the wall, and then attempt to sneak past the dozens of cultist by blending into the background, when Michael, who was lying flat on his stomach to peek out over the edge, waved them over frantically.

“They’re bringing something out!” he hissed, almost forgetting to keep his voice down. “Something’s happening!”

Eik, Heath, and Sonja crawled to the edge on their elbows and knees, Heath leaving his heavy shield on the floor. A procession of hooded cultists were emerging one after the other from one of several gateways on the bottom floor, each carrying a platter of various ingredients. The first few carried what looked like sliced vegetables and other miscellany. Then a couple of platters with piles of spices and herbs, followed finally by platters of raw meat, the blood still dripping onto the ground as they walked.

One by one, they deposited their burdens into the roiling cauldron as the stirring continued unceasingly.

“Uhm, guys?” Michael whispered. They offered him questioning looks, but his eyes were frozen on the procession of cultists, his nails grinding into the stone of the balcony floor as he grasped it in a death grip. “Isn’t that a hand?”

At first glance, the meat had been nothing but nondescript chunks of flesh, but upon further inspection, all of the platters bore pieces that looked undeniably human. A hand on the first, an ear and a foot on the second, and another ear on the third. It all went into the bubbling stew. Michael retreated back as quickly as he could and vomited quietly by one of the braziers in the passage. Heath wasn’t looking too hot either, but managed to keep the contents of his stomach inside.

Surprise jolted through them when a scream of pure rage tore through the enclosed space, bouncing off the circular walls and echoing earsplittingly. “I’ll kill you, you disgusting bastards! I’ll kill all of you! Let me out! I’ll kill you!” the voice screamed, sobs mixed into the fury.

Eik leaned further out over the edge, a firm hold on the rungs of the guardrail allowing him to see some of the floor directly under their column of balconies. Only a corner was visible, but it looked like a metal cage. Hands gripped the bars and rustled them hard enough to rattle the whole cage as expletives continued to fly. The cultist paid it no mind as the ingredients plopped into the cauldron.

“That must be the Alliance guys,” Eik said. “We missed them because they’re right under us!”

“What do we do?” Heath asked. “If those insane hoods down there are actually eating people, then we can’t just take our time to go back and regroup, and judging by the screams and threats, they’ve already started cooking the kids.”

Eik looked around the chamber, racking his brain for a solution. There had to be something they could do. Anything.

An idea began to form in his mind, the insanity of it making him hesitate to bring it up to the others. It probably wouldn’t even work, but it was the best he could come up with for now. “Guys, do you see that big hanging brazier below us?” he asked.

“Of course, it’s huge;” Heath said.

“What if I just—”

“That’s a ridiculous idea,” Sonja said, interrupting him before he could even get the words out.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Eik hissed back.

She gave him a raised eye brow. “You weren’t going to jump onto it?”

Eik’s mouth formed a tight line.

“That’s what you want to do? That’s what crazy people in action movies do!” Heath whispered through clenched teeth.

“Well, what the hell are we gonna do instead?” Eik countered. None of them could answer that. “I know it’s crazy, but it might actually work, and if we can’t come up with anything else, then I’ll just have to try it.”

They didn’t seem convinced, so he tried a different tactic. “This is not just about us and the kids down there. Do you think the Nidafjeld Alliance is going to be happy if we bungle the rescue mission? It’ll be us failing to deliver on the very first thing they request of us—and by us, I of course mean Forest as a whole,” he said, watching as realization dawned. “What if they cut us off? Even if it simply sours our relationship with them, it could have serious consequences for everybody on Earth.”

Two minutes later, Eik was climbing up onto the guardrail, a hand on Heath’s massive shoulder for support. The metal bar he was standing on was smooth and somewhat slippery, and now that he was up here he found himself thinking that a few more minutes of brainstorming might not have been such a horrible idea after all.

His aim was the thick, linked iron chain secured to the ceiling by a means he couldn’t see from down here. He just hoped that it was something strong enough to hold the sudden addition of his weight. Further down the length of chain, it split into four thinner chains, each of which attached to a solid hook on the rim of the brazier.

He checked that all his gear was properly secured to his body and prepared to jump for the chain. He’d have to cover a considerable distance in order to make it. At the bottom, the cultists had finished pouring ingredients into the cauldron, and the ladle lay on the rim as the stew simmered.

With a heart that was racing at a million beats per minute, Eik drew in a trembling breath and bent his knees, trying to stabilize his body.

He triggered Movement Boost, and then he leapt.