"Guys?" Eli called out into the darkness, to no reply, "Vic, how long has it been?"
"Hang on, let me check my sundial," Victoria glanced around as if looking for something she had just misplaced.
"I'm going in," Eli said, ignoring her jab.
"Oh leave them be," Victoria said, "I can still see their auras, they're fine."
"Wait, you can see auras through walls?"
"Yeah?" Victoria said, as if that should have been obvious.
Glimmer's screech echoed across the sky.
"Fuck," they said together.
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The shadows cast from Titus's light flickered and danced, matching the ever shifting and shaking beam of light that hovered over his hand. More writing covered the walls, less worn than the bricks above. Rows of symbols formed sentences in the space between large pictographs, all bordered in elaborate designs that, upon further inspection, seemed to include symbols of their own.
The stairs continued down into the ziggurat, abruptly turning at hard angles that spaced further and further out as they descended. They followed an endless trail of iconography and pictograms with each step. The ancient writings weren't just carvings in the stone, protruding ridges were integrated seamlessly with the designs, and both the carvings and ridges alike had varying depths and heights. It appeared as a strangely three-dimensional, continuous artwork that almost seemed to dance and move in the flickering lights.
"We should check back with the others," Titus said, stopping on the landing to yet another flight of stairs that descended into a dark abyss beyond the edge of his light.
"No!" Autumn said quickly, then softened, "we have to be close, just look," she pointed down the stairs, "how much further can this thing go?"
"Close to what?"
"I don't know, whatever's down there!"
Titus turned to Iris, which startled her. Not only was she distracted by the strange illusions of the script on the walls, she was surprised that her input would even be considered.
"Uh," she stalled for time, "it does seem like we've walked down a lot of stairs."
They both looked at her for a moment.
"That answers nothing," Autumn said.
"Yeah, I was hoping you'd be the tiebreaker," Titus said.
"I'm the new girl, don't put that on me," Iris said stubbornly.
The three stood there for a moment. Then, after gazing down the dark steps, Titus extended his hand. The light floated away from his hand and drifted slowly down the steps. They watched, half mystified, as the art on the walls seemed to ripple and dance in the light. Viewed from a distance down the angle of the steps, Iris realized that portions of it seemed to depict some kind of story. She could only put together pieces, great battles against magical foes that appeared from lightning strikes, grand rituals that spanned generations with the casters aging and being replaced by youth, and the inexplicable appearance of a large, dark red dragon at several points.
"That's as far as I can send it," Titus said.
They were now completely shrouded in darkness, and Iris could only make out his silhouette as it blocked her view of a portion of the walls. Below, where the flickering light floated to a stop, there were still only stairs.
Autumn sighed, "okay, you were right. Let's go back."
The light disappeared, plunging them into complete darkness that -- for an instant -- made Iris think she had returned to the void. Then the light reappeared in Titus's hand, returning them to some semblance of whatever normalcy there could be in this place. A bright blue light flashed from the darkness somewhere far down the steps.
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"Did you see that?" Autumn asked.
Titus nodded and Iris croaked a frightened "yes."
"There's something down there," Autumn said matter-of-factly.
Even in her boundless thirst for adventure, Iris realized she had really been hoping there was nothing down there. "We need to go back," she said, "tell Eli what we saw."
"She's right," Titus said.
The blue light flashed again.
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The grass rustled all around them, the heavy tips of the tallest stalks drooped and swung around as the grass stirred. Hideous, whining howls that mimicked the sounds of cackling came from all directions.
"How deep are they?" Eli asked, following rustles in the grass as best he could with two pointed fingers on either outstretched hand. His staff was slung over his back by a strap he had fastened to either end of it the night before, and the runes on his gauntlets grew hot with red magic that yearned to escape.
"Deep," she replied.
"Can you tell me anything about the air?"
Victoria turned her mucus-glazed eyes towards the dark staircase, "not much, stale, stagnant," she sniffed, "shouldn't explode."
"Get ready."
He pointed one hand down the stairs and released a single bolt of magic, it landed like a small blast with a loud crack as it slapped it into the wall at the first turn of the stairs. A vicious barrage of red bolts spewed from his other hand towards the first jackals that pounced.
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"That's Eli," Titus said. They were too deep and around too many bends for even a flash of red light to reach them through the twists and turns of the stairs, but the loud crack echoed past them and deeper into the depths. "You should go ahead," Titus said to Iris.
"What?"
"You can get there faster, there's no time, go."
"But I-- I don't know how to teleport in the dark."
"Hey!" Autumn said, grabbing Iris by the arm, "Eli wouldn't do that unless it was bad, go. You got this."
Iris stammered, shaking her head in overwhelmed disbelief. She didn't even know if it was possible to teleport in the dark. What if she had to see where she teleported? She was only level four! She clenched her eyes to recall the description in her journal, but could only remember pieces. She tried to explore the intrinsic connection she felt with her ability, almost questioning it. After a moment, she gave up.
"Ugh!" she groaned, "fuck it!"
She looked up the stairs and into the dark. She stared into the blackness but did not attempt to focus on a spot with her eyes. Instead she mentally envisioned the space around her, the stairs and their incline, the width of the walls, and an approximate distance. Everything went dark. She turned, her footsteps echoing, and saw the flicker of Titus's light down a flight of stairs.
"I did it!" she said with glee, "see you soon!"
With a deep breath, she stared at the darkness beyond the first few steps faintly illuminated by bouncing light, and tried to do it again.
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Eli and Victoria were back to back. Eli released long bursts of rapid firing blasts from his fingertips, repeatedly driving off the charging and pouncing jackals that took vicious nips at him with jagged fanged jowls each time they got close. He spun and twisted, his arms moving independently to split his endless barrage at whatever threats were closest. As he moved, Victoria moved with him, keeping pace and following his lead like a dance, she ducked and leaned and pivoted on heels and toes to keep her back to his. The grey mucus that glazed her eyes had splintered and bulging veins that throbbed as the eyes shifted around from focus to focus. Her hands were outstretched and cradling three hovering cards, which she deftly swapped out as she moved.
"More coming," she said, ducking under a swinging arm, "different pack, fight is starting."
"Fuck," Eli said, not knowing if that was good or bad, "Glimmer?"
"Staying high."
The talking stopped, the trained adventurers carefully managing their breath as a long chain of jackals made their charges. Eli interrupted the barrage of blasts from one hand to quickly charge a powerful bolt that thumped into the chest of a leaping jackal and sent it rolling back down the stairs and into the grass. Victoria briefly swiped all three cards away, replacing them with a new spread of triple debuffs, which she levied on one jackal after the next. Some tripped and stumbled, others lashed out to bite but missed, while at least one seemed driven mad and stood cackling in place until Eli put it down.
"We’re drawing more attention," Victoria said, "bigger things in the grass, birds in the sky."
"This is getting weird," he shouted wearily.
An agile jackal leapt the length of the stairs, leaping again as he touched down and then kicking off a pillar to launch himself past Eli with a gnarly maw aimed at his throat.
Iris made a sound like a grunting gasp when her shoulder slammed into the jackal, her momentum transferred and it flew backwards to roll down the steps with a string of yelps. Eli Charged two strong blasts and fired them into the tumbling creature, then unleashed a double barrage on it where it lay for as long as he dared before twisting to catch up on encroaching threats.
Three jackals were on the platform now, prowling around them to pounce. The first one leapt, Eli dove to the side as Victoria drew a sword underhanded from her waist, tossed it to Iris, and burst into mist where the jackal landed.
Iris clumsily caught the sword, then her eyes locked with the jackal. It leapt again, she plunged into the void. She appeared beside the jackal and slid the blade along its abdomen as it bolted through the air. Her wrist was limp and the blow glanced, but a splatter of blood still coated her face. She spat and sputtered and the jackal thudded but stirred.
Eli came out of his dive roll face to face with a jackal, immediately jamming his fingertips on both hands into its neck and releasing popping blasts into its neck. The creature slumped and Eli rose from his crouch. "Fuck it," he pulled the fire staff from his back and took aim at the grass.