Down deep beneath the earth, Elia was going insane. What felt like weeks had gone by, a monotonous march through caverns and catacombs without an end in sight. Progress was slow, if her twitchy advance could even be called progress. One time, a rock had gone loose and fallen off a deep ledge to her side. She had marked the place for later, in case she found a torch, or had a deathwish.
As it stood, Elia had lost her souls, her torch, and died three more times already. She had no water, no light, and no hope.
“Turn arouuund.”
Quibbles was talking to her. His voice was exactly as squeaky as she had imagined it to be, had he talked even once before. It wasn’t real. If he didn’t bother talking to her in two hundred (and two) years, why start now?
“Turn arouuund.”
“You doing ok Quibbles?”
“Ribbit.”
“Yeah, thought so. Maybe if we just stay quiet, the weirdo following us will go away.”
“Turn–“
Elia twirled on her sore heel and stabbed at the space behind her. There was no resistance; Moony didn’t taste blood. She flared her flame blast once, lighting up the corridor for a short moment. It was completely empty, nothing but worn cobbles and equally worn inscriptions trailing along the wall.
The voice was gone too.
I’m relapsing. Crap, crap, crap, crap.
Elia hurried her stride, hoping that maybe if she tired herself out, she wouldn’t hallucinate herself into a stupid death. “A game, yes, distractions, let’s play a game. I see something that is the color… black.”
“Ribbit.”
“Quibbles. That is the one thing that I know for a fact isn’t black.”
Actually, with how she was using her sad fire blast whenever she had enough reservoir just for that little bit of light, all that soot must have darkened her skin color by a few degrees. Not that she would waste a cast on checking. Quibbles was likely complaining about the lack of frequent baths, and boy oh boy did she feel decadent for daydreaming herself getting a nice, hot soak–
Movement, above her in the dark. First, it whistled, then it struck with a metallic clack. Elia [Frog leap]ed out of the way just barely. First she hit the low ceiling, then she hit the floor. Not enough space.
The next thing she knew, two jaws like jagged saws were clamped around her waist. They pierced her chainmail, tearing into her muscles. Elia stabbed whatever was trying to eat her, but she was suddenly lifted up and slammed into the walls, ceiling, and floor until she was feeling thoroughly concussed. Her pack ripped open and all the contents spilled out, tableware and bone shards jingling across the floor.
Her grip wavered and she heard her sword clink to the floor somewhere. Her assailant seemed convinced that she was disarmed enough. It started to pull her, Elia only coming to her senses when she felt her limbs not fitting through a hole in a wall.
Don’t go in the hole, don’t go in the hole.
Bile rose in turn with panic. She flailed around until she got a grip on one of the mandibles and let a large fire blast rip. The creature jerked back at the sudden bright light with a hiss.
The creature was long, segmented, and a white so pale it was partially translucent. For an absentminded moment, Elia watched as dark blood pumped up and down its veins, her gaze following down until she met what must have been the digestive tract. The skin there was pitted and as she stared, she recognized with horror that it was covered in human faces.
One of them twitched and she screamed.
The creature tugged harder, trying to break her so she would fit in the hole, but Elia railed against the horror and blasted whatever her hands could get a hold of.
She burnt a mandible, it tugged at her harder. She bit at a pedipalp until squishy fluids foamed at her mouth. It tore her to the left and right like a feral dog. An eye found its way into her palm and after that, the thing thrashed and squealed, noises straight out of hell filling the chamber lighting up with intermittent red light.
It released her, finally, but not to let her go. Elia knew it could come back at any time, and anywhere if she didn’t kill it now. But her body was cold, blood running from her many wounds.
She staggered to one knee and by the sheerest luck felt metal, saw moonlight glowing ever so dimly. Elia took it and forced herself to stand as the blade supped on the last of her magic, glowing ever brighter.
She didn’t have much reservoir. She needed it to see. But she needed a certain kill right this second.
The carapace of the creature’s face threw a faint reflection as she raised the sword above her head. It saw its chance, surging forward and catching her around the torso with a bone crunching fury.
Not good.
Elia stabbed it, and for a moment, a pale moonlight flooded the corridor. The thing was still alive.
“Die!” she yelled. “Die, die, die!”
The thing’s bite grew weak and finally, it buckled. Elia didn’t have the presence of mind to leave it just barely alive, so she could siphon the lost reservoir out of it. She sagged to the ground, feeling her legs finally give out. Even with all her boons and greater souls, she was still that same weak girl that had stumbled into the maze.
She curled up into a ball. Elia found it quite easy to cry when nobody was watching.
“I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna. I don’t. I don’t…”
I don’t want to become nothing.
You have died
Souls distributed to creatures close by
Shards and equipment can easily be looted while you are dead
Time until reconstitution: 94:11:01
***
Elia lost her gear. Her pack had been torn open and her spoons and other knick-knacks she had gathered over the years scattered every which way.
“What does it matter if I don’t have lock picks, this place doesn’t even have doors! This place is fine, everything is fine, so, so fine.”
She giggled, then nervously tore her head back and forth.
“Stop laughing! Hahaaha-hah!”
“What if I want to laugh? What if my life is a joke?”
“Shut up!”
“What does it matter? We’re going to die down here anyways…”
Quibbles croaked nervously.
“Sorry Quibs. Can’t take you out of your pocket and lose you too. Can’t risk it. Nope.”
“What was that? Take a bath?” Elia sniffed under her armpit and gagged.
After a while, the smell of blood and death mixed into a kind of airborne pain. It was acrid and every so often the smell got so bad, it felt like something was biting her from the inside of her nose. Elia had begun rubbing it, but stopped by the time her hand came back bloodier than before
How long did she have to stay down here? How long until there was at least a small change in scenery to rest her eyes drowning in the dark? She had gotten better at controlling her fireblast, but extended uses still singed her conjuring hand.
Could really use something cold and not-stuffy.
Suddenly, Elia froze.
“Did you hear that? What? That’s the sound of an idea. Ideas don’t make sound, idiot. No, but this one does!” She leaned against the wall, the idea teetering on the edge between words and being forgotten forever.
“I… I can’t beat this place alone. I need a friend. But all my friends are… not here. I need to make a friend, a friend who can offer more than moral support – no offense Quibbles.”
“No offense taken, Elia,” she said in her squeaky voice.
Elia squeezed her eyes closed. “Last time, I got a friend, right before the end. I got Rye, but how did I get Rye again, how…”
[Spirit] Psychometry [Uncommon] [Essence of Ego]
Through a touch, a thought, a flight of anger or tear of grief, an imprint of the soul is made upon even unliving objects. Read the traces of an object’s soul or your own and reveal a history long passed.
She breathed in, unevenly. No matter how far Rye had gone, the link between them had never gone away. It was thinner now, they weren’t stuck inside the same head. But their reservoir was still linked, and Elia had no clue why.
Was it a spirit thing? Did Rye, did the world still see this as her body, or did ghosts just play by a different set of rules?
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Soul is the energy. Spirit has an imprint of the ego, because the mind influences the spirit influences the body influences the senses influences the mind…” She began chewing on her fingernails, even though they tasted terrible and there was not much left to chew on. “An imprint of the self? A copy? No, Rye is a person. Is a person just a set of behaviors then? But behavior is determined by external factors as much as internal ones. Which means, the moment I brought Rye into this world, she stopped being the Rye of her old life and turned into a similar, yet entirely different person, which means–
“If I use Psychometry on myself, I can make another Rye.” Elia stared at her hand for a long while. “Either that, or spirits can’t be copied, the string goes taught, and Rye is pulled all the way back to me.”
And then one more person would suffer like she had, like she was.
“Fuck.”
She started pacing, having finally found a voice worth listening to. Could she justify risking to pull Rye down here with her? The whole point of everything she did was to prevent anybody else from having to stand in her shoes. Scratch that, if she did get, how could Rye help her? She was a genius at conjuring for sure, but only if she actually got the original Rye, and not a fresh copy. If she failed, she would have to go through the entire ‘I’m not a demon’ spiel again. If she succeeded, Rye would probably hate her for tearing her apart from her girlfriend.
“I can live with that.” Sam was no slouch, she could get herself off the mountain. “Alright. Time to test some metaphysics.”
She slapped herself with [Psychometry] and immediately felt the world tilt sideways. Her eyes fluttered and by the dry dust pressing into her cheek, she must have fallen over. But when she looked inside herself, she saw it there: a small drop of dew in the space Rye had left in her mind.
“Hey,” she said. “Hey, Elia to Rye. Do you remember me?”
Her mouth moved on its own. “My name is not Rye, you dolt.”
“What? Who are– Grfml. Blurgnblah blegh! Stop! We can’t use our mouth together like that.”
The voice in her head giggled.
That is what she said.
“What?” Elia blinked. “Wait, you shouldn’t know that. That’s a joke from The Office, and Rye never got that joke even after watching all those memories of sitcoms. Which means…”
I’m Elia.
“Bullshit!”
Believe what you want. I am me, and you are you.
“There can’t be two Elia’s.”
Can’t there? Who ever made that a rule? Think reaaal hard about what you’re basing that idea on. Then you can come back to whine about all the woe-is-me you can.
For the first time in a while, Elia didn’t have a retort.
That’s what I thought. Now pick yourself up, we have problems to solve.
“And what, you’re going to help me with that?”
I am going to protect you, because evidently you alone are inadequate. I certainly didn’t enjoy slipping into even an iota of your body, even just the lips. We are filthy, full of infections, and undead.
“Alright.” Elia rubbed her face until she finally felt like she could see and think straight. “Nnnngah! Alright! You are the brains then, I’m the brawn.”
Division of labor? Count me surprised. I didn’t expect you to be able to make a smart choice in your state of mind and body.
“Shut! Shush you. I will tolerate a modicum of sass, as long as it’s really coming from myself.”
You said it yourself, didn’t you? Once you make a copy, it ceases to be the same as the original.
“That was philosophy, this is a dialogue. With myself. But on that topic, are you saying that you are a copy?”
Just pointing out connections. You might stumble into another terror-grub if I don’t.
“Har har,” Elia said, but in truth couldn’t bring her face from forming a smile. “So, you don’t know?”
I am knowledgeable. I am not all-knowing. You are getting distracted.
“But what if you were. Elia, the All-Knowing. Has a better ring to it than Elia the Unbidden, no?”
If it pleases your vanity. Now, get our pretty ass steering forwards. We have a maze to escape.
***
After a while of walking and talking, they were still no further than they had been before.
Huh. This place is not very player-friendly.
Elia barked a laugh. “You don’t say.”
Well, obviously, it is dark. But compounding that is the fact that the corridors seem to be copy-pasted over and over, like a giant cross-hatch drawn across a slice of mountain. The only real markers are places where the architecture has met weathering and decay and been found wanting.
“Duh. If you want, you can try making a mental map by measuring my footsteps.”
I already was doing that, but there’s only so much you can rely on memory for. If you take a left now, you should go down a corridor we haven’t explored yet.
Elia blinked. “Huh. You’re right.”
You haven’t even moved yet, how can you claim to know?
“Air feels different. Bit cooler.”
Huh. Maybe I do need to borrow your body for a bit. For gathering data.
“Of course, miss Einstein.” Elia squinted. “Wait. I hear a sound.”
She ran ahead, further and further until she found its source inside a wall. A crack had connected the insides of this place with the outside, and a crisp wind was howling through.
“Sounds like a windpipe.”
This… this is fantastic. The wind, it’s being sucked in due to a pressure differential between a bottom hole and a top hole. There has to be another way out, and since this hole is blowing towards us and atmospheric pressure lessens the further you go up, this is the low entrance. We can definitely find an exit further up.
“Don’t know if you noticed, but so far, we have been walking on a flat plane.” Elia sighed. “Guess I’ll follow the flow of the air for a bit. In the meantime, tell me about what you’ve been stewing on.”
I don’t stew, I ponder. But yes, I have come to the conclusion that we are likely in Tartazon.
“Tarta-what?”
It was mentioned on a couple occasions. The shard you gave Sam came from there. From what I’ve gathered, it is a sort of asylum for the politically inconvenient. A prison, if you will, except there are no wardens, and you are stuck here for life. It is likely that a large number of people you will encounter down here are undead.
“Not seen a single person in all this time.” Elia scratched her nose. “Makes you wonder where they are – ah.”
What? What ‘ah’?”
“I just stepped on a tripwire.”
Oh. Um. And it hasn’t triggered anything yet?
Elia winced as she imagined a comedically timed giant log squishing her into the wall. “No?”
Hum. I see. Well, either it has triggered a distant alarm, or it only triggers when you release your pressure again.
“Shhh!” Elia hissed, then switched to thinking at her other self. Someone’s here.
How do you know? Brains-Elia asked.
I heard a pebble drop over there. They’ve stopped moving. They might actually be sneaking towards us.
You can’t move, you could trigger the trap. Not a risk we want to take.
Yeah. Whatever they are, I’ll beat the shit out of them, but I might die again.
Maybe you won’t need to. Alright, plan: On the count of three, you turn your back as if stabbing behind you, pause, then fire blast the air. Ready? Three.
Elia twirled around, imagining the shadow of something standing right behind her. There was nothing there of course. But at the edge of her perception, a stone shifted, and the wind turned slightly less cold.
Blast!
She poured her reservoir into a fire blast, and the cave flashed with light. The critter shrieked. Elia didn’t even bother to get a good look. It was pale and hairy and that was all she needed to know. She twisted to the side as a spear tore past her chainmail, grabbed the shaft, then pulled it in the same motion as she stabbed the creature through the gut. It gurgled, spasming in her embrace. She made sure it died slowly, siphoning all the excess reservoir off with her [Right Gauntlet of the Cobra].
Then it was over.
I… have to say, there is nothing like listening to the sounds of strangulation and disembowelment in the dark. I think I am going to be sick.
Elia looked down, felt herself for any wounds. “Motherfucker got me along the ribs.”
Bad wound?
“I’ll live. But we should move slowly. We’re leaving a trail too, which is not that great when entering the territory of whatever these gremlins are.
Where there are people, there is… well, the saying escapes me, but this is definitely not a sustainable rate of progress. Any good loot?
Elia checked the creature’s bag.
You have gained: Bone shard (Uncommon) x1
“Well, it is something. Here’s to hoping we can scratch enough together for a boon. But who am I kidding, it’s not like we would get anything that could actually help us.”
Maybe we don’t need to. Put your hand to the wall, there with all the divots.
“Ok. Now what?”
Use [Psychometry]. If I’m right then–
Inscription
A wall inscribed with the story of Water.
In the beginning, all was preserved beneath the great fossil trees. All things lived and breathed in the dark forest, forever fearing the three rulers of the world: Flying rocs, fire breathing dragons, and the living seeds, scale-feathered sky serpents. Then they came from out under the canopy, four wretched, pithy lords who would be great gods. Atop a great stump they met, by a pool of cerulean water, and within that water they found their own great souls.
–Haha! Yes, yes, yesss!
“I don’t get it.”
This my friend is our ticket out. It’s quite simple actually but – wait, no that sounds condescending. Do you remember that time we went on a school trip to a museum in New York?
“Cloister-something museum? Yeah, I remember. I was finally able to go back to school, but by then everybody knew why I had been admitted to the hospital. It felt like everyone was walking on glass around me. They thought I was fresh out of the ER, not that I had just pulled my weight through a few months of physical rehab.”
Yes, that one. There was a tapestry then, called the Hunt of the unicorn. Seven pictures on textile.
“I don’t see how that is relevant.”
Nono, listen. Seven pictures in order. Front to back. These engravings are the same, one band telling a story from history’s hour zero.
“And if we follow it–“
We’ll know for sure if we are walking in circles. Exactly.
Elia tried to curtail her expectations. It sounded far-fetched, but at least it was something. Better than stumbling around blindly. It was certainly comforting that the idea was using her oldest boon. Elia had never thought that she would prefer something like [Psychometry] over a boon that could throw balls of fire, but here they were, stuck in the dark where information was king.
“Alright, let’s do it.”
Wonderful. Now, first let’s see which way this continues. Oooh, I am so excited. What things did the banished scholars etch into the walls of their prisons, what tasty dirt and fabricated histories to blackmail the gods with?
“You know, we don’t actually know the official take on this world’s history. How are we supposed to spot what’s wrong and what’s right?”
Ah. Right.
There were a few moments of silence.
I wish Rye was here.
“Oh, not you too.” She soldiered on, one hand on her sword, the other tracing along the endless inscription of the story of time, the story of water.
Inscription
A wall inscribed with the story of Water.
Ruthe, who with his soul of stone created wonders, great bastions against which the rocs broke themselves. Worga, who tamed the fire of dragons and was granted the title ‘conqueror’. Erethel, who with his magic forced the sky-serpents to slumber deep beneath the earth. And lastly, the nameless, twin-faced god, who picked up the pieces after the dust had settled and from it wove new life.