Vayra walked down the tunnel as fast as she dared. If there were still traps, she didn’t want to run too fast and trip them by accident without even seeing them. Or worse, in the darkness, she might just trip.

‘Only you could manage to trip on nothing…’ Phasoné said.

“I never said—well, thought—‘on nothing’,” Vayra replied. She spoke aloud, her voice travelling down the hallway and echoing off the walls. But there was no one else around, and she didn’t need to worry about keeping her voice low when she was talking with Phasoné.

‘And what might you trip on?’

“I dunno. A raised rock, or maybe a hole in the floor. These tunnels are ancient, and they could fall apart on us at any moment.”

Phasoné harrumphed, but she stayed silent for a little while longer.

The tunnel began to slope downward, and every step they took, the air tasted more and more stale. They descended deeper into the heart of the mountain. Vayra suspected it was just so that it would eventually meet up with the main complex of the Chambers, but it didn’t stop her chest from growing tighter and tighter. Every time they passed beneath a small vent hole, the surface seemed further and further away.

Between the vents, her seer-core remained lit; once she had formed it, the starlight remained contained above her hand.

One time, she tried dispelling the seer-core—as far away from the vents as she could. The starlight swirled up to the ceiling like smoke and slowly spread out, crawling towards the distant vents. As it tried to escape, she used a Starlight Palm in the empty air. It was fueled by the remaining light from the seer-core. She only managed to let off one pulse before the light escaped.

“Neat trick,” she muttered.

‘It will work better in a completely sealed room,” Phasoné pointed out.

“Normal light shouldn’t do that.”

‘It’s not normal light, though, is it? It’s technically starlight-infused Arcara. Or, since it only takes such a small amount of spiritual energy, we should probably call it Arcara-infused starlight.’

They continued downwards for the rest of the evening, until Vayra couldn’t even see glimmers of twilight in the sky above. She paused at an intersection between two tunnels. One led deeper into the planet’s crust, and another seemed to level out. They had to truly be beneath the surface now.

No matter how much she might have wanted to continue onwards and get out of this place, she also knew she had a long road ahead. She would need to sleep at some point.

She settled against one of the walls. It was smooth and gently-sloped, and when she put her packs beneath her, it made a decent pillow. It might not have been a cabin in the Harmony, but she was used to sleeping in worse places.

However, she wasn’t used to distant, hollow howls and glassy chittering. Halfway through the night, the sounds started to build, echoing around up from below and reaching her ears. Compared to the previous silence, they were enough to wake her.

A guttural slithering and slurping sound followed, and that was her cue to rub the sleep out of her eyes and jump to her feet. She pulled her haversack and ammo pouch back over her shoulder, then drew her pistol. She’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, but if she got any greedier, she’d be dead with her eyes shut.

As soon as Vayra stood up, the noises seemed to grow louder. She wished she’d chosen a place to sleep closer to a vent to the open sky, but now wasn’t the time for regret. Without her seer-core, it was almost completely dark. She ran her hands along the wall, feeling for the entrance to the hallway that ran parallel to the surface. As she crept slowly through the darkness, the distant sounds grew louder and…less distant.

‘I think they’ve realized you’re here…’ Phasoné said.

“They?”

Before the Goddess could answer, a soft orange glow appeared down the deeper hallway. A shadow stepped out. It was a humanoid creature with pitch-black tar covering its skin, save for a few patches of scales along its limbs. Horns sprouted out of its head, which glowed with orange cracks—like magma was about to spill out of them at any moment.

The light it produced was enough for her to see by. She turned and looked towards the other hallway, the level corridor, and turned down it. She broke into a sprint, and ran until the light of the creature faded away behind her.

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Ahead, she spotted the light of a vent hole. She ran towards it. Not much light filtered in from above, and she could only see a single starry pinprick.

She summoned her seer-core as quickly as she could, which wasn’t very quickly. But the creature seemed to have lost interest in her, and for now, she hadn’t seen any others. That was just for now.

Once Vayra had the seer-core formed up in her hand, she continued onwards. The hallway reached another intersection, and this time, her only options—except going back the way she came—were to go downwards.

When a fiery light appeared down one of the options, she made her choice and went with the other tunnel.

“Any idea what these creatures are, Phas?” Vayra asked.

‘Some sort of defensive creation of this place’s original builders. Magmaspawn, by the looks of it. By the time they make it up here, they’re pretty weak.’

“Can they track me?”

‘Perhaps with scent, or by following the vague pulse of your spirit,’ Phasoné said. ‘They’re not entirely sapient. Since the old dragon gods poured so much Arcara into these chambers, it would have started accumulating in the magma pools deep below. Given a few centuries, it’s reasonable to assume that magmaspawn began emerging. They wouldn’t have been a threat to the dragons.’

“Great…” Vayra muttered. “A threat to us, though.”

‘For now.’

The hallway continued downwards, then levelled out. By the time it levelled out, Vayra could feel a little more heat clinging to her skin, and especially to her throat—enough to notice it, and enough to make her want to get out of here faster.

When she reached the next intersection, however, she found a magmaspawn waiting in the middle of the small, circular room. There were no air vents, and certainly no alternative passages.

“Well…let’s see what one of these things can do,” she said. It carried a crude weapon—a stone club of some sort, with sharp obsidian crystals clinging to its very tip. She cocked her pistol, holding it in her left hand, and as soon as she drew close enough that she knew the shot would hit, she fired.

The ball of metal raced out of the barrel with a puff of flame and smoke, and it struck the creature in the shoulder. The shot tore through the beast’s flesh, scattering an explosion of tar and scales, and sending the beast reeling.

Vayra dispelled her seer-core with a shake of her hand, then drew in the wispy white energy and blasted the creature in the gut with a Starlight Palm.

The pulse was enough to send the creature stumbling back a few feet. It swung its club about wildly, and Vayra ducked away. To the side, then down, then—

She stood up too soon. The club’s blunt edge struck her in the chest, flinging her across the small room. All the air fled from her lungs, and she heard a hollow crack. Were those her ribs? Whenever she breathed in, she heard a clicking sound.

The magmaspawn bellowed, then pounded the floor with its club, digging up a score of scratches on the stone.

There were no vents nearby, but for the most part, the stray starlight that Vayra had released lingered around the roof. “Is there enough to form the scythe?”

‘Not…not enough,’ Phasoné replied, pain in her voice.

“Then Starlight Palm it is…”

The magmaspawn charged. Vayra barely had the strength left to hold out her hand, charging the technique. When the creature swung its club, she pushed herself to the side just enough to dodge the attack, then threw the fully-charged blast of starlight into its chest.

With a thunderous crack, the beast flew across the room and crashed into the opposite wall.

Vayra pushed herself up to her feet. She shook out her arms. Not much of the starlight remained—it was leaking away, or had been burned up by her techniques. She had to end it quickly, and sooner than later.

She ran through what she was capable of in her mind. Starlight Palm, seer-core, shielding an object, summoning the scythe, and throwing the scythe. But all of those techniques required starlight.

The magmaspawn shook its head, and grumbled softly. It rose back to its feet and adjusted its grip on its club, then blew out a breath of sparks from its mouth.

Vayra gathered what remained of the starlight into another, dim, half-formed seer-core, then ran down a hallway. It led south—as close to due south as she could reckon. After a few steps, her chest began to ache, and every breath hurt. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could do this for. And, worse, she wasn’t running nearly as fast as she should have been able to.

‘Not all of your techniques will require starlight,’ Phasoné said. ‘You know a Guide technique—manipulating my realm of oversight—and you can cast Wards on objects. But all God-heirs and Mediators can bolster their body with Arcara, temporarily. You’ve felt this before—the subtle strength you gain while cycling.’

“That’s exactly where we’re stuck,” Vayra replied through clenched teeth. The hallway turned, and she rammed her shoulder into the wall. A wave of pain raced through her body.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the magmaspawn, racing after her to catch up. It was getting closer.

“Other techniques?” Vayra asked, pushing her body back to a sprint. “Like?”

‘You thought you’d start to overcome your roadblock by throwing yourself into danger…now’s the chance. You’ll have to start feeding your muscles with Arcara, empowering them.’

“Almost like the concentration-enhancing elixir,” she breathed, recalling the tidbit of information she’d received from Elder Yaryn’s books.

‘Almost,’ Phasoné said.

Any moment, Vayra knew her body would falter. She was slowing down, and the magmaspawn’s footsteps were getting louder behind her. She could feel the vibrations in the ground and the wind of its breath.

Any moment, it would catch up. If she didn’t turn and face it, she wouldn’t even have the element of surprise.

Vayra planted her feet and spun around.