Elysia passed by the hall, and went back into the tunnels. The guard watched over her from a distance, not even having deigned to tie her up. Elysia looked at the guard in turn, all suspicious, all invective, and all tense.

The guard was as sloven as ever, and seemed quite in his element, not even a look of distrust crossing his eyes. They walked on, roaming among the miners, who mined and harvested the broken pieces of coal and inlays of metal they found, fervent at their task.

“The miners are all working for the sake of this giant called ‘Oregon’. Why is that?”

“As if I would know the answer to that,” the guard said, looking at her with hard eyes.

Elysia kept quiet after this. Soon, they entered a passageway shrouded in a purple haze. The path was straight - without bend - and had elaborate engravings of circles and lines, and unknown figures on the ground. And at the end of it, a gargantuan sphere awaited her.

The air vibrated. Elysia caught subdued chimes in her ears as she approached. The sphere had black clouds ominously shifting about its surface. Elysia thought back upon the prospects of escaping from this place. The guard seemed to be all too relaxed. And she felt her instincts telling her that this sphere was going to do something bad to her.

However, the passageway was too narrow right now. So, she walked on, and kept on doing so, until she found the passageway to be suitably wide. At this point, her head had started aching. It began as a migraine, and grew so intense that she felt her mind being crushed by vicious hands, and felt her hands trembling from the pain.

She screamed.

“Go on further,” urged the guard, hollering wildly, “quickly, approach the sphere!”

Elysia looked in the direction of the guard, and rushed towards him. She felt her body being restrained by the sphere behind her, but she nonetheless threw herself at the guard. The latter panicked, his big eyes growing wide, and he tried to get out of the way.

Elysia’s head bonked the elbow of the man, and she groaned at the impact. She fell to the ground, and felt her head clearing up, a numbing sensation prevailing upon all the pain. She lifted herself back up, taking a glance at the guard, who had stepped back towards the sphere, and had frozen expressions, as if he had stopped thinking.

Elysia looked back at the part of the passageway leading into the cave, and raced towards it. ‘I did it!’ she thought, “I’m going away from this hell!” The thought of the girls in the chamber with the woman’s statue flashed in front of her eyes, and she gritted her teeth, running on.

Her head pulsed like it was going to burst, but she paid no heed to the pain. Her vision blackening; her breath growing sparse. She emerged into the cave, finding bewildered miners, but none of them cared enough to pay more attention to her.

Elysia ran to liberty.

***

Wünder looked at the path ahead with ardent eyes. In the caves of a mountain, he had entered a labyrinth of trees. It felt unreal, illusory, and all the more breathtaking. The air felt damp, with a tendency to smell like petrichor, along with a leafy smell.

Wünder felt enchanted. The space above him appeared to have a really high ceiling, the height of which he could not even begin to estimate. Much like a maze, there were, in effect, trees lined up on each side of him. And as he walked, he often reached crossroads, followed by dead-ends, or more crossroads.

The road split up several times, and before he knew it, a feeling of being lost had settled into his heart. Brown kept close to Wünder, and tried forestalling any dead-end by checking the passage himself, before coming back to report to Wünder.

The place was illuminated by large crystals hanging from the ceiling, and golden dusts sparkled as they descended upon the two brothers. The trees gave way to hedges of grass, and at times melded together with these hedges.

The hedges were filled with green leaves, but there were also red and orange leaves mixed in. Brown was vigilant, tersely looking around each corner, each curve, like he expected a monster to pop up.

The reason why they found themselves in a place like this was because of the quest the ghost, Mideia, had handed to them. They had taken the remaining path from the crossroad which led them to the statue Brown had discovered, as much as to the ghost.

“This place is rather exasperating,” Brown said.

“I don’t think so,” refuted Wünder. “I find that it’s beautiful.”

“More like, aren’t you tired? You’ve been walking for way too long.”

Wünder looked at his brother with earnest eyes. “This place just doesn’t seem like something you would see once in a lifetime. The ghost was pretty too.”

“And the dragon was so ferocious that it wouldn’t be strange if he happened to kill you a dozen times over.”

Wünder laughed awkwardly at that. Brown looked at the lit-up ceiling in wonderment.

“It should already be night outside this cave.”

They walked on silently, before Wünder echoed. “Yes.”

“I hope we find that panacea guy fast enough.”

“I hope so as well,” said Wünder, trekking about the uneven ground while admiring the brilliance of the hedges surrounding him, and before he had time to notice, the floor of the cave had turned into that of a meadow - a lawn which cropped up to cover every part of the ground.

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They followed through the path carefully, taking care not to miss a turn, checking each divergence, and therefore making slow progress. There were no lizardmen here, nor any other animals were yet to be seen.

It was like this place was in a world of its place, removed from the reaches of the outer world. Wünder thought that he might perhaps be stepping in virgin land. At the turn of a bend, Wünder found the path growing much more woody ahead of him. He rushed forth, much against the warning of his brother, only to stop a few steps ahead.

The ground opened up in front of him, like a giant chasm.

At the bottom, there was a small creek, bleeding this deep valley which prevented them from proceeding forth.

***

Elysia was left unperturbed no longer shortly after her absconding from the guard.

All around her, the miners drawled and repeated:

“Escapee.”

“Escapee!”

“Find her! Find her!”

And then, they started towards her.

It was weird. They seemed mechanical.

Elysia felt like she had some good more yards to go before she felt tired. She sprinted across the cave, jumping over stalagmites, running across an uneven floor. She kept up her pace, sweating and heaving.

A few minutes later, she stood, gasping. She had merely followed her impulse, but she felt horrible, when the thought that she might have sentenced her father to death surfaced into her mind.

She trundled along the cave, her arm hitting a sconce and in turn a blazing torch. This gave her a moment to pause, before she pushed against the wall, dragging her body away from the flame. She moved onward, and onward, struggling to move on, her mind a turmoil, before she noticed a moving statue in front of her.

She could scarcely believe what she was seeing. She clung to the wall, not knowing where to hide, but fortunately, the statue was heading to the other side, across the intersection which Elysia had failed to notice.

Elysia gathered her courage anew, and brusquely walked, step by step, towards the intersection, getting out of her side of the tunnel to see the statue walking on towards the right.

She had the impression that the statue’s appearance was a bit queer - a bit like a monster. She took the path in front of her, hoping not to find another one of those statues. She walked on, before hastily backtracking and hiding by the right wall. A walking statue, which was golden in color, headed straight on, not turning to discover her.

Elysia turned back, and started walking in the tunnel from which the statue had emerged. The path grew polished, much like the passageway which had led to that giant sphere, though it had no engravings.

Elysia followed through the somber cave, her stomach queasy with fear and nervousness. Her hair clung to her neck, and she felt goosebumps on her skin. Yet, she made her way, unraveling dungeons to her eyes - they appeared by her sides, and they were numerous.

Inside were lizardmen and nothing else for as long as her eyes scanned the cells. Elysia gulped and walked on, as the monsters noticed her, and screeched, hissed, and croaked.

They had leathery muscles, and their fangs were a frightening lot to observe. Their reddish-brown skins seemed to sap off the light which reflected upon them from the torches. Their red eyes glowed in the shadows, and they showed their tongues, salivating in hunger.

Elysia walked past them in a flurry, trying to ignore all their screams. She ambled on, before she came upon a dungeon cell with an old man in it. The old figure lay despondently on a bed of stone, He seemed like nothing but bones, and he was bald.

His cloth was a white linen tunic, and a white pair of trousers. The man was comatose, and the door to his cell was open. Elysia looked at him, and thought that she could perhaps find a way out by questioning him - he seemed too old to attack her.

And thus, she approached him, before being startled by his voice when she was about three yards away from him. It was a deep, wizened voice, which had a tremor to it.

“What brings you here?” he asked, before opening his eyes.

“I…I was looking for a way out of this cave, out of this mountain.” Elysia replied, after a start.

The old man turned his eyes to look at her. His eyes were gray, and they looked her over carefully, before he said, as if in nostalgia. “Then, you have come to the wrong place. ‘Here’ is the heart of this cave. ‘Here’ is where all the principal things are. ‘Here’ is where the giant performs his art.”

Elysia looked at him with blank eyes, not understanding his words. “Like what?”

“Like creating the mediums for his seer.”

“I see. And which way should I head to get out of here?”

“...Would you really take leave from here all alone?”

Elysia glanced at him with guilty eyes. “How should I expect to save anyone? I don’t know where they are.”

The old man smiled. “Oh… I know where your prisoners are. They are just farther along this path.”

Elysia’s eyes clouded. “I don’t know about them.”

She turned away from the old man. If he wouldn’t tell her of a way out, then she was fine searching for it herself.

“Wait. Your friend was searching for you. He came here all alone, screaming out your name just a moment ago, until he got caught by one of the mediums.”

“I don’t know who you are talking about. You should know nothing about me.”

“Oh, but I do. He was asking for a girl fitting your description. And you are definitely the girl he was seeking. He told me his name was Duff.”

“Duff?” Elysia had to do a double take. ‘Why would he come here?’ she pondered.

“He was such a wild boy. Came here following those unfortunate ones who were being escorted along. Those girls who would serve as food for the giant. The mediums couldn’t quite apprehend him until he had been badly bruised.

Elysia felt her heart fill with elation. She was glad that Duff had come for her.

“Your name… It is Elysia, right?” ensued the old man, turning his head towards her. “You should continue on ahead of here. You’ll find your friend, imprisoned near the golden furnace.”

Elysia considered his words. And remembered the words Wünder had told her:

“When you reach the pit of isolation, my dear Elysia, you will want to find courage and comfort by relying on your friends and peers. Whatever your aspiration, wanting to protect your friends or their happiness is a important thing to do. It does not matter even if you feel that you are more angry for their sake, than for yourself. It’s important, after all’

She thought of the number of times Duff had joined her whenever she would feel lonely. She thought of the number of times she smiled and bid away her tears whenever he was there.

“I… I’m going to rescue Duff. And Wünder too,” she said.

The old man did not question, nor laugh at her. “I see. Well, don’t disturb me, I’ll be taking my nap.”

Elysia wandered off the cell of the old man, and continued onward across the various empty cells. She did not know where Wünder had gone off to, or whether he was safe, so she would leave saving him only after calling for the knights, but she definitely could save Duff.

Elysia continued along the path she had been on, and exited the tunnel filled with cells. Soon, she found herself in a room filled with statues of petrified people whom she could recognize. There were dozens of them, each so lifelike, that she was convinced they were the actual people, as she stared at them in horror.

The room’s ceiling was high enough for the giant to get in, so Elysia was worried that this place was part of the latter’s lair. After the statues, she was finally met by prisons which were embedded in the walls of the place.

The first few ones were empty, and beside each cell, there was a golden statue. At the fifth cell, Elysia found Duff. The latter looked a bit tired, but brightened up when he saw her.

“Elysia! Where have you been?”

“Duff!” she exclaimed, full of relief. “I don’t know where I was myself, but just you wait, I’m going to get you out here!”

“And how would you do that?” said someone thunderously. Elysia looked behind her to notice the giant in the room. Her face blanched. She looked back at the entrance she had come from to flee, but found the golden statues which she had previously seen barring the way.