Quinn staggered to her feet, her back popping as it fully stretched out for the first time in days. She barely had enough room to hide in the crevice, let alone stretch out her whole body. As each pop echoed particularly loud, she barely suppressed a groan of pleasure. She felt like a fox stretching out after taking a particularly restful nap.
She reached back into the crack pulled out her bow’s fragments and stored what remained in her bag. The wood and string might come in handy later, and she needed every resource available. It was better to grab what she could, when she could than to leave something behind and then need it later. And it wasn't like she would find a string and wood merchant this far down.
Quinn looked around, looking as far as she could see in the pitch-black cave. The grayed-out forms of rocks and the cave walls filled her vision. Nothing particularly stood out in this patch of the cave except the pinpricks from the beast who grabbed her and a dozen or so assorted prints. Most of the other prints looked disordered as if creatures just ambled on by without a particular direction.
She steadied herself, feeling her ankle throb in annoyance. It wasn't healed, but only to the extent of feeling like a sprain when she stepped on it. She spread out her athyrn sense. The entire place felt… cold. Not like how the undead had felt. Cold as in distance. The place thrummed with almost a survival-of-the-fittest vibe. There were equal parts fear, hunger, and excitement strumming along the athyr units all over the cave. Overall, it felt like quite the natural place and this same feeling had hit her several times when she was out in the wilds.
Except for one spot. The eerie chasm leading down into the abyss. Really, chasm was a misnomer. That implied that she could see the other side of the lurking depths. It was more of a monstrous cavern that stretched so far she couldn’t see anything except pure darkness. For all she knew, there was nothingness past that point. It could've been a portal into a neverending desolate void.
Her eyes trailed down to the bottom of the sharp cliff. The darkness seemed to peer back up at her as she searched its depths. The ground was too far below her for her dark vision to pick up what was at the bottom, but it gave her a terrible feeling. The abyss’s athyrn radiated pure fear. It was the type of fear that made her heart pound just by association as thousands of voices seemed to rise in agony. The darkness lurched toward her searching eyes as she could almost hear an insidious whispering-
Her trembling ankle gave out, causing her to trip back away from the edge. Quinn would’ve groaned in pain if her insides weren’t still surging with pure fear. She struggled, her breath raspy, as she pulled herself back to her feet and moved as far away from the cliff as she could. Even with her probing, she had no clue what was down there. Whatever it was, however, radiated enough fear to collapse a giant's heart. After calming herself down, she decided it would be wise of her not to stare into the abyss less something stared back…
Quinn shook her nerves, trying to steady herself as she tried to figure out what to do. She had two choices: go through the path the dog creature had gone or follow the path of the spiked horror. Both were terrible options, but she figured she had a better chance with the spiked horror. She had thought about it a lot between delirious fevered dreams, and it seemed the abomination was terrified of light. Her chances were better with it since her attack spells were… lacking.
She stepped to it, heading down the cave while holding her dagger in her left hand and her right to hold onto the wall. After walking for a bit, the abyss cut off as the cave wall encapsulated her and turned into a proper tunnel. Perhaps it was due to her balance still being off thanks to her recent head trauma, but it took her a long time to realize the path was steadily leading down. And it was growing colder at a noticeable rate. For some reason, the cold didn’t bother her too badly as she continued on her route. It almost felt good as the temperatures plummeted.
She continued to carefully sneak her way down the cave tunnel, thankfully finding nothing more dangerous than a couple of bugs and some annoying placed stalactites. Every time the cave split into separate sections, she picked the path least traveled. The beasties down here didn't even try to hide their prints, and the claw and paw marks were evident as she avoided them.
What felt like hours later of limping down the dull gray passages, she found out why the temperature was falling as a light began to appear at the bottom of the cave. Slowly, mana at the ready, her feat snuck closer to the light source. The grayness of her vision faded as her eyes painfully adjusted to the faint light beyond the mouth of the cave.
The sight- or site? - was breathtaking. The cave tunnel bottomed out into a massive cavern of mottled stone. A lake so large she couldn’t see its end sat in the gargantuan cavern with a cool fog slowly wafting off its dark surface. The entire cavern was barely illuminated by a series of glowing fruits attached to vines. The plentiful vines stretched from beyond the dark roof of the cavern, intertwining with fang-like stalagmites. The roof was so high she had to crane her eyes to see where the rocky protrusions attached to it. And even then it was barely visible thanks to the faint lights.
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The lake wasn’t empty, at least based on the movement her eyes occasionally caught. By the time she looked over, the sources of movement would vanish below the darkness of the water. At least, she assumed it was water based on the chilly moisture she could feel on her skin.
Maybe calling it a lake wasn’t quite right. Usually, you could see the other side of a lake. It was more like an underground ocean than anything. It even had several islands rising from its depths and sprouting what looked to be thriving habitats. She was still too far out to see in detail, but the three closest had a forest of glowing blue mushrooms, another what looked to be almost a glacial mountain, and a third looked like a marsh of sorts.
What really caught her eyes was the thing closest to her. Calling it an island wasn’t quite right. It was more of a… citadel. It was definitely a man-made structure from some sort of dark stone. The entire structure looked to be half submerged in the water and tilted at a weird angle like half its foundation had fallen as its tall spires rose from the murky depths. She was close enough to make out some of the structural details, noting the odd architecture of spiky outcroppings, long arches, and odd spots that stuck out like spears. A long vine wrapped around its tallest tower from the roof, gleaming with red fruits and casting a glow across the buildings.
It was definitely an ancient place built by a people long past. She hadn't seen architecture anywhere similar to the fallen keep. But what was a structure as large as that doing in such a damned place like this? There was absolutely no way it was built down here, right? How would they get the manpower? And besides that, who would want to build a building so far down? Judging by how high the ceiling was, she was at least a few miles underground.
Although the peculiar structure was close, it was still maybe a mile away from the shoreline. The shoreline itself was quite interesting too. It was covered in what looked like black sand. Shards of… something - maybe glass - gleamed in the faint light of the cavern. The sandy beach started maybe two hundred feet from where she stood and then faded into the water after a few hundred more feet, which suggested a tide or something. That thought was proved right as she watched the waters expand and recede in less than ten minutes.
That sight was chilling. There wasn’t anything wrong with a tide. A normal tide. Not one that went in and out abruptly with little time difference. This meant either there were some weird geo phenomena under the dark ocean… or something was big enough to cause the underground ocean to move.
Quinn’s mind raced with hundreds of possibilities of what kind of beast could cause an entire ocean to shift. Nothing in any of her books could do it, and she did not know such a monolithic beast from her own world. The closest thing that might be able to cause such a situation were the Sky Whales, but, well, they were in the skies above the Eternal Storm.
However, there was one other solution she couldn’t verify. There were potentially multiple moons affecting the planet. She had been under the Eternal Storm the entire time and had yet to even see the sun or moon of this world.
Quinn didn’t let herself settle on that for too long and shifted to a less mundane focus. The athyrn in the underground ocean felt mostly like the other wild places she had been. There were some subtle differences though. Mainly coming from the drowned citadel in the distance. It gave off a feeling of deep sorrow as if some great tragedy had befallen the people of the keep. There was also an odd sensation, almost a mix of longing and desolation like one might expect from someplace that survived an apocalyptic event. It was a very weird feeling to have. The emotions infesting the athyrn were so strong she could feel them from her position at the cave's maw.
What should she do? Her instincts were screaming that it was a bad idea to enter the cavern. She would’ve liked to listen to them. The current situation, however, wouldn’t allow her any other choice. No path out of the ground was apparent, nor would she backtrack to that creepy abyss willingly. At the very least, there were ample places to take shelter here. Assuming nothing killed her.
It was best to take stock of her situation before making any drastic moves. Her body was still injured, though on the up and up. Quinn’s main weapon had snapped in the fall. She had a few nicknacks, less than a dozen books, and some basic survival gear tucked into her bag. A few spells were also floating around in her head, though she couldn’t quite remember the exact runes - or translation - for Wind Blade. Maybe the recent head trauma had knocked it out of her head, but she would need to reference her tome to remember the exact combination.
So, what did she need? Food, and rather desperately at that. She had been surviving on tiny bits at a time and needed a full meal. Her weapons wouldn’t cut it if she ran across anything larger or tougher than a wolf. And she didn’t exactly have offensive magic at the tips of her fingers.
All in all, she was still in a terrible situation.