Robert’s body swirled with pain. He groaned weakly, trying to move his limbs; they were slow and nearly unresponsive. As he had fallen, he tried to land head-first to kill himself on the impact. This, it seemed, hadn’t worked. His body was far more resilient than what should normally be possible for a human being.
He attempted to open his eyes; only one did, and a strange and invasive light shined above his head. At first, he thought it was the opening from the temple, but as he looked up, he saw only darkness. He then assumed they closed the massive doors after he was thrown in. The nobles and aristocrats above could only suffer the nauseating stench for so long. He looked then to the source of the light; large crystals that jutted out of the cavern ceiling, glowing a pale blue light.
Robert tried to move again but froze as the distinct sound of feet and claws could be heard and felt thumping heavily on the dirt of the cave. Fear burned in him again, and the tales of strange creatures in the pits came to his mind. He started to rise as best he could, but every inch of his body burned with pain. He strained to stand but only managed to get on his knees. The purple robe he wore was cumbersome and had strange depictions of certain spirits embroidered on it. He could now hear snarls and screeching voices echoing through the tunnels leading to where he struggled. He tried to stand again, his mind telling him to run, to escape these new and vicious sounding predators, but he just couldn’t muster the strength. Robert stopped at that moment and panted, staring at the damp soil beneath him. Why run? he thought. He knew they would catch him and devour him. It was at some point during his torture that he had lost his will to live, and nothing sounded better to him than rest… rest from the constant pain and torment he had endured… rest from the world that held him in its clutches. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. Just one more bout of agony… then nothing, he thought.
The creatures stormed into the cavern from the tunnels. They sounded big to him; the ground vibrated violently with their masses, and they surrounded him. His eyes were clenched shut in anticipation of the first attack, but the seconds ticked by, and all he could hear was the heavy and rasped breathing of dozens of creatures around him. His fear turned to curiosity as he wondered why he wasn’t being torn apart. It got the better of him, and he opened his eye slowly to see what was going on. Before him, all around him, were large humanoid creatures. He focused on the one that was closest to him. It stood almost eight feet off the ground, hunched over with heavily muscled shoulders and powerful arms, and it heaved with each rasped breath. He looked from its vicious claws on its hands and feet to the snarled maw that brandished hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, no doubt meant for rending and tearing flesh from bone. It had a massive bone plate that covered the upper half of its face, and within were a dozen or so black eyes that stared back at him. There was no assortment or order to them. They just looked as though they were sprinkled there.
The sight brought unparalleled terror to Robert. He still didn’t move, fearing that any small movement might bring their wrath upon him.
Robert sat still for countless seconds, blood and sweat streaming down his face. Still, they stood, rasping and growling, but not moving against him in any way. His fear and frustration finally got the better of him.
“What are you waiting for?” he wheezed, holding his arms out to his sides. “I’m right here!” he yelled, a sharp pain slicing through his ribs.
It was at that moment that he saw the bloody stump that used to be his right hand. The blood had stopped flowing from the wound, which caused him to pause still in disbelief. He had forgotten that he had lost his hand. Shouldn’t I have bled to death by now? His mind a groggy and fear-stricken mess, he inspected the wound. Unable to despair anymore, he fell forward, face-first into the dirt, overwhelmed by his situation and exhausted.
~
“What are you?” a small and timid voice whispered in Robert’s mind. The tiny voice was nearly undetectable. He wasn’t sure when he passed out, but he woke in a spasm of pain and groans. Confused, he tried to open his eyes; only one did again. “Where? Wha…?” His gaze focused on the dozens of pale legs that still surrounded him, and he looked up to see the horrible monsters still there, breathing and rasping around him.
“You… are alive,” the small voice said, with surprise. “Why do the Cugorii not feast on your flesh?”
The voice was fragile in his mind, but he had experienced enough of it while in the Spirit Forest to recognize this was the voice of a small spirit.
He took a moment to clear his thoughts, to push the pain of his broken and battered body aside. “I…” he said weakly, “…I am a human being…”
Silence ensued.
In the dimly lit cavern, Robert saw a small slinking form hiding behind one of the legs of the Cugorii. “If you are going to have your monsters kill me, then do it already… I have nothing left,” he said, cradling his right arm.
The spirit said nothing still, only peeked a little head from behind one of the legs. It looked as though the spirit was wearing a small cloak, but he couldn’t make it out.
It finally floated out and stopped right before him. The spirit was about twelve inches tall and did, in fact, have a cloak made of black mist that swirled around it. Its face was a pale white, but he could see no eyes.
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“I have never heard of a human being before,” it said, its voice now louder, with a distinctly female tone to it. “How did you come here? To the prison of misery… and death?”
Robert pondered a moment. “Are you… Dio’Mar?”
The name caused her to flinch, and she raised her small hand to him. “Dio...Mar…” she repeated slowly to herself, as if remembering every sound in it. “I am? I… I am…” She floated toward his face and cocked her head to look at him more closely. Still, Robert saw no eyes, just a pale white face, and a small, faded mouth that didn’t move when she spoke. “You know me then? The eternal prisoner here?”
“The… eternal prisoner?”
“I have been here… for thousands of years… watching… these foul creatures devour every living thing that entered here…” Her little hand gestured to the Cugorii around them. “They are the guardians of my prison… to keep them away... You are the first I have seen… remain unscathed…”
Robert glanced at the creatures again; they regarded him with no hint of intelligence, only an unrelenting presence of pure instinct. He focused again on the razor-sharp teeth that seemed to pour out of their mouths.
She brought her little hand closer to his bloodied face. “There… is something… I can feel it… emanating from you… it… it can’t be…” Her little fingers stretched to his skin; with the contact, a painful jolt of electricity shocked him. Robert yelped and flinched at the sudden pain. Her small form went limp, and she fell to the cavern floor, dissolving into black smoke.
Robert stared at the spot where she disappeared, stunned. What the hell just happened? he thought, believing that he had somehow killed the little spirit. He waited for several minutes, listening intently to everything in the cavern. He finally tried to stand again, struggling against his shaking and wounded legs.
“God… dammit!” he cursed through clenched teeth.
His limbs ached with the exertion, and he panted. He glanced at one of the Cugorii who still stood, looking at him with its dozen black eyes. “I don’t suppose you could give me a hand?” he said with a self-loathing chuckle. But to Robert’s absolute astonishment, the creature reached its clawed hand out and grasped his shoulder. Using its immense strength, it pulled Robert to his feet, and he stared at it, dumbfounded.
After several moments of speechless contemplation, he spoke again.
“Y… you…” he stammered, “…you can understand me?” The creature said nothing, only stared at him with the same passive intensity. “Is… is there a way to get out of here?” he asked it, clearly a shot in the dark, but what other option did Robert have? He was thrown down here to die, and against all expectations, he still lived, so he had to try. To his surprise yet again, the creature lifted his clawed hand again and did what it could to point above him, to the opening that was now closed. Robert looked at the darkness above solemnly. There wasn’t much hope in trying to escape that way.
“There… is…” a small familiar voice called in his head. Robert turned around, startled. “There is hope for me… and for you…” The small form of the cloaked spirit materialized before him again, floating in the air.
“Are you alright?” Robert asked, surprisingly relieved to see her again. “I thought I hurt you somehow.”
Dio’Mar floated to him, with more life now than she had before. “You… are a creature of the heavens… surely… you must be. You are here in this desolate place… and still, I can feel the Dunamis coursing through you… only the divine could hope to use their power here.” She gestured to the large crystals that lit the cavern. “These are the Ugoto crystals… created and placed here to seal me in this prison… by draining all spiritual energy around them… from Dae… from Spirits… they make it impossible to leave.”
“Who? Who did this to you?” Robert asked.
She cocked her head again and began to float freely around him, inspecting with her eyeless face. “My brothers and sisters betrayed me… I know not why… only that I had come to love the people of this world… and they hated them. They lured me here with the suffering of the Dae… and as I came to aid them… they sprang their trap. I suppose they knew they could not kill me… so they created a fate worse… than death…”
“To watch them die, and suffer for thousands of years,” he finished. “That’s terrible.”
“For eternity,” she corrected him. “At first I tried to help… but my power was drained to near nothing… I had only the strength to watch… and weep… I have not stopped… and I remember the faces of all who have perished at the mercy of the Cugorii…”
Robert shook his head, noticing that it hurt less than it had before. “So, what about these crystal things? How do we get out of here?”
“There is no way out… other than where you came…” She came to a stop before him and seemed to give him a strangely puzzled look. “How did one such as you… get so badly injured? The Dae were never so cruel…”
Robert braced himself and told yet another ancient spirit the tale of how he came to be in his current predicament. Dio’Mar just listened to him, asking no questions and nodding with the understanding of his plight. It also became apparent that the Cugorii obeyed simple commands of his and followed him wherever he went in the cavern. There were only basic responses to his questions, but it showed that they at least had some intelligence beyond a snarling killer instinct. It was also the first time Dio’Mar saw them behave in such a way. Though she tried for centuries, they never made an attempt to communicate with her. She said she knew next to nothing of them, not even where they came from.
Robert huddled against the cavern wall now, his wounds still aching with the slightest movement.
“Why do you still toil so? The power you possess should be enough to heal your wounds,” she said.
Robert paused at her words; his right arm cradled gently with his left. “What do you mean?”
She stared at him for a moment. Robert knew that if she had eyes, she would have blinked them in puzzlement.
“What has changed in the world beyond this dreadful prison? Are the Dae still wielders of the Dunamis? Can you not use it to escape here?” she asked.
“I guess I have it, but I never learned how to use it.” Robert hung his head. “If I had, maybe some of my friends would still be alive.” His mind flashed again to the severed head of Veol being thrown at his feet. “Kat was right. I should have stayed with them.”
“You have this power… and I would give you an offer…” Dio’Mar said, her small and unmoving mouth curling up into an almost sinister smile.
Robert looked at her cautiously. “What is it?”
“I will teach you… how to use your Dunamis… and in return, you will help me escape from here… I do not know where you came from… human, but I know that this did not happen by chance. Perhaps the Great Spirits have awoken again in our world…”
She extended her tiny hand and pressed it to his forehead. Robert could feel the strange power coursing through his body, a sensation that seemed to almost strengthen him.
“Is that your power?” he asked, astonished at the feeling.
“No… it is yours… all I have done is shine a light on what you already possess…” she replied.