Emily shakes herself out of her stupor, the uncomfortable feeling in her gut growing ever stronger, and runs earthen detection to check the cavern for threats. Her scan comes up empty, so she slowly walks in further to take in the room fully.

The space is huge, the ceiling rising tens of metres above, filled with writhing shadows. The beautiful, glistening blue lake in the centre of the room spans at least fifty metres at its widest point, and has a dozen or so metres of land between the banks and the walls on every side. There are several breaks in the floor as the river runs into and out of the lake in multiple streams from nearby tunnels. But, unlike in the surrounding tunnels, most of the cavern walls are free of shadows, lit up by scattered magic crystals strewn on the floor.

Gazing at the magic crystals draws Emily’s attention to the bodies contaminating the otherwise enchanting view. Lining the lake are the decapitated corpses of groglers, carefully arranged so their headless stumps bleed into the lake. Their heads are all impaled on stalagmites near the walls, where large smears of blood are wiped.

Emily frowns in disgust at the gruesome display, pushing down and shutting out the traumatic memories of Herber that it brings to the surface.

Was the wendigo doing this? They’re too fresh to be the last expedition group.

Why would the wendigo do this though?

Unable to remove her attention from the revolting sight without answers, Emily pulls up the record of the wendigo from her system notifications.

¯¯¯¯¯

[Wendigo]

[Rank:] E

[Description:] A twisted creature born from a human mage falling to cannibalism on cursed land. They prowl the cursed lands they inhabit, gathering offerings to further the spread of corruption.

_____

Offerings? Was this some disgusting form of ritual sacrifice or something? Was it planning to do this to us after killing us? It did seem to enjoy torturing people as it murdered them. Maybe this is just its sick game.

Shivering at the thought, Emily finally tears her focus away from the bodies dirtying the water with their putrid blood, looking towards her groupmates. She finds them all crouched at the water’s edge, kneeling in the fog and scooping water from the lake with their hands to drink. Emily grimaces at the idea of drinking the filthy water, no matter how inviting it looks.

Wait, why do I think the water’s inviting?

Emily’s scowl deepens further as she feels an itch in the back of her mind, telling her something is wrong with that thought, but she can’t work out what.

Weird. I definitely don’t want to drink it at least.

“Hey, Oscar!” she calls, tearing his attention away from the water. “What’s the plan?”

“We’ll stay here to gather all these magic crystals and any eyes that are still fresh. Then, we’ll stay here for a bit to rest and head back in a few days.”

His answer sets off warning bells in Emily’s mind, irrespective of the glint of greed in his eyes at the mention of the magic crystals.

Why does he want to stay here for a few days suddenly? We were meant to be turning back tomorrow.

“Why stay here for a few days?” she questions apprehensively.

“We’re all tired from the trip in. This seems like a good place to fortify for a few days of proper rest,” he responds with a smile.

Emily exaggeratedly points to a nearby corpse dangling over the water’s edge.

“What about that makes this place feel like a good place to rest to you?”

Oscar follows her arm and frowns, seeming to finally notice an issue with his plan.

“Ah, you’re right. We’ll have to dump all those bodies and heads in the water to make it a little more pleasant.”

Something’s wrong. Is something controlling them? Something in this cavern? Maybe there’s something in the water? They do seem oddly drawn to it, and none of them should be happy drinking from it.

“Got it. I’m gonna go have a look around. I don’t feel anything nearby, but be careful and make sure Ivor and Enzo check every so often. You guys should start cleaning this place up if you want to stay here,” she encourages Oscar, hoping to give the group something more productive to do than drinking the dubious water.

He nods, agreeing with her and turning to start ushering the group into action.

Good, this should at least keep them distracted for a bit until I work out what’s going on here.

Emily turns to walk along the lake’s edge with purpose: her groupmates’ strange actions only making the uncomfortable feeling in her gut grow stronger.

She looks at the crystals on the floor as she passes, most partially concealed by the swirling fog. A few of them are cracked, making them too unstable to be of much value, and none seem naturally formed in place.

Was the wendigo collecting crystals from nearby tunnels? It would explain the deposits we found that looked like they were ripped apart with claws. Is that also part of its ritual?

Emily starts drawing a mental map of the crystals as she goes, trying to work out if there is a pattern being drawn with them. She soon runs into one of the connecting streams of the river, flowing into the lake, and steps in to swim across to the other side.

After pulling herself up onto the bank, she continues forward while casting cleanse. She passes more dead groglers and magic crystals: the more of them she finds, the less she believes their position is planned, since none of them seem to join into a coherent pattern. She crosses another connecting stream and arrives at a section of the cavern where the walls are devoid of magical light and there are fewer corpses around. Only a few magic crystals have been dropped near the water on this bank, as if the wendigo was avoiding it intentionally. The living shadows spread from a depression in the wall, reaching halfway to the lake where they’re pushed back by the water’s glow.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Emily approaches the shadows, holding up her hand and casting light to part them. As the darkness recedes, an unsettling sight is revealed. Spread across the wall of the cave is more blood, but instead of the random clawed handprints dragged across the stone, the blood forms words.

“Hey!” she shouts back to her group. “You guys should see this.”

She moves closer to the wall, approaching the scrawled writing, studying the words and trying to decipher them. Searching through the dizzying mess of intersecting lines and blurred letters, Emily locates the words she thinks started the cave writing.

Close to the middle, she finds a few blood-free sentences, etched into the rocks with clearly defined lines, even spacing, and coherence.

This was written by an earth mage. It looks more moulded into the stone than cut.

This expedition was doomed from the start.

We were so confident when we reached The Waters without casualties. We should have turned back when we saw those damn groglers.

“Was this the last expedition? Or does this go back further than them?” Emily mutters.

Did they start writing this to leave a record for the next group to get here?

“Woah!”

“Holy shit!”

Emily’s distracted from her thoughts by the disbelief flowing from her groupmates as they arrive behind her. She turns to Oscar, gesturing to the writing on the wall and asking him a question.

“This was written by someone on a prior expedition. Any idea who?”

“If it was the last one. Probably Rocco Poinsettia. He was the leader, a third circle earth mage,” he answers without looking away from the unsettling writing.

Third circle earth mage?

Emily raises a brow, turning back to look at the wall.

Could he not kill the wendigo? Or was the wendigo him?

She continues reading the cleanly cut sentences.

We lost Maria and Dom on the first night. We should have turned back.

We lost Adrian, Sandra, and Cedric on the third. We should have turned back.

We lost Jenna on the sixth day. We should have turned back.

No mention of the wendigo. Were these losses just from groglers? Strange, why couldn’t a third circle mage handle a few groglers?

“Hey Oscar, was Rocco a combat mage?” she asks.

“Not at all. Rocco was a brilliant alchemist, but he wasn’t a fighter. He mostly specialised in defence and mobility. He would have been reliant on his teammates to kill things.”

“I see,” Emily mutters.

That would explain not beating the wendigo if it was already here, but not groglers. Am I overestimating third circle mages? Or were their minds being influenced as well? We didn’t seem affected in combat, but maybe that’s because I seem affected less?

Moving on, she reads the last of the well-defined words.

We were swarmed on the eighth day. I lost Mark. Why didn’t I turn back?

We barricaded ourselves in here on the ninth day. We’re surrounded. Most of us are wounded. We can’t turn back.

I’m hungry. We’ve been here for two weeks. We ran out of supplies yesterday. At least we have the lake’s water.

They were swarmed too. That only happened to us after the wendigo was gone. I think it’s safe to assume this was written by the wendigo. Or, rather, the man who became it.

“Do you recognise any of these names?” Emily asks Oscar, pointing them out.

“Yes, I do. Mark is probably Mark Poinsettia, Rocco’s partner. Maria may be Maria Ashfallen, she was a commoner healer the Poinsettias sponsored. I don’t remember the other members of the expedition though.”

“Thanks.”

Emily moves on, locating some sentences carved into the wall with jagged lines. The lines are cut far shallower into the rock, and smears of blood are evident in each, as if roughly scratched into the stone with bloody nails.

I haven’t eaten in four days. Ron died. Without a healer, there was nothing we could do. I’m hungry. We dumped his body in the water so we don’t have to see it.

Hungry. Six more in the water. We aren’t speaking.

Looks like they also follow the process of dumping their dead in the water. Wait… Would we usually do that?

“Hey, Oscar. What’s the usual practice with corpses of teammates on an expedition?”

He flinches slightly at her question, as a few of their groupmates looking at her with frowns, but answers anyway.

“There isn’t really an agreed upon option, but it’s common practice to either burn them or drop them into the river down here.”

Her concern relaxes slightly at his answer.

Okay, so that may just be a coincidence. Or maybe how this curse started if the water really is the problem.

She casts a glance back at the lake, the brightly glowing pool with darkness looming above seeming far more ominous than it did when she first took in its beauty.

I’ll have a look later.

With a shake of her head, she turns back to decipher more blood-etched words.

Two more gone. Four left. So hungry. They won’t stop looking at me.

Hungry. Three left. So hungry.

We spoke again. Two left.

Nine in the water, four alive. There were thirteen left when they sealed themselves in. Is thirteen significant to the curse, or was Rocco reducing our group to thirteen simply a random choice on his part?

Emily’s eyes linger on the repeated reference to his hunger as she tries to understand the meaning behind the words as they slowly lose coherence.

They stopped talking for a while since he seemed to be getting paranoid, then spoke again when there were two of them left. Hmm… No. The reference to hunger stops for that line. Did they eat the third? The system description did say a wendigo forms from a cannibal.

Her eyes slowly trace the remaining words on the wall. The façade of sanity falls away as every other word is purely written in blood, all attempts to leave a permanent record gone.

I’m alone.

I’m alone.

Alone.

Alone

Hungry

So hungry

Hungry

The words descend into madness, ‘Hungry’ being repeated again and again until the words lose form and turn to smeared claw marks. Emily feels a twinge of sadness at the story told by the bloody wall: of a man slowly losing everything, even his humanity, as he succumbs to suffering and madness.

Is this what’ll happen to us if we stay here?

“What’s the plan from now on, Oscar?” she asks to be sure.

“I already told you. Didn’t I?” he says giving her a strange look. “We’ll collect everything in here then rest for a week or so before heading back.”

Emily scoffs, turning towards the lake.

Yeah, right. I’ll be damned if I let us stay here and slowly cannibalise each other. He wants to stay even longer now, and he doesn’t even seem to realise.

She angrily approaches the edge of the water, dropping her robes to the floor and sitting down to pull off her boots. Ivor walks over as she stands back up.

“What are you doing?” he signs while glancing questioningly at her bare feet.

“I think there’s something in the water, so I’m going to have a look.”

Ivor frowns, but nods and pats her on the shoulder before wishing her luck.

“Be careful down there.”

“Sure thing, big guy,” Emily replies with a smile, her academic interest overpowering her anger, before turning to gaze out into the lake.

She pauses before leaping in, noticing the irony in her actions.

I was complaining about them drinking the water, and here I am about to jump in. Ah well, Rocco may have missed his chance to turn back. But I always have that option.

She rests her hand on the pouch holding The Clock, before diving in.