Miko:

So, no matter which way we go, we are to be tested, but by what? Nomen said the elements, but all I see are rocks and crystals lit up by chemical reactions. If we are continuing in the spirit of getting out of here as soon as possible, we need to complete this trial as fast as possible. This means we either need to bring it to us or experience whatever it is faster. If we want to get out of here quicker, the natural choice would be to go through the left tunnel and hope it takes us higher and out. This should be likely since this is the way magma would flow up through the mountain and eventually towards an exit of some kind. Although this path is more likely to guide us up, there’s a chance that the magma solidified and blocked whatever exit exists if it does it all. In addition, it only takes us higher in elevation, and I don’t think The Garden of Need will be up high.

I pointed to the right tunnel. Maleki didn’t argue with me, and Nomen wasn’t going to anyways. It was the safest decision with only this information available; going down could be faster, but it could also be more dangerous as the lower we go, the hotter it should get. Hopefully, we stay at this height, and our environment might stay the same.

Maleki moved through the tunnel at a quick but careful pace. His brown hair was like a wave, littered with ash and rocky dust, only a foot or two off from the ceiling. I had more space to be comfortable since I was at least a foot lower than Maleki in height, but he was tall for his age, so it wasn’t fair. We walked and walked for hours, and the scenery never changed — smooth, blackened rocks, brown walls, and yellow crystals. The shapes and sizes of the crystal formations were like snowflakes, each different in its own unique way. Like sunflowers, they jutted out from the ground, facing toward the orange luminescence of the fire that streamed through the depths of these mountain-like veins.

Clinks, clanks, and clacks echoed throughout the tunnel, similar to what we had heard before out in the ravine. Maleki was on guard, his shoulders tense and his grip tight around his scythe. Our father taught us how to fight, but Maleki got most of those lessons. It was always in a playful manner, but that competitive nature was ingrained in us from those early years. Maleki repeated those lessons with me, and when I started to get sick and then sicker, he barely took it easier on me. I guess he didn’t want me to make excuses, and it did work; I found ways to work around my illness. Even if I trained as Maleki did or was the same age, I have this feeling that our instincts are different. I’m not capable of what he is, even outside of my unfortunate predicament. My brother has an innate talent to adapt to his surroundings, and he picks up skills naturally, whereas I have to rack my brain just to understand the implementation of things; they get stuck as ideas while he acts on a moment’s notice. He would disagree, of course, and explain why my previous statement is false, but that fight in Quavoris is living proof. The scythe is not a weapon intended for combat, and he certainly hadn’t ever wielded it in that capacity, only ever swinging it in Grandpa’s fields for the true purpose of simple farming. Despite that, and not being adjusted to the weapons’ individual craftsmanship, he used the scythe as a weapon and sprinted into action with it as if it were an extension of his being. The divide between us is so large that I don’t know how I will ever catch up, even if I get healed somehow.

The noises grew louder as we walked toward the only direction we had available. We progressed forward, knowing something was ahead waiting for us. The feeling was nerve-wracking, like a grand pause before the punchline of an already long joke. Anticipation mixed with the heat, and I just wanted to run ahead so my eyes could reveal the surprise. Maleki was certainly feeling something similar with his body leading the frontline of our three-man pack. There was a quiet responsibility to those noble enough to walk first into imminent danger. We had no real combat training or practice preparation for it, and I had no use of my arms today, yet we kept stepping forward.

The tunnel swerved ahead of us a few feet ahead, but as we approached, the heat slowly dissipated, and then the view of the chamber where the noise was coming from came into view. A vast cavern that was perfectly square at its base, with etched floors and walls that displayed symbols and marks unfamiliar to my eyes. The cavern must have been fifty feet high and hundred fifty feet wide, with a ceiling true to its cavelike form, stalactites interrupting the squareness of the room.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We walked to the beautifully cut stone doorway. Ridges and columns filled the frame’s shape, creating a purposefully artistic design similar to the museum in Quavoris. I caught up with Maleki in my excitement to see the room, stepping with him simultaneously into the chamber. A crashing sound filled my ears, and the walls shifted, our feet pressing down an inch on some form of a stone plate that matched the rest of the flooring. Behind us, a flat stone panel released from the doorframe blocked our exit and separated us from Nomen.

I screamed our guide’s name, hoping to hear a response, but none came through the thick stone. Maleki slammed his scythe’s blade against the rock in desperation, with it returning out to the side, the hilt vibrating in his hands from the forceful collision.

The fire spread slowly up the flat stone, engulfing it. Our previous tunnel was no longer visible through the heat of the flame and was blocked by an impenetrably solid stone. With no other option, we turned to face the room I eagerly entered. The room had nine platforms. The middle was the largest, with a rectangular platform more intricate than the others. The remaining platforms were square twelve feet plates that, like the middle, rose just an inch above the ground. I looked up at the walls. Sections rose above the rest to display images like paintings, but instead, specially carved into the thick stone. Eight of these murals were spread around the room in an obsessively precise fashion, two on each wall to face each other. Crushed, no…cratered into two murals was a fist-like hole that cracked through the surrounding rock, masking the sight of what the murals depicted. Parts of the wall not covered by these stone sections were engulfed in flame like the door behind us. I moved closer into the room, but the end of Maleki’s scythe curled around my shoulder, not cutting me but stopping me in my tracks.

“Don’t move.” He spoke in a slow, forceful tone.

A clang could be heard outside the walls, echoing into our large chamber. Maleki’s strike against the wall must have woken something up. The flames on the right flickered, and a shadowy figure shot through quickly. Now, in the center of the room, its frame came into reference — a mighty horn, sharp and protruding from the front part of the skull. The face of a beast, angled in a lupine manner. The creature’s legs ended in sharp hooves, fit for climbing like a goat but suitable for defense — or offense, it seems. This place must be its living quarters, and it clearly doesn’t mind the warmth with that tough grey skin. The creature was entirely hairless, but its body was sleek. Antler material formed above the ears cresting down over the neck, forming the shape of an “S” Now that I think about it, there was a story told to us when we were younger that this reminds me of. Grandpa, maybe Dad — I can’t remember — told us the tale of an army marching through a valley that encountered and fought “goat-wolf beasts, whose sharp horn curved up with a slant.” The word — what was the name they gave the beast, though?

“Aeternae!” I said aloud while peering my head back.

“I don’t think naming it will piss it off any less.” He laughed, eyes locked ahead.

With a few steps backward, I was behind Maleki. His scythe braced in his hands in a defensive posture. The Aeternae’s eyes were like that of a goat, small rectangular boxes, but red. “From what I have read about goat’s eyes, they can see almost everything around them. There is about an eighty-degree area behind them that they can’t. With a wolf-like body, I don’t think it will take very long to cover any blind spot.”

“Good to know. You read anything about patching up large stab wounds?” He said as the creature paced the shape of an eight.

I laughed. “No, I don’t think I can do any type of medical treatment without arms. Unless you want me to apply pressure to your wounds with my feet?”

“Well, let’s hope it’s a herbivore and not the tasty human-eating type….”

During the intense stare-down, a final crash echoed around the room. A sound exactly like when the door closed behind us, which means any other rooms have now been locked, trapping us with the beast.

“What’s your plan?” I asked.

“Plan? Let’s start with staying alive.”

“That’s your plan? You’re supposed to be the one who acts quickly!”

“If it rushes us, I’ll hit it as hard as I can for as long as it takes. You don’t need a plan for that.”

“Either way, we’re trapped in a room that’s on fire. Some mechanism locked everything, so there’s bound to be a way to open the doorways again.”

“Seems like we have a plan then. You stay out of the way and figure this room out while I entertain the sharp-horned goat-wolf.”

“Aeternae…and if anything, it’s more of a wolf-goat than a goat-wolf since the more prominent….” I retorted while Maleki blinked slowly in disapproval.

“At the very least, you’ll know what to put on my gravestone. ‘Maleki Mortica, slaughtered by an Aeternae while his brother debates the correct characterization of the creature!’”

“Shut up and stay alive.” He nodded, improving his defensive stance by bringing his scythe behind him to generate power in the event of an imminent attack. “Good luck, brother,” I said with a more severe look.