The walls shook violently, throwing both Nold and Zalan off balance. With a deep echoing sound, the walls on the narrow path around Nold and Zalan began to twist. Zalan dropped the pouch of coins, hoping he would deactivate the trap by returning the object from where it came. But he was far too late. The world around Zalan became a blur as he was suddenly thrown spinning in a direction.
“No!” Nold exploded, reaching out and failing to grab Zalan.
They were split apart by a few feet, the walls continuing to shift between them. Zalan was finally able to orient himself, but had a hard time seeing when moved away from Nold’s source of light. Light and darkness were constantly in flux in his vision. The changing shapes of the light and moving walls were so quick that Zalan got a sense of vertigo on top of all the dizziness he already felt. The walls looked like they were beginning to close between the student and mentor, pushing Zalan further into darkness. Zalan didn’t know which way was the right way to move, instead remaining nervously in place.
“I will not lose you!” Nold said forcefully, appearing from behind a narrowing exit.
Zalan felt a series of Elemental Powers surround him as Nold desperately reached out with every power at once. Zalan was propelled forward with a mishmash of sand and water, moving so fast that Zalan could feel the wind whip past him as well. The walls were sliding in, creating a barrier between Zalan and Nold. If they closed, a thick barrier would separate them.
“Reach out your hand!” Nold cried.
The opening between the walls was thin. The mechanisms in the cavern were still moving to close the path between the teacher and student. Nold was trying to use his powers to get Zalan to lift up his hand through the closing exit.
“It’ll crush me!” Zalan said, watching the gap grow smaller in fear.
“You will be trapped! You may die in there, give me your hand!” Nold demanded.
Zalan began to reach out his hand hesitantly, but retreated as he felt the rocks scraping against each other. The opening was already dangerously tight. It might close right when his body was inserted and kill him immediately. Healing would be completely out of the question.
“Listen to me! If you do not then this will all have been for nothing!” Nold exploded. Zalan felt the wind pick up as the sand and water spun into a tornado around him. Nold was truly desperate.
At the last second, Zalan decided to take the risk and trust his mentor. As he began to raise his arm, the walls shut forcefully between them. All the elements spinning around Zalan fell to the ground, broken from their connection with Nold. He was in total darkness. He pressed himself up against the closed wall blindly.
“Nold! Get me out of here!” Zalan beat against the stone.
He heard muffled yelling from the other end of the wall.
“What?” Zalan pressed his ear up against the wall, desperate in the darkness.
He heard a series of blows on the other end. Nold was trying with all his might to break a hole in the wall with his Elements. Zalan could even feel the wall shake slightly. But the barrier between them was far too thick. Nold wouldn’t make any significant progress without someone with Elemental Earth Power to help him.
Nold screamed. Zalan could barely make it out, like someone who was covering their mouth crying out from the distance. He was trying to tell him something.
“Nold! Louder! I can’t hear you!” Zalan screamed at the top of his lungs. He pressed his ear back up against the wall and closed his eyes to focus.
“Use your lightning to—”
The earth cracked under Zalan and he flinched, unnerved. Zalan waited, feeling like he was constantly off balance without light. Nold continued to yell from the other side, but Zalan was far too distracted to listen in. Abruptly, the floor gave out from under Zalan. He began tumbling down a steep stone slab, screaming all the while. His eyes were wide open but he saw nothing.
Zalan fell into the abyss blindly.
He bashed against a few outcroppings of rock on the way down, having the air knocked out of him several times. After a few seconds of bruise-inducing rolling, Zalan ended up at the bottom of the sheer stone cave wall. His eyes were closed from the pain. He groaned, feeling around his body. Everything felt cut or bruised. The only thought on his mind was to get out. He breathed deeply and cried out.
“Nold! Can you still hear me?”
Nothing.
He couldn’t hear anything from Nold anymore. He had no idea how far he’d fallen into the darkness. He had no idea where he was. Slowly, he opened his eyes and felt the deep darkness that he was in. He gasped lightly in fear. His eyes experienced no change.
His eyes open made no difference than his eyes being closed. It was totally pitch black. He closed his eyes tightly. It was better to pretend that there was light than confirm that he was lost in the darkness. He stayed lying flat on the ground for a few minutes, hoping that Nold would break through the wall. That Rep would miraculously show up. That someone would save him. That anyone would prevent him from being by himself in this chasm. Zalan swallowed nervously, sitting up.
“Hello?” he called to his new cavern, hoping to hear someone call back.
Nothing. It was Zalan’s worst fear. Lost, alone in complete darkness. He pulled at his hair stressfully for a few seconds. He patted his pockets, hoping he had something to help him get out. In a moment, he felt the Homeseeker. He stopped abruptly, his eyes opening in realization.
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He could escape the island alone. He felt around the Artifact and was certain he could activate the button to pop him back to the guild in Oriton. He could be back home, healed, and able to use his sense of sight in seconds. His hand hesitated over the trigger. He frowned at himself in consternation.
He would have to totally abandon Rep and the others. Zalan couldn’t go through with it. He screamed in frustration. He wished he didn’t care about any of them. But he wouldn’t abandon them when he could still save them. Zalan scoffed at the idea of rescuing anyone now. He was the one that needed saving from the trap he fell through.
Zalan placed the Homeseeker back in his pocket and felt it knock against something else. He suddenly remembered that he had several different Artifacts. A few Satiators and a Radiance Orb. Zalan had no idea what the Radiance Orb did, but was willing to try anything just to be able to see again. His heart was pumping wildly. He desperately wanted to know where he was in comparison to the rest of this trap room. He needed to confirm that he wasn’t surrounded by monsters or more traps.
Feeling the intricate patterns of the Artifacts, Zalan determined which were the Satiators and which was the Radiance Orb. He held out the Radiance Orb in front of him and tried pressing against it. He couldn’t feel any mechanism to activate it. He ran his arms over the extent of it, looking for imperfections or something to push. He wondered if it was something like the Wavebinder, which needed to touch water to be activated. He knocked against it several times, trying to force it to live. Finally, he tried to twist it, and it came on with a blinding flash. Zalan gasped and dropped it, but caught it just before it struck the ground. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the new brightness.
He raised the Radiance Orb and got a good look at the cave. Two sheer, rocky walls were on either side of him, sliding down to a flat path at the bottom. It reminded him of an irrigation duct, except that it was totally dry. At the top was a flat land, presumably where Zalan started from when he was first shoved into this room. The path he stood on was narrow and winding in both directions. He was surprised by how much he had already lost his sense of direction. Zalan knew which of the steep walls he had fallen from, but couldn’t tell where the wall was that closed on him. He didn’t know if he slid straight down or changed directions several times when hitting the uneven surfaces on the way to the bottom.
“Ah!” Zalan flinched and held the orb closer to him in shock.
The floor was littered with several skeletons between loose rocks that had broken off the walls. He definitely wasn’t the first to fall into this trap room. Considering how large it was, Zalan was sure there would be multiple entrances to it. It suddenly felt more like a sewer than an irrigation duct. A place of discarded things. There were dozens of remains immediately surrounding him, but he saw a few at distances further away as well. Those who had lived the fall, but couldn’t survive much longer.
He looked both ways to try and see if there were monsters prowling the cave. To his relief, it looked like this area underground hadn’t been disturbed in years. The two paths to choose from looked equally daunting. He could try to walk in the direction behind him, which theoretically would be the way he came in. Or he could try to go ahead of him, possibly finding an exit closer to the center of the island. In either direction, he didn’t know if he would be able to find his way back up. What if the path never opened up and this was just a cave under the Island of Remains? Whether a natural formation or something made by Elementally Powered individuals, Zalan had no guarantees that there was a way out. Especially if it was intended to trap and starve all who fell in.
Zalan sighed and decided to go forward. He had enough Satiators that he would be able to go in both directions if he had to. Considering what he saw the size of the island to be, it shouldn’t take him more than a few dozen hours. The power of a Satiator should last him at least that long.
Zalan took a half-step forward and stopped himself when a thought came to mind. He picked up one of the rocks on the floor ahead of him and threw it. He waited to see if it sprang any traps. When nothing happened, he picked up several more pebbles and began to walk.
As he made his way, he continued to throw the little stones to make sure his path was free of danger. He was never certain that the stones he threw would be enough to set off the traps, but it still made him feel safer. The further in he went, the more often he would look over his shoulder. There was an eerie sensation rolling up his spine. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something might be in the cave with him. It felt like something was watching him.
As the minutes stretched, Zalan kept all of his focus on looking around all corners of the cave ahead of him, hoping to see something like that wall that turned and forced him into this cave. Maybe there was another wall he could push to get him back up on the main path. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but he told himself he wouldn’t panic until he ran out of path to walk down. He had a plan and he had plenty of light.
But more importantly, he didn’t let his mind drift while in the darkness alone. He continuously told himself that he would be scared later. He didn’t have the time to be scared yet. He didn’t know how long he could convince himself like that, but he didn’t want to try the alternative.
Zalan traveled for almost ten minutes on the underground path. WIth every step, he felt more lost than when he began. He had no idea where he even started walking from. Turning around, he checked to make sure something wasn’t following him again, paranoia crawling up his spine. The Radiance Orb flickered. Zalan looked at it in horror. The constant glow began to dim slowly.
“No, no, no, no,” Zalan said desperately as he clung to it.
The Artifact was running out of power.
“No, please, no, don’t do this,” Zalan begged.
He didn’t feel that the light was leaving, but that the darkness was approaching. It was overwhelming him on all sides.
The Radiance Orb flickered like a light bulb, then sputtered out. Zalan gripped it fearfully, hoping it would turn back on. With a faint crack, his fingers felt the Artifact degrade and turn into dust. Confirmation that it had fully been used.
Zalan breathed uneasily, feeling desperately in his pockets for another Artifact to light the way. Maybe the gold power that emitted from the Satiators would be enough to light up the room for a few seconds. But Zalan knew that was a foolish idea. He was supposed to save them for the other survivors of the shipwreck. He racked his brain for an idea, but the fear in his mind made it hard to think rationally. He hated the sensation of being blind in the long, ominous cave. It was oppressive on his senses. His eyes were wide, but useless.
He no longer felt like he could wait to be scared later. The darkness was here. The fear was now. He would never escape. He would be stuck here forever. Not just in the cave under the Island of Remains, but in this realm as well. He would never get to go back and visit his mother. Everything he did this far was only to end up dying of starvation in a pitch-black cave.
He had to forcefully shake his head to himself. Fear was making him irrational. He knew he could escape by using the Homeseeker. He needed to figure out a way to see and he would be fine down here for several days with his Satiators. He felt at his pockets once more for a light source, feeling like he was missing something obvious that he could be using to see.
As all of these thoughts were overwhelming Zalan’s mind, he flinched suddenly.
There was no mistaking it. Something in the cave made a sound. He now realized something he feared more than being alone and blind in the darkness.
Being blind and not alone in the darkness.