Leopold led Rick around the edge of the Island where the group now found themselves perched toward a small opening carved into the rock. It revealed a cavern of carved brick whose stone steps lead downward. The steps continued long past what the light carried by the two revealed. The steps looked like they could have once been proudly carved, polished, and decadent. Now they sat as ruins crumbling into dust as jagged footholds leading into the dark.
The whole cavern looked like it was on the verge of collapsing into itself. Heavy stone doors, which looked like they once blocked the entrance of the cavern now laid on either side as withered boulders. Leopold and Rick stood for a moment, peering into the dark below before they started slowly entering the cave.
Their progress was slow, they moved carefully with each step to try and ensure they wouldn’t cause the cavern to cave into itself. The steps decline started steep at first, entering into the dark at sharp angles that felt more like a climb than a descent down a staircase. Eventually though, after the pair had descended quite deep into the bowels of the cave the sharp descent slowly began to lessen till the staircase continued forward at a gentle arc.
The further the pair went the more they could see the decrepit state of the passage. The walls were similarly chipped and cracked like the staircase. Occasionally they would find sections of the passage where the carved stone of the wall had given way, allowing piles of dirt to fill into the cave and act as sealant that filled the holes in the wall.
The rapidly decayed state of the passage toward Largo was highly worrying, not helped by the collection of bodies littering the floor. Some were human, looking like they either died trampled in the stampede to flee Largo while others looked like they’d gone mad, corrupted into Swarm. All laid dead when Rick or Leopold examined them, in various states of rot.
As Rick sat kneeled low next to one of the corpses discovered in the crumbling passage Leopold began to speak,
“You remember how we first met Rick? You came crawling in with Lana and Will all bandaged up, barely alive. I remember Will wouldn’t leave your side, it was hard to tell if he was worried about you or just wanted to hear more stories about your hunts. He was so excited back then, even after having to leave everything behind. It was good to see, hopeful.”
Rick turned toward Leopold, who was wearing a smile on his face which slowly dropped as he continued speaking.
“After his death, I watched Lala slowly die. Day after day she withered inside and out. I tried my best to pull her out of her despair for so long but nothing I did helped. She’d lost her reason for living, with Will gone she had nothing left. All she wanted was to die. Then one day she came to me, more alive than I’d seen in months. She was raving about ‘The Final Heroes’, about how you two would save the world. I truly believed you wanted to help, wanted to avenge Will when you proposed the idea. And I still do Rick. I just don’t think you realized how broken you two are.”
“I looked into both your eyes after that and I saw nothing, no spark to live just a hollow desire to trudge forward into the wild and fight till you fell dead. I knew then and there what this was. Whether you meant it to be or not, you two were setting off on a suicide march. I saw that and knew what I had to do.”
“Laura... when I told her I was leaving, she couldn’t stop crying. And Lilly. It had been years since she clung to me, she'd outgrown it by now. But the night I told them I was leaving with you two, they both clung to me crying and begging. Pleading with me to stay, tear-stained eyes that stayed red and puffy as they stood at the door to send me off with their best attempts at smiling. I could tell I’d broken something between us then and there, something I doubt I can ever fully repair.”
Leopold stood up and stalked over to Rick, grabbing him by the cloak and pulling him close his tone turning sharper, more threatening.
“I know I can't understand what you and Lana have felt, what you’ve lost. Not truly. But I’ve made sacrifices too, Rick. All to keep you alive, all to honor Will. Don’t you ever, EVER, drag my family through the mud, drag Will through the mud like that again. You have a problem with me or you’re angry with me, you insult me directly. Understand?”
Rick gave a nod, staying silent as Leopold held him closely by the cloak a moment longer before releasing him with a sigh. The two stood in silence a moment longer before Leopold said,
“We better head back. The cave looks fine, should work after we're rested enough. Leave this issue behind us here buried in the dirt, got it?”
Leopold turned and started walking back through the cave. Rick stood still a moment longer before following along back through the cave. As he moved, he let out a whisper, almost impossible to hear.
“Sorry… and thank you”
Leopold gave no reaction, but a smile returned to his face for the first time in a while and he let out a small chuckle.
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Jake woke up to find he was too last to rise. No knife was by his head in the morning, and no one had come to wake him early. It seemed those who were already awake simply sat in solemn silence, waiting. Jake could feel it too, as he glanced toward the other end of the island. The end, for better or worse, was near now. For all of them.
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Jake stood up and cricked his neck. He’d fallen asleep flat against the rock, never bothering to unpack anything from his bag and so his body felt stiff and uncomfortable. Stretching a bit, Jake walked toward the group. Looking toward him Leopold flashed him a smile and let out a laugh yet said nothing. It seemed the grim nervousness over the group's upcoming mission had reached even him as he simply sat in silence, no stories or jokes escaping him.
Reaching the group, Jake gratefully accepted a handful of dried meat from Rick, who sat examining and polishing his collection of knives. He sat next to Leopold without issue, so Jake assumed whatever disagreement they had was resolved well enough for now. Taking hold of the meat Jake popped it into his mouth. The rotted blood once staining it was gone now, yet still it tasted different from before. Ruined somehow, in a way Jake couldn’t quite explain.
Finishing the stained beef with a bit of effort, Jake turned toward Leopold and asked,
“What does the sky look like exactly?”
He wondered this a while now, and it always felt whenever he’d try and ask the topic would change or he’d be distracted by something else. Giving a shrug Leopold said,
“Excited to find out kid. No one who’s ever seen the sky has ever made it back alive to describe it. Probably some sort of powerful artifact. Would have to be to trap the sky for so long. Lala should be able to recognize it if we can get her close enough.”
He gestured toward Lana who still sat where she’d fallen asleep the night before. She didn’t meet Jake's eye nor offer any sort of greeting. Jake gave a gulp, and perhaps sensing something was awkward between the two Leopold quickly changed the subject. With a clap of his hands, he announced,
“Waiting out here won’t do us much good, will it? Might as well get this over with now that we're all awake.”
He and Rick stood up and went to saddle their packs up, getting ready to move forward. Lana didn’t move much at first, but soon she turned around and focused on gathering her bag together. Seeing this and knowing it may be his last moment to talk, Jake swallowed a gulp deep down and walked over toward her. He saw her stiffen a bit at his approach, but he continued forward.
“I… I feel I owe you an apology,” He began, unsure of how to express what he wanted to say, “I never really gave much thought to you saving me, to your quest here. I’m grateful, but I never meant to get in the way. This mission you three are on… It means more to you than just saving the world. I understand if you’d want me to stop here, let you three go on alone.”
Lana listened for a minute, before letting out a light chuckle a smile breaking across her face. She turned toward Jake and said,
“When we first met, you looked so much like him. Not just because of the blood I mean, no you had the same hair and the same eye color. It was almost like I had the chance to finally save him. You were so strange too. So curious about magic, about The Corruption, slowly getting closer to Rick… for a time it was almost like he was back with me. I think some part of me started to forget Will was gone, wanted to forget.”
“Then we kept traveling together and that illusion just sort of… crumbled away. I don’t know where you come from Jake, but it was obvious you weren’t from anywhere near here. And the way you talk about your family, the look of confusion and loss on your face. It started to hurt, talking to you. Because it became clearer and clearer that you weren’t him. No matter how I tried to lie to myself. Tried to hide from the truth and force you to play a role you knew nothing about. You have nothing to apologize for Jake, you didn’t ask to be dragged into this. None of us here regret saving you, and none of us would ever think of leaving you behind.”
Jake stood there, stunned for a moment unsure of how to respond.
“Thank you,” Jake said, at last, all other words failing to come to him. Lana grabbed his shoulder for a moment and squeezed, looking into his eyes before she let go and turned around to finish grabbing her supplies. The group would carry everything forward with them through the tunnel, yet unsure of what awaited on the other side they were prepared to abandon everything at a moment's notice.
In truth Jake dreaded the idea of continuing forward, he still remembered the shifting mass of flesh pressed against the wall of Largo. Yet there was no other way. The blood lake surrounded him leaving the island's tunnel as the only way forward. And on a larger scale, the only way he could continue his journey home was to return the sky. He still didn't understand how to do that, and from the sound of it, none of them did. But that didn't change the fact it needed to happen. He didn’t know if he could succeed. When he about the shifting mound of flesh the group had seen before that seemed to shock and disgust even the seasoned members of the group he doubted their chances of success.
Yet still he steeled himself to continue forward, moving with the rest of the group down into the catacombs of the island. Looking around he was surprised at how compact the space of the passage was. They had to walk single file to move forward comfortably, and though walking shoulder to shoulder in groups of two was possible it was incredibly cramped.
“How was this an escape tunnel?” Jake asked aloud as they moved down the stairs forward through the tunnel, “It seems way too narrow.”
“It wasn’t meant for large-scale use,” Lana said as she looked around, a look of grim remembrance on her face, “It was only meant for the elite of Largo to use. But when The Corruption spread and took Largo, the door to the tunnel was left open allowing the survivors to flood in. I remember how cramped it was. Tens of hundreds of people shoved into it, packed wall the wall as they stood on top of each other desperately trying to escape. Will and I only made it through because of my magic. Everyone else…”
Lana trailed off as the group passed a forgotten body, left to rot in the tunnel pressed down into the stone floor. It was clear what fate awaited those who couldn’t escape the tunnel in time. The group moved forward in tense silence down the stairs till eventually the ground flattened out and all that remained was a flat corridor to walk down.
The corridor here looked like it was in much better condition than the stairs above, no sections of the tunnel had collapsed inward and though the walls still looked worn down they didn’t look to be on the verge of collapse. Looking above, Jake wondered how deep the tunnel was, how far above the lake of blood sat. Looking at what could be called the pristine condition of the corridor, when compared to the other ruins of Largo Jake had seen, Jake decided the lake of blood must be high above their heads leaving the corridor unbothered for years.
The group continued on for some time without issue till all at once Rick stopped, ending their procession. He turned around and faced the group, his face looking tense and serious.
“We should stop here, take a rest while we can. I doubt we’ll get another chance because up ahead the walls of the corridor are moving, pulsing.”