Cabrin helped Sera down from the pit where Akane had fallen. It hadn’t been a long drop, perhaps maybe only ten feet. As she brushed herself off, Sera looked around at the place that they had unwittingly discovered.
They stood in a square-shaped chamber no larger than her father’s tavern back in Rivera, though it would have been hard to tell. Vines hung from the ceiling and roots from the trees above claimed the walls in a tangled mess. At one end was an array of windows overlooking the narrow canyon that had blocked their escape earlier, at the other was the only unobstructed passageway which led deeper into the structure. Above them they could hear their pursuers coming closer.
“We need to keep moving.” Cabrin said quietly. “It won’t take them long to figure out where we disappeared to.”
“Down here.” Akane’s voice led them down the passageway which connected to a few other rooms before leading down a corridor. “I think there are stairs here, but I can’t see. We're going to need some light.”
As Sera approached, conjuring a small ball of magic to illuminate the darkness of the ruins, they could hear the muffled footsteps of many Hellhounds overhead, followed by the heavy thumping of the Formless One’s steps. Curiosity tugged at Sera’s mind, but with danger so close, she could only follow as she and her friends continued down the endless staircase.
“How far do you think this goes?” Sera asked. They had been carefully descending the ancient stairway for quite some time with no end in sight.
“All the way to the bottom, I hope.” Cabrin breathed. Between fighting the Chimera back at camp, the ceaseless running, and now the seemingly endless descent into the mysterious structure, Cabrin and Akane were both just as fatigued as Sera was. Down and down they went, stair after stair after stair before finally, they reached a point where the stairway ended as the ground swallowed up around it.
Dry dirt and gravel crunched under their feet as they traveled along the wall of a great open chamber that reached up two stories. At the far end, the half-buried chamber exited through a line of large, square-shaped pillars into the canyon valley. The pink and blue sky of early morning stretched out above them as they exited.
As tired as they were, they could not help but marvel at the beauty around them. At one end of the canyon, two towering spires extended into the morning sky as water cascaded over the edge between them, feeding the small river which ran the length of the gorge.
It was about sixty feet from where they exited to the other side of the canyon and it was covered in a soft carpet of grass. The canyon walls were lined with ancient structures like the one they had climbed down, seemingly fossilized in the rock and soil that engulfed them. Sera looked up in awe at their towering height, easily fifty or so stories high. It was impossible to think that such a place could exist in the world where such ancient feats of construction lay mingled with the beauty of nature in such a way.
“There is no mistaking the glory of the gods.” Cabrin thought aloud.
Sera and Akane both nodded reverently in agreement, but their wonder was cut short as the distant yapping of the Hellhounds echoed overhead. From so far down, the Chimera looked tiny as they peeked over the edge of the canyon edge at them.
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With a shared sense of urgency, the trio followed the river through the canyon, their weariness momentarily forgotten as they pressed on. The ancient structures that lined the canyon walls were an awe-inspiring sight, but they had little time to appreciate the grandeur of their surroundings, the ever-present threat of the Hellhounds and the Formless One kept them moving.
As they followed along the river, the sounds of falling rocks and a yelp called their attention to the Chimera that were following them along the canyon’s edge. One of the Hellhounds, which had evidently edged too close, plummeted towards them. The three of them rushed to ensure that they wouldn’t be struck by the creature as it dropped and the yelping was silenced as the sound of the Chimera striking the ground echoed through the canyon. Looking back, Sera covered her mouth at the sight of the ruined Hellhound as its corpse lay split open upon the terrain, marring the otherwise serene landscape.
“Well.” She said as they stepped around it, “At least we know they won’t come down that way.”
Akane nodded. “And I think they were a little too big to fit the way we came.”
The day passed by as they traveled the length of the canyon and the Hellhounds followed along from above. Over time, Sera’s worry began to subside as every once in a while, another of the Chimera would fall to their death, furthering the trio’s sense of safety afforded by their inaccessibility. Feeling a relative security, the three of them would take breaks, pausing to drink from the river and even taking time for a few quick training sessions.
By noon, Sera had abandoned her fear altogether, having gone all day without any trouble from the monsters that hunted them when the sound of falling rubble alerted them. They had become accustomed to the occasional falling of Hellhounds by this point, but the crash they heard now was something else.
Turning to face the sound, they saw that the Formless One had grown tired of waiting and had decided to come down after them itself. To their dismay, it seemed that it would be able to without harm to itself as it clung to the ancient structures above them.
The Formless One lept from where it was to the other side, its fleshy appendages taking hold in the windows as it met the structure. Again and again it did this, each time bringing it closer to the ground to meet them.
“Into the ruins!” Cabrin shouted as it descended upon them, and together they made for a structure immediately to their right, just as the beast reached the canyon floor.
It was fast. Without trees or obstacles of any kind to slow it down, the Chimera was on them in an instant, barely missing Sera with a strike from one of its muscular tentacles as she ducked into the ancient building where they hoped to take cover. The Formless one tore at the towering structure’s face as Sera and the two rangers fled. They climbed over fallen rubble and ancient debris to continue down the first passageway they saw and Sera’s heart sank when they were almost immediately met with a dead end where the narrow hall had collapsed.
Spinning around, they backtracked hoping to try another passageway when the Formless One appeared, leaving them trapped in the collapsed hall that they had originally chosen.
It reached for them with its long tentacles, forcing them back against the debris blocking their escape. Sera’s body trembled as the familiarity of the situation gripped her, but this was not the Nest Mother. This creature, terrifying as it was, had a soft body unlike the nightmare that she had faced in the cave under Volknest.
A tentacle groped at her, and drawing her blade, Sera slashed at it. The Formless One recoiled in pain, withdrawing its fleshy limb but Sera didn’t let up. Following her attack, Sera sent a barrage of focused spears of repulsion upon her enemy, blasting masses of snaking tendrils from its body before it finally withdrew. She watched as it retreated from the building altogether, and taking advantage of its absence, the three rushed out to find another path to safety.