It wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to assume that upon breaching the lightless, engulfing gloom, that Remus’ immediate action would be to set a torch alight; paving a careful way forwards.
But no, such faithful assumptions would be dead wrong. Instead, he spent approximately ten minutes rushing around sightlessly into the deeper darkness, muttering madly with as much spacial awareness as sea moss.
Survive, survive, survive, survive! Remus intoned, his mind quickly proving to self-destruct when put under the littlest pressure. After finally colliding face-first with a wall — and Remus could've sworn he had caught a scuttling off to the side in the process — he pulled his bag off his back, uncovering its contents. Rummaging an arm inside, he scoured his possessions for a stick of wood, and a rectangular piece of metal in the vague shape of a cuboid. Upon retrieving the tinderbox, he spent several moments achieving approximately as much as he would have twiddling his thumbs, until — finally — a spark beckoned away the darkness.
The light, however little, seemed to restore his sanity somewhat, and he was finally able to think clearly again. First things first . . . I need a den.
Securing a solid base of operations, to rest, recover, and collect himself over the maddening Duration to come, was an idea that brought a much needed sense of relief bursting through Remus. A portable sleeping bed, and a pitiful pillow that even his prison bunker put to shame were the extent of his nightly comforts. Nevertheless, when you’re hunkering down in the very crust of the earth, complaining about your level of luxury doesn't sound particularly productive.
After catching his breath, Remus ignored the wafting heat eradicating the mere rumour of moisture, and checked his surroundings. He was in a circular chamber, one with only two routes: up or down. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a choice that ached the mind. The area was barren, for the most part, still too close to surface level to exhibit any of the trademarks of a truly deep cavity. Chiselled into the rock, was a sort of bench. It was a generous description, and in actuality, more akin to a suitable indent in the cavern wall. Even so, such sanctuaries of rest likely wouldn’t appear any deeper into the abyss, for the further he descended, the more danger would bear its ugly face.
So Remus took the opportunity, taking a seat, and assessing the items on his person. He carried enough rations to bring him through to the other side, if he let them, consisting mostly of starchy foods so dry, they would be inedible without the assistance of a pitcher of water. To his luck, and much to the betterment of his well being, a waterskin, plus several large capsules of the liquid lay inside. Remus took a much needed sip, made as likely an estimation of how he could make the fluid last as one could, and filled the pouch of skin to the brim, attaching it to his waist. The remainder of his bag, aside from the components of what would be his camp, were empty. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
At the bottom of the sack, a sickle gleamed, even in the little glimmer his torch provided. It was conventionally a farming tool, but then again, conventional Death-Marked didn’t make senseless journeys across the world for the slim hope of advancing. Packing away, Remus bit down his fear, pocketed his weapon, and set into a valiant march in search for a certain red crystal.
Infirnite formed most prosperously in intense areas of heat, and, while hot, this stretch still had a ways to go before achieving an adequate humidity.
This was how much of Remus’s first day down there went. Strolling, taking spaced out sips from his pouch, and relighting his torch every time its flame withered out and died. He was concerned for how long his tinderbox would remain functional, though rumours of Infirnite’s glow kept such worries mostly at bay. Once he stumbled across a thriving cluster of the stuff, he could settle down in its radiance to his heart’s content.
Down, deeper, then lower again. The repeated motion of his footfalls against hard rock rendered his lower body the victim of relentless sores, an achy sensation Remus got the feeling he would get used to.
Seeing how his body was well occupied, his mind did its best to entertain itself with pointless rambles. Its primary method of stirring up terror was reminding Remus of the supposed Unbounded that called this hellscape home, and with each extra metre he passed into their home-territory, his anxiety only clutched him tighter in its coil. Was his paranoia, mixed with the quickly amounting heat, weaponising his senses against him, or were those creaking, unnatural sounds becoming explicitly more common? A rock goblin, or whatever these fiends would take the form of, bursting out at him was exactly what his jumpy nerves didn’t need.
Sometimes, when something horrifying occurred right when he prayed against it, Remus wondered if the gods simply took pleasure in messing with him.
A presence latched onto his back with a crumbling, rocky grip evidently designed less for general utility, and more precisely to bring him as much pain as physically possible. How Unbounded got on with their day-to-day lives with such unfunctional bodies, Remus would never know.
Remus intentionally swung to the side, his back-riding companion crashing into dust as it slammed against the curved wall. Remus swivelled round rapidly, eying a four-armed, two-footed gremlin screeching at his feet — a crack riddling through its entire form. Remus didn’t even think before blasting a fist to reduce the rest of the stone-goblin into shrapnel, though his bleeding fist likely would have appreciated the courtesy.
Bounding across the chamber, his cries of anguish as he clutched at his wounded arm echoing in sonic reflections of pain, Remus scrambled, his torch flying out of his hands. It struck the floor before snuffling out entirely. Wailing out as if his objections alone would be enough to return its lost spark, Remus vaulted to the floor, feeling nothing but pebbles grazing against his searching palms. No charred branch in sight, or, more accurately, touch.
Just to make matters worse, rumbling footsteps sent riddling reverberations through the ground, kicking up tiny rocks into his exposed face, and ensuring that Remus’ torch would never grace his vicinity again. More dire was the nature of the oncoming footfalls; they originated from all directions.
Inevitably, before his mind could properly clock what was happening, a barrage of blows encompassed his senses. Tiny hands of granite, simple sediment, and whatever else the Unbounded consisted of, beat down upon him. They were of small enough forms that he could flick them off to the side given a decent enough angle, but the darkness wouldn’t expose their exact positions so easily. After a swift but severe beating, Remus felt the ground roll painfully against him.
He was being dragged. Being taken someplace where his body would likely never be found. To hell with that.
Remus jumped about the place in a convincing impression of a hysterical hen, his flapping limbs weighing uncomfortably more than what he was used to. Multiple times, he collided into something solid — whether a stagnant wall, or more of the little freaks coming for his blood, he wasn’t entirely sure — but never once did he waver. It was either a few additional bruises now, or a world of hurt once these Unbounded hauled Remus to his own private death-party.
Being manhandled by a family of stone midgets wasn’t precisely the way he had imagined himself going out. Perhaps, after becoming the strongest being to ever live, assuring his clan’s future for centuries to come, and giving both Damosh and Edmar a good walloping, he could finally rest. But now? The mere prospect of a premature death repulsed him.
After what must have been minutes of endless wrestling, Remus availed. Tossing his bag off of his shoulders, Remus flung it around in a full circle. Keeping away the Unbounded just long enough to draw his sickle, and set his tinderbox alight. How effective the weapon would be against bloodless foes was a topic to be debated upon, but fire, for creatures literally living under a lake of lava, ironically kept the fiends at bay.
As they leered at him through the faint glow, Remus counted maybe twelve of the rocky goblins. At the same time, he broke off a bit of kindling, sparking a much greater flame from his torch that the Unbounded did not react well to at all. They waddled backwards, eyes wide, and a few others tripped onto their backs in the least threatening show Remus had ever seen.
“Gods above,” Remus spoke for the first time in hours, the sound of his voice now a strange melody that came off as oddly raw, “how about you guys take a look outside for once? You’d probably disperse at just one look at what lies above you.”
It quickly became apparent that insulting his enemies, regardless of whether they deduced the meaning of his words, was probably a bad idea. They likely at least inferred the patronising tone Remus had adopted so well after hearing it all his life, and Remus could tell you first hand that it was the exact tone that refined the firmest of wills.
A few Unbounded stepped forwards. Remus’ current source of light was considerably larger than it had been during the initial attack — much due to the fact it had been wearing down after hours of valiant service — and the Unbounded hadn’t shown reluctance to pounce on him back then. Maybe fire wasn’t the fatal weakness of the creatures Remus had assumed it to be. Given enough time to muster their courage, then the Unbounded likely wouldn’t hesitate to pick up their bout from where it had been left off.
Remus examined his surroundings, thinking fast. Contrary to last time, the sheer abundance of his possible routes was almost overwhelming. From one in particular, a faint, incarnadine flicker of blood-coloured light lasered through. It matched the description of his prize perfectly.
The breadth of the winding tunnels couldn't possibly be much deeper now. He had traversed miles, only now noticing via the shortness of his breath the airless heat that pervaded the cave system. Any intenser, and not even the finest lungs in the world would be able to draw out the air supply.
From the bottom of his torch, Remus tore off a tiny section of wood, an inch or so at most. One flick across the heart of his torch, and he tossed the now alight strip into the bulk of his enemies. As the fire spread, though its potential brevity was limited greatly by the lack of any flammable material nearby, he dashed.
Putting his respiratory system to the test, Remus utilised the experience so many runs had granted him, running in what felt like an endless spiral for minutes on end.
There were most definitely others of the Unbounded as he passed by at a jaguar’s pace, torch held above his head clumsily. After what must have been his seventh passage deeper, tiny shards of red crystal protruded off the walls. More likely than not, these would fit the trial’s description of a shard of the stuff, but Remus was after something more substantial. Why return with an apple core when you could arise with a maple tree?
His legs took one step too many, and he slipped unceremoniously, grazing his knee raw and skidding to a stop mere feet away from . . . from a . . .
He shut his eyes, the sheer luminance threatening to remove his ability to see. Stumbling backwards, panting for dear life, Remus formed a tiny gap through his fingers, catching a tiny peek of the largest cluster of Infirnite to be found throughout all of the mortal realms. Shards at least a foot long expanded outwards from every crevice, the ratio of grey to glistening red astounding. The largest of the fine collection was one particular piece, jutting out alarmingly close to his stomach. It must have been a metre long, and Remus, even amongst all this fiery crimson, saw nothing but gold as he gazed longingly upon it.
Remus took one last check of his surroundings. No Unbounded, check. If a little fire could petrify them, the gremlins wouldn’t be found for miles around this glimmering monstrosity. Enough space? Check. There was a turn in the passage right ahead, the glow of the crystal still reaching there abundantly enough, but not to an unbearable degree. For an underground network, it would surely suffice — beggars can’t be choosers, as some said.
Turning to his new home for the next Duration, Remus spilled the contents of his bag over the ground, assembling the poorest excuse for a bed one could fathom creating. He settled down, ate his first bland meal of bread and nuts, refilled his waterskin to as high as he would dare, and then finally, turned his sickle around in his hands. It's a far-fetched idea, but perhaps . . .
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
He got up, sated for the time being, and returned to the Infirnite overgrowth. Staring at the colossal shard easily bigger than him, Remus pressed the sharp side against the head of the crystal. Through the magic of hard work, and committed diligence, Remus managed to shave about a centimetre deep into the resource. A tiny, fiery smoke billowed up from where he cut, joining the humid atmosphere that was already putting his endurance to the test. Flicking the mist away, he got back at it.
Even here, seeking a safe-haven away from a blazing abyss of lava in a jumble of caves, Remus took comfort in the one truth he knew for certain. The one indisputable fact reminding him of the harmony of the wider universe.
This was going to take all damn day.
----------------------------------------
Violet had vowed to stare at the unrelenting doors that binded Remus to his cavernous prison until her eyes erupted.
So far, she had kept to that promise.
Hours had passed since Remus had left, but to Violet, such sounded ridiculous. It had been at least a day, right? She scowled, took a deep breath, and lay down. The skies above remained an expansive pigment of pitch, not budging from the same black veiling it had suited hours ago. The majority of the guards were asleep now, beside the two who had opted for the first shift of the night watch. Veida was in her own private tent, Hadrian having left at roughly the same time, immersed in wild dreams of Unbounded, most likely. That woman’s work ethic was so insane, Violet wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she'd devised a way to hijack her sleep, allowing herself to work even longer.
Violet herself, unlike the rest of the travelling party, was anything but tired. How could she be? Remus might be fighting for dear life down there, while she could rest easy in the company of eight of the Fire Sect’s elite, not even a hair’s rustle a threat to her. With sleep not an option, and the Infernal Bays eliciting an achy sensation when stared upon for too long, that left Violet with nothing to do but count the individual scratches and indents of the doors. A vastly entertaining task, to be sure.
There was movement to the left of her, and Violet jolted backwards, half-expecting some dark minion of the night to flicker into view. After a moment of spiking adrenaline, Violet relaxed. Unless Hadrian doubled as a nightly assassin, Violet was safe. He helped to rub away the layer of tiny pebbles engraved into her leather, laughing all the while.
“Am I really that scary?” He questioned, beaming contently at her.
Despite how mentally drained she felt, Violet managed a matching smile. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so frightening if you announced your arrival, instead of sneaking up on people. Just an idea.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Posed Hadrian, grin turning empathetic. “Can’t sleep either, hmm?”
Violet shook her head.
The two of them turned to face the menacing doorway, that allowed not a peep through to the other side. Her mind, instead, was forced to conjure its own conclusions on what might be occurring behind that stone, of what Remus might be enduring, and none of it was optimistic.
“We’ve done all we can for him,” Hadrian spoke gently, eyes not budging, “all we can do now is keep our faith in Remus. Staring at his prison, it might not seem like it, but the boy has a good chance of victory. A great chance, I might even suggest.”
Violet detested the scepticism bundling her next words together. “You really think so?”
“I wouldn’t be saying it otherwise, would I? I’m not the type to confide in false hope.” In a change of mood so sporadic it gave Violet whiplash, the man’s voice gained a jolly inflection. “I was thinking that instead of laying awake until dawn, which seems like a sure-fire way of losing our minds, we could actually do something. And, by happenstance, this place is absolutely sprawling with dormant Unbounded. Hence the need for our guaring squad.”
Glancing over to the two trainees standing outside of the collective group’s tents, Violet considered them with a greater appreciation.
The man wasn’t exactly subtle in what he was implying. “You want us to go hunting Unbounded? Won’t they be a little strong around here?”
“Nothing you couldn’t handle,” the Mercenary reassured her, “and aside from getting our minds off these damn doors, we could get our hands on another sample for Veida, if we’re careful about it. Unless you’d rather sleep?”
Violet shook her head. “That’s an impossibility, for tonight, at least. As long as they aren’t magmite, I’ll gladly tag along.”
His head curving backwards, Hadrian erupted in boisterous laughter. “No, no. I’m sure they’ve learnt by now to keep well away from you. We have bigger fish to fry.”
“Nothing too big, I hope,” Violet said, stretching, “after killing nothing but magma flies for the last Passing, I’m a little rusty.”
The two broke into a comfortable stroll, a candle-lantern rocking lightly in Hadrian’s hand. They followed the edge of the lava lake, though kept a safe distance. Whereas Hadrian could probably treat the waters like a hot sauna, Violet got the impression that making any contact with the bubbling liquid would likely disagree with her general health. Their aim was to stray no more than a mile away from camp, and they’d reported their departure to the half-conscious guards before setting out. Lest eight trainees, plus Veida, awoke in the morning with a terrible shock.
For all its intimidating aesthetic, Territory One really wasn’t all that impressive, after the initial awe of the crimson dreamscape wore off. It was like the dread you felt upon awakening to see your entire street plastered in ice, only for the fickle layer to dissolve in the span of a few tentative hours. In Violet’s book, once you’d seen a few miles of the place, you’d virtually seen it all.
“Remus battles Unbounded down there, and we do the same up here, only willingly.” Violet commented. “I don’t quite know what to make of that.”
“Is his trial still playing on your mind?” Asked Hadrian — the last dispersing remnants of what one had been a snake of flame scattering from his uncharred hands. “I must admit, the strategy is yet to prove effective for me either. Perhaps the next fight will grant us salvation, amid the heat of battle.” He sighed in uncharacteristic exhaustion, not sounding very convinced. “One can only hope.”
On they trudged, trouncing weak-powered Unbounded after weak-powered Unbounded, not one of them worth the bother of preserving. Veida would undoubtedly gain little from creatures so weak. Finally, in a clearing of brown, stringy plants miraculously uprooting from the least fertile ground Violet had ever seen, they considered heading back. They were just about to for that matter, an hour before dawn, when a hoarse sound in the distance snagged at their attention.
The two of them sealed their lips, unconsciously hunching down slightly in a defensive position, bent at the knees, listening. A wet, moist sort of sound resounded eerily around them; a faint hum, of too great a distance to be intelligible, also rang out, puncturing through the slavering noise. A silent agreement passed through the both of them in a single, uneasy look. It was a direct and simple message, a message that declared in earnest: one more fight.
And so, following the viscous sound to its source, Violet and Hadrian tiptoed past the plantage at a permanent wilt, the advance of sunlight not quite there yet, but the skies were of a visibly lighter tint.
After strolling forward for some time yet, and still not quite reaching the target of their search, Violet dared to speak. “What do you think it is?”
Hadrian shrugged his broad shoulders, conversing in hushed tones. “Haven’t the slightest.
Veida would know better than me, I couldn’t tell you the difference between two Unbounded species, unless they're at polar opposites on the power spectrum.”
“But it won’t be anything too strong . . . right?”
The Mercenary was abnormally quiet for a moment. The awkward silence was a far cry from the vote of confidence Violet had been holding out for.
“It shouldn’t be. Not this far away from the front lines. Though that screech. Bleed me if that’s typical of a low-Rank equivalent.”
Neither of them felt any need to continue conversation from that point on, a disquiet tension arising from the very atmosphere itself, only manifesting with a higher intensity the closer they tread. The closer they drew to whatever in the gods’ names was causing suck a drizzling racket. One stumble over a mound in the stoney ground, and their anticipation could at last, die off.
Only to be displaced by blood-curdling dread.
The monstrosity ahead was an Unbounded alright. Violet repeated that one concrete fact to herself over and over again, as her eyes swept over it, for that was the only similarity to the other Unbounded she had come across that would anchor her down to reality. To prevent her from drifting off in a perilous spiral that would only lure her into rash decision-making. And, in turn, her death.
It was less a creature comprised of assembled organs, organised in a way that heeded the firm laws of sense and logic, and more a heap of unstructured insanity. A mass of jet black goo spanned the stretch of open ground, giving off the distinct impression of mud so concentrated, it had lost its trademark dirty maroon. It bubbled grotesquely in places, a being whose existence had known nothing but the damp coldness of dirt and impenetrable stone.
Hadrian halted, his forgone muscle deserted for marble. In a turn of the head agonisingly slow, but evidently manufactured to be so, he turned to Violet, pupils dilated in fear. He mouthed a singular, pleading syllable. Run.
Violet took gradual steps backwards, not risking even the slightest noise. The Unbounded’s own tremorous splutters were of such volume, it would likely cover the meagre sounds without the need of so much caution, but she wasn’t going to take any risks. At that exact moment, Violet didn’t think it possible for her terror to reach a crescendo any greater than it already was — put the emotion on a graph, and it would be a straight line upwards. At least she could seek comfort, no matter how slight it was, in the knowledge nothing could terrify her any further. Even the neurological pathways of her mind had its limits.
That naive notion lasted approximately one second, before a fatal realisation dawned on her. She hadn't noticed it in her stupefied reverie, but the Unbounded — it was speaking!
“Yield.” The creature croaked in a slimy voice, a false impression of language that charred against the eardrums. “Yee-uld!”
That was about the extent of the creature’s vocabulary, and yet nevertheless, it was enough to send Violet’s brain screaming at her to flee. She didn’t budge. Out of either steadfast courage, continued petrification, or illogical stupidity, of the kind that had not prior surfaced in this world, Violet was left unawares.
Violet stared out blankly towards the mass of animated mud, the image of her drowning in that very same essence a haunting spectacle, topping even the worst of the nightmares that had plagued her childhood. Before she could form the vital question of whether it had noticed their presence — an inquiry that would decide the breadth of her lifespan — vague contours of brown that could only be identified as eyes bore into her.
Hadrian had seen enough. One moment, he had been a mere foot away from Violet, equally, if not more aghast, and the next, he had suited his own personal cape of flame. Brandishing the sole weapon in his arsenal against the repulsive beast: overwhelming heat.
The entire back of his body, from behind his head to the ends of his ankles, billowed out dancing sparks in a trailing afterimage of flame. Hadrian’s feet left ashy footprints even into the igneous below, at a blitzing speed that hurt the eyes to follow. Or perhaps ‘trace’ would be the more accurate word, for at the speed this man was operating at, Violet didn’t possess the impossible senses needed to follow his wild jolt in real-time. His Mark, a lambent harmony in the shadow of it Violet caught, finalised the demonic image of a crimson blur, razzing anything and everything in its path.
The Unbounded may have appeared strong, initially, but a pile of gloop, no matter how ominous, could only be so strong. Perhaps a peak Foot-Soldier equivalent at most. In short, at this rate, the fiend would be reduced to its ash in the span of a few seconds, withering to death in its own personal hellfire. In her time in the man’s company, Violet had never really taken into account the true ferocity of Hadrian's strength. His bubbly exterior did a damn good job at disguising the decades of expertise laying dormant underneath, simply awaiting to be tapped into.
Hadrian was a Splintered-Ranked. A Mercenary, the most adept out of the three at simply lashing out raw, world-quaking power. To him, a Foot-Soldier might as well be a toddler with a little promise.
Violet blinked, and the Unbounded was reduced to nothing more than a quickly dissolving tar, plastering against the flattened area. Hastily, Hadrian pulled out a strange-looking jar from seemingly nowhere, placing a squirming piece of the beast firmly inside, air-tight.
He lifted the fruits of his labour before him with a wry smile, the portion of the beast within on the verge of demise, but not yet dissolving. Obviously thanks to the effects of whatever was containing it. “There we go!” Hadrian sighed, not having even worked up a sweat. “See, we did get the sample in the-”
The casing dropped from his hands, crashing onto the floor and erupting into a hundred individual pieces. The twitching goo promptly dissipated, into the Infinity that sustained its nightmarish form.
What spooked Violet wasn’t the man’s expression, though that in itself was horrifying. What frightened her was what he was looking at.
Violet gazed downwards, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
Rising up to her feet in height, was a layer of spasming, screeching goo.
“Justice . . .” It belched. “Jus-tice!”