Zenos awoke before first light, early enough that frogs still croaked among the whistling statues. He crawled out of his tent to find the fire cold. Mad’s own tent was open and a cursory glance proved the bedroll was empty.
“How early did he leave?” Zenos wondered aloud.
He had put himself to bed not long after sundown. An early night ensured he’d wake before dawn, but it meant he couldn’t confirm whether Mad had come or gone. Zenos searched the dark, but there was no obvious sign of Mad’s passing.
Did he return at all?
Zenos frowned and his reptilian eyes contracted in predatory diamonds. They scintillated with light.
[At-Will Ability: True Eyes of the Emperor Activated.]The dark landscape was illuminated in red and blue hues. Mad’s a necromancer, Zenos thought and scanned the ruins with his mana sense. He might be able to hide his footsteps, but he can’t hide his magic. There must be some trace of him.
Zenos had no luck with the campsite or the surrounding grounds. An opaque blue color indicated everything, from the ruins to the air, was starved of mana. What stood apart from the shroud of blue wasn’t a trail to follow, but the yellow-red glow of a nearby dwarf statue. He heard the tone of its high-pitched whistle, and at its end, the statue’s mana drained into the ground.
There was a flash. It traveled so fast, Zenos nearly missed it; a pulse of mana! A red light raced along the ground, up the hill and through the campsite. It disappeared beneath the enormous dungeon doors. His heart thumped hard in his chest and he turned to follow the whistle of other statues.
They alternated between mana-hot orange and cold, mana-less blue as they sent pulses from one statue to the next. It appeared that each statue was brighter than the last, until the final statue—brightest of all—sent its final red pulse through the dungeon’s mouth.
“They make this activity, such lights and sounds, only when adventurers are nearby.” Zenos remembered Mad’s words. “That is, only when magic is nearby.”
“Are they gathering mana from the air?” He wondered. “Or, could it be from us? Where does this mana lead?”
Zenos walked toward the door, traced the transmissions with his acute eyes. There were two distinct routes. The first was from the cluster of statues around the dungeon ruins. They delivered their mana pulse through the campsite. The second seemed to be from the south and it traveled along the cliff above the door. If there was a second cluster, Mad had to be there.
He grabbed the necessities: A canteen of broth and survival bar, which he clipped to his belt and stuffed in his coat pocket. He drew his sword from the holographic screen of his inventory and held it tightly in hand.
[At-Will Ability: True Eyes of the Emperor Activated] the system reported. He had refreshed his buff.I have only one use left of my Eyes. All told, that’s fourteen minutes before I run out of mana sensing, Zenos thought as he ran along the mountain, through the ruins. I have to hurry. If anything gets in my way, I’ll cut straight through it! His foot dropped through grass, into a hole hidden in the dark, and he fell forward.
Snap! Zenos yelped, lost hold of his sword. His ankle had twisted and snapped on a rock.
[Your HP was reduced from 800 to 760. You are crippled.]Zenos breathed hard through his nose. He didn’t need the system to tell him that his foot was broken. Although the pain was significant, his constitution stat continued to mitigate his sense of the damage. What would be debilitating was just aggravating and he removed his foot from the hole.
It was weeks ago, when Zenos had first arrived on Adheim, that he had experimented with health regeneration by cutting his arm with glass. For the reason, he wasn’t concerned. He needed only straighten the foot and the system would handle the rest.
[No combat detected,] it reported. [Regenerating.]He watched his HP tick up by 5 points. The cripple buff disappeared and in less than a minute his health bar was full. He tested his foot by turning it side to side. Full mobility, he thought and grabbed his sword. I can’t waste any time watching my steps. If I get hurt, the system will handle it. I just need to focus on the pulse.
The cliff was dark, but Zenos stared hard and he caught the transmission flash from one end to the other. He sprinted again toward the source.
At the tail end his mana sense, as his last buff faded, he found it. Hidden behind a dense copse of pine trees and thick bushes, was a cave. It was tall and thin, just wide enough for Zenos to squeeze through past by his shoulder. And it howled.
That’s a whistle, he thought, sword firm at his side. A red pulse coursed from the cave’s mouth, up the mountain and out of sight. Why would Mad be in here?
Zenos swallowed. He wasn’t afraid of darkness or tight spaces, but the hollow of the cave was black, darker even than the deep blues of the mana-less air. The depth of that pitiless shade made his stomach sink with unease.
He made a deep breath, vented his anxious apprehension through his nose, and stowed his sword back in the inventory. The cave howled and he turned to his side. Carefully, he crept, toward the noise. The cave distorted the statues innocuous whistle and made them like the cries of beasts. Zenos made an uncertain step into the blackness, his hand grasped a wet stalactite and he slipped. His knee fell hard on the cave floor. Water soaked his pant leg.
The HUD flickered.
The cave howled.
Zenos crept up from the floor. His boots, then soaked through, sloshed in the water. Blindly, he continued between the cave walls. He could not tell how long he had ventured down the cave, damp like the world’s throat. He did not know whether it was night or day. Surely, the morning had come, but that thought was no comfort as he slipped into a knee-deep pool of cold water.
He recovered and stressed his eyes against the dark. Eventually a light appeared to relieve him, its red glow obvious on the slick walls. It could only be a statue, and it did bellow, loud enough to hurt Zenos’ ears. Despite that he continued to drag his feet through mud, until he turned with the twisting cave and faced the dwarf itself. It had emerged from the cave wall, where it hung from its stone arms. The dwarf was slouched forward, its eyes glowing as beams of red into the black water. Its howl rippled the water and shook the air, until the light disappeared.
All at once, there was silence and darkness. Zenos heard only the beat of his own heart and a ringing in his ear. His breath quickened and he groped for the path forward. His HUD flickered wildly, appeared to scatter across vision.
[Error,] he saw in red.Zenos felt the contour of the dwarf’s head in his palm. Its eyes shined, blinded him. The howl battered his head and he fell backward through the black water. The HUD flickered and vanished.
He had felt that way before, sinking—like falling—through the black. In a time before life, he had stood on a black ocean, as vast as it was deep; infinite by every measure. Corpses floated beneath his feet as flotsam driven by a silent wind. Eyes, plentiful as stars, stared down at him from the heavens. Had he ever felt so breathless? The demon emperor that had conquered the world, who stood on a billion lives, trembled before its might.
Zenos coughed, erupted from the water. He grabbed a silt floor and pulled himself from the pool. What he saw in the black, was it real or imagined? Had it happened in the past or future? The images, once so clear, became indistinct on the shore. Like a dream, they ran from his mind. His attention fell to worldly things, like the water he hacked from the lungs, and the piercing cold that made his water-drenched coat feel as ice.
Zenos turned his head up, clutched his shoulders with his hands. His eyes rounded at the sight: A forest illuminated by the red glow of dwarf eyes. Its black trees grew from the cavern ceiling, and sunk leaves of moss into a subterranean lake. Someone was there at its center, their legs folded in meditation as they floated inches above the water. Although their back was turned, he recognized them instantly.
“Mad!” Zenos shouted.
A creature rippled ahead of Mad. It leaned to the side and stared at Zenos with round eyes, soft and pallid like the moon. The faint light they shined was similar to Zenos’ own, but somehow perverse.
No, Zenos thought. Those aren’t eyes… they’re mouths.
The mirror of living water collapsed into the lake and Mad appeared to move, roused from a sleep. “What did I tell you?” he asked as he turned to Zenos. His eyes were closed, but there was a smile on his face.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
