EPISODE TWENTY-NINE:
SANCTUARY
Trailing his hand along the wall of the tunnel, Vash walked deeper into the absolute darkness. Within a few steps, the tunnel curved, and he lost even the meager light of the glowmoss in the previous cavern. He fought down memories of Duke Gellar’s mines, how other penitents had tormented him by stealing his lantern while he worked in a small shaft.
Those days are long gone. Vash told himself. You aren’t a scared boy under the thumb of criminals and hypocritical clerics.
But the darkness was the same. The uneasy feeling that there was something out there, watching and waiting for him to let his guard down. Every time he had ventured deep into the mines, he felt an oppressive something out in the darkness.
“I am the hunter, not the prey.” Vash whispered, trying to focus on the prayers that the Eth Mitaan used. The words had always settled his nerves, ever since he took his oaths. They had even banished thoughts of the mines. The first few months in the temple had been hard. His room was a small cell, barely wide enough to stretch his arms across. Surrounded by damp earth on all sides, absolute darkness when he would put out his lamp. He had spent many nights sleeping in the sanctuary, unable to banish the memories that the darkness brought.
That was how he’d first met Iona. He still remembered her storming into the sanctuary after a Hunt had gone particularly poorly. She had some choice words for Byar that evening. The leader of the Eth Mitaan had listened to her with the same placid expression he always wore, then chided her for ‘’. A favorite phrase of his, and infuriating since he never gave out more information than he felt necessary.
Discovering Vash had heard the entire argument, embarrassed and angered Iona. But not long afterwards, she had helped him face both his past and his fears. The techniques she had taught him not only helped him sleep in his own bed, but gave him a foundation for developing his Talents later.
It had been quite some time since he had thought of those days. Vash was surprised that the memories came to him now, but at least they distracted him from his own predicament. Focusing back on the here and now, Vash continued his slow, methodical trek along the tunnel. It was far longer than the previous one had been. It also sloped down and to the right, something Vash noticed after the second time, the tunnel wall took a gentle curve.
Without sight, Vash relied on his other senses, just as Iona taught him. Unfortunately, this deep into the earth, his other senses did not do him much good either. His hearing, usually quite sensitive, only picked up the dull thudding of his own heartbeat and the rush of blood through his ears. The tunnel itself was still and silent. Vash hoped that was a good sign. At least he couldn’t hear the growling hiss of the Scalebacks, or the clicking of their claws on stone.
. Vash thought. It was too much to hope that the Scalebacks had fallen for his ruse and then just called off the hunt. They would pick up his trail, eventually.
He risked a little mana, adjusting his low-light vision, hoping to see something, even if it was just more of the tunnel. Though he felt his eyes adjusting, there was not enough light to make anything visible.
“Jabez is probably right at home down here.” Vash said to himself, quietly. “I heard dwarves don’t even need light to see. They can feel the echoes from the rocks.”
There was no response from the darkness.
“I may have finally cracked.” Vash chuckled.
He was about to let go of his Talent and save his dwindling mana, but he hesitated. There was a faint feeling from within his Core. Not like in combat where he could sense an attack, this was more subtle. Vash focused on it for a moment, just letting his mind drift into his Core. As he did, he felt several new mana pathways carved through his body. They felt sharp, spiky, like a fresh wound. He winced, the thought reminding him of the slashes across his back.
Even though these new channels felt raw and sensitive, he could feel them moving mana around his body. It felt strange, almost like he had a second Core, but distributed across the left side of his body. One thing was certain, however, the channels all radiated from where he had grasped the soulstone.
“If I get out of here, I’ll need to get someone to look at this,” Vash said, but for now he tried to focus on what the faint feeling from his Core was trying to tell him.
It was like a soft, but insistent, tug in one direction. Not like the sudden, sharp pulses of warning in combat. This was like having a shy child take him by the hand and want to show him something. The tug was insistent and eager, but the grip was soft and could slip away at any moment.
Curious, Vash focused on the pull, letting it guide him. Ahead, the tunnel split. Vash could feel the difference in the tunnel’s size and the movement of air. One shaft had a slightly upward slope and ran straight, as far as he could tell. The other continued the path he followed, sloping downward and curving to the right.
He stood in front of the two shafts, uncertain what to do. The unfamiliar sensation from his Core lightly pulled him towards the downward sloping shaft, urging him to continue the way he was going.
“It feels beneficial, like a Talent or combat senses.” Vash said to himself. “But I must have gotten it from that soulstone, and I have no idea what those things were meant to do. Nothing good, judging by Zakarias’ actions.”
Vash took a step towards the upward sloping tunnel, focusing on his Core and seeing how it would react. The response was almost instant. Vash felt a sharp pull away from the other tunnel. He almost jerked to a stop, surprised by the sudden increase in severity.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Frowning, Vash tried again. This time, a tingling sensation in his left arm accompanied the pull. It wasn’t pain, but Vash could tell that it could become unpleasant.
“Something really wants me to take that other tunnel.” Vash said, frowning. He didn’t like it, but since he wasn’t sure that the new channels were malicious, it was worth investigating.
“Who knows, it could be long-lost treasure.”
The pull intensified as he continued to follow the tunnel even deeper into the Underlands. It didn’t throb or pulse like he’d experienced with his Core. This was a steady, insistent force that wanted him to go in this direction. After a short time, Vash saw a muted blue glow appear around a bend in the tunnel.
Glowmoss patches grew along the ceiling of the tunnel. The light they gave was not as strong as in the main caverns, but it gave enough illumination to reveal a bit more of the tunnel that he was following. Minerals, dripping from above for centuries, covered the walls in old, weathered stone. Running his hand over the smooth rock face, Vash felt a familiar thrum in his Core.
“Mana,” He said to himself, quietly. “And a lot of it. What is this place?”
He partially answered his own question as he came around another bend. Blue and purple crystals poked through the layers of stone. They glittered in the soft light of the glowmoss while contributing their own purplish light.
“Therium.” Vash breathed, staring at the clusters of crystals. Just a handful of these were worth hundreds of gold marks. He resisted the immediate temptation to hack away raw crystals in a greedy frenzy. “It only grows in areas of high mana concentration. So, there must be something nearby that is producing that much magical energy.”
Monster lairs, especially those of old, powerful creatures, were the most likely places to generate the ambient mana needed for Therium growth. Also ancient ruins, places of power, had deposits nearby.
“With my luck, it will be some nameless horror from the early days of the world.” Vash muttered.
Ahead, the Therium deposits became more easy to spot. Large clusters of crystals extended from the walls, encroaching on the space available to walk. The sharp crystals snagged on his clothes, threatening to slice them to shreds if he wasn’t careful. Vash navigated the virtual maze of Therium crystals. Mana swirled within the crystals, like multi-hued clouds roiling behind glass colored a gradient of blues and purples.
The effect was hypnotic, and if it weren’t for the steady pull that Vash was feeling from the soulstone wound, then he would have paused and stared into the crystalline depths for hours. The pull was insistent, however, and he only stopped to look for a few moments.
Not long after finding the Therium, the tunnel opened into a small cavern about a hundred feet on a side. As Vash entered, the glowmoss opened, reacting to his presence. Pale blue light bathed the cavern, revealing flat-topped mushrooms as tall as young pines. The floor had a carpet of pale grass that swayed lightly in a breeze that Vash could not feel.
Even more incredible were Therium crystals growing as tall as a man, radiating concentrated mana. Vash marveled as he ambled into the new cavern. Swirling lines of purple crystal grew along the cavern walls, lined with lighter blue glowmoss patches. It was beautiful. But there was something else that drew Vash’s eye. Nestled amongst the looming mushrooms and heavy stones was a structure.
At first, Vash thought it was just an oddly symmetrical boulder, but as he approached, he could tell humanoid hands obviously made it. The building was little more than a squat, stone and mortar square, about fifteen feet on each side. A pair of narrow windows faced Vash as he approached. Strange symbols decorated the stones that ran around the roof of the structure.
“Not Common script, and not any elvish that I’ve seen before.” Vash said, looking over the structure. It didn’t look like any specific construction that he’d seen in Sathsholm. The building looked like anyone could have built it. The building was so devoid of specific flourishes.
A simple square doorway formed the entrance, and Vash followed the pull of his soulstone marking inside. The interior was just as plain as the exterior. Small piles of rocky detritus littered the floor, along with several bones of indeterminate origin. What drew his attention was at the far end of the building. Someone had built a small altar. To what and for what purpose Vash couldn’t tell. There was some of the strange writing on the stone table, and in the center was a swirling white and silver orb. It looked similar to the soulstone that had wounded him.
Vash looked at the stone. The pull was definitely coming from the odd, pulsing orb. He cocked his head to one side. “Maybe they call each other?”
He leaned on the altar, trying to get a better look at the orb. As soon as his hand touched the stone, Vash knew he’d made a mistake.
A sudden rush of mana filled him, not recharging his Core, but filling the new channels in his body. Vash felt a connection to the orb and through that, to a vast network of mana channels spreading like a web from the orb and through the building. He could the path of the mana through the local area. It was like building a map inside his head.
His mind rocketed along the paths and tunnels, unconsciously looking for the way back to the river. Within moments he had found the way, just a few turns off of the tunnel he’d been following. He could see .
One of the nearby tunnels opened into a cavern of walking fungus. The mushroom people looked harmless, about the size of a dwarf or a gnome, with awkward, rotund bodies. But Vash could ‘see’ they had several Scaleback carcasses that they were carving up like butchers.
Another path led him to a nest of those strange Hammerworms. Dozens of the slimy creatures writhed and roiled in a shallow pool that fed into the larger river. A clutch of eggs at the center and the bodies of various creatures piled around them.
There was still a hunting party of Scalebacks prowling the tunnels, but they missed this one every time. Vash felt the building erasing any scent or sense that the Scalebacks could use to track him to this place.
. Vash thought.
A warm pulse of mana flowed through him. It certainly felt like a yes.
Vash felt himself being pulled further into the connection with the orb, the building, the Underlands itself. He had a fleeting vision of himself taking up the silvery orb, seating himself upon the altar and melding with it. Becoming the heart of something else, something both new and old, something powerful.
Another glimpse and he saw a man in segmented armor, like the centurions of the Malconian Legions depicted in the great illuminated tapestries of the Grand Temples. The olive-skinned man laid aside his helmet and picked up the orb. He placed it against his forehead and pressed firmly. Golden sparks of mana fell as the orb burrowed into the centurion’s flesh. When he was done, a third eye looked out from the center of the centurion’s forehead. It glared at him, the yellow iris contracting a vertical, slit pupil.
Vash pulled away. He wanted nothing to do with that eye, that creature. His awareness snapped back to where he was standing. The silvery orb was in his hand, and he was raising it to his forehead.
“No!” Vash snarled, dropping the orb.
He stumbled back; the orb bouncing with a hollow clack sound. Vash’s hand came off of the altar, and he felt the connection snap. The mana that had been coursing through him suddenly cut off. His head felt light, dizzy. He fell away from the altar, exhaustion turning his arms and legs to lead. Vash fell on his side, trying to avoid falling on his wound.
Vision fading, the last thing he saw before passing out was the silver orb coming to a rest a few feet from him.
