"You'll see." I didn't bother explaining. She would see it for herself soon enough. I'd rather spare her the boring details. We entered that point were only the results mattered.
The view from up here was surreal; Zetun was obscured by a heavy gloom. The guard rotation had just cycled, leaving a brief window of opportunity. We approached the side gate, Nyssara flashing her badge with practiced authority.
The guard didn’t even look up. "Expired three months ago. Beat it."
She opened her mouth to argue. I grabbed her arm and dragged her into the shadows before she could turn a rejection into a scene.
"Now what?"
"We don't use doors."
We skirted the wall until the smell hit us; waste and stagnant water. The drainage grate was rusted shut, fused by years of neglect. One hard kick broke the corrosion. The iron fell inward with a wet splash. We dropped into the sewers.
"Romantic," Malgrin said, his voice dry as grave dirt. "Classy even."
"Quiet."
We navigated using the light of a mana-lamp. The tunnels were a serpentine maze of slick brick and oily pipes. I traced the right wall, counting stones until my fingers found the discrepancy. I pressed. The hidden door groaned, the sound of stone grinding against stone echoing like a dying breath.
The passage beyond didn't just lead down; it plunged.
"Sure about this?" Nyssara asked.
"No."
And so we descended.
We left the Empire behind. The stonework shifted from polished grandeur to pre-Imperial brutality; rough, undecorated, built to last an eternity. The air grew heavy, pressing against our eardrums. At the junction, the left path offered the familiar, dry scent of the catacombs. The right path breathed cold; felt wrong.
"The Portal," Malgrin whispered. "It's down there. I can feel it itching."
"We mark this," I said, staring into the abyssal canal to the right. "Explore later."
"We need to know the terrain," Nyssara countered, drawing her sword. The steel hissed in the quiet. "If the Grey Hand uses this, we need to know where it ends."
We took the right tunnel.
The descent became a physical weight. My instincts were a magnet pulling towards retreat, I ignored it. The temperature plummeted, turning our breath into ghostly mist in the lamp light. The stone gave way to natural cavern walls, rough and ancient. We were walking through the earth’s ribs now, in a place that existed before humans ever stacked two bricks together.
The tunnel opened into a void.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
The chamber was cathedral-sized, the ceiling lost in velvety darkness. The center eminated coldness.
In the center of the floor, reality was wounded. It wasn't a portal, not yet. It was an ancient scar. Caused by no man. The air shimmered and warped, stretched thin to the breaking point. Ancient runes covered the floor, glowing with a sickly, faint light, stitching the wound shut.
"The First Emperor's seal," Nyssara breathed.
I actived my Blood-Sense.... And I regretted it instantly.
The Scar didn't make a sound; it exerted pressure on me. It screamed in a frequency that rattled my teeth. It was a profound wrongness, an abyss waiting to consume. Pain spiked through my skull like a driven nail. Warmth trickled over my lip. It has givene me a nosebleed.
I snapped the sense shut.
"Don't do that again," Malgrin said, his voice trembling. "Looking at that thing intently is like staring at the sun with no eyelids while it's hailing"
"Noted."
Nyssara paced the perimeter. "They place the Tear in the center. Break the seal. And then everything ends." She pointed to fresh etchings on the wall. "New runes. Someone is maintaining this. Preparing it."
I surveyed the room. One way in. No way out.
"It's a kill box," I said. "If we fight them here, we die here."
"Then we stop them upstairs."
We turned to leave, but the cold gave me an idea. A cruel one.
"Wait. No. We set a trap."
I drew the cursed blade. The black steel, infused with the poison I’d harvested from Nyssara’s own wound back at Vekro's apothecary. I scanned the tunnel entrance until I found a pinch point. There it was - a protrusion of rock that forced anyone passing to twist their shoulders.
A tripwire is a warning. A corpse is a discovery. But a wound... a wound is a beacon.
I wrestled the blade into a crevice at hip height, angling the edge toward the entrance. Hidden in the gloom, it wouldn't kill. It wasn't meant to. It was positioned to deliver a shallow graze to anyone rushing past.
"The curse poison," Nyssara realized, eyes widening. "Your Blood-Sense."
"Exactly. Once it enters the bloodstream, whoever got cut becomes a visible dot on my radar. I can track that specific rot from a mile away."
"Clever."
"Practical."
"Actually kind of brilliant," Malgrin admitted. "Your strategies become sharper."
We marked our path with invisible chalk symbols and began the climb. The ascent felt harder, as if the Scar was trying to pull us back down.
Halfway up, voices drifted down from the palace.
We froze. Two figures were descending.
"...ready for tomorrow?" A man’s voice, audibly unnerved.
"Everything is prepared," a woman replied, calm and terrifyingly assured. "The ritual components are in place."
"And if the pact-bearer steals the Tear?"
"Then we use the backup. The pretenders die. The portal opens. Either way, we win."
We pressed ourselves into the rock, melting into the shadows. An Inquisition robe and a palace scribe’s uniform brushed past us in the dark. They headed down toward the trap.
Nyssara mouthed it: Grey Hand.
This could have gone so wrong. But instead we got lucky and avoided them by mere seconds.
We slipped out into the Zetun night. The air tasted sweet compared to the tomb below. I touched the healing cut on my side.Tomorrow, the world would try to end itself.
"Yes. And you know the worst part of it all?" Malgrin asked.
"What?"
"Even if we win... that thing down there is still hungry. It’s still waiting. Mortal hands have only partially a say in this"
--- SPECTACLE REPORT: THE ABYSS GAZES BACK ---
Performance Rating: ???? (4/5) Malgrin's Note: "I hate that room. I hate it. It howled at us as if to say all existence was a mistake. But sticking a cursed knife in the wall to mark potential enemies is inspired. You weaponized an unavoidablee doorway in the dark. I’m docking one star because you almost melted your brain looking at the Void with your Blood-Sense. You should have known better somehow."
ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD:
-
The Scar: Raised existential regret by 15%. Do not poke.
-
Effect: Psychic Pressure / Instant Migraine.
TACTICAL PLAY:
-
TheTrap with the Friendship Curse: Deployed.
-
Mechanism: Passive infliction by passing and friction.
-
Status: All has been set, now just waiting for victim. (bars)
PHYSIOLOGY UPDATE:
-
Current Status: Nosebleed (Minor).
-
Mental State: Spooked (Don't lie, I felt you flinch).