“This place looks wrecked,” Halcyon said as he and Caius finished their conjuring, his voice vanishing out into the tunnel around us. “This tunnel almost looks exactly like what we saw in the room with the first Æther Crystal, the walls here are all burnt and shattered…just on a much larger scale.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed, finishing my initial observation of the area, making a note of the damage that Halcyon had pointed out. It seemed like every spare inch of the walls around us had either been vitrified, and taken on a glassy sheen, or it had shattered and broken off completely, now a part of one of the many piles of stone that littered the area. “I think either something happened further down the tunnel and the blast carried up this far, or the Nafarr somehow moved Æther through this tunnel, and it erupted. That would explain all the damage we’ve seen.”
“Honestly, it’s anyone’s guess at this point,” Halcyon replied. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to piece together how this all happened.”
“And I don’t think we ever will.” I nodded with a sigh, looking out at the collapse that had blocked the tunnel behind us, silently wondering how far it traced back to the path that we had already travelled. Turning around to face Drace, I noticed that he had kept himself busy while the rest of us had been caught glancing around the chamber, the man having taken several steps out on the rubble that was piled against our side of the tunnel wall. “See anything interesting out that way, Drace?”
“Eh,” the half-giant grunted. “The remnants of the passageway we were just walking in from the looks of it. Looks like the whole chunk of stone it was carved out of shifted into the tunnel, then cracked and splintered off.”
“Damn,” I replied, looking around the area for a way forward and seeing that our only other option was to slide straight down the rubble before us and then to try climbing up another pile. “Can we keep going that way at all?”
“Don’t hold it against me if I’m wrong,” Drace answered a little hesitantly. “But yeah, I think so. If we hug the wall, we should be at least able to get to the next major pile of rubble I can see from here…”
“And where do we go from there?” Sierra asked, clearly not enthused with the man’s lack of confidence.
“Forward?” Drace proposed, his shoulders moving in a large shrug. “I don’t see any better options available to us. It’s not like we passed another route behind us.”
“He’s right, Sierra,” I said, waving a hand down at what I knew would be pitch-black darkness to her. “The only option I see is trying to slide down into all the rubble that’s fallen down here, and try to pick our way through it.”
“Hard pass on that,” she replied, exhaling sharply as she did so.
“Then let’s keep moving,” I said, waving for everyone to follow me as I moved to catch up to Drace and resume our journey through the ruins.
Keeping close to the wall, we fell back into our usual formation, carefully following the broken remains of the passageway before crossing over onto the large pile of shattered stone that Drace had mentioned earlier and continuing onwards through the partially collapsed tunnel. Travelling across the rubble in search of a route forward, we followed it nearly the entire width of the tunnel before coming across a large fragment of the far wall that had broken off and formed a makeshift bridge connecting to yet another mountain of rubble ahead of us.
Making sure to test that the precariously balanced stone slab would be able to bear our weight before crossing, we cautiously continued forward, the sound of our crunching boots the only noise filling the chamber. Glancing around with my enhanced vision as we moved, I noticed that the further that we traveled, the thicker and denser the debris that filled the tunnel became.
The damage looks worse this way, I thought as I looked around the chamber with my enhanced vision, now leading the party across the sea of broken stone, having offered to take over for Drace since I could see near perfectly in the dark. Pausing for a moment to pick a better route, I noticed the fragmented remains of several passageways had been exposed and torn free when the walls had collapsed, silently wondering if we could find one intact enough to climb into and leave the tunnel behind. It’s almost as if something huge exploded in here and shattered a good portion of it, exposing all the passages and rooms that were built alongside.
“This place is endless,” Constantine grumbled as I led the party across a massive chunk of stone that had fallen from the ceiling above, somehow managing to remain in one piece when it landed.
“We’ve travelled less distance than you think,” Lazarus said to the rogue. “We’re crossing from one side of the tunnel to the other more often than not; I’d be surprised if we’ve moved more than a hundred feet forward.”
“Ugh,” the rogue grunted dramatically. “If there’s a dead end at the end of this, I’m just going to throw myself into the abyss, rather than backtrack the way we just came.”
“If you did that, then you’d have to come back down here and get your Soul Fragment anyway,” Lazarus pointed out.
“Oh, right,” Constantine replied dejectedly. “I’ll get Drace to carry me then.”
“To the edge of the ledge before tossing you off?” the warrior asked, clearly enthused by the idea. “I’m on board for that. In fact, I can do that right now if you’d like. I’m sure I can get you some great airtime before you fall onto all the sharp and pointy rocks down there…”
“Hey, Lyr, need some help up the front there?” Constantine’s mood suddenly changed as several rushed footsteps echoed out from behind me.
“I think I’m doing okay, actually,” I said with a smile, looking back towards the group and seeing Constantine rushing forward to catch up with me.
“Okay, no problem,” Constantine replied, glancing behind him nervously, the motion causing a laugh from both Drace and Lazarus to filter forward. “I’m going to be right here though if you need anything.”
“Sure,” I said with a chuckle as I turned my attention back towards the path ahead of me, seeing that the large stone piece that we were currently walking on took us very close to the wall which had what appeared to be a large chunk missing from it. Angling our approach to investigate the damage, I hoped that I would find another stable platform of some sort that we could drop down onto and keep moving forward.
What I found, however, was something immeasurably better.
“There’s a fissure in the wall that looks like it leads down,” I told the group, having taken one glance at the sight below then turned around to fill everyone in. “We have about a ten-foot drop downwards onto what I assume used to be a hallway, which we can use to get closer to the hole. I can’t quite make out what’s inside it from this angle, but it definitely looks like it goes somewhere.”
“Well, I’m ready to get out of this tunnel,” Constantine said enthusiastically. “Let’s go.”
“Hang on,” Sierra stated, motioning towards the rest of the area. “Do we have any other options before we throw ourselves into a hole? Climbing back up is always a pain, or may simply not be possible.”
“Pretty much all our options are to go down at this point,” I replied, stepping sideways to look out into the tunnel and motioning towards a very large collapse that had blocked the entire left side of the chamber ahead of us, realizing halfway through the gesture that Caius and Lazarus were the only party members that had the ability to the see in the dark.
“The entire left side of the tunnel is completely caved in,” I explained, recovering from my mistake. “We’d have to drop down to the hallway below us anyway, then find a way to drop down even further before circling around all the fallen debris assuming we could at all.”
“So basically, our choice boils down to jump down blindly into a hole that could be a dead end, or jump down blindly into a sharp pile of rocks,” Drace summarized.
“Pretty much,” I agreed. “Though to be fair, whatever is on the other end of the hole could also be filled with sharp rocks.”
�
�A risk I’m willing to let you take for me,” Sierra replied, letting a smile creep across her face as she looked around to the group. “All in favor of Lyrian jumping into the hole first?”
“Aye,” the party echoed without missing a beat, including Amaranth’s belated mental voice.
“Everyone else, I get. But why you?” I looked at the cat, puzzled at how quickly this had turned from me finding a route out of the tunnel, to everyone deciding I should be the first one down it.
“Traitors, all of you,” I announced with a grimace, hearing everyone laugh as I turned away from the group and began to move towards the edge.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 38
“Ugh, Lyr!” Sierra exclaimed as she limped across the room angrily, her eyes staring daggers into mine. “You said that it was ‘just a short drop with nothing to worry about’! I nearly broke both my ankles landing!”
“Actually, I think Lyrian added ‘if you’re careful’ to the end of that sentence,” Constantine chimed in with a chuckle. “Besides, Amaranth and I landed fine.”
“Only because Amaranth is a giant fucking cat,” Halcyon seethed through his teeth as he sat on the ground, clutching at one of his shins. “And you have a skill that specifically reduces falling damage.”
“Psh, even without Acrobatics I would have been fine with that landing. Right, Lyr?” Constantine asked, looking over towards me with a wide smile. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“N-not at all,” I replied to the rogue stoically as I leaned heavily against the wall with a bored expression on my face, doing my best to hide the fact that I too had badly sprained one of my ankles after I had lowered myself down through the hole and landed badly on the giant pile of rubble directly under it. “Piece of cake.”
“Sure, it was,” Sierra commented grumpily as she took a seat on a large stone, breathing out in relief as the weight left her feet. “If that’s true, why don’t you put that left leg of yours on the ground and stand up straight?”
“Because if I stand like this,” I replied, indicating my current pose and then waved the entire party ahead of me. “I can enjoy all of your misery at once without having to turn my head.”
“Very funny, Lyr,” she commented just as Alistair tapped her on the shoulder with a healing touch, causing her face to shift in relief. “Thanks, Alistair.”
“No problem,” Alistair said nonchalantly as he continued to work his way around the party, pausing briefly to lend a healing touch to those who needed it. “I’ll send you all my bill at the end of the day. Healthcare isn’t free you know.”
“Shhh,” Constantine waved a hand in Alistair’s direction. “Healbots just worry about healing, not things like talking or getting paid.”
“Or healing rogues,” the priest replied, completely deadpan while giving Constantine a meaningful stare as a chorus of laughs echoed from the party.
“Everyone ready to get moving again?” I asked, finally able to put weight back on my injured foot as the last bits of pain faded away. “This passageway here looks like it follows the tunnel we just left and is completely straight from what I can see. No more debris hopping for us.”
“Thank god for that,” Lazarus stated, taking an eager step forward as several people echoed the man’s sentiments.
“That and it also happens to be our only way out of…whatever this room once was,” Caius added, glancing around at what must have once been a substantially large chamber, but had been badly damaged, leaving it almost filled with rubble.
“Well, yeah, that too,” I agreed before turning around and motioning everyone to follow me as I set off down the passageway.
Leaving the ruined chamber, I set a brisk pace as I led the group forward, mindful of the fact that Freya and her group were still ahead of us. Bounding up to my side before anyone else could, Amaranth joined me at the front of the group; his attention focused sharply forward.
“What’s—” Drace began to ask before I silenced him with a gesture, holding a hand to my lips and pointed at Amaranth.
“Shit!” I cursed and glanced back towards the rest of the party, filling them in on what my familiar had just told me. “We have trouble ahead; Amaranth can hear Freya shouting, along with magic too.”
“Damn,” Drace replied, his expression tightening. “Think they ran into that security unit?”
“Either that or something else!” I answered as I spun to race down the chamber ahead. “We can’t waste time; let’s go!”
Breaking into a sprint, we all rushed down the passageway, the sounds of our feet and rustling armor echoing loudly in the enclosed space. But as we drew closer to the conflict ahead, the noise that we were making was occasionally drowned out by the sound of crunching stone and several more loud shouts that I identified as belonging to Helix, Abaddon and Thorne.
I hope we’re not too late, I thought desperately as the passageway that we were running down abruptly shifted to the left before immediately correcting itself, forcing us to shed some of our precious speed in order to keep our balance. Rounding the bend, I leaped over a pile of debris that littered the ground and pushed off the wall with my free hand, using it to both steady myself and regain some of my lost momentum. Continuing my sprint onwards, a bright flash of crimson light suddenly filled the far end of the passageway, which I now saw opened up into a vast chamber ahead. Heart in my throat, I put on a burst of speed, the passageway blurring past me as I ran, practically exploding into the room beyond.
And entering into chaos.
My first reaction after stepping out of the passageway was to boggle at the size of the chamber that we had just run into, my brain skipping a beat until I realized that we had just managed to rejoin the massive tunnel that we had been following earlier. But instead of being filled with debris, this portion of the tunnel appeared as if it had been turned into magma and then allowed to cool, leaving the ground and walls covered in a layer of porous rock. Taking several steps forward into the cavernous room, another flash of crimson light filled my vision a second before a deafening explosion thundered through the air, followed by a pained shout.
That’s Freya’s voice! I thought in a panic, recognizing the voice and immediately turning my head in its direction, only to have my eyes land on two brightly glowing shapes that belonged to a pair of Æther Crystals hovering in the air. Spinning awkwardly and off balance, both of the Crystals appeared visibly damaged with large burns crossing their otherwise translucent faces. But just as I was about to look away from the almost overpowering aura of magic in search of the noise that I had heard, a large shadow stepped in front of one of the crystals. Wait. What the hell is that?
Slowing down in shock, I gaped at the towering creature, realizing in an instant that it was easily twice my height despite the distance between us. Blinking to make sure that I wasn’t imagining the sight before me, everything around me fell away as I took in its appea
rance.
Made entirely out of a tarnished dark metal I couldn’t identify, the creature bore a bipedal shape, complete with two arms and two legs. In one of its arms, I could see the shadow of an incredibly long greatsword that had clearly been designed for a being of its stature. Its other hand was pointed straight ahead of itself, focused on something that I couldn’t see, a wicked array of claws flashing in the azure light emanating from the Æther Crystals as it opened its palm and shifted its arm ever so slightly.
Then it unleashed an intense blast of crimson energy.
“Holy shit!” I gasped in surprise as the cavern flared brightly with a crimson light once more, the subsequent explosive blast causing me to first flinch mid-step, then stagger as my foot caught a protruding piece of rock.
I shouted back at the cat as I worked to keep my balance, refusing to take my eyes off what I had mentally pegged as being metallic construct, its tag appearing in my vision.
[Nafarrian Sentinel] – Elite Boss – Level 16
It survived after all, I grimaced, feeling my stomach twist as I finished recovering from my stumble, glancing briefly at the ground to check for more obstacles, then back towards the Sentinel, only to see it begin to gradually turn in my direction, having sensed either my curse or our mad dash into the chamber. How the hell do we even—
“Lyrian!” Freya’s voice interrupted my thoughts as she suddenly came into view, crouched down as low as she could possibly manage from behind a fused pile of igneous rock. “Get down! All of you, get down!”
Not questioning the blonde warrior’s words, I dropped down into my knees and angled my slide towards Freya, seeing Amaranth vanish out of the corner of my eye as he leaped in the opposite direction away from me. The second that I came to a stop, another flash of crimson light filled the cavernous chamber, only this time, it was much, much, closer than it had ever been before.
Legacy of the Fallen Page 49