Further into the Abyss

It took another month of travel before the cavern reached the Abyss’s more intricate tunnel system. The days were punctured by lengthy monotonous mornings and evenings. It only took a week for all catchup conversations to run dry. After all, what kind of small talk could exist in a long, exhaustive shaft?

Everyone tried their best to keep the insanity at bay.

Deme applied new polish to her father’s cuirass every morning and diagramed with rough parchment all her potential improvements and designs.

Richard exercised. He sprinted ahead of the party during the day and returned to camp only to report that the cave continued to stretch forward with no hint of an end.

Tamarin tended to Horse. She spent her hours grinding away with a pestle and mortar, crushing herbs and dried vegetables into pastes and dusty powders. Whether it was food for Horse or for the rest of the party, nobody wanted to ask.

As for Lavenza, she and Faye maintained their group’s mana imbued torch lights whenever they started to dim. Boredom had hardly ever been a concern for the apostate. When it came to magic, there was always something to do.

“The mana distributed in the crystals are inefficient,” Lavenza observed. “They all shine constantly. That’s why they go dim so quickly.”

“Are they not supposed to shine all the time?” Faye asked. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a cave with no other lights.”

“Not what I meant,” Lavenza held out her hands. Three separate orbs appeared above her palm. “What do you see, Faye?”

“I see spheres of light.”

“No, what you see is mana,” Lavenza replied. “Very simply, the more I concentrate it, the brighter it shines. See?”

“Yeah. I see. I see that if your mana wasn’t shining the entire time, I wouldn’t see anything at all.”

“Right, but what’s the difference between this,” Lavenza then extinguished two of the spheres, “and now? Everything’s still lit between us, yes?”

“Your problem is that I’m using too much mana,” Faye grumbled.

“No, like I said it’s about the distribution,” Lavenza explained. “Like anything else, mana depreciates with use. You use all the mana in the crystals and exhaust them all at once, when what you can do is use strands of mana at a time. It wouldn’t burn as bright, but we have five torch lights between the five of us.”

“I have more than enough mana to replenish five silly lights, Lavenza,” Faye rolled her eyes.

“True,” Lavenza said, “but the adjustment to the distribution of mana in the crystals is also a trivial endeavor. Why not make it better just for the sake of making it better?”

“It’s not trivial,” Faye frowned. She sounded like her teeth were being pulled. “I don’t have the same control over the particulars as you do.”

“Then practice,” Lavenza shrugged. “What other things do you have going on down here in the dark? Or is practice something you gave up when you stopped being a student?”

“You know, sometimes I think it’s a good thing magic’s disappearing along with the Endire,” Faye sighed. “People will be spared the suffering of dedicating their lives to magic as you have.”

“Well, if demonkind does have a way to protect themselves against the petrification, mages will still be around after the Endire expires,” Lavenza replied. “You might be one of them.”

“If I survive, Lavenza, I will hang up my staff and never cast another spell again.”

Despite her apparent reluctance, Lavenza caught Faye practicing her suggestion that very same night, and then again the following morning. She failed miserably at first. Faye’s best quality was accurate self-assessment, and she really didn’t to possess control over her own magics to the same degree as Lavenza. But persistence proved more resilient than natural talent, and when Richard noted that the torch lights had stopped burning as brightly the following week, Faye laughed and pointed at Lavenza.

“Don’t blame me. She made me do it.”

And so the month passed with little fanfare. It was fair to say that a complacent routine had settled within the party, because when Lavenza and the others reached a crossroads and the Abyss expanded into a network of interlacing corridors and narrow ledges overlooking an unfathomable chasm, the party was at a loss of where to go.

“Well, here we are,” Richard glanced over the edge of the nearest cliff. “I assume we are still heading east from here?”

“Supposedly,” Tamarin replied. “The problem is, half these routes seem to run eastward.”

“Is there some trail to follow maybe?” Richard asked. “You know, footsteps. Or maybe droppings.”

“Droppings?” Tamarin asked.

“You know,” Richard squirmed. “Goblin droppings. Excrement. Goblin excrement.”

“What is it with you and shit?” Tamarin moaned. "You full of it?

“Hey, I’m just trying to add something productive.”

“I’d hate to interrupt this riveting discussion,” Lavenza sighed, “but Deme and I are not here to find the City of Stone. We’re here to search for Rafta. If we’re at a loss of where to go, then I suggest we either split up or prioritize our search.”

“I’m not opposed,” Richard said, “but do you have any idea of where to search for it, in all of this? This gorge is larger than most of the other cavities elsewhere in the Abyss.”

“The answer as always, is magic,” Lavenza eyed Faye yawning in the foreground. “I’ve never seen it myself, but Rafta should emit a magical essence, just like anything else. I imagine it should have a stronger presence than most things down here, so we follow whatever trail that we find.”

“Is there even magic down here?” Richard asked.

“Of course there is,” Lavenza waved the torch lights in front of Richard’s face, “and I also sensed a strong source of mana from the cliffs on the other side of the gorge. If we don’t know where to start, I say we start there.”

“It could be Rafta?” Deme squealed.

“Or it could be a monster,” Tamarin suggested.

“Well,” Lavenza chuckled, “you’re the Hero’s Party. I imagine it wouldn’t be an adventure if you didn’t have to put down a beast here and there. Does anyone have any other suggestions?”

Lavenza’s idea went unopposed, and the party spent the new few days searching for the best way across the chasm. There were dangerous paths like a rocky bridge that seemed poised to snap as well as a precarious set of narrow ledges that barely spanned the width of Deme’s feet. 

Richard suggested perhaps climbing to the bottom of the gorge and walking across, but when Lavenza flashed a light into the chasm and found it bottomless, Richard retreated from the plan.

“Venz, why can’t we just jump across the bridge?” Deme asked. “You know, like what happened when we first tried to cross the mountains before, you know…”

“If I could see the other side, it might not be a bad idea,” Lavenza said, “but I don’t want to send you over and miss and you fall into the gorge.”

Their path across the chasm arrived out of sheer happenstance. Deme awoke one morning to find that Horse had wandered off. This was not unusual. The beast often left in search of water when everyone was asleep. Finding him was easy. His hoof prints were clear beneath their torch lights in a cavern with little erosion.

That day, Horse traversed a descending branching corridor having heard the mild sound of a stream at its end. When Deme and the others followed, they discovered that the rivulet flowed from a subsidiary passage perpendicular to the tunnel and streamed into the gorge. Across the trickling waters. Deme spotted a wide ridge that rose piecewise up and up until it reached the other side of the chasm.

“There it is!” Deme yelled. “There it is, everyone!”

“It’ll be tiresome for the horse to climb all this,” Richard said, “but it beats the rest of us falling off a narrow ledge.”

Unfortunately for Horse, his incidental discovery meant he was once again at the mercy of magic. While everyone else climbed the ridge, the slant was a bit too steep for Horse, and Lavenza was left with no choice but to cast the beast up the ridge, step by step.

“Do you sense it still, Venz?” Deme asked. “That magic thingy from the other day?”

“It might not be Rafta, Deme, don’t get too excited,” Lavenza said, “but yes it’s still there.”

“I’m glad that you remembered why we’re down here,” the child blushed. “I’ve been drafting everything I need to finish father’s armor. Rafta isn’t the only thing. I intend to make use of some the jewels he’s left behind. Then there’s the cloak.”

“The cloak?” Lavenza asked.

“Yeah,” Deme nodded. “Old Calvin gave it to me when we first met. It’ll look good when I fasten it to the back.”

The child drifted off. She recalled meeting Old Calvin and the respect she felt at his craftsmanship. But recent memories smeared the events of the past. It was difficult to not hear again his cries for her to abandon her dreams, that look that he had given to Ariadne as if she were worthy of both pity and shame.

“Try to remember the good things, Deme,” Lavenza suggested. “He treasured you in his own way.”

“You’re right,” Deme smiled weakly.

As they scaled the ridge and then reached the other side of the chasm, Lavenza felt the magic of whatever rested on this side begin to waver. Its essence, or maybe its life force seemed to quiver with each step that Lavenza took towards it.

Deme scaled the ridge right after Richard. For the hero, his strength and speed made it easy, but Deme was dexterous herself. Her few experiences with smithing and maintaining her father’s armor had given her hands the callouses to weather a difficult climb. She waved to Lavenza from above.

“I see something!” she called and then disappeared.

“Richard, keep your eye on her!” Lavenza shouted back.

Lavenza finished sending Horse to the top of the ridge and then chased after Deme. Once she arrived at the head of the cliff, the mana she felt weakened further. Was it a magical trap, she wondered, something that drew those with magic affinities in? Lavenza rushed forward.

Deme’s and Richard’s torch lights could be seen in the distance. Their destination was clear. Something gleamed at the end of the path. It was a soft light, no stronger than their torches, but it diminished with every step that Lavenza took until, in a snap, the magic there extinguished like a flame doused with water.

The soft light blinked away. Deme skidded to a halt, confused at first, then walked forward carefully until she reached a mound of soil that rested beneath a ceiling of twinkling stalactites. At the top of the mound, the child saw it.

It looked like an ordinary flower, just like Old Calvin had described, with wide pink petals and a round center. But unlike healthy flowers, the translucent petals fell limp and the pistil had darkened into an unsavory gray. Deme held the stem with one hand. She rubbed the leaves between her fingers. That was how she knew. It was just like Old Calvin had said. There used to be power there. This was the flower she had been searching for.

It was just missing one thing.

“Rafta,” Lavenza muttered, “but it’s already withered.”

“It can’t be used like this, I don’t think,” Deme whispered.

“Why not try anyway?”

“I don’t want to risk damaging my father’s armor,” Deme shook her head. “What if it has the opposite effect?”

“Deme—”

“Still, this is amazing,” Deme laughed. She rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. It’s incredible, Venz. Even withering like this, it’s…beautiful.”

Deme sobbed. Lavenza knelt to her knees and placed a hand on the child’s shoulders. Something told her that the child needed more, so Lavenza pulled Deme close and kissed her cheeks.

“It grows here, Deme,” Lavenza said. “Here. In the Abyss. We know that now. There will be more.”

“You’re right, Venz,” Deme smiled.

The child sniffed away her tears and wiped her face with her sleeves. She offered the withered Rafta one last look then returned to Richard and the others to tell them what she had seen.

Lavenza stayed behind.

“Interesting,” she murmured. “So even across different space, the legend of The Withering Flower holds true.”

“What a terrifying little weed.”