Chapter 65 - Miasma

The path ends here. The air has everyone taking shallow breaths, my teeth ache and my vision swims at the edges as I battle with the increased pressure.

It’s a massive, dark opening in the stone. It seems less like a natural formation and more like the ground tore itself open to escape what’s within. 

The rock around its edges is slick and black, glistening in the summer sun. Complimented by jutted out crystalline clusters of what appear to be mana stones. So rich in colour they look edible. 

“That’s not possible… Mana stones are rarely found in the ground and never in such large quantities as this.”Clovis somehow manages such a long sentence despite her laboured breathing. 

The rest of the expedition stares in disbelief, their exhaustion and the crushing pressure momentarily forgotten in the face of this geological heresy. 

Roach, his face pale and clammy, steps forward, his eyes wide with a horror that transcends simple fear. It’s the terror of a man seeing his entire understanding of the world shattered.

“I’ve walked this forest my whole life… I’ve camped in every sector, charted every stream. I’ve never… not once…” He trails off, unable to articulate the sheer wrongness of it all.

Arrian, for his part, says nothing. 

He simply stares at the dark maw. The map is useless. His training is useless. 

Before this great calamity, we are all just small, frightened people. The line between Knight Captain and town guard has evaporated, leaving only a dozen souls staring into an abyss.

A man leans heavily on his spear, his knuckles white. Another sways on his feet, his face pallid. 

The pressure is becoming too much. 

For the first time since I met him, the Knight Captain’s face holds something other than command or contempt as he looks over his struggling men. 

A shared hardship, a silent acknowledgment that his own authority means little in this environment.

Ignoring the throbbing in my head, I lift the lens for one final look, pointing it toward the cave mouth.

I can feel Clovis grab my arm as if to pull me back and stop me. But she doesn’t utter a single word as I begin to channel my mana into the lens.

The sight is catastrophic.

There is no stream of mana flowing into it. 

It is a waterfall, a great, screaming vortex of energy piling into the chasm. 

The energy is so dense, so powerful, it looks like a physical substance. A liquid night, shot through with veins of incandescent crimson. 

This has to be the source.

I watch, mesmerised and horrified, as a gush of mana is spewed towards me in an eruption  that billows outwards. A high-pitched whine fills the barren landscape and everyone covers their eyes, but I can’t, the lens has my hands bound. 

I can feel the lens frame begin to vibrate violently in my hands, the iron growing uncomfortably hot. The blue surface of the lens shimmers, the image within distorting wildly as the vibration intensifies, a furious hum that resonates through my arms and into my chest.

Then a crack. 

The vibration ceases. The whine cuts out. 

I slowly lower the lens and stare at it in horror. A spiderweb of fractures has spread across the flawless blue surface, radiating from the center outwards. 

Our fourth companion in our endeavour to understand this world just a little better has had its power shattered by the very source it was built to observe.

My eyes try to adjust to the unfiltered world again but they struggle under the surge of pressure that has just been amassed.

The deep shadow of the crevice appears to be shifting. I rub my eyes in disbelief. 

But it continues to writhe. 

Vague, indistinct figures are moving within the darkness, their forms obscured by the deep gloom, but their presence is an undeniable certainty.

Arrian’s head snaps up as he recognizes the threat too. His fractured composure maintains just for one singular word.

“Retreat!” he bellows, his voice cracking with a panic that strips away all of his knightly poise.

The command is a spark in a powder keg. The fragile camaraderie of our shared misery dissolves into a frantic scramble for survival. 

I clutch the broken lens to my chest as we turn to run from our impending doom. 

The last thing I see before plunging back into the twisted forest is the figures beginning to spill from the mouth of the cave, their silhouettes large and monstrous. 

Our hunt has begun.