Chapter 11:

The Abyss

Oddment


Urmorr City, a massive place with a population numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Unlike many other cities that spread out in every direction, Urmorr consisted of a long strip of roads and buildings. It spanned nearly half the shoreline of the country-size lake of the same name. Divided into three districts because of its length. In the East District built along cliffs, the wealthy and powerful lived. In the Middle District built upon sloping hills, lived those who were neither rich nor poor. In the West District at the bottom of a valley, the desperate and weary wasted away among washed-up trash.

A traveler walked through the crowds of the Middle District. The streets were lively and loud. People swarmed about going to work, shopping, or finding a place to eat. Even with his strange appearance, no one gave the traveler anything more than a glance. With so many people around, it was hard to see where he was going. He didn't even notice the person following close behind him.

Eventually, the traveler made his way to a food vendor. "I'll have one of those," the traveler said, pointing to a skewer of fried lake squid.

A female voice came from beside him. "Make that two, please."

The traveler looked over and saw a familiar face. "Luthil? What are you doing here?"

"What do you think, Sojou? I'm getting lunch," Luthil said nonchalantly before biting into a piece of squid.

"What are you doing here in Urmorr?"

"Well, after our little adventure in Lomorr, I realized that life was too short to be spent wallowing in the slums. I came here to start a new life where no one knew me as the 'sewer rat'. In the Middle District, I found work and made an actual living."

"I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. How'd you find me in this mass of people anyway?"

"You're the only person I've seen wear a gigantic hat like that."

"I guess you're right."

"I assume that you came here to investigate the lake?"

"Yes, though I have yet to find a way to the bottom."

"I might be able to help you there. Out of habit, I looked around the drainage system of the city. While it's far more impressive than the Lomorr's, I didn't have much trouble navigating it. I found one of those ancient door things in the West District."

"Can you tell me how to get there?"

"It'd be a lot easier if I just showed you."

"Fine, but you can't go any farther than that door. I'll be the only one going down into the lake."

"No, I want to go with you."

"After what happened last time, I realized that it's too dangerous to bring anyone else with me."

"Too dangerous? You don't get to decide that for me. I'm not the same cowardly girl that you met a few months ago. I promise I won't be a liability."

"We nearly died last time."

"I'm aware of that. However, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon. Are you?"

"Of course not. But, no one dies when they expect to."

"Exactly. If you leave me here, I may get stabbed and die on the streets. I might not be able to choose where or when I die, but I can choose how to live my life. I think if I stick with you, for now, my life will be far more interesting."

Sojou sighed. "Alright. You can come with me."

Luthil's face beamed.

Sojou held up a finger. "On one condition, you must listen to everything I say. You've got to prove that you are more of a help than a hindrance."

Luthil nodded vigorously. "I'm at your command."

"Good. I guess we should start by going to the West District then."

The two of them tried their best to stay together as they moved across the busy streets. They made their way to the lake where they could take a boat to the West District. Most of the boats only went from the East District to the Middle. There was one boat that was willing to take them to the West District. It was small and made from scraps of driftwood. They could tell that the owner didn't get much business. No one in their right mind would want to go to the West District, and everyone in the West District was too poor to afford a boat ride.

Since the boat was only powered by one man rowing, it was quite a while before they arrived at the West District. It was apparent when they got close, because of the pungent smell. When they got off the boat, Sojou made sure to give the man a bit of extra payment. He looked around at the piles of trash and flooded walkways. "So, this is the West District. I can't say my expectations were high, but this has certainly surpassed them. In the negative sense."

"Don't take in the view for too long, or you'll be a big target for thieves. Especially when you're carrying something that looks so expensive," Luthil said, pointing to his walking stick.

“Let’s get moving then. Lead the way.”

Sojou followed Luthil through the flooded streets. The people shot them glares whenever they walked past. Sojou kept a tight grip on his walking stick. However, no one seemed to have the strength to try and take anything from them.

They came to a wall with large pipes protruding out of it. Wastewater and trash flowed out of most of the pipes. Instead of draining somewhere else, everything spilled out onto the roads.

Sojou held his nose shut. “You went looking around in here for fun?”

“I don’t really smell much anymore, so it doesn’t really bother me.”

“I see. After you,” he said gesturing to the pipes.

Luthil climbed up into a mostly dry pipe. Sojou followed soon after. Luthil walked through it normally, while Sojou had to crouch down. They weaved through the network of pipes until they reached the ancient door.

It was similar to the one in Lomorr. It was made of a black metal that almost blended in with the pipes. Its most distinguishing feature was the inscriptions carved all over it. Sojou wasted no time in speaking the commands to open it.

The inscriptions started to glow and the door slid open. Past the doorway, a rectangular hall was lit with similar inscriptions.

“Finally I have room to stand up,” Sojou groaned.

”How did you open that door anyway?”

Sojou lifted his necklace out of his robe. “This necklace allows me to read and speak any language. The ancient civilization that built this place controlled many of their things with certain words. If you know all the words, then you basically have access to everything created by them.”

“Can you teach me some words then?”

“No.”

“Let me use that necklace for a bit then.”

“Absolutely not. There’s no telling what you’d do if you had free access to this place.”

"You're no fun."

They walked down the hallway for a while until they came upon a platform. It was much larger than the one at Lomorr, with enough space to fit over 20 people on it at a time. After stepping on it, Sojou gave it a command, and it started to descend. Luthil wasn't surprised by the sudden movement since she had experienced it once before. However, what did surprise her was the speed at which they were falling. She began to worry that the platform might've broken and they were now in a free fall.

Even with the increased speed, their descent still took quite a while. Luthil's legs started to get tired from standing still for so long. When she went to sit down, the platform slowed down, knocking her off her feet. By the time she got back up, the platform had come to a stop. They were now at the bottom of Lake Urmorr.

Luthil looked around at the walls that rose far above her head. "I don't remember the other place being this big."

"It's just a guess, but I bet this place is this size because of the significance of what's inside. If this is a temple, then the building at the bottom of Lake Lomorr would be like a little shrine. I think whatever we find down here is bound to be interesting."

"Do you think there will be more of those cultists here?"

"I hope not, but I doubt that the small group we ran into was little more than a branch of a large tree."

"I hope you're wrong."

"Me too." Sojou put his box down for a moment and reached inside. He pulled out a short sword and handed it to Luthil. "Just in case I end up being right." She gripped the sword tight with a burst of courage.

Their path was lit by glowing inscriptions as they continued to venture further in. They didn't see or hear any signs of other people, but they tried to keep quiet nonetheless. At the end of the long hallway was a door. Sojou was able to push it open with ease. He poked his head out to check for danger before motioning for Luthil to follow.

The room they entered had tall triangular walls that met at a single point in the ceiling. Inscriptions covering each wall created a pattern of light resembling water running down a surface. The majority of the room was empty space. Which was strange since it was one of the largest buildings either of them had ever seen. With that much space, just about anything could fit inside. The two wandered around looking for anything of importance.

While searching the room, Luthil tripped on something and fell. She looked back and saw that there was a spiral staircase in the middle of the room. Luthil called Sojou over. "Where do you think this goes?"

"There's only one way to find out," Sojou said as he went down the stairs.

Luthil followed close behind him. The staircase didn't have any glowing inscriptions, so Sojou pulled a ball of light out of his box. He held it in front of him, and Luthil was hidden in the shadow of his hand. They carefully went down the stairs making sure to be as silent as possible. at the bottom, it opened up to a hall with an arched ceiling.

"Do giants live here or something? Everywhere in this place is massive," Luthil said in awe of the architecture.

"The strange thing is that the staircase we just went down was a normal size. You'd think that they would've made that bigger to go with everything else."

"Maybe they didn't think it was importan-"

Sojou covered her mouth and pointed ahead. A man was walking down the hallway in the opposite direction. Sojou turned off his light and took Luthil behind a wall. There was a bit of light coming from the other end of the hall, so all they could see was the man's silhouette. When he walked past them, he seemed to look in their direction. Luthil became worried for a moment until she saw what the man was wearing. Aside from the dark robes, he also wore a cloth wrapped around his eyes.

After he had passed them, they continued to go down the hall. When they started walking, the man turned around to face them. "Who goes there?"

They both stopped moving and offered no reply. The man stared in their direction for a moment, before turning back and going down a different hall. The two of them breathed a sigh of relief. Had his eyes not been covered, he would've seen them immediately. Further down the hall, a group of blindfolded men passed by them. Instead of hiding, they continued to walk like normal, and the group didn't seem to notice anything.

At the end of the hall, they found the source of the light. There was a massive stone in the middle of a room with a contraption around it. It looked like a gigantic version of the rock they saw in Lomorr. The high ceilings were nearly too short to contain it. Judging by its size, the room would've needed to be built around it. The stone emitted dark energy from the many holes on its surface. The strange contraption around it emitted a white light that seemed to counteract the darkness. 

Luthil walked around to the side of the rock and stopped. "Take a look at this." 

Sojou looked and saw that the rock was split in two. Strangely, the inside of it was completely hollow. "I wonder if there used to be something inside of it?" 

"If there was, it left without much of a trace. Maybe the rock was empty all along." 

"All that dark energy had to come from somewhere." 

A man's scream was heard in the large room next to the stone. Sojou peeked around the wall to take a look. At first, he only saw a group of a hundred or so men wearing blindfolds. Sojou wondered why they were all standing around in that room when one of them was grabbed by a huge tentacle. The tentacle was a deep black with dark energy flowing from it. While the man screamed for his life, the other men got on their knees and bowed. 

"All hail R'labh, the ascendant one!" they all chanted. 

Luthil, who was now watching the scene unfold, went closer for a better look. The tentacle was connected to the head of a massive creature. Darkness swirled all around it, so there was no way to see its real form. Before she could see anymore of it, Sojou yanked her backward. 

"Don't look at it! There's a reason all those men wear blindfolds." 

"What's going to happen? Am I going to die from just from looking at it?" 

"Its existence isn't something our minds can easily comprehend. While you might not die from looking at it, you'll probably go mad."

"That sounds pretty made up to-" Luthil's words cut off as she froze in place. She turned and saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at her from across the room. Grabbed by intense fear, she started to tremble and shake. Sojou quickly jumped in front of her to block her view. Luthil was able to collect her scrambled thoughts and started to run away. 

Sojou tried to follow her, but a booming noise from the creature stopped him in his tracks. The noise continued and sounded almost like words. Sojou clutched his ears in pain. Luthil turned back and couldn't understand what was happening to him. She could hear the sound as well as he could, but it didn't affect her. Then she realized what was causing his reaction. 

Luthil ran up to Sojou and pulled the necklace off of his neck. His pain subsided and he was able to start running away. As Luthil turned to run she saw the group of cultists heading in their direction followed by the lumbering creature. They ran as hard as they could and gained a significant lead on their pursuers. The creature crawled after them, trampling many of the cultists in the process. 

They felt a bit safer upon reaching the staircase as it was far too small for the creature to climb up. After running up the stairs, there was silence. Just as they thought they were safe, the floor beneath them began to crack. The creature burst from the ground flinging pieces of stone all over. 

A large tentacle reached for Luthil, but she managed to use the sword Sojou gave her to sever it. Since the creature wasn't focused on him for the moment, Sojou quickly took something out of his box. It was a small crystal that glowed with purple light. Once Luthil caught up to him, Sojou threw the crystal at the beast. When it made contact with it, the crystal began to glow violently. 

Without turning back to see what would happen, the two of them rushed to the exit platform. A shockwave pushed both of them onto the platform and Sojou activated it. When the platform started to rise, they turned back to see large pieces of the wall collapsing and water rushing in. The creature was nowhere to be seen. 

The platform managed to rise fast enough to get them back to the surface safely. Sojou turned to Luthil and said something in a foreign language to her. She was confused at first until she saw that she was still holding his necklace. After handing it back to him, he put it on and was able to speak with her normally. 

"I really didn't expect this to end worse than last time."

"We're still standing here, aren't we? I think that's good enough." 

"It's certainly preferable to getting crushed or drowning. Though that was exactly the reason why I didn't want you to come." 

"If I wasn't down there you probably would've ended up as food for that thing."

"In hindsight, neither of us should've gone down there. Though I'm glad that we put an end to that thing. There's no telling what would've happened if it was left down there for any longer." 

"What did you throw at it to cause that explosion anyway?"

"I threw a crystal of condensed Essence. I figured it would collide with the dark energy from that beast to create some sort of reaction." 

"You mean you didn't know what was going to happen after you threw it?"

"Not exactly, but I knew that it would create a distraction for us at the very least. It ended up doing a lot more than that though." 

"It helped us escape, so I can't complain. What even was that creature?" 

"All I know is that it's definitely not from Veshoa."

"Even just remembering when it looked at me, makes me feel disturbed," Luthil said with a shiver. 

"What bothered me the most was when I heard it speak. It was only for a brief moment, but I listened to it say the same thing over and over. It was crying out for its mother." 

-june-
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