Underground detour

After running for an hour that Arthem felt lasted a whole year, Aruka slowed to a halt. He struggled down from the Spirit's ’s back and fell on the ground, standing on his knees and hands gasping for air. Helia crouched down near him, resting her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?”, she inquired with worried eyes.

“I just…”, he wheezed. “Need a moment.”

She stayed down with him, gently stroking his back up and down. After a minute, he stood back up, slowly, blinking several times.

“I’m fine, I’m fine”, he waved her off. Helia swiftly pulled back her hand, realizing she was still touching him.

Behind them, Aruka and Ceres argued about who had won the race.

“Aruka wins!”, she yelled into their minds.

“No way, I got here first, I just had to land, but that doesn’t count!”, responded Ceres.

“Ceres was making Winds, that’s cheating, so Aruka wins by default anyway! But, Aruka is also faster!”, she stated, puffing her furry chest.

“We never said no Handling! Also, I saw Lightning coming from you, isn’t that cheating too, then?”, Ceres cawed as he replied.

“AHEM!”, interjected Helia. Both Spirits turned to look at her.

“Why are we here, I wonder?”, she reproached them both. They lowered their eyes remorsefully.

“Sorry”, whispered Ceres.

“Aruka is sorry”, she said. “Ceres is a sore loser, and Aruka got carried away.”

Ceres was about to retort something, but Helia’s displeased look stopped him.

With the argument over, Helia looked around where they had landed. They were standing on an open field at the foot of a hill. A few trees and bushes did their best to decorate the environment, without much success.

She closed her eyes. “I can also feel it from here. Let’s search.”

The group followed after her as she started walking towards the hill, all of them on their guards. Following the unnerving feeling that Shadows emitted, they climbed.

After a short while, they came across a cave opening. The darkness inside gave them cold sweats and made them want to turn around and run home, confirming their suspicions.

Helia drew a lumiranite arrow and pointed it inside, pausing to see if her companions disagreed. Arthem nodded, and Aruka’s focus was already fully on the darkness, growling softly.

She let her arrow fly, illuminating the bare walls of the cave. They waited a few seconds, but nothing happened. With his lumiranite polearm pointed forwards, Arthem entered with cautious steps. Right behind him, Aruka had also drawn her weapon, a lumiranite sword adorned with precious gems. Closing the march were Helia and Ceres, surveying their backs.

The deeper they went, the worse Helia felt. There were no Shadows anywhere, but the cave itself also felt wrong. What they were looking for probably spent a lot of time within these walls.

On top of that, she wasn’t a fan of enclosed spaces. Her place was outside, feeling the wind in her hair, and the light of the Moon on her face. Ceres, too, seemed unsettled. She extended her hand and touched his back, trying to reassure him.

A few dozen meters deep they found Helia’s shining arrow on the ground, who hurried to take it back. Lumiranite arrows were pretty expensive, after all.

As she crouched down and grabbed it, she felt Arthem’s hand pull her back abruptly. She was about to complain when she realized she had been standing awfully close to a very steep slope. Several small stones rolled down from her previous position, quickly disappearing from view.

“T- thank you”, she whispered, startled.

“Be careful”, he scolded her, looking serious.

After a few awkward seconds, Ceres spoke. “We can’t keep going this way.”

They turned around in agreement. The light of day was somewhat visible through the entrance they had taken. Arthem took a single step forward, and as if on cue, the earth started violently shaking.

The four of them shared a look and immediately took off, trying to exit the cavern. They had only gone through a few meters when Aruka barked a strong warning. At the same time, Ceres summoned a strong Wind opposing their advance, and Aruka pushed them backwards using her strong body.

On the spot they would have been standing on, a torrent of darkness surged from the ground and traversed the cave, piercing through the ceiling. It was going too fast for them to distinguish anything other than it being maybe two meters wide. For several seconds that horrified them more the longer it went on, it kept going and going.

Helia’s head was spinning, both because of the Shadow’s effect on her psyche and the realization of how close they had been to getting struck. Corruption or not, there was no way they would have survived such a hit.

Arthem and Helia stumbled backwards, between Ceres’ Wind, the Shadow shaking the ground, and Aruka’s eagerness to push them to safety. Before they could regain their footing, they both found themselves rolling down the slope Helia had narrowly evaded previously.

“Helia!”, yelled Arthem, extending his hands towards her before they fell. She somehow managed to catch it, and he pulled her closer, trying to shield her.

For a millisecond, she was surprised, then touched, then very embarrassed. When she snapped back to her senses, she called for the Wind, and slowed down their fall, also cushioning every impact as much as possible.

Not long after, the ground became horizontal again, stopping their involuntary descent. Helia and Arthem were both laying on their sides, facing each other, trying to catch their breath. Both of them were now covered in dirt and bruises, and Arthem’s arm was still around Helia.

“Thank you”, she managed to say.

He chuckled. “No, thank you, you’re the one who actually did something that helped.”

She smiled back at him. “Well, still, I appreciate the sentiment. And it was easier to stop our fall with us being… Together… Like this…”, gradually, as she realized the position they were in, her voice got lower, and her face redder. She was thankful for the current lack of light around them.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”, he asked, his voice serious.

She shook her head. “Nothing more than a few scratches. You?”

“Same”, he said.

“HELIA!”, a powerful male voice resonated inside their heads, startling them. Faster than any of them thought they could move; they separated and sat up.

Ceres and Aruka had dived after them when they fell, and had arrived just then. The phoenix got in front of them first, trying to examine Helia with worried caws. After him, Aruka ran down the slope gracefully, holding both her sword and Arthem’s polearm in her mouth, illuminating the space they were in.

“Are you hurt? Did the Shadow touch you? Can you move your legs? What’s my name?”, he assaulted her with a barrage of concerned questions.

“I’m fine, the Wind slowed us down and protected us”, she responded, patting Ceres’ neck with affection. “Wait, Ceres! You’re worse than me, what happened?”

His body and wings were covered in scratches, and feathers were missing in some spots. He shook his head. “It’s nothing, this cave is just too small and I couldn’t afford to be more careful coming down.”

Helia gently stroked his wing, then gave him a hug. “Thank you, Ceres. I’m fine. This place must be very difficult for you. Come”, she took a step back and held her hands out. Nodding, Ceres shrunk and flew into her arms, settling down as she petted him.

Arthem felt out of place with them during such a tender moment. Before he could think of anything to do, or say, he heard a loud CLUNK right beside his feet.

“Aruka found your weapon and brought it back!”, she said, sitting down and looking at him eagerly.

He crouched and took it, trying to avoid the spots covered in canine saliva. “Thank you, Aruka”, he responded, wiping it down with the edge of his shirt. Now, it was also covered in dirt.

When he lifted his head, Aruka was still sitting in front of him. Her big, dark eyes were waiting. He sighed.

“You’re a good girl”, he said, giving her a pat on the head. Aruka’s tail wagged violently, sweeping the floor around her.

“Now… Where are we, and how do we get out of here?”, he asked the whole group.

They were in a space that felt like the direct continuation of the cave entrance they had initially taken. The slope extended upwards several dozens of meters, and the other direction was just darkness.

“If Aruka can climb, I think I can carry you both back up, if I do it one by one”, said Ceres. “Let me see how long the flight is, one moment.”

“Aruka can go up, no problem!”, she declared proudly while Ceres took off from Helia’s embrace. Some time later, he flew back down.

“It’s been closed off”, he announced, nesting down inside Helia’s lowered cloak hood.

She felt a knot in her throat and her breathing accelerate. She really, really, wanted to go out, right that instant, and see the sky. Maybe she would never be able to do that again, she would have to keep living underground in this cave with whatever that giant Shadow was. Despite her best efforts, the cadence of her breathing sped up.

Unexpectedly, something soft was touching the palm of her hand. Aruka’s furry snout was rubbing against her hand. She looked at Helia with worried eyes. Helia exhaled and gently stroked her head. Her heart had somewhat slowed down.

“You are a really good girl, you know, Aruka?”, she told the Spirit, who wagged her tail in response.

“There’s a path ahead of us. Let’s get out of here”, stated Arthem.

With lumiranite lighting the way ahead, they started walking.

They marched through the cave for hours, with no end in sight. The tunnels continued in all directions, intersecting with each other at different angles, forming an impossible maze.

Luckily, when they had left Aruka, the village, not the Spirit, they had all their things with them, including their provisions, so they were able to at least eat and drink.

However, Arthem’s polearm was losing brightness gradually, not having been charged in a while. Only, they couldn’t do that in there, for fear of attracting the Shadow.

“What was that thing, anyway?”, asked Helia.

“All I can say for certain is that it’s very long”, responded Arthem. “And probably the one who dug the tunnels we’re walking through right now.”

She looked around her, and shivered as she realized she couldn’t reach the ceiling, or both opposing walls at once.

“Probably some sort of serpent”, added Ceres.

“Do snakes dig holes?”, wondered Helia.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the earth trembling around them. They had gotten somewhat used to it by now, but it was still concerning. The tremors seemed closer than last time, yet no one dared to say it out loud. They picked up the pace.

Once again, the group came across an intersection. So far, they had chosen almost randomly, maybe trying to go upwards when that was an option, or avoid the direction the rumbling came from last, if anything. But this time, Ceres flew off Helia’s hoodie and looked at the two paths, intently.

“I can feel a breeze”, he announced. “To the left. It’s very faint, but it’s there.”

Helia and Arthem shared a hopeful look, both with smiles on their faces.

“Come on, let’s go, let’s go”, cried out Aruka, pushing them gently with her snout. “Aruka has to get back before night!”

As they continued, they started to see the color around them slightly change. Faint light was coming from an opening right ahead them, giving them additional hope.

To their dismay, what they saw through the hole was not the outside. Instead, a sharp incline went down to the floor of a much bigger space than they had been in ever since they fell, where an underground lake sat. The cave seemed to be the result of natures and the Shadow’s combined efforts, several tunnels opening into it on the walls, ceiling, and floor.

“Up there, to the right”, pointed Ceres.

Helia could see some sunlight coming from a hole near the ceiling, thanks to which they could make out more than the next few meters. A gentle breeze blew around them, further letting them know escape was within reach. It was high up, but it wouldn’t be impossible to climb or fly through with the Spirits’ help.

Aruka barked happily and started descending the slope. The rest of the group promptly followed her, much more cautiously. Once on the ground, they were finally able to admire the size of this new space. The ceiling stood a dozen meters above their heads, and for some reason, this unsettled Helia more than the tighter tunnels.

With Aruka’s lumiranite sword and the sunlight illuminating their path, they made for the opening. However, their progress was interrupted before long by the rumbling of the earth. Waves rose on the lake’s surface, and suddenly, the Shadow passed through the cave, rising from the ground. Its titanic body oozed with darkness as it rose in a perfect arch, creating another opening with its head as it collided with the earth below.

Before they could usher a single word, Aruka howled and ran towards it, her sword ready in her mouth, and her body cackling with powerful Lightning. Clearly, she hadn’t forgotten why they had come, and she wouldn't miss this chance. Helia tried to stop her, to tell her they shouldn’t fight it in its home, in such a dangerous and unstable place, but it was no use. This Shadow was a threat that Aruka couldn’t overlook, and this might be her only opportunity to strike.

Her slash didn’t reach it in time, but her Lightning did. For a second, they all held their breaths, waiting. Maybe it hadn’t noticed, or it didn’t care, wished Helia. But they wouldn’t be so lucky.

With another powerful rumble, the Shadow came back, this time from a wall, with what should be its face rushing down towards Aruka impossibly fast.