The Descent

Aaron stepped cautiously into the cave. A faint vibration traveled through the stone beneath his boots, subtle yet persistent, creating the unsettling impression that the cavern itself was somehow alive.

He conjured a flame, its yellow glow illuminating only a short stretch of the passage ahead. A charred black substance coated nearly every visible surface, and the deeper he ventured, the more the surrounding darkness seemed to swallow the light.

Aaron stopped.

"Lumino Magnifik."

A faint glow passed through his eyes. His pupils shifted, stretching and sharpening until they resembled those of an owl, and the cavern transformed before him.

Hairline fractures splintered the stone while black veins of miasma crawled through the walls and floor, feeding into decaying plants that clung stubbornly to the rocks. Their leaves curled inward and their stems twisted grotesquely, as though they had continued growing long after nature intended them to die.

Everything here was mutilated, and Aaron's expression sharpened with every step he took deeper into the cave.

Then a horrible screech tore through the silence, followed by the frantic beating of countless wings overhead. A swarm of bats descended.

Aaron stumbled backward and threw up a barrier just in time. One after another, the creatures collided with its shimmering surface before dropping to the ground.

"Screw you, stupid bats!" he shouted, still catching his breath.

As he pressed onward, the extent of the corruption became impossible to ignore. Multiple wings protruded from malformed bodies, heads had fused together, and limbs bent at angles no living creature should have been capable of enduring.

Every creeper and crawler dwelling within the cave had suffered the same grotesque transfiguration.

Eventually, Aaron halted beside a stone staircase plunging into darkness. What lay beneath him resembled a dungeon, which made little sense.

All the old dungeons had supposedly been sealed by mages generations ago, constructed specifically to contain monsters and prevent them from spawning beyond their confines. At least, that was what every book Aaron had ever read on the subject claimed.

He stared down the staircase, trying to reconcile what he knew with what stood directly before him.

•••

Aaron descended carefully. The air grew colder with every step, carrying a rotten heaviness that settled unpleasantly in his lungs.

The staircase itself was deteriorating beneath him, and several steps down, he hesitated. For the first time, Aaron found himself genuinely torn between continuing deeper and turning back.

The decision came too late.

Stone cracked beneath his boot, and Aaron lost his footing. He tumbled down the staircase in a succession of painful impacts before landing face-first against the freezing floor below.

With a groan, he pushed himself upright and cracked his aching joints.

Decide quickly, Aaron, or you'll die here. I'll conjure a hovering barrier next time.

He began stretching, attempting to recover what remained of his dignity, when something farther along the passage seized his attention.

Aaron froze halfway through the movement.

Something was writhing ahead of him—recoiling, twisting and squeezing against itself in thick, restless coils.

Anacondas. Dozens of them.

He stared for another moment.

No... even more than that.

Aaron straightened slowly, sweat beginning to gather despite the cold. The shapes covered the ceiling and walls, with others seemingly erupting directly from the stone beneath his feet.

Erupting? Why erupting...?

His fear gradually gave way to observation. Their surfaces were slimy, their movement traveled upward, and every one of them appeared connected to a single point.

No noses.

No eyes.

Realization dawned.

They weren't snakes.

What Aaron had mistaken for anacondas were corrupted vines—thick, black, slick with unnatural slime and grotesquely swollen.

Maybe they're harmless. At least they're not snakes.

With that reassuring thought, he advanced several paces.

The vines immediately reacted.

Perhaps it was his movement or perhaps his body heat, but several twisted toward him at once, stretching far beyond what their tethered roots should have allowed.

Aaron stopped.

Okay. Tethered but deadly. Might choke or squeeze me to death.

He conjured a massive flame and hurled it toward them.

The fire washed over the vines without leaving so much as a scorch. Instead, they began thrashing with renewed aggression, snapping through the air almost as though offended by the attempt.

Aaron instinctively followed with another spell.

"Perforo Lacia."

The piercing attack struck the vines and ricocheted straight back toward him.

Aaron barely twisted aside before the spell tore past. Had he moved a fraction slower, he might have pierced himself in half.

What?? These stupid vines... Turn them into armor, and no one would ever die on a battlefield.

Aaron retreated several steps and healed himself.

Brute force clearly wasn't going to work, so it was time to think.

Fire couldn't burn them. Piercing magic couldn't penetrate them. Outrunning them outright was unlikely.

But destroying them wasn't necessary.

He only had to slow them down.

Freeze them.

Aaron steadied himself and prepared to sprint through the passage. The moment two vines lashed toward him, he struck.

"Iciculo Regresso."

Ice raced across their surfaces, locking them rigid for a brief moment. They began stirring almost immediately, but Aaron was already several paces ahead.

More vines attacked, and he froze them in precise bursts, never wasting more mana than necessary. Each spell reduced their reach just long enough for him to keep moving, and strike after strike carried him farther through the passage until the writhing mass finally fell behind him.

Aaron reached the far end and glanced back in disgust.

"Die, vines."

Then he turned around and found another staircase awaiting him.

•••

Aaron stared at it with immediate suspicion. The memory of his earlier fall remained painfully fresh, and several parts of his body were still objecting to the experience.

A barrier... but I'm no expert. I can try, though.

He stepped sideways to inspect the structure more carefully and frowned.

"What...?"

The staircase was suspended in open air, with no walls beside it, no supporting columns beneath it, and nothing solid upon which he could reliably anchor a barrier.

So much for that idea.

This time, I run.

Aaron launched himself forward, sprinting down the staircase in one relentless descent and refusing to give the crumbling stone another opportunity to betray him.

When his boots finally struck solid ground, a sharp sting seized his throat. His eyes watered, and a metallic taste spread across his tongue.

Toxic fumes.

He covered his nose and mouth with a scarf at once, though the sight before him seemed completely at odds with the danger filling his lungs.

An iridescent greenish-blue waterfall cascaded into a tranquil lake, bathing the cavern in an ethereal glow. The poisonous water shimmered with almost heavenly beauty, casting wavering patterns of light across the ancient stone walls.

Then warmth touched his upper lip.

Aaron wiped it away and found blood on his fingers. The fumes were already affecting him.

Running is effective. I will do just that.

He surveyed the lake. It was enormous, stretching across most of the cavern, but fortunately it appeared shallow.

"Terra Opeste."

Stone platforms erupted one after another from beneath the poisonous water, forming a path toward the opposite shore. Aaron bounded across them as quickly as possible, putting distance between himself and the toxic fumes until his boots finally reached solid ground again.

•••

He had expected another staircase.

Instead, a massive wooden door stood before him, ancient and weathered, its enormous surface scarred by time. Aaron placed both hands against it and pushed.

The door groaned as it slowly yielded.

Beyond it stretched a vast hall lined with ancient pillars, far grander than anything Aaron had expected to find buried beneath the forest. At the far end stood a magnificent throne.

Empty.

Aaron's brow furrowed as he stared across the silent hall.

But why?