Syber raced through the tunnels without hesitation, following the trails of the magma veins that lined the walls. The power crystals changed from glowing red to pink to white the more he moved up and up, closer to the surface. He scrambled upwards, even as the tunnel steepened until it was an almost vertical climb. He felt his core blazing within him, pulsing with each movement. His legs and arms began to ache from exhaustion. The metal of his shell was becoming soft with the heat of his overworking core as he dragged himself up through the tunnel.

The walls were turning to rubble, loose rocks falling with every step he took. He swallowed hard and looked down over his shoulder, the bottom of the tunnel far out of sight. Eventually his climb led him to a place where the tunnel narrowed and the light crystals had become fewer and farther between. The raging heat that had overcome him for a short while had begun dying down to a bitter cold. His core was running dangerously low on energy, and if he didn't eat soon, the fire that kept him alive would dwindle to a spark and fizzle out.

"You can't give up now Syber!" He yelled to himself, hearing his voice echo through the tunnel up ahead. "This can't all be for nothing!" he cried, feeling mercury tears welling at the corners of his eyes. The steep tunnel soon leveled out and he found himself pulling himself onto a ledge that lead into a cave. As soon as he reached the floor of the cave, he collapsed onto his back. His vision was becoming blurred, and he could barely feel his arms and legs. He was ready to give up, to succumb to his exhaustion, when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Just up ahead, there was a soft blue glow.

"Moss?!" Syber mumbled to himself, rolling over and pulling himself up on his arms. He rubbed his hazy eyes and squinted, trying to focus his eyes on what appeared to be potential sustenance. The dimly lit cave spun around him. He felt the cold moving up his legs. Syber gathered as much of his remaining strength as he could muster to reach with his arms and pull himself towards the moss.

"Please be dry!" He whispered as his fingertips clenched the ground in front of him. He dragged his aching body another foot towards the glowing plant. His fingertips grazed the edge of the moss. It didn't scald him. That was a good sign. If it was wet there was a chance of it injuring him as water did not mix well with his fiery core. Syber pulled himself another inch towards the moss and grabbed as much as could fit in his hand. Slowly, he pulled his hand toward his face. He opened his mouth and bit down on the stuff, feeling it work its way down his throat and towards his core. Syber pulled himself up onto his elbows and then he collapsed, his vision going black.

There was a sudden flicker inside his chest, and Syber felt warmth returning to his body. The Moss had been enough fuel to reignite the dying fire inside him. He opened his eyes, this time seeing the cave with unhindered vision. He was still weak with exhaustion, but the moss had saved his life. Syber pulled himself up and reached for more moss, cramming as much as he could into his face. Hunger drove him on, his hands plunging into the entire depth of the plant. The fire inside of him burned brighter and brighter at every mouthful.

He didn't stop when he had stripped off the outer layer of moss until he felt a stinging pain in his hands. Water. Syber yanked back his hands, shoving them in his mouth in an attempt to dry them with the heat of his core. Realizing that he had eaten enough moss to sustain himself for days, he pulled himself to his feet and scanned his surroundings. The moss grew all along the cave floor and crept up the walls, draping down from the stalactites on the ceiling. He had never seen this much moss in one place before, as it was a rare delicacy harvested from the higher caves that rarely grew in the Underworld.

Up ahead, Syber could see a tiny beam of light in the distance coming down from the ceiling. He stepped a few paces forward, realizing that it was coming through a hole in the ceiling of the cave that seemed miles above his head. It was different from any light he had ever seen, brighter than the magma veins of the underworld and the gentle red haze of the light crystals. It seemed as if the moss was growing towards this light, somehow drinking it in to make itself glow.

Syber looked around for something, anything, that would help him climb towards this light. At first it seemed as if there was nothing, but then he noticed a spiral pattern of stone leading towards the light. "A staircase!" He yelled to himself in delight, racing towards the bottom of it. His voice echoed through the space like a raging army, and he laughed to himself in surprise.

As he took to the steps, he felt a surge of confidence rushing through his body in the realization that he was finally fulfilling his dream of reaching the surface. His feet thundered across the stairs in a moment of euphoria. As he neared the top he felt a rush of warm air leaking in through the surface and he felt rejuvenated by the freedom he felt deep within his core. The final step seemed to be the hardest when he reached it. With shaking legs and a deep reverence for the moment, Syber placed his foot upon it and pulled himself out of the hole, his eyes blinking in the searing golden light that scorched the skies.

He was there. He had finally made it to the place he had been dreaming of his entire life. He felt as if he was one of the heroes in the stories he told, standing there with dirt beneath his feet. The soil was black and rocky. The sky glowed red and orange, and the air was thick with falling ash. A rain of sparks showered down from the nearby volcanoes, and in the distance was the mighty mountain from whose fires he had been forged, Art'at in all her crimson glory. The mother mountain stood as a silhouette against the crimson sky, veins of lava pouring down her sides as she belched thick clouds of smoke and ash into the air. And up above in the sky was a bright circle of fire peering cautiously through the clouds of ash and smoke. So this was the surface, in all its charred and molten glory. Syber took it all in with wide eyes, for it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Syber stared at his surroundings, wonderstruck with awe at this world that had been above him all these years, hidden above a crust of stone and dark tunnels where he had spent his entire life in the dark. It had to be daytime, because he could not see the twinkling lights he had heard were called stars. Syber was clueless as to where he should go next. There was not a sign of life anywhere nearby, although he expected the surface to be full of warriors fighting valiant battles. He decided to wander in the direction towards the bright blinding circle in the sky as it danced above the horizon.

In truth, Syber had never felt this alive before, to feel a warm breeze against his shell and to hear the crunching of surface gravel beneath his feet. He only stopped when he tripped over something hard buried just under the ashes that coated the ground. It appeared to be a fellow Mortarin, and a surface dweller at that. However, Syber had no idea why they would be laying in the ash.

"Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't see you there!..." he started, when he realized that what he had tripped over was limp and lifeless and beginning to rust, the fiery light long gone from its eyes. Syber swallowed hard. "Okay then...lovely day to um..find a husk? Er, um...I'll just keep walking." He said to himself as he tried to purge the image from his mind. He shuddered and kept walking. "Just a normal thing to find a body on a battlefield. Nothing to be afraid of..." he said, trying to calm himself down. All that did was make him feel worse.

The wind stopped suddenly, and an eerie silence descended on the landscape. Syber pressed on step by step, noticing a few more husks scattered here and there. There was a strange sound far behind him, and he instinctually froze with apprehension. He took a step forward, and heard it again, closer this time. Syber bolted without thinking, running for the nearest cover he could find. He ducked behind a large pile of ash and rubble. He peered around its edge to see what was making that noise, and found himself looking directly at one blazing green eye off in the distance.

Terrified that the thing would notice him, he ducked back behind the pile and found himself face to face with a husk, the faceplate of its armor falling off of its head and into his lap. Syber let out a horrified shriek, but stopped when he heard the breathing of the creature directly behind the pile of bodies he was hiding in.

"Play dead! Play dead!" He whispered to himself under his breath, his body going rigid with fear. He felt his core pulsing within his chest, its heat making him terrified that whatever was out there could sense his inner glow. There was a scratching sound from the top of the pile, and a few bits of rusting husks crumbled and fell into his face. He could hear the raspy breaths it took, as it brought in oxygen to fuel its core. It had to be a mortarin, but something about it was primal and terrifying.

The thing rustled through the pile, sounding like it was turning to leave, and Syber let out a sigh of relief. It was dead silent for a second, before it popped its face over the pile and let out an eerie, ghostly shriek, a drop of its mercury saliva dripping onto his face.

The sound Syber heard next was one he could barely believe came from his own chest as he let loose a scream so loud the pile of bodies shook for a moment.