The room they entered was unlike anything they had passed on their way through the caverns. The air was warm, and light. Not bogged down and suffocated by the cloying presence of the Husks. It felt like a safe haven from the darkness of this underground pit.
There was also life here. Somehow roots had managed to penetrate through the stone and the earth packed above them to fill the room. It was overrun almost, a mass of unmoving sentinels that guarded nothing...
Nothing.
Because that was just it, it was also empty.
No great pedestal to hold a jewel. No guardian to defeat and win their prize. This place was left isolated and alone, abandoned.
"This can't be right," Holland said.
Cyfuno could see the devastation written on his face, underneath his glasses the man's eyes were unfocused as he looked back within his own mind, reviewing all the information that had ultimately led them here. Fruitlessly searching for answers when they had exhausted all others long ago.
This will all have been all for nothing if they can't find what they came here for.
"The Eye has to be here. Hidden maybe." Cyfuno looked to the others, "Start looking. It's here, we know it is. Remember, we don't stop until we find it."
Holland nodded and fanned out to start searching through the sea of roots and vines. Solaris had already started off before Cyfuno had even finished speaking, he had always been one more for action than indecision.
Ril stopped by his side to put a hand on his shoulder.
"If it's not here, what do we do?" She kept her voice hushed. Her face was still flushed from the hurried pace here and her delicate brow was furrowed. "What will you do?" For the first time in a long time, she looked doubtful and he hated it.
An insidious whisper in the back of his mind asked him the same question.
"It'll be here." He said, stepping further into the room. As her hand fell from his shoulder he paused and looked back at her, but not quite able to meet her eyes.
"And if not we keep trying. We've come too far not too."
He turned away and moved closer to what he sincerely hoped would be the key to true freedom, his cloak settling around him in a shroud.
Holland had created mage lights for each of them. They floated overhead to illuminate the area with a soft, white glow. It truly was a maze of tangled vines, with roots the size of full grown men and some whose width outstripped even Cyfuno's impressive height. He had to wonder how large this room was and how much time it would take to search the entire place. They had entered this chamber through the gates and sealed the entranceway behind them but that was no guarantee that the creatures lurking outside would not amass and tear their way in soon. Finding the Eye as swiftly as possible and returning to the surface world was their best option.
Cyfuno hoped he had enough strength to carry them all back through the paths between worlds. He had been careful to conserve energy, not fighting on the way here but instead bypassing the enemy's spawn. What he had left over from the journey here should be enough.
Had to be enough.
Coming to the Maw was a huge risk to all, even if they were only trespassing in the very upper levels of the dark realm. The creatures they had encountered on the way to the gate were nothing compared to the things that lurked deeper within the depths of this miserable place. Truly they should have never come here chasing their last clue to the Eye but they had been desperate enough to try. Each of them wanted the fabled object for their own reasons and Cyfuno knew that this was their last opportunity. Could feel it within his very bones.
There were no second chances after this, not for him.
He grit his teeth. This wandering was useless and wasn't going to get him anywhere. He stopped and closed his eyes. Extending his senses he searched for something, any kind of abnormal signature. The Eye should feel distinct, familiar even, if it was here he should be able to pinpoint it. He passed over the Ril's signature, the familiar smell of summer and a hint of something sharp and metal carried in her presence. He felt Holland and the bright heat of his magic stung as it always did. And there was Solaris, his solid presence reassuring but the hint of a brewing sandstorm, gritty and immense hid just beneath the surface, constrained and held on a tight leash.
And then Cyfuno felt something...else.
Over there.
That had to be it, but there was something off about it. Something that felt, not wrong, but different. He reached out and tentatively touched but startled when he felt it reach back.
He gasped, eyes snapping open, and drew air into his lungs like he had been drowning in a vast sea. He quickly composed himself and headed for the signature. When he rounded a monolithic root he froze, baffled.
Hidden and twisted within a cage of vines was a man, or a boy, or something ageless and ethereal and not like anything he had ever thought to find in this ugly place.
"Now how did you get here?"
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