I awoke with a shiver, blinking blearily as the fog began to clear from my mind. For a moment I was confused, imagining my eyes refused to open, before remembering where I was. The darkness was oppressive, but after a few moments of looking around, I gradually began to make out the shapes of the boulders around me as my eyes finally adjusted. I frowned, sitting up slowly, hissing in pain as my ribs shifted in ways they were surely not meant to. Placing a hand on the ground, it came away wet. I was sitting in a thin puddle of dampness, and as I brought my hand to my nose, it smelled of precisely nothing. Probably not the sewer overflow then. Small blessings, as my arms were still covered in small cuts from the kobold’s claws, and any infection down here would be a death sentence.
Glancing up, I confirmed what I’d noted before falling asleep. There was only darkness above, and I doubted any sound was traveling through the stone I assumed had blocked the hole. Even if it were, Vera was strong, but no miner. Turning my gaze away from the shadowed slope, blackness seemed to stretch in every direction. There was only one choice: find another way out, or sit here until I died of exposure or starvation. I just had to hope that there was another way out, and that I wouldn’t fall into some other abyss before finding it. That, and hopefully nothing else was down here. My sword was long gone, I hadn’t even had it when the ground had opened up, and I had no illusions that I could find it down here in the dark.
Thinking of searching in the darkness brought me up short. Just how was I seeing anything at all down here? Narrowing my eyes, I strained to find any source of light at all, until I glanced down at the puddle I was still sitting in. Suspended atop the liquid were tiny motes of… something, shedding the barest hint of blue-green luminance. Gently scooping a hand beneath one of the motes, I lifted it out of the water, holding it up to my eyeline. After only a bare few moments, it began to dim, until it had faded to the point I could no longer discern anything in my palm at all. Looking around at the strewn stones littering the area around me, it made sense. Before I’d passed out, I could see the stones and the slope as well. The collapse must have disrupted whatever magic gave these tiny motes light, or perhaps just disturbed them. Regardless, I couldn’t stay here, and I clearly couldn’t take the motes with me.
Groaning, I levered myself to my feet, leaning heavily against the boulder to catch a breath. Now at a higher vantage, I looked around, raising an eyebrow. The cavern I found myself in was large, perhaps 20 paces across and extending off into the distance farther than I could make out. Beyond my immediate surroundings, I could see more of the blue-green light as it lit the floor, and some even seemed to climb up the walls in a strange, grasping pattern. “Well, might as well follow the light,” I whispered, before beginning the arduous process of threading between the fallen rock. Clutching my side and controlling my breathing, I inched forward. Several times I had to sit and catch my breath, shallow as it was, before mustering the effort to stand and continue.
Moving beyond the boulder field, the going became significantly easier, even as it grew brighter. The strange light appeared to be some kind of slimy moss, or something similar at least to my untrained eye. I’d never much cared for botany, and I had certainly never had my mother’s green thumb. Whatever it was, it helped guide me in the gloom, and as I continued through what was apparently a natural tunnel, I began seeing irregular shapes looming ahead. Coming closer with steps as silent as I could manage, I examined one in more detail. What had appeared to be just a lump in the darkness, was a piece of something far larger. Running a hand along it, the cleanly shaped lines of stone spoke to some kind of structure, perhaps. I pursed my lips and moved on to the next, finding it much the same, and the next. The way they were strewn in this tunnel was strange, perplexing even. They seemed to be crafted, part of a building or perhaps statues, it was too dark to tell.
Looking up at the walls and the ceiling hidden in darkness above gave few answers. This place had a natural feel about it, no stonework to shore up the sides or brace the ceiling that I could see. Shrugging, I put it to the back of my mind. If I found more clues, it might help me find a way out, but just as likely it was irrelevant to my current plight. Resuming the slow walk, I picked my way around more of the strange rubble, gritting my teeth as my stomach loudly made itself known. Without any idea how long I’d been out, I could only judge times passing by my growing hunger. Currently, I thought it was likely early evening, perhaps even later. I wouldn’t starve for a day or two at least, but best to move just a bit faster.
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Kicking up the pace a bit soon had me noticing a rather distressing trend. The tunnel was narrowing. Gradually, but noticeably, the walls were closing in as I moved further from the cliff. Fear wormed its way into my thoughts, whispering that there may be no exit at the end of this path, that I may have walked for hours just to find a wall at which to collapse, far from any rescue that might have been mounted for me, however unlikely that might be. Shaking my head, I tried to dismiss the worries. If there wasn’t any path forward, I’d go back, and try my hand at climbing. And nothing so far suggested this path would just end. Those stone fragments had come from somewhere, and I doubted they’d made their way down here from a kobold’s nest.
Pushing through the fear, I continued and soon realized it was getting brighter. The moss was getting denser, and the ground audibly squelched with every footstep. Perhaps there was a spring feeding it nearby, or an underground river. I’d heard a few of the dwarves in the guild mention them once, and if one was down here, I might be able to follow it to an exit or perhaps even to an old mine. Quickening my pace, I allowed a hopeful grin to play upon my lips. Soon afterwards, through the growing light of the moss, I finally saw the end of the tunnel.
A wall of perfectly smooth stone covered it, save for a gaping crack running from the ground nearly to the ceiling that I could now properly see at 30 feet above. The wall itself was far more interesting than just the crack marring it, however. Looping runes and what looked like strange glyphs covered its surface, flickering with that same blue-green light in places, but as I drew closer, I realized the the markings were far, far more extensive than I’d first realized, as most were extinguished, the power likely faded in whatever event cracked the wall. Whatever formation they had powered looked to be nonfunctional, and as I examined them in detail, the glyphs began to make some sense individually, though their purpose was still a mystery. The designs were infinitely more complex than anything I’d seen before, and some of the runes were totally foreign, but I spotted pieces of what I thought were likely barrier and containment formations. But that made no sense, the concepts were completely opposed in glyph design, you couldn’t repel and contain something with a single glyph formation.
I shook my head. Another mystery, but as I glanced at the crack splitting the wall, I reckoned it wasn’t one I needed to be overly concerned with. All the glyphs within several handspans of the crack were completely inert, and as I peered into the darkness within, I grinned. I could definitely squeeze through the gap, but a little caution never hurt. Stepping back, I scooped a bit of the strange moss from the ground near where it stopped, strangely absent from the wall itself. Cringing slightly, I tossed the handful of moss at the crack, flinching as it splatted wetly against the stone. My trepidation appeared to be for naught, as decidedly nothing happened. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My grin spread wider, a bit of tension melting from my shoulders.
Cautiously optimistic now, I approached the wall, staring up at the once magnificent designs. Tentatively, I reached out a hand, placing my palm on the stone. When I wasn’t struck down or dissolved into a pile of ash, I silently pumped a fist in victory. Reaching into the crack, I began pulling himself through the thick stone, wincing as my leather armor scraped loudly in the quiet. Stumbling out of the crack, I bent over to catch my breath. As I raised my eyes, the breath caught in my throat.
I was standing in the middle of something out of an adventurer's tall tale. A pool of shimmering blue-green liquid spilled across the ground lighting a massive space the likes of which I’d never seen or heard of spread before me. Strange devices glimmered in the wavering light, atop long tables littered with the rotted remains of parchments and broken glass under a thick film of dust. Brass pipes ran the length of the room along the high ceiling and over many of the walls. One of the pipes widened dramatically over the central table, like some great maw waiting to devour offerings to some strange purpose. Far to my right, nearly at the corner of the rectangular space, a wide copper door, covered in green verdigris, was set into the wall, glowing glyphs matching those outside covering its surface. Directly across from my position, an empty archway stood against the wall, strange decoration for such a place. As my gaze panned over the room, it was completely arrested by what dominated the far side of the room. A massive stone obelisk stood against the wall, copper inlaid into it in a dizzying array of glyphs far more complex even than that of the wall outside. And before it, atop a plinth, grasped in copper claws, softly glowed a sphere of silver light.
My mouth went dry. In mute rapture, I moved to the sphere, drawn as if by some invisible tether, threading through the tables, fantastic contraptions and discoveries forgotten. As I came to a stop before it, my breath caught in my throat, and tears began welling in my eyes. I gazed down at the core binding, barely believing my eyes. For that is what it was: a core binding, already formed and perfect, the primary, and most important component needed to change the life of any non-magical being. The key to the life I’d been dreaming of since I was old enough to think. The key to adventuring.
The key to magic of my own.
