The trees are far and few at this point, the Grocks too. The glowing mushrooms are still around in patches here and there, but at this point, we need to use the Emberite.

“There's the cave wall,” Hermione lacks any sort of enthusiasm with this note.

The wall, a drab grey thing, does not have any noteworthy features. It is, like many of the walls we have experienced, rough and devoid of any interesting features, like an exit for example.

Hermione sighs as we survey the wall and kicks a loose stone. It bounces a few times before awaiting another kick.

However much sleep we got, it was not enough.

I take a quick look at the compass and it points straight at the wall.

I sigh, of course.

We choose to follow the wall left and hope for an exit.

As we follow the wall the ambient light gets dimmer and dimmer, the mushrooms and branches get further away. The orange light from the Emberite soon becomes our only light once again.

--

We found a cave. The cave is similar to the first one we went into. It’s large enough that we can walk through it easily.

There is a faint air of what I hesitate to call desperation blanketing us.

Hermione is quietly walking down the cave tunnel with me, I can't tell what she's thinking.

And I too am quiet, there is nothing to say.

I hesitate to call it desperation because desperation is a strong word, but something similar is definitely present.

There is a word for it. Hermione would probably know it.

But I not know or recall the word and I don't want to break the silence to ask, so faint desperation it is.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something move. I stop and direct more light onto the wall where I thought I spotted movement.

Nothing there. Just rock wall.

Hermione halts and gives me a confused look.

I shrug

“I'm tired, and all these shadows - I thought I saw something move.”

I continue down the cave tunnel with Hermione next to me.

Gloomy, that's the word.

The shadows keep moving, throwing me off, I can look back and the tunnel looks the same but different.

Time passes slowly, it couldn't have been more than ten minutes, but our time here blurs together and it feels like we've been walking for years, stone, stone, stone and more stone.

Hermione stops and grabs my arm.

She looks excited.

“Look, ahead.”

I look and see stone. Just another shade of grey, more shadows.

I look at her.

“What am I supposed to see?” I question with a little irritation.

“It looks different, it's subtle, everything is… smoother I guess, even the shadows.”

I take a closer look and it's true. It is very subtle, I wonder how Hermione realized it.

The walls really are just another shade of gray - no, a different shade of gray and difference is good. I crouch and look at the change on the floor, it's obvious now that I know. The change is sharp, a clear change in shade between colors. The shadows made it hard to spot.

I spot a matte grey wire running across the cave tunnel, innocently blending in with the change of grey.

“Hey is that a tripwire?”

Hermione looks away from the wall she was scratching with her fingernail.

She crouches next to me and looks at the tripwire, and then starts laughing.

She laughs so hard she nearly falls over.

“What's so funny?” I ask, confused.

She replies, gasping for breath, “A tripwire!”

And she starts laughing again. I wait a bit for her to calm down and explain properly.

She calms down a bit, though still giggling.

“This level, floor one, has golems and then it has trap triggers like -”

She breaks down into giggles again.

I sigh and shake my head.

“Whatever, it could be lethal anyway. It's not a laughing matter.”

“Oh, I'm certain it's lethal, but it's funny anyway.”

She waves her hand at the wire dismissively.

“I can understand why the Abyss would choose this trigger, though. Well not understand - I don't think anyone can understand an Abyss, but the tripwire is a flexible trigger. Obviously, if you walk into it, it activates whatever the trap is, but what if you spot it as we did? Do you walk over it? What if there's a pressure plate right after it? Maybe the whole trap is based on spotting it? The best way to counter a trigger like this is knowing what the trigger activates.”

“And how would we know what it activates?”

Hermione shrugs.

“Trial and error I guess. Most of the traps on early levels are known, Abysses generally follow the same, well I don't know, Rule? Guideline? Theme maybe? Sure there are plenty of varieties, but they have been tested and documented. If you study the Compendium of Traps and Triggers, early level Abyss floors are no problem. And I have studied it. The problem is that this Abyss has already broken three different rules. I don't know what to expect.”

Hearing Hermione say this, I clench my fists and shore up my resolve.

“Well if we don't know what to expect we might as well not lose time.”

I grab a small stone off the floor and lightly toss it over the tripwire. It bounces three times before it stops. I jump over the tripwire to where I threw the pebble.

Hermione gasps behind me.

“You idiot!”

I land and nothing happens. No click to signify a triggered trap.

Hermione and I let out a breath of relief at the same time. I didn't even know I was holding my breath.

“You could have died, throwing that pebble didn't do anything! What in the world made you think a pebble would make it safe? Let me guess, you remembered a fairy tale. The hero encounters a suspicious hallway, he, in his infinite wisdom, throws a pebble to check for traps and lo and behold there's a trap!”

Hermione's face is red in her fury, she wildly gestures with her hands.

“You idiot!”

I sigh.

“I know. The pebble was just in case. It was this, or lose an unknown amount of time looking for something our weight. We can't afford that time. We've got mushrooms Hermione, mushrooms that may or may not kill us if we get hungry enough to try.”

I scratch my cheek.

“If I died you would know it's trapped at least.”

A tear rolls down Hermione's cheek.

“But what if you didn't die. What if you were injured, your legs cut out from under you, maybe stabbed through the gut. I'd have to kill you or watch you die.”

She whispers the last part.

It strikes me that this might not have been the best plan. I feel extraordinarily uncomfortable in the silence as Hermione wipes her tears from her eyes.

“I'm sorry, ” I say softly, shifting my weight .

Hermione clenched her fists and jumps over to where I jumped. She then punches me in the gut.

I double over in pain.

“Ow.”

Hermione hmphs and moves on, still rubbing her eyes, smearing dirt across her cheeks, I look back at the tripwire before catching up.

It couldn't have been even thirty seconds of walking before the cave opens up into a cavern. Good thing the lighting is so bad, if we had seen the opening we might not have ever noticed the tripwire.

The cavern is small this time, the walls are lined with this reflective crystal that I know is weak and worthless, but because of its presence the light from the Emberite is reflected and the room is dimly lit up.

In the center of the room there's a structure made of what looks like marble. It's like an enclosed pavilion, it's circular and there are proper decorative columns, made of that same marble material. The columns line the entire pavilion, supposedly holding the marble ceiling. The columns sit on the foundation of the whole thing, the foundation looks like steps, of which there are three, leading up into the pavilion. It's so seamlessly connected I suspect it's all one block of that marble material that was carved out into this shape.

I pay attention to the floor, looking out for any discolored spots or tripwires. There are none.

“We have got to check that out, but before that we should look around, just in case.” I say.

I skirt around the pavilion, looking out for anything potentially dangerous. I move around to the other side of the pavilion, shadows shifting giving the impression that the walls themselves are moving. There's another cave tunnel on this side, we don't go in, yet. Instead, we continue around the pavilion.

The pavilion is enclosed completely except for the entrance and the exit. If we were to walk in a line from where we came in and not make any turns we could walk straight through the pavilion and into the next cave tunnel. Well, theoretically. I don't know if there's anything inside the pavilion.

We walk nearly all the way around the pavilion, almost back at the start, before I find the bodies.

There are three bodies slumped against the wall and all three were crushed in some fashion. Hermione is still looking at the pavilion behind me.

“Hey, do you remember the body we found at the stairs?”

Hermione turns away from the pavilion to look at me, “Yea what about it - oh.”

“Do you think all these dead guys were together?” I say as I try to ignore the smell that finally reached my nose.

“Ergh, I don't know, probably? Hermione says with her hand pinching her nose shut.

I examine the dead guys, their weapons; a sword, axe, and a bow, are all damaged to the point of being useless. The sword is chipped in so many places it might as well be witch doctor's saw. The axe is just a piece of mangled iron and the bow is two sticks held together with a string.

I don't bother picking anything up, it would just slow us down, none of this stuff would be useful.

Dried blood is all over, another reason not to touch anything.

“I knew a guy once. He got lots of a dead man's blood all over himself. He got sick and died that month, ” I explain to Hermione.

“Yes, I read there are lots of sicknesses that carry over on blood. Delvers are urged to see a healer if they are forced to touch anything of this sort. Best not touch anything, I'm fairly certain we won't be finding a healer around here. Besides, it doesn't look like there is anything useful here,” Hermione sniffs disdainfully, instantly regretting it.

I look around the area a bit more, to distract myself from my memories if nothing else. I find some pools of dried blood, but nothing else.

I walk back to Hermione and we discuss what to do. We head over to the pavilion entrance after deciding we can't do anything about the bodies.

The marble is as smooth as it looks, which is to say, very smooth. We climb the three steps, cautiously of course, we don't want to take unnecessary chances with traps.

We walk through the doorway and I raise my hand to illuminate the inside.

The center piece is an alter with a sword stuck in it nearly all the way down to the hilt.

Hermione and I stay quite a bit away from the altar. We look around at the statues that line the entire circumference of the pavilion, they are all a bit different, some skinny, others short, a few are tall, and one even has a pot belly. The thing they have in common is their posture. They all face the altar and have their heads bowed.

As I examine the statues my eyes constantly gravitate to the sword, it's a thing of beauty, completely different from the sword outside. It's slender and I can imagine it's long too. The hilt seems to be designed for one handed use, not that I know much, but you pick up a few things here and there. The guard is small, just enough to protect the hand, it looks like a part of the blade decided to split off of the sword and wrap around the rest of the blade to form the guard. It doesn't have any decorations other than the theatrical guard, but I don't think it was intended to be theatrical, it certainly doesn't look flimsy.

I can see Hermione eying it too. Im not sure how we would split it. I guess we'll figure it out later.

“So how are we going to go about this?” I ask Hermione while staring at the sword.

“Uh, I'm not sure. Do you have rope?”

“I do,” I say, immediately pulling it out of my pack.

It's not too long and it's seen better days, but it's still usable.

“Hmm, go back near the entrance,” Hermione tells me, pulling stones out of her pocket.

She takes the stone and lobs it at the sword. It hits with a clang and the stone falls onto the alter, nothing happening.

“Alright, tie a loop, so we can pull it out from a distance.”

I go back to the sword and tie the rope around it careful not to touch it. I move back as far as the rope goes, about halfway out of the pavilion. Then I whip the rope, to lift it away from the blade, up to the hilt. I pull it taunt so that it doesn't fall back down to the blade. I try to pull the rope upwards, to pull the sword up and out of the altar. I tug at it for about five solid minutes before throwing the rope down in disgust. If a trap were to trigger it would have already.

I march over to the sword and wrap my hand around the hilt. Hermione holds her breath, as do I. I pause for a moment and listen for the tell tale click. I don't hear it, so I pull the sword up, just an inch and get ready to run for my life. I still don't hear it. I pull it half way out, the blade is long. Nothing. No click, no trap. I clear the blade of its rocky sheath, and it rings, clear and sweet. The sound of the blade ringing fades in a second or two. No trap.

I smile and show the sword to Hermione.

“Let me hold it, ” she says with bated breath.

I give it to her hilt first. She takes it and touches the blade, awe in her eyes.

“It's heavier than it looks,” she notifies me.

And then it all went to hell.

The walls, the statues, and the columns just outside from where we entered start boiling.

“Golems!” Hermione yells out, wide-eyed. “Run!”

She clutches the sword to her chest and runs away from the rippling stone.

A Golem launches out from the nearest statue, hurtling at me. I dive out of the way and scramble to feet, I run after Hermione. We split around the altar and run out the entrance that isn't roiling stone.

I hear the Golems rumbling after us, we make it to the last step outside the pavilion before we feel the tremor. It's so intense it knocks both of us off the step and onto the rock. I thought we'd be dead before we could get up, but we stand and we still live. I look back and I see the Golems on the steps and in the pavilion, motionless and staring at us with cold emotionless eyes.

Beyond the pavilion I see the floor falling away into the Abyss. The entire cavern floor except for the pavilion floor is falling away

Hermione yells out, “Keep running!”

We turn and run as fast as we can towards the cave tunnel that we spotted before.

I can feel it, we won't make it. We are so close. Hermione is running in front of me, clutching the sword, but she won't make it either.

Time slows to a crawl and I make a decision. I get low and put on one last burst of speed, straining my legs as much as possible. I launch straight at Hermione. I hit her in the back sending her flying into the presumed safety of the cave tunnel.

Then I feel weightless, time still slowed in my perception. A stray observation surfaces; Hermione’s hair came loose sometime during our mad scramble.

And before I fall, it seems as though the Abyss wants to spite me one last time, Hermione lands face down on the floor of the cave tunnel, her hair spread out and floating down around her and then everything ignites.

Circles of Aether form all around the opening of the cave, focusing inwards, probably to kill or stop anyone trying to get to the pavilion from that side.

I mentally laugh, there must have been a tripwire.

The flames fill the cave tunnel and spill into the cavern, I plummet before I'm harmed by the stray Aether Fire . Her screams of pain break my heart, though, worse than any burn.

——————