A pause ensued then the whispers started up again.

“This is our home, you are trespassing here. Die!”

Dawn had been turning possible solutions over in her mind. Obviously, her shadow skills and her sword were useless against the dark tendrils. She could continue to heal herself but would find herself out of mana shortly. Using breath of winter struck her as a bad idea. Did shadows care about the cold? She rather thought not.

on the other hand, light might hurt them or maybe just chase them away. Unfortunately, she had no torch and no light skill either, her dark sight removing all necessity for a light.

What she had was call the lightning. While it was not a light per se, it had always produced a brilliant glare when she used ot before.

The tendrils of darkness had resumed their attacks against her. She couldn’t hold out for much longer. More and more bloody slashes appeared on her body, fiery stripes of pain that made her light-headed. Panting, she said a short prayer and activated Call the Lightning.

Immediately, she was blinded by the glare and deafened by the noise. The whole cavern was echoing with agonized shrieks ringing out from all directions. The darkness returned. Cowering, bleeding from more slashes than she could count and still unable to see, Dawn listened to the silence around her.

Had she chased them away? Had she killed some of them?

The whispers returned, angry now instead of mocking and contemptuous, and at the same time apparently shaken. They rose up in a crescendo of many voices.

“You killed them! So many of us, dead. How dare you!”

That accusation unexpectedly transformed the dim flame of anger inside of her into volcanic rage. It flowed through her body and mind like liquid fire. She rose up, wounds and pain forgotten for a moment, drowned under the rage that left no space inside of her for any other sensation.

“How dare you!” she growled. “You attacked me, hurt me, you tried to kill me, and now you complain that I dare to defend myself? Don’t come any closer or you, too, will experience lightning from close quarters.” She bared her teeth at them in a mocking smile. “I am weak am I? Let’s put that to the test, why don’t we? Maybe that’s what I should do anyway, drown you in light and lightning until not a single one of your sort is left. Unthinking beasts are one thing, they are aggressive and kill anything they encounter because they don’t know better. You are intelligent, you can reason. And yet you are unthinking killers. Cowards in the dark.”

The shadows shrank back in fear at her outburst. Dawn exhaled, feeling jittery as adrenaline coursed through her veins. For now her enemies seemed cowed. But though she had found a way to kill them, taught them to fear her, the fact remained that she was alone and they were many. Not to mention that this was their home, whereas she was a stranger and lost here in the dark.

She might be able to hold them off for a while, but sooner or later she would need to sleep. It was improbable that she’d find her way out of the dark passages before that, she admitted to herself.

What to do? Only two options remained if she wanted to survive.

She could kill all of the shadows. That, she gave rather low chances of success. She didn’t even know how many of them there were. She might be able to get off one or two more lightning spells, but if any of these tendrils were still alive after that, she would be out of mana and they would have won.

Or, she might try to negotiate with them once more. Not a very promising option either, but at least she could try.

“Look,” she cleared her throat nerveously and tried to sound reasonable and conciliatory. Maybe the shadows could be reasoned with, now that she had taught them that she was a force to be reckoned with.

“The only thing I want is to get out of here. I’ll gladly forget that I ever got lost in these gloomy passages as soon as I’m out. I won’t tell anyone about you. You know your way around, surely you could lead me to an exit. That way you can stay here in peace and I will be out of your hair. And no one else needs to die. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

The tense silence lasted as the shadows whispered to each other. This time Dawn wasn’t able to understand what they said. It wasn’t meant for her. But in the end the tendrils spoke up.

“We will lead you to an exit. You will not use your light or kill any more of us. You will leave and never return nor talk to anyone about our presence.”

“Agreed,” replied Dawn. “Lead on. The sooner I’m out of here the better pleased I will be.”

Though her spirit rose in anticipation of getting out of these dark passages, she didn’t trust the shadows to fulfill their part of the bargain. Their agreement to her proposal had come too fast, too smooth after their former contempt and their anger at her killing their - what was it - brothers, sisters? Something smelled fishy to her.

But she couldn’t envision why they should agree to lead her out at all, if they didn’t mean to do it. What did they gain from it? One dark passage was as good as any other if it came to a fight between her and them.

Mulling several possible scenarios over in her mind, she followed her enemies as they led the way. Her neck was itching in discomfort at having them at her back adn all around her. Dawn didn’t trouble herself to mark passages or turns any more, acknowledging to herself that she had become quite thoroughly lost after her fight against the shadows. At least the dark tendrils apparently guided her into the right direction, the passages leading them mostly upwards. On the way, she kept healing the myriad of cuts on her body, anxiously watching her mana in order to keep the level high enough for her lightning spell. Her efforts were met with another notification.

You have leveled up control +1

They followed passage after passage in a long tense hike. Dawn needed to rest, she had had a long and exhausting day without rest or food and had barely any strength left to put one foot in front of the other. But she didn’t want to talk to her enemies, didn’t dare to ask for a rest, still half expecting a betrayal at every moment in ever mounting suspense.

They arrived in another open room, entering it through a grand portal decorated with ornamental reliefs. A large rectangular stone slab sat in the middle. On the outskirts of the room, a big circle of huge standing stones rose, a multitude of runes engraved into them from top to bottom and in the center, slightly behind the altar the biggest standing stone of all rose up nearly to the ceiling.

In contrast to the standing stones on the outskirts of the room, the center one was broken, a huge crack running down the middle, bisecting the runes that were painted or engraved on it. Behind the circle of stones several gigantic statues waited. The goddesses of magic and alchemy were among them, Some others were unknown to Dawn.

Was this a temple of the stoneblood folk? Down here among the dark passages? Why not up in the city? Or had it been formerly just another, deeper level of the city?

While she had been standing and staring the tendrils of darkness had been gathering around her once more.

“Is the exit here?” Dawn asked

“It is fitting,” the whispers replied, “that you shall meet your end here. Where we dealt the masters our first blow, where we destroyed much of their power.”

Dawn felt a shiver running down her spine.

So, they didn’t intend to keep their bargain after all. Hardly a big surprise. But why attack here? At least they had graciously given her time to heal herself and replenish her mana.

The whispers continued and she could almost feel their manic glee. “There will be none of your light here, spellcaster.”

And now the spell was broken, the barrage of attacks on her started up again. Pain erupted on different locations in her body. She didn’t make any more attempts to talk to them or negotiate with them, knowing that it would be useless.

Dawn ran forwards out of the encirclement of shadows until she reached the big stone slab. She turned her back to it and activated her lightning. That is, she intended to do so. Her mana drained out of her, but didn’t form a spell, instead it was just - gone. Stunned, she froze, then shook her head. What had happened just now? Her spell had failed her without any reason.

Around her the whispering voices laughed, enjoying her confusion.

“No spells here, spellcaster. You are powerless. We win.”

Frowning, she activated Nurture, but exactly the same thing happened. Her mana was gone, but the spell didn’t form. Wide-eyed and disbelieving, she looked at the standing stones in the outer circle with their runes. Did these just glow?

The darkness was dancing around her now, the tendrils flowing in complex, forever changing patterns. “Did you think you could overcome us with your puny spells? Our masters were far more powerful.” They whispered.

“They chained the power of nature itself. Their magic supported by mana from the deeps. The blood of the stones, fiery and flowing powered their circles, drove their protections and their tools. Oh yes, they were powerful.”

Fiery anger resonated through the last words, then the voices broke out in laughter.

“But what happens to the powerful once you take their power away? They are pitiful. Used to their tools, unable to fight without their magic. Their own mana was not enough. And it did not take so very much. Once we were free. Just a change in their engravings. So easy. And impossible to fix without spells. You cannot use any spells here. Isn’t that beautiful? Simplicity itself. Just break the connection to the city, reverse the flow to the deeps. Delicious. We have to thank her who taught us the runes.”

“She was one of them herself.” Dawn said slowly, her head muddled with exhaustion. She felt no panic, no desperation. Resignation had set in. As the voices had said: What was she without the power of her spells? Pitiful indeed.

“One of them,” the whispers repeated on after the other until the whole room was filled with the word. “One of them. One of them. One of them.”

Dawn looked up at the ceiling and wondered how long she had been down here. Had it been a few hours, a whole day? More than a day? Impossible to say. It seemed like an eternity.

“But they made a mistake. Killed her man. Made her angry. Made her want to to kill them all. Good for us.”

They were openly gloating now, content in their victory and savouring her defeat. Shadows were still circling Dawn. Now and then one would touch her, a slash appeared and more blood started to flow. They obviously saw no need to hurry,

Laboriously, Dawn turned and heaved herself up on the stone slab, spattering drops of her blood on it and leaving bloody handprints. With an effort born of pure stubbornness and anger she reached out to the center stone rising up behind the alter and started to climb it. Hand by hand, she closed the distance to the ceiling.

The darkness laughed at her. “There is no escape for you that way.”

Dawn pressed her lips together. Maybe not. But she would certainly try. If only enough time had passed. If only her goal wouldn’t be too far away. The only thing left to do was pray.

She said hoarsely, “There’s one thing you forgot.”

“And what would that be, human?” the tendrils asked lazily.

“Not everything is powered by mana.”