The Old Atrii quarry was a gaping wound in the surface of the sandy plateau, stretching in either direction for about a mile. A winding path lined the edges of the bowl-shaped cavity, with stacks of concentric layers gradually descending into a cyan lake at the bottom. Dozens of tunnels dotted the cliff-faces along the path, each delving deeper into an interconnected web of mineshafts.

  Scant remnants of civilization were visible among the reclamation efforts made by mother nature – dilapidated arches made of wood and stone marked mineshaft entrances and rusted remains of levers and pulleys rose from the water, all clung to by blue-green algae and climbing vines growing from the gaps in brick and rock. A hazy mist hung over the lake in those early morning hours, shrouding most of the quarry from curious eyes.

  The carriage peddled on, charting a course towards the new city after dropping off a pair of adventurers by the cliffside.

  “Two days and one night,” Clarisse reminded herself of the timeline they had set on before the carriage would return to pick them up while stretching her legs. “Do you really think this could take us that long?”

  “Depending on the condition of the mines, it could even take more,” Nikolas gazed disapprovingly at the lake which had spawned over years of abandonment in the middle of the quarry, likely flooding many of the deeper mineshafts. “Let’s just hope there’s some Atrus above the water level…”

  Meandering down the winding gravel paths led them to the first of many mineshaft entrances marked by a rustic wooden arch. Its supports were decaying, almost on the verge of decomposing. By some miracle of nature’s perseverance, they still held the tunnel open.

  Clarisse cupped her hands to produce a wispy flame, holding it up to illuminate the tunnel. “I know you can see in the dark, but I still need the light.”

  “Sure, but be mindful of your mana.” Nikolas took the lead, confidently striding down the slope while analyzing their surroundings.

  Clarisse kept pace with him, not with the same confidence but from an aversion to being left behind. “Do you know what Ferrous Atrus looks like? I feel like we should’ve asked Mr. Felnaur more about it now that we’re here…”

  “I’m sure we can figure it out,” Nikolas replied, keeping his head on a constant swivel towards the ceiling and floor. “There’s still remnants from before they abandoned this place – wheelbarrows and pickaxes. It feels like they left in a hurry… everything’s strewn about randomly.”

  It took Clarisse much longer to make out the things that Nikolas described, and much more that he left out. The range of her light slowly illuminated the leftover structures from years ago, revealing arrays of wooden supports with burnt out torches lining the walls and ceiling. Muddy helmets lay overturned and rusty iron implements sank haphazardly into the boggish dirt.

  “Do you think anything else lives down here?” Clarisse asked, pausing as her voice echoed back faintly. “Huh… I suppose that’s normal?”

  “Yes, I can–” Nikolas began, speaking nonchalantly before catching himself and clearing his throat. “I suppose there could be some things down here. It isn’t unusual for monsters to inhabit dark and dingy spaces.”

  Clarisse took his educated guess as confirmation, since every time she had dared to venture underground in the past, it had ended with her facing down some flavor of inhumane creature. When they turned a corner or descended to a new level, there was an odd feeling of something in the reclaimed darkness hiding just beyond the reach of her light. Seeing as Nikolas had said nothing about it yet, she decided to stay quiet. Each step they took, and even the sound of her breath amplified the echoes of the ambient sounds of the mines, leaving no silence for her to fill in.

  Nikolas’ focus was set elsewhere while he charted the path ahead through the obscure darkness. He kept his pace slow to let Clarisse keep up with him, but his eyes kept darting across the cavernous walls, peering beyond their confines for mana. The faint sense of uneasiness was shared between them, he realized, as he glanced back and saw Clarisse’s expression.

  “How far can you see in the dark?” The redhead asked, cupping her hands closer together to preserve the fire against a passing breeze. “I think there’s something following us down here…”

  “As far as I would be able to if it was all lit up,” Nikolas paused, raising a fist to signal for a halt. “You’re right, though. In their abandonment, these tunnels now belong to creatures of the dark.”

  “Can you spot any Atrus ore nearby then too?” She asked again, feeling her stomach get queasy. “Let’s get out of here as fast as we can.”

  “Not around here, we’ll have to go deeper down…” Nikolas stopped in his tracks, looking back at Clarisse with narrowed eyes.

  “What is it? Is it something I’m doing?” Clarisse asked immediately, looking behind and around herself.

  “Yeah. Your fire shouldn’t be safe at all down here… in fact, I’m surprised we haven’t caused an explosion yet,” Nikolas stated, crossing his arms. “It’s really strange, I can’t sense any of the gases one would expect down here either.”

  Clarisse dimmed the makeshift lamp between her palms in alarm, concerned by his expectations. “You mean we could’ve made this place go up in flames already!?”

  “I would’ve told you about it earlier if I’d gotten the slightest whiff of anything explosive,” Nikolas replied in a somewhat frustrated tone. “There’s something off about this place, and I’m not sure what.”

  “Well, what do you want to do about it? I don’t want to be in complete darkness down here.” Clarisse made her discomfort apparent. “I can’t see in the dark like you can, remember?”

  Nikolas reached into his potion bandolier and fished out a trio of identical vials and held them out towards her. “Here, just use these in a pinch. Blinding potions – they should be able to disorient anything used to living down here enough to buy you some time. Just, don’t throw them at me, hmm?”

  Clarisse’s forehead crunched in concern as she beheld the potions in one hand. “Can’t we come back, you know, once we have the proper tools and manpower to take on something like this?”

  Nikolas shot her a quizzical look and shook his head. “We do have the proper tools we need. I know you’re uncomfortable, but stick close to me and use the potions wisely. This is how adventuring usually goes.”

  Clarisse reluctantly nodded, left once more to reflect that Nikolas was simply built for these environments, much more than she was. “Sorry I can’t do more… I do have my dagger just in case.” She mumbled, letting the fire in her palm die down and plunging the tunnel into complete darkness.

  Several more minutes passed as they trudged through the underground tunnels, with Nikolas leading the way and Clarisse keeping a wary watch around herself.

  “Wait up. There’s a chasm ahead.” Nikolas called out, signaling a halt. He stepped ahead to peek down into the drop, only to find that the ravine was nigh-endless. Even with his eyes, the darkness eventually caught up, rendering the pitfall in pitch darkness. “There’s a set of tracks crossing the gap, but I’m not sure if it’ll hold.”

  “I’m going to get a light going again,” Clarisse demanded. “I’m not crossing a bridge while being blind.”

  Nikolas hesitated to agree, but found sympathy in her scared expression. The reminder that this was all new to her made him chastise himself as he stepped forward onto the rusted track. “Just be slow… and don’t fall.”

  “Yeah… obviously,” Clarisse muttered, suppressing the stark sense of self-preservation that told her to back away when she lit a flame in her palm only to find that the chasm ran far deeper than she could illuminate. “I don’t even want to know how deep that is…”

  Nikolas took slow, gradual steps to test the stability of the tracks. They were supported by wooden supports below, but he struggled to trust their fortitude if put under duress. “We can make it across if we move slowly.”

  “Right,” Clarisse nodded, but her feet remained rooted in place. Another peek into the chasm below didn’t help in slightest either. “Actually, can you hold my hand? I don’t want to slip and fall…”

  “Go ahead.” Nikolas replied in a softer tone than usual. He reached back with a firm grip, surprisingly calm while standing over the oppressively dark chasm.

  Clarisse shuddered as she placed a foot on the railroad, clamming Nik’s hand with hers. The rusty track groaned when she was finally on it with both feet, and a fine layer of dust and debris showered into the dropoff, the sounds of their impact swallowed by the depths.

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  “Hey, eyes up,” Nikolas suggested, noticing how the flame in her other palm flickered with instability. “One step at a time, we’ll walk together.”

  “R-Right…” Clarisse nodded. Focusing on Nik’s blank mask was much better than the chasm, and after a few deep breaths, she was ready. Step by step, they began to cross and eventually made it halfway across the bridge. Her gaze alternated between Nikolas and the track below to pick the next step, until she found him unwaveringly staring into the chasm. “Nikolas?”

  “Uhm… we should speed up, maybe,” Nikolas replied, his tone betraying a hint of skeptical satire. “Nothing to worry about, but uhh…” His eyes widened slightly as he watched the darkness of the chasm move. His haste came from the realization that it wasn’t so far away that his vision darkened, but that he was just looking at something so pitch black it blended into the darkness. That group of something was now climbing up the ravine, attracted by Clarisse’s illuminating flame.

  “What’s going on?” Clarisse asked, her voice akin to a thin thread of panic. “W-What’s down there!? Nik…”

  “I think I know why your fire hasn’t caused any explosions down here!” The kitsune grabbed her wrist tightly and swung, throwing Clarisse across the rest of the chasm before sprinting to cross the gap himself.

  “WHOAAAA– GAH!” Clarisse screamed upon her unexpected launch towards solid ground, landing on her side and rolling to a halt. Everything had gone dark the moment Nikolas yanked her, but she could hear the roars of whatever had prompted him to act. Clawing, gnashing and snarling sounds made the tunnel reverberate violently as they tore through metal and rock on their ascent.

  Nikolas skid to break his momentum and turned around as soon as he was off the tracks, unsheathing the broken blade and igniting it. “On your feet! This is a shade nest!” He commanded, brandishing the blade in a wide arc around him to create space.

  As she got up, Clarisse’s first sight of their adversaries came from the light of the broken blade, which illuminated their swirling eyes and volatile bodies, all cloaked in a pitch black hue.

  More of them came into view at the edges of the chasm when she set her hair aflame. They were like a disjointed wall of ink, scores upon scores of eyes set on surrounding the adventuring duo.

  “Shades, shades…” Clarisse muttered to herself in an attempt to recall anything she could from their venture to Junnhaven’s library. “Creatures of the night with no bodies, malicious spirits. They detest light!”

  The first shade to approach them did so with a malicious shriek, and was immediately subject to a wired dagger which flew straight through the center of its neckless head. Sensing an advantage, it charged at the rogue, only to be dispatched by a single swing of the broken blade, ignited to the form of a greatsword and dissipating it into a foggy cloud. “No souls either,” Nikolas grumbled, recalling his dagger by its wire and winding up the blade as more followed after their lost brethren. “Light them up!”

  Clarisse barely had time to form a fireball in her hands before the wall of shades collapsed onto them with countless piercing shrieks and volatile nature assaulting the only senses she could rely on. Her first instinct was to expand the flames coating her hair, wearing it like an explosive cloak. Almost immediately, she felt a shade’s maw grasp her from behind and recoil from the heat. She turned and blasted it away with a fiery stream from her palms, finding another inch to retreat further into the caverns.

  Outside the mines, a party of four dismounted from their caravan. A ranger, a mage, a barbarian and a mage, accompanied by the brief presence of their transport.

  “The mines of Atrii… didn’t you spend some time here, Thoumal?” A woman completely veiled in a brown cloak asked the ranger, looking down at the derelict quarry.

  “Once, yes,” Thoumal answered, looking back at his comrades. “Laufey, keep your hood on. We can’t risk being sensed.”

  “ ‘Tis far too small for my stature!” The half-giant complained. “It is not befitting for a giant to slouch.”

  “We went through enough trouble just to find something remotely your size made from that material, buddy,” Kaara consoled his companion. As vain as he was, he too was covering himself completely in the same garb as the rest of the party, a plain brown cloak with a shimmering underside. “Just a little longer until we get the jump on them… We’ve got everything we need, right?”

  “Affirmative,” Thoumal nodded, heading back to the sizable pile of extra baggage they had brought along. He picked up a rather large and clearly customized crossbow from it for inspection. He gauged its weight and ran a finger across the front, where an enamoured ring had been epoxied to its barrel. There were no arrows in their stock, however, instead replaced by a pouch of iron beads. “Gear up. Today, we get to the bottom of this.”

  Each of the party dove into the pile of equipment to retrieve an assortment of artifacts: high end potions, poisons, powdered silver and nets for Ciela, a staff with a glowing orb at the end and various gemstone-adorned bracelets for Kaara, and a large parcel of exotic meat for Laufey. The half-giant tore into the thick cut, feeling a surge of strength through his muscles as the fibrous slab was metabolized.

  “Wish I could stomach that stuff,” Kaara commented as he watched his companion stuff the meat down his gullet. “It’s not like I’d need it to burn a hollow, but still…”

  Clarisse found herself caught in the middle of a tornado of shades swarming around them, protected only by the bright veil of flames she had managed to conjure, and the rampaging blur that was Nikolas. They had retreated into a larger cavern than the tunnel the shades had first found them in, but this was hardly a better situation. If not for the frequent waves of darkness that ebbed and flowed dangerously within her reach, she would have been more worried about her partner.

  She only caught brief glimpses of him every few seconds, and despite carrying that massive greatsword, Nikolas was able to both evade and dispatch waves with surprising agility. Whenever she did spot him through the darkness, it was almost always when his weapon changed form, or rather when it ran errant and he slowed down to reel it in. On multiple occasions over the past minutes, she found herself flinching when the blade morphed into a fluid shape, almost always lurching in her direction.

  Even with Nikolas’s unyielding blade prowess, it was clear as day to Clarisse that they were about to be overrun. The swarm inched closer around them with each passing moment, and despite Nik’s best efforts, their numbers were not dwindling. It was only when she instinctually reached into her pockets when a shade threw itself at her flame barrier, that she recalled the blinding potions, and got an idea.

  “Close your eyes!” Clarisse warned Nikolas as she charged the vial with mana and threw it. Their days of training in the fields had definitely paid off, and she was subject to a pleasant surprise when the potion was launched much farther and faster than she had estimated. It exploded on contact with the shades, showering the entire cavern in a blinding light and ringing sound for a moment. The shades closest to the impact dissipated almost instantly, leaving the potion’s lingering residue to erode more shades as they flew through the leftover particles.

  Nikolas found himself neither disoriented nor jarred by the flash, but a light burn developed on the little bit of skin exposed around his neck. His lips curled in a brief smile of appreciation, knowing that Clarisse was picking up on his way of fighting. The kitsune launched himself into the air, passing through the lingering vestiges of the blinding potion. What passed through was nothing, or at least that was what was visible. Unseen to human and monsters alike, Nikolas used his brief invisibility to blitz through part of the swarm. His blade had since turned into an unstable mess of energy, branching out and decimating shades with unending rapid gashes.

  “Longer, just a little longer… You shall all have the blood you yearn for.” Nikolas spoke to the blade, coaxing it to remain in his hands despite the deep-rooted hunger that drove it to slaughter.

  Clarisse recovered from the disorienting explosion sooner than the shades around them, feeling a rush of excitement course through her upon routing their nightmarish assailants. The thought that her unusually agile partner was nowhere to be seen didn’t occur to her at that moment compared to the sight of shades getting shredded and burnt. She formed a fireball in her palms, using it as a source to launch blazing streams at the shades closest to her, and gradually moving on to the stragglers in the outer layer.

  The cleanup was even more invigorating now that she wasn’t holding back for fear of making the whole mineshaft blow up, more like target practice for Clarisse. It was certainly quite far from how she had hesitated to kill the Chupacabras, though the immaterial forms of shades compared to the dog-like bodies of blood-suckers contributed to that as well. It was only when the remaining shades started to flee away from her light that she found a moment of respite, and spotted Nikolas on the far end of the tunnel.

  He was kneeling, holding the erratic blade with both hands, something which Clarisse easily took as exhaustion. Of course, he had been doing most of the moving and murdering between the pair, so she saw no issue in running straight towards him once she had cleared out the shades.

  “Nik! Your potion worked! It got rid of most of them!” She called out in an excited tone. “I hope you didn’t get hur– AHH!” Clarisse leapt back when the ignited blade bent from its rigid form and surged towards her with a serrated tip, almost cutting into her. “Nik!?”

  “Stay away, Clarisse!” Nikolas fought the blade, yanking it back and forcing its wispy, burning tendril away from the redhead. “Just for now, keep your distance! In fact, I’d like it if you didn’t have to see this!”

  Clarisse watched with wide eyes, retreating with careful steps. “What- What’s going on? Why is it acting that way, Nik?” She called out with a slight waver in her voice, afraid of what was going to happen as Nikolas managed to bring the blade back to its usual form.

  “You just can’t wait, can you? You’re going to ruin everything at this rate!”

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  “Fine. Take it then, have your fill.”

  Clarisse’s chest tightened as she saw Nikolas’s eyes return her concern with a stare of regret, before turning the sword on himself in a single, clean impaling motion.

  “NIK!!!”

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