Mythic [Everlight Part 4]

Answers lead to more questions for our heroes

For at least a full minute after their revelation hit them, the three could do little more than stand at the cliff’s edge and stare down into the ravine. The entire world seemed to have shifted oh so slightly beneath their feet, making everything they saw and heard just a little different than it had been only minutes before.

The air had never felt so crisp, nor the river’s echo so clear off the ravine walls as it did that day.

How heavy had this secret weighed upon the world, and how light must its shoulders be now that it alone would not bear it.

There was a dragonforge somewhere in that ravine, or whatever remained of it. But where? And how was it creating the light and quakes?

For as much as their revelation meant for civilizations all across the Known World, it was incomplete until they had finished putting the pieces together.

Was that their job? Perhaps not.

The world was full of people more qualified — scholars, historians, myth hunters — people who had been hard at work to uncover this secret for generations upon generations since its loss. People who had dedicated their lives to this, and any amount of them would kill to have been the ones that finally figured it out. Any one of them was perhaps more deserving of this knowledge, and would know how to use it to find the forge.

But none of them were here.

The truth of the forges had fallen into the laps of a healer, a soldier, and a storyteller, and if you believe in fate, it had happened that way for a reason.

Whether deserving or not, this was theirs to see through to the end.

And their troubles were not over yet.

They intended to take the path back down to the road — it would spit them out on the opposite side of where they needed to be, but they should be able to follow the pass around the cliffside until they got there. A major problem presented itself with this though. Just as they were turning to leave the cliff’s edge, Dagran held up a hand.

Zura stopped and grabbed Avanessa before she could take another step, pushing her behind with her free hand.

Their torches flickered, beginning to dim.

Dull vibrations rumbled through the earth, and the mingled odor of pitchmud and burnt nightbeast tainted the air.

The vibrations slowed. Stopped.

And the torches went out.

Dagran broke the silence, shouting, “Off the cliff!”

“WHAT?!”

“Hold on tight!” Before Avanessa had even a chance to question this directive, Zura whirled around and tackled her.

They plummetted over the edge of the cliff before Zura’s wings engaged, flaring out to either side and catching the wind. Bandalari were not capable of powered flight, but gliding was well within their wheelhouse.

The nightbeast thundered to the edge of the cliff, but didn’t pursue, leaving them soaring through the open air and down into the ravine. For once, Zura was thankful for the lack of trees — navigating them in the darkness would have been impossible.

They alighted at the bottom of the ravine, not far from the banks of the river.

“Everyone alright?” Dagran asked, turning to the two of them.

“Fine — Fine!” Avanessa laughed shakily, carefully prying her grip off of Zura. “Just uhh…” She whistled, “was not expecting that…”

Zura set her down gently on a nearby rock, her wings folding back in.

“Not my first choice,” Dagran admitted, rolling his shoulders. “These old wings don’t catch the wind like they used to. I don’t think I would have been able to carry you. Thankfully Zura didn’t need any convincing.” He elbowed her before leaning over, catching his breath.

Zura cleared her throat awkwardly, rubbing at the spots where Avanessa’s fingernails had dug into her skin. “Well. I didn’t fancy her chances of outrunning the thing. Or spontaneously developing wings.”

If either of them had noticed her efforts to deflect her willingness to save Avanessa, they didn’t mention it. The young storyteller just shook her head, speaking mostly to herself. “Two encounters with the same beast — i-in the same night too! That must be some kind of record…”

Two encounters might not be, but surviving to tell the tale certainly was.

After a few minutes spent letting the adrenaline wear off, they began looking around to try to triangulate where they were in the ravine and throw out ideas about where they thought they might find this forge.

All the while they waited for another rumble, another flash of light, but nothing came.

As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they managed to discern which direction the cliff was, and from that Avanessa was able to give a rough guess where she’d seen the light originating from.

Now torchless, they tossed around the idea of Zura lighting her sword, but for fear of attracting any more nightbeasts, they decided to make their way by starlight as far as they could, using the river as a guide.

Steadily, the wide section of the ravine transitioned into a gorge, the walls closing in and their footing on the side of the river growing more and more precarious. The river in turn grew deeper and deeper.

As they got closer and closer to aligning with where Avanessa would have seen the light, they hit a point where there was no more bank to walk on, and the walls rose high enough into the sky that the way forward was in pitch darkness.

“…we could swim? Or hug the wall?” Avanessa suggested, though even she didn’t seem super sold on the idea.

“It’s alright, storyteller.” Dagran assured her. “I believe Zura has something to deal with this.”

Zura pursed her lips, but nodded, stepping forward. She made brief eye contact with Avanessa as she said, “You asked once what we were if not war-mages. Dagran was open with you, but I was not.”

The Bandalari guard stepped to the edge of the water, looking down. There was no telling how deep it had become, and though the surface of the water was calm she knew well that there were merciless currents running within.

She drew her sword, stomping her hoof and letting the ring of runes flare up once again to grant life to the flames and allow light to bounce off the once-dark walls.

Then, the runes etched into her ram-like horns began to glow.

“She may not be a war-mage,” Dagran said. “But she is what they call a wavebreaker. Trained for protecting Bandoska’s ocean.”

Zura stepped out onto the glassy surface of the water, and it held her weight. Her hooves sank only half an inch into the water as white circles of runes floated around her hooves. She turned, beckoning them forward. “As long as you stay close to me, you’ll be able to walk too.”

Avanessa was ecstatic, but cautious, taking a slow step and not putting all her weight on it before she was sure. She stared down at her shoes in complete bewilderment, at a loss for words. When she finally found them, the questions were numerous. Zura only answered a few as the group began to walk on the river.

“So if we get too far away…?”

“You both would fall in, yes.”

“And you use this to fight?”

“In theory.” She paused, admitting, “I was trained to use it to fight. The oceans have no shortage of monsters either, you know — not just nightbeasts. …But in practice I think I have used it more often to perform rescue missions on stranded sailors or cross rivers and lakes to cut down on travel time. That sort of thing. Civilian troubles are much more common than active threats.”

“I’m sure I’ve healed up more training accidents than actual battle wounds myself.” Dagran chuckled softly. “Needless to say, going on an adventure wasn’t exactly on our to-do list when we got up this morning. Much less actually figuring out the truth about the forges.”

There was a small silence before Avanessa asked, “What do you think we’ll find? A ruin, more than likely — but how much of it do you think survived? And how?”

“There must be some kind of life left in it if it’s behind the lights and earthquakes,” Dagran reasoned. “But I can’t imagine how anything would survive such monumental destruction — the whole mountain being destroyed like that. If we’re right, I suppose.”

“At least that explains the pitchmud,” Zura commented idly, continuing to wave her sword from side to side to keep tabs on their surroundings. “Pitchmud comes from the ashes of the destruction the dragons caused, right? Levelling an entire section of the mountain would have left a lot of ash behind to be swept into the river.”

“If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get answers to all our questions when we find this forge.”

As they rounded the bend, the purple firelight of Zura’s sword illuminated something up ahead. The vegetation here was thick — moss and other plants growing in outcroppings in the walls of the gorge — but it didn’t cover the walls completely.

Zura was surprised to recognize Bandalari stonemasonry.

It was some kind of pillar, partially in the wall but with enough clearance that its top pointed towards the sky. All told, about ten feet of it was visible above the water line, but there was no telling how much more was beneath.

They drew closer, able to make out more and more of the inscriptions, though they were heavily worn by time and water. Moss grew over some of the glyphs and small cracks marked its surface, but it was remarkably still intact.

“…is that smoke?” Dagran pointed up to the top of the pillar and Zura raised her sword, allowing more of the purple light to catch on the thin, wispy trail of smoke that seemed to be coming from somewhere within.

“So atop the nine tallest mountains of the world, the dragons created nine forges marked by monoliths of stone, from which light and smoke billowed year-round,” Avanessa recited by memory. “…I think… I think this is one of those monuments.”

“Which means…”

Zura finished his sentence for him. “…we found it. We found the forge.”

Dagran’s eyes followed the pillar down. “Does this mean we’ll be taking a dip after all?”

Mazzurak pursed her lips, getting close enough to touch the pillar and the others following close behind so as to not leave the range of her spell. The stone wasn’t as cold as she would have imagined, but that’s not what immediately caught her interest.

“Do you hear that?”

This stretch of the river was calm on the surface, barely seeming to be moving at all. It was only by watching particles in the water that you could really tell. It was mostly quiet — but something around here wasn’t.

“Flowing water?” Dagran asked. “…but where?”

Avanessa pointed. “Look there — there’s a current wrapping around the back of the pillar.”

Sure enough, though the majority of the river remained flowing as is, some of it was being siphoned off, pieces of plant matter and occassionally small insects drifting in that direction.

Following the path of the current, Zura swept aside a large swath of hanging moss to reveal a thin gap between the pillar and the rock face that descended into darkness.

Steeling their resolve, they one by one stepped into the makeshift tunnel.

It was hard to describe what it was like. Steep, primarily — they weren’t walking so much as climbing from one boulder down to the next. At times, they had to squeeze themselves through gaps only barely wider than their shoulders.

All the while, the water followed them. It wove between the rocks, carving grooves and pools where it had been falling for however many years this passage had been open. Sometimes it would disappear into cracks too small for a mouse to fit through, only to reemerge several feet later in a gushing waterfall. With the magic of Zura’s spell attempting to make the water traversable in all its forms, she eventually had to let the magic fade to save themselves the hassle.

Something that stood out the most, though, was the sound. The space was tight, but impossibly vast beyond what they could see. The echo that reverberated all around them came not only from the water next to them, but from the very bowels of the world.

It was rough going with only Zura’s sword for a light, but they had come too far to turn back now. The forge was down here, and they couldn’t stop until they found it.

Zura couldn’t lie — the thought crossed her mind whether or not they were the first to discover this place. Whether others before them had come here and been unable to get back out. Could they die happy knowing the true location of the forge, even if it was never revealed to the world?

She tried not to consider the idea too heavily. For now, though their journey back up would be difficult, it was still doable and as long as they didn’t suffer any accidents, it would stay that way.

“Careful here,” Dagran cautioned. “These boulders are big, but I don’t trust that they’re stable. We can’t assume heavyfootedness won’t knock anything loose. This already looks like it was part of a cave in.”

She nodded, gingerly tossing her sword down and climbing after it.

Dagran was right. There were marks on the walls like the walls had shifted in some places — recently, even — as the water continued to wear away at them.

Avanessa and Dagran followed close behind, and she returned her attention to the descent.

When she did, she frowned. Another ten feet or so down there was another landing, where a larger pool of water had formed. She could tell from the echo that they weren’t at the bottom of the tunnels, but this clearly opened up into some other passageway.

And within, something was glinting.

Even as she had noticed it, there came a low rumble as something far beneath them shifted. They all quickly climbed down, landing in a pool of ankle-deep water and backing away from the tunnels as the boulders within adjusted position. The motion shook the earth, and Dagran reacted just in time to bring up his shield spell to protect Zura from something falling from the ceiling.

The large rock bounced harmlessly off the shield and splashed into the water, along with a few others elsewhere in the darkness.

When the shaking stopped, they had time to assess where they had landed.

They had ended up in what could almost be a hallway. The ceiling was low, and marked by strange, thick white bands every few feet.

The water was ankle-deep, stretching into darkness, but the object Zura had seen glinting in the water was not the only one of its kind. She reached into the water, pulling out a glinting white and red stone that immediately began to crumble into multicolored dust as she rolled it around in her hand.

“An unpurified firegem?” Avanessa asked, her brows raising. “Is that what almost fell on your head?”

Zura looked up, surprised to find that indeed, the roof of this cavern was covered in the things, as well as pockets where one had been and had since been dislodged.

“I think so. We’ll have to keep an eye out if the ground shakes again.”

“Yeah. And make sure none of them fall on your sword either.”

Zura looked at Dagran, confused. “My sword?”

He nodded. “Unpurified, they’re very volatile around fire. Might cause an explosion.”

Avanessa leaned in, looking it over before searching for another one in the water. She smiled to herself. “I’ve never seen one of these up close — too expensive. Gemsalts come from these though, and those are fairly cheap and safe. We use them for dramatic flair in storytelling — and give them out to kids so they can throw them in the fires.”

Zura nodded to herself, remembering the small horde of children that had thrown gemsalts into the fires as they ran past. Remembered the bright flash of blue light before it died back down to its normal pitchmud-teal flame.

A thought began itching at the back of her mind, but she didn’t quite get to address it before Avanessa stuck her hand in the water and pulled something out.

“Oh. This isn’t a rock.” She let it unfurl in her hands, revealing what had been a balled-up necklace made of white-gold metal. It was completely untarnished, despite looking positively ancient.

Not far away, Dagran too pulled something from the water — a sword seemingly made out of the same kind of metal. It too looked ancient, but bore no sign of rust or environmental damage. “Are these… dragonforged items?”

Confused, Zura sloshed forward towards another glinting item, but tripped halfway there. She caught herself, looking down to see what she had stepped on. She reached into the water, pulling out… a skull.

Looking again, she found the rest of the skeleton along with it, and it wasn’t the only one. Though the water was littered with these strange, glimmering artifacts, so too was it littered with bones.

“…what happened here?” Avanessa asked, breathless and looking sick.

Neither of the Bandalari had an answer for her, and they all knew they wouldn’t get it just by standing here.

A little more reluctantly, they pressed on.

The hallway extended several more feet before opening into a cavernous space — roughly oval-shaped with no alternate entrances or exits except a small hole in the ceiling through which scant light shone. The ankle-deep water permeated most of the area with the sole exception of a large, raised circle of stone directly under the skylight.

The far end of the cavern held several white rocks littered about, each bigger than any of the mortals.

The same white banding pattern that had been in the hallway continued here along the left wall, each of the bands much wider than they had been previously. The right wall appeared less organized, some thinner bands running through the ceiling and sharp stalactite-like formations in the wall.

In the water were more skeletons, more glinting items, but these hardly interested any of the three anymore.

At the far end of the cavern, there was light.

Soft and ethereal, bright white, but looking at it didn’t sting their eyes. Shadows danced across the cavern wall as it flickered and moved.

They abandoned all other thoughts, sloshing quickly across the room to peer around the other side of the white rocks.

There, they set their eyes upon an orb of pure sunlight suspended effortlessly above the water’s surface — something that had not been seen in more years than there were stars in the sky:

Everlight.

How long had it been there, waiting for its discovery?

An unfathomably long time.

Long enough to have been buried under what remained of the mountain and the ashes of its destruction. Long enough for a river to have formed over the rubble and long enough for that river to have cut a gorge in areas like this. Long enough that the water finally uncovered an entrance, pebble by pebble, to the remains of the tunnels the dragons had built, and invited itself in.

Long enough that erosion had run its course, wearing away at the rocks that had blocked the passageways to the bottom of the world. Long enough for this to cause the rocks to slip and shift, shaking the world to its core.

Shaking that dislodged firegems into the forge below, where they reacted violently to the heat and their light was funneled out through the monument of stone, causing a bright flash across the sky.

…except there was something that wasn’t adding up. More than one, really.

While the other two stared, Zura’s eyes traced back to the center of the room.

The raised platform — wouldn’t that make more sense as the forge? Right beneath the skylight? It looked far more like a forge than the collection of rocks surrounding the Everlight.

A final piece clicked into place as she drank in her surroundings, bathed in light and darkness.

These… were not rocks.

Littered on the floor and bracing the walls, these and the white banding they had noticed on the way in were one and the same.

Not rocks, but bones.

Dragon bones.

No mortal alive had ever seen a dead dragon. They existed on a scale of life that was inconceivable. But there was no questioning it. Its tail made up the hall they had entered, and its spine and ribcage formed supporting beams up through the earth. Its legs formed the white rocks, its talons and teeth the stalactites Zura had noted earlier.

It was only then that she understood the true gravity of what they had discovered. Only then did she understand why so many mortal bones littered the ground, and why so many dragonforged items were interned here with them.

Only then did she understand the true secret of the forges, and the secret of the dragons by extension.

The magnitude of the destruction they caused all over the Known World — the countryside ablaze, the locations of the forges leveled and buried in one fell swoop of might and power — it wasn’t out of wrath, at least not alone.

Not only wrath…

…but fear.