Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 179: Gallows Spiders and Shallow Graves

Toren Daen

I walked with the three dwarves, Aurora's relic stashed away in its brooch form. As we stepped into the pervading blackness, I instinctively raised a hand, summoning a small candleflame over my palm to provide light. It cast the nearby walls in flickering shadow as it peeled back the darkness like a veil.

Almost immediately, Jotilda turned around, glaring at me. "Snuff it, Alacryan," she said sharply. "No lights! That tells everything we're hopin' to hunt that we're coming. And no sound once we step deeper into the chasms, either."

I furrowed my brow, clenching my hand around the flame and snuffing it in a single gesture. "Okay," I said slowly, "But how are we going to direct ourselves without being able to see?"

Behind me, Borzen knocked his mace against the tunnel walls. "We're not so limited as you, Alacryan," he said gruffly. "We dwarves–those of us with tunnel legs–can navigate these chasms without sight. Just need someone with an earth affinity to send pulses into the ground first."

Gruhnd said something else, but once again, I couldn't understand a lick of it due to the beard blocking his face. It sounded like someone was speaking from under a thick blanket.

Borzen nodded sternly. "Exactly, brother," he said seriously.

I blinked. Okay, then. "Well, if we aren't moving by light, then there's another way I can help," I said, trying to find a way to contribute to this team, "I can muffle every sound you make. No need to worry about misstepping or kicking a rock or something."

To accentuate my point, I enveloped us in a sound barrier that covered us all. I brought my foot up, then smashed it against the ground. Cracks spread from beneath my boot, but no sound escaped.

Gruhnd's bushy brows rose ever-so-slightly as he looked at the cracked ground. Borzen nodded slowly, seeming to consider this usefulness. Jotilda, however, merely narrowed her eyes.

"Don't trip over your own feet, Alacryan," she said as she turned, prepared to move deeper into the tunnels. "Wouldn't want you giving us away."

—

The four of us walked through pitch-black darkness, slowly maneuvering through the downward-sloping tunnel. I couldn't see a foot in front of my face, and I found myself relying heavily on my sense of hearing to navigate without falling or misstepping. Considering the narrow corridors we weaved through and the uneven surfaces we had to swerve through, it was a constant struggle.

"There is a jutting rock not far from your current position," Aurora said into my mind. Her shade wasn't so limited in senses as I was, and her input had saved me more than a few embarrassing falls. "Step around it."

Thank you, I said back to my bond as I avoided said rock. Somehow, the dwarves around me seemed to have natural senses for these things, moving through the darkness without a single lick of hesitation or anxiety. I'd used their steadily thumping heartfires as a way to gauge my location as well. I'd also engaged my heat-vision spell, which outlined the dwarves around me in orange due to their heat signatures. That made it far easier to move as well, considering I could see where everyone else stepped.

Every now and then, however, Jotilda would call a halt to our forward movement, then press a palm into the ground, theoretically casting a spell like Earth Sense to gauge the path forward.

I should develop a sound spell like that, I thought. I haven't had to maneuver through dark spaces like this, but some sort of sonar spell would make this forward trek far easier.

But the unending silence was starting to scrape away at my nerves. "Say, Jotilda," I said, shifting my head so I didn't smash it into a jutting outcropping, "How long have you been working in these tunnels? Was this a job before, or...?"