Ibeos: What If?

Chapter 13. The Ruins of a Demon

I blinked hard, trying to shake the sting of powdered stone still clinging to my lashes. My eyes watered as I rubbed at them with the sleeve of my tunic, the fabric scratching against sweat and grime. The afterimage of that green teleportation light still ghosted my vision. Slowly, as my eyes adjusted, the dark gave way.

It was not a cavern, not like before. The walls around us were smooth and arched, worked stone, black as obsidian, and veined with faint traces of glowing green crystal — the same shade as the conjuration circle. The light they gave off was dim, just enough to trace outlines and shadows. Even still, I could tell: this place wasn't meant to be found.

Columns lined the room, thick and cracked with age, each bearing carvings that were strangely symmetrical, precise in a way that unsettled me — too perfect to be natural, too foreign to be familiar. The ceiling stretched impossibly high above us, disappearing into total darkness.

A faint hum hung in the air. Not mechanical. Not magical. Something between. It resonated in my chest, like the sensation you get when you're being watched — or when something old is remembering you.

Behind me, Thilo coughed into his sleeve, still on the floor. "Well, we're not dead. That's a promising start."

He pulled himself to his feet and turned slowly, his wide eyes drinking in the room with that same expression I'd seen the first time we stepped into the chamber beneath Greca. "Jane... I think we're in a vault. Possibly Seacurian. Possibly... pre-Seacurian."

He approached one of the walls and brushed his fingers along the carvings. "These markings— They're not purely linguistic. They're operational. This was part of a facility. Possibly military. Possibly worse."

He turned back toward me, ears twitching slightly. "Well, I daresay you've officially outdone yourself. Where are we?"

I let out a long breath. "I'm not sure to be honest. Again, while I created the world on pen and paper, I didn't write every little detail. Every chamber, every wall—most of it was improvisational if I'm being honest." I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the grime and sweat there. "Best case scenario, we're somewhere near where Kianit used to be. Before it burned down. Maybe a few hundred feet beneath the surface. Around thirty-three thousand years from your present time."

I hesitated. "Worst case... we're in the Shadowfell. Where Mephesto retired and built his demonic army after almost succeeding in killing his own race."

Thilo went pale.

And not in the casual, "oh-dear-I-just-realized-I-forgot-my-wallet" kind of way. No — it was the kind of draining of color that happens when your brain catches up to what your ears just heard and decides to absolutely not be okay with it.

He turned to me, blinking once, his tail twitching nervously behind him.

"Shadowfell?" he repeated slowly, as if the word itself might turn hostile if spoken too fast. "Jane... you do understand that planar convergence isn't exactly an afternoon walk. If this is Shadowfell—"

"I know," I said, more quickly than I meant to. The weight of it was already tightening my chest. I stared at the pillars again, their angles too sharp, too calculating. There was no dust here, no moss. Just cold. Like something ancient had exhaled across the stone and never taken the breath back.

The idea hung in the air like smoke.

Thilo nodded, solemn. "Let's hope for best-case, then."

"I agree. Fuck." My shoulders slumped, fatigue gnawing at every inch of me. "If only I had some kind of magic or power, we wouldn't have to be so cautious all the time."