“Come on, this is where it came from!” Tat’s voice echoed up through the cave. Sigma and I halted at the entrance, hesitating. I looked at her, and she shrugged. “Why not?” She turned around, and plunged into the darkness. Slightly more reluctantly, I followed.
The tunnel twisted and turned, traveling steadily downward and, after what seemed like hours, expanded to a large cavern. “Wow,” Sigma said quietly. I looked around in awe. The flickering light that came from Tat’s torch wasn’t enough to light the entire room, but from what I could see, it was huge. Strange symbols ran up and down the walls, and gigantic stalactites hung from the ceiling. The entrances to many other tunnels, besides the one we’d come from, lined the walls. “I didn’t know there were tunnels under Spawn,” I said, wincing as my voice bounced off the walls, growing louder and more distorted.
“Shh,” Tat said. “I’ve heard of them, but no one I know has ever found them. They say those who do never come back out.”
There was a growl, and a zombie emerged from one of the tunnels. Almost unconsciously, Sigma pulled a knife from her belt and threw it. “I can see why,” She muttered, retrieving her knife from the remains of the body. “I don’t like this place. Let’s get out of here; we can be on our way back to Mallorca today if we hurry.”
“No,” Tat said stubbornly. “You saw the light coming from this tunnel as much as I did last night, and I want to see where it was coming from...”
“We can’t it’s too dangerous, you know that…”
Their arguing faded away as I lit my own torch and wandered deeper into the cavern. Tat’s light grew smaller and smaller until it was just a tiny dot in the distance, and that’s when I saw it.
“Um, guys… you might want to come see this.” I called. They drew their swords and came running over. “Woah,” Sigma said. Tat just stared.
A massive quartz rectangle loomed above us, and what looked like just plain water flowed vertically from the top of the rectangle to the bottom. I could see the stone wall of the cavern behind the water.
“What… is that…” I said quietly. Without answering, Tat took a step forward, unwrapping the strips of cloth he always wore around his forearms. I knew why he kept the cloth there, but I was still surprised- hundreds of intricate black runes covered his skin.
“Oh, Notch...” Sigma whispered. “They’re the same.” I looked closer, and gasped as I realized she was right. The same symbols that were imprinted onto Tat’s arms covered the sides of the rectangle and surrounding walls. He looked up when Sigma spoke, but otherwise gave no indication that he’d heard her. As though possessed by some greater force, he took another step forward and pressed his palm against the shining quartz.
There was a small explosion, and we were thrown backwards. One by one, the symbols lit up, the light spreading outwards in all directions from the rectangle. The quartz glowed with blinding while light, and the water seemed to flow twice as fast. Suddenly, I could no longer see the stone beyond the water. It was as though I was looking through it, past the depths of the cave and into what looked like the inside of a dilapidated castle. The water slowed, and the image came into better focus. Vines covered the stone-brick pillars, and bright sunlight leaked in through holes in the roof.
“A portal,” Tat said. He sounded dazed.
“I thought… I thought the King ordered all portals to be deactivated because of what happened,” I said uneasily.
“He did,” Sigma answered. “Every last one.”
“Then we need to get out of here,” I said. “If we get caught near this thing, if they find out Tat reactivated a portal, then we’d be in so much trouble!”
