Wet Fire

By Way of Darkness (E8)

Adair

There was darkness. And water.
Adair felt the water of the aquifer rush over him. It was icy cold, and it took his breath away. The current swept him away into a narrow, rocky canyon. His body tumbled and he felt his knees bang against a hard surface, then his ribs. Water went into his nose and mouth, but he tried not to breathe it in, his lungs already hurt with an intense pain.

Memories came flooding back into his mind of the shipwreck. He wondered if he was still drowning, but he found the floor and pushed off with all of his strength. Adair gasped for breath as his head burst out of the water. The air was damp and cold, and smelt of aging rock.

Adair reached for the rocks, but the spraying of the water had made them slippery, and he lost his grip and floated further down. He tried a second time, and managed to hoist himself up upon the banks of the flowing river, breathing heavily. After a moment of much needed rest, Adair called out for Cass and his uncle Kade, but he doubted that they had heard him--the noise of the rapids was far too loud.

He got up onto his feet and squeezed the wetness out of his clothes. He couldn't see a single thing in this blackness. If only I had that torch... Adair got back onto his knees, and used his hands to navigate through the cave, he felt in front of him, looking for a pathway that would take him out of this. "Cass!" he called again. "I am down here, Cass! Follow my voice!"

After traveling for an hour or two, the sound of the water had faded, and he found himself in an enormous cavern with a tall roof of pointed rock. Adair stood up and gazed at the walls of the cave, which were covered in tiny lights, like stars, which faintly illuminated the area enough for him to see. He walked over to one of them and saw patches of mushrooms, growing out of the cracks of the moist rock.

The floor of the cavern was flat and covered in multi-colored tiles, which were arranged in an intricate pattern. Stepping back for a moment, he could see that the worn tiles formed images. There were many men cloaked in black robes, who were kneeling in front of a massive creature with glowing yellow eyes, bursting out of the sea. All around the mosaic, were writings in Zrini, which Adair could not read.

Adair rushed over to one of the corners of the room, where he saw several medium-sized urns, Using his fist, he cracked one open, but only grey dust poured out. What was I hoping to find? Food? A map? Adair left the urns and called out again for Cass and Kade, with again, no luck. He sat down in front of the mosaic and stared at the image, trying to decipher its meaning.

He had heard of special murals that foretold the death of anyone who peered into them, and wondered if this was one such mural. The murals, Adair heard, could be found throughout the Strange Continent, but only in the darkest and most secretive places. This place was dark, and definitely secret, but as he looked at the image more and more, he saw that this scene did not show death at all, but simply some kind of worship ceremony. He put that previous thought out of his mind and laid back against the ground. Adair waited. He listened to the faint drip...drop...drip...drop of water until he fell asleep right there, on top of the mosaic.

As Adair eyes fluttered open, he felt cold and moist and sickly. His fingers ached and it was difficult to move them. He stood up and walked over to the wall and picked a bundle of  blue mushrooms, which oozed a pale, glowing goop. The mushrooms were bright enough to lead him further down the passageway.

Clutching his bundle, Adair moved hesitantly onward, down a dark tunnel. Several other paths branched off from the main tunnel and snaked around and around, and other paths formed off of the smaller ones. Each pathway led to nowhere--it was a subterranean labyrinth. The glowing sap dripped off the stalks of the mushrooms Adair was holding, and onto the cave floor, dotting it with blue and leaving a trail behind him.