Enter Abyss

Chapter 5; The Abyss explorers.

Archer rubbed his wrist where the metal plate had slipped, slicing neatly through his skin and drawing blood that dripped onto his wooden work table in bright red splats.

Why in the name of the Abyss could he not get his flying machine back together? He had had to completely replace many of the parts that were broken entirely, but everything else should had been able to fit back together once he straightened them out. Yet it seemed as though Charious, the Mauferian god of inventions, was not going to make repairing this thing easy.

Archer was just bandaging his wrist when he heard the door to his room open. "Pip, for the hundredth time, you CANNOT have one of my shirts and don't even bring up the matter of trouses--" he cut off suddenly as he saw that it was Thaddeus, not Piper, who now stood in the room with him.

At his words, the older man chuckled, "That girl needs some new clothes, I gather?"

"Why bother? She helps herself to mine."

Still grinning, Thaddeus made his way over to Archer's work table and peered at the invention. "Are you going to tell me what happened to this thing?"

Archer sighed; he had been hoping to avoid this conversation for as long as possible, but apparently a few days was all Thaddeus was willing to wait.

"A Keeper caught me trying to explore the Abyss." he said bluntly, knowing his almost-father would appreciate the getting-straight-to-the-point aspect of the conversation.

Thaddeus did not seem surprised in the slightest, but a rather sad look came over his face as he replied softly, "Does this sudden urge to explore the Abyss have anything to do with your parents?"

Archer nodded, not daring to speak. 

Thaddeus would not talk of Archer's parents often and all the boy knew about them was that they had been Abyss explorers, slipping past the laws of the Keepers and entering the Abyss in multiple attempts to reach the bottom. 

Unfortunately, after Archer had been born and left in the care of Thaddeus Bram, they were both lost to the darkness, or so Thaddeus said. Still, Archer had a feeling that they were still down there, somewhere, and never once did he give up hope that they were looking for him as well. He always wondered what they were like; his mother, no doubt a fearless explorer with an interest in languages and dialects, just like Archer. And his father, tall, strong, and an inventor. They stayed in his mind often and he would try to picture their faces or to draw up a memory of their voices to no avail. No matter how hard he tried, he could remember nothing of them, not his mother's voice or her smile, nor the memory of his father giving him the goggles that he now wore-- perching the things on little Archer's head, only for them to be much too big.

One thing was for certain; they had had a burning curiousity for what lay at the bottom of the Abyss... and that curiousity was what had gotten them lost.

Now, that same desire for knowledge, for truth, burned within Archer and many times it scared him. For, no matter how often Cogs was there to warn him, Archer was simply too curious for his own good. That, coupled with his fiery spirit, excitebility, and short temper, made him almost more reckless than Pip. And THAT was something that terrified him; the fact that he could come to the same fate as his parents, or worse, the same fate that was bound to come to Pip.

Sighing, Archer went back to his work in the hopes that Thaddeus would leave. He didn't, of course, and continued to watch Archer work. Finally, after what felt like an eternity later, he said, "I know you miss your parents... but I do not think that looking for them is worth your time."

Anger flared sudden and bright in Archer's chest-- it was a familiar friend; hot and burning like fire. "What are you saying? That they're dead? What do YOU know?" Immediately after the words left his lips, a prick of guilt poked through the anger, but he smashed it down deep inside. Thaddeus had no right to say such things. Archer's parents were alive, he could FEEL it.