6 Ymiden 719
It had been trials, and still they searched.
Talisse had insisted they make an effort to locate Ellisen and Aeryk, and while Wyland had acquiesced, it had made little difference in their trajectory. Though they had been marking their path through the tunnels, they had discovered relatively early on in their foray the tunnels and corridors of the labyrinthine fracture shifted, changing locations and destinations, making it impossible to chart a course forward or retrace their steps.
Supplies were running low, and though Mathias had no need for food nor water, even between Talisse and Wyland, there was only enough water for a trial more - perhaps less. Their expedition had not been meant to extend beyond two trials, and it had been many more than that. There was no telling how far into the fracture they had wandered; where usually it would have been noticeable by the sheer concentration of wild ether, it seemed rather that the longer they searched for an exit, the weaker the ether became. More and more wells embedded in the shimmering, shifting walls of the caverns that they passed were entirely drained, little more than empty, lightless vessels.
There was something off about the fracture, about the otherworldly creatures that stalked its halls, about the ether and the wells and disappearance of its exits. Everything felt weary, panicked, and fleeting. Everything including Talisse and Wyland.
"Try it again," she commanded, patience having left her at least a trial ago.
"I have told you-" Mathias began, but she stopped him with a withering stare.
"Yeah, you have. Now try it again."
He blinked once then nodded. "Very well." The thin, gossamer curtain between the waking world and emea had become something akin to cold, unmoving stone. Though he could still sense the separation of dreams and his own reality, the divide was much more than it should have been. It was stalwart and impenetrable, no matter how much he pushed or coaxed or waited. Everything he tried was met with the same end result: nothing.
After several more bits of fruitless attempts, Wyland spoke up, deep voice hoarse and raspy, little more than a whisper to both conserve his energy and avoid undue attention from the unseen denizens of the fracture's caverns. "I don't think he's lying, Tal." The tall, ocher-haired man's vote of confidence, unfortunately, wasn't worth much, not with tensions running so high.
"Well, he doesn't need to try, does he?" Talisse hissed, ignoring the small, crimson beads that formed along the cracks of her chapped lisp. "He's doing just fine without a drop of water or bite of food."
Her suspicion was understandable, but she didn't seem to be able to grasp the concept that Mathias preferred her to remain among the living rather than the dead. His attempts to cross into emea, to bring them with him so that he might prolong their lives, had been genuine. He had been unable to gain entry, and they needed him to remain vigilant during the short breaks they took to rest - though, if he could not cross in to the emean realm awake, he doubt he could do so unconscious. Something was wrong with emea - or something was wrong with him.
He was willing to bet, however, that while he did possess a great many failings, their current predicament was not born of one of them.
"Suspect me if you wish," Mathias replied, staring down the path they'd just come from. "But your energy would be better spent elsewhere."
"Would it," Talisse muttered to herself as she slowly pushed up off the wall she'd been leaning on, dropping several more small, scintillating wells into the bag tied neatly to her thick leather belt. "Then we'll keep going." She started down the tunnel but paused after a few steps to turn and look over her should, dark eyes weary but just as sharp as ever. "And you," she continued, "Keep trying to get us out of here."
"As you wish," Mathias nodded. There was no doubt repeated efforts would yield the same results without some sort of extrinsic shift, presumably within the fracture - or pehaps even emea itself. Still, he wasn't entirely certain he'd realize when that shift might even be; continual attempts were the most logical way of determining when his abilities might have returned, if not necessarily efficient.
Wyland glanced at him once, very little in his own eyes but a deep, ever-growing fatigue, before he shuffled off after Talisse, leaving Mathias to hold up the rear.
Ever since the fracture had sealed itself, Mathias had been keenly away of his spark's sudden reliance upon the wells he'd gathered for the company. The small shards of purplish ezymite he'd found, stored safely in his coin pouch, had slowly been drained, a fact he kept to himself. Of the several he'd gathered, only three of the shards retained their violet hues. The rest had faded into a dull greyish lavender. And while he had no doubt the ether had been subsumed into his spark which felt considerably less feeble than it had in the trials before, he made certain to inspect and gather whatever scintillating gemstones they came across.
He wasn't certain what might happen when he ran out of ether to feed his spark, and he most certainly didn't want to find out.
"Wait," whispered Wyland, a weak hand shakily griping Talisse's shoulder. With a mute nod, he gestured forward, and all three pairs of eyes settled on the body that lay at the end of a small runoff shaft.
Its flesh was chalky pale and glistened with the sheen of wetness. Its shoulders were non-existent, simply spindly arms and legs sprouting from an almost tubular body that slowly expanded and contracted with what must have been its breath. It made no sound as it lay there, and it would have made a convincing corpse if not for the steady, though slow breathing.
Their own breath held and footsteps as light as they were able, the three of them slowly began to creep past the steeply sloped tunnel's entrance. Wyland, the first of them, wobbled uneasily with each step. Before Talisse or Mathias could react, his legs seemed to buckle beneath him, and he crumbled to ground, limply tumbling down the shaft, oddly quiet for what one might expect from a body recklessly rolling down an incline towards some unknown creature.
Talisse let out a muffled shout, her own hand follow by Mathias' in swift succession stifling the noise to avoid garnering attention. They watched, unable to do much of anything else, as Wyland's groaning body came to rest just shy of the pale creature's own. The steady rise and fall of what must have been its chest had ceased the moment Wyland had began his unfortunate descent. Like a predatory insect, it remained incredibly still, as if its slick, white body were nothing more than another wall of the fracture's maze-like structures.
"T-Talisse..." Wyland rasped, eyes blinking blearily, hand beginning to raise to make sense of what was up and what was down. "Where-"
It was as if something in the creature snapped. One moment, it was laying so still beside Wyland, it might have been mistaken for a corpse. In the next, the sickly sweet smell of blood wafted through the tunnels as all four of the creature's limps dug into the young man's neck, tearing it apart as easily as fingers through wet paper. He didn't even have a chance to scream as his head wetly thudded to the ground and his still shivering body was slowly dragged towards the pale creature's fleshy center.
Mathias could feel Talisse's quivering rage behind the hand he insisted remain across her mouth, but she manged to remain silent throughout the ordeal. We need to go, he mouthed, his free hand gesturing just barely towards what was surely a far less dangerous direction.
Though her chestnut eyes burned almost as black as her hair, Talisse slowly turned, hot tears of frustrating and hatred stinging at the corners of her eyes as she, at least, shoved Mathias' hand away, taking him a shaking but silent breath of air. Below, the agonizingly slow sounds of boots dragging against stone rose up to fill the corridor. They moved in time to the steady scraping, their footfalls muffled by the sounds of the scuffing boots, a step every other trill.
Eventually, the were clear of the channel's entrance and could move more freely. Both remained silent, moving slowly and as silently as possible; both were aware that the dragging sound had since stopped; both listened closely for any indication that the creature might be following them.
Neither of them looked back as the crunching began.
