The Heavens Shall Fall

Just a day later, the group was trekking through the forest, and Siu realized it was his first time leaving the sect and wandering into the actual forest surrounding the Hollow Song. It was nothing like the one the outers had access to. This one had multiple proper entryways, all marked and numbered. They were miniaturized versions of the front gate of the sect, causing them to walk through a teleporting ripple bearing the number 7 on top.

What welcomed them on the other side were sharp gray ridges, too steep for trees to take root, making it barren. Broken-up stone covered the ground wherever he looked, mixed with thick grass and shrubs growing in between them. Following their agreed route, here only to scout the place, they walked until they reached a valley that led into a black opening on the side of the mountain before them.

It was unlike what Siu had imagined. Even from a distance, it was easy to tell that this mine had not been built for a few dozen workers with picks and baskets... Just the entrance itself was enormous, dozens of meters tall and wide. It wasn't just a hole either, because a stone arch had been carved directly into the mountainside. Decorated, spiraling pillars held it up, their surfaces well-aged, signaling that they had been there for centuries. Since abandoned, countless vines had already climbed across the arch and the pillars themselves. Most of the wooden structures that surrounded the mine outside had long since rotted away, leaving only their stone foundations scattered across the mountainside.

"Whoa!" Arya exclaimed as she stopped beside Siu and stared at the dark entrance. “That is a big hole.”

“Very insightful,” Ruben said with a 'polite' smile.

“I can make it sound more complicated if Princess prefers it that way.” She shot back, giving him the same deadpan look Siu used to give her.

“No need.” Ruben bowed ceremoniously, while Siu and Seloryn just rolled their eyes.

At the same time, Cho’Wa aimed his nose toward the hole, sniffing, while Nokoh remained beside him, holding one hand near the wolf’s neck while his partner drew in very deep breaths. Watching them, Marly sat on Siu’s shoulder, completely still, her eyes fixed on the mine, not really wanting to go down there. It was dark, and who knows how narrow... that was not a place she was keen on exploring. As for Joren, he had crouched near one of the pillars, running his fingers along it, searching for any readable markings.

"Anything?" Siu asked in the end, looking mostly at Joren and Nokoh.

"Cho'Wa says," Nokoh translated, "that he can smell the wind moving down there, filled with different scents."

"Which we already knew would be the case," Seloryn said as she unfolded the map they had borrowed from Quillian. Several entrances had existed to this place, but only three remained marked as structurally accessible, and they chose to come to the main one.

“Why did they stop mining if crystals are still there to harvest?” Joren asked suddenly, as everyone looked at him. "What? I have earth-affinity; I can sense it."

"You say you have that affinity, but..." Seloryn glanced toward him, forming a smile. “You never learned about resource rotation?”

“Excuse me, but even if I have that type of affinity, it doesn't mean I go around digging up holes and crawling into them. No, I don't know about it; why should I?"

“Allow me," Ruben joined the conversation, smiling again, "CC veins are not the same as ordinary mineral deposits, and this place was one of the main sites the sect extracted them from. You see, we aren't greedy but smart, and we rotate between the five mountains every 500 years, never pulling out more than necessary. CC veins form where essence accumulates within a suitable stone over a long period. Once the crystals are harvested, the stone can still draw in more essence and regrow it. Naturally, that needs time, but with how thick the essence has become here, it doesn't take as long as it would at other places. Exhausting it would lead to our sect disappearing and falling apart.”

Which reminded Siu of the story of the Three Valley Incident...

“Meaning they grow back,” Joren summarized, hands on his hips. "You could have just said that."

Ruben was right, though. A region could be harvested for centuries, then closed and left untouched while it recovered. Given enough time, new CC crystals would be 'condensed' along the abandoned channels, and with favorable conditions and enough centuries, richer veins could begin producing Flame Crystals and beyond. Not to mention, letting nature retake it, letting beasts come, fight, breed, and die here; their essence-rich blood also helped speed up the process.

That is why the abandoned mine was not empty, and the sect made sure that it was enticing enough for creatures to nest in it. Beasts like exactly what they were after were drawn to the mineral-rich places, and the sect didn't mine those parts. Gold? Silver? Gems? Those things weren't more than food for the proper beasts that could be harvested into something actually useful.

“How long has this place been closed?” Siu asked, "Just so we can guess how many beasts we are about to find down there."

“Going by Quillian's notes, three hundred and eighty-six years,” Seloryn answered.

"Holy!" Ruben whistled, measuring the massive entrance. "I think we will need more preparation for the actual hunt."

It was then that Nokoh lifted one hand, right when Cho’Wa had stopped smelling the road, and the wolf now stared into the mine, his ears angled forward.

“What is it?” Siu asked.

“He smelled a beast that got way too close to us,” Nokoh answered.

“Our burrower?” Arya asked, tilting her head, trying to smell the air.

“Too many scents,” Nokoh translated while shaking his head. “But he says it was probably a beetle, not something that has to live much deeper down."

"Well, we do need to go, so," Seloryn rolled up the map and tied it shut. “Stay close; I'll go first.”

Without saying a word, they crossed the broken loading yard and passed beneath the enormous arch, heading down into the pitch-black darkness. The temperature itself had dropped within just a dozen steps, and now a cool, damp air flowed out of the mountain, hitting them in the face. The last natural light followed them along the entrance tunnel, but it disappeared very quickly, and when it did, Arya lifted one finger as a small golden light appeared above it.

“Wait,” Seloryn said, grabbing her wrist.

"Huh?" Arya frowned at her. “It is dark.”

“Things may react badly to that kind of light, so don't be so hasty to draw them all to us.”

“So we walk into walls?” She argued, pouting her lips.

“No, but we brought cave lamps that emit a type of light that is not fueled by essence, nor does it shine so strongly. It is made directly for this reason.”

By then, Joren removed a thumb-sized crystal from one of his pouches as he pressed it against the metal clasp of his robe. With a tiny click, a dull gray glow spread from it, barely brighter than moonlight. Wherever it spread, it revealed the ground without throwing strong reflections or harsh, silhouetted shadows across the walls.

"Here," He passed them out, and soon everyone activated similar lamps, even if Arya looked offended, taking one for herself.

“My light is prettier...” She complained still.

“That is the problem,” Ruben added. “You do remember that it can go invisible, yes? Yours would be pretty much helping it.”

While she kept grumbling, holding the stone out to see, the group continued their descent. At first, the mine resembled what Siu had expected: rough stone walls on all sides, still propped up with ancient support arches. They passed by a dozen side tunnels, some of them already blocked by later collapses, making most of their old maps of the mine less useful. However, the farther they went, the less it felt like a mine.

After about ten minutes of walking, the walls widened, and the ceiling above them gradually rose even higher. The arches became absolutely massive pillars, each broad enough that all of them could try and join hands around it and still come off short.

“What did these do?” Arya asked, noticing the formations etched into the ground; however, there was clearly intentional vandalism done to them all, deactivating them for good.

“Weight reduction, I think.” Seloryn answered, "Joren?"

“...” He just looked at her, making her shrug.

“Okay, okay, I'm no formation expert either. Point taken.”

Walking downwards still, the main passage eventually reached a set of doors, or what remained of them. Two immense stone slabs had once sealed the route ahead, each at least twenty meters tall. One stood partially open, while the other had cracked down the middle and leaned inward. It was held in place by its ancient hinges that, sooner or later, would give out, and hopefully, not when they were passing by.

Naturally, as if having some divine humor, it creaked and whined when the group passed by, making everyone jump and pick up speed, not wanting to be crushed. However, they immediately came to a stop, colliding with each other while complaining, but their voices died down as the mine opened beneath them, almost making them fall into it.

There was no other way to describe the scenery, because the passage emerged onto a wide stone balcony overlooking a chamber so vast that their cave lamps failed to reach the opposite wall, keeping it in utter darkness. Rows of pillars descended into the darkness below, supporting a ceiling lost somewhere above them. How big were they? Hundreds of meters? They had to be... maybe even longer. As for the hole, bridges crossed between the different levels, and where their light reached, stone roads curved and spiraled along the walls, connecting terraces, loading platforms, and black openings to different shafts that appeared small only because of the chamber’s impossible scale.

As Siu turned, his light crossed over old pulley towers and the massive chains hanging from them, many of them swinging just overhead the group. Some looked like they were chewed and gnawed on, while some still ended in empty hooks, yet to be snacked on by... whatever was eating metal.

"Left or right?" Siu asked, while Arya was already pointing towards the left, so they began walking that way.

As they did so, they passed by actual buildings, carved into the rock. Checking some, they found offices, storage rooms, workshops, resting chambers, most of their furniture also made out of stone, the only remaining things, while the rest were cleaned out before abandoned, leaving them empty.

“This was one mine?” Siu asked, amazed, his voice echoing slightly.

“One,” Seloryn answered quietly. "First time for me, too; I've never really gone underground before... Not my style; it's bad for the acoustics."

"Bad?" Ruben asked with a grin, "Maybe your music would hit harder in here."

"Well..." Even she sounded surprised. "Maybe?"

“Why would they need this much space?” Marly asked, looking over the railing, holding onto Siu's hair like her life depended on it, down into the black abyss, making her shiver.

"Well," Joren stepped beside Siu after he translated her question, looking down at the ancient roads, too. “They were not moving a few crates of crystals, were they?”

After even more walking, they came to one of the old bridges, leading to the opposite side. With no other idea, they began crossing it, as this was the sole reason for coming: to map their surroundings before the actual hunt. The bridge itself was nearly ten meters wide, and although several sections of it had been cracked, the underlying structure remained firm and easily supported them. Yet halfway across, Joren stopped.

“What?” Everyone turned toward him, afraid it was about to collapse under them all.

“There are hollow sections below us...”

"Eh?" Arya looked down. “We know. It is a big hole, like my mom's.”

“Not the chamber, and, argh, I'm not talking about that! Inside the bridge.”

"Meaning?" Ruben stepped past him, tapping his umbrella on the surface, trying to listen. "Should we go back?"

Just then, a dry clicking noise rose from below, making everyone stop breathing... It clicked in the same rhythm that Ruben made. As they listened, another answered the previous click, then... a dozen more. Immediately, Marly flattened herself against Siu’s head.

“Beetles.” Seloryn whispered, "Probably chewed their way through the bridge from within... Arya," she turned to her, "What is the dimmest light you can summon? Try to shine it, for a very little moment, towards where I'm pointing."

"Well..." She gulped, focusing, and, even to her surprise, she could actually summon something similar to their stone's moonlight, spreading it out.

The moment it touched the point where Seloryn wanted, it revealed movement on one of the lower terraces as dark shapes crawled across the stone and each other. Each was nearly the size of a person, with rounded shells covered in overlapping mineral growths. They moved around in a dense cluster, scraping the walls and floors, eating the rock itself.

“Ew...” Arya moaned, dragging her light back at once.

“We shouldn't fall into a group like that,” Seloryn said, gulping.

"No shit," Ruben agreed, "If they can eat the rock, our bones will be nothing to them."

"Let's move... a bit more silently," Seloryn offered, holding down a shiver, "And try not to disturb them."

Agreeing, they reached the far side of the chamber and entered a descending tunnel, away from where their clicking noises were coming from. As they did so, they came across a blue-green glow that formed dim islands along the walls.

“New CC veins?” Siu asked, and if he was right... These were already at a Verdant quality, meaning they reached 10,000 CC per crystal but... These were massive veins, and he couldn't understand how it was even mined, if they were only palm-sized later on, fitting into someone or something like Titus.

"Should be," Seloryn nodded, "But don't ask, I don't really know either. Weren't you fighting against someone who hogged all the mining stuff amongst the outers? Maybe you should check on him."

"If fate allows it," Siu said with a joking tone, because even if he patched things up with Bren, he wasn't going to look for him... Same with Toban.

"I don't know who that is," Ruben muttered, "But if he can chip a few things off from here... wouldn't it be fine for a long time?"

"Good luck with that," Nokoh chortled, "Special tools are required to mine CC, and if you go at it with your own, I guarantee you won't be able to make a dent. Plus, let's say you get a tool to crack it. Do you know how to actually separate it from the earth and harvest it? Because I never saw entire veins being circulated outside..."

"Point taken," Ruben answered, raising a hand, dropping the topic in a hurry.

The more they walked, the more Siu sensed how the essence gathered around the veins, disappearing into them. He had expected abandoned mining tunnels to feel dead, but instead, the entire mountain was now like the inside of something living. Wasn't he walking inside the bones of a creature whose marrow had been mined out by humans? As he was thinking about that, they continued for almost an hour, and the routes became less orderly the deeper they went. Some tunnels narrowed so much they had to walk in a line while others split without appearing on their map. They weren't even natural-looking, clearly more of a... burrow.

"Here..." Nokoh said suddenly, and as the group walked up to him, they could see a long scrape that ran through the stone, beginning near the ground and rising almost two meters before ending, coming from one of the burrows toward another unnatural hole.

“Fresh,” Joren muttered, comparing it to the other markings around them. "A year? A week old? I can't tell, but it is younger than all the other marks around it."

“We found an active route, then." Siu said, while from somewhere deeper, grinding noises were starting to echo, "Let's mark it and move.”

Seloryn added the passage to their map, but they did not continue down it, turning around. They returned to the previous junction and took the opposing route, listening to more noises before their tunnel climbed for a time, then opened into another immense chamber. Checking the map again, they were above the previous one. As for the place itself, it lacked the impossible height of the main hall, but its floor stretched farther than their lamps could illuminate. Standing there, they saw how thick stone pillars divided it into long rows, and between them stood the remains of sorting platforms and empty storage bays. Down here, they even found water that flowed along one edge, coming from an opening in the ceiling somewhere, trickling downwards.

“Can we use that?” Siu asked, feeling that this spot may be it.

“In here?" Ruben smiled, "A lot more than I can carry myself, so yeah, I can use that.”

Everyone began looking around even more, and after a proper walkaround, they found six major entrances. From those, two were partially collapsed, three were broad enough for a Prismhide Burrower to walk through, while the final one led upward toward the route they had come from.

“Well," Joren began speaking, "I can reinforce part of it,” he said, biting his lower lip, “But not the entire chamber, and not forever. I'll be out of the fight while I concentrate on making it hard for the thing to dig.”

“How much preparation do you need?” Seloryn asked.

“A few hours before initiating it.”

"We still need to make sure it doesn't choose one of the entrances to flee, either," Nokoh suggested, making Joren think a bit before speaking.

“The best I can do while hardening the ground and walls is to try and herd it away from the obvious escape routes with spikes or something.”

"I can also help with that," Ruben said as he looked at the stream. "I can use the water to make it seem like those are flooded.”

"I can use my smoke to also hide the openings." Nokoh offered, "Although I don't know if it would actually work on a beast like this."

“What about resonance?” Siu asked, and Seloryn already lifted her flute.

“Do not,” Ruben said, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

“I am not going to play loudly.” She muttered, "But we have to test it!"

With that, she blew one low note, as it reverberated all over the room, swallowed by the ground and walls. The moment it died down, an answer came from the southern tunnel in the form of a scraping sound.

"Ah..." Seloryn lowered the flute immediately, blinking her eyes.

"Well, shit." Ruben cursed as they all stood and listened, but the scraping noise didn't come closer to them; however, it didn't stop either.

“That is not comforting,” Joren whispered.

“No, it isn't, but it means this will work,” Seloryn whispered back.

"I agree..." Siu nodded, "Let's leave... If we make the thing wary, it may never come when we actually need it. We found what we had to; now it is time to make a proper plan on how we capture our glass pig."