I had no way of knowing just how long I spent trying to bore my way through the walls of this prison. I couldn’t even count the number of identical cells I slipped my way into, like a questing snake in search of freedom. I had to have been going for…hours, days even.

  Maybe weeks? I…

  I just…couldn’t tell time anymore.

  I eventually became so good at using Poisonthorn Shot in such an unusual way that I could manifest the thorn without ‘shooting’ it. I held it now almost like it was a pen in my hand, used to burrow through rusted, corroded steel.

  Eventually, though, I…stopped.

  I just stopped everything I was doing to stare blankly forward at the next wall that I had been set to dig into. I was too tired to continue. I had nothing more left in my body to keep going.

  No will.

  No strength.

  No hope.

  And in that stillness where I had come to a halt, I finally heard it. It was like there was a voice, just outside of the range of my hearing, whispering almost inaudibly in my ear. There were no words, at least nothing that I could recognize. It urged me onward, whispering the concept of poisonous, false hope. If only I continued onward, I would surely escape from this endless Hell. The exit would come eventually, it whispered.

  But…

  That wasn’t true, was it?

  This…was this even real?

  No…

  This was a maze.

  I was being influenced by something, wasn’t I? I hadn’t even realized, because it wasn’t targeting the usual source. Whenever I’d been subject to mental influence in the past, it had always been my Core Ring that saved me. Normally, it was protected by the shield of my Outer Ring. But not this time.

  Now, it was my Core that had been affected. Something had slipped right past my Outer to worm its way in, to cast a spell over my inner self.

  Clever, in a way. But whatever this was, it couldn’t hope to affect both of my Rings.

  For once, it was the Outer that saved me.

  All of sudden, my attention sharpened. I looked behind me, and I saw…

  Nothing. It was just a solid blank wall, corroded and pitted, and yet there was no hole to indicate that I’d been crawling through potentially hundreds of cell walls.

  I think…I hadn’t even done anything. I’d just been trapped in a mental loop, staring uselessly at a wall for…who knows how long.

  But I was free now, and I was aware of the influence. I think the entire idea of breaking down walls had been from the whisper. It wanted me focused on an entirely asinine plan of action. It wanted me to stay in an endless, inescapable maze fashioned off of a childhood fear.

  So, I wasn’t going to do it, obviously. That left me with one question, though.

  What now?

  My eyes drifted downward to stare at the somewhat ominous hole in the corner of this cell. I couldn’t fit through that without breaking the precarious floor, but I did have something that could.

  I shuffled around until I stood with one palm open, and called for my newest Skill.

  Manifestation of Agony.

  My Sprite darted into being, and without even needing to be told, my Core Ring slid into it. The little bunch of fiery blue and crimson thorns saluted me and then floated downwards

  In and through the hole.

  I didn’t have real-time observation through my Sprite, which was honestly a bit annoying, so I had to wait for it to come back. It didn’t take long, however. It couldn’t have been gone for more than five minutes before that ghostly blue head poked back through the hole. Once it was in sight, the resident mind returned home and told me what it had found.

  Stone, and an endless abyss below us. It was incredibly dark outside of the cell, but my Core thought that wherever we were, it was floating over an immense pit into Vereden.

  This was one strange bunker.

  However…

  If it was just open air out there, then I didn’t care about breaking through this flimsy floor.

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  I had wings, after all.

  I might just be able to find another entrance back into the bunker from outside. I wasn’t going to find my companions or the information I sought from inside this cell. Both were somewhere in this complex.

  Plan made, I rolled my neck back and forth to crack it, and then only needed to cast one more Skill in order to get underway. After all, the weight alone seemed like it would be enough for my purposes.

  Vis Maledicta Exactoris.

  I exploded to my full transformed state and immediately banged my head against the roof of the cell. I didn’t have long to even register that pain, though, because moments later…

  I plunged through the floor into the open air, flaring my wings as I did so.

  My Core had been right.

  It was incredibly dark out here, but there was still enough light drifting outwards from the bunker above that I could make it out. It was, frankly, enormous. It was a massive, sprawling complex of which I could only barely see a fraction of, but I could be sure of one thing.

  This wasn’t the spiral-patterned fortification I had been expecting. Instead, it almost looked like an ordinary, if not somewhat militarily styled building of absolutely enormous size. It was seemingly floating in midair, as well, suspended from some kind of force or matter that I couldn't see from where I was.

  However, a problem presented itself.

  I wasn’t supposed to be out here.

  A vast, furious sense of unwelcome assaulted me the moment I started drifting through the open air of the chasm the bunker hung in. The voice that had been inaudibly whispering in my ear was not happy. Siren-loud whispers echoed out through the dark, all of them filled with an unending condemnation. I could still make out no words, but I knew what it was saying.

  I wasn’t playing by the rules. If I didn’t get back in the bunker now, I was going to be crushed as a rule breaker. Already, I could make out malevolent wisps of magenta Aether seeping through the walls of the bunker. They began to stretch my way on long, sinuous, barbed tentacles, and from the feel of them, I could tell I was naught but an ant.

  If those touched me, I would be erased from existence.

  I cast my eyes about desperately as I flapped in place, searching for another way into the bunker that wasn’t just my escaped cell.

  There!

  Off to my right and above me, I could see another source of the crimson light of the bunker. There was a rent in the walls as if a great clawed creature had tested them against the steel, and the steel had been found wanting. I couldn’t see what was on the other side of that hole, but it had to be better than the certain death of the cavern.

  I flapped my wings hard to gain altitude in the blackness, just barely dodging the first malignant tentacle as it swiped at me. I didn’t stop pumping my wings as I raced towards my salvation, speeding towards the opening in the corroded steel walls, chased by feelers wrought from sizzling, corrupted Aether.

  Just a little further…

  I could see that the gap in the walls wasn’t large enough for my transformed body to fit through, much less my wings, so instead, the moment I reached it, I canceled the Skill. My forward momentum was enough to carry me through the opening, and I broke my fall with a roll, skidding to a stop on the thankfully much more structurally sound floor inside of the bunker.

  I raised my head just in time to watch as the hunting tentacles stopped just outside of the gap in the wall, hovering in place for a moment just outside the jagged steel opening, eerily still. After a tense eternity where it felt like they were somehow watching me, they slowly, gradually retreated until they were out of view.

  I let out a sigh of relief and slumped back to rest on the wall behind me. I closed my eyes for a moment to center myself after the ordeal that was…more mentally taxing than physically, honestly. My head tilted back to thud onto the rusted wall behind me as I considered my current situation.

  Okay.

  So.

  Somehow, someway, this bunker had turned out to be a trap. I’d led my friends and companions into some kind of ancient trap that had been, if I was going to hazard a guess, possibly set by the gods. Maybe Chaos, maybe Order, but most ancient fuckery that seemed to occur on Vereden could almost always be traced back to them.

  I could be wrong, of course. Maybe the mysterious builders of these bunkers had set this trap all by themselves. But I doubt it.

  The construction of the bunkers, the contents to be found in them…they didn’t speak of a particularly malicious people. Vastly more technologically advanced, yes. Spiteful casters of traps that preyed upon people's childhood fears, no.

  And now my friends were, in all likelihood, trapped in here with me. That left me with only one option, then.

  I had to find them.

  Then, I could search for what I’d been looking for in here.

  If…it even still existed, that is.

  My mind made up, I opened my eyes and stood up with a grunt to take in my surroundings. I had seen little of where I had found myself after my mad flight.

  I was immediately struck dumb by what I found.

  This…this was a hall, of some sort. An enormous one, stretching far off into the distance to the extent that I couldn’t even see the limits of it. It was lit by small button lights set into the walls and ceiling that flickered with what looked to be a red glow, strobing on and off on occasion. Not all of them seemed to be working correctly, however. There were vast sections of the hall that were drowned in darkness, and the weak lights didn’t contribute much in all honesty.

  But they were enough to see the contents of where I had found myself.

  At first…

  At first, I thought they were drums. Tall, metal cylinders that stood upright, slightly tilted back, and supported by corroded metal struts. After the long, long years standing sentinel here in the dark and the rust, many of them had either fallen to pieces, slumped to the side, or in some cases, vanished altogether from their plinths. The front of the tubes was meant to be constructed of glass, I could see. Only a bare handful of the panes still remained unbroken after centuries of neglect, and of those that did, the surface was corroded and masked by rust and dust. Broken glass littered the decayed metal of the floor, making me wary of stepping incautiously. I’d had to puncture my boots back up at the control center for the barges, after all. With a cautious look at my surroundings, I saw no movement and bent down to mend them with Aetherial Melding. I didn’t want glass in my boots to shred my feet after all.

  When I was done, I looked back up, and when I did, something caught my eye. A glint of what looked to be white, or perhaps yellow? I couldn’t tell in this dim, menacingly crimson light. It had come from one of the ‘drums’ nearest to me, reflected off of a pane of glass.

  For some reason, I shivered. But I shook it off. I needed to get to exploring if I was going to find my companions, and I needed to search this place to do it. I cautiously drew my daggers and held them tightly as I stepped forward to investigate.

  When I reached the tall, metallic tube with its shattered surface, I saw what had caught my attention.

  And I wish I hadn’t.

  My lips parted in silent shock as I stared into the empty sockets of a yellowed, stripped bare human skull.