Chapter 84: Underground |
Kaz returned to the corridor once more.
His slightly hunched back looked all the more small and fragile against the towering backdrop of the massive wizard tower.
Saul looked up.
The dark gray wizard tower loomed before him.
The lower half of the tower’s body had only solid walls, no windows. Saul couldn’t tell how many floors there were, but he could tell the tower was no shorter than a modern skyscraper.
Majestic and awe-inspiring, solemn and dignified.
The marks of time added a heavy air of mystery and history to it.
But for apprentices who weren’t allowed to freely leave, this place felt more like a prison.
Watching Mentor Kaz walk away, Saul quickly pushed aside the melancholy.
Even if he didn’t find one that could bear a white fruit, the blue or red ones were still useful—Saul wasn’t picky.
He walked along the edge of the field, searching for a flower bud that “clicked” with him.
Soon, Saul spotted a particularly fine-looking one.
Its stem was upright, the bud plump—it looked full of life.
What’s more, as he approached, the flower visibly moved, leaning its head toward him.
Saul decided immediately: this one was it.
He memorized the flower’s location and appearance, then turned back toward the wooden hut.
As he walked, he felt a strange sensation at his ankle, as if something were brushing against him.
He looked down—and saw a thin, black tendril stretching out from the ground, as fine as a blade of grass.
It was smooth and soft, hard to tell if it was a plant or an animal.
But the more Saul looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.
Then it hit him: wasn’t this the same black tendril he saw in the swampy pit in Mentor Rum’s room?
It was much smaller now, but the appearance was nearly identical!
So the tendril was real after all!
Then what about that black swamp—was that real too? Was this peaceful, beautiful garden really sitting on solid ground?
Recalling the sight of a corpse being dragged underground by that tendril, Saul felt his scalp tingle. That strange brushing sensation now felt like a fuzzy worm crawling into his pant leg.
He quickly lifted his foot and bolted, sprinting toward the wooden hut at the garden’s entrance to call the gardener for help.
Through the window, Saul saw the gardener sitting inside, back turned to him.
Their arms were stiff—strangely rigid.
“Gar—” Saul tried to call out, feeling something wrap around his leg again.
But before he could finish the word, a thick black tendril, as wide as a thigh, shot out in front of him and wrapped around his left arm, yanking him violently into the earth.
The ground, which moments ago had seemed solid and dry, collapsed like mud.
…
Loose soil and pebbles rushed at Saul.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t stop himself from falling.
At last, he gave up resisting, shut his eyes tight, and opened his senses.
He began chanting the “Scorching Breath” spell, ready to smack whatever came near with a blast.
Then the resistance vanished. Saul, covered head to toe in mud, landed with a loud splat in a pit of sludge.
The black tendril wrapped around his arm vanished as well.
But no expected attack followed.
Saul pushed himself up from the muck and used his muddy hands to wipe his muddy face.
“Pffft!”
Since he had opened his mouth to chant the spell, a good amount of disgusting mud had gotten inside.
Blinking open his eyes, he saw nothing but pitch darkness—couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face.
The hole overhead seemed blocked by something, no sunlight shining through.
Feeling his way in the dark, Saul stood. He didn’t bump into anything.
The ground beneath him was soggy and uneven, and he could hear something squirming underneath.
A slimy thing, slick with mud, slid over his ankle, sending Saul reeling backward in shock—he nearly fell into the sludge again.
In the dark, every sound and touch felt amplified.
The unknown made his skin crawl.
Saul forced himself to calm down and used his most familiar tool—meditation—to survey his surroundings.
But to his surprise, the semi-immersive meditation, which always helped him detect danger, revealed nothing.
No spirits. No anomalies.
Clean—unnervingly clean.
Just then, something shifted underfoot again.
With a jolt, Saul scrambled back.
As he swung a hand behind him, it hit something hard—stone.
It felt like a raised platform above the mud.
The surface was damp, but better than standing in the muck.
Bracing himself with both hands, Saul climbed onto the platform to escape the tendrils.
Shh!
Shh!
Shh!
Shh!
The moment he stood atop the platform, lanterns lit up at its four corners, casting light across the underground space.
The ceiling above was at least three meters high.
He was lucky to have landed in the mud and not hit solid ground—or those black tendrils—on his fall.
The soil above was somehow held in place. Aside from a bit of crumbling dirt and gravel, nothing else had fallen through with him.
In the glow of the lanterns, he could now see a spacious area. Apart from the platform he stood on, the rest was filled with gray-black sludge.
Black, writhing tendrils—or were they vines?—moved through the muck. Other than the absence of corpses, the scene looked just like what he’d seen in Mentor Rum’s room.
The black tendrils didn’t seem to harm living beings. They’d only brushed his limbs, not attacked.
Still, why had they dragged him down here?
“Ugh… the mud’s gone all the way down my collar. Gross. I have to learn Cleanse as my next spell.”
Saul took off his outer robe, carefully avoiding the worst of the muck, and used a cleaner patch to wipe his face.
“Actually… maybe Light should be the priority. Without it, I’m as good as blind in places like this.”
The familiar lanterns eased Saul’s fear of the underground space.
Their presence meant this place was still part of the wizard tower. But the dust and moss on the platform suggested it hadn’t been used in a long time.
Turning back, Saul finally noticed the platform’s layout.
It was a square, about five meters to a side, with two workbenches at its center. Shattered glassware lay scattered across them.
He walked over and saw a sunken groove between the tables—just large enough to fit an average adult down.
“Someone must’ve done experiments here… but for some reason, the place was abandoned.”
His muddy footprints marred the dark moss covering the platform.
He circled the edge of the platform. Beyond was more sludge, stretching past the range of the lantern light. It looked like dirt in the distance, but no clear path out was visible.
“Doesn’t feel safe to wander in that direction.” Saul looked up. “Maybe I should try climbing out instead.”
He tried lifting one of the workbenches. It was heavy, but manageable.
Standing on it, he couldn’t quite reach the ceiling. But if he stacked both tables, he might be able to grab onto the soil overhead.
Hopefully, he could find a foothold or a way to call for help.
Though the gardener might come looking if Saul was gone too long, he wasn’t the type to sit around and wait to be rescued.
He grabbed one end of the table and began dragging it into place.
Screeeee—
A sharp screech rang out as the legs scraped across the stone platform, leaving black marks.
The noise seemed to stir the surrounding sludge—it began to bubble.
Saul froze and watched carefully.
Though the tendrils hadn’t harmed him yet, he had no confidence in fighting something so massive and mysterious.
Black tendrils rose from the sludge, twisting and reaching toward the platform but it seemed they were restricted somehow, unable to reach the platform itself.
Saul waited, and once he was sure the things wouldn’t climb up, he resumed moving the table.
Then—plop—something landed on his left shoulder.
And something cold and slippery slid down his cheek.
His movement froze. His eyes slowly shifted to the left.
Something like a tangle of seaweed sat on his shoulder, squirming.
No—no teeth, just little threadlike tendrils, all black. If not for its small size, it would’ve looked just like the huge ones in the sludge.
(End of Chapter)