Chapter 12: Chapter XI – Bethany – The Belly of the Beast

Dragging Jess along, Beth sprinted towards the nearest tunnel, not even looking back to see if the horrific creature was still following them. Thankfully, she felt that Jess began sprinting on their own, staying right beside Beth. As she looked over to them, she could see just how pale their face was. She wanted to ask what they knew about this thing, but at the moment, the highest priority was getting themselves out of the sight and attack range of it.

Thankfully, Beth could hear and vaguely feel that it was still behind them in the chamber. It seemed to still be focused on the second of the stone lions. Beth’s mind was racing as she tried to figure out not only what that creature was, but also what it was doing with the stone lion.

Beth was granted very little time to think because after only a few minutes of running, the duo heard the screech of the creature once more, the sound echoing down the tunnel, closely followed by the sound of the creature scuttling along the walls and closing in on them. The sounds coming from the creature were terrifying. Not only was it screeching like some ghastly monster, but even its body seemed to be emitting a sound like the churning screams of hundreds of dead souls. Beth tried to block out the sound, but as it got closer, that became increasingly difficult to do.

Beth looked to Jess once more. She was met with a face filled with fear and Beth found herself instinctively reaching out to hold their hand, clenching it tightly. Finally, Beth looked back to the monster that was chasing them and she came to a realization about it. The creature did not seem to have any eyes. While they could have been hidden somewhere in the swirling mass of darkness and stone, Beth was fairly certain that this creature was not operating based on sight. She wasn’t surprised, knowing that most creatures of ser were often guided by a simple and innate sense of destruction.

Beth scowled, trying to focus on something that she noticed on the creature, but as soon as it appeared, it was gone again. Just as soon as she turned back around, Beth was met with a fork in the path. On instinct, she bolted to the right, once again practically dragging Jess along with her. Glancing back, she watched as the creature slammed in to the divide, burrowing through the wall partially before begin to pick itself out.

Thinking fast, Beth formed a seal and opened up a large hole in the side of the tunnel, darting inside and sealing over the tunnel.

“What are you doing…?” Jess asked in a hushed and very strained voice.

“This thing can’t see and right now, I’m not totally sure what it was tracking. It seemed like us, but if that was the case, why did it go so out of its way to destroy the lions? I figure, if we hide in the wall, it might have a harder time finding us… Plus…” Beth motioned behind her to a large tunnel that she had just carved out, leading back the way that they had come. “I want to go back to the chamber to see what’s going on. I think that if I can get a look at those lions, I might be able to figure out what this creature is after and, if that’s the case, maybe we can get rid of it.”

Jess thought for a moment, shaking slightly from the nerves that had overtaken them. Beth smiled softly and squeezed their hand. “We’ve got this, okay? I’ll protect you…”

Jess nodded and followed as Beth led them back towards the chamber, continuing to carve out the tunnel as they went. The sounds of the creature seemed to have subsided for the time, so Beth increased her pace, eventually breaking through a wall in to a room filled with light. Beth raced towards the platform where the fragments of cracked stone still sat. Jess followed closely behind, keeping on guard.

“Is that thing what I think it is…?” Beth asked, examining the pieces of stone, trying to find anything odd or out of the ordinary that would cause the creature to attack it.

Jess sighed and shook their head. “Yeah… That’s the thing I’ve been feeling… Seeing it so close… feeling it like this… I have absolutely no doubt in my mind… But even still… Its presence is so… overwhelming…”

Beth paused for a moment, about to say something before stopping and resuming examining the fragments. They seemed perfectly normal, at least to her eyes, but as she pressed her hand to the stones and allowed her earth vision to propagate through the material, she felt something strange. She tried to focus in on it to identify what it might be, but she still wasn’t very adept with sensing.

“Hey, Jess, can you come check this out?” Beth called.

Jess turned around, giving a slightly confused look before heading over to the stone and placing their hand on it, closing their eyes and searching through the contents of the stone for anything out of the ordinary. Their eyes shot open and they turned to Beth.

“These things were using origin shard pieces to power them… Just like the ones that were all in the walls of the first chamber,” Jess explained, their hand moving to their chest, feeling their accelerated heartbeat.

“We need to go back to the first chamber. I need to test a theory,” Beth said, standing up and gazing around the room at the various tunnels. “Can you tell which, if any of these, lead back to the first chamber?”

Jess nodded and closed their eyes once again, using what strength they had to get a map of the various tunnels all around them, scanning their paths and trying to find which ones led back to the first chamber. Eventually, finding one, they sighed and opened their eyes, feeling their legs getting a little weak. Beth rushed to them and caught them before they fell as they pointed up to a tunnel above the place they had come in. Beth nodded and once again took Jess over her shoulder, creating a stone walkway leading up to the tunnel. As they ascended the stairs, Beth looked at Jess with concern, seeing just how much they had been pushing themself and growing increasingly worried.

“I’m sorry for asking you to do that… I know it was… probably… exhausting…” Beth offered.

Jess shook their head. “It’s alright… If you have a theory about what’s going on, I think that there is a very good chance that that theory is, in fact, correct…”

Beth nodded, not wanting to say any more as they made their way in to the tunnel and back towards the first chamber. The entire walk back, Beth had to carry Jess and thanks to this, she could feel them shaking rather often and their heartbeat was going much faster than it did usually. She could tell that the sounds of the creature were certainly not helping. Every time Jess heard it, their heart would speed up for a moment before Beth worked to calm them down.

Thankfully, the trip to the first chamber only took a few minutes. Unfortunately, when they arrived, they were met with a very odd sight. Upon exiting the tunnel, they were met with a sharp drop that almost sent them both plummeting downwards. Thankfully, Beth caught it and stopped the two of them before forming a walkway down to the nearest bit of stable rock.

As they looked around the chamber, they were both shocked by the kind of destruction that had taken place in such a short time since they had been here. There were massive sections of the walls carved out all around them, leaving only small bits of glistening rock showing. Most of the pieces of crystal were missing and the vantalorum had been reduced to a few scattered strands along the walls. Thanks to the absence of so much, the room was now fully visible what could be seen could be best described as ruins. The spiral walkway had been shattered in many places and much like the walls, the crystals were almost entirely missing from it with only a few tiny pieces left over.

Beth examined the surface closely, confirming that the damage to the surface was identical to the damage they had seen in the tunnels and in the third chamber. “It’s completely identical… It took the crystals from here… These crystals in the walls and ground were origin shards too… That makes two places…” Beth’s mind flashed with what she had seen within the creature’s body. “It couldn’t be…” Beth mused quietly.

Jess gave her a confused look. “What is it?”

Beth jumped a little, having been lost in her thoughts. “Oh… Right… I… think that this thing might have come from the fracture that exists underneath of the forest. It’s pretty deep, but it would be underneath of the trial grounds… What if the fracture grew or… the roots of the three reached the fracture? It could have created something exactly like that… A monster obsessed with destruction and… if it was interfaced with an origin shard… it would become fixated on that especially, much like how ser wolves can be made with a specific kind of essence to make them fixate on destroying that kind of essence…”

Jess listened along, their eyes widening at the thought, but understanding that everything that Beth was saying was likely correct.

“All of the chambers have origin shards within them in some capacity, so it’s been going after them… But it seems… confused… almost… It didn’t even attack the rest of the chambers until…” Beth’s eyes widened as her eyes went to Jess and then down to their chest, “until we entered… Jess… It’s… following you… Oh Masters… we have to get you out of here…”

Jess’s head was sent spinning by this information. They could barely think straight, but even as they could, their eyes grew wide and they headed back towards the stairs. “No… We have to save it…”

Beth bolted after them, grabbing their hand, causing them to pause. Beth could feel how much their body was trembling. “Where are you going?”

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Jess turned to her. “We have to go protect the origin shard in the second chamber… Please… It’s alive… We can’t let that thing get to it…”

Beth sighed and rushed forward. “Jess… You still have next to zero essence in your body… You’re so weak right now… You would die…”

Jess shook their head. It was only now that Beth realized that Jess’s hair had shifted from the terrified purple to a deeply aggressive red. “I won’t die… And even if I don’t have essence, I can still fight… Plus, I have a little primal essence still… And you have essence.”

“You can’t use primal essence in such a depleted state… you could hurt yourself… permanently…” Beth explained, concern creeping further in to her voice.

“I have to try…” Jess said, still walking up the stairs.

Beth wanted to argue with them more, but she realized that, at this point, it would be completely useless. “Fine…”

Beth rushed back forward and once again slung them over her shoulders, ensuring that wouldn’t exhaust themself anymore. When they reached the top, Jess paused for a moment and searched the tunnels once more. Beth didn’t say anything, but they noticed a piece of one of Jess’s fingers disappearing in to haze of green. They were at zero and they were compensating by using the essence of their body. Jess pointed towards the tunnel they would have to go through and Beth just stared at them, a mix of concern and amazement at the fact they were still conscious.

They headed back in to the tunnels, listening to the far off sounds of the creature reverberating through the stones. When they reached the second chamber, they were both relieved to find that it was still almost entirely intact. Other than the tunnel that had been dug, it seemed that the orb was untouched. Likely, the creature was unable to sense the origin shard through the rock exterior. Beth set down Jess and they rushed to the orb, examining it for any damage. They let out a sigh of relief, finding that the orb was in perfect condition.

They then turned to Beth. “Beth… you need to feed the orb your essence so that the outer casing will disappear…”

Beth raised her eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that leave me totally drained too?”

Jess shook their head. “The only reason I lost all my essence was because I fed it to the shard and… because I have such a small supply… You’ll be drained a little, but you’ll recover it pretty quickly…”

Beth nodded and took a deep breath, placing her hand on the stone surface and feeling as her essence was pulled from her. Unlike Jess, the orb only drained around half of what Beth had left. The rock then shattered, leaving the shard exposed. Even Beth could feel the energy it was emitting. The two took up defensive stances, Beth forming a seal on the back of her hand. They could hear the frantic screeches of the creature change direction and begin coming towards them.

Within a few moments, the sound became immense and the creature burst forth from the walls, letting out a loud screech. They took notice of the added size and the fact that there now seemed to be a section object inside of its body. Beth quickly took to launching waves of stone spikes at the creature, but they seemed to have no effect. The creature was essentially a cloud of darkness being vaguely held together by a network of concentrated essence that was hard to perceive let alone attack.

Beth quickly coated her fists in construct magic and rushed forward, using another seal to boost her in to the air, so that she could directly strike the creature. This time, the attack connected and creature screeched in anger, clawing at Beth and sending her flying backwards. The shirt she was wearing began to emit purple smoke and Beth quickly cast it aside, leaving her with even flimsier defense.

As the creature was beginning to regain itself, Beth took a moment and began to try and sense the structure of the creature, finding that there were two large masses of essence in the center, the two origin shards it had taken from the lions. Emanating out from them was the structure that seemed to be holding the entire thing together. She quickly coated her entire body in construct and rushed forward.

The creature swiped its claws at her as she approached, but she dodged out of the way, only receiving a small scrape to her coating. Once she was close enough, she boosted herself upwards once more, but this time, she flew directly in to the body of the creature. Since origin shards were essentially indestructible, she didn’t want to destroy them, just remove them from the creature’s body. As she entered the creature’s body, her coating almost immediately began to dissolve and so Beth had to act fast. She swam through the body and reached out to grab the origin shards. As she closed her hand, she was shaken forward, thrusting her out of the creature’s body.

Beth opened her hand, finding that she had only been able to grab one of the origin shards. She quickly tossed it to Jess who pushed it to the side, not wanting to touch it. Beth then geared up to go get the second origin shard, but she dropped to her knees, a wave of nausea taking hold of her. She was struck by the realization of just how much essence she had used.

She shakily made her way back to her feet and used what essence she had to form a coating over her arms to ensure she could grab the shard, but as she looked up, she found that the creature was already swinging its massive claw at her. As she watched the claw flying towards her, all of time seemed to slow.

Jess had seen this coming and was already rushing forward in an effort to stop the creature, but they were thrown backwards against a wall. Watching in horror, Jess saw the second claw reel back and begin to swipe. In that instant, Jess cried out and glowing green flames exploded around them. In a burst of power and emotion, they had finally flicked the switch. The effects of the primal essence around them were no longer just simply sparks, but full-blown flames.

Despite this, they didn’t have any essence remaining, so they had to use their body. Gazing down at the injury on their finger, they sighed and decided in that instant that, if they had to sacrifice their whole arm, they would do it to save Beth.  They reinforced their muscles and were met with blinding pain as their arm began to dissolve in to essence. With blinding speed, they launched forward at the creature, passing directly through its open mouth.

As Jess passed through the creature’s mouth, they pushed further, more of their arm disappearing and their body beginning to succumb to the effects of the destruction that surrounded them. They finally saw the second shard and they grabbed it with the arm they still had left before dropping out of the creature on to the ground beneath.

The creature let out a final cry of anguish, its body dissolving. However, as Jess righted themself, their vision blurry, they were met with the sight of Beth standing back near the platform. Jess hobbled towards her, Beth’s body slowly coming in to focus. When Jess got closer, they saw something strange, so they began to rush forward. In the nick of time, they caught Beth from falling to the ground.

Jess’s eyes began to fill with tears as they stared down at Beth’s body. Despite the fact that they had destroyed the creature, they had been too late. Going through Beth’s torso, there was a deep gash that was emitting deep purple smoke. Still hanging on to an ounce of consciousness as the light was fading from her eyes, Beth turned to Jess and managed a pained smile. She reached a hand upwards to gently hold Jess’s cheek.

Jess sniffed and held the hand to their cheek, feeling just how cold Beth’s body had become. “Hey there… Jessie… Did you win…?” Beth managed to choke out.

Jess just nodded, unable to speak through the lump forming in their throat. Beth met them with a confused look. “Why the tears…? We passed the searcher trial… Like we… always wanted…”

Jess just stared at Beth, watching as her body began to dissolve. “You know… I was gonna… tell you after… but… I… love you…” Beth choked out. “I… love… you… Jessie…” she managed before the rest of her body dissolved, leaving only a small glowing green soul fragment and her badge which Jess could see was now glowing.

On their left, Jess heard a soft rumbling. Pushed forth by nothing but force of will, Jess picked up the badge and put it with theirs before reaching out to gingerly pick up the soul fragment with their remaining hand. They trudged towards the rumbling, a tunnel out of the chamber having formed. They couldn’t even cry as they walked, their energy too depleted.

When they reached the top of the tunnel, they were met by an excited crowd. By now, all Jess could hear was muted ringing, their body having gone numb to the world around it. As they stepped on to the stage holding the soul fragment and now missing an arm, Jess just stood there. The crowd fell still and so did Jess. Their vision quickly faded as they collapsed to the ground, the world going dark as they fell unconscious.

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