Awaken Online- Flame

by Travis Bagwell

  As the guard captain moved to pass Finn, he reached out a hand to stop the man. “Is this a major concern?” Finn asked. “The sandworms, I mean.”

  Altair cocked his head slightly, a frown tugging at his lips. “Ahh, I forget that most of you travelers aren’t familiar with the worms.” A sigh. “The answer is maybe. The swarm looks like it’s heading east, but it could veer back toward us. We’ll be putting our trust in the beetles – they should keep the swarm from picking up our location.”

  With that dour statement, Altair shook his head and walked off to get ready to leave, barking orders at his soldiers.

  “What does he mean by a swarm?” Finn muttered.

  “Sandworms hunt as a pack. They’re a lot like sand piranhas, and they tend to swarm prey,” Julia explained, her eyes on the horizon and a frown tugging at her brow. “Like Kyyle mentioned yesterday, they detect prey based on vibration. The beetles have developed a natural way to avoid detection, using the cushion of air on their feet to mimic the desert wind, which usually misleads the worms.”

  She waved at their island of rock, other pillars rising in a line that stretched toward the horizon. “That also happens to be why anyone passing through the sands uses these rock islands for shelter. The worms can’t travel very far out of the sand.”

  Both Kyyle and Finn were staring at her now. It seemed that Julia once again knew much more about this region than they had expected. “So, I take it this isn’t your first journey outside Lahab?” Finn asked.

  “Not exactly,” Julia replied quietly.

  Then she shook off her fugue, glancing back at her companions. “Anyway, Altair is right. We need to get moving – fast. Let’s grab our stuff and mount up.” As she finished speaking, Julia set off toward their beetles, quickening her pace with each step.

  Finn grimaced as he eyed their mounts, the smaller males already crowding around the massive female beetle. For just an instant, he wondered if maybe getting eaten by sandworms would be better than the perpetual rocking motion of those stupid beetles.

  Kyyle smacked him on the back, a knowing grin on his face. “If it helps with the sand sickness, I’m sure I’ll be able to distract you with my many, many questions about your new sight. I thought of at least a few dozen while you were logged out.”

  Finn let out another sigh. It was going to be a long trip.

  ***

  The good news? Despite Kyyle’s threatened questions, they soon discovered that talking was difficult.

  The bad news? This was because Altair set a relentless pace, heading directly northwest. The beetles glided through the sand like the devil himself was on their heels, their legs straining. They kicked up a thick cloud of dust as they moved, forcing the members of the caravan to tug their robes tighter and cover their faces to avoid the whipping sand.

  Their urgency was easily explained.

  They were, in fact, being pursued.

  The swarm of sandworms had seemed to sense the caravan as soon as they touched the sands – changing trajectory and heading directly northwest, following the group diligently no matter how Altair altered their course.

  Finn spared a glance behind himself, keeping his shoulders hunched and his mouth and nose covered by the hem of his robes. He had learned firsthand that getting sand in his eyes and mouth also felt quite realistic in this world.

  The billowing yellow bank behind them seemed to grow larger with each passing minute, spanning nearly the length of the horizon now. The sand drifted hundreds of feet into the air and partially obscured the sun, creating an ominous yellow-gray gloom. Even worse, the ground had begun to tremble and vibrate as the swarm neared, sand drifting off the nearby dunes.

  Maybe more joined them? Finn wondered, but then hesitated, his stomach churning as a second thought occurred to him. Or maybe they’re just getting closer?

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to discover the answer.

  A piercing whistle went up from the front of the group, and Finn’s head whipped around. Altair had his fist raised in the air and then pointed straight north. The caravan altered course slightly, heading in the direction the guard captain had indicated.

  With the way the sand was whipping through the air and the gloom, Finn didn’t see the objects at first. It was a faint glint of light that gave them away. He squinted hard and could just barely make out a translucent spire stretching into the air. As they neared, he realized that he had caught sight of one of many. In fact, an entire field of the spires curled and coiled up into the air, their translucent surface reflecting the weak sunlight.

  What the hell are those? Finn wondered. Although, he supposed it didn’t matter. A strange field of spires seemed preferable to what was chasing them.

  The group raced for that field, the sandworms growing ever closer.

  Their beetles soon glided across a threshold, dense sand giving way to a sharp embankment that rose up out of the desert. Finn had thought this was just another dune, but it felt different. The beetles’ limbs glided more smoothly across its surface. However, Altair didn’t let them stop to consider their new surroundings, keeping up their frantic pace. The sharp columns and spires now lanced into the air around them, forcing the caravan to dart and weave among the obstacles.

  As he lurched from side to side, Finn tried to ignore the bite of bile at the back of his throat and focus on his surroundings. Instead of weathered rock, these spires were smooth and nearly transparent, glimmering in the light that managed to penetrate the ever-present cloud of sand. What was more unusual was that the ground below them seemed to be hard, covered in only a thin layer of sand that puffed away as the beetles glided past. The transparent surface revealed by the sand looked eerily familiar.

  It reminded him of Brutus…

  Then Finn placed it.

  His eyes widened as he took in the area around them. They were traveling across a plateau comprised entirely of glass, spires of the stuff lancing up toward the sky. And those spires stretched outward for miles. Finn certainly wasn’t a geologist, but he’d never heard of naturally occurring glass formations. That would require intense heat – and given the size of the glass shelf – a lot of heat. Which led to an obvious question.

  What the hell could have created an enormous shelf of glass amid a desert?

  The caravan skidded to a stop a few minutes later, Altair raising the signal. Finn immediately looked behind him, the others in the caravan following his gaze. The cloud of sand had swept forward but seemed to stall out at the edge of the glass. While the dust and sand whipped around the translucent spires at the edge of the plateau, it traveled no further. After a few long moments, the storm seemed to slowly invert, drifting back out toward the dunes. If it hadn’t already followed them with uncanny accuracy, this alone would have been enough to prove that the dust and sand weren’t entirely natural.

  “The worms must not be able to penetrate the glass,” Kyyle observed from nearby, tugging his robes away from his mouth as the sand began to clear. His eyes shot to the ground nearby. “But how thick would this need to be to stop them?”

  Finn just shook his head. Another good question.

  “The better question is how the worms noticed us and followed us so accurately,” Altair offered, his beetle gliding closer. “It almost feels like someone was drawing them to the caravan.” At this statement, the guard captain glanced at the champions. Malik and the fighters showed no reaction, their expressions completely stoic.

  In contrast, Kalisha raised an eyebrow. “You’re suggesting someone intentionally called them? So, I guess we’re also assuming this person has a death wish? I fail to see how that would benefit the champions. We’d be more likely to die with the rest of the group.”

  Altair met her eyes, his expression stoic. “You and I both know that a traitor wouldn’t need to outrun the worms… just the other champions.”

  Finn glanced at Julia questioningly. Her eyes were following the conversation closely, but he couldn’t make out the rest of her face b
ehind her wrap. When she noticed his expression, she elaborated quietly, “The worms tend to stop and swarm prey. Stragglers can buy the others a few extra minutes to get away. Sometimes, a caravan will even sacrifice a male beetle to ensure the survival of the rest of the group.”

  “Lovely,” Finn muttered. “So, someone might have just tried to kill us.”

  “And failed,” Altair snapped. He waved at his guards. “Keep an eye on the champions as we approach the Abyss. I don’t want anyone getting any bright ideas.” A few soldiers nodded, and each group of champions was swiftly encircled by armed soldiers.

  “This isn’t really necessary—” Kalisha began.

  “Oh, but it is,” Altair interjected harshly. “Keep talking, and I can always withhold the map data from your group – give the others a head start.” Her eyes widened, but the engineer’s mouth snapped shut. “That’s what I thought.”

  Then Altair turned to address the larger group. “We should be safe from the worms now, but the sand thins out, and the spires grow more dense from here on out, making it more difficult for the beetles to navigate,” he explained, hopping down from his mount and waving at the others. “We’ll be traveling the rest of the way on foot.”

  The rest of the caravan followed his lead, and Finn dropped from his saddle, his boots hitting the hard ground with a thump. The guards encircling his group eyed him warily, but Finn raised his hands, showing empty palms. He didn’t want to accidentally start a fight, especially since it seemed everyone was on edge.

  They started a slow trek, moving ever farther north and west. As they walked, Kyyle tapped at the air in front of him, likely taking notes. His eyes skimmed to the shimmering spires around them. As the storm began to disperse, the harsh sunlight returned with a vengeance, reflecting off the glass in a dazzling display of light.

  “This area doesn’t seem natural,” the earth mage muttered to himself.

  “I thought the same thing,” Finn offered. “Maybe if we were next to an active volcano or something, but…” He trailed off, waving at the horizon, his point clear. Nothing broke the flat plain of glass.

  Kyyle chewed on his lip, glancing at Finn. “But if this isn’t natural, then it was formed. And it would take a lot of heat to melt down this much sand,” Kyyle observed, letting the implication hang in the air.

  “You’re on the right track,” a voice spoke up from beside them. The group glanced over to find Kalisha and her merchants walking nearby, insulated by a line of guards. The purple-liveried soldiers spared the two groups of competitors a wary glance but didn’t intervene as they spoke.

  “A long time ago, this whole area was a battlefield,” Kalisha continued, waving at the glass spires. “This is evidence of that ancient fight.”

  “What were they even fighting over?” Julia retorted, crossing her arms. “This just seems like a big patch of sand in the middle of nowhere.”

  Kalisha nodded. “To understand that, you also need to know who was fighting. Records from those days are rare, but stories have been passed down through word of mouth for several generations. I suppose they are little more than myth now, but most legends contain at least a kernel of truth.

  “The stories say that there was once a temple to one of the old gods out here. It seems those gods betrayed us – the humans, that is. In our anger, we expelled them from this world and burned down their monuments.” Kalisha barked out a harsh laugh, waving at the glass. “In this case, that wasn’t a figurative burning. It’s clear that someone – or something – cast one hell of a spell, melting the sands into what you see now.”

  Finn stared at the merchant in surprise. The amount of mana needed to create this much glass would be immense – far more than a typical mage could manage. Hell, even most of the Mage Guild working together would struggle to pull this off. It seemed impossible. And yet… he still remembered the way the fire goddess had empowered him in his fight against Lamia and the other mages.

  Could this have been the Seer’s doing?

  “But why melt the sand?” Kyyle asked, his brow furrowed in thought. “Wouldn’t there have been easier ways to destroy the temple?”

  Kalisha grimaced. “The legends say that the temples were a rather tough shell to crack.” She glanced at Kyyle, meeting his eyes. “So, if you can’t destroy something, what do you do? You bury it…”

  As she trailed off, the front line of the caravan slowed to a stop.

  Finn stepped forward to see what the issue was but soon froze in shock.

  The glass plateau ended abruptly in a sharp ledge that formed a truly enormous circular chasm. By Finn’s estimate, it was the better part of a mile across. The entire pit was composed of glass. Frozen waterfalls of the translucent substance dropped over the ledges. Farther down the shaft, he could make out lances and spires jutting from the sides of the chasm at haphazard angles. This continued downward for what he could only assume was thousands of feet.

  Even more spectacular, the entire shaft was visible from the ledge despite its size. The sunlight reflected and refracted off the mirror-like surface of the glass, ricocheting down through the chasm. The effect was to light the entire pit – despite its incredible depth – in a rainbow of colors that cast against the walls of the shaft.

  “Welcome to the Abyss,” Kalisha said quietly.

  “It’s… beautiful,” Finn murmured, and Julia and Kyyle nodded in awestruck agreement.

  “And deadly. This place deserves its name,” Altair barked as he approached, the group of fighters in tow. “Nature usually marks its most dangerous creatures and areas with bright colors – as a warning to those stupid enough to test them. And this is no exception.”

  The soldier’s eyes hovered on the shaft. “The mana that was slung around back in the day still lingers here, warping and mutating the wildlife and creating unnatural anomalies. The bottom levels are the worst – where that energy has pooled and collected over the decades. No one that has reached the bottom has ever made it back.”

  “Oh great, because we only need to venture down there and grab some sort of mystical relic,” Julia retorted with an eye roll.

  Altair nodded, no amusement shining in his eyes. “That is your goal, yes. Speaking of which, much of the Abyss is unmapped. Only a handful of adventurers have traveled inside and returned, which has given us some information on the layout of the chasm – limited primarily to the upper levels.”

  The soldier’s attention snapped to the champions, and he waved at the air as he spoke, “The Emir instructed me to provide that map data as soon as we arrived. And so you shall have it…” Altair gave a final tap at the air, and then a prompt appeared in front of Finn.

  System Notice

  Altair is attempting to share map data with you. Do you accept?

  [yes/no]

  Finn tapped yes, and his map immediately popped open, a three-dimensional layout of the Abyss rotating slowly in the air. As the guard captain had mentioned, only small, irregular sections of the chasm were shown, as though whoever had collected the data had teleported throughout the shaft at random. Even worse, the vast majority of the map was grayed out, showing only a rough outline of the central shaft.

  The map did at least indicate that there seemed to be dozens of distinct levels to the chasm, partial outlines of passages and ramps connecting to the central shaft. That gave the impression that there might be many more tunnels carved into the area surrounding the Abyss, likely a complex network of adjoining caves. Similarly, several locations were marked along the top of the ridge, the notations indicating that these were potential entry points, leading down into the top portion of the shaft.

  What was most strange was that there was no concrete path through the Abyss. How could someone have entered the shaft and made it out without a clear path?

  Finn shook his head. Either Altair was shading the truth, or there was another, potentially much more problematic, explanation.

  Personally, he hoped that the guard captain was simply lying.
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  A pulsing point of yellow light shone from a point around the center of the Abyss, and Finn’s forehead furrowed in confusion as he homed in on that spot. There were no obvious notes or information regarding the waypoint marker.

  “The point marked on your map is the estimated location of the vault that holds the relic that you lot are after,” Altair explained. “Keep in mind that this data could be incorrect. Like I said, we haven’t had many people make it back out – even those that were mapping the upper levels.”

  “Fantastic,” Julia muttered. “Nothing like searching for a needle in a glass hellhole.”

  This earned her a snort of amusement from Kyyle and Kalisha.

  Altair didn’t appear to be so amused, his lips pinching into a line as he ignored Julia and continued with his instructions. “Each of the three groups will be permitted to choose a starting location along the ridge. Those are also marked on your map, indicating areas with natural ramps or entrances into the caverns and tunnels below us.

  “My guards will set up a camp here on the ridge and wait for your return,” Altair explained, waving at the soldiers who were already herding the beetles together and throwing together roughshod tents. “Whoever makes it back topside with the relic will then be escorted to Lahab. The rest of you will need to make your own way home – assuming you survive, of course.”

  Well, isn’t that optimistic, Finn thought dryly.

  He rotated and shifted the image, trying to get a sense of the distance to their target. By his guess, it was nearly a thousand feet deep. If he was right, it could take days, maybe even more than a week to get to their target – much less to return with the relic.

  Kalisha seemed to be thinking the same thing. “This is going to be a long hike.”

  The others just nodded.

  Altair nodded. “That it will, which is why you should get started—”