That's right, another story! This one isn't going to be terribly long, but I do hope everyone enjoys it!
A woman stood in the remains of a former building, frowning as she waved a hand to push a strand of her long blonde hair out of her face as she raised the artifact held in her other hand.
It was small, a clear sphere with a decorative base and what seemed to be some form of liquid inside, which when she shook it resulted in white flakes shaking around in the current. It was a curious device, though she had no idea what its purpose was.
There were many things like this here in the shell of this place, which must have been a former shop. The walls still stood, but the roof had fallen out long ago, and the red light of the massive ceiling high above was the only source of illumination. She still had the typical delver accessory of a hat embedded with a light-bringing relic, but she didn't need to waste the energy here. No, this odd natural light would do just fine, especially after she'd just descended past the glowing caves of the 7th Layer.
Of course, low light meant things could be hidden, and behind her, watching through a broken window, there was another presence, its eyes narrowed as it tracked her movements through the store, the transparent sphere in hand as she shook it occasionally. It was strangely therapeutic seeing the white powder swirling around inside.
"It's a snowglobe." came a voice, and she jumped, dropping the item, which bounced on the ground as she instinctively raised her hand to her back, cursing herself at the muscle memory. She hadn't possessed her scythe in months, even back when she had not yet gone on her Last Dive.
"Who's there?" she asked, knowing very well the dangers of the Abyss this far down. Even on the 2nd Layer, there were monsters who could copy human voices, so all the way in what she assumed to be the 8th, there was no doubt that things here were far more dangerous. It didn't help that she was already jumpy from the massive vaguely humanoid structures that seemed to stand guard at the entrance to the stairwell out of the glowing caverns.
"Calm down, I'm human too." came the voice again, as the presence entered the building, stepping carefully through the window so as to avoid the broken glass, and she raised her hand to her head to tap the relic and shed light on this other person.
Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight. It really was another person, all the way down here at the bottom! This was over 22,000 meters down, and she had not seen a single soul ever since leaving Idofront weeks ago on this final journey.
She wasn't fond of Bondrewd, finding his title of "Sovereign of Dawn" to be pretentious for the kinds of horrible things he did in his labs, but she may even prefer him over the total solitude that came from being down this far. Seeing another person, even someone that surprised her, caused all sorts of things to well up in her.
Still, this person was hardly a boy. At a guess, she had to say he was around 15, standing just above her own stature, and she was a relatively short person despite her reputation. The boy wore an odd mismatch of clothes as well, made of fabrics she didn't recognize that he'd most likely simply scavenged out of the various ruined buildings here. His eyes were light-hearted, but the grin on his face, practically just a line stretching wide, was creepy, an expression that made her wary again.
Of course, she was too smart to immediately believe that this was a real person. She had not yet seen any monsters in this quiet city, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. This boy could be a-
"Some of them play music too." he said, cutting her from her thoughts as she blinked, her arms lowering in surprise at the calm tone he spoke with. It was as if he had lived here all his life, a way of speaking she rarely heard outside of other White Whistles, and his dialect was strange as well, using vocabulary in ways that made her head spin.
"Huh?" An embarrassing reaction, and he laughed, holding a hand out to point at the object in her hand.
"The snowglobes. Most of them are useless now, but occasionally you'll find one that plays a song about a mythical aubade made of snow." He looked off to the side, his gaze crossing over the various other trinkets lying scattered on the ground nearby. "As the song goes, children put a magic hat on him and he started moving. They called him Frosty."
She couldn't just stand there and gape at him, so she coughed to clear her throat, holding the 'snowglobe' up so it was in the path of her headlight. "Frosty...Wait, how could they have known what snow is? There's no such thing as snow anywhere within thousands of kilometers of Orth."
"Well, then obviously they aren't from here, aren't they? Or at the very least, they interacted with foreigners. Is that so strange?"
She was about to reply, before he waved his hand as he turned to head out the door she'd kicked down to enter here. "Come on, it gets kind of spooky at night. That red light switches on and off every 18 hours."
She wasn't entirely sure what to do, so she let her instinct decide. Despite the creepy grin, she didn't really see anything strange about this boy, other than the fact that he was inexplicably here at the bottom before her and clearly not a White Whistle. She'd taken on much larger monsters than herself before, so even without her whistle, sent up along with her notes to the surface, she could still take this guy on.
She blinked as she noticed the back of his neck, three marks situated in the middle. The one in the center, a small turquoise circle seemingly tattooed into his skin, wasn't anything she recognized, but her eyes narrowed at the shapes to either side, small diamonds with round red dots at the upper and lower corner.
That shape was very familiar to her after seeing it so many times on Ozen. So, this strange person possessed two Thousand-Men Pins, and who knew how many more underneath his clothes.
He caught her staring, glancing behind him as his hand reached up to cover the marks while they walked down the rubble-filled street. "Ignore that, I don't really use them. There's nothing down here that can hurt us, only humans are capable of passing through to this Layer."
She blinked at the statement, speeding up her pace to keep in line with the surprisingly quick child, who easily picked through the best path around obstacles as if he'd gone this way a million times. "They can't? Is this...Is this the bottom?"
He shrugged, before shaking his head. "For the sake of practicality, yes. Below here is just more tiers of the same city, about a thousand meters farther. There's nothing beyond that, just solid rock. If you were here expecting some grand prize at the end, you'll be disappointed."
"What is your name? How long have you been down here?" He didn't have a whistle around his neck, or any real pockets on his person that may hide one.
"I reached the bottom about a year ago. Though, I suppose it's been longer on the surface thanks to the time dilation. And my name's Andrew. I'm no one you would have heard of, I was just a nobody back on the surface."
It was a little hard to concentrate with the grin on his face, which stayed exactly the same no matter how much he talked. It was odd, but she had a feeling she'd get used to it over time. "Lyza. Are you a delver? What rank are you? How old are you?"
He laughed as they rounded a corner, leading to a similarly collapsed building, though this one had been cleared of fallen debris, likely with the help of his extra strength courtesy of the artifacts. In the center of the space was a small fire, sitting close to a torn sleeping bag and a small pile of various possessions he owned. "You ask a lot of questions, don't you? Well, then again, I'd be surprised if anyone beat me here. You're the first person to ever make it this far besides me. Congratulations." He grunted as he lowered himself to sit cross-legged at the fire, which he began to light with a couple flintstones that had been set beside it.
"The first…" She frowned, sitting next to him and removing her heavy backpack, setting it behind her as she watched him attempting to light the fire.
A few sparks came, before the sticks inside caught, the flame slowly growing as he blew carefully on it, until there was a successful campfire sitting in front of them, lighting up the area as, right on time, the red lighting of the cave ceiling blinked out in an instant. How many times had he been surprised and tripped himself over something with this sudden change?
"So, nobody else came here? I'm the only other one?" she asked, and he nodded, humming to himself as he went over to the pile, drawing out what seemed to be some sort of meat wrapped in leaves, which he handed to her.
"It's already cooked, don't worry about waiting. I've got plenty, this was just what I brought from my storage area to eat tonight."
He smiled as she tentatively unwrapped the leaf, looking at the chunk of meat she held in hand, before accepting the offer, taking a bite and blinking as she found it surprisingly good.
It reminded her of how neritantan tasted, but it was chewier, with some kind of consistency that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Perhaps it was just to be chalked up to him not being a great cook, but she still ate anyway, finding herself ravenous now that she was sitting still for the first time in days, coupled with the fact that meat was still something she considered more a treat than a staple.
He laughed at the sight, leaning back to rest his hands on his sleeping bag. "Calm down, there's plenty left. I don't mind sharing, there's plenty of game here since there's nothing to eat it. That's something that the ancients here called a 'dog'. There's all kinds of species that used to be domesticated by them that now roam around freely. Honestly there's almost too many, I try to hunt down as many as I can or else they'll start searching my base here for a quick meal."
"The ancients? How do you know what they called these?" Now, her questions were less suspicious and more genuinely curious, the food in her belly helping to calm her and let her think more clearly about this odd situation.
"I can read their language. A lot of my free time here has been spent scrounging around for books and flyers, so I've learned a lot about this place. You're a bit too late, I'm the first to learn the truth of the Abyss."