Whatever the hell that thing was that had lured them into this cave, one thing was for sure: Gladio hated it. There was no sign of any sort of ending to the endless tunnel, and Gladio was beginning to think that the thing had only gotten them in there in an attempt to lure them to their deaths.
Ice clung to the walls and floor, making the ground uneven and slippery. And that was the last thing he needed, because the damned place was full of daemons.
In the shadows, creeping, waiting, there were always more daemons.
His sword was beginning to slip from his grip, his hands were so sweaty from the fighting, and his heart kept up a dull, low thudding rhythm that Gladio was sure must be audible to the damned creatures.
He was shaking. But he had to keep moving.
If he could just see the end of the cave—some indication it might soon cease—then he'd be alright. But the tunnel seemed to stretch out endlessly. If this were purely his own idea he'd have given it up as a bad job long ago. But it wasn't, so he couldn't.
All of this was for Noct.
Would he even be grateful to them for doing this? The more cynical part of him said no: he wouldn't. Goodness knows he'd told them enough times that he was intent on dying. Trying to make him see sense was like repeatedly slamming your head into a brick wall, and frankly, Gladio had had enough of it. If Noct wanted to die then he could damn well go ahead and die. Gladio might have been raised to protect him, but he wasn't a fool. If Noct was really intent on offing himself then nothing short of a straightjacket would stop him. And he wouldn't stand for that.
No, to be honest, the main reason he was still inching through these damned caves at a snail's pace was for Ignis. That was the only reason he was putting in so much effort. It was obvious that until he found a solution or was proven wrong by the Gods themselves, Ignis wasn't giving up on the idea of saving Noct. Those two really were peas in a pod sometimes, given how stubborn they were.
If he went back, jeopardised the mission just for the sake of getting some rest, Ignis would never forgive him. And he couldn't have that.
So here he was, slicing through yet another daemon skull.
He hoped that wherever they were, the other two were having an easier time of it.
Prompto wouldn't necessarily call himself claustrophobic.
Sure he didn't particularly like dark, enclosed spaces, but they wouldn't send him into a meltdown. Most of the time, that was.
The darkness in these caves seemed to have a unique property to it that brought all his worst anxieties to life. From the many holes in the walls seemed to come whispers, voices telling him how pointless it all was.
Would this really help Noct? If it would, how would he know? Was he even up to this? Who did he think he was, coming marching all this way as if he was somehow equal to the two people who had literally sworn their lives to saving him? Presumptuous. Arrogant. Superfluous.
They came in soft, hissing tones, the chilly draughts through the walls enough to freeze him solid. The rocks crumbled and shifted beneath his feet, giving the impression of an ever-moving, ever-shifting floor. He got the feeling that if he placed even one foot wrong, he'd go sliding back to the beginning of the tunnel, and have to march all the way up again.
His sole comfort was that there were no daemons. Which really wasn't much of a comfort at all, as that would at least give him something to focus on other than the thoughts. The voices.
That wasn't the only problem either.
Every now and then, through the walls, he'd hear a soft, snaking, shifting sound, as if something were crawling through the tunnel alongside him. Every time he looked there was nothing to be seen, but he found himself constantly watching the holes in the walls, looking, waiting for something to come racing through to tear him to pieces.
And he was sure it was merely his over-active imagination when he saw it the first time. It was harder to convince himself on the third and fourth, but he still tried. For every now and then he thought he saw a large yellow eye in one of the holes. Watching him.
That couldn't be right. If there was a daemon in here somewhere it would have tried to maul him long ago.
Or at least, that was the thought he clung to, as he kept walking through the passage.
Ignis was beginning to wonder if following a strange voice into a dark, mysterious cave had really been the best idea.
The path he'd chosen to walk down was littered with loose stones, making him lose his footing every few metres. From the ceiling hung many large, sharp icicles, presumably made by the cold, that, with each wrong step, seemed to come closer and closer to falling and impaling him.
He was strongly considering resorting to crawling, as undignified as that would be, just to avoid falling over again.
After what must have been a few hours of stumbling though, he managed to somehow make it up onto a large stone plateau. The icicles still hung overhead, but the risk of them falling seemed greatly reduced now he was up on solid ground again. There was only one problem. The plateau didn't seem to lead anywhere—except into a solid stone wall. Had he still had Noct's magic at his disposal he might have been able to do something about it, but as it was there was no getting through that solid mass.
He gazed down at the crumbling passageway he'd just made his way up. Had he made a wrong turn somewhere? He hadn't seen any on his way up—but perhaps that was by design. Or maybe he was missing something up here?
He turned around to face the wall again, and as he stepped closer he spotted something he had missed before.
A small hole, in the bottom of the wall. Big enough for him to squeeze through, if he crawled.
This must be his way out.
Getting down on his hands and knees (this really was very undignified) and adjusting his glasses so they didn't fall off as he crawled, he managed to very slowly, very carefully squeeze his way through.
As he made it through to the other side and clambered to his feet, it quickly became clear that whatever this place was, there was definitely some magical aspect to it.
He was in a large, cavernous room, and on each wall were hundreds and hundreds of crystals. Small and large, cracked and clear, and snaking between them were the glowing veins of rock he'd seen leading into the entrance of the cave, which were now so bright their light reflected off each crystal over and over again, like some huge, natural hall of mirrors.
The crystals were so clear in places he could see his own reflection as he walked by, his face staring back at him from a hundred different angles. It was deeply unnerving.
He needed to try and find a way out of this strange place as quickly as possible.
He began to move through the crystal cave with a purpose, looking for any holes or openings that might be an exit, but could see none. The strange shapes and odd light produced by all the reflective crystals didn't help any. There were pockets of darkness and light that made it hard to tell if you were even going anywhere, and several times Ignis found himself almost walking into a wall.
The further he moved into the cave, however, the stranger it got.
Every now and then he was sure he saw something moving in the crystals' reflection, only to see himself and be confused. But it began to happen more and more often, until he couldn't quite write it off as a strange trick of the eyes. There was something in here. He was sure of it.
He rounded another corner, and this time he saw definite movement in the plane of crystal up ahead. And sure enough, even as he froze in place, watching carefully, the image in the crystal kept moving. He looked around for whatever it was in the cave, but from every angle everything seemed to be still.
Strange.
He moved a little closer to the crystal, hoping that if he saw whatever it was more clearly he might be able to guess at the creature's identity.
But now he looked properly, the image in the crystal didn't seem to be the cave at all. It was dark, and a little difficult to perceive, but Ignis thought he could just about make out the darkened outline of a cracked stone wall, and the night sky outside. There was something oddly familiar about the image.
Then he saw what had been moving within, and he knew why he recognised the place.
There he was: Noct, his hair longer than usual—though it had slowly been growing out over the course of their journey anyway. It couldn't be long now. He sat down in the throne with a sense of dreadful purpose. Ignis knew what came next, but couldn't bring himself to look away. Like watching a train come flying loose from it's rails as it goes careening off the track, he found his eyes fixed on the image in the crystal. Every last detail remained the same. Noct's grim stoicism, the uncaring visage of his father, the final blow… All of it was outlined with such exacting clarity that Ignis felt there was something supernatural about the vision. Like there was something fixed about it. Something certain.
He stayed there and the vision replayed, just the same as before. Tears were welling up in Ignis's eyes, blurring the quality of the image, but he kept staring, kept watching, even as he felt he wanted to turn his organs inside out.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, watching. It was as though the world outside meant nothing. It all fell away to this—this image of his worst fears—his deepest nightmares brought to life. His legs were going numb. His fingers cramped as they remained fixed in place around the edges of the crystal, his vision blurred by tears.
It could have been hours. But finally, something got through, emerging out of the misery.
He was here to stop this. He could still stop this. If he only got through this cave, passed the challenge set before him.
His heart leapt in his chest, and he pushed himself away from the vision, horrified. This had been part of the test—he'd almost gotten stuck here, wasting away as he became trapped in his own hopelessness. He couldn't let that happen again. He had to focus on his true goal—the only reason any of them were here in the first place. He had to save Noct.
He tore his eyes from the crystals on the walls, which he now realised were all showing that very vision he'd gotten sucked into, and redoubled his search for an exit. There had to be something around here somewhere—the cave was large, but it only led one way, and Ignis was fairly sure he hadn't gotten turned around.
He ran his fingers over the walls, trying to obscure the visions that kept leaping out at him, instead focusing on any patch of darkness that might look like an exit.
He got fooled a couple more times by the night sky in the visions—so dark and empty it almost looked like a passage when reflected in the larger crystals. But then he found it.
It was very narrow—and between two crystals not quite evenly embedded in the wall, which made it impossible to see from a certain angle, and indeed, it took some dodging around to confirm it was there at all. But it was. He'd found his exit.
It really was a crack more than a passageway, much like the entrance to the crystal cave, it wasn't at all obvious at first glance. But it was just big enough for him to squeeze through, and then, finally he was on the other side.
A large cavern spread out before him—not as big as the crystal cave, but still quite large. And there, in the centre, a raised platform emitted a familiar blue light. A haven. At last.
It couldn't be much further to the end, surely? He'd been walking for so long now...
The tunnel was getting narrower and narrower the longer Gladio walked. Perhaps it was optimistic to think that might be a sign his journey would soon be at an end, but he had to cling to something...
To think he might come through this somehow.
He hoped Iris was still okay out there. He hadn't had time to call her what with everything going on. He was willing to bet there was no phone signal down here either. Damn it.
The veins of glowing crystal were growing thinner and thinner too, leaving most of the tunnel in darkness the further in he went. All converged to a path just ahead of him.
Was that...an opening? Over at the end there?
He rushed towards it, desperate for some sign that he really could go on.
Then he was in a large room, and at the centre was...a person? They were small, and as he approached their form became clearer. A girl, standing in the centre of the room, face turned away. But he thought he recognised her... Wait. Those clothes...
"Iris?"
She turned around, and he caught only the briefest glimpse of her face before they came.
Rushing out of holes in the walls, thundering like beings possessed, hundreds of daemons exploded out, running towards them.
Gladio was at Iris's side in a second, but the tide of daemons pulled him back, away from her. He tried to fight, bringing his sword down on them again and again, but the more he fought the more seemed to appear, reaching through cracks, pouring from the ceiling. And she was lost somewhere in the middle.
Soon he stopped trying to kill them at all, just trying to reach her. Through the shrieks and cries of the daemons, a terrible scream hit the air, and a rending, grinding, squelching noise as Iris disappeared from view. Gladio was screaming now too, but it was all so loud, so overwhelming he could barely hear himself—and then it was the only sound he heard, the monstrous din disappearing all at once.
He was tumbling to the ground—his arms collided with the dusty floor, and he rolled instinctively onto his back, trying to see where all the daemons had gone.
There was nothing there. Nothing but the ceiling, high above him.
Oh noble retainer...
It was the voice from before.
It took great strength and courage to come this far, but now a harsher choice awaits him.
Gladio hefted himself upright, trying to look around for the source of the voice, but the cavern was as empty as before.
To gain the power to free his King, the retainer must leave all thoughts of the present world behind. None shall matter but the King—even his life shall be forfeit. Does the retainer agree to this?
His life? What did that mean? And where was Iris? Was any of that real—how could it be faked?
Retainer.
The voice has become harsher, more insistent. It wanted him to answer. How could he? This was all so confusing... What had it said before? His life would be forfeit to save Noct? A sardonic laugh bubbled to his lips—he wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd had that feeling ever since he'd entered this strange, cursed place. Was that all it would take? His life?
"I'll do it," he muttered, stumbling to his feet.
The choice has been made.
As soon as the voice finished speaking, there was an immense rumbling, grinding side from the far side of the cave, and as Gladio looked the solid stone wall crumbled in on itself, leaving a large hole—big enough for a person to get through.
Enter, oh brave retainer, and rejoin the other petitioners. The final task awaits.
There was more after this? He didn't like the sound of that...but somehow he doubted he had much choice in the matter.
After what felt like hours of walking, Prompto had finally found the end of the tunnel. He didn't even stop to check what might be on the other side before racing through—if there was anything in there it couldn't be any worse than the web-like maze he'd just been trapped in.
He emerged into a large cavern, which suited him much better than the long, narrow corridors. There was only one drawback he could see, and that was that it was darker than the tunnels. There the crystal veins had been close, and their light was more than enough to see by, even if it was a bit dim. Here, though, they extended into the high ceiling, barely casting enough light to illuminate the full size of the room below.
And that was bad, because while he'd only had a suspicion while in the caves, here he was quite sure: there was something else in the room with him.
He heard it before he saw it, it's movement amplified by the large structure of the cave, the soft hissing noise it made bouncing off the walls and echoing back at him. He closed his hand around his gun. He might be nervous, but he wasn't stupid.
Louder and louder it got, until Prompto was tempted to go stumbling back into the darkness of the tunnels, but before he could move, it was there.
Rising out of the darkness, a huge shadow lifted from the floor, obscuring the dim light from the crystals above him. It's body was long, and reminded him terribly of a snake. But it couldn't just be some massive snake—it's head was too large, and mere seconds after he thought this, something even worse began to happen.
"Feed..."
A horrible, hissing, halting voice trembled out from the creature's head. Prompto was vividly reminded of what Noct had told them about the daemons—that they'd all once been human. Was this thing remembering something? Had it once been a person?
"Feed...me..." it whispered.
"I, um, don't have any food," said Prompto, horribly aware of how his voice was cracking even as he spoke.
"You will be...consumed..." the thing muttered.
Well, that seemed to put an end to negotiations.
Sure enough, the next second the thing came crashing to the floor, and Prompto only just managed to roll away to avoid getting crushed. It lunged at him, long, sharp teeth glinting in the dim light from above. He dodged again, but the dreadful stench of rotting meat filled his nostrils, and the rush of air just next to his face told him it had been a near miss.
Panting, he kept moving from foot to foot, looking for the creature slithering around in the darkness. For the silvery hint of scales...
Then he saw it—something moving in the corner of the room, and with a quick bang he heard a yelp which meant the creature had surely been hit. Okay, so it wasn't resistant to bullets. That was something, at least.
It was fast though—and this time as it came exploding out of the darkness, its tail caught him clean across the shoulder, making him gasp with shock as he was sent flying to the ground. He quickly rolled over, and managed to get in some clean shots to it's side, making it howl and whine in pain.
Prompto happened to be feeling much the same, and he was sure that impact had broken one of his ribs, but he couldn't afford to stop moving now. The thing was still lurking in the darkness, waiting for him to slip up. If only he had night vision or something...
There it was again—hissing...
Bang!
A dreadful screech tore the air, and Prompto assumed that meant he'd hit something vital this time. Now if he could only stop it doing the same to him...
He ducked instinctively as he felt the air shifting in the room, and the next second the creature was soaring over him, blood dripping onto him from the its torn flesh.
This was his chance.
He span around, quickly enough to see it colliding with the ground. He had a clear line of sight to its head—he aimed and then—
With a final, horrifying shriek, the thing collapsed to the ground, then dissolved into tiny particles of miasma.
Prompto's heart raced so fast in his chest he was sure it would make him throw up, and his legs were trembling so badly they seemed mere seconds from collapsing out from under him.
But he wasn't done yet.
Over in the corner of the room, where before there had been solid wall, a doorway had appeared. He was sure the others were waiting on the other side. He just had to...go through it.
