While descending an updraft motivated his hair to defy gravity, the air filtered through his clothes, not unlike someone laying a blanket over you on a cold night.
Instead of feeling comfortable breckan felt uneasy, the others had already crossed the forcefield and had disappeared from view, the lack of tension on the ropes indicated that they had already reached ground.
crossing the forcefield caused a peculiar tingling to erupt over his skin for a millisecond in addition to a strange soft pressure to settle over his body... He was now under the effect of the curse, in the abyss's domain.
Seeing the ground approaching steadily Breckan increased the pressure on the rappel device which protested the action by rapidly increasing temperature at the friction, nearing 2 meters to the ground he bent his knees and prepared his muscles for impact that came in the form of a small thud lifting a small amount of dirt into the air.
"You didn't slow down enough Breckan, just a bit faster and you would have sprained a leg, trust me you don't want that, not here or anywhere" he glanced warily at jiruo and nodded in acceptance of the fact that he made a mistake, evidenced by the dull ache emanating from his knees. "So Jiruo, what do I do? I see you already split up the group, am I gonna pair with you or are you gonna make a 3 man team?" "You will be with Natt and Riko, I need to look after Shiggy, for all his book smarts he can be careless, you can take care of yourself, keep an eye on them, mainly Riko remember what was taught to you, yell if you need me" muttering a low "right" breckan stalked towards where he last saw riko and natt walking towards an area with petrified trees.
Breckan admired the huge petrified trees which were a dark brown, reaching an impressive height of 60 meters, rapping a tree's trunk with his knuckle indicated that it was rock solid and long dead. Grass somehow grew on the tough ground which seemed like tightly packed and felt like rock as well.
walking amongst the trees, rays of sunlight streamed through the forcefield and through the solid trees painting a picturesque beautiful scene that bled with saturated colors, gone was the darkness that seemed to encompass the abyss from above.
Coming across loud ringing of a pickaxe hitting stone he followed the sound until he reached riko making a narrow hole in what seemed a solid rock wall. Seeing riko struggling with breaking the stone I lay my hand on her shoulder causing her to jump slightly into the air and turned to glare at me, "did leader send you?" "Sure he did, let me help you with that" "tch, anything behind in that cave is mine breckan, dont forget im your superior" breckan simply raised his eyebrows as he sees her flick her whistle imperiously like some sort of rich woman, which she is not.
At that thought she grew a smug grin "don't worry though, ill tach you newbie"
in a non committal fashion breckan simply nodded lazily whilst locking his pickaxe in a vice grip he morphed his stance to a foot behind walking stance for balance, holding the pickaxe to his far right he swung the tool in a mighty arc which resounded like a blacksmith shaping a sword as it struck the rocky surface inflicting hairline cracks that immediately collapsed the wall at the lack of stable support.
Whooping with joy, riko plunged into the mineral dust cloud of the cave which in turn made breckan scowl, picking up a pebble and launching it at the source of sound in the shallow cave motivating riko to yelp in surprise at the acute pain "hey what do you think you are doing!" "Educating you 'red whistle', you didn't turn on your gemlamp or even wait for the dust to settle, what if you ran in and fell into some deep hole? I don't wanna explain to leader why his biggest annoyance is now a bloody dead mess, dont do that again." "You're crazily patronizing did you know that? I'd say are you some relative of belchero's or something." Placing his hand on top of riko's head breckan's veins bulged as he stated "There you go again saying stupid crap and believing it you damn brat, go run and fall to your death for all I care" releasing her head breckan hid a smile at riko's frowning visage. Little kids, always annoyed him, they were so naive.
Turning from the hole breckan paced towards the edge of the ledge which was about 20 feet from the shallow cave riko was in greedily stuffing artifacts into her delving pack.
he looked at the vastness of the first layer, lush with greenery, seeming full of life, that life though, that life was dangerous to him, this was as close as he wanted to be to the beasts lurking about, he was perfectly happy not coming close to even twelve foot pole distance to any of them.
The temperature was surprisingly warm for being 150 meters below sea level, and the air felt dry, probably due to the layers proximity to the surface forcefield, light still struck with intensity here, there weren't many rock formations or trees blocking it from entering directly after the dispersion effect the forcefield inflicted upon it.. strange as hell in his opinion.
looking towards his top right, breckan spotted jiruo with his group of kids, jiruo alone gazed down at breckan with a passive expression, apparently deep in thought, or so thought breckan, leering right back breckan flashed him a lopsided smile complete with a thumbs up making jiruo's lips turn ever so slightly downwards in the beginnings of a frown, seeing this breckan shook his head looking back down at the abyss idly sensing riko stand next to him to join in on his sight seeing, apparently finishing hoarding artifacts during his exchange with jiruo.
"It's beautiful..." "That it is" glancing down at riko with a worried crease in his eyebrows he followed up by imploring "you feel it too dont you?" Focusing on breckan from staring at the abyss furthermore responding with a confused "feel what? Are you sick?" sighing Breckan responded alongside "no, of course not, the pull you feel it dont you, something urging you to walk endlessly into the pit, like wanting to eat something you haven't eaten in a long time, that type of feeling, you get me?" At those words riko seemed troubled, knowing this from the far off look riko gets when something nags her breckan's frown deepened "so you do, I thought so too, you seem more obssesed with going there than all of us combined" "how did you know?" Cracking an ironic smile breckan replied "you're nothing special kid, I can feel it too" if only breckan knew about the severity of the plight the young girl beside him had with that particular urge, he maybe would have hesitated more before saying that last statement."doesn't it scare you? All I can think about is all the ways you could painfully die, eaten, broken limbs, poison, parasites,(Riko Grimaced) starvation, the curse..."okay okay i get it!" Raising an eyebrow Breckan continued "that scares me a lot Riko, more than anything else, probably, but not you, I mean yeah you're a kid and all" he held up a palm as Riko was about to interrupt "but most of the other orphanage kids don't wanna be down here" pointing up at his head he says "most of us are all a little loose up here and all but you seem perfectly fine, just missing some self preservation, so what goes through that yellow head of yours?" Riko frowned as she contemplated his statement emerald eyes scrunching in thought "its not that im not afraid to die... in the ways you said, i dont want to die" "uh hu" "im not lying! when i think about not exploring the abyss Its almost as if its worse than dying, that 'pull' you mentioned, i would like to think that's my mom calling me to come to her, to hug her and talk on and on about how amazing the abyss is! With sagging shoulders she finished "I cant help it."
"Well then, that's a somewhat compelling and concerning point of view, or you're just actually crazy"
Breckan and riko's musings were interrupted by jiruo screaming at them "run back up, Get away from the ledge damn it!" Breckan turned to look up to jiruo confused as well as concerned, jiruo never lost his composure.. not without provocation atleast, with newfound caution breckan swiftly looked down at the edge, what he saw caused his blood to freeze and explode back again with adrenalin causing his whole body to tingle, eyes widening, feeling fear secure his heart in a vice grip as well as gluing him to the spot where he stood, he saw it, a crimson splitmaw.
Authors notes:
I didn't expect 156 views on this, though im pretty much the only one writing a made in abyss story thats not a one shot at the moment, I really wanna read something good on this.