AN: Burnout! YAY!
In all seriousness this chapter is shorter than I would like, however if I don't get it posted now I never will. /
Enjoy
Pain spread out in waves from my side, and more faintly from my stomach, as I gained consciousness. Static danced in my vision due to a complete lack of light as I began to feel around in my surroundings. The floor was cold and hard, with deep grooves running along its surface. I pushed myself up, clutching my stomach as I tried to figure out where I was.
Holding out my hand I pushed my mana outwards, the resulting stream of energy lighting the room with dull purple hues. Looking up I found only blackness, a wide open hole that I must have fallen through to get here.
The surrounding walls were rough cavestone, the dim light of my mana giving just enough light that I could make out a thin opening barely large enough for a single person to squeeze through. It kept going, forming into more of a tunnel that only widened out slightly as I made my way through it. Time progressed as I kept moving forward, trying my best to ignore the damp creeping up my clothes. After what felt like eternity, the tunnel ended widening out into a square room.
I allowed my mana to disperse as the room was lit by an array of 8 large dust crystals spaced evenly apart from one another around a central pedestal of dark stone. A set of rusted objects lay on the pedestal, a thick walled bowl and a round implement with one end thicker than the other. It was a mortar and pestle. Picking up the objects, my curiosity having gotten the better of me, my fingers prickled with the familiar sensation of mana. The energy seemed more than willing, if energy could be described to have a will, to enter my formerly low reserves.
While moving to put the pestle and mortar in my bag, I realised for the first time I dropped it when I fell. "Oh, for goodness sake! Can I not win!?" I asked the universe, promptly tripping as I turned to look over the rest of the room more thoroughly. Catching myself from landing on my face I sighed, pushing myself once more off the floor, and continued to look around the rest of the room.
The walls were flat stone, almost unnaturally smooth to the touch as I ran a finger along it. Following the walls I came to an archway, seemingly carved into the stone. What would have led into another room or passageway instead only went into the wall a few inches. Strangle engraved symbols ringed the archway alongside what looked like a glyph carved into the wall behind it. I quickly found myself entranced by the glyph. Its shape was like an eye, but with eight spider-like limbs stretching downward from accenting carvings. Time seemed to stretch out as I stared. I didn't even notice the 'hair' falling in front of my face, covering my left eye.
I was snapped back to reality by a cold chill running down my spine. I looked around for the source of the cold, following the sensation to a hairline crack in the leftmost wall. If I pressed my eye as close as possible to the crack, I could see the faintest glimpse of warm light.
I pushed against the wall as hard as I could, a wild sense of desperation overcoming me as I clawed at the wall. With a final burst of strength, I welled as much mana as I could into my fist, envisioning the mana like concrete as I created a shield around it and punched. The resulting hole was barely large enough to crawl through but flooded the room with daylight as I opened out into what looked like a lower level of the ruins.
I took a sigh of relief as I stumbled, taking a few misshapen steps to a wall before half collapsing to the ground. To say I felt tired would be an understatement, I was byalmost completely drained of energy as well as a significant amount of the mana I just gained. Unable to move any further, I felt myself drifting into unconsciousness.
When I woke, I pushed myself up and made my way out into the light. Now that I wasn't blinded by exhaustion, I could see my surroundings more clearly. I was located on a narrow shelf along the chasm wall. Upon closer inspection, the shelf was entirely man made. Its cobbled stone paving had been worn to the point it was barely distinguishable from the bare rock. Looking across the horizon I could see the ruined temple not too far away, I just had to make my way along the shelf.
As I continued forward, parts of the shelf broke away forcing me to press myself against the chasm wall. Then there was this feeling, from… something deep below me in the depths of the chasm, like I was being watched. Slowly but surely, I made my way onwards, hoping that I didn't have much further to travel.
Eventually the slope ended, stopping abruptly and forming a flat platform just below the surface so that the grass started just above my shoulders. Climbing up onto the grass I was met with black boots and the barrel of a gun.
"You're coming with me."