The deeper Kalem moved, the less the Abyss resembled anything born of the world above.
The cavern twisted down into a narrow fissure, where the rock walls glowed faintly—not with light, but heat. Faint pulses radiated through the earth beneath his boots. Every few steps, the stone would twitch with an almost imperceptible thrum, like the hollow beat of some sleeping giant's heart.
Kalem paused, kneeling to brush his fingers along the floor. It wasn't molten, not quite—but it radiated warmth unevenly, as though veins of something alive ran beneath the stone. Thin cracks in the surface glowed dimly with a smoldering red hue.
"Ash veins," he muttered. "That's what this is."
He stood, drawing his gaze across the corridor-like path ahead. The walls bore strange growths—organ-like structures embedded in stone, pulsing with an almost vascular rhythm. Everything here felt designed for digestion. A place meant not just to trap intruders, but to consume them.
He pressed onward, every step calculated.
It wasn't long before the heat began to rise, not just from the ground but in the air itself. His breath grew labored. Sweat soaked through the bandages on his shoulder and leg, and the edge of his vision wavered in ripples. He knew better than to burn magic needlessly for cooling—his rations were limited, and enchantments took far more energy than a simple spell would on the surface.
It was then that he felt it. A flicker of movement on his forearm. Like a feather brushing skin, then biting.
Kalem looked down to see a thin, root-like growth had reached from the wall and latched onto his arm. It had pierced through a small gap in his armor like it had been searching for it. Its tip had turned black, like a burned vein, and it was pulsing, drawing something out.
He didn't hesitate. With his free hand, he drew a dagger and sliced the thing free at its base. The pain that followed was immediate and vicious—like molten iron lancing through his bloodstream.
He tore the rest of it away, hissing as it came free. The wound left behind was small, but the skin around it had already darkened. Black veins spidered out from the point of contact.
Kalem gritted his teeth and knelt, reaching into his satchel for one of his few remaining alchemical flasks—this one designed for internal and external purging.
He poured a splash of the liquid over the wound. The hiss of reaction was immediate, steam rising as the black veins receded slightly.
"Damned thing… was feeding off me."
He looked at the cut section of the parasite, which was still writhing on the ground. Its rootlike structure had fused with a sliver of rusted metal—part of an old weapon, now wrapped in its tendrils like a skeleton choked by ivy.
It didn't just want blood. It wanted steel.
Kalem stood, warier now. The presence of metal had drawn it—and his entire body was covered in weapons, from blades to glyph-hardened plating. He was a walking feast.
The voice came again.
"Everything feeds here. Even thought. Especially thought."
He ignored it, but the words slithered into the silence after his breath. Was it simply mocking him? Or warning?
He moved more cautiously now, scanning the walls for further growths. The ambient heat pulsed harder as he pressed on, the veins in the stone glowing brighter in time with the pounding behind his temples.
The corridor widened, revealing a basin-like cavern filled with small pits that hissed with steam. Bones—warped and stripped clean—were scattered like leaves in the shallows of melted rock. It smelled of scorched rot and iron.
Kalem crouched beside one of the pits and observed the remains of what may have once been a soldier. The armor was half-dissolved into slag, but the sword beside the corpse was intact—an old style, standard-issue to the Outpost Line five years ago. This body had been down here a while.
He reached for the sword—its hilt corroded, but the core still strong—and tucked it onto his back. A spare blade would serve well, if only as a throwaway weapon.
Movement rippled through the corner of his vision.
A low shiver passed through the cavern as something else slithered beneath the surface of the molten stone—long, sinuous, wormlike, but with occasional ridged protrusions like hooked teeth. It didn't rise to attack. Not yet. It was watching.
Kalem withdrew without turning his back to it. His breathing had grown shallow, the heat bleeding strength from his limbs faster than wounds ever could.
He ascended the opposite path, rising out of the ash-veined biome and into cooler air.
There, he slumped against the wall, took inventory. His crate was still intact, dragged behind with a line of enchanted rope. But he opened it with slower hands this time, eyes resting on the array of deadly, shimmering weapons within. And for the first time, he saw them differently.
Not just as weapons.
As bait.
He closed the lid.
No more flamboyant spells unless necessary. No light unless vital. No sound. No waste.
Kalem wrapped his arm, pulled his cloak tighter, and began to descend again—this time quieter, slower, leaner.
He was still a fighter.
But now, he was prey.