Subterranean Depths of Gharazuun
Esharok's eyes flickered with a mixture of apprehension and resolve.
Without waiting for further invitation, he turned toward the darkness and gestured toward a half-collapsed corridor—a yawning, breathless gap in the hive's foundation.
"Come," he rasped. "There are things I dare not speak openly in these ruins. Let us go where our ancestors once whispered their secrets."
Massive stone glyphs lined the path, carved with claw and blood. The old markings of Kazi priest-kings, their language harsh, primal, and still humming faintly with psionic residue.
Queen Saumu exchanged a glance with General Kizito, the tension between them palpable.
"Shadowscourge, move in," she commanded, her voice low but firm.
Shailia, still centered within her psionic stillness, followed close behind Esharok. Sefu ghosted silently at the rear, watching every crumbling arch and blackened fresco for signs of movement.
Descending the Forgotten Way
The deeper they went, the colder the air became, saturated with moisture and pressure—a weight that pressed not just on the body but on the soul.
Whispers echoed without source. Flickers of memory not their own brushed against their minds—shouts in ancient Mahasimu tongues, screams of Kazi hosts, low vibrations that pulsed like a heartbeat buried in stone.
Saumu & Kizito: A March into Unease
As they walked, Saumu slowed, falling into step beside Kizito.
"What do you think he fears?" she asked, her voice tight with suspicion.
"That something even the Kazi are terrified of… what could be lurking beneath this world?"
Kizito glanced around, every sense honed by decades of training.
"The Kazi survived centuries without light, without structure. They've endured starvation, madness, even psionic collapse. If they chose to abandon their empire's heart and never return…"
He trailed off, grim.
"It's because something down here was worse than extinction."
She clenched her fists, her eyes narrowing.
"The palace above… was once a citadel of command. My grandmother ruled from these towers. Now it's overtaken with rot. Bio-corruption. And that growth—pulsing, moving like it breathes."
She stopped briefly, turning to study a hollow mural etched with Mahasimu conquest scenes now defaced by what looked like claw marks and black ichor.
"What did we awaken here? What did we do to this place…?"
Her voice dropped to a whisper, bitter and reflective.
"Power never comes without cost."
The Crypt Chamber: Bones of the Ancients
Esharok pushed aside a half-collapsed slab to reveal a circular chamber—vast, domed, lined with concentric ridges of fossilized bone and obsidian tablets.
Psionic resonance shimmered faintly in the air, reacting to Shailia's presence. Glyphs pulsed. Sigils ignited. The past stirred.
"This was once the Hall of Deep Memory," Esharok said.
"Here, the priest-kings of the Kazi kept the names of the fallen. And here, they sealed the thing we came to fear more than death."
He led them to the edge of a black spiral etched into the center of the chamber. It descended into complete darkness—no steps, no light, just a smooth, impossibly deep shaft.
The Worm
He turned to Shailia, voice lowering.
"There is something far worse than the silent shadows of the surface."
"A beast. A worm. A god that slithered between stars when stars still wept with blood. It is hunger made flesh, with teeth that do not merely rend flesh but memory, identity, even time itself."
Shailia paled, her psionic mind flickering with distant screams—some ancient, some not yet screamed.
"We sealed it below the palace, buried it in the marrow of the planet. My ancestors believed we had trapped it forever."
"But nothing sleeps forever."
He gazed into the black spiral as though expecting movement.
"You call it the crypt. We call it the Maw. The Kazi call it…"
His breath caught.
"Ng'khel. The Devourer Beneath Names."
Psychic Echo: Shailia's Vision
Without warning, Shailia was pulled into a flash of vision—
A screaming Mahasimu empress hurling bolts of psychic flame at a shifting mass of darkness in a bottomless abyss.
A wormlike god—its body composed of fractal jaws, spiraling like a black hole—devouring psionic thought as easily as breath.
A scream not from the throat—but from the mind—echoing forever.
Then—silence. Collapse. Burial.
Back in Reality
Shailia gasped and staggered back, catching herself on the cold wall. Her eyes glowed faintly as she processed the psychic trauma.
"It's not dead," she whispered.
"It's aware of us. It sees us even now."
Esharok nodded gravely.
"The more you look upon it, the more it sees into you. That is why we fled. That is why we forgot."
Decision Time
Saumu stepped forward, defiance written in her stance.
"We cannot afford to leave this unchallenged. If it rises, it won't stop at this world."
Kizito crossed his arms.
"Then we need to find a way to understand its nature before it awakens. And if it cannot be stopped…"
"Then we bury it again. Forever."
Final Words from Esharok
The Kazi chieftain stepped back into the shadows.
"The Worm is not a creature. It is hunger. It is loss. It is the erasure of memory itself."
"If you truly mean to challenge it, then know this—your empire's survival depends not on strength… but on remembering what the Mahasimu chose to forget."
And with that, the chamber fell silent once more—save for the slow, rhythmic pulse of something breathing far below.