AJ's descent continued.
Waterfall spray misted the air around him, creating a constant veil of moisture that coated the rock face. The wet stone glistened under his makeshift climbing tools, and droplets ran down the cliff in thin rivulets.
The first 50 metres passed without incident. The rock face was stable, with regular cracks and protrusions that provided reliable anchor points.
From up above, Richard leaned over the edge, watching the distant figure clinging to the cliff face. His weathered features showed a peculiar expression, part amusement, part satisfaction.
"Well," he murmured to himself, "at least someone's fool enough to try it."
His gaze tracked AJ's progress as the figure resumed climbing downward. Richard's lips curved into a cold grin.
"Do all the hard work for me, friend. I'll be waiting for when you come back up."
He returned to his camp, whistling a tuneless melody. The afternoon sun filtered through the leaves overhead, and Richard settled onto his bedroll. He wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Just as Richard had turned away, the pickaxe in AJ's right hand caught the edge of a crack but as he went to put his weight onto it, it slipped. His weight shifted suddenly, throwing off his balance.
That's when his left pickaxe tore free from its hold.
The sensation of falling quickly took over. The cliff face rushed past in a blur. Wind roared in his ears, competing with the waterfall's distant thunder.
No no no—
AJ's thoughts scattered into panic. His arms flailed, pickaxes swinging wildly as he twisted in the air. The tools scraped against stone, failing to catch, failing to slow his descent.
10, 20, 30 meters flew by.
The spray from the waterfall coated his face and body, making it difficult to see clearly. The cliff face showed no mercy, smooth sections alternating with jagged protrusions that would cut off sections of his body if he hit them wrong.
40 meters.
I need to... think—
His right pickaxe swung out in a wide arc. The curved head caught something, a shelf of rock jutting from the cliff face. The impact nearly tore the tool away from him. His substance stretched, absorbing some of the violent deceleration.
Thankfully, it held.
The jolt sent a shockwave through his entire form. His left arm swung desperately at the cliff face, the pickaxe scoring across stone before finally, finally biting into a crack. With both tools planted firmly into the cliff face, AJ hung there, his body visibly trembling.
The waterfall's spray surrounded him. Droplets ran down his face, or perhaps that was a slime version of cold sweat, he couldn't tell.
Far above, the edge he'd started from was rather distant, and below, the darkness waited.
That was careless, AJ thought, forcing his racing thoughts to slow. The wet stone is more unstable than I thought. I can't afford another mistake like that.
His body had stopped shaking, but the memory of that fall would be staying with him for a while.
AJ resumed his descent with renewed caution, testing each placement more thoroughly before committing his weight.
Soon enough he passed the 100-metre mark, then 150. The cliff face changed character as he descended, the stone layers showing different compositions and colours. The initial grey granite gave way to a darker volcanic rock.
The waterfall's spray lessened as he moved away from its direct path, though moisture still coated everything. Thin streams of water ran down the rock face from cracks and fissures, and patches of moss grew in the dampest sections.
Something moved in one of those moss patches.
AJ paused, his pickaxes planted firmly whilst he examined the movement. A pale shape emerged from the greenery, a salamander, roughly the length of his forearm, its skin translucent enough to show internal organs.
The creature had no eyes yet it moved with careful precision as it relied entirely on touch and vibrations in the air and ground.
The salamander crawled across the rock face, investigating the new disturbances AJ's descent had created. It showed no fear, seemingly not recognising him as a potential threat.
AJ continued downward, leaving the creature to its explorations. More appeared as he descended further, an entire colony of the blind salamanders were living in the moss patches and crevices. They scattered at his approach but returned quickly once he'd passed, resuming their slow feeding on whatever insects and fungi sustained them.
The light faded as he descended deeper. What had been afternoon brightness at the surface became perpetual twilight, the ravine's walls blocking direct sunlight. AJ's vision adapted to the dimness, his form naturally adjusting to make use of what little illumination filtered down from above.
He paused at the 200-metre mark, withdrawing a small amount of glowmelt from his reserves. The substance adhered to the rock face where he pressed it, creating a faint luminescent marker. He'd need these reference points for the return climb.
AJ resumed his descent into the darkness, though the bottom arrived abruptly.
His foot, searching for the next foothold, found level ground instead of vertical rock. AJ released his pickaxes, allowing them to be absorbed back into his substance as he stepped away from the cliff face.
The ravine floor stretched before him in both directions, a narrow wound cutting through the earth. The space varied dramatically, it was up to 80 metres at its widest points, but narrowing to barely 5 metres in places.
Boulders littered the ground, remnants of rockfalls that had broken free from the cliffs above. Some were the size of houses, creating shadowed alcoves and narrow passages between them.
The waterfall thundered down somewhere to his left. The cascade's roar echoed off stone, filling the ravine with constant white noise that made other sounds difficult to distinguish. Mist hung in the air near the waterfall's base, creating shifting curtains of moisture that caught what little light reached this depth.
The river that had plunged from above now flowed sluggishly eastward through the ravine's centre, following the natural slope of the land. Its current was lazy compared to the rushing force it had shown on the surface, as if exhausted by the long fall. Water pooled in depressions along its course, creating still ponds where silt had settled into muddy beds.
The darkness here was nearly complete. What little light reached the bottom was filtered and weakened, creating a gloom that would have meant total blindness for normal human eyes. AJ's vision had adapted, allowing him to perceive his surroundings through subtle variations in shadows and the faint ambient mana that permeated everything.
Cold air rose from deeper in the ravine to the east, carrying scents of damp stone and stagnant water. The temperature was noticeably lower than the surface, the sun's warmth rarely reached these depths, and the stone walls held and maintained the ever present chill.
Something crunched under his foot as he moved to follow the flowing river.
AJ looked down. Bones. A human skeleton, partially crushed by his weight, its remains scattered across the rocky ground. Scraps of fabric clung to the ribcage. They seemed like remnants of clothing that had been torn apart by a fall or by scavengers afterwards, or more likely both.
More skeletons appeared as he surveyed the area. Another human, this one with bones broken in ways that suggested a catastrophic fall. The skull had shattered, likely on impact with the rocks below. A third lay crumpled against a boulder, the angle of the spine hinting at a rather gruesome death.
But not all the remains were human.
A massive skull lay wedged between two rocks near the river's edge. Its eye sockets were large enough to fit AJ's slime form in its entirety. The teeth were hand-length and serrated, clearly designed for tearing flesh from prey.
AJ examined it closely, noting the thickness of the bone, this creature had been powerful when alive. But what struck him most was the skull's position and condition, it simply lay here, as if it had fallen from above.
His gaze drifted upward, following the ravine walls into the darkness overhead. The creature had died up there somehow, and then its remains fell down to rest in the depths.
What could have killed something this large? he wondered.
The thought was not comforting. He hoped, for his own sake, that he wouldn't encounter the culprit.
AJ moved on, navigating carefully around the scattered remains. The ravine floor was treacherous, loose stones shifted underfoot, and water-slicked surfaces threatened to slip him up and send him sprawling. The river's flow provided the only constant sound besides the distant waterfall's echo.
He soon noticed something else. The ambient mana here felt different from the surface.
AJ paused, taking a moment to feel out the mana. It wasn't just more concentrated, though it certainly was. It was also notably higher in quality. His core absorbed it passively as he moved, and the energy required less refinement than what he'd grown accustomed to on the surface.
Does being at a lower elevation increase the density and quality of mana? he speculated.
But there was something more. Underneath the general increase in mana quality, a directional push and pull existed. AJ turned slowly, trying to pinpoint its source.
East. The sensation came from the east, where the ravine continued into deeper darkness.
Before he could investigate further, some nearby movement caught his attention.
The rats came first.
They emerged from crevices in the rocks, their bodies grotesquely swollen compared to normal rats. Each one was the size of a small dog, with matted fur and milky-white eyes that suggested at least partial blindness. Their teeth clicked as they moved, and their whiskers twitched constantly, searching for threats and prey.
6 of them surrounded AJ in a loose semicircle, chittering amongst themselves. They seemed uncertain, they were hesitant, not yet showing any aggression.
AJ remained still, watching them. The rats crept closer, their whiskers extending towards him as they attempted to determine what he was.
One darted forward, teeth bared. AJ's foot moved on instinct, sending the creature flying towards the left wall of the ravine. The rat's squealing caused the others to scatter, disappearing back into the crevices they'd emerged from.
Testing whether I'm prey or predator. Now they know. AJ chuckled to himself as he continued forwards.
The ravine narrowed slightly as he progressed. More skeletons appeared, most were random creatures that lived in the depths, but there were a few human skeletons mixed in, testament to the ravine's hostile environment. Some looked recent enough that scraps of flesh still clung to bone. Others had been picked clean by scavengers, leaving only white bones behind.
A few mineral deposits caught his attention as he walked. Veins of what he thought was copper ran through sections of exposed rock, the green patina visible even in the dim light. Iron oxide stained other areas rust-red, and what might have been silver glinted from a vein near the water's edge.
AJ absorbed small samples of each for later use. Robert would want to examine these, and Sam would likely find uses for the copper and potentially the silver too. The distance from Valentra made a mining operation unfeasible, sadly, so they would have to settle for the limited quantities he could produce.
The eastern push and pull in the mana grew stronger as he moved further in, drawing him forward into the darkness.