The Search for Vanessa Hawthorne: A Light in Darkness

The descent through the event horizon and into the dark beyond was simultaneously deeply terrifying and silently calm for John. Anything could be lurking deeper down, and if his mind had not been so ****-addled, he never would’ve been able to take the plunge. He half saw things moving in the corner of his vision, despite the fact that it was so devoid of light that John couldn’t even see his own hands, yet he simply lacked the capacity to understand he should be afraid. Nothing mattered but one thing.

Somewhere down there was a tiny pinpoint of brilliance.

Meter by meter, fathom by fathom, John sank into the depths of an endless abyss, eyes locked on the single star at its bottom. Time stretched out and lost any meaning with no context to base itself on, and it could’ve been minutes or hours before the speck of light began to grow.

For fuck’s sake, it’s only been six and a half minutes. Pull yourself together.

The voice of sanity in John’s head listed off a number, but it was meaningless to the haze of purpose that had taken root. Minutes didn’t matter. Only the locket. His shining guide. With a mental sigh, that quiet voice went back to counting seconds.

John’s descent ended in sand, landing gently at the edge of a dome of light that spanned the distance of some fifty meters or more before fading to complete darkness. At the very center was a gleaming metal object buried partly in the ground. Twisted pillars with strange textures surrounded it on all sides, stretching into the dark. An ancient temple buried in the depths where nobody could ever find it. Save him.

Although his body couldn’t feel the crushing pressure around him, he did not try to swim against the weight pinning him to the sand. Instead, John pushed every bit of energy he had into a single step towards the locket. Then another, and another… and another…

...and another…

In the ruins of a broken home, the shredded remains of a fishing net drifted in the current. Quiet silence had returned to the ravaged hamlet, and bulbous eyes watched from windows as the debris settled to the ground. Somewhere, a broken voice began to sing a tuneless song.

Glacially, step by step, John climbed the dune to his destination, his heartbeat the only sound audible in the oppressive silence. Despite the growing joy in his breast, the pulse remained slow and steady, kept tempered by the morphine diluted in his blood.

Thu-thump.

Thu-thump.

Thu-thump.

John’s right foot slipped into a soft patch of sand, and his leg went out from underneath him. The locket was so close now, within arm’s reach, and he could almost feel the chain under his insensate fingers. They closed around a handful of silt, and the soft residue slipped through the gaps as he pushed himself up from where he’d fallen. A thin layer of sand coated his body and bled away into the current as he took another step.

It could smell him, the stench of fouled blood clogging up its nostrils. It had seen him vanish into the underdark, rage driving its bound body onwards despite the ghastly bindings that cut in deep. Pain wracked its form, and the ropes drew trickles of blood, but nothing mattered anymore. Not hunger or dominance or instinct. Nothing but the **** of the monster that had inflicted this torment.

John’s fingers no longer responded to his commands. Bone-chilling cold had them effectively frozen into curled shapes. A single step away from the locket, his legs finally gave out too, collapsing beneath the weight of countless fathoms and the exhaustion of his journey. Not even the toxic soothing presence of the morphine could stave things off anymore. Silt exploded into gentle clouds around where his knees sunk into the earth, and John fell forwards towards the shimmering star of his dreams. His rigid hands cupped through the sand and delicately cradled the broken metal out of the mound.

Spell Void (Mana Focus) dispelled! Initiating mana restoration.

The glow of the metal dimmed, spreading into his skin in coursing lines that traced like veins towards his heart. Thu-thump. A piercing burst of warmth bloomed there, and something intangible flowed back into John. The hole he’d been barely aware of filled with energy that crackled and sparked, calling him to use it, to draw on that inner strength he’d been deprived of too long.

Mana fully restored: 150/150 mp

John almost was too far gone to do it, but the tiny, stifled voice in his head took that moment to seize control. His magic responded to that gasping, **** plea with an inward pull that drank deep from his renewed mana to bring about a miracle.

Hearth. Take me home.

As the last light faded, a whirling tide scoured away the sand from the ruins upon which he stood, and John slipped towards unconsciousness. The last thing he saw was a pair of glowing orange dots rushing closer to him as the ground itself shook with the rage of a wounded animal.

Bye, asshole.

Then there was nothing but black.

In darkness, the Mosasaurus’ jaws snapped shut on a scattering flicker of embers, missing its prey by seconds at most. A furious rumble quaked the water, rippling it visibly with sheer hatred made vocal. Its tail thrashed furiously, and the creature circled the last place its hated enemy had been. The human was gone, but blood had led it here. This had to be another trick of some kind. Sniffing at the water, the Mosasaurus tried to catch another scent trail.

Beneath it, invisible in the murk, the ruin opened a great, sightless eye.

Qi’th’alas, Augur of the Deep Moon has awoken.

There was no time for the Mosasaurus to flee or hide, nor did it even realize what had happened until it was entangled with no hope of escape in the tendrils of the great beast that it had willingly walked into the jaws of. No pillars of stone or ruins of old, only scarred scales and leathery suckers disguised as such… and an unblinking iris that stared into the endless void while the other fiends of the deep watched as the trespasser was devoured.

Not a sound nor a sight nor single scrap of flesh escaped.