Alexander could see the fear in them. They whispered stories of how the first group of overseers to venture into the underdark had never returned. Officers talked of plans, but the men looked nervously through the shield wall at the enemy, as inhuman and impersonal as it could get, flowing by like a river, ignorant of strategy, impossible to negotiate with, driven only by hunger and instinct.
He snapped back to the fissure and began exploring in the direction of the well of memory. The main pathways along the chasm wall were collapsed, broken in multiple places for several thousand feet. He floated through the dark as a ball of light, inspecting the open-sided corridors cut into the chasm wall but found none leading away from the fissure that were intact for any significant distance.
That left the underdark. He returned to the fissure and searched the area, looking for passages out. Finding three, he followed each for a distance. One wrapped back around in the wrong direction. Another ended in a cave-in. The third eventually led up a flight of stairs and connected to a hallway that seemed to be the underdark’s version of a road, long and straight and well-supported. More importantly, it looked intact for quite a ways in both directions. Alexander returned to his body and opened his eyes, closing the door to the Wizard’s Den, just to be safe.
“There were a lot more bugs than we thought. Fortunately, they’ve branched out in the other direction.”
“That might complicate getting out,” Jack said.
“Not nearly as much as the regiment of overseers camped at the entrance.”
“I take it the bugs did win,” Jack said.
“Very much so. Most of the overseers are terrified. Fortunately, all of that is happening back there. I think I’ve found a way through. Try to be as quiet as possible. I’ll keep our light to a minimum; I don’t want to draw the bugs’ attention.”
They slipped out of the Wizard’s Den under a very dim light from Luminessence. Everyone followed closely behind Alexander, taking great care to make as little noise as possible.
The fissure had opened a crack in a nearby wall. Alexander slipped through it and into a large room that might have once been a public bath. Bringing his light up to examine the art on the walls, he revealed a continuous fresco of fair-haired, frail-looking creatures tending to the lands and forests around them. They were depicted as wielding great magic for the betterment of the world they’d chosen to act as stewards for.
“The ancient history in this room alone could inspire a hundred songs,” Jack said.
“I know what you mean,” Alexander said. “I wish we had more time.”
The only door out of the room led into a tiled room filled with several benches situated between floor-to-ceiling armoires. Through that room and into the next hall, they found a straight corridor with stone doors every fifty feet or so on either side. Alexander ignored them, stretching out with his all around sight, looking for any hint of a threat in the distance, but finding only cold, empty passages and long-abandoned rooms.
Around a corner, they found a mound of dirt and stones with a crystal shard about a foot long poking out of the top.
“Hey, look at this,” Anja said, picking up the shard and holding it close to Alexander’s light.
“Be very careful with that,” Alexander said. “It’s alive.”
Jack inhaled sharply, his eyes going wide as he angled for a closer look. “This crystal is a sentient being?”
“Yes.”
“And these built all this,” Jack said.
“Yes.”
Anja gently set it down atop its pile of dirt and rocks.
“How interesting,” Lita whispered.
Alexander waited for the question he knew Jack wanted to ask next, but Jack just winked at him with a smile. They continued into the underdark, winding through what looked like a residential community. Alexander found it hard to understand why anyone would choose to live underground. It was dark and the air was stale. He already missed the sun.
Before long, he found the staircase leading up to the long hall. The hallway was twenty feet wide and just as high, running straight in both directions. Alexander suspected it had once been an underground thoroughfare for this side of the underdark. Now, he just hoped it was unused.
It certainly sounded that way, as quiet as a tomb with air just as still. Every noise felt like a trespass. He brought up the light and waited for a moment, listening for a response from some denizen of the underdark, but heard nothing.
With a shrug, he set out, his friends trailing behind him. Not five minutes later, they came to an intersection with another passage half the size of the one they were traveling. Left led toward the chasm, right went deeper into the underdark. Alexander continued going straight.
At regular intervals, they encountered similar intersections with smaller passages, occasional staircases appearing more sporadically. Alexander found himself relying on his hearing as much as his vision, stopping at each intersection to listen for any hint of a threat, but it was dead quiet for several hours.
“This place is huge,” Jack whispered.
“As big as a city,” Alexander said.
“Must’ve been a sight to behold at its height,” Lita said.
“Indeed,” Jataan whispered.
A few minutes later, Alexander thought he heard something so he doused his light, plunging the passage into total blackness. Everyone froze, stopping in their tracks and holding their breath. Faint sounds of people talking filtered through the underdark.
Alexander sent his all around sight down the corridor, but he reached the limit of his range before he found the source of the voices. He opened the door to his Wizard’s Den, lowering the light to almost total dark at the same time. Once inside the protection of his magic circle, he slipped into the firmament and sent his awareness down the hallway. Almost a league of corridor brought him to a large room that served as the intersection of two large corridors along with several sets of stairs going both up and down.
A dozen overseers stood in a circle around the Acuna wizard who’d tried earlier to stop Alexander from entering the underdark. Several of the overseers were shouting at the wizard all at the same time.
“You got us into this … how’re you going to get us out?”
“He’s lost.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t collapsed the tunnel we came in through.”
“He’s been nothing but trouble; we should leave him.”
“His magic might be useful.”
“You mean like when he collapsed the tunnel?”
“Had I not collapsed the tunnel,” the wizard said, “you would all be dead. Now, I suggest you lower your voices. She may know of another way into this chamber.” He gestured toward the multiple staircases and passages.
“Do you really think that thing might come back?” an overseer whispered.
“Perhaps,” the wizard said quietly.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I agree. We should go that way,” the wizard said, pointing toward the passage that Alexander and his friends were traveling.
“No!” several said hotly.
“That’s deeper in.”
“Are you sure?”
“You want to go the wrong way.”
“The exit’s that way,” another said, pointing in the opposite direction.
“I assure you, that is the passage we want to take,” the wizard said.
“You said those exact same words earlier today.”
“Yeah.”
“Look where that got us.”
“Earlier today, we were running for our lives,” the wizard said. “The path I chose was necessary at the time. This path is necessary now.”
“You know full well the only reason we got away was because the bugs stopped to eat our fallen.”
“And because we entered the underdark through a door that I was able to secure behind us,” the wizard said. “Had we stayed in the open-sided corridor, we would have been overtaken. You would all be dead.”