The echo of war drums resounded in the depths.
Twelve hunters descended through the main shaft, their armor etched with the emblem of the Vorak Clan: a bloodstained twin spiral. At the front, Rugath the Flayer, his Obsidian Maw sword resting on his shoulder, dragged the chains of the previous Nyx-Teraths he had slain—jaws strung together like trophies.
"There she is, the bitch!" one of the scouts shouted, pointing at the acid scars on the walls.
The wounded Nyx-Terath awaited them in a wide chamber, her burst eye still oozing venom. But this time, she didn't roar.
She backed away.
Rugath smiled behind his iron mask.
"Chain and fire!"
The hunters moved as one organism: three with bone spears pierced the tentacles, pinning them to the ground; two others cast burning wire nets that tightened around the central body. The beast howled, but Rugath was already in the air, his sword carving a perfect arc before plunging into the surviving eye.
The monster exploded in a torrent of acid.
The hunters jumped back—except for Rugath, who stood firm as his armor hissed and steamed. With a ritual motion, he plunged his hand into the dying mass and tore out a central fang. Then, with the tip of his sword, he carved the clan's spiral into the exposed skull.
"Another one for the collection," he spat, hanging the fang on his chains.
As the group regrouped, a scout pointed to the walls:
"Boss… there's more markings."
Small tracks. Golden stains. And in one corner, a puddle of luminous fluid mixed with black blood.
Rugath kicked the remains.
"Kharis larvae. Trash."
But as he turned, his boot crushed something: a shard of broken mask, identical to the symbol he had just carved.
The creature heard the screams from afar.
The Kharis in its arms trembled, pulsing anxious light.
They killed the big one.
It didn't know it... it felt it. As if the very air vibrated with the death of the monster that once hunted it.
It crawled up to a high fissure, from which it saw the humans celebrating around the corpse. One of them—the largest, the one who smelled of burnt metal—held something gleaming.
The fang.
And then, with ceremonial movements, he carved the spiral.
The same as on my mask shard.
The Kharis made a faint sound, and the creature held her tighter.
In a hidden cave, far from the scent of death, the Kharis submerged herself in a shallow pool. Her body glowed more intensely, turning the water gold.
The creature entered after her, feeling the liquid ease its wounds. It watched in fascination as its companion changed color depending on the depth: blue in the darker zones, yellow where the light filtered through.
Are we playing?
It extended a claw, and the Kharis wrapped it with a tiny tentacle—like a hug.
For the first time, something inside felt... warm.
Not hunger. Not fear.
Something else.
While the Kharis's light danced on the walls, the creature took its mask shard and compared it to the markings its own claws had left on the stone.
The spirals were not the same.
The clan's was aggressive, with spikes. Its own... flowed, like the movement of water.
How many spirals are there? How many stories?
The Kharis made a bubbly sound, almost like laughter, and the creature felt it didn't need answers.
Not yet.
In the High City, Lina examined Rugath's report:
"Nyx-Terath eliminated. Sector purged. No anomalies."
But in the margin, someone had drawn a twin spiral... identical to the ones she had seen in the Abyss.
As the clan drums echoed outside, she slipped a shard of ceramic with golden markings into her pocket.
The upper abyss had become less hostile since they began traveling together.
The protagonist creature (should she start calling herself something now?) walked with her companion Kharis perched on her shoulder, its luminescent body casting a warm glow through the tunnels. They had developed rituals:
— Meals: She cracked the shells of subterranean crustaceans with her claws; Kharis softened them with digestive fluid. Together, they shared the sweet meat inside.
— Games: They chased bioluminescent crystals growing on the walls, making them burst into showers of sparks upon touch.
— Nights: They slept curled in shallow caves, where Kharis sang low pulses that drove predators away.
But today, the air smelled of danger.
It was Kharis who gave the first alert: a sudden glow in her spots, followed by an urgent tug of her tentacles.
Too late.
The "ceiling" of the tunnel collapsed on them.
It wasn't rock.
It was a Ghul-Teke, a predator that mimicked stone formations. Its body, a mass of armored muscle, slammed Kharis to the ground before the protagonist could react.
A bone snap—Kharis screamed (she had never screamed before) as one of her tentacles broke under the monster's weight.
Something inside the creature snapped deeper than any bone.
She attacked without strategy.
Her claws slipped on the Ghul-Teke's carapace, but it didn't matter. She charged again, this time driving her fingers into the soft joints of its legs. The monster howled, twisting to bite her, but she let it.
The fang pierced her side—right where the Nyx-Terath had wounded her before.
Pain was an old friend.
She used the distraction to leap onto its head and drive both claws into its eyes.
The predator convulsed, hurling her against a wall.
Golden blood. Black blood.
Kharis, dragging herself with difficulty, spat a jet of glowing fluid directly into the Ghul-Teke's open wounds.
The monster shrieked—not in pain, but in terror.
Because now it burned.
The protagonist didn't wait.
She leapt onto the Ghul-Teke and tore out its throat with her teeth.
They collapsed together beside the corpse.
Kharis trembled, her broken tentacle hanging like a frayed thread. The protagonist took her gently and pressed a piece of shell over the wound.
— You... saved... me...
They weren't words. They were images flowing from the contact of their minds:
— Kharis showing her how her liquid sealed wounds.
— Her returning the favor now.
— A circle. An exchange.
The Ghul-Teke lay dead, its flesh still smoking where Kharis's acid had burned it.
The protagonist tore off a piece and brought it to her mouth.
It tasted like rage. Like fear. Like power.
Before swallowing, she offered a piece to Kharis.
Her companion wrapped it in her remaining tentacles, and as they ate, something flowed between them.
The next day, the protagonist noticed changes:
Her skin had grown hard plates on her shoulders, similar to the Ghul-Teke's armor.
Her blood now thickened upon contact with air, forming a protective crust over her wounds.
Her mind...
She dreamed like the Ghul-Teke.
Fragments of alien memory:
— Waiting patiently for days.
— Merging with stone.
— The thrill of stalking prey.
She woke with a start, but Kharis was there, curled against her new partial shell, pulsing softly to calm her.
She was no longer the same.
Neither of them were.
They chose to descend.
Not out of fear, but because they now knew the abyss would give more than it took.
Kharis, still injured, clung to her back, lighting the way.
The protagonist carried in one claw:
— The shard of a human mask with the spiral.
— A Ghul-Teke fang.
— The certainty that together, they were more than survival.
The abyss whispered promises in the walls.
And this time, they had their own light to answer back...