Rhys’s fingers closed around the dark object. Not a chronometer, not an hourglass, but a shard of polished Void-stone. Its surface was obsidian smooth, cool against his skin, seeming to drink the scant light filtering into his makeshift cubby in the Cliff-hold barracks.
He had found it amidst the forgotten detritus of Old Man Corvan’s stall, a silent pull in the Evermist’s currents, unlike anything he’d encountered. A whisper, faint but distinct, had drawn him to it, a promise of something more than junk.
Rhys turned the shard, observing its unyielding depths. Ancient it felt, alien. A relic, perhaps, from the world before the Great Descent, before the Evermist claimed all.
He reached out with his senses, seeking the Evermist’s currents within the stone, attempting to perceive its unique flow. Nothing. The Void-stone was a silent void, a null point in the Mist’s pervasive song.
He pressed further, urging a response, a subtle manipulation of the surrounding Mist to coax a vibration, a resonance from the stone. Still, only inert, cold matter. The pervasive Evermist, which usually hummed through him, offered no connection here.
A wave of disappointment, cold and sharp, washed over him. Had the Mist misled him? Was his perception flawed, or merely insufficient? The brief flicker of hope, so fragile, was extinguished.
He tucked the Void-stone into his pocket, its weight a dull, unwelcome anchor. It settled beside the broken chronometer Corvan had given him, a mocking pair of useless promises.
---
Returning to his cramped, curtained space within the Cliff-hold barracks, Rhys found it occupied. A figure loomed, broad shoulders filling the narrow entrance, blocking the already meager light. Captain Borin.
Borin stood like a gnarled oak, scarred skin stretching tight across a heavy jaw. Eyes, dark and unforgiving, raked over Rhys. His presence alone seemed to thicken the air, making the Mist feel stagnant.
“You the new prospector?” Borin’s voice was a low growl, rough as granite.
Rhys nodded once. “Rhys.”
“Absent from the Gloom-Cuts this morning, Rhys?” Borin stepped closer, crowding the space, a heavy scent of stale sweat and raw Mist-crystal clinging to him. “Didn’t think you’d be needed?”
“No one called for me,” Rhys replied, his voice level despite the tremor of unease. “Was given no instructions on where to report.”
Borin scoffed, a wet, derisive sound. “Instructions? You crawl into Cliff-hold, you work. That’s your instruction. Don’t think you’re special, fresh-blood. Come here.” He jerked his head, indicating the way out.
Rhys hesitated. His connection to the Evermist, usually a source of quiet strength, felt muted under this man’s oppressive gaze. The survival instinct, sharp as a whetted blade, urged caution.
“You deaf, boy?” Borin’s fist, hard as stone, shot out. It connected with Rhys’s temple, a dull thud that echoed in the cramped space.
Rhys stumbled backward, colliding with the thin fabric of his curtained bunk. The world tilted, the dim light from the overhead lumen-lamp blurring into a single, aching halo.
Before he could recover, Borin was on him, a heavy boot slamming into his ribs. Again. Again. Rhys curled instinctively, a shrimp against a storm. Pain lanced through him, a white-hot agony that threatened to overwhelm.
But something held. The lingering essence of the raw Mist-crystal from yesterday, perhaps. A subtle resonance of the Evermist itself, a muted shield around his core. The blows landed, but the shattering impact was lessened. He felt the pain, profound and sickening, but not debilitating.
*Not yet. Not here. Not now.* The thought was a cold, hard stone in his gut. *Endure. Strengthen. Survive.* Revenge was a distant, patient thought, a seed planted in the bruised earth of his resolve.
Borin’s assault eventually ceased, his heavy breathing the only sound. “Another stunt like that,” he snarled, voice laced with menace, “and the Gloom-Cuts will swallow you whole. Understood?”
Rhys pushed himself up, every movement an ache. His jaw throbbed, a metallic taste in his mouth. He said nothing, simply meeting Borin’s glare with a quiet defiance he hoped the Captain wouldn’t notice.
“Move.” Borin turned, his broad back a wall of contempt. Rhys, bruised and aching, followed.
Every step sent a jolt of pain through his battered body. His face, he imagined, was a canvas of purple and red. Without the Evermist’s quiet resilience, he might have been left broken. Rhys’s gaze fixed on Borin’s retreating form, a silent, chilling promise echoing in his mind: *You will pay. Eventually, you will pay.*
---
Borin led Rhys through the lower arteries of Cliff-hold, a labyrinth of damp stone and stale air. The Evermist here was a heavy blanket, thick with the scent of damp earth and raw, unrefined Mist-crystal. Each turn deeper brought a colder, more ancient quality to the air.
They emerged into a vast cavern, barely lit by an array of lumen-lamps. This was the threshold of the Gloom-Cuts, where rough-hewn tunnels snaked into the living rock like veins.
A nervous, gaunt prospector, his face shadowed by the brim of his lamp-helmet, waited near a stack of crude tools. He flinched visibly at Borin’s approach.
“Gear him,” Borin grunted, gesturing at Rhys.
The prospector, hands trembling, thrust a heavy, blunt pickaxe, a flickering lumen-lamp helmet, and a canvas satchel into Rhys’s arms. Each item felt crude, almost primitive.
“The cost… it’ll be deducted from your earnings,” the prospector stammered, avoiding Rhys’s gaze. “Mist-crystals go in the satchel.”
Rhys donned the helmet, the lamp casting a narrow, wavering beam. “No training? No instruction on the harvest?”
Borin laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “Training? You hit the walls, boy. You hit them till the crystal weeps. What else do you need to know? Get moving.” His voice escalated, a command that brooked no argument.
The nervous prospector visibly recoiled from Borin’s sudden fury, pressing himself against the rock face. Rhys felt a cold dread settle. They were sending him to his death, utterly unprepared.
“Throw this one into Whisper-Pit 97,” Borin commanded, his eyes still fixed on Rhys. “And don’t let him out till he’s hauled a full satchel. You hear me?”
---
The nervous prospector grabbed Rhys’s arm, his grip surprisingly strong, pulling him into the nearest tunnel mouth. The air immediately grew colder, denser, the Evermist a suffocating presence.
Ahead, the tunnel narrowed, rough-hewn stone barely wide enough for one person. It twisted downward, a maw of encroaching darkness.
“You’re unlucky, new-blood,” the prospector muttered, his voice hushed, barely audible over the distant echoes of picks against rock. “Captain Borin lost heavy at the bone-dice pits last night. Bad mood, he is.”
“Bone-dice pits?” Rhys’s voice was a rasp. He already felt the familiar gnawing of isolation, magnified by the cold reality of Cliff-hold.
“Everything’s here, if you know where to look. Gambling, Fire-Ale dens, Gloom-Smoke… Best steer clear. You work yourself to the bone for someone else’s pleasure, not your own.” The prospector’s words were laced with a bitter experience, a resignation that chilled Rhys to the core.
“Been here five cycles myself,” the prospector continued, his eyes vacant. “Most I came with… crippled or gone. Will breaks easy in this place. Keeps you sharp, though. If you want to leave here, you stay sharp.”
“Whisper-Pit 97,” Rhys said, the name a cold knot in his gut. “What kind of place is it?”
He had felt it instinctively, the moment Borin spoke the name. A shiver in the Mist, a discordant note. The tunnel would not be ordinary. For a fleeting moment, the thought of escape flared, desperate and brief. But the Evermist-shrouded wastes outside Cliff-hold offered only certain death by exposure or starvation. He had to be smarter.
*First, know my strength.* Things had moved too fast. He hadn’t had time to truly gauge the limits of his connection to the Evermist. He needed solitude, a moment of stillness, to assess and plan.
The tunnels twisted and branched, a dizzying maze. The prospector pointed out faint markings, scratches on the rough walls. “See the arrows? Red means deeper, blue means up to the surface. Always follow blue when you’re done. Don’t get lost.”
They walked further, descending what felt like hundreds of meters. The Evermist grew heavier, denser, muffling all sound. Then, the prospector stopped.
“Here. Whisper-Pit 97.” He pointed to an opening slightly wider than the main passage, a gaping, deeper blackness.
“Just… go in and work?” Rhys asked, his voice flat.
“Something about this pit… it’s cursed. Four prospectors already met misfortune inside. Everyone avoids it. That’s why Borin puts fresh-bloods like you in there.” The prospector’s eyes held a genuine, albeit powerless, pity.
“Misfortune?” Rhys echoed, the word a euphemism for death.
The prospector nodded, a grim set to his jaw. “No one knows how. They just… don’t come out. No one wants to risk it. Borin doesn’t care. Fresh bodies are cheap.” He looked at Rhys, a silent apology in his gaze. He was just another cog in the grinding machine of Cliff-hold.
“Hope you come out safe, new-blood.” With a final, hesitant glance, the prospector turned and hurried back up the passage, leaving Rhys alone.
Rhys stood before the entrance to Whisper-Pit 97. A profound silence emanated from its depths, a void that the Evermist itself seemed hesitant to touch. They had sent him to die, a throwaway pawn in Borin’s cruel game. Just because the Captain was in a foul mood.
A cold, unyielding resolve settled deep within Rhys. He drew a deep breath, the heavy Evermist filling his lungs. *Borin. You will most certainly die by my hand. I swear it.* His face, bruised and battered, set into a mask of grim determination. He stepped into the darkness.