Tendrils of fog curled down from the newly unveiled hole in the side of the cliff, past the rungs of the bamboo ladder, to the woven mistweed mats covering the floor of Kher's shack.

However, the fog that was slowly drifting out was surprisingly thin and immaterial. Rylan figured that was by design, because he'd spotted no good way to close the hole up behind them, and Kher was already at the top of the ladder, hoisting himself into the dark and rather low passage.

"Try and keep up, kid," Kher called out from inside, his voice reverberating oddly.

Rylan hurriedly pulled out his glowband and strapped it to his head. Then he climbed the ladder as well, shoving his backpack into the hole before crawling in after it. There was no way he'd be able to pass through with it on his back.

The reddish-purple glow coming off the tiny hexagon of glowmetal on his headband revealed a section of mostly straight tunnel, though he couldn't really see past Kher.

The old man glanced back, squinted at the dim light, grumbled something unintelligible, and then just kept going.

With a mental shrug, Rylan followed.

The light played off the grey rock in a way that told him it was moist but not really wet, and the chilly but rough feeling against his palms confirmed it. While he felt a bit lighter in the fog that was lethargically flowing past him, it wasn't a big difference, which confirmed that it wasn't nearly as concentrated as outside. It still helped with pushing his backpack through.

That was a good thing too, because to his surprise, he actually was struggling not to fall behind.

The tunnel wound left, then right, before starting to slope up, its ever-changing shape and orientation rapidly convincing Rylan that it wasn't man-made like he'd initially expected. At one point, the ceiling became high enough that they could move in a crouch. A little later, it required them to lie down on their bellies and drag themselves forward by their elbows.

At the very narrowest section, Rylan's backpack briefly got stuck, but with some grunts and forceful shoves, he managed to squeeze it through.

[I don't like it down here, Boss,] Arphin complained after a while. [I can barely sense anything anymore!]

Frankly, despite his experience with navigating cramped, foggy tunnels, Rylan was starting to feel a little claustrophobic as well.

'I know, Arphin,' Rylan sent back over their connection. 'I don't like it either. But Kher wouldn't have entered the tunnel either if it didn't eventually lead somewhere, so we just have to hang in there a little longer, all right bud?'

[If you say so, Boss... I guess if worst comes to worst and we get stuck here, at least we'll be together, right?]

That obviously still sounded like a complete nightmare to Rylan, but he decided he was probably simply better off not trying to explain why. Thinking about it wouldn't make him feel better anyway. 'That's right, buddy.'

Finally, after what felt like an hour of crawling and pushing, they reached a narrow section where they could actually stand—if only sideways—and... hit a dead-end.

Or so it seemed. Kher didn't appear perturbed at all as he started fiddling with one of the walls, sliding his hands over it, muttering to himself. After a few seconds of this, Rylan finally heard a click, and a part of the wall actually swung open, revealing a narrow fissure leading into darkness.

Kher squeezed through first, his figure disappearing, and Rylan hurried after him.

The moment he stepped out, despite the pervasive darkness, he could tell they were back in proper fog. His lungs tingled pleasantly as he inhaled the cool mist, his leather boot landing lightly on mossy stone.

Stretching out his back, he lifted one finger up to his glowband and pulled a trickle of mana from his overflowing pool.

The glowmetal greedily absorbed his offering. Shimmering colours lit up a massive cavern filled with stalactites, and life. The walls and ceiling were dotted with small corals and shellfish. The floor was covered in a thick carpet of dark grey moss. The fog was rife with schools of small pale fish in various shapes, and fat little tadpoles wagged their tails as they chased after tiny flying insects.

There was probably more to be seen, but before Rylan really had a chance to take it all in, Kher hurriedly whispered at him, "Woah, kid, don't do that!"

Rylan quickly drew back his finger, belatedly realising that he'd just performed a feat only Quinthar were capable of. He'd gotten so used to his mana... keeping a low profile was going to take some effort. "What's wrong?" he whispered back, as his glowband quickly returned to its much weaker, reddish-purple glow.

With one last grunt and a good shove from his shoulder, Kher pushed the passage shut again, and Rylan was surprised to see that the 'door' closing it off was actually covered in what looked like woven kelp, painted grey.

"The tunnel we just exited is my personal little smuggling hole," Kher explained quietly. "I stumbled across it many, many years ago while following a draft, and I built my shack to hide the other side. There weren't so many people living down there yet at the time... Point is, it's just a little offshoot of a cave system that spans miles, and the rest of it ain't mine. We're in no-man's land now, and a light like that tells everybody nearby that there's someone here."

Rylan frowned. "What do we have to look out for? Other smugglers?"

"Who says I'm a smuggler?" Kher asked, raising a brow.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Rylan shot him an unamused look. "Your actions. So far, they've called you a thief and a smuggler."

The old man chuckled. "All right all right, lad. I said I was sorry, didn't I? Anyway, you never know what you're going to come across here, but smugglers are definitely one thing to look out for. There are always gangs running things like cheap, untaxed liquor to some of the less reputable taverns in the city, and they strongly prefer to keep their routes a secret. The guards will sometimes seal off a cave with brickwork, and it's a real pain to have to find or dig another."

"Why don't the guards just seal off all the caves?"

Kher snorted. "Good luck with that. Well, to be fair, I suppose the city council has the resources to do it if they really wanted to. Let's just say there are parties with a vested interest in keeping the routes open, who make sure it never really gets the required budget."

Rylan's eyebrows shot up. "But this way, anyone can just sneak into the city!"

"Excuse you?" Kher grunted. "I don't mind going back if you feel like you can take it from here, you know..."

"I didn't mean it like that," Rylan replied, rolling his eyes. "I'm just saying, it's a security risk."

"Well, there are guard patrols," Kher explained. "Just mostly in the caves below the middle ring and the inner circle. The fancy folk living up there ain't stupid, you know? Down here, though, it's a free-for-all. So the last thing we want is to attract attention, got it?"

Rylan nodded. "I'll be quiet."

"That's good, but you'd best put that away too, son," Kher said, gesturing at his glowband. "Those are expensive; might attract the wrong kind of attention. Especially in here."

"Did you bring another light source?" Rylan asked hesitantly as he took off his glowband.

Kher flashed him a gap-toothed smile. "Nope. Don't need one. Just stay close and follow my footsteps."

"Seriously?" Rylan asked as the last flicker of light disappeared and everything turned dark. Well, he could actually still see the green glow of his own spirit, and the yellow of Arphin's, but that light didn't seem to interact with the dark cave around him in a way that allowed him to see. It probably wasn't actual light, Rylan supposed. More like a kind of spiritual pressure emitted by things that were dense with Quintessence, which his eyes somehow interpreted as light.

"It's not as hard as you think," Kher said, sounding like he'd turned around and was moving away from Rylan. "Just give your eyes a minute to adjust and you'll see."

[Don't worry, Boss,] Arphin said as Rylan tentatively started walking after the old codger. [I'll keep an eye on him for you! Well, not literally, because I don't have little bulging sacks of goo like you; can you imagine? So gross! But you get what I mean. Right?]

'Yeah, I get it,' Rylan replied dryly, refraining from rolling his little bulging sacks of goo. 'Thanks, Arphin.'

Rylan listened intently to the sound of Kher's footsteps, but they were quite muffled on the moss. It was difficult to move both quickly and carefully in the dark, but after Rylan stubbed his toe twice, Arphin started warning him about obstacles by sending impressions of their shape and location, which helped a great deal.

Rylan remained tense, however. He almost wished he hadn't lit the cavern up first, since he now knew there were all kinds of things flitting about, and every time he felt even a hint of air brushing past his skin, he flinched.

However, after a minute or two, he started to notice faint glows around him and in front of him. As more time passed, his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and he took in the sources of luminescence with a sense of wonder.

Glowbeetles danced through the fog, releasing intermittent flashes of yellow light—which, to Rylan's amusement, continued even after one got snapped up into a fish's stomach.

Pulsing waves of pink travelled across an anemone dangling from the bottom of a stalactite, illuminating the tiny tadpoles that used it to seek refuge from a hungry fogtopus with softly glowing blue rings around its tentacles.

With all the visual wonders in front of him, it took Rylan an embarrassing amount of time to actually look down and notice the glowing spots on the ground in front of him.

They were Kher's footsteps in the moss, glowing a faint green.

Oh! I've heard of this stuff; it's gloamstep moss! So that's what he meant when he said following him would be easier than I thought...

Shaking his head in wonder, Rylan adjusted to walking exactly in the man's footsteps, which, as promised, made navigating the uneven stone a lot easier.

There was one more slight glow in front of Rylan, that he hadn't pegged as anything yet. It was kind of an unclear blob of dim, white light, that seemed to slightly bob ahead of him.

When he finally realised what it was, he practically did a double take.

Of course! Non-Quinthar have spirits too!

They were just a lot weaker, which was probably why he'd never managed to spot one before.

Between Kher's spirit and his glowing footprints, Rylan was now able to follow the old codger quite comfortably. Arphin was still helping as well, feeding him increasingly detailed information about the layout of the caves they passed through, which gave him ample warning about things like low-hanging stalactites and arches he needed to duck under.

Thanks to all that, when Kher suddenly stopped, Rylan was able to halt in his tracks behind the man without bumping into him.

"Fog," Kher cursed softly. "Looks like we're not alone down here, kid."

"What?" Rylan whispered back in surprise. "How can you tell?"

"Look ahead," Kher replied. "On the ground."

Rylan took a step to the side and craned his neck to look around the old man. His eyes widened when he managed to make out a trail of faintly glowing footprints that came from a cave to the right, and merged into the direction they were headed. "Oh, fog!"

"Exactly," Kher replied grimly as he crouched down, which Rylan could only tell because of the movement of his dimly glowing spirit. "Footprints in gloamstep moss can last about twenty minutes. These people only just passed by. Three of them, by the looks of it."

Rylan fought the urge to shift his weight, not wanting to disturb the moss beneath his feet any further. "Do you think it's one of those gangs of smugglers?"

Kher was silent for a moment. "If it is, then they've either found a new route, or are scouting for one. It could just be some lost fisher-gatherers, looking for food, but... this deep in, it's unlikely. I don't like this."

Rylan licked his lips nervously. "What do we do?"

Kher took a deep breath and rose from his crouched position, a glowing circular impression left in the gloamstep moss by what must've been his knee. "We back up a bit, and we wait. If they're exploring—or lost—there's a good chance they'll retrace their steps. If nobody shows up by the time the footprints have fully faded, we continue."

Kher passed Rylan by, and he followed after him, once more trying to step where the man had, before a thought hit him. "Wait, won't they spot our footprints if they do come back?!"

"Not likely. Few people like to sneak around in the dark like I do. They generally bring light sources."

"That was an option?!"

Kher chuckled, gently taking hold of Rylan's arm and guiding him over to a recess at the side of the cave, where they sat down on the moss. "If you wanted to announce our presence to anyone lurking around the corner, sure..."

Well, that wasn't a terrible argument, Rylan supposed.

They waited in silence, as the footprints slowly faded. The moss actually provided pretty good cushioning—though it was rather wet from the fog—but Rylan was still starting to grow uncomfortable by the time Kher spoke up.

"All right, I think we can..."

The old man trailed off, and Rylan glanced up, noticing something from the corner of his eye.

In the distance, an orange glow bloomed up in the fog, as if there was a source of light approaching around the corner.

"Get down, kid!" Kher hissed. "And keep quiet!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.