Tremors rattled the cavern, and cracks spread like spider webs across the floor and walls. Ancient mechanisms, which have long been dormant, roared to life with guttural groans.
Aelric staggered back, chains tightening instinctively around Veyra as she dropped to her knees gasping. The voice of the Abyss spoke with grim.
[Sealing protocols broken. Dormant entities awakening. Threat level: Critical.]
Above them, hidden panels peeled away from the ceiling, revealing black shapes clinging like bats. Those creatures are made of bone and stitched muscle, their empty sockets burning with sickly green fire.
Veyra coughed a laugh. "Congratulations, my little predator," she rasped, eyes gleaming. "You just woke up the Watchers."
The first of the Watchers detached itself from the ceiling with a sickening wet pop, dropping towards them with claws like scythes.
Without hesitation, Aelric summoned his chains again, casting them upward. The ethereal iron snagged the creature mid-fall, wrenching it backward and smashing it against the wall with bone-shattering force.
Veyra, still chained bug now mobile, woven complex signs with her clawed fingers, conjuring a curtain of shimmering illusions that distorted the Watcher's senses, sending them careening wildly.
More of them came. Dozens of them maybe hundreds. Who knows the the entire ceiling full of them? It writhed with awakening horrors.
Aelric's mind sharpened with cold, ruthless calculation. Escape was the only option. "Move," he barked to Veyra. They sprinted down a side corridor, the floor quaking with the rising horde.
The Watchers shrieked, a thousand piercing cries folding over each other into an ear-splitting cacophony. As they ran, Veyra laughed breathlessly. "Oh, you are going to be so much fun to break," she said sweetly.
The chains around her throat tightened. She gagged but managed a gasping chuckle. Aelric didn't reply.
He didn't trust her. He didn't trust anyone in the Abyss or to say he didn't trust the Abyss. He even barely trusted himself. Who knows when could a voice play with his mind? But he would survive. And he would learn the secrets buried in this wretched, cursed place.
Whatever the cost. The tunnels buckled under the pressure of something ancient awakening.
Aelric and Veyra raced through the collapsing corridor, the walls shedding layers of rotten flesh and brittle bones, the very air vibrating with an unnatural hum.
The Watcher's shrieks had faded into the distance, but a new threat pulsed from beneath the earth, rising with every heartbeat. The Voice of the Abyss spoke within his mind.
[Warning. Detected anomaly: Mass generation of aberrant lifeforms. Composition: Necrotic flesh amalgamations. Objective: Consumption and assimilation. Defensive action: Immediate.]
Aelric's claws flexed instinctively as he skidded to a half at the mouth of a vast open cavern and froze. The floor before him rippled.
A sea of festering, writhing near stretched across the cavern like a grotesque carpet, pulsing with sluggish life. Juttinv from the morass were skeletal limbs, twitching. Clusters of malformed heads, some fused, others screaming silently, surface from the rotting tide like grotesque lilies.
And from that hellish field, the first creatures were born. They tore themselves free with wet, tearing sounds. Creatures of stitched flesh, bone, and sinew, walking corpses reimagined into horrid new forms
Some crawled on too many arms, and others dragged swollen bodies behind them, their mouths gaping and leaking black ichor. The stench of death was overwhelming. Even Veyra recoiled, her illusions flickering as she gagged, her glamour peeling for a moment to reveal skeletal wings curled protectively around her form.
"Spawn of Decay," she said, her violet eyes wide with revulsion. "We woke the Nest."
The first wave of creatures lunged towards them, a wall of rot and rage. Without hesitation, Aelric stepped forward, his muscles coiling, the iron chains around his forearms thrumming with latent power.
Iron Bind lashed out, spectral chains slamming into the nearest creatures, snapping spines and pulling malformed heads. He ripped through them with brutal efficiency, but for every abomination that fell, two more replaced it.
Veyra recovered quickly, weaving intricate sigils in the air. Illusions burst into existence, phantom clones of Aelric and herself, dazzling and confusing the oncoming horde. Some spawn lunged at shadows, biting into nothingness, while others turned on each other's, tearing into their own kin in berserk confusion.
Aelric moved like a storm through the chaos, his claws flashing, chains whirling like razors. Gluttony activated instinctively with each kill, siphoning scraps of soul matter into him. Tiny fragments of useless memories, pain, and rage flooded his senses, background noise compared to the structured absorption he usually pursued. But this also fed him with strength. Which kept him moving.
The spawn was relentless. They did not fear death. They did not hesitate. They simply swarmed, a flood of decay seeking to drown everything living.
"Run Faster! Do you want to get caught!" Veyra snarled, throwing up a wall of shimmering light that bought them some precious seconds. "They will keep birthing until the entire cavern collapses into a necrotic pit!"
The ground shook again, a deeper, more guttural tremor. From the far end of the cavern, something massive began to rise. Aelric caught only glimpses through the churning mass of spawn, a colossal figure stitched from dozens, perhaps hundreds of corpses, their limbs weaved into a single, towering monstrosity. It dragged itself forward with arms the size of tree trunks. Its many heads howling discordantly.
The Broodmother.
The Voice of the Abyss whispered coldly.
[Threat assessment: Extreme. Direct confrontation is not advised. Strategy: Disruption and evacuation.]
Aelric's mind raced. They had to move fast. If they want to survive. "South tunnel!" Veyra shouted, pointing with a talon as she dodged a leaping spawn, blasting it apart with a burst of searing violet flame. "If we reach the Thorned Arch, we can collapse the passage behind us!"
Aelric did not argue. He plowed through the mass of decaying bodies, like a crimson whirlwind carving a brutal path. Veyra followed closely, her illusions and fire magic covering the flank, her movements sharp and precise despite the Chaos.