One pace to the left, two to the right, then he looked up, then down. He had arrived at last, though this was not the designated location he was meant to be.
The man examined himself, eyes trailing over his body as though seeing it for the first time. Then, slowly, he began to move forward, cautious and confused. The world around him was dark and damp, the floor riddled with puddles. Above, water floated unnaturally in the air, suspended midfall, constantly feeding the pools below. It was a strange and perplexing sight.
He wasn't human, elf, dwarf, or vampire.
He was something entirely different.
Humanoid, yes but clad in alien armour, a suit of smooth, glossy white porcelain that wrapped around his body as if it had grown with him. As he moved, the plates shifted like a machine, precise and fluid. Ritualistic markings were etched deep into the armour, winding along his arms and across his helmet, which fused seamlessly with the rest of his form. It bore two triangular plates around the mouth, blending into the suit like part of an organic machine.
On either side of his jaw, vent-like openings allowed air to pass through with a faint hiss.
Despite the thickness of the sculpted armour, the outline of his spine was clearly visible and was ridged, defined, almost skeletal beneath the white shell. Beneath the hard, bone-like surface, faintly glowing veins pulsed with an eerie rhythm. In places, the armour overlapped at hinges and joints like natural growths, reinforced by taut white muscle where bones should have been. The muscle that flexed and contracted as he moved, making the armour feel alive.
It was a terrifyingly elegant design crafted for survival, not comfort.
Hairline cracks ran through parts of the porcelain, filled with dried blood in hues of red, blue, and green; scars that came from battles long past were now engraved into his very body. Each fracture was a story, each stain a memory embedded into the living suit.
As he scanned the world around him, his eyes caught on something magnificent.
A tree like a birch but impossibly large, its bone-white branches sprawling into the dark sky, each one ending in a broken scar. It moved. It walked on four legs, its silver-white fur glowing with faint blue runes that pulsed like breath. Its long, drooping snout dipped low, and its hoofed legs shifted with a calm, knowing grace. Its presence calmed him, and he could smell the cool, crisp, and fresh air surrounding the creature like an autumn breeze. It looked at him and gave a nod. An invitation.
So, he followed.
They hadn't gone far before something else emerged from the darkness. It scraped toward them, two long, unnaturally thin arms ending in massive hooks that dragged across the stone floor. A single lamp hung above its head, casting a sickly glow that revealed its twisted form: sunken, void-black eyes and a tunnel-like mouth full of sharp, uneven teeth. It charged.
The moose-like creature leapt aside, but the man did not move.
He let it swallow him whole.
Perhaps that was its mistake.
Within moments, the creature began to spasm. Then, with terrifying ease, the man tore it open from the inside. He stepped out calmly, unharmed, porcelain armour splattered with gore. Gripping the creature's long, hooked arms, he tore them free, inspecting the sickle-like claws with interest. Then he used them.
With swift, efficient movements, he pierced the creature's brain, watching as its body crumpled to the ground in a twitching heap. Still curious, he knelt, the triangular plates around his mouth shifted and retracted mechanically revealing his mouth and you could see his gums and teeth, but he had no skin as he tasted the flesh of the strange beast. He gorged himself silently, porcelain now streaked red.
Then, without a word, he rose again.
And followed the glowing moose once more.
Deep in the maze, in the vast expanse, a fire crackled in the centre of the darkness, a rare light in the heart of the maze. Around it, a neat little camp had been made, where two men rested in uneasy peace.
"So… what exactly am I wearing?" Amias asked, peering down at the grotesque material.
"It's the Demonic Angler's hide," Tobi replied flatly.
"Ugh. Disgusting… Still better than being naked, though. Thanks."
Their words died as a noise echoed from the shadows. Both of them snapped to attention, eyes scanning the gloom.
A figure shuffled closer from the black. Wrapped in tattered rags, his withered frame was crusted with barnacles. His eyes gleamed with lunacy, and a sick laughter slipped from his lips as he hungrily tore into a slab of raw angler meat. He devoured it with beastlike fervour. Tobi watched coldly. Amias, warily.
Then, the man straightened, licking the blood from his fingers.
"Oh, oh, do forgive me. I came to warn you." His voice cracked, teetering between reverence and madness. "The Abyss is coming. It stirs beneath us. Beware, beware…"
"The hell is he going on about?" Amias muttered, unsettled.
Tobi simply watched carefully.
"The Abyss," the man continued, whispering now, as if uttering a sacred name. "It calls. A hunger without end. The water feeds it, drop by drop… The cracks are forming. The sea seeps through. And when the barrier breaks, it will spill the dark will rise, and the Abyss will devour the ocean, the sky, the light… all of it, all of it."
He leaned closer, eyes wide. "I must patch the holes. I must seal the cracks with flesh. With bone. With myself. So the sea won't fall. So he won't rise."
Amias felt a chill skitter down his spine.
Tobi, still staring, finally asked, "What is the Abyss?"
"Ohhh…" The man trembled with the weight of the words. "It is where He sleeps, the Lord of Shadows, the unholy god. He, the weaver of silence. How terrible, how sacred. They called him merciful. They called him loving…" He laughed again, high and broken. "Lies. Lies spun from shadow."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"But perhaps some shadows are kind. The Abysswalker is not. No… he is the shadow turned inward. A husk of glory. A holy wraith made unholy by the void. He fought the Abyss… and he fell. And now the void walks with him."
The man dropped to his knees beside the fire, rocking back and forth, clutching at the barnacles on his arms.
"The Abyss comes. I hear it breathing through the cracks. I feel it pulling at my bones. The world is sinking…" And with that final whisper, he collapsed dead.
"H-Hey, old man," Amias stammered, quickly crouching beside him. He checked for a pulse, any sign of breath, but there was nothing. Just stillness. Amais looked and tentatively stepped to him, feeling over his heart.
"H-He's dead," Amias whispered, horrified. "What the hell was that? He just shows up, rants like a lunatic, and dies? Barnacles… He's covered in them. Are they linked to the Abyss somehow? It's not the first time barnacles have talked to us, weirdly enough."
"Something like that," Tobi murmured, eyes narrowed in thought. "It looks like the Inverted Sea was designed that way to keep the Abyss from merging with the ocean. A barrier. A seal."
He folded his arms, mind racing. The Lord of Shadows sounded similar to the figure his mother spoke of… his loyal shadow. A god, once loyal, now fractured. A part of him from a past he hadn't known. One of the two divine remnants he carried within. The Abyss… his domain, perhaps. If so, then he would need to descend into it to reclaim what was his.
"Who the hell is the Abysswalker, though?" Amias asked, still shaken.
Tobi shrugged. "Don't worry about it now. Just rest; we'll leave once the moose returns. I'll handle the body."
Without another word, he hoisted the corpse and disappeared deeper into the maze. Somewhere quiet, somewhere away from the firelight, he burned the remains.
As the flames flickered, the shadows around him flickered too, shifting, watching. And one smiled.
Then, just as quickly, they vanished back into the dark.