Witch of Fear [Mild horror, Isekai High Fantasy]

Then.

Two days had passed by Autumn in a blur. Two days of relentless marching through tunneled halls that never changed, never seemed to end. They wound and weaved through the earth like some great intestines of the underworld. And as the group had strode ever onward, ever deeper into the darkness that dwelled beneath the world, Autumn’s hope that they were bound for an exit, any exit to this lightless abode, dwindled by the day. 

Those dark walls had pressed down upon her feeble, breaking mind, threatening to entomb her alongside her paranoid whisperings. In her delusions and exhaustion, she couldn’t even tell whether it was all a trick of her mind or if, in fact, the walls had been actually narrowing as time passed by.

Perhaps that was answer enough?

Even the passage of time was suspect.

A rocky sky, many miles thick, blocked them from the sun’s warmth. Their days and nights were of equal darkness. Fatigue had become their marker. Only when exhaustion and hunger feasted upon their bodies did they stop their long march. There was no other way to tell. Not mundane nor magical. 

No one knew how long they’d actually been down here for. 

The darkness didn’t tell, didn’t spill that valuable secret.  

But, even then, exhaustion wasn’t a balm to unfulfilling sleep. 

Autumn herself had only found a brief respite. Fearful as she was of both enemies without and within, she’d rest sitting with her back pressed up against the hard, irregular wall of the tunnel. Her arms would wrap tight around her Tome of Witchcraft: a safety blanket of nightmarish word. Across her lap she’d balance her newfound sword while her eyes, still stained black with dark power, watched. All throughout the nights, they never closed, peeking out from behind the black curtains of her hair. 

Perhaps she’d been unkind to the others. Her pale, haunting visage was hardly comforting as it stared at them unblinkingly while they tried to scrape together their own merger sleep. 

But she hadn’t found it in herself to care. After all, one of them was maybe, potentially, possibly, a hag in disguise. 

So. Fuck ‘em. 

To that fact, Autumn had been unable to glean any further details. The banshee remained silent. No matter how many times she pounded on the mental door in her mind, the dead-fae would not respond. The soul-cage upon her breast lay innocent-looking and idle. 

It’d been a uniquely frustrating experience for Autumn to be ignored by a ghost. 

Thankfully for her sanity—what little of it that was left—the tunnel had soon ended. 

It’d happened around midday—after they’d eaten lunch by their measurement. Food had been getting scarce over the last few days. Autumn herself had only packed four day’s worth of rations before leaving Bogward; two to make it to the goblin encampment, two to make it back. At the time, she’d thought it was a tad low. Surely, she thought, they’d need to pack extras just in case, right? However, the others had reassured her multiple times that the mire held a bounty despite its dangers for those who knew where to look, implying that they in fact did. 

Fat lot of good that did. 

All Autumn had seen was rocks, salt, rocks, mushrooms, and more rocks. 

Luckily for her, she’d been traveling in the company of Elves. Rangers at that. Both Leshana and Vuriac had done their best to supplement the group’s diet with whatever was edible to be found. Unfortunately, this proved to be far harder than said. The buildup of salt upon the walls rendered the long tunnels barren of life, except for the hardiest of plants. Those being a few scant mushrooms. Even then most tended towards the poisonous side, some even lethally so. 

Autumn had made sure to pay attention and take notes on what the Elves plucked and what they did not. 

It could be a matter of life or death. 

Hunger. It’d driven the group to a faster pace. They’d marched down the winding tunnels for an hour or so before it’d happened. The light had changed. All across the salt-slick walls, reflected light danced and played, swaying in time with the bob and weave of their lantern lights—their torches having long since burned out. It was like a disco ball casting across an empty dance floor. 

They’d barely shared a glance before they took off. Their pace increased once more. Not quite at a run just then, but faster than a brisk jog at least. Even in a hurry, they’d been mindful of treacherous footing underneath. 

And then. They’d found the end. 

Now. 

Autumn stood at the end of the tunnel, stunned by the sight beyond. A grand cavern yawned before her, filled wall to wall with sparkling crystals. The light they cast by magical lanterns shone out into the mineral giants, filtering and diffusing the light into a kaleidoscope of color. Vibrant greens, rich blues and purples, even vivid reds bathed the cavern in color. 

It was a geode in the earth, only this one at an unbelievable scale. Crystalline pillars the size of skyscrapers ran from floor to ceiling, while bridges the size of highways ran from wall to wall. The chamber was so large they could not even see the end. It just vanished into mist and overlapping crystals.

It was dizzying in its beauty. 

Autumn crept up to the edge and looked down. Almost immediately she regretted it as her stomach dropped away. They were high up, really high up. Only a distant shimmer belied the carpet of crystals that made up the floor below. 

However, it was not all bad news. Jutting out from the wall just below the lip of the tunnel was a crystal about the width of a person. It speared out into the air like a platform and below it Autumn could make out a series of crystals ramping downwards to the floor far below. 

It now made sense why the footprints only traveled one way.  

“Well. I wasn’t expecting this, but wow.” 

Leshana broke the silence with an awed whisper. Despite how quiet she was, in the absolute silence of the cavern, her voice still caused the rest to jump silently. Autumn herself almost tumbled to her doom. Whirling around with a jack-hammering heart, Autumn addressed the Elven woman, only mildly embarrassed. 

“D-don’t scare me like that!” Autumn huffed. “A-anyway. Have you seen anything like this before?”

“Like this?” Leshana gestured out to the crystal cavern. “Hell’s no. I’m an above ground kinda girl, not some Manus delver. And before you ask, I’ve no idea what these crystals are. Anyone else?” Leshana turned to the others, but all she got back was a few shrugs or shakes of the head. 

“Ok then. Enough waiting around. Let’s move on.”

“Wait what?” Rarg asked. “You’re not actually thinking of crossing these crystals, right?”

Leshana turned to him, her eyes lacking any mirth. “Sure. Where else can we go? We’re out of food almost, and we’ve eaten anything edible back that way. We’d never make it back to the crossroads. No. We need to press on.”

“But, we don’t even know how safe it is. Those crystals hardly look stable!” 

“Whatever passed through here before us made it. See?” Leshana pointed. Looking closer, Autumn could see a few smears that might resemble footprints on the otherwise pristine surface. “As long as we go one by one we should be fine.”

“But—” 

Rarg tried speaking again, only to be interrupted by a voice from behind. 

“Then stay here and starve.” 

There was no pity in Bardos' gaze or voice. A wave of frustration and anger broke free of the cage of grief he’d built around himself. Autumn shivered. Rarg, for his part, needed no ability to sense emotions to see the dislike in the berserker’s eyes. 

“That’s not what I…I mean…there must be another way down, right?!” Rarg asked as he shrank back from the Inferni berserker. 

Leshana shrugged. “There isn’t.”

An uncomfortable silence clung to them like a heavy cloak. Before her eyes, Autumn could see lines being drawn; those who wished to press on despite the danger and those who were too afraid because of it. 

Swallowing her anxiety, Autumn spoke up. “U-umm. H-how much rope do we have? Could we make a line down?”

Leshana turned her gaze towards Autumn before gazing over the ledge. “I don’t think we’ve got enough. That’s like a thousand feet down or something. Maybe.” 

Autumn deflated slightly. “What about a safety line? Just to make it to the drop? We could slowly make our way down.”

“Maybe?” Leshana tapped her finger to her lips in thought. “Some of those slopes look pretty steep. We might just have to slide down some of them.” 

Autumn gulped. She could admit the idea didn’t excite her. One wrong slide and they’d plummet to their deaths, or be sent into another crystal pillar. Some of them look particularly sharp from where she was. 

“It’s as good an idea as any,” Vuriac chimed in softly. “Either way, we’re wasting time. Let’s just get to it. Unless someone has a better idea, perhaps a slow-fall spell-scroll or something? No? Alright.”

Seeing as nobody did have anything better, the group pooled together the lengths of rope they had left. Given that hempen rope was a universal piece of equipment in an adventurer's arsenal, it was a surprise to find they only had three lengths of 50ft amongst themselves. The river must have stolen the rest. 

Autumn winced. From what she knew of pre-industrial rope-making, it was a fairly laborious process, and thus, an expensive acquisition that was not lightly tossed aside. That was if magic didn’t make the process cheaper. Her own had cost a pretty penny-slash-gold either way. 

Leshana went first. In what felt like the blink of an eye, she crossed the crystal with all the grace one might expect of an Elf. The rope around her waist looked like a mere decoration to the surety of her steps. 

Within a few moments—less than it took Autumn to breathe—she’d unwound the rope from herself and secured it tightly to the crystal at her feet. Untethered now, she gestured to the rest to cross. 

“I’ll go next.” Vuriac spoke. “And head down to check what’s awaiting us.” 

Autumn watched on in jealous awe as the lithe Elf practically skipped across the slick surface towards his companion. However, her awe soon turned to fright. Upon reaching Leshana, Vuriac cast himself off the edge, plunging down feet first to the sloped pillar directly below. Only a few feet did he drop before landing softly on top of the crystal below. Immediately, he started sliding down with knees bent and arms outstretched for balance. 

In only a few seconds, he disappeared from view.

The group waited in tense silence, awaiting word from below or the sounds of violence. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long. From far, far below came the soft trill of birdsong, one that felt far out of place in the birdless cavern. The sound brought a smile to Leshana’s face, and she was soon ushering the rest to cross. 

Rarg went next, followed closely by Valérie. 

While they still made it across without incident and down, they moved with far less grace than the Elves had. They’d crashed flat on their backs as they slid, unable to keep on their feet as they vanished into the crystal maze. 

And then it was Autumn’s turn. She gulped. 

Turning her gaze behind her at those who held the rope, her lifeline, Autumn’s black eyes met with Bardo’s ones of steel—metaphorically speaking. He gave her a nod. Swallowing her fear and grasping around for whatever courage she had hidden away, Autumn stepped out onto the glass-like surface. 

She almost immediately ate shit.

Somewhat tricked by the Elves’—and less so the Lepus’—seemingly effortless jaunt across the smooth surface of the crystal platform, Autumn had been expecting there to be at the very least some amount of traction to be had. 

She was wrong. 

Autumn let out a squeak of fear as her boots slipped out from under her. Scrambling like a newborn deer, she tried her best to get her feet under her as she held onto the rope line for dear life, but it was for naught. Her knees crashed painfully onto the hard surface, producing a ringing noise that filled the cavern. 

Tears beaded at the corners of her tightly shut eyes.

“Come on Autumn! It’s not that far. You can make it!” Leshana called out encouragingly to the kneeling girl. 

“Fuck you!” Autumn replied. She was unsure exactly what language she used, she just hoped the sentiment carried through. 

The shadows laughed at her predicament as she made her way slowly across on her hands and knees. Despite Leshana’s encouragement, Autumn couldn’t find it in herself to stand up. No matter how much of her fear that she siphoned away, she could not forget the fact that to either side of her was a thousand or so foot drop. 

She could make herself fearless, not stupid. 

Upon reaching the end of the crystal where Leshana awaited, Autumn sat herself on the edge, dangling her feet over, just above the drop she’d need to make. It looked far further from here than it did before. 

“Need a push?” Leshana asked.

Autumn glared. “Push me and it’ll be the last thing you do.” 

Leshana laughed, unable to understand her but getting the gist of it from her witchy glare. She held up her hands in surrender. 

Autumn turned back to the drop. Having seen what had happened with the Lepus, and knowing her own athletic abilities—or lack thereof—Autumn took her backpack off her back and donned it onto her front; both to help her with balance and so that she’d not have it catch on anything as she slid. 

With a final reassuring breath, she dropped.