The Araun had assured Qabian that this pile of rubble at the base of this immense cliff at the edge of the ocean was the place he had been found. The mage was determined to find out if there were any clues as to how he'd ended up there in the first place hidden within the mess.
Qabian stood before the cave that was the only apparent means of ingress short of destroying the entire cliff. While that was an option, it was just as likely to further bury any evidence as end in any way usefully. The cave was hardly even a cave, just a shallow gap in the pile of rock, but at the back of that indentation, a small hole, barely wider than the mage's arm, continued on, apparently into the cliffside.
He considered the possibility that it was just a hole, nothing more, and ended just past the distance his arm could reach. To find out, Qabian unceremoniously shoved a blue dragon whelp into the hole, assuming that the thing would be frightened enough to search for any means of freedom, but smart enough to just come back out out the hole if there were nothing but another wall.
The whelp had vanished down the hole, then after a few moments, shrieked as though its head were being pulled off, and that was the last sign of it.
The whelp's noisy disappearance seemed to be confirmation that beyond the hole led somewhere at least, somewhere something could live that had the capacity to eat dragon whelps if nothing else. Qabian needed to find a way to widen the hole without bringing the entire precarious pile of rocks down on his own head without letting anyone else know about the project.
He decided to try acid. He wasn't in a hurry, after all. He went in search of something that acted slowly enough that he didn't have to be present if a load bearing stone was disintegrated, but that he could just keep adding to until the mystery was revealed. That strategy worked surprisingly well, although it took weeks. Only a few feet in, the acid-eaten passage opened up so wide, he couldn't tell where the sides were.
Qabian didn't know enough about engineering to have a lot of faith in the integrity of the new entryway he'd made, but he was determined not to involve anyone. He had no idea what he might find, after all. After a few tentative knocks of his knuckles around the stones, Qabian decided to put his faith in molten armor and ice barriers for the moment. He flicked a flame into life over the tips of his fingers and stepped into the pitch darkness.
The tiny flame did nothing to prevent the darkness from closing in around him. He couldn't even see as far as the stone beneath his feet. He could barely see down the length of his own arm. He concentrated, and the small flame grew into a flaring fireball, but still the darkness clung around him like ink. His cheek twitched with irritation. His clothing and then his entire person combusted, and he stood blazing in the darkness, but the light coming off the walking bonfire of his body barely illuminated more than a few inches around him.
Qabian growled, and snuffed out all of his magical flame. He fumbled about in a pouch at his belt for the flint and tinder he was still in the habit of carrying, theorizing that this clearly magical darkness might have less effect against natural fire. As he knelt in the pitch darkness, manipulating the items by feel, attempting to light the tinder, a chill breeze blew around him, coming from further into the cave he had opened.
Qabian shivered and stood up. "Hello?" he called tentatively. Darkness that could not be moved by magical light and a cold wind from what should be deep underground, well out of range of weather, suggested a force beyond mere whelp-eating basilisks. On the one hand, that did bode well for there being additional clues to exactly how he'd ended up a victim of the Bronze in the first place. On the other hand, Qabian wasn't sure this kind of power was something he wanted to deal with on his own.
He sighed, blinking blindly as he tried to think his way to a next step. The breeze picked up further, increasing in strength until he had to lean into it in order to stay standing. Qabian frowned as he backed out of the cave. As soon as the warm afternoon light outside the larger cave hit his back, the frigid wind died to nothing, leaving the mage shivering in the sun.
~~
Hours later, Qabian had lost count of the number of dragon whelplings, hunting wolves, and assorted terrified creatures he'd sent into the cave attached to the end of various lengths of rope, hoping to pull back anything other than some gore or, as now, a frayed end. He wasn't easily frightened, and found no reason to be afraid of whatever was in the cave, but he was becoming increasingly confused and frustrated at his lack of progress answering even the simplest questions about what lay within the strange darkness.
None of the beasts had triggered the cold wind, and Qabian began to question whether it had even actually happened, except that he couldn't discern any other reason why he would have left the cave himself before getting answers.
He tied the rope to a stone and let the loose end slide through his fingers as he stepped into the cave. He held fire in the palm of his free hand, even knowing it did nothing for the darkness. He felt the chill again, but there was no wind behind it. Something brushed against the side of his foot. He assumed it was just a piece of one of the animals he'd sent in ahead and continued on.
He moved slowly forward, throwing a fireball ahead into the darkness every few steps. The darkness swallowed each spell, acting like something between a mist and a liquid, rather than a mere absence of light. Qabian tilted his head as a faint thumping sound grew louder with each step he took. He squinted pointlessly as he tried to focus on the sound. Drums? Or a heartbeat? A heartbeat suggested something of the Old God variety, up to and including the loss of his own mind. Drums, though... Possibly restless spirits of some kind?
The air within the cave didn't move, but the chill deepened with each step until the cold was thick and sharp enough to cause the mage pain.
The thumping grew in intensity as he seemed to approach, but Qabian still couldn't tell if it were drums or a heartbeat. He was inclined to think drums, on the assumption that if it were the sound of a living thing there would be a way to tell. He knew he was reaching.
Then the whispers started. No words, just hisses of sound that had to be made by a tongue. Qabian pushed into the freezing darkness, no longer throwing fireballs to avoid the crackling of the fire drowning out any clues in the soft sounds.
Two pinpricks of light to his left drew Qabian's immediate attention, and he reflexively tossed a fireball in their direction. The lights vanished, but there was no indication that the spell made contact with anything other than the liquid darkness.
Qabian began actually grinding his teeth. A curious squeak from the void ahead of him prompted him to stop. Was that...
It was. He distinctly heard a baby crying very near.
Despite everything he knew about the way Old Gods messed with minds, despite the sense he had that the Bronze had manipulated him at his core, Qabian staggered at the sound, dropping the rope he held. He took a step backward in the dark, then another. Suddenly, a familiar sensation tugged at the soles of his feet, the same sensation a fel hunter caused when it began to devour magic.
Qabian turned and fled. He slipped on something wet, and blinked forward, coming to a rolling stop on the stone floor of the cave. It was only as he scrambled to his feet that he realized his rope was gone and he no longer knew where the exit was.
He cowered a long moment in the darkness, trembling with a panic he'd never known, before remembering who he was.
Moments later, he dropped to one knee in the mages' room of the Sunfury Spire. One of the trainers stepped toward him and he snapped at them, "I'm fine," causing her to step back with her hands up defensively. Qabian stayed down for a few breaths, then stood and brushed the dust off his robes. "Not worth it," he muttered to himself, and calmly walked out into the city as though nothing had happened.
Things That Cannot Be
Things That Cannot Be
"While our enemies remain, peace is not victory." ~Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner