TENEBRISM Ores of Entropy

Ores of Entropy GUILLOTINE

Nested between valleys and fields, a cave’s maw denies light to be its visitor. Caves know only depths: a continuous weaving of pathways similar to Yggdrasil in reverse. The surface remains oblivious to the gravel empire it shelters.

A figure appears four yards north of the cavern—the Miner has come on time once more. With a pickaxe on his left hand and a torch on his right, he greets the cave’s gloom like an old friend. He ventures in and the grotto welcomes him with the smell of moist rock and granite.

Running his fingers along coarse walls, he feels the jaggedness of the stone—rough, erratic curves like the outline of dry ribs on his fingertips. He hastens his pace, recalling the task at hand.

After a few turns, he raises his torch towards an odd path in the mine. Something was wrong. The path forward is narrower than his last trek, the air too thin—he hasn’t seen this area at all. Perhaps it was a path he had just discovered, he thought. But he’d never noticed this so close to the entrance.

He gapes half confused but half intrigued at the void before him. The mine he thought he knew felt ominous for the first time in a long time. Despite this, as the wind brushes his ears—near whispering—the unknown felt inviting, as if trying to gain his trust. He grips his pickaxe and continued.

More time slips by as he treads uncharted earth and in his next turn, he senses something—a silent, near unnoticeable rumbling. The possibility of a quake terrified him, even though the rumbling didn’t seem to exist. The ground felt static; the walls unmoving. A puddle of water to the left of his feet remains undisturbed. The Miner dismisses it and bores himself deeper.

Eventually, he exits into a hollow chamber, much more open than the previous branches. His torch is raised to gauge height but to no avail. In the midst of his awe at the yawning dark, he senses a definite pulsation around the chamber’s rock every few seconds. A sort of earthly heartbeat envelops the entirety of the grotto.

Walking blindly amongst unfamiliar terrain, the lulls inside the walls lead him to a glowing tint of red a few meters away. He moves forward, the waves matching his pace. After approaching cautiously, he meets the source of the glowing.

The Miner stood in front of a red stone. Upon scanning the surrounding rock, he saw the pulsations emanate all around the crimson core. He stares at the heart of the oddity and it returns his gaze. He steps forward to meet it, he feels a tremor under his feet. Daring not to strike it with his pickaxe, he reaches out in curiosity. Slowly. Carefully.

His finger comes into contact and a thunderous shockwave shoves him to his knees. His eyes follow the path of the crackling wave upward and it resembles the back of a gargantuan maggot. The ceiling remains void, yet to be seen. The floor quakes and he realizes the chamber is now borderless.

With the surrounding rock see-through and crystalline, he beholds a myriad of cave branches all around him. A complex of pathways replace the floor beyond comprehension.

He’s never seen again.