"Everyone still here?" Mira whispered, her voice too loud in the confined space.
A chorus of affirmative murmurs answered her. I felt movent as our bodies adjusted in the darkness, searching for balance on the overcrowded landing.
"I can’t see anything." Coco whispered, his voice thin in the dark.
"Relax." I said. "If you fall down a tunnel, we’ll just rena you ’Coco juice.’"
"I don’t think that particular blend would carry a positive vibe." Phinyx remarked.
"Stop scaring him." Kira sighed.
"Don’t worry." Rolen said calmly. "I’ve asked a bloop to stay close. No one will-"
"Ow!"
A soft thud and Coco’s pained yelp cut him off. Coco had taken a hesitant step back and stumbled over a lip in the platform, landing squarely on his backside.
As if in direct response to the clumsy disturbance, a gentle blue glow blood beside us. Bloop, or one of its kind, had followed us down.
"Incredible." Rolen murmured, his voice full of quiet awe. "It didn’t just co. It ca because you fell. It felt the disturbance."
The creature’s translucent body pulsed with soft light, revealing the narrow confines of our refuge and Coco rubbing his hip. We were on a small platform at the top of a ladder that descended another few ters to a corridor below. The walls were lined with pipes and ancient conduits, their purposes long forgotten.
"More coming." Rolen said, his voice filled with quiet wonder.
He was right. The blue glow intensified as additional creatures gathered around us, drifting through the darkness like living lanterns. They pulsed in what seed like synchronization, their collective light revealing a network of tunnels branching out from below our position.
"They want us to follow." Rolen said, adjusting his glasses. His eyes reflected the ethereal blue glow, giving him an otherworldly appearance.
Mira considered for only a mont. "Down." she commanded. "Watch your step."
One by one, we descended the rusty ladder, the tal complained constantly under our weight. I went last, watching the others disappear into the service corridor below. When my feet touched the ground, I found myself in a space barely tall enough to stand in. The ceiling pressed down, heavy with the weight of the mall above us.
"We’ll have to crouch through so sections." Mira observed, already hunching her shoulders to accommodate the low clearance. She glanced over at Coco, who was traveling through the cramped space with ease. "Although it seems you won’t have an issue."
Coco shrugged. "Being short is literally the only survival advantage I’ve got going for right now, so I’ll take it."
The Bloops drifted ahead, their glow creating a path of blue light that stretched deeper into the tunnel system. Rolen followed them without hesitation, his attention fixed on the creatures. The rest of us exchanged uncertain glances before following him.
"Any idea what these tunnels were for?" Kira asked, her voice hushed as we began our awkward operation.
"Maintenance, probably." I replied, pulling out my yo-yo as we walked. The familiar weight felt reassuring in my hand. "Places like this had complex systems, water, electricity, ventilation. People needed access to repair them."
"People." she repeated, as if the word itself was a revelation. "I keep forgetting there were so many once."
We moved in a single line, the tunnel occasionally forcing us to our hands and knees where debris had partially collapsed the passageway. The Bloops seed unhindered by the obstacles, simply flowing around them with ghostly grace.
"How are you communicating with them?" Phinyx asked Rolen, who had stopped at a junction where the tunnel branched in three directions.
Rolen’s head tilted slightly, his eyes never leaving the hovering creatures. "It’s not exactly words. More like... impressions. Feelings. When I focus on them, I can sense their... intentions, I guess? And they can sense mine."
As if to demonstrate, he extended his hand toward the nearest Bloop, his brow furrowed in concentration. The creature pulsed, its blue glow intensifying montarily before returning to its steady rhythm.
"They know these tunnels." Rolen continued, pointing to the rightmost passage. "This way leads deeper, to where others like them gather."
"Others?" Mira asked sharply.
"Many more." Rolen nodded. "They call themselves... well, the closest translation would be drifters. They’ve been here since... before."
"Before what?" I asked.
Rolen shook his head. "That’s unclear. Just before."
I looked at the softly glowing creature. "But why drifters? That sounds like the na of a smuggler’s gang, not... these."
Rolen said, his voice lower. "They don’t belong. They drift through places that aren’t theirs, surviving in the cracks of things that fell a long ti ago. The na isn’t about what they are. It’s about how they live."
We continued through the passage Rolen had indicated, the tunnel gradually sloping downward. The air grew noticeably damper, and the sound of running water beca more distinct.
"Allaran." Kira said quietly beside . "Look."
She had stopped, her hand pressed against a section of wall where a small trickle of water seeped through a crack. But it wasn’t the water that caught her attention, it was what the water revealed. As it flowed over the surface of the tal wall, faint symbols beca visible, etched into the tal but normally invisible to the naked eye.
I leaned closer to the symbols, reading them back in a low voice. "It says, ’Central Hub.’"
"So this was connected to Argent?" Kira asked, her voice tinged with disbelief.
"Maybe." I replied, running my fingers over the etched characters. "Or maybe they just used the sa language."
Mira had backtracked to join us, her expression unreadable in the blue glow. "The Citadel Master always said that Argent was built on around older foundations," she said slowly. "That there had been settlents before, but they failed."
"Failed is an interesting word for ’were abandoned.’" I replied, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
She didn’t answer, but her eyes lingered on the symbols a mont longer before she gestured us forward. "Lets keep moving."
After a while, the tunnel suddenly widened. The ceiling rose high enough for us to stand upright, and the walls fell away into what seed to be a much larger space. The Bloops multiplied, their combined glow illuminating a vast chamber that must have extended beneath the entire central portion of the mall.
"It’s beautiful." Yami whispered, her usual monotone voice touched with awe.
Rolen stepped forward, his expression one of pure wonder. The Bloops near him pulsed in what seed like greeting, creating a wave of light that spread through the gathered community.
From the center of the chamber, one Bloop detached itself from the others and drifted toward us.
This one was different. Slightly larger than the others, its translucent body bore distinctive white markings above what might be generously called its face, two elongated protrusions that resembled eyebrows, giving it an oddly wise, almost owl like appearance.
"Brow." Rolen said quietly. "That’s what they call their elder."
The chamber erupted with a deafening psychic pulse as Brow’s presence invaded our minds like a thunderclap. "Behold, mortals." the entity’s voice bood within our skulls, "Welco to the party!"
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