His initial fall lasted barely a heartbeat.
A dense current of cold air caught him across the back and legs before he could strike anything, straightened his body and hurled him forward.
The circular shaft bent with him, carrying him from vertical to horizontal along one long, smooth curve.
There was no corner or impact.
Pressure simply shifted across his body while speed gathered with frightening ease, until the air tore at his clothes and the dark stone beneath him became a continuous blur.
He was not falling anymore, instead it was as if he got placed into a tube and fired out. Or in his case, down. Probably down? He couldn't really tell at that point anyway.
Trying to ignore the sensation, Eirwen reached for the new Memory he got from Leviathan.
Pale blue sparks crawled over his chest and shoulders. The [Vestment of the Sunken King], which was the strange name of the Memory, formed around his body in overlapping plates of black-blue material, each one thin and smooth like a piece of polished shell.
A high collar sealed around his neck. Gauntlets swallowed his hands, and narrow ridges locked into place along his forearms and shins.
Nothing struck the armour when it finished manifesting, but that did not make him at ease whatsoever.
The tube remained smooth, but Eirwen was moving far too quickly to leave his life in the hands of whatever the fuck it was doing.
He twisted onto his stomach, drove both arms forward and called to the Cursed power resting inside his Core.
Black metallic liquid spilled over the fingers of his gauntlets, gathered around the tips and hardened into curved claws.
He lowered them toward the stone carefully.
The first touch skipped off the surface in a burst of orange sparks, but on the second the tips of his nail bit in.
A sharp pull travelled through his arms, but he did not ram the claws deep enough to wrench his shoulders apart.
Four narrow lines opened beneath him with a metallic shriek, bright sparks spinning away behind his boots.
[Weight of the Deep], one of the Enchantments the armour possessed, caught the first jolt where it struck his gauntlets and folded the force into the armour.
Eirwen eased the claws deeper one finger at a time, using them as brakes and thankfully his speed dropped slightly.
The current filling the tube continued to drive him forward, steady and impossible to resist, but he no longer felt as though he was flying at the speed of light.
"Fucking bald bastard!" he shouted into the wind.
As if hearing his curse, the tube rewarded him with another curve.
It was broad enough that Eirwen felt the turn build over several seconds, the stone guiding him left without ever giving him a wall to strike.
The current held his body in line while his claws traced shallow grooves along the surface.
He listened for Andromeda, Raijin or any of the others, but the scrape of his claws and the air rushing through the tube drowned everything beyond its walls.
Once, he thought he heard a muffled scream travelling through the stone to his right, but it faded almost at once, moving in a different direction.
The mechanism had separated them from the beginning.
Twenty-seven Sleepers had fallen through twenty-seven openings, and every one of them was now being carried through a private tunnel to an unknown part of the trial.
At least they were not being smashed together on the way there.
Otherwise there would have been nothing left of Andromeda. Eirwen thought with a flash of annoyance.
The journey continued for a while longer.
Long straight stretches gave way to some climbs, descents and sweeping turns that made direction impossible to follow.
At times the tube carried him upward for several minutes, proving that gravity had very little authority over whatever current propelled him.
Then it levelled out and shot him forward at the same steady speed.
The only violence in the passage was the violence Eirwen introduced himself: the constant scream of his claws, the sparks burning brief holes in the darkness and the strain slowly building through his whole body.
It might have been fifteen minutes, it might have been thirty.
Time inside the tube stretched into darkness, wind and the unchanging pressure pushing at his back.
The armour grew heavier little by little, absorbing whatever it could.
Whenever a little ridge in the stone caught one of his claws, a controlled kick passed through the gauntlet and [Weight of the Deep] swallowed it.
One jolt amounted to almost nothing, but hundreds accumulated?
Thin lines of blue light appeared between the black-blue plates and brightened as the stored force spread across the armour.
By the time they held a steady glow, Eirwen stopped pressing quite so hard.
Leviathan had warned him that the Memory could not absorb force forever, and he wasn't stupid enough to test it now.
He considered emptying it with [Abyssal Return], another Enchantment that worked together with [Weight of the Deep], then dismissed the thought.
At some point the stone surrounding him changed.
The black surface beneath his claws became pale grey, then veined with dull green, akin to old jade.
Cold air rushed toward him carrying a strange, dusty smell.
Eirwen raised his head and let the claws lift free, and the current immediately carried him faster, but only for a few breaths.
Then pressure gathered in front of him as well as behind, slowing him down. A circle of greenish light waited far ahead, small at first but expanding quickly.
An exit!
The unseen force reduced his speed until he was moving little faster than a hard sprint, then released him through a circular opening three feet above a stone floor.
Eirwen landed in a crouch, slid several metres and drove one claw into the stones.
It tore a short groove before bringing him to a stop.
For several breaths he remained crouched over one hand, hair hanging across his face while dust drifted around him.
Nothing attacked, no one screamed and the only sound was a slow drop of water falling somewhere beyond the chamber and the quiet grind of stone sealing behind him.
Eirwen looked over his shoulder. The circular opening that had spat him out was already gone, replaced by a wall carved with rows of faceless mourners.
He rose carefully and took in the place where Miro had sent him.
The chamber was hexagonal, though none of its sides seemed quite the same length.
Bronze braziers burned in deep alcoves, their green flames giving no heat and barely enough light to reach the vaulted ceiling.
Three passages led away between pillars of dark stone.
One descended toward the sound of water.
Another climbed beneath an arch carved with open mouths.
The third ran straight for perhaps fifty meters before bending out of sight.
More walls stood beyond the arches, layer after layer of them, some tall enough to vanish into darkness. As he watched, a distant section shifted with a grinding boom, closing one route and opening another.
Eirwen flexed his aching fingers at which tips the black claws remained extended.
The [Vestment of the Sunken King] pressed against him, full of stolen force and ready to return it, but he left [Hydra's Choice] unsummoned.
He would decide whether he needs the longsword or not later. Right now, just his claws should probably be enough.
Moving that thought aside, he focused on something else.
There was no trace of Andromeda, Raijin, Eliot or Seraphiel. No footprints showed him a way, no voice offered instructions, and no helpful mark appeared to point toward the Gateway.
Miro had scattered them into something akin to a labyrinth, given them one objective and hidden everything that could help them reach it.
Eirwen stared at the three passages, golden eyes narrowing as another wall shifted somewhere in the dark.
His lips curled, though there was no humor in it as a deep groan escaped his throat. You bald-headed, annoying, little cunt!