All that filled the air were their footsteps toward the tunnel. The simple sound of boots scraping against the rough street was the only thing Cal could make sense of.
His thoughts were still tangled from everything he'd heard in the past hour; the world around him felt too simple in comparison. All that he wanted to understand didn't matter in the face of what he witnessed in the past days.
Vincent was just as silent, his gaze drifting between the path ahead and Cal's face. His hands continued clenching and unclenching with the same confusion. He didn't know what to think.
They didn't know why they continued to move.
But this was a crack in everything they thought was normal about life. They didn't need a why. They needed to see.
And that was more than enough reason.
The silence stretched, thinning with every step. The city around them felt distant, like someone had wrapped the streets in wool. A shout from farther up the road dulled into nothing. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.
Vincent was the first to break.
"...Hey," he muttered, his voice low in gravity, but not in somberness. "You... doing alright?"
Cal snapped out of his thoughts with a quick flick of his head, his eyes landing on Vincent's concerned expression.
"Yeah... just thinking," he replied quietly.
"About what?" Vincent asked in response.
Cal stopped, his gaze drifting back down to the ground where his footsteps crushed against the ground.
"I..." he started.
"About what we heard? What those guys said?" Vincent finished for him. He didn't even need to put two and two together. That much was too damn obvious.
Cal's shoulders tensed. The words from the platoon flickered through his head again — their tight voices, the way they'd lowered them on certain phrases like it might hear.
"Yeah... What about it?" Cal asked.
Vincent's mouth twitched, like he almost didn't want to say it out loud. "Do you… know what that is?"
Cal let out a breath through his nose. "If I did, do you think I'd consider walking toward the drainage tunnel right now?"
"Fair enough," Vincent said, trying his best — and failing — to sound casual. "It's just... I'm wondering what it all meant. Like... what's an esoteric art?"
Cal didn't answer at first.
An esoteric art...
He rolled the words around in his mind. They sat wrong on his tongue, too sharp and too heavy at the same time. He thought of the way the air had felt back there. The way sound had… warped, like it was pushing through water. The way something inside his skull had hummed in answer.
"I wish I knew," he said finally. "I don't know much about ecliptics. But... I have my guesses."
Vincent's eyes widened an inch, his head snapping in Cal's direction. "Really?"
Cal nodded slowly, trying to wonder where to start. He swallowed before breaking the short moment of silence. "As far as I know, ecliptics are people who can do things people like us can't do."
Vincent nodded. "Yeah, that much I get."
Cal continued. "I think... maybe an esoteric art is how they go about that. Like... maybe one has an art to make fire, and one can use it to turn metal into glass. I... I'm not sure. Maybe, it's something unique. Like each person can change the rules of this world one way or another."
They walked a few steps in silence.
"That's… weirdly specific for a guess. You thought of all that after hearing them once?" Vincent said.
"You asked for my guess," Cal replied with a shrug.
Vincent chewed on that for a moment, his brows pinched. He kicked a loose stone in his path, watching it skip ahead of them.
"I get what you're saying," Vincent said slowly. Changing rules seems right. "But if that's true, why did they sound...?"
"Scared?" Cal glanced at him.
"Not scared," Vincent's eyes narrowed. "They were... stressed. You could tell that they were... concerned? I don't know how to describe it. It's like they knew... something was wrong."
Cal remembered the way the platoon members had dropped their voices and the way they were scrambling about the corners, trying to see if there was anything within the lines and cracks of stone.
"Maybe it's dangerous," Cal said. "Changing how this world is seems... too much for a human. Imagine if someone lost control. Maybe that's why he's a fugitive?"
Vincent exhaled slowly, trying to wrap his head around Cal's words. "It adds up, I guess." He paused, words on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't seem quite ready to let them out. The pause lasted a touch longer before he spoke again.
"But the Empire never cared for much else. So, why would they be so worried about this one guy?"
Cal didn't answer right away. The question gnawed at him too.
They turned down a narrower lane, the cobbles dipping slightly as the city sloped toward the ravine. The buildings here leaned closer, their upper floors nearly touching, the strip of sky above them a thin, gray vein.
"He was bleeding, right?" Cal asked in response. "Maybe his injury makes him... unstable? And maybe it's a threat to a large amount of people."
Vincent swallowed, taking in what Cal just said. "Unstable? You think that's why he's hiding?"
Cal nodded slowly, almost like he was unsure of it himself. "Maybe... if he came here, to Lamnor of all places, maybe that threat wouldn't be so bad. Not many people even live here... and the Empire doesn't even care for this place."
He said those last words with a hint of defeat. Almost like it was expected, yet it didn't take away from how meaningless this place was.
How meaningless... he probably was.
"Hiding in plain sight, almost?" Vincent asked, snapping Cal from his thoughts.
Cal blinked before looking back up at Vincent. "Yeah, I think so. Or maybe we're just idiots making things up and all of this is wrong."
Vincent snorted. "Wouldn't be the first time."
They fell quiet again as the alley opened up. The ground dropped away just ahead, the ledge of the ravine cutting off the street. To the right, half-hidden behind a warped fence and a stack of discarded barrel staves, the dark curve of the drainage tunnel yawned open.
Cold, damp air spilled out to meet them. Cal felt the faintest pressure gather behind his eyes again, like the ghost of a headache.
"Well," Vincent said under his breath. "If we're wrong, I guess we'll find out in there."
He tried to sound light. It was anything but.
Upon closer view, the idea of even entering this tunnel started to seem like slight heresy. What once seemed like an ingenious idea, was slowly starting to become a way of walking to danger's jaws. The drainage tunnel's mouth looked less like a piece of city infrastructure and more like something that had decided to eat the street. The rounded arch of stone sagged slightly in the middle, as if the weight of the city above had pressed down for years and the tunnel had finally stopped pretending it wasn't bothered by it. Stains the color of old tea streaked down from its top.
Someone had jammed a warped fence and a pile of broken barrel staves in front of it at some point, a half-hearted attempt at a barrier. Gaps gaped between the slats. Whatever this place was meant to keep people out of, it had given up a long time ago.
Vincent ducked under first, pushing a loose stave aside with his shoulder. Cal followed, the wood scraping against his back as the city and its gray vein of sky vanished behind them.
The air changed immediately.
Outside, the cold had been a surface thing, a sharpness on skin. Inside, it sank. It pressed into their clothes, slid under collars, crept up sleeves. It smelled of wet stone, mildew, and something metallic that wasn't quite rust.
Their footsteps changed, too. The dull thud of boots on cobbles turned hollow, each step sending out a thin, brittle echo that rattled along the curved ceiling and came back smaller. Somewhere deeper in, water dripped in a slow, patient rhythm.
Vincent squinted toward the tunnel's mouth, then back at Cal. "Crap… we don't have a lantern or anything. It might be too dark."
Cal slowed, the obvious flaw in their plan catching up to him a step too late. Marching into a drainage tunnel with no light was less brave and more suicidal.
Then something at the edge of his vision glimmered.
He turned his head. Along the damp stone near the entrance, a faint, silvery sheen clung to the wall. Cal took a few steps closer, brow furrowing as the shapes came into focus.
Thin, fanlike mushrooms clustered along the old stone, layered over one another like scales. A liquid gray-silver light seeped from their gills, more ooze than glow, beading like dew before fading into the air.
"Is that…?" Vincent peered over his shoulder. The tunnel wasn't bright, not really, but the walls were no longer just a single slab of blackness. The mushrooms picked out the curve of the passage in ghostly highlights.
"Lumenveil mushrooms," Cal said, the name leaving his mouth on a breath. "Granddad used to tell me about them." His gaze swept the tunnel, taking in more clusters tucked into cracks and along the floor. "I didn't think they grew this close to the city, let alone in the drainage tunnel. Why...? Why are they here of all places?"
Vincent let out a low whistle. "Guess we don't need a lantern, huh?"
Cal wasn't sure need was the word, but he nodded. The soft, gray-silver light stretched ahead in patches, a scattered trail into the dark.
They walked deeper, the fungi's faint light guiding them into the dark.
For a while, the only sounds were the drip of water and the soft echo of their own steps. The city felt impossibly far away now, sealed behind the warped fence and the curve of stone. Here, things were narrowed down to breath, stone, and that slow, patient dripping.
Vincent cleared his throat. The sound bounced off the walls in a nervous little stutter.
"So," he said, his voice quiet despite being in a secluded area away from prying eyes and ears, "If esoteric arts are people changing the rules… what does that make us?"
"You're still on about that?" Cal asked in response.
"I'm serious," Vincent said. "You're telling me you don't wanna know more?"
Cal's brow creased. He stared ahead into space, like the emptiness before him was the only thing worth paying attention to. He sighed before finally gathering the words to speak.
"We're... everyone else. The ones who get hit when they mess up." Cal grimaced.
Vincent's mouth twisted. "Then why does anyone let them exist?"
Cal snorted softly. "You say that like anyone asked us."
"I'm serious," Vincent pressed. "If they're that dangerous, if they can just… change things, why doesn't the Empire just... imprison them? Kill them?"
Cal's eyes widened in slight alarm. Out of all the solutions that could be made, this was the one Vincent came up with? Him of all people?
The dripping ahead of them grew louder as the passage dipped, the floor slick with a thin film of moisture. Lumenveil clusters brightened and faded in irregular pockets, leaving slices of shadow between them that they had to walk through.
"Maybe they can't," Cal said at last. "If ecliptics are really that strong, maybe there's no stopping them once they're powerful enough. So, the Empire tries to control them instead."
Vincent hugged his arms tighter to his chest, like the cold had finally gotten through. "Seems far-fetched. Trying to leash something that's stronger than what you are."
"Maybe that's all it is," Cal said. "Ecliptics, esoteric arts, all that. Fancy words for people who the Empire's scared of but needs anyway."
Vincent scoffed. "Need them for what?"
Cal shook his head. "I don't know! War. Monsters. Other ecliptics. I don't know. If there's one person who can change things, there's probably another person who can change them back. Or change them worse."
Vincent fell quiet. Their footsteps carried them through another stretch where the mushrooms thinned out, the world shrinking to a narrower pool of silvery gray.
"All I know is that people who become ecliptics... people who have this power aren't lucky," Cal continued, his exhale now deeper than normal. "The platoon didn't sound like they thought it was a blessing."
The statement settled between them like a dropped stone.
The tunnel bent gently to the left, and the air grew heavier, thicker. The lumenveil light pooled more densely here, clusters blooming along cracks where water leaked through. Their glow painted the moss and grime in soft, diseased halos.
Then he felt it.
A tug deep behind his eyes. Not imagined this time. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, each throb sending a dull ache through his skull.
He lifted a hand to hold his head, his teeth gritting in annoyance and pain. Vincent noticed the gesture, his eyes knitting in worry.
"Hey," he started. "Are you okay?"
"Vincent," Cal murmured in reply. "Does your head feel weird?"
Vincent frowned. "Weird how?"
"Like..." Cal lifted a hand halfway to his temple, then let it drop. "Like someone's pressing from the inside."
Vincent opened his mouth to answer.
The tunnel ahead of them shifted.
Not in shape — the stone stayed where it was — but in weight. The air thickened so suddenly it felt like walking into water. The faint echoes of their steps snapped off. For a heartbeat, there was nothing to be heard, other than the harsh rasp of Cal's breathing.
Drip... Drip... Drip...
Then they saw it.
Cal and Vincent's eyes dilated, their breaths quickening in their pace.
At first, it was just a darker shape among the scattered patches of mushroom light. A lump slumped against the curving wall, half-swallowed by shadow. Cal's eyes adjusted a fraction more, the Lumenveil glow tracing the edge of a shoulder, an arm, the twisted angle of a leg.
A man.
He lay on his side, back braced against the damp stone, one arm crumpled under him, the other reaching uselessly toward the center of the tunnel. Blood pooled beneath his ribs, thick and black in the dim, its surface catching the mushrooms' gray-silver light in faint, oily swirls.
Cal's breath hitched. Vincent's legs started to shake.
The puddle wasn't still.
Tiny bubbles rose and popped across its surface, slow and scattered. Barely noticeable, the way a pot first thinks about boiling. Each soft pop sent out the faintest hiss and a sour, metallic tang that cut through the scent of the tunnel.
The man's hand slowly and pitifully reached for one of the mushrooms, as if just holding the fungi could cleanse all the suffering from his body.
"Is..." Vincent's voice came out as a croak. He swallowed and tried to speak again, quieter. "Is blood even supposed to do that?"
Cal couldn't answer. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth. The pull behind his eyes jerked harder.
This had to be him. The fugitive. The man the platoon had been hunting.
Up close, he didn't look like a nightmare. He looked ordinary. He looked much like them. Vulnerable. Susceptible.
Too much so.
His face was haggard beneath streaks of grime, stubble shadowing his jaw. Sweat pasted dark hair to his forehead. His chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged breaths that whistled faintly in the tunnel's hush.
"Cal... We should go," Vincent whispered. The words shook in unease.
Some morbid current held them there, caught between terror and something sharper. Curiosity. The feeling that if they turned back now, they would never understand anything they'd seen today.
The man's eyelids fluttered.
Cal flinched. The fugitive's eyes opened a slit, pupils trying to find focus in the shifting gray light. He blinked a few times, each effort labored, like pushing through mud. Then his gaze found them.
For a moment, there was nothing behind it. No recognition, no thought. Just animal pain, raw and hollow.
Then something flickered in those hollow eyes. Confusion, maybe? Or was it awareness? Like Cal and Vincent were the first people he had ever seen in millennia.
His lips moved.
No sound came out. The motion tugged at the blood on his chin, thin lines trailing down to join the puddle. He tried again, throat working, a rough, broken rasp scraping out of him without forming words.
Cal took a half-step forward before he even realized he'd moved.
"Wait," Vincent hissed, grabbing his sleeve. "What are you doing?"
"He... He's trying to say something," Cal whispered back.
His own voice barely felt like his.
The fugitive planted a shaking hand against the tunnel wall and pushed.
Slowly, with the awful inevitability of something that had reached the end of its life, he forced himself upright. His legs wobbled beneath him, boots slipping slightly in the bubbling blood. He swayed once, catching himself with a palm smeared red.
The man then brought his hands together.
And the blood that had dripped from his body began to fizz and bubble faster. And it was audible. A soft, hissing crackle resonated from it.
Every instinct in Cal's body screamed at him to run.
He's going to attack us... He's going to use something on us... He's gonna kill us!
Cal braced, muscles tensing, heart pounding so hard it hurt. The knot behind his eyes tightened until it was almost blinding.
The fugitive took a shuddering breath.
And stared straight at him.