The air hissed around Midas as he fell into the uncertain depths; the control Gilt had over his body faded, having driven his body into a selfless commando of freefalling down into the pitch black that enveloped him. Grasping the edge of a damp brick wall, he was barely able to stop his fall - ignoring the sharp aching of his fingertips as he caught his breath frantically, having no idea where he was or what would've happened if he hadn't managed to get a grasp on the wall.
"What are you doing...? You help neither of us if I die here..."
"I had to make sure my message was clear, since you're too stubborn to listen to me... Descend, Midas. Climb down to the floors of the ruins of Montcanal - I need the gold that is left behind there. You owe me this for helping you."
Carefully trying to find another edge with his foot, Midas climbed down the rugged brick wall with gritted teeth - some of the bricks were missing, most likely broken off over time, creating little crevices he could cling to.
However, before his feet could land on solid ground, Midas was able to hear the distant rumble of water coming his way from above, the flood of water draining from their hideout down into the dark, flushing Midas down with it, causing him to drop down the remaining distance. His back eventually hitting the damp ground with a dull splash.
Midas had no chance to see anything, even when applying mana to his eyes - water had a slightly higher concentration of mana than rock or brick; however, the difference was so minuscule that nothing passed through the dark of his closed lids. His clothes were drenched way sooner than he'd like; the task he was faced with dealing with seemed sheerly impossible - having to find enough gold to suffice Gilt in ruins that sported the same size as Montcanal would definitely take multiple days.
The youth looked up; a sudden flicker of warm light bounced off the swampy walls above him, a small orange light emerging as someone in the group seemingly began to catch up to him - even though Midas couldn't tell who it was, the echo of shouting and the clashing of metal reached into the dark. Watching them in silence, Midas slowly got up from the ground as he saw the light grow bigger and bit by bit descend down to him. With another splash, they seemed to land on the puddle-ridden ground in the light of a torch they held in their hand.
"Midas…? "You're not hurt, are you… Why did you just leave like that? The others need your help…! You can't just bail out like that… Qayid will make your life miserable if he finds out you're just going to hide from our enemies..."
The concern in her tone slowly began to fade as the last words of what she said almost sounded like interest - maybe even amusement. Midas needed to keep quiet about Gilt; telling Foulard was a big enough risk, and with the third student, the commander's son, still potentially active, he couldn't trust anyone. Midas could feel her gaze scanning his muddied trousers from the many tiny holes in her mask, simply staring at her with furrowed brows as he tried his best to come up with a lie.
"The whole academy is in alarm; if this were a drainage system built in the old world, I'm sure it would have to lead out of Montcanal. Qayid has slightly greater numbers, but... simply reflecting the anger and resentment they show us back at them won't help his cause in the long run. Besides, I'm not here to change anything politically - the person I want to free is still in control of that commander's son. This whole conflict is just a distraction, and I'd like to avoid it if possible - even if the people I grew to know get dragged into this."
"Interesting way of saying 'friends'... Why don't I join you then? You sure will be lonely - old world ruins wind deep into the earth. They are unpredictably deep and could collapse any given moment. That person... is she the one with the pinkish hair? I've never seen you talk to her before..."
Midas already turned to walk a few steps, hoping Raqisa would decide to return to the others, as she would most likely know how dangerous ruins could become. The images of Inaya, Haya, and Javelin at the pharmacy - Jakal's tearful eyes as he cursed out the northerners and babbled on about how they should change the hierarchy of the academy - eventually flooded back into his mind as he stared blankly into the darkness that waited outside of the flickering orange light.
Raqisa stepped closer, her boots causing the water coating the floor to ripple, her long braids nearly reaching the floor as she bent forward playfully beside him to get a glance at Midas's expression - eventually handing him the torch.
"Go on... I got your back - I'm glad I got stuck with the only one capable of thinking rationally other than being fixated on only one side of this conflict."
"Who told you about Skye...?"
"Oh, don't worry about that. Word spreads fast amongst girls in this academy if suddenly there's someone looking like her walking through the hallways - especially if she's forced to walk beside the child of a noble. Makes sense, right...? Now lead already..."
She giggled faintly behind her mask. Midas stared at her in silence before reluctantly taking the torch - the sheer presence of her made a shiver run down his spine as he could hear the noise of water rippling behind him. The clanking of metal and the shouting of students and guards slowly began to drown out as they headed deeper into the darkness - either by design or the sheer age and the decay the structure experienced through it, Midas could feel the hallway dip down slightly.
Before he knew it, the two of them descended deeper; green sludge that could've been plant matter at some point in time clung to the bottom of walls - dimly reflecting the torches' light as it bounced off the deep brown brick the halls were made of. Midas kept a hand on his sickle at all times, occasionally glancing back at Raqisa, as he was weary of what could possibly emerge in front of him but also what seemed to linger behind him with a questionable sense of safety.
"You're from the northern desert, right...? You don't look like you're from the southern part of it - your hair color is too light for that. Even though... you'd probably look northern almost if you wouldn't have that tanned skin."
Midas froze almost as he could feel her fingertips graze his neck, gritting his teeth slightly - he forced himself to focus more on what was in front of him; the option of turning back was now officially gone as the steepness of the path slowly increased - fractures in the roofing were now visible, as if the ground itself had shifted in the time between the structure being built and the two of them walking its dated walls.
"And why is that important...?"
"I just thought we were quite similar... we come from the same place and ran from home... my parents always forbid me from talking to those who don't hide their skin from the sun - however, you seem to be quite the opposite of what they told me..."
"Gihin do take their beliefs seriously."
"Too seriously if you ask me... Every time I snuck out to practice my dancing, I got scolded by my father - ugh, my parents were more than serious about the sun, telling me I'm a Gihin, that I have to dress and behave like I would perish the instant my skin touched sunlight. We live close to the mountains in the north on the eastern shore - when those brawlers who dress in black and red showed up from the north... I ran and traveled from village to village. But most of them, including mine, must now be abandoned because of the sandstorm..."
"I'm not sure I'm really a Gihin; I wouldn't claim to be one at least... I was simply raised in one of the Gihins' forts, but that is it. I was lucky to be taught their language, but their belief wasn't forced upon me like yours."
"So you aren't from the desert...? Well, then it makes sense you fled the south like me."
"...my heritage is complicated."
The slightly warped corridor fed into a larger one that seemed to be roughly double its width - the torch Raqisa somehow managed to keep alight when descending the rough brick wall like him, came in clutch as it lit up the darkness that would otherwhise prevent them from seeing even the walls on their sides. Whatever they walked through, their path was connected with many other sloped, tinier pathways - stone arches which connected them were built on both of the larger corridors sides respectively, all of them equally spaced on the tunnels sides.
The middle of their path was slightly sunken, as Midas added up everything he saw, it was clear that these tunnels mustve been an old drainage system - meaning, if he was lucky, it would at some point flow back into a nearby lake. His fantasy of leaving was however cut short as he reminded himself of why excactly he was dragged down here, groaning slightly as he dreaded the moment Raqisa would ask the excact reason behind him wandering the depths. The air was damp, yet somehow stale, occationally a drop of water would ring through the dark tunnel - the residual water that remained in the sunken part of the floor rippled as Midas walked through it.
Midas... I once overheard something, and I just have to ask you. When you traveled back to the south... did you really... the sandstorm, were you the reason it stopped...? Please be honest."
As Raqisa talked to him, her tone suddenly became much more serious, almost reluctant as she prodded him for information, making him stop his walk immediately - slowly turning around her with a stern gaze, staring at her for a long, quiet moment.
"Me...? I'm way too inexperienced to take on someone or something that would cause such a disastrous storm; if I really tried, I wouldn't be here talking to you - or alive in general. I was simply there to mourn the fallen man that raised me; when I arrived on the East Coast, the storm was already gone.
Raqisa didn't say anything as Midas glanced back at her over his shoulder - the fire of her torch reflected in the metal of her mask; the tiny holes in the metal were completely black, so figuring out what kind of expression she had on her face was impossible. The masked girl slowly walked toward him; her long ponytails swayed behind her as she eventually stopped right behind him, seemingly contemplating something.
"I see... sorry to bother you with rumors then."
"Yeah, no problem..."
Midas murmured, reluctantly turning his back to her again - his shoulders stiffened slightly at her presence behind him. He didn't know who spread the rumor or how much she knew about him. Was it the sunburn or his increase in mana that caused her to ask the question? The fewer people that knew about Gilt, the better; if this somehow reached a Water Kingdom guard, he would most likely be seen as a major threat - given Gilt's history and behavior.
As they descended deeper on the larger corridor, Midas saw a rift that cut right through the brick and stone pillairs that made up the walls and floor of the tunnel - a sign of how ancient these remains really were, its internals twisted by nature itsself. Right as Midas mind rattered to find a way over the rift that was barely broader than a jump - Gilts screetching, metallic tone rung through his mind.
"Go down there, its a shortcut to what I need."
Midas frowned deeply at what the skeleton requested, groaning slightly as I picked out a stray pebble - dropping it down the rift and listening to when it hit the ground beneath it. Raqisa watched; even though her face was obstructed by her mask, he could tell by the way she slowly wandered closer that descending down there wasn't something she expected him to do. Luckily, the sound of the stone hitting the floor came sooner than expected - making Midas wonder if he could simply leap down there.
Contemplating for a long moment, Midas eventually decided it was safer to use his sunshard instead of freefalling into the darkness - the orangy-yellow shimmering stone shimmered in the darkness beneath them in the rift, a pillar of stone rising from it that barely fit two people. Letting Raqisa step on it first, Midas followed, feeling her arm around his waist to make sure she wouldn't fall down. Dimly startled by the instinctive touch, Midas made the stone pillar descend slowly again, making them end up in a deeper layer of the ruins.
"Vases...?"
Midas muttered to himself, crouching down to dustied and webbed pieces of clayware - tiny pots and bowls, some fractured. Raqisa wandered the circular room they ended up in, watching her, Midas eyes widened slightly as he spotted markings and patterns that seemed similair to the once he saw beneith the northern fort - even the rooms shape was similair to the one where he got the rune from.
"These must have been living quarters at some point."
Raqisa pointed out, as her torch shone light to a drawing on the curving, chalky wall or what is intact of it - depicting a set of human-like figures with sets of horns on their heads. Midas stared at the picture for a long moment; the dark lines of coal were more of a scribble that could've been left behind by a child rather than an accurate depiction of who lived here, making it hard to really interpret it.
"These almost look like the lizards that live in the mountains..."
"...you lived near mountains? Now it makes sense you fled."
"Yeah - my village was right on the base of the eastern side of the mountain range. Our village head was stubborn to fight off the many brawlers that wandered to the east coast as the sandstorm pushed them out of their usual territories - eventually they settled in the mountains and waited nearly every sun cycle outside of our walls... Food became sparse, since the already fleeting amount of travelers roaming the northeast was often attacked by them."
Midas could hear her sigh through the metal of her mask, her back sliding down the chalky wall as she sluggishly sat down. Joining her to sit on the floor, Midas propped the torch between two stones so it stood somewhat straight.
"I imagine you wanted to leave by then...?"
"Obviously... Its not like we were wealthy to begin with, we only shared a meal per day, before those clad in black and red lingered outside our village - I pleaded everyday to finally leave the village behind and go west, but my parents were just to stubborn to listen..."
The darkness felt less oppressing for both of them now, acting more like a measure of isolation that allowed them to talk to each other without interference - with his palm over his bandaged rune, Midas watched as Raqisa wrapped her arms around her shins, balling up slightly against the wall as she stared into the flickering light of the torch.
"Dancing was a nice way to clear my mind, you know... it took a lot of energy, and I must've looked odd simply dancing in the barren sand outside of our house - but it helped me forget the hunger or my unyielding parents..."
Midas listened continuously, his brow dimly furrowed as he wondered why all of a sudden she felt like telling him of her past - even if he saved her from those northerners, he began to wonder why she trusted him so willingly. As she spoke, her fingers clutched the fabric over her knees, hiding her masked face against her legs, her tone becoming quieter suddenly.
"One day, they found out and forbade me from continuing to dance; I needed to learn etiquette for the day they would find a man for me... Were they serious? I thought... running out on my own without any rations - I remember crying as I danced that day."
"That sounds horrible..."
"You know... dancing that day saved my life, as it turned out - shortly after I snuck out over the wall, a horde of brawlers breached the defense... finally freeing me of the people that took the only thing that mattered to me. I didn't see their bodies or how they died - I didn't care; I just... continued to dance and lived over the sparse remains of whatever was left behind in the village..."
Midas simply watched with a gaze of disbelief as she picked up a light giggle as she told him about the death of her parents as if it were something she felt relieved about. Eventually snapping back to the current moment, he shook his head slightly.
"How... how did you get to Montcanal...?"
"I don't remember really... everything felt blurry after that - I remember seeing northerners wander through the village, and the remaining memories I have were all after I had crossed the border and lived in my dorm. Sorry... I totally dumped all of that onto you; we should... probably rest a bit before we head deeper."
He couldn't tell for sure, but this part of the story felt somewhat shaky to him. Why wouldn't she remember who had saved her? Or was it the trauma of losing her parents that made her forget the rest? Even if so, would she be able to tell of her past in such a light, casual tone? Looking at her for a stern moment, Midas slowly sank to lie on the ground, keeping his space from her as he gave up on trying to get through to her.
"Alright, we probably have quite the distance to cover anyways."