"Fuck, that hurt." Nolan groaned against the ground as he crawled himself off of Lyris. "You okay?" He asked, shuffling to the side. He could hardly see in the pitch darkness except for the small light that came from the stick they'd set ablaze earlier.
"Yeah. I'm alright." Lyris winced as she shuffled herself upright. "Banged up my back a little, but I'll be fine.
"Adam! Can you hear us?!" Nolan screamed upward, his voice echoing off the cavern walls. He waited, straining his ears for a reply.
Nothing came back.
"I think the cave-in blocked us off from him," Lyris said.
"I think so too." Nolan sighed. "Well, we might as well get some light in here. You got any more sticks in that pouch of yours?"
"Yeah. Hold on just one second." Procuring two sticks from her pouch, Lyris headed over to the small flame still burning on the wooden stick they'd thrown down earlier. She lit both sticks on fire, giving them some much needed light. She handed one over to Nolan.
"Wow." Nolan looked around the cavern. "Now that we're down here, I guess we head to the core."
"Yeah. I can't think of anything else to do. We're blocked off from Adam, so we'll have to find our own way back."
The two of them walked along the dark cavern, their makeshift torches casting long shadows against the walls.
The deeper they walked through the cavern, the stronger the pull became. Nolan's coal now burned inside him, his chest radiating a fiery heat throughout his body, raising his internal temperature. Lyris herself looked more sporadic, her body becoming jumpier with every step.
"It's close. You feel it?" Lyris said beside him, her voice tight. Her hand pressed against her chest. "It feels like my core is longing for it. Like it wants to wrap itself around it." She paused, searching for the right words. "It's strange. I don't know how to describe it."
"Yeah. I wouldn't say it's the same for me though." Nolan winced, pressing his own hand against his sternum. "Mine feels more like something's trying to claw its way out of me. Not exactly pleasant."
The cavern narrowed as they continued down, the jagged stone turning more refined as they went as if artisans had slowly changed the terrain to match a natural progression from raggedness to smoothness. The smooth stone in front of them showed great care from whoever had made it.
Stepping up onto the smooth stone, etchings could be seen along its surface, similar to those on the Summon Arch. The light from their torches shone across them.
"How do we open this?" Nolan said, placing his hand on what looked to be a door.
And just as he said that, the corridor began to open as if the key was them themselves.
Nolan and Lyris looked at each other.
"Do we go in?" he asked.
"I guess so," she responded.
Heading in, the chamber was massive. A natural dome of dark stone stretched high above them, the ceiling lost to the shadows. But what drew his eyes were the two cores in the middle.
One was bountiful and bright with white light. It was like a jagged diamond, rising and floating up and down with a smooth, rhythmic pace.
The other was like a planet with a ring around it, just like Saturn. The ring seemed to twist and turn with uncanny speed, slowing and moving faster, all at its own will.
They each sat above natural stone pedestals, ten feet apart from each other. Each one the size of a couch.
And as they stepped into the room, each core started to glow. The jagged diamond grew brighter with white light while the spinning globe deepened to a rich amber color.
'The globe it calls to me.' Nolan could feel it. The fire in his chest was beating against his sternum, desperate to leave. To ignite itself along the globe.
Nolan stepped forward, his legs moving on their own, drawn toward the amber core. The burning in his chest intensified with each step until it was almost unbearable. It wasn't painful, just overwhelming. Like every cell in his body was vibrating.
He reached for the core, his hand raised.
'Here goes nothing.'
His palm touched the surface.
And his world exploded.
Not outward but inward. The fire in his chest detonated, rushing through every vein, every nerve, every fiber of his being like a dam had been broken. His vision went white, then amber, and then to a color he couldn't even see but could feel a sensation of depth and connection that had no name.
He felt the island. Every tree, every stone, every blade of grass. The village, the river, the ridge, even Adam, somewhere above them. He felt everything.
And then he felt her.
Lyris.
Not just her presence, but her. A thread of connection snapped taut between them like a rope under high-strung tension. He could feel her heartbeat along it. Her breathing. The tension in her shoulders. The way her fingers tightened around the torch. The way she looked at him was warm and a feeling of worry. A personal need to see if he was alright.
But that wasn't what caught Nolan's eye.
'What is that?'
Behind her, large and all-encompassing, it looked like a scale. A golden, bright scale one that was for divine justice. On one side sat a heart. On the other, a feather. And for some reason, the feather was heavier than the heart.
But before he could even begin to understand what it meant, his vision faded. The thread dimmed and the golden scale disappeared, as he snapped back to reality.
He returned to find his hand still pressed against the core, his chest heaving.
'What the—'
"Nolan!" Lyris's voice reached him from behind, laced with concern. "Are you alright?"
He pulled his hand away from the core and turned to look at her. She was standing a few feet away, her eyes wide with concern. As if he was a dense MC before he could now see the clear sides in Lyris. From the way she looked at him it was of genuine care from the way she looked worried to the tension in her body it all told a story.
Though there was one thing he could metaphysically feel now and it was as if she owed him something.
"Yeah," he breathed. "I'm good. That was just—A lot." He tried to stand up, but his legs were shaky. He pushed himself upright, only to stumble and fall right back down.
"Nolan!" She ran over, helping him up. And like a heartbeat, he felt a pulse of her worry for him. Like the thread from before was still there just unable to be seen.
'What the? I can feel her—'
"What's wrong?" Lyris asked.
"I'm not so sure it's like after I touch the core it connected me to you through a thread. And honestly, everything on this island. I felt like I had a connection to all of it, but it was the strongest with you." He paused, looking up at her. "And there was a golden scale behind your head. What is happening?"
Lyris's expression shifted. Her eyes widened, and for a moment she looked exposed in a way he had never seen before. She took a step back.
"That's— tell me exactly what you saw."
"I told you. It was a golden scale and there was a feather and a heart or something. I don't understand. Why are you so worried? What's wrong? Why can I tell you that you're so worried? It's like feeding straight into my mind telling me your every emotion."
She swallowed.
"Tell me. What is it?" Nolan demands an answer.
"You saw my debt."
"Your debt? What are you talking about?"
She took a deep breath, clearly not prepared to talk about what Nolan had seen.
"You've never met a Celestial before, have you, Nolan?"
"No. Of course not. Where would I even see one besides you?"
"Well, one of the things that makes a Celestial a Celestial is our debt." She steadied herself. "Celestials are like you humans, only more spiritually in tune with the world. In tune in more ways than just figuratively. We're more inclined with the world's karma, the mana, the sounds of nature, the laws of physics. It speaks to us more than it does to other races. But it's a two-way street."
She paused, collecting her thoughts.
"And one of the conditions of that two-way street is karma. When someone performs a good deed or an act that benefits another, it creates a debt for the person who received the act. While it's never a perfect one-to-one exchange, it's still a pressing matter. The person who owes the debt feels a great amount of pressure to repay the person until the debt is settled."
"Okay." Nolan looked at her, still not connecting the pieces. "What does that have to do with me? You have a debt. I get that. Everybody has debt of some kind. Surely you can pay it off."
Lyris stared at him.
"Nolan. You don't remember exactly what you did?" She held his gaze. "Think back. How you saved me."
"Oh."
Realizing what she was getting at, Nolan looked up at her.